Chapter 437: Difficult Subjugation of a Nation

He Lingchuan closed his eyes and bowed his head silently. This was not the first comrade he had sent off, nor would it be the last. They had all shed their blood on foreign soil.

After clearing this area, all members of the Broken Blade squad were wounded, though to varying degrees. He Lingchuan, having led the charge, faced the most danger, twice nearly being knocked out of the dream realm. The price was a hole through his ribs and his right ear being cut off. Compared to that, other superficial injuries were negligible.

When A-Luo sewed his ear back on, he hissed and cried out in pain. "What's all the fuss about!" A-Luo retorted, his face dark, a bandage also wrapped around his own forehead. "Did you think you could just charge into a big dark room like that?"

"Wasn't I trying to create a diversion for you?" He Lingchuan grimaced, knowing he was much braver and more aggressive in the spirit realm than in reality. "Where's the Shi Tuo powder? Give me some pain relief!"

Even within the Great Square Pot, every battle was a rare opportunity for training. He needed to carefully explore his own combat style and rhythm. If not brave here, then when?

Fortunately, such mop-up operations quickly became sporadic, and by the afternoon of the fifth day, the Coiling Dragon Army had largely secured the entire capital of Xiji. If General Hong had used the method of collective punishment for suppression, the process would have been much faster. This was a common tactic in many sieges, but it cost public goodwill.

Meanwhile, the Xiji Royal Palace dispatched troops out of the city several times, attempting to coordinate with the scattered forces outside, but they were repelled by the well-prepared Great Wind Army stationed outside the palace city. After several losses, the Xiji Royal Palace no longer dared to sally forth on its own, merely staying behind closed doors. After all, each sortie resulted in losses of several hundred to over a thousand or twelve hundred soldiers, yet they couldn't break through, making the cost rather high.

As the days passed like years for Hu Yan-zhao, the Xiji Palace City had been under siege for ten days. The reinforcements he repeatedly proclaimed to his subjects had not even shown a shadow. And the territory General Hong had promised him had shrunk by another third compared to before.

Hu Yan-zhao was distraught. Yan City's fortifications were strong, its grain supplies ample, and wells were abundant, especially with food reserves prepared for 3,000 people to hold out for forty days. Back then, when his old man had built it according to these specifications, many officials had objected, calling it too wasteful. Now, it seemed his old man had been wise.

However, no matter how wise the old man was, he couldn't have accounted for the current influx of over 13,000 people, more than four times the intended capacity. More people meant more food consumed. With so many people cooped up in the city, unable to leave, and eating heartily all day, Hu Yan-zhao's heart bled.

Most disheartening was the severe lack of medicine. The wounded in the palace city exceeded four thousand, with over nine hundred severely injured, and two or three hundred more had died in the past few days due to insufficient medicine or improper treatment. Complaints filled the palace, and morale plummeted.

Furthermore, there was a horrifying problem that even the old monarch had not foreseen: human and animal waste. Over 13,000 people and more than 2,000 warhorses combined formed a full-throttle waste-producing machine. Previously, the palace city had a dedicated night soil collection team that transported waste outside the city daily, but now they couldn't leave.

Hu Yan-zhao ordered soldiers to throw waste down from the city gates, to hurl at the Coiling Dragon Army. But after more than ten soldiers were shot dead, they were unwilling to do so anymore. Risking their lives to dump waste was simply too unworthy, not to mention the collection process; it was better to just find a random corner in the palace city... Consequently, the palace was filled with a bloody stench, flies buzzed everywhere, mirroring the plummeting morale of the Xiji people.

Currently, He Lingchuan, along with Willow and Hu Min, sat on the roof of a civilian house, eating chicken while gazing at the palace city not far away. "The lights on the city gate tower are out," Hu Min chuckled. "Looks like they're even starting to conserve lamp oil."

The Broken Blade squad performed exceptionally well in the Dragon Throat Pass mission. Besides their regular military rewards, He Lingchuan also secured a daily two-roasted-chicken benefit for his teammates from the quartermaster. With nothing to do this evening, they gathered to enjoy a feast of roasted chickens, using water as their drink.

Men Ban chuckled, "Once the wind shifts, the stench from the palace city drifts out, and no one wants to get close. I wonder how the Xiji people manage to sleep day after day, resting their heads near piles of excrement?" Willow poked him sharply in the ribs with his fingers, saying, "We're eating! Why bring up such a disgusting topic?"

Hu Min also added, "I heard that some deserters have come out of the palace city these past few days; some were shot dead on the spot, but a few managed to sneak over and surrender. General Hong had them sit in front of the palace city gate, eating meat and drinking wine, for the people inside the city to see. One sat too close and got too carried away with eating, and ended up being shot dead again."

Willow asked him, "You've been with the Great Wind Army the longest. Did sieges always last this long before?" "Ah, some longer, some shorter," Hu Min thought for a moment. "The longest time, we besieged a city for over forty days before taking it." Willow murmured "Oh" and asked no more questions.

He Lingchuan took a bite of a chicken leg. He was the only one present who had attended the pre-battle meeting in the War Hall, so he generally understood General Hong's strategy. "The old monarch of Xiji used several years of the capital's revenue to build the palace city into an impenetrable fortress, truly easy to defend and difficult to attack. They say its defensive rune arrays are layered over a dozen times." He explained to his subordinates, "If we truly wanted to storm it, we'd probably have to pile up countless lives. That's why General Hong intends to use siege as a substitute for attack, to achieve victory with the minimal cost."

Was that all? General Hong and Zhong Shengguang's lack of urgency clearly suggested more considerations. Furthermore, He Lingchuan had his own question: why didn't General Hong deploy the Three-Corpse Worms during this surprise attack on Xiji?

He had heard Hu Min describe the previous experience of retaking Weicheng, where the Ba Ling army guarding the gates suddenly went berserk and attacked their own people, evidently due to the Three-Corpse Worms' power. But this surprise attack mission was more significant than retaking Weicheng, so why was there no sign of the Three-Corpse Worms on the battlefield? These creatures were impervious to primal energy and even unaffected by ordinary spells, making them one of General Hong's trump cards. Why would she resort to such clumsy, slow methods to besiege and force the surrender of Hu Yan-zhao and his court?

He Lingchuan had a strange thought: Could it be that she couldn't use them? He had once asked Sun Fuping a question: since the Coiling Dragon Army, empowered by the Great Square Pot, was so formidable, why didn't they simply march all the way back to the Xiluo Kingdom instead of remaining trapped in the Coiling Dragon Wasteland? Sun Fuping had no answer.

Instead, the Black Dragon in the illusion of Coiling Dragon Ruins had told them something: "You cannot take it away. The Great Square Pot is Coiling Dragon City, and Coiling Dragon City is also the Great Square Pot; they have long been one entity. Not even gods, let alone humans, can take it away." Since Xiji has left the range of the Coiling Dragon Wasteland, is it possible that the Three-Corpse Worms from the Great Square Pot cannot be brought here because it's "out of service range"?

If General Hong and Zhong Shengguang couldn't take the Great Square Pot with them, then this expedition to Xiji... Thinking back to General Hong's negotiations with Hu Yan-zhao these past few days, He Lingchuan always felt a strange sense of incongruity. She was always decisive and ruthless; when would she ever give someone so many chances? He Lingchuan frowned.

Another five days passed. The Coiling Dragon Army hadn't wasted time either; they had already dispatched several units to occupy the entire territory of Xiji, reducing the pressure of operations at the capital.

During this time, more and more Xiji soldiers climbed over the walls and fled from the capital's royal palace. They were willing to risk being shot dead by the overseers to escape because food in the palace city had long become insufficient, and due to low morale and declining primal energy, an epidemic began to spread within the tall palace walls. Yan City was already short on medicine, and now it was even worse. Even ordinary soldiers who contracted the illness had no chance of receiving treatment. It was better to risk death and escape, for there was still a glimmer of hope.

Another five days passed, and even Hu Yan-zhao himself was becoming dazed and disoriented. The gazes of his officers and soldiers were completely different from twenty days prior; had it not been for a few loyal confidants protecting him fiercely, a mutiny would have long erupted within the palace city.

Suddenly, a rider galloped swiftly towards the city walls, shouting loudly, "Hu Yan, little brat, come out! Your reinforcements are here!" The guards on the city wall jerked and looked down, only to see a large man riding his horse back and forth below the city, holding a long spear high, on which hung a string of dishevelled human heads, at least five or six of them, their hair matted together.

This large man was General Nan Ke. He called out seven or eight times, growing impatient, before a pale-faced Hu Yan-zhao finally climbed to the city gate tower and looked down, immediately feeling dizzy: The string of heads hanging from General Nan Ke's spear belonged to the generals of the Nanping defenders, from top to bottom, in perfect order.

He had been constantly reassuring everyone inside the city that reinforcements would arrive sooner or later. Now, reinforcements had indeed arrived, but not in the way they had hoped. With a "clang," a long saber fell from the hand of a small soldier on the city wall, making a loud sound. No one paid him any mind.

General Nan Ke looked at Hu Yan-zhao and chuckled, "Our General Hong is giving you one last chance. If you surrender now, you can still be a marquis south of the Lugua River. Otherwise—" He raised his long spear again, "—this day next year will be the death anniversary for all of you!"

The Lugua River? Hu Yan-zhao's lips trembled a few times. The territory General Hong now promised him was less than a quarter of the original offer. If only he had known, if only he had known...

General Nan Ke continued, "Oh, and since Hu Yan-zhao is so stubborn, whoever among you inside the city can bring his head to us will receive the same reward!" A collective gasp swept through the city.

Cutting off Hu Yan-zhao's head meant not only no longer being trapped in the city, no longer starving, no longer sleeping by piles of excrement, but also becoming a marquis of ten thousand households south of the Lugua River, with servants to dress and feed you?

Even a few of Hu Yan-zhao's trusted aides began to eye their master with flickering gazes. The past few days in the city had truly been too difficult, and the new monarch had no proper means of resolution.

Hu Yan-zhao suddenly felt the gazes of everyone turn malicious, like wolves eyeing a sheep, like cats staring at a fish... or like the living looking at the dead. If he reacted even a moment slower, this group might just tear him apart alive the next second.

"Wait..." Hu Yan-zhao saw someone in the back row raising a long spear pointed directly at him. He no longer cared about anything else and quickly shouted, "I surrender! I surrender!"

By being the first to cry "surrender," he was safe. "This fellow is sensible," General Nan Ke rejoiced. "What are you waiting for? Open the city gates!"