Chapter 343: The Feast

On both banks of the Wang River, Yan cavalrymen rode everywhere.

Their sabers rose and fell without mercy, harvesting savage lives.

At this moment, this place belonged to them.

It was their pasture.

Or perhaps they were farmers in autumn, swinging sickles through a ripe field.

During the previous Battle of the Wang River, tens of thousands of Yan sons from the Left-Wing Army had died in the water. It had been Great Yan’s greatest defeat in any foreign war for decades.

Now the cycle had turned again.

Only the positions had reversed.

Some Yan riders galloped along the riverbank, using bows to shoot savages trapped on the ice or struggling in the water.

They competed over marksmanship.

Whenever someone missed, the riders around him immediately burst into loud ridicule.

At this moment, the savages were nothing more than toys in their eyes.

It was said that the Emperor of Qian maintained a Shanglin Garden outside Shangjing where many wild animals were kept. Successive emperors occasionally went there to hunt and display their “martial prowess.”

But how could shooting domesticated beasts trapped inside an imperial preserve compare with shooting human beings?

You could read their expressions more clearly.

Feel their fear more directly.

Taste their despair more completely.

And because of that, the excitement struck the nerves far harder.

The people of Yan were not fond of Five-Mineral Powder.

But perhaps the sensation here was even more intoxicating than swallowing the drug.

*When will revenge ever end?*

That phrase did not suit the present scene.

The world rarely contained the kind of unilateral beauty people liked to imagine.

The law of the jungle might wear layer after layer of new skin, but its essence had never truly changed.

Most importantly, when the Yan army suffered its great defeat last time, neither the savages nor the people of Chu had shown the slightest mercy.

So they could hardly blame the Yan for repaying the debt twice over today.

Some Yan soldiers were naturally restrained men.

Yet even they now forced themselves into a kind of madness.

They laughed loudly on purpose.

Made more noise than necessary.

Humiliated the savages who were fleeing or kneeling and begging for mercy with even greater cruelty.

In their minds, perhaps the souls of many among the tens of thousands of comrades who had died here last time still lingered in the skies above.

They needed to see this.

Savages who fled toward the outer edges were chased by group after group of Yan cavalrymen.

The routed savages had completely lost unit organization and the will to fight.

They could no longer mount anything resembling serious resistance.

Even when one of them was driven into a dead end, roared, turned around, and tried to fight, he often discovered that even dragging one Yan soldier down with him was nearly impossible.

Whether Zhenbei Army or Jingnan Army, the coordination between the riders was simply too polished.

Who baited.

Who harassed from range.

Who charged head-on.

Who pierced through from the side.

No Squad Leader needed to give instructions.

Everyone naturally moved into the correct role.

Even the fiercest tiger would struggle to accomplish anything against a disciplined wolf pack like this.

And before the true elites of Yan, the savages had never qualified as tigers in the first place.

The killing continued.

In war, the greatest casualties often came only after one side had already collapsed.

The anger and humiliation the Yan army had accumulated before this battle, together with the Marquis of Jingnan’s order to take no prisoners, turned the savage rout into a banquet of slaughter for the Yan.

This was the first time Ran Min had ever experienced victory like this.

He watched the savages who had seemed so arrogant before now scatter like frightened, pitiful chickens and ducks.

They wailed.

They cried.

They begged.

And when his cavalry saber swept across their throats, the blood spraying from their necks splashed hot across his wrist and face.

Blood was naturally warm.

Fresh blood even more so.

Ran Min had traveled the jianghu and escorted caravans.

Human blood and human lives were not unfamiliar to him.

But slaughter on a scale like this was an entirely different experience.

Compared with what lay before him now, the day he killed Monkey San openly in the county yamen had certainly looked bold and heroic in jianghu terms.

But in truth, it had been nothing more than rough back-alley play that could not even enter the grand hall.

A man should kill.

A man should ride the battlefield and let his blade drink blood.

Ran Min reached up and touched the armor on his body again.

He knew that very soon, this armor he had worn for only a few days would probably have to be handed back.

The Squad Leader galloped past him laughing.

He shouted:

“What the hell are you worrying about?

“Kill a few more savages and maybe that armor will stay on your body!”

There had once been a time when ordinary people across Yan, together with many officials in the court, believed Great Yan possessed three armies that fought best: the Zhenbei Army, the Jingnan Army, and the Imperial Guards in Yanjing.

After the campaign south against Qian and the opening of half of Jin, people gradually stopped mentioning the Imperial Guards in the same breath.

The force had instead been broken into several pieces and assigned to support different fronts.

Now after this battle on the Wang River the Zhenbei and Jingnan armies would once again establish, and this time completely secure, their reputation as the strongest iron cavalry of Great Yan.

There was one more thought the Squad Leader did not say.

Nor would it have been appropriate to say it aloud.

He had originally served in the Imperial Guards and counted as an old soldier.

He had also grown up in Yanjing.

People from Yanjing liked to boast and curse, carrying themselves as though Heaven ranked first and they ranked second.

But in certain matters, their political instincts were often sharper than those of other soldiers.

At present, the Commandery Princess of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s Residence was about to marry the Crown Prince.

Half the Zhenbei Army had effectively been presented as part of her dowry.

To a certain extent, the Zhenbei Army had already been absorbed by His Majesty and integrated into the court’s military system.

But there was still one army here that had not been absorbed: the Jingnan Army.

Li Bao was dead.

The Chief Commander post at Quhe City now stood empty.

Li Fusheng had just fought this great battle of revenge directly under the Marquis of Jingnan...

And once they continued east, drove the savages completely from the lands of the Three Jin, and pulled out the nail called Yupan City after that, across the Three Jin, the Marquis of Jingnan’s Residence and the Jingnan Army would become the true authority in this entire region.

Li Fusheng’s Zhenbei troops might very well be incorporated under the Marquis of Jingnan in the end too.

After all, they would still need to deal with retaliation from the snowfields and remain wary of Chu.

There was no possibility such a place could exist without one genuine supreme commander holding the whole situation together.

Only the Marquis of Jingnan could do it.

More accurately there was no one else.

In other words, to hell with whether these troops had originally belonged to Dacheng, the Imperial Guards, Yan regional armies, or even the damned Zhenbei Army itself.

Before long, all of them would be completely integrated.

Perhaps, because of its history, the Zhenbei Army might retain some degree of independence.

But troops from every other source would likely be folded into the Jingnan Army’s order of battle and obey the Marquis of Jingnan’s Residence alone.

Naturally, thoughts like these could only remain inside the head of an old Yanjing soldier.

They were not convenient things to say aloud.

But stripping all the politics away he was a soldier.

Half his life had been spent in military camps.

If following the Marquis of Jingnan meant fighting battles that felt satisfying, never choking on frustration, and continuing to win, what soldier would refuse?

As for oversized military power, the hunter cooking the hound after the rabbit was dead, and all the other filthy matters of court politics let the officials in the capital lose sleep over them.

What did any of that have to do with a grunt like him?

Men like them wanted only to live freely and fiercely today.

Ran Min understood none of these twists and turns.

He simply did not want to take off the armor he was wearing.

And after personally witnessing such a magnificent victory, a feeling of yearning naturally grew inside him yearning for the Jingnan Army, and for the Marquis of Jingnan himself.

When teaching Zheng Fan, the Marquis of Jingnan had once explained that winning the hearts of soldiers was actually very simple.

Lead them to victory.

Keep leading them to victory.

Win forever.

As for eating and sleeping beside the men, asking after their warmth and cold, and all the other methods people liked to praise those were additions.

Nothing more than additions.

General Zheng had specifically asked Liang Cheng about this afterward.

Liang Cheng’s answer had been even more direct.

A soldier tied his own head to his belt and followed you into battle.

A little false warmth and theatrical affection might move one or two men.

Could it move an entire army?

People loved to speak of “loving soldiers like sons.”

It sounded beautiful.

But in real life, were there not countless unfilial sons who refused even to care for their own parents?

Ran Min reined in his horse and stopped.

He dismounted.

At the riverbank, one extraordinarily tenacious savage had managed to crawl out of the freezing water.

That was no small feat.

For one thing, the river was bitterly cold.

For another, the savage was still wearing armor.

To swim out while wearing armor meant this man must have counted as a genuine warrior on the snowfields.

But no matter how strong a warrior was, by the time he dragged himself from the river and reached the bank, he had already exhausted everything.

Ran Min waited until the man crawled ashore.

The savage saw him.

He looked only briefly.

Then collapsed onto his back and gasped for breath.

Ran Min walked over.

The savage closed his eyes.

Ran Min bent down.

The man’s body trembled slightly, as though he wanted to resist.

Then he gave up.

His eyes opened again.

There was no rage inside them.

No hatred either.

He was simply too exhausted to spend strength displaying unnecessary emotion.

Ran Min drove his saber into the man’s chest.

Hard.

He thought he would be able to grant him a quick death.

Unfortunately, the savage’s armor was better than ordinary armor.

The blade penetrated, but not deeply enough.

So Ran Min began twisting the hilt.

The savage beneath him convulsed in agony.

His mouth opened.

He seemed to be cursing silently in the savage tongue.

Ran Min kept twisting.

Turning.

Grinding.

It reminded him a little of making rice cakes with his grandfather before the New Year when he was a child.

There was even a trace of joy in it.

Yes.

In this place, killing people was not a crime.

It was pleasure.

Because while you were killing someone else, it meant he was not killing you.

Was that not worth celebrating?

Eventually, the savage warrior beneath him died.

Perhaps the man regretted it.

He had exhausted every shred of strength merely to swim ashore, only to find torture waiting for him at the end.

Thinking about it that way, he might have preferred to drown directly beneath the freezing river.

Ran Min pulled out his saber.

He was tired too.

He had killed many savages during the pursuit.

Killing people was actually more exhausting than slaughtering pigs.

The body might not always grow more tired, but the heart wearied more easily than the blade.

As the saber came free, it dragged loose a token.

Ran Min picked it up.

Then he realized he had found treasure.

The dead man was a Thousand-Man Commander.

The Squad Leader had ridden off for another round of hunting and now came galloping back.

Seeing Ran Min again, he shouted:

“What’re you holding?”

Ran Min raised the token.

Then pointed with his saber toward the savage warrior lying dead at his feet.

The Squad Leader drew his bow.

He aimed at Ran Min.

Ran Min kept smiling.

The arrow flew.

Ran Min did not move.

The shaft struck the dead savage.

Unfortunately, it missed the head and buried itself in the lower leg.

The Squad Leader’s old face reddened.

Even so, he shouted:

“Fine!

“Let me get a taste of killing one of the savages’ big officers too!”

Then he looked at Ran Min and burst into laughter again.

“You lucky bastard!

“I’m jealous enough to die!

“Hahahaha!”

After that, the Squad Leader spurred his horse away along the river, searching for another target.

Ran Min stayed where he was.

He was tired.

So he sat down on the bank.

Across the river, he saw a group of armored soldiers escorting several hundred savage captives to the water.

Their armor looked extremely familiar.

When Ran Min had first been pulled out of the Penal Troops, he himself had worn armor like that.

Which meant the armor he currently wore probably belonged to the Zhenbei Army, while the men across the river wearing his old equipment were likely the true Zhenbei troops.

The several hundred savage prisoners were driven to the riverbank and forced onto their knees.

Then an Assistant General gave the order.

The Yan soldiers began beheading them.

One savage head after another rolled away.

Some came to rest upon the ice.

Others dropped directly into the river.

The headless bodies were thrown into the water one after another as well.

Afterward, more than a hundred Zhenbei soldiers dropped to one knee.

They planted their cavalry sabers into the earth before them.

Ran Min guessed they must once have served under Li Bao.

Now they were using this method to offer sacrifice to their dead commander and their fallen comrades.

No amount of incense.

No amount of mourning.

No amount of grief.

No amount of tears could comfort the dead as completely as the blood and heads of their enemies.

This was a war of revenge for Great Yan.

The people of Yan needed this killing to vent the rage and oppression inside their hearts.

His Majesty needed it to stabilize public morale and continue pushing Great Yan’s outward expansion.

The officials in court needed it to stabilize order across the state.

The common people needed it to preserve their pride.

But those who needed it most were still the soldiers on the front line.

“HOW MIGHTY IS THE YAN ARMY!”

An old cavalryman threw back his head and released a long howl, waving the saber in his hand.

Across the vast plain, men chased, men fled, heads were taken.

And on this day, the Wang River turned red once again.

When you stood inside a war, it was very difficult to distinguish what was righteous from what was unrighteous.

Thinking itself was a luxury in such an environment.

When escorting caravans through the jianghu, you had to be ruthless.

Otherwise both the respectable side and the underworld side would strip a layer of skin from your body.

Ran Min felt states were probably much the same.

Only after you hurt an enemy badly enough, only after you frightened him badly enough, would he stop daring to provoke you.

Ran Min’s generation had grown up listening to stories of the Zhenbei Army.

Killing barbarians was something everyone across Yan regarded as unquestionably right.

And reality seemed to prove the point.

During the recent Three-State War, one imperial decree from His Majesty had been enough to keep the desert barbarians from making the slightest move.

Why?

Because they had already experienced Great Yan’s ruthlessness.

They feared it.

So they did not dare provoke Yan.

In the western desert, the people of Yan had already proven the usefulness of this method with their own actions.

Ran Min felt that next it was time to deliver Great Yan’s greetings to the savages and to Chu.

Besides they had been the ones who pushed things too far first.

Just as Ran Min prepared to remount and continue his work, he saw a Pixiu crossing the river ahead.

On its back sat a general in gilded armor.

In an instant, every Yan soldier along the riverbank—regardless of what force he had originally belonged to, whether Imperial Guard or Dacheng army—raised his saber and roared:

“THE MARQUIS IS MIGHTY!”

“THE MARQUIS IS MIGHTY!”

“THE MARQUIS IS MIGHTY!”

It would not be objective to place every ounce of blame for the previous defeat at the Wang River upon the First Prince.

But the contrast between the outcomes of the two battles was simply too stark.

They stood as complete opposites.

Last time, the Yan army had lost with unbearable humiliation.

Tens of thousands drowned.

Across the river, Chu sailors sang the songs of their homeland.

This time, savage corpses covered both banks of the Wang River.

The long howl of veteran soldiers drowned out the reek of blood and created a kind of fierce grandeur belonging only to Yan.

Whatever future historians might say about rights and wrongs, merit and blame, the First Prince would be completely eclipsed beneath the Marquis of Jingnan’s radiance.

The Marquis of Zhenbei was old now.

The Zhenbei Army had been broken apart.

At present, across all of Yan, there was only one commander whose appointment alone could make everyone—from court officials to common people to the soldiers themselves—believe with absolute certainty that victory would follow.

The Southern Marquis.

Li Fusheng rode over covered in blood.

If anyone in the entire Eastern Expedition Army had been choking hardest on frustration, it was undoubtedly Li Fusheng.

According to the Blind Man—who had once worked as a psychologist—Li Fusheng unquestionably possessed some form of mental illness.

In a later age, a man like this might easily have become a serial killer.

But in this era, after entering the army, he had instead discovered the perfect stage for himself.

“Marquis.”

Li Fusheng grinned.

He looked extraordinarily relaxed.

Like an addict who had gone too long without his powder and had finally obtained a fine dose.

One breath and all the tension vanished.

The man almost seemed to float.

There was little excitement on the Marquis of Jingnan’s face.

Even surrounded by soldiers roaring his name, he remained calm.

This was not deliberate emotional restraint used to preserve dignity.

The white-haired Marquis had probably simply stopped caring much about many things.

“Li Fusheng, receive your order.”

“This general awaits command!”

“You will temporarily act as commander-in-chief.

“Continue pursuing the routed savages along both banks of the Wang River.

“At the same time, keep the Chu army inside Yupan City under watch.”

“This general obeys!”

Li Fusheng understood.

If he was being left behind, then the man who would continue leading the army east in pursuit of the savages was naturally the Marquis himself.

Li Fusheng did not fight for that assignment.

The situation was excellent now.

With the savages outside no longer able to restrain Yan, the Chu army in Yupan City could only remain trapped inside.

Such a favorable position had not been easy to create.

If an accident occurred during the pursuit, everything could be lost again.

Under these circumstances, having the Marquis of Jingnan personally lead the eastern pursuit was unquestionably the safest option.

Wild and arrogant as Li Fusheng could be, when it came to commanding armies he did not dare question Tian Wujing in the slightest.

Tian Wujing looked northward toward the distant outline of Yupan City.

Then issued another order.

“Tell Situ Yu.

“Every official in the Prince of Cheng’s Residence is to get moving.

“Mobilize civilian laborers and stone for this Marquis.

“We are in no hurry to attack Yupan City.

“First, build another wall around its entire perimeter.

“Seal off every connection between the city and the outside world.

“If the Chu troops sortie, beat them back.

“If Chu sends messengers, shoot them dead immediately.

“If the Chu offer surrender, refuse it.

“There are tens of thousands of Chu men inside that city.

“This Marquis intends to starve them all to death.”

Tian Wujing reached down and ran a hand through the mane of the Pixiu beneath him.

Slowly, he said:

“Don’t the people of Chu love singing those Chu songs?

“When this Marquis returns from the eastern pursuit, I want to see whether they still have the mood to sing after hunger forces them to start eating the flesh of their own comrades.”

Li Fusheng’s grin nearly split his face.

For a Chief Commander like him, following this Marquis was almost unbearably satisfying.

There was no other reason.

The man suited his tastes perfectly.

The Marquis of Jingnan pointed around them.

“Build a victory mound of heads here.

“Tell Situ Yu to come personally and erect the memorial stone.”

“Marquis, the Prince of Cheng is still only a child...”

A mound of severed heads packed densely together was a horrifying sight.

Even grown men could carry nightmares home after seeing one.

Situ Yu was barely half-grown.

“He is Situ Lei’s son.

“If he has not forgotten how his father died, then he must come personally.”

“Yes, Marquis.”

Li Fusheng bowed and accepted the order.

At that moment, Chen Yang, Chief Commander of the Jingnan Army, personally escorted a savage Ten-Thousand Household Commander over.

The savage had clearly been tortured.

Chen Yang threw him to the ground like a dead dog.

“Marquis!

“This general has important military intelligence to report!”

The Marquis of Jingnan looked at him and nodded.

Chen Yang immediately continued:

“We learned from this bastard that General of Shengle Zheng Fan has followed the Marquis’s orders and successfully captured Snow Sea Pass!”

Li Fusheng’s eyes lit up instantly.

He immediately bowed low before the Marquis of Jingnan.

“The Marquis sees a thousand li ahead and lays plans beyond mortal calculation!

“This general is in awe!”

Chen Yang was not flattering him.

Nor was Li Fusheng.

Because in this world, aside from that general surnamed Zheng, there were genuinely very few commanders who dared deliberately flatter the Marquis of Jingnan to his face.

They simply assumed instinctively that the Shengle Army’s military action must have been arranged by the Marquis in advance.

First block the savages’ road home.

Then crush their main force head-on.

Next every savage who entered the pass this time could be buried completely in the lands of the Three Jin.

Not one would escape.

And they both knew Zheng Fan’s Shengle Army had crossed the river and penetrated deep into enemy territory under orders from the Marquis of Jingnan.

So naturally they assumed the capture of Snow Sea Pass had also been part of Tian Wujing’s design from the beginning.

When he heard the report, the Marquis of Jingnan’s hand which had been idly stroking the Pixiu’s mane paused slightly.

Snow Sea Pass.

The Shengle Army.

Zheng Fan.

At last, the reason behind those strange movements in the savage rear had found its source.

Any soldier with even a little military sense understood what Snow Sea Pass falling into Yan hands meant.

It meant the savage main force could now be eliminated once and for all.

If the savage main army that had entered the pass this time was swallowed, the snowfield savages would need not merely years, but decades perhaps several generations before they could recover.

And afterward, when Great Yan’s iron cavalry passed through Snow Sea Pass and swept across the snowfields, the savages would find it almost impossible to gather another army of meaningful size to resist.

Yan would inevitably march beyond the pass.

There was no question of that.

Great Yan’s revenge had never followed any rule about sparing the old or the young.

A hundred years ago, after the first Marquis of Zhenbei defeated an invading Qian army, he had immediately driven his cavalry through three northern commanderies of Qian.

Why?

To vent that fury.

The savages dying here at the Wang River today were only the first payment of interest on Yan’s revenge.

Next, Yan would certainly pay a return visit to the savages’ homeland.

Helping the people of Jin drive out the savages was only the first step.

After that, Yan would lead the people of Jin into the snowfields to take revenge and return the suffering inflicted upon the Three Jin.

Only then would the lands of the Three Jin truly turn their hearts toward Great Yan.

For a long while, the Marquis of Jingnan said nothing.

Then he shook his head.

And cursed softly:

“Heh.

“That brat.”

[End of Chapter 343]