Call of the Heroes of Chaos in Another World

Chapter 2174 Wang Feng kills Garuda with his hammer, Zhao Yun leads his army to attack Yun County

Xuanyuan Huang had reluctantly decided to agree to Ma Baili and Ma Qianli's conditions.

However, it is not something that can be done overnight to spread the news from Qingnan Province to Yangdong Province.

Therefore, at this time, Dahong was still facing Li Jing's relentless pressure.

For Heyang Road, Li Jing chose to send troops from south to north.

In reality, it was also to guard against the possibility that the Zhennan Army south of Guangyin might intervene.

If they attack the south of Heyang first, they can return to Guangyin as quickly as possible.

The Heyang Circuit comprises ten prefectures, namely Boyang Prefecture, Boliao Prefecture, Nuanjiang Prefecture, Jinyuan Prefecture, Jinshui Prefecture, Chengyuan Prefecture, Pingyuan Prefecture, Linshui Prefecture, Jiyuan Prefecture, and Nanyuan Prefecture.

Now that Jiyuan Commandery and Nanyuan Commandery have fallen into Han hands, Li Jing's next step is Pingyuan Commandery, which is east of Nanyuan Commandery.

Li Jing maintained his original strategy, relying on the Flying Feather Legion, an elite cavalry force whose mobility was unmatched by Da Hong.

If any enemy force dares to leave the city, the Flying Feather Legion will become their deadly weapon. In fact, at that point, not only the Flying Feather Legion, but countless Han troops from all sides will attack from all directions.

Li Jing's 250,000-strong army, including 50,000 Flying Feather Legion troops, was divided into several units and constantly patrolled the border areas of several counties surrounding Pingyuan County, deterring them from easily sending troops to support Pingyuan.

The 50,000-strong Central Imperial Guard were stationed behind the Flying Feather Legion. If any troops from these counties dared to appear, they would cooperate with the Flying Feather Legion, using both infantry and cavalry, to annihilate any reinforcements that came to their aid.

As for Li Jing, he personally led 150,000 Manxiong troops, advancing on Pingyuan with an overwhelming numerical advantage.

Cao Yinglong, the garrison commander of Pingyuanshi County, was brought out bound hand and foot by Anubis's army just as they arrived at the city gates, achieving a small victory without bloodshed.

The Great Yan could only say that they did not have enough popular support in Heyang Road, due to historical reasons, and the fact that they had only controlled this area for a short time.

Cao Yinglong was ambitious but lacked talent. With just a few jars of fine wine and a few beautiful women, he was brought down by the powerful families in the city.

Subsequently, these powerful families used him as a stepping stone to advance their own careers, and along with the city, they surrendered it to the Han Dynasty.

Among the many divine generals of the Han Dynasty, Anubis's strength may be judged from the perspective of later figures, but his title and status are ranked from the front.

There's no other reason than that the Emperor of Dongcang and a large number of high-ranking civil and military officials of Dongcang died at his hands. Among the many generals of the Han Dynasty, who else could compare to him, except for Hou Yi who killed Emperor Huangfu Guyuan of Zhongcang?
In particular, Anubis was considered one of the more murderous among the generals. After all, he was a god of death.

Of course, Anubis was very bloodthirsty, but not to the point of being without principles, nor would he commit acts of killing surrendered soldiers or massacring people.

However, this man never liked to leave anyone alive; on the battlefield, he would kill if he could. Prisoners were rarely given the chance to become his prisoners!

The reason he didn't kill prisoners was actually because they basically had no chance of becoming his prisoners!
Anubis was the kind of person who was very ambitious. When facing enemies, he only wanted to make their heads his own. He would only consider taking prisoners if the enemy was exceptionally valuable, and the merit of keeping him alive was greater than the merit of killing him.

Otherwise, capturing one alive would only prevent him from killing more enemies and earning more military merits.

Otherwise, while other generals were still barons or earls, he would have soared directly to the rank of marquis. In terms of rank alone, he would have caught up with Han Xin and Meng Tian.

Faced with such a person, the noble families in the city dared not waste any time, lest they be slow and have it taken as their military merit!
After Cao Yinglong was bound hand and foot and brought in, Anubis didn't even glance at him, and immediately ordered him to be taken outside the gate and beheaded.

This further terrified the powerful families in the city.

In fact, the reason Anubis killed Cao Yinglong was because many generals of the Han army had already reached a consensus.

As for the ruling class of the Great Yan, the Donghai and Guangyang regions are one thing, but the Heyang region should be slaughtered as much as possible!
There's nothing we can do; they're rich, after all.

Eighty percent of the powerful families, landlords, and even wealthy merchants in Heyang Road were persecuted by the Great Yan side, leaving only twenty percent barely surviving in Heyang Road.

Most of the money, grain, and land have fallen into the hands of the Great Yan's ruling class. If we take them away, at least the brothers who went to war this time can get a piece of the pie!

As for Li Jing, although he brought together those aristocratic families from Heyang who had fled to Henan Province, allowing them to exert their influence in Heyang.

However, the money, grain, and land were seized from the Great Yan, not taken from them! Afterwards, it's impossible to return them anyway.

Whoever tries to take it from them, they can take it from them; they can't get it from the Han military anyway. The establishment of a new dynasty is essentially a redistribution of resources.

Therefore, Anubis didn't even glance at Cao Yinglong and decisively chopped him up.

On the other side, the garrison commander of Ju County was Zhu Can, who was known as the Garuda King at the end of the Sui Dynasty. Facing Yang Cunzhong's army at the city gates, he knew that without reinforcements, the isolated city of Ju County could not hold out for long.

Moreover, his small county town only had five hundred soldiers. In fact, strictly speaking, these were not soldiers at all, but rather the elderly, the weak, the sick, the disabled, and constables temporarily assembled. The real soldiers had long been transferred to the rear to prepare for the defense of Pingxian, the seat of Pingyuan County.

In this situation, how can he defend?
Looking down, it seemed endless, and there was probably an army of more than 20,000!
But if he surrendered without a fight, he worried that the Han army would look down on him.

After some deliberation, Zhu Can decided to challenge Yang Cunzhong, promising to surrender the entire city if he was defeated, and that he would never break his promise.

Yang Cunzhong initially thought this was just an excuse from Zhu Can to lure him into battle, but then he figured there was no harm in trying, so he accepted the challenge.

However, he has 2 troops at his disposal, and his army is full of talented people, so why should he have to take action himself?
He couldn't bear to send Pei Yuanqing out, so he had Wang Feng take his place and fight Zhu Can instead.

Now 23 years old, Pei Yuanqing has reached his peak and is now a true divine general. With a basic martial strength of 105, he is the strongest under Yang Cunzhong.

Furthermore, although Pei Yuanqing was young, he had already served in the army for many years and had considerable combat experience. However, young people often have bad tempers and are easily provoked, which is why they are easily tricked.

Wang Feng, now 22, hasn't reached his peak yet, but he's close. His base martial strength has risen to 104 points, reaching the peak of the Heavenly level. He's just one final step away from his ultimate goal. As for Zhu Can, his base martial strength is only around 80 points. To think he can defeat Wang Feng is a joke!
His original plan was simply to find this excuse to make his surrender look decent!
However, to his surprise, Wang Feng didn't play that trick on him at all.

"Ding! Wang Feng's Golden Hammer skill effect activated, Strength +10, Base Strength 104 (Peak 105), Equipment +2, Current Strength increased to 116."

Wang Feng attacked without holding back at all, delivering a full-force hammer blow that sent the spear flying from his opponent's hand. He then smashed the hammer into the opponent's chest, shattering his internal organs.

Among the many generals, Wang Feng was considered to be one of the more righteous.

Zhu Can, on the other hand, is a famous figure in the Great Yan Dynasty!
Among the Great Yan, there were figures like Shi Le, Shi Hu, and Xue Rengao who had killed those who surrendered. However, after being reprimanded and punished by Xuanyuan Huang, figures like Shi Le had completely restrained themselves. Otherwise, they would not have been able to become the second-best general in the Great Yan after Da Hong.

People like Shi Hu and Xue Rengao, regardless of whether they outwardly agreed or inwardly agreed, at least outwardly restrained themselves and suppressed their bloodthirsty nature.

But compared to Zhu Can, what is killing surrendered soldiers?
This guy once abducted a noblewoman as a concubine. After he got tired of her, he put her directly into a steamer and cooked her, and even wanted to openly divide and eat her.

Upon hearing this, Xuanyuan Huang immediately decided to execute him.

However, at that time, Xuanyuan Huang also faced constraints within the Celestial Masters Sect, and Zhu Can was also an early figure and one of the early meritorious officials of the Celestial Masters Sect.

Many early heroes protected him, or rather, they wanted to use this opportunity to oppose Xuanyuan Huang, who had just taken the throne and whose position was not yet fully consolidated.

In the end, Zhu Can was not killed, but he was stripped of his official position.

After the establishment of the Great Yan Dynasty, Emperor Xuanyuan Huang did not hesitate to bestow titles and honors upon his early loyalists such as Feng Hou, Da Hong, Zhang Shi'er, and Gu Wanfang, as well as political enemies such as Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Bo Cai.

Only in this case was he denied a noble title; instead, he was demoted by one rank.

Otherwise, how could the earliest meritorious officials have fallen to the rank of county magistrate?

However, Zhu Can also became famous because of what happened back then.

If you encounter someone like Wang Feng on the battlefield who has a strong sense of justice, you certainly won't play any tricks on him; you'll just finish him off with a single blow.

As for Yang Cunzhong, he remained indifferent when he saw Zhu Can being killed so spectacularly by Wang Feng.

In any case, whether their surrender is genuine or feigned, it won't change today's outcome. Therefore, killing them is perfectly acceptable!
This small county town couldn't stop their 2-strong army!
In fact, let alone blocking them, after Zhu Can died, the city gates of Jucheng were opened directly. As the commander of this city, even the county magistrate, who was the military commander, was gone. What would others have to resist?
If we don't surrender now, when will we?
At the same time, while Anubis and Yang Cunzhong were attacking Shi County and Ju County, Zhao Yun was also leading troops to attack Yun County.

Shi County, Ju County, and Yun County—these three counties form a ring, protecting Ping County, the seat of Pingyuan Prefecture, from all directions. These three counties also form Ping County's best defensive line.

To attack Ping County, we must first capture these three county towns!
If these three county towns are captured, Ping County can be attacked simultaneously from three directions.

The importance of these three county towns to the defense of Ping County is self-evident.

At the same time, if each of these three county towns were to be garrisoned with only three to five thousand troops, it would be enough to choke the attacking side's tens of thousands of troops.

Unfortunately, Pingyuan County only had 15,000 regular soldiers. Zhu Zhao, the garrison commander of Pingyuan, scraped together the soldiers and prisoners, and recruited a group of able-bodied men, managing to gather 30,000 soldiers.

However, given the composition of his troops, how could he dare to send a large portion of them to the three county towns?
He could only concentrate his forces in the three counties, with the most central and important one being Yun County, where he deployed 5,000 troops as an extension of Ping County.

Unlike the previous two counties where the defense was handled by the county commandant, Ping County was guarded by Zhu Zhao, who personally dispatched strong generals to defend this last gateway.

Faced with Zhao Yun's 30,000-strong army, the defending general Cheng Yun originally planned to use a feigned surrender to lure Zhao Yun in, and then ambush and kill him.

Zhu Zhao and Cheng Yun were both native Celestial Masters. However, in the original historical trajectory, the Celestial Masters did not cause much of a stir and were easily suppressed by Ma Qianli.

Therefore, neither of them was particularly famous in the original timeline.

However, in this life, the fate of the Celestial Masters Sect is completely different. Under the tutelage of Xuanyuan Huang, they have also grown up.

However, Zhao Yun did not fall for the feigned surrender easily. Instead, he passed the buck to the other side, saying that he had already prepared a banquet outside the city and invited them to come out for a while.

Cheng Yun, of course, was unwilling to come out in person!

Therefore, the only way to prove ourselves now is through our actions.

Zhao Yun deployed his soldiers to deploy a large number of catapults, siege towers, and ballistae, and even used a large amount of oil.

Although Li Jing was leading the main force in the rear and was not in the vanguard, he had informed the generals of the three vanguard armies in advance of the methods to attack the city.

Zhao Yun is currently following Li Jing's instructions, using a large number of siege weapons and oil to suppress the enemy.

Essentially, it was all about demoralizing the enemy!
After all, the enemy army included not only some new recruits, but also a large number of yamen runners, prisoners, and so on. There were actually very few veterans who had actually been on the battlefield.

Most people had never experienced anything like this before. Countless flying stones bombarded the enemy, and large amounts of oil were scattered everywhere. Whether they could kill the enemy or not, they would definitely terrify this diverse army.

When the enemy's panic reaches its peak, then mobilize all your troops to overwhelm them in one fell swoop and breach the city in a short period of time.

Suppressing the enemy with a large number of siege weapons sounds like it's not very technical.

However, truly powerful military strategies always emphasize simplicity and unpretentiousness; who cares about all the technicalities and maneuvers?

The goal is simplicity and directness, but the simpler and more direct it is, the more unsolvable it becomes.

(End of this chapter)