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

His gaze passed over the densely packed Xianbei cavalry and landed on the royal banner embroidered with a golden wolf's head in the distance.

That was Helian's central command tent.

"General! The Xianbei are charging again!" a guard shouted.

Gao Shun nodded slightly: "Order the first platoon to retreat, and the second platoon to take over the defense. Archers, fire your arrows, but do not linger in battle."

"promise!"

With a wave of the command flag, the Han soldiers who were originally defending the ice wall immediately retreated in an orderly manner, and another group of soldiers quickly took their place.

A dense barrage of arrows rained down, but the Xianbei cavalry were prepared; some dodged, while others prepared their shields.

After Gao Shun finished shooting, taking advantage of the break, and with the Xianbei cavalry also reaching a suitable position, they also began shooting arrows at the city wall.

This time it was Gao Shun's turn; some were dodging, others were defending.

For a moment, the battlefield seemed to have turned into a turn-based game.

But the Xianbei people were numerous and seemed tireless, charging forward wave after wave.

From dawn till dusk, the Xianbei, relying on their numerical advantage, had launched seven attacks.

The defenders of Wujin City suffered heavy casualties, and cracks appeared in many places on the ice wall.

But from beginning to end, Gao Shun never used the 720-man Trapped Camp behind him.

The soldiers of the Trapped Camp rested and recuperated quietly in the city's main camp, their heavy armor and weapons carried by carts and sleds developed by Li Chang.

Despite the deafening shouts of battle outside, they didn't even lift an eyelid, their expressions almost identical to Gao Shun's.

They are waiting.

Awaiting Gao Shun's orders.

Gao Shun was also waiting for orders from Liu Bei and Li Chang.

They awaited the moment of that fatal blow.

On the city wall.

"General! If this keeps up, the brothers won't be able to hold on much longer!" A platoon leader, covered in blood, ran up to Gao Shun and said anxiously.

"Let the brothers of the Trapped Camp go! As long as the Trapped Camp is deployed, we will surely drive back these Xianbei dogs!"

Gao Shun shook his head, still cold, just like the icy snow:

"no."

"General!"

"I said no," Gao Shun said firmly.

"The task of the Trapped Camp is not to defend the city. Conserve your strength and await orders."

The village head opened his mouth, but ultimately had no choice but to back down.

He couldn't understand why the general, with such a strong elite force, would make ordinary soldiers fight to the death here.

Gao Shun watched as his soldiers gradually fell to their deaths.

He remembered the order that Li Chang had personally given him.

"Gongxiao, Wujin City is bait. What you need to do is not to defend it, but to make Helian believe that he can take it."

"Do not deploy the elite troops; defend with only regular garrison troops. If necessary, make the fighting as difficult and brutal as possible."

"Wait for my signal, then immediately abandon the city and retreat. Remember, make it look real and disastrous, so that the enemy and the Liberation Army will think we are completely routed."

Although Gao Shun did not understand why the enemy had to be lured so deep, he never questioned Li Chang's orders.

Strict adherence to orders is his first principle in governing the army!

……

Inside the Xianbei king's tent.

He Lian sat on a stool, holding a wine flask in his hand, and drank the strong liquor in big gulps.

As he looked at Wujin City, which had already begun to break down after only one day of fierce attack, his expression grew increasingly better!

The smile on his face and the corners of his mouth were impossible to pull off!

After so many frustrating days, they've finally gotten their wish!

"Hahaha!" He Lian stood up, raised a glass to himself, and said, "Liu Bei's army is out of options! As long as we break through Wujin, we will surely take Bingzhou!"

He continued to calculate the accounts for his subordinates.

"According to the reliable intelligence we have obtained, Liu Bei's army has no more than 15,000 men! Even with the maximum conscription, there are no more than 5,000 new recruits."

They deployed 5,000 men on the eastern front and 5,000 on the western front. Now we only have 10,000 men left!

Of these 10,000, at least 6,000 were from the old Dingxiang city! Only a maximum of 3,000 remain in this Wujin city!

"If Liu Bei only has 1 men left, he'll probably have already abandoned Bingzhou and fled!"

"Ha ha ha ha!"

The Xianbei nobles below all looked up, and I saw how they should look after entering the course of their illness!

They've been feeling frustrated these past few days, but after thinking about it this way...

"The Chanyu is truly wise!"

"The Han army in Wujin City dares not confront us head-on; they must be afraid of our 50,000 brave warriors!"

"That's right! Liu Bei must be well now; this is definitely buying them time to escape!"

"Those Xiongnu who unexpectedly fled to our Xianbei territory say that if you break into the fortresses of those Han noble families, you'll find countless treasures of gold, silver, and grain, and the women are so beautiful and delicate—far better than the women of our grasslands or Han peasant families!"

"I've heard that robbing just one wealthy household can yield more profit than robbing all the farmers in a county!"

He Lian raised his hand, and the tent fell silent instantly.

"Let the warriors return and rest for a good night!"

Tomorrow we'll surround Wujin City and capture the enemy general in one fell swoop!

This enemy general seems to have some skill! If he knows what's good for him, we can reward him with a small tribe and let him teach all his knowledge to us Xianbei!

The Xianbei leaders nodded.

"That Han general is lucky!"

"The Xiongnu chieftain is truly benevolent!"

At the order, the Xianbei army withdrew. Beneath the city walls, only thawed blood remained; almost no corpses were intact, only fragments of flesh remained.

The Xianbei people learned from their mistake and left no corpses behind!

On the city wall.

Gao Shun breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, a messenger rode a fast horse and braved a hail of arrows to reach the walls of Wujin.

"General Gao! Prefect Li has ordered us to abandon the city and retreat immediately!"

A glint of light flashed in Gao Shun's eyes.

finally come.

"Order! All troops retreat! General Pang De, lead your troops to cover the rear!"

Gao Shun, with his high emotional intelligence, spoke to Pound, who had more seniority and higher official rank than him.

Fortunately, Pound didn't mind, after all, this was a formidable man who dared to ask about military strategy in public.

But thanks to Gao Shun, each of them had a copy of a military treatise. Regardless of whether it was useful, understandable, or learnable, the generals were all very grateful to him!

"Alright! Brother Gongxiao, leave the rest to me!"

That night.

Gao Shun packed his things and ran away. The closer it got to this point, the more he appreciated the logistics and the sleds developed by Li Chang. They were really useful in this icy and snowy world!

They can even march faster than in the middle of summer. Apart from the fact that some people are unlucky and slip too fast, lose control, and accidentally die, they have almost no major drawbacks!

Before the Xianbei people even surrounded Wujin City the next day, Wujin was already deserted.

This was the first time that the city had been breached so easily.

"The Han army has been defeated! The Han army has fled!"

"We've captured Wujin City!"

The Xianbei soldiers erupted in cheers.

They stormed into Wujin City, attempting to plunder the supplies left behind by the Han army.

Upon entering the city, they found no one and almost no supplies; all they saw were traces of burnt coal.

"Damn it, where are they?!"

"Where are the things?"

"So it was tested so thoroughly overnight, nothing was left?"

Are they all born in the Year of the Wolf?

Someone came to report, "Chanyu, we have seen traces; the Han army has already retreated south!"

Without hesitation, He Lian immediately dispatched his vanguard to pursue them southward!

But after chasing for only a few miles, they heard a noise from within a wall of ice.

Pound, who had been waiting for a long time, immediately mounted his horse, grabbed his broadsword, and roared:

"Brothers, follow me and kill!"

Five hundred cavalrymen charged toward the Xianbei formation.

However, they encountered no strong resistance for several days and were caught off guard.

Pang De charged ahead, his broadsword flashing, blood and flesh flying everywhere. The Xianbei cavalry scattered in disarray, their formation instantly breached.

Five hundred riders moved swiftly like the wind, launching a fierce attack eastward, forcefully breaking through the loose formation of the Xianbei vanguard and killing over a hundred unsuspecting steppe cavalrymen.

Without waiting for the Xianbei cavalry to encircle and counterattack, Pang De refused to linger in battle.

At his immediate command, the five hundred cavalrymen turned their horses around in unison.

Treading on the remaining snow on the snowfield, they retreated rapidly along the path, disappearing into the vast snowstorm in an instant, leaving behind only the Xianbei people with a mess of corpses and scattered hoofprints.