The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The wind in Shuozhou is like a knife.

There was no sign of spring in the North in late April.

The military flags atop Shuozhou city were stretched taut by the wind, and the flagpoles creaked under the weight of the cold wind.

Every ten steps along the city wall, there was a large pot, with golden broth simmering inside.

That was scalding hot excrement poured down during the defense of the city; if it touched the skin and flesh, it would cause wounds that rotted to the bone.

The entire city of Shuozhou was filled with a complex smell, a mixture of rust, the stench of excrement, and the earthy odor of melting snow.

The vanguard battalion's camp was set up on an open area in the south of the city closest to the city wall. The tents were old and the campfire was barely alive.

This unit is the one with the highest casualty rate in the Shuozhou Army.

In every siege, the vanguard battalion is the first to go.

In every breakout attempt, the vanguard battalion was the last to retreat.

The soldiers in the camp were mostly criminals, including fugitives who had killed people, deserters who owed military pay, and criminals who had violated military law.

Once you're in the vanguard battalion, there's only one way to get out alive.

To atone for one's sins through meritorious service.

A minor merit can lead to a reduced sentence, a major merit can lead to acquittal, and a top merit can lead to an official position.

But most people died by sword and spear before they could even make a name for themselves.

Huo Qubing was the squad leader of the third squad of the vanguard battalion.

He was squatting on a large rock outside the tent, slowly sharpening his knife with a whetstone.

It was a standard ring-pommel sword, its blade covered with fine nicks, the result of cutting throughout the year.

It has cut through the iron armor of the Hu people, the siege ladders, and countless other indescribable things.

The whetstone made a soft, rustling sound as it rubbed against the blade, a steady rhythm as even as his breathing.

He is eighteen years old this year, but there is not a trace of the childishness that a teenager should have on his face.

It was a face with sharp, angular features, thick, knife-like eyebrows, slightly sunken eyes, high cheekbones, and skin rough and dark from the wind and sand of the North.

He was very focused as he sharpened the knife, but his gaze wasn't on the knife; it was looking over the camp's fence.

Looking towards the blurry blackness on the distant horizon.

That was the camp of the Hu people's allied forces, stretching for dozens of miles, like a giant black python lurking on the grassland.

"Sergeant Huo!" A young soldier ran over from the other end of the tent, splashing up a puddle of muddy snow water. "The captain wants to see you. He says he needs to check the route for the scouts leaving the city tomorrow."

Huo Qubing sheathed his sharpened sword at his waist, jumped off the rock, and strode towards the commander's tent.

Just half an hour ago, he received a secret letter from the capital.

The messenger was a gray sparrow with a copper tube tied to its gray legs. It circled twice above his head and then accurately tossed the copper tube into his palm.

He opened the copper tube, took out the paper strip inside that was as thin as a cicada's wing, and read it word by word by the dim light of the campfire.

The note read: "We have arrived at the Wolf-Sealing Mountain; await your merit."

The signature is a single character: "行".

He lit the note over the campfire, watched it turn to ashes at his fingertips, and then looked up to gaze south.

That's the direction of the capital.

He knew that the nine-year-old child was waiting behind the layers of palace walls for news of his achievements in the North.

Huo Qubing strode through the camp, his feet stomping and making a loud thud in the mud.

The solemn and unquestionable voice of the immortal still echoed in his mind; it had suddenly descended at the third watch of the night.

He was dozing off on the hard bed in the vanguard camp when suddenly a bright golden light appeared before his eyes.

A voice pierced his skull and was imprinted directly into the depths of his soul.

The voice told him that in his previous life he was a general of the Han Dynasty and the Marquis of Champion.

At seventeen, he led eight hundred cavalrymen deep into the desert; at nineteen, he sealed the wolf's lair. He was the youngest and most dazzling cavalry commander in Chinese history.

In this life, he was born into a much larger world.

Here are fiercer enemies, higher peaks of martial arts, and more magnificent battlefields.

The person he was to serve throughout his life was the ninth prince of the current dynasty, a child who was only nine years old.

He was shocked at first.

Lying on the hard plank, staring wide-eyed at the drafty tent fabric above his head, it took him a full incense stick's time to confirm that it wasn't a dream.

It's not that I've lost my mind from staying in the vanguard camp for so long.

Then he sat up, looked at his calloused hands, and suddenly smiled.

In the previous life, the northernmost territory of the Han Dynasty was no more than the Gobi Desert.

And this world, with just the northern border, has the Thirteen Provinces of Yan and Yun.

Further north, deep in the grasslands, lie countless nomadic tribes.

His biggest regret in his past life was dying too young, passing away at the tender age of twenty-four.

How many unfinished achievements and how many unexplored places were left behind?

The immortal gave him a second chance in this life, and also gave him a world even wider than in his previous life.

He doesn't care who he's loyal to.

Whether it's a nine-year-old prince or an eighty-year-old general, as long as the person is worthy of his following.

He would follow Emperor Wu of Han in his previous life, sacrificing his life and dying for his cause.

The lord to whom he could serve was no ordinary man.

Thinking of this, he suddenly quickened his pace, his boots splashing water as they hit the muddy ground.

The captain's command tent was in the center of the camp. Two guards with halberds stood outside the tent. When they saw him coming, they stepped aside slightly to make way for him.

During his year in the vanguard battalion, he rose from a convict to a platoon leader, not through connections or money, but through military merit earned step by step.

The entire vanguard battalion knew that the Third Battalion Commander, Hosh, was a madman on the battlefield, but also a madman who brought everyone back alive.

The guards lifted the tent flap to let him in.

Inside the tent, the captain and several deputies were arguing about the scouting route for the next day in front of a sand table.

The captain beckoned him over without looking up, pointed to a valley on the sand table leading towards Yunzhou, and asked how to get there.

Huo Qubing strode to the sand table, glanced at it, and drew an arc on it with his finger. His tone was firm and concise: "Go from here, bypass the Hu people's scouts, and we can reach their supply depot before dawn."

"The Hu people stored their grain and fodder in a low-lying area west of the valley entrance, and the garrison numbered no more than five hundred."

The captain and his deputies looked at each other in bewilderment.

They had never traveled this road before, but Huo Qubing spoke with such certainty as if he had already explored it himself.

The captain asked him how he knew the garrison numbered no more than five hundred.

Huo Qubing raised his eyes, his eyes, worn cold and bright by the northern winds and sand, held no extra emotion. He simply replied calmly, "Because I already went there last night."

The tent fell silent for a moment.

The captain looked at him and remained silent for a moment.

Then he chuckled and patted him on the shoulder, saying that he would definitely transfer him out of the vanguard battalion after the war was over.

When Huo Qubing turned and walked out of the command tent, the captain was still facing the sand table.

He carefully traced the arc he had just drawn with a charcoal pencil, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that the route he had chosen was tricky.

This allowed them to avoid the main force of the nomadic cavalry and strike directly at the weak point of the supply camp.

He looked up and asked the man beside him who Huo Qubing was. One of his deputies whispered, "The man who killed the county magistrate."

The captain didn't reply, but simply wrote a single character on the edge of the sand table.

Written in charcoal, very large and heavy: Huo.

Meanwhile, in the southern suburbs of the capital, a thousand miles away.

A troop of Tiger Guard cavalry is conducting their final drills before setting off on the training ground.

The dust kicked up by the horses' hooves blotted out the sky, and the clanging sound of swords being drawn was deafening.

On the high platform beside the drill ground, Marquis Han Chong of Dingyuan stood with his hand on his sword, his personal guard and staff standing behind him.

He was about to lead this elite force of 30,000 cavalrymen north to Yunzhou, to flank and attack the rear of the Hu coalition.

He had only one requirement for his generals: speed, faster than the cavalry of the Hu people. Whoever could complete a long-distance raid in the shortest time would be his vanguard officer.

At this moment, Li Wenzhong, the centurion of the Fourth Battalion of the Tiger Guard, was riding on horseback, leading his hundred-man squad in practicing mounted archery on the training ground.

He is twenty-two years old this year, with a slender build but broad shoulders and a thick back.

He wore the distinctive crimson battle robe of the Tiger Guard, with a curved sword at his waist and an iron bow hanging beside his saddle.

He wasn't exactly handsome, but he had thick eyebrows, a broad face, and bright, dark eyes that gave him a mature and composed air about him.

He didn't shoot arrows in fancy bursts; instead, he aimed each arrow very steadily, and the bullseye was always hit when the bowstring twanged.

He was a minor legend in the Tiger Guard.

Born into a poor farming family in the suburbs of Beijing, he didn't even have a horse when he joined the army and could only serve as a foot soldier carrying the military flag.

But he rose from foot soldier to centurion in just five years, thanks to his skills earned in battle after battle.

Han Chong once patted him on the shoulder after a martial arts demonstration and said, "This boy has the talent of a general."

This saying was widely circulated within the Tiger Guard. Everyone knew that Centurion Li would be promoted to Captain sooner or later; he was just waiting for the opportunity to fight a major battle.

The Battle of Yunzhou was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

He also received the same dream of golden light last night.

He also learned that in his previous life he was Li Wenzhong, a famous general who helped found the Ming Dynasty.

They also learned that in this life they were to serve the ninth prince of the current dynasty.

His reaction was quite different from Huo Qubing's.

He lay on his bunk in silence for a long time, then turned over, buried his face in the hard pillow, and mumbled something only he could hear: "So that's how it is, Your Majesty. In this life, I can still fight for you, but in a different place."

After the drills were over, he did not join his colleagues in rushing to the kitchen to grab meat.

Instead, he led his horse back to the stable alone and carefully brushed its coat.

It was a chestnut mare, gentle in nature but with excellent stamina, which he bought with the money he had saved up during his five years of military service.

He brushed the horse very gently, as if he were giving an old comrade a massage.

He had seen the terrain of Yunzhou many times on the sand table in Han Chong's command tent.

By detouring around the flank of Yanmen Pass and infiltrating the supply lines of the Hu people, this entire route was fraught with hardship.

But he felt at ease.

In his previous life, when he followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world, he also started from the bottom and endured all kinds of hardships and witnessed all kinds of battles.

This life is just a different place starting over, and he is already much stronger than when he started in his previous life.

The general's tent in Shuozhou was brightly lit.

Marquis Chen Jing, wrapped in a thick cotton robe, sat behind his desk, holding a bowl of hot medicine in his hand.

He is currently discussing the defensive deployment for the front of Shuozhou with several advisors.

The sand table was placed in the center of the desk, covered with small red and blue flags.

Red represents the garrison of Shuozhou, and blue represents the allied forces of the Hu people.

Judging from the sand table, the Hu people's forces have already formed a semi-encirclement around Shuozhou City. Once the siege equipment is in place, the first wave of attack could begin at any time.

The staff were debating whether to send men to garrison the abandoned beacon towers outside the city.

That beacon tower was a crucial link between Yunzhou and Shuozhou, situated in a strategically important location. If it could be garrisoned there, it would provide early warning of the Hu people's movements.

However, the Hu cavalry were frequently active, and the risk of stationing them was extremely high; those sent there would likely face certain death.

After a moment of silence in the command tent, a middle-aged scholar sitting in the corner suddenly spoke.

He wore a worn-out blue robe, was thin, and had a pale face, looking as if he could be blown away by a gust of wind at any moment.

But when he spoke, his hoarse voice, spoken slowly and deliberately, silenced the arguing voices filling the tent.

"There is no need to garrison the beacon tower. Leave the beacon tower undefended and have a team of archers ambush it in the bushes three miles north of the beacon tower."

"If the Hu people send scouts to occupy the beacon towers, they will pass by the bushes."

"The archers fired three volleys from their high ground, and the Hu cavalry suffered at least half their losses."

"The rest will escape back to report the news, and the Hu people will think that the beacon tower is heavily guarded, and they will not dare to send small groups of cavalry to test it easily. The beacon tower will be destroyed without being attacked."

Chen Jing put down the medicine bowl, looked up at him, and asked him what his name was.

The middle-aged scholar stood up, cupped his hands, and replied, "Your Excellency, I am Chen Qingzhi, the Chief Clerk of the Shuozhou Army."

Chen Jing nodded slightly, going over the name in his mind.

He remembered this person; he had been transferred from the capital by the Ministry of War last winter. He came from a poor family and was not good at archery or horsemanship.

But after being transferred here, he would quietly take notes and organize his thoughts in a corner every time there was a meeting in the command tent.

He had not paid any attention to this person before, but the strategy proposed by this advisor tonight was indeed brilliant.

Make the illusory appear real, and the real appear illusory, to achieve the greatest deterrent effect at the lowest cost.

He picked up the medicine and took another sip, then said to the guard beside him, "From today onwards, Chen Qingzhi will enter the commander's tent to discuss military matters."

Chen Qingzhi bowed and sat back down, and no one noticed that his fingers were trembling slightly in his sleeve.

That wasn't nervousness, it was anticipation.