New calendar year one, March fifteenth, Huo Qiyuan led two hundred thousand troops to the outskirts of Si'an Prefecture and rendezvoused with Leng Ren and his forces stationed there.
Having not yet recovered from the natural and man-made disasters of the past few years, Si'an Prefecture had lost its former prosperity. The once bustling main city was now desolate, with even its city gates having collapsed in multiple places, making it look like a ruined city.
In fact, the situation in Si'an Prefecture was indeed not good. With a formidable enemy lurking outside and high pressure from superiors, Xu Zhipeng, the general defending Si'an Prefecture, had received orders from above to hold the city at all costs.
However, the disparity in strength between the two sides was too great. Even with the entire army fighting to defend it, they would likely only be able to delay the enemy for a short time. Once the battle truly began, they would have no chance of winning.
Moreover, even if they were ordered to hold out, it was uncertain how long they could last. After all, the defenses here were not much better than those at Songlin County.
It was known that the enemy had subdued all the troops in Songlin County in just one night and then captured the entire city. This demonstrated a terrifying and suffocatingly powerful force.
Just as Xu Zhipeng was in a frenzy, unsure how to defend the city, his cunning strategist offered him a plan.
He suggested pushing all the elderly, weak, women, and children among the refugees in the city to the city gates, and then using their flesh and blood to resist the hundreds of thousands of troops from Huaxia City.
Initially, Xu Zhipeng did not quite understand. Even his own army could not fight the enemy, so what effect could the elderly, weak, women, and children, who had no combat ability, have if they were sent into battle?
Could it be that the enemy would abandon the siege because of their weakness?
Unexpectedly, when the person who made the suggestion heard his words, he gave Xu Zhipeng a thumbs-up. It turned out that was precisely his intention.
As long as the Huaxia City army dared to attack Si'an Prefecture without regard for the safety of the civilians, the first to die would be the unarmed civilians gathered at various city gates.
Even if the enemy eventually captured the city, once this matter spread, Huaxia City's disregard for the lives of its people would undoubtedly cause them to lose the hearts of the world.
However, if the enemy became apprehensive and dared not attack forcefully, it would give them more time to figure out a way to deal with the situation. After all, the enemy army numbered over a hundred thousand. Their journey so far must have consumed a considerable amount of food and supplies.
This idea stemmed from their limited perspective, as they did not understand the overall strength of Huaxia City. They always presumptuously thought of the small counties and prefectures before Si'an Prefecture, which had suffered disasters in recent years and had had no harvest.
Moreover, when they evacuated, they took all the grain they could carry, leaving behind only empty cities and piles of refugees.
According to their knowledge, Huaxia City was thousands of miles away. It would take at least half a year for supplies to reach a hundred thousand troops at full gallop. Once time passed and food ran out, the enemy would not be able to find supplies in the vicinity to support such a large army in a short period.
In other words, as long as they could delay the enemy for a longer period, perhaps they wouldn't even need to act, and the enemy would suffer from a lack of food and supplies, leading to wavering morale.
By then, when reinforcements from their Da Yu imperial capital arrived, perhaps they could annihilate them in one fell swoop! Wouldn't that be a victory without fighting, and perhaps General Xu Zhipeng could even become famous throughout the land for this battle!
After hearing the words of that cunning strategist, Xu Zhipeng paced back and forth, thinking carefully. If this battle only required some useless refugees, or even the elderly, weak, women, and children who could not work, to stall the enemy, then it was indeed a good plan.
Thus, without further thought, the general accepted the suggestion. He completely forgot the principle that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. They could think that if the enemy disregarded the lives of the people, they would lose public support.
However, they forgot that their own disregard for the lives of others would also cause them to lose public support. Using the flesh and blood of the common people to resist and restrain foreign enemies from ancient times to the present day was something only countries on the verge of destruction would do.
This was fundamentally different from the soldiers fighting valiantly on the battlefield to defend the country.
It had to be said that although their method was inhumane and extremely despicable, it did achieve the most direct effect.
This was because before their expedition, Su Muqing had explicitly stated that they must not disregard the lives of the people to achieve their goals. Doing so would betray their original intentions and make them no different from those who killed innocents.
Leng Ren and the others dared not violate the principles of siege warfare set by Su Muqing. Therefore, when they could not think of an effective method, they did not dare to act rashly and could only temporarily station themselves outside the city to observe.
Because they couldn't think of a good way to attack the city, Leng Ren and the others were delayed for a full month. This indeed held back the progress of the vanguard. Fortunately, Su Muqing had given them two Qiankun bags earlier; otherwise, the food and supplies for the main army would have run out long ago.
For the past month, the general defending Si'an Prefecture had remained holed up inside the city. As the only general who had not lost the city after more than a month of confrontation, he had been promoted as an example and received commendations from the Emperor of Da Yu, thereby deceiving the anxious citizens who wanted to flee the disaster.
Who knew that just as they thought that after a few more days the enemy's supplies would surely be insufficient, another large army appeared, even larger in number than the vanguard.
Seeing so many people arrive, the general defending Si'an Prefecture became anxious. Logically, the distance from the capital of the Da Yu Dynasty to this place was closer than the distance from the previous no-man's-land.
However, apart from the commendation decree rushed by horse yesterday, there was no mention of when the reinforcements would arrive. Moreover, after their month-long delay here, their food supplies were not very abundant.
With so many people arriving, they must have brought considerable military supplies. Did they have to wait for several more months? However, the elderly, weak, women, and children were in very poor condition after more than a month of suffering.
If the stalemate continued, these people might not be able to hold on for much longer. If they could not think of any other way, this city might not be defensible for much longer.
In the commander's camp outside the city.
Huo Qiyuan sat at the head of the military tent and took the hand-drawn map handed to him by Leng Ren. "Reporting to Your Highness, this is a map of the locations of the detained civilians and their troop distribution at several city gates of Si'an Prefecture. We have tried to sneak in, but they discovered us."
"It shouldn't be difficult for you to sneak in with your skills. Why did several attempts repeatedly fail?" Huo Qiyuan frowned as he looked at the summary submitted.
The summary recorded the deployment and countermeasures for several actions after they set up camp. Basically, each action was closely linked and had no major flaws.
Moreover, Leng Ren and the others were seasoned veterans and should have easily dealt with a third-rate general like Xu Zhipeng. Yet, their planned actions all ended in repeated failures.
After Leng Ren explained the situation to him one by one, Huo Qiyuan finally understood the reason.
It turned out that when Leng Ren and the others first prepared to implement the rescue plan, it was going very smoothly. Unexpectedly, some refugees hoped to rescue their detained family members as well, otherwise, they would not leave.
Only then did Leng Ren and the others realize that Xu Zhipeng not only used these elderly and children as human shields but also captured all the male members of their families as hostages.
Once these cannon fodder refused to obey, or when the enemy attacked, they would use the killing of hostages to force the enemy back.
In this way, they could both restrain the enemy army and control those pushed out to be shields, preventing them from acting rashly and making them continue to serve their purpose.
At that time, more than a dozen people were killed, and they specifically chose families with several children to kill. The remaining people were used to control the cannon fodder.
The elderly who witnessed their children being killed immediately died of anger or fainted from shock. The remaining people whose families had not yet been killed did not dare to act rashly.
"Alas! Now, even though those refugees are on the verge of death from suffering, as soon as they see our people, they start shouting for help, to alert Xu Zhipeng's men. This is precisely to protect their detained family members from death. They even scold us, saying that it is because of us that they have become prisoners and their relatives have been killed. It is precisely because of their resistance that all subsequent plans have ended in failure."
When Leng Ren spoke of this matter, his veins bulged on his forehead, and his tone was full of indignation and unwillingness. What made him feel chilled and disheartened was more so the lack of understanding and resentment from those common people.
The others in the military tent felt the same as Leng Ren. Every time they remembered the efforts made to save those people, they gritted their teeth in hatred.
Seeing the dejected expressions on his subordinates' faces, Huo Qiyuan put down the summary booklet in his hand and said, "Everyone, there's no need to be like this. Actually, this matter is very easy to resolve."
"May I ask what method Your Highness has?"
"Currently, the reason those civilians are unwilling to cooperate with you and are even actively exposing your whereabouts is solely to ensure the safety of their families. To catch the ringleader, we only need to capture General Xu Zhipeng, who is giving the orders, and then take the opportunity to pacify his subordinates. This predicament can naturally be resolved."
"But what if those people disregard Xu Zhipeng's life, or fight to the death and slaughter the hostages directly? Wouldn't that be counterproductive?"
Leng Ren was more worried that if they really pushed the enemy to a desperate situation and killed the hostages, then the surviving civilians would surely believe that Huo Qiyuan disregarded their lives. Wouldn't that greatly affect the reputation of Huaxia City?
Regarding this, Huo Qiyuan was not worried at all. He shook his head with great confidence. "As the saying goes, those who have righteousness on their side are helped by many; those who have no righteousness are helped by few. Xu Zhipeng took the most wrong step when he started using civilians as human shields. Therefore, as long as he is captured, the rest can be easily resolved."
"Although Xu Zhipeng's talent and strategy are relatively mediocre, his character is indeed very cunning. We tried to sneak in secretly at night before, but Si'an Prefecture city is too vast, so we couldn't find his hiding place."
Hearing his subordinate's concerns, Huo Qiyuan did not express his opinion. He got up and walked out of the military tent to a spacious open area and took out a whistle and blew it. Before long, a large black shadow appeared in the sky.
Some soldiers who had never seen the enormous figures of Yingba Tian and the others were so startled when they saw the behemoths appearing in the sky that their mouths widened in astonishment, and they stood there stunned.
As for Leng Ren and the others, who were very familiar and close to the three pets, they jumped up excitedly upon seeing the eagles.
"Look quickly, that's Ba Tian, that's great! So Ba Tian also came on the expedition with Your Highness. I wonder if Taishan and Feila also came."
"Yes, we haven't seen them for more than half a year."
Under the eager anticipation of the crowd, the eagle slowly landed beside Huo Qiyuan. He reached out and stroked its feathers, then turned to his excited subordinates and asked, "Now that we have Ba Tian, isn't it easy to find someone's location?"
"Hahaha, now Xu Zhipeng has no escape!"
That night!
Si'an Prefecture city was silent. The few dilapidated city gates had only a handful of soldiers guarding them. Instead, the ground was crowded with refugees lying down, huddling together for warmth, their clothes ragged.
They lay slumped in all sorts of positions, looking as if they had more breath going out than coming in. To maximize their usefulness, Xu Zhipeng had them fed with thin porridge daily to ensure they wouldn't die of thirst or hunger.
The weather in the first lunar month was very cold. If it weren't for the fact that Si'an Prefecture was located quite far south, the temperature was much higher than in the north, and coupled with the large number of refugees blocking the city gates, these people would not have frozen to death.
Huo Qiyuan sat on the back of an eagle, soaring through the dark night sky. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that in its claws, it was carrying a person dressed in black. This was Leng Qi, who had voluntarily applied for an artificial eye after learning of its function.
Carried by the eagle into the sky, Leng Qi activated the eagle eye's clairvoyance and night vision functions and began to scan the city.
Perhaps they thought that after the previous reports from the refugees, the enemy would not dare to act rashly again, so there were not many people patrolling the city. Because of this, Huo Qiyuan and the others, who had been flying for almost half the city, had not been discovered.