If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

Qingzhou.

Su Mingyue's army of 300,000 has already captured most of Qingzhou.

Heading south from the border of Youzhou, they encountered almost no significant resistance along the way, and most of the counties in Qingzhou surrendered without resistance.

The 300,000-strong army was like a red-hot knife cutting into lard, melting the entire Qingzhou beneath her horse's hooves.

However, Yuwen Shuo and Zhao Chongyuan did not give her much time.

When only half of Qingzhou had been occupied, the 800,000-strong army that had come to the aid of the emperor returned to reinforce it.

Zhao Chongyuan and Yuwen Shuo were no ordinary people. They had spent their entire lives fighting in the Great Xia Dynasty and knew that Qingzhou was the gateway from Youzhou to the Central Plains. Whoever occupied Qingzhou would hold the key to the entire northern defense line.

While the two were still scheming against each other in Anzhou, once they discovered that Su Mingyue's Youzhou cavalry had penetrated deep into Qingzhou's territory, they immediately put aside their petty grievances, joined forces, and turned their spearheads, leading their army north at full speed.

With 800,000 against 300,000, the disparity in troop strength was so vast that there was almost no suspense.

Su Mingyue did not confront them head-on. Instead, she decisively ordered the entire army to retreat, all the way to Qingyun Mountain.

Qingyun Mountain is a natural barrier in the central part of Qingzhou. The mountain range stretches for hundreds of miles from east to west, with layer upon layer of peaks and ridges. Only a mountain pass about a hundred feet wide can allow large armies to pass through.

Su Mingyue has pinned down her entire army of 300,000 at this mountain pass.

Her central command tent was set up on a high ground behind the mountain pass. Standing in front of the tent, one could see the entire mountain pass.

She ordered one unit to deploy defenses layer by layer on the front of the mountain pass, while the other unit worked day and night to build defensive fortifications behind the pass.

Trenches, barricades, antler twigs, arrow towers—all the defensive structures that could be erected in a short time were used.

Her plan was simple: use the natural defenses of Qingyun Mountain to drag Yuwen Shuo and Zhao Chongyuan's 800,000-strong army to their deaths in this narrow mountain pass.

The loyalist army did not give her time to finish repairing the fortifications.

Just as the scouts relayed news back to the main tent that the enemy vanguard had appeared twenty miles outside the mountain pass, a massive, dark mass of enemy troops surged in like a tidal wave bursting its banks.

Zhao Chongyuan and Yuwen Shuo knew they couldn't let Su Mingyue gain a foothold in Qingyun Mountain.

He ordered the vanguard to launch a fierce attack on the mountain pass at all costs, while the follow-up troops took the signal of the drums, replacing any fallen troops with new ones, giving the Youzhou army no chance to catch their breath.

The battle raged from afternoon until late at night, and then from late at night until dawn.

The sparks from clashing swords formed a continuous mass in the night, so dense it looked as if someone had struck flint and steel in the darkness.

Corpses littered the ground, blood flowed like rivers, and the hundred-zhang pass of Qingyun Mountain was piled higher and higher with corpses, the thickest part even reaching the height of two people.

Soldiers from both sides continued their fight, stepping over the corpses of the fallen. Slippery underfoot were crushed entrails and clotted blood, and the air was filled with the stench of rust and incontinence.

Just as the enemy troops were surging in wave after wave, a strange howling sound suddenly came from the ridge of Qingyun Mountain.

It was neither the sharp whistling of an arrow piercing the air, nor the muffled thud of a catapult launching stones.

Instead, it was a lighter, more ethereal sound, like the rustling of wind through canvas. One after another, enormous "birds" flew down from the ridge.

That's definitely not a real bird.

Instead, it is a paraglider made of sheepskin, bamboo frame and thick hemp rope.

The umbrella canopy is made of tanned sheepskin pieced together, and the bamboo frame is light yet sturdy. When the umbrella wings are spread out, they are wide enough for two people to stretch their arms.

A person was tied to the underside of the umbrella, crawling around, and each person had three or four bulging water bags tied to their body.

Using the rising air currents and northerly winds along the mountain ridge, these paragliders deftly flew over the dense enemy ranks below, heading straight for the supply depot behind the loyalist army.

After hearing the story of Huang Rong using a sheepskin raft to make a parachute to attack Samarkand in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", Su Mingyue had been pondering this matter.

She had the craftsmen experiment repeatedly, and found countless cliffs in the North for the assassins to test-fly repeatedly.

After countless volunteers perished in crashes, they finally created a finished product that could glide for miles without falling.

When she set out to conquer Qingzhou, she mobilized this large army capable of flight.

The paraglider flew over the enemy's main force and headed straight for the supply depot of the loyalist army.

Upon reaching the top of the grain rations, the people under the umbrella cut open the water bags, and drops of black, viscous oil fell from the sky, landing on the grain stacks, the grain carts, and the tents.

Immediately afterwards, the burning tarpaulin was thrown off the umbrella.

When the dry haystacks caught a spark, and with the help of kerosene, the fire spread from a small point into a sea of ​​flames at a speed that was too fast for the naked eye to follow.

When the flames shot up, they were taller than the tent, and billowing black smoke rose straight into the sky, turning half the sky red.

The entire rear area of ​​the loyalist army was turned into a sea of ​​fire in less than a quarter of an hour.

The loyalist soldiers who were fiercely attacking the mountain pass heard the commotion behind them and turned around.

The sky was ablaze with fire, the flames casting flickering light on their bloodied, mangled faces. That was their provisions.

They knew all too well that without provisions, an army was nothing more than lambs to the slaughter.

Zhao Chongyuan and Yuwen Shuo's faces were terrifyingly ashen in the firelight.

The two veteran generals drew their swords almost simultaneously, roaring orders for their troops to intensify their attack.

They knew that burning the supplies meant the army could only hold out for a few days at most. The only way out was to capture Qingyun Mountain and Su Mingyue before running out of food, and then use the supplies from the Youzhou army to prolong their lives.

As a result, the offensive did not weaken because the supplies were burned; instead, it became even more frenzied.

Standing on the high ground, Su Mingyue could see the firelight behind the enemy and the increasingly frantic offensive in front of them.

She showed no extra expression on her face, but calmly issued orders to rotate the wounded, deploy reserves, and fill the gaps in defense.

She only had 150,000 troops available for deployment. The other 150,000 were surrendered soldiers and local militia recruited along the way. They were poorly trained and poorly equipped, and leaving them in the rear would only slow down the march.

So Su Mingyue made a cruel decision: to push them to the front to wear down the enemy's offensive.

She herself led the truly elite troops to the second line of defense, ready for battle.

Only when those new recruits were almost wiped out on the front lines of the mountain pass, and the enemy's morale was worn down, could she use her most precious core forces to deliver a fatal blow.

The bright red blood continued to spill across this mountain pass, seeping into the barren soil of Qingyun Mountain, accumulating layers of a strong, rusty smell.

When the pile of corpses at the mountain pass grew higher and higher, almost covering the defenders' positions, Su Mingyue ordered that kerosene be poured on the pile of corpses.

Barrel after barrel of black kerosene was poured down the hillside, onto the layers of corpses and seas of blood.

A torch was thrown into the pile of corpses, and a huge fire suddenly erupted, turning the entire Baizhang Pass into a raging wall of fire.

The enemy's offensive was finally halted by this wall of fire.

No one could climb up the bonfire, which was thousands of degrees hot. The stench of the fire permeated the entire mountain pass, choking the defenders and causing them to cough, but it also temporarily blocked the enemy's advance.

After a major battle, Su Mingyue's army of 300,000 was reduced to only 150,000.

Most of those who died were newly recruited surrendered soldiers and local militia; the rest were elite troops who had fought their way through the war in the north.

After fighting all night, both sides were exhausted, so Su Mingyue ordered her troops to rest and eat as soon as possible.

The mountain wind in the early morning carried a biting chill, the bonfire was still burning, and the acrid smoke mixed with the smell of blood enveloped the entire Qingyun Mountain.

However, the armies of Yuwen Shuo and Zhao Chongyuan who came to the aid of the emperor were not so lucky.

The grain supplies had been burned to ashes by Su Mingyue, and from now on, hundreds of thousands of mouths would have no rice to eat.

The soldiers squatted on the battlefield, gnawing on half-ripe wheat grains dug from the scorched earth, cursing the heavens, the earth, and their commander.

There were already sporadic deserters in the army. The officers patrolled back and forth on horseback, and killed any who tried to escape on the spot. But the pressure could not suppress the hunger in their stomachs.

The panic of losing food, mixed with the thick smoke and acrid smell, spread silently across the battlefield.