Warfare isn’t that simple. Aside from light cavalry making surprise raids who can move at will, large army deployments require advance preparation.

Logistics and war readiness all need to be coordinated and deployed.

When two armies face off in stalemate, hundreds of thousands of troops can’t just tilt their necks back and stare blankly every day waiting. You must know they consume enormous amounts of food daily.

So Zhao Hanzhang would disperse her army to various locations. This relieved pressure while allowing rapid reinforcement and quick consolidation into a unified force when battle commenced.

Shi Lei did the same.

So when he suddenly withdrew and departed, even with original grain supplies supporting him, he still faced difficulties because the grain transport armies were en route and couldn’t immediately change course to follow him.

Grain transport inherently involved losses. After all, the troops escorting provisions also consumed a portion. Plus now with Zhao Family’s army and Shi Family’s army intermixed, no one knew whether the force encountered at the next intersection would be Shi’s army, Zhao Family’s army, or a mountain bandit gang.

Shi Lei never harbored unrealistic hopes, so provisions not yet in hand—he simply assumed he didn’t have them.

Under such circumstances, he needed to collect grain along the route.

But this was Yanzhou, which he’d only recently conquered and hadn’t truly controlled yet. The common people didn’t recognize him. In their hearts, legitimate authority was still Jin, was Gou Xi, was Zhao Hanzhang…

So Shi Lei couldn’t collect grain through requisition. His method was: direct plunder!

When the army initially retreated, he held back because he needed to deceive Zhao Hanzhang.

Once his rear guard was blocked and he knew Zhao Hanzhang had discovered him, he had no more scruples and directly let his troops pillage. Every village they passed, every fortress, every county town—they directly plundered.

Wherever Shi’s army passed was devastated, corpses strewn everywhere. Vast numbers of common people fled their homes to avoid slaughter and plunder, becoming refugees.

But the wilderness held many Shi army units. Sometimes fleeing from the wilds onto a road, they’d run head-on into a Shi army contingent and be plundered and slaughtered.

This was if they had food and money on them. If not, they’d be cut with a blade, then have hemp rope looped around their necks and tied behind like cattle or sheep, taken along as rations.

Shi’s army ate people. Some did so because they were hungry, but some officers did it to see the terrified expressions on Han faces, deriving pleasure from this twisted behavior.

When the army was on the march, emotions ran high easily. To let them vent their energy, Shi Lei never stopped their twisted conduct.

So when Zhao Hanzhang pursued, she frequently saw by the roadside where Shi’s army had camped, burned-out fire pits with charred, half-consumed human bones that had been roasted and mostly eaten.

Initially, Zhao Hanzhang would stop to look, examining their fire pits to calculate approximate troop numbers, then silently regarding those remains.

Later, she stopped looking as much, instead having men roughly count numbers before continuing the pursuit.

Zhao Erlang obediently followed orders. He and Xie Shi had already led their army on a detour to get ahead of Shi’s forces.

Xie Shi calculated Shi army’s marching speed and brought three days’ provisions with Zhao Erlang to lie in ambush on both sides of Duanbo Mountain.

This mountain consisted of two peaks with a wide official road passing between them. From a distance, these two mountains connected looked like a severed neck—the western peak resembled a fallen head, the eastern one like the neck connecting to shoulders.

So locals called the two mountains collectively Duanbo Mountain. It was also the most suitable ambush location within a hundred li radius.

When Shi Lei reached the mountain pass entrance, because the mountains weren’t particularly high and the road was sufficiently wide, and the sunlight was strong at the moment, the path looked completely unthreatening and unsinister.

But Shi Lei still felt his heart tighten. He frowned without rashly entering, instead summoning a general and ordering him to lead two thousand men through first.

The general received his orders and departed, cautiously leading two thousand men through the mountain pass.

Zhao Erlang, lying in the grass, poked his head out to look down. Seeing the endless approaching army, his eyes couldn’t help but light up. His head lifted slightly higher, propping up half his body…

Lying beside him, Xie Shi reached out and pressed him down, saying quietly, “Wait a bit more.”

Watching the army about to pass, Zhao Erlang grew anxious. “Scholar, if we wait longer we won’t hit anyone.”

Xie Shi whispered, “Shi Lei’s personally commanded main force has at least fifty thousand men. How many is this? Wait more.”

Zhao Erlang lay back down, waiting obediently.

Xie Shi looked at him with amusement in his eyes and continued lying still beside him.

Zhao Erlang wasn’t particularly clever, but he excelled at obedience. Even when he didn’t fully understand opinions, as long as someone explained, Zhao Erlang would listen.

Zhao Erlang was very self-aware. He knew he wasn’t smart enough. Elder Sister had told him to listen to Scholar Xie and Scholar Wang, so he listened to them.

Though sometimes it made him unhappy.

He watched helplessly as a large force passed before his eyes. Soon after, from the already-passed troops, another contingent ran back and gradually disappeared.

Having waited so long without seeing anyone else pass, Zhao Erlang huffed unhappily.

Xie Shi didn’t comfort him but focused on waiting.

After a long while, people finally reappeared in their line of sight.

Zhao Erlang’s eyes lit up as he stared intently.

Xie Shi also stared intently. After the column had passed partway, he raised his hand preparing to give orders.

Zhao Erlang said somewhat puzzled, “Why do those people look so dispirited and weak? They don’t look like Jie people but rather like our Han people.”

Xie Shi’s hand didn’t fall. Instead, he looked toward Zhao Cai and Lü Hu behind Zhao Erlang.

Zhao Cai looked to Zhao Erlang, and only after Zhao Erlang nodded did he pull out a precious case from his chest, taking out the telescope to give him.

Xie Shi examined carefully. After a moment he said, “These are all prisoners. Don’t move yet.”

Zhao Erlang grabbed the telescope to look. His gaze swept only briefly over that dispirited crowd before looking behind.

He moved the telescope, scanning across the faces of the Jie people behind one by one, wanting to find Shi Lei. If fighting started, he’d kill Shi Lei first.

Elder Sister had told him: to catch bandits, first catch the king. Capturing the king could dissolve the bandits’ strength.

Zhao Erlang searched carefully. Riding on horseback, having stolen a general’s clothing to wear, Shi Lei felt a gaze sweep across his face. His spine went cold. While lowering his head, he ordered, “Raise shields and pass through quickly. Hurry!”

At the same time, Zhao Erlang’s just-moved gaze returned. He focused especially on Shi Lei. Although the clothing he wore, the hat he wore, and his position in the formation weren’t quite right, Elder Sister had said main commanders sometimes used disguises.

He happily told Xie Shi, “Scholar, I found Shi Lei.”

Xie Shi had already noticed their formation speeding up and immediately ordered the attack.

As soon as Xie Shi’s hand dropped, immediately came over ten loud bangs. Boulders rolled down from both mountain sides, with many soldiers standing up to hurl stones down or push them down…

Simultaneously, throwers lit explosive packages and threw them down…

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