The fifth year of Taiping.
July.
Song Gongbao had taken eight strongholds in a row, but his own forces had suffered more than ten thousand casualties, and the army had ground to a halt.
By this point, more than twenty percent of the fifty thousand troops he had brought with him had been lost. Even Song Gongbao's personal orders could no longer make the soldiers obey, and there was even a risk of mutiny.
Then more bad news arrived.
The two auxiliary forces sent by the imperial court to take the long way around and attack River Prefecture City had been ambushed by Tang Xun's troops and utterly defeated!
And Gao Qiu, the Grand Secretary of the Privy Council, eager for victory, had already led more than a hundred thousand troops to the outskirts of Lishui County to personally oversee the battle.
Though Song Gongbao's troops had no desire to fight, with more than a hundred thousand soldiers watching them from behind, they could only throw themselves into attacking the stronghold.
The ninth stronghold they attacked this time had been positioned in an exceedingly tricky spot. Sheer dead ground lay on both sides, with only a narrow path ahead allowing access, severely limiting the number of men who could attack at once. The Song army suffered grievous casualties.
"Brother... we can't keep fighting... cough, cough..."
Seeing his own brothers dying in droves on the battlefield ahead, Wu Xing could not help coughing repeatedly, blood streaming from the corners of his mouth. "If we go on, all our brothers will be dead!"
Tears welled in Song Gongbao's fierce eyes. "How could I not know? But Grand Secretary Gao is supervising the battle behind us. Before the fight, he told me that if we failed to take this stronghold, every last one