Chapter 538

“Has the Lord taken the Wolf Cavalry to Ruyin?” Ge Jun asked.

“Mm.” Gao Shun nodded.

“Is he going to start a surprise raid?”

“Mm.”

“The Formation Breaker is too slow so the Lord ordered you to stay behind and wait for the others at the rear?”

“Mm.”

“Has the Yingshang City been scouted out? How many soldiers are there?”

“Look.” Gao Shun replied as he showed his notes. All of the details regarding Yingshang such as the number of troops, the width of the moat and other information were written in it.

“Will you die if you speak more?” Zhang Hu could not take it anymore. He then cupped his fist at Zhang Liao, proclaimed that he was sick and took his leave.

“Old Gao!” Zhang Liao laughed bitterly as he shook his head. He was still able to adapt to Gao Shun as they had worked together for so long.

“Capture Yingshang and garrison troops!” Gao Shun finally said more than one word.

Zhang Liao also had the same idea. The real question was how? His heavy cavalry was not suited for sieging cities. The Formation Breaker who were heavy infantry was not enough for the job.

“Take Yingshang, attack the heart.” Gao Shun said to Zhang Liao.

“Attack the heart? How?” Zhang Liao asked.

“Think for yourself!”

Ge Jun also couldn’t take it anymore took sick leave.

Gao Shun was really unsuitable to be a commander. He could train the troops and fight as commanded but if you need strategy, you were better off looking elsewhere.

“Report! A general is outside the camp requesting an audience!”

***

The next morning, Zhang Liao and Gao Shun’s armies left their camp and headed towards Yingshang. Yingshang no longer looked as prosperous as before ever since it was attacked by Liu Mang.

“Old Gao, look at Yingshang now. It was once such a strong city!” Before this, Yingshang was a prosperous city that Zhang Liao would throw soldiers at it to obtain. However, now it was mostly destroyed by Liu Mang’s ballista.

“Old Gao. Should we have your Formation Breaker attack?” Zhang Liao teased.

Yingshang had tall walls and a moat. When Liu Mang attacked, he used ballistas instead of filling up the moat to reduce casualties.

“No” Gao Shun replied without even needing to think.

“Old Gao, are you disobeying orders?” Zhang Liao laughed, taking revenge for when he was left to wait outside the camp while Gao Shun rested.

Although Zhang Liao was just joking, Gao Shun took it seriously. “Are you dumb? Attack? I’m not dumb! No!”

In the end, Zhang Liao could only say he was just joking to close the matter.

“Zhang Hu. Go to the front and call out to them!” They could only attack the heart for Yingshang.

“Understood!” Zhang Hu nodded and rode towards Yingshang. His time together with Gao Shun made him feel stifled. Now was his chance to shout.

“You bastards on the walls! Listen up! Your grandfather Zhang Hu is here! If you are tactful, you will open the gates now! Otherwise, all of you will be dead when the city is captured!” Zhang Hu’s voice was loud enough for all those soldiers on the city walls to hear him.

“The Yangzhou Army is here! What do we do?” The defenders on the wall panicked. There were only five thousand of them in total while Yingshang was quite big. Yingshang’s current general was also a nameless person. He was only chosen to be the governor as he could read a little.

“Do not panic! We have walls and the moat! The city won’t fall so quickly!” The general shouted as he tried to calm the soldiers down. Instead of his intended result, the soldiers became more nervous. Saying that the city won’t fall so quickly meant that the city would eventually fall anyway.

“Stand strong! Imperial Uncle Liu will definitely come and save us!” The governor shouted. If it was not because of Liu Bei, he would at most just be a teacher. Liu Bei was the one who appointed him as a governor. This was like a dream which is also why he was thankful towards Liu Bei. If Yingshang were to fall, how was he to remain a governor?

Of course, there won’t be any reinforcements. Liu Bei’s constant defeat left him powerless to even defend himself. However, these people believed their own lies. They had hope for as long as the city remain theirs. If the city were to be taken over, they would only be taken advantage of by others. Although they only had five thousand defenders, they still have tens of thousands of common citizens. When the time comes, they could agitate the populace to defend the city.

“That’s right! We cannot surrender! Did you not see what happen at Anfeng?” Another person shouted. As Anfeng was not far away, they could see the fires from Yingshang. There were also army deserters from Anfeng tragically describing the attack.

The moment Anfeng was mentioned, the defenders all became excited. As they were originally citizens of Yingshang, they did not want their home to end up like Anfeng.

“Defenders! I will give you one incense stick worth of time! If you do not leave the walls by then, do not blame this Grandfather Zhang for attacking!” Zhang Hu shouted again.

“Ge Jun! You go as well.” Zhang Liao ordered when he noticed that defenders in Yingshang were prepared to struggle desperately. This was going against his plan.

“General Zhang! Don’t advise them to surrender!” Ge Jun rode forwards and shouted towards Zhang Hu.

“Ge Jun! Why have you come?” Zhang Hu asked.

“I came to tell you not to persuade them to surrender!” Ge Jun replied.

“Do not persuade them to surrender?” Zhang Hu was confused for a moment since this was going against his orders. However, he soon understood after seeing Ge Jun’s expression.

“That’s right. How can they surrender? If they do, how are we to obtain the wealth in the city?” Ge Jun shouted loudly.

“Wealth?” The defenders were confused.

“Wealth! Not just the ones that belong to the governor and the ones found in the barracks! There is also the common people’s wealth!” Ge Jun’s voice grew louder.

“Hah! I knew it! Look at the Yangzhou Army! They have no good intentions! They want to kill and plunder! How could we surrender?” The governor said with delight. “We will live and die together with Yingshang! We cannot allow them to harm our people!” The governor shouted loudly and the defenders now see the Yangzhou Army as their sworn enemy.

“We can use the people!” The governor thought to himself happily. Originally, he was unable to use the common people and could only rely on his five thousand troops. This would not be enough but things would be different if he had the support of the common people. They would be able to defend for much longer.

“General Zhang Hu! You must know that our Lord is too kind especially towards the common people! You see! Our taxes are only thirty percent!” Ge Jun continued to shout.

“Thirty percent?” The defenders were dumbstruck. At Yuzhou, the tax was fifty percent. Even then, they were already very grateful as the standard tax rates set by the other warlords were seventy or eighty percent.

“Thirty percent! How beneficial for the people!” Zhang Hu also participated in the act of flattery.

“Who said it isn’t? Our Lord cares a lot for the common people of the Han Dynasty!”

“General Ge Jun! What does that have to do with our current situation?” Zhang Hu asked.

Ge Jun then replied resentfully. “The Lord cares so much for the common people that we don’t get much profits! Fighting a war is barely enough to fill our pockets!”

“If Yingshang were to surrender, they would become the Lord’s subordinates. How then are we supposed to plunder Yingshang? You know we are not allowed to rob the common people! Offenders will be executed!”

“Ah! What do we do then?” Zhang Hu pretended to be shocked.

“General Zhang Hu! If we conquer them normally, they would be enemies. Even their citizens are enemies! There are no problems if we rob our enemies! We can take all their wealth and women for our brothers to enjoy! If they surrender, we will not get anything!”

“What do we do?” The defenders on the walls panicked again as Ge Jun then started to describe how to rob the city. Although he and the Xiliang Cavalry had never done anything too bad before, they had seen such atrocities before.

“This person is deluded! They would not be able to capture our Yingshang with us guarding it!” The governor snorted. His words calmed the defenders as he was right. As long as Yingshang still stood tall, Ge Jun’s method of plunder was just his delusion.

“Ge Jun, if we do not persuade them to surrender, we will have to sacrifice the lives of our brothers for profit! We cannot suffer casualties just for wealth!” Zhang Hu said earnestly.

“Haha, Zhang Hu does not know the art of war! Yingshang may have tall walls and is surrounded by a moat but it is actually full of mistakes! It is easy to capture it!”

“Easy to capture Yingshang? Then come! This governor will wait and see how many people you will need to sacrifice to obtain Yingshang!” Yingshang may have been destroyed once but it had already been repaired. It would only be easy to capture if the defenders were grossly incompetent.

“Do you remember what the Lord said? The strongest fortress in the world is often broken from the inside!” Ge Jun said to Zhang Hu.

“From the inside? General Ge Jun, do we have a spy inside Yingshang?” Zhang Hu asked.

“A spy?” The defenders look at each other.

“Do not be suspicious of each other. How could there be a spy amongst us? This is just the enemy’s trick!” The governor calmed the defenders.

“How could we have a spy in Yingshang?” Ge Jun also agreed to the governor’s words.

“Then how are we going to capture the city?”

“Haha! The method is here!” Ge Jun laughed and pointed at his mouth.

“The mouth?”

“Do you want to talk us to death? If words could kill, I would have already died a thousand times!” The governor mocked as he laughed.

“Yes, it is the mouth. Not ours, but theirs.” Ge Jun added as he stared at the defenders on the walls.

“Theirs?”

“General Zhang Hu, what is it that men cannot separate from?”

“Their mothers?” Zhang Hu spoke without thinking, causing everyone to laugh.

“It is food you moron!” Ge Jun laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“General Zhang Hu, they are running out of food as their Lord had not given them provisions!” Ge Jun’s words immediately made the defenders restless.

“Did someone embezzle the provisions?” Zhang Hu asked with wide eyes. His question made the defenders all look at the governor.

The governor started to panic. There were no such thing as a completely honest governor. Even he embezzled a little. However, a governor needed to be brazen or they would not have qualified for the post. “I am an honest governor. How could I have embezzled the provisions? Do not listen to their lies!”

“Who said anything about embezzling? Liu Bei’s officials are all honest!” Ge Jun’s words allowed the governor to relax for a moment but he soon noticed that it was not the end.

“Even if they are honest, they would not have any food since even at Runan, their Lord Liu Bei don’t have any provisions left! How could he distribute provisions to Yingshang? Their granary in Yingshang is practically empty!”

“What? It’s empty?” One person start to ask.

“Didn’t I say that it has been a while since they sent provisions? So it is because they no longer have any provisions!”

“How can we fight without food?”

Hearing these, the governor hurriedly tried to refute the rumors. “Don’t listen to them! The Lord had already sent provisions!”

“Then why have we not been paid? Did you embezzle the provisions?”

“No! I am a clean an honest official!”

“Then why have we not been paid?”

“I…!” The governor could no longer talk his way out. This would end either with the defenders thinking he embezzled the provisions or with the defenders realizing that they had no provisions. The governor originally wanted to borrow provisions like Guan Yu but that option had been blocked by Yangzhou.

“Do you need us to tell you? Just go to the granary and take a look for yourself!” Ge Jun continued to goad the defenders and then turned back to Zhang Hu. “That is why they will grow weak in a few days. At that time, it would be easy to capture and plunder Yingshang! I am sure the Lord will not object!”

Ge Jun’s words alarmed the defenders. Although Yingshang’s governor tried to salvage the situation, it was a fact that they had little provisions left.

“Everyone! Do not panic! Even if we run out of provisions, our fellow citizens will lend us provisions! Think of the people behind us! They may be your parents, wife or children! What is there to be afraid of?” These words prevented the defenders from crumbling apart.

“Hm?” Zhang Liao frowned at this. If this were to continue, they would end up in a bitter struggle.

“Commander. Let me handle this.” One general said to Zhang Liao.

“Mm. I will have to inconvenience you.” Zhang Liao nodded.

At this critical juncture where Ge Jun and Zhang Hu was about to meet with failure, the young general rode forward. He rode further ahead until he was within range of the arrows.

“General. Do not go further ahead.” Ge Jun warned.

“General Ge Jun, thank you for your concern.” The general cupped his fist. “I am just showing the appropriate behavior.”

He then took off his helmet and spoke to the defenders on the walls. “Soldiers and people of Yingshang! Do you still remember me?”

“Ge… General!” The was an uproar amongst the defenders.