Chapter 555: - Banquet!

Count Pingye walked forward with the Sword Saint beside him.

A little way ahead, a group of armored soldiers were moving corpses out of the road. Closer still, four soldiers each held a huge broom and pushed the blood aside.

After all, the Count would feel uncomfortable if his boots stepped into filthy bloodwater.

Truthfully, Zheng Fan was not that precious.

Not long ago, while attacking East Mountain Fort, he had personally gone down with saber in hand to kill the enemy.

But when conditions allowed comfort, why insist on making life hard for yourself?

Life needed a little more sense of ceremony.

Your own enjoyment was actually secondary.

The important part was that the soldiers beneath you loved watching such ceremony.

Someone from the front had originally sent word asking whether the people captured there should be escorted to the dock.

Count Pingye refused.

He decided he might as well go see Jing City himself.

At that moment, a messenger with three-colored signal flags strapped to his back sprinted over and dropped to one knee.

“Marquis, General Liang found a stockpile of Chu armor inside the city warehouses and requests permission to transfer troops.”

“Approved.”

Zheng Fan generally did not interfere with whatever A’Cheng wanted to do.

Following A’Cheng’s judgment was almost never wrong.

Liang Cheng had deliberately sent someone to request approval simply to give his Master face.

“Yes!”

The messenger turned and ran back to deliver the reply.

The Sword Saint smiled.

“Marquis?”

Zheng Fan laughed.

“Let them.”

When he had issued the order earlier, the soldiers below had already started shouting things like “The Marquis has ordered...”

The rank-and-file might not stand high enough to see the entire board, but even they understood what their appearance in Jing City meant to the several hundred thousand Chu soldiers around Zhennan Pass.

A military achievement far exceeding that thousand-li raid on Snow Sea Pass was right in front of them.

Some soldiers had taken it upon themselves to change “Count” into “Marquis.”

Partly it came from the heart.

Partly they felt the promotion was already only a matter of course.

There was another layer as well.

Everyone firmly believed this battle would be won and the Count would certainly be made a Marquis.

At a time like this, Zheng Fan was not about to correct how they addressed him.

Look at what hour it was.

Look at where they were.

Back when Tian Wujing had been stripped of his princely title, plenty of soldiers beneath him had still called him “Prince.”

It was the same principle.

Of course, while you enjoyed that kind of military devotion, you also inevitably began to be pushed forward by the people beneath you.

Keep going far enough, and perhaps one day they would throw the yellow robe over your shoulders.

The Sword Saint had long since become accustomed to the whole business of “Count Pingye’s ambition being obvious to every passerby.”

Still, he asked:

“What comes next? Do we defend this place?”

Now that the surprise attack on Jing City had succeeded, the conventional choice would be to hold it to the death and sever the connection between Zhennan Pass and the Chu heartland.

Zheng Fan shook his head, then nodded.

“Defend it? Of course we defend it. But not necessarily in the usual way. There are many ways to defend a city. In fact, our army has already attacked.”

“The request Liang Cheng sent just now?” the Sword Saint asked.

He did not understand military affairs, but he liked asking questions.

Count Pingye nodded.

“Yes.”

At that very moment, a force dressed in Chu armor and carrying Chu banners was moving rapidly out through Jing City’s northern gate.

At the leading commander’s low command, the ranks that had originally been neat and orderly abruptly loosened.

Heads drooped.

Bodies slumped.

Quite a few men even deliberately smeared blood from nearby corpses across their faces.

A routed army headed north.

“Pass down another order.”

Count Pingye pointed toward the nearby corpses.

“Throw every corpse inside and outside the city into the Wei River.”

Let the bodies float onward along the broad river.

Let the Chu people downstream see with their own eyes that the Chu army ahead had already been defeated and suffered enormous casualties.

This atmosphere of panic was not merely intended for the Chu soldiers around Zhennan Pass to the north.

The people of Chu farther behind them had to see it too.

Perhaps many of those floating corpses would follow tributaries into the Mi River.

Let those Chu nobles who knew nothing except cruising the Mi River, drinking wine, and watching plays personally experience the terror of war.

They had certainly experienced war before.

Chu’s internal situation had never been completely peaceful.

There was no need to go far back.

Only a few years earlier, the rebellions of the imperial princes had mobilized armies on a considerable scale.

But it really had been a very long time since the Chu heartland had felt an invasion by an external enemy this directly.

Even the forty thousand Chu ghosts left beneath Yupan City last time had died on Jin soil.

The Regent of Chu had used his own methods to forcibly consolidate the power of the nobility and unite them against an external enemy.

That could not have been easy.

Count Pingye felt his elder brother-in-law was a capable man, and therefore ought to do more work.

So Zheng Fan did not mind adding a little weight to his burden.

When a knife was pressed against your throat, when your skin could already feel the freezing edge, let us see whether all of you can still remain “one solid plate of iron”!

After entering the city, Zheng Fan found armored soldiers standing all along both sides of the streets.

The city had only just fallen.

Any accident could happen.

Naturally, his protection had to be taken even more seriously.

Fortunately, Jing City was not large.

After walking, looking around, and making sure to avoid the filth on the ground, Zheng Fan and the Sword Saint soon reached the Garrison Commander’s Residence.

The entrance was slick with fresh blood.

Inside, things were much drier.

The final group of guards had chosen to flee or surrender once they saw the situation was lost.

There had not been much fighting inside the compound itself.

Standing in the courtyard, Count Pingye looked around.

Then he said to the Sword Saint beside him:

“I always thought the people of Qian built exceptionally beautiful gardens. Looking at this place now, Chu gardens truly do have a flavor of their own.”

Qian gardens placed greater emphasis on literary culture.

Chu gardens pursued nature more directly.

The Sword Saint asked:

“Someone reported earlier that the Garrison Commander’s surname is Jing?”

“Yes. Jing Suyuan.”

“Then that explains it. The greatest gardens in Chu are not in Ying Capital. They belong to the Jing Clan.”

The Jing Clan of Great Chu did not maintain private armies.

It was famous as the clan where Chu’s literary tradition gathered.

Precisely for that reason, most of the Jing Clan’s attention was actually spent on three questions: how to be elegant, how to be more elegant, and how to be the most elegant.

When Jing Suyuan came to serve as Garrison Commander of Jing City, it was only natural that he would renovate the compound gardens according to Jing Clan aesthetics for his own enjoyment.

The noble lords had to eat well, drink well, and remain in a good mood.

Only then would they possess the leisure to spare a thought for the common people beneath them, write a poem or two, and sigh that “every grain comes from bitter toil.”

Of course, as an invader, Zheng Fan had no qualification to criticize this or that.

He might have been born among the black-haired common folk of Tiger Head City, but his backside had long since moved over to the side of the powerful.

Fourth Lady approached with a smile.

“Master, this servant caught a cook. His skill should be decent. The ingredients are ready. He can start at any time.”

Count Pingye nodded and pointed at the courtyard.

“Here will do. Set up a table.”

The furniture was ready-made.

The personal guards quickly brought over a round pearwood table and three square chairs carved with floral patterns.

The tea set and tea leaves were excellent too.

Count Pingye sat first and gestured for the Sword Saint to join him.

The Sword Saint did not stand on ceremony.

He sat.

Fourth Lady poured two cups of tea and set one before each man.

The Sword Saint lowered his head, took a sip, and nodded slightly.

“Good tea.”

Count Pingye merely wet his lips, set the cup down, and said:

“Still a little inferior to Great Marsh Fragrant Tongue.”

Because Great Marsh Fragrant Tongue was the only expensive tea that had ever left a deep impression on him.

The Sword Saint smiled and said nothing.

Count Pingye turned toward Fourth Lady.

“Build a simple earthen stove over there. Have the cook prepare the dishes where we can watch.”

“Yes, Master.”

Soon a crude stove was being built.

The cook and his wife came over trembling and dropped to their knees before Zheng Fan.

“What is your name?” Count Pingye asked.

“Replying to the honored lord, this humble one is Niu Dongguan.”

“Niu Dongguan. Cook. This Count is hungry.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Niu Dongguan and his wife stood and hurried to the stove to begin working.

Fourth Lady walked over as well and stood beside the stove watching.

With her there, even if this honest-faced cook suddenly decided to disregard his wife and children and play the hero by poisoning their food, he would never get the opportunity.

The Sword Saint asked:

“Isn’t this a little excessive?”

The Sword Saint did not care about the corpses strewn everywhere on the road into the city.

But forcing a captured cook to prepare a meal in front of them like this felt a little too crushing.

Count Pingye smiled.

“We’re helping make him famous. If his cooking is genuinely good, he’ll become a great chef in the future. Besides, watching a master cook in front of you is itself a kind of... spirit of craftsmanship.”

“Spirit of craftsmanship?”

“Some people like that sort of thing.”

“You do?”

“I’m all right with it.”

Niu Dongguan began cooking the first dish.

Before long, fragrance drifted across the courtyard.

“It is difficult to imagine,” the Sword Saint said. “You are clearly so idle now, yet you are genuinely sitting here and seriously waiting for food.”

Count Pingye replied:

“I’m not idling. Besides, what I’m doing now is very meaningful. Who knows? A thousand years from now, the dish he makes today might become some region’s famous specialty. Every time people eat it, they’ll think of what happened here today. Maybe restaurants will even hang plaques on the wall specially explaining the origins of this dish and that dish. Wouldn’t that mean we’ve left a fragrant name through the ages?”

“That counts?”

“Of course it counts.”

“No. There is still a difference,” the Sword Saint said. “If Yan later annexes Chu, this becomes an elegant anecdote, with you as the elegant one. If Chu continues to exist, then the beautiful part of the story will probably belong to him: to save his wife and children, a master chef satisfied the bloodthirsty Count Pingye of Yan with extraordinary culinary skill.”

“Hahahahaha! Interesting. Interesting. I never expected you to say something like that.”

“Isn’t that how the jianghu people who invent stories always do it?”

Yu Huaping himself had no idea how many stories the jianghu had invented about him.

Back when he wandered beneath Heaven, he would sometimes stop in teahouses and taverns to eat and rest.

There he would hear storytellers or other tea and wine drinkers chatting away.

More than once, he listened for a very long time until someone finally said the name in the story.

Only then would Yu Huaping realize:

Oh.

They’re talking about me.

“True. True. But whether the story becomes the wise and mighty Count Pingye eating a fine meal here, or the vicious executioner Butcher Zheng forcing a famous chef to cook for him, ultimately perhaps people will still care about the distinction several decades from now. But a few centuries later, even if Chu still exists, no one will care whether this Count was loyal or treacherous, good or evil. They’ll only care whether he was famous. And this Count thinks he should be at least somewhat famous.”

The Sword Saint considered those words.

“You see one level deeper than I do.”

“Heh.”

The dishes began arriving.

Chu cuisine valued freshness above all, trying as much as possible to preserve the original flavor of the ingredients.

In truth, that placed greater demands on a cook’s skill.

Heavy oil and aggressive seasoning often made a dish easier to prepare by comparison.

Count Pingye glanced toward Fourth Lady.

Fourth Lady nodded.

“Please.”

Count Pingye gestured to the Sword Saint.

The Sword Saint picked up his chopsticks, took some food, and placed it into his mouth.

“Not bad.”

He turned toward Count Pingye.

Then saw Zheng Fan holding his chopsticks while He Chunlai poured boiling water over the chopsticks and bowl to scald them clean.

“...” The Sword Saint.

Once everything had been scalded, Count Pingye picked up some food.

“Mm. Decent.”

The dishes came one after another.

Count Pingye and the Sword Saint ate at an unhurried pace.

There were only two cooks, so naturally they could not produce anything resembling a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast.

Still, they managed eight dishes, and not one was cold.

Finally, fish soup began simmering in the iron pot.

By then, Gongsun Zhi, Gong Wang, Gou Moli, and the other generals had finished arranging matters outside and arrived at the residence.

They had originally come to hear the Count’s next set of orders.

But when they saw him sitting there leisurely enjoying a meal, somehow it felt entirely natural.

When you had won a hundred battles out of a hundred, everything you did would be automatically interpreted by your subordinates as profound and unfathomable.

“Come. Everyone eat. You all suffered aboard the ships.”

Count Pingye beckoned.

“Thank you, Count.”

“Thank you, Count.”

The guards brought over more stools.

The generals did not stand on ceremony.

They took bowls and chopsticks and began eating.

But not one of them sat down.

Every man remained standing around the table.

Very often, the gulf created by status and position was perfectly clear.

It formed naturally.

No one even needed to remind anyone.

After a moment, the Sword Saint sighed and stood up to eat as well.

In truth, he was entirely qualified to remain seated.

No one present would have thought otherwise.

Everyone knew perfectly well that if Lord Sword Saint wished it, he could select any man around this table and put a sword straight through his chest.

The chosen man would have almost no chance of escaping.

The reason the Sword Saint stood anyway was very simple.

The generals around them were effectively Count Pingye’s household commanders now.

Gongsun Zhi and Gong Wang had both entrusted their sons to Count Pingye.

They already regarded themselves as at least half members of his household.

The lord sat.

The household commanders stood.

Perfectly natural.

And ordinarily, the person who sat beside the lord and ate with him was... the mistress of the household.

The Sword Saint could, of course, flick his sleeve, refuse to eat, and leave the table.

But that would be taking appearances far too seriously, as though he cared desperately about this tiny scrap of personal dignity.

Besides, they had just won a battle.

After so many days of gloom and depression aboard ship, there was no need to spoil everyone’s mood.

And so, around the table, Count Pingye did not tell everyone again to stop being polite and sit down.

He simply continued eating naturally.

The other generals and the Sword Saint also continued eating naturally.

“The fish soup is ready!” Niu Dongguan called.

He had been trembling in fear earlier.

But once he began cooking, his state of mind had gradually settled.

Fourth Lady personally brought over the first bowl of fish soup and placed it before Count Pingye.

Count Pingye lifted it and gently blew across the surface.

At that moment, a messenger came sprinting in from outside.

“Report! General Liang and General Jin have defeated the Chu reinforcements directly north of Jing City! General Liang’s and General Jin’s forces have now separated and are continuing forward!”

Judging by the time, that was about right.

After breaking the city, Liang Cheng had led a force north long before.

Because the Wei River lay to the south, the soldiers and civilians who fled Jing City had naturally fled north.

The nearest Chu force would therefore have reacted fastest and moved first.

But as that Chu force hurried south to reinforce Jing City, it would inevitably encounter wave after wave of fleeing soldiers and civilians on the road.

In the mouths of those refugees, the Yan would naturally become heavenly troops suddenly descending from nowhere, and their numbers would usually be exaggerated many times over.

That was perfectly normal.

First, if the Yan were not terrifyingly strong, why had they themselves fled?

Second, amid panic and chaos, unless someone was an experienced battlefield scout, it was almost impossible for an ordinary person, even an ordinary soldier, to estimate enemy numbers accurately in a short span of time.

Once the number of men exceeded ten thousand, the mass of bodies became a dark, endless sea.

You could not fly into the sky and look down from above.

An ordinary soldier or civilian swept up in the crowd had no way to count them.

So even though the messenger’s report had been brief, everyone present could already reconstruct what had happened.

Jing City stored a great deal of Chu armor and banners.

Far more than the Fan Clan had been able to supply earlier.

The two quantities were not remotely comparable.

So when the nearest Chu force hurried toward Jing City, gathering routed men from the south as it advanced, it also “received” into its ranks the disguised Yan troops led by Liang Cheng and Jin Shuke.

Then the whole force was rolled up in a single wave.

That was also why, when two great armies faced each other, no sane commander placed miscellaneous troops or cannon-fodder formations directly in the center while imagining they could simply consume the enemy first.

If the front collapsed too quickly, it could drag the center and rear down with it.

Once that chain reaction began, even an excellent general might be powerless to reverse it.

After smashing the nearest Chu force, Liang Cheng and Jin Shuke divided again and continued north.

Their objective was to exploit the momentum.

While the Chu were terrified and blind to the true situation, they would throw on more fuel, start more fires, and churn everything into greater chaos.

The only pity was that they had no cavalry.

If Count Pingye had brought twenty thousand cavalry with him this time...

Heh.

He truly would have dared personally lead those twenty thousand iron riders on a full sweep through Chu’s Shanggu Commandery.

News of the great victory had arrived.

The situation to the north was excellent.

That meant the group in Jing City did not need to worry about an immediate Chu counterattack.

Whether from north or south, Chu would need time before it could organize enough strength to strike back.

And so, the generals standing around the table all saluted Count Pingye, who sat there drinking fish soup.

“Congratulations to the Count on another great victory!”

“Congratulations to the Count on another great victory!”

The personal guards and armored soldiers around them raised their weapons and shouted:

“The Marquis is mighty!”

“The Count is mighty!”

The men who had called him wrong immediately corrected themselves.

“The Marquis is mighty!”

Amid that blazing, thunderous atmosphere, Count Pingye lowered his soup bowl.

Then said slowly:

“Another bowl of soup.”

[End of Chapter 555]