Chapter 165

By the time the sky was fully bright, another wooden palisade had appeared in front of the Han army encampment… but compared to the previous ones, this palisade looked much more ragged. Clearly, it was a shoddy piece of work that the Han army had hastily patched together overnight, leaning it against the camp wall.

“The Han army is nothing special after all. This morning, I’ll trouble you, Yu Biliu, to lead the cavalry and tear down this fence. Then, without resting, at noon I’ll have the entire army swarm the camp like ants!” Amidst the Goguryeo grand army, Minglin Physician spoke with a laugh to the Huan’na tribal chief Yu Biliu beside him. Only then did he mount his horse and appear with imposing dignity at the very center of the battle line.

However, the grim-faced Yu Biliu merely offered a perfunctory salute from horseback before heading directly to the vanguard, not exchanging a single word with the Goguryeo Mangniji. The truth was, although Yu Biliu had once deliberately sidelined Yaya Kelü and had been briefly exhilarated by gaining command of the entire army’s cavalry, as the Huan’na tribal chief, he had never imagined that Minglin Physician would tear Yaya Kelü—his equal in renown—to shreds in public, as easily as ripping apart a large mushroom!

The fox mourns when the hare dies, grieving for its own kind. That day, if Minglin Physician could so easily tear apart the Guan’na tribe and Yaya Kelü, then tomorrow he could just as easily tear apart him and the Huan’na tribe.

And this anxiety and anger, initially concealed, grew increasingly obvious and poorly hidden as the armed forces under Yu Biliu’s command rapidly dwindled!

It must be understood that the over ten thousand cavalry Yu Biliu had received from Minglin Physician, originally intended for flanking maneuvers, had ended up suffering the heaviest casualties in this siege battle. There was no helping it—the Goguryeo people, lacking siege weapons and techniques, could only rely on animal power if they wanted to dismantle the encampment.

Those ten thousand cavalry lost two to three thousand men in just two days, and the livestock, being more conspicuous targets, suffered even more deaths and collapses! And once the mules and horses were gone, could those cavalrymen still be called cavalry?

If Minglin Physician had not also provided a large number of infantry, who risked their lives to help the cavalry drag away those terrifying palisades, Yu Biliu might have suspected that this Goguryeo Mangniji was colluding with the Han people to weaken him!

Thinking of this, Yu Biliu, staring at the tattered palisade before him, could not help but close his eyes in despair. For this one inexplicable palisade, who knew how many more Goguryeo people would have to die? Yet, with the battle having reached this stage, how could it possibly end midway unless one side voluntarily retreated? Besides, once they pulled down this palisade, perhaps the Goguryeo people could seize the initiative.

With this thought, Yu Biliu, almost swallowing his disgust, issued an order to his deputy—not an order to attack, but an order for the execution squads to take their positions first.

And so, with the sound of a horn, the execution squads took their positions first. Then, those trembling Goguryeo cavalrymen, holding wooden shields in one hand and desperately dragging their overly clever Guoxia horses with the other, formed ranks on the blood-soaked battlefield. Finally, the slaves, the commoner conscripts, and even some commoner women, stripped of their weapons and clutching ropes with vacant expressions, were herded together into the open ground ahead!

It was the depths of winter, the twelfth month. Though there was no wind or snow and the sun was out, it was still the bitter cold of deep winter. Yet among these people driven out, some wore only a single layer of clothing, and there were even those stripped to the waist!

“What is the meaning of this?!” The situation was too obvious; Yu Biliu noticed it almost immediately. “Why do some soldiers have no clothes?!”

“Reporting to the Left Chancellor (Yu Biliu’s former highest official post),” a moment later, someone immediately turned back to report. “General Minglin Quemen, who is in charge of collecting weapons from these commoners, said that since these people are being sent to their deaths anyway, there’s no need to waste clothes on them. Doing it this way also saves the clothes from being torn when stripping the corpses later!”

Over these two days on the battlefield, aside from the unlucky ones who were used to fill the trenches, most of the corpses were cleared away at night by the Han army, who had the camp wall for cover. Arrows, iron armor, and leather armor were naturally recovered and reused—after all, the Han army had a somewhat motley composition and would certainly be short of such things. But as for the corpses, the Han army showed no intent to desecrate them. Most were tacitly carried to an open space two bowshots from the Han encampment, to be collected by Goguryeo conscripts the next morning.

By then, the only remaining valuable items on these bodies would be their original clothing, which naturally had to be recovered and reused.

Upon hearing this explanation, Yu Biliu lowered his head and remained silent for a long moment. Then, he suddenly rose and, abandoning the vanguard entirely, went straight to the main army.

“Is this how things are?” Minglin Physician asked from horseback, stunned. “My nephew did such a thing?”

“Yes!” Yu Biliu’s eyes were bloodshot as he stared defiantly at the man he had feared for most of his life.

“What he did was wrong.” Minglin Physician looked up at the figure beneath the white-horsed banner on the high platform opposite, then nodded repeatedly. “He truly did wrong. Biliu, you are the commander of the vanguard. Tell me, how do you intend to deal with him?”

“I wish to ask the Mangniji to kill him, to steady the army’s morale,” Yu Biliu answered, his eyes red. “Slaves can be treated arbitrarily, and at this point, the wild tribesmen can be ignored. But the commoners are our foundation. They are here to fight, not to be used as meat shields and sent to their deaths! At the very least, it cannot be spoken aloud like this! The gain or loss of Zuoyuan concerns the fruits of our decades of expansion, true, but the hearts of the commoners concern the very survival of this nation!”

Minglin Physician looked down at Yu Biliu before him. His own country was a hybrid of tribal confederation and feudal systems. On one hand, they emulated the Han people, with kings and ministers, cities and citizens. On the other hand, like the Buyeo, Samhan, and Xianbei peoples, their core was a system of tribal chieftains. So, words like “the hearts of the commoners” and “the survival of the nation,” when spoken by nobles from the various tribes, though correct in principle, always felt somewhat ludicrous—especially when the purpose of such words was to kill another top-ranking noble, his own nephew Minglin Quemen.

To be honest, in the past, Minglin Physician might have seriously pondered whether the other party was preparing for something like a mutiny. But now, on the battlefield, he understood Yu Biliu’s state of mind better than anyone. The man’s spirit had truly been broken by the casualties, and he harbored immense dissatisfaction and anger toward him. That was why he would make such a demand before the battle lines.

But Yu Biliu, after all, was the chief of the Huan’na tribe, the greatest noble in the army after himself, the figure all the other nobles had united behind after Yaya Kelü’s death, and a man he had to unite with for the sake of victory. As for Minglin Quemen, he was merely a nephew…

“Drag Quemen and the other officers responsible for this matter here and execute them,” Minglin Physician said without further hesitation, speaking directly from horseback. Then he dismounted and took Yu Biliu’s hand. “But Left Chancellor, do not delay any further. If there are no clothes today, so be it. Attack at once!”

A trace of clarity returning to his eyes, Yu Biliu gave the little old man before him a deep look, and finally bowed once more with utmost respect: “I obey the Mangniji’s command!”

The turmoil within the Goguryeo army ended there. Yet, as Minglin Physician remounted and looked up again, a flicker of unease stirred within him. He suddenly recalled that over the past two days, he and the young Han general opposite had faced off from afar. Though there was no explicit agreement between the two commanders, there had been a tacit understanding: one never dismounted, the other never left his high platform. From beginning to end, neither had lost an ounce of a Regional Commander’s dignity and bearing.

But today, just as the standoff began, he had been forced to dismount—and because of pressure from his own men. This was somewhat disheartening and frustrating.

………………

The horns sounded, and the battle resumed its usual rhythm!

The Goguryeo people’s determination to retake Zuoyuan was very firm; at the very least, the high command and upper ranks had steadied their resolve. Thus, following the Goguryeo social structure, in front of the execution squads, the great nobles commanded the lesser nobles, the lesser nobles commanded the commoner officers, and the commoner officers drove the commoner soldiers and slaves forward, reenacting the scenes of the previous two days.

However…

“Why can’t we pull down the enemy’s palisade?!” The Goguryeo vanguard commander Yu Biliu was horrified.

“Why can’t they pull down our palisade?” The Han army’s frontline commander Xu Rong was also quite astonished, but that did not stop him from urging his soldiers to seize the moment and inflict maximum casualties on the enemy’s draft animals.

After all, whether in field battles or the current siege, whether in pursuit after victory or retreat should the camp wall fall, the Goguryeo Guoxia horses were clearly a greater threat than ordinary Goguryeo soldiers.

“Last night, while repairing the palisade, our troops poured a lot of water onto the earthen embankment,” a messenger from the high platform behind explained everything perfectly and with pleasant surprise. “It froze solid overnight. The palisade and the embankment have become a single block of ice. The General also bade us inform you all: this was the strategy of Bandit Clerk Lou!”

“The Han army poured water at the base of the palisade…” Yu Biliu was momentarily dazed and at a loss. “Go ask the Mangniji, how should we deal with this now?”

“Troublesome!” Minglin Physician’s face was also pale, but his resolve quickly hardened. “Tell Yu Biliu, the Han only have this one palisade left. Hold nothing back—throw all the livestock at it and try! If that doesn’t work, we’ll talk again!”

“If it doesn’t work, we’ll talk again?!” Yu Biliu immediately shot back at the messenger. “Go ask the Mangniji again: what if all the livestock are dead? If we lose the cavalry that can traverse the mountains, and the time comes when we need to retreat, how will we deal with the Han cavalry’s pursuit?”

“Tell Yu Biliu, if we fight our way into the encampment, there will be no need to deal with the Han cavalry’s pursuit. If we cannot fight our way in… then we will still have our main camp to serve as cover and a rearguard!” Minglin Physician’s reply was very crisp. “And if there truly comes a time to retreat, I will personally garrison the main camp and cover the rear!”

Yu Biliu let out a long sigh and sent no further word. Instead, with a grand wave of his hand, he urged his subordinates to concentrate the mounts for use. A large number of Guoxia horses were immediately sent to the front line to serve as the main force for dragging the palisade.

At this, Xu Rong, the Han frontline commander who could almost clearly see Yu Biliu’s movements, merely gave a cold laugh. He turned and dispatched a messenger, requesting that Gongsun Xun abandon the rotation and immediately send reinforcements to the front line to hold fast, in order to concentrate their killing power.

The request was perfectly reasonable, and Gongsun Xun naturally had no objection.

This was the third day of formal engagement, and both sides had a sense of bloodlust in their eyes. Even though the Han army had an unexpected countermeasure, casualties inevitably began to far exceed those of the previous two days. The Goguryeo people had clearly thrown caution to the wind. Relying on their superior numbers, and knowing the Han army had to concentrate fire on the livestock and laborers to protect the palisade, they began to aggressively press forward, launching volleys of arrows at the top of the camp wall.

A camp wall was not a city wall, after all. And the arrow, ever since its invention, had always been the most outstanding and traditional killing weapon of the classical human era, the absolute protagonist in siege warfare. So whether Han or Goguryeo, beneath an arrowhead that might have been recovered and reused countless times, all were equally fragile.

From morning to noon, Gongsun Xun sat beneath the white-horsed banner, watching the wounded soldiers being carried from the front line in ever-increasing numbers. He was finally beginning to lose his patience. He did not know if, come afternoon, the water-soaked palisade would backfire—if the winter sun could thaw the surface of the earth, the palisade might instead be easily pulled down.

So Gongsun Xun issued an order to a personal attendant beside him.

“Han reinforcements?!” The first to receive the news was actually Yu Biliu. The scattered Guoxia horse riders he had left on the hills on both sides as observation posts could clearly cross-observe the general situation in the Han army’s main camp opposite. “How many?!”

To be honest, when Yu Biliu asked this question, his accent was practically trembling, and he even felt a moment of dizziness. It must be understood that the Goguryeo people’s disregard for casualties and all-out effort was based solely on their so-called massive numerical advantage. This allowed them, even after paying a horrific toll, to still muster enough troops to set up defenses at Zuoyuan.

But if this numerical advantage that guaranteed victory had never existed from the start, if the Han army had been continuously reinforcing Zuoyuan from the rear areas like Xuantu and Liaodong all along, then this battle itself was a mistake! Goguryeo’s strategic objective had been wrong from the very beginning!

Thus, Yu Biliu had already made up his mind: if the reinforcements numbered more than three thousand, he would stop fighting!

“Unclear!” the scout replied helplessly. “They just entered Zuoyuan through the passage at the rear!”

“Go and count them clearly for me!” Yu Biliu immediately urged. Amidst the battle cries, he could already faintly hear a gradually strengthening cheer—clearly, the Han soldiers on the front line had also noticed the arrival of fresh troops. “Count them one by one!”

But before his words had faded, the Goguryeo people also began to cheer. It turned out that the palisade, which had been utterly immovable before, was beginning to tilt and sway. Clearly, the early winter afternoon sun had finally taken effect. Once it passed a critical point, the frozen ground that had provided reinforcement began to thaw, greatly weakening the palisade’s stability.

At this moment, should they advance or retreat? Yu Biliu was dazed and at a complete loss!

When he instinctively turned back to look at the gold-rimmed frog banner, he discovered that the Goguryeo Regional Commander, Minglin Physician, who had been overseeing the battle there all along, had actually left his great banner for the first time and was riding his short horse toward a hill on one side. Clearly, this Goguryeo Mangniji had also received a report and decided to see the true strength of the Han reinforcements for himself.

Almost at the same moment the Han army’s fresh troops replaced the exhausted soldiers on the first line, the Goguryeo people, aided by the Han army’s semi-voluntary withdrawal, finally broke through the palisade that had caused them such agony!

“General Yu Biliu, the Mangniji has orders!” At that moment, a messenger also came galloping down directly from the hill. “The Han reinforcements number only around one or two thousand. They are very likely the garrison troops from the Liaohe camp, which were already anticipated—their reserve force. The Han army is spent! The order is for the entire army to scale the wall, carrying torches. Today, focus solely on destroying the added arrow towers and high platforms on the camp wall!”

Yu Biliu immediately breathed a sigh of relief, then was overjoyed. But almost instantly, he became dejected again. After all, “today, focus solely on destruction” itself meant that even Minglin Physician did not expect to be able to cross that camp wall in one go, now that the enemy had fresh troops.

Today would only amount to this. This mode of combat, so disadvantageous to the attacker, would have to drag on further still!

Sure enough, as the sun set the fighting once more came to a halt, and the Goguryeo men had barely managed to damage some of the facilities atop the camp wall, with no successful scaling of the wall at all.

What was worth noting, however, was that this time when the Goguryeo men retreated, they practically dragged away every piece of timber within sight on the battlefield, to prevent the enemy from using the method of pouring water to freeze it and once again employing that timber to construct something.

The night passed without a word. Early the next morning, the Goguryeo forces first had the entire army eat a full meal, then bestowed a great amount of wealth and official posts right before the battle lines, and only then emerged from camp to form their ranks.

"What is going on this time?!" The moment he reached the front lines, Yu Jiliu noticed the strange condition of the Han army's camp wall. "Why is the camp wall reflecting light?"

"They've poured water again." And very quickly, the reply that his soldiers had bought with their lives made Yu Jiliu panic once more. "This time it's on the wall itself — it's too slippery, ladders without grappling hooks simply cannot be set against it!"

"Withdraw the troops!" Yu Jiliu made his decision without the slightest hesitation, then personally went to the central army to seek out Minglin Physician.

"Withdrawing the troops is correct. We can just wait until noon when the ice melts and then attack," said Minglin Physician, whose back, even as he sat on horseback, seemed somewhat hunched. "It's only a pity that once the ice melts, it will soak the wood, and then the arrow towers and high platforms on top can no longer be set alight."

"The enemy commander is younger than you, and smarter than you," Yu Jiliu rebuked him without any courtesy. "From agreeing to Yaya Keli's absurd plan at the very start, to the countless deaths now — even if Zuoyuan is truly retaken, Molidi, you have still thoroughly destroyed the decades-long momentum of Goguryeo's prosperity! For Goguryeo, the wrongs you have done far outnumber the good!"

Minglin Physician kept his mouth shut, or rather, he did not refute at all... War is the best way to make a person's prestige soar or plummet. When soldiers entrust their lives to someone, if that person wins battle after battle, he will quickly become a godlike figure in everyone's eyes; but if the reverse is true, even without continuous retreats, if the efforts are merely futile, the commander's prestige in the army will also plummet.

Too many had died — so many that Minglin Physician himself did not know how many had died. And under such enormous casualties, even if the Goguryeo men retook Zuoyuan, from the perspective of the entire campaign, they would still have suffered a great loss.

Fortunately, Yu Jiliu had no intention of continuing his rebuke. The war was not over, and such reproaches were born only of anger, meaningless in themselves.

"In a while, I will have the nobles of the Chuanna tribe lead the charge," Minglin Physician, seeing that Yu Jiliu had let him off, took the initiative to make a concession and a statement. "Let them die first! It's the final pass — in hand-to-hand combat, things are fair for everyone, and we will no longer be at such a disadvantage."

"I would rather hope that the Han army, after losing the camp wall, would voluntarily retreat," Yu Jiliu replied in vexation. "That would be better for everyone. This kind of battle where men keep dying is meaningless even if we win!"

"Perhaps that is truly possible," Minglin Physician continued to console him. "If we really can breach the camp wall, we will immediately send an envoy... Keli told me before that this Han army is somewhat special, that the young general leading them comes from a great noble family of the Han people. Although he brought the regular armies of Liaodong and Xuantu on this campaign, it is said that he raised the army and marched on his own authority, for the sake of merit. If that is the case, he should also be very worried about Han casualties!"

"This is nothing to be happy about," Yu Jiliu said, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the camp wall that still glinted. "It shows that the Han army's casualties so far have been very few... This general is far superior to you, Molidi. He guessed our ambush, prepared his defensive line in advance, and then came up with this unexpected trick of pouring water to make ice. Looking at you, Molidi, all you do is fill the gaps with the lives of Goguryeo men!"

The topic seemed to have circled back again, but this time the short-statured Minglin Physician chose to offer some reply: "Once the camp wall is taken, I will not return to the capital. I will stay right here and hold it. Then, when the front lines have calmed down, I will, in the name of the Goguryeo Molidi, offer tribute and send hostages to the Han people. If the Han general opposite wants to kill me to vent his anger, I will also offer up my head... After I am dead, Jiliu, you will succeed me as the next Molidi. That way, the people of the nation will not blame you for this affair. But when that time comes, you must rest and recuperate, focusing on restoring the population... Our Goguryeo is too small and too weak!"

Yu Jiliu wanted to speak but stopped himself. The Goguryeo nobles and officers around him were also each silent. Here in the central army, an awkward silence reigned for a moment.

From morning to noon, from noon to afternoon, as they watched the glinting ice on the camp wall opposite gradually melt away, the Goguryeo men finally forced themselves to rally and prepared to take action.

However, just as Yu Jiliu was about to return to the vanguard to oversee the battle, the cheers from the Han army's camp wall and the sight of the Goguryeo lookouts on the hills on both flanks all sprinting toward them at once turned the faces of nearly every senior officer in the Goguryeo central army deathly pale.

And sure enough, an answer that was almost on the tip of everyone's tongue came from the mouth of a scout rider: "More Han reinforcements have arrived!"

This time, Yu Jiliu and Minglin Physician climbed a hill on one flank together to observe.

"The same as yesterday, about two thousand men!" The short-statured Minglin Physician, supported by someone as he stood on his horse, could just make out the scale of the arriving Han force. "Jiliu, what do you make of it?"

"I don't know!" Yu Jiliu's face was pale.

"I think it is a feint!" Minglin Physician explained to him earnestly and sincerely. "Otherwise, why would the formation be exactly the same as yesterday? It must be that the Han army took advantage of the night to send those two thousand troops back out beyond the valley mouth behind us, and then deliberately waited until now to have them reappear disguised as reinforcements, so as to boost the Han army's morale and make us feel fear..."

"The moon was very full last night," Yu Jiliu shook his head repeatedly. "We have scout riders stationed here. If they really had been swapped out during the night, we would absolutely have discovered it!"

"It was the fog after the sun went down," Minglin Physician, after a moment's thought, provided a reasonable explanation. "Here at Zuoyuan, fog rises every winter evening — you must have witnessed it yourself... At that time, both we and the Han army are usually clearing the battlefield. It is not impossible that the enemy took the chance to slip out secretly."

Yu Jiliu nodded slightly, but then shook his head fiercely: "But what if? What if the Han reinforcements are real? Four thousand reinforcements are not the same as two thousand. Continuous reinforcements and feigned reinforcements are even less the same... Molidi, if these are real reinforcements, then there is no point in us fighting on, is there? And if we drag this out further without success, our army provisions won't even hold out for a retreat, will they? Molidi, can you guarantee these are not real reinforcements? If they are real reinforcements, and the Goguryeo people are pinned down here because of your insistence, and in the end the nation perishes — what can the Chuanna tribe and you, Minglin Physician, offer to atone for that crime?!"

Minglin Physician's face turned as white as his beard and hair in an instant, and he was utterly speechless.

"The Goguryeo men are not making a move?!" On the distant high platform, Lou Gui, observing the Goguryeo battle formation, could not help but feel somewhat frustrated. "Could it be that I overestimated that Minglin Physician, and he never even thought of the evening fog, and now my clever plan has backfired, making him too afraid to fight on?"

"The plan backfiring is true enough," Gongsun Xun, sitting to one side, could not help but laugh. "But in my view, it is not necessarily that Minglin Physician lacks ability, but rather that Goguryeo's internal situation is itself treacherous and turbulent. Minglin Physician, due to his age and strategic blunders, already struggles to control the situation. So even if he, as you and I planned, believed our reinforcements to be a feint, he still could not control the other generals in the army!"

"In the end, it was still a fine stratagem thought up for nothing!" Lou Gui grew even more disappointed upon hearing this. "Reinforcements entering in separate groups during the day, and then when the fog rose at night, sending out a feint force pretending to leave, making the Goguryeo men mistakenly think our reinforcements were insufficient, and then suddenly unleashing our full strength and revealing all our troops..."

"Such stratagems are ultimately minor tricks," Gongsun Xun also sighed with emotion. "National strength, military strength, provisions, equipment, training — these are the true kingly way. If one can press forward with an overwhelming and upright formation, these stratagems are ultimately useless; but if one is like the Goguryeo men, a small nation with a weak populace, then naturally one will not even dare to take the bait of a feint!"

"Speaking of such minor tricks," Lou Gui suddenly recalled something. "Young lord, why did you tell the entire army that the method of pouring water to make ice was my idea? I only thought of this counter-feint stratagem, and as we can see, it hasn't even yielded a result."

"The stratagem of pouring water to make ice to build and defend fortifications originally came from you," Gongsun Xun could not help but laugh. "That day, before the Goguryeo men had arrived, when you accompanied me on an inspection of the defensive line, you made a casual remark. I kept it in my heart, but you yourself forgot..."

"Was there such a thing?" Lou Zibo laughed in spite of himself. "I thought it was because Shen Zhengnan's contributions were too great, and so you, young lord, deliberately added a little merit to my account, lest it be difficult to reward me properly when the time came!"

Gongsun Xun immediately glared at him.

"But no matter what, since the feint stratagem proved useless, being able to lend some assistance to the battle situation elsewhere can still be considered giving some account of myself," Lou Gui hurriedly said with a serious expression. "As for Shen Zhengnan, he truly lives up to his name as a famous scholar of Hebei. The moment he made his move, he turned the tide of battle. Not to mention me, even Ziheng — when I saw him yesterday at the Liaohe fork, he too was feeling gloomy about being stuck guarding the rear camp and managing logistics."

"When there is a chance, I must tell Ziheng that I, Gongsun Xun, am fully aware in my heart of his contributions."

"Yes..."

"The same goes for you, Lou Zibo — there is no need to say more!"

"I have already keenly felt the young lord's gracious favor..." Lou Gui hurriedly bowed his head and saluted. However, halfway through his words, he heard cheers rise again by his ear, and quickly turned his head to look. "The Goguryeo men are withdrawing?!"

"Minglin Physician can no longer control the situation," Gongsun Xun shook his head helplessly, but then suddenly rose to his feet. "The great army has not yet been defeated, yet because of his past excessive monopolization of power, he cannot command the hearts of his men — this truly should serve as a warning."

"Then..." Lou Zibo probed cautiously.

"Since the enemy's morale is already in disarray, summon all the army's officers, including A Fan and A Yue from the left and right small camps, and prepare for a counterattack!" Gongsun Xun said as he walked straight down from the high platform. "The plan for the counterattack — follow the one you devised earlier!"

——————I am the dividing line of losing control——————

"When Lou Gui followed the campaign against Goguryeo, he offered three remarkable stratagems in succession and was praised throughout the army. When Shen Pei later heard of this, he felt resentful that his own contributions in covering the rear and securing reinforcements were unknown to the army, and spoke many indignant words. When Xun heard of this, he wrote a letter to Pei in camp, saying: 'There are many famous scholars in Hebei, but who compares to Shen Zhengnan?' Pei was then overjoyed, showed the letter to those around him, and no longer contested with Gui for merit." — Records of Heroes at the End of Han, by Wang Can

PS:

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(End of Chapter)