Chapter 732: Jinzhou in Peril

But wherever there are winners, there must be losers.

Song was the loser this time.

The true losers, however, were the common people behind every state that had gone to war.

War is a matter of vital importance to the state: the ground of life and death, the path to survival or destruction. It must be examined with utmost care!

A momentary strategic mistake by Song had brewed a bitter fruit almost impossible to swallow.

Just as Meng Shanming was longing for Wei's promised grain support to arrive as quickly as possible, unusual movement came from Zhao. Troops were beginning to assemble and redeploy.

For Yan, another storm was gathering.

The first to feel the chill was Jinzhou in Zhao. One urgent request for aid after another arrived, desperately begging Shang Chaozong to bring troops back at once and provide support.

Niu Youdao had cut off most of his contact with the outside world. Myriad Caves Heavenly Mansion could not reach him and could only contact Shang Chaozong instead. They said the war with Song was already over and pleaded with him, for the sake of their alliance, to return toward Nanzhou as quickly as possible.

But this side was far from Nanzhou. It was hardly somewhere they could reach merely by wishing it.

The moment Wei and Qi noticed something wrong, both urgently put pressure on Zhao and warned it not to act rashly.

And at that very moment, a violent change erupted in northern Yan.

Han suddenly launched a fierce offensive against Yan.

Yes, against Yan.

Not against Song.

Shang Chaozong had made arrangements in advance. The moment war broke out, Shao Dengyun could immediately produce his commission as Grand General of the Northern Campaign and assume overall command of Beizhou's troops together with the court forces stationed there, directing all of them against Han.

The Yan court had strong objections.

What worried them was still the same thing: that Shao Dengyun would use the court's own men as cannon fodder.

Shang Chaozong's decision, however, received the full support of Yan's three major sects. There were matters on which the three sects would compromise with the court, and matters on which they would not. Letting men sent by the court command the war was simply unreliable. Shang Chaozong's faction had already proven itself through strength and results, and won the support of the three major sects.

Shang Jianxiong's fury could be imagined.

The three sects' support for Shang Chaozong frightened him as well.

The one thing that brought him some comfort and relief was the beauty sent over by Song.

At first, he had only wanted to transfer the humiliation of having slaughtered his own harem onto the Song emperor. Only after the beauty arrived did he discover that she truly was a woman capable of toppling a state with her looks.

Having obtained such a woman, Shang Jianxiong secretly congratulated himself on his decision. He even began to feel that trading the women of his former harem for her had not been much of a loss.

Despite the situation facing the state, he still could not resist favoring her again and again.

In the end, even Tong Mo had to offer a tactful warning: affairs of state came first, and His Majesty should be cautious lest this be a beauty trap sent by Song.

Shao Dengyun, meanwhile, proved himself worthy of his reputation as an old veteran of countless campaigns. He did not disappoint expectations and repeatedly blunted the spearhead of Han's assault.

Han had not committed itself fully, yet its offensives were frustrated again and again. Jin Jue was no little surprised. His estimation of Shao Dengyun rose another measure, and he felt even more fortunate for the strategic choice he had made earlier. Had Han truly launched a full invasion of Yan, the price would have been enormous.

"This is a feigned offensive. Jin Jue's purpose is simple. By attacking Yan, he draws Yan's main forces toward him and lets Zhao see a chance to pick up an easy advantage. That reassures Zhao and pushes Zhao into sending troops. The moment Zhao enters the war and becomes entangled, Jin Jue will certainly pull back his offensive and turn on Song..."

Seated before a map, Meng Shanming explained the intent behind Han's offensive to Shang Chaozong and the others.

Gong Lince stood by and listened carefully, thinking as he watched.

He looked at the situation before him, then thought back over everything that had happened since Yan's turmoil began. Whether they had won or lost, men had kept emerging one after another: Meng Shanming, Jin Jue, Luo Zhao, Wu Gongling, Zhang Hu, and the rest.

The sensitivity with which they caught changes on the battlefield, their ability to predict danger, the way they adjusted morale and military spirit, the way they handled sudden emergencies—when one was caught inside events, the pattern was hard to see. Looking back now, Gong Lince could only marvel.

These had originally been men he scarcely regarded at all.

Only after personally entering the battlefield and experiencing everything at close range did he truly understand that every craft had its own mastery.

War was far more than the victory or defeat contained in the final report he had once read afterward.

There was the movement of thousands upon thousands of troops: when to advance, where to retreat. On the large scale, a force might smash through resistance like dry weeds and rotten wood. On the small scale, it might exploit the narrowest opening.

More terrifying still was the logistical support required to sustain a campaign.

That alone demanded an operation beyond an outsider's imagination and could consume even more energy than the fighting itself.

Only after seeing and experiencing it firsthand did Gong Lince understand that, taken as a whole, every aspect of a war demanded extraordinary precision.

It was truly an art.

It was no simpler than cultivating some profound cultivation technique.

Who would have believed that a pack of rough military men could perform work this intricate?

Cultivation, so long as one possessed the proper innate aptitude, could be practiced. The demands it placed on the mind were not necessarily that high. Once one's cultivation rose far enough, one could find a place in any sect or faction.

But commanders with genuine battlefield experience were different.

They were men who had survived repeated rounds of death and elimination. Only blood and fire had proven whether they were truly qualified.

Gong Lince felt more deeply moved than he expected. He remembered the old subordinates of Prince Ning whom the court had put to death and faintly felt it was a pity.

Losses like those could not be rebuilt simply by piling up time and resources.

Only repeated tempering and elimination in actual blood and fire could determine whether men of that kind were truly fit for command.

Meng Shanming's judgment of Jin Jue's strategic intentions was passed at once to Shao Dengyun, who was responsible for the northern war.

Shao Dengyun had been personally brought up as a commander by Meng Shanming. Meng knew his ability, just as he knew Jin Jue, an opponent he had fought before.

In a war involving the grand strategic picture, Shao Dengyun might not be Jin Jue's equal.

But in a contained theater, with Shao Dengyun having operated in the north for years and knowing the land, customs, and people there intimately, Meng Shanming did not believe he would be greatly inferior to Jin Jue.

Once Shao Dengyun learned Jin Jue's strategic intent and understood that Han was unlikely to launch an all-out war against Yan, he had confidence in how to respond.

He understood Meng Shanming's intention as well.

Even though Han was only making a feigned attack, Yan had to answer with real force and display real momentum. Only by making Han understand more and more clearly how costly an invasion of Yan would be could they make Han more and more determined to choose Song as its true target.

Shao Dengyun immediately loosened his hands and began trading broad, forceful blows with Han, even confronting Jin Jue directly after the latter personally arrived at the front.

He too was a veteran of countless campaigns, a man who had fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Jin Jue?

Shao Dengyun did not necessarily think so highly of him, and fear was out of the question.

His posture was simple.

If Han dared invade, he would let them in.

If they entered Yan to fight, he would enter Han and fight there.

If the pot was already cracked, then smash it completely and see who was more afraid.

There was something of Meng Shanming's strategy against Song in it.

Jin Jue found this deeply troublesome.

Under Shao Dengyun's pressure, Han's offensive gradually shifted toward defense.

Facing each other directly, Shao Dengyun did not fall behind. It left Jin Jue standing amid his army and sighing without end.

"Looking across Yan, the old generals left behind by Prince Ning, Shang Jianbo, are still the pillars holding the state upright. So long as these men live, even a weak Yan remains a hard bone to chew!"

...

"Jin Jue calculated everything, only to run into a hard opponent. Your honored father, Great General Shao, truly is a tiger of a commander!"

In Jin, Taishu Xiong stood before a map discussing the wars of other states with his generals. Abruptly, he turned toward Shao Pingbo at his side and smiled. "If you can bring your honored father here, I will certainly treat him well. Think of another way. Whatever you need, tell me."

At those words, the generals all looked toward Shao Pingbo with various expressions.

Some discomfort was inevitable.

There was no first place in letters and no second place in arms.

None of them believed himself inferior to Shao Dengyun.

Shao Pingbo was troubled too.

It was not that he did not want to bring Shao Dengyun over. Hearing Taishu Xiong speak this way only made him want it more. If his father could obtain a measure of military authority in Jin, it would become an enormous source of support for him and could rapidly resolve a considerable part of his present difficulties.

But Shao Dengyun refused to come.

So long as Shao Dengyun had not been driven into a desperate corner and still held power in his own hands, Shao Pingbo found it difficult to bring him away against his will, especially with so many cultivators guarding him.

Shao Dengyun's choices also tormented him.

He clearly knew how bitter the conflict between Shao Pingbo and Niu Youdao had become, yet he had turned around and stood on Niu Youdao's side anyway.

Could the bond of "father and son" truly not outweigh the two words loyalty and righteousness?

...

As Han launched its offensive against Yan, Zhao, which had secretly allied with Han, finished assembling its troops and launched an offensive of its own.

But Zhao did not attack Yan directly.

It attacked Jinzhou, inside Zhao itself.

Zhao was no fool either. It had kept a move in reserve.

In truth, Zhao hated Jin Jue bitterly.

Because Jin Jue had refused to move for so long, Zhao's carefully prepared schemes had come to nothing. Now Jin Jue wanted to make use of Zhao again, leaving Zhao with no target but Yan to put its chopsticks toward.

Even so, the opportunity remained difficult to resist.

Yan had been battered again and again until it was desperately weak. Han was tying it down from the north. Qi and Wei, constrained by Jin, did not dare mobilize major forces against Zhao.

To Zhao, Yan was a great piece of fat meat.

Swallowing it might be troublesome, yet leaving it uneaten felt like a waste.

In the end, greed won.

If Zhao did not move this time and instead allowed every side to recover, it would be difficult to find such a good opportunity again.

And Zhao was hardly alone in hating Jin Jue.

Which of Song and Yan did not hate him?

Jin's schemes had been ruined because of Jin Jue too. In secret, even Jin could only grind its teeth in frustration and do nothing about him.

Once Zhao moved against Jinzhou, every power reacted differently.

When Han demanded an explanation, Zhao replied that Jinzhou's relationship with Nanzhou was known to everyone beneath Heaven. If Zhao intended to attack Yan, it naturally had to eliminate the threat to its rear first.

The reasoning was perfectly sound. Han had nothing to say and could only continue grinding away against Yan around Beizhou. Jin Jue could do nothing about it.

Qi and Wei warned Zhao that if it accepted benefits and then broke its word, they would not be polite.

Zhao answered that it was not attacking Yan at all. It was merely unifying its own territory, an internal war of reunification within Zhao, and would never accept threats from outside powers.

That left Qi and Wei with something stuck in their throats and no words to answer.

Song warned Zhao as well.

It was little more than treating a dead horse as though it were alive, desperately hoping Yan could help block Han. But Song itself was barely able to protect itself. Why would Zhao care?

As for Yan's warning, would Zhao take that seriously?

After steadying every side, Zhao was free to advance or retreat according to the situation. Whether or not it eventually attacked Yan, taking Jinzhou first could not be wrong.

The other states could only watch with open eyes.

None could do anything about it.

Faced with Zhao throwing the strength of the entire state into an offensive without restraint or fear for its rear, Jinzhou could not withstand it at all.

Appeals to Zhao's three major sects were useless.

All those relationships bought over years of spending and gifts might as well have been fed to dogs.

In the past, Zhao's three major sects had been willing to support Jinzhou and had reasons they could publicly use, such as avoiding internal disorder.

The situation was different now.

Zhao's three major sects had a very real chance to bite into an even larger piece of fat meat. Why would they care whether Jinzhou lived or died?

Against the court army led by Zhao's Grand Commander-in-Chief Pang Teng, Jinzhou barely resisted before collapsing.

It could only weep without tears.

[End of Chapter 732]