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

Gu Zhang and Zheng Biao squatted down with their backs against the door panel, their hands crossed to form a footrest.

Shen Du stepped on it, and the two of them pushed him up at the same time.

He reached out and touched the gap between the lintel and the rammed earth wall, and used his fingers to pry out the bits of hemp filling it, creating a hole the size of a fist.

Then he took the gunpowder pack out of his pocket, stuffed it into the hole, and used the hilt of his dagger to tamp it down until the entire gunpowder pack was completely embedded in the gap.

"Leave the lead wire a little longer! Two feet isn't enough!" Zhao Laoliu shouted from below.

Shen Du touched the lintel. The lintel was covered with a thick layer of old dust, so the wire would have to be laid down from above to have time to run.

He pulled the fuse out of the powder pack and ran it along the surface of the lintel, letting the end of the fuse hang down just within a person's reach.

"ignition!"

Zhao Laoliu lit the fuse with a flint.

Sparks hissed upwards along the hemp thread, but in the bright afternoon sunlight, the flames were barely visible; only a thin, charred line was rapidly shortening.

"Run! Run to the sides or sides of the wall!" Shen Du roared. "Don't go back!"

Everyone fell to the base of the stockade walls on both sides of the south gate.

Shen Du ran to the west wall and squatted down, covering his head with his hands. The fuse burned into the crack of the lintel.

Then came an even more muffled explosion than the one at the west gate of Baojiaying. With a deafening roar, the lintel was blasted off the rammed earth wall, sending splinters of wood and iron flying inwards. The entire south gate, having lost its upper support, slowly tilted outwards before collapsing with a thunderous crash.

Before the smoke and dust had even cleared, Shen Du had already stood up from the base of the wall.

"Clear out the remaining enemy! Send the signal!"

Zheng Biao led his team to scale the collapsed door and rushed in, colliding with the remaining defenders inside the south gate.

The sounds of swords and spears clashing echoed back and forth inside the gatehouse, and screams and the cracking of weapons were indistinguishable from one another.

Shen Du did not participate in the mopping-up operation against the remaining enemy forces. Instead, he climbed onto the wall on the left side of the South Gate and pulled out the red swallow-character command flag that he always carried close to his body from his waist.

He hung the command flag on the flagpole at the south gate. The red swallow-shaped flag unfurled in the afternoon breeze, facing south, towards the city of Dezhou.

Then he turned to Zhao Laoliu and, with his last bit of strength, shouted, "Set off smoke! Set off the biggest smoke!"

Zhao Laoliu poured all the barrels of lamp oil piled up inside the south gate of Zhongying onto the collapsed door panels and broken wood.

With a flick of the tinderbox, flames shot up and billowing black smoke rose into the sky.

This column of smoke was thicker, darker, and straighter than the four in Baojiaying, like a black finger extending from the heart of the Twelve Linked Cities, pointing straight south.

North of Zhongying, below the sheep and horse wall.

Chen Heng's left shoulder armor was shredded by shrapnel, and blood seeped from the tear, but he seemed completely unaware of it.

He knelt against the west wall of the central camp, clutching the last twenty or so arrows in his hand. The cavalry behind him had all dismounted and were crouching in the shadow of the sheep and horse wall.

Of the original three thousand cavalry, less than two thousand remained, nearly half their horses were lost, and their arrows were almost exhausted. But their eyes still shone, for a messenger had just brought news.

The red flag bearing the character "燕" (swallow) has already been planted on the south gate of the central camp.

The south gate is breached.

Chen Heng tossed the quiver to his adjutant and stood up from behind the sheep and horse wall.

"Mount up!" His voice was hoarse, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth. "Follow me south! Out the south gate! Go around to Chenjiaying's backside and stab them in the back!"

The Yan army's cavalrymen climbed over the sheep and horse wall, mounted their horses, and galloped south along the western wall of the central camp, their hooves breaking up the dry mud.

As Chen Heng rounded the south corner of Zhongying, he saw the red flag burning on the south gate and a young man covered in blood under the flagpole.

He didn't stop to greet them, but simply raised his sword above his head and swung it in Shen Du's direction. Then, he led his cavalry out of the south gate like a gust of wind, circled around to the east, and rushed straight towards the flank and rear of Chenjia Camp.

At the same moment, on the Xiajiaying observation tower.

Through his binoculars, Qingshan saw the moment the south gate of Zhongying collapsed.

He saw the wooden door covered with iron slowly tilt outwards, saw black smoke billowing out of the doorway, and saw a red swallow-shaped flag hanging on the crenellation of the south gate.

Then he saw a troop of Yan cavalry rush out from the south gate and circle around to the east.

His fingers clenched and unclenched on the fence, clenching and unclenching repeatedly, before he could catch his breath.

"The south gate of Zhongying has been breached." He placed his binoculars on the fence, his voice calm. "Chen Heng has come out."

Song Yu stood behind him without saying a word.

He had known Qingshan for so long, and he had never seen Qingshan speak in such a tone before—not anger, not panic, but a kind of calm self-assessment.

"I made two mistakes." The man in the green robe turned around.

"First, I thought their goal was to rescue Chen Heng and retreat."

However, their goal from the beginning was not to retreat, but to advance south.

Secondly, I underestimated the commander of the breached city camp. He wasn't just good at killing; he was strategic.

The smoke column from Baojia Camp was fake, the cavalry to the south was fake; all the deception was a cover for a real blade thrusting towards the south gate of the central camp. And now, that real blade has pierced through.

He walked back to his desk, picked up his pen, and wrote down the final order on the paper.

"Order Chenjia Camp and Banbian Camp to abandon the encirclement and retreat to their respective camps to hold their ground."

They've already been stabbed in the back by Chen Heng's cavalry at Chenjiaying; if they don't retreat now, they'll be surrounded and annihilated.

The messenger took the order and ran down from the watchtower.

The man in the green robe picked up another piece of paper and wrote a few lines. His handwriting was still neat, but he pressed the pen three times harder than usual.

"Song Yu, this military report has been sent to Dezhou City. The south gate of the central camp has fallen, Chen Heng's troops have escaped, and the Yan army has broken through to the southern end of the Twelve Linked Cities. Please make preparations to meet the enemy, General."

Just as Song Yu was about to leave after receiving the military report, the man in the green robe called him back.

"One more thing," the man in green said in a low voice, so low that only the two of them could hear, "The Twelve Linked Cities may not be able to hold out for long. I urge the General to act according to the circumstances."

Song Yu was taken aback. "Qingshan, what do you mean by that?"

"Write it down exactly as it is," said the man in the blue robe.

Meanwhile, on the city tower of the north gate of Dezhou.

Li Jinglong almost dropped his binoculars.

He saw the column of black smoke rising from the south gate of Zhongying.

Unlike the four smoke pillars in Baojiaying, which were outside the village, the smoke pillars in Baojiaying were probably fake.

But this column of smoke was at the south gate of the central camp, in the core camp of the Twelve Linked Cities.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew what the location of the south gate of the central camp meant. The Twelve Linked Cities had been breached.

"A column of smoke." His voice trembled, his lips turned pale. "A column of smoke at the south gate of the central camp. The Yan army has breached the Twelve Linked Cities."

The generals on the city wall were completely silent.

Some people's hands were trembling as they gripped the hilts of their swords, while others kept turning back to look at the stairs leading down to the city gate.

"Where's Qu Neng?" Li Jinglong suddenly remembered the old general he had left out, and abruptly turned around to search through the crowd. "Where is General Qu?"

Qu Neng emerged from the shadows of the pillars, his face expressionless.

"Your subordinate is here."