Entering the Capital for an Imperial Audience

The barbarian tribes' first siege of Dingyuan Pass in this war had ended.

Great Yan's border army had suffered grievous losses.

More than four thousand border soldiers had been killed in the defensive battle, and over seven thousand had been wounded.

The Tiger Leopard Battalion, which had charged out of the fortress, had dwindled from its original twelve hundred riders to just four hundred after the battle.

Two-thirds of the Tiger Leopard Iron Cavalry had died in the defense.

These were the most elite, battle-hardened cavalrymen in Great Yan's border army. Compared with the deaths of more than four thousand border soldiers, the loss of those eight hundred Tiger Leopard riders pained Gao Yu even more.

While clearing the battlefield, Great Yan's border soldiers also counted the corpses the barbarians had left beneath the walls.

In all, more than eight thousand barbarian soldiers had died in the battle.

Five thousand had died inside the pass and at the foot of its walls, while three thousand had fallen outside the walls.

Almost all three thousand barbarians outside the walls had died under the Tiger Leopard Battalion's charge or amid the chaos and trampling.

There was no denying, however, that the Tiger Leopard Battalion had played a far greater role in the defense than the garrison inside the fortress.

When Chen Yan returned to the fortress covered in blood, he earned the respect of every defender, but received neither a summons nor a reward from the Governor's Mansion.

For although the outcome had been favorable, Chen Yan's actions had amounted to a breach of military discipline.

Leading troops out of the fortress without orders from a superior was an absolute taboo in the army.

In other words, there was no possibility of a reward.

That he had merely been sidelined rather than