Chapter 171: The Battle is Stalemate

At this moment, Yan Shi and Lu Bu were discussing Lu Lingqi's marriage.

Hearing Yan Shi's incessant chatter about Lu Lingqi being of marriageable age, Lu Bu grew somewhat impatient and said, "Lingqi is still young, and as my daughter, how can I find a suitable match among the lords of the land so quickly?"

Yan Shi said, "Why not? I've heard that the Yuan family, the Cao family, and even the great clans of Jiangdong all have unmarried sons."

"Moreover, I've heard that Yuan Gonglu has an only son. Some days ago, he sent someone to propose marriage for his son to Lingqi. His family has served as high officials for four generations and has ambitions for the world. Wouldn't he be suitable?"

Lu Bu said displeased, "What does a woman know? Yuan Shu harbors evil intentions and rebels against the Han Dynasty. My alliance with him is only a temporary measure. How can I harm Lingqi?"

Yan Shi retorted, "Is my husband still concerned about the Han Dynasty?"

"Weren't my husband's past plights all caused by the Han Dynasty?"

"Now that the Han Dynasty is on the verge of collapse, Yuan Gonglu has ambitions for the world. If his prophecy comes true, Lingqi will be the Crown Princess, and in the future, the Empress. What better choice could there be?"

Lu Bu hesitated upon hearing this because Chen Gong had said similar things.

Chen Gong believed that Lu Bu had offended Yuan Shao. Going to Bing Province would only provoke Yuan Shao further. It would be better to ally with Yuan Shu to restrain Yuan Shao.

And marrying off his daughter was currently the most effective means.

Lu Bu vaguely felt that something was not right. He usually relied on Yan Shi for household matters, but he only had one daughter, Lu Lingqi, so he naturally cherished her dearly. Now, having to marry her off far away, he was naturally hesitant.

After much deliberation, Lu Bu finally said, "Zhang Yang, the governor of Henei, is a close friend of mine. I'll go ask him for his thoughts in the next few days."

Hearing this, Yan Shi knew that Lu Bu was undecided, so she didn't say anything further and simply let it go.

Lu Lingqi, who had been eavesdropping from the wall next door, quietly left and returned to her room, sitting listlessly by the window in a gloomy mood.

After a while, Du Shi came in with a wooden tray, on which were a plate of meat and a bowl of porridge. She said, "Miss, the meal is ready."

Lu Lingqi said sullenly, "I don't want to eat. I won't be practicing martial arts tonight. You can eat it for me."

Seeing the strange look on Lu Lingqi's face, Du Shi didn't dare to ask and simply sat aside.

Seeing Du Shi's appearance, Lu Lingqi spoke, "Madam Du, do you think that once a woman gets married, she can no longer do things as she pleases?"

Hearing this, Du Shi said, "What is it that Miss wants to do?"

Lu Lingqi sighed, "I don't know, but seeing Madam's situation, I always feel that getting married is not good, and it's far better to be as free as I am now."

Du Shi said with a wry smile, "A woman must eventually get married. Miss will surely find a good husband."

"It's just that I met the wrong person. As the daughter of Marquis Wen, Miss will certainly not be like me. Who in the world would dare to treat Miss badly?"

Thinking of her own experiences, although she comforted Lu Lingqi on the surface, she felt sad inside.

Her ex-husband, Qin Yilu, not only didn't protect her but also took advantage of his mission to marry another woman, abandoning her!

Thinking of this, Du Shi felt as if her heart had died. She had clearly not done anything wrong!

Seeing Du Shi's expression, Lu Lingqi knew that she had not been having a good time recently, so she could only comfort her, "General Qin is blind. Madam's divorce may not be a bad thing."

Lu Lingqi was also a little ashamed. She knew more or less the cause and effect of Du Shi's matter, and it was inseparable from her father. Du Shi's current stay by her side was also a preventive measure taken by her mother, Yan Shi, to guard against Lu Bu.

As a daughter, Lu Lingqi was naturally embarrassed to talk about such things. She felt a little indignant, thinking, 'Are all the men in the world so lecherous?'

For some reason, she suddenly thought of that hateful Hidden Tiger, and she couldn't help but squeeze her legs together, her face turning red.

She wondered where that scoundrel was now. If she ever met him again, she would definitely make him pay!

Unbeknownst to her, Yuan Xi's face was currently very unsightly.

The losses from attacking the city in the past few days had been too great!

Every day, the Yuan army desperately filled the area beneath the city walls with people. Soldiers died batch after batch, often requiring several lives to be exchanged for one defender's life.

Yuan Shao personally issued orders from the front lines, and vanguard generals led their men to charge desperately. Only then did Yuan Xi realize that he had not yet prepared himself mentally to be a ruler.

At this time of siege, in the eyes of the commander, soldiers were just numbers, only meaningful when exchanged for the enemy!

Yuan Xi realized that he had been too naive before. Farming and sleeping alongside the soldiers, treating them as family and friends, this kind of emotion was meaningless on the battlefield.

What the soldiers truly needed was for the commander to achieve victory at the smallest cost through cold calculations, so that fewer people would die and more people would survive.

And when going into battle, what the soldiers had to do was to kill the enemies in front of them as much as possible, so that even if they died, they could earn more compensation to support their families.

Yuan Xi somewhat understood why many lords would order the slaughter of the city after capturing it.

In the process of fighting to the death, soldiers accumulated a lot of resentment and madness. If they were not allowed to vent it, it would be difficult to stabilize the morale of the army.

After all, in this era, for soldiers who were almost illiterate, they followed the most primitive human nature and did not pay attention to the complex things of later generations.

Ten years.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor Taizu of Ming, Emperor Qin, and Emperor Gaozu of Han, these were the average times it took founding emperors to conquer the world from the time they raised their armies.

Zhu Yuanzhang, who took the longest, spent thirteen years, while Liu Bang, who took the shortest, only spent seven years.

The vast world was not as difficult to conquer as some people imagined.

According to the law of historical trends, the key direction of history in feudal times was mostly not in the hands of the illiterate common soldiers, but in the hands of… the landlord class.

With the change of times, they could be lords, nobles, gentry, clans, or squires. They controlled knowledge and land, manipulating the fate of the lower-class people in their hands.

Ironically, in feudal society, those who launched peasant uprisings were often not peasants, but landlords.

Peasants occasionally did, but in a very short period of time, they joined the ranks of the gentry class.

Including Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, who first led the peasant uprising and shouted the slogan 'Are kings, nobles, generals, and ministers born with a special seed?', they were not peasants either.

They used the guise of peasant uprisings to incite the people to revolt, but in the end, their goal was to occupy the highest position in the landlord class.

For thousands of years in feudal society, there seemed to be only one person who dared to betray his own class and point his blade at the landlords.

The cycle of thousands of years naturally included the late Han Dynasty.

Yuan Xi looked at the soldiers who were driven by unknown forces, shouting and desperately slashing their weapons at each other on and off the city walls. What drove them might be hatred for the enemy, family and parents, a desire for life, or even a full meal tonight.

Driven by these countless different desires, they did not ask about right or wrong, did not ask about morality, only to survive.

The shouts of tens of thousands of people and the clashing of weapons in Yijing City together formed a small note on the vast land.

In the past and in the future, at different times and different places, millions of people in the thirteen states of the late Han Dynasty played notes of different pitches, jumping and intertwining to form a movement full of helplessness, yet tragic and magnificent.

Until the last moment, no one would know who would play the final note.

The siege battle of this day ended under Yuan Xi's gaze.

Previously, after discussing with Guo Jia, he divided his soldiers into several reserve teams of hundreds of people, led by Taishi Ci and Zhao Yun in turns. When the soldiers showed signs of exhaustion, they were withdrawn to rest, and another team replaced them.

This method did greatly reduce casualties. Only a hundred or so people were killed in action this day. Compared to the tens of thousands of casualties on the entire battlefield, it seemed so insignificant, but for him personally, it was still too heavy.

Yuan Xi was a little anxious. He had been fighting for nearly ten days. At this rate, his soldiers would run out sooner or later!

Every day, he stood at the gate of the camp, watching the soldiers return, feeling quite uncomfortable.

Because he had farmed and cultivated the land with the soldiers, he remembered the faces of most people, and even knew the names of many people.

But now, many familiar people had never returned.

Old Xu, who had eaten with him under the city walls, Da Lang, who had carried corpses, Er Gou, who had been bitten by a snake while farming and survived, Da Zhuang, who had worked harder than a donkey when grinding flour… all kinds of people had disappeared after a certain day.

The remaining survivors still had to face the unknown fate of tomorrow.

Now, although the Yuan army had broken through three city walls, it was becoming more and more difficult to fight the further they went. Many times, both sides had no way out, resulting in a situation of endless fighting.

Then it rained for three days. Most of the tunnels dug by the Yuan army with great effort were flooded, and the siege was forced to stop.

Compared to Gongsun Zan's army, who were hiding in the city, the Yuan army soldiers in the mud were obviously at a disadvantage. Their clothes were wet, it was extremely difficult to make a fire, and they could only be forced to eat some dry food.

In ancient times, battles were rarely fought in the rain, because rain could kill people.

Rain could not only damage weapons and armor but also soak the soldiers' clothes. Combined with the cold weather, it could cause the human body to lose temperature rapidly. In addition, fighting consumed a lot of physical energy, and many people could not bear it.

The Yuan army soldiers without tents were trying to find ways to block the rain. Some used branches and leaves, some dug caves, and some hid under siege equipment, cursing the damn weather.

The decline in morale was inevitable. After all, there had been many casualties in these days, and many people had begun to be timid.

Yuan Xi's soldiers were still in good condition. Although many had been killed in action, the families of the dead soldiers could receive a piece of private land sufficient to make a living, so the survivors maintained a good state.

Yuan Xi felt powerless to control the situation. The variable he was waiting for had not yet appeared. If it continued to rain like this, the Black Mountain Army would come.

Two more days passed, and the rain finally stopped, but the weather suddenly turned cold again. Many people began to cough, shivering in the cold wind, and people continued to fall.

The water stains on the ground and walls had not yet dried, and the water in the dug trenches had not yet been drained. News finally came from the Taihang Mountains.

General Zhang Yan, the Pacifying Difficulty General, personally led 100,000 Black Mountain troops and sent troops to Yijing in three routes to provide support!