Chapter 73

Early the next morning, Zhang Chu’an and Zhang Xiaofan departed.

Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang were also busy; Nie Huaishang went to investigate Temujin’s Kiyat tribe to see if he had absolute certainty of killing Temujin.

If Nie Huaishang lacked absolute certainty, he would never strike—after all, this world had the protagonist’s aura; Yang Guo and Guo Jing, both martial heroes, had each encountered miraculous fortune—could Temujin, the protagonist of this era, possibly escape death at a critical moment without someone saving him?

As for Guo Jing, he set out to find a tribe suitable for establishing a revolutionary base; after nearly half a month of searching and identifying several potential locations, he met Nie Huaishang at the designated spot.

Watching Nie Huaishang arrive, panting from afar, Guo Jing handed him prepared water and food and asked, “You were just scouting Temujin’s situation—why the rush?”

Nie Huaishang gulped down a large drink of water and waved his hands frantically. “You don’t understand—I just witnessed a historic moment.”

“What historic moment?” Guo Jing asked, puzzled.

“Temujin and his sworn brother Jamukha have gone to war—Jamukha, allied with thirteen tribes including the Taidi’u, raised thirty thousand troops to attack Temujin, and Temujin mobilized thirty thousand as well.” Nie Huaishang’s words instantly sparked Guo Jing’s interest.

After all, this was Temujin’s first command of such a large-scale campaign—through it, Guo Jing could gauge Temujin’s tactical genius.

Under Nie Huaishang’s narration, the great battle took shape in his mind: Temujin ordered his entire army to form thirteen guruls, with all movements centered on his white banner, advancing and retreating in unison, no one acting independently.

Then Jamukha’s forces arrived like a whirlwind; both sides formed battle lines. After a night of preparation, Jamukha’s attacks were dense, methodical, and disciplined, while Temujin’s troops, lacking coordinated training, were outmatched. Though their numbers were equal, Temujin’s forces constantly found themselves outnumbered on every front.

As each gurul suffered varying degrees of devastation, the white banner began slowly retreating. The horn sounded—the retreat order was given—and miraculously, morale surged back; the troops moved with renewed vigor.

After the entire army withdrew into the Zhele Valley entrance, Temujin’s intact forces fortified the valley mouth, blocking it completely with trees felled by civilians who had retreated earlier, forming a defensive barrier. He ordered the more heavily damaged units to rest and reorganize on the spot. The elderly, weak, and women of the tribe were mobilized to treat wounded soldiers.

The swampy terrain slowed Jamukha’s pursuit, giving Temujin’s forces time to prepare. When Jamukha’s troops reached the valley mouth, they met fierce resistance and could not advance an inch. When Jamukha’s main force arrived, they attacked for several more days—but due to the narrow valley entrance, they could never deploy fully; each charge ended with piles of corpses on the slope before the valley, and no gains.

“Temujin, you coward! If you have guts, come out and fight me with real swords and spears! Why hide like a newborn lamb too scared to bleat?” Jamukha’s troops shouted at the valley mouth.

“If you’re brave, come attack us! Jamukha loves to attack—did his horse’s hooves get tangled in his wife’s belt?” Temujin’s troops retorted.

The two sides traded insults for half a day until sunset, when the shouting ceased. Jamukha saw this tactic failed, so the next day he resumed attacking the valley. Unfortunately, for the Mongols, who were unskilled in siege warfare, crossing that valley mouth was harder than climbing to heaven.

When the stalemate reached the third day, Jamukha’s troops set up seventy large cauldrons on the open ground before the valley mouth, throwing all prisoners captured in recent battles into them and boiling them alive into meat paste, then publicly feasting on them. They also dragged the captured chief of the Nio’udai tribe, Chaghan Uga, to the front and beheaded him, tying his head to the end of Jamukha’s horse’s tail and dragging it back and forth until it was unrecognizable.

But this act did not terrify Temujin’s troops—it enraged them. United in fury, they fought even harder.

After the failure of all tactics—direct assaults, insults, and terror—Jamukha’s forces could only retreat reluctantly.

“Well?” Nie Huaishang asked eagerly after vividly recounting the battle.

Guo Jing thought for a moment and said, “I’m now curious how Temujin ever saw Jamukha as a brother.”

“Hey, Jamukha won this battle—why judge him so harshly?” Nie Huaishang teased.

“Won? Where did he win? Temujin’s core strength remains untouched; the losses were all those who refused to follow him. Jamukha just cleared Temujin’s rivals for him.”

“Besides, Jamukha’s act of boiling men told the world two things: First, he told his own men—if you defy me, I’ll boil you alive. That’ll make them obedient—or flee. But the steppe isn’t short of tribes; life goes on without Jamukha.”

“Second, he told his enemies—if you oppose me, I’ll boil you alive. But this clearly makes enemies fight to the death rather than surrender. Worse, Jamukha lacks the strength to crush them outright. I can’t see the point—it feels like a child throwing a tantrum.”

Guo Jing shook his head quickly. In his view, a man commanding thirty thousand troops acting like a child in a tantrum was unbelievable.

If it were true, defeating him would be too easy. Not to mention, with Zhang Chu’an’s bottomless moral flexibility, he could shatter Jamukha’s psyche in an instant.

“It seems Temujin’s rise is unstoppable—we have no chance of killing him anytime soon. Let’s focus on planning our base.”

“Oh, tell me quickly—which tribe did you pick as our future base?” Nie Huaishang exclaimed excitedly.

“This tribe—Buluhu Tatar,” Guo Jing pointed to a location on the map near the Jin border. “Though it’s the weakest of the six Tatar tribes, it still has over three Battalion Commander and five hundred soldiers.”

“That seems like a lot—but its core leadership is tiny, only a dozen or so men. With our strength, seizing control of them would be effortless.”

Nie Huaishang nodded in agreement. “With our strength, we could easily ambush and seize them—but will those five hundred soldiers and herders willingly accept our policies? After all, freeing slaves and distributing cattle and sheep means taking away their property.”

Guo Jing looked puzzled. “Property? What property? The slaves are all owned by those dozen tribal nobles. The pastures and herds are almost entirely theirs too. The soldiers have to supply their own weapons, armor, food, and pay. How can you distribute property they never had?”

Nie Huaishang was stunned—if that was true, then controlling those dozen men would make establishing the revolutionary base effortless.