Tiger Owl

Chapter 57 Desperate Suppression
The shopkeeper took a sip of hot water from his cup and said timidly to Gan Ning, "My family has been running shops for generations. We were just trying to make a living honestly, but we have encountered a disaster."

"Who is that guy?"

“His name is Wang Qiu. He was originally a distant relative of mine. He was brave and fierce from a young age and did all sorts of evil deeds. Later, he joined the Tongzhi. Because he had studied for a few years, he became the Tongzhi’s confidant. They needed to collect intelligence on Nanchang County, so Wang Qiu came to me and asked to be my partner. I had no choice but to agree.”

"You frequently travel to Luling County to deliver intelligence to him?"

"Yes, this Wang Qiu is lazy and unwilling to travel long distances by boat, so he forced me to deliver the message to him."

Gan Ning's eyes darted around. "If you could help me deliver a letter to Tong Zhi, pretending it's from Wang Qiu, do you think that would be feasible?"

“I can deliver the letter, but it has to be a letter in Wang Qiu’s own handwriting! And it has to have his fingerprint on it, but Wang Qiu is already dead.”

Fingerprints aren't a big problem; even a dead person can leave one. As for handwritten letters, there are ways to solve that; Yang Xuan is a master at forging letters.

.........

That afternoon, news spread from the county government that Huang Zu had personally led an army of 50,000 to attack Chaisang. Gan Ning immediately led a large army north to Chaisang to provide support, leaving only 1,000 troops to garrison Nanchang County.

In the evening, the shopkeeper also boarded a speedboat to Luling County.

Luling County is today's Ji'an, Jiangxi. It takes four days to get there by boat from Nanchang, which is quite arduous. Tongzhi required a report on the situation in Nanchang every month. Wang Qiu was unwilling to endure this hardship, so he forced his cousin, the shopkeeper, to deliver the letters for him.

Four days later, the shopkeeper arrived in Luling County and went directly to the prefectural government office to find Tongzhi, who had been delivering letters for over a year and was well-known to everyone.

Tongzhi was about fifty years old. He was extremely ugly, short and fat, with bulging eyes that made him look like a toad. He was a Yue person from Danyang County. After his defeat, he fled to Yuzhang County. Taking advantage of Liu Yao's death, he seized control of the southern part of Yuzhang County, renamed it Luling County, and appointed himself as the governor of Luling County.

Tongzhi himself did not have the audacity to divide the prefecture; it was actually Liu Biao's idea. Liu Biao and Huang Zu reached an agreement to divide Yuzhang Prefecture.

The northern Yuzhang Commandery belonged to Huang Zu, and the southern Luling Commandery belonged to Liu Biao. As for the boundary between Yuzhang Commandery and Luling Commandery, it was actually determined by Tong Zhi.

If Tongzhi can capture Nanchang County, then the two sides will use Nanchang County as the boundary.

To encourage Tongzhi to capture Nanchang County, Liu Biao ordered his nephew Liu Xin to give him three thousand sets of armor and weapons.

Don't underestimate three thousand sets of armor. Each set includes helmet, spear, sword, and bow and arrow, which together cost more than a hundred strings of cash. Three thousand sets would be worth three hundred thousand strings of cash, which is no small sum.

When Tongzhi saw that the envelope the shopkeeper brought was red, he was immediately invigorated. He quickly opened the letter and read it carefully. He was overjoyed to find that Nanchang County only had a thousand soldiers, which was unprecedented.

He could hardly believe it. He looked at the letter twice more. The handwriting and handprint were the same as usual. It only said that Huang Zu's 50,000-strong army attacked Chaisang and Gan Ning led his army north.

"Manager Liu, is there really only a thousand soldiers in the city?"

"I think so! Zhao Qiu was so excited he was trembling. I told him to deliver the message himself, but he refused, saying he wanted to continue monitoring the enemy's army."

Tongzhi thought about it and agreed. Gan Ning squeezed out the Jiangdong army and seized Yuzhang County, and Huang Zu came to reap the rewards, which was completely in line with Huang Zu's character.

Nanchang County only has a thousand soldiers. How can I not seize this golden opportunity?

Tongzhi dared not delay, as it would take them at least four more days to reach Nanchang. He immediately ordered the entire army to assemble and bring seven days' worth of rations. An hour later, Tongzhi led all 13,000 troops north.

South of Nanchang lies a mountainous region, and Tongzhi's army consisted almost entirely of Yue people, who could march on mountain roads as if they were on flat ground, and their speed was also very fast.

Of course, the key was that the morale of the entire army was high. Tongzhi's men hated the Han people to the extreme and wished they could kill all the Han people in Yuzhang County and leave only the young women.

The thought of plundering the county seat of Nanchang conjured images of beautiful women and piles of gold and silver in everyone's minds, making them eager and excited.

The army marched by day and rested by night, and four days later entered Nanchang County. That afternoon, the army entered Qinglong Gorge. They had traversed dozens of gorges along the way, and this was the last one. After passing through this gorge, Nanchang City was just twenty miles ahead.

Tongzhi was greatly encouraged and urged the entire army to speed up, as they were about to reach Nanchang. The soldiers were also invigorated and accelerated their march.

The Qinglong Gorge is over ten miles long, with sheer cliffs on both sides. The entire gorge is about three zhang wide and overgrown with thorns and weeds. The front, at the dragon's mouth, is only one zhang wide, hence the name Dragon's Mouth Pass. This is an extremely dangerous military location, and troops would generally be very cautious, either sending someone to scout ahead or leaving halfway through.

But Tongzhi's army didn't care at all, because they had already passed through more than twenty such canyons on their way north. Like a frog being slowly boiled in water, their vigilance gradually diminished.

The army reached the northern exit, only to find it blocked by a giant rock.

Hearing a commotion ahead, Tongzhi immediately urged his horse forward and asked, "What's going on?"

"General, the exit is blocked by a huge boulder!"

Tongzhi was startled and quickly looked up to see two cliffs dozens of feet high on either side. He suddenly realized that he had fallen into a trap and shouted, "Retreat immediately!"

Just then, a barrage of large rocks rained down from above, striking the soldiers one after another. In an instant, countless soldiers suffered broken bones and blood splattered everywhere. The soldiers cried out and scrambled to escape.

Tongzhi's warhorse was struck on the head by a huge rock, neighed and fell to the ground, while Tongzhi was thrown a distance of ten feet.

Immediately, his personal guards rushed forward to help him up and held up their shields to protect him as he fled south.

But boulders continued to fall along the way, and many soldiers fell headlong, convulsing for a moment before becoming still.

The large group of soldiers ran back to the entrance, only to find that the entrance to the valley was also blocked by hundreds of giant trees. The soldiers tried their best to push the giant trees, but the pile of giant trees did not move at all. At the other end, more than a dozen wooden stakes were driven into the bottom, and the giant trees were nailed together with iron nails. How could they possibly push them?
Unable to push it, they could only crawl. Driven by the desire to escape home, the soldiers climbed the giant tree without hesitation. Little did they know that five thousand soldiers stood in formation on the opposite side of the tree, aiming their crossbows at them.

As soon as the first batch of hundreds of soldiers emerged, a barrage of crossbow bolts rained down upon them, striking the soldiers one after another and causing them to fall to the ground; not a single one survived.

Then a second group of soldiers emerged, but they were met with merciless crossbow bolts that pierced their skulls and chests, killing them in despair.

Soldiers escaped by climbing over the logs, only to be shot dead in turn. The open space beneath the giant logs was piled high with corpses, stacked one on top of the other like a small mountain.

This is a cruel death trap. The soldiers on the other side of the giant tree cannot see what is happening here. Even if they hear screams, they will still try to climb over the giant tree with a glimmer of hope, because only by climbing over the giant tree can they see any hope of escaping.

But as they climbed over the giant tree, only death awaited them.

Gradually, fewer and fewer soldiers climbed over the giant tree. After killing five or six thousand men, no soldiers climbed over the giant tree anymore. Hundreds of Chaisang soldiers went forward to clear away the corpses and arrows.

At the same time, soldiers on the mountaintop began throwing large amounts of rice straw and wood, along with jars of tung oil, into the valley. Then hundreds of torches were thrown down, and the valley began to burn.

Thick smoke soon filled the valley. Driven by intense fear, the soldiers began to climb the giant logs again, but what awaited them was still execution-style shooting.

From the moment their leader, Tongzhi, fell into the trap and headed north, their fate was sealed.

Gan Ning led 12,000 troops to ambush at both ends of Qinglong Gorge. From the rain of stones to the burning flames to the arrows, the Tongzhi army had nowhere to escape, and Gan Ning did not consider giving them a way out.

The fire in the valley burned for two whole days. No more soldiers climbed the pile of giant logs to escape. Instead, the soldiers went forward and pulled the giant logs apart, revealing a passage about ten feet wide.

The passageway was filled with thousands of corpses, all of whom had suffocated after coughing violently. They had all tried to climb out of the pile of giant logs, but they were too weak and eventually died in agony from being unable to breathe.

Thousands of soldiers entered the valley to clear the area, and those who were not dead were finished off with a final blow.

Xu Sheng found Tong Zhi, who had also suffocated to death. His golden helmet with ox horns made him easily recognizable, but out of caution, Xu Sheng still ordered his soldiers to carry the body out for Manager Liu to identify.

"it's him!"

Manager Liu finally felt relieved, no longer worried about being retaliated against by Tongzhi.

"He is Tongzhi. He has no sons; both of his sons died in Danyang County."

Gan Ning nodded and immediately ordered, "After burning all the corpses, bury them deeply!"

(End of this chapter)