No matter how outlandish Yuan Zhen’s plan sounded, the immediate priority was not that plan — it was breaking through Longtou Pass.

They had seized civilians and killed several of them, yet had extracted nothing useful from any of them.

Han Feibao still had no clear idea how many Ning Army soldiers were inside Longtou Pass — whether the Ning force that had pursued them earlier had come out from Longtou Pass itself, or had come from somewhere else entirely.

By conventional wisdom, taking the offensive without clear intelligence on the enemy’s situation was a grave cardinal sin of military strategy.

Yet at this moment, Han Feibao had no other choice whatsoever. Break through Longtou Pass and he lived; fail to break through and he died.

And in this moment, every single one of the Yongzhou soldiers who had followed him this far understood this plainly.

So this battered and bedraggled force, in the moments before launching their assault, seethed with a suppressed killing intent.

Before long, Longtou Pass appeared before them. This pass city with its long and storied history — whenever it was mentioned, it conjured memories of one great battle after another.

In former times Longtou Pass had belonged to Jizhou, but in practice it had been under the jurisdiction of Youzhou, gripped tightly in the hands of Youzhou’s general Luo Geng.

Luo Geng kept Longtou Pass firmly in his grasp not merely to shield his Youzhou from threats out of the northeast.

His primary purpose was that he could, at any moment, let threats into Jizhou.

When the Yanzhou Military Governor had led his troops to invade Jizhou time and again — which of those times was it not Luo Geng who had let him through?

Had Luo Geng truly ordered Longtou Pass held to the death, the Yanzhou Military Governor, even with hundreds of thousands of mighty soldiers at his command, would indeed have found it no simple matter to fight his way into Jizhou.

That was precisely why the Yanzhou Military Governor had fawned on Luo Geng back then, and why the Jizhou Military Governor Zeng Ling’s attitude toward Luo Geng had been one of both fear and hatred.

The number of Ning Army soldiers currently garrisoned at Longtou Pass was not especially large, yet the equipment of those defenders was now on an entirely different level from the troops Luo Geng had commanded in those earlier days.

Li Chi was the sort of man who tried to learn his lessons before he got burned rather than after. The defensive fortifications at Longtou Pass were something he had already had Xu Ji reinforce on several occasions.

That year, when the great bandit forces of Qingzhou had cut in from the southeastern flank of Jizhou and threatened Longtou Pass as well, it had forced Li Chi to consider how to defend in a situation where enemies were both inside and outside the pass.

All defensive weapons were trained outward beyond the gates — who would ever mount large quantities of weapons on the inner face of the city walls?

Even if such a thought had occurred to someone, there was no way to implement it, because the inner construction of the walls simply was not suited for defense in that direction. With the ramps for defenders to move up and down the walls in place, attacking enemies could simply charge straight up those ramps.

But Li Chi’s requirement of Xu Ji had been this: to have a plan was always better than to have no plan.

So Xu Ji had dispatched people to deliver large quantities of defensive weapons to Longtou Pass — whatever position they could be installed in, they were installed there.

Xu Ji had personally visited Longtou Pass, and so he devised a plan and had people construct an additional fortified enclosure — an inner enceinte — on the inside of Longtou Pass.

This too was something that defied conventional wisdom… because such inner enclosures were always built on the outside of a gate.

Yet once this inner enceinte was in place, what had been the inner side now resembled a fortress unto itself.

It must be said that Xu Ji’s talent was truly exceptional.

He personally designed the inner enceinte. There was only one gate in and out of it, and rather than conventional hinged doors, it used a portcullis mechanism.

The portcullis had two layers. The first was a relatively lighter iron-lattice gate that could be lowered at nightfall. The second layer was a massive iron drop-gate of immense weight — cast iron, called the Thousand-Catty Gate, though in truth its actual weight was probably many times that.

Once this drop-gate came down, it was virtually impossible not only for those outside to get in, but for those inside to get out.

So when Han Feibao arrived at Longtou Pass and observed it through his spyglass for a while, his composure began to crack.

From the construction of the gate alone, he had already guessed it would be a portcullis-type mechanism. Against something like that, even a battering ram was useless — there was simply no way to force it open.

The only option was a ladder assault on the walls. And the height of this inner enceinte — one look through his spyglass was enough to make Han Feibao curse inwardly.

He looked at Yuan Zhen.

In Yuan Zhen’s eyes was the exact same unspoken reaction.

When they had observed Longtou Pass earlier, the gates had been open, so no one had paid it much attention, and there had been nothing particular to notice.

“Advisor…”

Han Feibao held his silence for a moment before he could not help asking: “Do you have any other plan?”

The other plan he was asking about was naturally not a plan for attacking Longtou Pass — it was a plan for not attacking it at all.

Yuan Zhen raised his spyglass again and swept his gaze around the surrounding terrain.

On this side of Longtou Pass, the south and west were open plains. To the north, some twenty li out, lay forested mountains.

Going north was out of the question. If the Yan Mountain range couldn’t even stop these few tens of thousands of his own men, how could it possibly have checked the ambitions of the Black Wu forces?

“My lord.”

Yuan Zhen lowered his voice: “In the forests to the north, there are most likely Ning Army troops lying in ambush, waiting only for the moment our attack bogs down before striking at us from the flank.”

Han Feibao: “What is the advisor suggesting?”

Yuan Zhen said: “My lord… this desperate predicament is my responsibility. I did not anticipate that Longtou Pass could have become what it is now, and so…”

Han Feibao said: “I have no interest in assigning blame right now. I only want to know how to respond.”

Yuan Zhen fell silent for a moment, then replied in an even lower voice: “Cut off the arm to save the body.”

“What do you mean?”

Han Feibao’s expression visibly shifted.

Yuan Zhen said: “At present, my lord’s army contains roughly ten thousand or so who are elderly, weakened, or infirm, as well as more than ten thousand conscripted laborers. These people are, in truth, a deadweight burden on my lord.”

Han Feibao understood.

Yuan Zhen continued: “First, have these twenty thousand launch a feigned assault. So long as it is only a feint, the Ning forces in ambush will not emerge. Then, when night falls, my lord tells his senior officers that the main camp is to be split into two positions to guard against being wiped out in a single Ning night raid — the officers will have no reason to be suspicious.”

“Station those twenty thousand elderly, weakened, and infirm troops in the northern encampment. My lord takes the remaining thirty thousand-plus elite soldiers in the southern encampment. Then, in the second half of the night, lead the army on a rapid march southward.”

Yuan Zhen said: “Bring me the map.”

Han Feibao’s personal guards immediately produced the map and handed it to Yuan Zhen. Yuan Zhen dismounted and spread it open on the ground to examine it.

He pointed to a location: “My lord, marching due south from here, you could enter Qingzhou in approximately half a month.”

Han Feibao said: “And once we’re in Qingzhou — what then?”

Yuan Zhen said: “Sang Kingdom pirates also operate extensively along the Qingzhou coast. If we can make contact with the Sang people, we may be able to use Sang vessels to sail around Longtou Pass and re-enter Yanzhou.”

Han Feibao said: “If we abandon those twenty thousand men and are left with only thirty thousand-plus soldiers, fighting our way from Jizhou all the way through to Qingzhou… the slightest setback and we’ll be utterly crushed.”

Yuan Zhen: “My lord, if we attack Longtou Pass now, we will also be utterly crushed.”

Han Feibao wavered. The scene felt almost like returning to the moment when he had been preparing to assault the western frontier passes to rendezvous with the Tiehu tribe — when Yuan Zhen had already concluded that the Tiehu forces were defeated and had urged Han Feibao to march northeast instead.

Once again, the two men’s judgments were at odds. And this time, the conflict was not something Yuan Zhen could resolve.

“We’ll do as you say.”

Perhaps the memory of that catastrophic defeat in the northwest crossed Han Feibao’s mind, for he ultimately made a different decision from the one he had made out west.

He chose to trust Yuan Zhen.

Yet he was uneasy, and so he pressed further: “If we reach Qingzhou and find no way to contact the Sang people — what then?”

Yuan Zhen said: “If my assessment is correct, Jizhou has very few remaining troops to deploy. They would have been drawn westward by the Jizhou Military Governor before this and won’t have had time to return.”

“So if there are indeed ambushing forces here, seven or eight times out of ten, it is because Li Chi had already anticipated we would head northeast, and urgently redirected Qingzhou troops to this position.”

“Therefore, if my lord marches south now, the Ning forces lying in ambush here will be compelled to pursue us in haste.”

“My lord can lay an ambush along the route. Even if we cannot wipe out the Ning Army in one stroke, we can cripple them badly.”

“Once we reach Qingzhou, my lord can gather boats along the way. We do not need large vessels to cross the open sea — we only need to follow the coastline all the way around back to Yanzhou. Even without Sang Kingdom pirates to assist us, we can still reach Yanzhou.”

Han Feibao was silent for a moment, then nodded: “We’ll do as you say.”

That same day, Han Feibao issued the order to attack — though it was no more than a performance, its purpose being to lull the Ning forces in ambush into complacency.

Master Wu had genuinely not anticipated that these battered remnants would dare to flee in the direction of Qingzhou.

Watching the Yongzhou Army’s feint, he assumed they were trying to draw his hidden forces out, so Master Wu ordered his men to hold their positions and not move.

Then, when night came, Han Feibao led his thirty thousand-plus elite soldiers on an overnight march southward.

Had Master Wu’s force been somewhat larger, with the two armies closing in from both sides, Han Feibao would have had no way to escape.

Had Tang Pidi’s main army’s pursuit been somewhat faster, they could have blocked Han Feibao outside Longtou Pass.

As fate would have it, even that general of virtually flawless strategic calculation had made an error this time — he had not anticipated that Han Feibao would run south.

Running south was walking straight into a trap.

Yet Yuan Zhen’s move of charging headlong into a dead end to find a way out — precisely because it was so unexpected — had indeed deceived the Ning Army.

It must be said that Yuan Zhen’s capacity for strategy and planning was genuinely far superior to Han Feibao’s.

Han Feibao led his force of thirty thousand-plus on a punishing march day and night, not daring to waste even a single moment.

Meanwhile, outside Longtou Pass, the more than twenty thousand men left behind could only stand there stamping their feet and cursing.

To deceive the Ning Army, one first had to deceive one’s own people.

Han Feibao ordered the two encampments to be set five li apart, and when he withdrew, he left all of the banners behind.

So the Yongzhou soldiers in the northern encampment had no idea that their leader had run.

By the time Master Wu sensed something was wrong and led his forces out, Han Feibao had already been running for a full night and day.

When Grand General Tang Pidi arrived at Longtou Pass with his army, Master Wu had just finished reducing that force of twenty thousand-plus Yongzhou soldiers to a state of utter devastation.

The Grand General led his troops in, and moments later, the abandoned Yongzhou force had no choice but to surrender on the spot.

Under interrogation, even the prisoners had no idea where Han Feibao had fled to.

Tang Pidi conferred with Master Wu, then combined forces with him and continued the pursuit southward.

Even Tang Pidi could not help marveling — this Han Feibao truly was like a cockroach that couldn’t be killed, always managing to slip away at the critical moment.