Call of the Heroes of Chaos in Another World

Chapter 2244 The Xuanyuan Gathering Should Be Watched, the Decisive Battle of Han and Yan Begins

"The entire Great Yan is united as one, and everyone dares to fight, even to the death!"

"Furthermore, your Great Han is at war with Wu and Song in the west, and the Northern Di Tuoba are launching a fierce attack on Zhongxing in the north!"

"Jiang Chaoyu's hundreds of thousands of troops from the south have poured into Yangdong Province!"

Why does our Great Yan have no chance of winning?

Regardless of the actual situation, Xuanyuan Huang would naturally not want to damage morale at this time.

Therefore, that was the answer.

"Jiang Chaoyu?"

Wang Ying chuckled before slowly saying, "Prince Jiang has made peace with our Great Han. Our Great Han will hand over the three northern prefectures of Yangdong Road to Prince Jiang, and Prince Jiang will return the Ma family and their families!"

"From this day forward, the two families shall not invade each other's territory!"

"With His Majesty's abilities, he should understand what this signifies."

The news that Wang Yingkan revealed clearly made Xuanyuan Huang's heart sink.

Undoubtedly, this is yet another piece of bad news for the Great Yan Dynasty.

"As for the others, our Great Han has the Zhonghang Pass, and the Golden Horde Royal Court is there to help us. Although the Northern Di Tuoba are fierce, how can they break through the Zhonghang Pass?"

"And the Zhao Song dynasty still has 200,000 troops from various dynasties in the southwest invading the border. How much help can they provide to Your Majesty?"

"As for Da Wu, does Your Majesty think that Da Wu would be fully involved in this quagmire at this time?" Wang Yingkan continued, allowing each of the forces mentioned by Xuanyuan Huang to refute him one by one.

"What? Your Excellency has come here only to humiliate my Great Yan?" Xuan Yuanhuang said in a somewhat unfriendly tone.

"No!"

"Forgive my rudeness, but in my opinion, Your Majesty's defeat is inevitable."

"However, the Emperor of our Great Han is benevolent and cannot bear to see more lives lost. Therefore, he has specially dispatched his foreign minister to engage in a decisive battle with Your Majesty, to settle the score in one battle and avoid unnecessary losses."

From beginning to end, Wang Yingkan never thought he could persuade Xuanyuan Huang to surrender.

Yue Fei and Li Cunxiao could both see that it was impossible, so why would he really be so delusional?
All he wanted was a decisive battle with the Great Yan, to avoid further pointless attrition in the final siege.

Before he left Henan to serve as an envoy to Jiang Chaoyu, the emperor at Zhongxing Pass had already sent a letter back to the court, asking the officials of the Six Ministries, led by Guan Zhong and Zhuge Liang, to assess the feasibility of another matter and make a decision.

Therefore, for this reason, with the victory in the East already secured, they must end the winter campaign as quickly and efficiently as possible with minimal losses.

Upon hearing Wang Yingkan's words, a cold glint flashed in Xuanyuan Huang's eyes.

"A pointless waste of resources? You started the war, besieged the capital of my Great Yan Kingdom, and now you talk about pointless waste of resources?"

Wang Yingkan seemed to have anticipated Xuanyuan Huang's reaction. He remained calm and bowed deeply, saying, "Your Majesty, please calm your anger. It is precisely because the war has already begun and cannot be reversed that we must consider how to end it."

"Your Majesty, do you know how many casualties have been on both sides during these nearly two months of siege? Among them, how many of the able-bodied people from Donghai Province who were forcibly conscripted and driven to the front lines to fill the moat were killed or wounded? The numbers are horrifying, less than three out of ten survived!" "And how many of the able-bodied people Your Majesty organized in these days to defend Yanjing have died in battle? I'm sure Your Majesty also has a number in mind!"

Wang Ying paused, his voice growing increasingly sorrowful, his gaze fixed intently on Xuanyuan Huangdao, "And our General Yue Fei also knows that His Majesty is benevolent, loves the people like his own children, and is a rare and virtuous ruler in the world."

"So, can you really bear to watch your last subjects, the soldiers and civilians who followed you to this city of Yanjing, be slaughtered when the city falls?"

Siege warfare in the era of cold weapons, especially sieges that resulted in heavy casualties, meant that once a city was breached, the fate of the attacked city was always extremely tragic!

After all, the soldiers on the attacking side had accumulated too much hatred during the process, and after the city was breached, everything in the city naturally became a way for them to vent their anger.

Wang Yingkan believed that a military strategist like Xuanyuan Huang must also understand this principle.

After all, such things had happened before during the process of the Celestial Masters Sect's conquests in the south and north of the Great Yan Dynasty.

If we don't find a way to reward the troops who have suffered heavy casualties in the siege and let them vent their hatred, it is very likely to cause a mutiny among the soldiers.

Therefore, even many generals would not stop certain things.

"Your Majesty, you must have also received the news from Pingyang County, right?"

Wang Yingkan suddenly threw out a place name: Pingyang County, the very county where Zhang Jiao had previously blocked Tan Daoji from guarding the area.

"Your Majesty, the lesson of Pingyang is not far off!"

"Now, you face an equally, or even greater, choice."

"If Your Majesty insists on fighting to the last man, and when my army's patience runs out and we break through the city with all our might... I dare not imagine whether Yanjing will become a second Pingyang, or even worse!"

"Wang Yingkan, are you threatening us?" Xue Ju, who was sitting on both sides, couldn't stand it anymore and looked like he was about to kill someone.

However, Wang Yingkan didn't even look at him. Instead, he stepped forward and continued to say to Xuanyuan Huang, "Your Majesty! In this decisive battle, perhaps you still have a chance."

"Even if we are defeated, it will be the end of a hero's road. It will save the lives of all the soldiers and civilians in the city. I, the Emperor of the Great Han, am willing to guarantee with my honor that after the city is breached, the surrendered soldiers and civilians will not be harmed!"

"If we continue to hold out, all that awaits us is annihilation and utter destruction!"

"Your Majesty, can you bear it? For the sake of a moment's dignity and integrity as emperor, can you let these loyal subjects of the city shed their last drop of blood for you, for a defeat that was already destined to happen, and even in death they will not find peace?"

Wang Ying saw these simple words, but they struck Xuan Yuanhuang's heart like a heavy hammer.

He abruptly closed his eyes, his body trembling slightly. The image that flashed through his mind was of the ragged peasants outside the city walls, driven towards them during the initial stages of the siege.

Although those people were driven by the Han army to fill the moat of their Yan capital, they were still people of the Great Yan.

If it weren't for the fact that their Great Yan had suffered repeated defeats and lost territory, how could they have been driven and forced onto such a deadly path where only one in ten would survive?
He thought of the soldiers' tired yet determined eyes in the city, and the silence of the people as they gave their last rations to the army.

I recalled a few days ago when a commoner, whose eyes had been blinded by arrows and whose eye sockets, simply bandaged with coarse cloth, were still bleeding, knelt down and swore to serve him.

Perseverance may be the dignity of an emperor, but it could be the end of his people.

Giving up is a humiliation for the emperor, but it may be a glimmer of hope for hundreds of thousands of people in the city.