In the battle at the Burial Ground, Ian Song wiped out 200,000 elite troops from the Yan and Zhao Kingdoms, leaving both countries so short on soldiers that they could barely scrape together any forces.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent envoys to negotiate with Ian Song, or even offered to return the territories they’d previously seized from the Qi Kingdom just to appease him.
But what really caught Yan and Zhao off guard was that Ian Song demanded a sky-high price—ten billion coins in war reparations from each country, which was a full five years of tax revenue. If they agreed, both kingdoms would instantly drop to second-rate status.
Seeing this, the kings of Yan and Zhao both refused his outrageous compensation demands.
But what they didn’t expect was that as soon as they refused, Ian Song immediately sent troops to attack both their countries.
Even though the battle at the Burial Ground had severely depleted Yan and Zhao’s forces, they still had enough left to put up a fight.
So when they got the news, both Yan and Zhao were furious and decided to team up again to teach Ian Song a lesson.
Just as the two kingdoms were preparing to organize another coalition to attack the Qi Kingdom...
Each king received a piece of news—one for the King of Zhao, one for the King of Yan.
In just three days, the twenty thousand troops led by General Victor Zhao and General Gu Min had already captured two county-level cities.
The reason the Qi Kingdom’s army could capture four county-level cities so quickly comes down to two things. First, they had a terrifying new weapon: black gunpowder and grenades.
No matter how sturdy the city walls were, a blast of black gunpowder would bring them crashing down.
At the same time, every Qi soldier carried two grenades. Whenever a fight broke out, they’d toss grenades into crowds of enemy soldiers—instantly blowing up large groups.
Second, after the battle at the Burial Ground, both Yan and Zhao lost a hundred thousand elite troops each, so the county cities were left dangerously undermanned.
Put those two factors together, and the four counties’ soldiers basically had no way to resist—they were defeated and captured almost instantly.
What really made the kings of Yan and Zhao grind their teeth was that after Qi took the four counties, they immediately sent local officials to take charge, and announced on the spot: from now on, farmers would get a three-year tax exemption, and after that, land tax would be permanently cut to just twenty percent.
As soon as that policy was rolled out—and with Qi’s troops maintaining strict discipline, not looting or bothering the common folk at all—the locals saw that things were different.
So in less than three days, the people of all four counties were completely won over to the Qi Kingdom.
After leaving a small garrison to defend the cities, General Victor Zhao and General Gu Min led their main forces onward, continuing their assault on Yan and Zhao.
Three days later, General Victor Zhao captured yet another county.
Five days later, General Gu Min captured another county.
Eight days after that, both General Victor Zhao and General Gu Min each took another county.
That meant Yan and Zhao each lost four county-level cities to Qi, and Qi’s territory suddenly jumped to thirteen counties—making it the largest state on the Shenzhou Continent.
Yan and Zhao quickly regrouped and scraped together another army—again, two hundred thousand strong.
But compared to the last batch of 200,000, these new troops were nowhere near as elite.
Lingshui Prefecture, Grand General’s Residence.
Ian Song found it odd that after defeating the Yan–Zhao coalition, the system only notified him that he’d completed his third mission and awarded him five hundred million Fame Points.
But what puzzled him was that the completion notice for his first mission still hadn’t arrived.
“Do I have to reclaim every bit of Qi’s lost territory before the first mission is considered complete?”
Just as he was pondering this, a subordinate reported that Yan and Zhao had formed another 200,000-strong coalition to attack the Qi Kingdom.
“Perfect timing!”
When Ian Song heard the news, he was overjoyed. He figured this 200,000-strong army must be Yan and Zhao’s last trump card—if he crushed this coalition, the two kingdoms would be completely spent.
So, five days later, Ian Song led 100,000 troops north to face off against the second Yan–Zhao coalition.
This time, only 20,000 of his soldiers were veterans; the other 80,000 were fresh recruits.
The newly conscripted recruits had gone through just over a month of training—enough to be considered real soldiers, at least in name.
But to truly forge an army, they needed to experience real battle. That was why Ian Song brought all 80,000 new recruits onto the battlefield.
Eight days later, Ian Song’s 100,000 troops met the second Yan–Zhao coalition at the foot of Sky-Piercer Peak.
Once again, Ian Song used the Wolf Cavalry as his spearhead, launching a brutal opening charge.
After the last battle, the Wolf Cavalry had suffered some injuries but not a single death. With time to recover, all the wounded were now fully healed.
So this time, the Wolf Cavalry was even fiercer than before.
After several charges, the Yan–Zhao coalition broke completely. Then, General Gu Min and General Victor Zhao each led fifty thousand troops to cut down the fleeing enemy head-on.
The battle lasted four hours.
In this fight, the second Yan–Zhao coalition was wiped out again. However, Qi’s casualties were much higher than last time—mainly because eighty percent of the army were new recruits.
Even so, Ian Song was pretty satisfied. Despite losing eight thousand men, the fresh recruits had grown through this battle, and Qi now had nearly eighty thousand elite soldiers.
When Yan and Zhao learned that their second coalition had been completely destroyed, panic swept through both kingdoms.
The kings of Yan and Zhao were filled with regret. If only they’d agreed to Ian Song’s terms in the first place, none of this would have happened. With the second coalition defeated, the total number of combat-ready troops in both kingdoms dropped below fifty thousand.
Those fifty thousand soldiers had to be spread out to garrison major cities across the land.
So, there was no way to muster any extra forces to fight Ian Song.
Negotiations started up again.
But this time, Ian Song’s demands were even harsher. To appease Qi, Yan and Zhao had to hand back all Qi’s lost territory—and the eight counties Ian Song had already seized would officially become part of the Qi Kingdom.