Chapter 521: - Bloody Battle (I)

The Prince of Jingnan was extremely skilled at fine-grained control of an army.

Every morning, noon, and evening, a wave of messengers traveled back and forth between the various forces and the princely command tent.

What they reported upward was the current state of each army in exhaustive detail: how many laborers had fallen ill, how many horses had gone lame, how much grain remained, how much the camp had consumed that day, how many medical supplies had been used, how much medicine remained, and so on.

The princely command tent, in turn, issued responses: how much needed replenishing, what the next round of fighting would involve, whether a force was to attack a fortification, provide support, or serve specifically as an outer warning screen against possible Chu movements.

Sometimes even a unit’s assigned zone was divided all the way down to an individual hill.

Each army was like a marionette.

And the strings of every puppet were gathered into the Prince of Jingnan’s single hand.

The phrase “commanding the army as easily as one moves one’s own arm and fingers” was probably meant for something like this.

If some mediocre commander tried to direct an army this way, the officers below would inevitably curse him, and the result could easily become a perfect example of armchair generalship.

Tian Wujing was obviously not that kind of commander.

In truth, the principle itself was not especially strange.

Any supreme commander understood the advantages of controlling an army this closely.

The problem was that actually doing it was usually extremely difficult.

Once too many armies and commanders gathered beneath you, their origins differed, their factions differed, their patrons at court differed, and the whole structure became tangled beyond belief.

In many campaigns, the supreme commander spent more time thinking about those complicated relationships than about the battle itself.

And throughout history, when a great commander received the seal and marched out, the ruler above him often liked mixing sand into the army on purpose.

Directly appointing a military supervisor was the uglier version.

A subtler method was to deliberately stuff one or two factions hostile to the commander into his army.

That too was part of the art of checks and balances.

But none of that existed in Great Yan’s army campaigning against Chu.

First, the Prince of Jingnan himself would never allow such a thing.

Second, before the campaign began, the present Emperor of Yan had already issued an explicit imperial decree: from the Emperor downward, anyone who dared criticize or interfere with the war at the front would be executed immediately.

Little Sixth had once said that if one excluded the Three Jin lands, Great Yan had less territory than Chu, fewer people than Qian, and a worse external environment than Jin.

The reason Yan had still managed to sweep outward in this generation, earn terrifying prestige, and build its present national momentum was simple: even if Yan possessed only five fingers, it could clench all five into one fist and punch with everything it had.

You might possess seven, eight, nine, even ten fingers.

But if you could never truly close them into one fist and meet mine head-on, then in the end, one punch would still knock you down.

Yet this almost unbelievable division of power had always seemed terribly unstable to outsiders.

Over the last few years, Qian and Chu had spent plenty of time waiting to see Yan make a fool of itself.

The problem was that Yan’s joke had not arrived.

Instead, Qian and Chu were now in danger of becoming the real joke.

Take Great Chu at this very moment.

Perhaps only Nian Yao himself understood what kind of pressure he was now facing.

It was as though a black vault of heaven hung over his head, constantly accumulating force, while bolt after bolt of thunder tore cracks across the sky.

For now, he was grateful that Great Chu still had Zhennan Pass to rely upon.

Without this mighty strategic pass anchoring the front, Nian Yao did not believe Great Chu would immediately perish.

No matter how fierce Great Yan’s iron cavalry might be, Nian Yao still had confidence that under the Regent’s leadership, Chu’s dynastic fate could not be extinguished so easily.

But one thing was easy to imagine.

If hundreds of thousands of Yan and Jin troops truly poured directly into Chu territory, then whether Great Chu tried to drive them out or maneuver against them, the result would be extraordinarily painful.

As the war unfolded step by step and the first round of contact, the Battle of Central Mountain Camp, came to an end, reports from spies and agents operating inside the enemy states gradually began reaching the desks of the senior men on both sides.

Yan had admittedly gambled its national fortune.

But Yan was one solid slab of iron.

So long as those few men remained, that iron slab would remain.

Those three men had already used blood and fire to grind every burr from its surface.

Chu, however, was another matter.

Nian Yao submitted a memorial announcing a great victory to the court.

At the same time, he personally wrote a confidential memorial to the Regent explaining the actual details of the battle.

But the Bai Clan still submitted a memorial impeaching Nian Yao for standing by while Central Mountain Camp was besieged, refusing rescue out of cowardice and fear of battle, and thereby causing the complete destruction of eight thousand Baipu troops!

The Bai Clan’s memorial expressed the clan’s fury.

Viewed from the perspective of the entire war, this move unquestionably harmed the greater situation.

But from the Bai Clan’s position... their family had sent out its soldiers.

Those soldiers had even been stationed in a stronghold deep inside the Chu defensive system.

Then, somehow, the Yan had simply wiped them all out.

The Bai Clan was not a colossal aristocratic house like the Qu Clan.

When the Qu Clan’s fifty thousand Azure Luan soldiers marched into Jin and were destroyed, the family immediately raised a second force afterward.

They even received consolation from the Regent and the court.

Although the consolation gift, the princess, was abducted by the Yan.

If the Bai Clan’s troops had been used as bait and Chu had actually gained something from their destruction, then perhaps the family would not have made such a fuss.

They possessed that much political awareness.

But here?

Their men had died and accomplished absolutely nothing.

So for the clan’s survival and future, the Bai Clan had to make its dissatisfaction heard.

The child who cries gets candy.

And besides, this child actually had reason on its side.

Yet the memorial inevitably stirred up waves.

Nian Yao had long since stationed the private armies of the various great noble houses in the military forts and camps outside Zhennan Pass, while keeping his own Imperial Clan Guards as the force anchoring the pass and serving as his reliable mobile reserve.

From the perspective of the entire battlefield, the arrangement made sense.

But different backsides produced different viewpoints.

The noble houses of Chu could hardly avoid thinking:

So what is this?

You’re using our private armies as consumables?

Once the Bai Clan’s disaster happened, it was like one stone striking the water and raising a thousand waves.

Not everyone could personally visit the front.

Not everyone could understand the battlefield clearly.

And some people, even if they understood it perfectly, would pretend they did not.

The great noble houses of Chu had received generations of favor from the state.

Now the state was in danger.

Those who could provide soldiers had provided soldiers.

Those who could provide laborers had provided laborers.

Those who could provide grain had provided grain.

And after all that, the imperial clan and the court were secretly planning to borrow Yan’s knife to cut down their strength?

On this point, the Blind Man had once privately analyzed with Count Pingye the political consequences this battle could create inside Chu.

In reality, Nian Yao had been matched piece for piece by the Prince of Jingnan’s various forces and left unable to move his hands or feet enough to rescue Central Mountain Camp.

But Chu’s noble houses would not necessarily see matters that way.

After all, even Comrade Chiang Kai-shek, in that other timeline and that other era, had been rather fond of playing exactly this sort of game.

When the Blind Man offered this prediction, Count Pingye had found it amusing.

Perhaps even the Prince of Jingnan himself did not realize that his simple battlefield responses could be interpreted by the Blind Man into some political scheme stretching this far.

It felt exactly like answering a reading-comprehension question in language class.

The Blind Man had merely smiled faintly and said:

He did not believe Tian Wujing failed to understand politics.

And if this matter were handled properly, it could indeed greatly reduce Chu’s capacity for resistance.

After all, the highest form of warfare was to attack the enemy’s plans.

So, General-in-Chief Nian was deeply wounded.

He already believed that in battlefield formations and troop deployment, he was inferior to Tian Wujing.

He had never tried to hide that fact.

If anything, he revered Tian Wujing enormously.

But now, even when dealing with pressure from the court behind him, his situation was vastly, vastly worse than Tian Wujing’s!

He was already less capable than the man.

Now even his treatment was worse.

General-in-Chief Nian was furious!

After receiving word from Ying Capital that memorials impeaching him had arrived, he angrily sat down on the threshold of the commander’s residence and ate three whole chilled watermelons in one sitting.

...

“This watermelon is sweet.”

Count Pingye was eating watermelon too.

Gong Wang sat to his left.

Gongsun Zhi sat to his right.

Two days had passed since their earlier meeting.

Today was the third day.

And today, the eastern front was preparing to attack East Mountain Fort.

Truthfully, the wars Count Pingye had fought in the past had all moved with the speed of a bowstring cracking like thunder.

When he marched south against Qian, it had felt like a race. He spared nothing in trying to steal the position ahead of friendly troops and reach Shangjing first.

In the heartland of Jin, he had marched through the night and driven straight at the palace gates.

When following Tian Wujing onto the snowfields, they had attacked camp after camp and destroyed tribe after tribe almost without rest.

As for the thousand-li rush to Snow Sea Pass, there was even less to say. It had pushed cavalry mobility almost to the limit, and the moment the pass fell, they had immediately faced the Savages’ desperate counter-siege.

But this war... if the surprise attack on Central Mountain Camp several days earlier was excluded... mm.

Actually, even counting Central Mountain Camp, this was still the slowest-paced war Zheng Fan had ever fought.

The tempo was slow because there were too many armies, and because siege warfare simply could not move quickly.

But hundreds of thousands of troops sat here every day consuming enormous quantities of grain and fodder.

The logistical pressure was anything but light.

Fortunately, this was a war between states.

Laborers and production from both Yan and Jin stood behind the army.

Only that support allowed the front to conduct the war in such an “unhurried” fashion.

The wings of Gong Wang’s and Gongsun Zhi’s forces had already spread outward to cover the eastern and western sides of East Mountain Fort.

The two Chief Commanders themselves had come to Count Pingye’s command position, intending to personally observe how his army conducted a siege.

Instead, with a major assault about to begin, they found Count Pingye sitting openly and comfortably on his command carriage, eating watermelon with obvious pleasure.

The moment he saw the two men arrive, he even waved them over to eat with him.

“Count, you have an ice cellar here too?” Gong Wang asked in astonishment.

“No. We haven’t become extravagant enough for that. But I do have a secret method for making ice. It’s difficult to produce in large quantities, but enough for personal use. The weather is damned hot. Without chewing a little ice now and then, life would be miserable. Later, each of you can haul one wagon back. Any more than that and I won’t have enough left myself.”

Gongsun Zhi laughed.

“Then I won’t stand on ceremony. Hahaha! Damn it, I always thought this face of mine, just like my father-in-law’s, had already been cultivated until fire and water couldn’t penetrate it. Who would’ve thought that after coming to the Count’s place several times, eating and carrying things away every time, I’d actually start feeling embarrassed.”

Gong Wang smiled as well.

At that moment, the command carriage began moving.

A wagon team pulled it from the front, while shield soldiers guarded both sides.

Ahead lay the siege formation, already fully deployed.

Rows of trebuchets stood in immaculate order, producing an enormous visual impact.

Even more striking were the tall siege towers, each looking solid enough to survive a storm.

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi stared so intently they nearly forgot to eat their watermelon.

The Yan army was not known for siege warfare.

But both of these men were veteran commanders.

They could naturally see just how refined the engines before them were.

These were absolutely not flimsy wooden frames hacked together from whatever timber happened to be nearby.

“There’s one matter we should settle in advance,” Count Pingye said.

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi immediately replied:

“Please speak, Count.”

“Men die in sieges. That has always been true. And the attacking side usually suffers more heavily than the defenders. Since the two of you are fighting on the same front with me now, the three of us have to deal with East Mountain Fort together. You can watch my methods first and learn how the siege is conducted. Behind my own camp are two more camps. One holds the Savage slave soldiers. The other exists solely to build and repair these siege engines. During the assault, I’ll send the Savage slave soldiers forward first to wear down the Chu defenders, grind away their defensive equipment, and blunt their spirit. But in the end, taking this fort still requires our regular troops to go up with saber and spear and chew the damned thing down properly. Since we’re all one family now, I’ll speak plainly. When the time comes to truly put men into the fight, I will need to draw regular soldiers from both of your forces as well. I will not deliberately protect your men and make my own soldiers die in their place. But I will not deliberately preserve my own strength and send only your troops forward either. I promise the two of you here and now that I will treat all three armies equally. As for military merit, I already have Central Mountain Camp as my foundation. You both know how the Prince of Jingnan treats me, like his own son or nephew. I can give the merit from this siege to the two of you. So let us make everything clear now and establish the tone in advance. Once the three of us speak openly, none of us will have resentment festering in his heart later.”

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi exchanged a glance.

Then both immediately knelt on the command carriage before Count Pingye.

“This general obeys the Count’s arrangements!”

“This general obeys the Count’s arrangements!”

In truth, both men had already prepared themselves for the possibility that their own troops would be assigned the main assault role.

Count Pingye’s words had exceeded their expectations.

Combined with his present standing, and with the relationship between him and the Prince of Jingnan exactly as Zheng Fan himself had just described it, these “words from the heart” landed extraordinarily comfortably.

“Please rise, both of you. Over there, cut open another watermelon.”

At the rear of the command carriage sat a man wearing a broad bamboo hat.

Several watermelons lay before him.

Gong Wang stood, walked over, and personally went to fetch one.

The man drew his sword.

With several rapid flashes, the watermelon was cut neatly apart.

He placed the slices into a basket and gestured for Gong Wang to carry it away.

Gong Wang found the sight interesting and looked at the bamboo-hatted man a few extra times.

After bringing the basket back and distributing the slices, he smiled.

“Count, that man sitting behind you looks quite skilled with a sword.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“Mm. He is the Sword Saint, after all.”

“...” Gong Wang.

Gongsun Zhi stopped chewing his watermelon.

Then he deliberately turned his head and looked toward the back of the carriage.

By the time the command carriage reached its designated central position in the rear, the preparations ahead had been completed.

Immediately west of the carriage, a group of auxiliaries waited in formation.

They were not standing.

They were sitting on the ground, their shields propped beside them and serving as shade from the sun.

“Hey.”

Count Pingye beckoned and pointed toward one completely ordinary-looking auxiliary among the group.

The man approached in disbelief.

Count Pingye handed him the basket containing the remaining watermelon.

“Eat.”

...

Guo Dong accepted the basket from the Count with trembling excitement.

The Count.

The Count.

The Count still remembered him.

The Count still cared about him!!!

After carrying the basket back, Guo Dong first took one slice for himself, then handed another to Xu An.

He passed the rest to the Lieutenant Commander.

The Lieutenant Commander waved it away, indicating he did not want any.

The remaining slices were immediately divided among the other comrades nearby.

Guo Dong ate his watermelon while tears streamed down his face.

Xu An watched him from beside him and smiled.

He knew exactly how much pressure his brother had been carrying since his father was killed by Chu mounted scouts.

Count Pingye had practically become the pillar supporting Guo Dong’s entire heart.

And now, for the Count to specifically give him watermelon... to Guo Dong, there could be no better comfort.

There was not much flesh on a single slice.

Guo Dong finished quickly, wiped his mouth, and immediately said with burning impatience:

“Damn it, why haven’t we started attacking yet?”

Right now he wished he could fly straight onto the walls of East Mountain Fort and personally plant Count Pingye’s great “Zheng” banner there.

Xu An soothed him.

“Still early. First the trebuchets have to greet them. Then the siege towers move forward. After that come the Savages. Only after them might it be our turn.”

“But I can’t wait anymore!”

Guo Dong growled.

“You’ll have plenty of chances to perform. Don’t rush. Don’t rush.”

In truth, Xu An understood perfectly well that auxiliaries like them were supposed to protect the archers and crossbowmen below, or cover the battering rams and siege towers.

Unless something unexpected happened, they would have almost no chance to personally charge onto the walls.

But what could be done?

A single slice of watermelon had already set all the blood in his brother’s body boiling.

At that moment, on the command carriage, Count Pingye was explaining the arrangements to the two Chief Commanders.

“Here, and over there. Those stakes driven into the ground are markers. They tell the trebuchet crews their distance. In a moment, the first round will be launched from here. We’ll test East Mountain Fort’s walls first. But I expect the Chu are good at construction, so these walls probably won’t be easy to knock down.”

“If that is so, Count, why not pull the trebuchets closer and throw the boulders directly onto the gate towers or into the fort?” Gongsun Zhi asked.

Before Count Pingye could answer, Gong Wang spoke first.

“Because the Chu inside East Mountain Fort must have trebuchets of their own prepared, and there should also be giant crossbows on the walls. If we move our trebuchets too close too early, their own machines can smash ours. Better to proceed slowly. Ideally, we first beat the grass and startle the snake, forcing their trebuchets to reveal themselves.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“Brother Gong is exactly right.”

Gong Wang smiled.

He was a Jin man and did, in truth, understand siege warfare to some extent.

Long ago, at Zhennan Pass, he had accompanied Situ Lei in war against Chu.

“Ready——release!”

Thrum!

Thrum!

Thrum!

The first round of trebuchets launched.

Because the range was still too great, most of the stones crashed below the walls.

A smaller number slammed into the fortifications themselves.

The people of Tianji Pavilion immediately began recording the fall points and calculating the range.

At the very front of the formation, a black mass of Savages sat on the ground.

Before every Savage stood a large basket filled with earth.

The Savage King’s banner had been planted among them.

The Savage King pointed with one hand toward the trenches and defensive ditches beneath East Mountain Fort.

In his other hand, he held a fistful of bamboo slips carved with characters.

He shouted to the Savages around him:

“In a moment, anyone who carries his earth to the trenches, dumps it in, and still manages to bring the basket back can come to me and receive one bamboo slip. Only men with a bamboo slip get food tonight! Don’t worry about the arrows fired from the Chu walls. The Stars will protect you!”

After saying that, the Savage King turned around.

He put his back to the Savages behind him and faced the walls of East Mountain Fort.

Then, after saying those words, he began laughing himself.

[End of Chapter 521]