On the first night after Xuan Tianming arrived in Biannan, he did not give himself or the enemy any time to breathe, and directly led the 115,000 troops he brought from the camp outside the capital to attack the first city of ancient Shu, Shaping City.
The 300,000 troops that were originally stationed in the Biannan area were not within his plan at all. Seeing that the Ninth Prince didn't even look at them, he led his troops and rushed to Shaping City without saying a word. He didn't even hold a pre-war deployment meeting. What's more, he didn't even get off his horse. After arriving in Biannan, he sat on his horse and looked in the direction of Shaping City for a while, until night fell. When the general's flag was waved, everyone rushed forward.
The Shaping City, which was always considered by the Eighth Prince as the best city defense of the ancient Shu Kingdom and had a total of more than 500,000 troops stationed there, including the Ten Nations Alliance Army, was not very strong. Under the attack of the Ninth Prince's army, it was broken through almost without any process, just like tofu dregs. Even the 300,000 onlookers in the south of the border didn't react. Suddenly, there were loud noises, and then the walls of Shaping City collapsed, and the enemy troops on top fell down like dumplings.
Not only the ancient Shu army was in a panic, but even the 300,000 troops in the south were in a panic. No one knew what means the Ninth Prince had used to be able to take down Shaping City in the blink of an eye with such brutal means. They could even see the ancient Shu and Desert Alliance armies fleeing in panic, as if the Ninth Prince was the King of Hell and anyone who got close to him would die.
Some people looked relatively carefully and found that the loud bangs came from something thrown out by some people in the Ninth Prince's army. They couldn't tell what it was, but they only knew that after the thing was thrown out, it exploded as soon as it landed on the wall of Shaping City. Not only was the noise loud, but the destructive power was also quite large. A hole would inevitably appear in the wall with the loud noise, and if it exploded too many times, the wall would collapse, and there was no need to even break down the city gate, a new one could be blown out directly.
Xuan Tianming's army entered Shaping from the collapsed city wall. After that, they no longer threw that kind of thing, but they had another new thing. Someone held a strange hidden weapon and fired it forward. It also made a loud noise, but it no longer exploded. Instead, it hit the enemy soldiers who had no time to escape, leaving bloody holes on their bodies. The people hit by the hidden weapon immediately fell to the ground and died. For a while, Shaping City was a sea of blood.
This battle not only scared away the ancient Shu army, allowing Xuan Tianming to successfully occupy Shaping City, but also frightened the 300,000 Biannan troops, allowing them to see the might of the Nine Hades. The people of Lanzhou, which was closest to Biannan, also stayed up all night. From the moment the explosion started, everyone got up, came out of their houses, stood on the street, and looked in the direction of Biannan.
However, they could not see anything. As a border city, Lanzhou had very high walls, blocking everything outside the city. But the explosions that were completely unfamiliar to them came one after another, as if the earth was rumbling and trembling. Some people were afraid that it was a dragon turning over, but they didn't think it was possible, because the earth would only tremble when that sound was heard, and there was no actual damage to Lanzhou City.
Soon, the soldiers guarding the city got the first-hand information. Of course, this information came from their own eyes. They stood on their own city wall and looked across. Although there was a large area of land between Shaping City and Lanzhou City, they could still see the faint firelight and the shouts of the 100,000-strong army. Especially when the wall of Shaping City collapsed, the dust seemed to pass through the land and rush directly to Lanzhou, forcing them to cover their heads and faces.
Someone saw everything clearly on the other side, saw the collapse and destruction of Shaping City, and ran down the wall in disbelief, stumbling to the prefectural government. But along the way, there were only people standing on the street, and he was stopped by the people and had to tell everything he saw.
The people spread the news from one person to another, and soon everyone knew that the Ninth Prince had taken the initiative to attack the first city of Ancient Shu on the first night of his arrival in the Southern Realm, and had captured Shaping City in an instant with extremely ferocious force, thus completing a task that had taken years to overcome when the Eighth Prince was stationed there.
People remembered the legend of the God of War. A few years ago, when the Western Border Gumo Kingdom changed its dynasty, there was a force that advocated rebellion against Dashun. The Ninth Prince led troops to suppress it. Not only did he destroy the force, but he also elected a king who was very close to Dashun and could almost be considered his own. As a result, the Western Border Gumo became the most obedient and worry-free one among the four states of Dashun. That time, the Ninth Prince was said to be the God of War, but the Southern Border was far away after all, so he did not have too deep feelings about it.
But now, the Ninth Prince's might as a god of war instantly ignited in Biannan and Shaping City, and people were a little confused. Some people said: "Could it be that the Ninth Prince is really a god from heaven? Otherwise, he marched such a long distance from Kyoto to the southern border, and his men and horses were exhausted. How could he immediately launch an offensive against Ancient Shu without even taking a break? If not a god, who can do this?"
"Yes! Didn't you hear this official say that the walls of Shaping City have collapsed? We have lived in Lanzhou for so long, and we all know how high and thick the walls of Shaping City are! How could he actually push down the walls?"
"It wasn't pushed, it was the rumbling sound that caused it!" Someone corrected, "That was thunder from the sky, thunder that only gods can control! When thunder roars, not to mention the small city of Shaping, even the entire world will tremble!"
The people couldn't agree more with this statement, so they knelt down one by one in the direction of Bian Nan, and kept shouting: "The Ninth Prince is a god descended from heaven! Live a thousand years, a thousand years, and a thousand thousand years to the Ninth Prince!"
The official who was originally going to report the news to Lord Ji Lingtian in the prefectural government also forgot what he was going to do under the influence of this atmosphere. He knelt down with the people and kept kowtowing in the direction of Bian Nan. He was even more excited than the people because he had witnessed the destruction of Shaping City and the might of the Ninth Prince. Not to mention that the people thought the Ninth Prince was a god, he also believed it firmly!
For a moment, almost everyone in Lanzhou City was kowtowed in the direction of Xuan Tianming, including the soldiers guarding the city walls, who could not control their excitement and knelt down one after another. It was really exciting. Gu Shu had been restless for many years and tried to break through Biannan and provoke Dashun several times. Because the Eighth Prince was stationed here, they were suppressed and eventually occupied Biannan, which had always been in a chaotic area. But that took several years, and it was nowhere near as shocking as the Ninth Prince's attack on the city that night.
Compared to Xuan Tianming, the Eighth Prince Xuan Tianmo, who was originally regarded as a god in people's minds, was simply weak. He was not as good as the Ninth Prince in any way. The difference in fighting power was not a matter of a few points, but a matter of one being in heaven and the other in the world. If they used to respect the Eighth Prince as a general, they now respected the Ninth Prince as a god. He was the god of heaven in the minds of all the people in the Southern Realm! The God of War!
Some people saw clearly that the Ninth Prince only led the 100,000 soldiers he ordered from Kyoto to fight, and did not bring the 300,000 troops that Bian Nan originally had. The 300,000 troops did not realize it, and just watched from behind. No one said anything to help, and they were so scared that they ran away when the thunder struck the city. For a time, people despised the 300,000 Bian Nan troops, and even disdained the Eighth Prince Xuan Tianmo.
"Are these the soldiers led by the Eighth Prince? Why are they so different from the soldiers led by the Ninth Prince?"
"How can a mortal army compare to a heavenly army? In any case, we should fully support the Ninth Prince. The Emperor sent the Ninth Prince here, which clearly shows that he no longer trusts the Eighth Prince. He has been stationed in the South Territory for so many years without any progress, while the taxes in our South Territory have increased several times. It would be a great thing for us if a general like that leaves early."
Xuan Tianming didn't know that his all-out attack on the city had already caused a great shock to the people of Lanzhou, and he didn't know that this move had won him the hearts of almost the entire city in the first place. At this time, he was still leading his men to continue chasing the remnant of the ancient Shu army, and he chased them out of Shaping City and went south for dozens of miles before stopping. The second city of ancient Shu, Jueping City, was already in sight. He did not continue to attack, but waved his hand and led his men to withdraw to Shaping, and set up camp ten miles south of Shaping City, and at the same time ordered his soldiers to immediately take over the aftermath and governance of the entire Shaping City.
Inside Lanzhou City, at the gate of Feng Mansion, Feng Jinyuan's calves kept shaking, and he could barely stand. He kept muttering, "It's over, it's over. Once the Nine Hades comes, the south is really over!"
A commoner kneeling on the street outside the palace heard this and asked angrily, "What are you talking about? The Ninth Prince is the hope of our Southern Territory. What do you mean the South is really finished? What do you mean by that?"
Feng Jinyuan was also feeling upset, and he snorted angrily and said loudly, "You know nothing!" Then he flicked his sleeves, suppressed his trembling, and walked back to the yard.
Fu Ya still stood at the gate of the mansion and looked south with the people. Although she did not kneel, her eyes were filled with extremely complicated emotions, sometimes shocked, sometimes confused, sometimes happy, and sometimes sad. The sound of "Long live the Ninth Prince" made her feel that her whole soul was roaring, as if the roar outside the city was not only driving the land of the southern border, but also her whole heart.
Feng Jinyuan called out to her, "Why are you standing there if you don't come back?"
Fu Ya came back to her senses, but she didn't move her feet. She just replied, "I'll take a look." Then she ignored Feng Jinyuan and stared at the south intently. She actually hoped that the roar would happen a few more times so that she could feel it again.
Unfortunately, the roar had stopped, and gradually, news came from the south gate: "The Ninth Prince has occupied Shaping City, the ancient Shu army has fled, and Shaping City belongs to our Dashun!"
People cheered! But the cheers were extremely harsh to the people in the Feng Mansion. Even Yao covered herself with the quilt and didn't want to hear a word.
Xuan Tianming led his army to give up pursuing the enemy and returned to Shaping City. Because Qian Li was stationed in Qianzhou and did not go with them, there was temporarily no deputy general in the army outside the capital. The generals Xi Fang and He Gan of the Shenji Camp assisted Xuan Tianming in handling military affairs, and no one raised any doubts.
Some soldiers were enjoying the fight, and when they saw that they were no longer chasing, they asked loudly, "General, why are we not chasing anymore?"
Xuan Tianming shook his head and did not answer. Instead, Xifang said, "Don't you see what time it is now? If we continue to chase, it will be dawn. When the sun rises tomorrow, you will know why we don't chase. Don't cry then!"
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