"Our... our General... died just like that?"
A suffocating horror gripped the remnants of Yan Liang's army. They stared at the towering silhouette of Guan Yu, whose emerald robes were painted with fresh crimson. A few elite personal guards tightened their knuckles around their spears, their minds screaming for vengeance—but one look at the giant's cold, contemptuous glare froze the blood in their veins.
Before they could find their courage, a thunderous rumble shook the earth. Zhao Yun and the heavy cavalry tore through the clearing, sealing the perimeter like a ring of iron.
The choice was stripped away. Weapons clattered to the dirt; thousands fell to their knees in absolute surrender.
Zhao Yun reined in his mount, his heart hammering. He had ridden at breakneck speed, fearing Guan Yu might be overwhelmed. He never imagined that in a handful of fleeting breaths, the God of War would have already harvested the enemy commander's head.
"Yun Chang's valor is truly divine!" Zhao Yun said, his voice ringing with genuine, unbridled admiration.
Guan Yu slowly stroked his long beard, a rare, subtle smirk gracing his lips. "The Military Advisor's stratagem lured the beast into the snare. Wen Ze was ruthless, stripping away his flank. Yan Liang was hollow, witless—he bled his own center to chase shadows. I merely delivered the final stroke."
Though his words carried a veneer of modesty, the proud tilt of his chin betrayed his deep satisfaction. Guan Yu cared little for the flattery of ordinary men, but praise from Zhao Yun—the man who had single-handedly carved a path through chaos in Luoyang to save the Lord's family—carried the weight of pure gold.
There was no time to linger. The two generals split their forces, one raising Yan Liang's massive, captured banner, the other hoisting his severed head high on a pike.
"Yan Liang is dead! Lay down your steel and live!"
"Surrender and be spared! Resist and perish!"
The roar swept across the banks of the Qing River like a wildfire. Stripped of their backbone, the remaining Yuan Shao loyalists collapsed like houses of cards. The Three Thousand Camp, the Trap Camp, and the Xuzhou regiments converged, herding the massive sea of captives into orderly lines.
On a central ridge, Yu Jin, Xu Rong, Gao Shun, and Tian Kai gathered, surveying the thousands of disarmed prisoners. A collective, breathless laughter broke out among them.
"The Lord's foresight... the Advisor's calculations... it is terrifying," Yu Jin muttered.
Every move had been written before the first drop of blood fell. Zhang Xin had predicted the exact movements of Yan Liang and Wen Chou; Xun You had masterfully laid the geometry of the trap at Wulu Market. For a general, there was no greater luxury than serving a lord who made victory an inevitability.
Gao Shun, his face as unreadable as an iron mask, adjusted the strap of his gauntlet. "By my reckoning, the reinforcements under Zhao Fu and Cheng Huan are less than an hour away. Gentlemen, I will take my men to form the vanguard block. I leave these captives to you."
"Go with confidence, Boping," Yu Jin replied.
"Zilong and I will anchor the cavalry at your rear," Guan Yu added, his eyes narrowing toward the southern horizon. "If they press you, we will flank them."
Gao Shun cupped his hands in a silent salute, turned on his heel, and led the grim, silent ranks of the Trap Camp toward the south.
---
"What did you say?!"
Zhao Fu nearly fell from his saddle, his eyes bulging at the panicked scout before him. "Yan Liang... defeated? Ruined?!"
"The grand banner was hacked down, General!" the scout wailed, trembling. "The army collapsed. I saw it with my own eyes!"
Zhao Fu exchanged a pale, horrified look with Cheng Huan. They had marched out around the hour of Wei (2 PM). It was now barely past the hour of Shen (4 PM). Two hours.
Even if twenty thousand pigs had been scattered across the plain, it would take the enemy longer than two hours to chase them all down! Yet a legendary vanguard army of Jizhou had been completely annihilated in the time it took to eat a meal.
"Is the martial might of the Xuanwei Marquis truly this monstrous?" Zhao Fu's voice shook. "Do we... do we turn back?"
Cheng Huan's brow furrowed into deep, calculated lines. He stared down the road, his mind racing. "No. We advance!"
"Advance?!"
"Think, General!" Cheng Huan's eyes flashed with desperate logic. "Zhang Xin's men marched through the entire night, then fought a brutal, exhausting battle against Yan Liang. They are at the absolute limit of their physical endurance. Furthermore, they are now burdened with tens of thousands of prisoners. A cornered dog will bite, but a tired tiger can be slain."
Cheng Huan gestured aggressively to their own lines. "We have thirty thousand fresh, rested men! When we strike, those tens of thousands of surrendered Jizhou soldiers will see our banners and riot from within. Forty thousand against a tired remnant of ten thousand. The sky favors us, Zhao Fu! The advantage is ours!"
Warmed by Cheng Huan's frantic confidence, Zhao Fu's panic receded, replaced by ambition. "Then we march! Fast! Double the pace!"
---
"General, the enemy vanguard is less than ten li out," the scout reported to Gao Shun. "Strength is estimated at thirty thousand."
"As the Lord predicted," Gao Shun said softly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"Shall I ride back and request the heavy cavalry to move up?" the scout asked.
"No need. Continue monitoring." Gao Shun waved him off.
Yue Jin walked up beside Gao Shun, his grip tight on his twin-blade hilt. His face was tense. "Boping... they have thirty thousand. We brought two thousand five hundred. Can we hold the line?"
Gao Shun looked at Yue Jin, a faint, chilling smile touching his lips. "Wen Qian, you have yet to see what the Trap Camp can do."
This was the newly reorganized Trap Camp's true maiden voyage into the crucible of war. Yue Jin knew their grueling training, but Gao Shun knew their soul. Zhao Fu's thirty thousand were mostly raw, pressed civilians. They could not break the Trap Camp.
Within the half-hour, the massive, chaotic dust cloud of Zhao Fu's army emerged on the horizon.
Five li... three li...
"Report!" A scout galloped up to Cheng Huan at the Jizhou vanguard. "Advisor! The enemy... they aren't in formation. There are only about two thousand of them, and they are all sitting on the ground, resting!"
"What?" Zhao Fu pulled his reins, deeply suspicious. "An empty fort strategy? A trap?"
Cheng Huan rode directly to the front lines to see for himself. Sure enough, across the field, two thousand five hundred men sat in casual, quiet clusters, completely unbothered by the approaching juggernaut. It was eerie. The sheer lack of fear sent a shiver down Cheng Huan's spine.
"Is it a bluff... or an ambush?" Cheng Huan muttered, hesitation paralyzing his hand.
After a tense standoff lasting the burn of an incense stick, a messenger from the center broke his reverie. "Advisor Cheng! General Zhao asks why the vanguard has halted!"
Cheng Huan bit his lip. They couldn't retreat over a ghost story. "Order three thousand men from the frontline to test them. Probe their strength!"
The Jizhou war drums thundered. Three thousand conscripts roared, raising their crude weapons as they surged forward across the plain.
Three hundred paces... two hundred paces...
"Rise," Gao Shun's voice wasn't a roar; it was a quiet, iron command.
In a single, terrifyingly synchronized motion, two thousand five hundred men snapped to their feet. No shuffling, no murmuring. A wall of interlocking shields and bristling spears materialized in the span of a single heartbeat.
Watching from the rear, Cheng Huan's heart dropped. *Gods... what discipline.*
To move like a single organism after marching all night required a terrifying level of training. If this were a fair fight, he would have ordered a retreat instantly. But numbers were his shield. *Even if they are iron,* Cheng Huan thought, *we will grind them to dust through sheer attrition.*
"Archers! Loose!" Cheng Huan roared.
A volley of arrows darkened the sky. The Trap Camp responded instantly, raising their captured rectangular long-shields. Having traveled light, they lacked heavy armor, but Yan Liang's logistical bounty had provided them with perfect cover. Arrows clattered harmlessly against wood and hide.
The distance closed to thirty paces. The air grew thick with the stench of sweat and impending death.
Yue Jin stepped to the absolute front of the formation, grabbing a heavy assault shield. "Boping, I'm taking the point."
"Go, Wen Qian. Break them," Gao Shun replied.
Yue Jin's eyes turned feral. He swung his weapon, his voice erupting like a volcano:
> *"The will of the Trap Camp—to fight until death!"*
"Trap Camp! Trap Camp!" the men roared in unison.
"Follow me—KILL!"
Yue Jin exploded forward, charging directly into the teeth of the incoming Jizhou wave. He didn't lead with a blade; he threw his entire body weight behind his heavy shield, slamming into the Jizhou front line like a battering ram.
*CRASH!*
The Jizhou shield-bearers, who were advancing and thus had their heavy rectangular pavises lifted off the ground, were completely caught off guard by the sheer velocity of the impact. The front rank buckled, men stumbling backward.
"Spears! Spear him!" the Jizhou officers screamed.
A dozen spears thrust out like flashing tongues, slamming into Yue Jin's shield in a rapid succession of dull *thuds*. Hidden behind the wood, Yue Jin felt the vibration of every strike. He timed the rhythm of their retreat. The moment the enemy spears pulled back to chamber another strike, Yue Jin roared, lunging forward again.
*BANG!*
The leading Jizhou shield-bearer lost his footing entirely, crashing backward into his comrades.
"The line is broken! The line is broken!" the Trap Camp soldiers shouted, their morale skyrocketing as they saw the crack in the enemy's wall.
In ancient warfare, breaking a shield-wall was nearly impossible if the pavises were anchored into the earth. But in motion, a gap was fatal.
Yue Jin dove into the fissure. Jizhou spearmen lunged at him from the flanks, but the disciplined soldiers of the Trap Camp rushed in behind him, their own shields catching the blows.
"The will of the Trap Camp—to fight until death!"
Yue Jin dropped his shield, rolled beneath a swinging halberd, and came up spinning. His waist saber became a blur of silver and red, hamstringing horses, severing limbs, and painting the grass in crimson. He was a whirlwind of absolute devastation inside the enemy's broken formation.
Gao Shun's eyes flared as he witnessed the breach. "Phalanx—advance! Crush them!"
The Trap Camp moved forward like a slow, mechanical meatgrinder. Against a battle-hardened, impenetrable wall of elite infantry, the raw conscripts of Jizhou simply had no answer. Panic turned into a rout; the three thousand men of the vanguard shattered, throwing down their weapons and fleeing wildly into their own advancing main army.
Gao Shun raised his hand, halting the advance. "Hold. Rest in place. Re-form the wall." He would not chase them; he would let the terror of their defeat bleed into the remaining twenty-seven thousand.
Back in the Jizhou command tent, Zhao Fu listened to the panicked reports of his routed vanguard, his face draining of all color.
"They marched all night... they fought Yan Liang... and they shattered three thousand of our men in a single clash?!" Zhao Fu's voice cracked with terror as he gripped Cheng Huan's robes. "What kind of demons are we fighting?!"