Luo He had arrived. Of course he had. The emperor of Yue was equally relieved. He immediately ordered Eunuch Long to personally carry the message to Jin Quan as fast as possible.
Jin Quan had already been preparing to march with nearly ten thousand soldiers to rescue his daughter. He had been ready to risk everything.
When Eunuch Long arrived and told him that Jin Mulan had survived and that Luo He had reached the mansion in time, the tension that had consumed Jin Quan for hours finally disappeared.
His daughter was alive. The fortress was still standing. And Luo He had done exactly what everyone who knew him expected him to do.
He had arrived when it mattered. Across the allied territories, the news produced the same reaction.
Relief.
The Jin Mansion had not fallen. The war was still alive. But another message soon followed.
This one was directed specifically toward Jin Sang. Luo He was preparing to leave the mansion.
The next battlefield would be the Yue capital, where the Wu army was still maintaining its siege. The Jin Mansion therefore required additional troops to hold its defenses.
Jin Sang was ordered to sail with approximately five thousand soldiers and reinforce the fortress. Jin Sang immediately began preparing his fleet.
There was no hesitation. If Luo He was leaving, then someone needed to make certain the mansion remained secure.
Jin Su, however, would remain behind. The pirate island still required a strong defender, and she could not abandon the island while the war remained unfinished.
Ning Jia chose to accompany Jin Sang. She could barely contain her excitement.
She had spent days hearing reports of the Jin Mansion's desperate situation, never knowing whether Luo He or Jin Mulan would survive.
Now both were alive. And soon she would see them. She wanted nothing more than to embrace them both.
The fleet prepared its fastest ships. Jin Sang personally took command.
The vessels arrived at the Prosperous Silk Isle's harbor.
From there, they would continue toward the Jin Mansion. And while the ships cut through the waves, the entire balance of the war was beginning to change.
The siege had been broken. Luo He's army had survived. The Jin Mansion still stood. And for the first time since the Wu invasion began, the allies were no longer merely trying to survive.
They were preparing to strike back.
Day Eight: Night of Peace
The night of the eighth day was the first peaceful night the Jin Mansion had experienced in more than a week.
For the first time since the siege began, no alarm sounded from the battlements. No horns announced another assault. No ladders appeared beneath the walls.
The siege had been broken. But the war had not yet been won. Luo He ordered every surviving soldier to rest. Men who had fought for days without proper sleep were given the remainder of the night to recover well enough to march.
Wounds were treated. Weapons were repaired. Horses were fed. Exhausted soldiers finally collapsed into whatever bedding they could find.
Tomorrow, they would march. Tomorrow, they would take the battle to the enemy.
For the first time in days, Luo He also allowed himself a proper bath. The water washed away the dust, sweat, blood, and exhaustion accumulated over the past few days.
When he emerged, the mansion had become unusually quiet. That night, Luo He, Jin Mulan, and Ning Jia got to sleep as one like they always did together.
Luo He repeatedly reminded Jin Mulan not to push herself. Her heart had only just recovered from the collapse that morning. But she rode him hard anyway.
He warned that exhaustion could easily trigger another episode. Jin Mulan naturally disagreed. Her recovery had barely begun, yet she insisted she was strong enough to also fight.
Luo He knew better. The argument eventually dissolved into more warmth and intimacy between husband and wives, followed by something all three had desperately needed. Sleep.
There was no battlefield to watch that night. No enemy to kill. No strategy to calculate. In a long time, Luo He enjoyed some true sleep.
Before dawn, Jin Sang's men were already working. The courtyard and surrounding grounds had become a battlefield cemetery.
Bodies from both armies lay scattered across the earth. Some had begun to rot after days beneath the sun.
Others were still buried beneath broken shields, splintered ladders, and other shattered siege equipment. Jin Sang and his four thousand men took charge of the cleanup.
Bodies were carried away swiftly and committed to enormous funeral pyres.
One after another, the flames consumed what remained of the battle. The blood was scrubbed from the walls. Broken siege equipment was dismantled. Debris was burned.
It was an unpleasant task, but a very necessary one. The Jin Mansion had survived. Now it had to be made livable once again.
Jin Mulan also finally received the care she had refused for seven days. She had not had a proper bath in ages. But Luo He gave her a sponge bath before bed.
Now Ning Jia had personally taken her to bathe. For a woman who had spent nearly a week standing in armor, sleeping almost not at all, the simple warmth of the water felt almost unreal.
The two women spoke rather quietly, occasionally teasing with one another. For a short while, the war seemed very far away and the two ended up in warm intimacy in their bathing chamber.
Jin Mulan laughed more than she had in days. It was the first sign that perhaps, despite everything, the woman who had stood on the wall for seven straight days was finally beginning to recover.
By sunrise, the mansion had become completely different. The soldiers were still exhausted, but they were no longer trapped. The enemy had lost its grip.
Now it was time for the Jin family to move. Nearly twenty-five thousand cavalry prepared to depart.
Day Nine: Riding for War
The force consisted primarily of Luo He's elite cavalry, including roughly ten thousand Xia Clan mercenaries who had surrendered after the destruction of Elder Zhoung's camp.
Another two thousand cavalry belonged to the Jin family, though only around fifteen hundred were currently fit to make the long march.
Of Luo He's original twelve thousand five hundred elite cavalry, roughly twelve thousand two hundred remained in sufficient condition to ride.
The injured and exhausted were left behind. Jin Sang would remain at the mansion with the prisoners, the wounded, and soldiers responsible for holding the fortress.
Around one thousand of Jin Sang's best pirates, men accustomed to fighting both aboard ships and on land, also joined the expedition.
The departure was not merely a military movement. It was the beginning of the final stage of this campaign. Luo He sent messages in every direction.
Princess Ning Luo was informed that reinforcements were already moving toward her.
After that, Luo He took Jin Mulan and Ning Jia aboard the Black Cloud Shuttle and flew directly toward the Emperor's camp in meeting with the emperor.
The twenty-five-thousand-strong force marched toward the capital under Jun's command, but Luo He had no intention of wasting precious time traveling at the pace of a cavalry column.
It was already the ninth day. They could not afford to wait. The three of them quickly crossed the distance and headed straight for the Emperor's camp.
The situation at the capital was becoming increasingly dangerous.
Nearly three hundred thousand Wu soldiers still surrounded the city, and Princess Ning Luo could not be expected to hold indefinitely.
Every hour mattered.
Luo He therefore intended to begin the counteroffensive immediately, but not by throwing his entire army into a single massive battle.
Instead, he planned to wage a war of attrition through a series of small but effective engagements.
Small contingents would strike at specific points. Small victories would accumulate into larger advantages.
Enemy formations would be weakened piece by piece, supply lines disrupted, scouts eliminated, isolated units destroyed, and pressure applied wherever the enemy was weakest.
Eventually, all those small victories would become one decisive victory. This was precisely the kind of warfare Luo He understood best.
Nearly ninety percent of the Flame Kingdom's campaigns were conducted in this manner.
Rather than solely relying entirely on overwhelming numbers and fire power, their commanders searched for favorable engagements.
And then turned small advantages into larger ones until the enemy's entire position collapsed.
To Luo He, the total number of soldiers on a battlefield was therefore only one part of the equation.
The important question was never simply who had more soldiers. It was where those soldiers were fighting, who commanded them.
How they were equipped, how well experienced they were, and whether the commander could force the enemy to fight on unfavorable terms.
With the right strategy, even a smaller army could defeat a vastly larger force.
And Luo He had no intention of fighting three hundred thousand soldiers as though they were one army.
He would divide them in his mind first. Then he would break them apart on the battlefield. One small victory at a time.