Chapter 14 Identity Swap and Guard Duty
Ling Anping was not a man who sat and waited for death. He divided three tenths of his troops to launch a surprise attack from the rear.
When he left, the night was thick, and I kissed him on the eyes. I only said one thing, no regrets.
He gently held me, then let go and flipped up onto his horse.
I watched his back disappear into the darkness. I took two deep breaths before returning to the city.
I had come this far. Everything I had now was enough. Whatever was left was all gains.
Two days later, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, a woman rode up and knocked on the city gate.
She shouted that she was the wife of Huaihua General and asked the soldiers on duty to open the gate.
I had not yet reached the city wall when I heard her say, “Open the gate quickly! I am the wife of Huaihua General. The general is trapped right now. Hurry and send reinforcements!”
I was stunned. I hurried to the city wall and looked at the figure below.
I was wearing riding clothes then, and the armor Ling Anping had left behind was fitted on me.
I looked down from a distance. Xu Fengwan was dressed in white, her body marked with streaks of blood, and she was pounding on the gate with all her strength.
The general standing at my side went out and asked, “What evidence do you have to prove you are the general’s wife?”
Xu Fengwan immediately picked up a sword from her side and raised it. “This is Huaihua General’s personal sword. You would not recognize it. Huaihua General is currently trapped in the mountains five li away from here. Open the city gate quickly to save him!”
I looked at the sword and frowned slightly.
That was indeed Ling Anping’s sword. But if Xu Fengwan had come, it proved that the place she mentioned must have an ambush.
I stepped forward and said loudly, “Are you Huaihua General’s wife? Then look at who I am.”
Xu Fengwan lost her focus for a moment when she looked up at me, but she immediately said firmly, “You a lowly maidservant still dare to pretend to be Huaihua General’s wife. It is better for you to stay in the city to stabilize the army, not to impersonate me.”
I laughed coldly. “After so long, I did not expect you to have become so clever.”
“Huaihua General and I share an exceptional bond. I am naturally with him at all times. He is trapped now. Do not waste any more time!”
The general on duty glanced at me, seeming a bit hesitant.
I stood on the high wall and looked down at her without saying anything.
Xu Fengwan continued shouting and crying, “He gave me all the tokens from the past so that I could escape. Yet you people with eyes but blind to the truth want him to go die for nothing.”
As she said this, she took out a handkerchief from her clothes.
The handkerchief I had embroidered by hand with snow plum blossoms.
The general who had fought Ling Anping many times recognized it at a glance as the handkerchief Ling Anping had loved and never let go of.
Even though I was standing at his side, his sword in his hand tightened.
I curved my lips. I picked up the bow and arrows from the soldiers and shot an arrow that pierced her right arm.
She cried out in pain and looked at me in disbelief.
“This is the archery I learned from my husband. How is it? Still accurate? Isn’t it much more painful than the wounds you inflicted on yourself?”
Before Xu Fengwan could react, I took out the command token from my sleeve.
“Command token here! Everyone listen to my orders!”
This was the command token Ling Anping had handed to me before he left. His only request was to hold the city gate while waiting for reinforcements.
Upon seeing the command, everyone around knelt down, and even the general on duty knelt half by my side.
“Hold the city gate to the death. Do not retreat even one inch!”
“Yes!”
Xu Fengwan below the city wall heard something wrong and immediately rode back on her horse.
I pulled the bow taut and shot at her calf from a distance.
She almost fell from the horse but still bit her teeth and rode back.
After Xu Fengwan left, the atmosphere in the city became serious.
No matter how much truth her words held, the lack of any news from Ling Anping was real.
As evening approached, the sun on the horizon burned fiercely. The vast Northern Tribes army pressed down from the distance, looking like an endless dark cloud, ready to bring violent storms at any moment.
A few days earlier, I had already organized people to persuade the civilians inside the city to leave.
Now, inside the city, there were only soldiers, some local landlords and nobles, and the remaining civilians who wanted to hold the city to the death.
Everyone’s spirits were tense all day long, and now they were even more focused.
At a position about three li from the city gate, the Northern Tribes army stopped.
A prisoner cart was slowly pushed out from behind.
I tightened the bow in my hand and stared straight at the person inside the prisoner cart.
The Northern Tribes general pulled the person out of the cart, accompanied by the surrounding laughter.
That person was Xu Fengwan.
The Northern Tribes general stood below the city gate and loudly mocked her, tearing her clothes until they were in tatters, calling her Huaihua General’s wife again and again.
I could tell Xu Fengwan had been tricked from both sides.
I listened with amusement and climbed to the city tower, drawing the bow and shooting three arrows at the Northern Tribes general in a row.
The first two were blocked by his armor, but the third shot straight into his calf.
I took off my helmet and laughed loudly. “If she is Huaihua General’s wife, then who am I? You blind dog, you don’t even know you have been played by a fake. It is truly laughable enough to lose all your teeth!”
When the Northern Tribes general saw me, he knew he had been fooled. He bound Xu Fengwan to the horse and dragged her until she was bloody and unrecognizable.
I stood on the city wall and watched coldly. No one here would feel heartache for her.
To betray the country was more than enough to be killed by a thousand blades.
The next two days were not easy.
Although we cursed and humiliated the other side in front of the formation, the gap in strength was too great. On the third day, we were truly in a situation of running out of arrows and food.
The city wall was covered in bloodstains. Inside and outside the city, everything was in ruins.
I leaned against the cold city wall, looking up at the stars in the sky. Burying corpses in horse hides was not the ending I had expected.
But in the past half month, I had seen too much.
For the general to die for the people was not humiliation. It was glory.
Late at night.
The general on duty brought news. Zhao Zhen was bringing ten hundred thousand troops straight from the capital to reinforce us. They were only ten li away now and would arrive tomorrow morning.
But Ling Anping had no news at all.
It was as if he had disappeared from the world.
I did not know why my dry eye sockets could not produce even a single tear. I only knew that before he left, he had asked me to hold the city well.
Now, the city had been held.
Ling Anping, where are you?
Zhao Zhen looked at me. He raised his hand, but finally only patted my shoulder.
I knelt down and raised the command token high. Zhao Zhen sighed deeply before taking the command token that belonged to Ling Anping from my hands.
The battle situation the next day was very pleasant. The Northern Tribes had not expected our reinforcements to come so quickly. More than two hundred thousand of them dyed the land outside the city red.
On the third day, the Northern Tribes were completely defeated. Zhao Zhen led the main force pressing from the front. Suddenly, a group of enemy troops killed out from the left flank of the enemy army.
It was like a sharp sword stabbing straight into the enemy’s belly.
The enemy formation collapsed. They were defeated and fled in all directions.
The moment I saw Ling Anping, my tears blurred my vision.
I had thought that after so long, I would no longer cry. But at that instant, my heart still felt extremely full of emotion.
Ling Anping had taken nine thousand men around to the enemy rear. He had not expected the enemy scouts to discover him, so he pretended to lose the battle and fled for a while, dropping his helmet and armor. This was also why Xu Fengwan had obtained Ling Anping’s sword.
But when he went deeper into the enemy rear, he got lost and accidentally entered the Northern Tribes’ main camp.
Ling Anping immediately ordered to enter the tent to capture the enemy commander. He also captured Xu Fengwan and her husband who had betrayed the country.
Crown Prince Zhao Zhen raised his hand and beheaded the Northern Tribes commander. He also sent Xu Fengwan and her husband to the capital.
This war finally reached its end.