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

To Amin, the shouts of battle outside the North Gate sounded like a pre-announced victory song.

He stood on the high slope, his heavy bearskin cloak fluttering in the cold wind. He could feel the futile struggle of the fortified city under his feigned attack, even without binoculars.

The battle is fierce!

The resistance is fierce!

There were even suicide soldiers who jumped off the city wall with a golden warrior in their arms!

Every word his confidant brought back perfectly confirmed his judgment. Chu Ze had indeed staked all his elite forces on that fake secret passage, while those on the north gate were nothing more than cannon fodder forced into a corner, forced to engage in meaningless resistance in the most primitive and brutal way.

What a foolish child from the Southern Dynasties.

A cruel and triumphant smile curled at the corners of Amin's lips. He could already imagine the magnificent sight that would be when his most elite Bayara warriors appeared from the west of the city.

He couldn't even be bothered to watch the farce at the North Gate, whose ending was already sealed, and instead pointed his binoculars at the silent darkness to the west.

That was his stage for glory.

There, all was deathly silent.

Just as this sense of triumph reached its peak, a sudden change occurred!

A strikingly incongruous orange-red light flashed past without warning from the depths of that dark western territory!

Amin froze.

Before he could even react to what it was, a second, a third, a tenth... dozens of flames shot into the sky simultaneously from all over the vast warehouse area!

Those were no ordinary torches; they were raging flames that filled the sky!

Immediately afterwards, a dull yet incredibly clear tremor resounded from the earth.

Boom! Boom—

A series of continuous explosions, not through his ears, but through the frozen ground beneath his feet and through the icy air, slammed into his chest!

The telescope slipped from his hand and fell to the snow with a dull thud.

The smugness on his face froze instantly, shattered, and was replaced by a sudden look of horror.

West City...is on fire?

There was also an explosion?

Why?!

His Bayara warriors, weren't they supposed to be launching a sneak attack? Weren't they supposed to be setting fires? But why is this fire, this explosion, so... so massive, so... terrifying?!

"Your Highness!"

"Your Highness, look!"

The guards around him also witnessed the horrifying scene, their voices filled with undisguised panic.

Amin snapped back to reality. He frantically groped around in the snow, grabbed the cold brass binoculars again, and held them up to his eyes with trembling hands.

In the footage, the once pitch-black warehouse area has now turned into a boiling, orange-red sea of ​​fire!

Enormous flames, mixed with billowing black smoke, formed ferocious tornadoes that shot into the sky hundreds of feet high! The light dyed half the night sky with an apocalyptic color, even overshadowing the firelight from the north gate!

He could clearly see the roofs of huge warehouses being torn off like pieces of paper by an invisible force! Countless burning fragments, like a meteor shower, were scattering wildly in all directions!

Amin's mind went completely blank.

"No...impossible..." he muttered to himself, unable to reconcile the hellish scene before him with his perfect surprise attack plan.

Just then, several dark figures tumbled and crawled out from the entrance of the tunnel.

Smoke was still rising from their bodies; their once fine white armor was now blackened and twisted from the heat, resembling charred corpses crawling out of hell.

"Help...help me..."

"Fire...it's demonic fire!"

"A trap! Your Highness! It's a trap—!"

Those were the white-armored soldiers he sent out! They were survivors who had narrowly escaped the dust explosion and retreated to the secret passage ahead of time!

They rushed down the slope, and on that face, burned and mangled, only a pair of eyes filled with endless terror remained. They roared and cried out, their voices shrill and inhuman.

After saying the word "trap," one of them could no longer hold on, his body went limp, and he fell straight down, never to make a sound again.

trap……

These two words struck Amin like a thunderbolt from the heavens!

That secret letter that brought hope.

The abandoned secret passage that was discovered by chance.

The fierce yet somewhat strange "bloody battle" at the North Gate.

And then there's the West City area, the grand and magnificent crematorium meticulously prepared for him!

In an instant, all the clues, all the doubts, and all the coincidences were connected in his mind.

He got it.

He understood everything.

There were no inside agents or surprise attacks from beginning to end.

It was all a setup!

A cruel deception tailor-made for that Southern Dynasty brat named Chu Ze!

And he, Aisin Gioro Amin, the second prince of the Great Jin Dynasty, was like the most foolish person in the world. He excitedly led his two thousand most elite Bayara warriors and plunged headlong into the coffin that was burning red for them!

He is not a hunter.

He was the prey.

He was the most pathetic and ridiculous clown in that great play, responsible for going on stage and screaming in agony!

"puff--"

An overwhelming surge of humiliation, anger, fear, and regret... all these emotions coalesced and crashed down upon his reason and pride! He felt a sweet taste in his throat, his vision went black, and a mouthful of scalding blood gushed out uncontrollably, splashing onto the pristine snow like a shocking red lotus.

"Your Highness!"

The generals around him gasped in alarm and rushed forward to support his swaying body.

Amin pushed them away. He stood there blankly, his body swaying, his eyes vacant, as if his soul had been drained by the fire.

He lost.

They suffered a crushing defeat, a complete and utter loss.

He lost two thousand of the most elite warriors of the Great Jin Dynasty, and he also lost all his dignity as a descendant of the Aisin Gioro clan.

Just then, a strange, unified shout came rolling in from the distant city walls of Guangning.

The sound, which was initially just a few scattered notes, quickly coalesced into an unstoppable torrent, piercing through the clamor of the North Gate battlefield and the howling of the night wind, reaching the ears of every Later Jin soldier with crystal clarity.

"Amin has lost—!"

"The Tartars have been defeated—!"

"Amin has lost—!"

"The Tartars have been defeated—!"

It was Chu Ze's voice, the voice of the Ming soldiers, and even more so, the voice of the "heavenly soldiers," a shout full of mockery and revelry!

This sound is a declaration, a judgment, and the last straw that broke the camel's back!

Beneath the North Gate, Hu Yongqiang brandished his sword, urging his men to charge forward with all his might. He was still wondering why such a commotion had broken out in the west.

When the thunderous shouts came, he froze.

Amin...lost?

How is that possible?!

Didn't Prince's surprise attack force just go in?!

He instinctively turned around and saw the sea of ​​fire that had dyed the night sky red, and heard the cries that came from the depths of his soul. A chilling coldness instantly shot from his tailbone to the back of his head.

He was scammed too!

Not only was Amin deceived, but he also became a pawn in Chu Ze's hands, used to mislead Amin!

His Han Banner soldiers were completely panicked.

They were just cannon fodder, sustained only by Amin's intimidation and their thirst for victory. Now, news of their commander's defeat arrived, and the last thread of their fighting spirit snapped.

"He lost...Belle Bellero lost?"

"Run! It's a trap!"

Someone shouted first, and then the entire attacking force collapsed as if hit by an avalanche!

The soldiers threw down their weapons and abandoned their makeshift siege ladders, crying and screaming as they turned and fled in panic. The officers' shouts and the scimitars of the supervising soldiers were utterly useless in that moment.

The army was defeated, collapsing like a mountain!

On the high slope, Amin listened to the heart-wrenching shouts and watched the army outside the north gate crumble like a receding tide. His body trembled violently once more.

His face turned from red to white, from white to green, and finally turned to ashes.

"Your Highness! Let's retreat!"

"We can't fight anymore! Let's retreat, Your Highness!"

"As long as the green hills remain, there's always firewood to burn! If we don't leave now, it'll be too late!"

The generals around him were utterly terrified. They surrounded Amin, crying and pleading. In their eyes, Guangning City was no longer a city, but a gaping maw full of fangs that devoured people.

Amin slowly, very slowly, raised her head.

He looked at the sea of ​​fire to the west, still burning fiercely, which had buried all his hopes.

He then looked around at the defeated soldiers who were terrified and whose morale had collapsed.

Finally, two streams of liquid, a mixture of blood and tears, flowed from his cloudy eyes.

An aged, hoarse roar, filled with endless resentment and despair, tore out from the depths of his throat.

"withdraw……"

"The entire army...withdraw from the encirclement—!!!"

Woo-woo-woo-woo

The mournful and urgent bugle call finally resounded throughout the entire battlefield.

That was not the clarion call for attack, nor the clarion call for victory.

It's a retreat, a clarion call signifying defeat and shame!

The Later Jin army, which had besieged Guangning City for more than a month, completely abandoned all its positions and dignity at this moment. Like stray dogs, they fled in panic to the north, to the darkness that had brought them a sense of security.

The siege of Guangning has been lifted!

"We won!"

"We won—!!!"

"oh!!!!!!"

When it was confirmed that the Later Jin army was indeed in complete retreat, a deafening cheer erupted on the walls of Guangning, a cheer that could shake the heavens!

The fear that had been suppressed for too long transformed into the purest and wildest joy at this moment!

The players threw their weapons into the air, hugged each other, jumped and danced like a group of children who had won the World Cup.

Shi Dali grabbed Wang Han beside him, lifting his 200-plus-pound body into the air, and roared excitedly, "Chairman! I knew it! Following the General is so exhilarating! It's fucking awesome!"

In Qian Lele's live stream, the chat had completely disappeared, leaving only a screen full of "Victory" and "Awesome." She herself had forgotten about the live stream, just laughing and jumping around like an idiot, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.

The surviving Ming soldiers and the civilians who had been living in fear in the city for more than a month rushed out from their hiding places after hearing the cheers coming from the city walls.

They embraced each other, weeping with joy.

Many people knelt on the ground, kissing the solid land beneath their feet, a land that had survived the ravages of war but had ultimately been defended, and wept bitterly.

Wang Erniu stood atop the city wall, watching the Tartars flee in panic outside the city. Tears streamed down his thick, bushy beard. He turned around and knelt deeply, deeply, in the direction of the clock tower in the city center, the direction where the young commander-in-chief was.

The entire city of Guangning was filled with jubilation.

However, at the heart of this sea of ​​revelry, atop the clock tower, Chu Ze remained unusually calm.

He stood in the howling wind, looking down at the enemy troops departing outside the city and at the cheering crowds inside, his face devoid of any joy.

His consciousness was immersed in a vaster world that only he could see.

[Landscape and State Map]

This ancient scroll was unfolding wildly in his mind, greedily absorbing invisible yet incredibly powerful forces!

[Historical event detected: Guangning relieved of siege!]

[Event Rating: Perfect!]

[Currently absorbing the momentum of "victory"... the desire of "the people"... the power to "reverse history"...]

[Spiritual energy is being transformed in large quantities!]

A stream of golden data, like a flood bursting its banks, surged wildly into the scroll.

Chu Ze could sense that the "people's hearts" and "military spirit" that had been gathered throughout Guangning City were deeply merging with the Mountain and River Map after this exhilarating victory. On the map, the outline of Guangning City became clearer and more solid than ever before, radiating a faint golden light.

The vast spiritual energy, gathered from kills, victories, popular support, and the overall trend, poured into the center of the scroll like a surging river.

There, an area that was originally blurry and shrouded in layers of mist is slowly, little by little, being illuminated.

[Spiritual energy reserves have reached the upgrade standard...]

[The core module of the "Map of Mountains and Rivers" is being unlocked...]

Phase Two: Expansion and Foundation Laying

[New features being unlocked...]

[Public beta access... unlocked!]

[GM privileges (intermediate)...unlocked!]

A series of notification sounds exploded in Chu Ze's mind.

The survival crisis in Guangning has been resolved.

But he knew.

The real war has only just begun from this moment on.

He raised his head, his gaze passing over the cheering crowd below, over the enemy troops fleeing in panic outside the city, and looking towards the more distant and deeper north.

The siege of Guangning has been lifted.

Chu Ze, however, was far from relaxed.

"The Tartars have bypassed Mongolia and attacked the capital."

Chu Ze still remembered what that person said when they left.

"Chu Ze, nine thousand Guan Ning cavalry will follow me to the capital to defend the emperor. While I am away, you must hold Guangning. Guangning must not be lost!"

Chu Ze silently gazed southwest.

What is the current situation of Yuan Chonghuan, the military governor who led his troops back to reinforce the capital?