Border Soldier: My fiancée snatched credit and broke off the engagement, so I promptly became a marq

Before dawn, the battering ram had already been carried to the south wall of the inner fortress.

The remaining three-zhang-long (approximately 10 meters) crossbeam of the ancestral hall was wrapped with iron hoops salvaged from a fake silver cart at its front end. Four hundred soldiers were divided into eight teams of fifty men each, taking turns carrying and striking it.

At the very front were seventy-one heavily armed soldiers, still able to don their armor.

They were originally cavalrymen.

The horse died in the previous battles, so the men dismounted. The spear broke, so they replaced it with a sword; the sword dulled, so they replaced it with an axe. He put on the heavy armor of the Han family that he had captured yesterday, his black teeth all smashed out, the exposed dents covered with soot.

Lu Shuangyi stood in the first row.

Lin Qinghe wrapped two more layers of stiff cloth around her left rib, but still couldn't persuade her to stay.

Anato led 120 light cavalry to circle around to the north of the inner fortress, guarding the horse path through which Han Wanshan might escape. Su Wan led the people of the three streets to guard the east and west sides; anyone climbing down from the fortress wall should be thrown stones first, then given a knife.

Chen Mu did not leave the medical tent.

At least not on the first impact.

"Collide!"

The crossbeam struck the brick wall that had been cracked by the fire.

A layer of dust settled.

Stones and hot oil rolled down the inner fortress wall, and the first rank of heavy infantry raised their shields to block them. The oil flowed down the shields, followed by fire arrows, and the three men were instantly turned into fireballs.

They did not run into the crowd.

The three men, clutching their shields, rushed to the base of the wall, using their bodies to suppress the flames and allow the battering rams behind them to continue passing.

The second impact caused it to fall.

The crack in the wall was about a hand's width wide.

Han Wanshan appeared at the arrow tower.

He had changed out of yesterday's black armor and was now wearing a suit of gold-threaded chainmail, with seven real silver chests behind him.

"Chen Mu!"

"I'll give you the White Wolf prison, and the silver too!"

"You retreat three miles, and I'll take two hundred men and leave!"

No one answered from under the wall.

The third one was hit.

The iron hoop at the front end of the crossbeam is deformed, and a section of the south wall is recessed inward.

Han Wanshan kicked over the first silver box.

Silver spilled from the wall, scattering across the ground. The men carrying the battering ram glanced at it instinctively, but didn't stop.

A soldier was hit on the forehead by a silver ingot, picked it up, and threw it back against the wall.

"Kill you, and all seven boxes will be ours!"

A burst of laughter erupted from below the wall.

On the fourth ramming, the inner fortress guards began throwing silver down.

Throwing in a box makes the impact on the wood even heavier.

The fifth time, the south wall collapsed.

Bricks and stones pinned down the first twenty-odd men, but the breach opened to a width of two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters). Seventy-one heavily armed soldiers with black cauldrons stepped over the broken walls and rushed in. The last two hundred-odd personal guards of the Han family had already formed ranks in the courtyard.

Lu Shuangyi was the first to bump into it.

Two rows of spears pierced her shield simultaneously. She was pushed back three steps, and the heavy soldiers behind her pressed against her back, while the entire wall of gray armor pressed back down.

Both sides were stuck in the gap, neither able to swing their swords.

The heavy-duty soldiers then rammed the black pot with their heads, bit it with their teeth, and rammed it with their knees. An old cavalryman, his abdomen pierced by a spear, simply grabbed the spear shaft and dragged it into his own body, pulling the armed guard in front of him and biting off his ear.

The soldier behind him slashed at his shoulder.

The front rank of the imperial guards fell one by one.

Han Wanshan ordered archers to fire arrows from the rooftops on both sides into the gap. This was the moment Su Wan had been waiting for.

Seven cartloads of stones were piled up on the ruins of the ancestral hall.

The residents of the three streets used door planks to create a seesaw; when a dozen or so people pressed down, all the stones were thrown onto the roof. Not many archers were killed, but the tiled roof collapsed first. More than twenty people fell into the courtyard with the broken tiles and were surrounded by the soldiers who rushed in.

Ladders were soon erected against the east wall as well.

The first to climb the wall was the boy who had just recovered from a shoulder injury and was delivering food. He wore his father's old helmet, and didn't have a suitable knife at his waist, only a bundle of rope on his back. After climbing up the wall, he wrapped the end of the rope around the arrow slits and shouted down.

"Come on up!"

A dozen or so children, like him, who had lost their fathers, climbed up the wall using ropes to pass arrows to the archers behind them. The adults climbed up from the other side, leaving the guards on the east wall vulnerable from both sides.

The side gate of the west wall was also broken open by the guards of the granary.

The inner fortress was covered in soot on three sides.

The Han family's personal guards began to retreat towards the north courtyard.

Han Wanshan personally killed two people who were retreating, but a third person turned around and blocked his knife.

"General."

There's food outside.

Han Wanshan cleaved his face open with a single stroke.

More people will see it.

The remaining guards stopped blocking the breach; half threw down their knives and knelt, while the other half escaped by scaling the wall. Han Wanshan was left with only about sixty assassins he had brought from Han Family Village.

He finally abandoned his post at the arrow tower.

Seven carriages made of pure silver were pushed out from the north courtyard, each drawn by twelve horses with full saddles. Han Wanshan led his bodyguards to escort the carriages, heading straight for the snow-covered horse trail.

The exit of the horse trail has been half dug out.

Anato was waiting outside.

One hundred and twenty light cavalrymen did not charge, but fired three rounds of arrows at the cave entrance. The first four silver carriages blocked the narrow passage, their horses fell to the ground after being hit by arrows, and the people behind them were all crowded together.

Ma Sanque was also there.

He rode a gray mule, leading a tall black horse. It was the last good horse Han Wanshan had left in the inner fortress, which had just been brought out of the north courtyard by the stable boy.

Ma Sanque hung his grandson's wooden horse on the black saddle.

"This horse belongs to my grandson."

Han Wanshan's expression finally changed when he saw his horse.

He abandoned the silver chariot and led his men back.

Lu Shuangyi attacked from behind.

Of the seventy-one heavy infantrymen beside her, only forty-six remained, and the cloth strip on her left side was soaked with blood. She still managed to kill the assassin in front of Han Wanshan with a single spear thrust, forcing him to leave the horse path.

Han Wanshan turned around and stabbed.

The knife pierced through the spear shaft and cut into Lu Shuangyi's shoulder armor.

She knelt down on one side, but her hand gripped the back of Han Wanshan's knife, preventing him from pulling it out.

"Chen Mu!"

Chen Mu has arrived.

He did not ride in the medical vehicle.

The medical cart had been smashed in the south alley. Er Gou's old cook from the kitchen battalion carried him step by step through the collapsed wall into the inner fortress. Lin Qinghe followed behind carrying the medicine box, her face so cold that no one dared to stop her.

Upon reaching the north courtyard, Chen Mu instructed the old soldier to put it down.

When his right foot landed, his entire leg was shaking. One of the newly stitched sutures under his ribs burst open, and blood flowed down his belt.

Unable to draw his sword, Han Wanshan let go and lunged at the assassin beside him.

He snatched a long spear and thrust it straight at Chen Mu's chest.

Chen Mu did not dodge.

His body was already unable to dodge.

His left-hand short axe struck the spear shaft, the spearhead veering half a foot off course, but still piercing his right shoulder. The old wound was reopened, and Chen Mu was pushed backward.

Han Wanshan gripped his gun and pushed forward.

"You lowly soldier who feeds horses and cooks pots, how dare you block my way!"

Chen Mu gripped the gun barrel with his left hand.

"You can't hold on."

"It's not yours."

Han Wanshan wanted to draw his gun and stab again.

The spearhead was stuck in Chen Mu's shoulder bone.

Chen Mu stepped forward instead, pushing the gun even deeper. Only an arm's length separated the two men, and his short axe finally reached Han Wanshan.

The first axe strike hit the gold-threaded chainmail.

The ring 1 broke.

The second axe blow pierced the collarbone.

Han Wanshan released his spear and drew his saber, aiming for Chen Mu's neck. Anato shot an arrow that struck his wrist, while Lu Shuangyi grabbed his left leg from the ground.

The waist knife fell to the ground.

Chen Mu pulled the spear from his shoulder, drawing blood.

He did not use a gun.

The third axe blow slashed horizontally across Han Wanshan's neck.

The head wasn't severed.

Han Wanshan still wants to withdraw.

Chen Mu grabbed him by the collar of his golden armor and pressed him against a real silver box.

The fourth axe blow landed.

The human head rolled into the silver.

The inner fortress fell silent.

The last sixty Han family assassins still had some knives in their hands, but most were staring at the head beside the silver box. Anato drew her bow, and Lu Shuangyi stood up, spear in hand. Three walls were lined with Guan Min holding crossbows.

The first knife fell to the ground.

Then came the second round.

The last members of the Han family at White Wolf Pass all knelt down.

In this battle, the attacking side lost another 83 men, leaving only 46 heavy infantrymen. Han's personal guard suffered over 170 deaths, 96 surrendered, and the rest fled from the north wall.

All seven silver carriages were present.

More than 38,000 taels of silver, more than 600 taels of gold, 27 boxes of pearls, jade and leather goods were unearthed from the inner fort. In addition, there were five warehouses of fine rice for the Han family, two warehouses of dried meat, and a cellar full of fine wine.

The North Wing also held more than 180 servants, stable boys, and women who had been kidnapped.

After the door lock was broken, everyone went to look at Han Wanshan's head first.

Some people spat, some hit them with the soles of their shoes, and an old man whose daughter had been taken away by Han Wanshan was hit more than twenty times with his cane.

The old man knocked until he was too weak to continue, when suddenly a woman wearing an old sheepskin ran out from the north courtyard.

She was half the size the old man remembered, and there was a brand on her left cheek. Father and daughter stared at Han Wanshan's body for a long time, neither daring to recognize him first.

Finally, the woman called out "Father."

The old man dropped his cane.

As the two embraced, dozens more civilians from the north courtyard squeezed in, searching for someone. Some had found their wives, some their sisters, and others had only heard from servants that their loved ones had already died.

If they couldn't find anyone, they went to the Han family's house to move their belongings.

Quilts, clothes, bronze mirrors, jewelry—anything recognizable was taken back. Unrecognizable items were piled in the courtyard and given to those whose houses had burned down. Han Wanshan's carved bed in his bedroom was also dismantled; the bed boards were carried to the medical tent, and the bedposts were chopped into firewood for boiling water.

A woman who had just been released took Madam Han's fox fur coat and draped it over the child who was only wearing a single layer of clothing.

"In the past, even touching it would get you whipped."

"It's fine as long as it's warm now."

The Han family moved out their belongings, accumulated over decades, one by one from inside the house, and no one dared to stop them.

Su Wan did not stop her.

She took seven silver carts to the main street, distributing half to the dead and those whose houses had been burned, and keeping the other half to buy grain, horses, and repair the gate walls. The gold was not locked back in the vault, but given first to the medical tents, furnace workers, and grain delivery caravans.

Er Gou was also carried into the inner fort.

His first words after waking up were still to find the pot.

The old soldier from the kitchen led him to the Han family's main kitchen. On the stove sat a large black iron pot, big enough for two adults to lie down in, three times the size of the old pot he had thrown away.

Er Gou reached out and touched the edge of the pot, laughing so hard that his wound bled again.

"This is enough to cook three thousand people."

"Cook it first," Chen Mu said.

The large cauldron was placed in the inner courtyard of the fort that day.

One of the five granaries of fine rice was opened, and half of the two granaries of dried meat were opened. Soldiers from White Wolf Pass, Black Pot Cavalry, surrendered soldiers, merchants, stable boys, and newly released women all came to collect their food.

It doesn't matter who arrived first.

There's meat in the pot.

Han Wanshan's head was hung on the highest arrow tower of Bailang Pass. The Black Mountain Flag was lowered from the main pole and replaced with a huge black pot flag.

As the flag reached its peak, the sound of banging pots and pans echoed simultaneously from three streets inside the pass.

Chen Mu couldn't stand and could only lean on Lu Shuangyi and Anado's shoulders. Lin Qinghe pressed on his wound from behind, while Su Wan pushed open the entire gate of the White Wolf Gate.

Merchants in the southern salt-horse market have already seen the new flags.

Three unfamiliar horse caravans were also stopped at the mountain pass in the snowy plains to the north.

They had neither the Black Mountain Flag nor the soot from the pot; they could only see the heads on the gate wall and the large pot inside the city gate from afar.

Chen Mu raised his left hand.

"Open the door."

"Let them bring in grain, horses, and silver."

"Those who want to grab it, come in too."

"From this day forward, Bailang Pass will no longer belong to the Han family."