good!
very good!
Commander Zhang gritted his teeth and said, "Bring Yun Hui and these prisoners along. Doesn't Zhou Zhenguang pride himself on being loyal and righteous? Doesn't he value his soldiers highly?"
"I'd like to see!"
"When 160,000 troops were at the city gates, when these soldiers who had once submitted to him had swords at their necks, what decision would Zhou Zhenguang make?"
"Set off--"
When Commander Zhang read out the number 170,000, he suddenly remembered that last time he sent 20,000 troops to ambush Zhou Cheng on the way, but Zhou Cheng managed to kill several thousand of them.
Now, the number of imperial soldiers at Dongdaoguankou has dwindled to just over 160,000, less than 170,000!
Thinking about it that way...
Commander Zhang added another mark against the Zhou family father and son.
He vowed that he would definitely take Jiangling City today, and before Zhou Cheng returned to the city, he would be at the gates of the city, capture Zhou Zhenguang alive, and let this treacherous scoundrel Zhou Cheng know the power of the imperial court!
The military order was issued.
The imperial army was quickly integrated.
Yun Hui, who was imprisoned, and more than 10,000 prisoners heard the commotion of the unified army outside, and a trace of dim self-mockery flashed in their eyes.
Yun Hui, his face sallow and his lips cracked and pale, was curled up in a small, square cage. The cages for prisoners were ingeniously designed, each one meter long, wide, and high, making them particularly torturous.
Confined in the cage, Yun Hui could neither stand up straight nor lie down; he could only curl up and sit hunched over.
For a tall, strong general who was 1.8 or 1.9 meters tall, such days of restraint and torture in captivity were worse than death.
"General Yun..."
"The army outside has moved. Is it... is war about to break out?"
"The imperial generals have been quiet for the past two weeks, but now they're consolidating their troops. It seems they've decided to attack Jiangling City, haven't they?"
"I wonder how General Zhou and the others are doing... Did Young Master Zhou return to Jiangling City as promised and bring them food? If so, it should be enough to sustain the remaining soldiers for a few more days, right?"
“............”
I heard my companion's murmur of realization.
Yun Hui, weak and exhausted, curled up in the cage. In his pupils, one could see the reflection of the more than ten thousand companions he had brought from Jiangling City, their limbs bound by chains and their necks shackled.
In just half a month, they all became so thin that they looked unrecognizable, with dark circles under their eyes and a listless expression. Even the slightest movement left them weak and listless.
This indicates that the body is extremely deficient in nutrients and fats.
After the imperial guards captured them alive, they were given only a bowl of thin white porridge each day, with so few grains of rice that you could count them with the naked eye.
That meager amount of food kept them alive for half a month.
The nights were bitterly cold, and the imperial court ignored them, imprisoning them outside the camp in the freezing wind. Those who survived the past two weeks did so only because of their physical resilience; those who couldn't endure it all died…
Yun Hui remembered clearly that in the past half month, 1,463 of his captured soldiers had died!
One thousand four hundred and sixty-three people........
Perhaps, I was wrong...
“I originally intended to lead you away from the city and give you a way to survive.”
Yun Hui closed his eyes, his expression filled with grief and self-reproach, and said in a hoarse voice, "But I never imagined that I would cause your deaths."
"On the day the mountains were blocked by heavy snow, thousands froze to death. Now, in the hands of the imperial army, more than a thousand have been tortured to death. I am guilty; I have failed your trust..."
"Ultimately, it was my incompetence that caused this."
"sorry........"
Yun Hui was filled with regret, regretting his overconfidence and arrogance at the time, thinking that he could lead his troops to a way out, but he did not expect that there would be mountains of knives and seas of fire everywhere outside Jiangling City.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
