Chapter 726: Kunwu and White Hair

Tonight... the royal city was especially noisy.

The chiefs of the great desert tribes had gathered here with their nobles.

The old Barbarian King had formally announced his abdication.

His son would inherit the great undertaking of restoring the Barbarian people.

The Heir of Prince Zhenbei Residence had personally helped the Barbarians light the sacrificial fire.

And just as the joy inside the city reached its highest point... the Zhenbei Army arrived with sabers already sharpened.

Thirty thousand iron cavalry.

Thirty thousand veterans.

They had not experienced the sweeping southern campaign against Qian.

They had not ridden a thousand li in ten days and smashed half of Jin.

They had never stood beside the Wang River and seen Savage corpses choke the current.

Nor had they witnessed the night turn bright beneath the great fire of Ying Capital.

But they had not been idle.

Like their fathers.

Their grandfathers.

And the generations before them... they had spent their lives roaming the edge of the desert.

Facing endless wind and sand.

Watching that people who had declined... yet still possessed terrifying reserves of strength.

Li Bao.

Li Fusheng.

Li Liangshen.

Three Zhenbei formations had already ridden out.

And this formation... the personal guard army protecting Marquis Zhenbei Residence... was the true essence of the original three hundred thousand Zhenbei cavalry.

When the Prince of Jingnan entered the capital, he had brought ten thousand of his own elite troops.

Yet he had not taken a single one of them west.

All ten thousand remained in Yanjing.

He had even thrown his Prince's Command Token to Zheng Fan.

There were many reasons for that.

But the most fundamental was simple.

There was no need to bring them.

In Beifeng Commandery... a more suitable army already existed.

These men were accustomed to the desert climate.

To the wind.

To the sand.

To galloping and killing across open wasteland.

Their fathers had passed down horsemanship, archery, and mounted warfare.

And they themselves had never allowed those skills to rust.

To a certain extent... this Zhenbei formation resembled Barbarians more than the Barbarians themselves.

The old Barbarian King had just said as much during the grand ceremony.

The previous Marquis Zhenbei genuinely had liked leading troops into the desert every few days whenever he had nothing better to do.

For the Barbarians... those years had been one long humiliation.

This generation's Marquis Zhenbei had been far calmer.

In the old Barbarian King's eyes... that was because the current Marquis Zhenbei and Great Yan's Emperor had stood together.

Their ambitions were no longer limited to guarding against threats from the desert.

They wanted to unify all Xia in the east.

But Great Yan's Emperor... had never once truly shifted his gaze away from the desert.

And Great Yan's Marquis Zhenbei... had never forgotten his family's ancestral oath.

Yes.

After Li Liangting inherited Marquis Zhenbei Residence... he did become much quieter than his father had been.

But in truth... the residence's penetration of the desert became far deeper under his rule.

The era when strength had to be declared through sabers and cavalry was already over.

Everything that needed proving had been proved long ago.

So what Li Liangting did instead... was weave a net across the desert.

It was under Li Liangting that the Zhenbei Army began absorbing foreign peoples into its auxiliary forces on a large scale.

Years ago, the Savage King Gou Moli had been able to enter Marquis Zhenbei Residence as a Savage auxiliary precisely because of that trend.

There... he had learned the methods of military formations.

At the same time... the relationship between Marquis Zhenbei Residence and the desert naturally grew closer.

Before the great purge of the aristocratic clans, perceptive officials had once submitted memorials warning that Marquis Zhenbei Residence was nurturing bandits to enhance its own value.

The very house created to suppress the Barbarians was growing ever closer to the Barbarians and the desert.

Its intentions... they said... deserved execution.

Yet precisely because that net existed... because those relationships existed... these thirty thousand Zhenbei elites could silently enter the desert.

Circle around to the west of the Royal Court.

And launch their attack from there.

Naturally, the residence's century of collected information about desert geography and terrain mattered enormously.

Know yourself and know your enemy... and you need never fear a hundred battles.

But those deep relationships now played an equally important role.

Some tribes helped conceal the army's movements.

Some tribes prepared provisions in advance and supported them with grain and fodder.

Some tribes had originally been responsible for helping the Royal Court guard the outer approaches... yet deliberately chose to see nothing.

In truth... before the old Emperor of Yan died, Little Sixth had already sensed from changes in the trade routes that his father intended to move against the desert.

In this era... merchants... especially merchants who crossed borders... often carried the flavor of official spies.

They built relationships with local powers.

Befriended Barbarian nobles.

And those relationships remained in place... waiting for the day they could finally be cashed in.

For a hundred years... pressure from both east and west had pushed the loose Barbarian tribes toward unity.

The Barbarians were far larger than the Savages.

As a people who had once towered over both east and west, they naturally possessed far more ambitious and perceptive men.

Those men could see the road forward.

The Barbarians... had to unite.

Unfortunately... every people and every state had its rats.

Its short-sighted men.

A foundation for ten thousand generations felt too distant.

Better to drink today's wine while there was still wine today.

And besides... the Barbarian royal city itself had never truly been finished.

Not every Barbarian could roar like Sha Tuo Queshi of old:

"I am a wild man of the desert!"

And to display its martial strength, the Royal Court had sent fifty thousand elites east to trade pieces with Li Chenghui.

At the same time... it pulled outer defense forces inward to fill out the appearance of strength around the Royal Court.

That decision further weakened the Royal Court's ability to sense danger on its outer perimeter.

There was one more point... one the two Princes themselves had not anticipated.

All day... the warriors loyal to the Royal Court had spent hour after hour imitating Yan troops, arranging themselves into neat ranks and performing exhausting military exercises.

Long drills.

Rehearsals prepared well in advance.

By the end... they were already utterly exhausted.

Many collapsed into sleep the moment the exercises ended.

Those who remained awake took advantage of the wine distributed above... and drank themselves senseless.

So yes.

This truly was the moment when the Barbarians were about to grow strong again.

But at the same time... it was also the moment when they were weakest.

Under ordinary circumstances... no matter how elite thirty thousand cavalry might be, they were not demons with three heads and six arms.

Nor was every rider some graded expert.

If both armies deployed properly and faced one another in formation, there would never be some absurd situation where one elite detachment simply cut straight through and took the enemy commander's head.

Zu Zhuming had once submitted a memorial to the Qian Emperor while discussing the Three Frontiers.

He said he admired the defensive methods used by Chu's Grand General Nian Yao.

He also said that Tian Wujing, the Southern Prince of Yan, had been victorious in every campaign since taking command.

Yet the hardest battle Tian Wujing had ever fought... had been beneath Zhennan Pass.

If not for a spy inside Chu and Marquis Pingxi's deep flanking march into the rear... the fighting beneath Zhennan Pass would have been enough to grind away more than half the Yan army's blood and vigor.

But tonight... upon this boundless desert... these thirty thousand Zhenbei iron cavalry... were a sharpened steel blade.

And the moment the first riders crashed into the outer Barbarian camps... that blade... entered flesh.

"Kill!"

"Kill the Barbarians!"

"Kill the Barbarians!"

There was no need for careful division.

No need for delicate tactical planning.

All that mattered now... was kill.

Cut down every Barbarian running before your horse.

Clear a road... straight into the heart of the royal city.

The Barbarian warriors in the outer camps... some were still asleep.

Others were drunk.

Faced with Zhenbei cavalry suddenly erupting out of the night... they had no ability to resist at all.

Under the darkness... they were directly crushed.

The first wave of Zhenbei riders met almost no meaningful resistance.

They killed their way straight into the royal city.

The city walls... were genuinely a joke.

Some sections had collapsed from age.

Some were low enough that a warhorse could leap directly over them.

Other stretches simply had enormous gaps.

In normal times, a few tents were placed there to suggest a checkpoint.

There was not even a real gate.

Years ago, Chu's Ying Capital had been difficult to defend because it was too large and too prosperous.

Tonight's Barbarian Royal Court... was too broken.

Too incomplete.

It could not be defended at all.

The Zhenbei soldiers who entered the city showed no mercy with their cavalry sabers.

Men.

Women.

Children.

In their eyes... anything that could move... cry... or scream... was something to kill.

There was no mercy here.

Between Yan and Barbarian... centuries of blood feud had left no room where mercy could survive.

Nor was there benevolence.

A thousand autumns of merit.

A name in history.

Such things were written with few words.

For an Emperor... for a state... there was no room to waste the characters "benevolence" and "righteousness."

They were simply too extravagant.

On the road to Yanjing, Sun Ying had once used his father's earlier guidance to guess before Marquis Zheng that the Emperor of Yan intended to campaign against the Barbarians.

Marquis Zheng had not found the idea strange in the slightest.

Nor did he believe that, after all the affectionate marriage alliances and agreements, suddenly launching a surprise attack counted as some dishonorable betrayal.

Because Marquis Zheng remembered another history.

In the other timeline he knew... when Emperor Taizong of Tang destroyed the Eastern Turks, he enthusiastically negotiated peace with Illig Qaghan and accepted his submission... while ordering Li Jing to seize the opening and launch a cavalry surprise attack that destroyed them.

What creature called an Emperor would care about a little thing like that?

After a thousand years... history remembered winners and losers.

Who would cling forever to one dark stain?

Who would even remember such an unglamorous corner?

The old Barbarian King's youngest daughter had married Great Yan's First Prince.

The Young Prince's daughter had married the Heir of the Li family.

But that only proved something further.

Women.

Marriage alliances.

None of those things could create true peace or true recognition.

The Barbarians understood that.

The Yan people... understood it even better.

The Barbarians feared a strong Yan.

Feared Yan truly unifying the east.

Because once Yan became strong enough... it would inevitably come for revenge.

And Yan... would never allow the Barbarians to unite.

Yan people still remembered perfectly well what kind of pressure a united Barbarian people had once placed upon Great Yan.

What did a blood feud mean?

It meant that so long as I had the opportunity... so long as I had the strength to spare...

I would inevitably draw my saber against you.

Shouts of killing... came from every direction around the royal city.

Li Fei stood atop the sacrificial platform.

Like an outsider.

Watching the Barbarian nobles below who had been cheering and laughing moments earlier... now fall into panic.

Before he left... his mother and elder sister had worried enormously about his safety.

Li Fei himself... had been uneasy too.

But now... he suddenly felt that his own life or death no longer mattered.

To witness this scene... was worth dying for.

Even... his newlywed wife.

The younger brother-in-law to whom he had given a dagger.

Yiguxie... who only moments ago had wanted to preserve some of his dignity by asking to light the sacrificial fire in Li Fei's place...

Li Fei suddenly found himself not caring much about any of it.

He simply wanted to sit here.

And wait to die.

Not because he was tired.

But because his spirit had reached such a peak that everything else had begun to go numb.

Once again... he regretted that he did not possess Marquis Pingxi's talent.

Could not write poetry.

Could not paint.

Such a magnificent scene... and he could do nothing with it.

Unexpectedly... at this moment... the Barbarian nobles below also seemed to have forgotten the Heir standing atop the altar.

Not everyone had forgotten him.

Some remembered.

But they did not bother.

The Heir was already here.

If the Yan army truly cared about whether he lived or died... why would they have sent him into the Royal Court before launching the attack?

He was obviously a disposable piece.

So using the Heir to threaten the Yan army would be a joke.

His own father clearly did not care whether he lived or died.

What threat was there?

The Zhenbei Army advanced incredibly quickly.

The sounds of killing suddenly drew much closer.

The nobles could now use only the guards already at their sides.

Even the Barbarian Young Prince was no exception.

The army outside... could no longer be mobilized.

They did not even know where those troops had scattered.

Li Fei remembered the histories the old Confucian scholar had taught them.

There were many battles where Chen Xianba simply could not understand something: when an army suffered a sudden attack, why did the commander sometimes abandon his own troops and flee like a dog?

Wasn't that utterly useless?

Practically handing the battle away.

The old scholar knew little of military affairs and could not explain.

But today...

Li Fei understood.

It was not that the commander wanted to flee.

It was that at a moment like this... even when you knew perfectly well you had more troops nearby... you simply could not command them.

What use was a larger army then?

The nobles below... were preparing to break out.

Li Fei stood too.

With one kick... he overturned the great iron brazier before him.

Flames spilled down in magnificent fashion.

Then... he picked up a wooden pole and tried to hook down the Pixiu horn, now half-blackened by fire.

Unfortunately... the Heir of the Li family did not know martial arts.

He was also lame.

He wanted to rescue this horn... a symbol of Yan martial glory.

Instead... his foot slipped on the sacrificial platform.

In that instant...

Li Fei felt infinitely embarrassed.

Such an excellent situation.

No one was even paying attention to him.

He could simply have sat there... quietly waiting.

Instead... he was about to fall to his death!

As the Heir... he really was humiliating his ancestors.

He failed to grab the horn.

And fell.

Fortunately...

Li Fei had not yet cultivated his heart to the point of serenely accepting whatever came.

His hands clawed wildly at anything nearby.

Everything he caught broke.

But it slowed his fall enough.

In the end... he crashed onto two sheep laid out as sacrificial offerings.

Even then... the impact locked his whole body rigid.

He nearly blacked out.

"Husband! Husband!"

Yiguna rushed over and helped him up.

Only then did Li Fei's mind clear.

The detached, transcendent state he had felt atop the altar... vanished instantly.

He grabbed Yiguna's hand.

"We hide. We hide first. You'll be fine. Yiguna... you'll be fine."

The cold calculations his mother and sister had imagined... the calm scene of entrusting descendants... never occurred.

Because the old Barbarian King and the Young Prince had been surrounded and evacuated the instant chaos began.

At a moment like this... wives and children no longer mattered.

Yiguna was panicking too.

From the shouts outside, she could already tell the Zhenbei Army had attacked.

But instinctively... she still seized her husband's arm.

Pulled him upright.

And led him into a tent to hide.

Outside... everything was chaos.

Shouts of killing.

Screams.

Li Fei found himself held in Yiguna's arms.

Yes.

That posture was correct.

"Husband... are those your people?"

"My father's men have come. Don't worry. I'll protect you. Mother already said she would recognize you as her daughter-in-law. My elder sister said the same."

"So... Husband... you already knew this would happen?"

"Yes."

"Grandfather was right. Yan people... are more ruthless than the most cunning wolf pack in the desert."

Just then... fighting erupted at the entrance of the tent.

A young man was kicked inside.

"Protect the Young Master!"

"Protect the Young Master!"

Outside...

Barbarian warriors shouted and fought.

The young man who had been thrown in raised his head.

He immediately saw his elder sister.

His face brightened.

Then he saw the man in his sister's arms.

Rage instantly filled his face.

"Yan dog! I'll kill you!"

There was an arrow wound in the boy's chest.

Yet he still gripped his saber and slashed toward Li Fei.

Li Fei wanted to dodge.

But at that moment...

Yiguna clutched him even tighter.

"Husband. Don't dodge. I'll die with you."

"..." Li Fei.

Li Fei did not want to die.

More precisely... when he had been sitting atop the sacrificial platform, he genuinely had felt almost as though his spirit were ascending.

But after falling down... he wanted to live.

He wanted to take the woman beside him and live.

And... the younger brother-in-law in front of him too.

This was war between two states.

No.

Between two peoples.

Ethics.

Morality.

Killing.

Saving.

At times... everything twisted together into something absurdly complicated.

Something almost impossible to explain.

Bang!

Suddenly... the leg of a Zhenbei cavalryman's horse was broken.

Horse and rider crashed into the tent from outside.

The tent was torn apart.

Wood splinters flew everywhere.

Li Fei closed his eyes.

When he opened them again... his younger brother-in-law had also been knocked sideways.

Blood spilled from his mouth.

Then... the red-haired Right Guli King Saboduo appeared.

With his left hand... he lifted Yiguxie bodily.

"Young Master. The King ordered me to rescue you from here."

Then...

Saboduo's gaze fell on Li Fei and Yiguna curled together in the corner.

"You little mongrel! You dare deceive my Barbarian people!"

His right hand flipped.

A bone club dropped into his palm.

He smashed it directly toward Li Fei!

Saboduo was the Right Guli King.

There was no need to explain the strength attached to that title.

If the club landed... not only Li Fei... but Yiguna beside him... would be smashed into meat paste.

Yiguxie, held in Saboduo's hand, immediately screamed:

"No!"

He did not want his elder sister to die too.

But Saboduo did not withdraw.

Yiguxie was a male of the Golden Tent royal bloodline.

He mattered.

Yiguna... was merely a woman who had already been married away.

Bang!

BOOM!

Suddenly... the bone club in Saboduo's hand was knocked aside.

Saboduo himself staggered several steps backward.

Li Fei had thought death was certain.

When he opened his eyes... he saw a mighty man standing before him.

Gilded armor.

Long saber in hand.

A head of white hair.

Tian Wujing held Kunwu.

He looked at the Right Guli King before him... at the traces of western blood in Saboduo's appearance... and said:

"Which one of us... looks more like a mongrel?"

[End of Chapter 726]