"I know, General Sheng," Yang Xian responded without turning around. "I'll take my leave."

Prince Ji Sheng looked at Yang Xian's back and sighed. No one wanted to lose anyone, but in a war, it was inevitable. They have to take a risk in order to achieve victory and sometimes, they have to put the one whom they cared about at the frontline. This would not stop until the time the war end.

But when would it be?

No one knew.

The preparation went smoothly. With Yang Xian's presence, they began to arrange the commanders in their respective place more effectively. At the same time, Yang Xian would continue to make circle in order to see the situation in each wall. They have to make sure no walls was lacking in manpower.

When Prince Lian arrived by the location, the war started once more.

The two sides clashed heavily on top of the wall. Arrows continued to shoot nonstop towards the tribes' soldiers as time passed. And this time, Prince Ji Sheng joined the fray directly at the north wall and eliminated most of the enemies with his own hand.

"With Strategist Yang, the battle become even more efficient," a soldier remarked.

Beside him, Gao Ling nodded. "There are clear division in the battlefield. Besides, having to do so much all at once is not easy."

"Are you trying to find excuse to escape your training miss?" Hai Yue asked in deadpan tone. Her hands were carrying several tubes filled with arrows as her task was to make sure that this small squad didn't lack in arrows.

"I'm not."

"Making reason that there are too many things to learn is not good, Miss."

Gao Ling pursed her lips and focused her attention to her enemies again. It was not like she liked to escape from her training, but there were times when she felt that learning women arts were too hard. She still could do the basic just fine, but when it was compared to many other ladies, she might be lacking at times.

Dzing!

The battle lasted until it was night time before the gong was sounded. Neither side managed to gain the victory as they have similar strength. The balance of power would make it hard for either side to gain the advantage.

"What's your plan, Xian?" Prince Ji Sheng asked when he saw Yang Xian coming to the north wall.

"Press them," Yang Xian replied. "We'll eliminate most of the soldiers tomorrow."

"Not targeting the leader?"

There were two methods to end a war. One was to target their commander and killed him at the shortest time possible. Second was to eliminate most soldiers so that the war couldn't continue. If one wanted to end the war as soon as possible, they would surely target the commander first and not chose the second method that would be time consuming and wasted more soldiers.

"No."

"Why?"

"It'll be hard to target the commander unless they go up here. We don't have archer that could shoot from a distance away accurately with full power," Yang Xian replied. They have good archers, but the distance to the commanders was too long to reach. This method would be unusable.

Prince Ji Sheng furrowed his brows. "It'll take more time."

"It's better than losing everything in one go."

"How about Liu Ying?"

Yang Xian's lips twitched a bit when the name was mentioned. There was no news coming from Wei Liuying even until now. it was a bit weird from his perspective, but he had no other choice but to wait.

"We'll wait."

"Speaking of that, you know that there's smoke signal on the day of your return, right?" Prince Ji Sheng recalled that there was smoke signal. It must have already warned General Gao and many other commanders in this area. They were rushing to the north as soon as possible to help them.

Yang Xian nodded. "I know, but it'll take at least two days for the soldiers to reach this place. Besides, most of them would stop between Dong Shan City and this city because of the suitable terrain."

In other words, they would abandon Prince Ji Sheng' City.

Since Winter had just passed, there were only soldiers in this place. They would be used to push the tribe soldiers to the back and advance further into Han Shi Kingdom's territory.

"You want to make them move into the territory?" Prince Ji Sheng asked.

"Prince Lian hated you the most, so he'll try to have a frontal battle with you when he realized our strategy is to eliminate most soldiers. If they wish to capture cities, a certain number of soldiers is necessary," Yang Xian said with a smile. "If there are not enough soldiers, they won't be able to move forward."

"Indeed. Relay the message to the commanders."

"Yes, General!"

By the side, Gao Ling was listening with chills running down her spine. When she saw Yang Xian's smile just now, she felt as if she was looking at a demon rather than a human. She didn't understand how he could speak about that cruel strategy so nonchalantly as if it was a talk over the weather.

"What is it, Ling'er?"

"Your strategist's other side is surprising," Gao Ling replied.

Prince Ji Sheng arched his eyebrows and shook his head lightly. "Even though he looks amiable, he's still someone who used to live by himself at the frontline and faced those depraved human beings where many were forced to show their true nature under severe conditions. You should have already known how scheming and black belly he could be."

Gao Ling: "…" true enough.

She was not present when Prince Ji Sheng first met with Yang Xian, but she had heard the story. The story that was told was about Prince Ji Sheng taking in a beast in. it was only later that the beast changed to that of a formal strategist. Only those who were close with Prince Ji Sheng knew how Yang Xian looked like nearly a decade ago.

"What does Yang Xian look like when he was young?"

Prince Ji Sheng paused in his steps. The memory of his first meeting with Yang Xian emerged as the scrawny figure of a kid resurfaced. "You wouldn't want to know."

"Eh?"

"Go to rest. Tomorrow will be another long battle."

"Yes!"