Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

In order to buy time, Mo Yuming made a decisive decision, leaving Su Ce, Leopard, Da Ye, Xing Ye, and Ge Zhuang to guard and repair Luoxia City Castle and deal with the captured soldiers.

The soldiers who were willing to surrender were incorporated and reorganized and sent to garrison the castle. The generals and a few retainers were temporarily imprisoned in the castle's underground dungeon and dealt with later when there was time.

Fearing they wouldn't have enough manpower, they left 500 soldiers for them to use.

The captured magic crystal cannons and magic-breaking arrows were also kept to strengthen the defenses of Luoxia City.

Luoxia City is the only way from Jian'an City to Shangyuan City. When the Marquis retreats, there will inevitably be a battle in Luoxia City.

In addition, when Luoxia City was captured this time, there were only more than 10,000 people in the city. Apart from the 2,000 who surrendered, there were still 6,000 or 7,000 people who were out gathering food and supplies and had not returned.

This team could return to Luoxia City at any time. Just in case, Su Ce and the others left to guard the city must quickly deploy the soldiers and prepare for battle.

Mo Yuming led the remaining 1,500 men to rest briefly before heading to Shangyuan City overnight.

He is determined to take Shangyuan City in the shortest possible time, to cut off Hou Wang's supply lines, disrupt their mind, and make Hou Wang lose his composure.

The Crimson Cloud Horse truly lives up to its reputation as one of the best warhorses in the Long Kingdom; when it runs, it's like a red lightning bolt, incredibly fast.

They covered more than a hundred miles in less than an hour. When Mo Yuming and his troops arrived at the city gates, it was just dawn.

Upon arriving at Shangyuan City, Mo Yuming did not linger at all. He immediately ordered all soldiers to prepare for the attack and dispatched several Heavenly Realm experts, including Lord Long and Lord Hu, to forcibly cross the city walls, kill the defending soldiers, and open the city gates to allow the army to enter the city.

Nine Heavenly Realm experts joined forces to fly up the city wall and kill the guards who were only at the early Earth Realm level. It was a piece of cake for them.

The soldiers with crossbows often died before they could even raise their arrows, some even losing their lives without ever seeing the enemy.

The nine experts cleared the roadblocks and opened the city gates in less than a quarter of an hour after entering the city.

Mo Yuming waved his hand, and Su Yangyan led his team into Shangyuan City.

The soldiers left behind by Lord Liao to guard the city were mostly old, weak, sick, and disabled men with little fighting ability. Although they outnumbered Mo Yuming's soldiers, they were nowhere near the level of Mo Yuming's 1,500 elite troops.

With the assistance of nine Heavenly Realm experts, after a series of charges, most of the defending soldiers were killed or wounded, while Mo Yuming's side only suffered a few dozen wounded and few killed in battle.

The siege was basically over in less than an hour.

Mo Yuming completely controlled Shangyuan City, and the family members and confidants of City Lord Liao were captured by Su Yangyan's troops.

As someone who was originally subordinate to Shangyuan City, Su Yangyan was naturally very familiar with the situation in Shangyuan City.

All the officials, big and small, were brought under control.

Next, Mo Yuming sent people to search all the warehouses in the city lord's mansion, and as expected, City Lord Liao was indeed going all out.

The warehouses in the homes and military camps were basically empty, with nothing of value left behind.

Mo Yuming continued with his previous policy: after incorporating all officials into his own ranks, those who were willing to surrender and had no criminal record were reinstated.

All of Lord Liao's cronies, as well as those who had embezzled, been corrupt, and oppressed the people during their previous tenures, were eliminated without exception.

Then, Su Yangyan was temporarily appointed as the city lord of Shangyuan City to take over all affairs of Shangyuan City.

Six of the captured magic crystal cannons were allocated to Su Yangyan for city defense. Combined with the four cannons that Shangyuan City already had, Shangyuan City now has a total of ten magic crystal cannons for defense, greatly enhancing its defensive capabilities.

Not only that, but he also left three boxes of Demon-Slaying Arrows as spares. Combined with the existing weapon reserves in Shangyuan City, Su Yangyan had more than enough weapons and equipment to defend the city.

In order to restore Shangyuan City to normal operation as soon as possible, Mo Yuming also took out 50,000 gold coins from the captured gold coins and gave them to Su Yangyan as a reserve fund.

Seeing how much Mo Yuming valued him, Su Yangyan was deeply moved and his loyalty to Mo Yuming increased even further.

After the war, Su Yangyan personally handled all affairs, including pacifying the people, taking in prisoners of war, repairing the city walls, and redeploying troops for defense.

Su Yangyan handled everything perfectly and in an orderly manner.

After incorporating all the surrendered soldiers of Shangyuan City, Su Yangyan dismissed the old, weak, sick, and disabled, leaving only a supplementary force of five or six hundred more capable soldiers.

Although Shangyuan City is only a medium-sized city in the Long Kingdom, it is an important port city on the way to the Yan Kingdom and the Zhenglan Kingdom due to its special geographical location. Therefore, Shangyuan City can also be regarded as a military fortress of the Long Kingdom.

The city walls were tall and sturdy, and the fortifications were very well-developed. There were usually as many as 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers stationed in the city, and the permanent population was as many as 300,000 to 400,000. The city was bustling with merchants and was very prosperous.

If Lord Liao hadn't dispatched all his soldiers, Mo Yuming really wouldn't have dared to attack Shangyuan City.

Although Mo Yuming has now taken control of Shangyuan City, he only has a mere two thousand soldiers, less than one-tenth of the original garrison, making defense extremely difficult.

The most urgent task is to recruit more soldiers and expand the garrison.

Mo Yuming ordered Su Yangyan to send men to retrieve the thousands of Crimson Cloud Horses that were originally stored outside Luoxia City, and also to gather the scattered Marquis soldiers.

They also dispatched falconers to scout out and obtain information about the six thousand soldiers that Lord Liao was raising supplies for, and then took the initiative to subdue and expand their own forces.

The Falcon Team is an elite force personally trained by Mo Yuming using advanced concepts from his previous life. They possess many skills that martial artists in this world cannot, making them particularly suitable for individual combat and stealth attacks.

They were naturally adept at reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.

Sure enough, within a day, Falcon received news that an army of two thousand men had entered Long Kingdom from Zhenglan Kingdom and was heading towards Luoxia City. It was estimated that they would arrive at Luoxia City in two days.

Upon hearing the news, Mo Yuming immediately led six old men, including Tiger and Master Xi, to Luoxia City.

Because Shangyuan City was undefended, Mo Yuming left all the soldiers in Shangyuan City for Su Yangyan to deploy. In addition to the two thousand soldiers, Tu Ye, He Ye, and Qiu Shui were left to guard Shangyuan City.

He then ordered Su Yangyan to set up ambushes on dangerous sections of the road as planned, cutting off the Marquis's retreat.

Apart from the more than one hundred Falcons who had been dispatched but had not yet returned, he only brought the remaining nearly one hundred Falcon Guards.

Although outnumbered, they were absolutely capable of taking on ten men each. Mo Yuming's combat philosophy was to never engage in direct combat with the enemy without an absolute advantage, and to try to strike the enemy by means of attacks, ambushes, and luring them into a trap.