I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 902: Surprised
"General, my husband is stubborn and I'm afraid he won't listen to us women."

Faced with Su Yao's request, Mrs. Yuan's face turned pale.

"It doesn't matter. Whether Yuan Shu listens or not is his business, but whether he writes or not is your business."

Su Yao raised his hand to play with the decoration on the hilt of the knife at his waist, glanced at Madam Yuan nonchalantly and said:
"If you can't even show this little bit of sincerity, how can this general trust what you just said?"

Madam Yuan was trembling all over, with cold sweat soaking her back. She knew very well that if she did not agree to Su Yao's request, she and her daughter would be in an abyss of no return. But how easy was it to persuade Yuan Shu to surrender?

"Write, I write!"

Mrs. Yuan finally gritted her teeth and agreed, but asked Su Yao to give her some time so that she could choose her words and persuade Yuan Shu.

"That's not necessary. Just write it down as it is."

It was naturally the plan of Su Yao and Guo Jia to let Yuan Shu's wife, children and elders write a letter to persuade him to surrender.

For the army, morale is the same as combat effectiveness. Shouchun is Yuan Shu's old nest. Naturally, not only Yuan Shu's family members are here, but also the families of his generals and ordinary soldiers.

Taking Shouchun and then using these people to persuade them to surrender would, regardless of success or failure, greatly undermine the morale of Yuan Shu's army.

And the results, of course, are indeed very significant.

The first to receive the news were the 3,000 cavalry reinforcements from Ji Ling's army, which Yuan Shu had sent to defend the city.

Since the two places were nearly three hundred miles apart, although Ji Ling led the army without any delay, he was still one step slower than Su Yao and was two full days late.

"What did you say?!"

"Shouchun has fallen?"

"How can this be?!"

When Ji Ling saw a few defeated soldiers fleeing from the water fort with panic-stricken looks yesterday, he already felt something was wrong.

But he never expected that just one day later, he saw a group of Shouchun soldiers holding white flags thirty miles away from Shouchun, bringing the bad news of the city's fall and letters from home persuading them to surrender.

When he opened the letter and saw his mother's trembling notes on it, Ji Ling could no longer hold back. He grabbed the soldier who brought the message by the collar and roared like a wounded beast:
"Where's Qiao Rui?!"

"Doesn't he still have more than 10,000 troops?!"

"Shouchun still has hundreds of thousands of civilians. If they are mobilized, how can we not be able to defend it in a day?! What a piece of crap this guy is!"

Ji Ling could not hold it in any longer, his face turned frighteningly pale. The soldier who brought the news was held by him, mumbling and not daring to speak, for fear of being hacked to death.

However, the counselors around him still had some sense and hurriedly advised:

"General, now that things have come to this, we need to make plans early. The news has spread among the army. If we don't find a solution quickly, I'm afraid there will be a mutiny soon."

"How? Is there any other way?"

Ji Ling clenched his spear tightly, his knuckles turning white. He knew that this was an extremely dangerous moment, but what could he do now?

If they continued their rapid march to Shouchun, given the strength Su Yao had shown before, they would probably be courting death.

But if they retreated at this point, not to mention that they would not be able to explain to Yuan Shu, for the soldiers, it would be tantamount to telling them to abandon their own families.

By then, how many soldiers will retreat with us?

Despair, deep despair surged in Ji Ling's heart, and he could not think of any solution now.

Just when I was hesitating in despair, suddenly I heard the sound of horse hooves in the distance.

It turned out that shortly after sending out the envoys to persuade the enemy to surrender, Su Yao's vanguard set off immediately.

Ji Ling saw smoke and dust billowing in the north, and a team of two thousand cavalrymen galloping towards them. They were flying flags with the word "Guan" on them and had the upper hand.

Soon, they saw a general wearing a green robe and holding a crescent-shaped sword coming alone:

"Guan Yu is here, you soldiers, listen carefully!"

Guan Yu reined in his horse in front of Ji Ling’s formation, held his head high, and shouted:
"The general has ordered that anyone who abandons darkness and joins light will be reinstated and forgiven for past mistakes. If you resist stubbornly, my army will march through and make sure you die without a burial place!" As soon as Guan Yu finished speaking, Ji Ling's 3,000 cavalrymen were in chaos. The soldiers whispered to each other, nervously discussing the future, and frequently glanced at Ji Ling in front of the formation.

Just when Ji Ling was in a dilemma, his deputy general Chen Wu urged his horse forward and whispered: "General, Su Yao is powerful, Shouchun has been lost, and we are attacked from all sides. Now the soldiers are concerned about their families. If they insist on resisting, I am afraid..."

Ji Ling turned his head and looked towards Shouchun in the north and closed his eyes. Suddenly, the iron hooves of Su Yao's army and the figures of his mother, wife and children appeared in his mind.

After a moment, Ji Ling sighed, stabbed his spear heavily into the ground, and said in a hoarse voice: "Surrender, surrender!"

"Order the entire army to take off their armor and surrender!"

Upon hearing Ji Ling's order, cheers suddenly broke out in the army, and the knights dropped their weapons, dismounted and surrendered.

Upon seeing this, Guan Yu nodded slightly, and then ordered his men to "invite" Ji Ling and other generals to leave, and then sent people to take over their troops and take them to Shouchun for reorganization.

Just like that, the three thousand cavalry led by Ji Ling surrendered to Su Yao without playing any role at all.

There is no longer any field combat force in Huainan.

With Ji Ling's defection and the fall of Shouchun, the news of the general's personal presence quickly spread throughout the Jianghuai area like a plague.

Upon hearing the news, all the counties that had originally surrendered to Yuan Shu immediately surrendered and sent envoys one after another. Even the county magistrate himself went to Shouchun to apologize to the general, saying that he had been forced to follow the enemy.

In just a few days, Yuan Shu's power in Huainan collapsed.

When the news reached the front line of the six counties, it caused an uproar in Yuan Shu's army.
Six counties, Yuan Shu’s main camp.

"Report - urgent report from the rear!"

The messenger stumbled into the central army tent and fell to his knees:
"General Hou, something terrible has happened! Shouchun has been lost, General Ji has surrendered, and I'm afraid Su Yao's army will be here soon!"

"what?!"

Yuan Shu suddenly jumped up from his seat, overturning the wine bottle on the table. He didn't care about the fine wine that was spilled all over the floor, and ran towards the messenger, his eyes bloodshot:

"Say it again? Say it again?!"

The messenger's face turned pale and he said in a trembling voice, "Four days ago, the thief Su used magic to attract thunder from the sky and blasted open the city gate. Captain Qiao was killed on the spot. All the defenders in the city surrendered. General Ji's three thousand cavalrymen had not even reached the city yet."

"Thunder from the sky hits the door?"

Everyone in the tent's face changed drastically when they heard this.

In the Han Dynasty, which believed in the interaction between heaven and man, people naturally could not help but think too much about such a strange phenomenon.

"Nonsense!" Yuan Shu was furious and kicked the messenger over. "What thunder! The defenders must be afraid of death and opened the gate to surrender!"

"Yes, there is absolutely no thunder!"

Chief Secretary Yang Hong said anxiously:
"But Shouchun has fallen, Ji Ling has surrendered, and our army's retreat has been cut off. We cannot remain trapped here any longer. We must make plans early."

Yuan Shu was so angry that his teeth itched when he heard this:

"Damn Ji Ling!"

"I treated him well and gave him three thousand elite cavalrymen, but he treated me like this!"

Seeing Yuan Shu's rage, the soldier who reported the news hesitated, but finally couldn't help but report:

"General Hou, calm down."

"General Ji surrendered for a reason."

"After the Su bandits broke into the city, they captured the ladies and families of the generals and ordered them to write letters to persuade them to surrender."

After saying that, the soldier gritted his teeth and handed over a letter.

Yuan Shu frowned, snatched the letter and opened it, and found that it was a letter written jointly by his mother and his wives and concubines.

Looking up, it was written: Letter to the General and the Soldiers
(End of this chapter)