Chapter 553: - The Beginning

“Eat some of this.”

Xu An handed Guo Dong a green glutinous-rice cake.

Guo Dong had vomited plenty over the past several days.

His complexion had turned waxy yellow.

He was, after all, a landlubber from Yan proper.

The moment he boarded a ship, his body stopped feeling like his own.

It was as though someone had grabbed him by the head and kept smashing it against a wall.

The State of Yan was not literally without naval forces.

But Yan’s “navy” had always been largely ceremonial, stationed on a few lakes here and there.

Even the naval soldiers themselves did not really think of themselves as sailors.

As far as they were concerned, they simply happened to have a few extra boats.

The force now moving along the Wang River was the first navy in the strict sense to truly enter the Great Yan court’s field of vision.

So there were plenty of men like Guo Dong who became seasick.

To maximize transport capacity, many of the weapons and devices normally used for fighting on the water had been removed from the warships.

As a result, every deck below was packed shoulder to shoulder with soldiers.

The cramped space and foul air were miserable enough already.

Once this man vomited and that man vomited, the smell inside the cabins became indescribable.

Fortunately, Xu An was a decent swimmer.

Otherwise he would never have managed to swim across the Wang River when fleeing disaster all those years ago.

The officers had issued an order: men who could swim well and did not become seasick were to be organized and assigned to care for their suffering comrades.

The Yan Lieutenant Commander who finished issuing that order turned his head.

“Bleurgh!”

Guo Dong looked doubtfully at the rice cake.

“Does this thing actually help?”

If he put food into his stomach, wouldn’t he just want to vomit more?

Xu An shook his head.

“No.”

Guo Dong looked wounded.

“You should’ve lied to me.”

Xu An laughed.

“After vomiting for another few days, you’ll probably get used to it. But you still have to eat. You’ve already started throwing up bile.”

With a helpless expression, Guo Dong bit into the green rice cake.

Soft.

Sticky.

Sweet.

With a faint fresh fragrance.

As he chewed, Guo Dong narrowed his eyes and sniffed.

“My mother makes these too.”

“Your father is dead.”

“...” Guo Dong.

“And your brother is crippled.”

“...” Guo Dong.

“So you have even more reason to stay alive. Stay alive,” Xu An said.

Guo Dong let out a long breath.

“Finally. A human sentence.”

Xu An laughed and sat beside him.

“What about you? What do you want to do after the war?” Guo Dong asked.

Guo Dong himself intended to go home.

Many of the comrades around him were planning to follow Count Pingye to Snow Sea Pass.

Guo Dong wanted to as well.

But he could not.

Back in Gu County in the State of Yan, he had an elderly mother, an elder brother lying crippled in bed, and a girl waiting for him to return and marry her.

Moving the whole family was unrealistic.

His mother was in poor health.

His brother was paralyzed.

If Guo Dong dragged all of them from Gu County to Snow Sea Pass, someone might die along the way.

What Guo Dong wanted was to earn merit and take his reward.

If he could win an official grade through military merit, even better.

Then he could return to Gu County and, like his father before him, become a Centurion in one of the mountain camps.

With that, he should be able to support the whole family and keep life going.

“I don’t know.”

That was Xu An’s answer.

He had been an orphan for a very long time.

Return to Yingdu and look for his godfather again?

Xu An had no desire to go back.

After going to war, how could he return to being someone’s adopted son?

Return to hard labor?

Know perfectly well that his godfather was treating him like an idiot and endure it anyway?

The old Xu An could tolerate that.

The Xu An of today suspected he would chop off his godfather’s head and use it as a wine jar.

“Then just keep following the Count. I envy you.”

Guo Dong was a Yan man.

So he admired Count Pingye even more deeply.

Xu An nodded.

“Probably.”

Keep following the army.

Fight beneath the Count’s banner.

The life did not seem bad.

There was food.

There was drink.

And there were people to kill.

It was dangerous, but it carried a different kind of solidity.

Even if he died in battle one day, he did not feel he would have lost much.

“Heh. If you rise to wealth and rank in the future, don’t forget this brother of yours,” Guo Dong said with a laugh.

Yan people admired military merit.

Even in the age when aristocratic clans stood everywhere, any common Yan man with ambition in his heart would travel to Beifeng Commandery looking for an opportunity.

He would use Barbarian heads as the rungs of his own ladder upward.

So while the people of Qian had gradually had the phrase “all pursuits are base; only scholarship is exalted” branded into their hearts, common Yan folk carved out wealth and honor with cavalry sabers.

Guo Dong truly did not want to leave the army camp.

Xu An said:

“The day before yesterday, I heard two Lieutenant Commanders talking. They said once we’ve beaten Chu for a while, we’ll probably fight Qian next. Qian is close to your home. Maybe we’ll still have a chance to meet again.”

“By then, you might already be a Lieutenant Commander. I’ll still be me.”

“That’s fine. I’ll have you come serve as one of my personal guards.”

“Deal.”

“Come, come! Drink the medicine! Drink the medicine!”

A Lieutenant Commander shouted:

“Everyone gets one bowl. It prevents chills. Anyone who refuses will be dealt with under military law!”

In such tightly enclosed conditions, once someone fell sick with a chill or fever, the illness could spread through the whole ship very quickly.

During the old Black slave trade, Heaven knew how many enslaved people had died aboard ships.

Of course, although the Yan troops were packed tightly aboard these vessels too, their treatment was certainly far better than what the “Black brothers” of the old slave trade had suffered.

And this was a river, not the open sea.

Still, to be safe, Count Pingye had specifically prepared an herbal decoction and ordered every soldier to drink one bowl a day.

Its ingredients were simple.

It was roughly a weaker version of later-day Qingkailing and Banlangen.

If you asked what disease it could actually cure, probably nothing in particular.

But if you said it was completely useless, it probably still did something.

Its greatest effect, however, was likely psychological suggestion.

I drank my medicine today.

I’m healthy!

...

“Hoo...”

After bathing, Count Pingye walked onto the deck.

His ship had two levels.

The lower one was packed full of soldiers just like the others.

The upper deck belonged only to his group.

Count Pingye certainly possessed the qualifications to enjoy that small privilege.

Liang Cheng approached and reported:

“Master, the Fan Clan’s fleet is ahead.”

“Good.”

Count Pingye nodded.

The man in charge of the Fan Clan fleet was Ruan San.

Strictly speaking, he no longer counted as a Fan Clan man.

When Count Pingye first entered Chu and passed through the riverside stockade, Ruan San had already pledged himself to Zheng Fan.

This water route had originally been one of the Fan Clan’s major smuggling routes.

Now it had become the route by which the Yan army would enter Chu.

Ruan San’s fleet had two purposes.

First, guide the way.

Second, bring up large quantities of supplies.

The Prince of Jingnan’s move had been exquisitely placed.

If even their own people had never imagined it, then naturally the Chu would be even less prepared.

But the same was true in reverse.

Such a plan demanded extremely high standards of logistics and coordination.

To begin with, redirecting the Wang River was no easy task.

Especially with fighting still underway at the front.

Even if every arrangement had been made in advance, luck was still required.

Changes in nature rarely followed human plans perfectly.

Fortunately, it had worked.

Next came supplying this navy all the way south.

Before entering Chu, there was nothing to worry about.

After entering Chu, everything would depend on the Fan Clan.

Count Pingye could not stop the ships so soldiers could go ashore to hunt or plunder.

Doing so would destroy the element of surprise.

If the Chu were genuinely alerted and blocked the river ahead with their navy, then this whole surprise attack would instantly become a joke.

So the navy had to maintain the highest speed and efficiency possible throughout the journey.

This time, the Fan Clan truly had to “ruin its household to relieve the crisis” and support Count Pingye’s surprise force with everything it possessed.

Count Pingye felt neither guilt nor much gratitude about that.

He had dealt with Fan Zhengwen.

The man was a madman willing to pay any price if it meant allowing his clan to overturn its fate.

Besides, so long as this battle was won, Yan might appear merely to have seized Zhennan Pass while confining its immediate advance to Shanggu Commandery.

But the entire region along the Mount Meng line would naturally begin slipping outside Chu’s absolute control as well.

A Yan army could station itself in Fan Clan territory whenever it wished.

Whether Yan completely crushed the Qu Clan or instead supported the Fan Clan in standing against the Qu Clan as an equal would depend entirely on future strategic needs.

And very likely, it would depend on Count Pingye’s own opinion.

Ruan San boarded Count Pingye’s ship.

“Ruan San greets Count Pingye. May the Count enjoy health and fortune!”

“Rise. Has everything ahead been arranged?”

“Replying to Count, the family head prepared everything long ago. Because the Wang River changed course, the water levels through the river network ahead have risen. The navy can pass without obstruction.”

“You’ve worked hard.”

“Serving the Count is no hardship.”

“I’ll have to trouble you to make one more trip. Tell Fan Zhengwen to do his work properly. Everything he has paid today is recorded in this Count’s heart. Get my army into the Wei River and into Jing City, and this Count will guarantee the Fan Clan a hereditary governorship in perpetuity!”

Hereditary in perpetuity.

A governorship.

Neither was something Count Pingye possessed the authority to grant.

Even if Zheng Fan became a Marquis after this war and turned into Great Yan’s third Marquis with real territorial power, he still would not be qualified to decide such a thing on his own.

But Emperor Yan had the nerve for it.

If a reward could help him break Chu quickly, Count Pingye believed the Emperor would not hesitate in the slightest.

And when you had only just invaded another country, you naturally needed to establish examples and richly reward the collaborators who showed you the way.

The Qing court had done exactly that for Wu Sangui and the others.

The Japanese had done the same for Wang Jingwei.

Only after you fought your way inside could you divide the spoils.

Before that, everything was empty talk.

Great Yan was not the Southern Ming.

And the great officials of the Yan court led by Zhao Jiulang were not the same breed of fools who had filled the Southern Ming court.

What did Fan Zhengwen want?

Nothing more than for the Fan Clan to shed its status as a hereditary servant household and bring glory to the family line.

Fine.

Give it to him.

With his connection to Little Sixth, and now Count Pingye personally promising a hereditary governorship in perpetuity, that was more than enough to make Fan Zhengwen risk his life.

Everyone had to risk their life.

Everyone.

Count Pingye himself had personally come here to risk his life.

How could he tolerate anyone else relaxing comfortably?

Ruan San answered:

“Count can rest assured. The family head sees things clearly.”

“He sees clearly for himself. How he should be rewarded is this Count’s business. As for you, after this battle, come follow me. This Count will give you a general’s title to play with.”

“Thank you, Count!”

Ruan San departed.

The navy continued forward.

And that journey lasted many more days.

Throughout those days, Count Pingye kept a close eye on both the physical and mental condition of the soldiers.

Fortunately, although secrecy had forced the expedition to be somewhat rushed, his caution paid off.

No contagious outbreak of chills or fever appeared among the troops.

Some soldiers who had vomited miserably at the beginning gradually adapted as well.

In the end, they were traveling on rivers, not the sea.

These were hardened soldiers, not delicate young ladies from wealthy households.

Their bodies were tough.

Their ability to adapt was strong.

At last, the navy entered Fan Clan territory.

More precisely, it entered the canal the Fan Clan had overseen the excavation of.

There, they received another round of supplies.

Fan Zhengwen boarded the ship.

He gave Count Pingye his assurances.

He also brought a chest full of heads belonging to local Chu officials and military bosses, along with a line of local Chu garrison officers who had “come over to righteousness.”

After seeing all that, Count Pingye ordered the fleet to halt so the soldiers could go ashore and rest.

First, because the area was safe.

Second, to revive morale.

If he kept these men packed like sardines all the way to Jing City, then threw open the doors and ordered them straight into battle, even Count Pingye would not have confidence in the result.

The Fan Clan had planned thoroughly.

The riverside stockade had already prepared meat and wine for the army.

Count Pingye lifted the prohibition on alcohol for the day and allowed the soldiers to cut loose.

At the same time, the Fan Clan had gathered women from red tents across the surrounding villages and towns and brought them over for dedicated business.

The soldiers had been packed inside cabins for so long that their preferences were practically starting to bend.

At last, timely rescue arrived.

Unfortunately, their table manners were not pretty.

While waiting in line, men kept shouting for the ones ahead to hurry up.

Faster.

Faster!

In the end, Liang Cheng personally led Snow Sea Army soldiers over to enforce military discipline before the chaos was finally suppressed.

Several of the loudest troublemakers were killed outright.

Fortunately, Count Pingye’s prestige was high enough to suppress the various commanders and keep the soldiers from running wild.

Another commander might not have dared crack down so hard.

Very quickly, the riverbank became quiet.

Everyone quietly ate meat and drank wine.

Everyone quietly stood in line.

The atmosphere was orderly and deeply oppressive.

Even the professional cries from inside the red tents disappeared.

...

Aboard the ship, Count Pingye hosted Fan Zhengwen and the others at a banquet.

The local Chu officers first knelt and formally saluted Count Pingye, then introduced themselves one by one.

The saying “money can make ghosts turn millstones” suited the Fan Clan perfectly.

To borrow the language of a later age: once capital expanded to a certain point, it became pervasive, naturally extending its sinful claws toward places it was never supposed to touch.

More than half the local officers kneeling here had been financed by the Fan Clan.

Some of those relationships went back to their fathers or even grandfathers.

Some had ancestors who had been Fan Clan household slaves.

Others had married Fan Clan women.

Using money as thread, over several generations the Fan Clan had woven an enormous network of relationships.

Without that, Fan Zhengwen would never have dared board Great Yan’s ship.

Naturally, the network could not be perfect.

There would always be holes.

Unstable elements.

But the Fan Clan had already dealt with those problems in advance.

The heads brought aboard today were the ones respectable enough to be displayed publicly and used as banquet-side drinking dishes.

Many other people had been poisoned to death or had their entire households exterminated.

Count Pingye understood perfectly well that the Chu officers and officials kneeling before him had probably all stained their hands with the blood of their colleagues.

Wanted to keep your hands clean?

Impossible.

If you refused to submit a blood pledge, then go underground and chat with those “righteous men” of Great Chu instead.

“Gentlemen, rise. Great Yan has always distinguished clearly between reward and punishment, and His Majesty has never been stingy with rewards. You have already rendered great service to Great Yan. Once the fighting at Zhennan Pass ends, honors for your wives and descendants will naturally follow. Come. Rise. Drain this cup. After this cup, you may consider yourselves officials of the same court as this Count.”

“Thank you, Count!”

“Thank you, Count!”

After a round of wine, the atmosphere around the table loosened considerably.

Having received Count Pingye’s promises and reassurance, the local officers and officials eventually rose and left the ship.

To Count Pingye’s surprise, Fan Zhengwen did not deliberately remain behind to talk.

He certainly possessed the qualifications.

Count Pingye had even prepared himself for it.

But Fan Zhengwen left cleanly, without the slightest hesitation or lingering.

Watching them return to shore by small boat, Gou Moli walked over beside Count Pingye.

“Count, this Fan Zhengwen truly is something.”

Count Pingye nodded.

A madman could be frightening.

But not necessarily too frightening.

A madman with ability, temperament, and methods?

That was genuinely terrifying.

“If Count intends to use this man in the future, you should remain somewhat wary. You can use the force of larger circumstances to compel him, but he is not suitable as someone to plan with in the long term.”

“Heh.”

Count Pingye laughed.

He understood Gou Moli’s meaning.

The Savage King was reminding him that Fan Zhengwen was Little Sixth’s uncle by marriage.

No matter what happened, Fan Zhengwen would stand beside Little Sixth.

Count Pingye reached out and patted the Savage King on the shoulder.

“Too early.”

Gou Moli replied:

“Count, great affairs are accomplished through long planning.”

“Fine. Once the battle is over, you and the Blind Man can sit down and scheme it through properly.”

With two conspirators in the household, Count Pingye was happy to relax.

It was not that he could not play games of conspiracy, nor that he was incapable of making those arrangements.

They were simply too tiring.

They damaged his quality of life.

Gou Moli and the Blind Man both loved fiddling with such things anyway.

More importantly, they genuinely enjoyed it.

Let them handle it.

As for Little Sixth, if Zheng Fan had to choose the next emperor, he would unquestionably choose Little Sixth.

No deeper reason.

He simply liked that bastard more.

At that moment, Liang Cheng came up by small boat.

Count Pingye asked:

“A’Cheng, how much longer?”

“Master can rest easy. Follow this canal downstream and we enter the Wei River directly, then follow the Wei River to Jing City. These are all major waterways, so our speed will not be slow. Fan Zhengwen also had his men deliver a large number of Qu Clan banners and some Azure Luan Army armor. We can use them to put on appearances along the road. But this subordinate actually thinks there is no real need.”

“No. There is a need.” Count Pingye smiled. “When the fleet reaches Jing City, we lower the Chu banners and raise the Black Dragon Banner. The satisfaction will be much stronger.”

Gou Moli looked puzzled.

“Satisfying for whom?”

The Savage King had always cared only about practical benefit.

If there was profit in it, he could kneel on the ground and call himself Little Dog without feeling the slightest shame.

Naturally, he could not resonate with this kind of affectation.

Count Pingye answered directly:

“Me.”

...

Great Chu possessed a vast territory.

In truth, more than eight hundred years ago, the Marquises of Yan, Chu, and Jin had not been the only men who carried imperial decrees from the Great Xia Son of Heaven to open new frontiers.

The reason people now spoke almost exclusively of those three was, first, survivor bias.

Among the four great states of the present age, Yan and Chu still stood, while Jin had survived until only recently.

Second, those three had held the highest ranks at the time and had carried the greatest expectations.

Since the founding of Yan, the state had fought the Barbarians without end.

After Jin expelled the Savages, it quickly settled into generations of civil ease and martial neglect.

The former heartland of Great Xia, the land where Great Xia had first risen, passed through repeated divisions after the dynasty collapsed.

At times north and south were separated.

At one point, across only a century, the region passed through the chaos of six dynasties and twelve states.

In the end, the founding emperor of Qian picked the ripe peach and established the present State of Qian.

At the opening of Meng Shou’s *History of Qian*, in the biography of the founding emperor, he wrote bluntly:

The founding emperor plundered his realm.

Yan had never committed fully to expansion southward because it had only truly suppressed the desert threat within the past sixty years.

A century ago, the first Marquis of Zhenbei had indeed smashed the northern expedition launched by Qian’s Emperor Taizong.

But for a very long time, Yan’s principal contradiction had still been the Barbarians of the desert.

To the south, Yan had occasionally raided, pressured, and threatened.

But it had never truly possessed the freedom to turn its full strength southward.

Originally, Yan had believed that once the desert threat was contained, the state would finally be able to turn its eyes back toward the eastern Xia lands.

Instead, it fell into the whirlpool of aristocratic-clan rule.

State power became divided.

The emperor could not monopolize authority.

The people of Jin, after dealing with the Savages, enjoyed a long period of ease.

Geography made attacking Qian inconvenient in the first place unless Yan was willing to lend them passage, which was obviously impossible.

Later, Jin divided into three.

Naturally, both its desire and its ability to expand outward declined even further.

Chu, however, shared a vast border with Qian.

The two states occasionally clashed.

There had even been several small wars.

But they had never fought a true war between states.

That did not mean the Chu loved peace.

In fact, Chu had always been extraordinarily aggressive.

After Great Xia collapsed, small states appeared everywhere across the east.

The state that destroyed and absorbed the most of them was actually Chu.

Across eight hundred years, Great Chu had continually swallowed surrounding lands and minor states.

Chu’s feudal system, with an emperor above and great nobles holding broad fiefs below, carried both advantages and disadvantages.

One advantage was that both the imperial house and the great nobles beneath it possessed an instinctive hunger to expand their own territories.

The awkward part was that when Chu expanded north, Jin built Zhennan Pass and stopped it.

When Chu expanded west, it ran into a problem much like Yan’s.

The obscenely wealthy people of Qian built military stockades throughout the mountain ranges.

Unfortunately, this world possessed no truly rigorous surveyor capable of measuring the four states as Meng Shou alone had written their histories.

But travelers who had visited all four states often reached a similar conclusion: among the four great states, Chu possessed the broadest land.

Yet Chu’s territory was not as fertile as Qian’s.

Because it contained enormous marshes and mountain forests, it was often labeled a land of “poor mountains and wicked waters.”

Chu’s population was also smaller than Qian’s.

Great Chu had never truly achieved centralization.

Within its borders remained large numbers of Shanyue tribes that were either obedient only in name or still openly restless, along with great nobles who controlled vast amounts of land and population.

But if those things were temporarily set aside, Chu’s culture was extraordinarily rich and brilliant.

Unlike Qian, where Confucian orthodoxy dominated the realm, Chu truly possessed a flourishing Hundred Schools.

...

“Weng-weng-weng, yi-ya, yi-ya...”

“Dong-dong-dong, ha-qu, ha-qu...”

At a dock outside Jing City, a traveling song-and-dance troupe from the south was performing with all its strength.

“Traveling song” meant exactly what the words implied: a wandering song-and-dance troupe.

Legend held that such performers had already accompanied the Marquis of Chu’s armies when he first opened the frontier.

In those early years, they performed songs and dances inherited from Great Xia in order to encourage soldiers.

Later, after absorbing Shanyue culture, new elements entered their performances.

Their songs incorporated more primal syllables.

Their dances retained the order and rigor of ancient Xia forms while adding far more wildness and daring.

In Chu, smaller traveling song troupes moved between villages and towns.

Weddings.

Funerals.

Temple fairs.

Small festivals.

None could do without them.

Larger troupes toured commandery after commandery throughout the realm, hoping to build a national reputation and eat from the whole country.

The very largest remained in Ying Capital, reserved for imperial sacrificial rites.

The troupe now performing in Jing City was fairly famous even within Chu.

Rumor said its troupe master was the illegitimate son of a noble.

Chu drew an extremely clear distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children.

But the Chu loved romance.

And illegitimate children were often products of romance.

So people instinctively looked down on bastards, yet still loved hearing stories about them.

The dance being performed now had a quick, lively rhythm.

Both men and women in the troupe wore revealing costumes.

Naturally, they attracted plenty of eyes.

Jing City did not have a large garrison.

It stood in an extremely secure location, and several separate armies were stationed nearby, close enough to arrive within a day.

But the flow of people through the city was enormous.

Most were civilian laborers.

If Yingdu served as the Yan army’s rear logistical hub, then Jing City served the same purpose for Chu.

Imagine Yingdu suddenly being captured.

What would that mean for the million soldiers and civilians supporting the front?

How could the war continue?

That was why, since ancient times, supply lines and military logistics had always been principal targets in war.

Wang Zhi served as transport officer for the western dock.

Jing City possessed three docks.

He was responsible for one.

Every day, vast quantities of grain, fodder, military supplies, civilian laborers, and auxiliaries passed through this place, crossed the Wei River, and continued toward the Zhennan Pass front.

“Aiyo.”

Wang Zhi reached back and thumped his lower back.

He was not actually old.

Only in his thirties.

Once, he had even been a handsome fellow.

But after war began, his previously leisurely office had suddenly become brutally busy.

Of the three dock transport officers, two had already been removed from office by General-in-Chief Nian’s seal because of failures in their work.

Wang Zhi was the last one standing.

He truly did not dare slack off.

A man like him, not born into the nobility, had not climbed to this position easily.

He could not afford to lose it.

He absolutely could not.

“Over there! Count that again! And there! Sort it once more! Someone, get this batch of grain unloaded faster! Clear the dock! The next fleet should be arriving soon!”

After shouting, Wang Zhi watched the dock soldiers run off to work.

Only then did he bend over and catch another two breaths.

In truth, he was not the only man responsible for this dock.

He was the transport officer, but there were two superiors above him.

Unfortunately, both were sons of noble families.

When the war first began, they had shown some enthusiasm and remained here morning and night.

Once the fighting dragged on, they began complaining of exhaustion.

Now they only came out each evening for a leisurely inspection.

Wang Zhi did not think anything about that was wrong.

Who told them to be born well?

Besides, an office full of idlers where the lowest-ranking man did the most work and received the least had long been officialdom’s natural custom.

“Over there! Hurry! Move those arrows over! Faster!”

Wang Zhi started shouting again.

“Damn it! Those wretches actually stopped working to watch the dancing! Someone take whips over there and beat them!”

A group of dock soldiers grabbed whips and drove away the civilian laborers who had stopped to watch the traveling song troupe.

But they did not dare provoke the performers themselves.

Actors and performers held very low status in this age.

That was true in Yan, Qian, Jin, and Chu alike.

But once something became connected to ritual sacrifice, the matter changed.

Even members of some impoverished country troupe might go hungry and wear rags, yet no one dared treat them like beggars and openly humiliate them.

That violated taboo.

Besides, the master of this particular troupe was currently inside Jing City.

It was said the garrison commander himself treated the man as a close friend.

The bastard-born troupe master had brought his performers here partly to raise the morale of soldiers at the front.

At a deeper level, he wanted reputation.

He hoped that one day it might wash away the stain of his illegitimate birth and allow him to enter official service properly.

The singing and dancing might have been beautiful, but the whips hurt more.

The civilian laborers could not endure the beating and quickly returned to work.

Wang Zhi snorted coldly.

In his heart he thought:

What use is all this singing and dancing?

They might as well come help carry cargo.

At that moment, a large ship appeared on the distant river.

“Sir, a ship is coming. A big one.”

“I’m not blind!”

Wang Zhi instinctively walked several paces closer to the water.

Was that a naval vessel?

“Clear the dock! Prepare a berth! Hurry!”

Wang Zhi issued the order.

The shape of the approaching vessel was somewhat unfamiliar.

But Wang Zhi never once imagined that it might not be a Chu ship.

Still less could he imagine it might be a Yan ship.

Yan had a navy?

Yan’s navy could appear on the Wei River?

Impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

...

“Master, there’s movement at the dock,” Xue San reminded him. “Should we land one group first and have them seize the dock?”

Count Pingye shook his head.

“The Chu received no warning along the way. Our arrival is sudden, and the dock ahead does not look as though it prepared anything in advance. Keep moving.”

“But... isn’t that too risky?”

“If you were from Fujian, would you ever imagine waking up one morning to discover the Mongolian Navy landing outside your front door?”

“You can compare it like that?”

“Close enough. Pass the order. Make sure the Qu Clan banners are hanging properly.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You did remind me of something. You can take your men ashore first and prepare to receive us.”

“This subordinate obeys!”

...

“Sir! Those are Qu Clan ships!”

“Yes. Yes.” Wang Zhi nodded. “Because the main strength of the Qu Clan’s Azure Luan Army was buried beneath Yupan City the year before last, they originally sent no forces this time. They must have raised a new Azure Luan Army and sent it over now. Hurry. Clear this place out.”

The previously congested, bustling dock was quickly emptied to create a large open space.

Because you could mock the Qu Clan for having its Azure Luan Army annihilated and losing most of its vitality.

You could mock them for having their princess stolen by Count Pingye of Yan and being handed a massive green hat.

But you still had to admit one thing.

A centipede dies but never falls.

The Qu Clan remained one of Great Chu’s foremost noble houses.

No one dared openly challenge or slight it.

That was the accumulated foundation and deterrence of a great noble clan.

The traveling song troupe immediately crowded toward the dock, dancing and singing.

The rhythm was neat.

The performance delightful to watch.

This was a tradition of Chu: guests arriving from far away received a blessing.

Those receiving the blessing would usually give reward money in return.

The amount did not matter.

Whenever a large fleet had arrived before, the traveling song troupe had performed exactly like this.

More importantly, these were supposedly Qu Clan ships.

The commander should be one of the Qu Clan’s central figures.

The performers knew perfectly well what their own troupe master wanted.

If they could establish a connection with some great figure of the Qu Clan, their master’s wish might come true much sooner.

One had to admit, that illegitimate son possessed astonishing talent in training his people.

He had somehow made his subordinates consider his interests as though they were their own.

Clang!

Clang!

The dock was large enough for several ships to berth at once.

Qu Clan banners fluttered in the wind above the ships.

Then a group of soldiers in blue-green armor descended from the decks in neat formation.

Behind them, a swordsman in white slowly walked ashore.

Behind him came a young general in golden armor.

“Wang Zhi, transport officer of this dock, greets the honored lord!”

Wang Zhi immediately dropped to his knees before the golden-armored general.

When he knelt, all the dock soldiers around him knelt too.

Chu’s hierarchy was severe.

Great nobles in particular possessed extraordinary privilege.

The traveling song troupe happily crowded closer and continued its celebration.

Count Pingye turned his head toward the Sword Saint beside him.

“Looks like they’re very happy to see us. Doesn’t this feel a little like welcoming the king’s righteous army?”

The Sword Saint shook his head.

Truthfully, even he was somewhat speechless.

He had expected a bloody battle the moment they disembarked.

Who could have imagined this?

At that moment, gangways dropped from the other ships as well.

Yan soldiers in black armor and Savage warriors in mismatched gear surged ashore.

The civilian laborers around the dock stared in surprise.

Yet even now, they still failed to think of the true possibility.

Even Wang Zhi, after seeing soldiers in pure black armor and others in chaotic mismatched gear pouring off the ships, only looked a little longer.

His thought was merely: had the Qu Clan been weakened so badly that it could not even equip its soldiers with matching armor anymore?

More and more troops disembarked.

They spread outward and slowly formed ranks.

Aboard the ships, row after row of archers and crossbowmen had already taken position.

Bows were drawn.

Bolts were loaded.

A completely different air of killing intent began spreading through the dock.

Liang Cheng walked to Count Pingye’s side.

“We can begin.”

Even Liang Cheng, after fighting so many battles, had never before encountered a situation like this.

They were leisurely forming ranks directly beneath the enemy’s eyes.

The people who should have been resisting them were kneeling in front of them instead.

The enemy’s civilians, filled with awe, had gathered around to watch the spectacle.

“Confident?” Count Pingye asked.

“There should be no major problem.”

The gates of Jing City in the distance were visibly still wide open.

It was not that the Chu had grown careless.

Several armies were stationed north of Jing City.

And if Yan tried breaking through from the direction of Zhennan Pass, the pass would light beacon fires in warning.

For Liang Cheng, this battle was honestly beginning to feel... insulting.

Count Pingye nodded.

“Then begin.”

The traveling song troupe was still performing enthusiastically.

But as Liang Cheng raised the saber in his hand and issued the command, the vanguard soldiers who had already formed ranks surged forward with raised blades like a pack of starving tigers.

Behind them, one volley of arrows and crossbow bolts swept clean a broad stretch of the dock.

Truthfully, there was hardly any need to be this methodical.

If they still failed to capture Jing City under conditions like these, Count Pingye and Liang Cheng could find a block of tofu and smash their own heads against it together.

The personal guards around Count Pingye, who had been wearing Azure Luan Army armor, did not hesitate in the slightest.

Their blades came down on the jubilant traveling performers all around them.

The Chu respected these customs.

But the Yan did not.

Blood and screams began staining the dock at terrifying speed.

The traveling song troupe was butchered almost immediately.

Nearby dock soldiers and civilian laborers, after the first moment of stunned disbelief, broke into a mass rout.

The troops disembarking behind them continued the pursuit.

Liang Cheng, meanwhile, led one force straight toward Jing City’s gate at a run.

The gate did not even have time to close.

A’Cheng led his troops directly inside.

That meant the fall of Jing City was now only a matter of time.

Count Pingye stood where he was.

Group after group of elite soldiers charged past him.

Count Pingye smiled.

Then the smile slowly faded.

He said:

“I came. I saw. I conquered.”

Only a few short words.

Yet they carried a domineering force that seized the heart.

A short while later, Count Pingye bent down.

He reached out and patted the official cap of Wang Zhi, who was still kneeling before him and had deliberately been spared.

Wang Zhi’s whole body shuddered several times.

He was close to collapse.

He had no idea what was happening.

But when he finally saw soldiers raising Great Yan’s Black Dragon Banner, he understood at last what had happened.

Finished.

Finished.

Finished...

“Do you remember what I just said?”

Count Pingye asked Wang Zhi.

“I... I remember...”

“Good. Do not change a single word. Pay attention to my expression too. Then relay everything to your General-in-Chief Nian exactly as it was.”

“Relay... relay...”

“Oh, right. Add one more sentence. Tell him that Zheng Fan, Count Pingye of Great Yan, is waiting for General-in-Chief Nian here in Jing City.”

He paused.

Then Count Pingye continued:

“Tell General-in-Chief Nian: he may begin.”

[End of Chapter 553]