Lin Changsheng was fast, but no one could outrun a warhorse.

He came pelting down from the gate tower and ran smack into Yuan Long charging into the city.

"All of you, throw down your weapons and surrender, or I'll kill you where you stand!"

Yuan Long let out a roar.

At the sight of him, Lin Changsheng forgot everything else and ran for his own warhorse.

He knew perfectly well that if he fell into Ning Chen's hands, he was a dead man.

But the drumming hooves behind him sent a chill down his spine. He looked back, and the sight set him shaking all over: Yuan Long had already caught up, and the rebar in his hand was whistling down at him.

It was pure reflex. Lin Changsheng drew his saber to block!

Clang!!!

Yuan Long's rebar snapped his saber clean in two and came down on his shoulder with a crunch of breaking bone that made the skin crawl.

"Aaah..."

Lin Changsheng screamed like a pig on the block and collapsed, howling in agony on the ground.

Ning Chen's orders were to take Lin Changsheng alive.

Otherwise Yuan Long wouldn't have gone for the shoulder. He'd have gone for the head.

The men of his own guard who had run with him saw Lin Changsheng go down in a single move and froze in terror.

"Are you going to throw down your weapons and surrender or not?"

As the saying goes, a weak soldier is one weak man; a weak general is a whole nest of them.

At Yuan Long's roar, not one of those soldiers dared resist. One after another, they dropped their weapons.

Yuan Long gave the order. "Take them all and hold them for the prince to deal with."

The Ning'an Army swarmed them, all wolf and tiger, and soon had every one of them under control.

By the time Ning Chen came into the city behind them, Yuan Long had the situation completely in hand.

Feng Qizheng looked at Lin Changsheng howling on the ground and spat in disgust. "Eighty thousand men under…