A desperate counterkill! Xie Linyuan became a god of slaughter and came to the rescue with severed heads
The engineers, carrying timber, got to work with great enthusiasm; the riverbank echoed with the muffled thuds of hammering stakes.
A fast horse galloped across the shallow waters of the north bank. Yun Shuyue dismounted, wiped the water from her face, and ran to Gu Moran, clasping her hands in a respectful greeting:
"Your Highness, I just checked the area outside the south gate of Hanseong. The cavalry that came out of Hanseong last night was going to Ganghwa Island to provide support; they've already withdrawn back into the city."
Those beasts Inukami Jusaburo, are whipping 20,000 Goryeo women and children in the city, driving them all to the city walls to serve as human shields!
Gu Moli slowly stepped down from the wide carriage behind, holding a hot water bottle in her arms, and casually tossed a stack of newly copied secret documents onto the field table set up by her personal guards.
She glanced at Kim Seon-a, whose face was deathly pale, and spoke slowly and deliberately:
"Third Brother, take a look at this. This is the ledger that Shiqing and Huayi intercepted from their spies who just escaped from Hanseong."
The fact that the palace on Ganghwa Island was destroyed overnight wasn't entirely due to the skills of the Wa ninjas; Grand Prince Anpyeong of the Goryeo royal family also played a role.
He had already been secretly communicating with Inukami Jusaburo for half a month, and even the password for the palace troop rotation was sent out by someone sent by him.
Kim Seon-a grabbed the confidential document from the table, glanced at it, and her chest heaved violently after only a couple of lines.
She slammed the secret document on the table and drew half of her sword:
"Uncle Anping actually committed such a traitorous act of selling out his country for personal gain!"
Your Prince Yi, Hanseong fortified with high walls and deep moats, and now there are 20,000 civilians on the city walls. A direct assault would surely result in heavy casualties.
Please allow me to immediately raise the White Tiger King banner of the Goryeo Princess.
I'll cross the river alone to the south bank to challenge them, drawing out the Shadow Ninjas lurking there and the main force in the city, buying your Great Yan heavy infantry time to cross the river and set up camp!
"You want to be bait? I think you're just asking for trouble with your delicate skin, not good enough for those Japanese pirates to cut down."
Gu Moran reached out and pressed down on her sword hilt, snapping the sword back into its sheath. He then took her cold fingertips in his hand and rubbed them together a couple of times.
"You need to use bait, but not the way you're doing it."
Lin Qingdai, Murong Xue!
Lin Qingdai and Murong Xue, who were standing on either side, stepped forward at the same time, one pressing on the hilt of her sword and the other raising her spear.
"You two will each take five hundred heavy cavalry and now sneak along the rocky banks of the lower Han River, hide in the reeds on the south bank, and tie all the horses' muzzles shut. As soon as you hear the central army's firearms, immediately attack from the flanks and cut off their retreat!"
Gu Moran Kim Seon-a's hand, turned around and pointed to the open river valley plain on the north bank of the Han River.
"As for me, today I will lead three thousand infantrymen across the river, plant the White Tiger King's banner of Goryeo and my own command banner side by side on the riverbank, and set up a 'back-to-the-river' formation for Inukami Jusaburo with their backs to the Han River!"
Half an hour later, on the watchtower of the south gate of Hanseong.
Inukami Jusaburo pressed his hands against the cold city bricks, squinting at the white tiger flag of the Goryeo royal family that had just been erected on the bank of the Han River five miles away.
His lips were chapped, his eyes sunken, and he turned to his adjutant beside him. "Did you see clearly? There are only about three thousand men by the river, and they're just throwing barricades into the ground?"
The lieutenant swallowed hard, his stomach rumbling.
"My lord, our scouts have just arrived and confirmed that there are indeed only three thousand infantrymen. Kim Seon-a's white tiger flag is in the middle; it seems she intends to build a camp on the riverbank before we can completely encircle them, to receive the following fleet."
My lord, our military rations in the city are running out. This morning, we even slaughtered several warhorses used for pulling carts. The soldiers are starving; if they don't go out of the city to seize more food, we'll be in chaos before the Great Yan people even have a chance to fight us!
Inukami Jusaburo looked at the three thousand soldiers busily working on the riverbank, then glanced at the Japanese infantrymen behind him, leaning on their spears, their eyes bloodshot.
He drew a Japanese sword from his waist, its tip pointing directly at the plains outside the city.
"Issue my order: open the south gate, leave two thousand men to guard the Goryeo women on the city wall, and the remaining twelve thousand main force will follow my entire army to attack!"
Kim Seon-a and Gu Moran courting death by setting up camp with their backs to the Han River. Today, we'll push them all into the Han River to feed the fish and steal their army's provisions!
Meanwhile, on the outer beach.
Mei Boqian's body was a bloody mess; the leather armor on his left shoulder had been ripped apart by a spear, and blood was streaming down his arm, making the hilt of his sword slippery and viscous.
He had less than 500 private soldiers left by Luoyang, all of whom were pinned down on the breakwater by more than 2,000 Japanese outposts, leaving them with almost no place to stand.
"Young Master, we can't hold on any longer! The brothers can barely even swing their swords!"
The lieutenant beside him leaned on a broken spear, panting heavily, with a bloody hole in his chest.
Mei Boqian wiped the blood from his eyes, glanced at the dark mass of Japanese soldiers rushing towards him, tapped his dulled sword against a stone, and was about to shout for his life when...
Dozens of round objects suddenly rolled down the hillside to the side and behind, smashing through the bushes and crashing into the Japanese soldiers. They were all the open heads of the Japanese supply corps soldiers.
Immediately afterwards, a figure draped in a wide black robe slid several meters down the hillside in one step, crashing directly into the rear of the Japanese army.
Xie Linyuan had a string of Buddhist prayer beads tied with black cord around his wrist, and his body reeked of the gunpowder smoke left from the recent bombing of two grain depots.
His eyes were bloodshot, and without even uttering a single Buddhist chant, he crushed the throat of a Japanese samurai with his five fingers forming claws. The nine golden wheels behind him swept out with a piercing shriek, instantly cutting more than twenty Japanese soldiers in half at the waist, their internal organs and bone fragments scattering all over the ground.
"Brothers' here! Let's kill them together!"
Mei Boqian's eyes widened in astonishment. He didn't care whether it was a monk or the King of Hell, he raised his broken sword and led the remaining five hundred soldiers in a counterattack.
Caught in a pincer attack, the Japanese outposts, already cut off from supplies, collapsed instantly. Large groups of them abandoned their bamboo spears, knelt in the mud, and begged for mercy.
In just half an hour, Mei Boqian sat down on the breakwater, stepping on the corpses scattered all over the ground. Looking at the two thousand Japanese prisoners of war huddled together with their heads in their hands, he burst into laughter.