Chapter 773: A Century of Wealth and Honor Begins with This Battle!

Some time ago, there had been a young tribal heir on the snowfields who could read and liked making grand, sentimental remarks. One night, after drinking, he imitated the Qian literati of his imagination, raised a wine bowl toward the moon, and sighed:

"How laughable. Our proud Sacred Race has now become little more than a tame dog at Marquis Pingxi's feet!"

Afterward... his father broke one of his legs.

Once the young man had been confined, his younger brother naturally inherited the position of tribal heir.

Because their father had been one of the chiefs who betrayed the Savage King in the first place.

Now... another mobilization order from Marquis Pingxi Residence had reached the snowfields.

Unlike the previous summons, this one clearly stated the rewards.

Merit would be rewarded.

And those who earned enough merit could receive land inside the passes.

Many tribal chiefs were stunned by that promise.

Back then, when an entire generation of Savages followed the Savage King through the passes, what had they wanted?

Wasn't it land inside the passes?

Besides, Marquis Pingxi Residence had long since established Savage Standard households farming within its territory. Those households were deliberately held up as "models" and "examples." The Residence often assigned them to escort trade caravans onto the snowfields, supposedly as military duty but in truth partly for propaganda.

Those Savage Standard households were quite enthusiastic about it too.

First, everyone enjoyed the satisfaction of showing off.

Second, they genuinely hoped more and more Savages would one day enter the Residence's rule. They might never compare with Yan or Jin people in status, but surely they would no longer have to remain beneath the Barbarians forever?

As a result, many Savages on the snowfields knew perfectly well what kind of lives their "fellow tribesmen" enjoyed inside the passes.

"Savage" was a collective term, but in truth there had never been one unified ethnic identity binding all the tribes together.

So countless Savages on the snowfields dreamed of becoming Standard households under Marquis Pingxi Residence.

As for the nobles of the various tribes... some truly possessed ambition.

Whether or not they had the ability was another matter, but that did not stop them from dreaming of becoming the next Savage King.

Yet plenty of Savage nobles dreamed of something entirely different.

Leave the snowfields.

Go to Fengxin City.

Serve Marquis Pingxi.

Even becoming a wealthy idler there would be more comfortable than living out here.

The market at Snow Sea Pass had long maintained a particular rule for Savage nobles.

First, their wealth was assessed.

Gold and silver counted.

Jewels counted.

Slaves counted.

Sheep and horses counted.

Once a household's assets met the standard, the entire family could relocate into Fengxin City and register as residents.

The Savage King himself had once suggested using trade to bind the snowfields.

But after Marquis Pingxi Residence truly put the method into practice... even Gou Moli had been shocked by how far the Residence pushed it.

In short... driven by both the Residence's club and the profits it promised, another twenty-five thousand Savage cavalry were levied from the snowfields.

Keyan Dongge personally led part of his own force with them, half escorting and half supervising the new levy as they made for Zhennan Pass.

...

"After the war, are we really going to divide land among them?"

Chen Xianba frowned as he looked down at the disorderly column of Savage troops marching below.

He was Yan to the bone.

A genuine Yan man.

And he had inherited the deep-rooted ethnic prejudice of old Yan folk.

Chen Xianba did not mind the Marquis summoning Savages through the passes.

People died in war.

Better Savages die than their own people.

But he also understood that once Marquis Pingxi made a public promise... it would be honored.

Because that was Marquis Pingxi.

His word carried the weight of nine tripods!

Xu An, who like Chen Xianba served among Jin Shuke's personal guards, smiled and pointed south.

"There. Shanggu Commandery south of Zhennan Pass. Plenty of land down there."

Eastern Jin possessed two great strategic passes.

Snow Sea Pass in the north.

Zhennan Pass in the south.

In Xu An's mouth, these Savages would enter through the northern pass... then leave through the southern one to farm.

"Heh. Hahaha."

Chen Xianba immediately felt much better.

He slapped Xu An on the shoulder.

"Exactly! Exactly! Let them go farm Shanggu Commandery! Hahaha!"

Xu An frowned slightly.

Did this brat genuinely have no idea how much strength he used?

"Impudent!"

Jin Shuke's voice came from behind them.

Xu An and Chen Xianba immediately turned and dropped to one knee.

Jin Shuke kicked Xu An squarely in the chest.

Xu An went sprawling.

Chen Xianba, however, was built like a tiger. Jin Shuke kicked him once and the young man merely swayed twice without falling.

So Jin Shuke kicked him three more times.

At last...

Chen Xianba understood.

He fell over.

Jin Shuke exhaled.

He glared at Xu An.

"Got a little brain in your skull and already your tail's pointing at Heaven? What are you feeling so clever about? The battle hasn't even started!"

"This subordinate knows his crime!"

Jin Shuke turned toward Chen Xianba and cursed:

"Don't you know how damned loud your voice is? Afraid everyone nearby won't hear what the two of you are saying? Believe it or not, I'll make you a Dispatch Officer!"

A Dispatch Officer was specifically responsible for carrying the commander's orders between the various army commanders.

Chen Xianba immediately panicked.

He dreamed every night of getting the chance to charge and kill on a battlefield.

How could he possibly accept becoming a full-time runner?

"General, this subordinate was wrong. Please, anything but..."

"Shut up!"

Chen Xianba immediately closed his mouth.

"The Marquis once taught me that before battle, a man must first calm his qi. Look at the two of you. What kind of damned state are you in? If you really want to remain my personal guards for the rest of your lives, fine. When my son grows up, you can become his personal guards too. Two worthless bastards!"

Xu An and Chen Xianba could only lower their heads farther.

Jin Shuke spat onto the ground.

"Get the hell up. Come with me to receive the Marquis."

...

The Gourd Temple had only just been completed... when Marquis Zheng's procession left Fengxin City.

After that... army after army began converging on his standard.

First came three thousand troops from Fengxin City itself, including the Brocade-Clad personal guards.

Then came Liang Cheng's twenty thousand cavalry.

These were troops Liang Cheng had personally trained.

They were already picked soldiers and strong officers to begin with.

Marquis Pingxi Residence had spent the finest equipment, the best treatment, the best raw materials, and mountains of silver and gold on them.

They were elite troops in the most literal sense.

The Savage King's Command contributed five thousand.

More than half were Savage by origin.

Their old core had come from those Savage death-warriors who crawled out of corpse piles after the campaign against Chu.

Afterward, Gou Moli personally drilled them.

Their equipment was inferior to Liang Cheng's force by a fair margin.

But no one could afford to underestimate them.

Ding Hao's Command contributed another five thousand.

Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi each led eight thousand men from their own garrisons.

Add it together... and fifty thousand combat troops had already gathered beneath the commander's banner.

The State of Yan bred horses.

The cavalrymen of the former Three Jin had been famous for a century.

The snowfields produced horses too.

So all fifty thousand troops beneath the commander's banner were cavalry.

And not auxiliary cavalry.

No rabble.

No men included just to fill the count.

Real iron cavalry.

Zu Zhuming, Governor-General of Qian's Three Frontiers and former Eastern Sea Grand Commander, had scraped together Qiang cavalry, pieced together every horse he could obtain, and endured Qian's miserable horse administration just to assemble cavalry on roughly this scale across all Three Frontiers.

Even then, only about half answered directly to him.

The rest sat in the hands of regional commanders, guarded like family treasures.

Marquis Pingxi of eastern Jin... could gather this much cavalry almost casually.

If someone handed such a force to Zu Zhuming, the former Eastern Sea Grand Commander might wake from dreams laughing hard enough to blow bubbles from his nose.

And this still was not everything.

Jin Shuke's Command inside Zhennan Pass could contribute another ten thousand.

Which meant that once Marquis Zheng reached Zhennan Pass... sixty thousand iron cavalry would stand ready to obey his orders.

In addition, ten thousand auxiliary troops had been levied, along with fifty thousand laborers.

Snow Sea Pass and Zhennan Pass would also provide laborers and some auxiliary troops to support the front.

Add in the Savage troops brought through the passes and enough auxiliaries... and Liang Cheng and Jin Shuke could each form the twenty-thousand-man columns required by the original plan.

No matter what... the place where Marquis Zheng personally sat had to retain sixty thousand elite troops.

Because that... was the true decisive point of the entire campaign.

The core of the whole strategy could be summarized in four words:

Tian Ji's Horse-Racing Strategy.

Gou Moli looked around at the forest of banners.

Listened to the thunder of hooves.

Yet felt surprisingly little excitement.

He knew this was not literally everything they possessed.

But they had scraped the barrel so hard they were not far from digging three feet into the ground.

If they won... everything would be easy.

If the campaign went wrong and failed to develop as expected... then all the wealth and strength accumulated through such painful effort might be burned away in a single blaze.

Other men squandered the fields their fathers had built and felt no pain.

His own Master... genuinely did not treat the foundation he had personally created as something precious.

He might not ache over it.

But I, Gou Moli, do...

Marquis Pingxi himself, meanwhile... rode his Pixiu with his heart full of comfort.

They had spent so long quietly farming.

So long quietly developing.

At last... he could drag out his household's foundation and show it off.

Peace beneath Heaven?

The people of two states living and working happily?

War bringing ruin and misery to the common folk?

If a man spent all this time sharpening a blade but never got to draw it and cut someone... of course he'd feel suffocated!

The rise and fall of the realm... what the hell did that have to do with Zheng Fan?

Back when he was seized for corvée labor in Tiger Head City and nearly died in the desert, who saved him?

Liang Cheng and Xue San.

Where the hell had "all living beings beneath Heaven" been then?

Besides... this campaign was different from the trip onto the snowfields.

This time... every Demon King came with him.

Zheng Fan did not bring Tian Tian.

Instead, he instructed the boy to remain home and protect his pregnant Second Mother.

Marquis Zheng also promised the Princess that he would finish the war and return before she gave birth.

Xiong Liqing was, after all, the sort of woman who had fled her own wedding with Marquis Zheng.

At first she had been shocked.

But she adjusted almost immediately.

She did not weep over the fate of her mother country.

Instead, she curiously asked whether her husband could break into Ying Capital again this time.

When Marquis Zheng told her no... the Princess was actually disappointed.

Years ago, the Princess had regarded her Imperial Brother, then the Regent of Great Chu, with a simple and almost innocent admiration.

But marry a chicken and follow the chicken.

Marry a dog and follow the dog.

The thoughts and feelings of youth had long since been carried away along with youth itself.

The matter of the Calling Sparrow Pill had also given her another taste of her Imperial Brother's ruthlessness.

By the same logic... only once Great Chu was truly destroyed could her identity as a former-dynasty Princess and current Lady of Marquis Pingxi Residence be rectified in the fullest sense.

This was a war between her husband and her Imperial Brother.

But it was also... a war between her and her Imperial Brother over which bloodline held true orthodox legitimacy in Chu.

Whichever side won... that bloodline would become the truly noble one.

At last... the army reached the region around Zhennan Pass.

The various formations began making camp.

Supplies had to be counted.

Registers checked.

The clerks were so busy their feet nearly left the ground.

Marquis Pingxi was Prince Jingnan's direct disciple.

Old Tian had practically taken him by the hand and taught him how to wage war.

So whenever Marquis Pingxi served as commander-in-chief, he naturally inherited Prince Jingnan's habit of understanding every fine detail of the army beneath him.

Zheng Fan had already been reviewing military reports throughout the march.

Once the command tent was erected and each unit began submitting its required summaries... the memorials on his command table piled into a small mountain.

And once the command tent stood... the first task was summoning the generals.

The purpose was simple.

Unify their hearts.

Establish the commander's authority.

For Marquis Zheng... it was mostly ceremonial.

Leaving aside the Savage servant troops, there were almost no guest forces in this campaign.

Differences between close and distant.

Direct line and secondary line.

Those certainly existed.

But every army present still belonged beneath Marquis Pingxi Residence.

Every soldier and every commander... belonged to Marquis Zheng.

"WOOOOOO!"

The horns sounded.

Every soldier in the central army snapped upright.

Led by Liang Cheng, the various Garrison Commanders and Guerrilla Generals entered the command tent in ordered ranks.

Once inside, they split to either side and knelt together.

"This general pays respects to the Marquis!"

"This general pays respects to the Marquis!"

Marquis Zheng sat in the commander's seat.

He did not rise to welcome them.

He did not exchange pleasantries.

He simply lifted one hand.

"Rise."

"Thank you, Marquis!"

"Thank you, Marquis!"

Perhaps it was coincidence.

At that exact moment, a personal guard entered to report:

"Marquis, an imperial edict has arrived!"

Before sending troops, Zheng Fan had instructed the Blind Man to submit a memorial to court in the name of Marquis Pingxi Residence.

Given the distance... the reply... no.

The imperial edict had finally caught up.

Marquis Zheng had not arranged the timing.

He himself laughed.

"Aiyo. I'd nearly forgotten about the imperial edict. Heh-heh."

Words of gross insubordination.

No sovereign.

No father.

Disregarding the court.

Arrogant and overbearing.

Showing contempt for the Son of Heaven.

Lawless beyond reason.

The censors at court could probably condemn that one sentence for three days and three nights without repeating themselves.

Yet once Marquis Zheng casually said it... every general in the command tent laughed.

What did "arrogant soldiers and fierce generals" mean?

This.

This was exactly what it meant.

Why had Little Sixth once been willing to pull Zheng Fan by the hand inside the Yanjing palace and let him sit on the Dragon Throne for a moment?

Was he truly that generous?

No.

It was because the man surnamed Zheng possessed the qualification.

And where did that qualification come from?

Not from Marquis Zheng's constant jokes about throwing himself into the jianghu and opening another New Dragon Gate Inn.

It came from right here.

Right now.

From the forest of iron cavalry gathered around this command tent!

No advance request.

I think Chu is worth hitting.

So I hit Chu.

The soldiers are mine.

The grain is mine.

The servant troops are mine to recruit.

The laborers are mine to levy.

I finished every preparation.

The army reached Zhennan Pass.

Only then did the imperial edict arrive.

What did that mean?

It meant that if Marquis Pingxi wanted to hit Chu today... he hit Chu.

If tomorrow he wanted to copy the same pattern, cross Wangjiang, ride west, and attack Yingdu... then he could do that too.

That was confidence.

That was qualification.

From the day Ji Old Sixth became Emperor, Zheng Fan had repeatedly warned himself:

The man is Emperor now.

Do not remain naive enough to think friendship alone can bind an Emperor.

Throughout history, men who carried that kind of innocent belief died miserably.

If you wanted to deal comfortably with an Emperor for a long time... you needed the ability to kick over his Dragon Throne and shake the foundations of his Ji Clan's realm.

The eunuch who entered carrying the edict... was Eunuch Huang.

Yes.

Eunuch Huang again.

Over the past several years, he had practically monopolized every assignment delivering imperial edicts to great commanders in Jin.

Earlier... he delivered them to Prince Jingnan.

Now... he delivered them to Marquis Pingxi.

Eunuch Huang entered the command tent covered in travel dust.

He had ridden at full speed the entire way.

When he reached Fengxin City, he discovered the Marquis had already departed.

So he chased onward to Zhennan Pass.

Fortunately...

Eunuch Huang was used to it.

The eunuch entered holding the imperial edict.

Marquis Zheng still did not rise.

The new sovereign had already granted him countless special favors.

The one he remembered most clearly... was that he no longer needed to kneel even before the Emperor.

Little Sixth had even invented the excuse for him.

Years of campaigning had damaged the Marquis's knees, so His Majesty showed compassion.

An ordinary person given such a privilege would still never dare remain standing.

Marquis Zheng?

He simply disliked kneeling.

And if Marquis Zheng did not rise... none of the generals inside the command tent moved either.

Eunuch Huang stood in the center holding the edict.

For a moment... the awkwardness was so intense his toes were practically clawing grooves through the soles of his boots.

He did not dare become angry.

Precisely because he was a household slave of the Son of Heaven, he understood better than ordinary people the relationship between this Marquis and the new Emperor.

Besides... the stone lions outside the old Marquis Jingnan Residence in Litian City were still standing there.

The man before him truly came from the exact same lineage as Prince Jingnan.

So Eunuch Huang could only look pleadingly toward Marquis Zheng.

Marquis Zheng shook his head.

Then looked down at his generals.

"What are you all standing around for? Receive the edict."

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

The generals first answered their own Marquis in unison.

Only then did they kneel again.

"Long live our Emperor! Long live, long live!"

Marquis Zheng, seated behind the command table... merely leaned back slightly.

"By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees..."

The edict's contents were very official.

First, it condemned the Chu army for provocations, border violations, and slaughtering and abducting Yan civilians.

Naturally... none of that had actually happened.

The Chu had shrunk so badly they were ordering commoners to break ice on the river just to stop Yan cavalry crossings.

They were hardly raiding the border.

But war required a righteous name.

Finally...

His Majesty ordered Zheng Fan, Marquis Pingxi of Great Yan, to raise the royal army and punish the Chu for breaking their alliance and violating the treaty.

Even Eunuch Huang felt awkward by the time he finished reading.

Damn it.

His Majesty's edict authorizing war had not even arrived... and the army was already assembled beneath Zhennan Pass.

But he dared say nothing.

Dared ask nothing.

Once the proclamation was complete, he personally placed the edict on the command table.

"Eunuch Huang has worked hard. Remain with the army for a few days. Serve as army supervisor."

"Thank you, Marquis!"

Eunuch Huang was overjoyed.

This was military merit being handed directly to him.

Wei Zhonghe remained favored.

Eunuch Zhang, who had followed the new Emperor from his princely residence, would inevitably rise in the future too.

But did either of those two possess military merit?

Naturally...

Eunuch Huang would never truly dare supervise this army.

Marquis Zheng did not give some grand speech.

He simply ordered:

"You're all hungry, aren't you? Bring the food."

The meal was wotou.

Because the edict had delayed matters... and because the weather outside was cold and windy... the buns that had carried a little warmth when first prepared were already hard and cold by the time the personal guards brought them inside.

Everyone received a share.

Eunuch Huang too.

Hot water was already boiling in the tent.

Marquis Zheng picked up one wotou and bit off a large mouthful.

Then washed it down with hot water.

Every other general in the tent followed.

No one dared complain the coarse buns tasted terrible or were difficult to swallow.

The scene... felt strangely familiar.

After everyone had eaten two, Marquis Zheng rubbed his chest several times.

"Hard to swallow, isn't it?"

No one answered.

"This Marquis thinks the damned things taste awful too. No point hiding it from you. My stomach's delicate. Tsk, tsk."

"Heh..."

"Heh-heh-heh..."

The generals laughed along with him.

Then... the smile gradually disappeared from Marquis Zheng's face.

The atmosphere inside the command tent changed with it.

Every general... even Eunuch Huang... felt his back tighten.

They straightened unconsciously.

"Eat some coarse grain first. Scrape the oil out of your bellies. Once you reach the battlefield... eat boldly for this Marquis!"

Marquis Zheng rose.

His gaze swept across every general below.

Then he shouted:

"Do you envy Prince Zhenbei Residence's century-old foundation? Do you envy those hereditary household generals and their hundred years of wealth and honor? Then now... the opportunity... is standing right in front of you!"

Marquis Zheng drew Wuya.

He stabbed it directly into the frozen ground before him.

Then roared:

"The century of wealth and honor belonging to Marquis Pingxi Residence... begins with this battle!"

Every man inside the command tent dropped to his knees.

And together they shouted:

"We are willing to die for the Marquis!"

[End of Chapter 773]