Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

On the Liaodong Plain, ice and snow blanketed the sky.

On the fortress of Namhansanseong, a group of ragged Goryeo soldiers, braving the wind and snow and wearing raincoats, stood guard in front of a defensive wall that was only half a person high.

Two weeks ago, 40,000 Taeguk soldiers launched an attack on Goguryeo under the force of Kim Jae-jae's command.

As a result, the battle turned out to be one-sided from the very beginning.

Li Shunlong, a general of the Taiji Kingdom, led an army of 40,000, claiming to be 500,000, northward.

Before they even reached Rangju City, they were ambushed and slaughtered by five thousand elite armored soldiers of King Gojang of Goguryeo, resulting in a bloodbath.

After his defeat, Li Shunlong fled alone to Namhansanseong to defend the fort. After several days of gathering his remaining troops, he finally managed to assemble more than 20,000 men around him.

Fortunately, after Gao Zang defeated Li Shunlong's troops, he immediately returned to defend against the Northern Yan, which gave the remnants of the Taiji Kingdom a chance to catch their breath.

However, although Gao Zang led his troops to fight against Murong Chui of Northern Yan, his personal generals Xue Yan and Dang Rui still led 3,000 armored soldiers to encircle Nanhan Mountain City.

Three thousand surrounding twenty thousand sounds like a joke, but it actually happened.

Li Shunlong dared not fight back and could only rely on the fortified defenses to hold out. At the same time, he quickly ordered people to request reinforcements from Pyeonggyeong, claiming that he had been besieged by a Goguryeo army of five million.

Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance didn't believe such outrageous information at all, since it was a mystery whether Goguryeo itself had five million people.

Fortunately, the Jingwei Division discovered that Taiji Kingdom had been defeated by 5,000 Goguryeo people.

Aside from this outrageous intelligence, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance were utterly astonished to learn that Li Shunlong had suffered a crushing defeat in his first battle.

This was a battle fought with cold weapons. The five thousand elite Goguryeo soldiers were almost all infantry. Even if there was a difference in equipment, they shouldn't have suffered such a crushing defeat.

Therefore, Ban Dingyuan summoned Cui Mingji to leave Pingjing and personally went to the fortified city of Nanhanshan to investigate the military situation.

As a result, after seeing the military might of the Taiji Kingdom with his own eyes, Ban Dingyuan fell silent.

At first glance, it looked like a gathering of beggars, and even in the dead of winter, the air was filled with a strange stench.

He covered his nose, walked over to a Taiji soldier, and checked his equipment.

A spear less than two meters long, its tip made of cast iron and covered in rust.

The key point is that the spearhead was not embedded in the top of the shaft or fixed with copper nails, but was simply tied together with rag strips to make a weapon.

And those military knives, so light and flimsy, were made of inferior iron-smelting technology. The blades were uneven and easily broken, and the edges were bumpy. They were not only difficult to penetrate armor, but even to kill a chicken.

Next came the shields, which were simply wooden planks salvaged from who-knows-where, slightly modified, and tied with a few thick ropes—that was it.

Such a shield might be effective against crossbow fire from dozens of paces away, but against close-range attacks by infantry and cavalry, especially against close-range archery or blunt force attacks within five meters, it's practically useless, like a piece of paper.

He picked up another crossbow and examined it. After a moment of contemplation, Ban Dingyuan suddenly pulled it back, revealing a perfectly round crossbow.

"A bow with a draw strength of less than five dou is considered a strong bow? Even a horse bow has a draw strength of seven dou!"

Ban Dingyuan shook his head. Even before the Chu army was reorganized, the draw weight of the infantry archers was 1.2 shi (a unit of dry measure), and the standard equipment for new recruits in the border army was 1.8 shi (another unit of dry measure).

A bow with a draw weight of five dou (a unit of dry measure) is basically useless except for shooting.

As for armor, apart from Li Shunlong and dozens of personal guards, Ban Dingyuan had very few decent suits of armor. Few of them even had leather covering their upper bodies; the rest were all naked, which was basically no different from saying "Brothers, come and kill me."

With such limited weaponry, let alone enabling them to fight the enemy, the cold weather alone would be enough to kill them.

After inspecting the Taiji Army's equipment, and then looking at the protective wall in front of him that was only half a person high, Ban Dingyuan really couldn't help but laugh.

"Is this city wall meant to be a live target for the soldiers?"

"Standing up makes you an easy target for crossbow bolts, and how can you use all your strength to kill the enemy when you're half-crouched as cover?"

"Who designed this fortress? In the Ministry of Works of my Chu Kingdom, the person who designed the city wall should have his family executed and beheaded."

Cui Mingji, who was standing nearby, quickly said, "This was designed by former Left Councilor Zheng Xiuming. It was changed to this because there wasn't enough money and supplies."

Ban Dingyuan remained silent, just as he saw the cooks pushing in a row of flatbed carts.

He immediately opened one bucket and scooped up a spoonful, only to find it was filled with tree bark mixed with some wild vegetables. The other bucket contained some cooked beans.

A bowl of tree bark and wild vegetable soup, and half a spoonful of beans, constituted a soldier's daily ration in the Taiji Kingdom.

If Ban Dingyuan could understand the poor equipment he had received before, he really couldn't stand the current food and treatment.

"Is this all you're feeding the soldiers?"

When asked by Ban Dingyuan, Cui Mingji immediately replied, "Our Taiji Kingdom stipulates that the imperial court provides half of the food, and they provide the other half themselves."

"Even so, they shouldn't be allowed to eat this?"

Ban Dingyuan threw down the soup ladle: "You expect a bunch of starving soldiers to fight to the death against the ravenous Goguryeo people?"

Cui Mingji bowed and replied, "The Great Khan believes that it is good enough for the common people to have food to eat, and their meals need not be taken seriously."

"But at least let them have enough to eat!" Ban Dingyuan couldn't take it anymore. "Is there some natural disaster in Taiji Kingdom right now that makes you treat them so harshly?"

Cui Mingji: "The imperial court's current grain reserves simply cannot supply enough provisions for tens of thousands of soldiers."

"Then go ask those Tai Chi nobles for it."

Ban Dingyuan gave him a direct, death order.

"I must see the grain transport wagons from Pyeonggyeong arrive at Namhansanseong in three days."

Without military rations, soldiers can't even complete basic drills, so where do they get the strength and morale to fight the enemy?

I don't care what method you use, you must gather enough grain. If you delay the tasks entrusted to you by His Majesty and the Regent, none of you can bear the responsibility!

If the Taiji Kingdom suffers another defeat, and His Majesty investigates, no one will clean up the mess for you!

"Yes, I will do my best."

Cui Mingji wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and obediently nodded and bowed to Ban Dingyuan.

After inspecting the fortified position at Namhansan and meeting with Li Shunlong, he returned to Pyeongkyung to discuss countermeasures with Wang Xuance.

After hearing Ban Dingyuan's description, Wang Xuance frowned deeply: "This is hardly worthy of being called an army?"

Ban Dingyuan closed his eyes and nodded in denial: "You haven't seen it with your own eyes. Only after you've seen it will you understand why a probing frontal attack by Gaozang's five thousand men could cause Taiji Kingdom's forty thousand troops to scatter and flee."

"Let alone 40,000, even if another 40,000 came, the outcome would likely be the same."

Wang Xuance sighed: "It seems that the possibility of getting them to continue launching an offensive against Goguryeo is almost zero."

Ban Dingyuan: "Sending troops again would only be a pointless death, there's no need for it."

Wang Xuance: "So, what good suggestions do you have now?"

Ban Dingyuan: "I thought of this on the way here. The first priority is naturally training the troops. I don't expect these Taiji soldiers to be on par with the Chu army, but they should at least look like soldiers."

Secondly, we need to address the shortage of food and supplies in the army. I've already assigned Cui Mingji to handle this. There are still 20,000 troops in the Nanhanshan garrison complex who require supplies.

Finally, we must hire another reliable army to obey our command. We've heard that the people of the Cloud Kingdom next to Taiji Kingdom are fierce and brave.

I would like to request permission from the imperial court to send an envoy to the Kingdom of Yunshang to gather some of its citizens to assist in the attack on Goguryeo.

Wang Xuance frowned: "But the people of Taiji Kingdom seem to have a lot of opinions about Yunshang Kingdom. Will they agree to this?"

Ban Dingyuan waved his hand and said, "What does that have to do with me? I am only responsible for the tasks assigned by the Regent. I don't care about anything else."