Chapter 284: Inscription

The battle at Tulin was a success, but the work was not yet complete.

The next day, Yue Fei dispatched Zhang Xian's division to cross the river and join forces with Fu Xuan, to pursue Li Dunren, the last rebel band that had fled into the eastern mountains.

However, Li Dunren's matter was not that troublesome.

This man's reason for fleeing east even in dire straits, even scuttling ferries to shift the trouble onto others, was his reliance on a natural stronghold called Gushi Cave, located at the border between Xingguo and Yudu counties. In front of Gushi Cave was a mountain stockade; behind the stockade guarded a large cave, while the other three sides were all sheer cliffs, with only one path in and out. Yet inside the cave there was ample space and water, enough to station troops.

According to Li Dunren's thinking, he couldn't defeat Yue Fei's formidable army in battle, but the other side was bound not to stay long. So if he just waited a while in the cave, there would be a way out later... Hence, as early as when Yue Fei first broke through the Five Ridges and entered Guangdong, Li Dunren had been preparing a retreat in Qianzhou. He had chosen Gushi Cave early on, repeatedly communicated with and bribed the Miao stockade in front of it, and shipped in large quantities of grain and supplies.

To put it in his own words, sent via messenger to Zhang Xian and Fu Xuan: "With such a natural stronghold, if the government army can breach the stockade, what regret would I have in death?"

In other words, if it really was taken, he'd deserve to die, and he'd accept it!

Yet, in this world, what natural stronghold can truly be held forever?

Although the master of the mountain Miao stockade—the three Miao girls of the Liao sisters—kept their word, and Liao Xiaogu even spoke the famous line to the messenger, "Unless you fly here," under the greater situation, stubborn resistance was meaningless.

On the first day, Fu Xuan, Zhang Xian, and the others made a probing attack, naturally achieving nothing.

On the second day, Fu Xuan and Zhang Xian's forces deployed in full, split into over a dozen teams, carrying enough scaling ladders to assault the stockade from three sides. They climbed from all the low, short spots on the cliffs simultaneously, but retreated when encountering danger, taking turns to advance. It was less an attack and more a consumption of the stockade's arrows, stones, and other supplies.

On the third day, Fu Xuan's forces continued their feigned attack, while Zhang Xian suddenly dispatched Yang Zaixing, who had been incorporated into his division, along with Guo Jin. The former led some newly reorganized Miao soldiers, the latter led Zhang Xian's personal guards. Both units wore double-layered iron armor, climbed the cliff from a dangerous but visually narrow spot behind and to the side of the stockade, and succeeded in one battle.

Li Dunren and the three Liao sisters were all beheaded, thus "dying without regret," and their followers surrendered. From start to finish, Yue Fei never personally "flew" there.

In fact, during these days, Yue Fei had been in Xingguo County, across from Pingjiang, reorganizing the more than one hundred thousand surrendered Qianzhou bandits.

Disposing of the four hundred or so chieftains of the various bands was only the first step. Next, the Forward Army of the Imperial Guard sent back and resettled over forty thousand old, weak, women, and children, pardoned over thirty thousand conscripted able-bodied men, and dispatched some troops to escort tens of thousands of prisoners, led by Li Dongtian, to various surrounding locations. Only a small number, like Peng Tieda and Yang Zaixing, along with carefully selected soldiers, received direct appointments and official posts.

Upon receiving news of Li Dunren's execution, Yue Fei, on the one hand, followed the prior agreement with Liu Hongdao, the Grand Coordinator of Jiangxi, and had Fu Xuan lead five thousand men to handle the aftermath in Xingguo County. On the other hand, he personally assembled and drove the main army north.

On the Dragon Boat Festival of the fifth month, Yue Fei entered Jizhou for the third time, preparing to follow the original plan of the Bureau of Military Affairs and head north along the Gan River, intending to return north early. On this northward march, the army's morale was soaring, with no sign of fatigue from months of campaigning. Even Yue Fei himself showed signs of complacency. Passing through Fuzhou, he personally wrote an inscription at the official post station.

The inscription read:

"Yue Fei, Commander-in-Chief of the Forward Army of the Imperial Guard, by imperial decree to suppress the bandits, from Dongting Lake to the Guiling Mountains, has pacified their lairs, securing both Guangxi, Guangdong, and Hunan. Grieving that the Two Emperors are far away, hunting in the desert, and the realm is not at peace, the shame of the Jingkang Incident remains unavenged. Therefore, I swear to exhaust my loyalty and filial piety. Relying on the majesty of the altars of state, the wisdom of the sovereign and the virtue of the ministers, one day I will sweep away the barbarians, restore our homeland, and ease the Son of Heaven's worries from dawn to dusk. This is my ambition. As for these swarms of wasps and ants, how can they be counted as merit?"

Clearly, Yue Pengju was feeling a bit full of himself.

But there was no help for it; this campaign had been fought too beautifully.

From the perspective of this era, mountains, miasma, Miao stockades, and countless entrenched bandits plaguing the land for years were an intractable problem. From the start, few in the know had absolute confidence in this punitive expedition... This was because the Qianzhou bandits weren't just a recent phenomenon; they had merely grown in scale due to the Jingkang Incident and the subsequent chaos. Even earlier, during the so-called peaceful and prosperous times, the Qianzhou bandits were a proper noun, a chronic ailment of the south.

The court back then could only suppress such rebellions and confine them to the mountains.

But Yue Fei had won, cleanly and decisively.

This campaign was, in essence, a bandit-suppression pacification operation. Compared to battles against the Jin, it had the flavor of a regular-season game versus the playoffs in later American professional basketball. But the problem was that scoring thirteen points in thirty-five seconds is still more worth bragging about than being the runner-up.

This campaign was probably similar.

Back to the present, Yue Pengju, smug and satisfied, led the main army north along the Gan River. At first, the local officials along the river in Jiangxi could hardly believe it. But seeing countless prisoners being sequentially settled in various reclamation and mining sites in Jiangxi, while the main government army paraded its might, marching with orderly banners, and as the troops gathered from settling the prisoners gradually merged, the army's size grew daily... they had no choice but to believe.

Suffice it to say, as news from the south caught up with the army's marching speed, the attitude of officials along the way changed three times a day.

But there was no time for more changes. Within the realm, with the army moving downstream, how fast was their march? Besides, Yue Fei had had some unpleasantness with the Jiangxi officialdom over the previous Prefect of Fuzhou, so he was too lazy to deal with them much. He simply didn't stop and headed straight north... By mid-fifth month, the Forward Army of the Imperial Guard had already passed Poyang Lake and entered the Jiangzhou region, which belonged to the Jiangnan East Circuit. Only then did Yue Fei halt briefly in Jiangzhou, waiting for military supplies from both the Jiangxi and Jiangdong circuits before continuing north.

It was at this time that Yue Pengju finally learned of the Dongjing peace negotiation turmoil.

Moreover, by now he knew everything he should and shouldn't know.

This wasn't because the Forward Army's clerk responsible for copying official gazettes in Dongjing could know of his return so quickly and compile a report to send specially. Rather, during this gap, the court's debate between war and peace had grown increasingly fierce, clearly exceeding the scope of ordinary discussion. It had not only become irreconcilable at the central government but had even spread to the southeastern region... And don't forget, in the Jiangnan area, there were Li Gang and Lü Yihao, two heavyweight figures with clear-cut positions who were also opponents. The two had long since laid their cards on the table in the southeast, openly debating.

And Yue Fei was sitting right in Jiangzhou. With his current status, how could he possibly avoid such news?

As it happened, Lü Yihao, as the Grand Coordinator of the Liangzhe Circuit, wielded immense authority and had deep seniority. He was always able to keep his subordinates in line, so no one in the surrounding official circles dared not advocate war. Almost every prefecture, department, army, and supervisor sent memorials to Bianliang, urging His Majesty to hold his ground, not listen to petty men, and not recklessly seek peace... Not saying this was impossible, because Grand Coordinator Lü never let a grudge last overnight.

Even Li Gang, a former Grand Councilor and now the spiritual leader of a major faction at court, had directly suffered.

Li Gang initially tried to follow procedure and submitted a memorial agreeing to peace talks. Unexpectedly, as soon as his memorial was publicly dispatched, Lü Yihao, in his capacity as a superior, publicly issued a document rebuking him!

This document, which was distributed across nearly all of Liangzhe, Jiangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Lianghuai, enumerated Li Boji's various mistakes starting from the siege of Taiyuan. It accused him of "not understanding military affairs and thus sacrificing the nation's hundreds of thousands of brave soldiers, leading to the loss of the Two Rivers and the Jingkang Catastrophe," "not recognizing talent and thus losing Jingdong and destroying Guanzhong," "as Grand Councilor, pushing the Huai River region onto the Son of Heaven," "as a rear-area commander, inciting turmoil in the southeast," and even publicly cursed, saying that regarding "the loss of the imperial heir," certain people should have taken three feet of white silk to prove their innocence, yet they lingered on, hiding in Jiangnan, remotely controlling their cronies and playing power games, utterly shameless!

This was, of course, nonsense... By this logic, Li Gang had ruined the entire realm. Then what had the Two Emperors and the appeasement faction during the Jingkang Incident done?

But Li Gang was furious, yet precisely because of the matter of the imperial heir, which he could never explain clearly, he had no way to defend himself. He had to swallow his anger and shift the battle to the private sphere, relying on letters, tea parties, and poetry gatherings to repeatedly discuss the matter with influential literati, thereby refuting Lü Yihao.

Among the people, opinions were divided, but clearly more supported peace talks... Even Lü Yihao, who had previously pushed for tax increases in the southeast and surcharges in Jingxiang to advocate war, ended up with a reputation among the people like that of the "Stubborn Councilor." When Yue Fei briefly halted in Jiangzhou, he heard many nursery rhymes and satirical pieces mocking and insulting Lü Yihao.

He even heard with his own ears that commoners were calling their iron-necked, free-range roosters "Grand Coordinator Lü," selling for only three hundred cash, or three hundred fifty cash if cleaned and drained, shockingly cheaper than in the north. The Forward Army's pay was always full, so Guo Jin, for instance, bought one and ate it right out of his mess tin.

Of course, even so, Yue Fei didn't want to get involved.

Because even Li Gang and his faction never called themselves appeasers. They were "those who can defend before attacking," calling themselves the defense-first faction, or the gradualist faction. Their intention was to rest and recuperate for a few years before heading north... This was clearly the result of both sides adjusting their positions after the debate.

Even for Yue Fei, whose inclination was obvious, he didn't know how to refute this argument. So he just waited for the supplies to come in and then hurried back north as soon as possible.

Of course, the military supplies didn't take long. The Jiangdong circuit's supplies arrived first, followed soon after by those from Jiangxi... However, arriving together with the twenty thousand shi of rice and one hundred thousand strings of cash from Jiangxi was the Grand Coordinator of Jiangxi himself, Liu Hongdao.

Liu Hongdao, as a Grand Coordinator of an entire circuit, had pursued him beyond his own jurisdiction. Regardless of any previous unpleasantness with the Jiangxi local authorities, Yue Fei naturally wouldn't be remiss. The usually frugal man quickly commissioned a local official to find a famous restaurant outside the city—the main licensed establishment on the Xunyang River, the site of the Xunyang Tower personally inscribed by Su Dongpo—and hosted a banquet there himself.

Both were top-ranking officials, so there was no risk of verbal missteps. After three rounds of wine, Liu Hongdao offered some perfunctory praise for the Qianzhou pacification, then proactively brought up another matter.

Nothing else but the issue of the former Prefect of Fuzhou. Grand Coordinator Liu's meaning was that he hoped Military Governor Yue could make proper arrangements, ideally setting up a logistics and reclamation post in Jiangxi for this man to oversee.

Of course, it was His Majesty who had lost his temper. Jiangxi certainly wouldn't make things difficult for everyone; they would ensure the matter was handled properly.

A Grand Coordinator had come in person, with such a humble attitude, and it was within his authority. What could Yue Fei say? He agreed readily.

After this matter was settled, both sides seemed delighted, and they drank another two cups.

However, after those two cups, Liu Hongdao suddenly stood up, took Yue Fei by the wrist, and said they should go up to the top pavilion together to enjoy the riverside scenery.

The surrounding civil and military officers knew the two high officials had something to discuss, so they obligingly made noise among themselves, letting the two men leave the crowd and climb another floor to look into the distance.

To be fair, it was summer, the view from the top was clear and unobstructed. The scenery outside the Xunyang Tower was naturally excellent... Carved eaves shone in the sun, painted beams soared among the clouds. Azure railings connected low to the windows, emerald curtains hung high over the doors. Drunken eyes were soothed, leaning against the azure sky's myriad layers of cloud-capped mountains; poetic souls were stirred, turning the snow-white river's misty waters. At the white-duckweed ferry, one could hear fishermen beating their oars; on the red-knotweed beach, one often saw anglers striking their paddles.

Though both had things on their minds, slightly tipsy, they stood gazing together for a long while before coming back to their senses. As the saying goes, scenery opens the heart. When they spoke again, it was much more candid.

"Does Military Governor Yue know of the recent great affairs at court?" Liu Hongdao faced the wind, hands clasped behind his back.

"The matter of peace talks?"

"Correct."

"Then may I ask, Grand Coordinator Liu, as a circuit grand coordinator, do you advocate war or peace?" Yue Fei, hands tucked in his sleeves, was equally blunt.

"I don't know either." Liu Hongdao sighed at this, spreading his hands on the Xunyang Tower. "I am a native of Qingzhou. During the Jingkang Incident, I was hastily appointed as a Vice Director of the Ministry of Personnel. Then, in a sudden upheaval, I almost fled home. As a result, because the Jin were advancing south, Li Gang, Grand Councilor Li, disregarded precedent and assigned me as Prefect of Qingzhou, making me the prefect of my hometown..." At this point, Liu Hongdao paused, then gave a wry smile. "I recall that you once submitted a memorial calling Li Boji a traitor. That was certainly biased. But now, everyone in the realm says that your and Li Yanxian's impeachment was not unfounded; at the very least, that fellow doesn't understand military affairs."

Yue Fei gave a rare awkward smile... who didn't have some embarrassing moments when young?

"But if you ask me, Grand Coordinator Liu's words, though harsh, were honest — Li Boji understood neither military affairs nor how to judge men." Liu Hongdao grew more emotional as he gazed at the riverbank. "Back then, he sent out two men from Hebei — Zhang Suo was indeed a man of integrity, but Fu Liang was the chief culprit who sold out Chang'an; from Jingdong he sent three men, one of whom, Liu Yu, is now a puppet emperor, while I and Zhao Mingcheng, who was also elevated at the same time, are universally acknowledged as a pair of incompetents... Zhao Mingcheng fled without a fight, and I collapsed after one battle, forced to abandon my family and my city and flee alone — not a bit more dignified than Zhao Mingcheng. So when you ask whether I advocate war, of course I do, because I regard my flight from Qingzhou that day as the greatest regret of my life, and I think of nothing but washing away that shame."

Yue Fei nodded heavily, clearly feeling the same, but he also sensed that the other man had more to say.

"But ever since I saw His Majesty at Mount Bagong and was assigned to Jiangxi, four years have passed — first helping to clear out the bandits that the imperial loyalist army turned into, then dealing with the military unrest in the southeast, then assisting in besieging Zhong Xiang and Yang Yao in Jingxiang, and now doing my utmost to help you, Military Governor Yue, suppress the Qian bandits." Liu Hongdao indeed laughed bitterly again. "Year after year, Jiangnan West Circuit was a poor region, yet corvée and tribute never stopped, and the Qian bandits alone occupied three-tenths of Jiangxi and harassed half of it... Seeing the people's livelihood wither and the officials suffer hardship, I gradually found myself unable to utter those grand words anymore, or else I'd invite resentment. And let's be fair — Jiangxi is poor, so it bears more corvée; the southeast is richer, but didn't they also have their taxes increased? Jingxiang is fertile, but didn't they also have their grain levies raised? And Bashu — for the Yaoshan campaign, they even paid two years' worth of taxes and grain in advance! Rise or fall, it's the common people who suffer!"

Yue Fei felt this even more keenly, and recalling his recent southern campaign, the complacency that had swelled from the smooth victory and Liu Hongdao's personal pursuit vanished completely in an instant.

"Of course, the south suffers, but are the millions in the Two Rivers, Jingdong, and northern Shaanxi any less miserable? Can the Humiliation of Jingkang be endured? Not fighting on would leave no one convinced. And if it were me — tens of thousands of lives lost in the Qingzhou campaign, even if the Jin returned all five prefectures of Jingdong, I could never tolerate it..." Liu Hongdao finally grew serious. "Military Governor Yue, the reason I called you up here to talk is simply to tell you that both sides have their reasons and arguments, both have their hardships and difficulties. In the end, it's up to His Majesty and the court to decide. As subjects, we can submit memorials, but we shouldn't take unauthorized actions — especially you. Having won so easily this time, with almost no losses, you're about to lead tens of thousands of troops back to the Jingdong front. At this moment, you must be even more cautious, and above all, consider His Majesty's reputation... Do you understand what I mean?"

Yue Pengju finally understood, yet found it absurd: "Does Grand Coordinator Liu think Yue Fei is a military official who disobeys orders and picks fights on his own, or are you worried that the vanguard of the Imperial Camp, mostly from Hebei, might do something improper when they return to the vicinity of Dongjing?"

Liu Hongdao shook his head and said nothing.

Yue Fei, three parts drunk, felt stifled and wanted to argue, but a fresh breeze from the river swept through the building, sobering him and suddenly leaving him listless... It wasn't that he didn't want to argue — he knew that the divide between civil and military officials made mutual trust difficult. More importantly, since the chaos began, he had experienced much and understood that while civil officials might have overreached in suppressing military officers, in times of turmoil, it was still mostly military officers who crossed the line.

Civil officials wouldn't flay people alive or slaughter their own cities.

Of course, leaving aside Yue Fei's tangled thoughts, the fundamental reason why military officers of the Great Song Dynasty were always cruel to their own people, and why civil officials always guarded against military officers more than against foreign enemies, was precisely the root cause of this nation's sudden collapse years ago... A vast country with a hundred million people, with such advanced economy and technology, with power many times that of the Jin, yet because of the ancestral policy of guarding the interior while weakening the periphery, layer upon layer of effort was spent fighting each other, leaving no room to deal with outsiders.

Earlier, when Zhao Jiu shouted in Dongjing, asking why the Xia couldn't be pacified in a hundred years, Zhao Ding and the others submitted a highly persuasive memorial, clearly explaining the causes and consequences of the Xia's founding — roughly that the Xia dated back to the late Tang and Five Dynasties, so it wasn't the Song's fault. It sounded very reasonable... But was the Xia truly impossible to pacify?

No matter how deep the Xia's foundations or how excellent their geography, the power disparity between the Song and the Xia was undeniable. To end up in the current situation could hardly be called reasonable, could it?

If we follow this logic, how could the First Emperor, building on six generations of accumulated strength, swallow the six states with even deeper roots? How could Tang Taizong counterattack and destroy the Turks in just a few years?

And even, how did the Jin bring about the Jingkang Incident?

In short, logic can always be found for anything — it's just a matter of choice.

As for Yue Pengju, he couldn't possibly think on that level. He only felt a certain helplessness and absurdity from his many experiences — comrades with almost identical experiences, holding nearly the same attitudes toward the Northern Expedition and the people of the south, yet because they belonged to different branches of officialdom, one had to rush after the other specifically to warn him. Add to that the earlier matter of the Fuzhou Prefect — how absurd was that?

Yet you had to admit that the other man's actions were essentially well-intentioned and responsible, which made it even more ridiculous.

Since they had spoken frankly, and Yue Fei had swallowed his pride, they returned downstairs together to continue the feast.

However, just as he sat down again, Yue Fei suddenly realized that Liu Hongdao's final remark about "considering His Majesty's reputation" probably carried another layer of meaning, one too delicate to speak aloud — that was the issue of the Two Emperors. The other man wasn't just worried that he, Yue Pengju, would deliberately let his troops sabotage the peace talks; he was worried that this trusted general of His Majesty might use the method of intercepting and killing the Two Emperors to prevent the peace!

Leaving aside how absurd that notion was, Yue Fei, no longer the ignorant youth he once was, quickly figured out an even more serious political issue during the feast — that these peace talks were not simply about making peace, nor merely about the court needing to redistribute power. The key was that His Majesty, the true backbone of the Great Song, was about to face a real crisis.

This crisis was the unavoidable issue of the Two Emperors' return to the south during the peace talks.

One must understand that the Two Emperors, as the former sovereigns of the entire Great Song, even if their reputation among the people was terrible, still held the great principle of legitimacy. The very reason these peace talks could proceed so openly was precisely because the name of the Two Emperors, combined with the benefit of the five Jingdong prefectures, left His Majesty and most war advocates unable to refute them. Yet at the same time, after years of His Majesty's constant hints, discussions, and refutations, how could anyone in the court or among the people not know His Majesty's true attitude toward the Two Emperors?

To be fair, Yue Fei didn't think the return of the Two Emperors could shake His Majesty's throne... With His Majesty controlling almost all military power, such a thing was nearly unimaginable. Nor did he think His Majesty would have Zhang Rong or himself kill the Two Emperors on the road... for a Son of Heaven who had been on the throne less than five years to semi-openly kill his father and elder brother was also nearly unimaginable. But there was no doubt that the return of the Two Emperors would force His Majesty to face an unprecedented test of political ethics!

After Yaoshan, His Majesty's various actions clearly indicated he intended to start anew. And now, the Two Emperors returning south, especially being sent back by the Jin, would undoubtedly plunge His Majesty into a difficult political position... If the Retired Emperor returned, would the "clearing away accumulated abuses" still proceed? If it did, wouldn't it seem like he was pressuring his father and elder brother?

And if one thought further, some people might support the peace talks not out of a desire for "rest and recuperation," but might harbor the sinister intention of using the Two Emperors to restrain His Majesty!

Of course, Yue Fei's thinking was still somewhat tainted by a military man's mindset, oversimplifying court politics. Add to that his poor tolerance for alcohol — a few drinks and his thoughts grew narrow...

But regardless, in the Xunyang Tower, the more Yue Fei thought, the more uneasy he became. Especially recalling that since he joined the army, he had taken His Majesty's resistance on the Huai as the dividing line — before that, everything was discouraging; after, things grew increasingly smooth. He had long believed that His Majesty was the nation's backbone and his own path home... Yet now, to face such a calamity. At the height of his distress, given his nature, he wouldn't shed tears or stomp his feet in rage. But after a hundred turns of thought, he suddenly turned around:

"Shopkeeper, bring brush and ink!"

The shopkeeper, who had been personally attending them for some time, immediately brought the prepared brush and ink on a small table, then hurriedly spread out the whitewashed wall set aside for poetry inscriptions.

Liu Hongdao felt awkward at this... His literary skill was poor, and he knew he was no match for Yue Fei. If this was going to be an inscription or a poem, what was he to do?

However, Yue Fei, after smoothing the ink on the table, moved his brush like a dragon and snake — it was neither poem nor lyric, but another inscription.

It read:

"In the past, the Central Plains were in turmoil, and the Jin bandits drove deep as if into an empty land; generals and commanders were incompetent, not matching the grandeur of the Great Wall. Fortunately, a sage sovereign arose, striving on the Huai, establishing a foothold in Nanyang, restoring the old capital, and winning decisively at Yaoshan. Though we have not yet ventured far to Yan and Yun to cleanse their lairs, it is enough to call him the backbone of the nation and the true orthodoxy under heaven.

I, Yue Fei, rose from Xiangzhou, joining the army as a youth. Over eight years, I have fought more than two hundred battles, large and small. In the first four years, I lost again and again — losing Yan and Yun, losing Taiyuan, losing Great Ming, losing Jingdong. In the latter four years, leading a lone isolated army, I rose at Dongjing, winning at Sishui, winning at Jizhou, winning at Yanling, winning at Dongping. My only regret is that I could not prevent a single Jin horseman from crossing the Great River from returning!

Now I hear the court is discussing peace, to rest troops and conserve strength, awaiting the enemy. I consider this a mistake! If the court should remember me and grant me weapons and armor to complete my equipment, I will immediately penetrate deep into the barbarian court, bind the rebel leader and make him bleed before my horse, slaughter every last one of their breed, welcome back the Two Emperors to the capital, and reclaim the old territories for the registry. Why should we seek peace, begging for men and land, forcing our sovereign into a dilemma? This resolve once made, heaven and earth know it, and those who know me know it! Summer of the fifth year of Jianyan, written by Yue Fei of Heshuo at the Xunyang Tower."

Having written this, Yue Fei, still fueled by wine, called forward his personal attendant Bi Jin, took out a standard memorial form, roughly adjusted the format, copied it out, then sealed it and ordered Bi Jin to send it to the capital via the secret memorial channel.

Liu Hongdao sat to one side, several times wanting to speak, but each time he stared at the brief inscription, unable to find words, and could only watch as the other man did as he pleased.

And so, Yue Fei submitted a memorial while drunk. When he sobered up, he felt he had been somewhat rash, but as the arrow had already left the string, there was no point in overthinking... Besides, the next day he would have to lead his troops north again.

As a result, when he reached north of the river, just passing through Shuzhou and turning into Wuwei Army, entering Luzhou, and preparing to head north to cross the Huai at Mount Bagong, he received a fast-horse imperial decree... The decree contained no rewards for his arduous southern campaign to suppress the rebellion. Instead, it ordered him not to return to Nanjing or Jizhou after crossing the Huai, but to go to Xuzhou to see Zhang Jun, the Commander-in-Chief of the Right Army of the Imperial Camp.

So passed the height of summer in the fifth month. By early in the sixth month, when Yue Fei had arduously led his troops to Xuzhou and met Zhang Jun, news came from the Dongjing direction. With repeated arrivals of messengers from the Yanjing region, the Jin plenipotentiary envoy Wulinda Zanmo had fully accepted the Zhao Song court's conditions.

Although there had been minor episodes like the Jin's initial demand for annual tribute, the prospect of the Jin ceding the captives from the Jingkang Incident plus the five Jingdong prefectures in exchange for a formal cessation of hostilities was now clearly in sight.

PS: Overall, last month I wrote over 130,000 words, trying to pull off a big chapter and fudge the numbers... but I failed.