Li Chi’s army set out from Xianlai County and made its way back toward the camp outside Kaoshanmen, on the Shu Prefecture side. The march was not fast — because there were far too many wounded.

What felt like a blessing in hindsight was that before they had fought the Yong Prefecture Army, they had captured a large number of carts and horses. At a time like this, having carts to transport the wounded was the greatest comfort — letting the injured men rest and recover lying down, rather than suffering the additional hardship.

Five days after they departed,荆州 Jing Prefecture Military Governor Xie Xiu arrived with the Jing Prefecture forces.

It was not that Xie Xiu had been slow. This was already his fastest pace — the distance was no small matter.

Unlike Tang Pidi, who had deduced the enemy’s plan and raced to reinforce in advance, Xie Xiu had received Li Chi’s orders and then driven his men day and night without a moment’s rest.

When they arrived, every man’s face wore the dust and exhaustion of hard travel.

Li Chi had all the medical officers from Xie Xiu’s force transferred to accompany his own army back toward Shu Prefecture.

All along the road, the one thing that offered some comfort was that the vast majority of the wounded had not died from infection.

Without the large numbers of medical officers Li Chi had mandated every army to carry — and the medicines purchased directly from the Shen Medical Hall — the death toll would have climbed still higher.

Everyone knew Li Chi was miserly and tight-fisted. It was precisely because of that miserliness that the Ning Army soldiers had the greatest protection possible.

Li Chi had once said: if the brothers who risk their lives on the battlefield cannot even receive prompt treatment when they are wounded, what right does anyone have to ask them to lay down their lives?

So by the time they reached Shu Prefecture, though the road had been rough with the jolting of carts, the wounded were recovering reasonably well.

The Qianban officers of the Tingwei府 in particular — their wounds were severe, but their physical conditioning far exceeded that of ordinary soldiers, and they had mended somewhat more quickly than most.

At first each one of them had looked a mess, wrapped up like parcels. But as the swelling gradually went down, their color slowly returned — only their freedom of movement was still limited for the time being.

Among them the most gravely wounded was Yu Hongyi. That he lived at all could only be called a miracle.

A miracle he himself had made.

After being gravely wounded and falling from his horse, just as the Ning Army’s counter-push drove the Yong Prefecture forces back down the ramp, he had gathered his last strength, torn his clothing, and used the strips to tie off several of the worst wounds to stop himself from bleeding out.

Then his strength gave out and he lost consciousness, unable to treat all the injuries.

This knowledge was partly from the basic first-aid training the Tingwei府 taught, and partly from his own experience.

It was Ning Army soldiers who found him — seeing he still breathed, they carried him back inside the city wall.

Without his own effort to save himself, blood loss alone would have killed him.

By the time they reached Kaoshanmen’s Ning Army main camp, he was already well enough to trade jokes with people. To prove he was fine, he insisted on relieving himself without anyone’s help.

Yu Jiuling heard about this and specifically went to see for himself. It turned out that the “without help” Yu Hongyi had insisted upon was indeed without help — just his own hands to brace himself.

Even unable to move his body, he absolutely had to rely on himself. The last dignity of a man.

After Yu Jiuling told this to Li Chi, Li Chi’s reaction to Yu Hongyi’s stubbornness was rather mild. He simply asked Yu Jiuling: why did you specifically go to check?

Yu Jiuling said, my lord, don’t ask why I went to look — I think this can be used as a positive example to spread throughout the army. Let the whole army know: Yu Hongyi is a real man.

Li Chi said, you must have a grudge against him… let the whole army know…

—

When the force arrived at the main camp and settled in, a stretch of ground at the back of the camp was set aside specifically for the wounded to rest and recover.

At the camp gate, Li Chi and Xiahou Zhuo stood with their long-range scopes, studying Kaoshanmen opposite.

Li Chi raised a finger toward the battle flag on Kaoshanmen’s wall. “How is it that the flag on that Kaoshanmen looks so pleasing to the eye?”

Xiahou Zhuo said: “Of course it does. I planted it there myself.”

Li Chi chuckled.

Before heading northwest, Tang Pidi had told Li Chi he was free to advance on Shu Prefecture. When Tang Pidi had finished with Han Feibao, he would loop around through the northwest to attack Yong Prefecture, then converge from another direction to press Shu Prefecture in a pincer.

Li Chi had received the news halfway through the march: Xiahou Zhuo had already taken Kaoshanmen.

It had to be said — Han Feibao had actually done the Ning Army a fine service.

The supplies within Kaoshanmen had run dangerously low. When Xiahou Zhuo began the assault, the garrison inside had already starved to the point of collapsing morale.

Even if Pei Qi rushed emergency grain from every direction, how could it possibly arrive in time? It was not a matter of wanting to send it — you couldn’t just command grain to appear at Kaoshanmen’s gates in three to five days.

Kaoshanmen was indeed a strategically vital, difficult-to-assault fortress. But the men defending it had gone days without food. What were they to defend with?

Xiahou Zhuo had not wanted to waste the opportunity. He personally led the assault and took Kaoshanmen in a single day.

Of that one day, half was spent in negotiating surrender.

The other half was spent counting the number of those who surrendered, then finding places to hold them under guard.

The garrison at last ate a proper meal — though surrendering brought shame, eating brought satisfaction. And between shame and filling one’s stomach, the choice was of course to fill one’s stomach first, and then one could afford the energy to feel shame.

These soldiers had been an emergency deployment from another fortress, and their numbers were not large.

Their general had assessed the situation the moment he arrived: Kaoshanmen could not be held.

So using resupply as an excuse, he left — and left his deputy commander with roughly eight thousand Yong Prefecture soldiers to hold the line.

Those eight thousand, two days after their general departed, had finished the rations he had brought.

In the days that followed, they boiled the bark stripped from the trees inside the fortress for soup.

Taking Kaoshanmen had opened the gate into Shu Prefecture. Xiahou Zhuo did not advance recklessly afterward — because not long after taking it, scouts reported that a large Shu Prefecture army had already assembled ahead.

Xiahou Zhuo left men to hold Kaoshanmen, then led his force north to receive Li Chi.

Tang Pidi was not at ease. How could he possibly be at ease?

“Shall we go up and look?”

Xiahou Zhuo gestured toward Kaoshanmen.

Li Chi nodded. “Come, let’s take a look.”

Everyone followed as they moved forward. As they walked, Li Chi said, “The name Kaoshanmen isn’t pleasant.”

Xiahou Zhuo said: “It’s yours now. Call it whatever you like.”

Li Chi’s footsteps stopped. He let out a long, slow breath.

“Call it Tingwei Pass.”

Everyone fell quiet.

For the sake of taking Shu Prefecture, all those young men and women of the Tingwei府 had died here, one after another.

Though in the end Kaoshanmen was taken because the garrison had run out of food and surrendered — this did not diminish in the slightest what the Tingwei had sacrificed and given.

Li Chi started walking again and said as he went: “Tomorrow we move out — take Qingmian County. Rename Qingmian County ‘Heiyi County.'”

Every Ning Army soldier and general responded in unison.

“Hm!”

—

They climbed Kaoshanmen. Li Chi stood at the top and gazed into the distance. Ahead was Shu Prefecture’s beautiful landscape.

Shu Prefecture’s richness could rightly be called the land of heaven’s bounty. Once Shu Prefecture fell, the entire Central Plains would be in Li Chi’s hands.

Everyone stood beside Li Chi, gazing at the lush green mountains and clear waters ahead, each person’s eyes carrying a far-reaching light.

—

At the same time, inside Qingmian County.

Pei Qi also stood on the walls of Qingmian County, looking in the direction of Kaoshanmen — a hundred li and more away. Of course he could not actually see it.

But he seemed to see it anyway: on Kaoshanmen’s wall, the Ning Army’s blazing red banner flying in the wind. So his expression was especially dark.

No matter how he tried, he had never imagined Han Feibao would play such a hand against him.

That hand had left him completely on the back foot.

He understood Han Feibao’s intent perfectly. The malice of it made his back teeth itch with hatred.

Han Feibao had wanted to use the empty Kaoshanmen as bait, drawing the Ning Army into a full-scale assault on Shu Prefecture.

That way, Han Feibao could carve out a domain in the north.

It had to be said, the plan was effective. Han Feibao had simply underestimated the Ning Army’s fighting strength — and underestimated the Prince of Ning Li Chi.

Pei Qi did not yet know that Han Feibao had already been defeated. If he had known, he would have been happy to bang a gong and celebrate.

If Han Feibao were dead, he would have dressed in red and hung lanterns to celebrate.

Han Feibao’s plan to use Pei Qi to pin down the Ning Army’s main force was enough to put Shu Prefecture — which Pei Qi had built up through such painstaking effort — in danger of being swallowed whole.

“My lord.”

A subordinate bowed. “It is time.”

Pei Qi exhaled slowly and at length.

He had to abandon Qingmian County. There was no point in holding it.

The terrain around Qingmian County was flat on all sides — unfavorable for defense. And the walls of a county seat were not enough to stop a Ning Army assault.

Rather than station heavy troops here and take devastating casualties in the end, it was better to pull the forces back and make a last stand in more rugged, strategically vital terrain.

Just then, he suddenly saw a Ning Army cavalry unit approaching from the direction of Kaoshanmen, flying the blazing red banner.

But from the numbers, this could not be a force coming to attack the city.

Only a few hundred riders — and they stopped roughly three or four li from the county seat. Then one rider broke away from the group, heading this way.

As that rider came toward the city, he kept looking back over his shoulder at the Ning Army cavalry unit behind.

And the leader of that cavalry unit, seated on horseback, kept waving toward the lone rider as he departed.

As though saying — *go on, go on, hurry along, go home.*

When that lone rider reached the foot of the city wall and his face came into clear view, Pei Qi nearly spat blood from sheer fury.

The man looked up at the city wall. He didn’t say anything — perhaps because he didn’t know what to say.

Neither this man, nor Pei Qi on the wall above him, had ever in their entire lives felt as speechless as they did at this exact moment.

The Prince of Ning Li Chi had sent the Chu Emperor Yang Jing back.

*Didn’t you go to all that trouble to get him to Shu Prefecture? He changed hands and ended up with me. I don’t want him. So I’m sending him back.*

Pei Qi could almost see Li Chi patiently explaining to him: *if this man isn’t in your hands, I’ll hold back a little when I come after you.*

When Yang Jing looked up at Pei Qi, he said nothing — but his eyes seemed to convey: *…you still want me here, right?*