Chapter 518: - First Command!

Back in Shengle City, Yao Zizhan had once told Zheng Fan, who at the time was still only General of Shengle, that a battlefield after the killing was over was a sentimental place.

Count Pingye had teased him then, asking how many battlefields Teacher Yao had ever actually seen. When Zheng Fan marched south against Qian, he certainly had not encountered some county magistrate named Yao Zizhan swearing to defend his city to the death.

Teacher Yao had flown into a rage. Just because he had never been on a battlefield, did that mean he had never climbed out of a courtesan’s bed? It was the same gut-twisting battle, the same bed left ravaged from end to end, the same sight of someone lying beside you afterward while desolation and loneliness settled in.

At the time, Count Pingye had argued mostly because he thought the old literatus had too much damned time on his hands. The man had never truly fought on a battlefield, yet insisted on putting on the posture of someone grieving over war.

But in truth, Yao Zizhan had been right.

Nearly five thousand men had been killed or wounded. Most of the dead were Savages, while most of the Snow Sea troops had only been wounded. If the Savage losses were excluded, Zheng Fan’s own losses were not especially heavy. Compared with Central Mountain Camp, the vital strategic position now beneath his feet, they were almost negligible.

His boots stepped through bloodstains while soldiers worked everywhere around him.

Chu soldiers who still lay wounded but alive were given one final thrust to end their suffering. No one bothered cutting off heads. Military merit would be apportioned according to each man’s contribution anyway.

Their own wounded were being treated. The Fourth Lady had once taught a group of soldiers the basics of battlefield first aid. They had learned only passably, but something was better than nothing. At the very least, they knew how to treat simple wounds so they did not fester. The seriously wounded would be carried back. They were comrades, after all.

Those who survived would receive disability compensation, and their families would retain Standard-household status. For those who could not be saved, their identity tags would be taken back to their families. If a dead man had never married, then the Righteousness Camp would probably gain another child bearing his surname.

The wounded Savages were being treated alongside everyone else.

Zheng Fan had never ordered it.

The soldiers had simply done it on their own.

In truth, no order had been necessary.

Some men were servant troops. They went forward only to consume enemy arrows and stamina. If they died, they died. If they were wounded, they could smear some dirt over the injury. If they were lucky enough to survive, they would be dragged out next time and used again.

But the Savages who had stormed the camp today had earned the respect of Snow Sea Pass’s regular troops through their courage and fearlessness.

Any army with real spirit would inevitably respect brave men.

Count Pingye stopped walking.

In the distance, atop a heap of corpses, the Savage King sat humming a folk song from the snowfields.

Gou Moli himself knew perfectly well that the three thousand riders he had gathered and incited over the last few days had been sent here to die.

But anyone with a functioning mind understood that sending men who believed in you to their deaths could never feel good.

The Blind Man and Gou Moli got along fairly well. The two often talked and had quite a lot in common.

Once, during a small gathering between Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings, the Blind Man had spoken about the Savage King.

Gou Moli had no remarkable birth. He came from an ordinary herding household on the snowfields. His father died when he was very young. His mother was later taken in by his uncle, and Gou Moli became his uncle’s son.

After that, the uncle sold his mother to another household in exchange for wine.

When Gou Moli grew older, he went looking for her. But she had been bought and sold again and again until, in the end, he truly could no longer find her.

On the snowfields, women held much the same status as cattle and sheep.

Gou Moli never killed his uncle. He even supported the man in old age and buried him properly. His uncle had sold his mother and often whipped him, but whenever there was a mouthful of curds to eat, the man would still share some with him. That was how Gou Moli managed to grow up.

At this point in the story, the Blind Man had taken a sip of wine.

A man born like that had been no noble, only an ordinary person, and a miserable ordinary person at that. Yet through his own effort, he gathered a band of followers, went into the Jin lands to do business, began as a slave escorting carts, and step by step built something of his own.

By the time he had accumulated enough to pitch a tent on the snowfields, buy cattle and sheep, marry several wives, and live like a wealthy snowfield landowner, he abruptly abandoned everything and went to Yan’s Beifeng Commandery to serve as a foreign auxiliary.

He stayed there for years.

Somewhere along the way, he even took a whip from a young Commandery Princess.

Later he went to Qian, then Chu.

He spent the most precious years of his youth learning about and understanding the world outside the snowfields.

Who knew how many nights he had lain beneath the stars with his eyes open, thinking?

Thinking about his own future.

Thinking about the future of the snowfields.

Perhaps that sounded too noble. One could simply call him an ambitious man.

But something had to sustain a man who spent so many years traveling through the Xia states as a foreigner, enduring stares and exclusion in lands where prejudice against other peoples ran deep.

There had to be some conviction inside him.

A purely ambitious man could never have endured all that.

Nor could a purely ambitious man have moved and recruited so many tribes until they gathered around him.

Perhaps he did not believe in any bullshit Stars.

But he had always believed in something.

Sanghu once captured him. Sanghu mocked him and ordered him to dance. Gou Moli danced, and he danced seriously, throwing himself into it completely.

He became Sanghu’s slave.

Sanghu led a band of snowfield raiders that specialized in robbing wealthy and respected Guides of Stars, and Gou Moli followed along, helping him.

Later, Sanghu told him to leave and offered him freedom.

Gou Moli refused.

Later, Sanghu invited him to join the band and become one of his subordinates.

Gou Moli refused that too.

Later...

Later...

And then, one day, Sanghu gave Gou Moli his own position and pressed his forehead against the battered surface of Gou Moli’s boot.

After Gou Moli became the nominal common ruler of the snowfields and received the loyalty of the Guides of Stars, he placed Sanghu in the position of High Priest among them.

Gou Moli gathered the Savages, who had been no more than a lump of mud, into one body. On the snowfields he defeated the Situ Clan’s armies again and again. He broke Snow Sea Pass. Then, on the surface of the Wang River, he defeated the Great Yan army that at the time had seemed invincible.

What had the snowfields looked like with a Savage King?

What did they look like without him?

Were the brothers Situ Yi and Situ Jiong truly idiots?

Why had they taken it for granted that the Savage King would become a dog at their feet?

Because centuries of fixed thinking made them incapable of believing the Savages could stand up, much less threaten them and ultimately turn guest into host.

But Gou Moli still lost.

He lost before the Marquis of Jingnan.

And to be fair, if Zheng Fan’s side had not successfully launched a surprise attack on Snow Sea Pass and cut off the Savages’ road of retreat, Gou Moli would never have needed to fight that decisive battle.

He could have maneuvered calmly against the Marquis of Jingnan.

Given his personality and strategic thinking, he most likely would have retreated eventually.

Qu Tiannan’s Azure Luan Army beneath Yupan City would probably still have been sold out.

Then Gou Moli could have withdrawn into the snowfields, continued integrating the tribes that had not yet submitted, digested his spoils, and gradually built a true Savage Royal Court.

Under his leadership, the snowfield Savages would have slowly transformed into a new desert power.

Then try leaving only twenty thousand soldiers at Snow Sea Pass and sleeping soundly at night.

Without a permanent garrison of a hundred thousand, could anyone truly feel safe guarding that northern gate into the snowfields?

When the Blind Man reached this point, he had laughed several times.

Then he asked:

“Don’t you think the Savage King resembles one of those losers who clawed his way up from the absolute bottom? No money, no family background, nothing. Step by step, relying on nothing but his own effort and struggle, he finally began to rise. He was almost about to succeed, and then he ran into...”

Fan Li, sitting nearby, supplied the ending:

“A cheat-code bastard.”

...

Count Pingye walked over to the Savage King and looked at Sanghu’s corpse.

Gou Moli stopped humming.

He raised his head and looked at Zheng Fan.

The desolation on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by warmth and fawning enthusiasm.

He prostrated himself before Count Pingye and shouted:

“Count, this dog didn’t disappoint your great expectations! This dog helped you take Central Mountain Camp! This dog is still useful, isn’t he?”

After saying that, he looked up with an expression of pure innocence and expectation.

Count Pingye dragged over the corpse of a Chu soldier, rolled it onto its back, and sat on top of it.

Then he looked at the Savage King, pointed at Sanghu’s corpse, and asked:

“He’s dead?”

“To die fighting for the Count was good fortune he cultivated over eight lifetimes. It was his blessing! Hahaha!”

“Mm. Good. Next time I see you, with him gone, there’ll be one less complication.”

The Savage King’s martial ability was pathetic.

Facing Gou Moli alone, Zheng Fan possessed an absolutely overwhelming advantage.

Add Sanghu, however, and Zheng Fan could no longer be certain.

Hearing this, Gou Moli reached out and patted Sanghu’s corpse on the stomach.

“Count, you should’ve said so earlier. If you’d told me sooner, I would’ve slipped him some poison and killed him cleanly. This dog knows the Count hates trouble more than anything. This dog will spare no effort to solve every problem for you.”

“Tired?”

Count Pingye asked.

“How could I feel tired after winning? We won this battle quickly, cleanly, beautifully. Once the prisoners are escorted back, this grand show with a million soldiers building the stage will have ended with the Count performing like the finest leading actor beneath Heaven!”

“I asked whether you’re tired.”

“Count, I’m not tired. Truly.”

“But looking at you right now makes me feel tired.”

“Count...”

“Do you know something? Every time you stand in front of me and call yourself a dog, call yourself a slave, degrade yourself like this, I feel a little uncomfortable.”

“Because it reminds the Count of how you used to be?” the Savage King asked cautiously.

Count Pingye shook his head.

“Actually, I used to flatter people too. At the beginning, when I faced the Commandery Princess of the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence, I knew how to say pleasing words. When I met Great Yan’s Sixth Prince, I knew how to say pleasing words. When I met Xu Wenzu in Tiger Head City, I knew how to say pleasing words. When I met the Marquis of Jingnan, I knew how to say pleasing words too. When I met people whose status stood above mine, I went along with them. I picked things to say that they would find amusing, things that made them happy and comfortable. That’s life. There will always be something capable of making you lower your head. You bow to your superior. You bow to someone who can decide your livelihood, even decide whether you live or die. That is normal. Perfectly natural. There’s nothing strange about it.”

“Then what did the Count mean just now...?”

“Tsk. I never went as far as you do. Lowering your head is one thing. Burying it in the dirt is another. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to.”

As he spoke, Count Pingye reached into his pocket and took out an orange.

The Blind Man had handed it to him before yesterday’s departure. He had never eaten it, and by now it had already begun to shrivel.

Count Pingye peeled the orange and said:

“Making them happy was about making my own life a little better. Give something up to gain something. I understand that. But if I’m speaking from the heart, there is a line for me. Once someone crosses it, I will...”

“What will the Count do?”

“I’ll flip the damned table. If things truly become impossible, I’ll take a few subordinates, find somewhere quiet, open an inn, and live a small peaceful life.”

The Savage King opened his mouth, then smiled.

Count Pingye noticed the change in Gou Moli’s expression.

“What do you want to say?”

“This dog wants to say... Count, you probably never lived through a time when missing one mouthful of curds meant freezing to death in the cold wind, did you?”

Count Pingye fell silent.

In his previous life, his mother had left early and his father drove a freight truck and was rarely home, but while their meals were never refined, Zheng Fan had never experienced a life where there was food today and none tomorrow.

Even after his alcoholic father ruined his health and died young, the money left behind had still been enough for Zheng Fan to attend university.

The only real discomfort was probably parent-teacher meetings.

And even that had never been especially serious.

As for this life, the instant he woke up, he had been surrounded by Demon Kings.

Perhaps they had looked down on him in the beginning and carried themselves arrogantly, but outwardly they had treated him decently enough. They had already prepared a tavern business for him, and he even had maidservants waiting on him.

Across two lives, he had never truly experienced the hardship of being human.

Gou Moli’s words meant:

Count, you have never lived the kind of life where someone is trampled into the mud and struggles with everything he has merely to lift his head for one brief breath.

That was why Zheng Fan could possess that kind of elegance.

That calm.

That composure.

Count Pingye raised the back of one hand to his forehead and tapped it lightly.

“You’re right. I am speaking from a position where my back doesn’t hurt because I’m standing.”

“This subordinate... deserves death.”

“Heh. Speaking normally like this is actually much better. Whether you bow and scrape, carry yourself with dignity, or shove your own head into horse shit, none of that changes the fact that, in front of me, you are still the Savage King. Maybe it’s your habit. But I don’t like that habit very much. A man with ability ought to possess a little dignity. I’ve always believed that.”

Gou Moli nodded, visibly excited.

He understood.

Only when someone intended to keep dealing with you would he ask you to change the parts of yourself that made him uncomfortable.

If Count Pingye intended to throw Gou Moli back into a cage and keep him out of sight, he would have no reason to say any of this.

“And just now, the things you said... I know you didn’t mean them. I know you changed your face deliberately. But I truly don’t like it.”

The Savage King prostrated himself completely.

“Count, this subordinate only... only didn’t want them... didn’t want them to die without value. That’s why...”

They were already dead.

So one should seek the greatest possible value from their deaths.

Only then would their sacrifices not be wasted.

At a time like this, speaking in anger, showing emotion, or expressing resentment would all be foolish.

Count Pingye pointed toward the banner wrapped around Sanghu’s corpse.

“Let that banner become the command banner of the First Command. This Count grants you the establishment of two Battalions.”

One Battalion contained five Standards.

One Standard contained three hundred men.

That meant a total establishment of three thousand troops.

And by Snow Sea Pass tradition, any man accepted into the regular army, whether Yan, Jin, or Barbarian, received equal treatment.

“Thank you, Count, for giving this subordinate another opportunity!”

Count Pingye reached out and patted the Savage King’s shoulder.

Gou Moli knew that this was the most fashionable form of greeting at Snow Sea Pass.

“I have accepted you. But in the sieges to come, the Savages still need to die. They need to keep dying until the soldiers and civilians of Snow Sea Pass have nothing left to say against this Command of Savage troops. Do you understand?”

Only enough contribution piled up through death could erase the hostility and resentment Snow Sea Pass’s soldiers and civilians felt toward a Command of Savage troops.

The Savages themselves had created that blood debt.

Now they had to repay it.

That was what Zheng Fan had meant when he spoke with the Sword Saint earlier.

If the Savages wanted to be accepted as one full Command, the first thing they needed was a certificate of allegiance paid in blood.

“Count, rest assured. This subordinate understands. And with those words from the Count, I am confident I can stir the remaining thirty thousand or so Savage captives into willingly fighting to the death!”

“I trust you to handle things.”

“Thank you, Count.”

“Do your work properly. The opportunity has already been given to you.”

“This subordinate will absolutely not disappoint the Count!”

“Mm.”

At that moment, Fan Li walked over carrying Chi Mingyi and dropped the man in front of Count Pingye.

The hooks driven through Chi Mingyi’s shoulder blades had not been removed.

His entire body was also tied up like a rice dumpling.

Count Pingye glanced at him and smiled.

“You never fought a battle like this before, did you?”

Chi Mingyi sucked in a painful breath as he answered:

“Never...”

The Rattan-Armored Troops had primarily fought water bandits along the edge of the Great Marsh.

It had been many years since they had fought a regular army.

Much less a regular army dominated by cavalry.

Count Pingye nodded.

“I could tell. The mistakes you made over the last two days could be written into a booklet and handed down as warnings to later generations.”

“Heh... heh...”

Chi Mingyi laughed twice.

“The winner becomes king. The loser becomes a bandit. Losing to the Imperial Son-in-Law does not disgrace me. I only ask the Imperial Son-in-Law to grant me a quick death.”

“You’ve got some backbone. What’s your name? Which family does this force belong to? They’re probably not Imperial Clan Guards of Chu.”

“Answering the Imperial Son-in-Law, this one is Chi Mingyi, a man of the Bai Clan of Baipu. These are the Rattan-Armored Troops of Changxi Commandery.”

“A Bai Clan man surnamed Chi?”

“Imperial Son-in-Law, you aren’t surnamed Xiong either.”

“Oh. I understand. You married into the family?”

Chi Mingyi hesitated briefly, then nodded.

“Yes.”

“To lead troops into battle despite being a man married into the family... seems the Bai Clan values you highly. But you were wrong about one thing just now. I married the princess into my household. You and I are not the same.”

“If the Imperial Son-in-Law were willing to return to Great Chu, I believe His Majesty would welcome you with the greatest enthusiasm. Nian Yao’s present position would probably become yours.”

“Huh?”

Count Pingye laughed and pointed south.

“Well, well. That’s damned funny. So by that logic, I’m attacking my own city right now?”

“Imperial Son-in-Law, please grant me a quick death.”

“No hurry. No hurry. Truthfully, Chi Mingyi, you actually had a chance to win.”

“I lost completely. I admit it. The Imperial Son-in-Law’s art of war is indeed above mine.”

“I remember there should have been two trebuchets inside your camp.”

“They were sent away the day before yesterday. Those things were useless. A few days ago they managed to smash one little nobody to death, but only because that bastard’s luck was unbelievably awful. At that distance, in the rain, he still somehow got hit. I’ve never seen such an unlucky son of a bitch in my life.”

Count Pingye fell silent.

He was not angry.

He merely said slowly:

“The horse you smashed to death... I was riding it.”

“...” Chi Mingyi.

After staring in shock for a moment, Chi Mingyi suddenly began laughing.

There were tears in the laughter.

“Heh-heh-heh... heh-heh-heh... hahahahaha...”

Behind them, Count Pingye noticed his armored soldiers escorting Chu prisoners out of the camp.

He gestured toward Fan Li.

“All right, A’Li. Send him on his way too. We should tidy up and prepare to head back. If we delay too long and get wrapped up like dumplings, that would be troublesome.”

Chi Mingyi could be kept alive for now.

First, he knew a great deal about Great Chu’s internal situation.

Second, bringing back a captured enemy commander made it easier to boast about the victory.

“Got it, Master.”

Thwack!

Fan Li’s axe rose and fell.

With one heavy thunk, Chi Mingyi’s head separated from his body and dropped to the ground.

Count Pingye, who had just been preparing to stand, froze at the sight.

He looked at Fan Li.

“What are you doing?”

Fan Li scratched his head in confusion.

“Sending him on his way.”

“...” Zheng Fan.

[End of Chapter 518]