Chapter 651: Suppress the Regional Lords, Not the Rebels!

Huang Lie understood. If one hundred thousand warhorses were treated as provisions, they were practically food supplies with legs of their own. Not only did they spare the enormous manpower and material expense of transport, they could also serve as mounts and contribute directly to the fighting. It was a marvelous arrangement in every respect.

He could not help praising it. “Marshal Meng truly deserves to be Marshal Meng. Your use of troops on the battlefield is almost divine. Today I’ve finally seen it for myself.”

Meng Shanming shook his head. “This wasn’t my idea. It was the Prince’s strategy.”

“The Prince?” Huang Lie froze for a moment, suspicion showing on his face, as though asking whether Shang Chaozong could truly have devised something so clever.

Meng Shanming understood what he meant. After recalling the past for a moment, he said slowly, “When the Prince had only just come of age, he repeatedly distinguished himself in battle. It was only that the late Prince and this old man overshadowed him.”

“Before I came out of retirement, the Prince took a mere handful of troops against Zhou Shouxian and seized Qingshan Commandery with ease. How could that have been child's play?”

Huang Lie was startled again. After some thought, he slowly nodded.

Meng Shanming gave another soft sigh. “I poured untold effort into forging the Yingyang and Wulie Guards. To cavalrymen, a warhorse is half their life. The thought of slaughtering the horses never even crossed my mind.”

“The Prince was driven into this by necessity. He cannot stand by and watch Great Yan perish, yet he also has no choice but to guard against the imperial court, so he had to leave himself this final road of retreat.”

“Warhorses are part of Nanzhou’s strength as well. It is only that the soldiers still have wives, children, parents, and families they must return to face. The horses do not...”

“I only hope we never reach the point where we truly have to do it.”

Huang Lie nodded to show he understood. He did not have Meng Shanming’s deep attachment to warhorses, so for him it was no more than an understandable contingency.

Then he asked, “Suppress the regional lords, not the rebels. That at least was Marshal Meng’s idea, wasn’t it?”

Meng Shanming smiled bitterly. “Hardly an idea. Merely a way of fighting the war.”

Huang Lie still did not understand one thing. “Niu Youdao told me this was confidential. Why announce it openly in advance?”

Meng Shanming explained, “The Cangzhou rebels are still watching how matters develop and have not yet moved. Announcing it now is meant to shake their morale before battle.”

“As for the five regional armies, after defeat upon defeat, their morale has become as fragile as a child’s game. The moment they enter battle again, I fear they’ll already be thinking of running and refusing to exert themselves.”

“Making military law explicit tells them this time is no game. It cuts off the thought of fleeing before the enemy. You could also say it is meant to stiffen their morale.”

Huang Lie gave a sound of realization. At last he understood.

He was not skilled in commanding armies. Without the explanation, he truly would not have grasped it.

His gaze happened to fall on Gongsun Bu not far away, emerging from a tent with two disciples.

Huang Lie knew Gongsun Bu was here so that the army’s situation could be transmitted promptly back to Niu Youdao.

“I received word that Niu Youdao left Maolu Villa long ago. With the means he relies on to come and go, he should have arrived here by now. Why haven’t we seen him?”

“For a war this large, surely he can’t simply ignore it and refuse to accompany the army. Does Marshal Meng know where he went?”

“Why ask me?” Meng Shanming looked almost amused and exasperated at once. He shook his head and sighed.

“That Master Dao... his actions have always been hidden in cloud and mist. Unless matters reach the final moment, he rarely shows his true hand.”

“No one can figure out exactly what he intends. I wouldn’t even know whom to ask about his whereabouts.”

On this particular point, Huang Lie now had bitter firsthand experience.

Damn it. Nanzhou’s army marching out to suppress the rebellion was an affair this enormous, yet that bastard had concealed it from Dachan Mountain without leaking the slightest hint.

Only when matters reached the brink had he suddenly called on Dachan Mountain to go to the battlefield and risk its life.

The entire senior leadership of Dachan Mountain had nearly jumped out of its skin when the news first arrived.

Thinking back over it now, Huang Lie still felt helpless.

Beforehand, no one in Dachan Mountain had understood what that fellow was doing. One move east, another west; intercepting the imperial court’s military grain here, exchanging flirtatious signals with Han and Song there.

Who could have known that after circling all the way around, the whole purpose had been to force the imperial court into handing over military authority for suppressing the rebellion?

Truthfully, even now Huang Lie still had not entirely figured out the exact chain of events.

He kept feeling there were pieces he had missed somewhere.

Yet Dachan Mountain had simply believed the man, followed him in haste onto the battlefield, and committed itself to risking everything.

The more Huang Lie thought about it, the stranger and more muddled it seemed.

And yet he still believed that bastard. He genuinely believed this battle would be won.

He could not help shaking his head and sighing.

When he turned, he happened to see Ga Miaoshui again.

Inside the central command tent, Ga Miaoshui slowly emerged with a deeply dispirited expression. His emotions were difficult to describe.

Suppress the regional lords, not the rebels!

Such a simple method. How had no one in the imperial court thought of it?

The court could easily have organized a force from the various provinces and prefectures to do exactly the same thing. Why had it ever needed to look to Nanzhou for help?

Then, after another thought, he knew he was imagining things too simply.

There were some things Nanzhou’s troops dared to do that the imperial court’s troops might not dare.

Would soldiers assembled from the various provinces and prefectures truly dare attack the regional lords?

Who would dare propose such a plan?

Which general would dare bear the responsibility?

The men offended would be the powers standing behind all five regional lords.

Even if a general survived the crisis before them, who would not fear retaliation afterward?

Once Ga Miaoshui understood that, all he could do was lift his face to Heaven and sigh deeply.

Then he quickened his steps away.

He needed to report the news to the imperial court as quickly as possible.

...

The later groups from Nanzhou participating in the rebellion-suppression campaign were receiving mounts as they arrived and continuing one after another toward Shang Chaozong’s position to assemble.

Not all one hundred thousand troops were moving toward the main force.

One contingent had received separate orders to help escort the fifty thousand cartloads of grain and fodder along the way.

Once battle began, those supplies would be what filled the army’s stomachs.

...

In Beizhou’s provincial capital, Peng Youzai stood at the window of a high tower and gazed out across the entire city.

Feng Entai climbed the tower and came to stand beside him.

“Senior Brother, it’s confirmed. Nanzhou truly is marching to suppress the rebellion.”

Peng Youzai remained silent for a while before saying slowly, “Looking at things now, leaving Nanzhou may not necessarily have been a bad thing.”

Feng Entai understood his meaning.

Even so, he did not dare decide whether it was truly good or bad.

Affairs had twisted and turned too many times.

When Tianyu Sect was first driven out of Nanzhou and came to Beizhou, everyone had hated Niu Youdao so bitterly they could almost grind their teeth to pieces.

At the time, how could Beizhou compare with Nanzhou?

The moment they arrived, they had to face the danger of a massive Han army across the border.

But there had been no choice.

Circumstances had forced them here, and for the moment they had lacked any opportunity to trouble Niu Youdao in return.

Then came news that Niu Youdao had been assassinated.

This side had practically celebrated, applauding the news.

Who could have imagined that immediately afterward Nanzhou’s forces would seize three commanderies from Dingzhou and expand their territory by exactly that much?

And the imperial court had actually acquiesced?

Then regret began to spread through Tianyu Sect.

People said: why could Dachan Mountain get along peacefully with Niu Youdao when we could not? If we had managed the same, the benefits from those three commanderies would have belonged to Tianyu Sect. We would never have been driven all the way to Beizhou.

At the time, quite a few people genuinely regretted it.

Who could have imagined that before the regret had even faded, rebellion would erupt inside Yan?

Now Nanzhou was sending troops to suppress it.

Anyone with eyes could see the danger involved.

By being driven to Beizhou, Tianyu Sect had at least escaped this calamity for the moment.

Misfortune turned to fortune, then fortune back toward misfortune again and again.

Nanzhou had remained at the eye of the storm throughout all of it.

Feng Entai truly did not dare feel pleased too soon.

Even Senior Brother’s confidence in saying this seemed somewhat lacking.

It sounded almost as though Peng Youzai were trying to comfort himself over the decision he had made back then to oppose Niu Youdao.

Feng Entai could only sigh inwardly.

That cheaply acquired sworn brother of his truly left him not knowing what to say.

The man seemed incapable of living quietly.

...

Night covered Yanjing.

Inside the brightly lit Imperial Study of the inner palace, Shang Jianxiong bent over his desk reviewing memorials.

In a certain sense, Shang Jianxiong truly was a diligent Emperor.

He wanted to prove to everyone throughout Great Yan that he was a good Emperor.

Yet no matter how diligently he worked, Great Yan always seemed to be leaking wind from every side.

“Suppress the regional lords, not the rebels?”

Tian Yu stood nearby reading aloud from the report Ga Miaoshui had sent back.

When Shang Jianxiong heard that Nanzhou had sent only one hundred thousand troops, that the previously reported four hundred thousand had merely been a smokescreen intended to obtain enough warhorses and ensure the prefectures along the route prepared sufficient supplies for those one hundred thousand men, his brush had already stopped moving.

Then Tian Yu read out Shang Chaozong’s declaration of military law.

Shang Jianxiong looked up in astonishment.

After finishing the report, Tian Yu lowered the paper slightly and bowed.

“Yes. Nanzhou’s one hundred thousand troops will serve only as the force enforcing military discipline. They will not suppress the rebels. They will suppress the regional lords.”

“Four grounds for destruction have been declared. If the forces of any regional lord dare disobey the rebellion-suppression army’s orders, they will be treated no differently from rebels themselves.”

“Whichever army disobeys will be the army Nanzhou destroys!”

Shang Jianxiong slowly understood the deeper meaning.

Slowly, he set down his brush.

Slowly, he sank back into his chair as though all strength had left him.

The expression on his face was impossible to describe.

There was sudden enlightenment.

There was approval.

And there was a flash of grief and anger.

A long time passed.

Then Shang Jianxiong suddenly gave a cold laugh.

“Let those three see it!”

“Take this report to those three and let them see what kind of cheap, wretched things their three great sects have become.”

“They shout that they won’t move. Do they truly need someone behind them lashing them with a whip before they’ll take a step?”

“A pack of bastards!”

After speaking, he closed his eyes.

All he could see were the daily Intelligence Directorate reports he had read before, filled with comments from the common people of the capital expressing hope that Shang Chaozong’s forces would succeed in suppressing the rebellion.

According to later reports from the Intelligence Directorate, such sentiments had not been limited to the capital.

They had already stirred waves throughout Great Yan.

Of course Shang Jianxiong wanted the rebellion suppressed successfully.

But the struggle and pain inside him could be told to no one.

Years ago, far too many people had said the throne had never belonged to him in the first place.

He wanted to prove those words were nothing but rumor.

If the people came to believe he was not even the equal of Prince Ning’s son, where would that leave him?

...

In a palace courtyard, the Sect Leaders of Yan’s three major sects sat around a pavilion drinking wine, continuously exchanging whatever information each side had obtained.

The report Tian Yu had ordered sent over arrived at exactly that moment.

Long Xiu was the first to take it.

After reading, he froze for a long time without moving.

His gaze seemed stuck to the contents.

Seeing his unusual reaction, Meng Xuan asked, “What happened?”

Long Xiu folded the report shut and tossed it over.

Meng Xuan caught it and opened it.

As he read, his expression gradually froze as well.

Gong Lince held his wine cup near his lips and glanced between the two men.

He looked at Long Xiu.

Then at Meng Xuan.

Finally he turned toward the eunuch who had delivered the report.

“What happened?”

The eunuch bowed. “This servant does not know. The Chief Steward instructed this servant to wait for the replies of the three Sect Leaders.”

“He asks whether the three Sect Leaders can agree to the military law described in the report.”

Long Xiu gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.

“I thought that fellow had changed his nature and truly intended to go risk his life.”

“After all this trouble, he still means to force the five regional lords to risk theirs.”

What exactly was going on?

Gong Lince could no longer endure the suspense.

He reached out, snatched the report straight from Meng Xuan’s hand, and hurriedly read it.

The moment he did, he too went still.

Under his breath, he murmured, “Suppress the regional lords, not the rebels...”

[End of Chapter 651]