Chapter 544: - Trample Them Flat

The banner had been raised.

Afterward, the Prince of Jingnan appeared before the soldiers with Count Pingye, who had once again earned a new military merit.

The ban on alcohol was lifted for another round.

For a time, the whole army erupted in cheers.

In truth, however, the wine for this second lifting of the ban had already been prepared. Only half had been issued earlier. The same amount of wine, divided into two distributions, had actually produced a better effect.

After that, Count Pingye returned to his own command tent to rest.

He lay on a blanket with his eyes open, staring at a dark spot on the roof of the tent.

He had slept too soundly that afternoon. Now he was not sleepy in the slightest.

He understood what Old Tian meant.

As long as the banner did not fall, Great Yan would still be Great Yan in the future, and Great Yan’s iron cavalry would continue charging beneath the Black Dragon Banner, smashing through every enemy before them.

But the banner remaining here, and the state still being called Great Yan, did not mean that if Zheng Fan truly wanted to do something one day, he would be unable to do it.

When the Tian clan supplanted the ruling house of Qi, did the state name not remain Qi?

What Old Tian wanted was a promise.

And that promise was, in truth, extraordinarily broad.

Zheng Fan turned onto his side, resting his head on the pillow as he looked toward the tent entrance.

A’Ming was sitting there on night watch.

There was actually no need for anyone to keep watch inside the Prince’s encampment, but Count Pingye had not exactly told him to come lie down and sleep together either.

“Master, can’t sleep?”

“You can’t sleep either?” Count Pingye asked back.

“I don’t sleep well in strange beds.”

His coffin was gone.

It was very sad.

Old people among the common folk often prepared their own coffins before they died. Once the coffin was ready, their hearts would settle. Even if it sat unused in the house for seven or eight years, every time they glanced at it, they would feel rather pleased.

A coffin was also A’Ming’s emotional anchor.

Except unlike those old men and women, he also got practical use out of his.

“I want to go see Qian,” Count Pingye said.

A’Ming smiled.

“You should.”

The conversation ended there.

Their tent stood too close to the Prince’s command tent. A powerful Martial Artist’s hearing far exceeded that of an ordinary person. You might think you were whispering here, but if the Prince of Jingnan genuinely wanted to listen, he could hear every word perfectly clearly.

So some things were simply inconvenient to discuss.

Count Pingye rolled onto his back again and began counting sheep.

And somehow, he actually fell asleep.

When he woke, the sky was still dark.

A’Ming was still sitting at the tent entrance, carefully filing his fingernails.

“What time is it?” Count Pingye asked.

“Master only slept three hours.”

“Ah.”

There was still some time before dawn, but now he truly could not fall asleep again.

Just then, Zheng Fan saw a squad of personal guards delivering the memorials and military reports from the various commands for the previous night.

Count Pingye simply got up, washed, and went to the entrance of the Prince’s command tent.

The personal guards stationed outside saw that it was Count Pingye and did not stop him at all.

After entering, he saw the newly delivered reports stacked on a rack by the entrance.

Beneath them lay three Calming Talismans the Drunken Immortal Elder had given.

Count Pingye pulled out the talismans and stuffed them into his boots.

His chest was absolutely out of the question.

Then he carried the reports over and placed them on the desk where he usually sat.

After that, he turned around, walked to the commander’s seat, and lifted the candle stand.

The Prince of Jingnan was sleeping there with his eyes closed.

Of course, Count Pingye knew perfectly well that Old Tian must have sensed him entering.

He did not go over and help pull a blanket across the man.

What if he leaned over to cover Old Tian, and Old Tian suddenly opened his eyes?

Then the two of them would stare at each other.

How awkward would that be?

Life was not a television drama. It needed at least a little grounding in reality.

Zheng Fan was a Martial Artist. Old Tian was a peak Martial Artist. You could toss Old Tian into snow and ice for a whole night and he still would not catch a cold.

What fucking blanket?

Still, curiosity got the better of Count Pingye, and he looked a little longer at Old Tian sleeping with his eyes closed.

Truthfully, Zheng Fan had always been rather confident in his own looks.

In his previous life, he had not been bad-looking to begin with. His real problem had been temperament. Because of his family circumstances growing up, that had always been difficult. Even after he later made money drawing comics through his own efforts, he had simply become a complete shut-in.

In this life, after practicing martial arts and living through one great scene after another, he had long since learned how to carry himself.

And he already had a decent face to begin with.

Otherwise, if he truly looked like Li Kui, would Xiong Liqing have chosen him?

But Old Tian...

Admittedly, one man judging another man’s appearance felt a little strange.

Even so, Old Tian truly was handsome beyond criticism.

A legitimate son of the Tian Clan.

Those genes...

Tsk.

Why did prestigious clans so often produce handsome men and beautiful women?

Because their family conditions gave each generation an enormous range of choices in marriage. After generation upon generation of selective breeding, it was difficult not to become good-looking.

As for presence and temperament, that was not even worth discussing.

A man who could ride a Pixiu at the head of an army and frighten thousands of soldiers into retreat had long since gone beyond anything the word “bearing” could describe.

Only that full head of white hair was painful to look at.

Deep in his heart, Count Pingye had always admired the Prince of Jingnan.

That was why he had always felt Old Tian did not need to live such an exhausting life.

A man like Tian Wujing, if he wanted to revive and strengthen his clan, would hardly find it difficult.

Even if he chose to oppose Emperor Yan and oppose the Marquis of Zhenbei, even if at first Emperor Yan held the moral high ground and three hundred thousand Zhenbei cavalry watched like tigers from the north, the Prince of Jingnan could have worn them down slowly.

He could have resisted gradually.

He could even have stepped back first and then advanced later.

Would the sky not have opened before him all the same?

But wine only grew more fragrant after settling.

And men only matured after weathering events.

Back when the Prince of Jingnan annihilated his own clan, Zheng Fan had been so disgusted and horrified that he suffered nightmares at night.

Now, he could understand it somewhat.

It was not that a man became a certain sort of person because of the things he did.

It was because he was already that sort of person that he did those things.

After looking a few more times, Count Pingye withdrew his gaze, returned to his desk, and began reviewing the reports that had just arrived.

He worked for a while, rubbed his wrist, looked up at the sleeping figure, and then continued.

Another batch of reports arrived midway through.

When the personal guard entered and saw his Prince asleep while Count Pingye sat there reviewing documents, he smiled and quietly placed the reports before Zheng Fan.

“Count, you’ve worked hard.”

Count Pingye shook his head and pointed at the stack he had already finished.

“Send those out.”

“Yes, Count.”

This time, there was no need to wait for Old Tian to wake and review them again.

Before anyone noticed, dawn broke outside.

Tian Wujing slowly sat up on the couch.

Clearly, he was not surprised in the slightest to find Zheng Fan inside his command tent.

Count Pingye still had quite a few reports left, but he rose anyway, picked up the washbasin and towel from the rack in the corner, and prepared to go fetch water.

Outside, he ran into A’Ming.

A’Ming truly was the champion of staying up all night.

He still had not slept.

For him, as long as he had blood to drink, there was no real need for sleep. And now whenever he lay down, he immediately remembered his destroyed coffin and became melancholy all over again.

“What has Master been doing inside the Prince’s tent for so long?”

“Reviewing reports.”

“And the Prince of Jingnan?”

“Sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

Count Pingye mixed some hot water, carried it inside, and placed it before the Prince of Jingnan.

“Have them bring breakfast in,” Tian Wujing said.

“All right.”

Before long, breakfast arrived.

It was fairly hearty: mutton soup and flatbread.

The sheep had come with Count Pingye when he arrived.

The two ate breakfast together.

Tian Wujing glanced at Zheng Fan’s desk and asked:

“How much is left?”

“Not much.”

“There will be more later. Review those together with the rest.”

“All right.”

Count Pingye resumed the tedious work.

Perhaps this too was another face of war.

Beyond heads rolling and blood spilling, there were endless stacks of dry paperwork.

But what had to be read still had to be read.

What had to be done still had to be done.

Count Pingye treated it as another kind of cultivation.

Many tasks could be delegated to the Demon Kings. The Fourth Lady and the Blind Man, for example, would both handle this kind of work with effortless skill.

But he was the Master.

He needed to know how to do it himself.

Just as princes of every dynasty, once they reached adulthood, would usually be sent to observe the workings of the various ministries if their imperial father had not yet died. It allowed them to accumulate experience in advance.

That was simply part of the normal process of raising an imperial prince.

Clearly, even becoming emperor required substantial professional competence and foundational preparation.

Another batch of reports arrived.

Count Pingye merely nodded to the personal guard who brought them in and continued working without looking up.

The Prince of Jingnan sat in the commander’s seat for a while, then later walked down and stood beside the sand table, gazing at it for a long time.

Inside the command tent, the division of labor was clear.

And strangely harmonious.

At last, close to noon, Count Pingye finally finished reviewing every report and called the personal guards in to carry them away and distribute the orders.

If tomorrow went the same way, he felt his efficiency would probably improve further.

Once he was done, Count Pingye raised his head, closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath.

His wrist hurt badly.

He truly had not written this much in a very long time.

If Old Tian’s handwriting had been like Li Fusheng’s, a wild scrawl resembling dogs crawling across the page, Zheng Fan could have relaxed a little too.

Unfortunately, he had seen Old Tian reviewing memorials over the past few days.

The man’s handwriting was... genuinely excellent.

With that pressure in front of him, Count Pingye had no choice but to take his own writing seriously.

In this life, aside from practicing the saber, he had also practiced calligraphy from time to time.

After all, his mind contained endless poems and essays he could plagiarize.

The reason he had not done so yet was partly laziness and partly disdain.

He had been born in Yan, not Qian.

Still, if the need ever arose, or if he went traveling in Qian one day, and wanted to write poems to trick some courtesan queen into bed, it would be humiliating if his handwriting could not survive public scrutiny.

Count Pingye and the Demon Kings had unanimously agreed that copying poems to steal fame, or to con some beauty into recommending herself to his pillow, was rather low-end behavior.

But Zheng Fan still felt that if the opportunity came, he ought to go through the whole procedure at least once.

Otherwise he would leave himself a regret.

After reviewing all these reports, a clear set of lines seemed to emerge inside his head.

Logistical support from the rear.

The condition of the various forts and camps.

The status of every army.

Countless details wove themselves into a whole, forming a clear understanding and a network of connections he could actually follow.

This, he realized, was how an army of several hundred thousand should be controlled.

The Prince of Jingnan, still staring at the sand table, spoke.

“Write Nian Yao another letter urging surrender.”

“All right, Your Highness.”

Count Pingye spread out a sheet of paper.

But before his brush touched it, he stopped and asked:

“Your Highness, should I write in your name?”

“Write in yours.”

Count Pingye nodded.

If it was under his own name, he could improvise freely.

And Nian Yao had been born a household slave.

A prince’s household slave, yes, but his education...

No.

At the very least, his literary cultivation probably was not very high.

So Zheng Fan could write the whole thing in plain language.

His first idea was to explain the universal value of “all men are equal” to Nian Yao.

But thinking about it again, that was too stiff.

Using Nian Yao’s slave origins to drive a wedge between him and Chu was far too formulaic.

In the end, Count Pingye simply decided to write as a distant friend.

Dear Nian...

Count Pingye drew a deep breath.

Then he changed to another sheet of paper.

Reading your letter is like seeing you in person...

He changed the paper again.

You bastard, didn’t you think your turtle shell was hard? I’ve already smashed so many pieces off it!

Mm.

Satisfied.

After that, Count Pingye wrote about some scenic places and famous foods in Yan, then asked about scenic places and foods in Chu.

When he finished, he set down the brush.

“Your Highness, the letter is done.”

“Have someone send it.”

Clearly, the Prince of Jingnan had no intention of reading it.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Zheng Fan. Come here.”

Count Pingye walked over to the sand table.

Tian Wujing opened one hand.

Zheng Fan’s Barbarian saber flew from its sheath and landed in his palm.

The saber tip pointed toward the eastern side of Mount Meng.

“If everything proceeds smoothly, you will enter Chu from here. From here, you will enter the Wei River. If no Chu army blocks you, you can follow the Wei River all the way east and sail directly to Jing City. That is the ideal situation, if Heaven favors Great Yan and everything proceeds smoothly.”

“Uh, Your Highness. I can understand entering Mount Meng from here and crossing into Chu territory. If the breach on the Wang River redirects the river into the tributaries, that part is certainly possible. But does this tributary actually connect to the Wei River?”

Chu did possess a highly developed network of rivers.

But not to that absurd a degree.

More importantly, simply having water was not enough.

The channel itself had to be large enough for the Great Yan Navy’s ships to pass.

This time, the Great Yan Navy would be carrying soldiers into Chu.

To maximize troop capacity, they would not transport warhorses aboard the ships.

Horses actually occupied more space than men. They were delicate animals too. After a long journey by ship, perhaps not even thirty percent would be fit to disembark and fight immediately.

Maybe fewer.

It was simply not worth it.

By Zheng Fan’s estimate, he could probably transfer about twenty thousand troops across.

He could draw part of that force from his own command, part from Gong Wang, part from Gongsun Zhi.

Piece everything together and twenty thousand men should be manageable.

True, his own forces, Gong Wang’s men, and Gongsun Zhi’s troops had all taken severe losses in the battles at East Mountain Fort and Central Mountain Camp.

But if you were sending men on a long-range thrust into enemy territory and into a hard battle, bringing raw recruits would be absurd.

Fortunately, the Prince of Jingnan had already promised to let him select fresh recruits afterward.

As long as this battle succeeded, Chu’s Shanggu Commandery would become Yan territory, and Zhennan Pass would enter Zheng Fan’s own sphere of influence.

Once Chu’s elites were shattered and no longer capable of launching a northern campaign, he would have plenty of time to digest the territory, train recruits, and strengthen his foundation.

Tian Wujing’s saber tip traced across the point Zheng Fan had indicated.

“Here, there will be a canal running directly to the Wei River.”

“The Chu were thoughtful enough to build that for us?” Count Pingye asked in surprise.

“In the first year of Yongping, the Fan Clan proposed developing Mount Meng and Qi Mountain and suggested to the Qu Clan that they excavate a canal linking the region to the Wei River. The Qu Clan approved it.”

“So this stretch of canal has already been under construction for three years?”

“Yes.”

“Was it... Your Highness who instructed the Fan Clan to...”

“Fan Zhengwen is more complicated than you expected. Also, at the beginning of this year, after you carried off the Princess and caused friction between Chu and the State of Liang, the Fan Clan took responsibility for transporting military provisions and supplies toward that front. As a result, construction and widening of the canal accelerated. By now it should already be complete.”

Three years earlier, Yan had only just begun opening up Jin.

The Situ Clan still existed.

Zhennan Pass was still in Situ hands.

The Savage rebellion had not yet happened.

And even then, the Prince of Jingnan had already been making preparations for a future campaign against Chu.

As if seeing through Zheng Fan’s thoughts, the Prince of Jingnan said:

“At the time, this Prince merely thought it would be useful to have one more route into Chu. Who could have imagined the situation between our two states would become what it is today?”

The world was unpredictable.

Who could have known that Situ Lei, a ruler famous for so many years and the founding emperor of Cheng State, would suffer defeat after defeat on the snowfields because his two elder brothers rebelled?

Who could have imagined the Savages, once they obtained a Savage King, would rise so swiftly into something so terrifying?

“Even so, Your Highness had the foresight to make preparations in advance.”

If they could simply ride the ships all the way to Jing City, that would be almost too beautiful.

It would spare the soldiers the exhaustion of a long-distance forced march.

It would be faster.

And it would catch the Chu even more thoroughly by surprise.

Along the way, the Fan Clan would presumably perform a true act of “ruining the family to relieve the nation” in support of the Yan.

Fan Zhengwen had probably been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

Truthfully, Fan Zhengwen and Nian Yao had many similarities.

Both had been born slaves.

The Fan Clan had grown enormously wealthy, rich enough to dominate an entire region, yet they remained slaves of the Qu Clan.

Nian Yao had become General-in-Chief of Chu and earned merit again and again, yet before nobles he still had to call himself a slave.

If only Nian Yao could be like Fan Zhengwen.

As long as he was willing, once Great Yan entered Chu, Yan could grant him half of Chu and let Nian Yao become the ruler of a Great Chu state.

All he would need to do was acknowledge Great Yan as his overlord in name.

Because compared with conquering Chu, the Yan sovereign and his commanders actually wanted to attack Qian far more.

“You need only take Jing City. Burn the Chu grain and military stores there, then hold this stretch of the Wei River. You will only need to deal with Chu reinforcements coming from south of the Wei River. As for the several hundred thousand Chu troops around Zhennan Pass...”

Humm!

The Prince of Jingnan drove the saber directly into the sand table at Zhennan Pass.

“Every army that comes out, this Prince will destroy. This Prince will lead Great Yan’s iron cavalry and turn Shanggu Commandery into the graveyard of several hundred thousand Chu soldiers!”

The words sent Count Pingye’s blood surging.

Once he took Jing City, Nian Yao and the Great Chu frontier armies would have no choice but to come out.

If they did not, they would be trapped inside and starve to death.

And the moment the Chu abandoned their walls, forts, and camps, they would taste the terror of Great Yan cavalry in open battle.

Tian Wujing raised one hand.

The Barbarian saber embedded in the sand table floated back into his palm.

He extended it toward Zheng Fan.

As Zheng Fan took the weapon, Tian Wujing said:

“In this battle, this Prince intends to shatter Chu’s vitality so thoroughly that it will be incapable of marching north again for twenty years. When the time comes, your life guarding Zhennan Pass will be easier.”

[End of Chapter 544]