Late Ming Dynasty: Summoning players from Liaodong to support the Ming Dynasty

The night wind was like a knife, sweeping across the desolate wilderness of Liaodong.

The sound of hooves was chaotic and weak. Hu Yongqiang lay sprawled on the horse's back, each jolt causing excruciating pain in his shoulder blades and legs. The metallic, sweet smell of metal rose in his throat, mingling with the cold wind rushing into his nostrils, making him want to vomit.

He dared not stop.

The city of Guangning, standing silently in the darkness behind him, now appeared in his eyes as a demonic abyss that had devoured five hundred elite soldiers and buried his entire future.

The figure wielding the gun, the piercing words, and the terrifying gunmanship that crushed him to the bone—all these became like maggots clinging to his bones, endlessly reverberating and gnawing at his mind.

Finally, the distant, continuous flames appeared on the horizon.

We've arrived at the Later Jin camp.

Exhausted, the warhorse let out a mournful whinny, its front hooves buckled, and it threw him heavily to the ground.

"Open the gate! Open the gate!" Ignoring the mud and pebbles covering his body, Hu Yongqiang used his intact left hand to drag his two broken legs forward, screaming hoarsely towards the camp gate, "It's me, Hu Yongqiang! Open the gate!"

The sentry at the camp gate was startled by the ghostly appearance. He recognized the person by the light of the torch and quickly reported it.

Soon, the heavy camp gate was pulled open a crack.

Hu Yongqiang scrambled inside, grabbing the trouser leg of a Han Banner soldier who came to help him, and screamed in an almost manic tone, "Your Highness! Take me to see Your Highness! Something terrible has happened! There's sorcery in Guangning City!"

……

Inside Amin's command tent, the smell of alcohol mingled with the aroma of roasted meat.

The Second Prince of the Later Jin was shirtless, revealing his muscular chest covered in scars, as he stuffed a large, sizzling lamb leg into his mouth, his saliva dripping with oil. Inside the tent, several newly surrendered Han generals sat upright, their faces beaming with smiles, not daring to breathe too loudly.

Just then, the tent flap was suddenly flung open.

Hu Yongqiang was half-dragged and half-carried in. As soon as he broke free of his restraints, he fell heavily to his knees with a thud, his two broken legs hitting the ground with a dull thud.

"Your Highness!"

Tears streamed down his face as he pounded his forehead against the cold ground, his voice trembling with anguish.

"You incompetent servant! Five hundred warriors... all gone! All gone!"

The commotion inside the command tent abruptly ceased.

Everyone stopped moving and stared at the emaciated, blood-covered person on the ground.

Amin slammed the half-eaten lamb leg heavily onto the table, splattering oil everywhere. His already small eyes flashed with a terrifying glint, and he strode over to Hu Yongqiang, delivering a merciless kick to Hu Yongqiang's chest with his large, fan-like foot.

"waste!"

Hu Yongqiang was kicked and sent flying backward, rolling twice on the ground. He spat out a mouthful of blood, but struggled to crawl back, knelt down again, and kowtowed repeatedly.

"Your Highness! It's not that this servant is incompetent! It's that there are ghosts in Guangning City! Unkillable ghosts!"

"Bullshit!" Amin roared in fury. He hated cowards who made excuses after losing a battle. He grabbed Hu Yongqiang by the hair, lifted his face up, and spat in his face. "Five hundred brave warriors from the Great Jin Dynasty, you took them out for a stroll, and you're the only dog ​​left crawling back. You're telling me something's fishy?"

Hu Yongqiang's scalp tingled from being grabbed, but instead of showing fear, he appeared even more frantic due to extreme terror.

"It's true, Your Highness!" he roared, his voice cracking with excitement. "Those people... those Han dogs guarding the city, they're impossible to kill! I saw with my own eyes, one blade severing the head of a sorcerer, but in the blink of an eye, he reappeared from behind the city wall, without even a scar!"

"The lackeys' swords severed their arms, their arrows pierced our chests, yet they remained unfazed, still laughing! They were laughing! They weren't human! They were a horde of demons crawled out of hell!"

Hu Yongqiang's description was filled with chaos and madness, but the deep-seated fear was so real that it made the temperature in the entire command tent drop a few degrees.

The gloating expressions on the faces of the Han army generals who were sitting with them gradually froze. They looked at each other, and in each other's reactions, they saw surprise and uncertainty.

Amin's movements also stopped.

Although he was tyrannical, he wasn't stupid. He remembered the spies he had sent out before, who had also never returned. Hu Yongqiang could lie to shirk responsibility, but five hundred elite Han Banner soldiers couldn't simply vanish into thin air.

Moreover, he also heard bits and pieces of rumors about "heavenly soldiers" and "immortal armies" from other scattered fleeing soldiers. However, those soldiers were already terrified and incoherent, so he took them as just the nonsense of those who had been defeated.

But now that it's Hu Yongqiang, the commander, saying it himself, it carries a completely different weight.

A chill ran through Amin for no apparent reason. He released his grip, letting Hu Yongqiang collapse to the ground.

He looked at the traitor he had personally promoted; his once clean face was now covered in blood and tears, a truly ugly sight that filled him with disgust.

But he can't kill Hu Yongqiang now.

If he were to kill Hu Yongqiang, this "princeling," in front of so many surrendered Han generals just because of a single defeat, who would dare to truly serve him in the future? The morale of the army would collapse.

Suppressing the murderous intent in her heart, Amin walked back to her seat, grabbed the wine flask, took a big gulp, and gruffly said, "Alright, stop howling! Get up and answer!"

Seeing that Amin didn't immediately lash out, Hu Yongqiang felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He knew he'd made the right gamble! As long as he muddied the waters and shifted the blame to these inexplicable "witchcraft," he had a chance to survive!

Instead of restraining himself, he put on an even more enthusiastic performance, using a hoarse voice to embellish the brutality of the Ximen ambush.

In his description, the cement maze became a ghost town built with sorcery, and the players became blue-faced, fanged, and invulnerable demons. Hu Yongqiang, on the other hand, was a tragic hero who fought desperately against the sorcerers to cover the retreat of his comrades in a desperate situation, and was eventually captured after exhausting himself and suffering torture before finally escaping.

He even lifted his tattered armor to reveal his shoulder blade, pierced by a spear, and his two wounded legs.

"Your Highness, please look! This is the demon leader Chu Ze, wounded by his sorcery! This servant... this servant fought to the death, and though defeated, I have no regrets!"

Amin frowned even more deeply as he looked at Hu Yongqiang's gruesome injuries. He didn't care whether Hu Yongqiang lived or died, but he had to find out what had happened in Guangning City.

Just as the atmosphere inside the tent was tense, a glint of light flashed in Hu Yongqiang's eyes. He seized the opportunity, struggled to crawl forward two steps, and lowered his voice in a tone of offering a treasure.

"Your Highness, please calm your anger! Although I was defeated, I managed to see through the methods of those sorcerers even at the cost of my life!"

This sentence successfully captured Amin's full attention.

"explain!"

"Those sorcerers, though unkillable, I've discovered that each time they 'die,' they consume their physical bodies! And they also need to eat and drink!" Hu Yongqiang said decisively. "They are not true ghosts or gods! As long as we surround Guangning City without attacking, turning it into an iron barrel, we can cut off their supplies!"

"The city has 100,000 soldiers and civilians; imagine the enormous amount of food they consume daily! Once their supplies run out and morale collapses, not only will those demons starve, but even true immortals will die of hunger within the city! At that point, Guangning City will be within our grasp!"

Hu Yongqiang's words were like a bolt of lightning, shattering Amin's mind, which had been in turmoil due to the "sorcery".

Yup!

Forget about sorcery and ghosts, people still need to eat!

A besieged city, long desolate, is running low on food and supplies. If we tighten the encirclement just a little more and drag things out a little longer, the people inside will start to panic!

The outcome of a battle isn't always decided on the battlefield. A war of attrition can also wear them down!

This simple principle allowed Amin to instantly find a way to deal with Guangning City, this "tough nut to crack." His previous contempt for Guangning had vanished completely. A city that could send five hundred elite soldiers to their doom, and which also harbored such an unkillable "demon," was now worth his utmost effort to deal with.

"Pass on my orders!" Amin suddenly stood up, his burly body exuding a fierce aura as he roared towards the outside of the tent.

"Summon all Niru Ejen! Order each banner to dig deep trenches and build high fortifications around Guangning City, creating a continuous encirclement! From today onwards, not even a fly will be able to fly out of Guangning City!"

"Pass the order down: double the number of patrols! Anyone attempting to approach Guangning City, whether soldier or civilian, will be killed on sight!"

"I'm going to turn Guangning City into a true ghost town!"

One command after another emanated from the command tent, carrying Amin's tyrannical and ruthless determination.

The entire Later Jin camp, this massive war machine, was once again running at high speed thanks to the intelligence brought back by Hu Yongqiang and that seemingly simple and crude suggestion.

As for those "demons" that cannot be killed, Amin snorted and looked at a shaman in the corner who was wearing an animal skin and whose face was covered with paint.

"Go, prepare plenty of black dog blood for me! And some more filth! I refuse to believe that these Han traitors' sorcery can surpass the might of our Eternal Heaven's warriors!"

"twitter!"

The shaman bowed and accepted the order, his eyes flashing with a fanatical and eerie light.

Seeing all this, Hu Yongqiang finally let out a long sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground. The intense pain almost made him faint, but a smug smile appeared on his lips.

He survived.

As he was carried out of the command tent by two soldiers, he glanced back at the brightly lit tent, and the relief of surviving the ordeal on his face was gradually replaced by a sinister look.

He could sense that Amin's gaze was still full of disgust and disdain.

The claim of him being a "demon" was merely an excuse to save his life temporarily. Amin adopted his siege strategy simply because it was the safest method.

His sins were not truly washed away.

He must find another opportunity to distinguish himself during the ensuing siege and regain the prince's trust through genuine military achievements.

"Chu Ze..."

Hu Yongqiang gritted his teeth, silently repeating the name in his heart, the resentment and hatred almost overflowing from his cloudy eyes.

"You wait... When the city falls, I will make you wish you were dead!"