Chapter 865: The Oath!

When he was young, Qian's Literary Saint Yao Zizhan wrote many frontier poems. He sang of the bitter cold endured by border garrisons, praised the valor of generals fighting bloody battles, and painted magnificent scenes of war on a vast scale.

But after he himself served as Governor-General of the Three Frontiers, although he still wrote poetry and lyrics often, he never touched the subject of frontier armies again.

The harder something was to look at directly in reality, the more exaggerated its artistic portrayal tended to become, as though people deliberately heaped layer upon layer of thick rouge and powder over it, forcibly covering its original appearance so they could deceive themselves on a spiritual level.

War was exactly like that.

Weapons striking armor and sparks bursting from metal were only the simplest appetizer.

Spraying blood easily made people think of beautiful, dramatic imagery. But when thick pools and clotted heaps of red truly spread out before you, what filled your vision was not red but a heart-stopping black.

Then came the screams and howls, followed by intestines, brains, and all those other things that were normally so precious and difficult to see in daily life, suddenly so abundant here that they had become unsalable goods.

Killing with cold steel was often even more brutal. With almost no effort at all, it could turn a patch of earth into living hell.

The only difference was this:

Inside that hell, were you human... or ghost?

Clearly, beneath the Yan army's brutal, straightforward assault, the Northern Qiang cavalry could no longer hold.

Human and ghost had now been assigned unmistakable roles.

The Northern Qiang instinctively wanted to leave this battlefield and put as much distance as possible between themselves and these Yan men who feared no death.

The terrifying part was that the Yan refused to let them go.

You want to retreat?

That did not mean I would simply exploit the opening, rout you, rein in my horse, and call it finished.

I want to cripple you.

Break you.

Bite you to death!

The morale of the two sides was changing with terrifying speed. Especially when Northern Qiang riders saw Yan soldiers who had already taken several cuts, white bone showing through their wounds, still locking their teeth around a clansman's throat and refusing to let go... they broke.

The Northern Qiang tribes fought one another, and every so often they clashed with Qian. At their strongest, they had established a state for a short period in Qian's northwest, only to be crushed again by Qian troops not long afterward.

Before the Northern Qiang, Qian's armies usually fought from a position of weakness. Repeatedly using the advantage of cavalry to wrestle with a huge state naturally bred a certain arrogance among the Northern Qiang:

The great states of Xia are nothing special.

Unfortunately, for the past century Qian's military strength had itself been the laughingstock of the great states of Xia.

Now the Northern Qiang had run headlong into cavalry of the same type whose military quality was higher than theirs, whose horsemanship and archery were no worse than theirs, whose armor was superior, whose battle experience was richer, and whose morale had been driven into utter disregard for death.

Was it really so difficult to understand why one slap knocked them flat?

Commissioner Mingya stared almost blankly at the battlefield ahead.

He watched the warriors under him flee backward like wailing ghosts.

He watched his formation, like a heap of sand painstakingly piled up only to be kicked apart, begin pouring away.

The Northern Qiang cavalry had originally been divided into two formations. Earlier, they had deliberately separated to open a "road of life" for the Yan.

Now that decision had become the most laughable sort of stupidity: voluntarily dismantling their own formation so the enemy could defeat them in detail.

Commissioner Mingya did not think himself stupid.

Nor did he believe there had been anything wrong with his earlier order.

The reason was simple.

Against an opponent like this... even if he had gathered every soldier together, could he really have stopped them?

In a situation like this, even if the number of warriors under him doubled, could it change the fate of being smashed apart?

If anything... he should be thankful now that he had separated half his warriors from the battlefield early enough to avoid having the entire force overturned in a single blow.

Reinforce them?

How?

Throw the remaining men in too?

Set aside whether his last ten thousand warriors could satisfy the Yan appetite. The losses already visible before his eyes were enough to make Mingya's heart ache so badly he could barely breathe, and they had fundamentally damaged his future position among the Northern Qiang tribes.

Northern Qiang tribal customs were, in truth, very similar to those of the Barbarians.

The biggest fist was king.

The fighting strength of the warriors beneath a chieftain was the foundation of his right to speak.

Most importantly... he, Commissioner Mingya, had only come to beat a side drum for Qian, pick up whatever benefits fell loose, and collect some "promotions and noble rank" on the way so he could compete more effectively for supremacy once he returned to Northern Qiang territory.

He had not come here because:

I am a loyal and righteous servant of Great Qian!

"Withdraw! Withdraw!"

All his earlier self-satisfaction and absolute confidence were shattered in this instant.

Commissioner Mingya gave the order to retreat.

He did not want to fight anymore.

He refused to fight anymore.

If you Yan people want to leave, then leave! Why insist on fighting me to the death here?

A bleak rhinoceros-horn blast sounded across the battlefield.

The moment the Northern Qiang received the retreat order, the final scraps of their willingness to resist vanished. Their last psychological burden disappeared with it.

Everyone began running for his life.

Since ancient times, why had commanders placed such importance on something as seemingly intangible as morale?

Because "fight until the last soldier" happened only under the most extreme circumstances.

Most wars ended with one side collapsing.

By ordinary standards... this should already have been enough.

From ordinary soldiers to the commander himself, the morale of the Northern Qiang cavalry had been smashed. In conventional military terms, the objective had already been achieved.

But for Zheng Fan... it was not enough.

The Northern Qiang cavalry still possessed organized units.

Their chieftains could still restrain their tribes and issue commands.

This rout was only temporary. Under normal circumstances, an army that had just been broken would find it very difficult to shoulder the burden of frontal combat again in the short term.

But...

Qian's promises and rewards... could be enough to make those chieftains take another gamble and cling to him again.

And opponents whose hearts had been broken by a direct beating like this could become even more disgusting afterward.

The next time they saw you, they would be terrified. If you turned around, they might wheel away in fright immediately.

But from your perspective, that only made them harder to shake loose.

The Black Dragon Banner had already been tucked beneath Zheng Fan's arm for some time.

The Pixiu under him needed no instruction.

It understood its master's intent and began to run.

Chen Xianba and Zheng Man followed close behind, each carrying a banner.

A'Ming, the Sword Saint, and Xu Chuang guarded the Prince's flanks.

The Pixiu was itself a totem of Yan.

The royal banner was the highest symbol of Yan's military.

The Black Dragon Banner was the very soul of Yan's armies.

When all these things gathered upon a single person... that person became a god.

No.

Something beyond a god in the religious sense.

He did not strip you of thought and reduce you to blind obedience.

He allowed you to remain awake, to continue thinking, and still choose willingly, rather than obeying with the numb stiffness of a puppet.

The royal banner... raced across the battlefield.

And immediately afterward...

Yan cavalrymen who had just been charging, some already disengaged and others not yet fully free of the fighting, began instinctively regrouping toward that banner.

This order of war had been branded into their bones.

Once, after drinking too much—or perhaps only pretending to be drunk—Gou Moli had sighed over the Battle of Wang River, when he fought Prince Jingnan head-on.

He said he had lost without a single complaint.

At the time, one hundred thousand of Great Yan's finest cavalry had charged once, then in the space of a heartbeat split one formation into ten, instantly stunning the main Savage army around him despite its superior numbers and surging morale.

Later, Gou Moli had still protested that cavalry at this nearly mythical peak looked invincible but came and went in a flash.

If nobody inherited them, there would be no need to wait twenty years. Ten years would be enough for them to fade.

After all, not every household could imitate the old Marquis Zhenbei Residence, sharpening its blade against the neighboring desert Barbarians for a full century.

But for the present... this Jingnan Army still retained the edge and quality it had possessed when Old Tian was here.

Precisely because troops like these were so precious, the destruction of Li Fusheng's entire force in Liang had shaken Yan so deeply.

The royal banner was the vane that guided everything.

Across the battlefield, Yan troops resembled black chess pieces scattered over the ground.

Now, one patch after another, they began moving of their own accord to follow it.

Commissioner Mingya was leading the other half of his force away.

When he glanced back, he saw the Yan banners rising into view behind him.

Then came Yan cavalry.

They seemed incapable of feeling pain.

They seemed incapable of exhaustion.

Nightmares.

Demons.

Every expression Northern Qiang belief possessed for the evil side of existence could now be placed upon these Yan men.

Years ago, during Yan's first invasion of Qian, Qian armies tens of thousands strong had repeatedly collapsed at first contact.

Quite a few Chancellors had sighed at the time:

Even if there were tens of thousands of pigs, surely the Yan couldn't catch them this easily?

In truth, routed soldiers were genuinely easier to catch than routed pigs.

Pigs did not understand orders.

They possessed no organization.

Once scattered and running wildly in every direction, they really were difficult to capture.

People were different.

Even routed soldiers instinctively sought advantage and avoided danger.

They gathered on their own simply to gain the superficial sense of safety that came from "strength in numbers."

They were pigs who voluntarily packed themselves into groups.

It saved an astonishing amount of effort.

And so... the battlefield suddenly took on an extremely bizarre appearance.

The Northern Qiang cavalry had already lost a battle but still possessed superior numbers.

Behind them came only a small knot of men beneath several great banners.

Behind those men came Yan cavalry splattered in blood they had not even had time to wipe away.

Those riders were squeezing every last measure of speed from their exhausted horses, desperately trying to catch up and ride ahead of their own Prince.

Unfortunately... against this group of little brothers who had just fought through a killing charge, the Pixiu's speed was not an empty boast.

The Northern Qiang cavalry ahead were fleeing in a great mass.

That did not make them fast.

Compared with the Yan behind them, who had abandoned all concern for formation and military order and cared only about driving straight forward, they were not even in the same class.

At last...

Zheng Fan and the men around him crashed into the Northern Qiang cavalry.

The violent collision one might have expected never actually occurred.

Both sides were traveling in the same direction, not charging toward one another.

Either the Northern Qiang simply left their backs exposed, or they suddenly realized a rider had appeared beside them and needed a moment to process the fact:

Ah.

You're not one of us.

The Prince did not take the initiative to kill.

Instead, he raised the banner higher.

The Pixiu surged forward with even greater violence, moving so quickly that Chen Xianba and the others could no longer keep up on horseback.

The Sword Saint and Xu Chuang leaped directly from their saddles.

Their figures shot forward, using explosive bursts of blood qi to maintain enough speed to stay near the Prince.

A'Ming's body turned almost ghostlike.

With his left hand, he even seized a piece of the Pixiu's armor and let himself be dragged along for the ride.

There was no helping it.

Their Prince... had gotten carried away!

And when their Prince got carried away like this, the Yan soldiers pursuing from behind became even more wildly excited.

Gradually, pursuers and fugitives began touching, crossing, and blending together.

Under circumstances like these, turning around and fighting for your life was actually the calmest decision.

Better that than taking a saber across the back and dying without even understanding what happened.

The problem was that everyone knew the same thing.

Turning around might preserve a little "personal value," but against the Yan continuously surging in from behind, death would become certain.

Courage had vanished.

The chance of escape still remained.

Together, those two things transformed the Northern Qiang cavalry, who had strutted proudly across Qian's northwest for sixty years, into the most foolish, meek, and obedient lambs awaiting slaughter.

And as the Yan continued driving inward behind their Prince, the interval being cut apart grew wider and wider.

The Northern Qiang formation disintegrated completely in the middle of its retreat.

Commissioner Mingya still had a group of his most trusted warriors nearby.

His tribal battle standard remained raised.

Originally, that banner had been the marker allowing warriors to regroup around their chieftain while moving across a battlefield.

But under the pressure now bearing down on them, Northern Qiang riders repeatedly forced closer began peeling away from their own chieftain instead.

Everyone had realized the Yan objective.

Instinctively, they sought advantage and avoided danger.

That only made the division of the battlefield smoother.

With his inexplicable confidence, and with the Northern Qiang cavalry's equally inexplicable confidence, Commissioner Mingya had forcibly cooperated with Zheng Fan and allowed him to produce the most textbook-perfect example imaginable of cavalry smashing cavalry.

Of course, given Prince Pingxi's present status, this so-called great victory and textbook success did little to add luster to his reputation.

Winning like this was what people expected.

Failing to do so—or winning with obvious flaws—would have been the surprising outcome.

So... while Commissioner Mingya was withdrawing, still "self-righteously" directing his force and glancing backward from time to time, he suddenly discovered in shock:

Why have the warriors behind me become so sparse?

Where are they?

Where did everyone go?

Even more terrifying... the man riding a Pixiu, wearing black armor, carrying the Black Dragon Banner... was this close!

Close enough for both men to catch each other's gaze.

The fear of coming face-to-face with the enemy commander...

No.

With the enemy Prince himself... was enormous.

The people around Zheng Fan knew how cautious he normally was on a battlefield.

Outsiders did not.

And Prince Jingnan had once stood practically at the ceiling of Martial Artist strength, an overwhelmingly powerful man who made Silver-Armored Guards, Phoenix Nest inner guards, and jianghu heroes alike abandon even the thought of assassinating him.

Naturally, outsiders transferred much of that image to Prince Pingxi, Prince Jingnan's final disciple.

This too was part of Old Tian's inheritance.

Nobody was naive enough to believe Prince Jingnan had only taught Prince Pingxi military strategy.

The man had entrusted even his own son to Zheng Fan.

How could he possibly have kept the deepest things at the bottom of his chest to himself?

Besides, there were plenty of legends about "Zheng Fanli" beside Prince Pingxi claiming that the various supposed "Fan Li" identities were, in truth, aliases Prince Pingxi himself had used while wandering the jianghu.

Rumors depended entirely on how you used them.

Everything had two sides.

Prince Pingxi might find his reputation for liking other men's wives troublesome.

But other rumors could make his image tower beyond measure.

At the very least... this Commissioner had absolutely no courage to wheel his horse around and try to capture the enemy king first, much less gamble everything on mutual destruction.

Unfortunately for him... the Pixiu's speed was simply too damned good.

When the distance closed still further, several loyal warriors beside Commissioner Mingya, already resolved to die, turned to block the enemy for their chieftain.

The Pixiu brought its ability to the limit.

It leaped.

Its body actually soared over their heads.

Several more warriors immediately drew bows.

Buzz!

A'Ming shot forward with terrifying speed and took one of the arrows himself.

Then...

Longyuan screamed through the air and cut two Northern Qiang riders drawing their bows from the saddle.

In that brief exchange... the distance between the Prince and Commissioner Mingya became smaller still.

Perhaps... even Zheng Fan himself had never imagined that, after fighting for a while, the battle would somehow turn into this sort of king-versus-king situation.

At first, Zheng Fan had gotten a little carried away.

After that... his Pixiu, finally granted one chance to revel freely in a true battlefield charge, was the one who erupted.

By now, ordering the fool beneath him to slow down would have been inappropriate.

The target... was already before him.

However cautious Zheng Fan might be in ordinary times, he had never hesitated at a genuinely decisive moment.

All he could do was pray silently that the Northern Qiang chieftain ahead was not some great expert.

After their earlier strikes, A'Ming and the Sword Saint had actually fallen behind.

As for Xu Chuang... that fellow had stopped keeping up a long time ago.

Commissioner Mingya, meanwhile, had already been frightened senseless by the Prince Pingxi pursuing him from behind.

He had no thought of turning around and striking back.

All he wanted was to keep running.

There was still an Imperial Guard formation ahead.

They could receive him.

They should be able to stop the Yan.

"ROAR!"

This time the Pixiu truly held nothing back.

A faint blood mist began spraying from its body.

Its blood qi was erupting, forcing another burst of speed from itself.

Every Pixiu carried a dream in its heart.

Zheng's Pixiu had once communicated with its senior—the Pixiu that had carried Prince Jingnan.

Ever since, it too had dreamed of becoming like that member of its kind.

Mountains of blades.

Seas of fire.

Ten thousand soldiers.

A master on its back.

And an unstoppable charge straight through them all!

Unfortunately, it had never gotten the opportunity before.

This time... it intended to seize it.

Zheng Fan felt the mount beneath him accelerate yet again.

He immediately tightened his grip on the banner shaft.

Bang!

The shaft struck like a horse lance and swept Commissioner Mingya straight out of his saddle.

As the Pixiu thundered past, one hoof came down on the fallen man's body.

Bang!

The stomp landed perfectly.

Commissioner Mingya's internal organs ruptured under the force.

Then... the Pixiu whipped its tail, dug its forehooves into the ground, kicked its hindquarters up, and forced itself to a halt so abruptly that Prince Pingxi was almost thrown from its back.

The damned beast still was not satisfied.

Before fully settling itself, it planted its hind hooves, lifted both forelegs, and released a deafening roar.

It even held its upper body suspended in the air for a brief moment... as though deliberately freezing the pose.

Zheng Fan dismounted.

He drew Wuya.

Then walked toward Commissioner Mingya, who lay on the ground unable to move.

"Why... why...?"

"This Prince needs to escape."

"Then... escape... I didn't... stop you... Go... escape..."

Commissioner Mingya sounded profoundly aggrieved.

Even speaking cost him enormous effort, but before dying he seemed desperately determined to express just how unfair this felt.

"This is how this Prince escapes."

It merely differed from the method you had imagined.

Shhk!

Wuya cut into Commissioner Mingya's neck.

The Northern Qiang chieftain, so full of confidence when the Qian summoned him to join the encirclement, had arrived here enjoying the spring breeze of triumph.

Unfortunately, Qian silver and Qian titles were not so easy to collect.

Or perhaps Qian, so accustomed to being the gullible fool in every bargain, had for once made an astonishingly profitable trade.

The Prince lifted Commissioner Mingya's severed head... then planted it atop the banner shaft.

He mounted his Pixiu again.

Not far ahead, a Qian force appeared.

Master Xundao had worried that the Northern Qiang might refuse orders or create some other problem, so he had dispatched an Imperial Guard formation here.

Perhaps even the commander of that Imperial Guard force had never imagined his men would be put to use this quickly and this directly.

Prince Pingxi raised the banner with the severed head upon it.

Then stood there quietly.

All around him, with Commissioner Mingya dead, the Northern Qiang cavalry dissolved completely.

"Brother... send me on..."

The comrade beside him did not weep.

He calmly drove his saber into the wounded man's neck.

"Thanks..."

A strange stillness settled over the battlefield.

There was no time to recover the dead.

Those lightly wounded climbed back onto their horses.

Those too badly wounded to continue... were personally sent on their final road by their own comrades.

Gradually... behind the royal banner... another mass of black-armored cavalry gathered.

The men were exhausted.

The horses were exhausted.

But ahead of them... another enemy army still blocked the road.

There was no time to reorganize.

No space to breathe.

No possibility of slowly entangling with the Qian ahead and probing for weakness.

From behind.

From both flanks.

There was no need even to think about it.

Countless Qian troops were certainly racing toward them with everything they had, trying to close the noose.

Zheng Fan did not count how many riders remained beside him.

He knew that before long... many more would fall.

It was not that counting had become meaningless.

Deep down... he simply could not bear to know.

It might have looked as though he had single-handedly charged in and killed the opposing commander.

In truth, ninety-nine percent of the credit belonged to the Jingnan Army riders who had thrown away all thought of survival and smashed the Northern Qiang cavalry apart first.

He had merely added one tiny flower to the brocade.

And then... without any order from him... squad after squad of Jingnan cavalry deliberately rode around the Prince and formed up once more ahead of him.

They... placed him at the very rear.

As they passed beside him, they stole glances at their Prince.

On their faces were cautious smiles.

Respect.

Reverence.

Awe.

And just a little... pride.

Everything happened in silence.

Yet within that silence lay a weight almost too heavy to bear.

Zheng Fan instinctively wanted to ride to the front.

Then forcibly stopped himself.

For years now, whenever battles began, he had always stayed behind.

He had never hidden his fear of death from the people around him.

But even the most cowardly mouse could have its blood surge hot in a certain atmosphere.

This time... he was being forced to remain behind.

And the reason was simple.

He was afraid... of betraying them.

It was difficult to describe this feeling in words.

This was not a battle fought with the wind at their backs.

Nor was it a grinding struggle or bitter stalemate.

It was a fight for survival against time itself.

And for the overwhelming majority of the men before him... it was a battle to die.

Last night... nearly ten thousand armored soldiers had knelt upon the earth.

They struck their chests and roared:

"We are willing to die for the Prince!"

Now... they continued carrying out that promise with absolute determination.

Yes.

A promise.

...

"This Prince asks you. What do you think of this banner?"

"I like it very much. It's beautiful."

"Count Pingye. Go raise that banner for this Prince."

"Swear an oath."

"The banner in your hands must never change."

"I, Zheng Fan, swear here today: for this entire life, I shall stand beneath no banner but Great Yan's Dragon Banner. If I violate this oath, may Heaven strike me dead and Earth destroy me!"

...

Chen Yuan's face was covered in blood.

In the earlier charge against the Northern Qiang cavalry, half of one arm had been cut away.

Now... with his remaining arm... he raised his horse lance once more.

Then shouted:

"Jingnan Army!"

Every rider struck weapon against armor.

A perfectly ordered metallic clang rang across the battlefield, the harshest sound of killing intent imaginable.

Chen Yuan roared again:

"Clear a path for the Prince!"

"Tiger!"

"Tiger!"

"Tiger!"

[End of Chapter 865]