The First Jasmine - Chapter 136
Chapter 136 - Jiangxia
On the road after a heavy rain, Ye Li rode at the head of the main army, her slender brows tightly furrowed in silent contemplation. The Marquis of Nan and the others rode alongside her, watching her with curiosity before the Marquis asked, "What is troubling the Princess Consort?" Ye Li shook her head and replied, "Nothing much. I'm just somewhat concerned about the situation in Xinyang." The Marquis of Nan raised an eyebrow in perplexity. With the fall of Xinyang City already a foregone conclusion, what else was there to worry about? Frowning, Ye Li glanced toward the roadside. Because they were not taking the main imperial highway, the route was crowded with a continuous stream of refugees fleeing from the northwest. Watching these families struggle along in such a wretched, bedraggled state, Ye Li felt a swirl of complex emotions in her chest. Truth be told, the one-sided rout of the war was largely a consequence of the power struggles and infighting within the imperial court; had preparations been made earlier and reinforcements dispatched in a timely manner, things never would have come to this. In any era, the ones who suffered most grievously in the fires of war were always ordinary commoners. With a trace of detachment, Ye Li recalled a sentence her teacher had once taught her: When they rise, the common people suffer; when they fall, the common people suffer.
"Princess Consort." Zhuo Jing galloped up from the rear, pulling his horse alongside Ye Li's and dropping back half a horse's length as he spoke in a low voice.
Ye Li reined in her mount slightly to slow their pace, turning her head to look at Zhuo Jing. Zhuo Jing said in a solemn voice, "News has just arrived. Xinyang has fallen."
Ye Li nodded, her expression remaining unchanged. The fall of Xinyang was something everyone had anticipated all along. After a brief pause, she asked, "How is General Yuan?"
"General Yuan has already led his men to retreat to Jiangxia. But..." Zhuo Jing hesitated for a moment. "According to the latest news, the Western Ling army... massacred Xinyang City!"
"What?!" Ye Li's expression darkened, her initially serene and graceful features instantly suffused with a chilling, murderous frost. The Marquis of Nan, riding closest to them, clearly caught Zhuo Jing's words as well; the reins in his hand twitched before he quickly steadied them. He simply stared fixedly at Zhuo Jing without speaking. Zhuo Jing lowered his voice, "After the Western Ling army entered the city, a conflict broke out with the local civilians, following which Zheng Bian, the general who spearheaded the assault into the city, gave the order to massacre Xinyang."
"What is the Prince of Zhennan playing at?"
"The Prince of Zhennan was not at the front lines. By the time he issued orders to put a stop to it, it was already too late. Xinyang... at least two-thirds of the commoners perished..." Zhuo Jing's voice turned somewhat hoarse. Ever since the founding of Great Chu, this was the first time an entire city had been subjected to a massacre—a reality that many of the soldiers found impossible to accept.
Ye Li gave a cold laugh, flicked her reins, and urged her horse forward at a gallop. The Marquis of Nan paused, looking somewhat bewildered at Zhuo Jing. After a brief hesitation, Zhuo Jing followed after her. Ye Li did not ride far; she reined in by the roadside, gazing silently at the passing tide of refugees. Zhuo Jing murmured, "Princess Consort." Ye Li looked back at him, her hand absentmindedly toying with her riding crop as she said, "Someone once told me that forcing ordinary civilians to experience war firsthand is the ultimate disgrace for soldiers and a nation alike."
Zhuo Jing advised, "This is not the Princess Consort's fault."
Ye Li shook her head, letting out a cold smile. "Zheng Bian, is it... The Prince Ding's Estate claims his head. I want his head to serve as a sacrifice to the heroic spirits of the commoners of Xinyang!"
"This subordinate understands. I guarantee that within ten days, Zheng Bian's head will be hanging from the walls of Xinyang City!"
Seven days later, just as the Prince of Zhennan had brought his forces right up to the gates of Jiangxia, Lei Tengfeng—who had been left behind in Xinyang—dispatched a rider to deliver a confidential letter. Zheng Bian, who had likewise remained behind in Xinyang, had been assassinated inside his own bedchamber, and his head hung from the ramparts of Xinyang City. Carved beside the head was a single, sweeping, dragon-like character for "Ding," making it abundantly clear to all that the executioner was none other than the Prince Ding's Estate. Upon receiving Lei Tengfeng's secret dispatch, the Prince of Zhennan's face grew as dark as water. After pondering in silence for a while, he replied with a letter to Lei Tengfeng and then issued orders to intensify the offensive against Jiangxia.
The small city of Jiangxia lay a mere two hundred li away from Xinyang. Its area was less than a third of Xinyang's size, hemmed in on three sides by mountains and offering very little maneuvering room. Yet against this very diminutive town, Western Ling expended a troop strength equivalent to the combined total of all the previous cities they had conquered. The Prince of Zhennan, who had previously remained in the rear even when capturing a major city like Xinyang, stood personally behind the main army this time, stationed on a ridge overlooking the battlefield. With his own eyes, he watched the troops of both sides clash and slaughter one another in a desperate, life-or-death struggle beneath the walls. He watched the black-clad warriors atop the ramparts beat back enemy soldiers attempting to scale the walls with an intensity that suggested they would never grow exhausted.
"Your Highness, who would have thought that a mere town of fifty thousand people could prove so intensely troublesome? Should we perhaps consider other tactics?" a general standing behind him asked in a low voice, his gaze fixed on the black figures atop the city walls filled with frustration and lingering shadows. For a hundred years, this was the mark left deeply etched into the heart of every enemy by the Mo Family Army at the cost of countless blood and lives.
The Prince of Zhennan let out a soft sigh. "We can only thank our lucky stars that the Emperor of Great Chu does not entirely trust the Prince Ding's Estate."
None of the generals behind him asked why, for they felt the exact same sense of relief. If the sovereign and subjects of Great Chu were of one mind and trusted each other implicitly, how could they ever worry about failing to conquer the realm?
"Press the attack day and night without rest. We must capture Jiangxia before the reinforcements from the Prince Ding's Estate arrive!" the Prince of Zhennan declared sternly.
"This subordinate obeys!"
Far away on the city walls, the gray-haired veteran General Yuan Pei stared fixedly at the enemy forces below that seemed determined never to retreat, his sword-like brows locked in a deep scowl. His eyes, wise to the ways of the world, were bloodshot and brimming with exhaustion, yet his spine remained ramrod straight, and his gaze fixed upon the troops below burned with the unyielding determination to live and die with Jiangxia.
"General Yuan." Leng Qingyu hurried over. In less than a month since the expedition began, the haughty and aloof young face of Leng Qingyu was already etched with weathering and defeat. Yuan Pei looked at him, shook his head, and sighed softly, "General Leng, is something the matter?"
Leng Qingyu glanced toward the distant fluttering banners and frowned. "General Yuan, if we continue to keep the gates tightly shut like this without sallying forth, I'm afraid it will deal a severe blow to the soldiers' morale."
Yuan Pei replied, "General Leng can rest assured; the morale of the Mo Family Army will never be crushed by a mere few days of this. Everyone understands that our army currently possesses no capability whatsoever to fight Western Ling head-on. Holding our ground while awaiting reinforcements is the only course of action available to us right now." Leng Qingyu cast a glance at the soldiers steadfastly guarding the ramparts, his eyes darkening. Yuan Pei was right; what was truly taking a beating was not the morale of the Mo Family Army, but the morale of the remnants—fewer than ten thousand garrison soldiers—that he had dragged out of Xinyang City. Having suffered such a crushing defeat, these battered troops had long since completely broken down. The unremitting assaults by the Western Ling soldiers over the past few days had left them acting like birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. If things continued this way, a disaster would likely break out even before Jiangxia was breached.
"This is a battlefield, and this old man's sole mission is to hold Jiangxia. General Leng, a momentary squabble born of pride will yield no benefits to our current predicament. The Western Ling soldiers are no pushovers; once our meager tens of thousands of men plunge into an army of several hundred thousand, it will be no different from a drop of water vanishing into the ocean—we will simply be swallowed whole," Yuan Pei said earnestly. Leng Qingyu fell silent. It wasn't that he failed to understand what Yuan Pei was saying; rather, he simply found himself utterly unable to stomach the current impasse. Landing in such a state on his very first time commanding an army meant that the outcome of this war held very little consequence for him anymore. He could readily foresee that the future awaiting him, should he escape the Emperor's punishment, would undoubtedly be a lifetime of being sidelined, with never another opportunity to lead troops to war. Sieging cities and defending them.
The soldiers on both sides engaged in tireless combat day and night, piling up corpses into hills and turning the ground beneath the ramparts into rivers of blood. The bodies of their own comrades and those of the enemy had long since become indistinguishable. Everyone fought purely out of instinct. Yet Jiangxia's total troop strength was a mere fifty thousand, a figure that even included those who had perished reinforcing Xinyang. In reality, their active numbers were fewer than forty thousand, and even factoring in the shattered survivors retreating from Xinyang, they fell short of fifty thousand. Their enemy, however, boasted over two hundred thousand elite troops. These soldiers were forces that the Prince of Zhennan had spent countless painstaking years cultivating over the past decade, representing the absolute cream of the crop among elites. The forces defending Jiangxia dwindled with each passing hour, and time and again it felt as though the gates would be smashed open in the next breath. Yet time ticked by second by second, and the banners fluttering atop the fortress walls remained stubbornly those of Great Chu and the Mo Family Army.
Behind the Western Ling host, the Prince of Zhennan stared with a solemn expression at the tightly shut gates in the distance.
"Your Highness, they can't hold out much longer."
The Prince of Zhennan remained silent, though his eyes were filled with profound respect for the enemy. Five full days and twelve double-hours of completely uninterrupted, ferocious assaults. With only a meager force of tens of thousands, even he himself could not guarantee he would have managed to hold out until now. This was something that could not be achieved through mere tactical cleverness or capability on the part of the chief commander; it demanded that the entire army possess an unmatched conviction and resolve. After a long pause, the Prince of Zhennan commanded in a deep voice, "Continue! Take Jiangxia within one double-hour!"
An hour or so later, the massive gates of Jiangxia City finally groaned and crashed heavily inward. Up on the ramparts, Yuan Pei, covered from head to toe in blood, casually cast aside his tattered battle robe, swept his gaze across the exhausted soldiers around him, and roared, "Attack!"
Every single soldier's eyes were bloodshot. For the Mo Family Army, allowing enemy forces to trample a city they had sworn to guard was the ultimate disgrace, and they were resolved to wash away that shame with the blood of their foes. Disregarding everything, the soldiers threw themselves at the nearest enemies. On the fortress walls, at the city gates, and along the streets, brutal hand-to-hand combat erupted everywhere.
Leng Qingyu stood at the corner of a street, his eyes so red they seemed ready to bleed as he watched the carnage unfolding before him. Behind him stood a cluster of battered survivors; having fled all the way from Xinyang, they were no longer in any condition to fight, and no one expected them to take up arms again. Leng Qingyu looked back at them and said in a heavy voice, "Did you see that? They are soldiers of Great Chu, just like you! Their city has fallen too—so what did they do, and what did we do? It is this general's incompetence that failed to hold Xinyang. May you all take care of yourselves!" With that, he drew his sword and charged into the fray.
The remnants exchanged blank glances for a long moment before a single man gripped his blade and charged out after him. Then another, and another...
A band of soldiers, distinct from the obsidian ranks of the Mo Family Army, surged out from the street corner, hurling themselves at the enemy troops pouring through the city gates. Blocked inside the city, the Western Ling soldiers felt their primitive savagery ignited even further as they let out wild battle cries and lunged at every Chu soldier in sight. In an instant, blood stained the streets crimson.
"Rumble—"
A heaven-shaking roar rolled in from afar, drawing involuntary starts of astonishment from everyone present. On the faces of the surviving Mo Family Army soldiers, expressions of wild elation and renewed vitality burst forth. "The Black Cloud Cavalry! The Black Cloud Cavalry have arrived! Reinforcements are here!"
Across the broad avenue, a heavy, oppressive sea of cavalry swept forward with the unstoppable momentum of a thousand junks and an awe-inspiring, razor-sharp killing intent. At their lead, a red-robed man galloped fiercely ahead, his clear, resonant voice dripping with murderous intent, "Seal off the city gates! Not a single plundering enemy soldier is to be let out! Left and right wings, take the city walls!"
"Understood!"