Chapter 709: Outside Gancao City National Mourning Monument, Chen Zhuguo Personally Raises the Coffin

Ten days of time passed in an instant.

For the people of Xiazhou, these ten days felt like a transformative, surreal dream.

The tens of thousands of villagers who had become Liuren due to war—homes shattered, families lost—were neither starved to death nor displaced.

Under Chen Yan's military order of "relief through labor," they erupted with a chilling vitality and cohesion.

These tens of thousands, like tireless worker ants, labored day and night on the wilderness outside Gancao City.

Because they knew they were not merely toiling for a bowl of hot porridge or a few copper coins; they were working for the Great Zhou heroic souls' ancestral tomb that had shielded them from the Qi State's slaughter.

Ten days later, when the first morning ray pierced the gloom and fell upon the Huangtu outside Gancao City—once soaked in blood—a towering, solemn, imposing grand mausoleum rose from the ground.

At the mausoleum's main gate, a ten‑zhang tall white marble paifang stood prominently.

The marble was taken directly from the Summer State Treasury, even dismantling several wealthy merchants' gardens to assemble it.

Centered on the paifang hung a massive black‑backed gold‑letter plaque, its dragons and phoenixes carving the two bold characters—"National Mourning"!

Looking inward through the paifang, the newly planted pines and cypresses, though not yet towering, already exuded an ageless, austere killing aura.

Between the trees, thousands of fresh graves were neatly arranged, like a battle formation.

There were no lavish tombstones, only smooth, polished Qingshi slabs, each deeply engraved with the name of every soldier whose identity could be verified.

Those whose names were never recorded received a nameless stone.

White banners filled the sky like a rolling sea of snow, rustling in the biting north wind, covering the heavens and sun, casting Gancao City in a realm of otherworldly gloom.

On this day, the entire army wore plain white.

Chen Yan wore neither the Purple Robe nor his usual black cloak embroidered with a qilin.

He wore only a plain dark coarse cloth military uniform, with a rough white hemp belt tightly tied at his waist.

He did not don the dazzling golden crown; a single wooden hairpin simply bound his long hair.

Behind him, Lu Ming, Dong Xuqing, Peng Chong, Feng Muye and other usually imposing generals had shed their shining armor, all uniformly clad in plain white mourning garments.

Further back stood the elite garrison troops of the Left Martial Guard, each with a striking white headband tied to the left arm.

Beyond them, tens of thousands of Xiazhou citizens who had rushed here upon hearing the news.

They spontaneously gathered outside the mausoleum; no one shouted, only a supremely suppressed, sobbing, plaintive whisper that coalesced into a mournful wave, lingering in the wilderness sky.

At this moment, beneath the altar directly in front of the mausoleum, a uniquely massive coffin lay.

The coffin was not crafted from precious golden nanmu wood, but assembled from the charred gate timbers of Gancao City.

Inside, there was no intact corpse; only charred fragments and limbs reduced to mush by warhorses on the battlefield, their identities unrecognizable.

It belonged to no single individual; it represented all the nameless heroes of this land whose remains could not even be fully recovered.

"Auspicious Time has arrived!"

A mourning official from the Ministry of Rites, holding a sacrificial script, shouted mournfully, "Raise the spirit—!"

With that long call, the surrounding people fell like wheat stalks crushed by gale, kneeling on both knees and wailing loudly.

Chen Yan strode to the front of the massive, rough coffin, abruptly bent down, seized the thick lifting bar with both hands, turned toward the generals behind him, and shouted, "Raise the coffin!"

The coffin was extremely heavy, pressing Chen Yan's shoulders down slightly; his dark uniform instantly creased, yet his upright frame remained as if nailed to the ground, unmoving.

The scene struck like a heavy hammer, crushing everyone's hearts.

"Chen Zhuguo!"

Veteran General Wang Zheng's eyes instantly reddened, old tears streaming.

Without hesitation, he surged forward two steps at a time, pressing his shoulder against the opposite corner of the coffin, "My son Wang Zheng did not die here; his fate is great! This coffin counts as one for me!"

"Me too!"

Lu Ming, like an enraged bear, roared and charged forward.

Standing nearly two meters tall, he took the primary bearing spot; his copper‑bell eyes already bloodshot, he declared, "As Pao Ze, how could I, Lu Ming, be absent!"

"Count me, Dong Xuqing, as one!"

"And me, Gao Jiong!"

"Peng Chong will lift!"

Clatter!

In the blink of an eye, twelve senior generals of the Left Martial Guard and the Marching Adjutant, disregarding rank, eyes reddened, surged forward, using their broad, sturdy shoulders to firmly bear the coffin filled with nameless remains.

The wind suddenly ceased.

The world seemed to contain only this group of Great Zhou's top generals, holding the rough coffin, standing silently under the gaze of tens of thousands.

"Raise—!"

Chen Yan gritted his teeth and let out a low growl.

"Raise—!!" the generals roared in unison.

The coffin rose steadily into the air.

Chen Yan led the way, his shoulders aching under the rough wooden bar, fine beads of sweat beading on his forehead, yet he did not pause, stepping forward toward the mausoleum's inner spirit path.

Seeing the usually lofty, decisive senior pillar of the state drenched in sweat, merely escorting a group of big‑headed soldiers on their final journey, the onlookers were utterly moved.

Among the crowd, an elderly woman who had lost her only son in the Gancao City battle suddenly lost control, collapsing onto the soil, clutching the yellow sand with both hands, and sobbing loudly toward Chen Yan's retreating silhouette.

"Oh Great Lord of the Blue Sky! Lord Chen Yan! You are my son's reborn parents!" the old woman wept heartbreakingly, her voice hoarse, "My son, in the afterlife, knows; to have Chen Zhuguo personally raise the coffin, his life... is worth it!"

The wail ignited like a spark dropped onto dry tinder, instantly inflaming everyone's emotions.

"Long live Great Zhou!"

"Chen Zhuguo's great kindness, we Xiazhou people will never forget!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Tens of thousands of people, men, women, young and old, like pushing a mountain of gold against a jade pillar, all at once bowed heavily toward Chen Yan's silhouette and the receding coffin.

The sound of foreheads striking the ground gathered into a heart‑shaking force, making the entire Gancao City shudder.

At this moment, this group of illiterate commoners understand nothing of nation and world, nothing of court intrigue; they only recognize a dead principle:

Whoever treats them as human, whoever gives dignity to their relatives, they will hand over their lives to that person!