Battle Royale of the Sinners

Xin Ping received the report that Pan Feng's 2,000 men had escaped from the fortress and returned to his camp. He immediately ordered them quarantined.

"Do not let them enter the camp! I want each of them interrogated of what had happened before they got out of that fortress. And I want their backgrounds checked!"

Xin Ping did not trust the returned soldiers. To him, this move was obviously a ploy by Zhang Tong.

'If I were Zhang Tong, I will mix in my troops into these prisoners and wreak havoc from the inside. There is no way that every single of them were the men of Ye City.'

From night till dawn, they isolated and interrogated every soldier. However, everyone had an alibi and references from the troops within Xin Ping camp. They all had background or families in Ye district.

However, there were many injured soldiers in the group, so they were separated and wasn't interrogated. One of them even lost an arm, so he wasn't included in the quarantine. Xin Ping felt pity towards the veteran handicapped soldiers, so he excluded them out of sympathy. In his mind, there was no way that a handicapped soldier could be a spy, especially if they had fresh wounds from the battle.

Another report came from the scout teams that Xin Ping had sent to observe the fortress. Last night, there was an explosion and commotions within Tong Army fort. Although the teams couldn't get a clear understanding of what exactly happened, they all assumed that there was in-fighting or chaos caused by the escapees.

Xin Ping frowned. His instinct told him that this was definitely an infiltration ploy, but all investigation pointed out that they were all his men without any enemy mixed in.

Furthermore, every returned soldier seemed happy to be back, and none of them acted alone in secretive or had any suspicious activity during the quarantine.

Xin Ping sighed in relief after he had seen his happy soldiers. Then he called the leaders of the escapees into his tent.

Within ten minutes, Zhang He and his friends entered Xin Ping's tent. All of them were once hundred-man commanders from Pan Feng Army, and they had tokens that identified their identity within the troops.

"So what happened inside the fortress? How did all of you get out?" Xin Ping asked.

Zhang He stepped forward and gave Xin Ping his reports.

"Reporting, after Zhang Tong Army raided us and took us in as prisoners, they decided that they would not give us food because they were short on grain provisions. All of us didn't want to starve to death. And we were afraid that he would kill all of us to save the grain, so we have to make the move. Fortunately, Zhang Tong was just a naïve brat, so we managed to stir chaos within his camp and slipped out."

Xin Ping frowned. There was something that did not make sense. Could someone that capable enough to construct that complex fortress be naïve and inexperienced?

"What about the southern camp's provision? Haven't they taken all of them? Why didn't they give you food?"

"Reporting, they indeed took all the provisions. But it seems Zhang Tong wanted to save all of them for the prolonged war. Thus, he deemed us prisoners as a burden."

Xin Ping nodded. It made a little more sense now.

"What about Pan Feng? Is he still alive?"

Zhang He shook his head.

"No, Zhang Tong executed him."

Xin Ping snorted and mocked Pan Feng in his mind. That muscle brain kicked the bucket. Although they were colleagues, he never grieved for that guy. To Xin Ping, Pan Feng was too incompetence to be grieving over.

"What's your name, young man?" Xin Ping asked.

"Zhang He, sir."

"From now on, you are 2,000-man commander of our army. You, your friends and the others that came with you will be in the same unit. This is my token. Take it to the armory and the provision center. I want you to rearm yourself and get ready for the next battle. Tomorrow, I want you to be here in the morning for the strategy briefing."

"T-Thank you very much, commander!!!"

Xin Ping grinned and waved his hand, signaling Zhang He and his men to leave.

Zhang He took Xin Ping's command token and went out. After they walked out to a place that no one was looking, one of Zhang He's officer who was one-arm short spoke out.

"Do as he told you. Tomorrow, we will finish this. Don't forget to give those special wines to Xin Ping's cooks. Make them serve it with his food for tomorrow breakfast."

Zhang He didn't look at the speaker, but he replied.

"As you command, my lord. But, your arm …"

"It's fine. I can regrow it at any time."

…

…

The news about the prison break caught the ears of Guo Dian and Zou Jing which shocked both of them. They were delighted that Tong finally made a mistake. They immediately held a meeting together to discuss the next plan.

All of Guo Dian's officers and strategists gathered and looked at their commander with eyes full of expectations. They had hope that they could ride on the coat tails of both armies and gain some achievements for their promotions. Because of that, they were fighting among themselves of who would be the next commander of the next battle.

Guo Dian was disgusted by the manner of his men. When they had been at a disadvantageous position, they hid like turtles, and never dared to express their thought. Now they had the upper hand, these guys were dancing with joy and bickering against each other just to take credits with little efforts.

Zou Jing swept his eyes through the crowd and glanced at Guo Dian. Seeing their reactions, Zou Jing understood the situation in Julu County now. These county officials were more corrupted than he had heard.

Zou Jing coughed and attracted their attention. All of them stopped speaking and gazed at Zou Jing.

"From the last battle, Pan Feng army was lost and two thousand men were captured. Although Pan Feng's fate is still unknown, we should assume that he is already dead. But still, he did contribute us a great deal for chipping away Zhang Tong troops. I don't know how much damage their army suffered. But I estimate that he should have roughly 4,000 men remaining in that fortress. And the chaos that the prisoners caused within the fortress should also reduce more of Zhang Tong Army numbers. So his troops should be dwindled further by a bit."

Zou Jing paused to check his listeners. After he saw that he had everyone's attention, he continued.

"Then last night, the prisoners broke away from Zhang Tong camp and managed to return to Xin Ping Army in the east. We expect that Xin Ping troop numbers should be around 5,000 to 6,000 after he absorbs the men. Moreover, Zhang Tong disappeared from the fort. It looks like that he was either abducted by the escapees or died in the fight. We will need more intel from the scouts. Although Zhang Tong disappeared, his allies can overtake his role. So we should not let our guard down."

The crowd was excited as they were listening to the briefing. Everyone was ready to shout and offer themselves for the next finishing maneuver so they could take the credits.

"Look at our situation, both of our troops are 9,500 in numbers and Xin Ping has 5,000 to 6,000, which roughly totals our forces to 15,000 or so. We are fighting against 4,000 bandits in siege warfare and we have over three times of their numbers. So we shouldn't have any problem. However, the fortress in front of us is bad news."

Guo Dian's officers gulped. They had seen how the fortress operated and knew how Pan Feng was defeated in his siege.

"But that fortress was not made by bricks and mud like the average city walls. We can use fire attacks on them. However, the wind is blowing toward the west, it wouldn't be good if Lord Guo Dian remains at the west side of the fortress."

Guo Dian nodded as he thought.

'As expected from a veteran general from the Imperial Liu family. He's good.'

"The next matter is the moats and holes around the fortress. They look like barricades and pit-hole traps at first glance, but they aren't. Zhang Tong had used these moats to maneuver his troops to ambush you before, so you should know how dreadful those moats are."

"But how can we use the fire attack if we can't cross those lines? We can't simply attack them at the gate either." One of the Guo Dian officers asked Zou Jing.

"It's simple. We fill those holes and moats with stones, oil, and fire. We will bombard them using our trebuchets. If there are troops in there, then they will suffer! Secondly, we will not separate our forces. But we will settle our camp close to each other, so they won't be able to use the night raid tactic again. So, Lord Guo Dian, I'll have to ask you to relocate your camp once more time."

The crowd in the meeting tent broke into loud cheers as they finally saw the way to the victory.

In contrary to the crowd, Zou Jing's face remained indifferent. He signaled them to quiet down. Then the tranquil silence returned to the meeting tent.

"Although, it sounds easy from what I have just proposed. But do not forget that we are fighting against shrew bandits. They will never allow us to proceed as planned. So I suggest we send an invitation letter to lord Xin Ping in the eastern camp to join us. With our three forces combined, then we won't need to be afraid of any underhanded tactics by them anymore."

The crowd nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, Guo Dian stared at Zou Jing in envy. Then he was reminded of something important.

"What about Wen Chou and his troops? I was ambushed by his force before, so have we included him in our calculation?"

Everyone turned silent after hearing what Guo Dian said. It was one of the serious issues that they had to settle soon.

"There's no need to worry. The Yuan family won't interfere with our attacks. Instead, I think they will be cheering for us."

Zou Jing said with confidence as he touched his beard. There was no such thing as a miscalculation when he came up with his plans. From his spy reports, the Yuan family crossed with the Zhang family because of Feng Ji's greed. So from his analysis, Wen Chou would only stalk the battle. Then he would step forward if the Zhang family were about to lose, and kidnap a few of their family members to extort out their business secrets.

Therefore, he deemed that Wen Chou unit was harmless.

"Tell the men to start preparing as many trebuchets as we can. Tomorrow, we will lay siege on this fort together!"