Chapter 361
Chapter 361
After receiving the decree and leaving the royal palace, Shen Lang looked at Zhang Chong and said.
“Sir Zhang, I’m not sure if I should say this.”
“Speak your mind, Young Master Shen.”
“Is it not said that ‘a general in the field is not bound by the orders of his sovereign’? His Majesty has ordered us to garrison at Baiye Commandery and prevent Su Nan’s rebel army from moving east. But I intend to wipe out the entire Su Clan within a month or two!”
“Ugh!”
“Furthermore, as soon as I arrive in Zhenyuan City, I plan to carry out a massacre of the Su Clan. I will be killing quite a lot of people, and I’ll need Prefect Zhang to help me then.”
“You intend to annihilate them the moment you arrive in Zhenyuan City?”
Shen Lang nodded. Zhang Chong felt his head throb as if going numb.
“Roughly how many will you kill? You must give me a number so I can decide whether or not to take the fall for you.”
Shen Lang held up one finger.
“A hundred?”
Shen Lang shook his head.
“A thousand?”
Shen Lang shook his head again and said.
“No, I’ll probably kill them endlessly!”
Zhang Chong’s jaw dropped, his expression contorting.
Three days later.
Zhang Chong and Shen Lang led three thousand troops out of the capital, heading for Tianxi Province.
The Count of Xuanwu’s villa had been burned to near ruins, so Jin Mucong and Bing’er once again stayed at the Fifth Prince’s residence. Before leaving, Shen Lang held a funeral for the dead. The night Su Jianting attacked the Jin Clan’s villa, more than a dozen guards defending the manor had been killed. Half of them were the Jin Clan’s warriors, and the other half were warriors sent by the Heavenly Dao Society. Shen Lang had their bodies cremated, placed their ashes in urns, and had memorial tablets made for them. The tablets and ashes would remain in the capital for now, to be brought back to Xuanwu City for burial upon their return.
“I will avenge my brothers.”
Shen Lang bowed three times to the memorial tablets and urns, making a solemn vow. He and the Su Clan were now mortal enemies. Previously, the Su Clan had sent martial arts masters from the Western Regions to burn the Jin Clan’s lands, plunder homes, and kill countless innocent people. If not for Gou Duhuan’s help, Mulan would have been gravely injured. Then, Su Jianting had attacked the Count of Xuanwu’s Estate, taking nearly a hundred lives and leaving a long, deep gash on his mother-in-law Su Pepe’s back.
Now, another dozen of the Jin Clan’s brothers had lost their lives at the hands of Su Jianting. Shen Lang would not rest until he had utterly destroyed the Su Clan, leaving not a single blade of grass standing, and killed every last one of them. For this reason, he decided not to take Huang Feng with him to Zhenyuan City. She was to remain in the capital with several dozen warriors to protect Jin Mucong and Bing’er.
Shen Lang set off to assume his post as city lord, accompanied by Shen Shisan and Big Dummy.
* * *
The three thousand elite soldiers marched at a moderate pace. They were expected to reach Zhenyuan City in about seven or eight days. Shen Lang sat with Zhang Chong inside a large carriage.
“Sir Zhang, when you dealt with our Jin Clan in Xuanwu City, you laid out your plans with great care and precision, encircling us from all sides. But Baiye Commandery is Su Nan’s old stronghold; we won’t have such an opportunity this time.”
Zhang Chong nodded. The so-called strategy had to adapt to the opponent and the level of the conflict. When he faced Count Jin Zhuo of Xuanwu, their contest was within the realm of political struggle, allowing for strategic posturing and a relatively calm approach. In contrast, the battle against Su Nan was a fight to the death. There was no time for political maneuvering; it would be a brutal fight from the very start.
“The King has warned us several times to hold Su Nan down, to keep him in check. He said we must prevent him from rebelling for at least two months, but in my view, those were just words from the King.”
Of course, they were just words. Whether Su Nan rebelled or not depended on his own strategy and the pace of events, not on anything Zhang Chong and Shen Lang could influence. The King had only one expectation of them: to pin Su Nan’s rebel army, whatever its size, within Baiye Commandery. To put it more bluntly, Zhenyuan City could fall into enemy hands, but Baiye Commandery City must not.
Zhang Chong had been appointed as the commander of the southern garrisons of Tianxi Province, but it was a title in name only. The northern part of Tianxi Province had numerous armies, most under the command of the Zhong Clan, with some under Zheng Tuo. The southern garrisons, however, were pitifully small, numbering a few thousand at most, and had long been rendered useless.
The Su Clan had been currying favor with them for a long time, so Zhang Chong wouldn’t be able to command those troops. In fact, he would be lucky if they didn’t join Su Nan’s rebellion the moment it began. Therefore, the only soldiers Zhang Chong could command were the three thousand elites he brought from the capital. With only these three thousand men, he had to hold Baiye Commandery City for at least two months.
Shen Lang said to him.
“I will give you all three thousand of these elite soldiers. I don’t need a single one. I will stir up a great storm in Zhenyuan City and buy you ten days. Within those ten days, you must purge all obstacles in Baiye Commandery City, eliminate all enemies, and uproot them to gain complete control of the city.”
Zhang Chong nodded.
“I can do that.”
To be honest, Zhang Chong had never fought such a world-shaking battle before. Baiye Commandery was Su Nan’s base, so the commandery city was likely rotten to the core. The previous Prefect of Baiye, Chen Qinong, was once a rising star in the political world. To become a prefect at the age of forty showed how high the King’s expectations for him were.
But less than half a year after taking office, Chen Qinong lost all his power, left with no authority. He was a man of strong character and refused to align with Su Nan or become their puppet. As a result, he was driven out of Baiye Commandery, framed for corruption. Of course, upon investigation, it was found that he had indeed accepted a bribe two years prior in a different post, an incident that had caused no trouble at the time. But after he took the position of Prefect of Baiye, this past transgression was brought to light. He was currently still imprisoned in the Court of Judicial Review, and it was said he would soon be exiled.
The formidable Su Clan had a way of swallowing its opponents whole the closer they got. Baiye City, being so close to them, must have been managed by the Su Clan with an iron fist. Trying to break through such a situation with ordinary political means was nothing but a fool’s dream. The only way was to kill. Killing all the disobedient officials would create a complete vacuum in the administration of Baiye Commandery, and order would collapse. But even if all functions temporarily ceased and chaos ensued, this method had to be employed. Once they were all dead, the entire city would enter a state of military control. Three thousand elite soldiers would be sufficient to manage one commandery city.
Shen Lang smiled and said.
“After you’ve taken control of Baiye Commandery City, Sir Zhang, you will have to face the main force of Su Nan’s rebel army. It could be ten thousand strong, or even more.”
“How long must I hold out?”
“Probably no more than a month.”
Zhang Chong sighed.
“This is truly maddening. To have to divide a force of only three thousand men.”
“I’m the one who’s going mad. I’ll have at most a few hundred men by my side, and with them, I have to face thousands, even tens of thousands of enemies.”
“The King loves to take risks, but you seem to enjoy them even more than he does.”
Despite his grumbling, Shen Lang was actually fine. He had already laid out his plans months ago.
“If you don’t use a single one of the three thousand elite soldiers, you’ll only have a few dozen men with you.”
“No. I have two hundred extremely sharp and special cavalrymen.”
Just then, the thunderous sound of hooves came from behind. The three thousand elite soldiers under Zhang Chong’s command instantly formed a defensive line where they stood.
“Young Master Shen, Young Master Shen! We are the guards sent by the Third Princess!”
A female general shouted as she galloped over from a distance. Behind her followed a contingent of two hundred cavalry, all of them female warriors. And they were all robust-looking women. The woman in the lead was nearly six feet tall and looked to weigh around two hundred and fifty pounds, yet she did not appear fat, but rather incredibly strong.
“General Wu Lie pays her respects to Young Master Shen.”
The leading female general cupped her fists towards Shen Lang from atop her horse in a formal salute.
‘Wu Lie?’
Shen Lang had long known that Ning Yan had a fierce female general under her command, but he had never met her. She had been on a mission to the Great Yan Empire.
Zhang Chong said.
“Her father was Wu Zhuo, a renowned general of the State of Yue. He supported Prince Ning Yuanwu back then and suffered the tragedy of having his entire clan nearly wiped out.”
Shen Lang knew of this past event. He remembered the name Wu Zhuo, partly because it was the same as his father-in-law's, and partly because his rank was so high that even the Great General of Zhenbei, Nangong Ao, had once served under him. He was a true famous general. During the great purge, generals of lower rank were fortunate enough to escape disaster, but those with immense power faced the extermination of their entire families. Of course, that was because Ning Yuanwu had been overly arrogant, suppressing Ning Yuanxian to the point of suffocation and using extremely aggressive means to vie for the throne.
After the Wu Clan was annihilated, his daughter, Wu Lie, naturally suffered a tragic fate. Because of her brawny and plain appearance, she was spared the fate of entering a brothel and was instead sent to the border army to become a military slave. With her high martial skills, she eventually became a fighting slave in the army. A fighting slave was one who fought other slaves to the death for the entertainment of onlookers. Most fighting slaves did not live long, as they spent their entire year in life-or-death battles.
They had to do anything to entertain the nobles. It seemed similar to the gladiators of the West, but it was completely different. Western gladiators fought in public duels, which were relatively fair, but fighting slaves did not. Their duels were far from fair, often pitting one against ten, or a human against a wild beast.
Wu Lie endured as a fighting slave for a full seven years. Her body was covered in scars, and she had lost count of how many people and beasts she had killed. But as a daughter of a noble house who had enjoyed reading books on the art of war since childhood, she naturally did not want to remain a fighting slave and always yearned for freedom. The life of a fighting slave was not that of a human, but of a beast born to fight. In the end, she killed the general of the army she belonged to and fled.
The incident caused a huge stir at the time. The western army sent a thousand men to capture her, and she was eventually caught. Shackled hand and foot, Wu Lie was brought to the capital, scheduled to be executed by a thousand cuts.