Chapter 367: Tiger Tally!

“Kill every last one.”

Zheng Fan raised his head in astonishment and looked at the Prince of Jingnan standing before him.

The wind blowing at dusk still carried a trace of winter chill. Dampness from the thawing river mingled with it and brushed past their ears again and again.

“Marq—... Your Highness.”

Zheng Fan’s lips moved uncertainly.

“Do you hear them?”

Tian Wujing lifted a hand and pointed toward the Wang River, now thawed and flowing once more.

“This Prince hears them.

“This Prince hears tens of thousands of Yan sons crying to me from beneath this river.

“They tell me they could not swim.

“They tell me the water was too cold.

“Too freezing.

“Too lonely.”

Zheng Fan suddenly remembered the time he had been schemed against, when Tian Wujing took him directly into Yanjing and crippled the Third Prince on his behalf.

When it came to protecting his own people the Prince standing before him was second to none.

Tian Wujing had once said to Zheng Fan:

*Our State of Yan cannot compare with Qian in population.*

*Our soil cannot compare with Chu in fertility.*

*Our borders cannot compare with Jin in peace and security.*

*For centuries, the State of Yan has survived because generation after generation of Yan sons strapped cavalry sabers to their waists, mounted horses, and rode out to kill on the battlefield.*

*The imperial court may fight among itself however it likes.*

*But the army—*

*the army must never fall into chaos.*

*And above all, the will of our soldiers to fight must never be extinguished.*

“Letting the Chu leave is possible.

“But tell me— who will release *them*?”

If the Azure Luan Army were allowed to return home unharmed, then what of the tens of thousands of Yan soldiers who had died at Chu hands that day, or drowned inside the Wang River?

What of their vengeance?

Several words remained caught in Zheng Fan’s throat.

Killing surrendered troops was an ill omen.

Breaking an alliance was a great taboo.

He did not say either.

Because he knew Tian Wujing did not care.

The oath Tian Wujing had sworn before Chu’s Pillar of State in front of both armies had never been some terrified appeal to fate.

To Tian Wujing it had simply been the ending he had long ago chosen for himself.

“Zheng Fan.”

“This general is here.”

“Do it.”

“This general... accepts the order!”

Zheng Fan slowly stood.

“The blood will splash onto your body.

“But the sin— belongs to this Prince.”

The meaning was clear.

A soldier’s prestige, foundation, qualifications, and glory were all forged from enemy blood.

Zheng Fan could take those.

The guilt—

Tian Wujing would carry.

“Your Highness, that isn’t what this subordinate means. I simply don’t want Your Highness to end up—”

Had Bai Qi’s ending not been miserable enough?

If Zheng Fan were allowed to choose, he genuinely wished Tian Wujing would simply rebel outright.

Even if the result were bad at least it would be satisfying.

If the rebellion failed, then fine. They would still have gone out magnificently.

At worst, Zheng Fan could take the Demon Kings and go back to opening an inn and selling human-flesh buns.

But he understood perfectly well that Tian Wujing would never rebel against Great Yan.

After a short silence, Zheng Fan cupped his hands.

“Your Highness, please issue the Prince of Jingnan’s command token.”

The Jingnan Army had never cared much for imperial edicts.

It recognized the Marquis of Jingnan’s command.

Now that Tian Wujing had become Prince, it naturally recognized the Prince of Jingnan’s command instead.

Zheng Fan had not brought his own troops here.

If he wanted to mobilize the Jingnan Army units surrounding Yupan City, he needed Tian Wujing’s token.

In practical terms a tiger tally.

Tian Wujing slowly shook his head.

“No.”

...

“Food! Food!”

“Food! Food!”

“We want food!”

“Give us food! Food!”

By now, nearly all the Chu soldiers had left the city. They sat in dense groups on the ground, shouting toward the surrounding Yan troops for grain.

This had been written into the treaty.

The Chu army would evacuate Yupan City.

But on the road home, Yan was required to provide the necessary provisions.

These Chu soldiers had endured hunger inside the city for months.

Now that they had laid down their weapons and come outside, there was no possibility they could immediately begin marching.

The one thing they desperately wanted was food to fill their stomachs.

Qu Tiannan sat on horseback at the front of the formation.

The horse beneath him was one of the very few still alive in the entire Chu force.

Almost every other warhorse had long since been slaughtered and eaten.

Chu chief envoy Jing Yang went directly to Mao Mingcai.

“Minister Mao, our Chu army has left the city.

“Where is the grain?”

“This...”

Mao Mingcai hesitated before answering.

“This official has already sent men to urge its delivery.”

“Minister Mao, how long has it been?

“These soldiers have been starving for months.

“If they still receive no food, how many more will faint?

“How many will simply starve to death?”

That was not an exaggeration.

Inside the city, even when men had gone hungry, many still possessed enough spirit to force themselves upright.

Now the alliance had been concluded.

They had left Yupan City.

The tension holding them together had suddenly loosened.

That was exactly when men began collapsing.

“Chu Envoy, do not be anxious. This official will send another man to hurry them.”

At that moment, Zheng Fan rode over on his Pixiu.

Count Zheng looked somewhat absentminded.

He was no longer the green officer he had once been. He had experienced battle after battle, large and small.

But slaughtering surrendered troops on this scale was something he had never done before.

On a battlefield, either you died or I did.

Truthfully, killing men—or watching large numbers of men be killed—did not create much psychological pressure anymore.

Sometimes it could even feel rather exhilarating.

But the men before him now were sitting in enormous groups on the ground, crying for food.

And they had already laid down their weapons.

At that moment, Zheng Fan felt as though he had returned to that night at the Tian estate outside Yanjing.

He had stood beside the Marquis of Jingnan.

And the Marquis had said:

*Leave neither chickens nor dogs alive.*

Why was it that every time something like this happened—

Zheng Fan always seemed to be standing beside Tian Wujing?

This complicated emotion was not some affected performance.

Human emotion and preference were three-dimensional things.

They were never a flat diagram.

If they truly were flat many matters would actually become much simpler.

Zheng Fan raised his head slightly and drew in a breath.

Inside his mind, he began constructing an image of that day when Yan soldiers drowned inside the Wang River.

He imagined Chu troops aboard their river fleet laughing and singing Chu songs while shooting arrows into Yan soldiers struggling helplessly in the water.

Again and again, Zheng Fan repeated to himself:

*If you did the first day to us, then don’t blame me for doing the fifteenth to you.*

*If you chose to ally yourselves with the savages, then be prepared not to be treated as people of Huaxia.*

*When you live by this road, eventually the bill comes due.*

*This is retribution.*

*I am taking revenge.*

*You’re hungry.*

*You want food.*

*But nobody invited you here!*

Count Zheng had never really regarded himself as a proper Yan soldier or a genuine member of Yan.

Now he desperately told himself:

*Yan is my home.*

*Yan is my home.*

As for the treaty the consequences of violating it what the Emperor of Yan and the other great men at court might think—

Count Zheng could not be bothered considering any of that anymore.

At this moment, his brain was already overloaded.

At last, a low growl escaped Zheng Fan’s throat.

He lowered his head.

Then slowly raised it again.

His eyes had begun turning red.

He had asked Tian Wujing for the command token.

The Prince had refused.

Truthfully—

Zheng Fan knew what Tian Wujing meant.

He did not blame Tian Wujing for making him issue the order.

An infamy this enormous was not something Count Zheng, with his present weight, could simply snatch for himself even if he wanted it.

The world might not believe he had the authority.

The man truly capable of issuing that order could only be and inevitably had to be Tian Wujing.

Long ago, Zheng Fan and the Blind Man had already analyzed the relationship between Tian Wujing and Great Yan.

Tian Wujing would never rebel.

Yet the degree to which he supported Zheng Fan was extraordinarily large.

Naturally, being forcefully promoted by his immediate superior—one of the three or so greatest giants in all Great Yan—felt wonderful.

And now, Tian Wujing was asking him to mobilize troops without a tiger tally.

If Zheng Fan failed?

That would be perfectly normal.

After all he had no command token.

If Zheng Fan truly could not move the troops, then Tian Wujing himself would simply have to step forward and issue the order.

If Tian Wujing gave the order, there would be no difficulty whatsoever.

Forget slaughtering these surrendered Chu soldiers.

If Tian Wujing ordered the Jingnan Army to turn around, march on Yanjing, and seize the dragon throne itself the army would obey.

When Dujuan had just died, Chen Yang and several other Chief Commanders had knelt inside the Marquis of Jingnan’s Residence.

Did anyone truly think they were merely keeping vigil with Tian Wujing?

They had been expressing their position to him.

It was a petition.

And it could just as easily be understood as a request for battle.

But if Zheng Fan without holding a tiger tally could still mobilize the Jingnan Army, and afterward Tian Wujing personally ratified what he had done then the implications for Zheng Fan would be enormous.

Because it would mean Zheng Fan had effectively obtained military command authority recognized by the Prince of Jingnan.

Once there was a first time there could be a second.

If one day some special upheaval occurred then Zheng Fan truly might be able to...

Of course, first he had to prove the troops would actually move.

He could rely upon his reputation.

His military achievements.

His influence inside the army.

He could rely on his position as Tian Wujing’s favored subordinate.

And perhaps on something a few men vaguely understood: who exactly was raising the Young Prince.

Yes.

Tian Wujing had been right.

Compared with the negative consequence of ordering a prisoner massacre and becoming utterly hated by Chu if Zheng Fan could successfully stand on the stage as Tian Wujing’s “spokesman,” exert his influence over the Jingnan Army for the first time, and have a portion of Tian Wujing’s military authority flow toward him that little bit of infamy became nearly meaningless.

After all—

Count Pingye did not draw his salary from Chu.

More importantly once the surrendered troops were slaughtered, Zheng Fan’s prestige among Yan soldiers would instantly soar.

He would move from the inspirational symbol of a common-born man rising through the ranks into a genuine military power center.

Even if it were only a small hill a hill was still a hill.

Once Zheng Fan understood this, he looked again at the Chu prisoners sitting on the ground, crying for food.

The guilt inside him diminished considerably.

*They aren’t people.*

*They’re just experience mobs in the dungeon I’m grinding.*

Maybe Zheng Fan would have nightmares afterward.

But he had no choice.

Because he understood clearly that Tian Wujing’s support and cultivation rested on one condition:

Zheng Fan had to be worth cultivating.

The moment he disappointed Tian Wujing the moment Tian Wujing decided he was, in the end, mud that could never support a wall then perhaps...

A man capable of exterminating his own entire clan a man capable of violating a vicious oath sworn to Heaven and Earth moments after speaking it what exactly would such a man be unwilling to do?

“Count Pingye.

“Count Pingye.”

Mao Mingcai approached Zheng Fan and pulled him from his thoughts.

“Minister Mao?”

“Count Pingye, please have someone send over grain as quickly as possible. The Chu are pressing us urgently. If this is delayed much longer, trouble may break out.”

In Mao Mingcai’s eyes, Zheng Fan was the favored man standing closest to the Prince of Jingnan.

His words carried more weight here than those of other people.

The mighty Minister of War himself inside a Jingnan Army camp genuinely had no way to speak with full authority.

Zheng Fan nodded.

Then he pointed toward Ran Min, who stood behind Mao Mingcai.

“Go summon Chief Commander Li Fusheng for me.”

Ran Min did not hesitate.

He immediately accepted the order.

Although Mao Mingcai had recruited him, Ran Min was still, for the moment, a soldier of the Jingnan Army.

Mao Mingcai assumed Zheng Fan had summoned Li Fusheng to arrange the grain delivery.

His expression relaxed.

Before long—

Li Fusheng arrived.

The moment Li Fusheng reached Zheng Fan and saw that Zheng Fan still sat high on the Pixiu, his face darkened.

“Zheng Fan.

“Count Zheng.

“What’s this?

“Do I, Li Fusheng, need to come over and formally kowtow to you now?”

In Li Fusheng’s eyes, Zheng Fan counted as a soldier he had personally helped raise.

He was genuinely happy to see one of his own juniors accomplish something.

Long ago, Li Fusheng had already judged Zheng Fan to be no ordinary man. He had personally brought Zheng Fan into his central formation and taught him how battles were fought.

The army was different from ordinary professions.

There was no fear that teaching an apprentice would starve the master.

If anything, military men cared enormously about old bonds of command and mentorship.

But if someone rose to a high position overnight and immediately forgot old brothers and former superiors—refusing even the minimum courtesy that became difficult to accept.

Ran Min stood behind Li Fusheng.

First he noticed the Chief Commander’s expression.

Then his gaze silently shifted toward Zheng Fan who still had not moved from the Pixiu.

Even after Li Fusheng’s openly dissatisfied words—

Zheng Fan did not dismount.

Mao Mingcai walked over and tried to ease the situation.

“Chief Commander Li, please hurry and allocate a batch of grain from the army to help these Chu through the immediate crisis.”

Li Fusheng looked toward Mao Mingcai.

His lips tightened.

At last, he dropped to one knee.

“This general Li Fusheng pays respects to the Minister of War!”

The Minister of War was roughly equivalent to the civilian head of all national defense affairs.

A Chief Commander was a major regional field commander.

In formal hierarchy, who stood above whom was obvious.

And now that the former Marquis of Zhenbei’s Residence had dismantled much of the Zhenbei Army and voluntarily transferred it to the court, those Zhenbei Chief Commanders who once ignored everyone except their own Marquis had been forced to begin learning a new set of rules.

“Chief Commander Li, please rise. Mao does not deserve such ceremony. Please, let us first arrange—”

At that moment, Zheng Fan spoke lazily.

“Li Fusheng.”

Not *Lord Li*.

Not *Old Brother*.

Not even *Chief Commander Li*.

He called the man directly by name.

Li Fusheng’s eyes widened instantly.

*What the hell is wrong with this bastard?*

*Did he specifically summon me here just to humiliate me?*

Conflicts between military men happened at every level.

Ordinary soldiers fought.

Generals fought too.

At the root, much of it was about establishing prestige by stepping on someone else.

Mao Mingcai was equally astonished.

He looked once at Zheng Fan, still seated calmly on the Pixiu.

Then at Li Fusheng.

He had no idea what exactly had happened between these two Chief Commanders.

Ran Min, meanwhile, felt genuine pressure.

He stood very close to Li Fusheng and could clearly sense the dangerous aura beginning to spread from the man.

But then, something flashed in Li Fusheng’s eyes.

He suddenly remembered the morning meal served in camp that day.

Dry rice.

With cured meat.

Normally, food like that was prepared on mornings before battle.

The soldiers needed oil and strength in their stomachs before killing.

At present, even with the former State of Cheng throwing practically the entire strength of the country into supporting the Yan army, supplies were only barely sufficient.

There was no possibility of casually drinking wine and eating meat every day.

And there was another point.

Li Fusheng knew what kind of man Zheng Fan was.

Zheng Fan was not cold or ungrateful.

Ever since the end of the earlier Three-State War, gifts had arrived from Shengle City at every New Year and festival.

Li Fusheng’s breathing suddenly deepened.

In the Blind Man’s language, Li Fusheng probably suffered from certain psychological illnesses.

But he was absolutely not stupid.

How could a fool command elite troops?

Li Fusheng hesitated.

His first instinct was to kneel.

Then he felt that would be inappropriate.

He thought about cupping his hands and simply accepting the order.

That seemed too perfunctory.

*Damn it.*

*Why won’t this bastard just make the meaning clear?*

*Is it really what I think it is or not?*

Zheng Fan reached out and copied the gesture Tian Wujing often made.

He stroked the mane of the Pixiu beneath him.

Then said in a deep voice:

“Zhenbei Army Chief Commander Li Fusheng— receive orders!”

Li Fusheng’s eyes narrowed immediately.

He waited.

For a moment nothing happened.

Zheng Fan did not produce the Prince of Jingnan’s command token.

A princely military command token was like an imperial edict.

If you did not hold it in your hand what right did you have to issue orders in that tone to a man older in service than yourself, and equal to you in official military rank?

But that was precisely why Zheng Fan had chosen Li Fusheng as the first commander to summon.

When it came to killing people and enjoying killing people nobody here surpassed this mentally unstable Chief Commander.

Li Fusheng still did not kneel.

But neither did he ask Zheng Fan where the Prince of Jingnan’s command token was.

Zheng Fan did not hurry him.

He merely said calmly:

“Brother Bao... died here, didn’t he?”

Li Fusheng’s back teeth ground audibly.

Then, he dropped to one knee before Zheng Fan.

His voice thundered:

“This general is here!”

Zheng Fan lifted one hand and pointed toward the enormous mass of seated Chu soldiers ahead.

Then asked slowly:

“Who are they?”

“The Chu.”

Li Fusheng’s facial muscles had already begun twitching.

A surge of excitement was spreading upward from the depths of his heart.

Yes.

Yes.

It really did seem to be exactly what he had guessed.

“Oh.

“The Chu.

“That’s strange...”

A vicious grin spread across Li Fusheng’s face.

He raised his head.

Looked at Zheng Fan.

And asked in a voice trembling from the effort of suppressing excitement:

“What... is strange?”

Zheng Fan leaned slightly backward.

He yawned.

Then shook his head.

A moment later—“heh.”

He laughed softly, as though he had just noticed something truly ridiculous.

Then said:

“What’s strange is— why are they still alive?”

————

Good night, everyone.

[End of Chapter 367]