The World Online
chapter-740

Along with Shi Wanshui reaching the battlefield, the Battle of White Stone City finally came to an end.

Who knows whether it was to make up for his sins or to keep that last shred of dignity but that night, knowing that all hope was lost, Yuan Ping committed suicide on the south city wall and completed his final act as a Lord.

His suicide made one sigh.

One could not say that Yuan Ping did not work hard; he was not an ignorant rich boy. He even obtained many glorious achievements and stood at the peak of China for a time. His fall only once again described the cruelty of the wilderness.

The wilderness was like eating poisonous bugs. Only the strongest could survive till the end and stand unchallenged in the world.

This was a winner takes all; loser lost everything kind of world.

In the end, there would only be a handful of winners but many losers would become stepping stones.

...

Along with Yuan Ping's suicide, the Yuan family officially stepped out of the race to rule the wilderness.

At this point, the four families of Lingnan were chased out of the wilderness. The ones doing the best was the Song Family; they were now a large-sized chamber of commerce. The remaining three were not faring so well.

The experience of the four families pretty much described the situation with all middle-sized powers in China. They had used their resources in real life to obtain a head start.

Following which, because of the cruel competition in the wilderness, 90% or more of them were eliminated.

The ambition of most of these families, along with their territories being occupied, turned to dust. Those crazy ones who exchanged their achievement values for gold lost more than they could ever imagine.

Earth Online provided everyone on earth with a clean slate but not everyone would become a winner from this.

90% of the players would just have a go; only the lucky few could use their luck, talent (or plot armor) to come back and walk to the peak of life.

As for Ouyang Shuo's experience, it could not be replicated and had no reference value.

...

After Yuan Ping suicided, White Stone City did not even have a single Lord left. Even the Lord of White Stone City had killed himself.

The news caused the Alliance Army to explode; they had fought to the death for an entire day and sacrificed close to 100 thousand of their troops but were abandoned in return. This was something that was hard for them to accept.

Filled with emotion, the camp quickly lost control.

That night, many soldiers left the camp for the opposite camp stronghold to surrender. Fan Lihua welcomed all of them.

First, it was one by one. Next, squadron by squadron; then it became unit by unit. During the entire night, the situation outside of White Stone City did not even stop; what a boisterous sight.

The next morning.

When the Alliance Army commander who still wanted to defend saw the half-empty camp, he spat furiously. He gritted his teeth and decided to just bring all the soldiers to surrender.

The cowardice of the Lords of the City-State had turned the hearts of all the generals cold.

To be loyal to such Lords was just stupid to the max. With that, why not switch sides to the more vibrant and glorious Shanhai City and start a brand new journey?

So one could say that the Alliance Army was not the true group of failures.

As long as one lived, it was sort of a victory. The true losers were those Lords who lost everything and those soldiers who died on the battlefield.

...

Knowing that the entire Alliance Army wanted to surrender, Fan Lihua contacted the Shi Wanshui legion while moving into the camp stronghold to accept the surrender of the Alliance Army.

That night, Shi Wanshui's forces had arrived.

Fan Lihua did not want the settled situation to be messed up once more. Regarding military matters, playing it safe was always the best option.

Reality proved that Fan Lihua was worrying too much.

The Alliance Army's surrender was genuine. To prevent the Shanhai City Army from misunderstanding, they even removed their equipment and weapons and let Shanhai City organize them.

In the camp fortress, the Alliance Army commander passed Fan Lihua the commander seal and the Alliance Army name list. This move alone helped saved a lot of work for the Military Affairs Bureau.

Hence, Fan Lihua had a truly good impression of this commander.

During the battle yesterday, his commanding was also decent, and he was not a total nobody. If not, he would not have been able to become the commander of the Alliance Army.

If Ouyang Shuo was here, he would immediately recognize this general.

He was also a historical general, the East Han general Feng Yi.

Name: Feng Yi (Emperor Rank)

Dynasty: East Han

Identity: temporary nil

Occupation: Special Rank General

Loyalty: 65

Command: 84

Force: 68

Intelligence: 75

Politics: 72

Specialty: Intelligent General (Raises troops morale by 30%, raises combat strength 20%, increase supply ability by 30%)

Cultivation Method: nil

Equipment: nil

Evaluation: Feng Yi is both talented in civil servant duties and military duties. Not only did he have many war contributions, but the land he ruled also had results. He is an exceedingly humble person and did not grow arrogant because of his results.

Such a general was rare even in Shanhai City.

Feng Yi was originally an official from the Xin Dynasty Yingchuan Prefecture. Later on, he worked for Liu Xiu, following him to battle, helping him build East Han.

After Liu Xiu became emperor, Feng Yi was given the title of West Conquering General and Yang Xia Lord.

In the 10th year of Jianye, he died in the army due to an illness.

During the 3rd year of Yong Ping's rule, Hanming Emperor drew the portraits of 28 generals in the Luoyang Yuntai Pavillion, calling them the 28 generals of Yuntai.

The 28 generals referred to the 28 members under Liu Xiu who helped him rule the world.

Amongst which, the ones who did the most were Feng Yi and Cen Peng.

In the wilderness, Feng Yi was originally from Chaozhou Prefecture Dayong County. Since he was talented, he was appointed as the Alliance Army commander.

He was an extremely straightforward person. During the battle yesterday, he sent the troops from his territory first to prevent people from saying he was abusing his power.

After the battle, the six thousand troops basically all fell.

Just yesterday, Dayong County was felled by Huo Qubing's legion. When the Dayong Lord saw that, he lacked the mood to stay and just left White Stone City.

If it was not for Yuan Ping and the others stopping him, he would have brought Feng Yi away too.

...

With Feng Yi's help, it instantly became much easier to deal with the surrendered soldiers.

In the end, a total of 150 thousand Alliance Army troops surrendered; there was a hundred thousand cavalry alone. The Fan Lihua legion had paid a heavy price, losing 20 thousand.

After a short while, Fan Lihua, Shi Wanshui, and Er'Lai arrived at noon and moved into White Stone City.

At this point, the battle was completely over.

Next, hey would take a short rest here before moving off one more.

Shanhai City, Military Affairs Bureau command center.

The illustrious battle results of the Fan Lihua legion exceeded their expectations. The goal they set was just to stop the 250 thousand Alliance Army. Who knew that when they woke up, the Alliance Army would have already ceased to exist?

Du Ruhui was already creating a military organization squad to teleport over to Zhenhai City and move toward White Stone City to take charge of this 150 thousand.

At the same time, the tired Fan Lihua legion would rest up in White Stone City. They would use this chance to fill up the shortfall from the casualties and take charge of the surrendered soldiers until they were organized.

This organization was just a preliminary one.

The true military organization would have to wait till the entire Battle of Lingnan ended.

"Keming, I'll leave it to you!"

After a grueling and sleepless night, Ouyang Shuo finally put down the worries in his heart and was going to go catch up on some sleep.

"Monarch, do not worry. In this half a month, we can definitely take down the entire Lingnan." Du Ruhui did not even look tired; he was filled with energy and vigor.

Surprisingly, the victory was a true mental boost.

Ouyang Shuo smiled as he nodded, "Do not rush it. We should still defend against what's defendable, especially Xiangnan City-State in the north. I heard they have sent out troops?"

"That's right." Du Ruhui smiled and nodded; he knew what the Monarch was worried about.

When attacking Taiping Country, Shanhai City Army lost focus after their huge victory and Guilin Prefecture was snatched from their hands.

This was also one of the few stains in their war history.

Now that Xiangnan City-State was sending troops into Shaozhou, the Monarch naturally did not want history to repeat itself.

In truth, Du Ruhui felt that that was not possible. Any rational opponent after learning that White Stone City fell would retreat and not take this risk.

After all, this was not like before.

When attacking Taiping Country, the Shanhai City Army was held up and could not run back to assist in time.

However, it was different this time. Only Fan Lihua's legion was trapped. The other three did not even have a chance to fight during this battle.

Not to mention Huo Qubing and Di Qing's legions, which were pushing toward Shaozhou.

If the Xiangnan City-State did not know their place and wanted to taint Shaozhou Prefecture, Shanhai City would start a war with them without hesitating.

The enemy would definitely not gain anything from the hands of both Di Qing and Huo Qubing.

Ouyang Shuo only instructed as usual; he wished that Caiyun Zinan would act bolder. If that happened, Shanhai City would have a chance to infiltrate their matters.

Considering the presence of Zhang Liang, there was pretty much no chance that it would happen.