The three exchanged a silent glance. It was not the glance of three men deciding whether an answer was correct. It was the glance of three men who had already reached the same conclusion.
Luo He waited. Then his usual grin returned. "So?"
Wu Shan looked at him. "The three trials are complete."
Luo He raised an eyebrow. "And?" For the first time, something resembling warmth appeared in Wu Shan's ancient old green mystical eyes.
"You possess the blood of the Human Sovereign." The old commander glanced toward the ancient banner. "That blood awakened the banner, but blood alone does not make a good sovereign."
He stepped forward. "You questioned our questions. You did not merely seek the answers we expected. You searched for the assumptions hidden beneath them."
Wu Shan's voice grew solemn. "That is the mind of a sovereign. The old infantry commander slowly lowered himself onto one knee.
The movement was deliberate. Heavy.
Almost ceremonial. The commander of fifty thousand ancient infantry bowed his head. Then Xiong Hong knelt. Then at last Xia did.
The sound that followed was like thunder.
One soldier after another dropped to one knee. Thousands of ancient warriors lowered themselves simultaneously.
The courtyard shook beneath the impact.
Luo He's smile disappeared. For once, he did not have a clever remark. He simply stared.
Before him knelt soldiers who had died thousands of years ago. Soldiers who had waited inside a strange banner for a sovereign who might never return.
Soldiers who had killed the previous man who dared claim their allegiance. And now they were kneeling before him. Wu Shan raised his head.
"From this moment onward..." His voice echoed through the courtyard. "We acknowledge you."
A pause.
"The One True Human Sovereign." The ancient banner suddenly trembled. Golden light erupted from its surface.
The black border seemed to dissolve into brilliance as ancient characters burned across the fabric.
The green aura surrounding the soldiers vanished. One hundred thousand souls stirred within the banner.
And somewhere deep within that ancient treasure, an oath that had endured for thousands of years finally recognized its one true master.
For the first time since the death of the ancient Human Sovereign, the Human Sovereign Banner had found someone worthy of carrying it.
Day Five: The Army at the Gates
While Luo He was rushing toward the capital, another battle was reaching its own critical point.
After successfully evading Jin Sang's pursuit, Elder Zhoung had finally managed to break away from the enemy forces.
He did not waste time.
His army split into several groups, moved through different routes, and eventually regrouped before making the final approach toward the Prosperous Silk Isle.
By the morning of the fifth day, Elder Zhoung and his thirty five thousand or so men had finally arrived. They did not stop to rest.
The moment the army reached land, the soldiers dismounted, reorganized their formations, and immediately began marching toward the Jin residence.
They had traveled hard. They were exhausted. But everyone understood that there was no time to recover.
By the afternoon of the fifth day, Elder Zhoung's thirty thousand troops had reached the Jin mansion.
The arrival of such a massive allied force immediately changed the atmosphere surrounding the estate.
For days, Jin Mulan had been trapped inside the mansion, fighting against an increasingly overwhelming enemy. And the enemy had not remained idle either.
The army surrounding the Jin mansion had been reinforced once again. The forces under Duke Lu alone were around twenty-two thousand men initially.
But now remains only twelve thousand infantry, and ten thousand cavalry. Elder Zhoung's forces added another thirty-six thousand. Six thousand cavalry. Thirty thousand infantry.
Together, the two armies now possessed approximately fifty-eight thousand soldiers. Sixteen thousand of them were cavalry.
That number sounded impressive on paper. But within a siege, cavalry was of limited value.
There was very little room for mounted charges around the fortified mansion, and the walls offered few opportunities for cavalry to demonstrate their greatest strength.
The real threat was the forty-two thousand infantry. Those were the men who could surround the mansion. Those were the men who could storm its walls.
And those were the men who could replace their dead comrades again and again. The situation had now become drastically different from the beginning of the siege.
Previously, the defenders had managed to hold against an enemy force even after suffering catastrophic losses.
At one point, only twenty-four thousand infantry remained within the surrounding armies.
Even then, Duke Lu had refused to accept defeat. He had continued climbing the walls. One army after another. One formation after another. The pressure had never stopped.
Now, fifty-eight thousand soldiers stood around the Jin mansion. And the siege had entered an entirely different phase.
The arrival of Elder Zhoung's thirty thousand men turned the situation from "becoming hopeless to break through" to out right "the mansion will most certainly fall under our rule" level.
But it did not mean the Jin mansion was going to just give up. Far from it. The enemy still possessed the advantage in technology and also Jin Mulan was leading the garrison.
The defenders still had to protect the walls. And every soldier who arrived at the Jin mansion understood that they had not come to fight an ordinary battle.
They had come to reinforce a siege that had already been pushed to its limits but were held by the brilliance of the garrison commander lady Mulan.
General Jin Mulan stood atop the Jin mansion's walls and looked toward the distant enemy formations. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers filled the surrounding land.
Tents stretched across the horizon. Siege equipment stood among the camps. Banners belonging to Duke Lu and elder Zhoung fluttered above the enemy army.
The general Jin narrowed her eyes. "So they really have gathered this many." One of her commanders nodded. "Nearly sixty thousand." He reported.
The sight would have broken almost any defender's spirit. But the Jin Mansion had endured worse. It had survived days of fighting with barely five thousand defenders remaining.
Yet the walls still stood. Jin Mulan still stood. That alone kept the Jin soldiers fighting. Duke Lu had intended to wait. His morale had been shattered by earlier consistent failures.
The strange weapons defending the Jin Mansion made every assault costly. He had now begun considering just simply surrounding the fortress and starving it into submission.
Elder Zhoung had no intention of waiting.
He studied the walls. Then the battlefield. Then the strange wooden weapons mounted on the battlements. His eyes narrowed.
"Their ammunition is limited." Duke Lu looked toward him. "What makes you certain?" He asked.
"Because weapons like these cannot be ordinary." Elder Zhoung pointed toward the walls. "That explosive ammunition. Those enormous bolts."
"The way only a single projectile destroys equipment that should require dozens of men to dismantle." His old expression became cold.
"If they possessed unlimited supply, they would have already destroyed us." He turned toward his officers. "Therefore, we will not attack the walls first." The order that followed seemed absurd.
Build siege weapons. But not ordinary ones. Elder Zhoung ordered seventeen crude trebuchets were constructed. They looked impressive from a distance.
Up close, they were worthless. Their frames were intentionally hollow. Their supports weak. Their mechanisms barely functional. They were not weapons. They were just bait.
Beside them, three genuine trebuchets were carefully hidden among the decoys.
If Jin Mulan's defenders believed every trebuchet represented a genuine threat, they would fire upon all of them.
If those strange projectiles were as limited as Elder Zhoung suspected, every shot wasted on a useless wooden frame was victory for the Wu kingdom.
While false trebuchets were constructed, the real work began behind them. Siege towers. Thirty-six of them. Large wooden structures capable of carrying entire groups of soldiers directly to the walls.
Ladders could be kicked away. Men climbing them pushed into the ground. But a siege tower was different.
One could shelter dozens of soldiers beneath heavy timber while rolling directly toward the battlements. If the moat could be filled, the towers could reach the walls.
By sunset, the first siege towers took shape. The moat became the true battlefield. Hundreds of men began carrying sandbags forward beneath enormous shield walls.
Jin Mulan watched from above.
"Wait."
Her archers held their fire. The Wu soldiers continued forward. The few true trebuchets hurled stones toward the Jin family mansion and the walls.
Jin Mulan's defenders responded. Ordinary ballista bolts struck the false machines. Several collapsed instantly.
Then one genuine trebuchet fired.
Jin Mulan's eyes sharpened.
"That one." She commanded.
The defenders adjusted their aim. The first explosive bolt screamed across the battlefield. It struck one real trebuchet. The resulting explosion tore through the machine. Wu soldiers scattered.
Elder Zhoung watched without emotion. Exactly as expected. More projectiles followed.