Chapter 504: - A Real Dog

As an ancient zombie, Liang Cheng had once said something: humans were the most adaptable creatures in the world.

Count Pingye was an excellent illustration of that truth.

Back in Tiger Head City, Zheng Fan had been selected for the labor battalion. Xue San carried his armor for him, while Liang Cheng carried his saber.

That night, Liang Cheng and Xue San forced a Barbarian cavalryman down in front of him.

Zheng Fan brought his saber down and killed the man.

Across two lifetimes, that was the first time Zheng Fan had experienced blood spraying into his face from so close and so clearly. His body had reacted badly enough to make him physically ill.

Several years had passed.

Now, during a siege, Count Pingye could calmly order his men to withdraw and attack again.

It was as if he regarded Anhu City and all the Savages inside it as seasoned women in the Red Tents. Give them a light pat and say:

Come on. New position. Let’s keep going.

In Zheng Fan’s own view, the storms and experiences of this world had changed him and turned him into what he was now.

In the Demon Kings’ view, the “freedom” of this world had simply allowed Master to recover his true nature.

In any case, under Count Pingye’s order, the Yan troops that had already completely seized the western wall began to withdraw.

The scaling ladders were carried back down.

The arrow towers were pushed away again.

The battering ram, which had performed far too well and smashed open the city gate, quietly rolled backward.

Every formation withdrew in orderly sequence.

Li Fusheng narrowed his eyes and praised them. “Little Brother Zheng, your methods of training troops truly impress me. Back when the Marquis led us to war, he taught us that charging like a tiger isn’t difficult. The true mark of an elite force is being able to withdraw in perfect order.”

Admittedly, this withdrawal came after a successful assault, but for every part of the operation to remain this disciplined meant Zheng Fan’s army was already no worse than the Jingnan Army or Zhenbei Army.

Even if there was still a gap, it probably lay only in the individual quality of the soldiers, and that difference came from the restrictions Zheng Fan had faced when taking in recruits.

That flaw did not obscure the brilliance of the whole.

More importantly, Li Fusheng himself knew that after several major wars over the past few years, many of the veterans who had once served under him had either died in battle or retired after being wounded. Replacements had filled their ranks. On the surface, their fighting strength did not appear to have declined much, but as Chief Commander, Li Fusheng could sense the deeper changes.

After a hundred battles, the veterans withered away.

And beyond that withering came corruption.

The Zhenbei Army had once eaten sand in Beifeng Commandery. After being transferred to the capital, Li Fusheng had clearly felt his troops begin to change. Once they entered Jin and settled down as a regional garrison, that change became even more obvious.

Life had grown easier. They had seen what a truly prosperous world looked like. Their eyes no longer lingered on the broad-shouldered older women inside Beifeng Commandery’s Red Tents. Now they had begun looking toward the soft, delicate girls in pleasure houses.

That was why Li Fusheng firmly supported the campaign against Chu.

His perspective differed from Emperor Yan’s grand strategic view. Li Fusheng simply feared that if the force he had forged in Beifeng Commandery spent another few years living comfortably, the edge would be ground completely out of them.

The best way to solve that problem was simple.

Do not rest.

Do not stop.

Keep fighting.

Fight without pause.

Keep pouring killing intent into the men beneath you and force them through repeated baptisms of blood and fire.

Once Qian and Chu had finally been destroyed, they could decay all they liked.

Li Fusheng’s thinking was exactly that simple.

Next, they chose the southern wall.

This time, the attacking force came from Li Fusheng’s command.

At the same time, to prevent the Savages from once again fighting halfheartedly and ruining the value of the exercise, Count Pingye found two prisoners and sent them into the city with a message.

The message was simple:

The Yan army would accept their surrender, but every noble and tribal chief had to die.

The second assault began.

Even with Li Fusheng personally directing it, the result was far worse than the first.

When the soldiers of Snow Sea Pass had attacked the western wall, everything had flowed smoothly. Li Fusheng’s troops, by contrast, stumbled from one stage to the next.

Count Pingye had even sent men to tell them about the extra “seasoning” he had added, yet they still did not take the enemy seriously.

The Zhenbei Army truly was an arrogant force.

Even in the first defeat at the Wang River, the army that had actually lost had been the Left-Wing Army. The Zhenbei contingent under Li Bao had covered the First Prince’s retreat, and their performance had genuinely been solid, beyond reproach.

So their pride had grown excessive.

After watching the western wall fall so easily, they badly underestimated the enemy during their own assault.

Underestimating the enemy was one thing.

They had not even properly executed the basic siege procedures they had just watched.

The trebuchets fired two volleys. After hearing the Savages screaming on the wall, one Lieutenant Commander, eager for merit, apparently noticed that Count Pingye was watching and decided he wanted to distinguish himself despite his modest rank.

He did not wait for the shield-bearers, the arrow towers behind them, or the siege crossbows to suppress the defenders. He simply led his men forward carrying scaling ladders.

This time, however, the Savages had truly been given a reason to fight.

Their arrow fire immediately intensified, while more and more Savages climbed onto the wall from below.

The ladder assault stalled at once.

The Lieutenant Commander was certainly a brave man. Wearing full armor and carrying his weapon, he climbed first and tried to create a breakthrough atop the wall.

He actually succeeded.

Under his lead, more than a dozen Yan soldiers climbed up after him and managed to carve out a foothold.

But they had advanced too aggressively and broken rhythm with the troops behind them. They secured their position atop the wall, yet reinforcements failed to arrive in time to tear the breach wider.

They remained badly outnumbered.

In the end, the Lieutenant Commander was struck by several blades and arrows and died on the wall.

Li Fusheng had no choice but to order one more trebuchet volley, then sound the withdrawal.

It was not that they could not have continued fighting.

The Yan were strong and the Savages weak. Even if the Savages had temporarily found their courage, continued pressure would eventually have broken them and repeated what had happened on the western wall.

But the longer Li Fusheng commanded, the more his head hurt.

He also understood that forcing the assault through might preserve his pride, but it would cause unnecessary casualties among his men.

Trading his soldiers’ lives for his own face was not worth it.

Unfortunately, once the withdrawal order sounded, the nearly hundred surviving soldiers from the dead Lieutenant Commander’s unit did not retreat.

They kept climbing the ladders and attacking the wall.

The reason was the Zhenbei Army’s brutally strict military law.

If a battle was lost, and the commanding officer died while his personal troops survived, the survivors were executed without mercy.

This had always been one of the Zhenbei Army’s iron laws.

Once their reckless Lieutenant Commander died, the soldiers beneath him had gone half mad. Their instinctive conclusion was that retreat meant death anyway.

If their own people were going to kill them, they would rather charge the Savages and die there.

Their refusal to withdraw then affected the other Yan troops that had already begun pulling back.

Leaving their comrades behind and continuing the retreat felt wrong.

Yet refusing to retreat meant disobeying the order that had already been given.

What followed was completely different from the orderly withdrawal under Count Pingye earlier.

Li Fusheng’s army lost all cohesion front to rear.

The archers were still trying to cover their comrades, while the shield-bearers had already retreated behind the archers.

Once one step fell out of rhythm, every step after it went wrong.

In the end, Li Fusheng gritted his teeth and continued ordering a withdrawal while sending his own personal guards forward to help extract the remaining troops.

Only after losing still more men did that chaotic siege drill finally end.

By then, Liang Cheng had returned to Zheng Fan’s side.

“Li Fusheng himself has a serious problem too. He probably truly isn’t familiar with commanding siege warfare. On top of that, after seeing how well we did, he instinctively tried to follow our rhythm. But when that Lieutenant Commander reached the wall, Li Fusheng could have ordered the entire forward line to press in at once. Clearing that section of wall would not have been difficult. Instead, he kept following the procedure step by step. As for the chaos caused by the later retreat order, that comes from the fact that Li Fusheng’s soldiers are accustomed to field battles. Their habits of thought still haven’t shifted to siege warfare. More precisely, they don’t really possess that awareness yet.”

Zheng Fan nodded. “That should be Tian Wujing’s problem to worry about. Speaking of which, do you think Tian Wujing knows how to conduct a siege?”

Liang Cheng fell silent.

“Mm? What is it? Just tell me the truth. No need to save his face.”

“Master, this subordinate believes the Marquis of Jingnan’s habits of command are actually even better suited to siege warfare than to cavalry battles in the open field.”

“Oh.”

Count Pingye understood.

“So just now, you were saving my face?”

Because I asked a question that, in the eyes of military experts like you, was extremely stupid.

“This subordinate would not dare.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’ll get some practice here. Once the campaign against Chu begins, we’ll certainly have plenty more chances. I hear that Nian Yao, the Chu general who faced Tian Wujing while defending Zhennan Pass, was spectacularly cowardly.”

Based on intelligence reports, together with what Count Pingye had personally seen around Zhennan Pass, Great Chu’s General Nian Yao, who had once won boundless glory by capturing several imperial princes during Chu’s internal rebellions, had cultivated the art of being a turtle to absolute perfection at Zhennan Pass.

The Yan provoked him.

He built fortifications.

The Yan cursed at him.

He built fortifications.

The weather was good.

He built fortifications.

The weather was bad.

He forced the work to continue anyway.

During his tenure, he had not only built two heavily fortified military camps east and west of Zhennan Pass, but had also constructed two forts north of the pass in imitation of Anhu City and Tadie City beyond Snow Sea Pass.

Part of the reason Tian Wujing had pressed a large army against Zhennan Pass at the beginning of the year was to support Count Pingye, who was somewhere inside Chu doing Heaven knew what, though certainly doing something.

The other reason was that Tian Wujing had discovered the Chu general actually intended to keep building outward.

So the Yan army moved and compressed the zone controlled by Zhennan Pass, ruining Nian Yao’s plan to continue expanding the outer fortifications.

According to reports, foundations had already been laid at two locations.

That was why the coming campaign against Chu would not involve only Zhennan Pass.

Smaller forts around the size of Anhu City would have to be taken as well.

Old Tian could not possibly be unaware of what his Yan troops were good at and what they were bad at.

Exercises like this would undoubtedly continue during the actual invasion.

If they were bad at something, then they could learn it inside the meat grinder.

People learned quickly in an environment like that.

It was like the college entrance examination in a later age. If failing the exam meant facing a firing squad, you might not necessarily become the top scorer, but you would certainly perform much better than if nobody planned to shoot you.

At that moment, Li Fusheng came over after completing the withdrawal.

His face was black.

He was furious.

Furious enough to explode.

Humiliating.

Absolutely humiliating.

Soldiers cared enormously about face.

They might never say it aloud, but openly or secretly, they were always competing.

This time, after the Snow Sea Army’s earlier demonstration, Li Fusheng’s troops had provided the perfect negative example.

When Li Fusheng reached Zheng Fan, Zheng Fan immediately said, “Big Brother, when your men had already gained a foothold on that wall, you shouldn’t have been bound by the procedure. You should have ordered the forward line to press in immediately...”

Li Fusheng listened patiently.

The darkness on his face gradually faded.

Standing nearby, Liang Cheng gave a faint nod.

When it came to dealing with people, he realized the distance between himself and Master was only growing wider.

To an ordinary person, analyzing another man’s recent mistakes to his face would be deeply impolite and offensive.

But a man like Li Fusheng needed false comfort less than anything else.

He was an intensely practical commander.

So having Master directly analyze what had gone wrong was actually the best possible way to ease the embarrassment.

So much to learn.

So much to learn.

Liang Cheng sighed inwardly.

As for the tiny detail that nearly everything Master was now telling Li Fusheng was virtually identical to what Liang Cheng himself had said moments earlier, Liang Cheng did not care.

Once Zheng Fan finished, Li Fusheng nodded heavily.

“Yes. From me down through the ranks, there were problems everywhere. Fortunately we weren’t attacking a Chu city this time. If we had fought like that against the Chu, our losses would have been many times worse.”

“Call it paying tuition. No, paying the teacher’s fee.”

“Right, right. That’s well said. Very reasonable. Ah, Little Brother Zheng, I really do feel as though all these extra years I’ve lived over you were wasted.”

“Big Brother, there’s no need for that kind of talk between us. Order the cooking fires lit, gather your officers, and hold a review.”

“Good. I’ll listen to you. Here’s another thing. I know I can’t invite you yourself, so send me whichever man under you is best at siege warfare. Have him explain a little more to us. I’ll listen too.”

Zheng Fan pointed at Liang Cheng beside him.

“Him. He’s picked up quite a bit of my true teaching.”

...

After nightfall, Count Pingye went to the tent where the Savage King was staying.

He did not enter immediately.

First he sent He Chunlai inside to look around. Only after learning Sanghu was not in the tent did Count Pingye step inside.

Several dozen personal guards with sabers took up positions outside.

The Savage King remained seated where he had been, but the chains on his hands had been undone.

He was eating.

Fan Li had cooked a great hodgepodge stew.

Seeing Zheng Fan enter, the Savage King smiled. “Count, have you eaten?”

“I have.”

Zheng Fan sat directly on the ground.

“You worked hard today, Count.” Gou Moli smiled. “But this subordinate has a small suggestion. Could you give Sanghu a chance and let him lead his men in a little siege practice too? As you know, Count, most of us snowfield people will see only three cities in our entire lives: Anhu City, Tadie City, and Snow Sea Pass.”

The Savage King already knew exactly what Zheng Fan had been doing today.

He was using Savage lives to sharpen the Yan army’s blade.

Yet the Savage King was not angry in the slightest.

He even wanted to volunteer.

“There’s no hurry,” Zheng Fan said. “There will be plenty of opportunities later.”

“You are right, Count. There really will be plenty of opportunities later.”

In a siege, there were many things one might lack.

The one thing there would never be a shortage of was dead people.

And even after someone died, the corpse could still be useful.

Human bodies could be rendered down for fat and used as fire oil.

Or they could simply be thrown over the walls by trebuchet to spread plague inside the city.

“Count, are you very close with Chief Commander Li Fusheng?”

“Gou Moli.”

“This subordinate is here.”

“Do you know what has left the deepest impression on me after serving in the Yan army for so long?”

“Please enlighten me, Count.”

“The Yan army has its factions too, but once a war begins, comrades can trust each other with their backs.”

“That truly is rare. But Count...”

“Speak.”

“That is also because you met powerful patrons from the very beginning, so you never had to concern yourself with those petty pieces of shit. Later, once the Marquis of Jingnan took a liking to you, naturally no one dared obstruct you in that way. Water too clear holds no fish. There is nothing new under the sun.”

Zheng Fan frowned.

After thinking carefully for a while, Count Pingye truly did remember one occasion in the Yan army when he had personally witnessed friendly troops refusing to save one another.

Assistant General Deng Ziliang had been killed when Zhong Tianlang of Qian launched a night attack and broke his camp.

Except, in that incident, the friendly force that had stood aside and deliberately preserved its own strength had been Zheng Fan’s Cuiliu Fort.

The Marquis of Jingnan had even warned Zheng Fan over the matter afterward.

So it was not that Count Pingye had never encountered comrades willing to stab allies in the back.

It was that the man doing the stabbing had been him.

When everything around you looks white, there is a very real possibility that you are the black spot.

Count Pingye had no intention of mentioning that example or reopening that piece of dark history.

There was no point.

“Count, this time the army has come beyond the pass, so the spoils will certainly be considerable. But the army obviously cannot remain here too long. This subordinate therefore believes that after destroying the pastures of several tribes and taking their livestock and people, we should use the force of this heavenly punishment to impose quotas on the other tribes directly. Make them voluntarily deliver cattle, sheep, and able-bodied young men. They are accustomed to bullying the weak and fearing the strong. Bang a gong and their knees go soft. This subordinate can draw up a list for you.”

“Fine. Handle it.”

“Thank you, Count. This subordinate will absolutely not disappoint you.”

“When the real campaign against Chu begins, I’ll remove every chain on your body.”

“Count, for such boundless grace, this subordinate will surely repay you as an ox or horse in my next life...”

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient if I sent you to your next life right now?”

“...” Gou Moli.

...

The next day, the Yan army attacked again in the morning and withdrew at noon.

They attacked again in the afternoon and withdrew at dusk.

On the third day, the Jin camp troops attacked.

On the fourth day, they continued attacking.

On the fifth day, they could no longer continue.

There was no food inside the city.

And the psychological torment caused by the Yan army’s method of “practice” had become simply too horrifying.

They were devils.

Again and again the Yan seized the walls.

Again and again they withdrew.

Then again and again they attacked and climbed back up.

No human beings could possibly do something like this!

In the end, the Savages inside Anhu City mutinied.

They killed every chief and noble among them, then came out of the city of their own accord and knelt across the open ground, completely abandoning resistance.

“Tsk, tsk. Nothing left to play with.”

Li Fusheng sounded genuinely regretful.

He had only just begun getting a feel for commanding siege warfare.

Then he looked at Count Pingye beside him.

“Let’s switch to the next city. Tadie City, right?”

“Mm. But there’s no hurry.”

“No hurry? What are we doing first?”

Count Pingye smiled.

“Send some food to Tadie City first. They’ll need something in their stomachs if we expect them to have the strength to defend the walls.”

[End of Chapter 504]