Claiming to show the hospitality of a host was false; the truth was that Yan Li could not make decisions on certain matters. Besides, some matters could only be decided after consulting Sect Master Gong Lince at the front lines.
Only after Gong Lince's reply arrived did Purple Gold Cave truly accept Niu Youdao. Yan Li and the other senior officials left behind immediately arranged for Niu Youdao to be secretly settled in. They did not want anyone to know he was hiding in Purple Gold Cave, and this was concealed even from most of Purple Gold Cave's disciples.
Along with Gong Lince's message came news that the great decisive battle between Yan Kingdom and Zhao Kingdom had finally begun!
The Zhao army launched the first attack, making another desperate bid and exhausting every means at its disposal in an attempt to break out.
Yet under Marshal Meng's personal deployment, the Yan army and the Zhao Kingdom rebels joined forces to firmly hold every crucial route by which the Zhao army could break out, tightly suppressing them within a single area.
As the Zhao army's fierce assault failed and it withdrew, the Yan army took advantage of having concentrated superior forces and instead pressed forward against the Zhao army's concentrated forces as they retreated in defeat.
Facing forces more than twice their own and a ferocious offensive, the Zhao army north of Horn Lake retreated wholesale across the water. More than a million troops all boarded Wooden Rafts and withdrew onto Horn Lake, an immense and magnificent sight.
The trees felled bare all around were the source of that magnificence.
"What can you do to us? What can you do to us..."
On the densely packed Wooden Rafts, Zhao soldiers waved the weapons in their hands and shouted taunts at