FEI
We finally made it...
Huh?
QIN
The ones who got here first-- they're not setting up camp.
Although the allied Qin army had arrived at Jin'an,
where they were to change their route...
WANG
The last one has arrived: Xin, of the Fei Xin Force!
You're late, boy!
Sorry. Got turned around lookin' for you guys.
Ow!
That hurt, General Tu Men!
For a straggler, you've got a real attitude!
Our generals are all here.
We're moving out soon, so I'll keep this brief:
The entire army is changing course out of Jin'an, heading instead for Yè.
ZHAO'S NATIONAL GATE
"Moving out soon"? What?
We're changing course?!
Yè?
Here we go.
A-A moment, sir! Aren't we heading for Heiyong?
And by "Yè," do you mean Zhao's second-largest city Yè?
That's right.
Preparations have been made.
No need to worry.
B-But...
Each general is to act on his or her own authority.
If a single unit falters,
its captain will be summarily beheaded.
Understood?
Ooh, scary.
Of course.
Dismissed.
Sir!
Damn. My troops are totally gonna grumble and drag their feet when they hear.
Still, I guess this is it, huh?
Yeah.
Li Mu's bound to notice our change of direction.
There's no going back now.
As if we ever had that option!
Don't get carried away. We haven't broken into the capital region yet.
Well, yeah, Wang Ben. It's why we're spending all night getting ready.
Dammit--I wanted to see the look on Li Mu's flabbergasted face!
WUBAI, ZHAO'S WESTERN FRONT
Urgent report!
Ganwei has fallen!
What?!
Lingxuan has fallen as well!
Damn that Yan army. Lingxuan was a strategic base!
YAN
Wu Lu Duo...
Li Mu, sir, General Hu Zhe has left Handan.
I suggest we send him east.
If we don't put a stop to Yan's invasion, our eastern defenses may be destroyed.
Sending Hu Zhe east would mean big changes to our western strategy.
But I suppose I have no choice.
Kaine, send urgent word to General Hu Zhe.
Y-Yes, sir.
What about Yan's route?
Sir! It appears they're going after the central city of Qingge!
Qingge?!
Li Mu, sir...?
Qingge...
But that's where...
SIMA
Sima Shang is!
Sima Shang?
Who's that?
I've heard the name.
Qingge's lord--bedridden for many years.
But not ill. He hates the central government, so he ignores all their orders
under the pretense of being ill.
He used that same excuse to refuse to join the Three Greats.
Th-The Three Greats?!
He refused?
Insane... There was a candidate worthy of being the third Great?
I can't believe it... I just can't believe it... It's unbelievable...
And he's out on the frontier?
You utter fools. The frontier is exactly where mad geniuses live.
Mǎ Cheng...
I'm the one who nominated him for the Three Greats.
As long as Qingge remains uninvaded, Sima Shang won't act on his own.
My nomination was in part an attempt to light a fire under the man,
but his capability is without a doubt--
Urgent report!
Movement at Qingge, to the east!
Five thousand Qingge troops are on the move, led by Sima Shang himself!
Sima Shang has entered the fray!
All right!
Now that's what I call treading on the tiger's tail.
Your intel-gathering in the east is lacking, Wu Lu Duo!
Kaine, cancel that urgent message to General Hu Zhe.
Huh?
Let's all take a moment to collect ourselves.
Our eastern defensive line is still in place and strong.
Sir!
Incidentally, why hasn't Shun Shuishu returned from the front lines?
My apologies, sir. The urgent message from the east took priority,
and relaying his message was postponed.
Shun Shuishu has detected some suspicious activity among the Qin army
and is remaining in Shenhua.
"Suspicious activity"?
According to his messenger... they may be deceiving us.
It's possible the Qin army is changing its route after Jin'an, he says.
Changing its route? Starting at Jin'an?
Bring me the western map again.
Sir!
Do we have enough pieces?
Plenty. Now be quiet!
Am I being deceived?
JIN'AN
Jin'an... the provisions depot...
a supply line stretching to Heiyong...
Is it all a sham? Absurd.
Think of the preparation required to fake a supply line.
But let's suppose for a moment that most of their provisions are still in Jin'an...
JIN'AN
That would mean the Qin army will collect the provisions and then change routes.
But where would an allied army of 200 thousand strong be going?
The Yellow River blocks their path south.
Heading east from there brings them to the impenetrable...
HANDAN
YÈ
...capital region.
HANDAN
YÈ
Yè?!
YÈ
Qin army!
Are you out of your minds?!
Messenger birds. That's unusual.
TAIHANG MOUNTAINS
Flying over the mountains to Handan?
Wh-What the--
Wh-What on earth is going on?
HANDAN, ROYAL CAPITAL OF ZHAO
KING DAOXIANG OF ZHAO
Qin, attacking?
Yes, Your Highness. Li Mu has been sending bird after bird
over the Taihang Mountains, with mounting urgency!
After my bath, are they? Well, they won't have it.
Time to fight, everyone.
Even if the rest of the world burns, we must defend this paradise to the death.
Y-Your Highness! This is no time to be joking around!
Hu Zhou.
His Highness is recovering from the day's exhaustion.
Besides, the Qin army is beyond the mountains.
They won't even have engaged the Zhao army yet.
By what means would they arrive in Handan?
They're not crossing the mountains.
They made it look like they were attacking the west, then circled around south,
following the Yellow River here to invade the royal capital region.
There are some 200 thousand of them!
What?!
Go on.
Sire! Li Mu proposes mobilizing Handan's army at once
HANDAN
YÈ
LIEWEI
and sending it to Liewei to stop Qin from invading.
That won't do.
Handan's mighty army is for safeguarding its king.
The army will never leave the capital as long as the king is here.
Wha--
Y-Your Highness!
You mustn't be unreasonable. We don't have a moment to--
Li Mu's the one being unreasonable.
Turning a blind eye to his own failings
and ordering His Highness around from afar, of all things.
O-Ordering? Perish the thought!
Do stop, Guo Kai. Old-man spittle and sweat will dirty the waters.
Sire.
He doesn't need a single Handan soldier.
We can call up a large enough army from Yè and its environs.
Would that be sufficient?
Yes, ah... if Handan were not to mobilize... Li Mu said to do just that.
Tch.
If you have another plan, then say so, you damn geezer!
R-Royal orders received...
I'll ask General Gongsun Long to take command.
Just a moment.
Sire?
Li Mu should have been beheaded for his error.
Where is he now, and what is he doing?
Worry not, Your Highness.
Li Mu is currently riding with the army through the passage between mountains,
on his way to the royal capital region!
Are we sure about this? No one's managing to keep up with us in the slightest.
It's fine.
Right now, it's all about Li Mu returning to the capital region as soon as possible.
Shun Shuishu!
My apologies for remaining at the front for so long.
No, it's thanks to you that we could get a bird to Handan so quickly.
That may have made a big difference in the outcome.
So now we're all racing to Liewei.
The Qin army won't reach Liewei that easily.
It all depends on how much the midsized cities along the way
can manage to slow them down.
Exactly right.
QIN
FEI
Aren't we moving a little too fast?
Maybe, but Wang Jian and Huan Yi are even further ahead with their cavalries.
Doesn't this route veer too much to the south, Diao?
That's so we can steer clear of the big cities.
With our numbers,
small-town armies will just shut themselves up behind walls.
ZHAO
But a big-city army will definitely try to slow us down.
Rather than get caught up in that,
it's better to aim for Liewei while avoiding as much fighting as possible,
even if it means we go off course a little.
Hey! Look!
A massive lake!
Wow! Sure is!
That's the Yellow River, you dummies!
And if the Yellow River's come into view,
we just need to follow it...
...and we'll reach Liewei.
Enemies!
Zhao army cavalry approaching from the left-front!
Where? I can't see 'em from here!
Seems they're still far up ahead!
Report! Three to five thousand of them!
They're split into two, about to storm our front and flank from the left!
WANG
Wang Jian, sir, the enemy's cavalry is faster than we expected!
No changing course. Keep moving straight ahead.
No problem.
Tch.
HUAN
Huan Yi's on it.
Kill them! Kill the bastards who'd defile Zhao land!
Shut up, moron!
ZHAO / HUAN
I-Is that...
Yeah.
Captain!
The battle between Huan Yi's army and the Zhao army has begun!
Th-This is war--for real!
Look!
The main forces--Wang Jian's army--
they're ignoring Huan Yi's army and marching on!
They really are! That's awful!
What's General Wang Jian thinking?
If we all surround Zhao, we can overwhelm 'em on numbers alone.
No, it's better this way.
The enemy is looking to slow down the allied army.
Tackling them all together would be playing right into their hands.
But no matter how much Huan Yi's army has numbers and might on its side,
they'll still have their casualties.
The mountainfolk army is just marching right along, too.
This is one of the benefits of an allied army.
One of the benefits?
Each of these three armies is powerful enough
to win a Heiyong-level battle on its own.
In other words,
this allied army can tackle three different situations at once.
Three situations at once...
The more complex things become as the Yè offensive progresses,
the more we'll see the benefits that we'd hoped for from the allied army.
And when that happens,
Qin will encounter situations where your abilities will be vitally necessary.
Don't pay Huan Yi's army any mind!
They just happen to be the ones with a role to play this time around!
The Fei Xin Force will have plenty of its own roles comin' up.
Joinin' in the fightin' now or watchin' it
would just be a waste of the blood they're sheddin'!
The crucial thing now is stormin' the royal capital region
while Li Mu is still one step behind!
Let's go, gang!
Na Gui.
Come on.
Yep.
A whole other army doing battle!
YU / ZHAO
That's the Yu Feng Force!
Kill them!
Wang Ben...
No rubberneckin'! Keep moving!
Although the Zhao army blocked the path of the allied army several times,
Wang Jian kept sending detached forces after them,
and the main army marched steadily onward.
In short, Zhao was entirely unable to slow the Qin army's advance.
XIANYANG
Report!
The allied army is making good progress after changing routes at Jin'an.
They're thought to be in the vicinity of Langtu by now!
Langtu, already?! Isn't that too fast?
One whole day faster than expected.
I knew they could do it.
Once they're past Langtu, they'll reach Liewei in about two days.
LIEWEI
Liewei...
So this is it.
So we'll make Liewei tomorrow or the day after?
No doubt about it.
The cork that's stopping up the entrance to the Zhao capital region?
Right. Liewei is the equivalent of Qin's national gate: the Hangu Pass.
The Hangu Pass...
Then first we gotta smash Liewei to bits, no matter what!
Did General Wang Jian send us any kind of a strategy?
Nothing.
Hey, are you sure about this? We're storming a national gate!
Shouldn't the entire army be in on this?
I do think the Liewei offensive will be an all-out attack.
If we struggle, the Zhao army will tighten up defenses beyond Liewei,
and Li Mu will return to the capital region from the west.
Once we get to Liewei, we have to conquer it in a flash.
That'll be a sight to see.
How does General Wang Jian take down a castle?
Whether it's tomorrow or the next day,
we don't know what our role is gonna be in all of it.
Keep yourselves all fired up, all right?
Not the day after tomorrow.
It's tomorrow.
It's tomorrow, gang!
The next day,
which was the tenth day after changing course at Jin'an,
the Wang Jian army vanguard finally reached Liewei.
Message from our scouts!
There's no sign of a large enemy army inside Liewei.
They believe we've arrived before the Zhao royal army.
You don't say!
Guess those jerks had trouble rustling up
a big enough army to stop 200 thousand of us.
I doubt they ever thought we had our sights on their capital region.
Permission for the 1st Army to begin deployment?
The 2nd Army is ready at any time, too.
Ya Guang, Ma Kuang. You two stay put.
Get Yang Duanhe's army and the Fei Xin Force out ahead of us.
We'll have them conquer Liewei.
ZHAO
Here come some idiots who think they can pop the royal-capital cork that is Liewei!
Reinforcements from the capital region will arrive in two days,
but don't rely on that!
We'll slaughter the dogs who dare approach our castle!
Got that, troops? Let the ground of Liewei be stained red with their blood!
Well, shoot.
Our numbers seem to have actually boosted their morale.
This'll be a tough one, all right.
LE
Is General Wang Jian serious?
Conquering this castle with just the Fei Xin Force and the mountainfolk?
I hate to say it, but honestly...
I'm not sure the mountainfolk are capable of the kind of high-level combat
it takes to topple a castle.
Then I suppose it's time for the Fei Xin Force to shine.
Long live Zhao! Long live Zhao!
A castle grows far stronger with the morale of those defending it.
This is crunch time, all right,
Xin.
Whatever General Wang Jian's intentions,
if we're going to do this, let's do it like we're the only ones on the job!
Of course!
And within two days, at that!
We'll do it in half a day.
Huh?
So, uh, do you have a good plan, or...
Storming a castle is simple.
Scale the walls, open the gates from inside,
let in the rest of your team, and bring the inside to heel.
Is there any other way?
Well, uh, n-no, but that's easier said than done.
Yang Duanhe...
We'll tackle the walls.
Fei Xin Force, prepare to storm the castle once the gates open.
What I'm saying is, the walls are the hard part!
Worry not.
Mountainfolk have a mountainfolk way of fighting.
Now hang on, Yang Duanhe!
"A mountainfolk way of fighting"?
It's more like "the Duanhe way of fighting."
Over a hundred mountain tribes are gathered here today.
Even large tribes like the Figo and the Mela.
A hundred?!
All thanks to a single queen: Yang Duanhe.
Feared as the Death Queen of the mountains, yet beloved as well.
That one person has managed to unify the entire mountain realm.
Watch. Yang Duanhe always overpowers the foe head-on.
STORMING LIEWEI
Next on Kingdom: "Storming Liewei."