What Do You Mean the Yellow Sky Has Descended?

Outside the walls of Lieren County. Lu Zhi, who had fled for nearly two days, finally halted. His hair hung disheveled over his shoulders as he gazed at the mere two hundred cavalrymen remaining at his side. A profound desolation welled in his chest, and for a fleeting moment, the thought of cutting his own throat arose. *Clang!* "Lord Lu, by all means, do not take your own life!" Zong Yuan had long feared Lu Zhi's resolve would shatter, keeping a watchful eye on him the entire time. Seeing him draw his sword, Zong Yuan immediately clamped down on his right hand. "The Yellow Sky has descended, and the world has undergone a great convulsion! Our Great Han needs your strength more than ever, Lord Lu. How could you throw your life away over a single defeat?" Zong Yuan urged. The battered officers around them joined in as well. "Lord Lu, consider the grand design! The imperial court currently relies on your wisdom, valor, and military strategy!" Lu Zhi let out a miserable laugh. "Wisdom and valor? What wisdom and valor! The twenty thousand elites the court entrusted to me—wiped out in a single battle! What face do I have left to look upon the world, or to face His Majesty!" Zong Yuan grew desperate. "This was not a failure of generalship! Marching out from Luoyang, you led us to victory after victory, driving the moth rebel chieftain all the way to Guangzong. How glorious were your military achievements? It was simply human strength proving no match for the mandate of heaven! The moth rebels have immortals and gods aiding them—whoever took the field would have fallen just the same." Lu Zhi turned his head to look at Zong Yuan, his voice hoarse. "Do you also believe the moth rebels hold the mandate of heaven?" Hearing his own words echoed back at him, Zong Yuan wished he could slap himself across the face. How had he let what he truly thought slip out? As the vice commander of the Han forces on the northern front, he could under no circumstances acknowledge that the Yellow Turban rebels held heaven's mandate—even if that divine mandate had been manifested right before their very eyes. He hesitated for a moment, attempting to mend his slip. "As you said yourself, Lord Lu: the moth rebels have the Yellow Sky descended, but our Great Han likewise has the Azure Sky descended. So... so each has its own heavenly mandate..." Lu Zhi sneered. "Do you truly believe the words I spoke back then?" Zong Yuan fell silent, as did the gathered officers and men. How could they possibly believe words spoken merely to rally morale? It was simply their lingering loyalty to the Great Han and to Lu Zhi that had driven them to protect him and flee together. Zong Yuan sighed. "Such are the times; what else can we do? If our Great Han enjoys no protection from the Azure Sky, then whether it be you, Lord Huangfu, or Lord Zhu, I fear none would... But if the Azure Sky does protect us, wouldn't throwing your life away now be a tragedy? Do you not wish to raise tens of thousands of elite troops once more, to defeat the moth rebels fair and square and wash away this disgrace?" Lu Zhi remained silent for a long time. Just then, the gates of Lieren County slowly creaked open. Under the escort of local militia, the magistrate of Lieren stepped out, looking thoroughly astonished. He glanced around, finding Lu Zhi disheveled with dark circles under his eyes, while Zong Yuan and the hundred-odd men had all cast off their armor in utter disarray. His heart sank with a thud. "Lord Lu? General Zong? W-what is the meaning of this?" the magistrate asked tremulously. "Could it be... we were defeated?" Lu Zhi said nothing. Zong Yuan gave a bitter smile and answered in a low voice, "Defeated." The magistrate trembled, nearly losing his footing as his teeth chattered. "Then... may I ask how many troops remain?" He peered in every direction, hoping to catch sight of a routed army numbering in the tens of thousands, or at least a few thousand—anything as long as it was not total annihilation. Yet Zong Yuan gave a slight shake of his head. "Everyone is right here." The magistrate froze. "All of them are here?" He swept his gaze across the clearing, seeing only a hundred-odd cavalrymen who had even stripped off their armor—pure, bare-bones horsemen. He stumbled back two steps, nearly collapsing, his hopes turning to ash. The Han army had been completely wiped out. How was his Lieren County, sitting right on Guangzong's doorstep, supposed to withstand an assault by the Yellow Turbans? If Lieren County fell, even if he were spared execution, his future would certainly be ruined. Lu Zhi spoke in a strained voice. "Our army is lost, and Lieren borders Guangzong. The urgent priority is to conscript the local populace without delay, establish city defenses, and appeal to Luoyang for reinforcements." Recovering his wits, the magistrate nodded repeatedly. "Indeed, that is what must be done. Everything shall be as Lord Lu commands." His words carried an unmistakable desire to shirk responsibility, though one could hardly blame him. Lu Zhi was the one who had squandered the twenty thousand elites the imperial court had painstakingly mustered; on what was a lowly county magistrate supposed to rely to defend the city? The entire population of his county seat might not even outnumber the Yellow Turban army! Helpless, Lu Zhi had no choice but to shoulder the responsibility of defending the city. Before a new contingent of Han reinforcements arrived, he had no intention of retreating any further. If he retreated again, he would have to withdraw to Yecheng, withdraw from Ji Province altogether, and fall back all the way to Luoyang! As the party entered the city in a stifling gloom, the magistrate suddenly struck his forehead, remembering something, and said cautiously, "Lord Lu, the imperial court dispatched an envoy of the Son of Heaven." An imperial envoy. Lu Zhi stopped in his tracks. "The envoy is in Lieren right now?" "He arrived only yesterday," the magistrate replied hesitantly. "The envoy is named Zuo Feng, a Junior Attendant. It is said he is close to Zhang Rang, the Regular Palace Attendant. He has always been overbearing, extorting bribes from every city along his journey. Anyone who dared withhold gold or silk was cursed, threatened, or even flogged. Everyone harbored anger, yet none dared speak out." Lu Zhi's expression shifted uncertainly. He had already lost his army, and now the emperor had sent an overseer—an overseer who was an extraordinarily tyrannical eunuch. With every disadvantage stacked against him, it gave him a splitting headache. "Let us enter the city first," Lu Zhi said with resignation. Regardless of how arrogant this Zuo Feng might be, he had to face him sooner or later. Besides, having the imperial envoy in Lieren carried an advantage: he could swiftly relay news of the Han army's crushing defeat back to Luoyang and appeal to Emperor Liu Hong for reinforcements. Dejected and downcast, the group entered the city. Without even washing his face, Lu Zhi went straight to see the Junior Attendant, Zuo Feng. When he caught sight of Zuo Feng, the eunuch was seated upon a mat. The low tables before him were laden with honeyed water, wine, and fruit. In the hall below, more than a dozen beauties with fluttering silk skirts danced with bashful grace. Strings and pipes filled the air, the wine flowing and the revelers flushed. Keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead, Lu Zhi strode into the room and swept his sleeve. "All of you, dismiss." The music ground to a halt. The beauties looked about in shock and confusion. Zuo Feng cast an alcohol-hazed gaze upon Lu Zhi, blinked, and asked hesitantly, "General of the Household Lu?" "It is I," Lu Zhi replied. Zuo Feng looked Lu Zhi up and down. Seeing the deep furrow of despair etched between his brows, a tremor of shock ran through him. He barked at the musicians and beauties, "Out, all of you!" With heads lowered, the musicians and beauties scurried out with quick, tiny steps. Zuo Feng rose, walked up to Lu Zhi, and asked in bewilderment, "Shouldn't you be laying siege to Guangzong with the grand army right now, Lord Lu? Why have you come to Lieren?" Lu Zhi remained silent for a moment, at a loss for words. Seeing Lu Zhi in such a state, Zuo Feng's drunkenness vanished in an instant. He pressed, "Could it be that our army... our army was defeated?!" "Defeated," Lu Zhi replied in a muffled tone. Black spots danced before Zuo Feng's eyes. "Did you not send one victory report after another to Luoyang, stating you had the rebel chieftain Zhang Jiao trapped in Guangzong? How could the situation have changed in less than a month?!" The corner of Lu Zhi's mouth twitched bitterly. "I had Guangzong encircled tightly. The scoundrel Zhang Jiao saw that his cause was lost and marched out of the city to wage a life-or-death pitched battle against our army. Our troops were elites; in less than half an hour, we broke through their vanguard repeatedly. A sweeping victory was well within sight..." He let out a long, heavy sigh. "The Yellow Sky descended!" Zuo Feng was bewildered. "What do you mean the Yellow Sky has descended? Isn't that just the moth rebels' uprising slogan?" Lu Zhi enunciated every syllable. "Huang Tian—the god Huang Tian! Zhonghuang Taiyi has descended into the mortal world!"