Chapter 571: - Friends

The “young lord of the Qu Clan” issued the order to surrender.

The Left Wing was overjoyed and immediately stripped off its armor and submitted. A whole crowd of commanders who had already “come over to the righteous side” even ran out early, trying to curry favor with Count Pingye.

Zhang Huang’s force agreed to surrender but did not remove its armor.

Instead, it asked to preserve its existing organization and further requested that the young lord be allowed to enter their camp.

Of course, Zhang Huang himself understood perfectly well that the Yan would never agree to that request, so making it was basically meaningless.

But by raising it, his five thousand men conveniently maintained a degree of independence.

They camped separately.

They still commanded themselves.

Great Chu’s Fire Phoenix Banner was taken down and replaced, for appearances, with one Black Dragon Banner.

The banners seen most often in the camp, however, were still those of the Qu Clan.

As for Lin Rong, he possessed genuine feelings for state and homeland.

Just as Qu Peiluo had expected, Lin Rong did not surrender.

He led his men south instead.

The fact that he did not launch an attack before withdrawing was already the greatest restraint he could show.

Unfortunately, the troops he led were Azure Luan Army.

And the Azure Luan Army was the Qu Clan’s private army.

The soldiers’ parents, wives, and children all lived on Qu Clan land.

If the young lord of the Qu Clan said to surrender, how could they dare refuse?

That was no longer something personal ability or a commander’s charisma could decide.

At any time and in any place, the men willing to abandon wives and children and follow you regardless would always be a minority within a minority.

So Lin Rong did not refrain from attacking because he lacked the desire.

He knew he simply could not attack at all.

When Lin Rong withdrew south, Count Pingye did not order a pursuit.

The Yan had not suffered severe casualties during the night attack, but every man was exhausted.

And ordering Zhang Huang’s formation and Han Xu’s Left Wing to reorganize their troops and attack Lin Rong?

The spectacle of setting dogs on one another and forcing them to slaughter their own people would have been far too blatant.

It could easily produce the opposite effect.

Even so, after Lin Rong’s force began withdrawing south, deserters constantly slipped away from its ranks and ran directly to Count Pingye’s side looking for their young lord.

So although that force had withdrawn, it would probably have great difficulty forming anything resembling real combat power again.

The rest became simple.

Especially after Count Pingye decided upon the strategy of striking north, the army, now even more “patched together” than before, began moving north.

The Left Wing and Zhang Huang’s formation served as the vanguard.

The Yan brought up the rear.

After several days of marching, the Left Wing captured the county seat of Chi County.

Zhang Huang’s formation captured the wharf opposite Chi County, which controlled the nearby waterways, and seized several vessels belonging to the Chu navy.

There were not many ships, but their significance was enormous.

It was not that the two formations had suddenly become exceptionally good at fighting.

They had simply arrived as “Chu troops.”

The defenders never imagined they might be enemies, so both positions were taken with almost no effort.

At Chi County, Count Pingye ordered the entire army to rest.

At the same time, through indirect hints, he told Han Xu to let the soldiers under him find some entertainment.

What “let the soldiers find some entertainment” meant could hardly have been clearer.

Originally, Han Xu and the other “collaborators” leading the Left Wing had behaved obediently and diligently because the Yan stood over their heads.

They had obviously worked harder than Zhang Huang’s force.

In short, they did everything possible to serve the Yan and work for the Yan, hoping to win recognition from their Yan “fathers.”

They had not dared indulge themselves.

They had not dared step out of line.

But now, their Yan “fathers” had told them to loosen up and enjoy themselves.

Being ordered to “have fun” was naturally something they accepted with boundless enthusiasm.

Keeping their own men under control had been extremely difficult to begin with.

Especially now that they carried the labels of “defeated troops” and “surrendered troops.”

Their military cohesion might not yet have collapsed, but their morale had inevitably sunk very low.

Once their various commanders passed on the intended meaning, soldiers of the former Left Wing immediately began roaming in groups of three and five, plundering freely.

Inside the county seat of Chi County, they broke down doors and robbed households one after another.

Among the farming families beneath the county, every sort of extortion followed.

Zhang Huang’s force, by contrast, continued remaining inside its own camp and did not respond.

Two days later, the Yan army moved out again and continued north into the territory of the next county.

With the previous experience behind them, the Left Wing stormed the lightly defended county seat and immediately began burning, killing, and looting.

This time they went even further than at Chi County.

At Chi County, they had merely stripped households of some property.

Now they sucked out marrow from bone.

Livestock and poultry were seized and eaten.

Anything valuable and portable was taken.

Women were raped at will.

Two days later, the Yan army moved again and continued north.

This time, one thing became very obvious.

The army marched faster.

The Left Wing in particular showed much greater eagerness to advance.

And Zhang Huang’s force was visibly suppressing a certain emotion of its own.

This time, they encountered a Chu force.

It was merely a local army, not large in number, formed by the combined men of two minor local nobles.

Altogether, only a little over two thousand.

As the imperial armies passed through, auxiliary troops and civilian laborers had already been conscripted.

Those two local nobles genuinely had no way to scrape together any greater force.

The Yan did not move.

The Left Wing attacked the enemy’s left.

Zhang Huang’s force attacked the right.

In a single battle, they routed that motley Chu army.

Immediately afterward, the Yan entered and began setting up camp.

The various commanders of the Left Wing then took their own men out to ravage the countryside.

This time, Zhang Huang’s force no longer remained restrained.

The camp opened.

Soldiers came out and joined the looting.

The previous two times, Zhang Huang had relied on his personal prestige to suppress his men by force.

But they were surrendered Chu soldiers too.

They had watched those worthless bastards in the Left Wing eat and drink their fill, burning, killing, and looting to their hearts’ content.

How could Zhang Huang’s soldiers not feel envy?

They were living freely.

Why should we act like saints?

We already surrendered to the Yan.

What fucking purity are we still pretending to have?

One could say that when the Azure Luan Army surrendered, the first things destroyed were its faith and pride.

Whether an individual or a group, once those two things shattered, the valve leading downward had already opened.

If Zhang Huang continued refusing to let his men loot and release the depression in their hearts, they might very well mutiny, kill him, and then surrender completely to the Yan.

After the young lord of the Qu Clan surrendered, Zhang Huang, a Qu family retainer, had suffered an enormous blow to his own legitimacy as well.

Even ordinary soldiers understood one simple truth.

The Yan cared only whether the dogs beneath their hands obeyed.

They did not care what color the dog’s head was.

There was a saying: soldiers passing through are like bandits.

But in truth, even mountain bandit chiefs understood the importance of raising their chives.

If they turned the villages for dozens of li around into a no-man’s-land, where would next year’s harvest come from?

When soldiers truly ran wild, however, they cared about none of that.

Which meant they were especially ruthless.

Compared with the brutality of Chu soldiers toward Chu people, the Yan soldiers seemed remarkably “detached.”

First, the Yan army enforced its prohibition on alcohol with extreme strictness.

Once wine was forbidden, there was a limit to how far soldiers could lose control no matter how wildly they indulged themselves.

Second, Count Pingye had led this Yan force deep behind enemy lines, burned Jing City’s granaries, surrounded the Regent of Great Chu, then routed the Azure Luan Army and captured the young lord of the Qu Clan alive.

Everyone knew perfectly well that their achievements in this campaign against Chu were already so full they were spilling over.

Once a man had eaten his fill, he naturally was not so ravenous anymore.

Most importantly, although the Yan did not go out plundering and instead remained steadily inside their own camps, more than half of the wealth looted each day by the Chu soldiers eventually ended up being delivered into the Yan camps.

Count Pingye had never cared much for wealth.

He simply distributed it among the soldiers.

No need to dirty their own hands.

The benefits still fell into their bags.

The Yan were perfectly happy to enjoy the leisure.

Of course, if you asked whether there was some regret, naturally there was.

But Yan soldiers still possessed a little pride.

They could not possibly behave exactly like those Chu brats.

That would be shameful.

It would embarrass their Count.

...

Outside the army camp, a group of Chu soldiers could be seen dragging several bound local women past.

Behind them, they hauled one ox and two pigs.

The women had already cried and screamed themselves hoarse.

Now they almost looked as though they had resigned themselves to their fate.

Xu An watched through the palisade, feeling somewhat depressed.

It reminded him of the time the Azure Luan Army entered Yupan City and his whole family was dragged away as laborers.

His mother was separated from them.

In the end, he had never managed to discover where she went.

More precisely, he had never discovered where her remains were.

Now Chu people were doing the exact same thing before his eyes.

Only this time, the victims were Chu commoners.

Unlike Xu An, with all his complicated emotions, Guo Dong leaned against the palisade and continuously stroked the hilt of his saber with an intoxicated expression.

Ever since Count Pingye borrowed his saber that day, this was what he looked like whenever he had free time.

But after noticing Xu An looking at him, Guo Dong still lifted his head, coughed twice, and awkwardly tried to find something to talk about.

“These Chu people are interesting. They can actually be this vicious toward their own.”

Xu An nodded.

“Chu people don’t think of themselves as Chu people, just as we Jin people never really thought of ourselves as Jin people either.”

“Why?” Guo Dong scratched his head.

“Heh.”

Xu An smiled.

“Chu people think they belong to whichever noble house rules them. We Jin people used to be divided among three families too. Whoever belonged to one house belonged to that house.”

“We Yan people aren’t like that,” Guo Dong said. “We Yan people have always thought of ourselves as Yan people.”

Xu An gave no opinion.

“You don’t believe me?” Guo Dong asked.

“I do,” Xu An answered.

Saying Yan people had always been Yan people was not entirely accurate.

Yan had once possessed aristocratic clans too.

But in the end, the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence had only stood for a century, and Great Yan had only truly cut away the threat from the desert less than one sixty-year cycle ago.

The spiritual brand of following their own emperor into the desert to fight the Barbarians still flowed through the bones of Yan people.

Most importantly...

This was what Xu An, as a “Jin man,” had seen.

Perhaps Great Yan’s repeated victories abroad over these past few years had awakened the pride buried within Yan people.

The identity of “Yan man” had suddenly become noble.

Getting a man to identify with a lowly identity was difficult.

Getting him to identify with a “noble” one?

People naturally rushed toward it.

Xu An liked watching.

Liked thinking.

Liked observing.

As Guo Dong put it, whenever there was no battle, Xu An liked to sit around in a daze.

“I heard the generals above us say that if we keep moving north, we should run into Great Chu’s main army soon,” Xu An said.

Ordinary soldiers had no clear concept of exactly where they were.

Xu An did.

He paid attention to conversations between Lieutenant Commanders and generals.

He also sought opportunities to ask local Chu people for information.

How far were they from Zhennan Pass?

How far from Shanggu Commandery?

The information he gathered was incomplete, inaccurate, and unsystematic.

But at least it gave him a rough picture inside his head.

Chu now possessed two defensive lines.

One was Zhennan Pass.

The other stood across from Jing City, deployed along the Wei River under Pillar of State Dugu Nian.

And their own army happened to stand inside the hollow space behind those Chu lines.

Of course, strictly speaking, it was not truly empty.

The Azure Luan Army had come to wipe them out.

Their side had simply defeated it.

“Heh. Once the war ends, I’m planning to bring my mother, my elder brother, and Miss A’Shui over here,” Guo Dong said.

Xu An looked surprised.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to take off your armor and return to the fields?”

“Rewards.” Guo Dong grinned. “The rewards are generous. They’re already generous now. Once the war ends, there’ll be another round of rewards. Hehehe. Before, I really did want to go back because I couldn’t bear to leave my family. Besides, my mother and my brother aren’t suited to long journeys. But as long as there’s enough silver, we can take a carriage, eat and drink well along the road. What problem is there then? If there’s enough silver, there’s no problem at all. Give Miss A’Shui’s family enough bride price and they’ll be willing to let her come with me too.”

“Next time I’ll give you another two heads. You can earn a promotion, and then Miss A’Shui’s family will come along too. Your father-in-law won’t even dare put on airs in front of you.”

“No, no, no. We’re brothers. Don’t say that bullshit.” Guo Dong immediately shook his head, suddenly serious. “If I run short of silver, I’ll borrow it from you. You, Xu An, only have one mouth to feed anyway, so I won’t stand on ceremony. But your future is yours. I can’t hold you back. Your head works better than mine. You learn everything faster than I do. You have a great future ahead of you. My father told me the same thing before. He said you were much sharper than me.”

Xu An shook his head.

“I’m a Jin man.”

“General Jin is a Barbarian!”

Guo Dong shouted.

“Impudent! Insolent!”

Two riders outside the palisade immediately rebuked him.

Guo Dong froze.

Behind those two riders was another mounted general.

The general wore black armor and no helmet, revealing a face whose Barbarian features were immediately obvious.

The palisade gate opened.

The two riders urged their horses forward and seemed about to punish Guo Dong further, but Jin Shuke behind them cursed directly:

“Move aside.”

The two riders immediately obeyed.

Jin Shuke rode slowly forward.

Guo Dong and Xu An hurriedly saluted.

“Greetings, General Jin!”

“Greetings, General Jin!”

Jin Shuke smiled and flicked his riding whip twice, then cursed his two personal guards ahead of him.

“What’s wrong with being a Barbarian? I am a Barbarian. There’s nothing shameful about being called one. Why the hell are you two so worked up? Even the Count doesn’t care this much about rank and dignity. Why do I need the two of you swaggering around for me? What, you want everyone to think I put on even greater airs than the Count himself?”

After scolding his guards, Jin Shuke lowered his head and looked at Guo Dong first.

“What were you talking about?”

Guo Dong hurriedly looked up.

“Replying to General... I... I...”

Guo Dong was still nervous.

First, he had dug a pit for himself.

Second, being Yan gave a man advantages inside the army, but that depended on whom he was being compared with.

Who did not know that this Barbarian-born general was one of the Count’s trusted commanders?

Inside the Snow Sea Pass army, the man the Count trusted most was General Liang.

Everyone accepted General Liang’s ability.

Second came General Jin.

His record and military achievements had never disappointed the Count.

At East Mountain Fort, it was Jin Shuke who charged out at the end and reversed the situation.

One could even say he had saved the Count.

Xu An spoke for him.

“Replying to General, my brother said my head works well and that I have a great future ahead of me. I told him I am a Jin man, not a Yan man. To encourage me, my brother said General Jin was also born a Barbarian, not a Yan man, yet still rose to the rank of general and became one of the Count’s most trusted arms. He said that beneath our Count, there is no distinction in whom he teaches or employs. So long as you are willing to risk your life, so long as you are loyal to the Count, you will definitely be able to rise above others.”

Jin Shuke looked at Xu An without speaking.

Xu An slowly lowered his head.

After a long while, Jin Shuke smiled.

He thought of himself back when he had guarded a city gate.

At that time, his Xia speech had not been fluent.

He frequently misused idioms and became the butt of jokes.

But he had still known how to speak well.

He had earned the Count’s appreciation through military merit and climbed step by step.

But without that one recommendation from the Sword Saint back then, he would never even have received the opportunity to earn merit.

“What’s your name?”

“Replying to General, this lowly one is Xu An.”

“Can you read?”

Xu An nodded.

“Yes. I attended a private academy for several years as a child.”

“Ride a horse?”

“Yes!”

“Good. Tell your Squad Leader I said this: tomorrow, report outside my tent and serve as a personal guard.”

“Many thanks for General’s favor!”

Xu An solemnly dropped to his knees and knocked his head three times against the ground.

This was a formal expression of gratitude.

By then, more and more gazes had gathered around them.

Jin Shuke raised his head and swept his eyes across the soldiers nearby.

Then he shouted:

“Beneath the Count’s banner, it doesn’t matter where you come from. So long as you’re willing to risk your life and you have ability, the Count does not care about your birth. Rewards and punishments are clear! I, Jin Shuke, a Barbarian, managed to reach this position. I am the best proof! If I can have what I have today, then all of you can achieve the same in the future. For grunts like us to have the chance to follow the Count into battle and entrust our lives to one another is good fortune cultivated across three lifetimes!”

With that, Jin Shuke rode away.

He still had military intelligence to report.

After Jin Shuke and his personal guards left, many comrades came over to congratulate Xu An.

Once he finally dealt with them all, Xu An let out a long breath.

The whole thing felt like a dream.

He turned his head and looked at Guo Dong, still leaning against the palisade and stroking the hilt of that saber with an intoxicated expression.

Xu An said:

“You shouted that because you saw General Jin coming.”

Guo Dong snapped out of his trance.

He froze for a moment, then looked at Xu An.

His gaze softened.

He smiled.

“Mm.”

[End of Chapter 571]