Chapter 576: - The Southern Marquis in His Glory (2)

Inside Ying Capital stood a Star-Gazing Tower, first begun a hundred and eighty years ago from plans drawn by an ancestor of the Jing Clan. It took ten years to complete.

The reason construction dragged on so long was not that the project itself was unusually vast or complicated. The tower had originally been commissioned to celebrate the seventieth birthday of the then Empress Dowager, now officially styled by Chu as Empress Dowager Ciming, and the expected construction period had been only two years.

One month before completion, Empress Dowager Ciming died. The Star-Gazing Tower was immediately deemed inauspicious. To gaze at the stars was to use human eyes to pry into Heaven's secrets, and people said the tower had offended Heaven itself.

Construction stopped for eight years. Only after a new emperor ascended the throne did an imperial decree order work on the tower resumed, and it was finally completed.

Today, the Star-Gazing Tower was one of Ying Capital's landmarks. It rose exceptionally high and grand. When that gifted Jing ancestor first designed it, he had actually chosen a section of the old city wall as the site and integrated the tower's lower structure directly into the wall. Combining that with the perceived pattern of Ying Capital's dragon vein, people believed the tower stood precisely where the dragon vein's eye lay.

To watch the stars from the dragon's eye symbolized that future generations of the Xiong imperial clan, the emperors who came after, would possess gazes bright as torches and clear as candlelight, seeing all beneath the stars.

Artistically, the building was extraordinarily valuable.

Militarily, its existence was equivalent to taking Ying Capital's original wall defenses and cutting a great hole straight through them.

Still, that hardly counted for much.

Jing City, which Count Pingye had captured, had been much the same. Ying Capital was merely a larger version.

In peaceful years, this place was naturally a palace of art and romance. Once an enemy army arrived, however, all that elegance became rather useless.

Unfortunately, although Count Pingye had once entered Chu to steal a Princess, he had never visited Ying Capital itself. Had he toured this place, professional habit alone would surely have made him sigh:

“Wonders ruin a nation.”

No wonder Qian and Chu both called the Yan “Yan barbarians.” Yan people genuinely could not appreciate this kind of romance.

During the previous Yan emperor's reign, fangshi had enjoyed imperial favor. After Ji Runhao ascended the throne, he carried out sweeping purges. Buddhist halls, Daoist temples, and the sites of all sorts of religious sects were sealed and converted into offices for government yamens. Even one of the princely residences in Yanjing had been rebuilt on the grounds of an old Daoist temple.

Dust from the desert, restless hooves across the Three Jin lands, and the cold, dense battlements of Qian's Three Frontiers had never allowed the Yan generations upon generations of peaceful years, nor much leisure for flowers beneath the moon. Naturally, there had been little soil in which to nurture a refined Yan artistic sensibility.

The clearest example was the Third Prince, presently the only one among Emperor Yan's sons to have “died young.” In his early years, he had once been regarded as a seed of Great Yan's “literary lineage.”

And what people abandoned first was often precisely what they believed mattered least.

...

At that moment, two men stood atop the Star-Gazing Tower.

One was surnamed Jing, given name Mingxuan.

The other was surnamed Zhao, given name Yuelin.

The Star-Gazing Tower was exactly what its name implied.

Only nobles had the leisure to lift their heads and gaze at Heaven when there was nothing else to do.

Common people kept their faces to the yellow earth and their backs to the sky. Where would they find that sort of idleness?

The upper levels of this tower were not open to anyone who was not a high official or noble.

The surnames Jing and Zhao alone were enough to establish the two men's birth. Unlike a collateral Jing descendant such as Jing Renli, who had needed to grind out a career in the army, these two were core members of their clans and already held offices at court.

Zhao Yuelin still had a book in his hand.

The cover read:

*The Zhengzi Art of War.*

Jing Mingxuan smiled.

“Know yourself and know the enemy?”

Zhao Yuelin replied:

“I did not expect you to have read this book too.”

Know yourself and know the enemy, and in a hundred battles you will never be imperiled.

*Zhengzi, Planning Attacks.*

The Jing Clan traditionally occupied civil posts and prided itself on refined prestige. Its fief was large, but the clan did not maintain a private army.

“Naturally I read it. At first I found it rather shameless that Count Pingye of Yan styled himself ‘Master Zheng.’ After finishing it, though, I truly did benefit.”

“My grandfather says anyone who finishes that book and feels he benefited greatly from it is someone who does not understand war.”

Zhao Yuelin's grandfather, Zhao Wentong, was presently outside leading troops beside Dugu Mu. In fact, Zhao Wentong was also matching moves against Count Pingye, the very author of *The Zhengzi Art of War*.

The trouble was that information never traveled smoothly between front and rear.

Add Count Pingye's “frog-jump” raid, which had severely disrupted a huge swath around the capital region, and military couriers could no longer travel with anything resembling their previous regularity.

Put another way, the cost of receiving outside information had risen sharply.

News ordinary nobles could once obtain might now fail to reach even great noble houses in time.

The one person whose access to the highest-grade intelligence remained guaranteed was the Regent, who had returned to Ying Capital not long ago, because in name he was Great Chu's supreme figure.

“Whether I understand war hardly matters,” Jing Mingxuan said. “If Great Chu ever truly needs sons of the Jing Clan to lead armies into battle, then Great Chu really has no hope left.”

“Hahahahaha.”

Zhao Yuelin laughed openly.

Jing Mingxuan did not take offense.

“In truth, military treatises are among the least numerous categories of books. Yet compared with the number of truly great generals throughout history, there are still far too many of them. And among genuine great generals, how many ever win fame, complete their achievements, remove their armor, and return to the fields? Generals die after a hundred battles. Those who still have the leisure afterward to write books are naturally rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. I have read some military books before. How should I put it? One glance and you can tell they were written by scholars like me who never truly understood armies. There is not much flavor to chew on. This one is different. Reading a book is like looking at a man. Read the book, then look at the man. That man is still alive, still fighting wars, and I hear...”

*The Zhengzi Art of War* had become extremely popular throughout the Four Great States because Count Pingye, still active in the military world, effectively continued advertising his own book through every battle he fought.

The more people noticed him, took him seriously, and tried to study him, the more impossible it became to avoid that book.

“I understand.” Zhao Yuelin nodded. “The Regent has returned. I imagine that man will be cleaned up very soon.”

“Not necessarily. The Qu Clan's Azure Luan Army was defeated, after all. What I find truly strange is whether Qu Peiluo's birth characters are simply incompatible with Count Pingye's. How does everything he does somehow end up making a bridal gown for Count Pingye?”

Relations between noble houses could never be completely harmonious. There would always be grudges, or at the very least mutual disdain.

And if they ever truly became one happy family, the Chu emperor himself would find a way to make them start biting one another.

“Has the Jing Clan decided to change careers and become court shamans?” Zhao Yuelin teased. “You have started studying fate and divination now?”

“Just idle talk. The fighting in the north is tight. The clan has already started making arrangements.”

“Arrangements to abandon the brush and take up the sword?”

“Arrangements for several clan members serving at court to seek postings outside the capital, preferably around Wenhu Commandery.”

Wenhu Commandery lay in southern Chu.

The first ducks always sensed when spring warmed the river.

The great noble houses had already detected the first signs that the northern front was rotting, and had begun preparing their own roads of retreat.

Chu was webbed with rivers and waterways, especially in the south. If one intended to flee south, traveling by ship remained the fastest and most convenient choice.

Zhao Yuelin sighed.

Was the Jing Clan really the only family making such preparations?

In truth, the moment his own grandfather marched out with the army, the Zhao Clan had already begun quietly purchasing property farther south.

Once a clan developed to a certain scale, perpetuating itself became an instinct.

Viewed as a whole, a clan was almost a living thing.

Seeking advantage and avoiding harm was the instinct of every living thing.

Zhao Yuelin lightly patted the railing before him.

“Are we truly going to see the robes and caps cross south?”

“I do not know. In the end, it still depends on you people, whether you can stop the Yan.”

“The Yan will not get through,” Zhao Yuelin said.

“Count Pingye already did.”

A smile appeared at the corner of Jing Mingxuan's mouth.

“If Count Pingye can come, why can the Southern Marquis of Yan not come too? To say something unpleasant, nothing in this world has ever been absolutely guaranteed. Even if a force of Yan cavalry suddenly appeared right in front of us now, I would not feel in the slightest... uh...”

The smile Jing Mingxuan had just drawn onto his face froze.

The Star-Gazing Tower stood very high.

It was daytime.

The weather was excellent.

Stars could not be seen, but the tower offered an exceptional view into the distance.

So when a mass of black appeared at the very edge of the horizon, Jing Mingxuan simply went rigid.

A scholar's greatest flaw was that before trouble arrived he could discuss everything with elegant composure, and once it truly arrived he stood there like a wooden chicken.

Zhao Yuelin drew a deep breath.

“So the Jing Clan really has begun studying fate?”

Were Jing Mingxuan's words actually becoming law the moment he spoke them?

Jing Mingxuan leaned sideways against the railing and pointed ahead.

He had read *The Zhengzi Art of War* from beginning to end, but he still could not conceal his panic.

“Black. Black armor. That is... that is the Yan army?”

“Yes.”

“How... how many?”

Zhao Yuelin answered:

“From what we can see now, no fewer than thirty thousand. And that is only the front. There are clearly more behind them. I estimate at least twice that number. Perhaps twice again.”

“Even twice again would still put them at only a hundred thousand or so, yes?”

Jing Mingxuan began calculating.

Zhao Yuelin, however, was a core member of the Zhao Clan and currently served in the Ministry of War.

He immediately shook his head.

“That is not how war is calculated.”

Wars had never been decided simply by counting the heads on both sides.

“The Imperial Clan Guards inside the capital should be able to stop them, yes? Defending the capital should not be a problem?” Jing Mingxuan asked.

A sizable elite force of Great Chu's Imperial Clan Guards had always been stationed in Ying Capital.

Half had indeed been transferred earlier to Nian Yao at Zhennan Pass so he could better coordinate the various noble private armies below him.

But the capital still retained substantial reserves.

And for the past half year, Prince Dingqin had trained another batch of new troops inside Ying Capital.

For a scholar, Jing Mingxuan had already done remarkably well. Despite his visible panic, his thoughts still remained orderly. The sudden appearance of a Yan army had not shocked him into hysteria.

Zhao Yuelin, however, understood the problem more deeply.

He said directly:

“Ying Capital's walls are genuinely unsuitable for defense.”

“Why?” Jing Mingxuan immediately asked.

How could he not be anxious over a question tied directly to whether he and his entire household lived or died?

Zhao Yuelin pointed beneath their feet.

The very place where the two of them had been chatting idly a moment earlier was itself one major weakness in Ying Capital's defenses.

And only one of them.

The Star-Gazing Tower always had a fire brigade stationed here to guard against accidental flames.

If an enemy attacking the city simply set this structure on fire, this entire section of wall would effectively be burned open into a huge breach.

The heat from the blaze would damage the walls on both sides as well.

Jing Mingxuan pressed his lips together.

“So we have to meet the enemy outside the walls?”

At that very moment, squad after squad of Imperial Clan Guards were already racing toward the city walls.

From the great camps outside Ying Capital, troops were beginning to pour out and form battle lines in the open.

To Chu people, the sight was deeply reassuring.

The Yan had arrived suddenly, yes.

But at least their own soldiers still dared march outside the city and form ranks to meet them.

In Zhao Yuelin's eyes, however, the scene looked almost comical.

When a foreign enemy had already reached the foot of the capital, and your only answer was to throw everything into one desperate gamble, that itself was a tragedy.

But there was another matter.

One even more serious and urgent than the tragedy before them.

“Brother Jing, what we need to worry about now is not only this. It is...”

“It is what?”

“Why did neither your family nor mine receive any warning that the Yan army had invaded this far? That many Yan soldiers did not fly here. Even if Yan cavalry can force-march day and night, resting men while changing horses, why was there no alarm raised anywhere along the road? Forget Ying Capital itself. Why did none of the other cities in the capital region light their beacon fires as the Yan passed? However fast Yan cavalry may be, they can easily overtake common people fleeing after seeing them, but there is no possibility they can outrun an eight-hundred-li express dispatch!”

An eight-hundred-li express dispatch used the finest warhorses available and sacrificed the animals' usable lives for one purpose alone: sending critical military intelligence at the highest possible speed.

Because the courier party was small, it often consisted of only three riders.

No matter how fast a great army moved, it could not outrun that kind of express transmission.

Moreover, every great house had businesses outside the capital.

Some had branch clans.

Others had relatives serving as officials in distant places.

Any of them could send trusted men racing toward Ying Capital with warnings.

Some families even maintained experts specializing in movement arts solely for transmitting life-or-death information at extreme speed.

Great nobles might possess their own fiefs, but the true core descendants of the great houses generally still served as officials in Ying Capital.

The genuine circle of power remained in the capital.

Yet there had been nothing.

Nothing at all.

If the Jing Clan alone had failed to receive warning, that could still be called an accident.

But the Zhao Clan too?

If neither Jing nor Zhao received anything, then what of all the other great houses?

None of them received advance warning either?

Zhao Yuelin slammed one fist into the stone stele behind him.

The stele bore the handwriting of an ancient Chu sage.

At another time, Jing Mingxuan would have been heartsick at such desecration. Despite being a scholar with no strength to bind a chicken, he might even have rushed over and tried to fight Zhao Yuelin for abusing a relic.

Now he had no attention to spare for old sages.

He might soon become one of the ancestors himself.

Zhao Yuelin's eyes began turning red.

“Ordinary townsfolk and common people hearing no news beforehand is normal enough. Fine. Even our families hearing nothing, let us say that somehow happened too. But did the Phoenix Nest Guards also become deaf and blind? The Yan army has already reached the ancestral altars of our state, and everyone only realizes it after seeing the enemy with his own eyes. Do you not find that absurd beyond belief? A foreign army reaches the altars of state and dynasty, and we have to see it with our own eyes before we know. What is this? What in Heaven's name is this supposed to be? The greatest joke beneath Heaven. It truly is the greatest joke beneath Heaven!”

Jing Mingxuan's face turned deathly pale.

There was more despair in that pallor than there had been when he first saw the Yan army outside the city.

“Brother Yuelin, you mean... you mean...”

“Someone cut off our eyes and ears,” Zhao Yuelin said. “And that is something the Yan cannot do.”

The Yan could not do it.

Then who could?

Only...

Jing Mingxuan's gaze immediately shifted into the city, toward that towering complex of golden roofs.

“How could that be... how could it... how...”

Only the Son of Heaven.

Only that man.

Only the Phoenix Nest Guards under his control could completely blind the eyes of the great noble houses inside Ying Capital.

Quietly.

Without a sound.

Severing the capital from the outside world.

Normally, this was a method ministers used against an emperor.

Trap the sovereign inside a “cage” and turn him into a ceremonial ornament brought out only when sacrifices needed to be performed.

The Qian civil officials' so-called ambition to “guide the sovereign toward Yao and Shun,” stripped of elegant phrasing, amounted largely to exactly that.

But this time, in Great Chu, it was the “emperor” who had used this method to deceive his own ministers.

“Why... why would the Regent do this? Why?”

Jing Mingxuan was utterly lost.

Something called belief was collapsing rapidly inside him, tearing apart his understanding of the world.

Zhao Yuelin was so furious he laughed.

“You ask me? How the hell would I know? Go knock at the palace gates. Go ask the Regent yourself. Go ask him!”

Then Zhao Yuelin suddenly began breathing heavily.

As if a new thought had struck him, he laughed and cried at the same time.

“If the Regent is still there.”

...

“Elder Sister, where are we going? I arranged to go out and enjoy the autumn with those two boys from the Ding and Liu families today.”

“Mother, where are we going? Are we going to find Father? Your little girl misses Father.”

“Stupid little sister. Father is in the north. We are going south.”

“All of you shut up!”

Madam Nian, who was normally gentle and pleasant, swept an exceptionally severe gaze across the people in the carriage.

Combined with her earlier shout, it immediately silenced the one grown-up and two children in the carriage.

Madam Nian lifted the carriage curtain.

Outside rode a force of Imperial Clan Guards, escorting her entire household south.

She did not dare ask where in the south they were going.

Before leaving for the campaign, her husband had told her only one thing.

If one day people from the palace came and ordered them to leave the capital, she was to gather the entire household and depart immediately.

She trusted her husband.

She had trusted him ever since the days when she was a maid in a princely residence and he was merely a slave.

That day, he had secretly drunk the leftover wine his “Prince” had used to entertain guests.

Drunk and flushed, he had seized her hand and said that he would not remain a slave forever.

He told her to follow him.

He promised that one day he would secure her an imperially conferred title as a noble lady.

From that day onward, she had believed the man.

Believed every word he said.

...

Elsewhere, among beautiful mountains and water, a man in a purple python robe and a gaunt old man sat across from each other at a stone table, playing Go.

From this hillside, looking downward, one could see armored soldiers standing everywhere and military tents stretching endlessly into the distance.

Meng Shou placed a stone.

Slowly, he asked:

“Your Highness, was it worth it?”

The Regent replied:

“Measured across a thousand autumns, there is no such thing as worth or not worth.”

Meng Shou asked again:

“Your Highness, do you regret it?”

The Regent placed another stone.

His tone remained calm.

“A stone once placed... admits no regret.”

[End of Chapter 576]