Wu Jie felt the temperature of his helmet, launched a white-blade assault, achieved a great victory over the Jin army, and then pursued and killed them for several miles before burning the encampment and returning.

After this battle, the momentum between the two sides was completely reversed. Wanyan Salihe, who had fled to the second encampment at Huagou and barely stopped the rout with the support of Han Chinese auxiliary archers, felt a chilling sensation amidst his feverishness.

Because now, he was quite certain that he could not capture Fangzhou City within the deadline, which was tomorrow.

Not because of this rout before the battle.

Objectively speaking, losing a battle was not a big deal, nor was being chased like a rabbit. The saying "victory and defeat are common occurrences in war" was a battlefield truth... To be chased like a rabbit, hadn't Wu Jie experienced the same thing several times before?

Who was it that had been defeated three times in three battles and retreated all the way here?

After losing, he could learn from Wu Jie, understand his shame, be brave, and fight back next time.

Therefore, the problem was not in the future, but in the present: when the defending army, possessing the advantage of terrain, dared to counterattack, dared to engage in white-blade combat, and even achieved victory, it meant that the morale and spirit of the defenders had reached a certain level of fullness. At this point, trying to capture the city by intimidation and non-consumptive means seemed laughable.

And in the state of Fangzhou City, pure attrition would require how many lives to be thrown in? How long would it take?

However, Salihe couldn't just retreat so straightforwardly... It wouldn't matter if he was ridiculed by Tuhesuo and others, but the key was that he still had a military order to capture the city in three days!

If he went back like this, and angered Lou Shi, he would really be beheaded to uphold military law. Who could save him?

Of course, he dared not conceal today's failure either.

So, in the evening, Salihe had to bite the bullet and send a message to the He Kou (River Mouth) main camp, explaining the situation and requesting further 'instructions'... The original words were, requesting Grand Commander Lou Shi to give him 'tactical guidance'.

And when night fell, Lou Shi indeed sent instructions.

"The three-day deadline has not yet arrived, and there is no new order, so follow the previous order?" Salihe was stunned. "So, he wants me to continue attacking the mountain and capturing the city?"

"That's probably what it means?" Wanyan Mouyan didn't look at Salihe, instead his eyes drifted around, drawn by the chaos of the Jin army wounded and deserters. He clearly had a mission to observe the military situation. "My father only said these words."

Salihe was completely speechless.

And Mouyan didn't stay long. Seeing this, he slightly cupped his hands, then went to inquire with a few familiar officers in the camp before returning to the He Kou (River Mouth) main camp that night.

Nothing happened that night. The next morning, Salihe prepared his troops and continued to turn west, ready to execute the military order. He didn't dare to test Lou Shi's patience.

However, as this cold-faced commander came to Fangzhou City again, he first saw the charred remains of his own military camp, and his heart was filled with helplessness. But after passing the burned encampment and reaching the area of yesterday's main battlefield, he actually felt a sense of panic... It turned out that when the Song army withdrew, they naturally didn't forget to clean up the battlefield, so the armor, clothing, and weapons on the Jin soldiers' corpses were almost completely stripped. Not only that, but the head of almost every corpse had been cut off to be used as military merit, so the headless, naked bodies were scattered everywhere.

There was no way around it. On the battlefield, such a situation was expected. It was just that the Song army knew that its field battle ability was insufficient and was afraid of being counterattacked, so it didn't have time to concentrate and cremate or bury the bodies, so it seemed so chaotic and barbaric. If it were the Jin army, they would have done even worse. Because the Jin army, as the aggressor, often carried out large-scale, systematic massacres of cities and towns after battles in order to intimidate and plunder, and often burned designated fortresses and cities to the ground, and even engaged in large-scale slave capture.

So Salihe knew very well that he had no right to say that the Song army's actions were barbaric.

However, back to the present, the Jin army collected their own corpses along the way and cremated them uniformly, but as the troops marched and observed this scene, their mentality inevitably changed greatly. After all, they were usually the ones who did this kind of thing to intimidate others, but today, when they encountered it themselves, they realized that they were no different from those enemies who had been intimidated before... They would also be afraid, hate, become numb, and be at a loss.

This was just the thought of ordinary soldiers. For officers or Salihe, this kind of psychological torment didn't end there... Salihe had not yet advanced to the front of the city when he discovered that he was in a dilemma.

This Jin army commander clearly knew that he could not capture the Song army's position in a short time, but because of the strict military order issued by Lou Shi in the rear, he had to personally push his own soldiers into this death channel again! And these people, these living people, might once again become those headless, naked corpses!

It wasn't that Salihe was sentimental. He had followed Aguda since he was young, then followed Nianhan, and then followed Lou Shi. He only needed to obey orders and charge on horseback to enjoy the glory of the victor. He never needed to consider the consequences of defeat, never thought he would encounter such a thing, and had always been the one trampling on other people's lives.

Therefore, at the moment of the battle, Wanyan Salihe hesitated.

Reason and the military education he had received since childhood told him that, merely to maintain the fearless attitude of the Great Jin army and maintain the morale of this expedition, the lives of some soldiers were not worth mentioning, especially since he was under pressure from military law and the commander-in-chief. But yesterday's defeat and the drastic casualties he had suffered in just two days still made this youngest commander of the Western Route Army feel fearful.

This fear was not personal fear of death, but a field panic of a commander... Maybe it would be better tomorrow, but today he was at a loss.

"Commander..." Someone carefully stepped forward to remind him.

"Before it gets too hot, attack a little first." When Wanyan Salihe saw his subordinate taking the initiative to inquire, he suddenly shuddered, then forcibly resumed his cold-faced commander's attitude and took the most rational and appropriate action. "Three mouke..."

"Three mouke will definitely be useless." The subordinate reminded him with a serious expression.

"Then... five!" Salihe took a deep breath, as if he had made some kind of decision, and loudly ordered. "Five mouke, let those who didn't participate in the past two days draw lots to go up! Take all the remaining large shields! Let the Han Chinese auxiliaries also go up, taking the only Divine Arm Bows to follow, and shoot at the Song soldiers under the mountain to provide cover!"

"There are not enough shields..." The subordinate reminded him carefully again.

"Those without shields, take wooden boards!" Salihe immediately said sternly. "If there are not enough wooden boards, wear double-layered armor!"

The military order was clear and resolute, and even showed some wisdom and momentum. As the saying goes, a general is the courage of the army, and the Jin army up and down actually had some heroic feelings for a time.

Then, less than five hundred Jin armored soldiers, either holding shields and wooden boards with short weapons, or wearing double-layered iron armor with hard bows, and one or two hundred so-called Han Chinese auxiliaries from the Zhai family's surrendered soldiers also followed with crossbows. Under the extremely strict military discipline of the Jin army, they surged to the front of that 'road to death', and then advanced with shields at a speed that was significantly slower than the previous two days... But unexpectedly, this time, the Song army did not launch an attack from afar, but welcomed this unprecedented saturation attack with an eerie silence.

But without a doubt, everyone knew that the Song army's crossbow bolts would arrive sooner or later, which put the Jin army into a state of severe shrinking, and the speed became slower and slower, and the atmosphere that had once been aroused was suppressed.

Salihe's mood also became more and more unbearable with this extreme suppression, but he always kept his expression tight, without any urging words or actions.

However, what should come will always come.

A quarter of an hour later, the Jin army surged to the foot of the mountain and began to climb the hill. Although the Song army's military camp on the hilltop was crowded with people, it still did not fire arrows, which made these well-trained Jin soldiers quickly erupt under the encouragement of their commanders. Four or five hundred armored soldiers and the Han Chinese auxiliary crossbowmen who were pressing the formation climbed up the hill at all costs, trying to rush into the military camp... This situation continued until a Puri Yan, wearing double-layered iron armor, raised his bow and shot an arrow, wounding a Song soldier behind the crossbow emplacement on the top, before it stopped.

Until this time, a team of more than a hundred Song army Divine Arm Bowmen appeared in a more orderly and calm formation than the previous two days, holding loaded crossbows, diagonally above the Jin army.

The Jin army, who were attacking upwards, also reacted almost immediately. After continuing to climb one or two steps forward, almost all the shield-holding soldiers began to raise their shields in a hurry, and those without shields took the opportunity to hide under the shields... And sure enough, as soon as they finished raising their shields, the Song army overhead naturally carried out a Divine Arm Bow volley. Hundreds of crossbow bolts, borrowing the power of the Divine Arm Bow itself and the addition of gravity, directly nailed towards the top of the Jin army's heads.

The distance was too close!

Except for a very few metal shields, most of the wooden shields and wooden boards were penetrated at the first time. A few unlucky ones directly encountered crossbow bolts from the gaps in the shields, either dying or being injured. Basically, they were nailed to the ground.

The sound of wailing instantly drowned out the encouraging shouts of the Jin army commanders, which carried a hint of excitement.

However, even if the voices of the commanders were drowned out, the Jin army's excellent tactical training still prompted these people to quickly get up at the moment the volley ended, and they were preparing to get as close as possible during the Song army's crossbow reloading gap in order to break the camp... This was the closest they had been to the Song army Divine Arm Bow team.

However, at the moment they lifted their shields, another round of crossbow bolts arrived unexpectedly, and this time, the unprepared Jin army immediately suffered unprecedented and drastic casualties. The sound of wailing before the battle instantly shocked everyone.

But there was no time to think too much. Just a moment later, as another round of crossbow bolts flew down, the sound of wailing actually decreased a lot, because many people were directly shot to death alive.

But this was not all. The Jin soldiers at the bottom end, seeing the actions of the Song army overhead, completely panicked. In fear, they directly abandoned the attack, ignoring the strict military law and trying to turn around and flee. However, they did not expect that the Song army's fourth round of crossbow bolts had already arrived, and this round of volley was directly concentrated and thrown at the foot of the mountain. Combined with the ballista bolts fired from the city on the opposite bank of the river at the right time, they directly suppressed the Jin army trying to escape.

Next, what made all the Jin army huddled on the hillside, at the foot of the mountain, and even the Jin army watching the battle from a distance fall into a complete state of fear was that the Song army's Divine Arm Bow arrow rain with this frequency never stopped for a moment, just like rain, it was evenly and densely sprinkled, and even had a clear rhythm, pressing down from the front and back, firmly controlling hundreds of Jin soldiers under the arrow rain and quickly and firmly carrying out the slaughter.

This abnormal situation quickly alarmed Salihe. The young Jin army commander had already felt something was wrong when he heard the sound of these arrows from afar, but he disregarded the danger and personally climbed a small hill to look into the distance. After looking for a moment, he fell back in shock, and then was almost dragged down the hill by his guards... Moreover, he had just seen clearly on it that, in front of the Song army's military camp on the distant, unobstructed hilltop, the Song army was actually using a simple but practical rotating fire tactics that they had been patiently holding back from using.

Hundreds of crossbowmen were divided into three teams. The front team volleyed, the rear team reloaded, and after the front team fired, the team behind them immediately stepped forward, and another team had already reloaded the crossbows under the assistance of the support soldiers at the very back... The three teams alternated, with the commanders waving flags to take turns stepping forward for volleys, either pointing to the Jin army trying to escape to the rear, or shooting at the warriors trying to advance forward. The arrows were dense, trapping hundreds of Jin soldiers who had entered the range and killing zone under the foot of the mountain, unable to move and only passively waiting for death!

This was not a brilliant or difficult tactic, but for Salihe, who had grown up in the military, the effectiveness of it was clear at a glance.

However, the problem was that no matter how clear Salihe was, he could not change the fate of his soldiers being slaughtered by this execution-style attack!

Days of fighting, days of casualties, the failed night attack the day before yesterday, the Song army's counterattack yesterday, today first seeing headless, naked corpses scattered by the roadside, and then encountering this kind of waiting for rabbits... The young Salihe could no longer hold on, and began to cry loudly behind the small hill. The Jin army commander, who had been trying to be a cold-faced commander, instantly became a crying commander.

But none of the surrounding Jin officers ridiculed him, and some even cried along with him.

In this way, before noon, hundreds of Jin soldiers were finally effectively slaughtered by the Song army. The Jin army had suffered unprecedented casualties... In the previous two days, including yesterday's collapse, the Jin army had only died five or six hundred, and more were just wounded. But on this day, facing the unveiling of the Song army's final trump card, the Jin army up and down lost five or six hundred lives at once, and completely lost their will to fight.

As of now, at least here on the front line, no one was thinking about capturing this city, this mountain, or this camp anymore.

Salihe, who had cried for a while, wiped away his tears and ordered the entire army to retreat to a safe distance. He also set up crossbows and bows and arrows, but built a defensive formation, and then sent messengers to the He Kou (River Mouth) main camp for the third time.

This time, Wu Jie did not try to attack again. On the contrary, he began to have his soldiers throw the heads freshly cut yesterday and just now from the mountain to enrage the Jin army, but no one in the Jin army accepted the challenge.

And Lou Shi also did not force Salihe to continue to use his troops. Instead, he and the Deputy Commander Wanyan Balisu personally led several thousand troops to this place before evening.

Lou Shi asked about the battle situation, and also looked at the terrain and battlefield situation from a safe distance, but did not blame Salihe for anything, nor did he comfort him. He just immediately sent a surrendered general to persuade surrender, promising Wu Jie the Jiedushi of Jingyuan and Huanqing, and his brother Wu Lin the Jiedushi of Yanfu.

The surrendered general left in a hurry and returned in a hurry. Unsurprisingly, Wu Jinqing refused the proposal.

"He said that if he wants him to surrender, unless Grand Commander Lou Shi duels with him and wins." The surrendered general's face was pale, apparently the dense Jin army heads and corpses on the road had caused him severe psychological shock.

"That's not impossible..." Lou Shi smiled slightly, actually wanting to agree.

But immediately, as Balisu looked over in surprise, Lou Shi, regaining his clarity, immediately shook his head.

After this exchange, everyone could see that this undefeated general of the Jin Kingdom was not as calm as he appeared. He was also shocked by Wu Jie's never-ending killing methods and determination to fight, and he had also realized that there was indeed no hope of capturing this city in the short term.

But as the commander-in-chief, Lou Shi also knew very well how much of an impact this nail stuck in this sensitive position would have on his strategy.

Therefore, at that moment, Lou Shi was really forced to the point of wanting to kill Wu Jie by dueling.

"What do you think?" Coming back to his senses and no longer caring about his brief失态, Lou Shi asked Balisu with a serious expression.

"Unless it rains and the Song army's Divine Arm Bowstrings become ineffective, otherwise it will be necessary to trade lives for the Song army's crossbow bolt reserves." Balisu said honestly.

"It won't rain in the next few days." Lou Shi shook his head repeatedly, but immediately ordered Salihe, who was tearful. "Try one last time..."

Salihe was almost despairing, but he cried out again on the spot.

"I'm not telling you to attack the mountain again, but to set the mountain on fire." Lou Shi pointed to the mountains to the north at random. "See if you can force them down the mountain with the fire."

Salihe was relieved and immediately obeyed the order and left.

And as soon as this person left, Balisu seriously said to Lou Shi again: "Burning the mountain is probably useless... That mountain village can be seen clearly from a distance. The surrounding trees have been cleared, and there is not much wind at the moment. The fire will not roll over, and it is difficult for even the smoke to choke them."

"I know." Lou Shi tightened the reins of the warhorse in his hand, not even looking at Balisu. "But is there a second way at this time?"

Balisu was silent for a moment before continuing to speak: "Then burn the mountain... But a decision should be made early! If this city cannot be attacked urgently, can Ya