Chapter 1148: “A Soldier’s Spirit Lives On (5)”
Consecutive days of fiery war put the Qi Kingdom in a deep quandary. Surrounded on four sides, the Rui Lin Army and the Qi Kingdom’s Army fought bravely, but were finally still not a match for the merciless battering from the four country allied army forces!
Mo Qian Yuan in the Imperial City then issued an order, to have all their forces who were resisting the enemy outside to immediately pull back to the Imperial City, in preparation to make a final stand against the four country allied army.
Initially, the Rui Lin Army soldiers who had moved out from the Imperial City had numbered a hundred thousand. But returning back to the Imperial City, there were only a pitiful twenty thousand of them…..
Eighty thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers had been buried in the battlefield, and on top of that, several hundred thousand soldiers of the Qi Kingdom’s army were lost!
When the army returned to the Imperial City, all the citizens were lined up along the sides of the street, peering at the returning soldiers. All the soldiers who had come back after having fought with their lives on the line, had their armour already turned red with blood. Many of their injured were carried into the city, and not a single one among them did not have clothes free of mud and blood.
Looking at these men who walked in weary and utterly exhausted in order to defend their country’s soil, the citizens in the Imperial City could no longer hold back the anguish in their hearts and many broke down in tears.
A hundred thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers when they left, with only twenty thousand returning, and the Qi Kingdom’s army only numbering about one hundred left.
Six hundred thousand the Qi Kingdom’s army had numbered, and that number had diminished by four out of five!
This war had truly taken a dire toll on the Qi Kingdom!
Anxiously anticipating the return of their husbands, the ladies could not find the faces of their beloved. Eagerly anticipating their father’s return, the children failed to see those strong shoulders sturdy as a mountain. Worriedly anticipating for their son’s return, the elderly could not find those familiar figures!
Four hundred and eighty thousand of the Qi Kingdom’s soldiers had not been able to come back alive!
And, this war was still not over! A more deadly battle would descend upon them very soon!
Upon returning, Jun Xian immediately went to the Imperial Palace to see Mo Qian Yuan.
The man who had once fought to secure an empire for the Qi Kingdom, and singlehandedly established the Rui Lin Army, Duke Lin, was now already silver haired. The consecutive days of endless bloody battle had made his face age by a decade in this short span of two weeks.
“Your Majesty!” Jun Xian did not even have time to shed himself off his blood stained armour and he had come straight to the Palace to see the Emperor. Coming into the main hall, he immediately fell to his knees before Mo Qian Yuan and said: “Your vassal has failed Your Majesty’s orders, I beg Your Majesty to deliver the punishment!”
Mo Qian Yuan quickly came down from the throne and helped Jun Xian up.
“Duke Lin….. You have already done enough. You have fought valiantly and exhibited the resilience of the Qi Kingdom.” Sitting in his throne, Mo Qian Yuan had continuously received reports from the frontlines everyday. Every single one of those battle report made him highly restless, making him wish he could just jump onto a horse, to throw himself into a bloody battle with the four country allied army to the end!
“Your vassal is ashamed.” Jun Xian’s face was solemn.
Only when one had fought on the frontlines, could he truly know just what kind of a horrifying and hopeless situation the Qi Kingdom was facing.
The Rui Lin Army had under Jun Wu Xie’s and Mu Chen’s careful nursing and strengthening, become much stronger than before. But even when that was the case, faced with a million lions, they were still powerless to resist!
Jun Xian had taken the command from the Commander’s tent, and he had seen countless Rui Lin Army brothers who had fought with him as they waded in blood die upon the battlefield, as their battle front was pushed back by the enemy soldiers a bit at a time, where they had not even been able to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades!
“Duke Lin, Heaven has decreed it so, and we have given it everything we’ve got. If the Heavens has determined that our Qi Kingdom is to perish, and we have done everything we’ve could to resist it, then there is no need to blame yourself. If not for you holding back the fronts, we don’t need to mention two weeks. Our Qi Kingdom would not have even held out for seven days, and would have already been obliterated by the four country allied army by now!” Mo Qian Yuan was not trying to comfort Jun Xian, but was speaking the hard truth. The four country allied forces, had a million soldiers from each country, while their Qi Kingdom was small and their military scant. An army of a mere six hundred thousand, how could they hope to hold back such an immensely staggering number of enemies! ?