The city gates reopened. This time, soldiers came out either driving ox carts or pushing handcarts. Both those driving ox carts and those pushing handcarts ran swiftly, lifting their wounded soldiers onto the carts to transport them back first, while the rest loaded up weapons.

Zhao Hanzhang held a saber in one hand while tossing the other confiscated weapons onto a cart with her other hand. She was just thinking of searching through to see if there were any other fine weapons when she saw a small figure dart over. He flipped over Wu Yi, whose body she had just moved aside, patted him down, and extracted a jade thumb ring from his chest. He quickly stuffed it into his bosom and continued searching, but found nothing else.

He wasn’t disappointed. After glancing at the corpse in his hands, he directly began stripping off the man’s armor and clothing.

Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t bear to watch and quickly stopped him: “This corpse needs to be moved back. Don’t strip him completely bare—it doesn’t look good.”

Only then did the small figure realize Zhao Hanzhang had been standing beside him all along. He jumped in fright and quickly lowered his head, responding “Yes.” After responding, he reacted and asked quietly: “General, are we still hauling enemy corpses?”

Zhao Hanzhang said: “Others’ can be left behind, but his must be hauled.”

Zhao Hanzhang lowered her head and closed Wu Yi’s eyes, saying: “This is the gift I’m sending to Shi Lei.”

The small figure hesitated, then finally took out the jade thumb ring from his bosom and held it up: “General, this is yours.”

The person killed by Zhao Hanzhang—if she didn’t search for spoils of war, then naturally whichever soldier below found them would get them.

Zhao Hanzhang smiled as she accepted it, raising her chin: “His armor is yours.”

The small figure was overjoyed and immediately crouched down to strip off Wu Yi’s armor. The undergarments were also quite good, but he didn’t continue stripping, leaving him with sufficient dignity.

Everyone cleaned up the battlefield, leaving behind only the enemy army’s corpses. Even their wounded soldiers had been dragged back.

If they could be treated, treat them. After recovery, if they didn’t become soldiers, they could still go farm the land. If they couldn’t be saved, that was one more head for military merit.

The escaped enemy soldiers fled all the way back to the main camp. When Shi Lei heard that so many had died or been injured, and that even Wu Yi was dead, he stood up in shock: “Who killed Wu Yi?”

“It was a female general. General Wu said she was Zhao Hanzhang.”

Shi Lei slapped the table, extremely angry and annoyed: “When did Zhao Hanzhang arrive at Meng County?”

He turned to grab his large saber. Zhang Bin quickly stopped him: “My lord, Zhao Hanzhang has many capable generals under her command. A mere Wu Yi—how would that require her to personally act? She’s trying to lure you out.”

Shi Lei frowned: “Lure me out for what?”

“She wants to confirm that the Great General is here, and not gone to Si Province, nor attacking Yan Province,” Zhang Bin said. “This shows Zhao Hanzhang remains loyal to the Jin imperial house, and her main objective is to restrain you, my lord.”

Shi Lei’s eyes flashed. He sat back down: “So if I don’t appear, will she suspect I’m not here but have gone to Si Province or Yan Province?”

Zhang Bin nodded: “Beigong Chun is guarding the essential route from Shangdang to Luoyang. Whether you’ve gone to Si Province or not, he understands best. The Emperor hasn’t deployed many troops on that side either. With the abilities of Beigong Chun, Zhao Erlang, and Chen Wu, defending Luoyang is more than sufficient. My lord, consider this: if she mistakenly believes you’ve led the main army to attack Yan Province, what will happen?”

“If she’s loyal to the Jin imperial house, she’ll certainly lead troops to provide relief, and at that time, this place…”

Zhang Bin smiled and nodded: “Exactly. That will be when we take Yu Province.”

As for Liu Cong, who was currently dividing his forces to attack Yun City in two directions, he could be a bit stronger and wait until they’d taken Yu Province before naturally going to support him.

Shi Lei lowered his head in thought. After a moment, he shook his head: “No, Zhao Hanzhang won’t believe it easily, so we must actually send troops there.”

Shi Lei stood up and walked to the map. After looking at it for a while, he said: “Send troops to Zhen City County. I’m going to attack Linqiu!”

Linqiu was the administrative seat of Yan Province. Previously, Gou Xi’s headquarters had been there. It wasn’t very far from Yun City. Once Linqiu was taken, Gou Xi’s retreat would be cut off, along with one of the Emperor’s lifelines.

He wanted to see—if the Jin Emperor died, what would this Jin minister Zhao Hanzhang do?

Zhang Bin considered briefly and asked: “Then this place…”

“Leave one hundred thousand troops. After I leave, have them continue to challenge and attack,” Shi Lei lowered his head in thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t leave so quietly. I need to make a show of it, circling around. Taking Yu Province is important, but capturing the Jin Emperor and destroying the Jin state is even more critical.”

Fooling the enemy once—what kind of skill is that? When he deceived, he would deceive twice.

Zhang Bin considered briefly and nodded: “My lord is right. I was shortsighted.”

They had just finished their discussion when soldiers outside came to report: “Great General, General Wu’s corpse has been taken by Zhao’s Army.”

The battlefield had its own battlefield rules. When one side went to collect their comrades’ corpses, the other side was not permitted to attack.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when ritual propriety and morality collapsed once again, even this rule wasn’t broken.

Moreover, those sent to collect corpses were all old soldiers and disabled veterans, carrying no weapons. Killing them served no purpose.

Those who went to collect the corpses would return and identify the number of battle dead. Comparing this with those who had escaped, they could roughly calculate how many had been captured by Zhao’s Army.

When counting the corpses, they discovered Wu Yi wasn’t among them. In this situation, either Wu Yi wasn’t dead, or he was dead but his corpse had been dragged away.

Many had seen Wu Yi pierced through the heart by a spear at the time, so his corpse should have been dragged away by Zhao’s Army.

Zhang Bin said: “Great General, let’s send someone to ransom General Wu’s corpse.”

Otherwise, if Zhao Hanzhang cut off Wu Yi’s head and hung it up, not only would it boost their morale, it would also damage morale on their side.

Cutting off people’s heads to display as offerings to boost morale was something Shi Lei did constantly, but Wu Yi was his good brother. He’d been following him since the early days when he first turned to banditry—one of his original eighteen riders.

If he couldn’t preserve his corpse intact, not only would his family be heartbroken and sorrowful, Shi Lei himself would be heartbroken and sorrowful too.

He immediately had someone prepare a gift to send to Meng County to ransom the corpse.

But before his people could depart, Meng County’s small gate opened. Two tall youths, six feet in height with thick eyebrows and large eyes, handsome and imposing, led out an ox cart. On the ox cart was Wu Yi’s corpse.

Under the gaze of both armies, Zhao Hanzhang made a great show of sending this gift to Shi Lei.

Shi Lei’s face was filled with complexity. Even Zhang Bin couldn’t help saying: “Zhao Hanzhang truly is a great hero of our time!”

With this single action, she not only boosted their own morale and damaged morale on this side, she also made it impossible for people on their side to hate her.

Even someone as cunning as Zhang Bin couldn’t help but silently praise her. Speaking of compassion, among the famous generals of the present day, Zhao Hanzhang ranked first.

Shi Lei accepted Wu Yi’s corpse. The next day, he personally brought people to the city gate to call for it to open. Zhao Hanzhang naturally didn’t open it. She just stood on the city tower gazing distantly at Shi Lei. Between them stood one of Shi Lei’s subordinate generals. The man cursed very offensively, but his Mandarin wasn’t very good. Zhao Hanzhang heard but didn’t understand, so she automatically treated it as noise and ignored it.