Chapter 183

Qin Chuyuan rode his horse all the way out of the city. The closer he got to the city gate, the more alarmed he became. The piles of corpses and the battered city walls formed mountains.

Once out of the city, corpses covered the plains and blood flowed like rivers. Every inch of land his feet touched had been dyed red.

After witnessing the brutality of war, and Gong Xiaohua being in such a dangerous position, Qin Chuyuan became even more determined that no matter what happened, he would stick by her side as if glued together, never leaving or letting go.

Seeing Qin Chuyuan come over, people voluntarily gave way to him.

He walked to Gong Xiaohua. Before she could react, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly.

People around them started teasing. Gong Xiaohua felt a little embarrassed and tried to break free, but he hugged her too tightly. Helpless, she could only remind him in a voice only the two of them could hear, "People are watching."

Qin Chuyuan rested his head on Gong Xiaohua's shoulder. He had completely lost the demeanor of a young master from a prominent Capital City family and whispered to her ear rascaly, "Let them watch. We're husband and wife. What's there to be shy about?"

"Who's your wife?"

"Xiaohua, don't forget, I have never written this kind of scene in Letting Go books before. No matter what you say this time, I won't let you go."

"I knew you were sly, but now I see you're very roguish too."

"Do you believe I can be even more roguish?" After saying that, Gong Xiaohua felt a rush of hot air near her ear, though she wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.

Gong Xiaohua blushed...

After General Zhang and others defeated the Liang army, they led troops to recover the three cities that were previously lost.

When the three cities were captured by Liang Country earlier, the Liang army had left only a small number of troops to defend them. And King Liang did not send anyone to take over either. So the Ye army easily took back the lost cities.

The news of King Runan's death spread to Liang Country and shocked the nation. The number one war god of Liang Country had fallen.

Apart from the true loyal ministers, no one else in the Liang court truly lamented King Runan’s death. What made them collapse was that after the news of King Runan’s death reached the Runan Principality Residence, his principal wife committed suicide in the residence.

When King Liang heard about it, he was heartbroken. He drank all day long, had no heart for government affairs, which led to Liang Country’s power falling into the hands of others and internal strife. The Liang army was weakened gradually. But that was another story.

After the big victory over the Liang army, the good news shocked everyone in the Capital City. The Ye King, who had been bedridden for over a year due to long-term illness from overwork and anxiety, got up from the bed excitedly waving his arms and legs.

"Good, good! She lived up to my high expectations of her!" The resentment that had accumulated in his heart began to dissipate at this moment.

He paced back and forth in his bedroom, then seemed to make up his mind and shouted outside:

"Come!"

"Your Majesty!"

"Issue an edict appointing Gong Xiaohua as Protector General to assist Duke Zhen Guo in fighting Wei Country!”

"Yes!"

This edict shocked the entire court. Not everyone could take on the title of Protector General.

The title meant her contribution to this country, and it was also the highest honor His Majesty could give to a military general for her military exploits.

Since then, for the first time in Ye Country’s hundred-year history, a female general stood in the top military position of the country and entered Ye Country’s history.

Some people felt it was absurd, but who dared to oppose it? If you oppose, go ahead and take over her position! If you can’t, then shut up!

This title also greatly encouraged Ye Country’s women to step out of the boudoir and made a big push for women to enter the court as officials.

People kept coming to visit the Gong Residence every day to pay respect to Gong Xiaohua’s remarkable battlefield achievements.

Especially those who wanted to apprentice. Most of them came because Lord Shi boasted all day long that his son was apprenticed to General Gong.

Now the big families in the Capital City who wanted to learn martial arts would bring their elders to visit the Gong family first, leave them a good impression, and have them say some good words for them in the future after General Gong returned to the Capital City from the battlefield.

When Gong Xiaohua received the order of promotion, she had just recovered all the western cities. She left most of the Western Defense Army to guard the western frontiers.

Then she took the Xiyuan Army, the Garrison Army, a small part of the Western Defense Army led by General Zhang, the South Defense Army that came earlier, plus more than 100,000 people from the Northern Defense Army, and went north to support the war efforts there. Wei Country was Ye Country’s biggest enemy.

In the western battlefield, Ye Country had deployed 400,000 troops in total, and lost 300,000 soldiers. Liang Country suffered fewer losses than Ye Country. But on their way back to Liang Country after being defeated, tens of thousands more reportedly died of starvation on the road.

On the northern battlefield, Wei Country dispatched 500,000 troops, while Ye Country deployed 600,000, outnumbering the enemy by 100,000.

Although Ye Country had more troops, the opponent grew up riding horses since childhood. Their cavalry skills were excellent, and the people were ferocious and burly. After fighting for over a year, Ye Country’s casualties were several times higher than the opponent, and the trend was continuing to rise.

Ye Country did everything it could to respond to this life-and-death battle. In one year, countless casualties covered Ye Country’s battlefields. The people led miserable lives.

Initially, civilians would help pull the corpses back from the battlefields for proper burial. But later, cities fell continuously and civilians started fleeing in large numbers. The army could not handle properly, and could only burn the corpses on the spot.

As a result, the smell of burning human flesh never stopped spreading on the northern battlefields day and night.

At the beginning, everyone who smelled the odor reacted with all kinds of vomiting, nausea, shock and so on. By now, they had become numb to it, with no change of expression on their faces.

Now the General of the Northern Defense Army had died in battle, and the military morale was shaken. Although Duke Zhen Guo was holding the situation, the battlefield kept suffering defeats. Military morale remained low and urgently needed a major victory to boost it.

Duke Zhen Guo kept asking the Capital City to send more reinforcements, but it would take some time for new forces to be added.

Suddenly, the news of the major defeat of the Liang army in the west arrived, stimulating morale across the country. More importantly, the army was coming north to provide support, which reassured all the generals in the northern battlefield like a tranquilizer.

The troops attacking Ye Country this time were led by King Wei’s brother, King Guli. Two Wei princes were also assisting him, namely the Eldest Prince and the Second Prince.

Back then, when the Second Prince learned that Gong Xiaohua had gone to the western battlefield, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though he didn’t know why.

Now, after more than a year without any progress by the Liang army, he felt it was only natural, and was somewhat glad that he didn’t have to face her.

They kept winning battles now and morale was high. If things kept going this way, they would be able to capture the Ye Capital City soon, the royal lineage of Ye Country would perish, and everything would become a foregone conclusion.

But now upon receiving the news of the major defeat of Liang Country on the western battlefield with the Liang commander being killed by Gong Xiaohua, the Second Prince’s hands even shook twice.

He immediately went to the camp of the commander of this expedition - his uncle, King Guli.

"Uncle King, we need to suspend the attack on Wu City and first send troops to scout the situation of the western relief army and ambush them in advance."

"Just because Liang Country was defeated by them? Brother, why make things complicated? Our Wei army can't compare with the Liang army. When they come, we will still beat them and force them to retreat steadily." The Eldest Prince stood up and said disdainfully.

"The King Uncle doesn't know that this woman is valiant and good at fighting, especially at using strategies. She comes and goes without a trace and is hard to guard against."

As the commander-in-chief, King Guli naturally was not just a fierce general who was brave but lacked strategies. He looked around at the other generals in the tent and asked, "What do you generals think about the Second Prince's suggestion?"

"Reporting to King Uncle, I agree with what the Eldest Prince said. Our main battlefield now is at Wu City. If we deploy troops elsewhere, let's not even talk about crossing mountains and rivers, even if we greatly reduce the number of troops in this main battlefield, once discovered by the Ye army, the consequences would be unimaginable."

"General Adagan, this opinion is wrong. Even the Second Prince has been defeated by her before, which shows that this woman should not be underestimated. If we let her join forces with the Wu City army, the Wu City army will gain great strength, and I'm afraid our siege of the city will encounter unprecedented difficulties," said another general.

Hearing the opinions of his two subordinates, both of which had their own reasons, King Guli frowned, caught in an agonizing dilemma.

The Second Prince said, "Uncle King, give me 10,000 elite soldiers. I already have a plan to deal with them."