Chapter 262: Young Marquis

Dragged behind a warhorse, Quemu had long since been torn beyond recognition. He was thoroughly dead.

After a short rest, the army continued east.

Quite a few nearby tribes watched the black-armored cavalry disappear into the distance and breathed long sighs of relief.

Almost every tribe had sent clansmen to join the fighting, but thank Heaven, these terrifying Yan people did not seem interested in punishing them for it.

Unfortunately, their relief was destined not to last long.

That night, the twenty thousand troops of the Jingnan Army’s Left and Right Armies finally caught up. When the four Generals commanding them discovered that their Marquis had already finished the battle without waiting for them and then continued east, they vented all the frustration bottled up in their chests upon the savage tribes nearby.

After witnessing the terrifying strength of the Yan people during the day, the various tribes had no courage left to organize any meaningful resistance when the Yan cavalry came killing through the night.

They could only watch as the riders of Yan charged straight into their tents.

Burning.

Killing.

Looting.

Unrestrained release.

It was one of war’s ugliest faces.

Even the Jingnan Army—personally forged by Tian Wujing and famous for its strict discipline—was no exception.

That night, blood and screams became the melody of the land.

There was no justice or injustice to debate.

Yan could tolerate the existence of the State of Dacheng.

What Yan could not tolerate was another people, similar to the barbarians of the desert, rising in the northeast.

Perhaps the Savage King had once served in the Yan army. Perhaps some part of him still yearned for the State of Yan.

But the Emperor of Yan would not gamble on that.

Especially when he possessed the power to choke off this people’s road to ascendancy before it truly began.

Why gamble on something as vague as goodwill?

One might call it the law of the dark forest.

The next day, the Left and Right Armies set out again, following the tracks of the Central Army as they continued east.

Several days later, a motley host organized out of Shengle City, made up of local magnates and lords of fortified estates, finally crossed the Tianduan Mountains.

This army was... a scavenger force.

...

The army marched continuously for seven days.

By then, it had become clear that the Savage King’s influence seemed limited to only one portion of the snowfields. His authority had not yet spread in any concrete sense across the entire region.

His presence was especially weak in the western snowfields.

This area still fundamentally belonged to countless savage tribes, large and small.

The savage cavalry force that had charged them at the beginning was most likely the only force that Savage King had dispatched into the region.

Along the road, the Yan army smashed another three large tribes.

Night raids.

Flanking attacks.

Even “besieging Wei to rescue Zhao.”

The Marquis of Jingnan adapted his methods to the terrain and the situation.

With the Jingnan Army’s already formidable fighting strength combined with Tian Wujing’s near-divine use of troops, the three tribes—each numbering more than ten thousand people—were broken without much difficulty.

As for the far more numerous medium and small tribes, Tian Wujing ignored them.

In another couple of days, the Left and Right Armies behind him would clean up the rest.

The army continued east.

Five days later, the army finally halted and began establishing camp.

Scouts had reported organized savage troops ahead.

Not the sort of force casually cobbled together tribe by tribe.

A true army.

That meant their spearpoint was now nearly touching the Savage King’s actual sphere of control.

Or perhaps the Savage King had gathered another army and sent it forward to intercept them.

The enemy numbered roughly thirty thousand, and that number was still rising.

At last, Tian Wujing stopped his advance.

He allowed the soldiers to rest while waiting for the Left and Right Armies behind them, who had spent the entire route doing little besides burning, killing, and looting.

That day also happened to be Great Yan’s traditional Wanfú Festival, a holiday centered on praying for health and freedom from illness or calamity.

If the savage army under Quemu that they had encountered immediately after leaving the Tianduan Mountains was merely an appetizer, then the tribes crushed over the following dozen days of raids across the snowfields had been side dishes.

What came next would be the true main course.

“Only after we devour the actual main force belonging to that Savage King ahead can we truly say we have weakened him.

“Otherwise, everything our army has done up to now may look like we have reduced the strength of the snowfield tribes, but in reality we would only have done the Savage King’s work for him.”

Zheng Fan spoke while boiling milk tea.

First he caramelized the sugar.

Then he added the tea leaves and continued frying them.

Only afterward did he pour in the sheep’s milk.

“This Marquis thought your mind was occupied only with doing business.”

Tian Wujing sat opposite Zheng Fan.

After the two of them had already traveled together through the Tianduan Mountains and into the snowfields once, sitting around the same campfire to eat had become something almost habitual.

Besides, Zheng Fan could always contrive some new thing to eat or drink.

“The snowfields are very similar to the desert.

“They are different from Great Yan and the State of Qian.

“Each tribe may have alliances, but once the doors are closed, they still calculate matters for themselves.

“If another tribe suddenly suffers disaster, the rest may actually rejoice.

“They can seize the opportunity to absorb that tribe’s people and pastures, and their own strength grows instead.”

This was the difference in political and military structure.

Among the orthodox successor states of Great Xia, whenever a region suffered a disaster or some other calamity, so long as the central government had not completely collapsed, it would inevitably organize resources to provide relief.

The state’s overall strength would naturally be weakened as a result.

But that kind of national structure did not exist in the desert or upon the snowfields.

Those places were more like jars for breeding venomous insects, where the survivors devoured the rest.

“So that army ahead must be eaten.”

“Marquis, the milk tea is ready.”

Zheng Fan poured out the tea and handed Tian Wujing a cup.

Tian Wujing accepted it and took a sip.

“What is this?”

“Caramel milk tea. My own creation.”

“A little cloying.”

“Next time I’ll add more tea leaves.”

“Mm.”

Campfires dotted the military encampment in every direction.

The smell of roasting lamb and mutton soup drifted through the air.

In this era, eating meat at every meal was unimaginably extravagant for ordinary people.

Even Jingnan Army soldiers received military pay, but that money still had to support entire families.

Even in later generations, when productivity had greatly improved, an ordinary family could certainly eat meat at every meal.

But that usually meant shredded pork or sliced meat.

How many households could really afford to roast lamb chops meal after meal?

“Soldiers are people, not objects.

“There are places in your *Zheng Treatise on War* where your discussion is indeed too broad.

“Take the present situation.

“It has been close to a month since we departed Shengle City.

“The soldiers may not yet be homesick, but their weariness has certainly reached a certain point.

“That is why this Marquis has let them enjoy themselves these past two days.”

Hearing this, Zheng Fan nodded thoughtfully.

He understood that Tian Wujing was teaching him in very concrete terms.

“No matter how powerful an army is, if its morale sinks too far, problems will emerge.

“A commander must care not only about his soldiers’ grain and food, but must also be able to feel what they feel.

“‘Officers and soldiers of one heart’ does not simply mean you walk among them one day, pick up a ladle, and eat a meal beside them.”

“Yes.”

“A commander must not become too intimate with his soldiers.

“If you become too intimate, they will cease to fear you.

“But neither can you remain too distant.

“If you are too distant, they will inevitably separate themselves from you.

“There is a proper degree between the two.

“You must learn to grasp it yourself.”

Zheng Fan continued nodding.

“As for the twenty thousand men of the Left and Right Armies, there is no need to worry about this problem.

“When they arrive in another couple of days, our army can continue east and begin fighting the savages again.

“All along the route, those twenty thousand men have done nothing except burn, kill, and loot.

“We already picked out every hard target for them.

“From their commanders down to the ordinary soldiers, every last one of them is holding a fire inside.

“They compete among themselves.

“None of them wants to return after the campaign, only to discover during the accounting of merits that he never even fought one respectable battle.”

“Yes.”

“Remember these things.”

“This general understands.”

“Whenever Great Yan uses troops in the future, whether we continue deeper into the snowfields, ride into the desert, or march south against Qian, all of them will be long-distance campaigns far from home.

“So learning how to preserve the morale of an army across such distances will become extremely important.”

Zheng Fan nodded like a chicken pecking rice, while making sure his expression remained sincerely grateful.

At that moment, a group of soldiers in the distance seemed to have eaten and drunk themselves into such high spirits that they began singing loudly.

Yan songs carried a rough, soaring grandeur unique to Yan.

Gradually, more and more voices joined in.

Proper military songs did not yet truly exist in this era.

What they sang were local folk songs from Yinlang Commandery.

After all, most of the Jingnan Army’s veteran soldiers came from Yinlang Commandery.

The scene reminded Zheng Fan of something.

Once the war ended, he could write a military song for his own troops.

It might strengthen their cohesion.

Then several Deputy Generals came over to offer wine to the Marquis of Jingnan.

The drink was milk wine.

Its alcohol content was low.

Someone who normally did not drink it might genuinely find the taste difficult to accept.

But in a place like this, simply having an alcoholic drink at all was already quite good.

No one was about to complain.

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Marquis!”

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Marquis!”

The commanders knelt and raised their bowls.

On the Wanfú Festival, people wished each other ten thousand blessings, praying for good health and freedom from sickness.

Tian Wujing silently lifted the caramel milk tea Zheng Fan had just brewed for him.

He raised it in acknowledgment.

Then everyone drank together.

These were all hardened men who had rolled through blood and mud in the army.

Unlike Zheng Fan, these generals did not possess faces thick enough to grin and joke shamelessly in front of Tian Wujing.

But swept along by the atmosphere, they raised their arms together and shouted, “Ten thousand blessings upon the Marquis!

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Young Marquis!”

Everyone in the Jingnan Army naturally knew that the Marquis’s wife was pregnant.

At first, only a few generals were shouting.

But soon more and more soldiers around them raised their arms and joined in.

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Marquis!

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Young Marquis!”

Then, the entire encampment, more than ten thousand soldiers, began roaring as one:

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Marquis!

“Ten thousand blessings upon the Young Marquis!

“Ten thousand upon ten thousand blessings to the Marquis!

“Ten thousand upon ten thousand blessings to the Young Marquis!”

City Defender Zheng silently continued boiling caramel milk tea.

He did not join the excitement.

Fuck.

The way these people were shouting “ten thousand upon ten thousand blessings” sounded almost exactly like shouting “ten thousand years upon ten thousand years.”

And Zheng Fan knew perfectly well that in their hearts, most of these men were probably shouting precisely that.

An undercurrent was already surging.

No.

More accurately, it had begun stirring a very long time ago.

In the eyes of these grunts, what scholars thought of their Marquis, what ordinary people thought of their Marquis all of that was bullshit.

Blade in hand, they would dare order even Heaven itself to shut its mouth!

The Marquis of Jingnan had commanded the Jingnan Army for more than ten years.

His influence permeated every corner of the force.

And as he led them from one victory to another, that influence had gradually transformed into something resembling personal worship.

At the same time throughout the entire camp, everyone shouted blessings for the “Young Marquis.”

No one added “or Young Commandery Princess.”

Perhaps it was simply an abbreviation.

Perhaps it was merely a blessing.

Even in many places in later generations, wishing that someone would bear a son was still considered auspicious speech, much less in an era like this.

But was it really only that?

Zheng Fan grabbed another handful of tea leaves and tossed them into the little pot.

Every soldier in the army was thinking of a Young Marquis.

Because that would mean the Marquis of Jingnan had an heir.

It would mean the Tian Clan had an heir.

And it would also mean that the Jingnan Army... had someone to inherit it.

There had long been rumors that the Marquis of Zhenbei had a son.

A mysterious son.

Supposedly, he had grown up inside the army from childhood, and no one knew who he was.

No one could confirm whether the story was true or false.

But publicly, the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate had only one Commandery Princess.

Now that the Second Prince had entered the Eastern Palace and become Crown Prince, the matter of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s Commandery Princess entering Yanjing as Crown Princess should soon be placed on the agenda as well.

In the future, barring accidents, the imperial grandson of Yan would be the maternal grandson of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate.

Half the blood in his veins would come from the Li Clan.

And although the Second Prince was Tian Wujing’s nephew, if Tian Wujing had a son of his own a nephew meant jack shit compared to your own son.

For a moment, Zheng Fan became distracted.

Something Tian Wujing had said more than a month ago, while the two of them were traveling through the Tianduan Mountains, suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Tian Wujing had said that he wanted a daughter.

A chill abruptly crept across Zheng Fan’s back.

If Dujuan gave birth to a boy, what would happen?

[End of Chapter 262]