Chapter 963: National War (I)

The “meeting” across the ravine ended.

And with it ended the tacit understanding both sides had, to one degree or another, knowingly maintained throughout this period.

That very night, Gou Moli issued military orders. The entire army prepared through the night. At the same time, after so many days of living on “food handed out in contempt,” the supply road from Fan City finally began sending grain forward.

At dawn the next morning, more than thirty thousand Savage soldiers formed the main body of the central army, joined by over ten thousand miscellaneous troops assembled from various Chu local forces—some coerced, others bought over long ago. Altogether, even counting generously, they numbered only around fifty thousand.

Publicly, however, they flew banners proclaiming an army of one hundred thousand.

After resting in place for a full month, the army finally set out again and advanced toward Guyue City.

Five days later, the vanguard scouts from Fan City appeared twenty li north of Guyue City.

The defenders of Guyue City did not simply shut themselves behind the walls.

Quite the opposite.

They immediately began aggressively engaging Fan City’s scouts in a series of small clashes.

There had never been any question about the combat strength of the private armies belonging to Great Chu’s true noble houses.

Whether one spoke of the Azure Luan Army of years past or the Dugu Army, each had been an elite force of the first rank.

The Xie Clan Army was no different.

As a result, Fan City gained no clear advantage in the scout-cavalry contest.

Worse still, there were occasions when Xie Clan scouts not only broke through Fan City’s reconnaissance screen but continued riding north until they appeared within sight of Fan City’s central army.

For the Yan army, this was nothing short of humiliation.

Relying on superior cavalry to suppress an opponent’s battlefield vision had practically become second nature to Yan forces. Unless special terrain interfered, whichever side possessed the stronger cavalry usually controlled reconnaissance and the battlefield’s field of view.

Yet now they were the ones being pushed back.

This was, admittedly, a Savage army.

But precisely because it was the eastern Jin military system’s most heavily Savage force, its soldiers were even more desperate to prove themselves, win greater recognition, and climb to higher status.

Gou Moli, commander of the Fan City Army, personally took up a whip and flogged three Scout Commandants.

He stripped them of rank on the spot and kicked them straight into the Assault Camp—the death-squad unit.

In earlier years, any properly organized Yan military garrison had possessed such a unit.

Eastern Jin had inherited the same standard arrangement.

Afterward, Gou Moli repeatedly issued orders, sending general after general under his command forward with troops and demanding absolute control over the surrounding battlefield.

This time, however, the Chu displayed a completely different attitude from before.

They had refused to yield an inch even during the earlier small-scale clashes.

When the fighting escalated, they answered in kind.

Large numbers of Chu troops split into multiple columns and entered the region to contest and confront the Savage army directly.

In three days, the two sides fought no fewer than ten encounters involving more than two hundred men each.

If the situation escalated any further, it would become a full-scale field battle.

At that point, the Savage army would not need to attack Guyue City at all.

They could simply settle the strategic contest for this entire region against the Chu army in advance.

...

Inside the command tent, subordinates kept arriving to report the latest military developments.

Gou Moli sat in the commander’s seat with one leg crossed over the other, swinging it idly as he listened, utterly at ease.

The Sword Saint had not returned to report.

He had remained here.

That too had been Zheng Fan’s instruction.

For the habitually death-fearing Regent Prince to willingly send away the strongest sword at his own side was enough to show just how important Gou Moli’s front was to the entire national war.

The Sword Saint had spent all this time sitting inside the command tent.

Even though he frequently dozed off, he had still heard enough to understand most of the battlefield situation ahead.

Besides, after joining that man surnamed Zheng on campaign after campaign over the years, the Sword Saint’s military understanding had naturally improved.

Even he could tell there was something strange about the fighting ahead.

Ever since the Three-State War ended, the pattern had been fixed:

Yan strong.

Qian and Chu weak.

Five years of recovery and development had passed, and now Great Yan had come crashing down with the weight of ten thousand jun.

The wisest choice for Chu was contraction and defense.

In fact, that was exactly what the Chu had done.

South of the Wei River, eastern Jin’s main army stood in overwhelming force.

The main body of Chu’s imperial-clan Imperial Guards had gone fully onto the defensive.

Yet here, on this smaller western battlefield, the Chu were displaying an entirely abnormal spirit of aggression.

They yielded not one inch of ground.

They did not even want to lose the slightest momentum.

After hearing yet another report, Gou Moli opened his eyes and glanced at the Sword Saint sitting nearby.

Something suddenly occurred to him.

He smiled.

“Old Brother, do you remember when I was imprisoned in the dungeon at Snow Sea Pass? Back then, you often came to see me. Those visits were some of the few times I got to see sunlight again.”

The Sword Saint said:

“That man surnamed Zheng once said that when someone suddenly starts enjoying memories of the past, it proves he is about to die.”

Gou Moli laughed.

“That’s what makes our Prince so interesting. He has always given me the impression that he fears neither Heaven nor Earth, that ghosts, gods, imperial authority—all of it is bullshit. Yet sometimes he has all these strange little... taboos. He is not afraid of wolves, jackals, tigers, or leopards, but a jumping cockroach scares him. Perhaps that is simply life.”

He ended the reflection quickly and continued:

“Do you remember what I told you then? I said I had a dream. In that dream, you and I stood together facing thousands upon thousands of troops. Do you remember?”

The Sword Saint said nothing.

“Do you believe me? Some things are actually decided very early. Back when I was mixed in among the Savage prisoners, the reason I dared announce who I was was because I had already seen the shadow of the future.”

“You believe in the stars now too?”

“No, no. It was because I could tell that the General of Shengle at the time had ambition—real ambition. And the road he was walking was completely different from anyone else’s. When I told him I was the Savage King and he did not kill me immediately, I knew there would come a day when I sat in a commander’s seat again. And you were recovering from your wounds then, bored out of your mind, so you had my cage dragged outside to talk with me. Hahaha. I know you hated me to the bone and wanted to look at how miserable I had become for entertainment. But do you know what I thought while sitting in that cage? I knew there would be a day when you stood beside me, and you would even have to use your sword to protect my life. I’m not bragging, and I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m merely stating a fact.”

That final sentence alone showed Gou Moli still feared the Sword Saint.

He was genuinely worried he might run his mouth too far and receive one clean stroke of sword qi in response.

The two people sleeping beneath his blankets certainly would not be able to stop the Sword Saint.

More importantly, Gou Moli understood that after spending so long beside “Master,” the Sword Saint’s temper had inevitably been influenced.

Anyone who flaunted himself in front of Master would first receive a faint smile.

Then Master would turn around and smash him to death no matter the cost.

The Sword Saint asked:

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

“The road can actually be seen long in advance. But even when you can see it, you still have to keep walking it. You knew you would change. I knew I would change. But in the end, whether you knew or not, you still had to walk from one end of the village to the other. That was true for us. And across from us... it is true for them too. That is what makes this battle comfortable.”

“Comfortable?”

“Yes. Very comfortable.”

Gou Moli called out:

“Men.”

Two personal guards entered the command tent.

“Pass down the order. Move the central army forward thirty li!”

Moving the central army thirty li forward meant pressing directly against Guyue City.

It was also forcing Chu to make a decision.

Either withdraw behind the walls... or fight a decisive battle.

The entire camp came alive under a single order from the commander.

Gou Moli and the Sword Saint walked out of the command tent together and looked up.

The sunlight was excellent.

“I remember the Prince once saying that if a butterfly flaps its wings over the Pacific Ocean, then one or two years later the snowfields might suffer a great blizzard because of it. Though I still have no idea which sea this so-called Pacific Ocean is.”

The Sword Saint said:

“Once he conquers Qian, he can simply rename the Eastern Sea. That is how Mount Tai came into being.”

“Hahahahaha! Exactly. That proves our Prince has ravines in his chest and lays plans far ahead. But I understand what that saying means. South of us lies Guyue City. Capture it—or bypass it—and we can strangle the channel through which Qian transfuses blood into Chu. It is important, but not especially important. Because even if we break through, even if we enter what the Chu call the ‘Chu South’—the old Shanyue lands—my troops can do little except circle endlessly through those mountains, rivers, and marshes. We simply cannot stir up much of a wave there. So the true battlefield remains on our Prince’s side. That is the main theater of this national war. That is where the fate of the two states will be decided. But... right now, I, Gou Moli, am that little butterfly. If I flap my wings here... perhaps a wind will rise over there.”

At that moment, the personal guards had already begun dismantling the command tent and packing everything for movement.

Gou Moli saw one guard carrying the small purple chest he had brought and immediately warned:

“Careful. Handle that one gently.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

The Sword Saint asked:

“What is in there that you treasure it so much?”

“Curious?”

Gou Moli clapped his hands and motioned for the guard to bring over the little chest.

He accepted it and opened the lid.

Inside was a doll.

Gou Moli lifted it out.

Inside was another identical doll, only smaller.

He opened that one.

There was another smaller doll inside.

Then another.

He removed one after another, each smaller than the last, with still another waiting beneath.

“Her Highness the Princess’s favorite toy.”

Gou Moli nested the porcelain dolls back inside one another by size.

“Quite amusing.”

...

Once the Savage army showed the posture of pushing its central army forward, the Chu finally stopped stubbornly resisting and began withdrawing.

The moment they withdrew, the Savage army filled the space rapidly and seized control of the region.

The following day, the army established a new camp.

The Chu attempted a surprise attack during the process, but were repelled.

Two more days passed.

At last, the situation became clear.

The Savage army adopted a posture of “preparing to besiege the city.”

The Chu finally contracted all their strength behind Guyue City.

Attacker and defender had both taken their appointed positions.

The greater current had smoothed away every stray noise.

Yet outside Guyue City’s walls, the Chu had also constructed many military stockades to supplement the fortifications, creating a complete defensive system.

Everything seemed almost identical to what Nian Yao had once built north of Zhennan Pass.

So in the days that followed, the Savage army focused on attacking the military stockades surrounding Guyue City.

The fighting did not progress particularly smoothly.

But neither was it especially difficult.

Both sides paid casualty levels they considered acceptable.

Both attacker and defender also found the speed of advance and retreat acceptable.

In short... the atmosphere on this battlefield was almost too... reasonable.

So reasonable that it made people forget the names of the commanders on either side.

One had once been the Savage King, whose name shook the lands of the Three Jins.

The other was Great Chu’s sole surviving Pillar of State.

It was as though two saints of Go had sat down opposite one another.

Everyone around them had expected a brilliant contest, a divine move.

None appeared.

Instead, they looked like two beginners following a manual, placing one dull stone after another exactly as instructed.

And like that... another half month passed.

The Savage army had cleared away nearly half of the military stockades surrounding Guyue City.

At the same time, they began constructing siege engines, preparing to attack the city itself once the outer defenses had been removed.

On Guyue City’s side, Chu forces began moving with increasingly high frequency.

Clearly... the Chu did not believe the Savage army truly intended to attack the city next.

They feared Gou Moli would feint once, then suddenly bypass Guyue City and thrust south.

...

Xie Zhuyang sat atop the city wall drinking tea.

The two women—one grown, one young—stood beside him.

“Are the two of you planning to remain here the entire time?” Xie Zhuyang asked with a smile.

The little girl asked back:

“Should I leave, then?”

“Haven’t you two always wanted to find my son? You can go to him. With the two of you beside him, this father would feel considerably more at ease.”

“And if we go to him, and he sends us back here to protect his old father?”

Xie Zhuyang smiled benevolently.

“Relax. My son is not that filial.”

“We want to stay here and keep watching,” the little girl said.

“Very well.”

Xie Zhuyang did not care.

“You should be from some kind of sect, correct?”

“More or less.”

“There should be quite a few experts in your sect?”

“More or less.”

Xie Zhuyang nodded.

“A pity. In the end, the great momentum beneath Heaven cannot be decided by a tiny handful of so-called experts.”

The little girl did not argue.

She nodded too.

“More or less.”

The woman reached over to check the girl’s mouth.

The little girl dodged her.

“My mouth hasn’t stiffened.”

At that moment, Xie Zhuyang poured the tea in his cup over the side of the wall.

He said slowly:

“It is time.”

...

Inside the Savage army’s command tent, Gou Moli had just lined up the nested porcelain dolls from largest to smallest.

The Sword Saint said:

“I think that if he learns you collected his daughter’s toys, your end will be miserable.”

The Sword Saint still remembered how deranged Gou Moli had been years ago over that embroidered shoe.

“Hey.”

Gou Moli laughed.

“The Prince gave this to me. I did not secretly hide it away.”

At that moment... a continuous stream of urgent military reports arrived.

It was like a pot of water reaching the boil in an instant.

“REPORT!”

“Marshal! The rear reports that our army’s grain route has been cut!”

“REPORT!”

“Marshal! Chu troops have appeared directly east of us!”

“Marshal! Chu troops have appeared directly west of us!”

“REPORT—!”

Urgent military intelligence crashed toward him one report after another, practically striking him in the face.

Gou Moli behaved as though he had heard none of it.

His expression did not change in the slightest.

Instead... every time one report arrived... he nested one porcelain doll back inside another.

By nightfall, every doll had been packed away.

Outside... the military situation still burned like fire.

Gou Moli placed the complete set of nested dolls atop his head and carefully balanced them.

Then... he clapped both hands.

“Pa!”

And laughed.

“Fun.”

[End of Chapter 963]