Chapter 4: Protect Her
Perhaps Luan Hong had colluded with the Northern Barbarians long ago, so at some point, most of the Northern Barbarians' troops gathered at the north gate. When the gate was opened, they rushed into the city in one go, vowing to capture the most important city on the Southern Qi border.
Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Tang Yao personally led his troops to stop the northern barbarians from entering the city, and ordered Yu Wanqing and others to escort the people to break out from the south gate.
"How can I leave you here alone?" His voice was as loud as thunder, and he was already beside Tang Yao on horseback.
Unexpectedly, Yu Wanqing made a sudden move and sent several of his generals to lead troops to escort the people, while he himself stayed behind to fight the enemy alongside Tang Yao.
"Nonsense! You will be beheaded for disobeying orders in battle!" Tang Yao Changmucang stabbed a northern barbarian who rushed over to chop down his mount, then turned back and scolded him angrily.
The two men knew each other when they were young and had fought side by side for many years. They had a deep brotherhood and were familiar with each other's abilities. If they ignored the people in the city, whether it was Tang Yao or Yu Wanqing who led a team of men to fight out, they might be able to save their lives and plan for follow-up.
Tang Yao ordered Yu Wanqing to lead the troops to protect the people, while he stayed behind to cover their retreat and delay the northern barbarians from entering the city, thus giving Yu Wanqing a glimmer of hope.
"If you want to hold me accountable, you should wait until these northern barbarians are driven out of Baicheng before I come to take responsibility."
Yu Wanqing was a tall and strong man with a full beard. He was a very generous and heroic person. He showed no fear when being surrounded by more than a dozen people. He just roared and swung his long sword left and right among the Northern Yi enemy troops with such force that limbs and heads fell off one after another. He actually frightened the Northern Yi people who had surrounded him and made them retreat involuntarily, leaving a large open space in front of the two men.
"Excellent swordsmanship. General Yu is as brave as ever!" Tang Yao praised with a smile. He knew that his intention was clear and could not be disobeyed. He squeezed his legs and rushed into the enemy's army. His long wooden pole was like a sword and he came and went like lightning. Immediately, some of the enemy soldiers had their chests pierced, their eyes burst, or blood gushed out of their necks.
Wherever the two men went, there were casualties. The northern barbarians who had rushed over were so horrified that they kept retreating, frightened by these two killing gods.
Hu Shahu, the general who led the Northern Yi troops into the city, was a burly man with a violent temper. When he saw that his soldiers dared to retreat, he became furious and chopped down several retreating soldiers in succession. Only then did he stop the decline and then gathered a team to surround the two men.
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Tang Ying escorted the elderly, the weak, women and children out of the city, which was in line with the escape route planned by Tang Yao. They were soon caught up by the soldiers guarding the city. Seeing that Tang Ying and others had a chance to survive and were escorted by the defenders, she became extremely anxious and could no longer bear it. She turned her horse's head and rushed towards the north gate against the crowd.
Zhang Qing was unable to stop her, and watched Tang Ying disappear from his sight. He quickly , stretched out his arms in vain to pull her out of the crowd, and shouted at the top of his voice: "Miss, come back! Miss, come back soon!"
No matter how loud his voice was, it was still drowned out by the countless voices of children calling for their loved ones and the cries of fear from the fleeing crowd.
Countless people were desperately calling out to the people closest to them in their lives. Even if Zhang Qing shouted at the top of his lungs, Tang Ying might not be able to hear him.
At this moment, Tang Ying didn't care whether there were mountains of swords or seas of fire ahead. She drove her horse against the current and kept encouraging herself: "Daddy, you must wait for me! Wait for me..." As for her running to Tang Yao, what could she do? Even she was at a loss.
She could not stop Tang Jue from volunteering to go to the war, nor could she drag Tang Yao away and abandon the people to escape. The plaque of loyalty and bravery in the Tang family ancestral hall was written with the blood of generations, and its iron will could not be changed.
But what about her?
She had spent more than twenty years alone in this cold world, and finally moved to another place to start over. She thought it was fate's compensation for her. She was used to the warm embrace and gentle care of her father and brothers, so how could she have the courage to face the cold wind and rain in this world?
Tang Ying's vision was blurred. She wiped her face hard, and the road in front of her finally became clear again. She was like a moth to a flame, knowing that she was heading for a hopeless ending, but she did not hesitate.
On the way, she encountered a small group of northern barbarians. Her conditioned reflex from years of martial arts training made her charge forward and kill their way through. As she was almost at the north gate, a horse suddenly rushed out from the side and almost collided with her, but the horse grabbed her reins just as it was about to hit her.
Tang Ying's vision was blurred, and she acted on instinct. She slashed at him with a swish of her knife. The other party didn't expect her to kill him, and he almost couldn't dodge. He hurriedly shouted, "Xiao Ying, it's me!"
It turned out to be Yu An.
The young man's face was burnt, and he didn't know whether the blood on his body was from the Northern Barbarians or his own. He was no longer as heartless as before, and his thick eyebrows were almost twisted together: "Where are you going?"
"I want to go find my daddy!" Tang Ying couldn't help choking up when she heard the familiar voice.
From childhood to adulthood, Yu An had never seen Tang Ying cry. He pulled her horse's head and found that her long sword was covered in blood. It was obvious that she had killed her way here. She looked extremely ferocious, but her face was wet, soaking her fair and delicate chin, making her look as pitiful as a lost puppy.
His heart suddenly clenched into a ball, he pulled her reins tightly, and said in a hoarse voice: "Don't be afraid, Xiaoying, I will go with you."
In fact, wasn’t the young man also feeling anxious?
When the city was broken, the news reached the Yu Mansion. He first took his family soldiers to escort his mother and sisters out of the city. Just like what happened , he ran into soldiers who were escorting the civilians to retreat. He heard that Yu Wanqing and Tang Yao stayed at the north gate to cover their retreat, so he guessed that Tang Ying might not escape alone. Worried about his father, he took a shortcut to the north gate and happened to catch up with her.
The closer we get to the north gate, the more intense the street fighting becomes.
The two men fought together, and were trapped in the alleys by the Northern Barbarians several times. The North Gate, which they could reach in two quarters of an hour by riding a fast horse, was entangled by the Northern Barbarians and they still hadn't reached it after an hour.
Street fighting was inconvenient. At first, they could still move forward on horseback, but later, they encountered more and more Northern barbarians. They were not careful and their horses were injured by them. They had no choice but to abandon their horses and move on. When they were less than a mile away from the north gate, they could already see the city guards who stayed behind fighting with the main force of the Northern barbarians. They could also hear the city guards shouting, "Protect the Marshal..."
"General Yu..."
From a distance of half a mile, they saw the dark mass of enemy troops that seemed to be about to swallow up everything in the White City, while the defenders who stayed behind blocked the enemy's advance in the city countless times, defending the land beneath their feet step by step.
The enemy army and the defenders were fighting so fiercely and the crowd was so dense that they could not see the situation at the junction of the two armies. They did not know that Yu Wanqing and Tang Yao had reached the final juncture at this moment.
Yu Wanqing's left arm was chopped off by the Northern Barbarians' main general Hu Shahu, and half of his body was soaked in blood. He turned around and inserted his Mo Dao into Hu Shahu's abdomen, stirring it with all his strength. He watched as the other party covered his abdomen in disbelief and his burly body fell backwards. Yu Wanqing's body as strong as a mountain also collapsed and he sat on the ground.
He panted and said, "Marshal, I was not able to... I was not able to see An'er and Xiaoying get married in person. I feel a little regretful..."
Tang Yao's situation was not much better. Several steel knives were stuck behind him and he was spitting blood. The two men, with five thousand soldiers, blocked the main force of the Northern Barbarians inside the north gate, delaying them for nearly an hour and a half, giving the people in the city a slim chance of survival.
"Well... I don't know if the little girl escaped?" Tang Yao's resolute facial lines softened. The knife wound on his back was far from enough to offset the worry and anxiety in his heart.
The two men led the charge and killed many Northern Barbarians, which annoyed Hu Shahu. He then concentrated all his elite troops to attack the two of them, and used the wheel tactics to attack for an hour. The corpses of the Northern Barbarians were piled up in a high circle around them. The two of them also had many wounds on their bodies, which made Hu Shahu even more furious. He picked up his sword and attacked them himself, wanting to learn a lesson from the Southern Qi generals, but he lost his life in the end.
Through the dense crowd of heads, Yu An and Tang Ying were also tightly entangled by the Northern Barbarians.
When the soldiers guarding the city saw the two of them, they sent hundreds of soldiers to rush over to protect them and tried to force them to leave the north gate.
"Young General, please go to the South Gate quickly. We should not stay here for long."
"Where's my father?"
"Where is my father ?" Tang Ying didn't want to leave and insisted on moving forward.
The one who rushed over to protect the two was none other than Xue Yue, a centurion under Tang Yao. Although he had dozens of wounds of varying sizes, he still performed his duties conscientiously and had no intention of retreating. When he saw the uniform of her personal guards, he recognized her. He knew that it would be impossible for Marshal Tang to leave Baicheng alive today, but facing the girl's expectant eyes, he couldn't help but tell a white lie.
"Miss, hurry up and leave. The Marshal has a brilliant plan. We will definitely be able to escape!"
Tang Ying was already close to him, so she was not willing to listen. She immediately understood the meaning of his words, and her eyes lit up: "Daddy is right in front?"
Xue Yue swung his sword to cut off the arm of the Northern Barbarian who was coming to kill him, and tried to stop her: "Miss, you really can't go in any further."
Tang Ying became anxious and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Daddy—" and rushed in regardless of anything.
“Daddy——”
“Daddy——”
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At a distance of two hundred meters, there were countless black heads. Tang Yao suspected that he was hallucinating before his death.
He gasped with difficulty: "Listen... I seem to hear Xiaoying's voice?"
Yu Wanqing: "Marshal, you are too concerned... Xiaoying is so smart, she must have broken out long ago."
Tang Yao spat out another large mouthful of blood, and his voice turned lower: "I always feel that Xiaoying is crying..." From now on, who can shelter her from the wind and rain?
The defenders protected the two men firmly in the middle and built a solid wall with their flesh and blood. Some soldiers wanted to bandage their wounds with tears in their eyes, but their eyes were red because they didn't know where to start.
Although Hu Shahu was dead, the Northern Barbarians were only temporarily in chaos, and soon countless Northern Barbarians continued to pour in from the city gate. The remaining soldiers guarding the city had no time to feel sad, let alone be frightened. Facing the invaders who were dozens of times larger than themselves, they just silently clenched their weapons and charged forward without hesitation, like a mayfly trying to shake a tree, but they were unstoppable.
Xue Yue couldn't stop Tang Ying, but as she rushed forward, he chopped her on the back of the neck with a knife, and she fainted immediately.
His eyes were filled with tears, and he was about to hand the person over to Yu An: "Major General, take the young lady away quickly!"
Yu An took two steps back and bowed deeply to Xue Yue: "Xiaoying is now in your hands. Please protect her." He took one last look at his beloved girl, rushed into the city defenders with a knife in hand, and faced the invading northern barbarians shoulder to shoulder with them. He was afraid to look back one more time, and was reluctant to part with his beloved girl.
Xue Yue was holding Tang Ying, not knowing what to do. A young man with a long stick appeared out of nowhere, his body covered in blood. He said, "Leave the young lady to me."
Xue Yue felt that the young man looked very familiar, as if he was a servant in the Marshal's Mansion. The offensive of the Northern Barbarians became more fierce, and the war did not allow him to think too much, so he handed the person to the young man, watched him bend down, carry Tang Ying on his back and retreat hurriedly, then turned around and joined the battlefield.
