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

As Shen Du rounded the beachhead, the Qin army's lines had already begun to crack from within. Not from enemy fire, but from their own internal workings.

Fu Jian ordered a "slight retreat to clear the beachhead." This order was relayed through countless people, each adding a layer of meaning. By the time it reached a centurion from Sichuan, it became "move back." By the time it reached a group of Xianbei infantry, it had become "retreat." These soldiers, forcibly conscripted and with no will to fight, turned and ran towards the river without a word upon hearing "retreat." This action was seen by another group of Qiang infantry nearby. The Qiang, assuming the Xianbei had received some unknown retreat order, also ran back. Then came a group of Han recruits. They couldn't understand either Xianbei or Qiang, but they understood that everyone's backs were moving in the same direction—backwards.

Fear is contagious. But even more contagious is the act of "retreating" itself.

Shen Du crouched beside a grove of low pine trees on the east side, observing everything clearly. He and Lao Wei bypassed the chaotic battle zone on the beachhead, not retreating towards the river, but instead heading southeast. This direction was neither retreat nor attack—it was the flank and rear of the Beifu Army's position, a low hilly area overgrown with withered grass and shrubs. The fleeing soldiers wouldn't run in this direction, because it was far from the riverbank and there were no boats. The Beifu Army wouldn't pursue them in this direction either, because their target was the main Qin army force still resisting on the main battlefield. In other words, this was the quietest corner of the battlefield.

"Master Shen," Old Wei, panting heavily, lay beside him, two bloody scratches on his face from a dry twig, "what are we waiting for here?"

"Wait for someone to speak."

"Who?"

Shen Du didn't answer. His gaze pierced through the gaps in the pine forest, fixed on a high slope behind the beachhead. Zhu Xu was still standing there. The number of his personal guards behind him had dwindled from several hundred to just a few dozen—most of them had been sent out to "relay orders." What orders? Shen Du could guess. Zhu Xu was a former general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, forced to surrender to Qin, and had never truly abandoned his homeland. Historically, it was he who shouted "The Qin army has been defeated!" from behind the Qin lines, igniting the fuse for a complete rout. And now, the Qin army was already in disarray, needing only one more match.

The Qin army's rout was expanding at a visible rate. People crammed onto the riverbank began jumping in, those on rafts were pushed into the water, and the river surface was littered with weapons, helmets, and struggling arms. The Xianbei cavalry were the first to retreat in formation—they didn't scatter, but ran backward in neat rows, clearly prepared beforehand. The Qiang infantry followed closely behind, the Ba-Shu soldiers threw down their spears and fled into the mountains, and the Guanzhong soldiers still held out on the riverbank but could no longer hold on. The vanguard of 3,000 men was completely wiped out on the riverbank, the central cavalry was scattered by the torrent of fleeing soldiers and could not form ranks, and the reinforcements in the rear were still adrift on the river, unaware of what was happening ahead. The Former Qin army, boasting 870,000 men, had less than a third actually engaged in battle on the south bank of the Fei River, and that third was being devoured piece by piece by 80,000 Beifu soldiers.

Xie Xuan stood atop the high slope, facing a collapsing enemy army. In all his years of fighting, he had never witnessed anything like this—not a victory, but the enemy collapsing on their own. He lowered his command flag and said to his adjutant, Liu Laozhi, beside him, "The entire army must pursue. Do not stop."

"How far should we chase them?"

"Chase them until they can't run anymore."

Then Shen Du heard that sound. The cry of "The Qin army has been defeated!" wasn't shouted, it exploded. Zhu Xu stood on the high slope, cupped his hands to his mouth, and roared those four words with all his might towards the direction where the fleeing soldiers were most concentrated. Dozens of his personal guards followed suit, their voices overlapping like a muffled thunderclap, rolling across the chaotic battlefield and reaching the ears of every fleeing soldier. The words "The Qin army has been defeated!" were like a fire thrown into a powder keg. The already panicked and disoriented soldiers couldn't distinguish truth from falsehood; they only knew that the Eastern Jin army was pursuing them from behind, their comrades on the flanks were crumbling, and even their own men on the high slope ahead were shouting "Defeated!"—how could it be false? Panic turned into a raging torrent, and the rout into a stampede. The Xianbei cavalry retreated the fastest and in the most orderly fashion, heading north in a cloud of dust, with the Qiang infantry following closely behind. The Bashu soldiers threw down their weapons and fled into the mountains and forests, leaving only the Guanzhong soldiers who genuinely wanted to fight but had not received any clear orders, who were swept away and scattered in the torrent of fleeing soldiers.

At that moment, Shen Du burst out of the pine forest. A burning sensation surged through his feet—the passive state of a soldier crossing the river was fully activated when facing the enemy. Every step gave him strength, and with each additional step, his agility increased. He didn't charge towards the fleeing soldiers on the riverbank, but instead darted diagonally towards the foot of the high slope where Zhu Xu was. There, a small group of retreating Qiang infantry, about a dozen men, were still in formation—they were the troops of the Qiang leader Yao Chang, and their discipline was better than the other fleeing soldiers. They were retreating westward along the foot of the high slope, trying to bypass the main battlefield and return to the north bank. But their retreat direction collided with the vanguard of the Eastern Jin pursuing troops. A light cavalry unit from the Northern Army flanked them from the east, led by a captain in gleaming armor, carrying a long spear, with two freshly severed heads hanging on his horse's back. The Qiang infantry, their retreat blocked by the cavalry, could only turn and run back, bumping right into Shen Du.

Shen Du didn't stop. He flanked him, moving nearly 30% faster than usual—Old Wei, panting heavily, could barely keep up. The buffs from the "Crossing the River Soldier" made his agility and strength exceed his body's usual limits. The spear in his hands was no longer a cumbersome barricade, but a handy weapon capable of both slashing and thrusting. He caught up with the leading Qiang infantryman and thrust the spear into his waist from the side and behind. The spearhead pierced through the leather armor and cotton padding, embedding itself in the flesh, and when it was pulled out, it drew a spray of blood. The man collapsed to the ground without uttering a sound.

"Master Shen—!" Old Wei called out in a low voice from behind, "Are we going to kill our own people?"

"The fleeing soldiers aren't our own." Shen Du drew his short sword and chased after the second target, his voice broken by the wind. "They'll only trample you to death. We'll advance south—the Northern Army is the enemy we need to fight!"

The second Qiang foot soldier, hearing the commotion behind him, was about to turn around when Shen Du's short sword had already sliced ​​through his armor and into his armpit. His swordsmanship was unpretentious, devoid of flashy techniques; each strike aimed for the gaps in the armor, the neck, and the waist—positions he had honed through hundreds and thousands of slashes in Baigou River, Dezhou, and Lingbi. The third, the fourth, the fifth—he couldn't remember how many he had slashed. His face was covered in blood, indistinguishable between his own and others', his eyes narrowed to slits in the sandstorm, fixed only on the retreating figures.

At first, Lao Wei was at a loss, but after helping him stab down the second charging Qiang soldier, his hand stopped trembling. The two of them, one on the left and one on the right, pushed forward along the withered grass at the foot of the high slope, completely scattering the Qiang soldiers' formation. Before Shen Du and Lao Wei could even catch their breath, they were swept up by the torrent of fleeing soldiers and crashed into a group of Eastern Jin light cavalry that charged out from the side. The leading Jin officer saw his armor—the uniform of a Former Qin infantryman, stained with blood—and immediately spurred his horse forward, thrusting his long spear, propelled by the horse's momentum, toward Shen Du's chest.

Shen Du sidestepped the spear tip, his left arm gripping the shaft and pressing it down. His right hand, wielding a short sword, slid up the shaft and severed two of the captain's fingers. The captain screamed and released his grip. Shen Du retaliated with a backhand thrust, plunging the sword into his groin. The captain fell from his horse, and Shen Du flipped over, pinning him to the chest, the short sword held against his throat.

"Where has your Northern Army's main force moved to now?" Shen Du asked.

The captain's face was covered in blood, and he glared at him through gritted teeth, without saying a word.

"You have to answer whatever I ask. Otherwise, I'll hand you over to those fleeing soldiers." Shen Du gestured with his chin towards the fleeing soldiers. "Do you think they'll be as polite as I am?"

The captain's pupils contracted slightly. "The vanguard has crossed the Fei River, and General Xie's main force is advancing towards the north bank."

Shen Du loosened his grip and slammed the back of his blade into the captain's helmet, knocking him unconscious. He didn't kill the captain—he needed a survivor to assess the battlefield situation. He took the water pouch and quiver from the captain's saddle and tossed them to Old Wei, then stood up and continued moving southeast. Old Wei followed behind, still clutching the mud- and blood-stained spear, his breathing heavy and labored, like a bellows.

"Master Shen, why are we fighting the Northern Army? Aren't we the Qin army?" Old Wei asked.

Shen Du kept walking, his voice low but each word clearly enunciated: "When fleeing soldiers trample each other, no one survives. Keep fighting forward, until you reach the enemy, then they won't have time to trample you. The Northern Army is chasing fleeing soldiers, not stragglers like us. We'll fight along the edge, firing a shot and then moving on, so they won't know how many of us there are. We'll take advantage of the chaos to grab heads and equipment, and after the rout ends, we'll figure out how to cross the river and return north."

What he didn't say was that the system would calculate reputation points after this battle. Every enemy soldier he killed while advancing against the tide of defeat was worth points, and the route he had chosen—keeping close to the edge of the main battlefield and heading south, avoiding the trampling of the fleeing troops while maintaining continuous engagement—was the most profitable strategy in this instance. Old Wei didn't press further; he seemed to be slowly understanding Shen Du's approach.

They crept southeast along the bushes at the foot of the slope. Shen Du walked ahead, switching his short knife to his left hand and using a broken spear shaft he picked up from the ground as a walking stick to probe the path. His left leg had been cut by an iron nail on the raft while crossing the river; although not deep, the blood seeping out during their continuous running had soaked his trouser leg black.

"Master Shen," Old Wei suddenly lowered his voice and pointed ahead. Shen Du looked in the direction he was pointing. Behind the high slope was a small depression, where abandoned Qin army supplies were scattered—several overturned grain carts, a few broken pottery jars, and a pile of trampled tent cloth. Three people were squatting next to the supplies pile, two wearing Qin army uniforms and one wearing Jin army uniforms, searching for something around an overturned grain cart, arguing quietly. One was a Qin army deserter, one was a Jin army deserter, and the other—a middle-aged man wearing Qin army captain's armor—was squatting on the ground, using a dagger to cut the ropes on the grain cart.

"That's a captain in our Qin army," Old Wei said in a low voice. "Why is he squatting with the Jin soldiers?"

Shen Du didn't speak, but gestured for Lao Wei to squat down. He watched the Qin army captain's actions—not looting grain, not bandaging wounds, but methodically tying several cloth bags from the grain cart to his horse. His horse was tied to a dead tree at the other end of the depression, and several bags were already hanging on its back. The Jin army soldier was helping him hold the bags.

"That's not a Qin army captain." Shen Du narrowed his eyes. "That's a Jin army soldier, wearing Qin army armor."

"How did you figure that out?"

"The Qin army captain's armor was left-fastening, but the one he's wearing is right-fastening. Eastern Jin armor was worn inside out."

Old Wei's eyes widened: "A spy?" Shen Du nodded. This man had donned Qin army armor on the battlefield, blending in with the fleeing soldiers to fish in the mud. When encountering pursuing Jin soldiers, he would reveal his own identity; when encountering fleeing Qin soldiers, he would pretend to be their comrade. He didn't need to fight; he only needed to gather intelligence amidst the chaos—or steal things. But whatever his purpose, the cloth bags he carried were clearly not empty.

"You to the left, I to the right, move closer. Don't make a sound." Shen Du switched the short knife to his right hand and crouched down to circle around to the left side of the depression. Old Wei gripped his spear and crept through the bushes on the right. The two squatted for a moment in the dry grass at the edge of the depression, and Shen Du held up three fingers—three, two, one.

Shen Du was the first to rush out from the withered grass, stabbing the spy in the lower back with a knife. The tip of the knife pierced through the cotton armor and flesh, reaching the hilt. The spy's mouth was open, only making "hoarse" bubbling sounds in his throat. The cloth bag in his hand fell to the ground and scattered—it didn't contain food, but rather rolls of sealed bamboo slips and documents.

He collapsed to the ground, convulsed twice, and lay still. Shen Du drew his knife, wiped it clean on the spy's clothes, bent down, picked up a scroll of bamboo slips, and glanced at it in the moonlight. The bamboo slips were densely covered with writing—it contained information on the troop deployments of the Former Qin army, its food reserves, and the garrisons and troop movement routes of various tribes. This was an extremely detailed intelligence summary of the Former Qin army, copied in tiny characters on bamboo slips and wrapped in several layers of oilcloth for moisture protection.

Shen Du wiped the knife clean on the man's clothes, picked up all the scattered bamboo slips, and stuffed them into his own pocket. Before the Jin soldiers nearby could even shout, Old Wei stabbed them from behind with a spear. The fleeing Qin soldiers, terrified, dropped their grain sacks and turned to run, but Shen Du caught up with them after only a few steps, slashing them across the back of the neck before they collapsed into the mud. Old Wei bent down, picked up the spy's cloth bag, and opened it. Inside, besides the bamboo slips, were a few pieces of silver and an Eastern Jin token. He put the silver in his pocket and handed the token to Shen Du.

"Mr. Shen, who exactly is this person?"

"A Jin army spy. Infiltrating the fleeing soldiers to gather intelligence on the Qin army." He rolled up the bamboo slips and stuffed them into his robes, tracing the patterns on the token with his fingers—this token might be useful. Even if it wasn't, those bamboo slips could still be exchanged for a lot of reputation points after the war.

"Walk."

"Where to?"

"Head north. Most of the defeated soldiers have fled; it's time to go back to the riverbank."

They retraced their steps, skirting the still-burning grain carts and dead warhorses, traversing the trampled camp, until they reached the banks of the Fei River. Shen Du stood on the high bank, looking down, the moonlight illuminating the entire riverbank. The scene was even more horrific than during the day—the riverbed was littered with abandoned weapons, armor, grain sacks, and corpses; the wreckage of rafts floated in the shallows, and broken planks had been washed ashore, forming small mounds. A layer of dark oil floated on the river, indistinguishable as blood or spilled lamp oil. The Qin army camp on the opposite bank was completely empty. The tents were still there, the campfires were still burning, but the men were gone. Along the vast land between the north bank of the Fei River and the Ying River, the routed soldiers had abandoned their supplies and weapons everywhere.

"They've all run away." Old Wei stood beside Shen Du, leaning on his spear, his lips pale. His face was covered in mud and blood, his armor torn in several places by blades, but he could still stand and speak—a feat that put him ahead of most of the soldiers on the battlefield. A corpse floated across the river, dressed in the armor of a Qin centurion, clutching a charred command flag. The body was stranded in the shallow water, the river lapping against his armor with a soft sound, like someone banging a broken gong.

Shen Du stood on the riverbank in silence for a while. Then he planted his spear in the mud, turned to Old Wei, and said, "Let's go. Head towards Huaibei and see if there are any survivors."

Old Wei hesitated for a moment, then followed his footsteps. They walked upstream along the riverbank, gathering a dozen or so scattered soldiers along the way—Han, Qiang, and Xianbei, all stragglers separated from their ranks during the rout, hiding in the reeds and bushes by the river, too afraid to come out. Shen Du led these men north along the Fei River all night, reaching an abandoned ferry crossing at dawn. Beside the ferry were several burnt-down fishermen's huts, behind which was a sparse willow grove. Shen Du let the scattered soldiers rest in the willow grove, while he rummaged through the ruins of the huts, finding half a sack of burnt millet and a cracked iron pot.

"Master Shen," Old Wei leaned closer and lowered his voice, "what do you plan to do with these people? Take them north, or leave them here?"

Shen Du didn't answer immediately. He squatted beside the iron pot, scraping off the burnt bits from the corn sack with a short knife, and poured the edible corn into the pot. Smoke rose slowly in the morning mist, drifting through the willow branches and onto the river. He suddenly thought of something—the intelligence recorded on those bamboo slips, if he could take it back and hand it to the generals of the Northern Army, might be able to exchange it for something of value. But the Eastern Jin token in his arms had already given him another option.

"Old Wei," Shen Du stirred the millet porridge, watching the grains tumbling in the pot, "tell me, what were these defeated soldiers fighting for?"

Old Wei was taken aback. This question was clearly beyond his expectations. He squatted beside the iron pot in silence for a long time, watching the millet porridge bubbling inside, watching the fleeing soldiers huddled shivering in the willow grove outside the shed, and suddenly put his spear down. "I don't know. I joined the army because my family had no land, and if I didn't join, I wouldn't have food to eat. They—" He glanced back at the fleeing soldiers in the willow grove, "maybe it's the same."

"So they're not afraid of dying. They're afraid that if they die, no one will remember them."

Old Wei looked up at him. Shen Du didn't say anything more, but distributed the millet porridge to the fleeing soldiers, one bowl for each. The soldiers squatted in the willow grove, holding their bowls, and drank the porridge without speaking. Shen Du stood by the ferry, watching the wreckage and corpses floating on the river, and took out the bamboo slips from his pocket again, flipping through them once more. The tiny characters on the bamboo slips were clearly visible in the morning light—the garrisons, food reserves, and troop movement routes of the various tribes of the Former Qin army, and even the names of the tribal leaders and the relationships between the tribes. Those crooked marks were not intelligence; they were the Achilles' heel of the Former Qin.