An Eye-Opener

Jingjiang Xu Manor, the Book Depository. Xu Yuan sat quietly by the window, browsing through the Grade Three internal intelligence report that Ying'er had just personally brought him. His communication with that old aunty Lou Ji two days prior had made him realize that the internal documents in his household were ranked as well. It was a rigorous grading system, divided from top to bottom into ten tiers: Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui. What status, strength, or contribution was required to read which grade of intelligence was clearly demarcated. Comprehensive information on the northern war belonged to the third tier, Grade Bing. Given the outrageous stunts he had pulled in the past, even Lou Ji couldn't just tell him directly without consulting his father first. After all, if he went and sold it off again, things would get disastrously hilarious. Having arrived after a two-day delay, it was clear his father had approved the request. The sunlight was pleasant, and as wild geese rose and dipped against the sky, a gentle breeze swept through. Xu Yuan had loved this feeling ever since his past life: a cup of tea, a book, and an entire afternoon—unhurried and carefree. Yet as he read through the intelligence report, Xu Yuan found that he could no longer stay relaxed. Barbarians. Xu Yuan rubbed the bridge of his nose. In one worldline of Cangyuan, the final boss players had to face was the Barbarians sweeping all the way down from the north, yet the plot hadn't spent a single brushstroke describing the current war. Looking at it now, the situation was truly atrocious. Seven years ago, when Marquis Wucheng still guarded the northern border, those Barbarians beyond the frontier had been beaten so thoroughly they couldn't even raise their heads. But ever since Marquis Wucheng—the pillar stabilizing the realm—was recalled to the Imperial Capital seven years ago for various reasons, the situation had plummeted into a downward spiral. In essence, infighting had broken out, and their little game of fattening the bandits to inflate their own worth had spiraled out of control. Relationships within Great Yan's border armies were immensely tangled. Thanks to the covenants established between the dynasty's founding ancestor and the various sects back then, the sects' exemption from taxation did not come free. In local governance, they were required to unconditionally assist the imperial court in maintaining the peace and safety of the common people in their regions. In the military system, the sects had to dispatch a quota of disciples each year, dispersing and integrating them into the various regional armies of the Great Yan Dynasty to take orders—among other obligations. The original intent had been noble, and during the era of strong imperial authority, these statutes had indeed played a tremendously positive role. But over a millennium of history and the rise and fall of imperial power, the nature of these laws gradually soured. Factions proliferated within the border armies. The imperial court and the sects, sect against sect, sects against great aristocratic clans—whenever fighting started, they basically passed the buck to one another. The most quintessential example was the current northern border. With Marquis Wucheng recalled to the Imperial Capital, the northern border lacked a ruthless powerhouse capable of suppressing all sides, leaving the various factions scattered like loose sand. Allied troops ten li ahead fighting bloody, isolated battles while our own forces ten li behind leisurely watched the spectacle to 'oversee the battle' was the norm. The only reason Hanbei City hadn't fallen yet was that the Great Yan Dynasty possessed such immense foundations. Even with all this infighting, the Barbarians across from them could only nibble away bit by bit. This part aligned closely with what Xu Yuan remembered from his past life. Great Yan truly lived up to its title as a dynasty. Whether it was Guyuan in the southwest, the Barbarians in the north, or the Great Desert in the northwest, none of them dared step in to reap the spoils until the major factions within the Great Yan Dynasty had beaten each other senseless. And then they would get farmed as final bosses by the protagonist Xu Yuan controlled. Pulling his thoughts together, Xu Yuan turned the pages; within the room, aside from the breeze, only the rustling of paper remained. Suddenly, a flicker of surprise flashed in Xu Yuan's eyes, and his turning fingers paused slightly. Wait... These Barbarians aren't human? Xu Yuan had spotted an illustration within the intelligence report Lou Ji had sent. It wasn't a photograph, but the brushwork was exceptionally refined and realistic, depicting a battlefield scene. Upon the shattered city walls, corpses lay strewn everywhere: soldiers in border army uniforms, cultivators in sect robes, and the Northern Barbarians. Yet those Barbarians did not look human in the slightest. After two seconds of silence, Xu Yuan slowly rose and walked over to the bookshelves. A quarter of an hour later, he returned to the window with a copy of Veritable Records of the Northern Barbarians, its title page relatively crisp. Skimming through it, Xu Yuan wore an odd expression. "Barbarians" was not merely a derogatory term used by the Great Yan Dynasty for nomadic tribes beyond the frontier. Barbarians were literally Barbarians. Although humanoid, they were closer to creatures like greenskins or dark-skinned humanoids. He hadn't known this in his past life—or rather, there had been no reason to know. He understood Guyuan because mingling with Guyuan allowed him to play the rustic hero—or even a dragon rider. But the Northern Barbarians had jack shit: no 2D waifus, so why would he care about them? Descriptions were sparse, and even the major bosses lacked character art. In a 2.5D pixel-art game, expecting finely detailed monster models was completely unrealistic; most sprites were just palette swaps reused again and again. Xu Yuan had always assumed the Barbarians were just a sturdier bunch of humans. Only now did he realize they weren't human at all. An adult Barbarian stood over a zhang tall on average. Born in the bitter cold, they possessed hardened, dark-brown skin that repelled blades, while sharp bone spurs protruded from their fists and major joints, making them seem born for battle. They were intelligent humanoid monsters. Having learned this, Xu Yuan wasn't overly shocked. Having already seen the Stone Buddha and the Seven-Life Python, a humanoid monster hardly caught him off guard. However, he now understood why, of all the factions beyond the borders, only the Barbarians had no 2D waifus. They were just too ugly. Putting down Veritable Records of the Northern Barbarians, Xu Yuan resumed focusing on the intelligence report. Toward the end of the report was the northern border's dispatch from the past week, up to the day before yesterday. After more than a month of bitter fighting, Princess Wuyuan had finally lifted the siege of Hanbei City. Of course, breaking the siege had required far more than just the thirty thousand Imperial Guardsmen the princess brought with her; it was mostly the outcome of compromises struck between the local factions. Even so, the process detailed in the report was quite an eye-opener for Xu Yuan. Damn it all, there really were people who would keep fighting among themselves even with enemy troops at the gates. Before Princess Wuyuan arrived at Hanbei City with her army, the factions besieged inside by the Barbarians actually still had the strength to take them on—in terms of raw power, they were even stronger. Yet they simply refused to fight, holing up inside the city and squabbling amongst themselves. No one wanted to go first; everyone wanted to preserve their own strength. In any case, relying on the various formations across Hanbei City, the Barbarians couldn't possibly break through anytime soon. Furthermore, word had already been sent out; all they had to do was wait for reinforcements from the imperial court. And if reinforcements didn't arrive, they would just compete to see who had larger military grain stores. If your faction ran out of grain, your soldiers still had to eat, right? Wanting to eat without doing any work wouldn't look too good, would it? As for staging a mutiny within the city? Going out to spearhead the vanguard against the Barbarians at least offered a chance of survival, whereas mutinying inside a city protected by formations was pure suicide—and guaranteed the extermination of nine generations of your kin to boot. This stalemate was only completely resolved when Princess Wuyuan arrived at the head of the Imperial Guard. The former Ninth Princess had been sent by the imperial family to the northern border's Marquis Wucheng Manor as a "hostage." But because Marquis Wucheng was a staunch royalist, the Ninth Princess was treated even better than the marquis's own heirs. When the Ninth Princess showed an interest as a child, Marquis Wucheng took her along whenever he went out on campaign, and once she grew up, he let her command troops directly. Raised by Marquis Wucheng's own hands within the military, Princess Wuyuan had steadily built up immense prestige in the army over the years. Of course, what really made those slippery old foxes fall in line was that the first thing this madwoman did upon entering the city was convene a meeting and start chopping off heads. "Dereliction of duty causing the war to deteriorate into ruin—beheaded." No sooner had the words left her mouth than a third-rank Grandmaster and seven or eight vice-generals in the fourth-rank Flesh Integration Realm were blasted into paste right inside the manor hall. Using the city's grand formation. Under normal circumstances, imperial bloodline was always the highest priority when it came to controlling the grand formations of major cities. Just like that, under the coordination of Princess Wuyuan, the siege of Hanbei City was broken, and operations to gradually reclaim lost territory were now underway. Though they weren't necessarily of one mind, they could at least be said to be pulling in the same direction.