Chapter 302: The Waves Wash Away (I)

Along the banks of the Xuanyang River, a troop of riders galloped past.

In the fields on both sides, farmers were busy with the autumn harvest.

They had long since stopped finding anything unusual about these mounted men in black armor astride tall warhorses.

Heaven rains when it wishes. Mothers remarry when they wish.

People said a great battle was raging to the east.

Add both sides together and there were said to be hundreds of thousands of troops fighting around the Wang River.

Refugees fleeing from that direction claimed the killing had been so terrible that even the river itself had turned red.

But as long as the war had not reached your own doorstep, the crops still had to be harvested.

Otherwise, even if marauding soldiers did not kill you, starvation would.

Either way, death was death.

If anything, the Yan people who had originally stayed farther west had recently begun running east with increasing diligence.

Jin Shuke raised a hand and signaled for the riders behind him to dismount and rest.

“Commander, are we really not going to scout a little farther ahead?”

A Lieutenant Commander asked the question.

They were already not far from the front.

If they pushed a little farther now, they would probably be able to observe how the battle was developing sometime tomorrow morning.

That was also the mission General Zheng had given them.

For Shengle City, there was no reason to accept that a war directly connected to its future development would only become clear to them after reports arrived several days late.

So they had sent troops out personally to gather battlefield intelligence.

Jin Shuke shook his head.

“It’ll be dark soon.

“If we cross eastward now, we’re likely to run into scout cavalry from the armies ahead during the night.

“Too easy for our own people to mistake us for the enemy and start fighting.

“Not worth it.”

“Yes, Commander. This subordinate understands.”

“Mm.”

Jin Shuke did not feel offended that a subordinate had questioned his earlier decision.

Back when he still lived in the desert, he had already grown accustomed to everyone sitting around the campfire before a battle and discussing what should be done.

He reached into a saddlebag, took out a block of salt, and set it on the ground.

Several nearby horses immediately crowded around to lick it.

The men themselves took out their traveling rations and began eating.

There were roughly fifty men in the group.

They had to send messengers back and forth, and they also needed enough strength to operate near an active battlefield.

So the detachment could not be too small.

Otherwise, one accident would wipe them out.

“Everyone remember this,” Jin Shuke said.

“Mr. Bei told us the grain stores back in the city are running low.”

Jin Shuke was one of the Blind Man’s most devoted followers.

Whenever he was in Shengle and the Blind Man held a lesson, he always arrived early.

Recently, every military clerk in the army had also received written instructions from the Grand General’s Residence: make sure the soldiers understood Shengle City’s current situation.

Among Shengle’s troops, Yan natives were the minority.

Jin people formed the majority, followed by barbarians.

Within Great Yan, Jin people and barbarians were effectively treated as second- or even third-class subjects.

Everyone understood that their present military pay, treatment, warhorses, and weapons were genuinely no worse than what soldiers received in the Jingnan Army or Zhenbei Army.

Other surrendered Jin troops could never dream of receiving such treatment.

Precisely because they knew how hard it had been to obtain, they treasured it.

And because they treasured it, they felt gratitude.

Naturally, official propaganda could not simply come out and say:

*Our General Zheng hopes the First Prince loses.*

But in private discussion, everyone “agreed” on one thing: if there was no war soon, if they did not go out and pull off another big haul, then their good life really would become impossible to sustain.

“Commander, don’t we still have plenty of cattle and sheep outside the city?” one soldier asked.

From his perspective, with so many animals, surely nobody was going to starve.

Jin Shuke glanced at him.

“I grew up in the desert.

“Treating cattle and sheep purely as food is what you Jin people would call squandering the family fortune.

“And what we lack isn’t only grain.

“Where does our monthly military pay come from?

“A lot of our brothers have already settled their families inside the city.

“Where does the food for their wives and children come from?

“What about the monthly stipends for the private-school teachers?

“The physicians in the medical halls?

“Brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, books, medicinal herbs— which one of those things doesn’t cost money?

“Starve to death?

“No, we probably wouldn’t starve.

“But now that we’ve lived good days— days where even the steamed buns we eat have fillings you want to go back?

“An entire family working from dawn until dark for nothing more than the privilege of not starving?”

The soldier’s face reddened from the rebuke.

Clearly, Jin Shuke had taken the Blind Man’s lessons to heart.

More importantly, he was putting his own understanding into practice and passing it on to the comrades around him.

Mr. Bei had once said:

*We fight for General Zheng.*

*Then why does General Zheng fight?*

*So that all of us can continue living good lives.*

Therefore, they fought so that their own good lives could continue.

They fought so those lives could become even better.

Whenever Jin Shuke remembered the evenings when everyone stood together shouting those slogans after Mr. Bei, he felt his blood boil.

Life itself seemed filled with hope.

“Commander, how long do you think this war will last?

“I get the feeling the First Prince is already about to break across the Wang River.”

The “new dynasty” established by Situ Yi had made Yupan City, on the eastern bank of the Wang River, its capital.

After the Yan army and the forces of Dacheng spent some time consolidating under the First Prince, they divided into several columns and gradually began clearing the hundreds of li between Yingdu and the Wang River.

They continuously compressed the operating space available to the rebels and savages.

It was destined to be a slow and tedious process.

But the First Prince fought methodically.

Steadily.

By now, the territory west of the Wang River had already been recovered by the Yan and Dacheng armies.

The two sides were fighting over several river crossings, but the strategic initiative had fallen completely into Yan hands.

Once the Yan army crossed the Wang River and took Yupan City, the new dynasty Situ Yi had created would inevitably dissolve like smoke.

After that, once the Wang River’s natural barrier and buffer zone were gone, the savages would have only two choices left.

Either pack their things, go home laden with plunder, and return to the snowfields.

Or remain on the east bank of the Wang River and fight a bloody, head-on battle against the Yan army.

“Looks like they’ll be across soon,” Jin Shuke said.

“Then doesn’t that mean there’ll be nothing left for us to do?”

Jin Shuke shook his head.

“When you’re hunting a wolf, the hunt isn’t over until the wolf stops breathing.”

Life itself was a field of knowledge.

Jin Shuke, raised in the desert and born into a convict tribe, understood that subject deeply.

Much of his judgment and experience came directly from living.

More importantly, he knew that if this war continued progressing smoothly, then things on his own General’s side might truly become troublesome.

“Lieutenant Commander Wang.

“Take one squad and spread out.

“Everyone else, rest.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

After a full night’s rest, Jin Shuke led his detachment across the Xuanyang River at first light and continued east.

After another half-day of travel, they gradually began encountering Yan scout cavalry.

They did not belong to the same army, but everyone was flying Yan banners.

The scouts did not make things difficult for them.

At most, some of them gave a lofty snort that practically said:

*Your hands certainly reach far.*

*Too bad this war has nothing to do with you.*

Jin Shuke ignored all of it.

He continued leading his men along the outer edge of the battlefield.

Every other day, he sent three men back with reports on everything they had seen and heard.

After another day of rest and half a day’s march eastward, the Wang River was no longer far away.

The Wang River originated in the Tianduan Mountains.

From there, it flowed south into the State of Chu, eventually entering Chu’s Great Marsh.

From the other side of that marsh flowed the Li River, regarded by the people of Chu as their mother river.

The Li River gathered many waterways from across Chu before finally emptying into the sea.

The densest clashes and probes between the two armies were concentrated around the stretch of river near Yupan City.

Situ Lei’s final blow before his death had not merely shattered the rebel army.

It had also preserved Yingdu, the greatest city in Dacheng and perhaps in all the lands of the Three Jin.

Its practical value and political value had both been protected.

The rebels, by contrast, suffered from the innate weakness of Situ Yi’s newly proclaimed dynasty.

Add the entry of Great Yan’s armies and the Situ Clan’s open cooperation with them, and the psychological pressure on the rebels became enormous.

Over the past two years, the Yan people had been nearly invincible.

Two of the Situ Clan’s former neighboring great houses had already been trampled into extinction beneath Yan cavalry.

Therefore, once Yupan City fell, the rebel regime built by Situ Yi and Situ Jiong would naturally collapse.

The savages would lose the shield standing in front of them.

Of course, armies on the scale of the Yan and Dacheng forces could not possibly concentrate every soldier along a single short section of the river.

Besides the main Yupan City front, forces upstream and downstream were certainly preparing attempts to cross as well.

First, that would force the savages and rebels to spread their troops, reducing the pressure on the primary battlefield.

Second, if even one auxiliary crossing succeeded, large formations could be poured onto the eastern bank.

At that point, the entire Wang River defensive line would become meaningless.

The battlefield nearest Jin Shuke was probably the left-wing army positioned farther upstream.

Based on what they had observed over the past several days, the left wing consisted primarily of Great Yan’s regional commandery troops.

In Jin Shuke’s judgment, their combat quality was uneven.

That was why the hardest nut to crack—the Yupan City sector—had been assigned to the First Prince’s central army.

Yet as Jin Shuke’s detachment continued east, they suddenly noticed forces beginning to pour in from multiple directions.

Clearly, the battlefield had entered a period of large-scale troop movement.

And this was only the outer zone.

The Yan troops deeper inside the battlefield were probably moving even more violently.

The Yan riders they passed were radiant with excitement.

They raced one another toward the Wang River as different formations galloped east in haste.

“Commander, this...

“This is...”

One armored soldier beside him spoke in disbelief.

Another soldier surnamed Liang said, “Commander, it looks like the defensive line upstream has been broken.

“Should we send someone back to General Zheng with the news now?”

It certainly looked as though a breach had been opened.

The frantic movement of troops was exactly what one would expect if reinforcements were being rushed across the river.

Once organized formations established themselves on the eastern bank, the entire Wang River defensive line would be shaken.

The scales of war, already badly tilted, would finally stop pretending and fall completely toward Great Yan and the First Prince.

But Jin Shuke suddenly raised one hand.

“No.

“Wait.

“Wait a little longer.”

“But the General—”

Jin Shuke abruptly turned and roared at the soldier, “If they’ve won, what difference does it make whether he hears two days earlier or two days later?”

“Yes, Commander.”

It was true.

If Yan had won, if the Wang River line had been broken, then the strategic picture would be settled.

For Shengle City, the difference was merely whether preparations to reduce troops and transfer soldiers into other work began two days earlier or two days later.

How much could that truly matter?

“Continue forward with me.

“You. You. You.

“Each take a squad and spread out.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Jin Shuke personally led one squad toward the Wang River.

It was not that he could not accept losing the wager.

Rather, some instinct some faint intuition in the dark kept telling him there was an undercurrent surging beneath everything he saw.

People who did well in the workplace could roughly be divided into three kinds.

There were those with real ability.

There were those skilled at dealing with people.

The first kind often looked down on the second with pride.

The second often looked at the first with both insecurity and jealousy.

But there was a third kind.

People who knew how to deal with others and were genuinely capable themselves.

They were rare.

But they existed.

Jin Shuke was one of them.

The Sword Saint had not recommended him simply because he knew how to flatter people.

Given the Sword Saint’s status and temperament, he would hardly have gone to Zheng Fan merely to ask for the promotion of someone who had made his ears comfortable with flattery.

Rather, after spending time with Jin Shuke, the Sword Saint had discovered that this barbarian was broad-minded on the surface and meticulous within.

Letting such a man remain buried forever would have been a waste.

And now, Jin Shuke truly felt an uneasy intuition.

That unease had nothing to do with Shengle City’s own interests.

It came from placing himself inside the position of the Yan army in front of him.

But he did not know where exactly the danger lay.

With the visible difference in strength between both sides, trying to reverse the entire battle through tricks and schemes should have been nearly impossible.

They urged their horses onward.

Before sunset, Jin Shuke and the men around him finally reached the Wang River.

This was not one of the formal crossing zones.

Jin Shuke continued downstream along the riverbank.

Not far away, other formations were also converging in the same direction.

In Jin Shuke’s judgment, the real main body of the left-wing army had probably already gone ahead.

Everything in the Yan army’s visible situation looked excellent.

Yet Jin Shuke felt no joy whatsoever.

Instead, his heart filled with an increasingly urgent sense of panic.

Perhaps this was the sixth sense of the battlefield.

And that sixth sense was something usually possessed only by true commanders born for war.

Suddenly, Jin Shuke hauled hard on the reins.

He slowly turned his head.

He looked upstream along the Wang River.

Yes.

Upstream.

For a moment—

Jin Shuke and every Shengle rider around him stared in stunned silence.

“How...

“How is that possible...?”

[End of Chapter 302]