Chapter 20: Chapter Nineteen: Fight! Survive! The Path of the Rebels

Vast earth, a hell on earth.

The empire has now lost both the Rhine and the Danube—nearly all defense lines along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers are gone.

“The empire’s remaining main forces are pinned down by the Huns.”

“The Germanic tribes of Greater Germania have crossed the Rhine, seized Upper and Lower Germania, and now press deep into Gaul’s heartland—they have utterly lost control of what would later become France.”

At the fork ahead, a row of wooden stakes was driven into the ground.

Far off, crows pecked at flesh, flies swarmed the air—all were severed heads, roughly hundreds in number, their faces long unrecognizable. The features suggested slaves and serfs; over the years, internal rebellions had plagued the empire, and after its finances collapsed entirely, the ruling class further oppressed the common people, driving slaves and serfs everywhere to rise in revolt.

Aemilius, the Roman Protector of the State, was a valiant and battle-hardened general, but he possessed little talent for governance, spending his years always on the frontier battlefields.

If history did not deviate too drastically, he would be murdered by the emperor within a few years.

Rows of heads were impaled.

These heads were nailed to both sides of the road like lanterns—one per meter—for over two hundred meters long. This was the cruel punishment left over from Spartacus’s rebellion. The Romans had always treated slaves brutally; rebels were executed, and after Spartacus’s defeat, the roads from Rome to Capua were lined with crucified slaves—some six thousand nailed to crosses.

Over four hundred heads in total—enough to build a kenguan mound. Looking at these lifeless, unblinking skulls, Deng Ken finally felt the true cruelty of this age.

The barbarian invasions came to seize gold, land, and people—the lowliest commoners lived worse than pigs and dogs.

They died if they rebelled; they died if they didn’t.

“It was the Burgundian slave uprising.”

Beside him, Aniya seemed to know more; she whispered: “The Burgundians have rebelled again, dragging along countless slaves and serfs.”

“Though Aemilius crushed them once, many rebel slaves escaped to other regions.”

“They secretly incite rebellions among slaves on large estates; once discovered, they are wiped out and executed, their heads nailed to the roadside as warnings.”

The massacre that crushed the Burgundians was the prototype for the Germanic epic, The Song of the Nibelungs.

Aemilius had once been close to Attila, the Hun Emperor; as a youth, he had been held hostage at the Hun court—somewhat like Guo Jing and Torre in a novel. Eventually, with Hun aid, he forced the Western Empire to restore his authority and became its supreme commander.

This period of history resembled the Southern Song and the Mongols, for Aemilius had relied heavily on Hun mercenaries in many battles. (The Huns were a loose confederation; defeated tribes fled into the empire, and even today, many Hun mercenaries still served noble Roman families.)

Most intriguingly, after Aemilius was murdered, it was his two Hun friends who avenged him—they assassinated Valentinian III during the emperor’s troop inspection.

Not a single soldier in the camp moved forward; they watched as the emperor was stabbed to death on the spot.

He who commands the strongest army becomes Augustus!

Though Aniya was a two-star blank, from her words Deng Ken gained deeper insight into the empire’s condition and understood clearly where the rebellions in Gaul were rooted.

The Bagaudae movement.

The empire’s centuries-long rebellions began in the 260s AD, shattering Roman rule in Gaul, suppressed in the 280s, then resurged in the fifth century, delivering a crushing blow to the Roman Empire.

Their uprisings dwarfed even Spartacus’s; had it not been for Aemilius, the empire’s last great general, suppressing them, they might have toppled all of Gaul.

These rebels were the empire’s lowest, most marginalized outcasts, hiding in the forests of Gaul—never fully eradicated to this day.

The group pressed northward.

As if sensing Deng Ken’s interest, the witch Aniya elaborated: “Three years ago, Aemilius crushed the Bagaudae of Armorica.”

“They say he slaughtered tens of thousands.”

“He shattered the rebel army’s main force and brought all of Gaul back under imperial rule.”

“But soon, due to the corruption of Roman bureaucrats, vast numbers fled again—and these rebels once more became wandering Bagaudae.”

Rebels?

Recruits!?

After listening carefully to Aniya’s account, the word instantly flashed in Deng Ken’s mind.

Yes—recruits.

The empire’s rebels.

Those oppressed, powerless outcasts, forced to hide in dense forests—these rebels were among the very best recruits Deng Ken could find.

“The imperial camp offers only two choices.”

“One is Protector Aemilius; the other is the incompetent emperor Valentinian III.”

“I want no part of either.”

“Aemilius may be a famed general in history, but he is ultimately just a brute. His conflict with the emperor has grown irreconcilable.”

“The future predicted by causal logic, version one.”

“The human vessel, adopted son of the Aemilius family, was grievously wounded on the battlefield and died under barbarian siege.”

“There were surely political struggles within the empire behind it.”

“The empire is beyond saving.”

“Joining it would be like stepping into a cesspool—you’d never be able to wield real power.”

Deng Ken’s thoughts grew clearer.

“The Hun Empire is out of the question—nomads depend entirely on their leader; once Attila dies, they collapse instantly.”

“And their ruling class is mostly Hun.”

“The barbarian tribes and the Visigothic Kingdom won’t work either—they rarely elevate outsiders.”

“The British Isles.”

“The most important factions are the Celts and the Saxons.”

“The Celts have their own kingdoms and tribal chieftains; even if I helped them, I might not secure a solid foundation.”

“Then where will my base come from?”

An outsider.

Where would Deng Ken recruit his base?

He certainly wouldn’t swear loyalty to any king, chieftain, or lord—he’d settle for being a mercenary at best. In this age of rebellion from below, it was better to build his own power from scratch.

The Bagaudae!

At Aniya’s unexpected reminder, Deng Ken quickly identified a unique group.

—The empire’s rebels.

As early as the late second century AD, Roman society and economy had fallen into severe crisis.

Having long monopolized the vast resources of the Mediterranean world, the empire’s core population decayed rapidly. Whether citizens enjoying bread in cities or retired soldiers receiving pensions and land, all consumed resources at breakneck speed.

Had it not been for the efficient Mediterranean shipping and relatively effective Roman administration, this collapse might have occurred in the empire’s early days.

But as wealth inequality widened, the proportion of destitute people surged geometrically.

Yet the empire’s welfare system could not reach every corner—especially in the western provinces lacking major cities, where plantations and farmsteads often overlooked countless marginalized souls crushed under burdens.

Local economies, heavily reliant on slave labor, further collapsed.

Thus, vast numbers of displaced people drifted along the margins of mainstream society, gradually forming independent, large-scale groups.

The Romans called these outcasts Bagaudae.

The word originally meant “warrior” in Gallic dialect.

This group later swelled with bankrupt farmers, debt slaves, criminals, deserters, and more.

Around the third century, the secretive Bagaudae found new opportunities for expansion.

Due to wars with Parthia in the east and barbarian invasions from the north, Roman military manpower became critically insufficient. Emperor Marcus Aurelius massively expanded the army, conscripting gladiators, slaves, and bandits alike.

But they could not endure the brutal training or the officers’ discriminatory abuse; they constantly escaped to nearby Bagaudae territories.

This was the foundational force behind the first uprising.

The inclusion of gladiators gave them formidable combat power, transforming the empire’s marginalized outcasts into organized rebel forces. (Note: This resembles Spartacus’s rebellion, where gladiators played a pivotal role.)

Eventually, they erupted in a massive uprising.

For a long time afterward, the Bagaudae were repeatedly suppressed, rebelled again, fled, plundered and slaughtered imperial nobles when successful, and retreated into remote forests to disperse when defeated.

Until three years ago, when Aemilius crushed them with a massacre of tens of thousands.

Thinking of this, Deng Ken nearly wanted to lift Aniya up in triumph.

He had never known where his base lay—joining the empire meant clinging to someone else’s leg, having no army of his own, vulnerable to political intrigue. Joining any other faction still meant low status; in this shattered world, without your own army, you had zero security.

But where would an army come from?

Where would recruits come from?

Reality wasn’t a game—you couldn’t just ride past a village and recruit a few troops, then a city and recruit a few more.

Everything pointed to four characters: 【Imperial Rebels】!

The empire’s most marginalized outcasts—varied Jianmin : Gauls, Celts, Franks, Romans, Germanic barbarians—all born as farmers, slaves, bankrupts, herders, criminals, deserters.

These were true imperial outcasts!

The lowest of the low.

Most had no identity at all; only when driven to rebellion by desperation did they gain the label “rebel.”

These were the easiest recruits Deng Ken could ever find.

What empire? What barbarians? What Huns?

Right now, only the rebels offered him the best chance to rise swiftly.

………………

“Something ahead!”

A crow’s screech rang through the air; the Crow Queen Tris instantly reined her horse, turning to Deng Ken.

Unconsciously, Deng Ken had become the leader of this group.

The witch’s reconnaissance range was greater; Tris could influence birds and beasts, but she could only detect major events—such as battles involving hundreds, or large concentrations of corpses. Small-scale raids or bandit attacks were nearly impossible for her to foresee.

Deng Ken instantly seized his Northern War Bow and focused his mind into the dimensional space.

From God’s-eye view.

About ten kilometers ahead, two armies were fighting on either side of a forest road.

Strictly speaking, neither could be called an army.

One force included farmers and herders wielding manure forks; their equipment was extremely crude. Of several hundred men, fewer than a third carried weapons that looked even remotely decent, and most had no armor—only a few wore simple leather hides, and those few who appeared to be leaders donned tattered Roman frontier legionary scale armor.

The other force was well-equipped, dressed similarly to Roman field armies, but clearly private troops—likely imperial mercenaries. Their weapons and armor approached standard military issue, and they carried bows and short crossbows, holding off nearly ten times their number.

Of course, most of the enemy were farmers, serfs, and slaves; had they faced a proper regular army of this scale, they would have been crushed long ago.

——Bagaudae [The Exiled][The Rebels]!

——Imperial Private Forces (Estate Guards)(Foreign Barbarian Mercenaries)(Private Knights)!

The strength disparity between the two sides was enormous.

Corpses of the rebels littered both sides of the road; they could not break through the wagon barricade ahead. Dozens of bodies lined the path, and many wounded men, pierced by arrows, screamed in agony. They had launched several assaults, each repelled, their morale clearly shattered, yet they refused to retreat—many stared fixedly at the food and supplies on the wagons.

These rebels looked yellow and emaciated, as if long-starved; only a few dozen were truly capable fighters, the rest were mere cannon fodder.

The Empire called these wretches Bagaudae; they called themselves “The Exiled.”

Meaning those with no land, no home, no property.

They were true bankrupts.

For centuries, the Empire had crushed countless rebellions, yet they never ceased—because the Empire’s lower classes continuously sank into bankruptcy. Its exploitation of the people was endless; years of war further drained them to the bone, leaving the bankrupt with only two paths.

One: to become slaves or serfs.

The other: to become the Exiled, fleeing westward, becoming outcasts beyond the reach of civilization.

As long as the Empire endured, the wretched would keep turning into “The Exiled.”

Deng Ken was, in fact, an exile himself.

His border village, Bran, was slaughtered by fleeing soldiers; he fled to Gaul, with no land, no home, no place to call his own—a true refugee, barely short of raising a rebellion.

But he had cheats on his side, immense martial strength, and carved out a bloody path by force.

Other exiles were not so lucky. They joined the rebels, only to be crushed and slaughtered years ago by Aetius, the Roman Protector of the State; the survivors fled further west. Had the Hun Empire not launched its massive invasion, they would still be hunted down by barbarian mercenary bands.

These exiles were utterly scattered. Some fled into deep forests and became bandits; others retained rebel formations, building fortified camps deep in the woods, emerging only when starvation drove them to raid.

Perhaps due to the legacy of Spartacus’s rebellion, these exiles, after plundering noble estates, sometimes gave alms to the poor—so serfs and slaves beneath them secretly supported them, even supplying intelligence.

Their early slogan was: “Make the slave-masters into slaves.” They were crushed and slaughtered repeatedly.

“Qi Huo Army!”

“These people are born Qi Huo Army!”

Deng Ken thought of an army from the era of the Five Barbarians’ Rebellion in Central China.

They were people clinging to life in the cracks.

Deng Ken watched those yellow, emaciated exiles—overwhelmed in every way: equipment, weapons, military discipline, physical condition—charge forward again and again, leaving behind dozens of corpses, retreating briefly to regroup, then charging again, leaving even more bodies.

They could never break the wagon line, yet they refused to retreat.

These people only wanted to live—only to survive!

They faced a brutal age, no less cruel than the Five Barbarians’ Rebellion in Central China; the wretched had no choice: submit and be ground to death by the Empire, or rebel and be crushed as traitors.

If death was certain either way, better to rise in glorious rebellion!

That was how the Exiled Rebel force came to be.

Deng Ken knew exactly what he must do next.

His troop strength depended only on how corrupt the Empire was, and how many were driven to the brink of death.

Whether he rooted himself in the British Isles (as an immigrant) or rebelled in the Empire’s western lands, he needed these people—those who fought only to survive!

In this chaotic age, where human lives were worth less than grass.

Only the “Qi Huo Army” would truly pledge loyalty to him—a foreigner of lowly birth, risen from obscurity.

To hell with the Empire—I’m starting my rise with rebels.

………………

[Note 1: The Exiled Rebels—wretched lower classes of the Empire’s western frontier, who rebel when survival becomes impossible. Facing imperial oppression, barbarian invasions, and Hun threats, they are disorganized, undisciplined, poorly equipped, mostly peasants, serfs, and slaves—but easiest to recruit. Give them a chance to live, give them a meal, and they’ll follow.]

[Note 2: These exiles were a mixed multitude, vast in number, eventually absorbed by the Franks, fueling the rise of the Frankish Kingdom and supplying abundant young labor and soldiers.]

[Note 3: One branch of causal divergence: the Human Body becoming Aetius’s adopted son stems from Rome’s tradition of adoption—effectively replacing identity, shedding lowly origins. When the Emperor lacked suitable heirs, he adopted successors. Of Rome’s first seventeen emperors, seven were adopted.]

Noble families did the same: if lacking male heirs or if offspring proved unworthy, they would adopt a son (often marrying a daughter to him) to inherit power, status, and political legacy. Adopted sons held legal inheritance rights.

In imperial tradition,

once a person was adopted into a family, regardless of prior status (barbarian or wretch), their new identity matched that of their adoptive family.

These adopted sons received treatment no different from biological children.

Noble adoptions typically involved marrying a female relative to the adoptee; the adopted son took the family name, inherited its political legacy, and was socially and legally recognized.

In that branch, the Human Body’s death meant one of Protector Aetius’s legitimate heirs had died on the battlefield.

Deng Ken initially did not realize how high an adopted son’s status was; only later did he understand that an adopted son’s death was nearly equivalent to a biological son’s.

Because imperial nobles only adopted outstanding young talents as heirs.

Furthermore, Roman adoption of heirs was always of adult men. Trajan was adopted at 45, named heir, and expanded Rome to its greatest territorial extent.

In later imperial times, adoption resembled Ding Yuan adopting Lu Bu as a foster son—more politically motivated, yet the adopted son’s status remained high.