Chapter 304: The Waves Wash Away (III)
On an autumn plain swept by a bleak wind, a high platform had been erected.
Around it sat a vast, dark mass of people, with their warhorses beside them.
The scene was noisy. From commanders to ordinary warriors, everyone was whispering and talking among themselves.
It was an extraordinary display of lax discipline.
Even back in the State of Qian, whenever a major festival arrived or the Emperor happened to feel like visiting the drill grounds to watch military exercises, the Imperial Guards could still put on the appearance of an “elite force.”
In Shengle City, a scene like this would have been even more impossible.
There was one thing Shengle’s army probably surpassed every other force beneath Heaven at.
The moment General Zheng stepped onto a platform, everyone knew exactly what motion to make in perfect unison.
When General Zheng finished speaking, everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to do next.
What slogan to shout.
How often to strike weapons against armor or the ground.
All of it had been rehearsed with strict precision.
But here, tens of thousands of troops had gathered in such disorder that it looked more like a vegetable market.
That continued until a man wearing a white wolfskin robe slowly walked onto the platform.
“WOOOOOOOOOO!”
“WOOOOOOOOOO!”
War horns sounded.
In an instant, the entire field fell silent.
Every savage warrior instinctively straightened his chest.
If General Zheng of Shengle City relied on the Demon Kings beneath him to shape a glorious, righteous public image in the minds of his soldiers, then this man this Savage King needed no embellishment at all.
The deeds already circulating across the snowfields were enough to make every savage warrior sincerely submit to him.
Radiance did not fade because of a few flaws.
Sometimes those flaws only made it seem brighter.
A wolf king lowered his head.
A wolf king bent his knee.
He did so so the pack could survive better and so he could wait for the day when his prey became weak and old.
The Savage King stood atop the platform.
Below him, rows of savage warriors responsible for relaying his words stretched outward. They would serve as living amplifiers.
This was a speech.
A speech delivered to tens of thousands at once.
An address before battle.
A custom as old as war itself.
The Savage King raised his hand and shouted:
“Warriors of the Holy Race!
“Children sheltered by the stars!”
“HU!”
“HU!”
“HU!”
Every savage warrior placed his left palm over his chest.
That was the gesture made by the most devout believers when listening to a tribal priest’s prayer.
In their hearts, their King was no different from the stars.
He would guide them forward.
For their tribes.
For their descendants.
He would carve out a wider world.
The Savage King was not a tall man.
Yet at that moment, his figure seemed as vast as a mountain.
His voice carried almost no ornament.
He was shouting so hard that it had even become slightly hoarse and cracked.
And yet that rough voice seemed to possess a strange power.
It made people want to listen.
Want to follow.
Want to walk beside him.
“Look at the armor on your bodies!
“Look at your saddles!
“Your quivers!
“Your sabers!
“Now lower your heads.
“Look.
“Look at the land beneath your feet!
“This— was once the land where the ancestors of our Holy Race lived and multiplied!
“This— is the homeland we have yearned for through dreams for centuries!
“This— was where our former glory began!
“And this— will be where the stars ignite once more!
“You— are the fiercest and bravest warriors beneath my banner!
“You— are the strongest fighters of every tribe across the snowfields!
“In your hearts burns the purest loyalty to the stars!
“Sabers—
I gave them to you!
“Armor—
I gave that to you too!
“Your warhorses have eaten their fill of fodder!
“And these past days, you men have certainly slept with enough women!
“My warriors!
“Now I ask you one thing.
“I gave you everything.
“How will you repay me?”
“HU!”
“HU!”
“HU!”
The Savage King pointed west behind him.
“Over there, the Black Dragon Banners of Yan have already appeared!
“They once ravaged our snowfields!
“They slaughtered our people!
“They stole our cattle and sheep!
“They trampled our pastures!
“And now— just as we have finally set foot on this homeland again they have come once more!
“They want to drive us out!
“Drive us from this land— this land that belonged to us from the beginning!
“This is the land beneath your feet now!
“And this will also be the land where your sons, your grandsons, and your tribes live and multiply for generations!
“They want to do what they did eight hundred years ago!
“They want to drive us all away again!
“Come!
“Raise your sabers!
“Put on your armor!
“Mount your warhorses!
“Go tell them— whose home this truly is!
“In the future, the descendants of the Holy Race born on this land will forever remember the glory you fight out for them today!
“Come!
“Warriors!
“Under the guidance of the stars— tear them apart!
“Crush them!
“Let their blood become the first rain to water the new pasture beneath our feet!
“The snowfields— are too cold.
“The snowfields—
I do not want to return there.
“Do you?”
The Savage King drew his saber.
Below the platform, the many Ten-Thousand Household Commanders behind him drew their weapons as well.
Then every savage warrior raised his blade high.
“THE STARS ABOVE, SHELTER OUR RACE!”
“THE STARS ABOVE, SHELTER OUR RACE!”
“THE STARS ABOVE, SHELTER OUR RACE!”
...
Twenty soldiers carried a command platform on their shoulders.
Seated atop it was an old general with neither beard nor hair.
Deng Jiuru sat motionless.
Behind him, his command banner snapped in the wind.
He turned his head and looked toward the crossing behind him.
Li Fusheng’s Zhenbei Army formation had already arrived and was preparing to cross the river.
A commander naturally possessed his own pride.
He could admit defeat elsewhere.
He could lower his head elsewhere.
But on the battlefield, there was only one creed: the brave were invincible.
Even so, Deng Jiuru had to admit that once this Zhenbei force crossed the river as well, his position here would finally feel completely secure.
For some reason, a trace of relief suddenly appeared in the old general’s heart.
He no longer blamed the First Prince for humiliating military houses like his.
Nor had he ever truly resented the fact that he had bowed his head and admitted defeat.
He had not surrendered to the First Prince.
He had surrendered to His Majesty.
Whatever the First Prince did, the Emperor’s shadow stood behind him.
Under this dynasty, bowing before His Majesty, admitting defeat before His Majesty, softening one’s stance before His Majesty what shame was there in any of that?
Only now did Deng Jiuru truly sense something else.
If these regional military bosses could genuinely be kneaded, crushed, and reforged by the First Prince and the court through this war if Great Yan could hammer out another elite army no weaker than the Zhenbei Army or Jingnan Army then when the time came to sweep the realm, would things not become far easier?
The battlefield was chaotic.
Yet within that chaos, a man could somehow find peace.
And once the heart became peaceful, all the bonds and calculations of the past seemed to fall away.
A man began thinking with his truest and most fundamental instincts.
Deng Jiuru was an old general.
At that moment, he seemed to return to the high spirits of his youth, when he had first led troops on campaign.
Clan.
Foundation.
Inheritance.
To hell with all of it.
As long as Great Yan’s Black Dragon Banner could be planted across the whole East, everything absolutely everything would be worth it.
At that moment, something suddenly tightened in Deng Jiuru’s heart.
He seemed to understand many things.
He understood why the Marquis of Zhenbei had refused half the realm and willingly handed a century of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s military foundation over to the Emperor.
He understood why Tian Wujing had exterminated his own entire clan, opening the prelude to the destruction of Great Yan’s great aristocratic houses.
He understood why the Emperor dared place Great Yan’s true military authority into the hands of two Marquises who did not share the Ji surname.
Deng Jiuru drew a deep breath.
There were things he himself had once possessed in youth.
But as he grew older, they had become harder and harder to find.
Even so, that did not stop his heart from yearning toward them now.
His old eyes grew deep.
The command banner cracked in the wind beside his ears.
And an indescribable heroic feeling surged within the old general’s chest.
Around him, the newly established camp was still somewhat chaotic.
Soldiers who had just crossed the river were searching for their commanders and reforming their units.
Transported warhorses were being separated and redistributed.
Looking at the disorder before him, Deng Jiuru felt the desire to hand everything under his command over to the Emperor and the court—to let them truly reorganize and absorb it all—grow even stronger.
Fortunately, Deng Jiuru knew one thing.
These sons of Yan might possess all kinds of flaws.
These military bosses might harbor every manner of private thought.
But when the order truly came to fight to the death they could still rise to the occasion.
Of that, Deng Jiuru was certain.
He would stake his name on it.
And then, shouts of alarm reached the old general’s ears.
“Ships!
“Big ships!
“BIG SHIPS!”
“Upstream!
“Ships!”
Deng Jiuru turned toward the upper reaches of the Wang River.
Warship after warship was racing downstream!
The State of Yan was not completely without river forces.
In regions with denser waterways, the Yan army possessed scattered military vessels.
But they were isolated and few.
Even if every boat and every sailor were gathered together, calling the result a “navy” would still be generous.
The reason was simple.
Geography.
Yan had no coastline.
And for centuries, its greatest enemy had been the desert barbarians.
A navy was simply something it had never truly needed.
So for the overwhelming majority of Yan soldiers, these were the largest warships they had ever seen in their lives.
The ships followed the current northward at tremendous speed.
Even if upstream scouts spotted them, forget stopping them it was difficult enough simply to send warning in time.
Deng Jiuru understood immediately.
The enemy had chosen the exact moment to sail.
They had calculated everything.
Even the time he had spent hesitating.
Even the time the First Prince had spent hesitating.
Every heartbeat of uncertainty had been accounted for.
Deng Jiuru’s mouth slowly opened.
He rose from his chair.
Even before he could clearly see the banners flying from those warships, he already knew where they had come from.
Chu.
This had to be the river fleet of the State of Chu!
“Motherless bastards!”
Deng Jiuru roared.
Who could have imagined that the State of Chu even while trapped in the turmoil of its own imperial princes fighting over succession would still send a fleet north to intervene?
And this fleet had clearly been hidden somewhere upstream for quite some time.
Chu had been colluding with the savages all along!
...
“We’ve been hiding for long enough.
“Time to come out and breathe.
“Otherwise, once Admiral Hu Shunchen gets home, he’ll probably tear me apart and throw me into a pot with those little river fish.”
On the pleasure boat, the young man sat facing the Swordsmith of Chu.
Hu Shunchen was the Admiral of Chu’s river fleet and commanded the largest naval force in the State of Chu.
For years he had fought across the Great Marsh and against the Shanyue.
The Shanyue people called him the Water Ghost King.
“Shanyue” was not the name of a single people.
It was the collective name for many smaller peoples scattered through Chu’s mountains and waterways.
Eight hundred years ago, they had been the original masters of the entire land that became Chu.
They had once been divided among several great tribes.
Later, the Marquis of Chu entered the region by decree of the Great Xia Son of Heaven.
Over centuries, just as the Jin people had driven out the savages, the people of Chu gradually reduced those once-great tribes into small groups that could all be described with a single collective name.
But because they now lived among mountains, rivers, and marshes, destroying their final strongholds required a navy.
Chu also possessed a coastline and therefore needed defenses against threats from the sea.
Where there was need, a navy naturally emerged.
In truth, the State of Qian also possessed naval forces.
And in pure scale, Qian’s navy was at least as large as Chu’s, if not larger.
What frustrated Qian was that its entire northern region contained no great rivers.
Only broad plains.
Could its navy still be useful?
Of course.
Once the Yan people fought their way all the way down into Qian’s Jiangnan region, the navy would finally have a battlefield.
Unless the people of Qian had lost their minds, however, they would hardly arrange that outcome deliberately.
The Swordsmith of Chu brushed back his long hair.
He lifted his teacup, coughed lightly twice, and said, “No matter how clever the calculation, in the end it still has to become slaughter on the battlefield.
“If you cannot win the killing, then all of this remains empty.”
The young man chuckled.
“Even if we lose, we don’t lose much.
“And personally, I think we’ve already won this battle.”
“You might win the battle.
“You still won’t win the whole war,” the Swordsmith replied.
“If you cannot win the moment, how do you ever win the whole?”
The young man poured more tea.
“Once this battle ends, Fourth Brother should be closing his net back home too, yes?”
The Swordsmith shook his head.
“I still think he is moving too quickly.
“Fourth Highness’s net could have caught more fish.
“Once Fourth Highness ascends the throne in the future, the court would have run much more smoothly.”
The young man disagreed.
“Unless Fourth Brother learns from that Emperor of Yan and simply tramples the great clans beneath cavalry hooves— or unless another Tian Wujing appears, someone willing to stab a knife into his own flesh then no matter when that net closes, it will always seem a little early.”
“Eighth Highness speaks with reason.”
The Swordsmith turned and pointed at the river beneath the boat.
“Why not guess, Your Highness?
“How long before the river beneath us runs red?”
The young man pointed at the teapot.
Then at himself.
“About the time it takes me to go piss three more times.”
...
Li Fusheng’s troops were preparing to cross the river when the sudden appearance of Chu’s warships shattered the entire rhythm.
If General Zheng had been here, he might have thought these so-called warships looked merely ordinary.
But to Yan soldiers of this age, Chu’s vessels were already enormous monsters of the water.
The warships simply rammed forward.
Small Yan crossing boats shattered beneath their hulls.
Others capsized outright.
Archers aboard the Chu ships fired continuously.
Some vessels used heavy swinging poles to smash the smaller craft around them.
Across the Wang River, Yan boats cracked apart or overturned one after another.
Then the Chu warships drove straight through the pontoon bridges the Yan army had built.
In a matter of moments, the eastern and western banks of the Wang River were completely severed from each other.
Many Yan armored soldiers and warhorses fell into the water.
Archers aboard the Chu ships shot them as they struggled.
“Quick!
“Send word to the First Prince!”
After issuing the order to his messenger, Li Fusheng stared through gaps between the warships toward the far bank.
He was a general who had spent years fighting desert barbarians.
He understood something clearly.
Whether one used warships or any other method, war ultimately returned to the same fundamental operation.
Separation.
And annihilation.
And he understood something else too.
The abrupt change in the battle had already escaped their control.
...
“REPORT!
“Enemy cavalry fifteen li to the northeast!”
“REPORT!
“Enemy cavalry fifteen li to the southeast!”
“REPORT!
“Enemy cavalry due east!”
The Chu warships had only just severed the river when scout reports began arriving one after another.
Deng Jiuru drew a deep breath.
Then he sat down again.
When his army first crossed, they truly had discovered no hidden enemy forces nearby.
Because the enemy had never intended to hide.
They had no intention of striking while half the army was still crossing.
They had no interest in stealing some small advantage.
Their appetite was much larger.
They wanted a big fish.
Just like Chu’s fleet, the enemy had calculated the timing.
Once the signal arrived, they began compressing toward this position.
Deng Jiuru knew exactly what the enemy considered the big fish.
Him.
His left-wing army.
These tens of thousands of men.
In the distance, dust raised by galloping cavalry was already visible.
Deng Jiuru wasted no time.
He immediately ordered, “Zhang Deyuan!
“Lead your command northeast and engage the enemy at once!”
“Li Deyong!
“Lead your command due east and engage!”
“Huang Shanming!
“Lead your command southeast and engage!”
After issuing three orders in one breath, Deng Jiuru roared, “Stop worrying about losses to your own households!
“Whatever you lose today, this old man will replenish from my own Deng troops after the battle!
“If we cannot keep the enemy outside the camp, then every last one of us can wait to be driven into the river and fed to the turtles!”
These three Chief Commanders led the strongest formations in the left-wing army.
Deng Jiuru ordered all three to charge out of camp for one reason: expand the battlefield.
Their camp was unfinished.
Yan troops were poor at static defense to begin with.
Most importantly, if the enemy compressed them all the way against the camp itself, then not only would they have no room to maneuver one mistake could see the entire army forced into the river.
This situation had not arisen because Deng Jiuru underestimated the enemy.
He had already been cautious enough.
But what the enemy was playing was an overt stratagem.
A hidden scheme could be dodged.
An overt one could not.
Of course, if one insisted on assigning blame, Deng Jiuru did bear responsibility.
His mistake was being too cautious.
If, the moment his men crossed the river, he had immediately spread them outward and seized the surrounding territory instead of carefully remaining close together and waiting then even if the savage army suddenly appeared now, they could at least have enjoyed a proper cavalry battle across the open plain.
They would not have been pressed into such an awkward corner at once.
Now Deng Jiuru could only hope his soldiers would prove worthy.
Chu’s river fleet might have cut the river behind them, but if his army here could hold, then the result of this battle was still undecided!
Three forces galloped out of camp.
Dust rolled across the plain.
Inside the encampment, Deng Jiuru turned and stared at the warships on the river behind him.
The phoenix banners of Great Chu fluttered above them.
His eyes filled with hatred.
Chu.
This debt this old man will remember it.
And His Majesty will remember it too.
From a view high above the battlefield, cavalry could be seen converging from every direction toward the Yan camp on the eastern bank of the Wang River.
Like waves crashing against shore.
And from the camp, three Yan cavalry formations surged outward in three directions, trying to push the tide away before it could strike.
But although roughly seventy or eighty percent of the left-wing army had already crossed, the camp itself was still chaotic.
Even the soldiers ordered out to fight moved in disorder.
Some did not know which formation they were supposed to follow.
A scene like this was actually happening inside a Yan army camp.
The reason was simple.
The left-wing army had been stitched together from multiple regional military households.
This family had one Chief Commander.
That family had an Assistant General.
One house was tied to another through marriage.
Another two had been feuding for generations.
With the First Prince above them wielding the Son of Heaven’s Sword, and Deng Jiuru below relying on the Deng Clan’s prestige to hold them together, the disorder did not normally show.
But in a sudden emergency like this, everything surfaced.
Military reports became confused.
Units were transferred in the wrong order.
The command tent filled with uncertainty.
Panic spread through the entire force.
The three Chief Commanders sent out to fight each originally controlled six or seven thousand cavalry.
Yet none managed to bring even five thousand with them.
Some men had been found but their horses had not.
Some commanders could not locate their own subordinates inside the camp.
One Chief Commander was preparing to order a formation change when he suddenly discovered that an Assistant General standing beside him did not even belong to his command.
The bastard had followed the wrong army!
For the left-wing army and, in truth, for most armies beneath Heaven this kind of disorder was difficult to avoid.
More than fifty thousand men had gathered in a narrow strip beside the river.
Expecting them to reorganize completely in a short time would require an elite force on the level of the Zhenbei Army or Jingnan Army.
And because of this, the three cavalry formations sent out failed to achieve the blocking effect Deng Jiuru had hoped for.
Deng Jiuru was just preparing to use whatever time they bought him to straighten out the central army when reports arrived in rapid succession.
“REPORT!
“Chief Commander Zhang’s formation has been routed!”
“REPORT!
“Chief Commander Huang’s formation has punched through the enemy!”
“REPORT!
“Chief Commander Li’s formation is locked in fierce battle!”
Of the three, Zhang Deyuan’s formation fared worst.
They had actually been broken outright by the savages.
But then again, they had collided directly with the Savage King’s own elite guard.
Sanghu, A’Lai, Gelimu, and other savage commanders were all in that force.
Being routed was, perhaps, understandable.
Huang Shanming’s formation had struck the savage force coming from the southeast.
That happened to be the weakest of the three attacking directions.
Because the situation was so urgent, Yan scouts had not had time to gather more detailed intelligence.
So Huang Shanming simply led his troops straight through the savage formation.
A blocking battle had somehow become his own breakout.
After “cutting through” the savage army, Huang Shanming felt no joy whatsoever.
His heart plunged instead.
He immediately ordered his personal guards to wheel around and charge back.
But at that moment, another savage cavalry force that had been circling behind him bit down hard, desperately delaying Huang Shanming’s return.
Only Li Deyong’s formation, fighting due east, remained locked in a true battle.
Yet the savages showed no interest in annihilating him.
They detached one force to keep Li Deyong occupied while every other savage cavalry formation continued toward the unfinished riverside camp.
The first to arrive was the savage main force from the northeast.
The remnants of Zhang Deyuan’s formation fled ahead.
The savage army thundered behind them.
“Those who flee before battle— kill without mercy!”
Deng Jiuru issued the order immediately.
Yan archers inside the camp loosed volleys into their own fleeing troops, preventing the rout from smashing directly into the camp.
But the savage main force behind them ignored the arrows raining down.
They charged with absolute disregard for life.
The warriors at the very front drove man and horse directly into the camp defenses.
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
*BANG!*
One side had been forced into battle in haste.
The appearance of Chu’s fleet had not only cut off retreat.
It had dealt an enormous blow to morale.
The other side had launched this assault prepared to die.
And in the blink of an eye, right before Deng Jiuru’s eyes, the northeastern section of the camp defenses collapsed.
The savage army poured straight through.
From due east and southeast, other savage forces surged forward like a tide and smashed into the position as well.
An unfinished camp.
A Yan army still disordered from crossing.
In an instant, the first signs of collapse appeared.
Savage warriors knocked from horseback immediately rose and fought on foot, clearing paths for their tribesmen behind them.
They were like packs of mad wild dogs, tearing at the Yan defensive line with no regard for their own lives.
Swift as the wind on horseback.
Solid as iron once dismounted.
That was usually how Yan soldiers fought other nations.
But now, that same quality was appearing in the savages.
Deng Jiuru turned.
He ripped his command banner from its stand and raised it high.
Circulating his qi and blood, he roared:
“KILL!
“KILL!
“KILL!
“STOP THEM!
“STOP THEM!
“BETTER TO DIE FIGHTING THAN DROWN LIKE DOGS IN THE RIVER!
“SONS OF GREAT YAN—
FIGHT TO THE DEATH!
“DO NOT RETREAT!
“FIGHT TO THE DEATH!
“DO NOT RETREAT!”
The old general’s roar rolled across the chaotic battlefield.
The Savage King had not joined the charge personally.
He sat on horseback and watched the slaughter ahead.
He smiled.
A very happy smile.
Then, almost unconsciously, he reached up and touched the scar on his face.
That scar was part of his life.
And within it was also the silhouette of a woman.
He did not understand why he had never stopped thinking about her.
Back then, she had still been so young.
Perhaps it was because of what she represented.
A lowly savage.
And yet in his dreams he dreamed of marrying the Commandery Princess of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s household.
“Huuh...
“Wait for me.
“Just a little longer.
“This dream is truly not far from becoming real.”
The Savage King’s gaze, which had softened for a brief moment, suddenly turned icy again.
“You’re about to marry someone, aren’t you?
“You should already be in Yanjing by now.
“Heh.
“This— is the wedding gift I prepared for you.”
[End of Chapter 304]
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