Chapter 382: Strategy

The school at Snow Sea Pass maintained the tradition once established in Shengle City. Five days out of every month, the children did not attend normal lessons. Instead, their instructors took them outside the school for “extracurricular activities.”

Sometimes they visited the military camps to watch the soldiers drill, help feed the horses and wipe down armor, then eat lunch together with the troops. Other times they went to the workshops, spent a day doing simple labor, and ate their midday meal alongside the workers.

Basically, every productive enterprise under the Count’s Residence could become a place where the schoolchildren “experienced life”—with the exception of the Red Tents, naturally. They were still too young for that.

Snow Sea Pass supported no idlers. Unless someone was genuinely so old that he could no longer move, anyone still capable of working would be assigned something to do, even if it was only sweeping the streets.

Liu Dahu’s grandmother, for instance, was responsible for keeping one section of North Residence Street clean.

Viewed through the eyes of later generations, life under the Count’s Residence might seem exhausting. Yet the people themselves had few complaints.

They had all survived war. That alone had scraped away a great deal of delicacy. More importantly, the words **enough to eat** sounded simple, but for most common people of this age they represented a lifelong pursuit.

As long as they could fill their stomachs, there was very little work they would refuse.

Today, Liu Dahu and the other children his age had been taken by their instructor to a construction site south of Snow Sea Pass. Row after row of civilian houses stretched outward in neat uniformity. Every block and ward had been divided with such rigid precision that the entire settlement looked like grids nested inside larger grids.

That compulsory uniformity and obsessive symmetry were, in truth, the artistic compulsions of Count Zheng—a man who had once made his living as an illustrator—expressed through urban planning.

The civilian houses themselves were not complicated structures. The materials were hardly luxurious, the construction schedule was tight, and huge numbers of laborers were involved. Even so, there was one thing the Count’s Residence absolutely guaranteed: the buildings would keep out wind and rain, and they would not suddenly collapse and crush people to death.

Every construction team was entered into the records. The inspector’s name, the foreman, and every laborer beneath him were all documented.

The rule was stated plainly: if a house later developed quality problems, everyone listed in the register would be implicated. If the defect caused something serious—such as a death—the workers would be fined, while the inspector and foreman could be sentenced to execution.

The same approach was used elsewhere. At the weapons workshops—the Foundry Bureau—not merely every suit of armor, but every spear and every saber bore a mark identifying who had been responsible for it. Any problem with military equipment could therefore be traced back and punished.

These ideas were not original inventions of the Count’s Residence.

The Blind Man had copied a number of systems from the Qin Dynasty.

Today, Liu Dahu and his classmates were working as helpers on the construction site. A designated junior foreman also explained the work while they labored. How much the children actually understood was another question, but at least they were seeing the world early.

After all, once they turned sixteen, most of them would eventually enter one of these trades. Because they could read, write, and do arithmetic—and because they had grown up from childhood under “Count Zheng’s” care, with loyalty practically carved into their bones—they would find it very easy to rise into junior supervisory positions within the industries of the Count’s Residence.

Liu Dahu also trained his body under the Sword Saint’s guidance. He was still too young for true tempering of sinew and bone, but his strength and build already gave him an obvious advantage over the other children.

After the class was divided into groups, Liu Dahu became a group leader. He led more than twenty classmates hauling small bricks.

They had only finished half the work when everyone felt the earth trembling beneath their feet.

Adults and children alike turned toward the southwest.

A vast black “cloud” had appeared there.

No.

Cavalry.

The Snow Sea Pass troops responsible for supervising the worksites and patrolling the surrounding area immediately spread outward and assumed a defensive formation.

But very quickly, that posture relaxed.

The cavalrymen who had ridden out began returning, while officials of the Count’s Residence moved among the construction sites to maintain order and clear the official road.

The hearts of the confused civilians around them went on a swing—suddenly rising into their throats, then dropping again.

Most of these people were no strangers to war.

But most still did not want another battle.

At least not outside their own front doors.

Liu Dahu squeezed toward the official road with several classmates to watch the excitement. Soldiers stopped them from going farther, but they had already managed to claim a place right at the front.

The first rider to arrive was Count Zheng himself.

Every soldier and civilian of Snow Sea Pass knew their Count disliked special treatment and therefore wore the same standard armor as ordinary soldiers rather than some custom-made suit.

Recognizing him was still easy.

Across all of Snow Sea Pass, nobody except Count Zheng could ride a Pi Beast.

And the beast beneath Count Zheng was a Pixiu.

As Zheng Fan approached, everyone on both sides of the road except the soldiers maintaining order dropped to their knees.

“We pay respects to the Count! May the Count enjoy health and good fortune!”

“We pay respects to the Count! May the Count enjoy health and good fortune!”

Count Zheng raised his riding whip and cracked it sharply through the air in acknowledgment.

He did not slow.

He rode straight through the southern gate.

Close behind him came a man many people recognized as one of the Count’s trusted generals—Jin Shuke.

Once, Jin Shuke had merely guarded the east gate of Shengle City. After catching Count Zheng’s eye, he had risen step by step through military merit.

There had always been many barbarian soldiers among the Snow Sea Cavalry. Of all officers who had come from that background, Jin Shuke now held the highest rank and greatest influence.

The long-haired barbarian riding beside him, however, wore armor of a different style and was unfamiliar to the onlookers.

Keyan Dongge was nervous.

Part of it came from the oppressive walls of Snow Sea Pass. Other than the Royal Court’s capital, there were almost no true cities in the desert.

The other part came from the sight of soldiers and civilians kneeling along the road.

The Keyan Tribe was no small tribe. If it gritted its teeth and mobilized everyone it possibly could, it could force together ten thousand bow-bearing warriors.

The desert barbarians certainly possessed hierarchy, and that hierarchy could be severe. But it lacked the elaborate refinement of the eastern states.

Snow Sea Pass in particular had long spent effort on ceremony and formal display, partly to satisfy Count Zheng’s personal taste and partly because he enjoyed the feeling.

Both systems might have kings.

But in one place, meetings meant everyone drinking wine, eating meat, and perhaps even joining a wrestling bout personally.

In the other, the dragon throne stood above while civil and military officials below knelt in perfectly ordered ranks.

The sensation was simply different.

Because Count Zheng had ridden directly into the city, Jin Shuke did not dare perform any extra gestures toward the kneeling soldiers and civilians.

He merely controlled his horse and followed.

After them the warriors of the Keyan Tribe rode in.

Count Zheng had already entered the city, so the common people lining the official road had risen again. Naturally, they began commenting freely on this unfamiliar army.

“Where did these beggar soldiers come from?”

A boy named Li Erniu beside Liu Dahu laughed.

Liu Dahu answered him:

“They’re barbarian soldiers. They came from the western desert.”

The desert.

The barbarians.

The people of Jin were actually very unfamiliar with both.

The State of Yan stood between Jin and the desert.

Still—

Li Erniu’s description was not wrong.

The cavalry entering the city genuinely looked like a beggar army.

Most of the Keyan Tribe itself still remained more than ten li away from Snow Sea Pass.

These seven thousand warriors had been assembled by Keyan Dongge on extremely short notice under Zheng Fan’s personal order.

Until that summons, most of them had been migrating alongside their families. Some had probably been holding their own children moments earlier.

Then the military horn sounded.

They dropped everything, gathered immediately, and rode here at full speed.

Naturally, nobody had been given time to clean himself up for a grand first appearance.

The dust and exhaustion of a long migration remained plainly visible.

Many great commanders had once analyzed how the Zhenbei Army managed to suppress the desert for a century.

Almost every analysis came back to two things:

The Zhenbei Army’s equipment.

And the Zhenbei Army’s discipline.

Ever since the Royal Court declined, the desert had become a plate of loose sand. Even when several tribes were forcibly gathered into one army, they still tended to fight as separate groups.

As for equipment there was simply no way around the problem.

More than a century earlier, the desert barbarians had not lived nearly so miserably.

At the height of its power, the Barbarian Royal Court had once led the tribes east and beaten the State of Yan backward. If several generations of Yan emperors had not personally taken the field and died in battle, the barbarians might long ago have broken through Yan and ridden into the eastern lands.

To the west, the barbarians had also crushed the western states and forced many of them into tributary status, compelling those settled civilizations to provide grain, weapons, and all the other advantages only urban and agricultural societies could supply.

That had been the true golden age of the barbarians.

But no flower remained red for a hundred days.

The Royal Court’s western campaign failed.

Its prestige collapsed.

The western states, led by the rising Roman Empire, began pushing eastward and compressing the barbarians’ living space.

In the east, from the time the first Marquis of Zhenbei founded the Zhenbei Army, the long struggle between Yan and the barbarians gradually shifted in Yan’s favor.

Suddenly, both the barbarians’ eastern and western neighbors were pressing inward.

Life became harder and harder.

Both east and west also adopted, almost by unspoken agreement, embargoes against selling iron, weapons, and important techniques to the barbarians.

That was how the “beggar army” had come into being.

Within the Keyan Tribe, only a minority of warriors possessed armor.

Most wore nothing but leather.

Many even used arrowheads ground from animal bone.

In that respect, their poverty was little different from that of the savages before the savages entered the passes.

Neither elder brother had any right to laugh at the other.

Count Zheng’s army, however, had been different from the beginning.

Even when he possessed only a few hundred barbarian soldiers, he had spared no expense on weapons and equipment.

As his power expanded step by step, he had continued insisting on an elite-army policy.

The soldiers and civilians of Snow Sea Pass had therefore grown accustomed to an excellent military appearance.

And human beings always needed a little sense of superiority to sweeten ordinary life.

Forget the civilians.

Even barbarian-born officers and soldiers already serving in the Snow Sea Army immediately offered mocking smiles at these “poor relatives” when they saw the Keyan warriors’ beggar-like equipment.

The Keyan warriors clearly noticed the atmosphere around them.

They tried to straighten their formation.

Unfortunately, they had not rehearsed beforehand.

The harder they tried to look orderly, the less orderly they became.

Their identity here was also somewhat awkward.

They knew Snow Sea Pass would become the place where they and their families lived from now on.

That naturally gave them complicated feelings toward the people staring at them.

These people were not enemies.

They were... neighbors?

For barbarians accustomed to tribal life, the broad concept of a “neighbor” did not actually mean very much.

In the desert, two neighboring tribes often watched one another with intense vigilance, each terrified that one day the other might swallow it whole.

“Woooooo—!”

The military horn sounded again.

The signal to accelerate the march.

...

Inside a dark underground prison stood a black table.

Beyond it was an iron-barred cell.

The Savage King gripped the bars with both hands and watched a familiar figure approach slowly and sit down behind the table.

“So soon?” the Savage King asked.

Ever since the last time he had explained the situation across the snowfields and the condition of its various tribes to the Blind Man, Gou Moli had been left down here for a long stretch with nobody paying him any attention.

By asking *so soon*, he meant:

*You’re already making a move?*

Summer had not even ended.

Autumn was still far away.

The Blind Man said:

“The Naiman Tribe.”

The Savage King smiled, hands still gripping the bars.

“Are you going to beat them down or win them over?”

“Exterminate the tribe.”

“You announced it?”

“We announced it.”

“Then you have to move fast.”

The Savage King answered without hesitation.

“How fast?” the Blind Man asked.

“The faster, the better. Alliances among the snowfield tribes take time. They have to negotiate how the spoils will be divided in advance, swear oaths, conduct sacrifices, and summon their warriors. All of that takes a great deal of time.

“Since you have already publicly declared that you are going to punish the Naiman Tribe, then you must act quickly. You cannot give several tribes enough time to unite.

“Once the Naiman Tribe is gone, the other tribes will not speak up for something that no longer exists.”

The Blind Man nodded.

“We are already moving very quickly.”

...

“This fast?

“We’re going straight into battle?”

When the Keyan Tribe began entering Snow Sea Pass, the northern gate had already been opened.

Zheng Fan did not stop inside the city at all.

He rode the Pixiu at full speed down the broad official road connecting the southern and northern gates, then charged straight out.

Keyan Dongge, following behind, had assumed they would at least enter the city and rest.

Instead, they had come through the south gate only to head directly out the north gate.

Unable to restrain himself, he asked Jin Shuke.

Truthfully—

Jin Shuke knew nothing either.

But he did not want Keyan Dongge to realize that.

So he merely adopted a profound expression and said:

“Just obey the Count’s orders.”

Once they passed through the northern gate, Keyan Dongge saw rows of simple shelters ahead.

Some contained cauldrons of boiling water.

Others held stacked steamers from which hot vapor and the smell of food billowed constantly.

Zheng Fan dismounted.

Leading the Pixiu by the reins, he walked to one shelter and accepted three large steamed buns and a bowl of meat broth.

Then he led the Pixiu off to one side and began eating ravenously.

Jin Shuke did the same.

Keyan Dongge followed their example.

The men distributing steamed buns were barbarian soldiers. Quite a few were missing limbs or bore other crippling wounds. They could no longer fight on the battlefield, so they had been transferred into logistical work.

Here, however, their presence was convenient.

They could speak the same barbarian tongue as the Keyan warriors.

“How many buns?”

Keyan Dongge answered:

“I want all of them.”

“...”

The soldier stared at him.

Jin Shuke reminded him:

“This is the hot meal. Once you finish eating, there’s still dry ration to collect farther ahead.”

The barbarian soldier handing out buns did not know who Keyan Dongge was.

But the young man apparently reminded him of himself years earlier.

He laughed.

“Here, you’re allowed to eat your fill.”

“Then give me ten.”

“All right. Ten.”

Keyan Dongge collected ten steamed buns and a bowl of meat broth.

He and Jin Shuke walked over to Zheng Fan.

By the time they arrived, Count Zheng had already stuffed the last piece of bun into his mouth and tipped the bowl back to drink the final mouthful of broth.

Then he saw the ten buns stuffed into Keyan Dongge’s arms.

The corner of Count Zheng’s eye twitched twice.

Suddenly he felt pain on behalf of his own grain stores.

Unfortunately, he could hardly refuse to let the man eat his fill.

Nor could he make himself look petty.

So all he could say was:

“Do not waste food.”

“Yes, Count.”

Delighted, Keyan Dongge copied Zheng Fan’s earlier posture and squatted down beside Jin Shuke, devouring food just as ferociously.

The Keyan warriors arriving behind them also began collecting buns and meat broth.

Then, following the men ahead, they squatted down in groups and ate with enormous bites.

During their migration, Yan local officials had provided the Keyan Tribe with supplies along the road.

But the provisions had never been abundant.

And it was not only the warriors who needed to eat.

They were dragging entire households with them.

The consumption was enormous.

Most Keyan warriors had not truly eaten their fill in a very long time.

After finishing this hot meal, the Keyan warriors moved to another row of shelters farther north and received roasted flour for travel rations.

Their waterskins were also filled with boiled water.

Several veteran barbarian soldiers responsible for filling the waterskins teased the newcomers with the tone of men who had been through it all before.

“Bad luck, brothers. You didn’t arrive in time for the bath.

“That soap is slick and fragrant.

“Once the fighting is over, they’ll probably arrange one for you.

“Remember to use it sparingly. That stuff is expensive. The shops inside the city charge a fortune for it.

“But women love it.”

The old barbarian soldiers were remembering the days when they had first arrived and formed teams to pick up dropped soap.

Liang Cheng rode over to Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan was sitting on the ground, lighting his usual after-meal cigarette.

And, just as he did before almost every campaign he asked Liang Cheng:

“What do we do next?”

...

“Next— we drive straight in!”

The Blind Man spoke calmly.

“Be more specific.”

The Savage King pulled aside the hair hanging across his face.

His voice rang with force.

“The Naiman Tribe lies north of **Deep Pool**.

“To its east is the **Cuoge Tribe**.

“To its west is the **Anyang Tribe**.

“The main force of the Anyang Tribe followed me into the passes. Their warriors are now almost entirely dead.

“By now, they must have been swallowed by the Naiman Tribe.

“According to snowfield custom, when one tribe absorbs another, the conquered tribe’s population is taken back as slaves. Then people from the conquering tribe migrate into the conquered territory to operate its old pastures.

“Therefore, the western side of Deep Pool—the region once controlled by the Anyang Tribe—must now be extremely empty. Only a small number of Naiman tribesmen will have been sent there to watch the pastures.

“The Cuoge Tribe, east of Deep Pool, is different.

“They have deep marriage ties with the Naiman Tribe.

“Back then, they even joined the Naiman Tribe in opposing me and refused to send warriors into the passes under my command.

“Their warriors remain intact.

“Therefore, the army should advance from the west.

“From there, it can drive straight into the heartland of the Naiman Tribe!”

The Blind Man nodded.

“Continue.”

The Savage King spread both arms.

At that moment, it was almost as though he no longer stood inside a prison cell.

He seemed to be standing before a military map, commanding thousands upon thousands of troops that still belonged to him.

“The Naiman chieftain is shortsighted.

“In truth, almost every tribe that refused to follow me into the passes was led by men like that.

“Do not be fooled by how much they have profited now, expanding by swallowing other tribes.

“Their leaders are all men whose eyes cannot see beyond the immediate gain.

“The Naiman Tribe’s core ancestral pastures lie north of Deep Pool.

“Now that the Count has already publicly declared his intention to punish the Naiman Tribe, they will certainly send envoys to nearby tribes seeking help while gathering their own forces.

“Over the past few months, the Naiman Tribe has grown extremely quickly by absorbing other tribes.

“But that expansion conceals danger.

“The number of true Naiman warriors has not increased by very much.

“What they gained were slave troops and the warriors of subordinate tribes.

“So— when attacking the Naiman Tribe first send an elite detachment around the front.

“Cut in from the flank— no.

“Better yet, from the rear.

“Strike directly into the Naiman pastures.

“Raid their herds.

“Slaughter and plunder their cattle and sheep.

“The true Naiman warriors at the front will be forced to rush back and save their homes.

“At that point, the Count’s main force advances and seeks decisive battle.

“The subordinate tribes and slave troops will have no will to fight.

“They will certainly collapse!

“Once the rout begins— victory is decided!”

The Blind Man quietly “watched” the Savage King perform.

Only after Gou Moli stopped did he ask:

“Should we contact the other tribes?”

“Contact the other tribes?

“Warn them not to stand with Naiman?

“Or order them to send troops and assist the Great Yan Celestial Master in destroying the Naiman Tribe?”

“I am asking you.”

“The most terrifying creature on the snowfields is the wolf.

“It is the nightmare of every herdsman in the dead of night.

“A wolf is proud.

“And that pride is exactly why the herdsmen fear it.

“Once every existence that resists you has been crushed— all those remaining will naturally crawl beneath your feet.

“So since the Count has already announced his will to destroy the Naiman Tribe, there is no need to contact the others at all.

“Once Naiman is gone, they will not mourn because the rabbit died before the fox.

“They will kneel even more respectfully at the Count’s feet— and lick the Count’s boots!

“This is the snowfield.

“This is our Holy Race.

“A pack of... spineless curs.”

The Blind Man chuckled.

“Are savages really as worthless as you make them sound?”

*Clang!*

The Savage King tightened both hands around the iron bars.

He smiled at the Blind Man.

“Hehehe...

“Hahahahaha!”

Then the Savage King rose onto his toes to make himself look taller.

He extended his tongue and licked the rust from one of the bars.

His mouth pushed between two iron rods.

“Originally?

“No.

“But now that they have lost me— they are nothing but a pack of useless trash.”

————

Good night, everyone.

[End of Chapter 382]