The empress disliked my achievements for overshadowing her own, so she turned her attention to the N

On the city wall of Sucheng, Hongze watched the Daqian soldiers slowly retreat and anxiously pounded on the wall.

Seeing this, a guard beside him asked in confusion, "General, are we really not going to pursue them? Five thousand cavalry could easily rout this army of one hundred thousand. Should we..."

Seeing Hongze's face, which was as black as the bottom of a pot, the guards dared not continue speaking.

Hongze watched the departing army and said sullenly, "You think I didn't want to pursue them? Who knows what Chen Nan was thinking, making me watch helplessly as the meat that was about to be fed to me disappeared."

Hongze also wanted to chase after them, but Chen Nan's order to him was: let the Qian army leave, and only pose a certain threat.

Chen Nan was afraid that because he was only the deputy commander, he would take Hongming's token away.

This is the fundamental reason why Hongze dared not pursue.

Lin Qiao, who was directing the army's retreat, looked at the iron cavalry standing guard on both sides behind him and breathed a sigh of relief. He was afraid that these people would suddenly attack him while he was retreating.

At that point, let alone the army, it's questionable whether even he, as the general, will be able to escape.

Finally, after a two-hour retreat, Lin Qiao returned to the Great Qian camp.

Inside the main tent, Jiang Zhe, his face pale, looked at Lin and Zhou in front of him and asked in a hoarse voice, "Gentlemen, how is the battle in Suzhou?"

Zhou Man glanced at Lin Qiao and silently took a step back.

Seeing this, Lin Qiao smiled wryly: "General, what kind of garrison is that in Sucheng, with ten thousand troops?"

"When we arrived at the city of Su, there were more than two thousand soldiers guarding each of the four walls."

"While we were attacking the city, the defending troops from the east, west and north sides all gathered at the south gate."

"At first I thought it was the city's garrison commander who had gathered a large army."

"Until we were surrounded and wanted to retreat."

At this point, Lin Qiao turned pale and swallowed hard.

"Just then, Hongze suddenly popped his head out."

"We only realized it was a trap when we saw five thousand iron cavalry behind us!"

After listening to Lin Qiao's story, Jiang Zhe forced a smile: "Well, it's just that I believed Fang He's nonsense."

"Fang He?" Lin Qiao responded.

Then they realized that Fang He, who belonged to the Northern Wei, was still being held in their camp.

Thinking of Fang He, Jiang Zhe's expression finally returned to normal, and he said coldly, "Come on, bring Fang He up here!"

A short while later, two men carried Fang He, who was covered in wounds, into the main tent.

Upon seeing the newcomer, Jiang Zhe let out a chilling laugh: "Fang He."

"Hmm?" Fang He weakly raised his head and made a difficult eye contact with him.

Seeing this, Jiang Zhe could no longer hold back.

He went up and kicked Fang in the chest.

Fang He, who was already close to death, fell to the ground on one knee after being kicked.

"Damn it, stop playing dead and get up right now!"

Jiang Zhe shouted loudly and waved to the soldiers, signaling them to pull Fang He up.

Just as Fang He was lifted up, his chest was hit by Fang He's big foot again.

This time, Fang He didn't fall down; instead, he spat a mouthful of blood mixed with thick phlegm onto the ground.

He lowered his head, rolled his eyes upward, and looked at Jiang Zhe with a sinister smile.

"Hmph, is this the fighting strength of your Great Qian?"

"In just one night, not only did our 300,000-strong army run out of supplies, but Lecheng also returned to the hands of our Northern Wei."

"Tsk tsk tsk, truly worthy of being named the Prince of Zhennan, his mind is indeed sharp!"

As Fang He spoke, he didn't forget to praise Chen Nan.

He was now clear that not only had Chen Nan guessed his plan correctly, but Chen Nan had also made up for his shortcomings.

That was setting fire to Leshan Pass, a single fire that caused countless deaths and injuries among the 300,000-strong army.

Upon hearing this, not only Jiang Zhe's expression changed.

The two soldiers who had brought him over looked even uglier. They exchanged a glance and nodded slightly.

Their subtle movements naturally did not escape Jiang Zhe's sharp eyes.

He forced a smile and reassured them, "Don't worry, I've already taken care of the army's food supplies."

That statement sounded very unconvincing.

The two soldiers naturally didn't believe their commander's words.

This morning, each of them had nothing more than a bowl of thin porridge for breakfast, with two wild vegetables floating on top, which they didn't know where they had dug up.

As for other rations, they didn't even dare to think about it.

Even so, the soldiers who arrived late didn't even get to drink porridge.

Looking at it this way, it seems that our commander-in-chief was just making empty promises to them.

However, Jiang Zhe noticed their perfunctory expressions.

Jiang Zhe turned to look at Zhou Man, but she didn't react at all.

Left with no other choice, they turned their attention to Lin Qiao.

Lin Qiao was taken aback when he felt the gaze, and then he saw the killing intent in Jiang Zhe's eyes.

He understood; Jiang Zhe was ordering him to deal with those two soldiers.

He nodded slightly and walked out of the tent first.

Seeing that Lin Qiao understood his meaning, Jiang Zhe finally smiled.

He waved to the two soldiers and said, "Don't worry, I've taken care of the supplies. Things should be back to normal by noon."

"We don't need the two of you here. You can leave now."

The two soldiers raised the corners of their mouths, glanced at each other, and then dared to step out of the tent.

However, they did not expect that Lin Qiao was already waiting for them outside the tent, holding a large sword.

For a moment, only three people remained inside the tent.

Jiang Zhe frowned, pondering what to do next.

Just as he was pondering, Zhou Man looked at Fang He, who was half-dead on the ground, and gently reminded him, "General, I know a small path that can take us back to Daqian."

"Even if that path is blocked, we can use Fang He to exchange for our chance to return to the Great Qian!"

"You know a shortcut?" Jiang Zhe lost his composure and suddenly stood up.

He had no intention of listening to the rest of the sentence.

He quickly approached Zhou Man, grabbed her arms, and shook them repeatedly with a joyful expression.

"General Zhou, tell me quickly, where is there a small path?"

Zhou Man broke free from his shaking, went to the table, and pointed at the map.

He slowly began to speak: "There is a small path on the right side of Lecheng and the left side of Leshan'ao."

"That path is very narrow; only three people can pass at a time."

"Therefore, I guess the Northern Wei didn't know about this path."

“We can go back from here.”

"The problem is that an army of 300,000 is too big a target. Commander, you should plan a better way to disperse and escape."

Zhou Man pointed out the shortcut with a confident expression.

However, he seemed to have forgotten that Chen Nan's predecessor was the Zhenbei King of the Great Qian Dynasty.

He knew about the border trails, so how could Chen Nan, a military expert, not know about such a trail?

Soon, Fang He was taken away.

Jiang Zhe, Zhou Man, and Lin Qiao, who had returned after completing their mission, quietly left the camp with a thousand personal guards and headed towards Leshan'ao.

Meanwhile, on the path Zhou Man mentioned.

Wu Xu lay on the high ground on either side, quietly gazing down.

He was surrounded by arrows...