Cheng Mingzhen’s official rank was too low. Upon meeting Yun Ye, he was already three parts inferior, not to mention that in Liaodong, Yun Ye clearly had more authority to speak than him. Although his words hinted at demanding that Yun Ye hand Zhang Liang over to him for custody, Yun Ye completely ignored Cheng Mingzhen, only busying himself with laughing it off and telling him to remain in Dengzhou to await the follow-up supply ships.

“Yang Wanchun wants to eat me. I’ve specially washed myself clean and am delivering myself to his door to be eaten. Whoever dares stop me, I’ll beat them. Cheng Mingzhen, when did you start putting on airs and showing off your power before me?”

When Cheng Mingzhen tried to lecture Yun Ye on military law, Yun Ye talked to him about morality. When Cheng Mingzhen spoke to him about human sentiment, Yun Ye discussed official rank with him. In short, he was unwilling to hand Zhang Liang over to him.

With no other choice, Cheng Mingzhen could only accompany Yun Ye aboard the great ship to Goguryeo. No matter what, he had to stay with Zhang Liang. He didn’t dare violate the Emperor’s stern edict.

Since they were going to the military camp to see the Emperor, Xi Tong was unwilling to go. Taking his son, he returned to Dengzhou with the Great Tang naval warships. Father and son took away over a dozen hemp sacks of spices, making Cheng Mingzhen’s eyeballs nearly pop out.

“These were picked by Marquis Yun taking us to the island. My father and son picked for three months and gathered these. If the Commander likes them, just carry off a sack—what we picked ourselves isn’t worth anything.”

Xi Tong had traveled north and south all his life and didn’t lack such perceptiveness. Commander Cheng Mingzhen, a viscount no less, carefully stored a hemp sack of spices in his cabin. Accepting some local specialty products from people wasn’t excessive.

Early spring Liaodong was still a blanket of white. They requisitioned numerous horses from the logistics camp. The craftsmen on the ship made many wooden sleds from lumber and loaded them full of various supplies. Lai Chuanfeng cursed the damned weather—over two months ago, he was still sailing bare-chested on the sea surface. Two months later, he had become cavalry, wearing armor and frozen like a turtle.

Li Tai had considered this point and made preparations. Woolen cloaks were draped over bodies, long gloves with fingers stuffed full of wool reached up to the elbows, long thick cotton boots went up to the knees. With face masks on and iron helmets buckled on heads, by rights they shouldn’t feel the cold anymore, yet these fellows still kept shouting about being cold.

Zhang Liang, wrapped in his cloak and sitting on a sled, asked Yun Ye with furrowed brows: “These fellows are all northerners. With such equipment, why are they still shouting about the cold?”

Yun Ye beside him, also shivering, said: “Over the past year and more, the thickest clothing everyone wore was single-layer shirts and short pants. The south is too hot—even at its coldest, it’s much warmer than Chang’an in spring. Now suddenly arriving in this world of ice and snow, naturally they’re somewhat unaccustomed. But it’s fine—by the time we reach Anshi City, they should be adapted.”

Along the way, they traveled slowly, passing through prefectures and cities. The situation in Goguryeo was far more serious than Yun Ye had anticipated. In many villages, not a single living person could be seen. Pushing open doors, entire families huddled in ice-cold rooms, long frozen solid. A child with a large head and small body lay dead sprawled over a flour bin—the bin was clean as if licked by dogs.

“My lord, the Goguryeo people have been short of grain for three years. Starving corpses everywhere is no surprise.” Seeing Yun Ye’s expression of unbearable pity, Cheng Mingzhen spoke up in explanation.

Zhang Liang looked at the miserable scene before him with a cheerful smile. He poked at the corpse on the flour bin with his hand, clapped his hands, and said to Yun Ye: “Not bad, not bad. Cutting off their grain and severing their livelihood—Zhang Jian and the others have done this well. Gao Shilian, Liu Ji, Ma Zhou, Zhang Xingcheng, Gao Jifu—they continuously extract grain from Goguryeo. These civil officials kill people much more ruthlessly than this old man.”

Shaking his head, Yun Ye left the room. Suddenly discovering there seemed to be someone in the woodpile in the courtyard, Liu Jinbao used a long spear to poke open the woodpile. Inside was a scrawny youth curled up, gripping a broken wood-chopping knife with both hands, looking at them fiercely.

“This old man dares bet this boy definitely survived by eating people.” Zhang Liang turned to Liu Jinbao and said: “Boy, you poke this cannibal aside. Behind him seems to be a human leg. Maybe what this fellow ate was his own mother’s leg. Ha ha ha.”

Seeing Yun Ye nod, Liu Jinbao jabbed his spear under the boy’s ribs and flipped him aside. Zhang Liang was right—behind the boy was indeed a human leg covered with teeth marks.

Liu Jinbao was about to run this cannibal boy through with his spear when the smiling Zhang Liang stopped him. The old fellow took a small bag of salt from Liu Jinbao, placed it on that human leg, and said kindly without caring whether the child could understand: “Boy, human flesh is always a bit sour. If you rub salt on the leg, it will taste better when you eat it.” After speaking, he also took out his tinderbox, set it down, and continued: “When roasting human flesh, you can’t cook it completely—eighty percent done is best. This entire village is full of dead people, enough for you to eat until spring thaw. I’ll give you some salt. If you pickle the human flesh, you might be able to eat until the Beginning of Summer. That way you can survive.”

Yun Ye, Cheng Mingzhen, and Liu Jinbao all looked at Zhang Liang as if he were a monster. Had this old fellow already gone mad? Seeing him look at that human leg with envious eyes, they unanimously concluded that this old fellow must have eaten human flesh before.

Zhang Liang carefully closed the door, turned back to Yun Ye and said: “This old man really has eaten people—eaten them more than once. Back then in Youzhou, Luo Yi implemented a scorched earth policy with no grain. His Majesty himself could only eat wheat porridge. To maintain combat strength, this old man steeled his heart and specifically cut off a human leg to bring back and eat. I ate and vomited, vomited and ate, but finally got full. Eventually, I forced Luo Yi to surrender his territory. You young people don’t know—Youzhou cavalry are famously terrifying. Having seen a fellow practitioner today, how about Marquis Yun spare him?”

Having even brought out past events, what more could Yun Ye say? He could only take the lead in returning to the troops, preparing to depart. Zhang Liang looked back at that door with particular meaning, then returned to the sled with his hands behind his back.

The one hundred forty thousand Goguryeo reinforcements at Zhubi Mountain had been wiped out in one fell swoop. Goguryeo’s new reinforcements hadn’t yet arrived. Throughout all of Liaodong now, except for Anshi City, battles in other places had gradually subsided. Li Er was consolidating his forces. It appeared that withdrawing troops and returning home was already irreversible.

After traveling for ten days, the ice and snow had melted. Under the warm spring sun, small streams were everywhere. Horse hooves sank into the mud and were very difficult to pull out. The sleds had been exchanged for large carts at Houhuang City. The cart wheels sank into the thawing mud, often requiring a group of people to help lift them out. The troops advanced very slowly.

Less than fifty li from Anshi City, it began to rain from the sky. Light rain mixed with light snow fell on the armor and soon turned into ice flakes. Such weather was three parts colder than harsh winter.

The great army formed a connected encampment. The imperial banner flew from tall watchtower posts. On somewhat lower tents were also many general’s flags. Looking out, there were flags bearing the characters Cheng, Niu, Li, Zhang, Zhangsun, and many whose characters couldn’t be clearly seen. Needless to say, Old Niu, Old Cheng, Li Ji, Zhang Shigui, and Zhangsun Wuji were all here. Civil officials didn’t raise general’s flags—they had their own plaques.

The entire camp was strictly regulated with moats, palisade walls, chevaux de frise and forked barriers. Powerful crossbows kept watch all around from the blockhouses at the base of the fortifications. Flag-bearing messengers continuously shuttled about everywhere, transmitting military orders in all directions.

Before Yun Ye could go see the Emperor, Old Cheng ran out first. Upon seeing Yun Ye, he launched into a harsh scolding, the gist being that Goguryeo was now a muddy quagmire—why wasn’t he fishing in Lingnan instead of coming here to join in the commotion?

Seeing Yun Ye smile cheerfully and act completely unconcerned, Old Cheng’s anger rose and he prepared to scold more, when Duan Hong emerged from the camp and loudly proclaimed the Emperor’s command summoning Yun Ye to the commander’s tent for an audience.

Entering the military stronghold required announcing one’s name. Yun Ye raised his voice and called out his name toward Zhangsun Wuji, who stood with hand on sword atop the palisade wall. Through the rain and snow, he couldn’t clearly see Zhangsun Wuji’s expression—he could only hear his shout permitting him to enter.

Inside the military camp was even more of a mud pit. Countless large feet stepping in the muddy ground made sounds too awful to bear. Military officers whose boots had been sucked off by the mud frequently cursed this ghostly weather loudly. Yun Ye noticed that their hands and faces all bore frostbite to varying degrees. He truly didn’t know how they had endured through the harsh winter.

The harsh winter on the grasslands couldn’t compare to Liaodong. Yun Ye had already been half-frozen to death. The shameful act of sticking his hands in his crotch to warm them—he’d done that more than once. But in Liaodong, sticking hands in one’s crotch might not even work. Winter here was truly a living hell on earth.

Duan Hong’s ears also had frostbite. No matter how high one’s martial arts, they couldn’t be practiced to the ears. Yun Ye pulled out his ear muffs from inside his clothing and tossed them over. Duan Hong learned how to use them and unhesitatingly fitted them over his ears.

“Don’t wear them like that. Soon the yellow fluid seeping from your ears will stick to the ear muffs. When you want to remove them, you’ll have to tear the skin. You need to wrap your ears first, then wear the ear muffs.”

Wrapped entirely in fur and wearing fur ear muffs, Duan Hong looked no different from a lynx. Hearing Yun Ye say this, he stubbornly shook his head and said quietly: “Nearly frozen to death already—who still has the luxury to worry about so much? His Majesty’s feet also developed frostbite. These past few days, the sour itching has been unbearable. If you have medicine, hurry up and bring it out.”

“There’s no good method—can only wash with medicinal water. The military should have it. My coming to Liaodong was purely accidental. How would I know His Majesty would also suffer frostbite? If you people didn’t even take good care of him, haven’t the other soldiers already suffered heavy casualties?” Yun Ye quickly asked about the topic he was most concerned about.