Han Qian was still responsible for remaining behind to guard Hanshou.

The Wuling Army in total consisted of three battalions of armored infantry under Gao Shao, Tian Cheng, and Lin Haizheng, plus one battalion of navy under Yang Qin. Although newly recruited soldiers continuously supplemented them, after experiencing several bloody battles in succession, casualties and attrition had been severe.

Currently, including the supply battalion, the Wuling Army had only seven thousand troops. From Qianyang, Longya, Chenyang, Yuanling, to Wuling, they had divided forces to garrison all along the way. At present, if they had to further divide forces to guard Hanshou, should an accident occur, they would lack sufficient troops to respond.

Han Qian sent someone to meet Gao Chengyuan, requesting that Gao Chengyuan lead his main forces to join them at Hanshou. Shishou’s strategic position at this time was somewhat insignificant—only a small force was needed to defend it.

This way, even if an accident occurred, as long as they held the two most important cities in the lower Yuan River and divided the rebel-controlled territories, making it difficult for them to coordinate between head and tail, the overall war situation wouldn’t experience any major reversals.

Yao Xishui and Chun Shisanniang had no excuse to follow the army to the Xiang River mouth. They remained anxiously with Han Qian at Hanshou, but the accidents they feared didn’t occur. Two days later, victory reports arrived in succession.

On the night of the twenty-eighth day of the fifth month, Gao Long had his subordinates open Baimao City’s east gate. Li Chong led two hundred elite escorts and immediately stormed into the city, seizing control of the east gate. However, Gao Long’s control over the garrison was extremely limited. Soon the entire city was disturbed and erupted in turmoil.

Several deputy generals in Baimao City, as well as the defending general who had led forces fleeing from Hanshou into Baimao, were utterly loyal to the Ma clan. Although two of them were lured and killed by Gao Long without warning, the others, under the desperate protection of their guard soldiers, successfully broke out of the encirclement where Gao Long had lured them during a night banquet. They immediately organized troops to counterattack the east gate, attempting to retake it.

Although Gao Long was Baimao City’s principal general, his truly loyal core guards numbered only over three hundred. After joining with Li Chong and Wen Rulin, they desperately held the key thoroughfares of streets and lanes near the east gate. At dawn, Marquis Xinchang Li Pu, Zhou Shu, and Xi Ying led the main forces into Baimao City. After fierce fighting until noon, they captured Baimao City.

Although casualties in this battle were considerable, the concerns that Gao Long might falsely surrender or that Wen Rulin might have designed harm were completely swept away.

Confirming that Gao Long and Wen Rulin were trustworthy, Zheng Hui didn’t rush to Baimao City to join Marquis Xinchang Li Pu. Instead, he personally led six thousand elite cavalry and infantry and, without stopping to rest, directly penetrated to Yuelu Mountain north of Tanzhou City.

When Baimao City was attacked, Tanzhou City’s garrison detached three thousand cavalry and infantry to head north along the Xiang River to reinforce. But halfway there, Baimao City fell. Hundreds and thousands of routed soldiers fled south. After this force of three thousand cavalry and infantry rallied the routed soldiers, they also fled in panic along the post road on the western bank of the Xiang River back to Tanzhou City.

They didn’t expect that Yuelu Mountain had already changed hands at this time. The garrison inside Tanzhou City was in complete panic, with no one passing intelligence. The over three thousand rebel troops entered the ambush circle Zheng Hui had laid without any preparation. They couldn’t withstand even two rounds of attack before scattering in rout…

Li Zhigao had originally led his forces with Zhang Xiang’s son Zhang Feng, commanding six thousand elite troops to press toward Jiang’an City, planning to join with Jingzhou forces on the north bank and first force Ma Yuanheng, who was defending Jiang’an City, to emerge and surrender.

No one expected the war south of Dongting Lake to proceed so smoothly. After confirming that Marquis Xinchang Li Pu and Zheng Hui had captured the two key points of Baimao and Yuelu Mountain, Li Zhigao and Zhang Feng subsequently directly abandoned the siege of Jiang’an City and decisively led their forces south.

Besides detaching some troops to strengthen defenses at Wuling, Yunpanling and other locations to guard against the possibility that Ma Yuanheng might desperately lead his forces to flee up the Yuan River into the poorly defended Chen and Xu provinces, the other forces under Li Zhigao and Zhang Feng’s command advanced east along the northern bank of the Yuan River without stopping.

Whether Ma Yuanheng surrendered or not was already irrelevant to the overall situation.

The several garrison military prefectures directly controlled by Tanzhou were primarily established on the southwestern Dongting Lake plain west of the Xiang River and north of Shaoshan, in Baimao City.

The garrison military prefectures established within the territories of Taojiang, Yiyang, and Ningxiang counties on the southwestern Dongting Lake plain accommodated a total of over twenty-four thousand military households. This was also the foundation on which the Ma family could establish themselves along Dongting Lake and the Xiang River banks.

Currently, the able-bodied healthy men from these military prefecture households had all been conscripted by Ma Yin and Ma Xun to go to war. They were also the soldiers most loyal to the Ma father and son, but their family members still remained in places like Taojiang, Yiyang, and Ningxiang.

If Taojiang, Yiyang, and Ningxiang fell into the hands of court forces, how much fighting spirit would these soldiers retain? How much loyalty to the Ma father and son could remain?

The fall of Wuling and Hanshou had been too fast and too unexpected. Ma Yuanheng’s forces had been cut off in Jiang’an City to the north. The principal generals remaining to defend Tanzhou City had no time, and fundamentally lacked surplus troops to deploy southeast of the Yuan River mouth to suppress the Chu army at Hanshou and prevent them from advancing south.

The rebel generals remaining to defend Tanzhou City could only hastily issue orders to gather the families of garrison soldiers scattered in encampments toward Ningxiang, Yiyang, and Taojiang cities. But who could have anticipated that Baimao City would subsequently fall so quickly, and even Yuelu Mountain, the strategic point north of Tanzhou City, would be occupied by Chu forces?

This way, not only was the southern escape route for the forces Ma Yin and his son personally led at Yueyang cut off, but the eastern escape route for the garrison families at Ningxiang, Yiyang, and Taojiang was also severed.

Li Zhigao and Zhang Feng led their forces across the river from Hanshou and directly attacked Yiyang, Ningxiang, and Taojiang.

Everyone knew that capturing the three cities of Yiyang, Ningxiang, and Taojiang and withstanding the rebel counterattack would cause the core elite soldiers on whom the Ma father and son relied to lose morale and become devoid of fighting spirit among the rebel army.

This would probably be the heaviest and most forceful hammer to crush the rebel army’s will to fight.

Yiyang, Ningxiang, and Taojiang—each had only three to five hundred garrison troops. How could they resist the fierce assault of the tiger and wolf army led by Li Zhigao and Zhang Feng? All of them symbolically resisted briefly before abandoning the cities to flee or surrendering. By the tenth day of the sixth month, all had fallen.

Before the tenth day of the sixth month, the main time consumed by Li Zhigao and Zhang Feng’s forces was wasted on the journey. Even the most severe reduction in combat strength came from soldiers who couldn’t keep up with the marching pace and fell behind.

Seeing the situation lost, on the fourteenth day of the sixth month, Yueyang Military Governor Ji Zhongqi imprisoned the Ma father and son, opened the city gates, and surrendered to the Third Prince stationed at the Yuedong camp.

Ma Yuanheng had slightly more backbone. He delayed two days until confirming that Ji Zhongqi had already surrendered before opening the gates of Jiang’an City.

On the eighteenth, Wen Rulin infiltrated Tanzhou and persuaded the rebel military officer Miao Yong to assassinate the last core Ma clan figure left defending in Tanzhou City—Ma Zihua, the Tanzhou defending general whom Ma Yin had enfeoffed as Minister of War and Grand Marshal. The six thousand garrison soldiers in Tanzhou City subsequently split into factions and descended into complete chaos.

Marquis Xinchang Li Pu subsequently captured Tanzhou City, which had stood majestically on the banks of the Xiang River for several hundred years, almost without effort, also sparing this grand city with a circumference of over forty li from the ravages of war.

At this point, except for Shaozhou and Hengzhou south of Tanzhou, which remained under the control of rebel generals Zhao Sheng and Luo Jia, the eight-hundred-li expanse of Dongting Lake had completely returned to the embrace of the Great Chu court.

And on this very day, Marquis Liyang Yang En, who had served as envoy to Shu and reached a peace agreement, arrived at Hanshou with the Shu King’s second son, Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong, and their party, preparing to meet with the Third Prince Yang Yuanpu and Shen Yang, who were traveling south aboard Tower Ship Navy warships.

Learning at Hanshou that Tanzhou had already been taken, and seeing the intelligence report Marquis Xinchang Li Pu had sent back while at a pavilion beside an artificial hill in the rear quarters of the prefecture yamen, Yang En found it somewhat unbelievable. Dumbstruck, he asked Han Qian: “Tanzhou City has already been captured?”

“The message Marquis Xinchang sent should be accurate.” Han Qian smiled slightly and said.

Yang En glanced at Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong, the Shu King’s second son, who stood outside the pavilion gazing at the waters of the Yuan River, then lowered his voice and asked Han Qian bitterly: “Then why did I exert such tremendous effort, risking my life to serve as envoy to Shu and persuade the Shu ruler to peacefully coexist with our court?”

In fact, it was only after confirming that Li Zhigao, Zhou Shu, Zhou Dan, Fan Xiang and others were leading over ten thousand elite naval and infantry forces westward that the attitude of Shu King Wang Jian had turned around.

At that time, Jinling’s reduction of Tanzhou’s feudal domain had only two possible outcomes: either completely defeat the rebel army and recover Tanzhou, or this portion of Chu army elite would be annihilated, thus suffering grievous losses and no longer having the strength to jointly contain the more powerful Liang army with Shu forces.

Shu King Wang Jian naturally didn’t wish to see the second outcome, so he could only agree to withdraw troops from Yiling, negotiate peace with Chu, and watch as Chu forces recovered Tanzhou. To show sincerity, he even dispatched his second son Wang Yong to travel east with Yang En.

It was just that no one had expected that after Li Zhigao and other generals led their forces westward, the war would progress so rapidly. Yang En and Wang Yong had just left Sichuan when Tanzhou was already nearly pacified?

During his mission to Shu, Yang En had survived four assassination attempts, and all four times the Shu military escorts had deliberately exposed vulnerabilities, allowing assassins to successfully infiltrate his residence. If not for Zhao Wuji, Xi Fa’er, and several experts sent by Zhang Xiang desperately protecting him, whether he could have returned alive to Chu territory was questionable.

Han Qian smiled slightly, lowering his voice to laugh: “Marquis Yang’s mission to Shu naturally had meaning. Otherwise this battle wouldn’t have been so easy.”

It was precisely because Yang En served as envoy to Shu that from the start they successfully misled the rebel army into shifting their early defensive focus toward Jiang’an City south of Jingzhou, transferring away a considerable portion of forces from Langzhou’s heartland. It also made the rebel army mistakenly believe that Chu forces would wait until Yang En’s mission to Shu had results before truly launching their offensive. Right up until Marquis Xinchang Li Pu seized Tanzhou City amid the chaos, not only did the rebel forces at Yueyang and Jiang’an fail to divide forces to defend the heartland, but Hengzhou and Shaozhou, which had more ample forces, also failed to advance north in time.

Ancient post roads did connect Shaozhou and Xuzhou through the Xuefeng Mountains, but these ancient post roads were extremely treacherous, and along the way passed through over ten tribal settlements. Whether Shaozhou or Xuzhou, both found it very difficult to deploy troops against each other.

However, the various cities of Shaozhou had consistently maintained nearly twelve thousand troops for defense throughout.

And in Hengzhou in eastern Shaozhou, rebel general Zhao Sheng’s command had assembled nearly twenty thousand troops.

At this time, Yang Zhitang’s forces that could threaten Hengzhou numbered only thirteen to fourteen thousand prefecture troops with relatively weak combat effectiveness. After fighting several tentative battles with Hengzhou forces, with more defeats than victories, they currently only had the strength to defend Yuanzhou and Hongzhou.

If the rebel army had withdrawn twenty thousand troops from Shao and Heng provinces to fill in the heartland threatened by the Wuling Army, the entire war might truly have reached an impasse, with a breakthrough only possible after Shu forces withdrew.

How could Yang En’s mission to Shu be said to lack meaning?

At this time Yang Qin ran over and said: “The boats are ready. When will you and Marquis Yang depart?”

“Prince Linjiang should be arriving at Baimao soon, right? If we rush over now, perhaps we can enter Tanzhou together with Prince Linjiang!” Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong turned around and called out loudly.

Han Qian bowed to Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong: “If Marquis Changxiang doesn’t mind the arduous journey, we’ll board the boats to join His Highness.”

Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong was the second son of Shu King Wang Jian. He was only twenty-six years old this year, with a face like jade and eyes like bright stars. Wearing a white silk robe, he appeared extremely refined and graceful, exuding a temperament as gentle and refined as jade.

Shu’s military was slightly weaker. Wang Jian, occupying Shu territory, was forced to acknowledge the Liang Emperor as overlord and accept the Liang state’s investiture. Therefore, his several sons were all enfeoffed as marquises rather than princes.

Since the founding of Chu and Shu, there had been no major conflicts on their adjoining borders. Therefore, after Han Qian established the Left Bureau, in the short term he hadn’t yet dispatched his limited personnel to infiltrate Shu territory. When Yang En served as envoy to Shu, Zhao Wuji and Xi Fa’er accompanied him for protection—this was also the first time Left Bureau personnel had set foot in Shu.

Han Qian didn’t yet understand the people and customs of Shu very well, but he did know that Marquis Changxiang Wang Yong was a man of many talents and skills, particularly gifted in poetry, worthy of being called a master. Even in Jinling his literary fame circulated. He could be said to be Shu’s foremost elegant and unrestrained figure.

However, Wang Yong was envied and suspected by his elder brother, the Shu King’s Heir Apparent Wang Hongyi. He immersed himself in poetry and Buddhist matters, rarely participating in Shu’s military and political affairs. His mission this time as envoy to Great Chu carried to some extent the significance of serving as a hostage.