Chapter 2076: The Fate of the Demon's Hound

Two years prior, when Xue Zongwu passed through Mangzhou, he had already complained about the long-neglected formation plates behind the city gate. Later, when Bai Tan strengthened the defenses of the five cities, he hired specialists to set up new formations, but even these improvements proved to be somewhat deficient.

As expected, the weakest link snapped.

Just three days after conquering Mangzhou, He Lingchuan led the re-organized Dragon God Army further north, with a single objective: Tianshui City.

By this point, Bai Tan had fallen into despair. As he looked out from Tianshui City, he saw enemies on all sides. The once-famous capital of Yao, now encircled by the vast Dragon God Army, resembled a small, solitary island tossed in a raging sea.

Qingyang was dead, the entire Yao Kingdom had fallen, and his loyal commanders and troops were no more. Even the soldiers within Tianshui City itself trembled with fear. Where could support come from? Bai Tan went to the temple again, but the hall was silent. No matter how he prayed, he received no response—the gods had abandoned him. Even the deities seemed helpless in Yao's current predicament.

Bai Tan could find no glimmer of hope for victory, nor any chance of turning the tide. After a long period of contemplation, trapped and distressed, he sent a messenger to Emperor Jiuyou, stating his willingness to surrender Tianshui City in exchange for his life and safe departure from Yao territory.

However, the person he dispatched was turned away without even meeting Emperor Jiuyou. "Does General Bai think he can negotiate terms with a simple verbal message? This is childish."

Having reached this stage, why should He Lingchuan be in any hurry? The four cities he had previously captured had immediately alleviated the army's most pressing issues, such as food shortages and insufficient supplies. Tianshui City would fall into his hands eventually; for now, he simply needed to wear them down.

Left with no choice, Bai Tan personally penned a letter and sent it to Emperor Jiuyou.

This time, Emperor Jiuyou promptly refused him and publicly declared the surrender letter. He even sent General Taoran, one of his subordinates, to the front lines where the two armies faced each other, to loudly proclaim the Dragon God's will: Bai Tan had committed regicide, killed innocents, incited rebellion, colluded with Sky Devils, harvested lives, and poisoned Shanjin. His crimes were so heinous that ten deaths would not suffice to atone for them! Therefore, the Dragon God would never accept Bai Tan's surrender! The Dragon God wanted everyone to witness the fate of a Sky Devil's minion!

The Yao army erupted in uproar. They had been fighting and risking their lives for Bai Tan, only to discover that he had, in turn, tried to sell Tianshui City for his own personal wealth and security.

Bai Tan, shocked by his opponent's viciousness, hastily denied the claims, stating it was merely an enemy trick and that he had never sought to surrender to the Dragon God. He vowed to lead Tianshui City in fighting to the very end.

But once the seeds of doubt were sown, they were bound to bear fruit. The Dragon God Army's assaults grew fiercer, while inside Tianshui City, morale plummeted. The troops became negligent and passive, nearly failing to hold the city gates on several occasions.

The Dragon God Army outside the city intensified its efforts to persuade surrender, enumerating Bai Tan's lifetime of misdeeds. Each day, they listed several of his crimes, drawing a clear distinction between Bai Tan and the people of Yao City, encouraging the latter to come out and surrender.

Consequently, people began to secretly scale the city walls and flee under the cover of night, defecting to the Dragon God's side.

Bai Tan was enraged and ordered the beheading of a hundred people.

The Yao army, already discontent with him, was further inflamed by this act. He Lingchuan's "spies," who had been planted in Tianshui City beforehand, intensified their agitation, deliberately fostering an atmosphere of opposition.

Finally, on the thirty-first day of the Dragon God Army's siege, the officers within Tianshui City revolted!

Bai Tan was shocked and enraged, launching a major suppression. His reaction was undeniably swift, but before being killed, the "rebel general" managed to open Tianshui City's South Gate!

The Dragon God Army, which had been waiting nearby, surged into the city.

Once the South Gate was opened, it could not be closed again. Just three hours later, the street fighting concluded, and Bai Tan was captured.

As the sun rose, the Dragon God ordered Bai Tan to be taken to Tianshui City's central square and beheaded publicly as a "criminal" before all the city's residents, old and young, military and civilian.

Before his death, Bai Tan let out a long sigh, looking up at the sky: "Qingyang misled me!" Had he not believed the lies of that old witch Qingyang, he, the grand General Bai of Yao, would never have met such a tragic end!

As he knelt to face his execution, the crowd erupted in thunderous applause, and many Yao people were moved to tears.

Bai Tan's death marked the complete end of Yao's resistance. The Yao territory was truly incorporated into the Dragon God's domain and officially renamed "Yaozhou."

Afterward, the Dragon God Army opened its granaries and worked to appease the populace. Due to the incessant internal strife, food production in the Yao territory had drastically decreased over the past year and a half. Although Bai Tan had transported all the plundered grain to the five cities, most of it was hoarded in military storehouses, leaving common citizens with nothing. During Bai Tan's more than month-long defense of Tianshui City, over 2,500 citizens starved to death, and another 5,000 succumbed to theft, illness, and other causes.

Regardless of people's prior opinions of the Dragon God, the Dragon God Army's immediate action of opening granaries was met with city-wide cheers. The residents of Tianshui City, in particular, had enjoyed the most prosperous lives in all of Shanjin for several decades. However, ever since Bai Tan committed regicide, they had frequently gone hungry, a drastic change that no one could accept. Now, as they received food distributed by their conquerors, their internal resistance significantly diminished.

He Lingchuan had already prepared a complete administrative team for the region. On the very day Bai Tan was killed, this team took office, and their first decree was to reclaim fallow land and organize late-summer production.

The internal strife in Yao had lasted over a year, displacing countless people and leaving land ownerless. Although Bai Tan eventually emerged victorious, he was preoccupied with military preparations and had no time or inclination to properly manage production, leading to vast tracts of fertile land being abandoned.

He Lingchuan understood clearly that for Yaozhou to rapidly restore order after the war, the most crucial elements were to ensure production and supply, as these would bring stability.

It was already summer, and with the frequent emergence of Imperial Dew, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth surged. The land was temporarily in a state where "anything planted would live" and "anything raised would grow quickly." He Lingchuan's strategists estimated that if they hurried to sow seeds now, they could harvest by late autumn at the latest, and likely even earlier.

This period was truly a time when "every inch of time was worth an inch of gold." Production had already been organized in the Yao territories conquered earlier, with not a single moment wasted.

A significant reason why He Lingchuan seized the opportunity to aggressively attack Yao territory was precisely to avoid wasting such a valuable window. Otherwise, once autumn arrived and all things withered, food for the common people would become a major problem once more.

Without food, public sentiment would be unstable. Even during wartime, his primary concern was always the post-war period.

By this point, central and eastern Shanjin were fully pacified, and the Dragon God Army had received substantial resupply. In fact, the money and provisions He Lingchuan had stockpiled for the Dragon God War had been completely depleted! Even in the later stages of training, resources were already stretched thin. When the invasion of Yao Kingdom began, the Yangshan Chamber of Commerce and the army's logistics department were constantly "robbing Peter to pay Paul," desperate to secure rations and supplies for the soldiers. Ding Zuodong worried day and night, half his hair had turned white, his gums were swollen, and he had even lost two teeth.