Chapter 491: Returning Heart, Campaign Against Chen!

Wisps of green smoke rose as a scroll slowly unfurled, describing one hundred names, arrayed across the realm, ranking the war achievements of the various generals, and representing the forces and shifting currents of the entire world.

The top thirty divine generals had detailed descriptions and analyses of their achievements.

The names and introductions after that, however, were far more concise.

The Changfeng Lady held a brush, looking at this Divine General Ranking that had come from the Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven, not yet revealed to the world; the one who delivered this list was, in fact, an old acquaintance.

It was the Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven's guest consultant Tu Shengyuan, who, six years ago during the great sacrifice of Chen, had 'mooched food and drink,' and in Beicheng had cursed a Yin Yang Reincarnation Sect elder until the elder's Dao heart collapsed.

This guest consultant, compared to back then, still looked exactly the same.

Only the white hairs among his hair had increased somewhat.

Still just sitting in the Changfeng Tower's guest area drinking tea and eating pastries, in his usual brazen manner.

Xue Shuangtao's gaze fell upon the top thirty famous generals of the realm, because over this past year, the various nations had no campaigns to speak of, and the Divine General Ranking had not changed for a long time; only this time, with the battle against the Turks, there was finally a change.

Although the news was delayed, after being compiled from the intelligence of the Night Son of Heaven, Changfeng Tower, and the Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven, certain matters were finally reconstructed; Xue Shuangtao was unwilling to expose Li Guanyi's movements, but the Divine General Ranking was an unchanging tradition of the Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven for several hundred years.

Changfeng Tower did not yet have the foundation or reserves to challenge the Night Son of Heaven and the Tianxia Diyi Lou.

So she simply joined in, mixing nine truths with one falsehood.

Changes to the Divine General Ranking—

The seventh divine general, the brother of the Turkic Great Tian Kehan, the Left Wise King, Zhamuhe, died in battle.

Removed from the list.

Yue Pengwu thus rose to ninth on the Divine General Ranking.

The tenth was the lord of Xiyicheng, the new Duke Li Zhaowen.

His achievements were participating in most of the battlefields of Tiance Prefecture's Western Regions, participating in most of the battles entering Jiangnan via the Western Regions waterway, and this time, assisting Qin Wang in dealing with the Turkic Great Tian Kehan; with sheer force he leapt past the other famous generals, and with his initial Eighth Heaven realm cultivation, stood at tenth place.

Xue Shuangtao looked at this Li Zhaowen and sighed.

Her gaze fell, and beneath Li Zhaowen's name, she saw another, even more familiar name.

Divine General Ranking of the Realm.

Name: Yue Qianfeng!

Forty-six years old.

Originally a mountain bandit, he gained a fortuitous encounter, met Prince Ji Yanzhong of Zhongzhou; of bold and generous nature, he traded wine for a copy of the Scarlet Dragon Art; later he met Yue Pengwu and joined the Yue Family Army, fighting across the realm, becoming the foremost infantry fighter of the South, skilled with the halberdiers, ranked thirty-fourth on the Divine General Ranking.

Later he entered the realm of the four directions, fought through great battles repeatedly, gradually abandoning infantry combat and taking up cavalry tactics.

He has fought Xiao Wuliang, Gao Xiang, Chen Fubi, Jiang Su, Lu Youxian, the Great Tian Kehan, Zhamuhe; in his youth he fought Yue Pengwu and Tai Ping Gong; among all the fierce generals under heaven, none has such a rich record; he broke through to the Eighth Heaven in battle, first-rate in the present age.

Xue Shuangtao saw that this Brother Yue's former invincible valor, attacking like fire,

had been replaced with 【Immovable Like a Mountain, Vast and Thick Qi and Blood】.

Divine General Ranking position—

Eleventh!

Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven guest consultant Tu Shengyuan's note: One who can lead troops in a great battle and defeat Yue Qianfeng may be counted among the top ten divine generals under heaven.

Xue Shuangtao could not help but laugh softly.

"How did Brother Yue become someone who just takes beatings?"

"Guan Yi, ah, Guan Yi, following you, Brother Yue has truly suffered."

Her eyes lifted slightly, and she saw that the original second-ranked divine general, the Great Tian Kehan, had plummeted to third, while the second position had been replaced by a familiar person; Xue Shuangtao raised her finger and gently brushed across that line of text.

【Divine General Ranking, Second: Qin Wang Li, given name Guanyi】

【Nineteen years old】

【Defeated Yu Langwang, fought Jiang Su, severed Yu Wen Lie's arm, broke He Ruo Qinhu, galloped across the great desert, defeated the Great Tian Kehan, his might shook the realm; in nearly a hundred years, none has matched his achievements; in three hundred years, none has equaled him in founding a state and being enfeoffed as king】

Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven guest consultant Tu Shengyuan's note:

【In just six short years, he has fought across ten thousand li of the realm, endured a hundred battles, raised a three-foot sword, established unmatched merit, founded a state and claimed kingship; the title of First Under Heaven is within his reach in days to come】

Xue Shuangtao quietly gazed at this line of evaluation, a faint smile on the maiden's face; the late summer sunlight poured in through the gaps of the carved window beside her, flowing onto the table.

She still recalled how several years ago, when that youth had been confined, she had secretly slipped out of her aunt's palace, run to the outside of the Jinwu Guard confinement room, and stood on tiptoe to peek at the dejected youth.

Time flowed by in a daze.

She picked up the brush and erased Tu Shengyuan's evaluation.

Placing the brush on the table, Xue Shuangtao, who hoped to slightly temper the sharpness of Li Guanyi's current momentum, gazed at the sunlight outside and lazily narrowed her eyes.

………………

The three great matters of Qin Wang, along with the dissemination by the Tianxia Diyi Lou Under Heaven, were swiftly made known to all directions; for the swordsmen of the jianghu, this was a day worth celebrating, and the wine of the jianghu sold even better.

The Master Jiankuang, who had vanished for these three years—everyone had thought he had completely retired from the jianghu, or even perished—reappeared in the jianghu.

And the moment he reappeared, he gave all the jianghu folk of the realm a wake-up call.

Telling them what the true limit of a wandering knight-errant of the jianghu was.

Within the great army, he killed the seventh divine general.

It is said he also slew three thousand Tie Futu.

Don't tell me it's because the one who struck was the Master Jiankuang; just tell me, is the Master Jiankuang a man of the jianghu? And is what the Master Jiankuang holds in his hand that three-foot green-edged blade?!

In these days, the wandering knights-errant of the jianghu all gained an extra measure of confidence.

Roaming the jianghu in a blue robe with a wooden sword seemed to have become a standard outfit.

If one couldn't show off a few sword moves, one wasn't fit to call oneself a man of the jianghu.

However, for the people of Chen and Ying, this news was not so pleasant; the Master Jiankuang was still alive, and still possessed the ability to draw his sword—not like three years ago, when he had only one strike's worth of life left.

The Qin Wang, who already possessed a grand and sweeping momentum, was now even more like a tiger with wings, inspiring dread.

Among all the famous generals under heaven, apart from Jiang Su, no one could guarantee that when facing the Qin Wang in a clash of great armies, if a swordsman in blue robes suddenly appeared on the opposite side, they would still survive.

And the matter of the lord of Xiyicheng joining forces with Qin Wang to face the Great Tian Kehan had also been made almost entirely clear.

"Xiyicheng has fallen to the Qin Wang."

That place, situated at the vital junction of the four directions, a territory that every military strategist must contest for, now had an owner. The civil and military officials of Chen State secretly mocked Ying State; only when even the foundation Jiang Wanxiang had laid down in his youth was utterly lost did they finally react.

Xiyicheng is close to Chen State as well.

And the Qin Wang's lands south of the river, along with the waterways along the route, all border Chen State.

The Western Regions, the southwest, Xiyi, Jiangnan — in a certain sense, Xiyicheng and the retreat of the Tujue became a chain, encircling nearly all of Chen State's foreign-facing borders under the shadow of a single nation.

The tide of events had already been set.

The Right Chancellor Feng Yuning stared at the map of Chen State, somewhat lost in thought.

He seemed to see a chain taking shape.

From this point on, from Xiyicheng, from the Zhenxi Pass that Lu Youxian had once built, from Jiangnan, the southwest, the waterways, the armies under the Qin Wang could almost march out from any direction; if they so wished, they could even send ten armies in parallel and utterly smash through Chen State.

The only possibility was an alliance between Chen State and Ying State.

But between Chen State and Ying State lay vast mountain ranges as a barrier.

And Ying State had put forward a demand — that Chen State return the territory it had seized from Ying State one or two years ago when Chen Dingye led an imperial campaign in person — and only on the basis of ceding land to seek peace could the two nations form an alliance to jointly face Qin.

The Right Chancellor Feng Yuning, along with the Vice Ministers of the various departments and the Chancellor of the Imperial Secretariat, all submitted memorials hoping Chen Dingye would cede land to seek peace. White-haired old men knelt in the palace of Great Chen, kowtowing and weeping, saying that the great affairs of the state had come to this, that the four directions were all besieged, and if they did not bestir themselves now, the ancestors' foundation would be hard to defend.

If not for this, Great Chen was in peril.

Chen Emperor Chen Dingye summoned his guards and had more than ten people beaten to death on the spot in court.

They were guardsmen of the Three Heavens Jinwu Guard, wielding water-and-fire staves as thick as a wrist, who delivered three hundred blows without pause. Though those civil officials had cultivation, most were only at the second or third realm, cultivating literary Qi and fortune; even if they had Wu Gong, they had never tempered their bodies.

What scholar or gentleman would willingly endure the hardship of tempering the body?

They were beaten until their internal Qi was pierced through and their flesh and blood smashed apart.

The fresh blood of the civil officials beaten to death flowed down, trickling along the Bai Yu palace steps, drying in the cracks, unable to be washed away by water. Throughout the palace, deathly silence reigned; no one dared speak.

They only trembled in fear, terror in their hearts.

The Chen Emperor, seated upon the throne, inquired: "My lords, do you still have matters to report?"

He asked three times in succession, and not a single person dared speak again.

The Chen Emperor said: "If that is so, then my lords, withdraw."

Feng Yuning at this moment recalled Chen Dingye's pair of disdainful eyes, and felt a chill he could not control rising from his back; even his wrists trembled slightly. He did not know why, but he felt that when His Majesty departed, he seemed to have glanced at him.

Within that glance was an inexpressible indifference.

Is he going to move against me?

Does he dare move against me?!! I was once Grand Tutor, the teacher who instructed him. The Martial King slew his own brother — does he dare slay his teacher?

Feng Yuning stared at the map of terrain for a long while, his thoughts in disarray, unable to find peace for the moment.

A sudden regret rose within his heart.

Perhaps, it was time to stop.

A gentle, beautiful young woman beside him said: "Foster father, the tide under heaven has already come to this."

"What should our Feng family do?"

Feng Yuning sighed: "What should we do — a fine question. But these chaotic times surge so violently that even this old man himself can no longer see clearly."

"My Great Chen has enemy states on both sides, every direction wrapped up by the Qin Wang. And the Qin Wang is like a Fire Qilin — though young, he is irresistible, valiant and brave, hard to contend with. Beneath his banner, strategists gather like rain, fierce generals like clouds."

"Once he is ready, he can march out simultaneously from Xiyicheng, Jiangnan, and the southwest."

"My Great Chen facing enemies on three fronts — I fear we are in peril."

"If the Ying Emperor also sends out troops at this moment, then my Great Chen, even if its wealth surpasses that of all the other nations under heaven, would be nothing more than a piece of meat."

"The destruction of the state, the humiliation of the ancestors — such things could happen at any moment. Yet His Majesty pays no heed whatsoever, growing ever more violent and tyrannical."

"What harm is there in returning a stretch of territory?!"

"Those lands were originally seized from Ying State in the first place. Returning them in exchange for an alliance with Ying State, to jointly face the Qin Wang — that is the true choice."

"Could it be that returning a mere three hundred li of land is more important than the survival or destruction of the state?"

Feng Yuning wrung his wrists and sighed, full of worry for the state and its people, with a hidden grief and indignation:

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty — how has he become so violent and self-willed, refusing to heed counsel? If this continues, what of Great Chen's dynasty, what of its people and altars of state?!"

Amid such vexation, he then heard that the Emperor had approved and dispatched another shipment of silver to Master Nan Hanwen in Jiangnan — this time still one million taels of white silver, passing through the Right Chancellor's residence.

The Right Chancellor Feng Yuning deliberated for a long while, then said: "Great Chen is finished. Chen Dingye has betrayed the state, refusing to heed the counsel of civil officials and renowned scholars — then he is no longer our sovereign. If he is not our sovereign, if the ruler is no ruler, then the minister cannot be blamed for not being a minister."

The gold and silver transfers approved by the Chen Emperor left the Right Chancellor's residence.

Only one million taels remained.

Layer upon layer of skimming — by the time it reached Master Nan Hanwen in Jiangnan, only thirteen taels of silver were left.

The portents of a troubled age had reached their extreme.

Master Nan Hanwen held those thirteen taels of silver, staring blankly and lost in thought for a long while, then told all of these matters in full to Mr. Yan Daiqing. Mr. Yan Daiqing stared at those thirteen taels of silver for a long time, and said only that he knew.

He then relayed these matters to Master Wen Qingyu and Xiaozhi.

Throughout Tiance Prefecture, from top to bottom, everyone knew of this matter.

And when Ying State learned of the change in the Divine General Ranking, of the Master Jiankuang's reappearance in the human world, and, having deduced from this the fate of Xiyicheng, Jiang Wanxiang was silent for a long while — this was both a sigh of lamentation, a hero grown old, and a sense of helplessness.

Knowing that in this situation, to suddenly go to war with Xiyicheng would mean the nation was unprepared, and it would easily drag all of Ying State back into the whirlpool of battle, Jiang Wanxiang therefore personally wrote a letter and sent it to Xiyicheng.

Congratulating Li Zhaowen on becoming the lord of Xiyicheng and stepping onto the stage of the world.

Still addressing him as Duke.

He Ruo Qinhu still led troops out, cutting off the connection between Xiyicheng and the entire Central Plains. At the same time, the Great Tian Kehan led his cavalry straight toward the grasslands and territory of the Seventh Prince Ashi, intending to have a talk with this son of his.

Ashi's military tactics had become nimble and keen; he knew he could not be a match for his father, especially with the Great Tian Kehan now in a state of extreme fury. The Seventh Prince abandoned a portion of his territory, leading only his troops and people southward, approaching the borders of Xiyicheng and the Qin Wang.

He made camp on the grasslands of this region.

The Great Tian Kehan's Iron Futsu charged into the Seventh Prince Ashi's original settlement, only to find the tents utterly empty — no one had been left behind. All that remained here were old and feeble cattle and sheep, and even these old and feeble cattle and sheep had already been slaughtered.

Everything that could be taken away had already been taken; what remained could no longer be used.

The many khans under the Great Tian Kehan were all furious, and they listed the Seven Tian Kehan's many crimes, demanding that the Great Tian Kehan judge this traitor under the grasslands' oldest laws. The Great Tian Kehan, eyes closed, led his army forward, following the trail of the Seven Tian Kehan Ashina.

In the distance, beside Ashina's banners, there was another great banner of ink-black, as though it had tumbled down from the heavens. Upon it were crimson Fire Qilin cloud patterns, and above those patterns, a single enormous character—

【Qin】!

The Great Tian Kehan gripped his reins, gazing at that banner far away that pointed at the firmament like a sharp spear, at that character Qin upon it, still streaked with blood, written in a bold, sweeping hand. What rose first in his heart was a surge of fury.

But such fury was quickly suppressed by him.

He would take the people and the cattle and sheep with him; as for the vast grasslands, those could be abandoned.

Looking back over these years of Qin Wang's rise, this was indeed, truly, the kind of strategy Qin Wang would employ. The Great Tian Kehan did not let his fury carry him forward to fight Qin Wang to the death. The Great Tian Kehan said: "From now on, it will be a war between great nations."

"Armies of a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, even three hundred thousand, slaughtering each other on the battlefields of the world. Qin Wang, our grudge will be settled in the end."

He gazed deeply at Qin Wang's encampment and saw a stream of sword qi surge up into the sky like a torrent, tearing apart the sea of clouds. The Great Tian Kehan chose to turn and leave, and the Seven Tian Kehan's troops were thus preserved.

Within the camp, Li Guanyi, dressed in an ink-black robe, looked at the many generals before him. Mr. Pojun personally made the introduction, saying: "My lord, this friend should not be unfamiliar to you. Five or six years ago, at the Xue family of Chen Kingdom, you met once."

He led the Seven Tian Kehan Ashina inside.

Ashina wore the splendid garments of a khan. When he raised his head, he saw the radiant Qin Wang; from his features, one could still connect him to the Imperial Guard of Chen Kingdom from over five years ago, but back then, he had been the foreign monarch invited by Chen Emperor Chen Dingye.

Li Guanyi had merely been an Imperial Guard within the palace of Chen Kingdom.

And now, he was the traitor who had betrayed the Turkic overlord, the Great Tian Kehan.

Before him now stood the very king who had become his ally, the one who could shelter him and the warriors of his tribe. The shifts of the world were so swift they left one unable to catch one's breath. Mr. Pojun pointed at the Seven Tian Kehan, about to make the introduction.

The Seven Tian Kehan stepped forward to salute, performed a courtesy, half-knelt on the ground, and lowered his head.

"I thank the Central Plains' king for sheltering my tribe."

"Ashina of the grasslands, Ashina She'er, greets my lord."

"I greet Your Majesty."

He was about to perform the grandest ceremony of the grasslands—lying flat with both hands on the ground, pressing his forehead to the vast earth—when he was helped up by Qin Wang. Qin Wang's laughter rang out bold and clear: "General Ashina, please rise."

"If not for General Ashina's aid, I might well have been surrounded by the Great Tian Kehan on the grasslands. Please, rise quickly."

Qin Wang helped Ashina to his feet. Ashina sighed, feeling the arm supporting him was young and strong. He raised his head, looked at the man who was now the world's second-ranked divine general, and felt a sense of disorientation.

The great currents of the world surged on, and people walked within them.

Ordinary folk were like mayflies in the waves; in these chaotic times, they lived in the morning and died at night, not even knowing what was happening, not knowing why they lived, why they died. To be able to awaken to and perceive the undercurrents of these chaotic times was already the mark of an outstanding person.

But even among the heroes of men, there were times when one could not grasp one's own fate.

All they could do was watch helplessly as they stepped into this whirlpool.

Beyond their own control.

To see clearly that, after making such a choice, the direction of one's life would shift and change; but sometimes, people simply had no other choice.

One was only a fallen leaf, rising and falling within the torrent.

This young man before him, about to come of age at twenty—

He was the source that stirred the storm of these chaotic times.

Ashina seemed once again to see his own mother, that gentle, beautiful woman from a great Central Plains clan. He lowered his eyes, yet still did not regret it; even though this body of his was not the source that could raise the storm of chaotic times—

Yet the wrath of a common man could also overturn heaven and earth.

He cupped his hands and said:

"Your subject does not dare accept such grace from my lord."

That day, Qin Wang held a banquet to entertain the Seven Tian Kehan Ashina. Qin Wang played the qin, and Tian Kehan Ashina rose to dance. To avoid any awkwardness, the khans of the various Western Regions tribes also attended as companions; host and guests were all delighted, and the grasslands led by Tian Kehan Ashina came under Qin's banner.

The four thousand Tie Futu under Ashina also joined the Anxi Protectorate.

He was granted the title of Tian Kehan, given supplies, and a city was built.

Ashina took the initiative to speak, sending his wife and children to the lands of Jiangnan. Qin Wang gazed deeply at this forty-year-old khan, did not refuse, but personally wrote a letter, introducing Ashina's son to be enrolled under one of the Six Palace Masters of the Academy—Mo Juzi.

Yet although he had been enrolled under Mo Juzi, how much he could learn, how much skill he could attain, would still depend on the individual's effort and comprehension.

He would cultivate the Mohist arts of breath-regulation, the Mohist sword art, and the ideal of a Great Unity under Heaven.

Ashina had not expected his son to have such a destiny.

His heart was a tangle of feelings, and his gratitude was boundless.

He knew he could no longer turn back.

And the matter of the Seven Tian Kehan Ashina's rebellion against the Turkic grasslands, the Great Tian Kehan leading his army forward, confronting Qin Wang and then departing—following hard upon those three great events before—swiftly spread throughout the entire world.

The perceptive people of every nation faintly sensed a thread of unease.

The world had been at peace for a year, yet conflicts and frictions kept erupting in the grasslands and the Xiyicheng region. Although only one localized battle had actually taken place on the grasslands, the subsequent friction was constant, and though no real fighting had broken out, its nature was extremely ugly.

Whether it was Xiyicheng breaking away from Ying Kingdom, or the Seven Tian Kehan breaking away from the Turkic—

Both carried the feeling of a storm about to break, the wind already filling the tower.

The world, pacified for over a year, was about to see upheaval once more.

And facing Ying Kingdom's He Ruo Qinhu, who had cut off Xiyicheng's connection with the Central Plains to prevent this city they themselves had built from becoming a springboard for Qin to attack the Central Plains, the reactions of Qin Wang and Xiyicheng were beyond what every faction in the world had anticipated.

Qin Wang and Xiyicheng did not at this time choose to march straight from Xiyicheng into the Central Plains to contend with Ying Kingdom, to find ways to magnify the benefits of having gained Xiyicheng; they seemed to have no interest in opening a new front of war at this time.

Their military forces merely maintained their rule over the area around Xiyicheng.

Instead, Chen Dingye rode the momentum upward, his military edge sharp; not only did he not return some of the territory to Ying Kingdom, he fiercely swallowed up a portion of the land between Xiyicheng and Ying Kingdom's heartland. The Great Tian Kehan of the grasslands likewise chose the same tactic.

Building on the Ying Kingdom territory they had seized before, they continued to encroach upon that narrow "corridor" between Xiyicheng and Ying Kingdom's core.

By the time things settled down, the situation around Xiyicheng had instead become even more complex.

Xiyicheng drew in its forces.

It shut its gates tight, using Lu Youxian's treatise on city-building and defensive warfare to strengthen Xiyicheng's defenses, closed its doors and refused to fight, from top to bottom, inside and out, fully implementing the old-turtle school's tactics.

You want to fight, then fight among yourselves; I'm not fighting anyway.

Beyond Xiyicheng, the forces of the State of Ying, the State of Chen, and the Tujue all took action.

The Tujue, having lost part of the Seven Kings' territory, turned to gnaw at the brief, masterless lands left behind after Xiyicheng's departure; the State of Chen did likewise, while the State of Ying rushed to recover its own lost ground. All three sides fielded elites at this moment, and none moved slowly.

This made the area the most complicated situation of all.

The result was that each side had taken a bite, yet each had only taken a part, and all were eyeing the portions the others had swallowed with greedy hunger. Conflict was all too easy to spark. Within a single month, small units had already clashed in dozens of Bai Ren engagements, with several hundred casualties.

The contradictions grew ever more intense.

Martial generals eager for fame and merit petitioned for battle one after another, while the civil officials split into a pro-war faction and a pro-peace faction. It was autumn, and now the end of the eighth month of the fifteenth year of Tianqi had arrived. After more than a year of pacification, the realm once more faintly showed signs of war breaking out.

The contradictions here were simply too fierce, and too tempting.

Even the common folk going from street to street sensed that some kind of dispute was about to arise here, and that local battlefields might appear, when Qin Wang Li Guanyi wrote a letter to Chen Wenmian and Master Yan Daiqing, sending it by a flying eagle spirit-beast.

After Yan Daiqing finished reading the letter, he was unable to collect himself for a long while.

The words within the letter were simple.

In the end, it was only eight characters, yet they seemed to carry a sense of muffled thunder rolling, blasting apart this沉闷 era, as if all the warlords of the realm, tangled in chaos like a thousand-knot tangle, had been split apart by a single sword!

【Make a feint to the east, strike to the west】

【Soon】

【Attack Chen】!

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