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

"You just said you were willing to go out of the city to meet the enemy."

"This general is allocating the funds to you now," Li Jinglong paused, his lips trembling several times before he finally uttered the number.

"I'll allocate you two thousand cavalry."

No, a thousand. Go and hold off the Yan army! Don't let them reach the city!

Qu Neng looked at Li Jinglong's face.

His face was as white as a sheet of paper, and his eyes were filled with fear.

Qu Neng had fought battles all his life and had seen people who were afraid of death, but he had never seen a general who was so afraid of death.

He didn't spell it out, but simply cupped his hands in a respectful gesture. "This subordinate obeys. But a thousand cavalrymen aren't enough. We need at least two thousand."

"A thousand!" Li Jinglong's voice shrilled for a moment before he forcefully suppressed it. "We can't give you all the cavalry! The city also needs defense! A thousand cavalry, will you take them or not?"

Qu Neng paused for a moment, then turned and strode down the city wall, the iron plates on his armor clanging together.

"Order the guards to assemble. Open the north gate."

Meanwhile, Team C, which had just regrouped, also reassembled at the South Gate.

Shen Du counted the men; four were missing. Three were dead, and one, seriously wounded, was carried to the medical tent in the central camp. The rest were all wounded; Zhao Laoliu's eyebrow was half burned off by gunpowder, Gu Zhang's bandage on his left arm was soaked with blood, and Zheng Biao had changed to his fourth knife.

But their eyes were wide open, because they saw that the red flag with the character "燕" (swallow) on the south gate was still there, Chen Heng's cavalry had circled around to the back of Chenjiaying, and Zhu Neng's main force in the north was crushing Chenjiaying's defenses layer by layer to the south.

"Where to attack now?" Zhao Laoliu's voice was hoarse, but there was already a hint of a smile in his tone.

Shen Du raised his head and looked south from the south gate.

Due south of them, beyond the southern end of the Twelve Linked Cities, the outline of Dezhou City was clearly visible in the afternoon sunlight.

The crenellations on the city wall gleamed with a bluish-gray light, and withered grass grew in the cracks between the bricks at the foot of the wall.

"The north gate of Dezhou City is less than five li away from us." Shen Du planted his sword in the ground, using the blade to support himself. "General Zhu Neng's main force is still clearing out the remaining enemies in the Twelve Linked Cities. Li Jinglong saw these plumes of smoke from the city tower, but he hasn't seen enough."

Gu Zhang turned his head: "Isn't that enough?"

"The four fake smoke pillars at Baojia Camp and the real smoke pillar at the south gate of the central camp, when viewed from the city tower of Dezhou, indeed looked like the Yan army had broken through the Twelve Linked Cities."

But if Li Jinglong were to abandon the city and flee south, he needed a much stronger signal, a signal that would make him realize, "If I don't run now, it will be too late."

"What signal?" Zhao Laoliu asked.

"The banners of the Yan army appeared outside the city of Dezhou."

Shen Du pulled the horizontal sword out of the mud. Several nicks appeared on the blade, and mud and blood mixed together, flowing down the spine of the sword.

"Our numbers aren't a real army, but Li Jinglong doesn't know that."

He didn't know how many of us there were, or how far Zhu Neng was from being able to leave.

All he knows is that we've breached two camps and blown up two of his gates; now we're going to do one last thing.

He raised the tip of his sword and pointed it due south. "Go down to Dezhou City. Plant the Yan army's flag where Li Jinglong can see it."

The north gate of Dezhou City was closed again after Qu Neng's thousand cavalrymen left the city.

Qu Neng stood on his horse by the wooden bridge over the moat outside the North Gate, holding an iron spear in his hand.

He didn't look back at the closing city gate; his eyes were fixed on the direction of the Twelve Linked Cities to the north.

The sun was beginning to set, casting a long shadow over him. He saw several plumes of smoke rising in the distance, and beneath them, a small group of people could be vaguely seen moving south.

There were only thirty or forty of them, their armor tattered and their bodies covered in blood and mud, but their steps were unwavering.

They emerged from beneath the column of smoke, walking slowly and deliberately, each step as if they were measuring the earth.

Leading the way was a young man, a knife slung over his shoulder, his steps light and firm.

Beside him was an old soldier with a pipe in his mouth, a centurion whose left arm was wrapped in bandages, and behind him were thirty or forty people walking heavily but firmly, like wandering souls who had just crawled out of hell.

Qu Neng gripped his iron spear tightly. Behind him, a thousand cavalrymen simultaneously drew their swords from their horses, the sound of blades being drawn echoing in the evening breeze above the moat.

Shen Du stopped in his tracks, lowered his sword from his shoulder, and gazed at the last force standing between him and Dezhou City.

He didn't speak, but simply glanced back at the north.

Baojiaying was still smoking, while Chenjiaying had already been captured by Zhu Neng.

The interconnected defenses of the twelve cities were crumbling layer by layer from the northwest corner southward. Before dusk even arrived, Texas City had already fallen.

The setting sun had sunk behind the crenellations of the western wall of Dezhou City, turning the entire sky a rusty color.

The wooden bridge over the moat was pulled up by a winch behind Qu Neng, and the wet bridge planks dripped water, splashing onto the dry riverbed and stirring up small clumps of dust.

Qu Neng rode on his horse, his iron spear held horizontally in front of the saddle, the tip pointing at the thirty or forty people covered in blood and mud to the north.

The cavalry behind him had already formed a charge formation. A thousand cavalrymen, divided into three ranks: the first rank held their lances level, the second rank drew their scimitars, and the third rank nocked their arrows.

The warhorse pawed restlessly, its iron hooves stomping on the gravel along the moat, sending sparks flying.

These cavalrymen were all old hands that Qu Neng had brought from Liaodong to Shandong. They had followed him in chasing the remnants of the Doyan tribe in the snow and fighting with Tatar cavalry on the grasslands. Every one of them had a fierce and brave look on their face.

But there was hesitation in their eyes at that moment.

It's not because I'm afraid.

It's because those thirty or forty people on the other side were standing too steadily. They were so steady, it didn't seem like they were there to die.

They were as steady as if they had a hundred thousand troops standing behind them.

Shen Du stood fifty paces away on the north bank of the moat, plunging his sword into the mud in front of him, hilt facing upwards, like a makeshift flagpole.

His armor was soaked in blood, and blood dripped from his cuffs—it was unclear whether it was the enemy's or his own.

He was stabbed in the left shoulder, and the wound was hastily bandaged with a strip of cloth charred by gunpowder. The bleeding stopped, but he couldn't lift his entire left arm.

His eyes were fixed on Qu Neng.

"Team C." His voice wasn't loud, but everyone behind him heard him. "Form ranks."

Zhao Laoliu took the pipe out of his mouth, tapped the ash off his shoe, and put it back in his mouth.

Half of his eyebrows were burned off by gunpowder, making his face look crooked when he smiled.

He pulled the last throwing axe from behind his back and weighed it in his hand. The blade was chipped in three places, and it felt light as a piece of scrap iron. But he still gripped it.

Gu Zhang stood to Shen Du's right. The bandage on his left arm was soaked with blood, and he had switched the knife to his right hand.

Zheng Biao stood behind him, holding the knife in his hand without drawing it. It wasn't that he didn't want to draw it, but the scabbard was stuck with blood, and he couldn't pull it out after trying twice.