The resistance inside was almost nonexistent. The first men they encountered were still trying to arm themselves.
The Jin cavalry crashed into them. Blades flashed. Men fell. Tents were overturned beneath charging horses.
Soldiers stumbled through the camp searching desperately for their own commanders. Then the real army arrived.
From the surrounding forests came the thunder of thousands of hooves. The twelve thousand five hundred elite Jin cavalry emerged from concealment.
And descended upon the Wu camp. The entire camp collapsed into chaos. The Wu soldiers had no idea where the attack was coming from.
They had prepared for the thousand Jin cavalry outside the camp. They had not prepared for twelve thousand five hundred elite cavalry appearing.
Jun had ensured that they never received the warning. The transcendent had personally eliminated the scouts surrounding the camp.
None had escaped. None had reached Elder Zhoung with a report of the hidden cavalry force. The Wu army was blind. And now it was surrounded.
Elder Zhoung gathered several hundred soldiers and attempted to establish a defensive line. It lasted moments.
The elite Jin cavalry smashed through it. Horses crashed into infantry formations. Swords cut through men attempting to flee from the horses.
The carefully organized Wu camp became a battlefield of fire, blood, and collapsing tents. The ballistas on the mansion walls continued firing into the camp, adding to the confusion.
Then they eventually fell silent as Luo He's cavalry entered the camp itself. There was no longer any need for ranged fire. The battle had become close combat.
Within the camp, the Jin cavalry moved from formation to formation, destroying every organized resistance they could encounter. Some Wu soldiers fought.
Others fled. Many simply threw down their weapons. But the camp was too chaotic for an organized surrender.
Within two hours, most of the Wu force had ceased to exist as a coherent army. Elder Zhoung fought until the last moment.
Surrounded and realizing that his army had been destroyed, he turned his sword toward his own throat.
Jun appeared before he could complete the motion. His hand struck Elder Zhoung's wrist, knocking the sword away. Before the old commander could react, Jun restrained him.
Elder Zhoung had survived. But his army had not. Duke Lu saw the capture of Elder Zhoung and immediately he had understood that the battle was finished.
He surrendered. Others followed. Among the survivors were roughly ten thousand cavalrymen belonging to the Shiya clan's mercenary force.
They had not fought for Wu out of loyalty. They had fought for gold. And now their employer's army had been destroyed.
When Luo He offered them their lives in exchange for surrender, they accepted without hesitation.
Ten thousand cavalrymen changed banners that morning. They had entered the battle as mercenaries of the Shiya clan. They left it under Luo He's banner.
The remaining Wu soldiers were either killed during the fighting or captured. By the time the battle finally ended.
Approximately ten thousand prisoners had been gathered. The rest of Elder Zhoung's army had been annihilated.
The camp itself was left burning behind them. After several hours of fighting, the victorious Jin army began returning toward the mansion.
The sight was almost surreal.
The same soldiers who had spent seven days desperately defending the walls now rode back through the gates as conquerors.
Behind them came thousands of prisoners. Beside them rode the newly surrendered cavalry. And at their head rode Luo He.
The siege that had once seemed highly improbable to break had ended in a single morning. The Jin Mansion had survived.
Elder Zhoung's great army had been destroyed. Ten thousand prisoners had been taken. And another ten thousand cavalrymen had joined Luo He's forces.
For the first time in eight days, the Jin Mansion was no longer surrounded. The siege had been relieved. But Luo He knew better than anyone that the war itself was far from over.
The greatest battlefield still awaited them. The capital.
Day Eight: The Good News
For several hours after the siege was broken, no word reached the outside world for some time.
The allies still possessed only the last report Jin Mulan had sent before the situation at the Jin Mansion had quickly deteriorated beyond her control.
The message was grim.
The Jin Mansion had been surrounded by nearly fifty-eight thousand Wu soldiers. The enemy will soon lead an attack and the defenders were running out of strength.
Jin Mulan had warned that the fortress might not survive much longer. The report spread rapidly.
Crows carried the message from one ally to another, and wherever it arrived, the atmosphere grew heavier. At the Pirate Island, Jin Su received it first.
Her expression changed immediately. Her daughter was trapped inside a fortress surrounded by an army more than ten times her army in numbers.
And the person she blamed was standing right in front of her. Jin Sang. She confronted him without restraint.
The entire situation, in her eyes, had been created by his failure. His inability to properly damage the Wu fleet had allowed Elder Zhoung's army to reach the Jin Mansion.
Now Jin Mulan was paying the price. Jin Sang accepted the anger silently. He had no excuse that could make the situation better for him.
Ning Jia tried to defend him, reminding Jin Su that Luo He was at the mansion's side and would never allow Jin Mulan to be captured.
If he could possibly prevent it. Jin Su was less willing to accept reassurance. She knew Luo He. She knew how fiercely he guarded Jin Mulan.
If he knew his wife was in danger, he would certainly do something. But even Luo He had limitations. The fleet had survived far more intact than he had expected.
Luo He had anticipated that Jin Sang would damage the fleet badly enough that only a small portion of the enemy force could reinforce the siege.
Instead, Elder Zhoung had arrived with an enormous army. That difference had changed everything. Jin Sang eventually received a severe punishment from his adopted mother.
He endured it without resistance. He knew he had failed. And, deep inside, he also knew that if Luo He eventually learned just how close Jin Mulan had come to death, his punishment might be considerably worse.
The Emperor of Yue received the same message. His expression became grim. He understood the strategic and political consequences immediately.
The Jin Mansion was the only major fortress on his side of the kingdom still actively resisting the Wu advance. If it fell, the capital would almost certainly follow in it's footsteps.
He had only a small force remaining with him. If the Jin Mansion disappeared as well, then the war would have produced almost nothing for him except the naval victory archived at the start.
The emperor finally understood why Luo He had previously insisted that he keep his remaining eighty thousand soldiers very well hidden.
As long as the emperor possessed an army, he possessed bargaining power. Without soldiers, there would be nothing left except surrender.
And surrender would mean an armistice dictated by Wu. For the first time, the emperor truly understood how close Yue stood to ruin.
The entire alliance entered a state of uncertainty. Nobody knew whether the Jin Mansion was still standing. Nobody knew whether Jin Mulan was alive.
And nobody knew whether Luo He had arrived in time. Then another message came few days later.
It had changed everything. Luo He had arrived. The Jin Mansion had survived. Jin Mulan had held the fortress against Elder Zhoung's troops until Luo He reached her.
Once he arrived, the defenders' morale had been restored, and the Wu assaults had failed. Then reinforcements had arrived. The siege had been broken.
The Jin Mansion was free. Crows who are carrying the new report scattered across the continent. The same camps that had been filled with despair only hours earlier erupted into relief.
Ning Jia read the message twice. Then she finally allowed herself to breathe. She had never truly believed Luo He would allow Jin Mulan to fall.
That simply was not the kind of man he was. If his wife were in danger, he would cross an army to reach her. If necessary, he would burn an entire battlefield to get to his loving wife.
So although the first report had thurrowly frightened the family, the second did not surprise them nearly as much as it did the strangers.