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

"Commander, the deadline has passed, and Zhenzhou has not given a clear response."

"Then let's get started."

"Yes!"

Upon receiving the order, Lü Meng immediately prepared for the landing operation.

At this moment, inside Zhenzhou City, 2,200 garrison soldiers, holding various cold weapons, stared intently at the densely packed giant ships at sea, their hearts filled with panic.

Meanwhile, Du Yanfei, the garrison commander of Zhenzhou, was covered in sweat, silently praying that those colossal monsters would leave the Zhenzhou sea area as soon as possible.

In fact, two hours earlier, Shen Lang had already ordered someone to call out to Zhenzhou, asking them to send someone to his ship to negotiate, and then send the rubbing of the imperial letter to Shengjing to give to Li Hong.

But this seemingly unreasonable request was like a death sentence for Du Yanfei.

Several months ago, when the Chu envoy was expelled from Wuzhao, Li Hong strictly ordered officials in coastal areas to severely punish any contact with Chu people that was discovered.

Du Yanfei naturally dared not disobey Li Hong's wishes, so he could only close the city gates and strengthen defenses in an attempt to force the Chu army fleet to leave his jurisdiction as soon as possible.

However, what he didn't know was that this behavior had completely enraged Shen Lang.

boom--

Suddenly, a thunderous roar echoed across the sea.

The soldiers in Zhenzhou City suddenly felt a violent tremor beneath their feet.

By the time they came to their senses, a 150mm secondary gun had already exploded at the foot of the city wall.

The billowing smoke and scattered shrapnel terrified the soldiers defending the city.

"what--"

Suddenly a loud shout rang out, and one of the guards, unable to withstand the pressure, scrambled away from his post.

"Come back here! Do you hear me? Come back!"

Du Yanfei loudly ordered the soldiers to return to their positions.

But the soldiers, who were already terrified, ignored their superiors' shouts and crawled away into the distance.

boom--

Another shell landed outside the city wall.

Du Yanfei instinctively crouched down to avoid the broken bullets, his heart still pounding.

But soon he discovered that more soldiers could not withstand such pressure and abandoned their posts, fleeing desperately into the inner city.

No matter how hard Du Yanfei tried to persuade them to stay, the defending officers and soldiers, whose morale had been completely shattered, still fled into the city.

At this time, only about four hundred soldiers remained on the city wall to hold out.

At that moment, the artillery fire ceased, and Lü Meng led two brigades, a mixed force of nearly seven thousand men, to launch an offensive against Zhenzhou.

bang bang bang-

The continuous gunfire kept the defenders on the city walls from raising their heads.

Du Yanfei hid behind the city wall, constantly directing the remaining soldiers to fire arrows in retaliation.

However, the arrows that were shot with raised hands had no power at all, and were completely inaccurate.

Compared to Garand's almost uninterrupted and continuous firepower output, the war was one-sided from the very beginning.

"My lord, the number of foreign barbarians seems to be unusually large, more than ten times ours. How can we fight them?"

"And those firearms, they're incredibly powerful, there's no way to fight them."

"Sir, we must retreat quickly, or it will be too late!"

Du Yanfei wanted to retreat, but he didn't dare to at all.

With this withdrawal, Zhenzhou will be lost, and he will inevitably face the fate of having his entire family punished.

"Anyone who dares to speak of retreat will be killed without mercy!"

Du Yanfei steeled his resolve and spoke sternly to the remaining officers and soldiers.

“We are soldiers of Zhenzhou, and the land behind us is the land we are guarding. Now that foreign barbarians have invaded our territory, we who are paid by the emperor should be loyal to him. We should do our best to serve the emperor.”

Du Yanfei suddenly drew his sword: "Men, don't be afraid! Fight these barbarians! Fight one, it'll be worth it; fight two, it'll be a bloodbath! Follow me and kill!"

"Kill~"

Du Yanfei's words quickly boosted the morale of the officers and soldiers, who raised their swords, bows, and crossbows and approached Lü Meng's troops who were approaching from outside the city.

"boom--"

The Chu army's outpost troops, who were besieging Zhenzhou, saw the commotion on the city walls and immediately raised their rifles to fire.

With a gunshot, a lieutenant was killed instantly by a pierced throat.

"Mom."

Du Yanfei, who was just giving a passionate speech to boost morale, was immediately taken aback.

"Scared me."

Da da da--

A burst of bullets struck the bluestone wall behind him, and the scattered fragments startled the men, who fled in terror.

Just then, someone shouted, "Oh no! Foreign invaders have broken in!"

Upon hearing this, Du Yanfei looked up and saw a group of Chu soldiers climbing up the city wall on the left side.

"Oh no, stop them!"

Da da da--

As soon as Du Yanfei gave the order, a burst of submachine gun bullets poured out, instantly turning him and the surrounding guards into sieves.

"Put down your weapons immediately, squat down and cover your head with your hands!"

"We surrender, please don't kill us!"

Under the threat of the dark muzzles of guns, the remaining defending officers and soldiers dropped their weapons, squatted on the ground, covered their heads with their hands, and chose to surrender.

Zhenzhou City was captured in less than an hour.

……

The day after Li Hong's birthday banquet, Zhang Guihe, the deputy governor of Lin'an, led 5,000 military cavalry and the iron cavalry of various vassal states stationed in the capital region, totaling 12,000 men, on a grand march towards Zhenzhou.

Under Zhang Gui's constant urging, the army marched day and night without stopping, covering 300 li per day, rushing towards Jiankang to provide reinforcements.

On the morning of the fifth day after the army left the capital, a scout on horseback was rushing towards Shengjing when he was spotted by Zhang Gui.

"The foreign barbarians have successively captured Zhenzhou, Xunyang, Changxian, and Kangcheng, and are now close to the waters off Jiankang. The Jiankang navy has been completely wiped out, and Jiankang is in grave danger."

Upon hearing from the scouts that Jiankang was in danger, Zhang Gui was immediately anxious and ordered, "All troops, listen up! From this day forward, all eating, drinking, and relieving yourself will be done on horseback. All officers and soldiers, advance towards Jiankang at full speed!"

The twelve thousand cavalrymen immediately sprang into action, daring not to slacken in the slightest, and concentrated all their efforts on marching towards Jiankang...

Meanwhile, in the direction of Huizhou, Seng Qinlin also received a personal imperial order from Li Hong today: to mobilize the garrison troops of various prefectures, immediately recapture Haizhou, and arrest and escort the Empress of Great Chu to the capital.

Upon seeing this, the monk Qinlin was so anxious that he wanted to curse.

If he held a contemptuous attitude towards the Chu army, these "foreign barbarians," just over twenty days ago, he has now completely reversed his attitude.

He sent spies to investigate the area around Haizhou and learned that the Chu army's ships and firearms were astonishingly powerful.

Those things called cannons could cause the earth to shake from miles away, and those muskets could suppress one's own cavalry charge from hundreds of paces away.

How to fight this battle?

Monk Qinlin originally intended to stay in Huizhou and wait for the imperial court's reward.

Unexpectedly, the imperial court assigned him such an impossible task.

"Damn it, isn't this going to kill me?"

"What good are those local garrisons, besides being able to hold off women?"

"At least send some soldiers from the militia camp!"

Just as he was at a loss, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he carefully picked up the imperial edict and took a look.

"May I exercise the governor's authority to dispatch troops stationed in various regions?"

Upon thinking about this, he immediately had an idea.