Chapter 552

Chapter 552: - Set Sail

Translated by Light Novel Aloud

“At last, we’re here.”

Feng Siniang sat astride her horse, took down her waterskin, and drank.

Today she wore a red cloak. Galloping all the way here from Snow Sea Pass had hardly been easy, yet even after arriving, she showed no sign of exhaustion.

Then again, she had spent so long as a female accountant that this was finally a chance to get out and ride. She could treat it as stretching her limbs.

Beside her, the Sword Saint still sat ramrod straight, a trace of heaviness in his eyes.

“Is Lord Sword Saint thinking about the people downstream along the Wang River?”

The Sword Saint shook his head.

“Not anymore.”

The greatest of heroes served country and people.

But now, those words no longer stirred much in him.

In the end, the realm was vast, the imperial court distant and high, while the jianghu was far too low.

“I won’t spout bullshit about how a few people dying now will save more people later, or how it will end the war sooner. All I can say is this: Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat all things as straw dogs. His Majesty sends down one decree, and the entire strength of the nation rises to attack Chu. Right now, along the road from Yan proper all the way to eastern Jin, there are more than a million civilian laborers marching toward the front. At the end of the day, you, my Master, even the Prince of Jingnan himself, none of you can stop this great tide. Even His Majesty, with his Dragon Body failing, has been forced to set things in motion ahead of schedule for the sake of what comes before and after his death. Everyone has hardships of their own. Everyone encounters things beyond their power. Fortunately, Master and you may not be able to influence the whole tide of the world yet, but at least you have the strength to protect the soldiers and people of Snow Sea Pass. What we can see before our eyes, what we can touch with our own hands, if we can protect that much, then that is already very good. There’s a saying: sweep the snow before your own door and don’t worry about frost on someone else’s roof. It sounds like something people say to mock selfishness, but there is some truth in it.”

The Sword Saint asked:

“Then what of those who sacrifice themselves for their country and die for righteousness? Are they all fools?”

Fourth Lady smiled.

“Is their country still there?”

The Sword Saint fell silent.

He was known as the Sword Saint of Jin.

Yet Jin had not truly been destroyed by Yan.

A hundred years before Yan conquered Jin, Jin had already existed in name only.

As Meng Shou wrote in the *History of Jin*: the Three Families divided Jin.

From that point onward, the Situ, Helian, and Wenren clans had already carved up Jin’s national fate between them.

If not for the ever-expanding State of Chu to the south and the State of Yan watching like a tiger to the west, the three clans would have declared themselves emperors long ago.

The country had vanished long before.

So for whom was one supposed to sacrifice oneself?

If the country had only just fallen, that would be another matter. One could stand upon the embers and struggle once more. Even if one failed to prop up the collapsing sky, even if one died and vanished, at least it would be a clean and satisfying end.

But the true State of Jin had long since been nothing more than an empty frame left standing for appearance’s sake.

The Sword Saint himself was a scion of the Yu imperial clan, yet he had never possessed the slightest consciousness of being royalty.

That alone showed how badly the Jin imperial house had declined.

Besides, Yan was one of the Xia states too. In ancient times, the Marquises of Yan and Jin had both been vassals of Great Xia. Yan replacing Jin was, in a sense, little more than one dynasty replacing another.

At the root of it, they were still of the same stock.

If the Savages controlled the Three Jin lands now, that would be different.

Then no compromise would be possible.

They would have to fight to the very end.

Even if the Three Jin lands had been Savage homeland a thousand years ago, well... a sword had two edges, and people had double standards.

Fourth Lady took a preserved plum from her pocket and tossed it into her mouth.

“I’m not saying all this to excuse what happened. What we did was genuinely ugly. The people swept away downstream by the flood died unjustly. The people displaced by that flood suffered injustice too. But there are oceans of injustice in this world, and oceans of people who suffer it. When the sky overhead is about to change color, all we can do is open an umbrella in advance. I know Master. I imagine Master would not have wanted things done this way either.”

The Sword Saint asked:

“Mr. Feng, did you say all that merely to comfort me?”

“What else?”

“There really was no need. A man who holds a sword believes only in the three feet of edge in his hand. He does not believe in Heaven, and he does not believe in the Dao. Zheng Fan once told me that in the future, however much land he possesses, he will protect that much land; however many people live under his rule, he will protect that many people. That is why I am willing to help him. If only the fortunate are allowed to live peaceful lives in this world, then I hope, as far as I am able, that there can be more such fortunate people. As for all the deeper principles, I have no wish to hear them or think about them. Principles are principles. No matter how much you think or talk, in the end they are merely things people use to make themselves feel more comfortable.”

“You see things clearly,” Fourth Lady said.

There was another sentence she left unspoken.

Ever since the Sword Saint began spending time with her Master, his sword had become more and more rounded.

No.

Not rounded.

More worldly.

“Worldly” did not sound quite right either.

Perhaps she should use the Blind Man’s favorite phrase: more grounded.

To be called a Saint was to stand atop a high platform.

Cold.

Exhausting.

Heavy.

Oppressive.

Only after coming down could the sword truly become carefree.

Ahead, a towering figure appeared.

Strictly speaking, the towering part was the mount.

After all, a Pixiu’s build was simply not something an ordinary warhorse could compare with.

“Look. Master came to welcome you.”

The Sword Saint shook his head.

“He came to welcome you.”

As far as Count Pingye was concerned, he had come to welcome both of them.

One was the principal wife of his household.

The other was his neighbor.

During the earlier sieges and bitter fighting in eastern Jin, he had already begun missing Fourth Lady.

And now he was about to enter Chu again.

Going without Fourth Lady at his side simply did not feel right.

As for the Sword Saint, from the very day the man left the army camp and went home, Count Pingye had been thinking about him.

On a battlefield, even a Sword Saint could not change the course of a great army by himself.

But his presence could at least protect Count Pingye from accidents and the underhanded tricks of petty men.

If he lost, then let him lose openly.

Even if he squandered the foundation he had built, that would at least be because his own command had failed.

His own fortune, lost by his own hands.

At least he would have enjoyed the process.

But dying for some inexplicable reason?

That would be infuriating beyond words.

After meeting up and exchanging a few pleasantries, Count Pingye led them into his temporary residence in Yupan City.

A group of unfamiliar generals stood outside.

When Count Pingye approached astride his Pixiu, the generals immediately dropped to their knees.

“Greetings, Count Pingye. May the Count enjoy health and fortune!”

Gou Moli introduced them from the side.

“Count, these are the navy officers.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“Generals, please come inside and speak.”

The residence was crude and somewhat dilapidated.

Fortunately, the main hall was reasonably clean.

Count Pingye took the principal seat while the navy officers sat below.

The leader among them was named Qin Xin, a general of Great Yan’s Wang River Navy.

And even that was merely a miscellaneous general’s title.

By comparison, the title Zheng Fan had once held as General of Shengle actually ranked one step higher.

Great Yan’s military system had always been chaotic at the lower levels, but the higher one climbed, the clearer the hierarchy became.

Yet the man in charge of Great Yan’s first true navy did not even hold the title of Chief Commander.

That alone showed how little Great Yan valued naval forces.

This was despite the Yan having suffered at the hands of Chu’s navy during the First Battle of Wang River.

And despite the fact that whether Yan fought Qian or Chu in the future, it would inevitably need naval power.

But since the founding of the state, Great Yan had prided itself on iron cavalry.

That kind of culture could not be changed overnight.

“This Count will not waste words. This entry into Chu is tied directly to whether the campaign at the front succeeds or fails. The burden on my shoulders is heavy, and the burden on yours is absolutely no lighter. So let us speak plainly. You were selected to establish this navy. Do not imagine you were exiled here or pushed aside. In the future, naval forces will inevitably become an indispensable arm of Great Yan’s military. This Count gives you his word: after we win this campaign against Chu, there will be three Chief Commander titles for the men among you to divide.”

All the officers rose and saluted together.

“Thank you for your patronage, Count!”

“What is the earliest we can depart?” Count Pingye asked.

His troops had already assembled.

The Wang River dike had already burst.

Now the navy had to move south as quickly as possible.

Otherwise they might lose the opportunity or even alert the Chu.

One of the generals answered:

“Replying to Count, this subordinate general has already sent men downstream to inspect the waterway. They should return tomorrow. If everything is in order, we can leave immediately.”

“The sooner, the better. Speed is precious in war. Yingdu will immediately send us whatever provisions and supplies we require. I am setting the timetable now. On the night after tomorrow, every armored soldier under my command boards ship. We enter Chu.”

“This subordinate general obeys!”

...

After meeting the navy officers that morning, Count Pingye did not have a moment’s rest from afternoon until night.

One group after another came to see him.

First were Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang.

With the entry into Chu imminent, they were the commanders of two major forces under Zheng Fan.

Whether by reason or by sentiment, they needed one final meeting beforehand.

The battlefield was the battlefield.

Now was now.

If they made their positions and expectations clear now, there would be no room for wrangling once they reached the battlefield.

Count Pingye had no choice but to take both men seriously.

Entering Chu meant going very far from home.

It would be extraordinarily dangerous.

One careless mistake could overturn everything.

If you expected other men to risk their lives with you, then first you had to let them see what they might gain by risking those lives.

Count Pingye shamelessly began with:

“The Prince of Jingnan said...”

Snow Sea Pass.

Zhennan Pass.

Fengxin City.

In the broadest sense, “eastern Jin” referred to the former Situ Clan territories after the old Three Jin lands had been divided into two.

What Yan people now called eastern Jin, however, referred to the middle half of the old Situ territory, roughly the region east of the Wang River.

In Count Pingye’s description, all that land would belong to him in the future.

After the war, merit would be rewarded.

There would be men.

Money.

Grain.

And most importantly, real territory.

Eastern Jin had already been emptied by years of war, with only the Snow Sea Pass region remaining lively.

That did not matter.

According to Count Pingye’s grand picture, once Zhennan Pass fell into their hands, they would control the gateway south into Chu.

The court would have to keep pouring resources into such a strategically vital region.

And whenever they lacked something, they could simply go steal it from Chu.

What sort of carefree life would that be?

Gong Wang was a Jin man.

Though he was a Chief Commander and independently commanded an army, the Yan still regarded him with suspicion.

He wanted to use this battle to secure a genuine place for himself within the Yan-dominated military system.

In other words, he wanted to assimilate himself.

Gongsun Zhi, after separating from Li Bao’s son, had effectively led his own men away from Quhe City.

He had no permanent territory of his own.

Over the previous year, whenever some place in Jin rebelled or required reinforcement, he had been sent there to plug the gap.

He had suffered more than enough from having no base.

“In short!”

After talking for half the day, Count Pingye judged the heat was finally right and began his conclusion.

“Since joining the army, this Count has never lost a battle. I stole a Chu princess. She is still waiting at home for me to finish beating the Chu and go back so she can warm my kang bed! And I have killed two Pillars of State of Chu!”

Qu Tiannan had killed himself.

But it was still barely reasonable for Count Pingye to phrase it this way, because Zheng Fan had been the one who issued the order that day.

Qu Peiluo himself regarded Zheng Fan as his father’s killer.

So really, what was there to argue over?

Count Pingye walked down and placed one hand on Gong Wang’s shoulder and the other on Gongsun Zhi’s.

Word by word, he said:

“After this battle, I become a Marquis. You two become Counts.”

...

One had to admit, the art of language was truly remarkable.

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi were seasoned battlefield commanders.

Yet when they returned from Count Pingye’s residence to their own camps, both had flushed faces, visibly excited.

They knew they ought to remain calm.

Steady.

Unmoved in joy or anger.

But they had genuinely been set on fire.

Of course, words by themselves were usually rootless duckweed.

They too liked borrowing a dog’s ferocity or a fox’s tiger skin.

Because the power of words depended, ultimately, on who was saying them.

Count Pingye’s present status stood there for all to see.

So did his experience.

It was not as though he had never before led a thousand-li strike deep into an enemy rear.

And both Chief Commanders had already learned from their sons further details of just how highly the Prince of Jingnan regarded Count Pingye.

Most importantly, before sending them away, Count Pingye had added one final sentence.

He said it very softly.

Very casually.

And yet, very thoughtfully.

“Leave Gong Lin and Gongsun Zan, those two boys, here in Yupan City. If the two of you end up wrapped in horsehide, someone still has to inherit your titles, doesn’t he?”

There was nothing else to say.

Gamble!

...

“Count, this subordinate admires the way you talked to them just now.”

Gou Moli had always felt that the master before him resembled himself in many ways.

For example, both were excellent at talking people into things.

That particular expression was one he had learned from the Blind Man.

Count Pingye drank some tea to moisten his throat.

“They had no choice to begin with. The reason they came here was merely so they could commit themselves more freely and feel more at ease doing it.”

Military orders were mountains.

How many times had Zheng Fan been personally named by the Prince of Jingnan and forced to grit his teeth and go?

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi were no different.

When people needed to be persuaded, persuasion often worked best.

“Next group.”

Count Pingye tossed a mint candy into his mouth.

The next group consisted of representatives from the five thousand elites Count Pingye had drawn from the other armies.

For secrecy, he had not dared tell the men below about the battle plan before now.

But departure was imminent.

He had to seize the time and prepare their minds.

Because what awaited him and this army was a long stretch of being shaken around inside ship cabins.

Then, once they disembarked, they would discover they were isolated deep inside Chu territory with hundreds of thousands of Chu soldiers between them and home.

If these had been the old Snow Sea Army, there would have been no need for this step.

But his direct troops had suffered considerable losses in the earlier battles, and this time he had supplemented them with more than ten thousand soldiers from other formations.

If he did not steady and straighten out the army’s morale now, serious trouble would erupt once they entered Chu.

Qian scholars writing frontier poetry always sang about “loyalty,” “righteousness,” and “serving the country.”

One had to admit, the men who controlled the writing brush controlled the right to tell the story.

But as a Count who had climbed up from the very bottom, Zheng Fan knew perfectly well what real army grunts truly thought about.

Military merit.

Reward silver.

And having enough money to boldly pay for an entire night in a red tent instead of suffering the humiliation of shooting their arrow in a hurry, yanking up their trousers, and immediately running out.

“Loyalty to sovereign and country?”

They had that too.

But you could not eat it.

Before a battle, shouting those words to lift morale was fine.

Expecting the effect to remain fresh forever was pure fantasy.

That was why painting a grand future for soldiers required real skill.

Count Pingye told them the plan.

At the same time, he painted them a future rooted much closer to the ground.

After victory over Chu, anyone willing to enter Snow Sea Pass and serve beneath him would find the door wide open.

Anyone who still wanted to return to his old formation would be guaranteed promotion.

At the same time, Count Pingye produced a thick stack of detailed regulations.

They listed his own casualty and death benefits, which were to say the standards used at Snow Sea Pass.

Some of the men came from poor backgrounds and brightened immediately when they saw them.

Others came from the Zhenbei Army or Jingnan Army.

Their current benefits were not as high as those of the Snow Sea Army, but they were not far behind.

Still, the court’s pension was the court’s pension.

This was an additional payment Count Pingye promised under his own name.

Double the happiness.

When these Lieutenant Commanders returned to their camps, they would explain everything to the soldiers under them.

Likewise, Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang would help Count Pingye steady their own subordinates.

When the army under your command grew larger and larger, your attention inevitably shifted away from “loving every soldier like a son” and toward controlling the commanders.

That was what Count Pingye was doing now.

Give them silver.

Give them promotions.

Count Pingye’s reputation was enormous now.

Even his IOUs were valuable.

By the time he finished handling group after group, night had already fallen.

“Sigh.”

Count Pingye rubbed his Adam’s apple.

His throat felt ready to smoke.

“Count, you’ve worked hard. Look how obedient I am. I soothed the soldiers of my First Command long ago.”

Gou Moli grinned as he handed over a freshly refilled cup of tea.

Count Pingye accepted it, slid the lid aside, blew across the surface, and said:

“In the end, I’m still a little uncertain in my heart. Otherwise I would never need to say this much.”

“An extra measure of preparation before battle is never wrong.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“It has been years. After all the rolling, crawling, and struggling until now, I can finally feel myself drawing closer and closer to what I wanted.”

His “birthplace” in this world had been Beifeng Commandery.

And the first enormous power he had ever encountered had been the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence.

Now, so long as he won this battle, his own foundation would finally be established for real.

Become a Marquis.

Receive a frontier domain.

He too would possess a Marquis residence of his own.

Whether he became a regional warlord, a military governor, a loyal subject guarding the frontier for sovereign and country... any of it would be fine.

He could finally breathe.

He could go out and look around.

Wander.

View this world from another angle.

Truthfully, Count Pingye now sincerely hoped Emperor Yan could hold on a little longer and somehow create a miracle of life.

Please do not let it happen that the moment Zheng Fan finished this battle and received his rewards, he would immediately have to go help that bastard Little Sixth fight for the throne.

Too exhausting.

Too tightly packed together.

He still wanted time to properly enjoy life.

...

Two nights later, formation after formation of armored soldiers boarded the ships in orderly ranks.

The wind over the river blew somewhat hard.

Standing on the deck in golden armor, Count Pingye spread both arms.

Softly, he said:

“Great Chu, I, Zheng Fan, have returned.”

[End of Chapter 552]

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