Chapter 328: Arrangements

“Hissss... it hurts... hurts, hurts...”

Zheng Fan sat in a chair with both his armor and underlayer removed while Xue San busied himself applying burn ointment with homemade cotton swabs.

Blisters had formed across his chest and along the inside of his right arm.

Truthfully, the injuries were not especially serious. Fan Li’s armor had indeed been scorching hot at the time, but the flames had already been extinguished for a while.

At least he had not actually roasted Zheng Fan alive.

Still, after being “baked” like that, the particular flavor of the experience was difficult to put into words.

Fan Li stood obediently to one side like a child who had done something wrong, rubbing his hands together over and over.

“Master, it’s not too bad. This medicine of mine is excellent. It shouldn’t leave any scars, so don’t worry.”

Hearing that, Zheng Fan could only nod.

“Find me something loose to wear.”

“Yes, Master.”

Xue San went off to look for clothes.

A’Ming sat opposite Zheng Fan, drinking blood. He had deliberately not changed his own clothes. There was still a hole in the chest, silently announcing that he had already taken an arrow for the Master earlier.

Fan Li wanted to find a stool and sit down, but hesitated.

Zheng Fan did not blame him.

True, this big idiot had nearly roasted him alive.

But Fan Li had only been frantic to save his Master, and he had indeed carried Zheng Fan back.

On a battlefield, a man could not afford to be overly delicate.

Burns like these were still much better than taking a saber or an arrow.

There was actually one other thing General Zheng understood perfectly well.

While he had been getting “barbecued,” he—who should originally have been unconscious—had suddenly awakened and taken control of his own body again.

Motherfucker.

What a touching display of fatherly love and filial devotion.

But General Zheng could only pretend not to notice.

After all, as a father, he could hardly demand that his son take all the damage for him while he remained conveniently “anesthetized” at the side.

What father did not shield his children behind his own body when danger came?

Only Zheng Fan had somehow managed to reverse the entire arrangement.

Normally, he barely thought about his son.

The instant danger appeared, he shouted for him.

Still, no matter how one looked at it, the previous night’s raid had been extraordinarily successful.

Liang Cheng’s control over tactical detail had genuinely reached the point of mastery.

One could say that, in terms of battlefield execution, the opposing savage commander had been thoroughly abused by Liang Cheng.

It also taught Zheng Fan something.

There was no such thing as pure defense or pure offense in the absolute sense.

Just because you were defending a city did not mean you had to curl up inside it and obediently wait to be beaten.

“Master, the savage force that arrived yesterday has already withdrawn.

“No.

“It has routed,” Liang Cheng reported as he entered.

“Oh.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

The previous night’s results—the fire attack combined with the charge through the camp—had actually inflicted only limited direct casualties on the savages.

Most of their losses came afterward, when the chaotic camp descended into mutual slaughter and trampling.

“There is something else.

“The man Master killed last night was most likely one of their commanders.

“Possibly even a Ten-Thousand Household Commander.”

First, the man’s armor had been much better than that of an ordinary savage.

Second, the entire savage force had simply withdrawn afterward.

That implied the army had most likely lost its head.

If the main commander were still alive, the correct decision would have been to choose another site farther away, establish a safer camp, and continue observing Snow Sea Pass.

But now even the savage scout riders around the fortress had withdrawn.

That meant the force’s command structure had effectively collapsed.

Zheng Fan froze for a moment when he heard this.

“You’re sure?”

“No.

“But if we say he was, then he was.”

“That makes a great deal of sense.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

The battlefield stretched hundreds of li, all the way from the Wang River to Snow Sea Pass.

If he claimed here that he had personally slain a savage general, then even if the Marquis of Jingnan had eyes as sharp as torches, was he supposed to come all the way over right now and conduct interviews to verify it?

Besides, exaggerating military merit was practically a tradition inside armies.

As long as you had genuinely won the battle—and were not the kind of bastard who lost and then falsely reported victory—even if the truth emerged later, the people above would not make too much of it.

The battlefield was chaotic.

Wasn’t that reason enough?

And there were countless savage tribes.

To win over those various clans, the Savage King had handed out military offices lavishly.

Ten-Thousand Household Commanders were not quite as common as Lieutenant Commanders in the State of Yan, but they certainly were not rare.

In any case, the immediate danger had temporarily passed.

Many more savage forces would unquestionably come later, and their numbers would exceed Zheng Fan’s own by several times.

But at least for now, they had bought themselves another few days to breathe.

“Master, this subordinate has already sent men outside to continue cutting and burning the woods.

“At the same time, we should spare what manpower we can to build at least some fieldworks outside the fortress.”

“Mm.

“Leave that to Xue San.”

A clever trick only worked once.

The savages were not idiots.

They would not repeatedly fall into the same pit.

In the end, war always returned to the most primitive form: men killing one another at close range.

“Yes.

“There is one more matter.

“Although the main savage forces are now inside Jin territory and the greatest threat we face does indeed come from the south, the snowfields to the north are not completely empty.

“This subordinate is concerned...”

The Shengle Army had fewer than ten thousand proper troops available to defend the pass.

Even counting the male Jin slaves who had been issued weapons, their manpower could hardly be called abundant.

Facing an attack from one direction was manageable.

The area of the wall was fixed.

Everyone could grind the battle out slowly.

But if savages attacked from the north at the same time, then with enemies before and behind them, the Shengle Army would be in genuine trouble.

A’Ming, who was drinking blood nearby, raised an eyebrow slightly.

This was a strategic question.

And Liang Cheng had deliberately come to ask the Master.

That meant, to a certain extent, the Master had already replaced the role the Blind Man once played within their group.

“Master, the clothes are here. Try these.”

Xue San returned with a set of clothing.

Zheng Fan slipped it on.

At the same time, he said:

“Call the First Prince over.”

“Yes.”

Before long, the First Prince arrived in response to the summons.

The moment he saw Zheng Fan, he dropped to one knee without hesitation.

“This subordinate greets General Zheng!”

In this respect, the First Prince truly gave no one anything to criticize.

Zheng Fan even felt that if the First Prince eventually succeeded to the throne, Great Yan probably would not fare badly at all.

Unfortunately, Zheng Fan had bound himself to the Sixth Prince far too early.

Just as he had bound himself to Tian Wujing.

Once you boarded a ship like that, changing vessels was no longer possible.

“First Highness.

“This General has a military order for you.”

Zheng Fan did not bother rising and staging some false display of pulling the First Prince up while saying, *No, no, this will never do.*

The immediate danger might have just been resolved, but the true crisis was already approaching.

Who had the patience for pointless ceremony?

“Please issue your order, General!

“Wujiang will complete it even if it costs me my life!”

By now, the First Prince had begun genuinely admiring Zheng Fan’s ability to command troops.

Once a military man acknowledged your ability to fight wars, many conversations became much easier.

At the very least, the First Prince knew he himself could not have executed that golden-cicada maneuver—slipping free of the encirclement and launching a surprise attack against Snow Sea Pass.

The timing and control required in troop deployment had been astonishing.

At one point, the First Prince had even found himself feeling a little regretful.

If Zheng Fan had not originally been raised up by Little Sixth if instead he had entered through the First Prince’s own gate then would things not have been...

“First Highness.

“This General will give you eight hundred cavalry.

“Jin Shuke will lead the detachment.

“He will serve as your deputy.

“You will hold overall authority.

“I order the two of you to ride north out of Snow Sea Pass and deliver Great Yan’s greetings to the tribes of the snowfields.”

The First Prince immediately understood Zheng Fan’s meaning.

“General wants me to use my status as an imperial prince to serve as an envoy to the snowfields?”

“Exactly.

“Go tell the tribes of the snowfields that the armies of Great Yan have already defeated their Savage King’s forces.

“Tell them that Snow Sea Pass has been retaken.

“Tell them the armies of Great Yan are now busy exterminating the scattered remnants of the savage forces still trapped inside Jin territory.

“Order them to remain obedient and not cause trouble.

“Otherwise, once we finish cleaning up Jin territory, the iron cavalry of Great Yan will march out through Snow Sea Pass into the snowfields again— and annihilate their tribes down to the last member!

“That is the general idea.

“As for the exact wording, how you frighten them, how you soothe them, when you play the stern face and when you play the gentle one—

First Highness may judge all of that for yourself.

“This General has only one requirement.

“For a short period of time, the savages north of Snow Sea Pass must not attack us from behind.”

The First Prince hesitated.

“What?

“First Highness is afraid?”

“This subordinate does not fear death.

“I am only afraid I may fail the General’s great trust.

“Our army currently holds Snow Sea Pass.

“Although we defeated one savage force last night, I imagine that within two or three days at most, a large savage army will arrive here.

“If this subordinate fails to complete the General’s mission, Snow Sea Pass will inevitably face enemies from both front and rear...”

“First Highness need not worry.

“This General believes you can handle the matter well.

“You may be bolder.

“Your bearing may be grander too.

“The tribes most loyal to the Savage King already followed him south through the pass long ago.

“Those that originally watched from the sidelines later followed him inside as well.

“The great tribes that still have warriors sitting at home in the snowfields today have made it rather obvious that they do not especially care for that Savage King.

“Go make promises to their chiefs.

“Tell them His Majesty, the Emperor of Great Yan, is granting them the title of Savage King.

“East.

“West.

“North.

“South.

“Central.

“First Highness may scatter the title ‘Savage King’ however you please.”

Strictly speaking, those words were wildly presumptuous.

And saying them in front of an imperial prince made them even worse.

In almost any other state, General Zheng’s head could have been chopped off immediately and kicked around like a ball.

But the State of Yan at present was different.

The Emperor of Yan was broad-minded in such matters.

He did not care much about empty forms.

He cared about practical results.

The man had even pretended Zheng Fan’s crippling of his own Third Prince had never happened.

Compared with that, this little bit of overstepping authority could still be justified as an emergency wartime expedient.

Even if the Emperor learned of it later, he would most likely understand.

Besides, regardless of whether the First Prince’s personality was entirely genuine or partly cultivated, he had always presented himself as a solid, sincere military prince.

He understood practical necessity better than most.

“Grant them princely titles?”

Even this prince who had spent most of his life in the army was stunned by General Zheng’s tone.

Within Great Yan, the highest title normally granted outside the imperial clan was Marquis.

Imperial princes were customarily enfeoffed as Princes, but even that generally lasted only for one reign.

If a prince possessed no exceptional merit, then after their father died and one of the brothers inherited the throne, Yan tradition dictated that the enfeoffed princes themselves memorialize the court and request reduction of their princely titles for the sake of state affairs.

That was why Great Yan suffered a plague of Lieutenant Commanders, but princely titles were genuinely precious.

Which was also why the Emperor of Yan’s decision to grant Situ Lei’s son Situ Yu the title Prince of Cheng had shocked so many people.

It had been an extraordinarily generous gesture.

Zheng Fan stretched out one hand.

But the movement pulled at the burns on his body.

He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

The First Prince hesitated.

Then, in the end, he lowered his head and leaned forward slightly, making it easier for Zheng Fan to place a hand on his shoulder and pat it.

“First Highness.

“Why worry about granting them princely titles now?

“Grant them.

“As long as it frightens those tribes with warriors still at home into refraining from marching south and attacking us for a while, that is enough.

“Once we swallow the main savage forces trapped inside Jin territory— the lands of the Three Jin, the entire snowfield won’t Great Yan decide everything?

“If they later insist Great Yan granted them princely titles, we simply refuse to recognize it.

“And if they still refuse to accept that— fine.

“Let their chiefs personally travel to Yanjing and file an imperial complaint before His Majesty.

“Heh.”

[End of Chapter 328]