C219

In the early morning of the next day, on top of the city gate south of the city, Yuan Shao was curled up on his narrow wooden bed, sleeping soundly.

Last night, after Gao Qian and Xin Ping led their troops and left, Yuan Shao waited anxiously at the city gate. Seeing that the enemy camp outside the city was on fire, he finally calmed down and ordered his second son Yuan Xi to bring a hundred elite cavalry s to rush out of the city and make use of the chaos to contact Liu Bei. Not long after Yuan Xi left the city, the flames in the enemy camp grew bigger and bigger, and the chaotic scene inside could be seen even from a few miles away. It was clear that Gao Gan and his men had already achieved a great victory.

This time, the matter of exiting the city and attacking the enemy camp was extremely important, thus Yuan Shao allowed Gao Gan to lead the troops, and Gao Qian did not fail his mission, turning Army of Heishan's camp upside down, then smoothly covered Xin Ping and Yuan Xi and rushed out of the encirclement. From this point of view, Yan Liangwenchou was far inferior to Gao Gan, after all, the latter had obtained a huge victory, while Yan Liangwenchou, who was relied on by Yuan Shao as his right-hand man, had been defeated consecutively.

It was a pity that Yuan Shao did not return after waiting for a long time. He, who had barely rested since the day before, was unable to hold on much longer, but in order to get the news about Gao Qian immediately, he did not return to rest in the comfortable prefectural governor's mansion. Instead, he spent an unprecedented amount of time on the simple city gate tower, and very quickly fell into deep sleep.

On the city wall, Ju Shou and Shen Pei rested their hands on the cold city wall, their red eyes staring outside the city. They were also anxiously waiting for Gao Gan's return, thus, when Yuan Shao went to the city gate tower to rest for the time being, they waited anxiously on the city wall. Seeing the chaos in the enemy camp gradually weakening, and seeing that Gao Gan and his men were still nowhere to be seen, Ju Shou and Shen Pei did not hold much hope anymore.

"There's movement over there!" Shen Pei suddenly pointed to the front and shouted.

Ju Shou looked over to the source of the voice. Indeed, a few hundred steps away, a few figures were running. quickly used the dim light to make out the person's clothes. It was the Yuan Army's elite walking soldier, led by Gao Qian. However, the number of people did not appear to be very high, only around 200-300 people.

"I shall report this to my lord!" Shen Pei said as he quickly walked towards the city gate tower.

After a while, that group of people arrived before the city gate and shouted loudly as they opened it.

Ju Shou heard some familiar voices, but he did not give the order to open the city gates, so he simply picked up a torch and threw it down. Using the flame, he confirmed that these were the soldiers who followed Gao Gan out of the city. However, he still did not open the city gates. Instead, he shouted for everyone to keep quiet and listen attentively for a while. When he did not find anything out of the ordinary, he quickly ordered the city gates to be opened.

Just as the group of people ran into the city, Ju Shou ordered them to close the city gate quickly.

Just then, Yuan Shao rubbed his sleepy eyes and walked over. He asked anxiously: "Is Yuan Cai back?"

"This subordinate does not know either," Ju Shou shook his head, his gaze looking at the stairs set into the city wall, but in his heart he felt that there was a 90% chance of success.

Yuan Shao's heart sank, and looked towards the stairs.

A few Academy Officer s with battered and exhausted bodies quickly rushed over and knelt on one knee as they saluted Yuan Shao.

"Where's Yuan Cai?" Yuan Shao asked loudly.

"Reporting to Master, we were about to return back to the city with victory when we were attacked by the enemy cavalry, the General Gao was captured alive!"

"What!" Gao Qian was his nephew, and if he could not return successfully, death in the battlefield would be the best outcome. But now that Zhao Zilong had captured him alive, Gongsun Xu would definitely use Gao Gan to make a big fuss.

Yuan Shao shouted angrily as he thought of this: "The main general has lost his opponent, how can you all still face him and come back? Someone, drag him down and hit him thirty times with your military staff! "

"Hold on!" Ju Shou turned pale with fright, and quickly tried to stop him, "My lord, please hold your anger for a while, this time, the reason why we came out of the city to attack is because the strong are weaker than the weak, and the soldiers did their best to achieve a great victory, if we do not reward them, I am afraid the consequences will be dire for them!"

Shen Pei followed up with his persuasion, "Master, Gong Yuxiong is right. We cannot punish the soldiers who have returned victorious!"

Yuan Shao bellowed: You two want to disobey my orders too? If you dare to plead for them again, this old man will definitely take it as a heavy punishment! "

"This is utter nonsense!" Ju Shou straightened his sleeve, and bowed: "How can Master be so obedient! "This subordinate requests the lord to take back the wrong order and bestow meritorious service to the warriors!"

"You You An dare?" Yuan Shao was so angry that he couldn't say anything, and could only use a trembling finger to point at Ju Shou.

Ju Shou was not afraid, he straightened his body and looked straight into Yuan Shao's eyes.

Shen Pei stomped his feet in worry, but he was much more tactful than Ju Shou. He knew that if he were to open his mouth and plead for mercy now, it would only make Yuan Shao even more furious, so he could only whisper and advise Ju Shou to apologize. It was a pity that Ju Shou, who could not stand at all, did not move at all. Not only did he not admit his wrongs, he snorted coldly and turned his head away.

Yuan Shao was furious, he took out the sword from his waist and walked towards Ju Shou, and looking at the way he was gritting his teeth, he seemed to be about to slash Ju Shou down to the sword in the next moment.

Shen Pei was so scared that his face turned pale white, he quickly went down on the ground and begged for mercy on Ju Shou's behalf.

Just as Yuan Shao was about to walk in front of Ju Shou, Guo Tu appeared at the stairs in time and advised with a smile: "Calm down, Master! "Master is extremely wise, he set down a plan to attack the camp and achieved complete victory. However, we still don't know how many enemies we have killed. Master, how about we ask about the results of the battle first?"

Yuan Shao stared coldly at Ju Shou, but the latter looked outside the city and ignored him. After a good while, Yuan Shao angrily snorted as he sheathed his sword.

Guo Tu coughed lightly, then shouted at the few Academy Officer s and military lord s kneeling on the ground: "Hurry up and report the process and results of this battle to Master, how long do you need more?"

"Here!" The Academy Officer who replied just now looked at Guo Tu gratefully and said: "Reporting to my lord, when we reached the gates of the enemy camp last night, General Gao Gan personally killed the scouts and then led us in killing and setting fire to the enemy troops. When the enemy troops were caught unprepared, the Academy Officer took care of the situation and split the troops into two, one on the left and one on the right, the enemy forces were unable to stop our attack. After that, when they were retreating, General Gao Qian's hanger-ons led people to burn down the enemy's food supplies. Unfortunately, they met Zhao Yun's cavalry.

Previously, when he heard that the White Horse Camp Cavalry was ferocious and invincible, he did not think that it was true. Last night, after a short exchange of words, he finally knew that the rumors were not false — — More than four thousand elite walking soldier, were actually killed by Zhao Yun and his three thousand riders within an hour, leaving only a small portion of them alive! If it were not for the cover of darkness, even the three to four hundred people who escaped would have been killed outside the city.

Yuan Shao also quickly thought of this question, his expression changing as he asked: "How many people are left when you slaughter your way out of the enemy camp? And how many cavalrymen did Zhao Yun bring to stop them? "

The Academy Officer did not dare to hide it, and answered truthfully.

Yuan Shao sighed, and did not say anymore words to punish them for their crimes, and waved his hand: "This battle has been successful and has not been completed yet, go down to recuperate, and there will be a reward later!"

"Thank you, my lord!" The few of them heaved a sigh of relief and quickly thanked him before retreating.

Yuan Shao walked to the side of the city wall, looked at the enemy camp outside, and sighed: "Even though I don't want to admit it, the Old Bastard Gongsun's cavalry is indeed very strong! We can't ever go out of the city and fight in the wild again! Fortunately, after last night's purge, there shouldn't be many people with ill intentions left in the city. We can wholeheartedly defend the city! Zheng Nan! "

"Your subordinate is here!" Shen Pei shouted loudly as he made his way to the front of the camp to bow and await his orders.

Yuan Shao ordered coldly: "Bring over three thousand men to the city and recruit them to assist the city guards. Everyone under the age of twelve and under are to be recruited, if anyone dares to disobey, kill them on the spot!"

Shen Pei frowned slightly, he agreed and turned to leave.

"Zheng Nan, hold on!" Ju Shou called out to Shen Pei, then bowed and said to Yuan Shao: "Master, shouldn't you relax your age a little? "If we recruit strong men at this age, I'm afraid it will arouse the common people's displeasure!"

"I have already made up my mind. I hope you won't say too much when I join the army!" Yuan Shao's face darkened, and rejected Ju Shou's suggestion flatly. He then said coldly: "Currently, the defensive equipment in the city is seriously insufficient, I still hope that juniors can bring the three thousand auxiliary force s and gather more wood rolling stone s. Tomorrow at dusk, this old man will personally investigate some, and I hope that juniors can take care of themselves! Humph! After saying that, he flicked his sleeves and left.

At first, Yuan Shao had always called him by his first name, but now, he suddenly addressed him as official, and even passed him down to collect wood rolling stone s and other things. It was obvious that he had lost all trust in Ju Shou.

Guo Tu glared at Ju Shou and followed along.

Shen Pei laughed bitterly and shook his head at Ju Shou, then quickly left the city.

Ju Shou looked up at the sky speechlessly, and after a long while, he looked at Yuan Shao's back view and sighed: "My lord, the citizens of the city were originally dissatisfied with you, and now you have set such a harsh age for recruitment, I am afraid the citizens of the city are going to fall into chaos soon! Sigh, I'm afraid we will die without a burial ground! "

An hour later, Shen Pei brought a large group of Yuan Jun soldiers to every street and alley, and started to force their way through every house to recruit 'strong men'. After the assassination of 'Youzhou's spy' yesterday, the Qinghe County City fell into a state of panic two days in a row.