Another Year's End, and There Would Be Those Who Came After!

[You merged your forces into one army, a mighty host of four hundred thousand marching north.]

[Upon reaching Cloud Mountain, you set your battle formation.]

[Tuoba Shuyi commanded five hundred thousand troops, with another one hundred twenty thousand elite soldiers from Qianyuan supporting him.]

[With the advantage of the terrain and superior numbers, Tuoba Shuyi fought two fierce battles against you over half a month. The two sides tangled like intertwined flood dragons, neither able to gain the upper hand.]

[That same month, thirty thousand reinforcements from Great Qing and twenty thousand cavalry from major Northern Domain tribes such as Sand Cart, Dazhi, and Frost Moon arrived one after another.]

[Thus, using the forces at hand, you personally led fifty thousand elite cavalry while leaving the four hundred thousand troops under Feng Haiping's command to restrain Tuoba Shuyi at Cloud Mountain.]

[Upon the map, you drew a circle as a prison: first conquer the lands of North Wind, then encircle Yun Prefecture.]

[That same year, Qianyuan and the Han-Chu alliance also launched a decisive battle in Southern Long.]

[As year's end approached, Yuwen Liqian, Princess of Han Kingdom, arrived in Yan Kingdom on a diplomatic mission.]

[The next day, Yan Kingdom dispatched one hundred thousand troops to aid Han Kingdom.]

[For a time, the situation under heaven underwent yet another upheaval.]

[If the north could exhaust Yan Kingdom's strength, Qianyuan would surely march north.]

[If the Han-Chu alliance could hold its national gates, Yan Kingdom would march south.]

[Thus, two battlefields—one in the south and one in the north—quietly took shape.]

[Beacon fires stretched to the heavens, war drums boomed like thunder, and smoke filled the air.]

[At the heart of the realm's map, Great Qing had yet to suffer the ravages of war, yet its people were gripped by