Yang Xuanji gazed across the river. Because the river channel was extraordinarily wide, he could not make out the situation on the opposite bank, so he quickly held out his hand and asked for the telescope.
Through it, he could see several people on the far bank who appeared to be fishing in a rather leisurely and carefree manner.
Yang Xuanji did not recognize Li Chi, but with a single glance he identified Tang Pidi among the group.
“Tang Pidi?!”
Xun Youjiu recognized him as well and immediately turned to look back at the column behind him. His first instinct was that Tang Pidi was right there on the bank — if it were possible, they should cut straight across and kill him now.
If Tang Pidi were dead, what would there be left to worry about?
“Who is that person?”
Yang Xuanji extended a finger toward Li Chi.
From afar, that man sat on a folding stool, fishing at his leisure, while Tang Pidi stood attendant at his side. Judging from his posture, Tang Pidi clearly held that man in great respect.
Xun Youjiu studied the scene for a moment before saying, “Could it be… Prince Ning, Li Chi?”
“Gong Shuyong!”
Yang Xuanji called out at once.
Gong Shuyong, acclaimed within the Army of Heavenly Fate as the Gold-Armored Divine Warrior, stepped forward with a deep, booming voice: “My lord, I am here.”
Yang Xuanji pointed toward the man fishing on the opposite bank. “Take aim at that fisherman. See if you can kill him.”
Gong Shuyong answered at once. He looked around for something suitable, spotted a military officer nearby holding a long halberd, and grabbed it straight from the man’s hands.
The general was startled but dared not say a word. He was genuinely afraid that if he so much as spoke, Gong Shuyong would seize him and tear him apart without a second thought.
So having his halberd snatched away, all he could do was silently curse under his breath — *damn you, you and your ancestors, damn it all…*
Gong Shuyong gripped the long halberd, felt its satisfying weight, and with a burst of force hurled it forward.
His throw was of breathtaking precision. The great halberd shot out like a streak of light, without the slightest arc, flying straight and true toward Li Chi.
Yang Xuanji immediately raised the telescope to his eye. The throw carried extraordinary force, and across that vast stretch of river, the halberd seemed to cross the distance in almost no time at all.
The accuracy was beyond question.
Yang Xuanji’s eyes went wide. This was something gained without any effort at all — if such a stroke of fortune could kill Prince Ning Li Chi, it would be the same as picking up two entire provinces for free.
His eyes widened, his pupils contracted, and his throat bobbed up and down.
“It’s a hit!”
Xun Youjiu could not help but cry out.
*Thwack…*
Li Chi, seated and fishing, shifted ever so slightly to the side. When the halberd had crossed halfway past his head, he raised his hand and caught it — seemingly almost casual about it.
Li Chi looked the halberd over. “Good quality.”
He tossed it to Tang Pidi. “Have it.”
A fine halberd was no cheap thing, and the craftsmen capable of producing one of superior quality were not many in this world.
Tang Pidi took it, gave it a look, and smiled. “Indeed, the quality is excellent.”
He passed the halberd to one of his personal guards. “Take this back. Next time someone earns merit, it goes to them as a reward — this is a weapon the Prince Ning personally seized from the enemy.”
The guard immediately acknowledged the order, receiving the halberd in both hands.
Yu Jiuling cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the river: “Any more where that came from?!”
The voice carried with extraordinary penetration. Yang Xuanji heard it clear as a bell. He was still stunned by the sight of Li Chi catching a halberd with one hand — for a moment, he did not know what to say.
He had seen it. Not a few of his commanders, telescopes raised, had seen it too. They had intended to kill Li Chi, and even if they could not kill him, at least to give him a fright — to build up the morale of their own side.
Instead, it had let Yang Xuanji’s men witness the Prince Ning’s martial prowess firsthand, as though they had only served to magnify Li Chi’s prestige.
Yu Jiuling was still shouting from across the water: “Good things come in pairs — send another one over!”
Gong Shuyong, called the Gold-Armored Divine Warrior, was a simple-minded man of singular focus. Hearing Yu Jiuling’s shout, he started walking straight toward the river. “I’ll go over and kill him myself.”
Yang Xuanji called out to him urgently: “Get back here! Do you want to drown?!”
Gong Shuyong looked at the great river, then shook his head. “I forgot.”
The man’s martial strength was enough that even the world’s fourth-ranked fighter would not dare provoke him — yet he was a fool. Perhaps that was heaven’s idea of fairness. By that same logic, when one looked at Li Chi and Tang Pidi together, it seemed heaven had rather forgotten about fairness altogether.
Li Chi, for his part, could not be bothered. He fixed his gaze on the float bobbing in the water. When it dipped and rose, he flicked his wrist and raised the rod — and there, sure enough, was a fish that looked to be three or four catties in weight.
Yu Jiuling went over with a grin, lifted the fish off the hook, and gave it a heft. “Three or four more like this and there’d be enough for everyone.”
Then he glanced at Li Chi. “Another ten or so, and there’d be enough just for the boss.”
Li Chi: “…”
“Unless I am mistaken, Yang Xuanji should be on that opposite bank right now.”
Tang Pidi borrowed the telescope and looked across, but the people on the other side seemed wary of a counterattack from the Ning forces, for they had already shielded their more important figures behind two rows of large shields.
Tang Pidi said, “He really is impatient. He lost Zhuge Jingzhan not long ago and has already come to the riverbank himself to observe. He probably can’t wait any longer.”
Li Chi stared at the fish, but his mind had drifted elsewhere — because Yu Jiuling’s remark about “enough for everyone” had sent his thoughts toward a much larger question.
“Yang Xuanji has far too many supporters.”
Li Chi said, “Not only in Shu Province and Liang Province and the Jing Province he’s already taken — even in Jing Province where he hasn’t yet pushed through, and in the more distant Su Province and Qing Province, the great families and powerful households largely back Yang Xuanji. If he drives into Jing Province, it will be like splitting bamboo; and if he sends envoys to rally the various regional powers, they will roll out a welcome all the way.”
He looked to Tang Pidi. “What if he sends people to Su Province and Qing Province and the other places, calling on those great clans to buy up all the grain and hoard it — refusing to sell it to us — we’d have money and nothing to buy with it…”
Tang Pidi said, “The stores of grain currently in Yu Province, combined with whatever Jizhou Province can send us as resupply, should be enough to hold through autumn without too much difficulty. But even if we make it through autumn, by next year we’d have no seed grain come early spring. And even if we had seed grain, if we fail to plant winter wheat before the cold sets in, the summer harvest next year will still come to nothing. Then when spring brings the lean season between harvests, vast numbers of people will die — and that is before we even account for the hardship of winter itself.”
Li Chi found himself thinking of a story in the book Master Li had left him — a situation that closely mirrored the present. A dike had been deliberately broken, flooding the land and plunging tens of millions into disaster. The following year, over three million starved to death, and several million more became refugees. Countless lives were lost during the exodus.
A single word from those who held power and position could bring about catastrophe of that magnitude.
And now Li Chi himself had become a person of power and position. At the very least, in Jizhou and Yu Province, he was the highest authority.
Tang Pidi said, “The question now is simply whether Yang Xuanji intends to attack us directly, or to advance into Jing Province. Either option works in his favor — the wind is at his back. If his reinforcements have not yet arrived, he will move into Jing Province, forcing Prince Wu to turn back and compelling Li Xionghu to face Prince Wu in open battle. If his reinforcements have arrived, he will attack Yu Province.”
Li Chi asked, “Given our current forces, what is your assessment?”
Tang Pidi said, “If his present five hundred thousand troops push into Yu Province, holding the river as a natural barrier, with the forty-some thousand combat soldiers under my command, we could hold for at least a month — inflicting no fewer than a hundred thousand casualties on them. If we could recall the steppe light cavalry…”
He paused.
Because he knew they could not be recalled.
With the great disaster unfolding, the light cavalry were the most indispensable force for relief operations — riding back and forth to transport emergency grain and supplies, to rescue and relocate disaster victims. All of that depended on them.
Fifty thousand against five hundred thousand, holding a natural barrier — one month was the absolute limit. Not because they could not fight, but because after a month Tang Pidi’s own provisions would be exhausted.
Li Chi asked, “And if he receives reinforcements?”
Tang Pidi was silent for a moment before answering: “We would lose half of Yu Province. Holding firm in Yuzhou City would stop the enemy from pushing further north. But if Yuzhou City falls as well, Yang Xuanji could drive all the way to the Nanping River in a single push.”
Even Tang Pidi could not make men fight one against ten while they were nearly starving to death.
Only a god could do that.
Half a province…
Li Chi slowly exhaled. That was Tang Pidi’s most conservative estimate.
“Then let us try a different direction.”
Li Chi said, “Boerjie China’s light cavalry must still go to the relief effort — with them there, far more of the common people can be saved. The ninety-thousand-odd new recruits plus the Yu Province garrison comes to roughly a hundred thousand men. I can scrape together another ten thousand and give them to you. Can you hold for three months?”
Without waiting for Tang Pidi’s answer, Li Chi continued: “The displaced are too many — roughly six or seven million souls. Resettling them properly is no simple matter. Even if we only move them temporarily north of Yuzhou City to recover, it will take at least three months at the minimum.”
Tang Pidi said, “What you mean is…”
Li Chi said, “You hold for three months. Give me three months, and I will find a way to secure grain and supplies.”
Tang Pidi said, “Good. Even if I have to feed my soldiers on enemy flesh, I will hold the Army of Heavenly Fate here for three months.”
Li Chi rose to his feet. “Let’s go back to the main camp. I need to think about how to manage this.”
—
The Ning Army’s main camp.
Li Chi paced back and forth inside Tang Pidi’s command tent, brow furrowed deeply.
“Six or seven million displaced people, and on top of that no summer harvest this year — just feeding them from our reserves costs us enormously every single day.”
Li Chi looked to Tang Pidi. “Rough estimates: women, the elderly, and children probably account for three-quarters of the displaced. But the ones who consume the most grain are the men between sixteen and their mid-forties. Over a million of them, roughly half of whom are strong and able-bodied — somewhere between four hundred thousand and five hundred thousand men.”
Tang Pidi did not immediately grasp what Li Chi was suggesting. He simply listened in silence.
Li Chi said, “From here to Qing Province takes approximately two months on foot. If I can persuade four or five hundred thousand of those displaced men to go to Qing Province…”
Tang Pidi’s eyes suddenly went wide.
“It could work.”
Luo Jing stepped forward. “The common people already know full well how desperately they need grain to survive. With two months’ worth of provisions and supplies, give me a thousand combat soldiers. If we can persuade the people, I am willing to lead them to Qing Province myself.”
The plan was wildly unconventional — mobilizing four or five hundred thousand men who had never fought a single battle to attack Qing Province, while the actual fighting force numbered only a thousand. By any reckoning, the odds were not good.
Luo Jing said, “The forces in Qing Province have no way of knowing that our expeditionary army is made up of common people. With four or five hundred thousand mouths gone, the grain remaining will be enough to sustain the displaced people who stay behind for several months longer.”
He looked to Li Chi. “The difficulty right now is: how do we make the people believe that going to Qing Province will genuinely bring back large quantities of grain and supplies?”
“I have an idea.”
Master Wu — Wu Naiyu — who had come with Li Chi, spoke up: “If we can mobilize four or five hundred thousand people toward Qing Province, we would not need to keep so many soldiers tied up in disaster relief. We could pull out roughly twenty thousand troops.”
He looked to Li Chi. “Tell the people that they are going to Qing Province to bring back grain. Not to fight a war.”
Li Chi said, “We cannot deceive the people.”
“It is not deception.”
Luo Jing stepped forward. “There is no lie in it. After the great bandit Gan Daode’s death, Qing Province fell into serious internal strife — it is nothing to worry about. Give me twenty thousand combat soldiers. I will go and take Qing Province. Then those four or five hundred thousand people really will be going to bring back grain.”
He looked Li Chi squarely in the eyes and said with utter seriousness: “I will pledge this on a military oath. If I use even a single commoner as a soldier, count it as my death penalty. If I fail to take Qing Province and return empty-handed, count it as my death penalty. If the hundreds of thousands of people who follow me on this expedition die of starvation in a foreign land, count it as my death penalty!”
Luo Jing declared: “I will plant the character ‘Ning’ on the map of Qing Province!”
—