Chapter Forty-Three: Trapped in a Place of Desperation

However, the situation on the battlefield was far more grim than Sun Ye had imagined.

By the time the news reached the capital, half a month of rapid changes had already passed, and the battlefield was no longer what it used to be.

The condition of Pine Ridge Pass was much worse than Sun Ye had anticipated. The original fortress of Pine Ridge Pass had once been constructed by the Great Qian dynasty at a tremendous cost of manpower and resources.

Its city walls were towering and deep, featuring numerous ring-shaped defensive works within. On the outermost periphery of Pine Ridge Pass, there were more than a dozen protective encampments.

Yet, who could have foreseen that the Western Rong army would sweep through like a broken bamboo, successfully breaching more than a dozen encampments in a mere half-month? At present, only two mutual-supporting encampments remained on the outer periphery of the Pine Ridge Pass fortress.

Meanwhile, the trapped Great Qian defenders inside the city were reduced to cornered beasts.

Under such circumstances, even if Sun Ye led an army of one hundred thousand to arrive, the best they could do was hold their ground defensively. At the same time, they would need to seek an opportunity to engage these highly mobile cavalry forces in a pitched battle, completely smashing through a breakthrough point, and capitalizing on the momentum to retake the previously captured encampments.

"Hiss."

At this moment, Sun Ye reined in his horse, and upon seeing the tragic scene before him, he could not help but draw a sharp breath.

Compared to the Northern Wu state, the Western Rong shared the same language family, though after several hundred years of evolution, they had gradually split into two distinct branches.

Yet the Western Rong were far more brutal than the Northern Wu. They were like uncivilized barbarians, with genes of bloodlust and slaughter coursing through their bodies.

Slaughtering cities had become a commonplace routine for them. Wherever they arrived, they would massacre all the inhabitants, drive away all the livestock, plunder the food supplies, and burn down the houses.

A nation adept at long-distance raids naturally would not let such cumbersome burdens weigh down their charging momentum.

The dozen or so encampments on the outer periphery of Pine Ridge Pass had almost all been burned to the ground, leaving behind ruins everywhere. Mounted upon these devastated ramparts and stockades were gleaming human heads, presenting a distant view reminiscent of the ghostly realms of Fengdu.

"When will the Prince of Northern Suppression arrive?"

Unlike Sun Ye's lightning-fast speed, the Prince of Northern Suppression had acted completely out of character this time. Not only was his pace exceptionally sluggish, but his advancing speed was less than half that of the Western Pacification Prince's estate.

At this very moment, he was still lingering midway.

"Quickly dispatch men to inform the Prince of Northern Suppression, telling him to accelerate his march and reach Xiongan City swiftly! I fear that if we are even a step too late, not even Xiongan City will be saved!"

The messenger took the banner handed to him by Sun Ye, immediately vaulted back onto his horse, and led his subordinates galloping back along the road they had come to quickly notify the Prince of Northern Suppression.

Yet who could have expected that when the messenger, riding day and night, finally reached the army led by the Prince of Northern Suppression, the Prince had already assumed a defensive posture.

The front rows were formed by shield-bearers creating an arched phalanx of shields, backed by spearmen standing at strict attention, while archers stood within the formation, drawing their bows and nocking arrows as if ready to loose them at any moment.

"Your Highness, the Prince of Northern Suppression! My Prince has urgent military intelligence to convey!"

The Prince of Northern Suppression sat astride his dark-maned steed, expressionless.

A trace of a sigh lingered in his eyes as he slowly raised one hand, then gently lowered it.

Countless arrows were loosed toward this group of messengers who had arrived from various routes, instantly riddling them all with arrows and killing them.

The Prince of Northern Suppression sneered coldly, "What a foolish man. At a time like this, he is still thinking of fighting. No wonder the Emperor wants you dead!"

"The army shall make camp right here!"

Without further ado, the Prince of Northern Suppression came to a direct halt.

For the mandate given to him by His Majesty the Emperor was to lead Sun Ye into a desperate dead end without providing any rescue.

Even the troops led by the Western Pacification Prince's estate were expected to undergo a grueling battle, leaving the snipe and the clam to exhaust each other, so that the Prince of Northern Suppression could act as the triumphant oriole.

Naturally, Sun Ye was entirely unaware of these hidden maneuvers and could only bitterly hold out at Pine Ridge Pass.

In the blink of an eye, four or five days flashed past. Having just rallied the routed troops, properly treated the wounded soldiers, established a temporary granary, and settled all affairs, Sun Ye had not even caught a breath

when he heard the deafening roars of battle.

The cavalry of the Western Rong state had come to besiege the city!

Founded by nomadic tribes, they were inherently unaccustomed to siege warfare.

Moreover, they possessed only fifty thousand cavalrymen, whereas the troops brought by Sun Ye numbered a full one hundred thousand.

Among these one hundred thousand men were thirty thousand cavalry and seventy thousand infantry, and the cavalry could dismount to serve as garrison troops for defending the city.

Yet this sprawling Pine Ridge Pass had no water source ahead and no mountain backing it behind; it consisted solely of an isolated city and two temporary fortresses.

Furthermore, after the city had weathered multiple assaults from this cavalry, they could use the fastest flank breakthrough from both sides of the two temporary encampments to reach the Pine Ridge Pass fortress, simultaneously pinching the fortress from its left and right flanks.

Even though Sun Ye had deployed his troops in advance, the enemy's persistent tactic of dispatching cavalry to harass the city was undoubtedly wearing down the effective strength of Sun Ye's forces.

Besides, these Western Rong barbarians possessed precise archery skills and could draw heavy bows, with quite a few ruthless fighters among them capable of shooting arrows directly from their horses into the city.

For a time, the entire Pine Ridge Pass remained in a state of extreme nervous tension.

"You scumbags, come on!"

The veteran soldiers who had previously held fast to Pine Ridge Pass felt their blood boiling with rage.

Upon seeing this, Sun Ye merely said calmly, "Mount the city walls and hold the Pine Ridge Pass fortress."

The current reality was that the two outer encampments had been reduced to dispensable positions. If all the troops previously detached were not recalled, they would sooner or later be overrun and destroyed by the Western Rong.

"Send men to deliver a message instructing the deputy generals of the two remaining encampments to abandon their posts and fall back to the Pine Ridge Pass fortress. Otherwise, every last one of them will die!"

The messenger grit his teeth fiercely, bit the bullet, and charged out through the rear gate of the city.

This siege battle lasted continuously for a full three days and three nights.

Those Western Rong barbarians were like tireless engines of war, launching wave after wave of assaults against the city.

Fortunately, Sun Ye led the one hundred thousand Western Pacification troops in defense, which prevented the city from falling.

Yet despite this, all the rolling logs and falling stones had been completely exhausted, and even a large portion of the residential buildings inside the fortress had been dismantled.

If there was still no opportunity to sally forth and slaughter the enemy, Sun Ye would lose his final capital for survival in this siege.

For the entire fortress was on the verge of falling apart, and the battlements along the city walls had been flattened by the frantic charges of the enemy cavalry.

Just at that moment, however, even worse news arrived.

In the distance, dark green banners unexpectedly came into view—they were the banners of the King of Baiyue!

Why on earth would the King of Baiyue appear here!

Sun Ye was instantly stunned.

It turned out that the previous intelligence from the military reports stating that Baiyue had been annihilated by the lightning offensive of the Western Rong was completely false.

The King of Baiyue had not lost his country and ancestral temple at all; rather, he had long since colluded and conspired with the Western Rong to conquer territory from his former suzerain state!