I am a commoner, but I will lead the empress to unify the world

Hearing this, Cao De nodded deeply and said,

"You are right. We must destroy this Yan army. Otherwise, the main force of the Yan army will cross the river, and Luoyang City will be difficult to defend. In the end, it will be captured and we will all die.

Cao Xiang, you must immediately send troops to fight against this group of Yan troops, kill them all, and rescue our troops that are surrounded.

Who will you send, and how many people will you send?"

Cao Xiang thought for a moment and said,

"I will personally go with 150,000 men. This Yan army has only a few hundred thousand men, and they are fighting against our army of 200,000. They are a surprise attack, and their artillery is heavy, so they probably didn't bring any.

Even if we win, it will be a pyrrhic victory. We won't have many troops left. I will lead 150,000 men. We only need to fight our way through the enemy's encirclement and rescue our trapped troops. Once the two armies are united, we can counter-encircle the Yan army, divide the battlefield, defeat them piecemeal, and recapture the Northern Army camp!"

"Okay, go quickly, go now, I'm waiting for your good news here!"

"As ordered!"

Cao Xiang received the order and turned to the scout and said,

"Come with me, Marshal."

"Ah? Yes, yes, yes."

The scout quickly followed him out.

After walking out of the yard, Cao Xiang jumped on his horse, and the scout did the same.

As the two of them walked out, Cao Xiang asked,

"How many cavalry and infantry does the enemy have, and who leads them?"

"Reporting to the commander, the enemy has 50,000 to 60,000 cavalry and 100,000 infantry. The leader seems to be Lanling Prince. I vaguely saw Lanling Prince's banner. He is coming from the south."

"What? Prince Lanling is here in person?"

Cao Xiang immediately frowned.

Lanling Wang is not easy to fight. He is cunning, skilled in martial arts, and a master of military strategy. He is simply a hexagonal warrior. There is nothing he doesn't know. If he leads the troops, it will be difficult to fight him.

"Oh, yes, there seems to be a feather flag."

"Yu Huatian?"

Cao Xiang's heart sank even more.

If nothing unexpected happens, this time Shen Changgong will lead the army as the commander-in-chief, and he will lead the most elite Zhennan Army and Tianyu Army.

These two armies are the ace troops of the Yan army and are not easy to defeat.

Cao Xiang didn't say much, and immediately rushed to the North City Military Camp. He then issued an order to mobilize fifteen legions, assemble them urgently, and form battle arrays.

It took a full hour and a half for the 150,000-strong army to form up outside. This was an emergency assembly. They put on armor and weapons, and just put a few pieces of dry food in their pockets and ran out.

By the time he had gathered everyone, it was already evening.

Afterwards, Cao Xiang led his army and marched towards the north in a mighty force.

You should know that Luoyang City is fifty miles away from the river bank. An average army can only travel sixty miles in a day.

It is naturally impossible to run all the way through the fifty miles. It would kill people. The soldiers are not marathon runners and they still have a lot of weight to carry.

By the time we reached the military camp on the riverbank, it would probably be early morning.

Now, Cao Xiang could only hope that the Wei army in the riverside military camp could withstand the Yan army and never surrender.

……

"Surrendered soldiers, go to the west camp. Go to the west camp. Don't make any noise. Don't let me see any of you holding weapons!"

A general of the Yan army shouted loudly to the surrendered soldiers lined up in rows.

That’s right, the Wei army surrendered.

Thanks to the Yan army's good reputation of not killing prisoners, and the fact that these people were surrounded and unable to break out, the Yan army soldiers would occasionally throw a divine thunder over, blowing up a large number of them.

Later, the Yan army's artillery also arrived. They set up cannons directly on the shore and began to bombard the warships in the river. Those warships were caught off guard and more than a dozen were sunk. The other warships immediately moved away from the river bank and rowed towards the center of the river.

The Yan army on the north bank had also set up artillery on the river bank early on. The artillery range on the north and south banks directly covered the entire river surface. The warships had no choice but to swim downstream and evacuate to the east.

The warships had all left, and the Wei troops had completely lost hope of retreating and breaking out. They also knew that it would take time for the troops sent by Luoyang City to arrive, so they had no choice but to surrender.

More and more people surrendered voluntarily. Finally, Zhang De'an saw that the situation was hopeless and ordered the entire army to surrender.

The Yan army said they would not kill the prisoners, so they took most of the prisoners back to clean up the battlefield in the barracks. The remaining prisoners were watched by a small number of Yan soldiers who cleaned up the corpses on the river bank.

The Yan army's baggage train also arrived. With the joint efforts of more than 100,000 people, they quickly moved the corpses from the riverside camp, covered the bloodstains with yellow earth, moved the broken tents away, and resettled the Yan army's tents.

When it was almost dark, everything was almost cleaned up, and the Yan army quickly set up the pots and cooked a delicious meal.

The Wei army prisoners were concentrated in the West Camp. There were some tents, but not many. The Yan army gave them food and let them cook their own meals.

Although this treatment of prisoners was not preferential treatment, the Yan army did not beat or scold them, did not kill them, and even gave them food. Compared with other countries that often buried alive, massacred, enslaved, or starved prisoners, this was much better.

Moreover, the Yan army said that after the war, they would recruit or dismiss them. Those who were recruited would become the regular army of Great Yan and receive military pay and military merits, while those who were dismissed could return home.

All along, Yan State has done this no matter which country it destroyed, and its credibility is extremely good.

This was also the credibility that Shen Changgong had built up in order to undermine the enemy's fighting spirit and prevent them from fighting to the death.

As for whether the dismissed enemy troops will rebel after returning home, that depends on the appeasement policies in various places. If there is a rebellion, then they are enemies, and there will be no regulations to treat prisoners well. They will be judged after they are defeated.

After all, the enemy is the enemy and rebellion is rebellion, and they are different in nature.

Shen Changgong brought Tu Queling and Gongsun Wan'er, who were following the baggage camp, back to settle the accounts, and Yu Huatian also came.

“Your Majesty, if nothing unexpected happens, the main force of our army will be able to begin crossing the river tomorrow.

We plan to build three bridges, but if the enemy's warships come to destroy them, even with our artillery fire, they will still cause great casualties if they charge forward desperately."

Shen Changgong smiled and said,

"There's nothing we can do about it. We've already done everything we can. Starting today, hot air balloons will be launched from both the north and south banks for exploration. As soon as we detect enemy warships heading this way, we'll stop construction and use artillery and hot air balloons to bomb the enemy warships.

If this happens a few more times, I wonder how many warships they can afford.

Don't worry about these warships for now. Once we capture Luoyang, we can send a ship over to persuade them to surrender."

Yu Huatian nodded and said,

"The Luo River isn't that difficult, the difficulty lies ahead. If we want to attack the Chu State, we need to cross the Yangtze River. The Chu State's Jiangdong Navy is very powerful."