Chapter 573: - Your Highness, Save Me!

East of Yueting Ridge ran a tributary of the Wei River.

Several boats had once been moored there.

Now they were burning.

Across the river, Chu banners filled the air.

On this bank, a group of cavalrymen sat their horses and watched the flames consuming the vessels.

Every face showed the same indifference.

Liang Cheng sat at the very front of the formation.

The armor on his body was damaged in many places, but fortunately his body was that of a zombie. Even where his armor had failed, the defenses of his flesh remained astonishing.

On a battlefield, if someone managed to catch him by surprise with one saber or one arrow, that already counted as impressive.

Liang Cheng generally did not give an enemy the chance to land a second strike.

After all, he was not his own Master.

His Master could be riding peacefully in the distance and still somehow get hit by a catapult stone in the middle of a rainstorm.

So although Liang Cheng carried wounds, none were serious.

The people burning the boats across the river were the Imperial Clan Guard cavalry under Xiong Tingshan.

Their numbers were not particularly large.

When they arrived, they had only six or seven thousand men.

For many days now, they had played a game of cat and mouse with Liang Cheng’s force along both banks of the Wei River.

To the south, an enormous Chu military camp had already risen.

The Dugu Clan banners flew beside Fire Phoenix Banners in the wind.

That represented tremendous pressure.

Liang Cheng, however, showed no concern.

With Master absent, some restraints had actually been removed.

Most of the time, Master never interfered with Liang Cheng’s command and gave him complete freedom.

Even so, when Liang Cheng made decisions, he still had to consider Master’s feelings.

Would this make Master feel stifled?

Would it suit Master’s aesthetic sense?

A real battlefield, however, tolerated very little of that sort of thing.

At the root of it, war was about preserving yourself as much as possible while consuming the enemy as heavily as possible.

When their forces first split, Liang Cheng had four thousand cavalry.

After all these days, a little over three thousand remained.

The losses were not actually severe.

The effect those men had produced, however, was enormous.

“General, the boats are gone.”

Zhao Qi spoke beside Liang Cheng.

It had been Zhao Qi who obtained intelligence through his lover and passed it to Count Pingye.

He had also helped Liang Cheng seize the Chu horse farm.

After that, he remained beside Liang Cheng.

This leader of a Wandering Song Troupe looked feminine, but his riding and archery were genuinely good.

His luck was even better.

Without receiving any special protection, he had managed to keep up with the formation all this time without dying.

He did not even have a wound.

Liang Cheng thought that kind of battlefield luck would probably make Master weep with envy.

“If they’re gone, they’re gone. We don’t need them anymore.”

Liang Cheng remained calm.

Zhao Qi asked again:

“Then... General, what do we do next? Where... do we go?”

Liang Cheng lifted one hand and pointed at the Chu cavalry across the river.

“That is probably something we should ask them.”

...

Across the river, Xiong Tingshan held a waterskin and drank from it from time to time.

Ever since his imperial father had exiled him to Wutong Commandery more than ten years earlier, he had developed one habit.

Whenever he ate or drank, he tried to finish an entire day’s share in one sitting.

Eating and drinking did not merely create inconvenience.

They also meant lowering one’s guard.

That was a lesson he had learned while fighting the Shanyue through the mountain forests all those years.

He had always thought of himself as a perfectly orthodox hunter of the mountains.

Strip away his armor and the python robe belonging to a prince, smear a little mud across his face, and he could take his wife and children into the wilderness and live freely among the hills without the slightest difficulty.

But after encountering the Yan army across the river, or more precisely, the Yan commander leading it, he suddenly discovered that this world contained prey even more experienced than he was.

Assuming, of course, the other man could still be called prey.

After leaving Juyang City, Xiong Tingshan had rushed north with his troops.

Even when word came from the rear that a Yan force had surrounded Juyang City, he obeyed the imperial decree and did not turn back.

He continued north.

The objective was to retake Jing City and reopen the supply route.

He succeeded.

Jing City was recovered almost immediately, because the Yan commander opposite him had never intended to defend it.

And more than that, what Xiong Tingshan recovered was not really Jing City anymore.

The walls had been torn apart.

The houses had been burned.

That once-prosperous river port was now nothing but blackened, broken ruins.

Afterward came a progression of emotions.

At first anger.

Then calm.

Then helplessness.

Retaking the docks was only the first step.

Transporting grain and fodder afterward was the true key.

Yet the Yan commander on the opposite side used only a small cavalry force to achieve an enormous effect, suppressing the transport of supplies as much as possible.

He did not make it impossible for a single grain of rice to reach the north.

Instead, he made every shipment difficult.

Painful.

Excruciatingly inefficient.

In Xiong Tingshan’s view, a merely qualified general fought wars rigidly and according to doctrine.

An excellent general fought with the smooth adaptability of a man dealing with life.

But a true master of war resembled a master carver.

There was something almost miraculous in his craftsmanship.

The Yan commander who had tangled with him for so many days belonged to the third kind.

At first, Xiong Tingshan assumed the man opposite him must be Count Pingye of Great Yan.

Only after receiving a second imperial decree did he learn that Count Pingye had somehow appeared in his rear.

Then who exactly had been playing this game against him all these days?

By ordinary reasoning, this force should have been one detachment Count Pingye split off after taking Jing City.

Its commander should only be one of Count Pingye’s subordinate generals.

If one general under Count Pingye already possessed such astonishing ability, then how terrifying was Count Pingye himself at commanding troops?

The fires were still burning.

Xiong Tingshan’s mood gradually settled with them.

No matter what, once those ships were gone, the Yan force could no longer move freely back and forth across both banks.

At the same time, the Dugu Clan army had already built a new camp on the ruins of Jing City.

Later, Xiong Tingshan could move west.

The Dugu Clan could move north.

Zhennan Pass could coordinate from a third direction.

Once all three sides moved, the annihilation of this isolated Yan force would only be a matter of time.

But destroying this force no longer mattered very much.

Because in Xiong Tingshan’s view, the objective for which Count Pingye had left this isolated force here had already been achieved.

Several hundred thousand Chu troops inside and outside Zhennan Pass consumed an astronomical amount of grain and fodder every single day.

After so many days of supplies trickling through like a cup of water against a cartload of firewood, the reserves there had to be close to exhaustion.

The grain route had been cut for so long.

If morale inside the army could still remain stable, that would be the true miracle.

Of course, there was another possibility.

One even more terrifying.

Xiong Tingshan did not want to think about it.

He did not dare.

This prince, who had spent more than ten years making his way through Wutong Commandery, had once believed he understood military affairs.

Below, he could soothe the hundred Shanyue tribes.

Above, he could maintain the emperor’s confidence.

He had always thought that no matter how large Heaven and Earth might be, once he finally left Wutong Commandery there would be a chair somewhere for him.

But after coming north and genuinely feeling the pressure brought by that Black Dragon Banner, he suddenly understood how powerless and pale he remained before the momentum of an entire age.

The Shanyue tribes were troublesome.

But in the end, they were only troublesome.

That empire called “Yan,” however, possessed the terrifying strength to completely overturn Great Chu’s rivers and mountains.

For a moment, a thread of regret rose inside Xiong Tingshan.

The state was already in such difficulty.

If he had known, perhaps he should never have left Wutong Commandery.

Perhaps spending his life among those mountain forests would not have been so bad.

He shook his head and threw away the useless thought.

Then Xiong Tingshan licked his lips.

His long saber pointed forward.

“Cross the river.”

...

“Is your surname Xiong, or Dugu?”

Dugu Mu, the old head of the Dugu Clan, stared coldly at the man standing before him.

This man was the pride of the clan.

Yet right now, Dugu Mu genuinely felt a little helpless.

“Is the Dugu Clan still a subject of Great Chu?” the Swordsmith asked in return.

Dugu Mu laughed coldly.

“You want to imitate Tian Wujing?”

The Swordsmith shook his head.

“Truthfully, even I am curious whether you actually know how to kill people. Right now, you and I stand this close. I am old and my blood and qi are fading. If you possess even half the ability of one of the Four Great Swordsmen... no. Thirty percent. Even ten percent would be enough. You could draw your sword and kill me.”

The Swordsmith continued shaking his head.

“I do not want to become Tian Wujing.”

“But what you are doing now is no different from what Tian Wujing did back then!”

The Swordsmith fell silent.

“The more this war goes on, the stranger it tastes. I can finally taste it now. At first I thought it could not be so. Impossible. It should not be so. But now, no matter how I look at it, it looks real.”

Dugu Mu pointed behind him, toward the south.

“Tell me. What exactly is he relying on that makes him dare borrow the Yan blade to collect his own imperial power?”

The Swordsmith remained silent.

“Is he truly not afraid he’ll sit so hard on Great Chu that he collapses the whole realm beneath him? Say everything there is to say. Great Chu was indeed conquered by the Xiong Clan. But without the ancestors of families like ours fighting beside the Xiong Clan all those years, how could there be a Great Chu today? The only difference is that his Xiong Clan sits in that seat. Does that somehow mean Great Chu belongs to his family alone? Why? On what grounds? Does he have no shame at all? It was the clan that gave you food and clothing from childhood. The clan gave you endless materials to forge swords. The clan found you countless precious sword manuals. If you had been born in a poor household, every day of your life would have gone into earning enough to eat. When would you ever have possessed the freedom to forge swords or do whatever you pleased? You eat the clan’s food. Use the clan’s goods. Enjoy every benefit the clan gives you. And now you want to use the clan as a shoe sole beneath your feet just so you can elevate your own lofty feelings for state and realm?”

The Swordsmith finally spoke.

“He said he would give us dignity. He will not imitate Ji Runhao.”

“You believe an emperor’s words? Did forging swords forge your brain stupid as well? No soldiers. No fief. Nothing but the title of noble. Then wouldn’t that emperor be able to knead us into whatever shape he wished? A noble like that? You call him a noble? He would live less freely than some rich landlord!”

One could hardly blame Dugu Mu for being furious.

Originally, Dugu Mu had intended to go relieve the siege of Juyang City first.

Then the Regent’s decree arrived and ordered him to establish defenses along the Wei River and reopen the supply route north.

It was an edict that displayed profound understanding of the greater picture.

The Regent was willing to remain in personal danger for the sake of the larger war.

But who was Dugu Mu?

An old auspicious beast who had lived so long he had nearly become a spirit.

Instinctively, he saw the problem.

The Regent was effectively Great Chu’s emperor.

Put crudely, losing Zhennan Pass would damage Great Chu less than losing the Regent.

“What does Grandfather intend to do?” the Swordsmith asked. “Continue delaying and refuse to let the main force cross the river?”

“The main force has not crossed because Yan troops remain behind us. With the rear unstable, how do we cross? This old man has already come here. Of course I intend to fight this battle properly. Carrying personal schemes into a battle is the road to death!”

“Yes.”

The Swordsmith nodded.

Silence.

A very long silence.

Finally, Dugu Mu spoke.

“There will be dignity, yes?”

The Swordsmith answered:

“If the Yan arrive, we will have no dignity at all. That is why every family has fought this desperately. At least, facing this man, Grandfather can still ask him: ‘There will be dignity, yes?’”

“Heh... hahahaha...”

Dugu Mu reached out, picked up his commander’s seal, and placed it before the Swordsmith.

“Dignity or no dignity is something for other people to see. But accounts still have to be settled according to the market price. Tell me. Could we do this? If the Xiong Clan wants to borrow another man’s knife to kill us, why can’t the Dugu Clan ‘abandon darkness and embrace the light’?”

Dugu Mu coughed lightly.

Then continued:

“While the capital in our hands is still enough, we negotiate first and sell ourselves for a good price. Either way, someone intends to sell us. So the highest bidder gets us. Isn’t that reasonable? Ji Runhao indeed trampled the aristocratic clans beneath cavalry hooves. His imperial ruthlessness was extreme. But that was inside Yan. Without crushing those clans, he had no way to realize his ambitions. Now? Forget his age. Forget the present state of Yan and Jin. Just consider all those rumors about his health. If we abandon darkness and embrace the light, surely he would not treat us badly? There is no point dreaming of keeping the title Pillar of State. But the Situ Clan received a Prince of Cheng. The remnants of the Jin imperial line received a Prince of Jin. We Dugu do not even ask for a princely title. A Duke should be possible, yes? Oh, right. Right. Yan is stingy with noble ranks. Fine. Then a Marquis? One lifetime of wealth and honor, helping them guard the Chu lands. That would not be a loss. An emperor like that can be narrow-hearted. But his heart can also be enormous. Mm? What are you smiling at?”

The smile on the Swordsmith’s face had grown wider and wider.

At last, he barely managed to stop himself.

“I once said something similar to him.”

Dugu Mu froze.

“What did he say?”

“He asked why, among all the noble houses, he chose you as the final man to lead troops out.”

“Why?”

“Because you love Great Chu.”

“...” Dugu Mu.

“You love Great Chu’s music. You love Great Chu’s poetry and rhapsodies. You love the sweep of Great Chu’s gorgeous robes. You love Great Chu’s elegance and romance. For those things alone, you would never surrender to Yan. You would never allow the crude savagery of the Yan to destroy eight hundred years of Great Chu’s splendor. He once asked me as well whether I was willing to become Great Chu’s Tian Wujing. I told him I was not. I could not do that sort of thing. I could not endure that kind of suffering. He said: ‘No matter.’ Then he said that if there remained one person in Great Chu who might be willing, that person would be you.”

Dugu Mu gritted his teeth.

At last, with a thump, he dropped back into the commander’s chair.

“Heh...”

“Hehehe...”

“Hehehehe...”

Dugu Mu suddenly clenched his fist.

The command table before him shattered apart.

That display of force showed not the slightest trace of an old man with failing blood and qi.

Dugu Mu practically roared:

“Fuck your fucking ancestors!”

...

Inside and outside Zhennan Pass, everything remained quiet.

It was as though nothing had happened.

As though the Yan army they had been blocking still stood to their north.

Yet south of Zhennan Pass, formation after formation of Yan troops galloped with an arrogance so overbearing it bordered on contempt for the Chu army.

Several Yan formations remained south of Zhennan Pass, seemingly waiting for the Chu troops inside to come out on their own.

They were not blocking them.

They were merely watching.

But the posture looked like Barbarians in the desert watching a flock of sheep circle around while grazing.

Thanks to exceptionally precise division of labor beforehand, every Yan formation had its own objective once it bypassed Zhennan Pass.

The army was enormous, yet showed none of the heaviness or clumsiness of a great host.

Naturally, Shanggu Commandery was merely somewhere the army would pause and reorganize.

After that, the host had to continue south.

Otherwise, where would its supplies come from?

A century earlier, after the first Marquis of Zhenbei destroyed Qian’s northern expedition army and rode through the Three Frontiers, one major reason had been that Yinlang Commandery, stripped bare by scorched-earth tactics, no longer held any food.

If there was no grain at home and you did not want to starve, the only thing left was to carry your bowl to the neighbor’s house.

Beneath the Prince’s Banner, Tian Wujing sat astride his Pixiu and looked toward Zhennan Pass, which now lay to his north.

Nian Yao’s silence did not surprise him.

But silence this complete was somewhat beyond expectation.

Because

Nian Yao was not Tian Wujing.

Tian Wujing could ignore every pressure from the court behind him.

In truth, there was no pressure worth mentioning.

Nian Yao was different.

He was a slave.

Would he really dare bury his head and remain completely silent without making even one sound?

A little thought appeared in Tian Wujing’s gaze.

Not the slightest worry.

Strong soldiers and sturdy horses were on his side.

So long as he possessed that one fact, whatever schemes or calculations the Chu might have could be nothing more than an attempt to find the best possible compromise from a losing position.

This Prince has no interest in guessing what you are planning.

Because you do not know either what this Prince truly intends to do.

At that moment, one cavalry detachment passed through the outer security screen and approached the Prince’s Banner.

The man at its head was Liang Cheng.

Xiong Tingshan’s force had crossed the river.

Liang Cheng did not choose to attack halfway through the crossing.

There was no need anymore.

The game of hide-and-seek was over.

Next came the part where a naughty child misbehaved and needed his backside beaten.

Master was not here, but Liang Cheng was still trying to preserve as much future family property for Master as possible.

So after making contact with Li Fusheng’s force, Liang Cheng immediately rode in person to the Prince’s Banner.

The Prince of Jingnan knew Liang Cheng.

Before Liang Cheng could salute, the Prince asked directly:

“Where is Zheng Fan?”

“Reporting to Your Highness. After my Count took Jing City and burned the granaries, he left this general here with one force to harass the Chu supply route. My Count himself continued south by ship along the Wei River in order to draw Chu attention and cover Your Highness’s main army as it moved south. He went toward Great Chu’s capital region.”

Tian Wujing heard this and gave a slight nod.

One thing could not be denied.

Every time Zheng Fan was asked to do something, he wore an expression of deep reluctance.

But once he truly went and did it, he always brought back a surprise.

Tian Wujing spoke:

“Pass down the order. All other formations continue according to the original plan. First, Second, and Third Garrisons of the Jingnan Army will follow this Prince out of Shanggu Commandery and march south immediately.”

After the order was transmitted, the Prince of Jingnan casually ran one hand several times through the mane of the Pixiu beneath him.

Then he asked:

“Did Zheng Fan leave any words for this Prince?”

Liang Cheng hesitated.

At last, he nodded.

Because Master really had left one sentence for him.

But Liang Cheng truly did not want to repeat it.

Since Tian Wujing had asked, however, he could only answer:

“Reporting to Your Highness. He did.”

“Speak.”

Liang Cheng drew a deep breath.

Then said:

“Your Highness, save me!”

[End of Chapter 573]