Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather

Chapter 392: Chapter 377 Prince Wu Tuo Wants to Escape!

Cui Liang’s idea was simple: to use the terrain advantage of the canyon west of Gui Ning City to trap Yang Zhenshan in a flood.

This operation was not difficult. The water flow of the Ying River upstream was not swift, so blocking it was not a hard task, and the outlet of the Gui Ning City canyon happened to be the river course of the Ying River. The canyon’s mouth was only a dozen or so yards wide; by sealing off this opening, the canyon would immediately become a lake.

When the time came, they could open the outlet again, and the river water filled in the canyon would instantly inundate a hundred miles around, turning the surroundings of Gui Ning City into a vast ocean.

Moreover, this operation was not difficult to carry out; a few thousand soldiers could complete it.

After coming up with this plan, Cui Liang himself couldn’t help but get excited.

He felt this idea was brilliant!

Since he couldn’t defeat Yang Zhenshan head-on, then he would use the terrain to his advantage to defeat him.

No matter how formidable Yang Zhenshan was, could he possibly hold back the raging floodwaters?

Once decided, Cui Liang immediately took action and mobilized two thousand soldiers toward the canyon.

On the other side, Yang Zhenshan was leading his troops westward.

As Cui Liang had thought, Yang Zhenshan was indeed planning to enter Chongshan Town via the West Road from Gui Ning City.

This was also an unavoidable situation, because the official road that traversed Chongshan Town from east to west passed through Gui Ning City. If they wanted to reach Chongshan Town as quickly as possible via the West Road, they had to pass through Gui Ning City.

After several days of marching west, the army was only a hundred miles away from Gui Ning City. At this rate, they would reach Gui Ning City in another two days.

After a day’s march and as dusk approached, the army began to set up camp on the banks of the Ying River.

Yang Zhenshan rode Red Cloud, accompanied by twenty personal followers, patrolling along the river where the soldiers were cooking their meals.

Suddenly he noticed something off about the river water.

The source of the Ying River came from the western snow mountains of Qianchong Mountain, with most of the water from the melting snow on the mountains, and only a small part from the springs in the mountains.

Hence, the Ying River had a unique characteristic; the water flow was greater during the summer and autumn and smaller during the winter and spring.

It was the end of July now, which should be the time when the Ying River had its largest water flow, but the current flow was very small!

Naturally, this was because Cui Liang had cut off the river upstream, but at the moment, Yang Zhenshan did not think in that direction; he just felt there was something odd about the river water.

Yang Zhenshan rode to find Yang Mingzhi and asked, ”Isn’t the river water getting less?”

Yang Mingzhi looked puzzled at the river water, ”It has indeed become a lot less, but the farther upstream we go, the smaller the flow!”

”Look at the width of the river channel!” Yang Zhenshan dismounted, walked to the middle of the river, and pointed at a patch of silt, ”Something is off, the river water is obviously only recently reduced, look at the silt, it’s still wet. If the flow had been this large all along, the silt should have dried up by now.”

Yang Mingzhi directly scooped up a handful of silt, and water immediately surged out from under the silt, clearly indicating that the area beneath the silt was filled with river water.

”Indeed, it’s a bit strange. Logically, the river surface here should be wide, so why has it become so narrow?”

He too felt something was amiss.

Yang Zhenshan’s eyes narrowed slightly; at this moment, he had already thought of the flood trap.

”Quite interesting, who came up with this strategy!”

”Dad, what’s the matter?” Yang Mingzhi asked, puzzled.

Yang Zhenshan looked upstream along the Ying River, ”Someone wants to use the water of the Ying River to drown us!”

”What!” Yang Mingzhi wore a shocked expression.

Yang Zhenshan pondered for a moment then said, ”You take some men upstream to investigate, be careful not to be discovered!”

”Okay!” Yang Mingzhi responded and then left with over thirty scouts.

Meanwhile, Yang Zhenshan wandered along the riverbank for a while. Many signs on the riverside indicated that the water of the Ying River had just receded not long ago, further proving that someone upstream had blocked the river.

Roughly two hours later, Yang Mingzhi sent someone back to report; they had inspected along the Ying River for over thirty miles, and the farther they went, the smaller the river.

By the next morning, Yang Mingzhi and his group had already scouted near Gui Ning City, and the Ying River near Gui Ning City was completely dry!

Although they had not found the exact location where the river was being blocked, Yang Zhenshan was certain that someone had cut off the Ying River upstream.

Confronted with this situation, Yang Zhenshan naturally would not let the army continue to march forward.

The army rested in place until the afternoon of the next day, when Yang Mingzhi once again sent someone to report that they had found the location of the river blockage, and only then did Yang Zhenshan breathe a sigh of relief.

The canyon west of Gui Ning City was still over a hundred miles away from them.

Even if the upstream released the water now, it would not flood their location.

In the main commander’s tent.

Yang Zhenshan summoned all the generals to discuss the matter.

Niu Zhuang, Tang Feihu, Qin He, Xie Yuan, and others gathered inside the tent.

Yang Zhenshan briefly described the situation upstream of the Ying River, causing a flurry of discussion among everyone.

”This strategy is insidious, who would think of something like this?” Niu Zhuang said with an unsightly expression.

”Yes, if water is released from upstream, Gui Ning City will be the first to suffer!” Xie Yuan felt that such a strategy was too ruthless.

Gui Ning City might not be a large city, but it still has thousands of citizens, and there are also many military households around it.

If the plan succeeds, not only would they be victims, but tens of thousands of ordinary citizens and military households would also suffer.

Tang Feihu appeared thoughtful, ”If I’m not mistaken, this must be Cui Liang’s doing!”

”Do you know Cui Liang well?” Yang Zhenshan looked at Tang Feihu.

Tang Feihu shook his head slightly, ”Not exactly know well, but I am aware that this man has great ambitions and always acts without scruples!”

Although he and Cui Liang were both Assistant Generals at Chongshan Town, they didn’t interact much in reality; other than meeting at Chongshan Pass, they basically had no dealings on a daily basis.

Furthermore, Cui Liang was a trusted confidant of Ji Feiyu, and in recent years, he behaved arrogantly, hardly taking his colleagues seriously, thus interactions between them were even more scarce.

Yang Zhenshan nodded, ”It seems that Cui Liang has defected to the Wuliang Hu Clan!”

If Cui Liang had not defected to the Wuliang Hu Clan, he would be thinking of how to find Ji Feiyu now instead of thinking of how to defeat Yang Zhenshan.

”We have discovered that Cui Liang has been sending messages to Prince Wu Tuo, but the content of the messages has not been confirmed,” Lv Hua spoke up at this point.

”Has there been any movement from Prince Wu Tuo?” Yang Zhenshan asked in turn.

Now that it was confirmed that Cui Liang had defected to the Wuliang Hu Clan, they couldn’t treat Cui Liang with the previous attitude.

Previously, they treated Cui Liang and the Wuliang army as two separate enemies, but now it was clear that Cui Liang had defected to the Wuliang Hu Clan, so they would have to treat them as a single entity.

”There’s been no movement; Prince Wu Tuo’s main camp is still in Linqing Prefecture,” said Lv Hua.

Linqing Prefecture is one of the seven prefectures of Liaoxi, located north of East Bright Prefecture. At this time, all but the East Bright Prefecture of the seven prefectures of Liaoxi have fallen into the hands of the Wuliang army.

Yang Zhenshan looked at the map on the screen and fell into contemplation.

Prince Wu Tuo hasn’t continued to advance at this time but instead remains silent with his troops at Linqing Prefecture?

The court-convened army of two hundred thousand had been defeated, and the remaining forces were either defending in East Bright Prefecture City or had retreated to Jizhou territory.

Logically, the Wuliang army should either continue to attack East Bright Prefecture City or be moving towards Jizhou at this point.

But for over ten days, the Wuliang army had no movement, which was quite abnormal!

”Prince Wu Tuo wants to run!” Yang Zhenshan’s eyes narrowed as he said.

”Run?” Lv Hua looked at him.

Yang Zhenshan nodded slightly, ”Yes, they no longer want to continue fighting, but are planning to withdraw from Liaoxi.”

Everyone fell into deep thought upon hearing this.

Could the Wuliang Hu Clan defeat Da Rong?

Clearly impossible.

Despite Da Rong’s consecutive defeats in Liaoxi and the Wuliang army seeming unstoppable, the Wuliang Hu Clan had actually taken advantage of a surprise attack.

Prince Qing and Ji Feiyu had thrown Chongshan Town into chaos, and the Wuliang Hu Clan tied up the forces of Beiyuan Town, which gave them an opportunity to enter Liaoxi.

Their attack was so sudden that the court responded slowly, leading to the situation where the Wuliang army seemed unstoppable.

Once the court mobilized the imperial guard or other border army to support Liaoxi, the Wuliang army would only be driven out of Liaoxi.

The Wuliang Hu Clan never intended to occupy Liaoxi or take over Beiyuan Town; their cooperation with Ji Feiyu was solely for profiteering.

Their goal was not the territory of Da Rong; they aimed merely to plunder the wealth of Da Rong.

The wealth from Liaoxi alone was enough for them to enjoy for a while.

At this point, stopping at the right time was actually their best choice.

In fact, Yang Zhenshan had long anticipated the withdrawal of the Wuliang army, but he didn’t understand Prince Wu Tuo. If Prince Wu Tuo was a greedy person, he might attack Jizhou out of insatiable greed.

Jizhou was a rich land in Liaodong, and its wealth was on par with that of Liaoxi.

If Prince Wu Tuo was indeed greedy, he might be tempted by the wealth to attack Jizhou.

But now it seemed that Prince Wu Tuo was a person of firm will, not lured by immediate temptations into losing focus.

Everyone inside the tent quickly put two and two together and turned their eyes towards Yang Zhenshan.