Chapter 307: Sorrow

The Azure Luan Army’s battle formation was extraordinarily neat.

Great Chu placed heavy emphasis on heavy infantry.

First, Chu faced the same basic problem as the State of Qian: a shortage of horses.

Second, the enemy one faced often determined the path one’s military development would take.

For centuries, Yan had needed to contend with the desert barbarians.

So Yan had been forced to raise iron cavalry of its own in order to fight them.

Chu, by contrast, spent generations fighting the Shanyue across treacherous mountains, rivers, and marshlands.

The Shanyue’s golden age had long since passed, but their resistance still flared again and again.

In such hostile terrain, cavalry had little use.

And so Great Chu developed both heavily armored infantry and a powerful river fleet.

Now, the several thousand Yan soldiers who had just fought their way across the Wang River were almost entirely without horses.

The First Prince’s military gamble should, in principle, have succeeded.

What no one had anticipated was that an elite Chu force had been hidden inside Yupan City the entire time.

Seen from that angle, the new dynasty founded by Situ Yi truly was little more than a chamber pot.

Every faction used it when convenient, then emptied it without a trace of pity.

“Qu has prepared wine inside the city.

“I invite the First Prince of Yan to honor me with his presence.”

Great Chu was governed through an alliance of aristocratic clans.

Every major noble house possessed its own fief.

Bloodline and inheritance were treated with extreme seriousness.

When Yao Zizhan had been young and fond of criticizing current affairs, he once said:

“Qian rites pursue complication.

“Chu rites pursue antiquity.”

What he meant was simple.

The people of Qian treated ritual as something that ought to become more elaborate, formalized, and complicated with every generation.

The people of Chu, on the other hand, constantly sought to return to ancestral custom.

Everything aimed backward toward the practices of the forebears.

The clearest example was that the State of Chu still preserved the ancient profession of shaman-physician.

Even the imperial palace maintained a Bureau of Shaman Physicians, whose members devoted themselves to recovering and studying healing methods said to descend from the ancient sages.

Chu had another custom as well.

Whenever rebellion or civil war broke out inside the state, ordinary soldiers could die.

But if aristocratic commanders on either side were captured or surrendered, they had to be treated with courtesy.

Afterward, they were to be sent home.

At most, a ransom would be attached.

So when Qu Tiannan invited the First Prince into the city for wine, he was not speaking falsely.

The First Prince tightened his grip around the saber in his hand.

Then he smiled.

“The annals may be searched from beginning to end.

“The Ji Clan has had emperors die in battle.

“But never once has a descendant of Ji surrendered to the enemy upon the battlefield!”

Qu Tiannan paused.

Then he nodded.

Their cultural assumptions were different.

Naturally, their way of thinking differed as well.

To Qu Tiannan, a prince of Yan treating his own noble bloodline with such disregard felt almost like self-debasement.

Qu Tiannan raised one hand and pointed forward.

The Azure Luan Army began advancing.

Li Bao drew a deep breath.

Then he roared:

“ALL ZHENBEI ARMY SOLDIERS!”

“TIGER!”

“TIGER!”

“TIGER!”

Every Yan armored soldier tightened his grip around his saber.

The archers drew and nocked again.

Li Bao turned back toward the First Prince.

“Your Highness, please withdraw.

“We will hold the rear for you.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Dying is easy.

“Living is actually harder.

“After this battle, someone must bear responsibility.

“Someone must face His Majesty.

“Someone must face the fury of the court and the people.

“So, Your Highness— please live.

“Live and carry that responsibility.

“This is a battlefield.

“There is no room for sentimental hesitation.

“Besides, your head is rather valuable.

“This general has no desire to see the people of Chu hang it from a flagpole and parade it around.”

The words could hardly have been more direct.

The plan to seize Yupan City by surprise had already failed the moment the Azure Luan Army appeared.

The Eastern Expedition Army’s Battle of the Wang River would end in catastrophic losses.

At a moment like this, dying in battle almost seemed the easier ending.

For a hundred years, the people of Yan had not suffered a defeat like this.

Especially after the succession of great victories won by the Marquis of Zhenbei and Marquis of Jingnan in recent years, the spirit of Yan had risen to extraordinary heights.

From the imperial court to the army to the common people, everyone seemed to believe that beneath the Black Dragon Banner, nothing could stand in Great Yan’s path.

That was what Great Yan was supposed to look like.

“Your Highness,” Li Bao continued, “you know what kind of man Li Fusheng is.

“If you leave him to clean up this disaster, once his illness acts up, he might slaughter every living soul in Yingdu from top to bottom.

“You still need to go back.

“Gather the troops.

“Stabilize the army.

“We cannot cross this river now, but neither can we allow the people of Chu and the savages to cross back over so easily.”

The First Prince’s face twitched.

Li Bao had said exactly what Ji Wujiang himself had been thinking.

He was an imperial prince.

More than that, he was a prince personally raised by his imperial father to become a commander.

To suffer a defeat like this he did not possess the courage to face everything that would come afterward.

No matter how many reasons existed, a defeated general was incompetent.

“PERSONAL GUARD BATTALION!

“ESCORT HIS HIGHNESS BACK ACROSS THE RIVER!”

Li Bao gave the order.

Then, without concealing anything from the men beneath him, he roared:

“ALL ZHENBEI ARMY SOLDIERS!

“FOLLOW THIS GENERAL AND HOLD THE REAR FOR HIS HIGHNESS!

“WE ONLY NEED TO DIE HERE LIKE HEROES!

“LET THE FIRST PRINCE LIVE ON

AND WIPE OUR ASSES FOR US!”

“Hahahahahaha!”

“Hahahahahaha!”

The whole army burst into laughter.

There was none of the melancholy one might expect from men chosen to hold the rear.

Only heroic abandon.

The First Prince bit through his own lip.

At that moment, the man he unexpectedly thought of was Tian Wujing.

When Tian Wujing decided to exterminate his own entire clan, had he also prepared himself to face the accusations of history and the curses of the world?

But no matter what, Ji Wujiang was the commander-in-chief.

Li Bao was right.

Dying was easy.

If an imperial prince died in battle, his death would even seem tragic and heroic.

At the very least, he might earn a few tears from his imperial father.

Once a man was dead, however great his mistakes had been, there was no longer much point pursuing them.

The world was always unusually forgiving toward the dead.

But on the western bank, an army was still waiting for him.

He needed to gather those troops.

Stabilize the situation.

Otherwise, if the whole army collapsed—

There was no need for his personal guards to drag him.

The First Prince began running on his own.

Back.

Back.

Back...

And behind him facing the steadily advancing Azure Luan Army—

Li Bao raised his saber with his single arm.

“The resolve of the Assault Battalion!”

Around him, several thousand Zhenbei armored soldiers shouted in unison:

“DEATH BEFORE RETREAT!”

...

The pleasure boat had already approached the water gate leading into the city.

The young prince sighed with emotion.

“If I remember correctly, the enemy’s central army is what they call the Zhenbei Army, yes?”

The Swordsmith of Chu nodded.

“It is a blade the Yan people sharpened against the desert barbarians.”

“Ah.

“What a pity.

“This time, the Yan force being destroyed is merely the left-wing army.

“How wonderful it would have been if the Zhenbei Army were the one lost instead.”

An elite army belonging to another state was naturally best dead in the greatest possible numbers.

The Swordsmith replied without the slightest politeness:

“If it had been the Zhenbei Army, would we have dared let them cross the river the way we let the left-wing army cross?”

“That is also true.

“Still, Great Chu should use this opportunity to buy horses from the savages and raise cavalry of our own.

“I hear that costs a great deal?”

“An enormous amount.”

“Then you’ll have to work harder, Master.

“Forge more swords.

“Sell a few.”

“If I forge too many, they stop being valuable.”

“Ah, tsk, tsk.”

The young prince walked to the edge of the boat.

With absolutely no dignity, he undid his waistband.

When they crossed the river earlier, he had been frightened into pissing himself once.

This was his third time.

By now, some of the Yan corpses drifting downstream from farther upriver had already entered the tributary.

The water was beginning to turn red.

The young prince felt no pleasure from winning his wager.

Looking at the corpses floating across the water, even relieving himself no longer felt enjoyable.

...

Elsewhere, nothing unexpected occurred.

Li Bao successfully led his troops in blocking the Azure Luan Army, allowing the First Prince to cross the Wang River and return to the western bank.

The Azure Luan Army had been hidden inside the city beforehand.

Naturally, that meant it could not deploy early enough to surround the Yan force from every side.

If it had moved into such positions beforehand, the ambush itself would have been exposed.

More importantly, those several thousand Zhenbei soldiers erupted with terrifying fighting spirit.

The Shanyue often fought without fear of death.

They treated their own lives as though they were worthless.

Perhaps it came from the mentality of:

*A cheap life is only a cheap life.*

The Azure Luan Army had spent years fighting the Shanyue.

It should have been thoroughly accustomed to enemies like that.

But the Yan soldiers before them were not merely fearless of death.

Their battlefield experience and formation skills were far beyond anything a Shanyue tribe could compare with.

The dismounted Zhenbei Army fought the infantry-focused Azure Luan Army almost evenly at first.

If the Azure Luan Army had not possessed such an overwhelming advantage in numbers, it would truly have been difficult to say which side would eventually devour the other.

After crossing back to the western bank, the First Prince knelt on the earthen slope beside the river.

Ahead of him, Yan corpses from upstream drifted endlessly past.

Li Fusheng returned briefly.

After receiving the First Prince’s order to reorganize the army and withdraw thirty li, he left again.

The First Prince remained kneeling there until nightfall.

Even after a portion of Chu’s warships sailed down from upstream, Li Bao still did not appear.

At last, Ji Wujiang slowly stood.

He had to live.

He would become a sinner of the State of Yan.

A disgrace to the Ji Clan.

Tian Wujing’s reputation among the people was poor.

But what was poor was merely his reputation.

Yan valued military merit.

When it came to Tian Wujing’s ability to win battles, the people still trusted him.

Even in court and countryside, many might dislike Tian Wujing intensely, but few were willing to kick him while he was down.

Even after Tian Wujing shut himself inside the Marquis of Jingnan’s Residence in Litian City and refused even to receive imperial decrees, the officials of the court thought more about how to cover for him and smooth things over than how to attack him.

There was no deeper reason.

Tian Wujing knew how to fight.

As long as such a God of War still existed within the state, everyone felt a certain security.

But now, Ji Wujiang, an imperial prince, had lost.

Without military merit, without victory as a foundation, the title of prince would become worthless in an instant.

It might even become the original sin hanging around his neck.

And even his imperial father the man who had trusted him enough to appoint him commander-in-chief would have this failure entered into the histories of later generations:

The sovereign favored his son, treated war as a child’s game, and in the end brewed disaster.

...

Several days later, an utterly haggard Jin Shuke knelt before Zheng Fan and reported everything he knew about the Battle of the Wang River.

Zheng Fan sat at the head.

The other Demon Kings sat below.

Once again, Zheng Fan had won his wager.

He had guessed that the Savage King would bring him a surprise.

And the Savage King had not disappointed him.

At the Wang River, the main force of Great Yan’s left-wing army had been almost completely destroyed.

The river itself had filled with Yan corpses.

A catastrophic defeat had arrived without warning.

And yet there was not the slightest trace of smugness on Zheng Fan’s face.

No satisfaction from having once again proved his “far-sighted vision.”

Instead, he looked tired.

He slowly rubbed between his brows with his fingers.

Then he said:

“By rights, hearing this news should make me happy.

“So why... do I feel so sad?”

[End of Chapter 307]