Wei Yuan convened his generals once more and showed them the Sixth Princess's reply. The officers and ministers assembled in the hall were naturally enraged, one after another proclaiming that an insult to their lord called for his ministers to lay down their lives. They clamored to lead their troops into battle, swearing to take the enemy down with them even if it cost them everything!
Watching the impassioned officers, Wei Yuan was struck by a peculiar sensation. The commanders' attitudes clearly divided them into two camps and three distinct types.
Among them, the group of cultivator-turned-generals led by Cui Yu and Xu Yi stood quietly, their minds completely unruffled. Yet of the sixteen young masters and ladies who had originally arrived with Cui Yu, only eight remained today, with the oldest already approaching thirty.
In stark contrast, the majority of the young officers in the hall were intensely agitated, yearning from the depths of their beings for a good fight. Most of these commanders had risen through the ranks and completed two full terms of military academy training. Driven by rising demands, the Qingming Military Academy had expanded from its initial three-month crash course for officers to include a six-month foundational officer course.
The crash course taught the fundamentals of marching and combat, along with the basic elements of commanding a thousand-man cohort. Its graduates served as centurions, with a few of the very finest taking command of thousand-man cohorts.
After the foundational course was introduced, the crash course was colloquially dubbed the "preschool." The six-month foundational course taught combined operations among various arms and the essentials of leading ten-thousand-man formations, with a noticeable increase in logistical and supply material. As a rule, upon completion, all its officers were appointed colonels of thousand-man cohorts.
The young officers who passed through both courses showed a marked improvement in overall quality, performing admirably in minor skirmishes. The top dozen or so among them had already risen to vice generals commanding three cohorts each, and five or six had been promoted to deputy generals commanding five cohorts. However, because too little time had passed, none had yet emerged capable of serving as a guerrilla general over ten thousand men.
Aside from these fierce, hot-blooded young officers, half the generals present were older men. Most of them had joined Qingming midway through their careers, hailing largely from the Western Jin regular army and the Xu family's private forces, with a scattering of horse bandits and Zhao soldiers.
Although these men were shouting just as loudly, Wei Yuan could sense no real ripple in their hearts. In other words, they were merely putting on a display of loyalty.
Sitting on the dais, Wei Yuan suddenly understood a little of what the King of Jin must have felt. Looking down from on high, every person below seemed a pillar of loyalty and righteousness. Yet without mind-reading techniques, how was one to discern true loyalty from deceit?
Wei Yuan possessed the power of the Qingming Domain; within Qingming, he could perceive at least some of what lingered in people's minds. But the King of Jin had no such aid. Day after day, he could only sit upon his throne and guess at his ministers' thoughts and allegiances through tiny clues.
Cui Yu and Xu Yi appeared calm, but their loyalty was genuine. Yet Wei Yuan took the thought one step further: if faced with old foxes on the level of the Left and Right Prime Ministers, they would surely let him see whatever brand of loyalty he wished to see.
Wei Yuan had never been certain whether the Left and Right Prime Ministers truly served Western Jin with total devotion. But after seeing the Southwestern Five Commanderies—especially Xiangrong Commandery—he had finally reached a conclusion: they might have exerted some effort on the imperial court's behalf, but what they truly cared about was their own clans.
As for the young officers, they were indeed exceptionally loyal; Wei Yuan had already received their karmic luck. However, this loyalty came with a condition: Wei Yuan's actions had to align with their expectations. If he chose not to fight, a fair portion of that loyalty would vanish on the spot.
Moreover, the wishes of these young officers did not necessarily align with Qingming's best interests—in fact, to a large extent, they ran counter to them. Throughout history, there was no shortage of rulers coerced into foolish decisions by reckless young officers.
Wei Yuan reined in his thoughts, pressing his hands down slightly to quiet the hall. "This Military Commissioner showed sincerity, but since they refused, they cannot blame me for resorting to force after courtesies fail. Proclaim to all under heaven every rude offense of the Zhao people! Give them three days to rectify their behavior, or let it not be said they were not warned!"
Liu Tong was handed another task.
Immediately afterward, Wei Yuan began organizing the army's march. The main force headed straight for Hanyang Pass, while the supply trains were split all at once into a hundred detachments. Each detachment consisted of fifty light cavalry and ten wagons, bound for designated assembly points where they would await further orders.
Many of the young officers were utterly baffled. Only seasoned hands like Cui Yu could guess what Wei Yuan intended to do.
***
In the Xu family's ancestral lands, Xu Lanshan's study was brightly lit. She had been dealing with public affairs for several days without a moment's rest, yet the documents awaiting review before her remained piled high like mountains.
She read each one thoroughly, annotating them with meticulous care, as though immune to exhaustion. After picking up one particular dispatch and reading through it, she abruptly instructed her servants to invite in the elder who had submitted it.
Gathering several documents together, Xu Lanshan tossed them before the elder and said coldly, "When I said assemble five hundred thousand private troops, I meant five hundred thousand! Even if you pad the ranks entirely with green recruits, not one person may be missing!"
The elder hastily replied, "All five hundred thousand are recorded on the rosters, not one short!"
Xu Lanshan sneered. "The number of cooking cauldrons set up in your camps doesn't add up! And while you privately divvied up the surplus grain so the consumption wouldn't look suspicious, you forgot the firewood and charcoal! Based on the daily fuel consumed for cooking, the five hundred thousand on your roster would be lucky to reach even three hundred thousand! Do you want me to take you on a tour through the camps right now?"
The elder fell silent for a moment before speaking. "Everyone does it this way. If you lay the blame on me alone, I'm afraid it won't sit well with the rest! Even if I wanted full rosters, the elders recruiting up front wouldn't agree, nor would the elders distributing grain in the back! Everyone has operated this way for years. You've held power for less than three years, and you think you can upend everything? You'd have to disband the entire Council of Elders to pull that off!"
Xu Lanshan's tone turned icy. "Forgiving your past deeds was already my greatest concession. If you think you can carry on as before, think again! I may not be able to disband the whole Council of Elders, but picking two of the loudest troublemakers to execute as a sacrifice to the banners won't be a problem at all. At most, Qiuniu and his cohort might grumble to me a bit. Do you think they'd really risk their lives fighting me over this?"
Sensing her murderous intent, cold sweat immediately broke out on the elder's brow. He hurried to soften his words: "What I meant was, with me alone trying to fix this, my hands are tied!"
Xu Lanshan said, "Three hundred thousand are to be sent to the northern frontier, and two hundred thousand are to reclaim Hanyang and Huangping Commanderies—not a single person can be missing! Go ahead and do your work without reservation. If anyone actually gets in your way, come to me. As I just said, I happen to be short a few heads to establish my authority! Oh, right, I heard one fellow is Qiuniu's son-in-law. Go tell him that if he opposes me again, Qiuniu's daughter will be marrying someone else."
The elder hastily assented and hurried away.
Once the elder left, a young cultivator who had been standing silently nearby spoke up. "Aunt, over two hundred thousand of our private troops in the southern commanderies are currently in Zhao hands. Didn't you say Wei Yuan would retake both commanderies? Once he does, can't we simply buy those men back? It hardly seems necessary to recruit another two hundred thousand. Forgive my bluntness, but we've conscripted far too many raw recruits; their quality is a hopelessly mixed bag."
Xu Lanshan proved remarkably patient with this young cultivator. "You see only one side of the coin, not the other. Things now are completely different from the past. Those recruits who fell into Wei Yuan's hands could indeed be bought back—for my sake, Wei Yuan wouldn't ask an exorbitant price either. However..."
Curiosity stirred in the young cultivator. "However what?"
"...However, they might not be willing to come back."
***
At Hanyang Pass, the Great Zhao military banner now fluttered atop the watchtowers, and the warlike aura rising from the city surged into the heavens, entirely unlike anything seen before.
A group of Zhao generals stood upon the gate tower, gazing westward. In their center stood a female general wearing a ferocious demon mask, clad in brilliant scarlet armor like a phoenix taking flight from a sea of flames.
A cultivator appeared in the distance and shot a flying sword toward the gate tower from afar. Bound to the sword was a message tube. A general retrieved the sword, checked the tube for danger, and delivered the letter within to the female general.
The female general unfolded the parchment. Written upon it was:
*Surprised to hear that the Sixth Princess is touring Hanyang Pass, and with battle drawing near, I have specially provided an escape route map so that Her Highness may flee back to Zhao, lest she be captured in defeat and disgrace Great Zhao. Her Highness may flee with peace of mind; the route is absolutely secure, and there are guaranteed to be no ambushes. If there be any falsehood, may heaven strike me with thunder!*
Though her mask concealed her expression, she tore the letter to shreds on the spot—her face must have been quite a sight. Only after a long pause did she force out a sentence through clenched teeth: "If Wei Yuan dares to come, I will see to it that he never returns!"
Several days later, the Qingming army arrived before Hanyang Pass.
In a deep mountain valley to the south, a dharma idol cultivator stretched lazily, rose to his feet, and muttered to himself, "Looks like the Sixth Princess isn't coming. Disperse, everyone."
At the same moment, several bolts of shocking thunder fell from the sky, crashing directly onto the Qingming central camp, alarming the entire army!
Many soldiers turned pale, taking it as an ill omen. Yet the core veterans took it in stride, remarking that whenever the Lord of the Domain set out on campaign, the central camp was often struck by lightning, and they had yet to see him lose a single battle.
The new recruits were doubtful, but seeing the veterans speak with absolute certainty, they had no choice but to believe it.
Just then, the tent flap of the central command parted, and Wei Yuan stepped out to glance around. Seeing that the eight lightning rods erected around the central tent were completely intact, he turned back inside and said to his generals, "I can say with absolute certainty that the Zhao princess is among the troops at Hanyang Pass! Pass down the order: mobilize another fifty thousand light battle harness troops to surround the pass. We must not let a single soul escape!"
Chapter 770