Chapter 91: The First Shot!

“Pass down the order. Dismount and rest. No fires. Send out mounted scouts.”

No tents were pitched.

At Zheng Fan’s command, all the barbarian soldiers settled their horses, then began eating dry rations and drinking water.

They had come from penal tribes in the desert.

They were not pampered in the slightest.

In fact, in some respects, they endured hardship even better than Yan soldiers.

Zheng Fan took a pouch of fried flour from the saddlebag at his horse’s side.

Leaning against a tree, he ate it with water from his waterskin.

Liang Cheng sat beside him.

“Master, are we going to attack that fort ahead later?”

“Since we’ve come all this way, we should at least go up and test it.”

“Did Master and the Blind Man plan this in advance?”

“Mm.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

“This subordinate doesn’t believe that.”

Zheng Fan laughed.

“Why?”

“If Master and the Blind Man had planned this beforehand, then Xue San definitely would have come with us.”

The fort ahead stood there in complete silence.

Zheng Fan had only four hundred barbarian cavalry under him.

A frontal assault with banners flying would obviously be impossible.

That was precisely why they had stopped to rest so far away and forbidden anyone from lighting fires.

They were hiding their presence, preventing the fort from spotting them.

Once the beacon smoke rose, the surrounding beacon towers and nearby garrisons would immediately be alerted.

So if the plan had always been to launch a surprise attack, how could they possibly forget to bring the assassin in their own ranks?

“Mm.”

Zheng Fan admitted it.

He tipped the last of the fried flour in his palm into his mouth, took a drink of water, then said:

“What happened today won’t take long to spread.

“Abuse and curses will probably come pouring toward us.

“Maybe we’ll even attract the attention of some of the major figures at court.

“Nothing else aside, we trampled the current Chief Minister’s alma mater.

“He’ll definitely hear about it.

“But infamy alone isn’t enough.

“You need two legs to walk steadily.

“The imperial court has already begun cleaning up Yinlang Commandery and rebuilding the southern frontier defense system.

“That’s obviously a precursor to taking action against the State of Qian.

“Before the real fighting begins, someone will inevitably have to provoke Qian and create a tense atmosphere.

“I don’t know who the people above planned to give that job to.

“But it doesn’t matter.

“We’ll steal it.

“I’ve discovered that ever since waking up in this world, none of my other abilities stand out much.

“But when it comes to stealing merit, I have genuine talent.”

“Master’s explanation is very thorough.

“But this subordinate still does not believe that is the true reason.”

“Heh.

“The real reason is that my hands are itching a little.”

“Mm.”

Liang Cheng accepted that reason.

“Actually, in my previous life, I liked playing single-player strategy games.

“Do you know what style I used when I played?”

“Charge recklessly?”

Zheng Fan shook his head.

“Turtle.”

Zheng Fan handed Liang Cheng his waterskin.

Then he held both hands out in front of himself.

Liang Cheng poured water over Zheng Fan’s hands.

Zheng Fan rubbed them clean.

“In games, I liked staying in my home territory and developing.

“If there was trade, I did trade.

“If there was technology, I researched technology.

“I didn’t like fighting early.

“I waited until my economy and production were fully developed, then spammed troops and flattened everyone.

“But that was a game.

“Once it becomes reality— once you actually have soldiers under you, once you own a little property something inside you starts getting restless.

“It’s like finally having some money in your pocket.

“Reason tells you to save it for a house, a carriage, or a bride price.

“But you still can’t resist spending the whole night drinking and whoring.

“To tell you the truth, today we went to the academy and carried someone else’s blame.

“I know that may well put me in the Marquis of Jingnan’s eyes, but I still don’t feel especially good about it.”

“So Master plans to vent that frustration on the people of Qian?”

“This is called strategic probing.

“If a history book recorded it, it would say something like:

‘In the tenth year of Great Yan’s Wu’an era, Zheng Fan, Commander of Green Willow Fortress, fired the...’

“No.

“Start over.

“‘In the autumn of the tenth year of Great Yan’s Wu’an era, Zheng Fan, Commander of Green Willow Fortress, loosed Yan’s first arrow southward, marking the beginning of the Yan–Qian War.’

“Who knows?

“A thousand years from now, this passage may become an examination question.”

“Master.”

“Mm?”

“This subordinate would like to say something against my conscience.”

“Go ahead.”

“This is still somewhat abrupt and reckless.

“And aside from these barbarian soldiers, I’m the only one of us beside Master.”

“And your genuine thoughts?”

“I think it sounds very interesting.”

Zheng Fan laughed.

He reached out and patted Liang Cheng’s shoulder.

He knew perfectly well.

If he himself had already felt stifled, then Liang Cheng the man who had spent the entire journey drilling troops must have felt even more restless.

“It’s fine.

“Causing trouble is our core principle.

“When the Blind Man made plans before, which time didn’t he play things recklessly?

“This time we’re only probing them.

“If we can sneak into one fort, we take it.

“If the defenses are too tight and the surprise attack fails, we turn around and leave immediately.

“There’s no reason the Blind Man gets to light lamps while the rest of us aren’t allowed to set fires.”

“There are too many forts and beacon towers here.

“They’re packed closely together.

“When we move later, we’ll have to be careful.”

“Mm.

“Pick twenty men later.

“We’ll sneak over first and see whether we can pull that nail out.”

“This subordinate obeys.”

...

“Ready?” Zheng Fan asked in barbarian speech.

“Ready,” came the answer.

Zheng Fan nodded in satisfaction.

He and Liang Cheng had already removed their armor.

The twenty barbarian soldiers chosen to serve as the “reconnaissance company” were even more extreme.

They had simply stripped to the waist.

For the people of Qian, the Yan–Qian frontier already counted as bitterly cold northern country.

But for barbarians who had spent their whole lives in the desert, this place actually felt somewhat warm.

Barbarians tended to be hairy.

Even bare-chested, the dense body hair covering those men almost looked like fur cloaks.

The remaining barbarian troops had already wrapped their horses’ hooves and fitted the animals with mouth restraints.

After the agreed amount of time passed, they would immediately advance.

If the fort had been seized, they would be received inside.

If the attack failed, their advance would instead cover Zheng Fan and the others’ retreat.

There was no helping it.

This era had no radios.

If you were stupid enough to seize the fort and then stand on the wall waving a torch, every surrounding beacon tower would immediately send up smoke.

As for imitating animal calls that was even more ridiculous.

At this distance, you would have to imitate a dinosaur for the hidden troops back here to hear you.

“Move out!”

After speaking, Zheng Fan looked toward Liang Cheng.

Liang Cheng nodded.

He moved at the front.

Zheng Fan followed directly behind him, copying Liang Cheng’s every step.

There was no helping it.

Zheng Fan lacked practical combat experience.

But since he insisted on personally taking part, his only option was to cling to a powerful thigh.

As for the twenty barbarian soldiers advancing with them they were natural hunters of the desert.

Once they spread out, they quickly began concealing their bodies while moving toward the fort at a steady rhythm.

Normally, a beacon tower along a frontier line would never leave the watch post at its summit unmanned, whether day or night.

Those towers were like eagle eyes, watching every movement within visible range.

The people of Qian truly had been beaten into terror by the first Marquis of Zhenbei a century earlier.

They had drawn their necks in and begun playing civil engineering all along the frontier.

Truthfully, the dense system of beacon forts did not offer particularly strong defensive power.

If an invading force possessed sufficient numbers, it could simply wait for the main defending army to arrive while slowly pulling out each of these nails one by one.

But the key problem was that Yan’s most elite Zhenbei Army had spent the entire past century along the desert frontier suppressing the barbarians.

Meanwhile, Yan’s aristocratic-clan system prevented the state from mobilizing enough power for major external expansion.

Against small raiding forces, however, this beacon-fort system was extremely effective.

Gradually, Yan stopped sending small forces south to raid livestock and grain.

Later, as the barbarian Royal Court declined and the eastern and western Silk Roads opened, Yan’s upper class began receiving stable commercial revenue.

Little by little, they tacitly allowed Yinlang Commandery to become a major trade transfer point.

That was how Yinlang Commandery gradually acquired its reputation as The Great Yan Dynasty’s little Jiangnan.

Originally, these quiet years might have lasted considerably longer.

The people living along both frontiers might have enjoyed many more years of stability and peace.

The white dove of peace might have continued circling beneath the skies of Yan and Qian for a long time.

But tonight all of that might be broken because Zheng Fan had arrived.

It was not as though Zheng Fan had never wondered what kind of story would have unfolded if he and his Seven Demon Kings had awakened inside the State of Qian instead.

Perhaps he would first have practiced calligraphy.

Then, with the Blind Man Bei and Siniang packaging his image, he might have become the foremost young talent of Jiangnan, married a princess, and stepped onto the standard path of a traditional transmigrator.

Maybe he would even have had the chance to write piles of frontier poems.

Maybe he could have become a scholarly general, led Qian’s armies north against Yan, and shouted:

“A century of national humiliation— not even the boundless sea can wash it away!”

In short while Zheng Fan’s body obediently followed Liang Cheng’s pace during the stealth advance, his mind had wandered absurdly far away.

“We’re here.”

Liang Cheng’s words dragged Zheng Fan out of his fantasy.

He looked up.

The fort wall stood directly before him.

All the images that had just been drifting through his mind—

Qian’s scenery, poetry and songs, feather fans and scholar’s headcloths vanished instantly with the wind.

Shatuo Que Shi had once stood before the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei and shouted:

“I am merely a wild barbarian of the desert!”

Then Zheng Fan already labeled a Yan barbarian by the people of Qian ought to do something worthy of a barbarian too.

The other barbarian soldiers were fast.

In truth, because Liang Cheng had been forced to match Zheng Fan’s amateur pace, the barbarians who infiltrated alongside them had already been waiting beneath the fort wall for quite some time.

Unfortunately, they could not smoke here.

Otherwise, there probably would have been three cigarette butts beneath their feet by now.

Everyone gripped his saber between his teeth.

Then, they began climbing.

No ropes.

No special climbing equipment.

They simply used hands and feet, scaling the wall in the most primitive way possible.

At that moment, Zheng Fan regretted not bringing Xue San.

If Xue San were here, he would have shot straight up the wall effortlessly.

Even the Blind Man, with mental force, could have floated himself upward in a few effortless bursts.

But there was no helping it.

Zheng Fan had to pay for his own impulsiveness.

Fortunately, this fort was not a great city.

First, its walls were not especially high.

Second, the construction quality was mediocre.

No one had built it with the goal of “never falling.”

And after a century of wind and weather, the walls were riddled with pits and cracks, offering countless holds for climbing.

The barbarian soldiers moved with exceptional agility.

Zheng Fan relied on circulating qi and blood through his body and steadily climbed upward as well.

Liang Cheng was fastest.

He simply drove his hardened fingernails into gaps in the masonry and used them as leverage.

His feet barely needed to move.

It looked almost as though he were playing on a horizontal bar.

He needed to be first over the wall.

He would deal with the sentry above before anyone else arrived.

At last, Zheng Fan saw Liang Cheng flip over the top first.

Everyone else immediately accelerated, even at the cost of making slightly more noise.

Finally, Zheng Fan reached the top as well.

The instant he raised his head above the battlement, he saw Liang Cheng and several barbarian soldiers already crouching there.

His heart immediately settled.

He swung himself over.

Yet something surprised Zheng Fan.

There was no corpse on the watch platform.

Liang Cheng shook his head at him, indicating that there had never been anyone up here.

Had the night sentry gone to take a shit?

Their luck was a little too good.

Soon everyone had made it onto the wall.

Every man gripped his saber tightly, kept his body low, and even breathed cautiously.

The first step and the hardest step was complete.

Now they only needed the signal to proceed.

The fort was not small.

That was exactly why they had chosen it as the target.

By Zheng Fan’s estimate, it could house several dozen garrison soldiers.

Those tiny beacon towers that obviously contained only a handful of men were little sparrows too little meat, too easy to expose the operation.

Zheng Fan had ignored them entirely.

Liang Cheng gave a hand signal.

Then he began following the wall inward.

The others split into two columns.

Hugging the walls, they followed Liang Cheng’s pace and slowly infiltrated deeper.

After moving farther inside, they began hearing sounds.

They could also see traces of firelight.

Beacon smoke and ordinary firelight were different things.

The garrison soldiers inside a fort did not have to chew dry rations every day.

They were allowed to light fires and cook.

Beacon smoke had originally been called “wolf smoke” because wolf dung produced the best result when burned.

Of course, dung from other animals, or additional materials such as wool felt, could also create excellent smoke.

Zheng Fan remained directly behind Liang Cheng, so he heard more clearly than the other barbarian soldiers.

Suddenly he heard something discordant.

A woman’s voice.

Zheng Fan reached out and tapped Liang Cheng’s shoulder.

Liang Cheng turned.

Zheng Fan held his saber in one hand and used the other to cup his own chest.

Liang Cheng nodded.

He had heard the woman too.

Were Qian frontier soldiers allowed to bring their families into forts?

Zheng Fan genuinely did not know.

But very soon he realized there was more than one woman.

There were men laughing too.

Men boasting.

He could not make out the exact words, but their smug tone was unmistakable.

Life inside the fort seemed extremely harmonious.

Everyone appeared to get along beautifully.

Which only raised one question.

Why the hell had nobody been assigned to watch the wall?

Liang Cheng continued advancing.

Zheng Fan and the twenty barbarian soldiers followed.

Everyone carefully descended a staircase.

Once they had all reached the true interior of the fort, Liang Cheng signaled the barbarians to remain there.

He and Zheng Fan alone continued creeping forward to investigate.

Zheng Fan and Liang Cheng exchanged glances.

Confusion showed in Zheng Fan’s eyes.

Liang Cheng shook his head.

Clearly, he did not understand either.

Even with his immense experience commanding troops, Liang Cheng could not figure out what kind of game the people inside this Qian frontier fort were playing.

Liang Cheng gestured.

At the corner ahead, he would go right.

Zheng Fan would go left.

Zheng Fan nodded.

Understood.

The two moved together.

Passing the corner, each pressed himself against a wall on opposite sides.

Zheng Fan bit the tip of his tongue.

Fuck.

What time was this?

What place was this?

What the hell had he been thinking about earlier?

CREEEAK!

At that moment, the wooden door beside Zheng Fan opened.

His heart leaped straight into his throat.

The point of his saber immediately lowered.

A man stepped out.

He was tall and thin, wearing leather armor, probably around forty.

The moment he opened his mouth, he revealed a full set of yellow teeth.

“Hey, brother.

“You have to wait your turn—”

SPLURT!

Zheng Fan did not hesitate.

His saber stabbed directly into the man’s heart.

The instant Liang Cheng saw something had happened on Zheng Fan’s side, he immediately gave a low shout to signal the barbarians behind them.

Then he raised his blade and charged inside.

Zheng Fan had only just pulled his saber free when more than twenty barbarian soldiers rushed past him.

Immediately afterward screams erupted from inside.

Men.

Women.

But there was one thing missing.

No clash of weapons.

No battle cries.

When everything was over a somewhat disbelieving Zheng Fan sat in a chair one of the barbarian soldiers had carried over for him.

A brazier burned in front of him.

Seven or eight women, with only scraps of cloth hastily wrapped around their bodies, huddled in one corner.

More than ten naked men knelt on the ground nearby.

Another dozen men, these ones still dressed, knelt off to one side.

Four corpses lay on the ground.

One belonged to the man Zheng Fan had killed first the bastard who had actually dared remind him not to cut in line.

The other three were men Liang Cheng had hacked down the moment he charged inside.

After that, Liang Cheng realized there was no need to keep killing.

Once the barbarian soldiers rushed in, they instantly took control of the situation.

A man who looked like the leader was dragged forward by Liang Cheng and thrown down before Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan leaned slightly forward.

One hand rested on his saber.

The other rubbed his chin.

“Who are you?”

“I...

This lowly one is the commander of this fort.

“My name... my name is Zhao Changgui.”

“Fort Commander?”

Zheng Fan pointed toward the women huddled in the corner.

“And these?

“What are they?”

“This... this...

Pay and grain inside the fort are short.

“The brothers can barely survive.

“So this lowly one... this lowly one started this little business here.

“Just trying to earn enough to eat.

“Just trying to earn enough to eat...”

“Hiss...”

After hearing that, Zheng Fan suddenly felt his chest tighten.

All the careful infiltration.

All the hiding.

All the sneaking.

All the maneuvering.

Every single thing he and his men had done earlier suddenly made him feel like an absolute idiot performing a one-man play for himself.

At the same time—

Zheng Fan could not help rubbing his face.

Future history books would probably have to record the event like this:

“In the autumn of the tenth year of Great Yan’s Wu’an era, Zheng Fan, Commander of Green Willow Fortress, loosed Yan’s first arrow southward, marking the beginning of the Yan–Qian War.”

And beneath that they would have to add another line:

“He captured a brothel disguised as a fort.”

(End of Chapter)