Chapter 462: A Crippling Battlefield

Such a devastating war had never taken place in the many years after the western front's conquest.

After all, they were arrayed against different enemies; the armies of Dongxuan and Ziyou were significantly different in their tactics and methods of battle.

If one were to judge an army purely on their combat abilities, the men from the Empire of Ziyou would reign supreme. However, they had never gotten the upper hand when going against Yutang's army who possessed excellent teamwork. This was why Yutang's western troops, who had experienced many skirmishes with Ziyou's army, felt that their combat ability was the best in Yutang. It was also the reason that Marshal Wang of the western line had ordered the relief troops to take back the title of Yutang's top army.

Now that the western elites had personally witnessed the situation in the east, their hearts fell immediately. The tens of thousands of corpses were but the result of a single battle!

Sun Zihu entered the Fortress of Resilience in a daze but was immediately welcomed by the guardian generals warmly. Fu Baoguo had even arrived to receive them personally with the highest honors possible.

Holding Sun Zihu's hands, Fu Baoguo's eyes were wet. The Fortress of Resilience was in desperate need of aid!

To be fair, the Fortress of Resilience had always needed aid, but the need currently was desperate and burning; without further assistance, the fort could barely be guarded and was on the brink of falling!

Withering under Han Sanhe's aggressive attacks, the four million men of Fu Baoguo's army was melting away at a speed that broke his heart. There was already less than two hundred and fifty thousand people who could fight, and these two hundred and fifty thousand people included a hundred and fifty thousand Steel Cavalry units who could not partake in defending the fort as well as thirty thousand men from Fu Baoguo's secret unit.

This meant that there were only eighty thousand men left who could participate in the daily defense of the fortress! Almost everyone among the eighty thousand soldiers was utterly expended; they were running purely on willpower alone and would crumble anytime.

Fu Baoguo was pale with sunken eyes; his shoulders were slumped, and his entire being felt drained. He, who had always taken care of his appearance, was unshaved with stubble coating his chin. He looked very much like a middle-aged uncle in the throes of despair. In spite of this, the barely concealed murderous intent within him was evidence enough that Fu Baoguo was still persevering. He had not stopped or slowed down in the least; he was still following through on the promise he had made to Yun Yang!

"Marshal Fu, you've worked hard! I, Sun Zihu, with a hundred and fifty thousand brothers from the western troop, have come forth to assist. All of the western relief troops will be under Marshal Fu's command - law and order shall be strictly observed!"

These men were veterans, capable enough to be considered the elite members of the military. Just a glance of the battlefield gave Sun Zihu and the hundred and fifty thousand men from the western troop sufficient understanding of the current situation, in addition to being utterly impressed by the eastern troops!

The title of Yutang's top troop was well earned; there was not a single phony who was undeserving to carry that title.

Oh, marshal, the chances of us taking back the title of Yutang's top army is honestly very slim! We aren't all that confident of success!

A battle was always a double-edged sword. The price to take down an enemy so savagely would be high.

"Brothers, you have all worked very hard."

Fu Baoguo smiled warmly and happily, "It has been a tough journey for you all to come all the way here; that much is evident by the way you are dressed! Have a good meal tonight, and sleep. There's no need to rush into war. Rest and replenish yourselves first. We'll depend on you fellows a lot in the future, but for now, just rest."

"Agreed." Sun Zihu was a military man as well. He knew that Fu Baoguo's words were genuine and that he sincerely cared for the western troops.

He had led his hundred and fifty thousand brothers on this rushed journey; despite reaching one and a half days earlier than expected, filled with soaring morale, their physical energy was at its limit. Everyone was dangerously exhausted; if they attempted to do battle, they would meet an untimely demise.

Their efforts to provide aid would be futile; they would have traveled all the way merely to seek their own deaths.

A night of rest and recuperation was absolutely needed.

Normally, a relief troop that had come a long way would need at least two days of rest so that they could fully recover, in addition to the need of familiarizing themselves with the warfare and geography.

However, both Sun Zihu and Fu Baoguo knew that Han Sanhe would never give them this breathing space.

True enough, on the night of the relief troop's arrival, Dongxuan's army had once again attacked the Fortress of Resilience under Han Sanhe's command, one that was unprecedentedly aggressive.

Han Sanhe had divided the three hundred thousand Dongxuan soldiers into six waves which attacked continuously without respite; the battle cries were deafening and unceasing.

Fu Baoguo divided his defensive troops into three batches and sent them into action one after another. Many soldiers had been drained to their limits. Some had collapsed walked while carrying rocks; they had not fainted from fatigue, but their hearts had given out entirely.

Fu Baoguo's expression was stoic as was his heart. He knew that they had to grind their teeth and persevere through this stage. If they could not, the Fortress of Resilience would be lost. They could still prolong the war, now that the western relief was here.

"Marshal, deploy the Steel Cavalry and Serving Troop to help guard the fort." Numerous Steel Cavalry generals and Fu Baoguo's secret unit's leaders came forth to beg him with tears in their eyes, "We can't go on like this. The brothers guarding the fort are about to die from fatigue!"

Fu Baoguo wore a straight face. "No! It is your time to rest now. Off you go to sleep! We can hold our own here! There's no need for your intervention."

The generals of these two elite squads were weeping even as they spoke.

"The brothers can't take it anymore! They can't bear to watch their comrades perish in war and collapse from exhaustion while we're well-fed and well rested every day. We'll go crazy if we sit around without doing anything!"

Fu Baoguo replied coldly, "About to go crazy? That means you have not gone mad yet. You'll just have endured it! Your turn will come; don't blame me for not reminding all of you when your luck runs out if you don't rest and eat well now! I order all of you now - off you go! Even if you scoundrels really go crazy, there will be a time and place for you to do it! Leave!"

The generals left dejectedly.

Truth be told, Fu Baoguo was not so steel-hearted that he did not wish to use the Steel Cavalry and his secret unit to guard the fort - he could not!

He had to guard the Fortress of Resilience's defenses at all costs.

Having faced Han Sanhe's attack, Fu Baoguo had planned it all out long ago.

They would not be able to guard the Fortress of Resilience for long. Even when they could overcome this challenge and had the additional help of the western troop, the days they could hold their ground would still be limited. Once the Fortress of Resilience succumbed to the attacks, the thirty thousand men of the secret unit and the hundred and fifty thousand men of the Steel Cavalry was Fu Baoguo's foundation to build another wall for the Fortress of Resilience.

It would be a great waste if they were to drain the men by guarding the fort now.

The greatest strength a cavalryman could unleash was always and eternally from the back of a horse! They had never obtained glory by guarding a fort.

Sun Zihu led his troops to set up empty tents in the fort.

These military tents had initially been packed full of people but they were mostly empty now. There was a barely a soul to be seen.

Looking at the clean and tidy tents that were quietly empty, the tables and chairs, as well as the scattered writings that had left behind by the fighters, the hundred and fifty thousand western elites sobbed like children.

"On the third day of the twelfth month, we arrived at Fortress of Resilience to fight for the country. Ten of us discussed matters after our death and prepared our wills and salaries today. Still, I don't think we'll die, so we continued to banter among ourselves throughout the night."

"On the sixth day of the twelfth month, the battle began but we didn't set out immediately. In the afternoon, we saw a lot of our comrades' remains being carried back and burned. The brothers were quiet, the tent in pin-drop silence."

"On the seventh day of the twelfth month, we went to war. Three brothers fell today, there are only seven of us left when we came back to this tent again. We grieved throughout the night."

"On the ninth day of the twelfth month, war, two more brothers died. We are now left with five. We cried again, to commemorate the memories of our fallen brothers."

"On the eleventh day of the twelfth month, only Sun Badiao and I returned. This time around, there were no more tears. Both of us set the tablets of our brothers and went to buy wine with what silver taels we had left, and got drunk. We told our brothers not to walk too far, to wait for us. We'd return to the squad soon."

"On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, Sun Dabiao fell..."

There was a booklet in the tent Sun Zihu was staying in; the records ended on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. Beyond that, there were no more entries.

The writer must have perished as well in the battle that followed. This should be something that the military administrator had recorded down.

The deaths of a squad of ten had only taken ten days, from the third until the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. To make matters worse, there were six days that they had not fought in the war.

Many pages had been torn from the back of the booklet; they had most probably been used to write the fighters' wills. There were still a few words on the last page, the page that had "Sun Dabiao fell" written on it.

The writing could only be seen as light scratches as if they had been erased after being written.

Sun Zihu tried to identify the words and when he did, tears fell shamelessly from his eyes.

There were only five words written on the parchment.

"I want to go home..."