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

"I'm not sure," the man in green interrupted him, his tone unusually cautious. "There's no direct evidence. We can't get the battle record of the Yan Army's elite cavalry from that day at Baigou River, and we don't have any technical means to trace the messages posted by 'Taotie' in the public chat back to specific players. The most crucial point—if Li Jingzhong really is Taotie, why would he impersonate someone from the Classic of Mountains and Seas after Baigou River? What is his relationship with the Classic of Mountains and Seas? All of these are blanks."

He stood up and walked to the window, looking at the endless stream of torches moving through the streets and alleys outside.

"So this is just my speculation for now. But there is a way to verify it." The man in the green robe turned around, the candlelight casting sharp angles of light and shadow on his face. "Once the Battle of Jinan begins, if Li Jingzhong continues to use the Texas style of play—unconventional tactics, targeting defensive weaknesses, and acting as if he knows the course of the battle in advance—then he will not just be a gifted centurion. He will be a glutton."

Song Yu paused for a moment, then asked, "What if he really is?"

The corner of Qing Shan's mouth twitched slightly, but the curve wasn't exactly a smile; it was more like a chess player finally seeing a worthy opponent on the other side of the chessboard.

"Then it's not a siege anymore. It's a covert war between two guilds. He's in the Yan army, we're in the imperial court, separated by the walls of Jinan. This city is the chessboard." He walked back to his desk, wrote a line on the back of a note, and handed it to Song Yu. "Encrypt this and send it to Shanhe through internal guild channels. Have him check from Jinan to see if any player has claimed to be 'Taotie' since Baigou River. If someone has claimed it fraudulently, it could prove the real person is still with the Yan army. If not—Li Jingzhong is even more suspicious."

Song Yu took the note and put it in his sleeve, then asked, "How should we fight in Jinan?"

"Fight as before." The man in green sat down again and spread out the map of Jinan's defenses. "Whether he is Taotie or not, he is the Yan army's strongest weapon. Lord Tie Xuan is already mobilizing troops to reinforce the outer military camps. He's aiming at that one south of the city—the most remote and weakest; he'll devour it first."

The Yan-character flag had been flying over Jinan's city walls for three days. It wasn't Zhu Di's flag, but Shen Du's. After capturing the military camp south of the city, Shen Du didn't stop. He spent two days taking down the two military camps outside the Luoshui ferry crossing west of the city. By the evening of the third day, only the two military camps at the foot of Lishan Mountain east of Jinan remained in the hands of the Southern Army. Sheng Yong's city defense system had been crippled. When Tie Xuan patrolled the city walls, he could see the smoke rising from the Yan army's cooking fires in the south and west of the city, one after another, like a ring of beacon fires lit outside the city. But Zhu Di did not order an attack.

After the main force of the Yan army set up camp outside Jinan, Zhu Di did only one thing—he sent cavalry to circle the city. It wasn't a charge, nor a challenge; it was simply a retreat. The dust kicked up by the horses' hooves formed a grayish-yellow ring outside the city walls, making it look from the city walls as if the entire city of Jinan was bound by a rope. Then Zhu Di ordered archers to shoot a letter into the city. The letter was simple—the story of the Duke of Zhou assisting King Cheng, urging Tie Xuan to open the city gates and surrender. The last sentence of the letter was: "If you remain obstinate, on the day the city falls, everything will be destroyed."

After the letter was delivered into the city, Jinan remained quiet for a day. Zhu Di waited in his central command tent all day, from sunrise to sunset, drinking seven or eight cups of tea without finishing a single one. He wasn't an impatient man—since raising his army in Beiping, he had fought countless battles far more dangerous than Jinan. But this letter was different. It wasn't addressed to Sheng Yong, nor to Tie Xuan personally, but to everyone in Jinan. He wanted to see if the city would crack open from within.

At dawn the next day, a letter was shot back from the walls of Jinan. It was an arrow without an arrowhead, with a roll of white silk tied to its shaft. Unfolding the silk revealed a piece of parallel prose entitled "On the Duke of Zhou Assisting King Cheng." Written by a man in a blue robe on behalf of Tie Xuan, it was a lengthy essay of over a thousand words, full of classical allusions and exquisite prose. The gist was: Since Your Highness compares yourself to the Duke of Zhou, I dare to ask, where is King Cheng? The Duke of Zhou had the punishment of Guan Zhong and Cai Rong; Your Highness has the troops of Beiping. The Duke of Zhou returned power to King Cheng; when will Your Highness return power to Your Majesty? Your Highness, having studied the classics, should understand the great principles of loyalty between ruler and subject. Are the millions of lives in Jinan merely weeds beneath Your Highness's hooves?

The inscription reads, "Tie Xuan, Councilor of the Shandong Provincial Administration Commission, bows and pays his respects."

After reading the parallel prose, Zhu Di slammed the white silk onto the table and remained silent for a long while. To Zhang Yu and Zhu Neng's surprise, he didn't get angry. When he looked up, his face even carried a faint hint of bitterness—this letter had revealed one thing to him: Jinan would not surrender. No matter how long the siege lasted or how fierce the attack, the city wouldn't open its gates on its own. Tie Xuan had made his position absolutely clear, so clear that no defending general could utter the word "surrender" in the face of such a proclamation.

"Excellent article, excellent writing." Zhu Di folded the white silk and placed it on the corner of the table. "Tie Xuan is a loyal minister, but this city must be taken, and even a loyal minister must be captured. Issue the order: the attack on the city will begin at Chenshi (7-9 AM) tomorrow."

Shen Du received a copy of "On the Duke of Zhou Assisting King Cheng" that evening. When the messenger brought the copy, he was squatting under the stockade wall at the Luoshui ferry crossing, sharing a pot of horse meat stew with Zhao Laoliu and Huo Zhen. The horse meat was brought by the Doyan Three Guards, and the radish was provided by the supply camp. A thick layer of oil floated on the soup, steaming in the evening breeze.

He took the copy and read it once, then read it again. Then he placed the paper on his lap, picked up the bowl, and took a sip of soup.

"Uncle Li, what does it say?" Old Zhao asked, chewing on his pipe, which was not lit.

"A letter of surrender." Shen Du put down his bowl. "It wasn't us who persuaded them to surrender, it was them who persuaded us to retreat. Tie Xuan's meaning was very simple—Zhu Di, you're here to play the role of the Duke of Zhou, who was supposed to assist the emperor. And what kind of emperor are you assisting? You've besieged your own nephew in the city for three years. What kind of Duke of Zhou is that? There are a million lives in Jinan. If you've truly studied the classics, you shouldn't be trampling your horses on the heads of ordinary people."

Zhao Laoliu pulled the pipe out of his mouth and stared blankly for a long while. "This—he dares to insult His Highness?"

"It's not insults, it's pressure." Shen Du folded the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. "Tie Xuan has seized the moral high ground. Once this manifesto is released, the defenders of Jinan will have an ironclad reason—defending the city is loyalty, surrendering is betrayal. This article is more effective than ten thousand cannons. Tomorrow's attack on the city will definitely cost us more than we anticipated."

Huo Zhen used his dagger to scoop a radish from the pot, blew on it twice to cool it, and stuffed it into his mouth. He mumbled a sentence in Mongolian, then switched to broken Chinese: "Can't take it down?"