The twenty thousand troops temporarily remained outside the city. Zhao Hanzhang brought Fan Ying, Ming Yu, and others into the city first.

Xun Xiu had taken Yuan Li out of the city to reclaim land. Only the various subordinate generals remained in the city.

The Meng County magistrate came chasing after them from behind in a disheveled state. Zhao Hanzhang stopped and looked at him, “Zhao Bin, why are you in such a state?”

Zhao Bin wanted to cry. After straightening his crooked cap, he said, “Governor, too many people want to leave the city. If we don’t find a solution, I won’t be able to hold them back much longer.”

Zhao Hanzhang turned and continued walking toward the county office, saying, “Isn’t this your responsibility as county magistrate? You want me to think of a solution? What use are you all?”

Zhao Bin was stunned and quickly chased after her from behind, “You mean you also won’t agree to let them leave?”

Zhao Hanzhang stopped and turned back with a dark expression, “I’m telling you, if you can’t pacify the common people and instead end up undermining my military morale, I’ll have your head first!”

Zhao Bin froze.

Zhao Hanzhang left him behind and strode into the county office. As Ming Yu passed him, he tapped Zhao Bin’s head with his fan and said, “Fool. Right now, nothing matters more than stable military morale. You let them clamor at the city gates—do you think only civilian morale is affected? There’s also military morale.”

“If you let them leave, who are the remaining soldiers protecting? Or are they just shields to block arrows? We’ve already lost three cities in a row. Military morale is already unstable. You go tell them—if Meng County falls, these soldiers will certainly die first. But if they keep making trouble, even if Meng County doesn’t fall, they’ll still die first.”

Ming Yu continued, “Our Governor has done plenty of making examples to warn others. Ask them who wants to be the first chicken in Meng County.”

Zhao Bin said, “But the Governor has always loved the people…”

Fan Ying, passing by, didn’t want to listen anymore. She found him too obstructive and said, “The Governor loves the people—the majority of the people. After Meng County comes all of Chen Commandery, all of Yuzhou, even all of Great Jin. Can those people at the city gates compare in importance to them? Magistrate Zhao, where is your chief clerk? Is he managing the grain supplies now? Have him bring the account books to see me.”

Zhao Bin’s attention was diverted, “Which account books?”

“All the account books,” Fan Ying said. “I remember Meng County has two granaries. Your county office has one grain storehouse and another treasury for storing money. I need to see all the account books.”

Zhao Bin said, “But two days ago when Shi Lei’s army broke in, we suffered massive losses…”

“That still needs to be checked. How much was there before, how much remains now—with so many people staying in the city, how long will the food last? We need to know all this.” Fan Ying said, “Surely after recapturing the county seat you didn’t inventory the losses?”

Ming Yu smiled at Fan Ying and went to catch up with Zhao Hanzhang.

Zhao Hanzhang had good hearing and had also heard the conversation behind her.

She waved her hand at the subordinate generals who came forward to salute and glanced at the wall, asking, “Where’s the map?”

A fourteen or fifteen-year-old youth dressed in gray robes immediately came forward holding a map. With the help of two personal guards, he hung the map on the wall and slowly unrolled it.

Zhao Hanzhang looked at him curiously and asked, “Why was this map rolled up?”

He said seriously, “To prevent spies from stealing a look.”

Hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang smiled and asked, “Did you come from the academy?”

The youth’s face flushed red. He bowed excitedly and said, “Yes, I am Zhao Jialiang.”

Zhao Hanzhang was delighted to hear this, “You’re from the Jia generation! Very good, very good. Have you graduated?”

“Yes, I passed the final graduation exam last winter, so I could seek employment in the government office. Now I’m working while continuing my studies.” He said, “This map is under my care and maintenance.”

Zhao Hanzhang approvingly patted his shoulder, “Excellent, very impressive. But the sea of learning has no bounds—you’ve only studied roughly for four years. There’s still much you need to learn in the future.”

Zhao Jialiang nodded seriously, “Yes, I will remember Miss’s teachings.”

Only then did Zhao Hanzhang look at the map and ask the subordinate generals, “Tell me—how were the previous five cities lost, and how did we recapture two cities?”

Everyone exchanged glances. Finally, Li Tianhe stepped forward to report.

Shi Lei’s main army had appeared too suddenly. Zhao Hanzhang originally had troops stationed at the border. Zhao Ju’s deputy general Gao Yi had been guarding the northern border of Yuzhou, specifically to defend against the Xiongnu and Jie Hu coming down from Jizhou.

However, when Zhao Hanzhang went to Yuncheng to perform the sacrifices to Heaven, in order to intimidate Gou Xi and prevent them from making moves against Zhao Hanzhang, Zhao Ju had drawn eighty thousand troops from various locations and stationed them at the Yanzhou border as a precaution.

When Shi Lei’s main army suddenly appeared and attacked fiercely, Gao Yi’s call for reinforcements was slow, and he couldn’t hold out long—two cities were lost within a single day.

Zhao Ming received the battle report and immediately deployed Mi Ce and other subordinate generals to provide relief, which finally stopped the Xiongnu offensive.

However, both sides fought fiercely in a stalemate, battling back and forth intensely.

Because five cities had been lost previously, and this time Shi Lei’s army came with fierce momentum, military morale had been somewhat affected.

Zhao Hanzhang asked, “Where is Gao Yi?”

Li Tianhe lowered his head, “Severely wounded. He’s currently recovering in camp.”

No wonder morale had scattered—the original deputy general was severely wounded.

Zhao Hanzhang picked up a brush and asked about the intelligence the scouts had gathered, marking everything on the map one by one. She stared at the map and asked, “You’ve seen Shi Lei?”

“Yes,” Li Tianhe said. “The one who severely wounded General Gao was Shi Lei.”

Zhao Hanzhang couldn’t help but mutter, “So he really could restrain himself from going to Yanzhou?”

Still, this was good. Pinning him down here was better than having him go to Yanzhou where things would be uncontrollable.

Zhao Hanzhang rearranged the defensive deployment and ordered, “Only defend, don’t sally forth. Wait for them to come attack the city.”

“Governor, we lost Shan County, Cao County, and Zi County. Shouldn’t we recapture them?”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “We do need to recapture them, but not hastily. Our objective is to pin down as many enemy troops as possible, so we prioritize defense.”

The subordinate generals acknowledged the order.

Having just reorganized the defense, they heard horses neighing outside.

Zhao Hanzhang glanced outside and saw Xun Xiu holding his saber, covered in killing intent, walking in. He clasped his hands and lowered his head in salute, “This general greets the Inspector!”

Zhao Hanzhang nodded slightly and asked, “How did the battle go?”

Xun Xiu cursed loudly, “Those sons of turtles played dirty tricks on me, digging many pits on the roads I had to take—they nearly lamed all our horses…”

To sum it up in one sentence: he didn’t lose, but he didn’t win either, and his side suffered considerable losses.

But Zhao Hanzhang felt he had actually lost. He hadn’t recovered the lost territory, hadn’t struck at the enemy, and had instead further undermined his own military morale.

Zhao Hanzhang gestured for Zhao Jialiang to roll up the map and said, “We’re going to the north city gate. Move the main command post to the gate tower and return the county office to the magistrate.”

The soldiers moved quickly. They rolled up items, lifted them, and directly transferred to the new position.

The Meng County chief clerk, who had just rushed over, looked completely bewildered as he tried to follow, but Fan Ying grabbed him by the collar and said, “You don’t need to go. Hand over the account books to Clerk Cao.”

Zhao Hanzhang took a moment to look back, mounted her horse, and couldn’t help asking Fan Ying, “I remember every county magistrate was appointed by me. This Zhao Bin wasn’t selected through the recruitment exam—who recommended him to me again?”

Fan Ying bowed slightly, “It was Fifth Great-uncle.”