In this realistic war game, only I understand the course of the battle.

Congratulations! You have gained access to the Ancient Warfare - "The Rebellion of the Feudal Lords" world experience.

In the thirty-first year of the Hongwu reign (1389), Emperor Taizu (Zhu Yunwen) passed away. His grandson, Zhu Yunwen, ascended the throne, changing the era name to Jianwen. The new emperor, barely twenty years old, followed the advice of Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng, and vigorously pursued the reduction of the power of the princes.

[The King of Zhou was demoted to a commoner, the King of Xiang committed suicide by burning his palace, and the Kings of Qi, Dai, and Min successively fell from grace. The relationship between the court and the vassal kings had become a life-or-death struggle.]

Who will emerge victorious in this struggle for supremacy?

When Shen Du woke up in this body and saw this system notification, it felt as if he were still in front of the computer in the teaching and research office.

Shen Du is a military academy war history instructor. In order to give a lecture on "the tactical evolution of the Jingnan Campaign in the Ming Dynasty", he stayed up for three days and three nights in the library and finally collapsed on the table and lost consciousness.

Before Shen Du could even react, his mind was instantly filled with a massive flow of information. He endured the excruciating pain and slowly processed the world's setting.

This world is called "Xia Kingdom," and its technology is more advanced than that of his original Earth.

Several years ago, an immersive virtual reality game called Command & Conquer was released, which ignited the whole country with its 100% realism and vast historical background.

In the game, you can experience any life that is not recorded in history books.

Players fiercely compete for the most important resource—reputation points—across thousands of war instances.

The deeper you participate in historical events, and even if you change the course of history, the more reputation points you will gain, and the richer the rewards at the end of the event, including game currency, free attribute points, rare skills, and even unlocking more difficult dungeons.

After digesting the information in his memory, Shen Du turned his gaze back to the light screen in front of him. It contained a detailed introduction to this instance world.

In July of the first year of the Jianwen Emperor's reign, Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, launched a rebellion in Beiping under the pretext of "purging the court of corrupt officials." Thus began a war for the throne that would engulf the entire country.

In April of the second year of the Jianwen reign, General Li Jinglong led an army of 600,000 to the Baigou River. The Yan army, numbering only 100,000, was trapped on the riverbank, their fate hanging by a thread.

"Hmm?" Looking at the background information on the screen, Shen Du felt it looked more and more familiar. The reduction of the power of the princes, Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng... these keywords were all too familiar to him, a military academy instructor specializing in war history.

"Could this so-called rebellion against the feudal lords be the same as the Jingnan Campaign?"

Before Shen Du could think any further, the game had already started. The light screen in front of him shattered instantly, and as the world spun around him, a strong smell of blood mixed with the killing intent of the battlefield seemed to transcend time and space, forcefully filling his nostrils.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The deafening shouts of battle pulled Shen Du back to reality. He found himself standing on a muddy riverbank, wearing tattered prison uniform.

Looking around, all that could be seen was a dark mass of men and horses. Ming cavalrymen clad in iron armor surged forward like a tide, their hooves shattering the thin ice on the riverbank and splashing up mud mixed with blood.

This is the Baigou River. April of the second year of the Jianwen reign.

Shen Du looked down and saw a rough spear clutched tightly in his hand. At his feet lay the corpses of several Yan soldiers, their faces still bearing the lingering look of disbelief and terror.

Suddenly, a new light screen appeared in front of him.

[You are Li Jingzhong, an ordinary infantryman under the jurisdiction of the Yanshan Left Guard. Your family has been military households in Beiping for three generations; your father and brothers all died in battle on the northern frontier. You joined the army at sixteen, taking your father's place, and have been serving for six years.]

[Current sole objective: Survive the Battle of Baigou River and eliminate the enemy as much as possible.]

[Note: This is an open-world game with no mandatory quests. Your account will be automatically deleted upon character death. Your every action will affect the course of the world.]

Survive? Shen Du certainly knew the outcome of this battle; the Yan army would win.

For the first three hours, the Yan army would be overwhelmed. Their left flank would be completely breached, and the fleeing soldiers would surge backward like a tidal wave. Zhu Di himself changed horses three times, ran out of arrows and his sword, and almost died in the chaos of battle.

Then, the wind came. A sudden northwest gale snapped the Ming army's central command flag in half. The 600,000-strong army, leaderless, collapsed in an instant.

But that's a matter for later. Right now, he has to survive the first three hours.

"Waaaaah—waaaah—"

The bugle call of Ming general Li Jinglong sounded. On the opposite bank of the river, the camp gates swung open, and armored cavalry filed out. The black armor stretched as far as the eye could see in the sunlight, and 30,000 cavalrymen slowly spread out on the riverbank. The warhorses trampled the thin ice, and the heavy hooves thundered across the earth.

The Ming cavalry began their charge. At a slow pace, then a trot, then full speed. Thirty thousand warhorses galloped simultaneously, shaking the earth.

"boom--!"

The first rank of cavalry rammed into the shield formation on the left flank of the Yan army. Shields shattered, and bodies flew through the air.

The first rank was gone, the second rank was gone, and the third rank began to crumble. The left flank was torn apart like paper, and the fleeing soldiers began to surge backward.

The wall of people in front of Li Jingzhong was rapidly thinning.

An old soldier in the front row was hit head-on by a warhorse, and was sent flying. Before he even hit the ground, he was trampled into the mud by the hooves of the following horses.

A young soldier nearby threw down his spear and turned to run, but he tripped after only a few steps and was instantly trampled by countless feet.

Shen Du was holding the spear, his palms sweating profusely.

Don't run after them. Running after them will get you trampled to death. Don't try to push against them either. Trying to push against them will get you crushed to death.

Where are you going?

Shen Du's brain was working at lightning speed, rapidly searching his mind for the terrain on the north bank of the Baigou River.

The original owner of this body has been camping on the north bank of the Baigou River for the past few days, doing exercises, fetching water, and carrying supplies, walking back and forth around the area dozens of times each day.

As Shen Du recalled, the terrain along the riverbank became clearer and clearer in his mind.

There was a reed bed on the riverbank, the withered yellow reeds taller than a person.

Behind the reeds, there was a dry irrigation ditch, about three feet deep and four or five feet wide. It had dried up last autumn, and the bottom of the ditch was covered with a thick layer of withered grass.

The Ming cavalry would not crawl through the reeds. The reeds were too dense; crawling through them would impair their mobility and make them easy targets. Most importantly, their primary target was the Yan army's central force.

There were only reed beds. Only that ditch.

Shen Du lowered his body and ran diagonally to the side.

The fleeing soldiers surged past him like a tide, their faces filled with terror. Some tripped and were instantly trampled underfoot, their screams drowned out by the shouts of battle. Others threw down their weapons and desperately tried to push their way back, those who couldn't manage to slash at those in front of them with their swords.

Shen Du didn't look back. He pushed through the fleeing soldiers and plunged into the reeds. The withered reeds were taller than a person, densely packed, and the reed leaves stung his face. The dry ditch was still there, in the place he remembered. He rolled in.

A thick layer of withered grass had accumulated at the bottom of the ditch, carrying the rotten smell of last autumn. Shen Du lay prone at the bottom of the ditch, holding his spear horizontally in front of him, peering out through the gaps in the reeds.

The shouts of battle outside continued. The sound of horses' hooves swept past the reeds, causing the soil along the ditch to fall down in a rustling sound.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from outside the reeds.

It wasn't a horse's hoof, it was a person.

A figure stumbled through the reeds and crawled in. It was Wang Er from the same camp, clutching a knife in his hand, his face filled with terror.

He had been separated from the fleeing soldiers and had frantically run into the reeds, completely unaware that someone was hiding there. When he saw Shen Du lying in the ditch, he froze.

"Jingzhong! What are you doing here...?"