Guo Ping’s body bore a total of twenty-six shallow arrow wounds. The Turkic sharp arrows had barely penetrated his armor but were blocked by the silk garments worn inside. Two ribs were broken, one of which had nearly pierced his heart. Even the military physician believed his survival was simply divine providence.
In the northwest corner of the camel fortress stood two isolated wooden houses. This was where he and Chen Shu temporarily rested. Next door lived the military physician. Everywhere was filled with the pungent smell of willow branch water.
Chen Shu was already filled with dread at the endless bathing here. Every single bath was no different from undergoing a major punishment. Bathing three times a day, Chen Shu already considered himself the cleanest person under heaven.
“Physician Cao, we don’t need to bathe again tomorrow, right? My wounds have already been soaked white. How can they recover if this continues?” Chen Shu lay on the wooden plank, half-closing his eyes as he asked the military physician who kept mixing medicinal water.
“Your injuries are all external wounds that won’t take your life. If we don’t completely cleanse the corpse poison from your body, that’s what will truly demand your life from the King of Hell. Not only will it take your life, it might even take the lives of the entire army. So tomorrow you two must continue soaking in medicinal water.”
Hearing the military physician’s words, Chen Shu sighed and said to Guo Ping, who was lying prone on the wooden plank: “Might as well just chop off my head and be done with it.”
However, Guo Ping disagreed with this. He said solemnly to Chen Shu: “From now on, I will preserve this life of mine well. No matter how great the suffering, I must preserve my life. The same goes for you. The Anxi Army has been killed down to just the two of us. We must give an accounting to those who died in battle at Qiuci. If I cannot revive the Anxi Army in this lifetime, I, Guo Ping, swear I am not fit to be called human.”
“But yesterday you said you were planning to return to Chang’an to attend Yushan Academy. How have you changed your mind today?”
“My father came to me last night. This was his instruction to me. And my elder brother too—his neck still hasn’t straightened out. Zhang Tingyue was covered in flames and touched me with his dirty hands. My father is always like this. Even dead, he still won’t leave me alone. Didn’t they come find you last night?” Guo Ping propped himself up with one hand and asked Chen Shu dejectedly.
“No. Last night the Liang family’s daughter came to find me. Your father and the others probably saw we were in the midst of passionate lovemaking and were too embarrassed to come in.” Chen Shu answered Guo Ping shamelessly.
“Tell me, what do you think the Turkic people mean by constantly throwing corpses into the river these past days? Are they trying to bring about a plague and won’t be satisfied until everyone is dead?” Chen Shu obviously valued his current situation much more than his future prospects.
“Don’t worry. In the camel fortress, we’re just two small soldiers, and injured ones at that. Have you forgotten Marquis Yun’s other title? He’s a skilled physician second only to Immortal Sun. Even barbarian sores were found to have treatment methods by him and Divine Physician Sun. Ordinary plagues pose no danger to the camel fortress.”
“Just look at the preparations the camel fortress has made these past days and you’ll know. We’re also positioned upwind. The Turkic people are seeking their own deaths.”
Wild Horse Beach was indeed an excellent location. Everywhere were gurgling clear springs. These spring waters flowed out from stone crevices and finally collected into the nearby Qiuci River, nourishing this expanse of lush oasis.
The beautiful scenery of former days had now become a human hell. Everywhere were corpses with severed limbs and broken arms. Their numbers were so great that even the wolf packs on the wilderness couldn’t finish eating all these dismembered remains.
Yun Ye withdrew all the roving cavalry back, sealed the camel fortress tight, and forbade anyone from going out. He only raised the hot air balloons high up to monitor from afar every move of the Turkic people.
Contaminating water sources was an old Xiongnu tactic. Even the Xiongnu, cruel as they were, at most used dead sheep and dead horses to do such things. What Tu Shi was doing now had probably already aroused both heavenly anger and popular resentment, right?
Sure enough, news came from the hot air balloon that some cavalry had moved backward…
The next day news came again that more people had moved backward…
Not until the third day, when news came from the hot air balloon that a large group of cavalry had moved backward, did Yun Ye conclude that this was a Turkic conspiracy.
Du Ruhui fanned himself with a cattail leaf fan and said to Yun Ye: “They’ve already been luring the enemy for three days. You should at least give them some reaction, lest everyone treat Tu Shi as an idiot.”
“If his stratagem were more clever, I’d be willing to fall for it. Now playing this game of adding troops and reducing campfires is so boring. During the day they withdraw people, then return again when it gets dark. Even if I were a fool, I could detect the problem from the moon’s changes these past days. Desert marches are mostly chosen when the moon is nearly full. In the height of summer, only nighttime is the best marching time. Right now the moon isn’t even visible—do they plan to march under the scorching sun? The time needed to go from one oasis to another is fixed. Exceed this time and fail to reach the oasis, and the entire army can just wait to die of thirst.”
Du Ruhui struggled to stand up from his reclining chair. It was sunset time again—the time for him and Wu She to bathe in the divine light. When he reached the door, Old Du finally said to Yun Ye: “A skilled warrior achieves no spectacular feats. That you can exhaust the Turkic people by dragging out time is itself an incomparable achievement. Fighting wars isn’t about comparing who kills more people.”
Yun Ye knew the old fellow came to his place out of concern that he couldn’t resist the temptation of a military opportunity and would rashly attack. Now discovering that Yun Ye could remain even more composed than an old general, he naturally felt relieved to go pursue his own path to longevity.
Yun Ye was now quite certain of one thing: those jade tablets could indeed function as incandescent lamps. He had placed some flowers, plants, and small animals in Wu She’s room. The result was that the flowers and plants grew very luxuriantly, and the small animals were also very healthy. One rabbit had even safely given birth to six baby rabbits. Yun Ye had examined each one and found no rabbit had grown two heads.
Great army warfare was very much like a game. Often it was two commanders probing back and forth like idiots. Tu Shi was fortunate. Half a month later, the corpses had all been dried into mummies by the hot winds on the dry plateau. No terrible plague occurred.
Yun Ye had already made all protective preparations. As long as plague broke out among the Turkic people, he would absolutely take the camel fortress and flee at the first opportunity. He didn’t believe that the Tang army, with its good sanitary habits, wouldn’t contract plague before the Turkic people. Now that nothing had happened, he was very disappointed.
The Turkic people had no choice but to retreat backward. Food and supplies were always a major problem. The problem of feeding three to four hundred thousand bellies appeared especially important on the wilderness.
The phrase “divide troops to forage” appeared especially cruel. Qiuci City had already been destroyed, so those small tribes scattered across the oases suffered catastrophic disasters. Everywhere the Turkic people went became a dead zone. The oases returned to a primordial state.
When there was no way to judge enemy intentions, Yun Ye still maintained the position of not moving his troops. Since the Turkic people were turning back, he didn’t need to pay them any more attention. As long as the Turkic people didn’t go east, they could go wherever they pleased.
Very soon Yun Ye discovered his decision seemed somewhat wrong, because Tubo people had actually appeared behind him. Moreover, the person leading these troops was someone Yun Ye recognized—it was the Tubo Great Minister Lu Dongzan.
When Lu Dongzan made his move, it was indeed extraordinary. As soon as he appeared, he excavated huge ditches in the desert. Not only was he digging, the Turkic people were also digging. Within half a month, the front and rear of Yun Ye’s camel fortress were blocked by two deep ditches. High mountain ranges flanked both left and right sides. For the camel fortress to leave was more difficult than ascending to heaven. Lu Dongzan believed that what remained was simply to continue using superior forces to attack the fortress.
That Lu Dongzan could disregard the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain showed that the success or failure of the Turkic people related to the success or failure of the entire grand strategy. Only by letting large numbers of Turkic people enter could they effectively reduce their respective pressures.
The only gap in Yun Ye’s strategy and tactics was being too far from Loulan. For forces within the pass to provide relief was extremely difficult. Now this loophole had been discovered by Lu Dongzan, and he used ditches to restrict the mobility capability of Yun Ye’s camel fortress.
Chen Shu and Guo Ping looked at the distant enemy and stared at each other in dismay. They believed the nightmare they had already experienced was now about to repeat itself.
Yun Ye still maintained that half-dead appearance. He had always been striving to follow the rules of action in the desert—that is, to move as little as possible. Not only was he like this, but Du Ruhui now resembled an old turtle. Apart from his unwavering daily routine of sitting under Wu She’s incandescent lamp reading books, he just placed himself in a reclining chair, watching the desert’s sunrise and sunset to while away the time.
Chen Shu and Guo Ping were extremely nervous. At this time, they should enter wartime material distribution. Why could wounded patients like themselves, who temporarily had no combat capability, still receive the luxurious supplementation of two eggs per day and a bowl of camel milk?
Having finally passed the isolation period, the first thing the two did was request an audience with Yun Ye, asking him to order preparations for protracted combat. All materials should be distributed in limited quantities. Supplies for women and children should be halved. The food for soldiers not going into battle should also be halved. As for patients like themselves, as long as they didn’t starve to death, that would suffice.
Yun Ye put down the book in his hands. Without answering their words, he merely pointed at Tian Yuanyi, then continued reading his book. The weather was too hot; he was too lazy even to expend the energy to speak.
Tian Yuanyi smiled as he invited the two young generals out of the commander’s tent, inviting them to see together just how the camel fortress obtained food from the desert grasslands. Patting his chest, he said the army’s grain and fodder would definitely not be lacking—at least for five months there would be no shortage whatsoever.
No one could fight while carrying five months’ worth of rations. This was common sense. According to minimum allocation, one person ate one jin of rice per day. Five months would require one hundred fifty jin. For an army of forty thousand, the number would be an extremely terrifying figure. This was completely impossible, especially since Yun Ye’s army also had an extremely terrifying number of livestock.
Livestock could obtain food from these grasslands, but what about people? Could they slaughter livestock?
“Do you know why the places where the camel fortress camps must all be locations with abundant water and grass? That broken city of Qiuci has no meaning whatsoever for firm defense. Only Wild Horse Beach is the best camping ground for us.”
Chen Shu and Guo Ping looked at Tian Yuanyi, who smiled like a fox. They really couldn’t believe this thin-bodied middle-aged man with a rat-like mustache could conjure something from nothing.
“As for those people’s food, we don’t need to worry about it for five months.” Tian Yuanyi pointed at the cavalry squatting in the center of the camel fortress tending to their own horses and said to Guo Ping and Chen Shu.
“Ah?”