Chapter 117: An Extremely Disadvantageous Situation

  Luosi's boldness was entirely inspired by Tang Xiaoxia's previous feat of jumping off Lin Yuefeng and landing safely, although on that eerie night after returning to modern times, she really hurt herself when she jumped from the second-floor corridor in the school campus. However, she still believed that if Tang Xiaoxia could jump off the peak of Lin Yuefeng without any problem, then it would be even less of a problem for her to jump off the city wall of Zhucheng now.

  Of course, she didn't have any other good choices either, because now that she had jumped down from the city wall into the city, she could only come down from the stone stairs leading from the city wall to inside the city, and it was without a doubt that she would definitely be discovered by many of the Qi army on the city walls.

  She jumped like this and wasn't discovered by anyone, and she felt that her whole body was light and floating during the fall, much slower than normal falling from a high place. Of course, when she landed on the ground, she was safe and sound.

  She then carefully made her way through the streets of the city to the other side of Zhucheng, fortunately there were basically no patrolling soldiers in the city, probably because the Qi army thought that this city was already completely under their control, as long as they kept an eye on the outside.

  The people in the city all closed their doors, and the number of households that lit lamps was pitifully small, making Luosiqi feel very gloomy as she walked alone on the street. However, she didn't think too much about it, fortunately, nothing happened along the way, occasionally some Qi army soldiers passed by her, and she carefully avoided them. In fact, if she weren't wearing this night-traveling outfit now, even if she was discovered by the Qi army soldiers, they would only take Luosiqi as a normal citizen and wouldn't suspect her.

  When they arrived at the south gate of Bamboo City, Luosi Qi found a secluded corner and used her old trick again, using the ice ladder she had summoned to climb up the city wall and then jump down as lightly as a cotton ball. Before her eyes was the main road leading to Chengfu.

  Although the whole process was calm and didn't have any unexpected events, the entire journey through the city still made Luosiqi feel very oppressed. So when she left Zhucheng, Luosiqi ignored her physical fatigue and quickened her pace towards Chengfu, even though she knew that at this walking speed it would take a long time to arrive in Chengfu, and by now the sky had already started to lighten slightly.

  Because the sky was only slightly bright, Luosiqi, who was already very tired, had no choice but to walk on the main road leading to Chengfu. After all, the Qi army would not deliberately pursue her out of Zhucity, and more importantly, Luosiqi felt that only by walking on the main road would she not get lost.

  However, not far from the turn in front of them, several people suddenly rushed out from the dense forest beside the road. Although they were not wearing military uniforms, they looked like strong and combat-effective soldiers. The sudden appearance of these people frightened Luosiqi, who was surprised to think: "It's impossible that Sima Rong could have predicted this and laid an ambush here on purpose to attack her when she was exhausted!" However, for Luosiqi, it seemed that there were still a few people, so she calmed down and decided to summon the ice sword to attack them.

  It turned out that among those people who suddenly appeared, someone actually recognized Luosi Qi. A burly man who seemed to be the leader shouted: "It's the Goddess! It's the Goddess!" and then led the way in kneeling down.

  Originally, Tang Xiaoxia began to actively prepare for the defense of Chengfu's equipment after learning that Zhucheng had fallen. He arranged and improved many defensive facilities for the city, and sent out many small teams responsible for monitoring the movements in the direction of Zhucheng. Because he was always worried that the Qi army would attack Chengfu after successfully occupying Zhucheng by surprise. Unexpectedly, among these scouts, the one closest to Zhucheng actually met Luosiqi here.

  At this time, Luosi had already learned to ride a horse during his time with the army, so the leader of the group called for a horse to be given to Luosi to ride. Two people were also assigned to accompany Luosi back to Chengfu, while the rest remained here under the leadership of the small leader to continue monitoring the movements of the Qi army in Zhucity.

  When Luosiqi arrived at Chengfu, she indeed saw a lively scene of actively building defensive equipment, digging trenches and setting up obstacles. Tang Xiaoxia's face lit up with excitement when he saw Luosiqi, and although it was only for an instant before he restrained himself, Luosiqi still felt warmth in her heart.

  Tang Xiaxia ordered a deputy general to take charge of the supervision here and brought Luo Siqi to his command center. This used to be the residence of the Crown Prince of Chu and Wu Xuan, later it was Tian Yu and Sima Yue, now the master of this place has changed again to Tang Xiaxia.

  Tang Xiaxia learned about the situation of the Chu army at the front line from Luo Siqi, and then listened to her account of crossing the bamboo city. Then she also told Luo Siqi what happened after following the big army. In the meantime, the maid brought up tea and snacks. Luo Siqi was really hungry, so she ate a little while listening to Tang Xiaxia's story.

  Tang Xiaxia said that since he heard the news of Zhu Cheng's fall from the defeated soldiers, he began to intensify the defense of Chengfu. Luosiqi had always been puzzled as to why Zhucheng, which was garrisoned by 5,000 Chu troops, fell overnight, and now she finally got the answer from Tang Xiaxia.

  The Qi army had laid the groundwork for their future attack on Zhucheng before withdrawing from it. The commander of the Qi army, Sima Du, took advantage of the fact that the Chu army was not familiar with Zhucheng and replaced all the men in the city with Qi soldiers disguised as civilians before the Chu army's attack. The original women in the city were coerced by these Qi soldiers to secretly guard them, and no one dared to tell the truth to the Chu army. After the Chu army left Zhucheng, the Qi army actually only sent a force of about 10,000 men from outside the city, who collaborated with the "civilians" inside the city, who were actually Qi soldiers, to open the city gate and launch a surprise attack. As a result, the commander left behind by Tian Yu to defend Zhucheng was beheaded by the large Qi army before he even understood what was happening.

  Luoshi heard this and couldn't help but take a deep breath, secretly admiring Sima Rangju's profound cunning and divine military strategy. It turned out that the Qi army's pretended loss of Zhu City was not just a simple ploy to lure the Chu army into a decisive battle, but also had another set of killer moves in reserve as a precaution.

  Of course, if the Qi army soldiers disguised as Zheng country civilians stayed for a long time, they might be discovered by the Chu army. However, Sima Rangju calculated that the main force of the Chu army would not stay in Zhushigou for a long time to rescue Zhengguo, and he ensured that troops were sent to kill their way back to Zhushigou as soon as possible, so that the Chu army in Zhushigou was killed inside and out, caught off guard.

  However, what made Tang Xiaxia deeply surprised was that the Qi army, which had an absolute advantage in military strength after taking down Zhu City, did not send troops to take Chengfu. At first, he also thought that the Qi army must be afraid of being besieged by the Chu army in Zhengguo and fighting back to Zhu City, so they didn't attack Chengfu. Later, the news from the capital made Tang Xiaxia thoroughly understand why the Qi army did not come to attack Chengfu.

  According to the route, the 30,000 elite soldiers of Chu were supposed to enter Chengfu two days ago. It is likely that the Qi army also knew this news, so they did not take any rash action.

  Ke Tang Xiaxia received the latest news from Guodu this morning, that is, the 30,000 elite soldiers of Qu Li changed their route on the way to Chengfu and went east, because Wu Zixu escaped to Wu State and actually moved Wu Wang, Wu Wang decided to take advantage of the Chu army's main force to rescue Zheng State and attack Chu. Now it has almost arrived at Zhongli, an important border town in eastern Chu.

  Wu State is a small country compared to Chu State. One of the main reasons why Chu State did not want to attack Wu State was that it was too far away from its capital, and also because Wu State usually kept troops to defend against Yue, so there were actually not many large-scale battles between Wu State and Chu State.

  But this time Wu Guoming was clearly coming to pick up the cheap, and Chu Guo had no power to send many troops to fight with Wu Guo, so King Wu ordered Gongzi Guang as the general, only bringing 30,000 Wu soldiers to attack Chu Guo.

  Wu Zixu led the Wu army to attack, which made King Helü of Chu very angry. Also, Tian Heng was a famous general, but all generals exaggerate their military achievements. After he captured Zhulou a few days ago, although he didn't dare to take any rash action, in his letter to King Helü, he greatly exaggerated the merits of himself and his subordinates, as if the Qi army had been defeated and they would soon join forces with the Zheng army to attack the Jin army at the capital of Zheng.

  King Chu was furious when he heard the three words "Wu Zixu", as if Wu Zixu had killed his father and brothers. He immediately cancelled the original plan to send troops to reinforce Tian Heng to rescue Zheng, and instead ordered him to quickly reinforce Gong Liao, defeat the Wu army, and capture Wu Zixu alive.

  Tang Xiaoxia estimated that the news of Zhucheng's fall should have been delivered to the capital of Chu by his dispatched messenger, and he could guess without thinking how stunned King Chu and the ministers would be when they learned of this news. The army led by Qu Li is now probably rushing day and night to a place not far from Zhongli, and it is even possible that they have formed a standoff with the Wu army. Not to mention that it is already too late for orders to be transmitted from the capital to the Wu-Chu front line, even if it were possible, Qu Li's Chu army probably has no physical strength left to make another forced march. Moreover, once Qu Li leads his troops to rescue Tian Yu, Zhongli City will definitely not be able to hold out, and the Wu army will... In the meantime, Chu also cannot mobilize other troops in time to stop the Wu army from reaching the capital city of Chu.

  Even Wu Jun may not be able to save Chu's army, and directly attack the already exhausted Chu army from behind. Perhaps before he can even rescue Tian Yu, his own army will be completely annihilated by the Wu army halfway.

  So now the situation facing Luosiqi and Tang Xiaoxia is - don't even hope for reinforcements to arrive, the only ones they can mobilize are the 5,000 soldiers left by Tang Xiaoxia in the city of Tianyu, and they are not elite warriors.