"Ah?!"
Han Fu stood completely frozen, his mind plunging into an instantaneous, blank stupor.
Zhang Xin's main army had broken camp on the sixth day of the fifth month. He had received the first scouting report on the seventh. Today was only the ninth day of the fifth month.
Liyang... was already lost?
One had to grasp the sheer, terrifying geography of this move: Liyang was over five hundred li away from Pingyuan! A three-day, five-hundred-li lightning blitz...
"Is Zhang Xin's deployment of troops truly this terrifyingly swift?"
Every single official in the grand hall gasped in unison, their faces draining of color as a wave of collective dread swept through the room. Liyang was a mere hundred li south of Ye City. With that stronghold compromised, a detachment of Zhang Xin's elite vanguard cavalry could bridge the remaining distance and storm their gates in less than half a day!
The war had barely even begun, and the enemy was already driving a dagger into their very heartland.
"Qu Yi!" Han Fu slammed both palms onto the heavy strategist's table, roaring with a mixture of rage and betrayal. "How could I have misplaced my trust so blindly? I entrusted you with Liyang, the very throat of our territory!"
"Ungrateful, treacherous snake! A truly despicable, untrustworthy barbarian from Xizhou!"
After exhausting his vocabulary cursing Qu Yi, Han Fu spun around, shaking his fist toward the south to hurl venom at Zhang Xin. "And you, you arrogant brat, Zhang Xin! You have plunged a lone, isolated army deep into my territory. Aren't you afraid I will cut your supply lines entirely and leave you to starve?"
Ju Shou, sitting quietly to the side, merely curled his lips in a silent expression of utter disdain.
Cut his supply lines? Don't make a joke out of it. Zhang Xin truly had absolutely nothing to fear on that front.
Ever since that fateful, disastrous night at Nangpi, the entire northern coalition had been forced to accept a bizarre and deeply unsettling reality: Zhang Xin possessed a fully functional, highly organized navy.
Granted, he had originally arrived at Nangpi under the cover of a violent summer tempest, slipping past their coastal watches unnoticed. But when his fleet departed, the skies had cleared completely. The distance from Nangpi to the mouth of the Zhang River spanned several hundred li, and a massive armada of military vessels sailing down the waterways was impossible to hide. Countless commoners along both riverbanks had witnessed the spectacle, and the news had long since flooded the ears of Han Fu and Yuan Shao.
Only then did they piece together the humiliating truth: the massive merchant fleet that had spent the last few years flying the banner of the prestigious Xianyu family was actually a black-budget navy covertly funded and maintained by Zhang Xin.
When Yuan Shao first learned of this, his mind had gone entirely numb. He immediately realized that his catastrophic defeat at Nangpi wasn't just a stroke of bad luck—it was an inevitability.
Since the dawn of recorded history, who in their right mind maintained a dedicated naval force in Hebei?
Even during the fractured Spring and Autumn period, the State of Qi had boasted a navy, but that was a maritime force designed explicitly to counter the southern naval threat of Wu. Furthermore, they sailed the open blue waters of the ocean. Within the interior river networks north of the Yellow River, a standing military navy was virtually unprecedented.
The river systems in Hebei simply weren't as deep or interconnected as those in the south. While larger vessels could navigate the channels during the chaotic summer flood season, that period coincided precisely with the frantic summer harvest and planting cycles. Ancient armies rarely, if ever, launched major campaigns during these months because the peasantry needed to tend the fields. By the time the autumn harvest concluded and the prime campaigning season arrived, the dry winter season took hold, reducing the rivers to shallow streams or freezing them solid.
Maintaining a navy in the north meant you couldn't use it when you were actually fighting in the winter, and during the brief summer window when the ships could float, you weren't supposed to be fighting at all. It was a massive, unjustifiable drain on state coffers. What was the tactical point?
Yuan Shao had laid awake for ten days and ten nights, staring at the ceiling of his bedchamber, utterly unable to comprehend the logic. Why would Zhang Xin pour resources into a northern navy?
The man was a complete lunatic.
And yet... it had to be conceded that by deliberately initiating this war in the sweltering heat of summer, Zhang Xin had transformed his "insane" investment into a masterstroke of genius.
Currently, the Yellow River was engorged with its annual floodwaters, and strong, consistent easterly winds swept across the churning currents. Zhang Xin's navy could effortlessly catch the wind, sailing directly against the natural current to ferry massive stockpiles of grain and military provisions from the supply hubs of Pingyuan straight to the docks of Liyang. The sheer speed, efficiency, and carrying capacity of river transport left traditional land-bound logistics in the dust. And when the empty ships needed to restock? They simply turned around and let the downstream current carry them back home at breakneck speed.
Han Fu didn't own a single warship. How, exactly, did he plan to cut off a supply line that existed entirely on the water?
Furthermore, even if Zhang Xin hadn't deployed this secret fleet and had instead chosen to route his supply wagons by land through Dong Commandery, would Han Fu have genuinely dared to send an intercepting army across the border? The moment Han Fu's banners crossed into Dong Commandery, Sun Jian would have viewed it as an act of war and launched a brutal retaliatory strike on his flank.
Han Fu raged and swore until his throat went hoarse. Once the initial surge of furious adrenaline drained from his body, the underlying terror returned, and his posture visibly slumped.
"Ju Shou... what is our play? What do we do now?"
"Our only viable option is to mobilize every available man and retake Liyang immediately," Ju Shou replied with a heavy, grim sigh. "Fortunately, Zhang Xin achieved this breakthrough via a high-speed cavalry blitz. That means his occupying forces cannot be numerous. Furthermore, his riders have pushed through over five hundred li in a mere three days; both men and mounts must be on the absolute verge of physical collapse."
He leaned over the tactical map. "If we strike now, while they are overextended and exhausted, we still have a tactical window to reclaim the city. If we hesitate and allow his massive infantry vanguard to arrive and fortify the walls, the campaign is effectively over."
During their prior war-room simulations, they had explicitly planned for the defense of Liyang because of its sheer geopolitical gravity. If Zhang Xin permanently secured the city, he could bypass the heavily entrenched defensive grid at Wei County and Qingyuan entirely, marching unhindered straight to the gates of Ye City. Worse yet, he could push west to occupy Chaoge, throw open the gates of Baixing Pass, and invite the massive hordes of the Black Mountain Yellow Turbans down into the fertile plains.
Given that Zhang Yang was a former subordinate of Zhang Xin, if the Marquis of Xuanwei occupied Chaoge, Zhang Yang would likely swallow his pride and look the other way without uttering a single word of protest.
That was precisely why Han Fu had deployed Qu Yi—his absolute fiercest and most capable battlefield commander—to lock down the city.
Pingyuan was over five hundred li from Liyang, while Ye City was a mere hundred li away. If Zhang Xin attempted a conventional, slow-moving invasion, any reinforcing army Han Fu dispatched from the capital would easily win the race to Liyang. If Zhang Xin attempted a desperate cavalry raid, Qu Yi's veteran troops could easily hold the walls and outlast them until those reinforcements arrived. While Liyang's fortifications weren't as massive or imposing as the walls of Ye City, it was still a fully fortified regional stronghold. A pure cavalry detachment, lacking heavy siege engines, should have been utterly incapable of breaching it.
But the one variable their brilliant strategies had failed to account for was human nature: Qu Yi had simply opened the gates and defected.
With Liyang compromised in an instant, Han Fu's elaborate scorched-earth policies in Qinghe, along with the heavily fortified garrisons stationed across Wei County, were instantly rendered a pathetic joke. What good were ironclad frontline defenses if the enemy could simply step around them?
"Alas... if that is our only play, so be it," Han Fu muttered, his eyes darting around the room in a frantic, desperate search. "But who... who do I have left in this city capable of leading an army to the field?"
His military roster was entirely depleted. Qu Yi had turned traitor. Zhang He was tied down at Fushui Pass, fiercely resisting the onslaught of the Black Mountain bandits, and couldn't spare a single cohort. Zhao Fu and Cheng Huan were entrenched far away in Wei County, unable to abandon their posts. Gao Lan was stationed in Julu, desperately trying to prevent the northern bandits of Changshan from sweeping southward.
In a single moment of crisis, Han Fu realized with a sickening jolt that he had not a single elite general left by his side.
"Lord."
At that moment, Yuan Shao stood up from his seat, leaning heavily on a cane as he limped into the center of the grand hall.
During that catastrophic night at Nangpi, although his improvised donkey cart had executed a legendary, highly flamboyant escape to evade Zhang Xin's personal pursuit, one of the flying halberds Zhang Xin had hurled through the darkness had found its mark, embedding itself deep into Yuan Shao's buttocks.
The heavy iron projectile had severed or severely damaged a vital nerve. Though the wound had technically healed, Yuan Shao was left with a permanent, incurable limp. If he stood perfectly still, his aristocratic, commanding posture remained unmarred, indistinguishable from any highborn lord. But the absolute moment he took a step forward, his hips would involuntarily shift, causing his backside to wiggle in a profoundly undignified, rhythmic manner.
"If the Lord can find it in his heart to place his trust in Shao..." Yuan Shao bowed, carefully stabilizing his balance. "Shao is entirely willing to lead our forces to the field and reclaim Liyang."
Han Fu's eyes flickered with intense hesitation. He instinctively turned his head to look at Ju Shou, seeking counsel.
Ju Shou remained silent for a moment, his mind weighing the political risks. He was acutely aware of Yuan Shao's boundless personal ambition, and Han Fu had spent months trying to suppress it. But with a mortal, existential threat literally knocking at their backdoor, and knowing that Yuan Shao and Zhang Xin harbored a deep, bloody, and entirely personal vendetta against one another, there was little risk of Yuan Shao playing double agent.
Ju Shou offered a subtle, decisive nod.
"Very well," Han Fu declared, rising from his seat as he read the room. "I will grant you immediate command of twenty thousand of our regional infantry, alongside three thousand elite auxiliary cavalry from the Southern Xiongnu. I place the fate of our southern flank in your hands, Yuan Shao. You must retake Liyang!"
"The Lord may rest his mind," Yuan Shao said, his voice echoing with cold, solemn resolve. "Shao shall not allow your expectations to go unfulfilled!"
As a scion of the prestigious 'Four Generations of Grand Secretaries' lineage, Yuan Shao valued his dignity and physical presentation above life itself. Zhang Xin's flying halberd had quite literally transformed him into a laughingstock, ruining his stride forever. How could a man of his pride tolerate such a grotesque humiliation? Forget a powerful noble—even a common peasant would hunt a man to the ends of the earth if they were permanently crippled in such a degrading fashion.
"Ju Shou," Han Fu turned his gaze to his chief advisor. "For this critical counter-offensive, you shall march alongside the army as the Grand Imperial Supervisor."
He paused, ensuring his next words cut through the room with absolute clarity. "Any unit, regardless of lineage or rank, that shows cowardice or fails to execute orders on the field—execute them on the spot!"
The mandate was delivered clearly for Yuan Shao's benefit. Ostensibly, Ju Shou was being sent to ensure operational efficiency. In reality, he was Han Fu's eyes and ears, tasked with ensuring Yuan Shao didn't use the twenty-three thousand troops to carve out his own independent fiefdom. It was a political reality everyone in the room understood implicitly.
"Understood," Yuan Shao and Ju Shou responded in unison, their voices flat.
"Ju Shou," Han Fu pressed, the anxiety creeping back into his tone. "When must the army march?"
Ju Shou's eyes hardened. "We organize the ranks today. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn, we launch the assault!"
According to their latest intel, Zhang Xin's primary infantry vanguard was still trailing behind near Dong Wuyang. With the massive armies of Yan Liang, Wen Chou, Zhao Fu, and Cheng Huan operating in the immediate vicinity, Ju Shou calculated that Zhang Xin's main force would march with extreme caution to avoid falling into a pincer trap. Based on their current average speed, it would take the enemy infantry at least five to six days to reach Liyang.
If the Ye City garrison departed tomorrow morning, they would reach the outskirts of Liyang by tomorrow evening. After a single night of rest, they could launch a full-scale assault on the city the following day. That gave them a highly favorable three-day window to crush the exhausted enemy cavalry before reinforcements arrived.
"Then waste no more time. Go, mobilize the men," Han Fu said, handing the heavy bronze military tally over to Yuan Shao. His voice was taut with urgency. "Yuan Shao, ensure every cohort is armed and ready by nightfall. You must march at dawn!"
"Understood!"
Clutching the military tally tightly in his fist, Yuan Shao offered a swift, formal farewell and exited the hall, limping toward the massive military encampments outside the city walls to assemble the legions.
Han Fu retreated to his private inner quarters, his mind entirely consumed by a suffocating blanket of dread. He tossed and turned violently across his silk bedsheets, his eyes wide open in the dark, utterly unable to find peace.
After what felt like hours of agonizing mental torment, sheer physical exhaustion finally overcame his anxiety, and Han Fu drifted into a fitful, shallow sleep.
In the hazy, disjointed depths of his dreams, a faint, discordant noise began to echo. It sounded like the distant, chaotic roar of a crashing wave, interspersed with the sharp, metallic clashing of iron and the desperate shriek of dying men.
What... what is that?
Han Fu's eyes snapped open, his heart hammering against his ribs. Ignoring his robes, his boots, and all royal decorum, he bolted out of his bedchamber wearing nothing but his thin, white silk undergarments.
The moment he burst into the open courtyard, the heavy night wind hit his bare skin—and carried with it the unmistakable, blood-chilling cacophony of a city under siege. Screams of absolute terror, the roaring of fires, and chaotic war cries echoed from just beyond the palace walls.
Throughout the sprawling estate, the household servants, cooks, and young maids had all been violently awakened. They were sprinting through the corridors like a flock of headless chickens, dropping lanterns and spilling basins in their blind panic.
Han Fu lunged forward, his hands wrapping tightly around the shoulders of a fleeing maid, shaking her violently. "What is happening?! Speak! What is happening to the city?!"
"It... it..." The maid's face was completely pale, her eyes wide with a horror so profound she could barely force the air through her throat. "The Marquis... Marquis Xuanwei... he has broken through the city gates!"
"Ah?!"
An icy shockwave ripped through Han Fu's body, causing his knees to buckle. He threw the maid aside, stumbling blindly toward the high stone perimeter wall of his compound. He pressed his ear flat against the cold masonry, straining to hear past the roaring of his own pulse.
From the streets just outside his ancestral walls, thousands of panicked voices were rising into the night sky, screaming the exact same terrifying realization:
"Marquis Xuanwei has broken in! The city has fallen!"