Chapter 2720 Persuaded

At this moment, after circling around the Eldest, traveling for four days, some Jin soldiers disguised as defeated scattered soldiers and refugees finally entered Anshi City with sallow faces and emaciated bodies.

They truly looked sallow and emaciated, genuinely starving, and couldn’t help but want to rush up and grab the buns and noodles from the stalls to eat.

Yin Li deliberately chose soldiers with relatively shorter and thinner physiques; there was no choice, to play the role of refugees, one must appear starving.

Therefore, Yin Li only provided them with a small amount of dry food.

However, he prepared some money for them, including copper coins as well as pearls and gold.

These were their capital for a meal, provided they successfully sneaked into the city without their valuables being discovered.

Fortunately, they specifically detoured to come in, looking quite like the locals, with sallow and emaciated faces showing signs of having starved for several days, eyes gleaming at the sight of food.

However, the soldiers guarding the city gate still carefully checked their origins. They had memorized their stories before coming, divided into several groups to enter, mingling in threes and fives as locals, muddling through with the chaotic assistance of supposed local “compatriots,” until even those without residency papers were allowed entry.

Once inside, individuals were immediately selected; those who looked acceptable and weren’t particularly weak were directly recruited as soldiers, without room to refuse. Those who struggled were simply tied up and dragged away.

The newly arrived strong men: …

Some people, seeing this, turned around intending to slip out of the city but were seized and brought back. The leader squeezed his arm and checked his palms, then slapped him while cursing in Goguryeo language: “You are a deserter!”

“No, I’m not, we lost, everyone scattered, the supervisor surrendered.”

Lv Geng, who had been squatting on the ground with the refugees, rolled his eyes and listened as the gate officer said: “Once a soldier of Goguryeo, always a soldier, take him back and reassign him.”

Lv Geng immediately knelt on the ground, pulling several brothers down with him. Seeing the gate officer’s gaze over, he incessantly kowtowed, saying: “Willing to pledge allegiance to the new supervisor.”

The gate officer knew he was also a deserter or rather, a scattered defeated soldier, so he waved them away together.

Lv Geng and several people were dragged away as scattered soldiers.

The other Jin soldiers squatting at the back: …

The gate officer selected quite a few people and pulled them into the barracks to serve as the lowest-ranking soldiers, while others were allowed into the city.

They followed the crowd into the city, carefully gathering together to say: “What is Lv Geng doing?”

“Don’t complain, Lv Geng went inside by himself, but five of us were chosen to go in, his arm is strong and solid, even if he doesn’t volunteer, he would be taken in; he speaks Goguryeo fairly well, hopefully, he won’t be discovered.”

“Where do we go now?”

“Where can we go? Just wander around, first find an alley to lie low, see how things are sold in this city, fill our bellies first.”

Not many managed to sneak in; too many would be conspicuous, and conspicuity easily leads to trouble.

Thus, Yin Li selected a total of twenty-five people, divided into five groups, each group consisting of five.

Most of them didn’t know each other before, only meeting briefly when chosen, and barely getting familiar along the way.

But they separated on the road, refraining from communication unless necessary.

They met many refugees on the road, but once inside the city, they dispersed, no longer mingling with those refugees.

They must find a way to reach the West City Gate and procure some weapons…

The ambush troops in the forest continued lying motionlessly, while the emperor in Liaodong City had already begun to break camp, with a batch of people leaving.

Scouts ran back to report to Second Prince Gao, “They are retreating to Yingzhou, I heard they plan to return via Yingzhou.”

“What about the Great Jin’s emperor?”

“No movement.”

“Second Prince, the Great Jin’s emperor certainly won’t leave until the conquered cities are secure; now they are almost done building their observation posts.”

The scout also added: “Sir, when returning from the mountain, we overheard the sound of quarried stones being gathered; it seems they want to block the roads with stone and prevent us from passing.”

“Outrageous! Are they really establishing borders?”

They weren’t greatly concerned with checkpoints and observation posts; if they build them, we can destroy them. After all, many of the people there are our own; once united, it would be easy to reclaim the territory. But severing contact is another matter entirely.

The scout also reported: “Sir, I heard in a teahouse outside Liaodong City that the Great Jin’s emperor plans to move half the people here, all officials included, and will transfer people from the interior to here…”

Second Prince Gao’s expression slightly changed, finally growing anxious. If they moved the people away and brought strangers in, then Liaodong City would no longer belong to Goguryeo.

Unable to resist, he stood up and began pacing.

The generals on both sides anxiously said: “Second Prince, we can’t wait any longer. If we don’t reclaim the territory now, we’ll lose popular support; once they move the people, we won’t be able to maintain the territory even if we take it back.”

“Can we maintain it now if we reclaim it?”

“It can’t be much worse than now,” said a supervisor. “If we can’t maintain it, we’ll retreat and continue defending Anshi City; at least destroy their checkpoints and observation posts. Then we’ll incite our people to rebel against the Great Jin; even if we can’t reclaim the territory, it’ll be enough to cause them trouble.”

“That’s right, we absolutely can’t let the Great Jin take over Liaodong City so smoothly, Second Prince. After all, they’ve captured many of our cities.”

It’s heart-wrenching to think about it.

Second Prince Gao tightened his fists and said coldly: “Alright, let’s deploy troops!”

Saying so with grand festivity, he nevertheless only wished to probe with two thousand troops.

The other generals: …

Anshi City, along with the reinforcements, had a defense force of one hundred thousand; could we at least send ten thousand instead?

Yet Second Prince Gao was unwilling, saying: “I always felt the Great Jin emperor wouldn’t retreat so quickly; these two thousand will merely probe.”

No one could persuade him otherwise, so they could only agree.

Thus, Second Prince Gao deployed two thousand troops to damage the checkpoints and observation posts, and to clear out forty li west of Anshi City to reclaim that piece of land.

Among the two thousand, only five hundred were cavalry, with the remaining fifteen hundred soldiers carrying swords or long spears following behind.

In the forest, Ashina, nibbling dry rations till his face turned yellow, faintly heard hoofbeats and the sounds of many people running.

A scout quickly drilled in to report, “General, they have deployed troops.”

General Ashina’s spirits lifted, asking: “How many?”

“Not many, seems like about two thousand, cavalry five hundred, ten riders per row, a total of fifty rows.”

He roughly estimated the infantry following behind; with his keen eyes, he wasn’t far from correct.

General Ashina then said: “Good, capture all of them, inform General Xue to prepare, send troops to report back to the main camp; we’ll try to delay as much as possible.”

“Yes.”