"Faster, faster! If we can reach Xiandai River tonight, each of us will be rewarded with 50 taels of gold!" Nangong Zhi gritted his teeth and gave such a generous reward just to stimulate the soldiers to march quickly.
However, the soldiers' condition did not seem to have changed much!
Is 50 taels of gold a lot? Of course it is not a small amount. 50 taels of gold is 500 taels of silver, which is 500,000 copper coins!
But with Anyang as a good example, fifty taels of gold were not enough.
There are rumors circulating in the army:
A: Gold is useless. Look at the soldiers in Anyang. Each of them has a set of magic weapon grade armor. It is said that the masters in Anyang's foundation building period all use magic weapons. How much would that cost? It would probably cost several thousand 'fifty taels of gold'.
B: Are you rushing to die so quickly? Anyang has magic weapons, flying swords, machine guns, cannons, and airplanes. What do we have
C: Hush... Keep your voices down. I just calculated that 50 taels of gold per person means that for 100,000 people, we will get a reward of 5 million taels of gold! Is this possible? I heard that the tax revenue of Nanyang County last year, including the land tax, was only over 2 million taels of gold.
Ding: If we all die, we naturally won’t have to pay this money.
Everyone turned their heads together: Damn, that's the truth!
Nangong Zhi was in a state of panic, but he could do nothing. This is war. Once the army loses confidence, its mental state will be like "a waterfall falling three thousand feet straight down, rushing to the sea and never returning." Listening to the increasingly exaggerated rumors, Nangong Zhi had to give everyone a hope: Let's go rob the treasury in Anyang, where it is said that there are tens of millions of taels of gold in stock!
Finally, the soldiers were blinded by the wealth and the rumors were temporarily suppressed.
On the other side, in the city lord's mansion of Quwo, the seat of Dongyuan County, Yuan Yong was filled with worry. His eldest son Yuan Cai served as a general in Guangling County beside the eldest prince; his second son Yuan Zhao was driven back to the imperial capital by Li Xian, and was accompanying the second prince, the emperor in name only, counting ants in the palace, and it was said that he could not even get enough food.
Now, the situation in the Yuan family's base camp, Dongyuan County, was extremely critical. Yuan Yong had never thought that the situation would be so dire. Three days ago, the ten parties besieged Anyang; three days later, the five armies of Anyang attacked the east and occupied the Xiandai River, completely separating Dongyuan County from Luliang County.
There weren't many soldiers in Dongyuan County to begin with, only 200,000 elite soldiers - not counting civilians.
Now, one hundred thousand elite troops are being besieged in the north. It is said that there are thousands or even tens of thousands of casualties every day, and they can no longer hold on.
Just when he was extremely anxious, someone suddenly came to report that an envoy from Nanyang County had arrived with a letter.
"Hurry up!" Yuan Yong's eyes lit up immediately. Sending a letter at this time must be good news! Sure enough, when he opened the letter, Yuan Yong smiled, "One hundred thousand elite soldiers from Nanyang County are coming to help!"
But as he read on, Yuan Yong's mood began to sink. The letter sent by Nanyang County was very detailed: including that Songzhou County was unreliable and retreated without a fight, Anyang was very powerful, and Nanyang County had lost 250,000 troops (a little exaggerated). At the end, the words turned around, saying that we can only save Dongyuan County at most, and there is basically no hope for Luliang County - Anyang is too powerful.
After a long silence, Yuan Yong finally smiled, "No matter what, we finally got the chance. Yuan Jinjiang, follow the order and lead 100,000 troops north to attack the 30,000 elite troops led by Yan Zhengqing. We don't need to break the blockade, but at least we need to make sure Yan Zhengqing and Anyang can't intercept the 100,000 troops of Nanyang County, so that the 100,000 troops of Nanyang County can smoothly reach the direction of Xiandai River. Then, the 200,000 troops will cross the river together and start a decisive battle with Anyang."