For several days running, the Sang forces had not let up their assault on Liaocheng — they looked as though they were completely disregarding the cost.

Yet by this point, the defenders had utterly unleashed the fighting spirit that Central Plains men were born with — a spirit rooted deep in the bone, one often suppressed, yet one that only grew fiercer when met with force.

The harder the Sang people fought, the more tenacious the defenders became.

After several days of this, the Sang had expected the civilians to collapse — yet it was they themselves who were on the verge of breaking.

Time and again the Sang forces surged onto the city walls, yet they could never expand the territory they seized. Those coming up behind couldn’t push through, and those who had already made it up couldn’t survive for long.

Up they went, time after time, only to be driven back time after time — a brutal, blade-meets-flesh melee that unfolded on those walls with every single breath.

After yet another day and night of fighting, the Sang forces temporarily withdrew to regroup. Tang Qingyuan had the women of the city help carry up an uncountable number of sandbags.

They divided the city wall into sections — every two zhang, they piled up a low barrier of sandbags, splitting the wall into countless individual combat zones. The purpose was simple: once the Sang forces climbed up, they would be unable to rapidly expand the ground they held.

Any Sang soldier who jumped through would find himself trapped within one partitioned zone after another. To push further, they would have to scramble over each sandbag wall.

The garrison in each zone was, effectively, fighting alone. Only at the back wall was a gap left — just wide enough for about two people to pass through.

This was a resolve to fight to the death. The moment those low walls went up, every one of them had made peace with dying.

Yet counting the days, it had been barely seven since the Sang assault began, and only about half a month since the scouts had ridden north to request reinforcements.

Even if they rode day and night without rest, they hadn’t reached Dragon Head Pass yet — at the fastest, it would still take another ten days or so.

And from Dragon Head Pass, for the Ning army there to come rushing to their aid, it would take nearly a month.

So… making peace with death was the greatest act of resolve they had left.

“The one saving grace is that the Sang forces cannot mount a four-sided siege.”

Tang Qingyuan sat down, breathing hard.

“I’ve worked out the numbers — they have roughly thirty thousand or so troops in total, and after all these days of fighting, their losses haven’t been light.”

Tang Qingyuan said: “The northern gate, the southern gate, the western gate — the Sang have deployed roughly five thousand troops at each of those three directions as blocking forces. The Sang forces on the main front are already exhausted to the bone, and even rotating their men from all four gates for assault duty, they’ve cycled through the rotation several times already.”

He spread out the map of Liaocheng: “So right now we need to come up with a way to make things even harder for them.”

Wang Senmao asked: “What do you have in mind? Just give us the order.”

By this point, every man had submitted wholeheartedly to Tang Qingyuan. He wasn’t a general — yet he had already come to stand like one. There where he stood was the pillar holding up every man’s heart.

“Here’s the plan. Tonight, in the second half of the night, you pick a few hundred men and open the northern gate and head out.”

“Head out?”

Wang Senmao was immediately bewildered: “There are Sang forces blocking the way out there — how could we possibly get through? No — wait, we can’t leave. I have to stand to the end with you.”

“I’m not actually telling you to go anywhere. I’ve studied the layout.”

Tang Qingyuan said: “The Sang main camp is positioned along the official road, roughly three to four li from the city gate. They will certainly have scouts keeping watch — the moment the gate opens, they’ll know.”

Du Guang said: “Right — the moment the gate opens, the Sang scouts will detect it immediately, and they’ll rally their forces to attack at once.”

Tang Qingyuan said: “So calculate the timing. You run out, run for about two ke, and by then their forces will just be starting to assemble. Then you turn and run back — straight back into the city.”

Du Guang grew more confused the more he listened: “But what’s the point of that?”

Tang Qingyuan said: “To plant suspicion and paranoia in their minds.”

He laid it out: “Tonight, in the second half of the night, it’s the northern gate. Tomorrow night, the eastern gate. The third night, the northern gate again. The fourth night, the eastern gate again. Four nights in a row of this.”

Wang Senmao still hadn’t fully grasped Tang Qingyuan’s intent — he wanted to know why they were leaving out the western gate. But he knew his own mind probably couldn’t keep up with young Tang’s thinking, so he simply stopped asking: “Alright, I’ll go pick the men now. We’ll head out and stir things up in the second half of the night.”

Tang Qingyuan said: “Remember — on the first night, going out through the northern gate, you cannot exceed two ke. On the second night, going out through the eastern gate, also no more than two ke. The Sang react quickly, and if they manage to get their hands on you, I will have no choice but to order the city gate shut — I won’t be able to let you back in.”

Wang Senmao gave a firm nod: “Understood.”

Tang Qingyuan continued: “Hear me out. On the third night, you go through the northern gate again — this time, go out for only half a ke before turning back. On the third night going out through the eastern gate, same thing: open the gate, go out, run half a ke, and you absolutely must turn back. No dragging your feet.”

Wang Senmao said: “Half a ke — the Sang might not even have time to react. Won’t that be fairly useless?”

Tang Qingyuan said: “Just do as I say. Remember this well — if you drag it out and the Sang get their hands on you, I cannot save you.”

Wang Senmao naturally understood. If they got caught by the Sang while retreating toward the gate, the Sang would follow them right inside. So for the sake of the whole city, those who went out could only be abandoned. It was a brutal thing — yet a decision that could not be avoided.

In the second half of the night, Wang Senmao led five hundred hand-picked men in quietly opening the northern gate, and the group ran straight forward.

They were detected almost immediately by the Sang scouts, who blew their horns at once. From miles away, the Sang encampment responded with answering horns, and troops rapidly assembled.

After running for about two ke, Wang Senmao turned his men and ran back — they had barely rushed through the city gate when the Sang forces arrived.

There had been no real fighting, yet every man looked as tense as if he had been blade-to-blade with the enemy on the walls.

It wasn’t long after they returned that news reached the Sang main camp to the south.

Chunbian Chili — who had planned to rest well that night before personally overseeing the assault the next day — was roused from his sleep and came running out, still throwing his clothes on.

“What is it?”

He demanded.

The messenger replied: “A group of people ran out from the city — perhaps several hundred, perhaps over a thousand — and attempted to escape through the northern gate. They were spotted by our scouts. After running out some distance, they seemed to fear being cut off and retreated back inside.”

After hearing this, Chunbian Chili’s expression shifted rapidly.

“Is it an internal split?”

He muttered to himself, then called out: “Go fetch Duye Zheng.”

His strategist Duye Zheng arrived shortly after. After hearing the report, he analyzed: “Barring the unexpected, the Chu people have reached their breaking point — some among them are trying to flee.”

Chunbian Chili smiled: “My thoughts exactly. Their ranks are fracturing — some of the faint-hearted ones can’t hold on any longer.”

Duye Zheng smiled in return: “If we press the assault hard for a few more days, some of them may even open the gates to surrender.”

Chunbian Chili thought for a moment, then ordered: “Go to the northern gate camp yourself. I suspect they will look for another opportunity to run — my guess is, there must be someone capable commanding them among the Chu people, but that person will not leave the southern city. He needs to stay there to manage and direct things, so whoever wants to flee will almost certainly be trying to go from the northern gate — it’s the farthest from him.”

Duye Zheng said: “I’ll bring men to lay an ambush outside the northern gate tomorrow night. If anyone comes out, we’ll capture them all.”

Chunbian Chili considered this, then said: “If you do capture them, don’t mistreat them. Bring them back to the main camp here, give them food and drink, and at dawn parade them outside the city in view of the men on the walls — let them see that we treat prisoners well.”

Duye Zheng was full of admiration: “That way, those inside will fracture even further.”

Chunbian Chili smiled: “And to make sure that commander cannot slip away, I’ll lead men in a continued assault on the city tomorrow night — just a feint attack, but it’ll be enough that he won’t dare sleep and won’t dare leave his post.”

Duye Zheng praised him repeatedly.

Come the second night, Duye Zheng personally led several thousand Sang troops under cover of darkness to conceal themselves barely two li from the city gate — any closer and they risked being detected. At this distance, anyone who came running out would certainly be seized.

They waited through the night. Just when the men were nearly falling asleep from exhaustion, a soldier came running from the Sang camp outside the eastern gate — reporting that a group of people had come out from the city, roughly a thousand or so, and had been driven back by the Sang troops at the eastern gate.

This infuriated Duye Zheng to no end. He cursed them as idiots — why on earth did you block them?

By the time he led his men to the eastern city gate, the Sang troops there had been waiting quite a while. After a quick inquiry, he learned that events had unfolded almost identically to the previous night at the northern gate.

Duye Zheng hurried back to report to Chunbian Chili at the southern camp. After hearing him out, Chunbian Chili’s eyes went distant.

“I see.”

Chunbian Chili reasoned: “Because I’ve kept up the assault the whole time, that commander truly couldn’t split his attention, but the ones who want to flee no longer dared try the northern gate — they were afraid the commander might also have men lying in ambush there to catch them, so they went to the eastern gate instead.”

Duye Zheng said: “So if they still want to run, tonight they’ll probably go through the western gate — since they’ve already tried both the north and the east.”

“Mm.”

Chunbian Chili said: “But don’t let your guard down. Give orders to our three units at the eastern, western, and northern gates — tonight, no sleeping. In the second half of the night, everyone conceals themselves outside the walls. Whichever gate opens with people coming out, seize them immediately.”

“Yes.”

Duye Zheng agreed and went off to relay the orders. He dispatched men to carry the command to the Sang forces outside the north, east, and west gates of Liaocheng, ordering them all to forgo sleep that night and simply wait.

He personally led troops to the western gate. Two straight nights without sleep, and no chance to rest during the day either — by the second half of the night, his eyelids were already drooping.

He waited and waited, saw no one come out, and was just beginning to think nobody would dare open the gate again — when a soldier came running over from the northern gate with a report.

He said that at the northern gate, some people had come out again — but apparently those people had spotted the ambush, because this time they hadn’t run far before immediately turning back.

This made Duye Zheng so angry his nose nearly twisted sideways. He thought to himself: you people, if you want to run, why are you being so timid about it?

Then he turned the thought around — if he were the one inside the city, he wouldn’t dare run straight into a Sang encampment either.

There was nothing for it but to run back to the southern camp and report to Chunbian Chili again. The second half of the night — Chunbian Chili had only just managed to fall into a proper sleep, and he too had barely slept in days.

But that still wasn’t the end of it. On the fourth night, Wang Senmao didn’t rush to open the city gate. He waited until less than an hour remained before dawn, and only then led a few hundred men out.

By that point, the Sang soldiers lying in ambush outside the eastern gate had been at it for most of the night, and nearly everyone was at the end of their rope.

Wang Senmao did exactly as before — led his men out, ran for about half a ke, then turned back. The Sang forces hadn’t even managed to give chase before the group was already back inside the city.

Four nights of this, and the Sang were mentally on the verge of collapse.

Yet this was not Tang Qingyuan’s true goal — only a side effect.

—