Nangong Zheng led the way, but Yuan Zhao, along with his army of eight hundred thousand soldiers who were closely following them, failed to catch up with Su Rong’s troops before they entered Heiya Pass.
However, Yuan Zhao was not surprised by this. If Su Rong could be so easily chased down, she wouldn’t be worthy of her status as a Nanchu Princess, let alone the various formidable rumors about her.
Nangong Zheng wore a concerned look on his face, "Your Highness, shall we hastily attack the city while their defenses in Heiya Pass may be rushed and faulty, or should we rest and then formulate a strategic plan for siege?"
Looking at the shrouded city wall, barely discerning a few silhouettes, Yuan Zhao asked: "Who are those people standing on the wall? Is the Princess among them?"
Nangong Zheng couldn’t see clearly either. He asked for a spyglass, peered through, handed it to Yuan Zhao, "I don’t recognize them. They must be the princess’s subordinates."
Yuan Zhao took the spyglass, observed for a moment, squinted his eyes, and said: "Clearly, Nangong Yin only taught you to scrutinize the terrain of Nanchu, but failed to thoroughly recognize the talents of the world. Those three men are not unknown. They all hail from Daliang. If I’m not mistaken, one is Zhang Mao, the eldest legitimate son of the former Jibei General’s Residence; one is Jiang Zhu, the tenth chieftain of the Daliang Eighteen Villages; and the other is Ning Ze, the second son of the Marquis Nanping Residence."
Nangong Zheng was taken aback. He had heard of these three men but indeed did not recognize them, even though the blame could not be entirely attributed to his grandfather who did not teach him about people outside Nanchu. Despite being tutored, his grandfather believed that he was still young, some matters were not to be rushed, and that he was too proud to expect the Nangong Family would fall so quickly against Su Rong. Hence, he had never seen a portrait of these three men and therefore did not recognize them.
"Zhang Mao fell into the hands of Su Rong and Zhou Gu in the Eighteen Villages and was later captured and had no choice but to defect to Su Rong. This shows that Zhang Ping’s failure has its reasons. Firstly, he failed in educating his sons who betrayed him—his legitimate and illegitimate sons. This tragic and hilarious fact was a key reason for his failure. As for the tenth Chieftain Jiang Zhu, amongst the eighteen chieftains of the Eighteen Villages, his most remarkable trait is not his real abilities, but his superior sense of situation, and his knack for laying low. He is an extremely astute man. Regarding the second son of the Marquis of Nanping Residence, Ning Ze, this man purely got lucky. Caught up in the Dawei Crown Prince succession issue in the Royal Capital of Daliang, he was half-dead and saved by Su Rong under the pretense of returning him to the Marquis Nanping Residence—the real intention was to disrupt the ties between Marquis Nanping and the Eighteen Villages. Unexpectedly, when he arrived in Nanping, he stumbled across Zhang Ping of the Jibei General’s Residence attacking Nanping and ended up defecting to Su Rong, thereby saving his life and becoming half smart. I’ve got to admit, Su Rong is adept at utilizing people—I even feel a commendable admiration for her."
Nangong Zheng looked at the silhouettes on the city wall, "Your Highness indeed has a deep understanding of Daliang’s talented people. I do not measure up and still have much to learn."
Yuan Zhao chuckled, "If I wish to rule the world, naturally, I must understand it like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, Su Rong is growing too quickly. Just a year ago, she was just an insignificant common-born girl in Jiangning County, Jiangzhou Residence of Daliang. I didn’t even know who she was—there were far too many common-born girls and Jiangning County was such small territory, it was too insignificant to catch my eye. Thus, I wasn’t aware that it hid the daughter of Princess Zhenmin and the Nanchu King, leading me to miss the chance of killing her."
When he finished, he looked at Nangong Zheng, "Your Nangong Family had assassinated her for five years, yet your grandfather and your household were ignorant? What a jest indeed."
Nangong Zheng said, "My grandfather really didn’t know. He’s been suppressing the Ye Xiang Residence for years and my aunt acted covertly and deliberately concealed it from him to keep him in the dark. When my grandfather found out, he was livid and wanted to kill my Aunt. He sent countless people but it was already too late—the shadow guards around the princess were formidable and her own martial arts were extremely high, therefore we couldn’t kill her."
"It seems Nangong Xin isn’t stupid. People capable of deceiving your grandfather aren’t fools. She was simply madly in love with the Nanchu King and wanted to hold on to his bloodline to occupy the throne?" Yuan Zhao raised his eyebrows.
Nangong Zheng shook his head, "I don’t know about that; I never asked my aunt."
Yuan Zhao fiddled with the Buddha beads on his wrist, put down the spyglass, and told Nangong Zheng: "Rest then! In such a short time, the defenses at Heiya Pass have tightened and the military orders are promptly executed. In such a state, even if we attack the city now, we won’t achieve much. After all, our soldiers are equally exhausted and are not in a condition to fight."
Nangong Zheng nodded, "Your Highness is correct."
Thus, Yuan Zhao issued an order for the eight hundred thousand soldiers to set up camp and rest at the foot of Heiya Pass.
"As expected, they haven’t attacked the city." Ning Ze said. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
Zhang Mao breathed a sigh of relief, "Although the Dawei Crown Prince has not ordered the city to be attacked, our defense must not be lax. We need all the guards to be on high alert at all times."
Ning Ze nodded, "Certainly."
The three men descended from the city wall. Although Dawei had not attacked the city, they did not dare to leave. After sending someone to convey a message to Su Rong, they discussed some more, found a place, and took turns resting.
Before the Nangong Family’s defeat and flight to Nanchu, Heiya Pass was under the control of the Nanchu King, the Nangong Family, and the Ye Xiang Residence. With the Nangong Family evacuating Nanchu after their defeat, Heiya Pass only had the followers of the Nanchu King and the Ye Xiang Residence left.
Therefore, Su Rong smoothly took over Heiya Pass upon arrival, quickly assuming control of all affairs at Heiya Pass.
When Ning Ze mentioned letting everyone rest while they would guard the city gates, it was certainly not possible. After everyone entered the General’s Office, no one went to rest. Ye Guixue called for the city’s guard, tried to understand the situation at Heiya Pass, whether there were remnants of the Nangong Family, spies within, and the amount of grain storage.
Su Rong, Xie Yuan, Zhou Gu, and Zhang Yun were gathered together to strategize about warfare.
Merely defending, as Su Rong pointed out, could be held out at most for half a month and they needed to consider a proactive attack. They still needed to formulate an effective plan taking into consideration the strategic advantages they possessed at their end.
Fen Ling, along with some others, were working relentlessly to survey the defenses in place.
Doctor Zhang, along with several military doctors, were also busy. What was the most critical for a battle? Certainly, it was medicinal herbs. As a result, Doctor Zhang and the others urgently extracted and collected all herbs in the city to be prepared for the battle.
Shen Yi, who had claimed that she wouldn’t run away and wanted to sleep, actually didn’t sleep at all either. She took a few people and followed Doctor Zhang and the others looking for poisonous herbs to make poison powder, working tirelessly.
Though she had never personally participated in a battlefield, she had been following the large number of troops all the way and had never experienced a war, she knew that the poison powder could be extremely useful. If there ever was any wind, once the poison powder was dispersed, it could act as a weapon that could take down an enormous number of soldiers.
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