Chapter 535: - Cards on the Table!

The Sword Saint went home.

He took Hu Bamei with him.

He also carried away Xue San’s reluctance to part with her and all that heavy longing.

Reunions were precious precisely because they were brief. The true normal state of life was still everyone scattering in different directions to handle what needed doing.

Next, the Demon Kings and their Master, Zheng Fan, would likewise split up and go about their separate tasks.

The Blind Man and Jin Shuke took a force to the rear.

From the earliest days, when Zheng Fan had been only a Lieutenant Commander of Merchant Protection with no men, no money, no weapons, and no horses, to later at Cuiliu Fort when he could choose only convict soldiers, then onward into Jin where he could accept only surrendered Jin troops, they had spent countless occasions staring at the excellent recruits of the Zhenbei Army and Jingnan Army with drool practically hanging from their mouths.

This time, at long last, it was their turn to eat their fill.

Xue San also set out with a team of craftsmen to support the sieges of the friendly armies.

The previous day, Zheng Fan had invited Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang into East Mountain Fort for a meal.

There would be no fighting on the eastern front for quite a long time.

So Zheng Fan decided to bring Gongsun Zhi’s son, Gongsun Zan, with him to the Prince’s command tent. Since Zheng Fan himself was going there to receive instruction from the Prince of Jingnan, he might as well bring Gongsun Zan along to receive some instruction from him.

Gong Wang’s son, Gong Lin, was transferred with them as well and assigned as a staff adviser in the army.

During the meal, Zheng Fan had Liang Cheng sit beside him.

Each man’s son would now be at Zheng Fan’s side. Combined with his own explicit hints, Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang should both understand perfectly well whose orders the three armies of the eastern front were supposed to obey from now on.

Once those arrangements were complete, Zheng Fan packed his things. Early the next morning, he took several attendants and guards and headed directly for the central princely command tent.

...

Everything seemed almost unchanged from before.

The Prince’s command tent stood in the very center of the military camp, separated by its own stockade and retaining an exceptionally strong sense of independence.

Zheng Fan’s own tent stood inside that little enclosed area, not far from the Prince’s.

Gongsun Zan and Gong Lin were visibly excited and somewhat nervous. After all, the man they were about to face was the Prince of Jingnan, a godlike existence in the armies of Great Yan.

Compared with them, Zheng Fan was perfectly at ease.

“You, wash these vegetables. You, clean these bones. Once you’re done, start a fire and simmer them.”

After giving Gong Lin and Gongsun Zan their instructions, Zheng Fan straightened his clothes and walked toward the Prince’s command tent.

He nodded to the Prince of Jingnan’s personal guards outside. Without waiting for an announcement, he lifted the curtain and walked straight in.

Inside, Tian Wujing was seated at his desk reading military reports and memorials.

“Your Highness.”

“Come here.”

Zheng Fan approached.

Without raising his head, Tian Wujing pointed toward a stack of memorials placed on one side of the desk.

“Review them.”

Uh...

Zheng Fan nodded, picked up the stack, and sat down in the lower seat.

He had not expected to enter work mode the instant he arrived, but he was hardly in a position to object.

After opening the first memorial, he discovered that they had all been sent from Yingdu and mostly concerned logistics.

Relatively speaking, this kind of paperwork was easier to handle.

The Fourth Lady managed the daily affairs of Snow Sea Pass, but Zheng Fan had occupied his position there for years. His perspective had broadened long ago. Reviewing this kind of material posed little difficulty.

Memorials filled with routine formulaic language and containing no real problem were approved and placed in one pile.

Those requesting delays without giving a concrete reason, using only vague and evasive wording, received Zheng Fan’s written instruction: “Handle with all haste.”

He did not write the second half.

Anyone reading the memorial would understand it anyway:

Those responsible for delays will be dealt with under military law.

Those memorials went into a second pile.

The third group contained genuine, specific causes. Based on Zheng Fan’s experience and judgment, the officials in the rear probably were not deliberately stalling. They had encountered real obstacles.

For example, heavy rains on the Wang River had washed away two pontoon bridges and delayed one shipment of military supplies. No amount of manpower or proper attitude could overcome that sort of problem immediately.

Fortunately, there were not many reports like that. Only a handful.

Once the three categories were sorted, Zheng Fan stacked them up, carried them over to the Prince’s desk, and separated them again.

The Prince of Jingnan finally raised his head.

“Finished?”

“Yes, Your Highness. This stack needs Your Highness to look through it personally. This one already has my instructions.”

There was no need to mention the third stack full of empty formulaic nonsense.

Tian Wujing flipped through several memorials and nodded.

“Do you know what this Prince wants to say?”

Zheng Fan nodded. “With talent like mine for red-ink rescripts, it would be a pity not to join the Temple Bureau.”

“Heh.”

The Prince of Jingnan laughed.

He pushed the memorials aside.

“For a commander, trying to personally handle every last detail is too difficult. But this Prince has always been accustomed to keeping every matter in mind. Governing an army is like governing a state. Giving one command and watching ten thousand troops beat the drums and charge is certainly exhilarating. Most of the time, however, one still has to sit down and bury himself in paperwork.”

“Yes. This general has learned.”

“Another batch will arrive this afternoon. Review those for this Prince in the same way.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“How are your injuries?”

“Basically healed.”

“A Martial Artist’s true foundation is his flesh and physical constitution, but essence and qi transform into spirit. Body and spirit are one. You need not pursue the self and the Dao to the excessive degree Qi Refiners do, but at the very least you cannot allow your spirit to become a burden. Otherwise it will hinder your cultivation in the future.”

That was the conclusion Tian Wujing had reached when he visited East Mountain Fort and saw Zheng Fan just after he awakened.

At the time, Zheng Fan had first allowed the Demon Pill to possess him and then swallowed one of Xue San’s drugs. His mind and spirit had been doubly overdrawn.

“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll remember.”

The Prince of Jingnan nodded.

“Have them send in the meal.”

“Your Highness, I already told my people to prepare food. Little hotpot. You’ve eaten it before.”

“You still had the mood to prepare things like that?”

“No matter how busy I am, if conditions allow it, I still have to eat properly.”

“Let’s go.”

Gongsun Zan was tending the fire.

Gong Lin sat nearby with nothing to do. He was not deliberately slacking off. There simply was not any other work for him. Zheng Fan had entered the Prince’s command tent and stayed inside for so long, while the two of them were effectively only Zheng Fan’s personal attendants here.

When Gong Lin saw Zheng Fan and the Prince of Jingnan approaching from the distance, he immediately stood and began cutting vegetables.

Zheng Fan lifted the lid from the pot and personally dumped all the ingredients in at once.

He knew Tian Wujing was extremely busy and had no time to slowly swish slices of meat and vegetables through a hotpot one by one, so he simply turned the entire thing into one big pot of hotpot-style stew.

“Eat with us,” Zheng Fan told Gongsun Zan and Gong Lin.

The two nodded, filled their own bowls, then carried them to a distant corner and squatted there to eat.

Both were sons of military families.

Naturally, they possessed enough sense not to squeeze themselves beside the two men at the main table.

Zheng Fan and the Prince of Jingnan sat opposite each other and began eating lunch.

“The offensive at West Mountain Fort under Li Fusheng has still produced no result,” the Prince of Jingnan said.

“I imagine the first wave failed to take it, and now they’ve entered a stalemate and attritional phase,” Zheng Fan replied.

Tian Wujing nodded. “But after what happened to you, he did specifically scout the fort. The force inside West Mountain Fort is a private army of Chu’s Dugu Clan, not Imperial Clan Guards. There is an officer named Dugu Nian among the Imperial Clan Guards who also comes from the Dugu Clan, but the two forces are not together.”

“Then it’s only a question of time.”

“Let them grind it down slowly. There is no hurry.”

“This campaign is probably the slowest war I’ve ever seen Your Highness fight. Truthfully, do you prefer fighting this kind of war?”

Tian Wujing did not answer.

“Your Highness, I heard the river works on the Wang River are still ongoing?”

“They are.”

“What are they for?” Zheng Fan asked directly. “Are they connected to the campaign against Chu?”

Zheng Fan had already found the continued construction on the Wang River strange.

They were in the middle of a war between states, yet enormous river works were still underway.

After Xue San returned, he had mentioned those works too.

And San’er was an expert in that field.

If even he saw a problem, then there had to be a problem.

Zheng Fan hesitated, then asked, “This general heard that when Your Highness defeated the main Savage army beside the Wang River and trapped Yupan City, you already ordered Great Yan to begin building a navy.”

The old State of Yan had never needed a navy.

But as wars of external expansion opened new terrain and new battlefields, a naval force had become indispensable.

The river works on the Wang River naturally made Zheng Fan think of the new Yan navy.

Tian Wujing did not seem inclined to hide the matter deliberately.

He set down his bowl and chopsticks and looked at Zheng Fan.

“Even this Prince does not know whether it will succeed. Human strength remains rather insignificant before the workings of Heaven and weather.”

“Your Highness, this was part of your plan from the beginning?”

“Mm.”

Tian Wujing picked up a chopstick and drew a line in the dirt.

He tapped it.

“This is the Wang River.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

At the end of the line, Tian Wujing drew three slashes.

“This is the Mount Meng range, the same region you crossed the last time you entered Chu.”

Zheng Fan nodded again.

“The Wang River enters Chu along the western side of Mount Meng and eventually flows into Great Chu’s Great Marsh. From here to here runs a Chu canal. Using that waterway, Chu controls the entire region west of the Great Marsh all the way to Qi Mountain. Years ago, the Chu navy traveled north along this route into the Wang River, sealed the river, and decisively defeated Wujiang’s eastern expeditionary army. The last time you entered Chu, you traveled east of Mount Meng.”

Zheng Fan immediately replied, “Small boats can travel there. There are some tributaries branching off the Wang River too. But the navigable waterways are short and difficult. Only the small cargo boats used by smuggling caravans can move through them. And once you go in from that side, you still face the long, twisting mountain roads through Mount Meng. The terrain is full of places where one man could hold a pass against ten thousand. Our army cannot possibly enter Chu that way. If we travel west of Mount Meng instead, the rivers are wide enough, but Chu naval forces cover them densely and can seal them almost at will. Forcing our way through there would be little different from marching out through Nanmen Pass, borrowing a road through the State of Liang, and attacking Chu from that direction.”

At that moment, Tian Wujing thrust his chopstick into the “Wang River” and dragged it diagonally eastward toward the eastern side of Mount Meng.

“This...”

Zheng Fan understood instantly.

He genuinely had not thought of this.

Not of doing it this way.

He had considered water attacks and deliberate flooding. History contained plenty of examples.

But Zhennan Pass sat in a place where diverting water to drown it was essentially impossible.

With one gesture from Tian Wujing, however, every earlier doubt finally connected.

When Zheng Fan raised his head and looked at Tian Wujing again, even he was a little stunned by the audacity of it.

Tian Wujing ignored his expression and continued calmly.

“During the summer flood season, not only does the Wang River itself rise. The water levels in its tributaries are also much higher than during the rest of the year. West of Mount Meng, the waterways are broad, but Great Yan’s navy is no match for Chu’s navy. That road is a road to death. But if we can temporarily force the Wang River to change course and pour into the eastern tributaries, then for a short period the waterways east of Mount Meng will rise enough to carry large ships. Great Yan’s navy can use that window to enter Chu through the redirected tributaries east of Mount Meng before the Chu navy has any chance to react.”

Hearing this, Zheng Fan immediately said:

“This isn’t really about sending the navy into Chu.”

Tian Wujing nodded slightly. “The navy is newly built. We constructed several large ships, but they are mostly shells for appearance. Even after adding the remnants of the Situ Clan’s old naval forces, there has not been enough time to form meaningful combat strength. So this Prince never intended to use the navy itself for some surprise attack. Its purpose is to transport an army into Chu. Once that force lands successfully, it will immediately march east before the Chu can react.”

Tian Wujing used the chopstick to mark a point.

“This is Zhennan Pass.”

Then he marked another point behind “Zhennan Pass” and drew a circle around it.

Zheng Fan answered before he could explain.

“This is Shanggu Commandery, and this point is the commandery capital.”

Zheng Fan had passed through Shanggu Commandery when bringing the princess home.

At the time, he had disguised himself as a grain merchant hauling supplies toward the frontier.

So now Zheng Fan picked up his own chopstick and placed another point on the southwestern corner of the circle representing Shanggu Commandery.

“Your Highness, here. It should be here. There’s a city called Jing City. South of Jing City is the Wei River inside Chu. The Mi River outside Ying Capital is actually a tributary of the Wei River.”

The Mi River was actually narrow enough that calling it a “great river” was generous.

But because of the legend surrounding the founding of the capital there, it had been granted the dignified name “River” almost by imperial fiat.

Tian Wujing said nothing.

He simply watched Zheng Fan, clearly waiting for him to continue.

Zheng Fan was no longer the green fool he had once been.

More importantly, he had personally traveled through this region.

After thinking for a moment, he continued immediately.

“Jing City controls the vital crossing of the Wei River and is the throat connecting Shanggu Commandery to the outside. If that surprise force enters Chu east of Mount Meng, marches there at speed, and occupies Jing City, it will effectively cut off the entire Shanggu Commandery from the Chu heartland!”

Tian Wujing nodded with satisfaction.

Then he added:

“Nian Yao is an extremely cautious man. According to reports from the Secret Intelligence Department, the Chu did not place the grain for this campaign in the military camps behind Zhennan Pass. Nor is it in the capital of Shanggu Commandery. It is... in Jing City.”

“Nian Yao must be afraid that after our Yan army removes most of the obstacles outside Zhennan Pass, we won’t attack the pass head-on but instead split into multiple forces, bypass Zhennan Pass, and march south. That’s why he placed the supply line so far behind. His original intention was probably to avoid limiting the whole war to south of Zhennan Pass, or to Zhennan Pass alone. He wanted to include the commandery capital and even all of Shanggu Commandery in the battlefield. Shanggu Commandery has already been drained hollow anyway. It isn’t as extreme as eastern Jin, where nine houses out of ten stand empty, but Chu still wouldn’t grieve over using it as a battlefield. And if our army can seize Jing City before the Chu react, we can burn all the grain and supplies Chu gathered for this campaign in one stroke! The morale of the Chu army would take an enormous blow!”

Tian Wujing shook his head.

“Your Highness, was I wrong?”

“Countless laborers have been conscripted along the Wang River. We will force the river to change course regardless of what gets flooded around it. Once the newly built navy enters Chu, it will basically have no way to return and will be destroyed there as well. After paying such a price just to transport that surprise army across, you think its purpose is merely to burn supplies and damage Chu morale? Zheng Fan. Your appetite can be larger.”

“Larger?”

Tian Wujing used his chopstick to circle the whole of Shanggu Commandery together with Zhennan Pass.

“This Prince wants that surprise army to seize Jing City, block Chu reinforcements, and cut the Chu supply line. When that happens, Zhennan Pass, the camps and forts scattered around it, the capital of Shanggu Commandery, and the other cities within the commandery, together with the hundreds of thousands of Chu troops inside them, will all be sealed inside one enormous jar! This Prince intends to swallow them all in one stroke! This Prince will bury Nian Yao, the main body of Great Chu’s Imperial Clan Guards, and the main forces of the Chu noble private armies all in this place. If Chu loses all those elites at once, its vitality will be devastated. Forget another northern expedition. Once Zhennan Pass and Shanggu Commandery are in Great Yan’s hands, when we choose to march south again will be ours to decide. Chu will have no choice but to endure it passively. In this one battle, this Prince intends to beat Great Chu into another Qian!”

Zheng Fan’s breathing quickened involuntarily.

Once Tian Wujing laid the entire plan openly before him, Zheng Fan was shocked by the sheer size of the board.

He was even more shocked by Tian Wujing’s appetite.

So that was why Tian Wujing had said the outer sieges could proceed slowly.

There was no hurry.

He wanted to give Chu enough time to mobilize.

He wanted Chu to send even more troops, reinforcements, grain, and military equipment into Shanggu Commandery.

He wanted to solve the problem once and for all.

If this battle succeeded, it would be no less magnificent than Tian Wujing’s campaign years ago when he traveled a thousand li in ten days and destroyed the Helian and Wenren Clans in succession.

Even a thousand years later, people reading history would still discuss the campaign with relish.

Tian Wujing tapped the point representing Jing City.

“Tell this Prince. Who would be suitable to command that surprise army?”

Here it came.

Here it came.

That familiar feeling.

That familiar method.

That familiar rhythm.

Again.

Zheng Fan raised his head and looked at the Prince of Jingnan.

This time, he did not decline.

He did not deliberately recommend someone else.

He had prepared himself long ago.

The benefits had already been swallowed.

Pretending to resist now would be too affected and entirely pointless.

If he already knew the choice had to be him, then he might as well be open, straightforward, and decisive about it.

There was no need to squirm coyly every single time.

So this time, Zheng Fan understood the script perfectly.

And he was direct.

“Your Highness. After this battle, I want Zhennan Pass.”

“This Prince will give it to you.”

“After this battle, I want eastern Jin.”

“Given.”

“After this battle, I want to become Grand General of Cheng State in truth as well as name.”

“As you should.”

“And one more thing...”

“What else? Say it.”

“Please help me think of a title, Your Highness. What kind of Marquis should I be?”

[End of Chapter 535]