Ye Moxun immediately ordered Bai Pingfeng and the others to guard the city wall and cut down the soldiers who climbed up. Taishan and the second and third brothers also stared at the people climbing the city wall, ready to bite them one by one.
"You're using poison to summon venomous creatures? Duke has brought tens of thousands of troops; our small scattered force won't last long." Song Tantan stared at the army outside the city, his face grave.
"Okay, be careful and protect yourself." Ye Moxun didn't look up, took out the things he had prepared beforehand and began to use the Gu poison.
Song Tantan looked in the direction of Fengcheng with anxiety in her eyes. Before coming out, she went into her space to meet her aunt and learned that they were in danger here. Her aunt and Uncle Zhong had already rushed to Xiangyang City, hoping that they could find a way to deal a fatal blow to Duke from the rear.
"Kill..." A deafening roar of charging echoed outside the city. More and more people rushed up the city wall, while a group of people below carried large pillars to ram the city gate.
In the moment of crisis, one of Bai Pingfeng's brothers rushed up the city wall to report, "Brother, something bad has happened! Chen Tuzhu killed my men and is leading them to open the city gates and let Duke's army in."
"Young Master Ye, what should we do?" Bai Pingfeng was already very agitated. They were outnumbered and struggling to deal with the enemies climbing the city walls. Now, internal strife had broken out, and the situation was dire.
"Taishan, go and deal with them." Ye Moxun coldly instructed Taishan.
"Traitors must be killed without mercy." I should have dealt with those small-time leaders first; otherwise, I would have been bitten in the back now.
As expected, being too kind prevents one from accomplishing great things, and he soon learned his lesson.
With Taishan's intervention, that guy named Tuzhu was quickly dealt with. As soon as Tuzhu died, his men scattered in all directions. They didn't even have time to open the city gates; they were too busy trying to save their own lives.
Song Tantan raised her knife and slaughtered all the people who rushed up the city wall. When she couldn't handle it anymore, she sprinkled some medicine powder. She managed to hold on, but the situation was not optimistic. The main problem was that Duke had brought too many people today. She couldn't kill them all. As soon as she killed one group, another group climbed up. No matter how energetic she was, she would eventually run out of energy.
Fortunately, just when she thought she couldn't hold on any longer, the poisonous creatures summoned by Ye Moxun crawled towards the city gate from all directions. Everyone in Duke's people, including those in Xiangyang City, who smelled the Gu poison, collapsed to the ground as if they had lost their souls. The fighting stopped abruptly, as if the battle just now was just an illusion.
However, the sounds of fighting only stopped for a moment before the clash of swords resumed, coming from outside the city gate. Ye Moxun and Song Tantan both looked over at the same time.
Around Duke, there were about five hundred men, all mounted on their horses. These five hundred men were all cavalrymen who had not participated in the battle. If they were here to fight, they seemed more like they were there to protect Duke.
Duke truly cherishes his life. He has five hundred personal guards, all of whom are cavalry. No wonder he is still alive and well. Otherwise, given his character, he would have been killed by the rebellious populace countless times over.
"Ah Xun, do you think it might be Auntie and Uncle Zhong?" Duke and his personal guards did not collapse from poisoning like the others; instead, they still had the strength to fight.
"Have Uncle and Aunt Song arrived yet?" Ye Moxun stared into the distance, his voice low. "I didn't expect Duke to have someone skilled in poisons by his side. They are quite capable, managing to keep over five hundred people and horses unaffected by the Gu poison I developed."
"If Auntie and Uncle Zhong could take care of Duke and that poison-using subordinate, that would be great. To catch the thief, you must first catch the king. If the leader is dead, what chance do the others have?" Song Tantan kept talking while watching the battle in the distance.
Half an hour later, Duke's original five hundred cavalrymen were reduced to only about a hundred men. Some of the soldiers and horses collapsed suddenly, clearly due to poisoning.
"Tantan, come help! We can't hold on much longer!" Song Zhuiyan's voice pierced the night sky. Song Tantan jumped in fright, immediately grabbed her knife, and prepared to jump off the city wall without saying a word.
"Don't you want your legs? You're tired of living?" Ye Moxun grabbed her by the back of her collar and roared at her with a livid face.
Song Tantan rubbed her ears and said irritably, "It's only three meters high. I can handle that height. I know what I'm doing. Nothing will happen."
Ye Moxun glared at her with a look that said, "I don't believe your nonsense," pulled her down from the city wall, and took her directly to the city gate, ordering the gate to be opened.
Taishan and the second and third brothers were the first to rush out like wild horses, followed by Song Tantan riding out on horseback. Ye Moxun, with a grim expression, ordered Bai Pingfeng to bring people over to help.
By the time everything was over, it was already dawn, and the eastern sky was filled with rosy clouds. It was another sunny day, but unfortunately, everyone was not in a good mood.
Although the fight lasted only a short time last night, there was still blood on the ground at the city gate. Zhong Qingyi and Song Zhuiyan were both injured, both in the arms, but the injuries were not serious.
Both men were covered in blood, which looked quite gruesome. Fortunately, Duke's head was cut off, and all five hundred of his personal guards were killed.
Half of them were killed by Song Zhuiyan and Zhong Qingyi. Later, Bai Pingfeng and his men also killed many more. The others were poisoned. Song Zhuiyan and Zhong Qingyi were injured and were at a disadvantage when they released the poison.
Although poisoning is not honorable, who cares about Song Zhuiyan and his group? They are just ordinary people who only want to save their lives. They don't care about anything else. They are not true heroes of the martial arts world.
"Auntie, you and Uncle Zhong arrived just in time. Otherwise, with so many people brought by Duke, Ah Xun and I would have been in real trouble." Song Tantan ran over to help Song Zhuiyan up, then looked at the severed head in her hand. Seeing the head staring with its tiger-like eyes wide open, looking like it had died with its eyes wide open, she simply couldn't bear to look at it.
"Now you know fear, what a coward. This is Duke's head, and two others who look like his lieutenants. Speaking of which, Duke must have more than tens of thousands of men, at least a hundred thousand. What about the others?" Song Zhuiyan was very perceptive and immediately noticed the abnormality.
Zhong Qingyi nodded. "Logically, he should have had reinforcements, but now Duke is dead and the reinforcements haven't arrived yet."
“That can only mean that his people have rebelled. Duke is cruel and it’s normal that he is unpopular,” Ye Mo analyzed after thinking for a moment. “However, we don’t know exactly what happened. Let’s close the city gates first and talk about it later.”
"Aren't we going to clean up the battlefield first?" Bai Pingfeng said blankly.
"Let's rest for two days first. Thirty thousand people are lying there. How are we going to clean them up? They're still alive. We can't just pile them up and burn them. It'll be difficult to capture them." Because Xiangyang City has too few troops, no regular army, only about two thousand people in total.
Although five thousand Duke men were captured, they cannot be trusted to be used. It is unrealistic to send them to fight Duke. They are all comrades-in-arms who have fought together, and may even be brothers or friends who were conscripted together. Are we to let them kill each other?
So those people were kept in a temporary military camp in Xiangyang City. Their meals were spiked with a drug that made them weak and unable to cause trouble, making them easier to keep under control. They had no choice but to use this ineffective method because they were short-handed.
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