Hearing this, Zheng Hu seemed somewhat stunned and hurriedly called out: “Second Brother!”
The usually steady Song Qin also frowned slightly and said: “State Lord, the barbarians are coming fiercely this time. After fighting this battle, we don’t even know how many casualties our forces will suffer. If the Marquis of Shuobian on the southern campaign learns of the northern border’s crisis and hastily turns back, we may no longer have the strength to fight him.”
Since Xiao Li was unwilling to remain subordinate to Wei Qishan, given Wei Qishan’s temperament, he would certainly not let the tiger return to the mountain either.
Other brothers also said: “That’s right, State Lord. The grand enterprise is not yet accomplished—why should we sacrifice our own troops for the people of his northern border!”
Everyone looked at Xiao Li. He raised his head to survey the crowd, but only asked quietly: “What is the grand enterprise?”
This was not a challenge, but more like he himself had never clearly thought through that answer.
To become a superior person, receiving the admiration and worship of ten thousand people?
That was not what he wanted.
Nor was it where his aspirations lay.
His original intention in pursuing power and profit was for two women.
One who had given birth to and raised him—he had failed to fulfill his filial duty to her, and had also failed to avenge her.
One whom he admired—he could not give her what she sought, nor could he protect her completely in these chaotic times.
These two reasons were brands deeply seared into his soul.
But after raising such a righteous army from Tongzhou and leading them through countless life-and-death situations, ensuring that each of them could return alive from every battle as much as possible had also become his obsession.
This was why he had been so furious when Wei Qishan, in order to weaken his influence in the army, sent his subordinate soldiers to their deaths.
In every sleepless night after deciding to leave Northern Wei, he had also been thinking: holding such a military force in his hands, after leaving the Wei camp, besides attacking Pei Song, besides competing to be the strongest and making Wen Yu understand she had once made the wrong choice, what else should he do?
He thought he should also order the dismantling of all brothels and pleasure quarters, strictly revise laws against abducting respectable women, severely investigate corrupt officials and unscrupulous merchants, and not let them exploit loopholes to prey upon the common people…
But all those things still seemed very far away from him. Before his eyes was already the dilemma of whether or not to save the people of most of the northern border.
If Yanle Mountain completely fell, Yuzhou and several neighboring prefectures would certainly be unable to hold as well.
If Wei Qishan’s home base was attacked, even if he could not continue campaigning against Pei Song and hurriedly led his army back to drive the barbarians out of the pass again, it would still take considerable time.
During this period, how many innocent common people would suffer disaster—no one could calculate.
Perhaps Northern Wei would be completely devastated from this point on. For him, this was a good opportunity to distance himself from Wei Qishan’s suppression and rapidly grow stronger.
But exchanging the opportunity for tens of thousands of common people to die under barbarian blades—without needing the world’s condemnation, he himself already found it contemptible.
On the long street filled with panicked crying and noisy clamor, the group of people sitting on horseback all fell silent after Xiao Li asked that question.
Xiao Li seemed still unable to think clearly about that answer, saying: “If it’s to sit on that dragon throne, how many emperors throughout history have been pulled down from it?”
“Aren’t they better than anyone at protecting themselves wisely? What they did were also all choices most beneficial to imperial power.”
“The brothers entrusted their lives to me, following me to wade through muddy waters and take this path, because the ways of the world are unjust, war disasters are endless, and the rebel kings of various prefectures can’t scrape any oil from everyone’s scalps, so they have to gouge out another layer of skin along with the blood and flesh—making it hard to find a way to survive. I have no intention of leading everyone to risk their lives competing for that blood-soaked dragon throne in the Luodu imperial palace. All I’ve ever wanted to do is avenge my mother and earn everyone a good future, so that everyone can protect their own small plots of land. When the realm is eventually stabilized and there are no more wars, even if we don’t become officials, we can all have prosperous lives.”
He looked at this group of brothers who had followed him through life and death since Yongcheng, saying: “The common people fleeing in panic from the northern border today are no different from us in the past.”
The north wind blew head-on, rolling up countless snow particles falling in the cold night.
Xiao Li looked back at the streets and alleys still filled with wailing cries. His distinctly featured profile reflected the firelight as he said: “In the past when the brothers rose up in rebellion, they so despised those local governments that stood by watching bandits massacre people. After the barbarians enter the pass and begin their killing spree, the carnage will only be worse, not better, than the counties in Tongzhou that were massacred by bandits. This is Liang territory, and we are all Liang people. If today we are like those governments we once attacked, coldly watching our own people be slaughtered by foreign tribes, in the future there will be no need for others to point fingers at our backs—I fear we ourselves will no longer be able to hold our heads up.”
“Going there is not to help his Wei camp, but for all the common people of the northern border.”
“It’s not that the Wei clan exists and therefore the northern border people exist—rather, it’s because the northern border people have been rooted here for generations that his Wei clan exists today. Even dynastic changes are common occurrences. The northern border will not always bear the Wei surname.”
After speaking, he clasped his fists toward everyone and said: “If Xiao Li’s aspirations conflict with yours, consider it Xiao Li failing you all.”
Hearing these last words, Zheng Hu suddenly shouted in frustration: “Second Brother, what are you saying! What do you take the brothers for? Everyone has followed you through life and death how many times—which one is greedy for life and afraid of death? We’re unlettered muddy-legged folk who can barely read a few characters. We hold grudges, we’re short-sighted, and what Wei Qishan did before can never be forgiven by us! But as long as you say one word, Second Brother, even if there are mountains of blades and seas of fire ahead, how could the brothers not go with you?”
By the end, Zheng Hu’s eyes had already reddened: “You talking about conflicting aspirations and failures—it really doesn’t sit well with the brothers to hear.”
After speaking, he awkwardly turned his head away. The other brothers also all fell into uncomfortable silence.
Song Qin looked at Xiao Li and said: “What Tiger said is also what I wanted to say. You are our State Lord. If the decisions you make are inappropriate, we as ministers should remonstrate and admonish. But you are also our brother. Even if you’re wrong, the brothers will only follow you down that same path. We can talk about principles, but how can you say such hurtful and alienating words to your own brothers?”
After speaking, he patted Xiao Li’s shoulder and smiled implicitly: “Big Brother will only admonish you this once. You can’t be like this in the future, or the brothers will really turn against you.”
Xiao Li looked at Song Qin, then at Zheng Hu and all the brothers. All the brotherhood was conveyed without words.
His emotions surged repeatedly. After taking a deep breath in the heavy snow, he hastily lowered his long lashes and said: “I was confused, unwilling to let the brothers follow me into danger based merely on personal feelings, and spoke without choosing my words. I apologize to all the brothers here.”
Only then did Song Qin smile: “What general is afraid of dying on the battlefield? Moreover, it’s killing barbarians. To say you don’t treat the brothers as brothers—the fact that you would consider this actually shows you do treat us as brothers.”
The brothers whose emotions had been somewhat low also saw smiles return after these words.
Someone smiled and smiled, then hastily wiped their eyes and said: “Ever since the gambling house, I’ve followed Second Brother. Never mind killing barbarians—I’d follow him to the underworld to behead the King of Hell!”
Zheng Hu also turned his head back around and said to that person: “Don’t steal my lines!”
Everyone laughed even more.
Zheng Hu looked at Xiao Li, his eyes still somewhat red: “Second Brother is right—we were all forced out by these circumstances! How can we be like those fat-headed officials who do nothing, coldly watching the common people below have no way to survive? Anyway, our original intention in coming to the northern border was also to kill barbarians. Tonight we’ll just kill to our heart’s content! Later if the Wei camp still dares to do ungrateful things, at worst I’ll use the big axe that split barbarians to continue splitting those ungrateful wolves of the Wei camp!”
Someone else said: “I only started working for the State Lord in Tongzhou, so perhaps I’m not as close to the State Lord as the Yongzhou brothers, but I also deeply respect the State Lord from my heart and am willing to keep following him.”
He smiled somewhat shyly: “Before following the State Lord, I also followed a mountain bandit king and a hypocritically benevolent official. They spoke nicely, but we muddy-legged folk were worth less than wild grass in the wasteland to them. If we died, we died—never mind pay for our families, our names probably wouldn’t even be remembered. Only after coming under the State Lord did I realize that when the State Lord has meat to eat, we truly won’t lack for soup to drink.”
Someone smacked the back of his head: “So you’re following the State Lord just for meat and soup!”
He covered his head and laughed along with everyone’s laughter: “Even slop water would do!”
The laughter grew even louder. Xiao Li couldn’t laugh, though. His gaze swept extremely solemnly over each face on horseback, saying to them: “Good brothers.”
Everyone’s expressions were unprecedentedly light. In this snowy night, as if they had drunk chicken blood, they all enthusiastically clamored about when to go kill barbarians.
Song Qin said to Xiao Li: “I’ll take A’Niu out of the city first and return to the army to relay the message to the Military Advisor.”
Xiao Li nodded, then said: “I’ll have Wei Ang and Liao Jiang guarantee that after defending the northern border this time, when Northern Wei’s southern campaign forces turn back, they won’t make things difficult for the righteous army.”
With the earlier incident of thirty thousand righteous troops blocking the city gate demanding his release, the entire northern border already knew he had been imprisoned.
After this battle was finished, at least the Wei camp would owe them another enormous debt on the surface.
As long as Wei Qishan still cared about face, he couldn’t openly make trouble for them again.
Having Wei Ang and Liao Jiang guarantee it provided an additional layer of security.
Song Qin saw that Xiao Li had already considered all his earlier concerns. His eyes showed even more relief. After nodding to Xiao Li once more, he was about to leave with Tao Kui when Tao Kui shouted: “No, A’Niu also wants to go kill barbarians…”
Without Xiao Li needing to speak, Zheng Hu laughed: “You silly boy, when fighting people you only know how to use a wooden mallet to knock them unconscious, not daring to use heavy force. The battlefield is perilous, and the barbarians especially eat people without spitting out bones. Do you want to go be their drinking snacks? If we hadn’t been unable to dissuade you this time, we wouldn’t have let you come to rescue people.”
Hearing this, Tao Kui’s honest face showed some fear of the barbarians, but he still wasn’t ready to give up, stammering: “A’Niu…”
Xiao Li knew his temperament and said to him: “One Military Advisor can match the lives of hundreds or thousands of soldiers. If you go back and protect the Military Advisor and your grandfather well, that would be a great merit.”
Hearing this, Tao Kui finally obediently listened to Xiao Li’s instructions.
As Song Qin led him on horseback with the crowd toward the city gate, he kept turning his head to look back.
He saw Xiao Li turn his horse around, shout “Hyah!”, and lead the remaining dozen or so riders against the tide of people leaving the city.
People in the crowd constantly looked back at them, either panicked or suspicious.
Those dozen or so fast horses rode swiftly against the wind. No one looked back. The iron blades at their saddles gleamed bright as snow, like cold stars moving against their orbit.
—
Wei Qishan was resting lightly with his elbow propped in the tent. When Wei Xian entered carrying freshly brewed medicine and lifted the curtain, the cold wind blew in. Wei Qishan’s eyelids flickered as he woke, his expression not very good.
Wei Xian brought the medicine forward and asked: “Did I disturb the Marquis?”
Wei Qishan pinched his brow, unable to hide the fatigue between his eyebrows, saying: “I’ve had many dreams lately. Just dozing for this little while, I had quite a few dreams again.”
Judging by his expression, he seemed to have had some unpleasant dreams.
Wei Xian said: “Later this old servant will have the military physician prepare another calming medicinal soup.”
Wei Qishan waved his hand, indicating it wasn’t necessary. Opening the battle reports piled on the desk, he asked: “Has there been any more news from the northern border?”
Wei Xian bowed and took out the battle report that had just arrived four hours earlier: “Only this one.”
Wei Qishan had already read the battle report. It only said that the barbarians, seeing half the troops had been withdrawn from the northern territory, had invaded again, and Liao Jiang had personally gone to guard Yanle Mountain.
Wei Qishan said: “When urgent reports come back, bring them to me immediately.”
Wei Xian knew he was worried about the northern border war situation and advised: “Battle with the Pei rebels is imminent. The Marquis shouldn’t stretch yourself too tight. With General Liao guarding the northern border, you can be more at ease.”
After covering his mouth and coughing a few times, Wei Qishan sighed: “This southern campaign—I ultimately couldn’t get past that knot in my heart. I wanted to walk the path I didn’t walk thirty-five years ago, to see a different outcome. But the barbarians are cunning. Although Liao Jiang personally sits in command, until a victory report arrives, how can I feel at ease?”
Feeling somewhat stifled by the charcoal fire burning in the tent, he said: “Come walk outside the tent with me.”
Wei Xian wanted to persuade him, but also knew his master’s heart was troubled at the moment. Going out for a walk to get some air would be good, so he took the thick cloak hanging on the wall and helped Wei Qishan put it on.
The two left the tent. The overwhelming wind and snow outside made it almost impossible to open one’s eyes.
Wei Xian followed behind Wei Qishan, finding an appropriate moment to speak: “Although our southern campaign withdrew half the northern border troops, aren’t there still thirty thousand righteous troops stationed outside Yuzhou City? And that Xiao boy is in prison. The Marquis left instructions early on—if necessary, use his life as a threat, and you can force those thirty thousand righteous troops to rush to Yanle Mountain for support. That righteous army previously had methods to deal with barbarian tactics. There’s no reason they couldn’t hold Yanle Mountain this time with the Wolf Cavalry’s assistance. The Marquis need not worry excessively.”
Hearing him mention Xiao Li, Wei Qishan’s eyes, majestic yet concealing endless weathering, held too much complexity. In the end he only sighed: “If this boy were more gentle and docile, I would have intended to let him replace Liao Jiang.”
He didn’t say the rest, but Wei Xian also understood that whether as lord and subject or as father and son, these two were no longer possible.
Xiao Li was that wolf galloping on the wilderness, unwilling to have any shackles placed on his neck.
But such a fierce and wild creature, without any restraint—who would dare employ him?
Wei Xian nodded: “Even the most spirited horses and eagles must ultimately be used by people to be good horses and good eagles.”
After receiving these words, Wei Qishan continued walking forward wearing his cloak through the wind and snow, making no comment.
On the horse path left between the tents ahead, a group of night patrol soldiers rode past. Seeing the two from afar, they seemed about to shout and question them. When they came closer and saw Wei Qishan, the leader dismounted, calling out in surprise: “Father? It’s so late—you haven’t slept yet?”
Wei Qishan, seeing that his son was patrolling the camp at night, was also slightly surprised. His face showed the consistently cold and stern majesty he always displayed before his son—never mind a loving father, not even half a trace of a benevolent general’s manner could be seen: “You’re on camp patrol tonight?”
Wei Pingzin didn’t seek credit, only cupping his fists and nodding: “General Yuan went to Fengyang. Your son wanted to become more familiar with military affairs, so as to share Father’s burdens during wartime.”
Wei Qishan’s face still showed no sign of softening, only saying: “Continue with the patrol.”
Though Wei Pingzin was given the cold shoulder this time, he no longer showed displeasure. After nodding once more and mounting his horse, he soon departed with the group of patrolling soldiers.
Wei Xian said: “The Young Lord seems much more steady than before. After arriving at An Pass the other day, he immediately sent letters to his wife and the County Princess back in Zhuojun to report his safety. When you were coughing severely during the day and asked for a military physician, the Young Lord also immediately had people collect many cough-relieving medicinal materials.”
Wei Qishan said: “If he would put even half the effort he puts into doing these things into his studies, he wouldn’t be in such a mediocre state now.”
Though the tone was still severe, it was no longer like before—that disappointment in someone who fails to meet expectations.
“How much longer until Yuan Fang reaches Fengyang?” he asked.
Wei Xian calculated the days since Yuan Fang had separated from them and said: “If nothing unexpected happens, within these two days. Following your instructions, on the road he pretended to conduct covert military movements, creating the false impression that this mission was to secretly attack Fengyang. Presumably the Pei camp has already set up heavy defenses in Fengyang.”
Wei Qishan said: “This great gift will be sent to her, Hanyang.”
Wei Xian smiled: “After Princess Hanyang and Pei Song have their life-and-death struggle in Fengyang, even if General Yuan can’t profit from their conflict, he won’t come off badly. The Marquis and the Young Lord can seize the opportunity to take Luodu. With the power of the northern border, in the future whether it’s Pei Song or Princess Hanyang, neither will be able to wrest this imperial capital from the Marquis’s hands. When Northern Wei’s iron cavalry sweeps south after spring begins, who in Liang territory will be able to stop the Marquis?”
On one side of the path, chevaux de frise had been placed, already covered with a thick layer of snow.
Wei Qishan stopped, looking at the thousands of military tents behind him in the firelight, and suddenly said: “If only this southern campaign could be victorious, and these thirty-five years of time could be relived.”
—
Hongyan Temple.
Zhao Bai strode rapidly into the hall, his clothes and hair still bearing scattered snow flakes. He clasped his fists toward Wen Yu, who was still writing scriptures with brush in hand: “Princess, we’ve interrogated out the person behind this.”