The sun set, and night rose.
Inside Zhaotong Prefecture, there was deathly silence.
Several thousand soldiers and more than a hundred thousand civilians were all crammed near the various city gates, atop the walls, along the streets, and before their homes. They looked like refugees gathered together in a year of famine. No one dared return indoors to rest, because no one knew whether the enemy outside would launch an early assault. Every nerve was stretched to the breaking point.
Six hours!
Only six hours remained until the final deadline given by the Sheng People!
"Report!"
"General! This is bad! They've sealed us in—"
"The enemy outside is no longer leaving one side open! Our scouts can no longer get out at all!"
"The enemy has also prepared all kinds of large siege engines... It looks like they truly intend to attack at daybreak!"
"What are you panicking for?!"
Deng Feng's sonorous voice rang through the darkness. "Let them attack! Can they even get up here?"
Several subordinates asked.
"Great General, b-but didn't you say that after daybreak, our reinforcements would arrive fifteen days later—that is, tomorrow at dawn?"
"That's right."
Deng Feng had no choice but to give an affirmative answer. "The reinforcements will arrive after daybreak! Then, His Majesty's seventy thousand troops, together with Yongle Prefecture's fifty thousand elite soldiers, will make a total of one hundred and twenty thousand men. The Sheng People will surely collapse like a mountain! Tonight is the final darkness before dawn!
One word: stall!
He had guarded the borderlands for over half his life.
Never had he borne such immense pressure as he did now.
And all of that pressure came from one young man—Chen Sanshi!
That man!
In just one month, he had brought more than half of Laizhou under his