In central State of Ji, Tiebi Pass did not boast steep terrain, nor did it occupy an essential strategic location, and its garrison was sparse. Initially, the Zhenshan Army had detached a flank force intending to capture the pass to prevent the Ji army from outflanking them. They had expected the defenders to be merely an undisciplined rabble easily swept aside, never anticipating desperate resistance that stubbornly held out against their assault.
Afterward, the Zhenshan Army reinforced their troops, and Ji reinforcements arrived as well; another bitter engagement failed to breach the walls. Both sides continued pouring in reinforcements, fighting bitterly for months from winter into spring until it escalated into a massive campaign involving hundreds of thousands of troops.
Tiebi Pass's fortress walls had been destroyed several times and continually repaired, altered beyond recognition. Virtually every building within the city had been razed twice over and rebuilt into a sturdy bastion. The Zhenshan Army breached the city several times, but after gruesome street-to-street fighting, they were ultimately driven out each time.
Today brought another fierce battle. A heavy artillery shell howled over the ramparts and slammed violently into the city!
Amid an earth-shattering roar, mud and shattered stone flew in all directions, raining down onto the city walls over a hundred feet away.
Where the shell struck, a reinforced armory had stood; now the entire courtyard had vanished into thin air, leaving not even the remains of the soldiers stationed there.
Gravel kicked up by the blast rattled down upon the ramparts, clattering continuously against a man's iron conical hat. Only when the shower of debris abated did he look up, his mud-streaked face entirely hairless.
From a nearby pile of rubble, an officer crawled out and cried, "Chief Director, are you all right?"
The figure in the iron conical hat was none other than Wang Zhi, the State of Ji's foremost powerful eunuch. Yet not a trace of his former elegance remained; the bandages wrapped around his body were soiled beyond recognition. Who could have imagined that a grand cultivator in the early Scenery Command stage would roll through mud, blood, and smoke alongside ordinary soldiers, holding the fortress for over a month?
Wang Zhi swept his gaze over the fortress and spotted a stretch of wall that had just collapsed from the bombardment. Fortunately, this round of artillery fire lasted only briefly before ceasing. The moment the cannons fell silent, Wang Zhi sprang to his feet and barked, "Go to the rear storehouse, take men to haul over the remaining Qingming cement, and patch the wall! The rest of you, follow me! We're plugging that breach and giving those Zhenshan bastards another bloody thrashing!"
Countless figures in tattered clothes, their original appearances unidentifiable beneath grime, leaped out from every corner and followed behind Wang Zhi, rushing toward the breach. Wherever Wang Zhi went, the auras of the surrounding soldiers surged dramatically—an innate divine ability of his that granted powerful enhancements to allied troops around him.
Outside the walls, however, the Zhenshan Army suddenly erupted into cheers like a mountain collapsing or a tidal wave surging. On the distant horizon, a massive banner with gold trim upon a black field appeared, rapidly approaching. That was Li Zhi's commander banner—he had arrived at the front in person to oversee the battle, clearly determined to take the pass.
Wang Zhi gritted his teeth, wiped away blood dripping from beneath his conical hat from an unknown wound, and strode forward to take a stand right in the center of the breach. Behind him, Ji soldiers stepped up one after another, forming a flesh-and-blood barricade across the gap. Though every man bore wounds, their numbers only swelled.
Unit after unit of the Zhenshan Army charged forward, only to be thrown back in disarray. No matter how fiercely they assaulted, they could not break through the silhouettes standing firm in the breach, leaving only an ever-growing carpet of corpses beneath the walls.
At the Zhenshan center command outside the fortress, Li Zhi gazed at the battlefield with an ashen face.
A general beside him scoffed in frustration. "If only we had more artillery shells, how could they have held out this long!"
Another general chimed in, "They repair their fortifications remarkably fast—fully mended in a single night. And the weapons, armor, artillery, munitions, even their medical supplies are all Qingming goods! Without those supplies, this fortress would have fallen long ago!"
Li Zhi's expression changed, and he snapped harshly, "Never speak of such things again! Qingming would not support my enemies!"
The generals fell silent, though clearly unconvinced. The abundance of Qingming supplies on the battlefield was unmistakable; the flying-sword machine cannons and fortress defense cannons in Ji hands were undeniable proof. Everyone knew the State of Ji was incapable of manufacturing machine cannons and artillery. Yet since Li Zhi chose to turn a blind eye, his commanders could do nothing about it.
Li Zhi had appeared on the front line to supervise the battle in person, leading furious assaults late into the night. They launched over a dozen consecutive charges, yet Wang Zhi repelled every single one. Although the Ji army was few in number, united wills formed an unyielding fortress; their military vigor soared like a rainbow, and the cultivators among them, buoyed by the enhancement, displayed vastly heightened strength.
Every time they watched Zhenshan Fief's warriors charge upward, many generals' cheeks twitched. In previous battles, they had grown increasingly reliant on artillery, but shells were never enough. Pyramids of shells that looked like miniature hills vanished after a single preliminary barrage.
As besiegers, a two-to-one casualty ratio might have seemed acceptable on paper, but in reality, with Li Zhi present, Zhenshan had committed their finest elites.
And what was inside Tiebi fortress? Commoners, rogue cultivators, routed stragglers, wounded men, and raw recruits—in short, a rabble. Even with Wang Zhi bringing five hundred inner guards from the Two Depots into the fray, it remained a rabble.
Yet Zhenshan Fief, with thrice the numbers and half the elites of its entire army assembled—with Li Zhi falling just short of drawing his own sword to charge into the fray—simply could not capture this minor fortress.
The next morning, fighting resumed. When Li Zhi looked toward Tiebi fortress again, he saw that the gap in the wall from last night had already been repaired. Looking at that familiar greenish-gray hue, Li Zhi knew that substance called concrete might well be harder than stone; even a direct hit from heavy artillery required several rounds to crack it, and if reinforced with rebar inside, heavy artillery had to pound it repeatedly.
The gains won through a full day of bitter fighting and thousands of casualties had been erased overnight. Staring at that patch of greenish-gray wall, Li Zhi could faintly hear his own teeth grinding.
As battle erupted once more, Li Zhi saw several rotary machine cannons roar atop the battlements, spraying flying-sword projectiles in near-continuous lines of fire that tore mercilessly through the soldiers below.
Amid muffled roars, over a dozen artillery shells fired from within the fortress plunged into the Zhenshan ranks, blasting out a dozen clear voids in an instant. The distinctive sound of the detonations and their tremendous power were entirely different from Zhenshan Fief's home-manufactured shells. Such shells could not be produced by Zhenshan Fief, nor by Southern Qi or the State of Zhao; they could only be bought from Qingming.
Li Zhi's fingers clenched together tightly, only to slowly, deliberately uncurl one by one.
Four days later.
Tiebi Pass ran out of food and ammunition. Flames shot into the sky within the fortress as columns of Ji soldiers marched out of the north gate, winding their way in retreat toward the rear. Wang Zhi remained with the rearguard, single-handedly fending off the pursuit of two Scenery Command cultivators and over a dozen dharma idol masters from Zhenshan Fief.
He retreated step by step, accumulating more and more wounds, yet never fell, shielding the army as it slowly pulled back. This battered force, having held out for months on end, miraculously maintained a sky-piercing military vigor. Their military vigor and Wang Zhi reinforced each other, stubbornly halting the pursuit of the Zhenshan cultivators.
When Li Zhi entered Tiebi fortress, all he saw were broken walls and smoldering ruins left by the conflagration. Beneath this inconspicuous fortress, Zhenshan Fief had lost nearly two hundred thousand soldiers in total. During the five days Li Zhi had personally overseen the battle, casualties alone numbered sixty thousand.
Kicking aside a pile of rubble, Li Zhi picked up a piece of wooden board. It was a fragment of an artillery shell crate, bearing the character "Qing."
With the fall of Tiebi Pass, the massive beast that was the State of Ji seemed to have bled its last drop of blood, abruptly weakened as defeat followed defeat across every front. On the northeastern border, the armies of Southern Qi struck fiercely, driving deep into Ji territory.
Southern Qi was indeed mighty in national strength, waging war against both Northern Qi and the State of Ji simultaneously on two fronts while advancing victoriously everywhere.
Li Zhi, meanwhile, redeployed the hundred thousand men of the Old Camp garrisoned in Zhenshan Fief into Ji. These men were Li Zhi's core foundation, with many officers having pioneered Zhenshan Fief alongside him in the early years.
With the Old Camp committed, the State of Ji's defensive lines finally collapsed. As casualties mounted daily and more than half of the generals Sun Chao'en had freed were killed or wounded, the stalemate was at last broken. Li Zhi's armies achieved breakthroughs across all fronts, ultimately converging beneath the walls of the capital of Ji.
In Qingming Immortal City, Wei Yuan held a blood-red gemstone in his palm, refining it while intently studying the map hanging on the wall.
On the map, the Zhenshan Army had already blocked the southern and western gates of the capital of Ji, with continuous follow-up troops streaming in, making the completion of an encirclement imminent.
On Ji's northeastern border, the armies of Southern Qi were also sweeping forward with irresistible force, capturing cities and overrunning fortresses along the way.
Zhang Sheng stood nearby, also looking at the map. This map was in truth a spirit treasure; with a single thought, it displayed the strategic situation corresponding to any selected time, complete with the most detailed data.
Having silently observed it, Zhang Sheng finally said, "The Zhenshan Army's casualties are rather steep; the situation might take an unexpected turn. Originally, if Li Zhi took the State of Ji, turned the King of Ji into a puppet, and absorbed the Ji army, riding that momentum to inherit the throne of Southern Qi would have been entirely natural.
"Yet after Sun Chao'en overhauled the military system, the Ji army transformed significantly, and Wang Zhi pulled off several battles against the odds, causing Zhenshan Fief's casualties to exceed original estimates by four hundred thousand. Now, with hundreds of thousands of Ji troops retreating into the capital, taking the royal city will cost at least another four hundred thousand casualties. With nearly a million casualties, the succession to the throne of Southern Qi may face unforeseen variables."
Wei Yuan nodded as well. "Sun Chao'en actually has quite a knack for both military administration and governance. Even I didn't expect him to fight so well."
Zhang Sheng asked, "Might Li Zhi suspect that Sun Chao'en is acting on your instructions?"
Wei Yuan started. "I certainly did no such thing! Whatever he does in the State of Ji, I don't interfere in the least. Of the clean-stream officials he arrested this time, nearly half belonged to our Development Bureau."
Zhang Sheng said, "Li Zhi knows that Sun Chao'en has history with you. And the massive influx of Qingming munitions and supplies into the State of Ji is plain for all to see. I suspect Li Zhi might feel that the reason his campaign has gone so roughly is because you're secretly sabotaging him."
Wei Yuan started again. "Would he?"
"Well, do you expect him to admit he simply fought poorly?"
Without missing a beat, Wei Yuan replied, "He was never much good at it to begin with! Growing up, leading armies and fighting battles was never his forte. If I were commanding, I'd first sweep the skies with flying boats, then transport heavy legions to seize all major transit chokepoints, slicing the State of Ji into dozens of isolated pockets—oh, wait, he doesn't have that many flying boats, nor does he have heavy mobile legions."
Zhang Sheng rolled his eyes at Wei Yuan. "Would it kill you not to show off?"
Wei Yuan chuckled and promptly shut his mouth. Being obedient right now meant sweeter rewards later.
Seeing Zhang Sheng's serious expression, Wei Yuan sobered up as well. "He couldn't possibly think I shouldn't sell military supplies to the State of Ji, could he? My Qingming has no obligation to sacrifice its own livelihood for the sake of his grand ambitions."
Zhang Sheng said, "Perhaps that is precisely what he thinks. Most people in this world, once you show them kindness once, assume you owe them kindness in everything, and harbor resentment if you don't. That is human nature; even emperors are rarely exempt from it."
Wei Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, pondering for a long while before speaking: "Pay him no heed. Whatever needs selling, we sell. Right now, only half of our workshops can operate, and I have a great aspiration to fulfill—first and foremost, to secure prosperity for Qingming. Those who fail even to look after the welfare of their own people yet preach benevolence and righteousness to the outside world are mostly hypocrites or fools blind to their own folly.
"As for us now, it's either trade across the four seas or march armies across the realm. If they won't let our goods flow across the four seas, then armies will march across the realm!"
Chapter 1354