Chapter 550: - Charge!

Guo Dong and Xu An had become regular soldiers.

One reason was that the battle at East Mountain Fort had cost them heavily. Count Pingye had planted his command banner there and pushed his command carriage forward, and although the Yan army had eventually shattered the Chu after a long, bitter fight, its own casualties had been severe.

That, however, was not the main reason.

The true reason was that, as batch after batch of high-quality recruits were intercepted from the rear and personally screened by Jin Shuke and the Blind Man, the original Snow Sea Army had begun expanding as well.

It was, in a sense, another form of rewarding merit.

Veterans became File Leaders. File Leaders became Squad Leaders. Squad Leaders became Centurions. Centurions became Lieutenant Commanders.

Only by having veterans lead new recruits could an army rapidly build basic combat effectiveness.

In an age of cold weapons, it was impossible to reproduce in every battle the feat of the first Marquis of Zhenbei a century ago, when thirty thousand defeated five hundred thousand.

Veterans died.

New recruits filled the gaps.

That was inevitable.

On paper, the army’s combat strength would inevitably decline.

But this was a growing pain that had to be endured.

Nor was the Snow Sea Army alone in this.

The Zhenbei Army and Jingnan Army had fought so many brutal battles over the past several years that the replacement of old soldiers with new was severe there as well.

Under such unavoidable conditions, an army’s reputation became extraordinarily important.

Even in later generations, titles like Hero Company, Steel Company, and Tiger Regiment would still be preserved. A unit with glorious achievements and a genuine historical inheritance could quickly give newly joined soldiers pride and a sense of belonging.

And on the battlefield, those things became... courage.

Courage could compensate for inferior horsemanship.

It could compensate, to a certain degree, for a lack of experience.

It was like an aura.

You could not point to one precise effect it had, yet it somehow made you stronger than you had been before.

The Zhenbei Army possessed that kind of inheritance.

Before the Marquis of Jingnan rose to prominence, the accepted saying beneath Heaven had been:

Great Yan’s iron cavalry is foremost beneath Heaven.

The Zhenbei cavalry is foremost within Great Yan.

That was why Savage chieftains who had once followed the Savage King while tempering themselves in Beifeng Commandery would, when Yan cavalry appeared and announced their origins, deliberately mention the auxiliary formation they themselves had once belonged to in Beifeng Commandery.

As for the Snow Sea Army, half its prestige came from the fact that it had never lost since the day it was formed.

The other half came from Count Pingye’s personal reputation.

Over the past several years, Count Pingye had missed almost none of the wars commanded by the Prince of Jingnan.

Because the Prince of Jingnan had exterminated his own clan, ordinary people deliberately avoided speaking of him. Everyone tacitly pretended not to mention it.

As a result, a great deal of that radiance naturally shifted onto Count Pingye instead.

A commoner rising from the black-haired masses.

A civilian laborer turning his life around.

Earning merit.

Winning noble rank through military service.

Add to that the personal-heroism flavor of carrying off a princess, and the three words “Count Pingye” possessed an attraction inside auxiliary camps that was almost impossible to imagine.

When the Blind Man and Jin Shuke intercepted recruits in the rear, the moment those auxiliary soldiers and civilian laborers heard Count Pingye was recruiting, they swarmed over in such numbers that they nearly crushed one another.

Guo Dong and Xu An had originally been auxiliaries.

Now, they were regular soldiers.

Whether that counted as good fortune or bad, however, was hard to say.

They had entered the command led by Jin Shuke.

And Jin Shuke’s command had now been mobilized to march west together with Gou Moli’s First Command.

Gong Wang’s force and Gongsun Zhi’s force were moving with them.

In other words, the Eastern Front Army, which had earned the most merit and performed most brilliantly since the campaign against Chu began, had now had more than half its elite strength drawn away.

All three of its principal commanders had left.

Not one remained.

Under those circumstances, the Eastern Front Army still possessed a considerable number of troops, but it was no longer suitable for targeted combat missions.

Once the campaign against Chu entered its next stage, the Eastern Front Army would become the rear force of the greater army.

Unless a genuine crisis arose, such as the armies ahead collapsing outright, it would almost certainly no longer participate directly in combat.

Instead, it would focus on maintaining logistical stability.

The redeployment of the Eastern Front Army was hidden inside a new round of large-scale movement across the entire army campaigning against Chu.

Because the Chu had begun a strategic contraction, the Yan no longer needed to expend much strength clearing the remaining forts and camps.

The old deployments and dispositions of the various armies all had to be rearranged.

Hundreds of thousands of troops moved beneath the Prince of Jingnan’s direction, and everything appeared orderly.

Only the civilian laborers in the rear had suddenly become extremely busy again.

New camps.

New placements.

New roads and foundations.

And siege engines that would most likely never be used, yet still had to be built in order to mislead the Chu.

Those who knew understood this was a battlefield.

Those who did not might have thought eastern Jin was carrying out a massive production-and-construction campaign.

The Chu were adjusting their own deployments as well.

Using Zhennan Pass as their anchor, they began building a new defensive line.

A new round of military confrontation between the two states was about to begin.

Count Pingye, however, did not hurry to rendezvous with the larger force.

Using memorials stamped with the princely seal, he drew five thousand elite soldiers from the various Chief Commanders and directly led this newly assembled force west at speed.

Most of the soldiers were completely baffled.

They had no idea what sort of game was being played.

Every one of them was a genuine veteran from one of the various Chief Commanders’ armies.

Some Chief Commanders had even sent their own personal guards.

No one dared hold anything back.

First, the number of men being drawn from each army was not large enough to cause real damage.

Second, no one dared play tricks in front of the Prince of Jingnan by padding the numbers with the old, weak, sick, or crippled.

They were elites.

And elites were often arrogant soldiers.

But when the Prince of Jingnan and Count Pingye appeared together before them, when Count Pingye drew his Barbarian saber and ordered them to form ranks, leave camp, and march west, not one of them even dared open his mouth to ask a useless question.

The battlefield was clearly in the east.

Yet they kept marching west.

West.

And farther west.

If not for their faith in Count Pingye’s reputation, had some other general commanded them this way, they might already have suspected he was leading them off to become deserters.

Fortunately, the entire rear area was covered by Yan logistical routes.

As the armies marched west, they had no need to worry about supplies.

After a long march that lasted many days, at last, the Wang River appeared before them.

...

Yupan City was still Yupan City.

And yet, it was no longer the same Yupan City.

Once, Yupan City had faced Yingdu across the river and had been famous beneath Heaven for its pleasure barges and dancing girls.

Yingdu’s prosperity was only natural.

As the Situ Clan’s capital, developed for a century and combining the political, military, and economic centers of the realm in one place, it would have been strange if Yingdu had failed to flourish.

By comparison, Yupan City’s prosperity had possessed a purer kind of beauty.

The literati and wandering poets of Jin had all loved visiting Yupan City, composing poetry across the river or drinking aboard flower boats.

When Yao Zizhan traveled through Jin, he had once left behind the line:

Why turn my gaze toward Ying City?
My heart already rests in Yupan.

Yao Zizhan’s romantic reputation was famous.

So was his pickiness.

If Yupan City had not truly been beautiful, a man accustomed to the refined pleasures of Qian’s Jiangnan would never have praised it so highly.

Unfortunately, years of military disaster and endless war had reduced Yupan City to its present state.

Its walls had been repaired, but walking through its streets still felt desolate beyond words.

The only real signs of life outside the city came from the logistical routes supplying the armies ahead.

Walking along the city wall, Count Pingye could not help feeling emotional.

A famous city had fallen from splendor into decline.

Sometimes, being moved by a scene was not something one could control.

It merely depended on whether one had the leisure for sentimentality.

And right now, for at least the next few days, Count Pingye had that leisure.

So he indulged himself.

“Sigh...”

Someone beside him sighed as well.

It was Gou Moli.

Count Pingye laughed.

“What the hell are you sighing about?”

More than half the blame for Yupan City looking like this today belonged to you, Savage King.

“Count, have you been here before?”

“This is my first time inside the city,” Count Pingye replied.

During the first Battle of Wang River, Count Pingye had watched the show from Shengle City.

During the second, once the Prince of Jingnan took command again, Count Pingye answered the summons and led troops over. Not long afterward, he was ordered to cross the river downstream and launch a deep strike into the rear.

By the time he returned after defending Snow Sea Pass, the prisoner massacre had just begun.

At that time, the ground beneath Yupan City had been carpeted with Chu corpses.

Count Pingye had not felt like dirtying his boots.

It was said that when the Yan army later entered Yupan City, they found human bones everywhere.

During the siege, the Chu defenders had run short of grain and begun eating “two-legged sheep” on a massive scale.

So the slaughter of those forty thousand Azure Luan soldiers had not exactly been unjust.

The last time Count Pingye passed the Wang River, he had deliberately detoured around Yupan City.

Xiong Liqing had been traveling with him then.

On the return journey, Count Pingye had been rushing back to prepare for the campaign against Chu.

So again, he had failed to enter the city and take a look.

This time truly was the first.

“Count, in the old days, if you stood on the streets of Yupan City and took a deep breath, you could smell every kind of rouge and powder. Scoop up a handful of river water and you could practically taste wine in it. Back then, Yupan City really was a wonderful place. If you took this city alone and compared it with Qian’s Jiangnan, it truly would not lose in the slightest. But precisely because it is desolate now, it possesses a different kind of feeling and atmosphere. In this subordinate’s view, Count deliberately came inside to walk around because you wanted to experience exactly that feeling. This too is a kind of beauty.”

One truly had to admire the learning and reflective ability of a genuine outstanding man.

“Beauty” was a habitual concept between Count Pingye and the Demon Kings. They occasionally spoke about it in ordinary conversation.

Gou Moli had already grown familiar with the idea.

He could even use it now.

Count Pingye made no comment.

He merely reached into his large Zhonghua-brand metal tin, took out a cigarette, and held it between his lips.

“Count, the troops we brought this time really are a mixed bag.”

The force they had brought was so mixed that even the Qian would have been left behind choking on dust.

Count Pingye did not care.

“Once we get where we’re going, there won’t be time for them to stay mixed.”

Everyone would board ships and travel downriver.

Once they reached a place surrounded by Chu songs on all sides, the only choice besides clustering together would still be clustering together.

Besides, the Prince of Jingnan’s banner stood over them, and Count Pingye’s own identity was what it was.

He was not truly worried that soldiers from so many different origins would refuse his commands.

Gou Moli laughed along.

“So sometimes, when I think about it, the Qian really did bring this upon themselves. Back then, they finally produced one Tattoo-Faced Chancellor, and their own people ended up destroying him. Otherwise, with Qian’s national strength, how could they ever have fallen to this point?”

“Some people look at a hundred years of national fortune. Other people look at the office and authority in their own hands. Their priorities are simply different,” Count Pingye said.

“Count is right.”

Count Pingye struck a firesteel and lit his cigarette.

Then he said:

“News from the Secret Intelligence Department says that old Chancellor Zhong in Qian may already be gone. The Qian are simply keeping the death secret and not announcing the mourning.”

“No wonder the Qian have not moved an inch at the Three Frontiers. I was wondering before, with us fighting the Chu this fiercely, even if the Qian were stupid, surely they would make some movement at the Three Frontiers? So that’s why. In the past, this subordinate never believed in something like national fortune. Now I’m starting to believe a little. Otherwise, why is it that the Yan keep gambling and keep winning? There should be no threat from Qian anymore. They were already short on tall men, and now the tallest among the dwarfs is gone too. Hehehe.”

“Walk by the river often enough and sooner or later your shoes get wet. After this campaign against Chu, we probably will not gamble again.”

Because the one man who possessed both the standing and the ability to place the entire country on the gaming table was almost unable to hold on anymore.

“Count, look. A force is approaching.”

Gou Moli pointed outside the city.

“Report! Count, the Fifth Prince requests an audience.”

A scout rider came in to report.

Old Fifth really did observe etiquette.

A dignified imperial prince wanted to see him, yet still asked for an audience.

Then again, that too was part of Old Fifth’s intelligence.

The identity of an imperial prince was certainly exalted.

But it depended on where he was.

“Invite Fifth Highness up.”

“Yes!”

Before long, the Fifth Prince hurried up onto the wall wearing a worn, old long robe.

He had not dressed himself like some clown purely to meet Zheng Fan.

Count Pingye could see immediately that the Fifth Prince had been tanned almost black.

The exposed skin on his body was mottled as well, the aftereffects of sunburn.

That meant Fifth Highness had not spent these days beside the Wang River sitting in some elegant Yingdu tower, enjoying poetry and local officials’ flattery.

He had genuinely been working.

An imperial prince capable of settling down and doing real work...

Count Pingye wondered whether he should emphasize that point the next time he wrote to Little Sixth and remind him to pay attention.

Of course, Count Pingye also knew Little Sixth probably understood perfectly well what kind of substance his Fifth Brother was made of.

There was no chance he truly regarded him as nothing more than a carpenter.

“Greetings, Fifth Highness.”

Count Pingye nodded.

He was the commander leading troops here for the next phase of the campaign.

In theory, he was still under arms.

There was therefore no need for a grand ceremonial bow.

Of course, even without those conditions, if anyone asked the present Count Pingye to kneel to this prince, he could not do it.

And the Fifth Prince would not dare accept it.

“Count Pingye, you have worked hard. Though I have remained at the Wang River, news has reached me constantly of the string of brilliant military achievements you have earned at the front. Sigh. Count Pingye truly is a pillar holding up the sky of my Great Yan.”

Count Pingye immediately raised a hand and stopped him.

“Pillar holding up the sky” suited the Prince of Jingnan perfectly.

Zheng Fan could not carry such words.

When someone’s flattery suddenly became that heavy, it usually meant they wanted something from you.

At Count Pingye’s glance, Gou Moli and the surrounding personal guards withdrew.

The Fifth Prince moved a little closer.

“Count Pingye has come leading troops this time. And Great Yan’s newly built navy is presently anchored in the upstream naval camp thirty li from Yupan City. Chengwen dares ask... are we about to breach the dike?”

The Fifth Prince had not been informed of the battle plan beforehand.

There was even a very good chance that no one would have told him the plan while the riverworks were underway.

Tian Wujing had been preparing for this campaign against Chu for years.

Naturally, he would entrust such a project only to men he trusted.

But the Fifth Prince had personally participated in the project.

More importantly, he had always possessed some knowledge in this field and was willing to study it further.

Ordinary soldiers and laborers working on the riverworks would never have seen the deeper intent.

From the surface, it genuinely did look like they were repairing and strengthening the river channel.

But the Fifth Prince knew how to learn, and how to think.

He had noticed the problem himself.

Count Pingye smiled.

“Fifth Highness, please forgive me. This Count cannot say.”

“I know. I know. But... Count Pingye, I came because I want to ask one thing of you.”

“Please speak, Your Highness.”

“In the next few days, once the dike breaks, the river will inevitably change course. Since ancient times, whenever a river changes course, the people along its banks suffer. Damaged harvests and displaced families are the smaller problem. The true danger is that many people, with no warning at all, may be swept away by the flood. True, the people downstream along the Wang River are people of the Jin lands. But since the Jin lands now belong to Great Yan, the people of Jin are already people of Great Yan. They too are Father’s subjects. So I want to ask something of Count Pingye. Evacuate the people along the downstream banks. Give them a chance to live.”

Hearing this, Count Pingye was not especially moved.

He merely looked at the Fifth Prince with faint surprise.

Then he shook his head.

“No.”

“Chengwen knows I am asking too much. Military affairs are dangerous, and I understand nothing about them. I merely wanted to come and try, to do what little I can.”

“Does Fifth Highness know that the armies at the front have spent all this time fighting, paying so many lives, precisely to create the opportunity for what this Count is about to do at the Wang River over these next few days?”

Without exaggeration, the Yan army’s earlier assaults on forts and camps, all that grinding and attrition, had been part of the fog of war.

“Yes...”

“Your Highness’s heart is kind. This Count admires that. But evacuating civilians would inevitably alert Chu spies. It might even allow them to see through our entire plan directly. This battle depends on surprise. Speed is the most precious thing in war. This Count is unwilling to take that risk, and cannot take it. This Count’s own safety means nothing. This Count long ago prepared himself to sacrifice everything for Great Yan. But if this affects the overall campaign against Chu, if it affects this war between states, then the price will be far beyond the losses suffered by a few people along the downstream banks.”

The best outcome would be for the water level to reach navigable height immediately after the dike broke, and for the army to depart at once.

The later the Chu learned what had happened, the greater Zheng Fan’s own margin of safety.

This was not cavalry warfare, where he could rely on mobility and play hide-and-seek with Chu forces short on horses.

This time, he and his men would be entering by ship.

If the Chu learned in advance and prepared, then Count Pingye would become the turtle trapped inside the jar.

“Sigh.”

The Fifth Prince nodded and no longer persisted.

“I only wanted the people to suffer a little less.”

Count Pingye reached out and hooked an arm around the Fifth Prince’s shoulders.

He smiled.

“Your Highness, strictly speaking, these words should not be coming from me.”

“Mm?”

“They would be more suitable coming from you, because your surname is Ji. Your Highness should also understand how much Great Yan has already paid for this war between states. We cannot afford to lose. If something goes wrong, the Great Yan state itself may...”

“I know. I know.”

Count Pingye nodded and patted the Fifth Prince’s shoulder.

Perhaps these days had truly allowed the Fifth Prince to experience the suffering of ordinary people.

Naturally, a trace of compassion for all beneath Heaven had grown within him.

Fortunately, he was not pedantic.

At that moment, Count Pingye remembered what the Prince of Jingnan had said before he departed.

Back then, Zheng Fan had actually asked a question very similar to the Fifth Prince’s.

Naturally, Count Pingye had phrased his own far less directly.

But the Prince of Jingnan’s answer had been more direct than direct.

He had not bothered disguising it in the slightest.

He had said:

“If Great Yan is gone, what use are all the people beneath Heaven to us?”

[End of Chapter 550]