Chapter 46: Xuanwu!

Ranked thirty-fourth among the great generals of the realm.

The undisputed master of land warfare in the Southern Court.

Wielding twin-dragon battle halberds, he can slay a Jianghu Sect Master within thirty-three paces.

Leading his troops as Great Halberd Soldiers, capable of infantry defeating cavalry, fearless and unyielding, crushing all who stood against them, he stood alongside the陌刀军 of the Guanzhong豪族 of the Ying State as the dominant force north and south—yet such a fierce general defected from his own army and became a great bandit.

"General Yue Qianfeng…"

In the quiet chamber, an elegant old man murmured the name, his tone laced with murderous intent and bewilderment.

"The Yue clan's followers have all been relocated to the frontier, suppressed by the Emperor's younger brother as general; after several rounds of pacification, combining mercy and authority, each was granted titles and rewards—they've all settled down. But this Yue Qianfeng alone? He resigned his post, abandoned his troops, and charged into the nation like a mad dog."

"What happened to Xiao Wuliang?!"

"He and the Luzhou Sword Immortal joined forces—and still, Yue Qianfeng survived!"

A man bowed his head and replied: "... General Xiao said, General Yue…"

He paused, then said: "General Yue's cultivation base is fully complete. When his Crimson Dragon Manifestation erupts, it can burn mountains and boil rivers. He ambushed covertly, had no troops to bring along, and in a one-on-one duel, Yue Qianfeng was no match for him—but escaping was no difficulty."

"The Luzhou Sword Immortal's sword qi is peerless, capable of splitting mountains and cracking seas—but that warrior once achieved seventeen first-assault victories, slain eight enemy generals, seized three banners; his twin halberds plucked enemy heads from within ten thousand troops as easily as reaching into a pouch. Wearing the soft armor granted by the former Emperor, he survived."

The elegant old man slammed his fist hard onto the precious table and roared: "Absurd!"

"He wields the former Emperor's sacred armor against our court—who is this traitor?!"

"Xiao Wuliang can charge an enemy formation with seven horses, hurling his hand-cone to kill the strongest Turkic archers."

"How many current fierce generals surpass him? Twice now: ten years ago, he let a weak woman and a child escape with his night-riding cavalry; now, ten years later, he can't even stop Yue Qianfeng?"

"Ten years ago, he was twenty-three—his cultivation base was not yet complete, and he had help."

"Now, at thirty-three, is his cultivation base still insufficient?!"

"He is secretly disobedient! He overestimates his Wu Gong!"

"Has he forgotten who elevated him?!"

The responding man bowed his head: "General Xiao Wuliang says he has failed in the Chancellor's commission and is guilty."

"We humbly beg you to strip him of his rank and reassign him to the frontier as a common soldier."

"To guard the nation's frontier gate."

The elegant old man's expression froze; he had no reply, and swept his sleeve aside, cursing: "Youthful fool, unaware that the affairs of the realm lie in the capital, among the ministers, among these millennia-old clans—every day, all they talk about is wanting to go to the frontier, to lead troops and fight battles."

"Do you know how war burdens the common people? Do you know that military force has always been a deadly instrument, used by sages only as a last resort? At thirty, he remains as he was on his first battlefield."

He fell silent, gazing at the map of the realm's grand strategy spread before him on the desk.

Chen State was mapped in greatest detail; the others were only roughly sketched.

He stared fixedly at the border between Ying State and Chen State.

After the Yue clan was brought back, Ying State and Chen State grew friendly and opened mutual trade.

Two months from now, during Chen State's ancestral rites, Ying State's Second Imperial Prince Jiang Guang will come to pay respects.

Yet even so, Ying State has stationed thirty thousand Tiger-Mann cavalry along the border.

The Yue family's troops also face them across the river, a mutual stalemate—this has forced the Yue family's veteran generals to remain there, unable to return and rescue their commander. Yet no one expected a reckless fool like this to appear.

Since ancient times, fierce generals have always been this way—without such a nature, they could not possess the fearless, death-defying valor.

Ying State and Chen State briefly reconciled; Ying State's General Yuwen withdrew part of his forces and led them north to expel the Turks, while the Tuyuhun, a豪族 of Longyou and Guanzhong, held the line—too occupied to attack Chen State. The grand strategy of the realm had settled into a stable equilibrium, a peace maintained by mutual checks.

It was precisely the perfect age the court ministers had predicted and deduced.

But now, it is different.

A top-tier general has turned his blade, like a spear piercing into Chen State's territory.

General Yue Qianfeng's repeated appearances have already triggered multiple covert shifts: Jianghu Sect Masters have intercepted him, Chen State's foremost fierce general, Xiao Wuliang, has been deployed—and Jiangzhou has briefly trembled, forcing surrounding forces to recall troops in attempts to block Yue Qianfeng.

They have been forced to adopt a policy of complete conciliation toward the other Yue family generals.

Meanwhile, Ying State's Tiger-Mann cavalry and the famed Shangzhuguo, Ying State's Great Conqueror General, remain stationed to contain the troop movements caused by Yue Qianfeng—forcing reinforcements to be drawn from the northwest, leaving the Tuyuhun restless and eyeing Chen State;

And the Turks wait for Ying State, watching whether it will exploit Chen State's turmoil with another strategy.

The old man's gaze was sharp—he saw at a glance that the pivot of the realm's grand strategy rested on Yue Qianfeng.

If he breaches the court's frontier fortress…

The old man clenched his fist in fury.

"Fool! Fool!"

"As stupid as an ox."

"This is what they call a great general of the realm."

"A herd of unbridled wild horses, reckless and predatory, turning on their masters—once they go mad, heedless of their own lives, they can stir the winds and clouds of the realm's fate. They call them the nation's treasures—but if they disown the Emperor, they are nothing but traitors and rebels!"

The old man said: "The frontier troops must not move again. I shall write a letter inviting the Ying court's Imperial Prince."

"Order the commander of Yicheng to mobilize troops from another border city, forming an encircling force—no matter what Yue Qianfeng intends, we must block him, trap him!"

"Order the frontier to contact the Tangut people, grant them a thousand gold pieces and bolts of silk, and invite them to court for an audience."

"The Tuyuhun Right Prince's daughter loves jade—send fine jade and beautiful women to pay tribute."

The old man issued one order after another, plugging the cracks in the grand strategy stirred by Yue Qianfeng—old, steady, resolute.

As he picked up his brush to write the letter, his expression was calm, as if he could still the tides of the realm—when suddenly, a eunuch rushed in, breathless: "Your Excellency, the Emperor has acquired the 'Thousand Li of Peace and Prosperity' scroll—the ministers cannot appreciate it, and the Emperor is furious."

The official who had just reported urgent matters frowned and rebuked: "Absurd—the Chancellor has great…"

The old man roared: "Absurd!"

The official opened his mouth to reply—when the inkstone smashed into his forehead, blinding him, blood streaming.

The elegant old man set down his brush and hurried to the eunuch's side, gripping his arm: "This is a matter of great importance—the Sage's masterpiece cannot be viewed by anyone else."

"Though I am dull-witted, I beg to see it."

"Please guide me."

The official from the Ministry of War sat on the ground, clutching his forehead, staring blankly in a daze.

The old man, dressed in a vermilion official's robe with a jade belt, walked away in quick steps. The young official looked at the scroll that represented the great trends of the world—only a few lines had been written on it—yet the old man's back was already out of sight. All that could be seen was beneath the night, the wind rising and clouds hanging high. If that General Yue Qianfeng truly broke through the pass and reached Jingcheng of Jiangzhou.

Or rather, the whole world already knew General Yue Qianfeng seemed to be planning to charge the pass—was he truly planning to do so?

He watched the flow of clouds in the sky, veiling the bright, clear moon.

"The heavens are about to change…"

………………

Within the Mystical Realm.

Facing the question from General Xue Shen.

Li Guanyi responded with the allusions he knew beforehand, such as Sun Tzu's Art of War, doing his best to manage. General Xue Shen shook his head and said lightly: "Empty talk. The battlefield is not so simple. You must never have set foot on one. The words you speak are things any military scholar would say, yet you don't grasp their subtleties."

"Mm, correct nonsense, that's all. You only know how to repeat. Sounds good, but don't say it again next time."

"To strike the empty and avoid the full—how would you know which is empty and which is full? To know oneself and know the enemy—how would you know whether what you know is true or false? The five virtues of a general—how to maintain them, how to train troops, how to form battle arrays, how to link the Qi of weapons, how to give soldiers the resolve to face certain death without the notion of certain victory, yet still win the battle?"

"Terrain and topography—which places are suitable for setting up camps? Weather and rain—how to use the moment to launch a fierce assault?"

"When a general in the army harbors divided loyalties, how to suppress it; when a battle general in the army suffers defeat, what should be done?"

"The thirty-two methods of using spies, the sixteen methods of dead spies—what are they respectively?"

"How to identify enemy spies, how to turn them to your own use, the thirty-six basic battle formations—these are only the fundamental skills of a military commander on the battlefield. Only by mastering these can one be called a general, only then does one have the right to bear the lives of hundreds and thousands and the fate of the nation."

"With far-sighted vision, sufficient to plan grand military strategy, and not merely formations, can one be called a famous general. Yet you are nothing more than a parrot that mimics speech. How could there be one like you among my juniors? Has my Xue family truly ceased to study military texts?"

General Xue Shen seemed to begin doubting his own descendants, yet his gaze was mostly teasing and playful.

The corner of Li Guanyi's mouth twitched.

The divine general picked up his brush and, on the young man's forehead, wrote the character "one."

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly as he said: "However, fortunately, it seems my preparations were not in vain."

"Let me tell you how to break through each kind of situation."

He began to lecture on cavalry tactics and crescent charge formations for leading troops. After a full shichen, the young man surfaced, and Yaoguang, who had been reading, saw Li Guanyi flip over and collapse onto a rock.

Yaoguang's voice was calm: "You look very weary."

Li Guanyi clutched his forehead.

He thought of how, when he had been utterly exhausted earlier, General Xue Shen had kept lecturing and deducing battle formations.

Complex, meticulous, and systematic.

"I feel like military knowledge has entered my brain in a despicable way."

Li Guanyi entered a period of regular life. Every day he practiced archery and martial arts in the morning, and in the afternoon he would leave the city to Head to the Mystical Realm for cultivation. He wanted to obtain the refinement of his foundation by starlight, to verify the supreme method of entering the realm, and so he had to come. And each time after battle, when he took his medicinal pills and his body was weary.

General Xue Shen would unilaterally force-teach him all manner of military strategy.

*Comprehensive Survey of Battle Formations*, *Essence of Military Strategy*, *Military Canon*, *Thatched Cottage's Strategy*, *Garden of Generals*, *Treatise on Myriad Mechanisms*, *Six Secret Teachings and Three Strategies*, *Naval Warfare*… all kinds of military texts. Li Guanyi had a photographic memory, a quick mind, and could draw inferences from one example. General Xue Shen then increased the difficulty of his teaching.

For every person defeated, he would use the military strategy and tactics that person had specialized in five hundred years ago to teach him.

Only when Li Guanyi broke through would it stop.

Such days could be considered fulfilling. Time gradually passed, more than ten days. Li Guanyi still did not know what use this teaching had. Yet on this day, on the way back, he raised his head and swept his gaze over the city defenses, and was slightly startled, as a conclusion naturally formed in his mind.

The city defenses had tightened.

Even the replacement gate guards were elites who had experienced real battle formations, skilled in infantry combat, with bows and crossbows arranged in alternating firing patterns.

It was a defense meant to deal with strong infantry combatants suddenly breaking into the formation.

If the city gate was taken as the baseline, there should be a great general not far from here. Mm, though these commoners wore plain clothes, they should be a special troop type wielding iron chains and grappling hooks to trip horses—a very solid type of defense.

When Li Guanyi walked into the city, he only then realized what judgment his mind had made.

His expression turned Color Heavy, and he reached out to press his forehead.

At first a little delighted, then puzzled. Delighted that General Xue Shen's teaching of him had actually brought about such a transformation, yet also shocked and puzzled—Yicheng, such a great city, with such defenses, meant that someone was going to attack the city?

Who could be so mad?

If that was the case, he had to bring his aunt to the Xue family first. Li Guanyi made his decision and headed toward the Xue family. At the same time, he was thinking about something—his medicinal pills were used up, because the tempering in the Mystical Realm caused him to consume far more pills than ordinary people.

Yet pills were expensive; he couldn't keep asking the Young Lady for money.

In recent days he had been telling stories to Xue Changqing and earned some silver, barely enough to get by.

He turned around and heard someone calling: "Fortune-telling and divination, I know everything. Ziwei Ziwei Dou Shu, the great and small Liu Ren—all in the palm of my hand. Ah, little friend, please stay a moment. This old man sees your forehead is dark; you may have a calamity of bloodshed and war in the near future."

Li Guanyi heard the familiar voice and saw an old man.

It was precisely that 【Master Siming】 who had climbed the wall before.

The old man also saw Li Guanyi, and the corner of his mouth curved up slightly.

He was about to speak.

Li Guanyi's pupils contracted, his gaze shifted, and he saw the enormous black tortoise beside the old man.

The old man's motion of stroking his beard froze, and his eyes widened.

He saw the Bai Hu on Li Guanyi's shoulder and the red dragon on his arm.

Both sides froze for a moment.

Then both noticed the other's gaze, and their expressions both changed.

The old man said: "You can see them?!"

Li Guanyi frowned and turned to leave. The old man tossed aside his stall, leapt onto the table, chased after him, and called out: "Disciple, disciple, stop!"

Li Guanyi walked even faster.

The old man pounced through the air and directly hugged the young man's thigh.

"Disciple—no, no."

"You don't want to be a disciple, then how about you being my master?!"

"Master!"

(End of chapter)