In a chaotic and famine-stricken era, I picked up an empress to be my wife.

Yuwen Qin's words invigorated all the generals.

A few hours ago, 20,000 soldiers perished in the fire, leaving their morale low.

Now, they have finally found their chance to fight back!

We are determined to capture Shen An!

Two hours later, the dark clouds dispersed, the moon came out, and visibility improved considerably.

"My lord, look! Torches are appearing at the foot of the mountain, and we can hear the sound of horses' hooves!"

Zhang Chi, with his sharp eyes, immediately observed, "Please send someone to investigate whether these are soldiers led by General Tianhou!"

"It's good to be cautious. Han Ming, take some men and go investigate!" Yuwen Qin instructed.

"yes!"

A skilled young man quickly disappeared into the woods.

Fifteen minutes later.

Han Ming reappeared: "Report! The people approaching are General Tianhou's men, and General Tianhou is among them!"

"Could you ask them about the specific casualties?"

"General Tianhou just told me to inform you that after Shen An was lured to Nanling Prefecture, he was attacked from both sides and almost completely annihilated. Shen An escaped with only a few hundred men!"

"Good, good! We still have tens of thousands of people. Even if Shen An and his men had wings, we could still capture them!" Yuwen Qin finally felt at ease.

But this was followed by rage: "That damned Shen An! He schemed against us, causing us to lose 20,000 soldiers! We must settle this score with them tonight! Everyone, come out! We're going to rendezvous with General Tianhou!"

"yes!"

After all their soldiers came out.

The army below the mountain had also arrived, and from a distance, it could be seen that they were dressed in the same clothes as those led by Yuwen Tianhou.

The rider at the very front was none other than Yuwen Tianhou.

"Heavens, heavens! Good nephew!" Yuwen Qin waved his hand.

"No, no!"

Suddenly, Zhang Chi realized something was wrong.

"What's wrong?"

"General Tianhou's expression is off!" Zhang Chi said.

"look?"

Yuwen Qin squinted, about to look.

"Whoosh whoosh!"

A barrage of small crossbow bolts appeared in the sky, raining down on them like a sudden downpour!

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of unsuspecting soldiers perished.

"Heavens, what are you doing! How dare you draw your swords against me?!"

"My lord, General Tianhou has been captured, and those arrows are from the single-person repeating crossbow commonly used by Shen An's army!"

Zhang Chi saw through the situation!

"What?!"

Yuwen Qin's heart sank suddenly.

Doesn't this mean that Yuwen Tianhou is under Shen An's control, and that all the previous news was false?

If that's the case!

How powerful are Shen An's 20,000 troops?

Their 30,000 men were no match for Shen An's army!

Yuwen Qin made a decisive decision: "Retreat! Retreat!"

"Kill him! Whoever kills Yuwen Qin will be rewarded with ten thousand taels of gold!"

As soon as Yuwen Qin finished speaking, Shen An's voice echoed through the valley like thunder.

Upon hearing this, the soldiers of the city's garrison, as if injected with adrenaline, gave chase in a frenzy.

This battle lasted less than half an hour.

Yuwen Qin's men promptly felled several large trees, causing some rocks to tumble down and block Shen An's army's path.

When Wang Junfeng tried to jump over and continue the pursuit...

Shen An stopped him, saying, "Don't pursue a cornered enemy!"

The reason they stopped pursuing was not because of Shen An, but because of their previous battle with Yuwen Tianhou. Although they had set traps fifty miles outside Mermaid Cliff and launched a surprise attack, the enemy's numbers far exceeded theirs.

In this battle, Shen An's side suffered over two thousand casualties, and almost everyone who remained was wounded, making it impossible for them to continue fighting to the death with the enemy!

Of course, they suffered considerable losses, but the enemy fared even worse, with over 8,000 deaths and almost all of them wounded. Seeing the situation was unfavorable, they chose to retreat immediately.

Fortunately, Wang Junfeng had been keeping an eye on Yuwen Tianhou, just as they were preparing to escape.

He charged into the enemy camp alone on horseback, forcibly captured them, and that's how the scene just now unfolded.

To save his own life, Yuwen Tianhou immediately betrayed Yuwen Qin and obediently cooperated with him, luring them to this place.

"My lord, this is the perfect opportunity to annihilate them!" Wang Junfeng was full of fighting spirit; he desperately wanted to make a great contribution to Shen An.

"No rush. We need to go back and replace some of the seriously wounded soldiers. After that, if Li Huaiyi launches a sneak attack on Yuwen Qin's prefecture, you and I will lead the army to attack!" Shen An praised.

"good!"

The next day at noon, Shen An and the others returned to Qingyang City.

Even after the cleanup, traces of the fire still remain in Qingyang City.

When Dugu Meng and the others saw Shen An return, their hearts, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down.

Dugu Meng disregarded everything and climbed down from the city wall to Shen An's side.

Completely disregarding the fact that there were other people around, she rushed into Shen An's arms.

"You're alive! That's wonderful! That's wonderful!"

Shen An felt that after such a life-or-death separation, even if they were friends, it was nothing to hug each other to express their emotions.

But he overlooked one thing: he and Shen Xiaoqi knew that Dugu Meng was a woman, but no one else knew that Dugu Meng was a woman!

Everyone looked at Shen An without any rejection.

One by one, they showed expressions of sudden realization!

No wonder, no wonder, Shen An, as the lord of a city, has never had any intention of taking a few concubines.

So that's what he had in common!

Many people felt a tightness in their anus, fearing that Shen An might also have taken a liking to them.

After Dugu Meng left Shen An's arms, Shen An saw the reactions of the others and realized that something was wrong.

He cursed inwardly again, but he still couldn't let others know that Dugu Meng was a woman. Otherwise, if the fake emperor found out that the real emperor was here, they wouldn't be able to withstand it with their strength.

He could only force a weak hum and say, "It's not what you think, don't overthink it!"

But the more you explain, the worse it gets. Even if everyone's expressions return to normal, their inner thoughts remain unchanged.

When Shen An returned, the people lined the streets to welcome him.

Apart from the families of the fallen soldiers, everyone cheered and felt genuinely proud.

They had thought about Shen Anqiang, but they never imagined he would end up in this predicament.

The raging inferno, in particular, made them feel that it was all a miracle.

Compared to the rumors that he was the son of the Prince of Zhennan, they believed more that Shen An was the embodiment of the dragon, a descendant of the dragon!

Although Shen An had won the battle, he was still deeply saddened by the loss of more than two thousand brothers.

He announced to the public that each of his deceased brothers would receive a settlement allowance of fifty taels of silver!

This statement came out.

Everyone was shocked. Other armies gave a maximum of five taels of silver as a resettlement allowance, but Shen An had increased it tenfold!

Two thousand people, fifty taels each, that's a hundred thousand taels of silver!

Shen An did this partly because he genuinely wanted to make up for their grief over losing their son, so that the brothers who died would not have died in vain.

Secondly, he also wanted to show other people who were interested in joining the army that the treatment he, Shen An, gave to his soldiers far exceeded that of other warlords.

Dugu Meng greatly approved of Shen An's approach. She believed that as long as they could win the hearts of the people, they would eventually be able to march on the capital and bring down that imposter.

Dugu Meng and the others all thought that Shen An would choose to rest and recuperate upon his return!

But he didn't!

Mr. Mingyue received news that Li Huaiyi had launched a sneak attack on Yuwen Qin's stronghold. Now was the perfect opportunity to watch them fight like dogs while he stepped in to clean up the mess. He couldn't miss it!

He redeployed the 5,000 soldiers who were originally guarding the city, allowing the more seriously wounded to return to the city to recuperate, while the less seriously wounded continued to follow him.

They headed towards the prefecture where Yuwen Qin was located.

An hour later, Yuwen Qin still hadn't returned to his prefecture.

The reason, of course, was that Li Huaiyi had launched a surprise attack on his stronghold.

He needs to defeat Li Huaiyi's army to return home, otherwise his prefecture will be occupied by Li Huaiyi!

The only good news was that Yuwen Tianhou's men, who had been ambushed and fled by Shen An, had returned, giving them the strength to fight against the 60,000-strong army sent by Li Huaiyi.

This time, Li Huaiyi personally led his army here, and now they are not far from capturing the city of the prefecture.

If we continue the attack for a day, we can definitely break through it.

Li Huaiyi was quite pleased with his decision to launch a sneak attack.

"Your Excellency, news has arrived that Yuwen Qin has returned with a large army!" Cui Tianhe reported.

"Whether he comes back or not, keep attacking! We must take this city!" Li Huaiyi had a plan. As long as they took this city, they could turn the tables and control the situation!