The Three Kingdoms: The Oath of the Peach Garden, the Rise of the Han Dynasty

"Push the ice man over there," Xu Rong ordered. "Let them meet again!"

"promise!"

Hundreds of soldiers immediately stepped forward, pushing the ice man and retreating directly into the maze.

Swish swish swish!!

One by one, familiar yet unfamiliar ice figures slid into the maze of ice walls, blocking the gap that the Xianbei had smashed open.

The Xianbei people were instantly horrified when they saw the "wall of corpses" with their hideous faces and frozen bodies!

Inside that block of ice was none other than their acquaintance from earlier that day! Now turned into an ice statue!

Some of the ice blocks even contain their good brothers who keep them company day and night!

At this very moment, in the dim light of dawn, most of those familiar faces lay dead with their eyes wide open, some even sporting a forced smile.

It's like the moon is shining brightly in the sky, and the dead are laughing at me!

"ah!!!"

"What...what is this?"

"No, they are not things!"

"It's our people! They froze our people into ice!"

"This is terrifying! Han Chinese are all devils!"

The Xianbei soldiers were so frightened that they retreated repeatedly, some of them almost dropping their hammers.

"What are you afraid of! They're just dead people!" He roared. "Smash them! Smash these ice men too!"

But the ice figure was heavy and slippery, especially since it seemed to be reinforced with steel and cement, making it harder to break than an ice barricade.

The Xianbei people spent a great deal of effort, smashing for half an hour, before they could break through one layer of ice figures, but there was another ice wall behind them!

Meanwhile, a considerable number of Han soldiers emerged from the city walls.

And so it went, you smashed, I pushed, back and forth.

The fighting continued until dawn, but the Xianbei people still managed to penetrate very little of the ice maze.

Instead, they left behind hundreds more corpses during their occasional sneak attacks.

He Lian looked at the sun in the sky, then at the still intact Ice City that they hadn't yet reached, and almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Withdraw the troops!" He gritted his teeth and squeezed out the two words.

The two sides went back and forth like this for four days.

Every day during the day, he and his tens of thousands of troops used every means to attack the old city of Dingxiang.

Smash the barricades, fill the traps, and attack the ice wall.

Every night, Xu Rong would lead the Han soldiers, carrying buckets of water and sand, to water the ice wall.

When the Xianbei people came, he ran away; when they left, he continued!

Even if it is damaged, not to mention fully restored, as long as the Xianbei people can't easily ride horses, the goal has been achieved!

Even the corpses left behind by the Xianbei were either dragged back by the Han army for reuse, or were forcibly recycled by the Xianbei.

Day three.

It was rare for He Lian to think of using fire, and after much difficulty finding firewood, they finally managed to start a fire.

The Xianbei people finally burst into laughter, as if they had found the secret to victory!

After the thick smoke, the small fire finally grew into a large fire, gradually spreading to the ice wall maze.

The ice wall gradually melted, revealing the ordinary wall structure.

But Xu Rong was not worried at all, and even immediately ordered half of the troops on the city wall to be withdrawn! Everyone outside the city also returned to the city!

The fire is still burning, engulfing the corpses that couldn't be dealt with in time and were forced to become fuel!

The carcasses were roasting until they were oozing oil, and the aroma was irresistible. Vultures flew overhead, ready to pounce and feast at any moment!

But the smell made even the Xianbei people themselves feel physically uncomfortable.

The roasting made the old Xianbei prisoners in the city drool. When they realized what was happening, they vomited, even vomiting bile.

Until the fire dried the ice wall, burning out the mixture of aconite, wolfsbane, croton, feces, and rotting corpses inside.

The originally thick white smoke immediately turned into a mixture of blue and black smoke!

Mixed together, from a distance, they look like...

Rizhao Ice Primitive Purple Smoke!

The Xianbei people smelled it.

hiss! ! !

It's intoxicating!!!

No matter how much you inhale, you'll fall asleep instantly!

They will be rendered incapable of fighting immediately!

I have to say, it's no wonder it's made by Hua Tuo; the effect is truly remarkable!

Seeing this, Helian was forced to retreat again!

It wasn't until the fifth day, when the Xianbei had lost nearly four thousand men in the street fighting outside the city, that they finally managed to reach the city walls.

Most of these people were not killed directly, but died from injuries sustained in the winter that could not be healed, from illness, from freezing, or from injuries!

The total number of casualties suffered by the Han army was less than two hundred.

Every morning, the first thing He Lian does when he opens his eyes is to look at the old city of Dingxiang.

Then he would see a brand new, glittering, ever-growing ice city standing there.

"Damn it, he's increasing the height every day!"

"Why?! Why?!"

He Lian is almost going crazy.

He felt frustrated and somewhat desperate!

We see hope again and again, and we must see hope once more!

He had 50,000 troops, while the enemy only had 3,000.

But he just couldn't bring it down.

It's like punching cotton; you can't muster any strength.

"Chanyu! We can't fight anymore!" An old nobleman knelt before Helian, tears streaming down his face.

"If we keep fighting, all our men will die! This isn't a city that humans can conquer! It's a city of demons!"

The other nobles also knelt down, crying out, "Chanyu! Withdraw the troops! We cannot afford to die any more!"

He Lian looked at the nobles kneeling on the ground, and then at the cold, icy city in the distance.

How can we just leave?!

But the morale of the army...

There's still a way!

"Withdraw? We're not withdrawing! We certainly won't withdraw!"

He Lian, like a victor, began to boost morale:

"You are all my direct tribes! I deliberately stayed here for five days to draw our attention to the east and west routes!"

"But I already knew that Liu Bei only had 15,000 men! Now at least 10,000 are tied up on the eastern and western fronts! We only need to bypass this city to take Bingzhou directly!"

These words immediately convinced the not-so-bright Xianbei people!

They don't read or write, and basically believe whatever their leader tells them!

Even if some nobles had some insight, they could only go with the flow under such circumstances.

He Lian ordered: "Leave 6,000 men here to besiege the old city of Dingxiang. Do not allow them to come out, nor allow them to receive supplies."

"The remaining 40,000 men, follow me south!"

"Since we can't take the city, let's plunder it! We'll loot every village north of Yanmen! I refuse to believe Liu Bei will just stand by and watch his people be plundered!"

He thought that as long as he plundered the people, Liu Bei would have no choice but to send troops to rescue him.

Continuing south, one discovers only a few partially constructed stockades and empty villages.

Those rare villagers had long been relocated, along with their grain! They were either transported to the old Dingxiang city by means of grain and firewood, or they went directly south to work as laborers or seek refuge.

He and Lian traveled south along the road through the Yin Mountains until they were still dozens of miles from Wujin City.

And there were more ice walls!

"Grass!!!"

He vowed that next time he would not send troops in winter!

I originally thought that Xianbei warriors were not afraid of the cold, but I didn't expect that the Han people would also bring out ice!

……

Just as He Lian was suffering heavy losses at the old city of Dingxiang.

The 20,000 Xianbei cavalry on the eastern route have arrived at the walls of Qiangyin City.

The leader of the army was Dashabi, the eastern leader of the Xianbei.