Chapter 515: - The Prince's Banner!

No matter how many schemes had been laid, how much grain gathered, how many laborers conscripted, how much military equipment prepared, how many plans existed openly or beneath the table, how many suspicions one commander harbored toward another... no matter how many layers there were, in the end, everything still had to come down to real blades and spears drawing real blood.

There was no avoiding it.

No escaping it.

From ancient times to the present, there had certainly been examples of states destroyed without a drop of blood being shed, or entire nations surrendering until not one man beneath Heaven's gaze seemed left among them.

But in truth, blood had still been shed.

It had simply been shed earlier.

The rain stopped.

The sky cleared.

At noon, more than twelve thousand cavalry rode out from Snow Sea Pass's forward camp.

Three thousand Savage riders formed the vanguard.

And there, openly riding among them, was the very Savage King who had once thrown the Three Jin lands into chaos.

Behind them came three Battalions under Jin Shuke and three Battalions under Keyan Dongge.

This was not Count Pingye deliberately trying to expend his Barbarian troops.

When it came to loyalty and combat strength alike, those Barbarian soldiers were the men he trusted most.

This battle, the opening battle of the campaign against Chu, could only be won.

Defeat was not permitted!

The cavalry formation thundered forward.

After circling around East Mountain Fort, it drove straight south, thrusting directly toward the heart of the interlocking Chu system of military camps and forts before Zhennan Pass.

East Mountain Fort was the first to raise warning smoke.

These were not Yan mounted scouts.

This was a Yan army!

Immediately afterward, beacon fires rose from military forts and camps in every direction.

And with those flames, the war between the two great eastern states, Yan and Chu, officially began.

...

Zhennan Pass.

The commander's residence.

General-in-Chief Nian, fully armored, stepped out of the hall and looked at the messenger kneeling before him.

“How many Yan troops have entered?”

Warning smoke did more than signal an attack.

Its color and thickness could also communicate the scale and severity of the threat.

“Reporting to the General-in-Chief, word from the front says roughly ten thousand Yan cavalry have entered.”

“Ten thousand?”

Nian Yao frowned.

He pushed aside the personal guard standing beside him and straightening the silver tassels on his armor.

“Only ten thousand?”

“Report!”

A second messenger arrived at a run.

“Yan cavalry are heading toward Zhennan Pass!”

“Bullshit. They aren't coming to Zhennan Pass. They're going to Central Mountain Camp.”

Nian Yao picked up his saber.

“Beat the drums. Summon the generals. We meet on the gate tower.”

The gate tower meant, naturally, the tower over Zhennan Pass's northern wall.

From there, the warning smoke could be seen clearly and changes across the battlefield could be observed as early as possible.

This was a game of chess.

Nian Yao sat on the southern side.

Tian Wujing sat on the north.

Against an opponent like that, Nian Yao did not dare allow himself the slightest carelessness.

...

Snow Sea Pass's cavalry had brought two horses per rider, so the force did not stop to rest.

It drove straight toward Central Mountain Camp.

The instant the warning smoke rose, the battle had effectively begun.

Even with the Prince of Jingnan leading all the other Yan forces to hold the stage, Count Pingye did not dare treat Great Chu's General-in-Chief on the opposite side as decoration.

At last, before dusk, Central Mountain Camp appeared in the army's field of vision.

Liang Cheng immediately issued orders.

Mounted scouts spread outward.

One thousand riders pressed forward on the left.

Another thousand on the right.

Half the remaining troops rested and ate, while the other half took up shovels and began digging earth.

The sacks had been prepared long ago.

They had been taken directly from the baggage and laborer train.

Count Pingye had ridden his Pixiu on this campaign.

The golden armor... he had been too embarrassed to wear.

But with troops from every army watching, leaving the Pixiu back in camp would have been difficult to justify.

And during an assault on a fortified camp, martial courage was especially important for morale.

Count Pingye himself was the army's most visible talisman and the focal point of its spirit.

Naturally, he had to stand out.

The ground in front of Central Mountain Camp was already low-lying.

Although the weather had cleared today, it remained a broad stretch of swampy mud and standing water.

The defenders had received warning from the smoke beforehand.

Now they could see the Yan army with their own eyes.

The Rattan-Armored Troops inside Central Mountain Camp immediately began moving at full speed, preparing the defenses.

...

Chi Mingyi stood on a high platform issuing orders without pause.

Below him, file after file of Rattan-Armored Troops moved methodically into position.

Looking north from where he stood, he could see a black shadow in the distance.

The problem was that the shadow was much thinner than he had expected.

“Report! Yan troops have appeared outside the western camp!”

“Report! Yan troops have appeared outside the eastern camp!”

Chi Mingyi immediately said, “Tell both eastern and western camps to remain alert. Those are only feints. Nothing serious.”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

Chi Mingyi was right.

The two cavalry detachments were only feinting.

They rode close enough to exercise their horses, loosed a few arrows as a greeting, then pulled away.

Back at the main formation, the soldiers who had already eaten replaced the men who had been digging.

The work of filling earth sacks continued.

The piles of filled sacks gradually grew.

Someone had already erected a small tent for Count Pingye.

He had crawled inside, closed his eyes, and gone to sleep.

The rest of the force, under Liang Cheng's direction, completed its defensive dispositions before nightfall.

Yan soldiers had always possessed a certain boldness.

And because Snow Sea Pass belonged to Count Pingye, that same arrogant, disdainful spirit could be felt from the common soldiers all the way up through the officers.

Everyone simply did what needed doing.

Those who had to dig, dug.

Those who had to boil water, boiled water.

Those who needed rest, rested.

They were clearly on campaign, yet the atmosphere somehow possessed the leisure of a spring outing.

For any army, merely remaining orderly when facing the enemy was already enough to call it battle-capable.

An army able to remain calm and composed before battle was unquestionably elite.

The warhorses stood nearby.

Many soldiers simply lay across their saddles while resting.

Once night fell, every four hours more than two thousand riders went out while another two thousand returned.

They circled Central Mountain Camp, loosed arrows, waved torches, shouted and howled, and eventually even began singing songs from the desert Barbarians.

Then they changed shifts.

The men who had rested mounted immediately and went out.

Those who returned lay down and continued sleeping.

The movement of so many troops and the pounding of so many hooves was anything but quiet.

Yet every soldier who slept did so soundly.

A great battle was coming.

Every man understood how to preserve his strength.

Horses needed to conserve their stamina.

People were no different.

The point of this unceasing nighttime harassment was only secondarily to exhaust the enemy.

Its true purpose was to prevent the defenders of Central Mountain Camp from launching a night attack.

Night raids had been one of Count Pingye's favorite tricks when he first rose through the ranks.

Naturally, he guarded against them with exceptional caution now.

As for the other Chu military camps and forts nearby, Liang Cheng sent only mounted scouts to watch them.

He made no grand display of preparing for attacks from those directions.

According to the schedule, the various Yan forces should already have taken their assigned positions by now, soldier facing soldier and king facing king.

Never mind the Chu attempting some grand “dragon-locking” formation.

Even if one particularly clever Chu commander decided on his own to send troops out and steal an opportunity, the moment his men emerged from their camp or fort they would discover a Yan army already waiting outside.

Once the Chu abandoned the protection of their fortifications, they would have to fight the Yan in the open.

The combat ability of the various Yan contingents was admittedly uneven.

But when it came to field battle... every one of them possessed absolute confidence.

Count Pingye slept exceptionally well.

More precisely, ever since that day when he had nearly followed Qing Taizu's footsteps while inspecting the enemy and returned to the Prince's command tent, the depression weighing on his heart had completely dispersed.

Truthfully, there had only ever been a little melodrama there.

And even that had mostly been a younger brother's instinctive rebellion against an elder brother with an overwhelming desire to control him.

Old Tian had already spoken those words.

Naturally, Zheng Fan's heart felt clear.

With no distracting thoughts, his spirit flowed naturally.

Once every emotional interference was stripped away, all that remained below it was to honestly prepare and fight this battle well.

First: sleep well.

These Barbarian and Savage soldiers had grown accustomed to noise and chaos while herding livestock in the past, so even in an environment like this they could still rest properly.

But when dawn came the next morning and everyone saw Count Pingye stretching with a refreshed expression, they had no choice but to admire him.

Their Count truly was calm in the face of battle!

A'Ming held up a waterskin and poured while Count Pingye washed his hands and face.

The water inside the waterskin was precious.

The nearby wells had either been filled in or poisoned.

Even stream water could not be drunk casually.

So everyone relied on the water they had brought in their own skins.

Liang Cheng had not sent men out to search for more water.

There was no need.

The result would be decided today.

If they won, there would be water and everything else they needed.

If they lost, they would simply turn their horses around and withdraw.

They absolutely could not give the Chu commander another chance to redeploy and reorganize his forces.

Which meant that throughout the entire army, Count Pingye alone was extravagant enough to waste drinking water washing his face.

“Haa... That was a wonderful sleep.”

The Sword Saint sat nearby eating flatbread and drinking water.

“Wonderful? I slept beside you last night and heard nothing but your snoring.”

Even he found it strange.

By all rights, Count Pingye spent his ordinary days at Snow Sea Pass in luxury and comfort.

Yet last night's snoring... tsk.

“Hahahaha.”

Count Pingye laughed.

“Don't underestimate sleeping in armor on a battlefield. It's comfortable. Makes it easy to sleep deeply.”

A battlefield was a place where life and death stood directly before one's face.

In an environment like that, depression, neurasthenia, anxiety, and every other damned ailment of the mind seemed to disappear.

“I'm not sleeping beside you tonight,” the Sword Saint said.

“That won't do! If you don't sleep beside me, I won't feel safe enough to snore.”

The Sword Saint sighed.

He drank another mouthful of water and took another bite of flatbread.

At that moment, the horns sounded.

Every soldier immediately stopped whatever he was doing, adjusted his armor, mounted, and took his assigned position.

The assault on the camp was about to begin!

Three thousand Savage riders stood at the very front.

The Savage King, accompanied by Sanghu, rode before them.

His right hand held a saber.

His left hand rose high.

Then the blade cut across his left palm.

He smeared the blood across his forehead.

At once, more than half the Savage riders copied him.

They cut their palms with their blades and wiped the blood across their foreheads.

The others were a step slower, but they quickly followed and completed the ritual as well.

“By the Stars above, I will wait for you in the depths of their light! This battle is not for the Sacred Race. It is for ourselves. It is for your wives and children!”

The Savage King's face twisted ferociously as he roared.

“After this battle, you will eat the same food they eat! You will drink the same clean, clear water they drink! You will wear armor as fine as theirs! We will receive our own tents, our own houses, our own pastures, even our own slaves! You will become new chieftains! You will possess your own households, your own tribes, your own women! Every last one of those things must be bought now with the sabers in your hands, with the blood and heads of the enemies before you! Forward, warriors of the Sacred Race! Since the day we were born, we have never feared the cold wind or the bitter frost! Forward, warriors of the Sacred Race! The Stars have given us another chance! For the Stars, for the future, for hot, scalding oil tea, pour all your rage and all your roaring fury upon the enemies ahead!”

At first, while the Savage King spoke in the Savage tongue, quite a few Barbarian soldiers behind them wore amused expressions.

They looked down on Savages.

They genuinely did.

Some of these men had once beaten the Savages and seized Snow Sea Pass from them.

Most of the others, after coming to Snow Sea Pass, had spent their time riding onto the snowfields and beating Savages there.

Even the strange birdlike sounds of the Savage King's speech seemed funny to them.

But as Gou Moli's emotions climbed higher and higher, and as the expressions on the faces of the Savages before them began changing, the ridicule slowly disappeared from the Barbarian soldiers' faces.

They became serious.

The Sword Saint looked toward Gou Moli in the distance.

Then he said to Count Pingye beside him:

“In the end, you still released him.”

Count Pingye shook his head.

His boot pressed against the ground.

“No. He will always remain beneath my feet.”

...

A fresh plume of warning smoke rose from Central Mountain Camp.

The defenders could see it now.

The Yan were preparing to assault the camp.

And because the Yan had not surrounded Central Mountain Camp, mounted messengers from the position remained free to leave and race south toward Zhennan Pass.

On the northern gate tower of Zhennan Pass, General-in-Chief Nian Yao, whose eyes were already slightly bloodshot, received the report.

“Why? Only ten thousand cavalry came in?”

Nian Yao had never understood that number.

But somewhere deep inside, he increasingly felt as though an invisible hand had seized him by the vital point.

This was not the battlefield development he had wanted.

“Report! Central Mountain Camp sends word that the Yan have begun their attack!”

Nian Yao ground his teeth.

One Yan force.

Only one.

Did the Yan truly intend to swallow Central Mountain Camp with this single detachment?

What was Yan's purpose?

What was Tian Wujing planning?

The fog of war remained thick.

Nian Yao ordered:

“Send word to the military forts and camps near Central Mountain Camp. Have them move to support it.”

Since the battlefield was still buried beneath fog, Nian Yao did not mind beating the grass to startle the snake.

First, he would probe Yan's intentions.

But the instant he prodded... it was like pouring water into boiling oil.

The entire battlefield erupted.

In less than half an hour, warning smoke began rising from one Chu fort and camp after another.

“Report! Enemy troops sighted at West Mountain Fort!”

“Report! Enemy troops sighted at Sihe Camp!”

“Report! Enemy troops sighted at Dugu Camp!”

“Report...!”

Everywhere.

Everywhere.

Everywhere reported enemy troops!

Nian Yao naturally did not believe the Yan had begun a full assault across the entire front.

No matter how arrogant they were, they could not possibly attack every fortification at once.

There was only one explanation.

Yan troops had already been positioned outside each of the military forts and camps.

The moment the Chu inside showed any sign of coming out, the Yan immediately appeared and began pressing them.

They were not attacking the fortifications.

But if the Chu came out, they would absolutely fight!

“Pass the order! Every military fort and camp is to hold its position and remain inside! Maintain strict defenses!”

“Yes!”

At this point, Nian Yao was not stupid enough to keep forcibly pulling troops out from every fortified position.

If he did, a gigantic chaotic melee would become unavoidable.

Fighting would erupt everywhere.

The battlefield would shatter into countless separate pieces.

That had originally been the strategy he intended to use against the Yan.

Yet somehow, the side about to be divided apart had become his own.

Fight?

How?

Pull his soldiers out now and he would be the real fool.

No matter how many casualties the Yan suffered in field battle, it would still cost them far less than assaulting fortifications.

“Report! Messenger from Central Mountain Camp!”

“Bring him up!”

Nian Yao understood perfectly well that the fuse for the present battlefield was that first Yan force to enter.

In fact, an absurd thought had begun rising inside him.

Judging by the warning smoke now rising everywhere, the entire Yan army had probably moved.

That meant hundreds of thousands of Yan troops had deployed... simply to hold the stage for that one force?

Who in the hell commanded an army important enough to receive this kind of treatment?

Who in the hell was worth Tian Wujing arranging such an enormous stage for?

Surely that lone Yan force driving deep into the center could not be personally commanded by Tian Wujing?

“General-in-Chief! The Yan troops before our camp are flying a banner with the character Zheng!”

“Zheng?”

Nian Yao froze.

There was no need to think.

One Zheng banner, combined with this kind of treatment, was enough for him to know exactly whose army stood there.

Wasn't that Great Yan's Count Pingye, and Great Chu's own Imperial Son-in-Law?

There had always been rumors that Yan's Southern Marquis, now its Southern Prince, valued Zheng Fan enormously.

But Nian Yao had genuinely never imagined

Tian Wujing would go this far for Count Pingye.

Yan and Chu together had nearly a million troops arrayed across this battlefield.

And all of them were building a stage for that one Count Pingye to perform upon?

“Son of a bitch! You treat that bastard Zheng this damned well. Why don't you come over in person and hold the stage down for him too!”

General-in-Chief Nian could not stop himself from cursing.

His admiration of Tian Wujing, and his habit of studying and dissecting Tian Wujing's methods of warfare, had long since ceased to be any secret inside Zhennan Pass.

Precisely because of that, he now felt genuinely furious at the way Yan's Prince of Jingnan treated Count Pingye.

And beneath that anger lay something even deeper.

His calculation had failed.

At the same time, a faint sense of panic had begun spreading through him.

Ten thousand cavalry wanted to storm, within one day, a heavily fortified military camp defended by eight thousand Rattan-Armored Troops?

Nian Yao did not believe it.

He refused to believe every Yan soldier was some celestial warrior descended from Heaven.

But the commander of those troops was the same Count Pingye who had once entered Chu alone and abducted a princess.

The same strange bastard who had campaigned for a thousand li and seized Snow Sea Pass.

A man unusually skilled at creating miracles.

And so Nian Yao's confidence began to waver.

“Report! General-in-Chief, Yan troops have appeared ten li northwest of the pass!”

“How many?” Nian Yao immediately asked.

“Thirty thousand!”

Haa.

Thirty thousand.

Not many.

And yet they dared approach Zhennan Pass openly and brazenly.

Yes, Zhennan Pass itself held only a little more than sixty thousand defenders.

It was a major military stronghold, after all, not a conventional city.

Even Snow Sea Pass, which was larger than Zhennan Pass, housed most of its civilian households in the areas outside the walls.

There simply was not room inside a strategic pass for an enormous population.

But the military camps east and west of Zhennan Pass each held more than forty thousand Imperial Clan Guards of Chu.

There was another great camp behind the pass as well.

Over there, ten thousand Yan cavalry attacking Central Mountain Camp was something Nian Yao could at least understand.

But here... thirty thousand riders dared come straight toward Zhennan Pass itself?

“Son of a bitch! Do you really think I, Nian, was raised on fear?”

“General-in-Chief, there is... one more thing.”

“Speak.”

“That force is flying the princely banner of Yan's Prince of Jingnan.”

“...” Nian Yao.

——

Ten li northwest of Zhennan Pass, a cavalry corps that had been galloping hard came to a halt.

Ahead stood the Chu's mighty strategic pass.

Ahead stood the Chu military camps.

There waited the most elite Imperial Clan Guards of Chu.

And all of it seemed to become still because of the towering figure standing before the army, clad in gilded armor and mounted upon a Pixiu.

It was as though even the wind blowing north from the south in the burning heat of summer stopped here.

[End of Chapter 515]