Chapter 203 – The Overbearing General’s Pretty Military Counselor (XXII)
Pa Sha is determined to win.

A few days later, in the evening, he walked twice along the Cang River, listening to the reports of his spies in the wetness of the pounding waves.

The scout said, “There is news that the Central Plainsmen started building ships as early as March, paying high prices to recruit carpenters and blacksmiths who know how to build ships, and I heard that the ships being built are all firm and large ……”

Pa Sha laughed and kicked a small stone into the rolling river.

When the spies had retired, the lieutenant came up to the side, also looking as if he knew what was going on.

Pa Sha : “Got it?”

Vice General: “My subordinates understand. The Northern House Army is doing this to us.”

Pa Sha laughed, “If they were going to cross the river and fight head-on, why would they make such a big deal out of it, as if we didn’t know they were going to concentrate their forces on the river and have a big river battle?”

Adjutant General: “What about ……?”

”Once the stage is set, the play should be sung properly, even if it is pretentious.” Pa Sha said, “I think the northern army will choose a windy day to cross the river by night. If I were Shi Tingyun, I would have made as much noise as possible, even inducing Changling and Inari to come to our aid.”

The adjutant general said, “That’s right. That’s how the dogs of the Middle Kingdom love to play with their hearts.”

”It’s good to play with your mind, but I’m afraid if they don’t play it right, they’ll suffer.” Pa Sha said, “The surprise attack, the use of spies to interfere with the hearing, and the creation of a cloud of suspicion; and then complemented by the flanking tactics, is only to want us to divide our troops and fight. If you look at it, this little dog of the Toki family is quite clever. But he has forgotten that the art of warfare is all about avoiding the real and protecting the imaginary, so if he plays such a real and imaginary game, he will be killing himself. …… How is the land defence going?”

I have calculated clearly that the most the North’s army can mobilise this time is 30,000 men. We have 30,000 troops in the middle of the river in Guining, 15,000 in the upper reaches of the river in Changling, and 20,000 in the lower reaches of the river in Inaccessible, so even if the North’s army were to mobilise, we would not be afraid. Our main forces are already secretly heading towards Guining, and all our spies have been put out to watch day and night and report back at all times.”

Pa Sha nodded once.

The adjutant general added, “I am here this time to ask the general how the river defences are to be arranged.”

”The river defences must never be abandoned.”

Pa Sha, though contemptuous of the Chinese, was by no means arrogant and forgetful.

He said categorically, “If they have come to take advantage of their pleasure, how can I let them go home in disgrace? Choose twenty empty straw-lined boats, pour kerosene on them, choose three hundred soldiers who know how to sail to meet them, shout and clamour, and when they are close enough to avoid them, set fire to the boats, dive under the water and swim back to shore. Have plenty of kerosene on shore for the rockets.”

He leaned down to pick up a stone and threw it into the river with force.

The waves splashed by the stones are quickly swallowed by the river.

Pa Sha said, “…… At that time, I want the entire Cang River to become a river of fire. I want that fire to burn so brightly that it can be seen in the palace of the king of the southern border.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river.

Shi Tingyun, sitting on a cliff, strains out the kernels of the sour plum from his mouth and throws them into the river.

The river was wide and the waves were strong and windy, and despite his superior strength, the tiny plum kernels fell into the water without even making a splash.

The raging river flows without pause beneath the feet of Shi Tingyun and Yan Yuanheng.

The duo, dressed in the clothes of ordinary people and with two cows grazing low behind them, look from afar like two young cattle herders, sitting idly on a hilltop and blowing the wind.

And they were actually watching the front line.

Shi Tingyun took another sour plum and put it in his mouth: “Bishop 5 in 3.”

Yan Yuanheng : “Knight 6 to 7.”

Shi Tingyun stopped talking and looked at him with a smile.

Yan Yuanheng pondered for a moment before sighing helplessly, “…… I’ll take the loss in this game.”

Shi Tingyun laughs: “Six to six. It’s a draw at last.”

They have been playing blind chess back and forth with each other facing the river all afternoon.

Shi Tingyun offered him a small porcelain jar with sour plums, but Yan Yuanheng refused with a wave of his hand.

During a battle with a small army from the southern border three days ago, Yan Yuanheng was cut on the back of his left hand by a sword, the wound was not deep, but it still caused quite a stir and his left hand was wrapped in linen and wrapped right up to the tips of his fingers.

Shi Tingyun had nothing better to do than to take his left hand and doodle.

This is an old habit of Shi Tingyun’s.

He felt that being wrapped in white cloth with a wound on his body was always monotonous and uninteresting, so he loved to paint on the areas where others and himself were bandaged.

Many of the soldiers in the wounded battalion have ink on them that he left behind.

Shi Tingyun holds a half charcoal pencil and sketches, while Yan Yuanheng looks down at the top of his hair.

Shi Tingyun drew a goose, looked up and asked, “How did I do?”

Yan Yuanheng looks up at the trail of birds nesting on the mountain: “Well. Not bad.”

Shi Tingyun let go of his hand.

The corner of Yan Yuanheng’s upturned mouth falls a little.

He asked, “Why aren’t you painting anymore?”

Shi Tingyun : “It’s dark, I can’t see.”

Yan Yuanheng fishes a candle out of his pocket.

Shi Tingyun : “…… you came to spend the night ah.”

Yan Yuanheng blushed a little, and could not say that he wanted to observe with him in the mountains for one night, which caused misunderstanding, so he pretended to put his head down and nod his wax, and calmly said, “I …… just in case.”

With the slightest of light, Shi Tingyun took the pen out again, which he had put away.

Yan Yuanheng requests, “Paint another one.”

Shi Tingyun smiled and said, “Yes, I will do as I am told.”

Soon Yan Yuanheng drew his hand back and looked at the two geese on the back of his hand, his heart pleased and the corners of his mouth involuntarily curled slightly.

Su Chang is really different from the rest of the world, she looks so good with her brush.

In summer, the days are hot and the nights are cold, with the only comfortable temperatures being towards nightfall.

With the cool mountain breeze blowing in his face, Yan Yuanheng looked at the river, which was turning deep black, and asked, “How are your observations going?”

Shi Tingyun, lying on his back, holding a yellow scarf for neck protection.

The yellow scarf is blown straight to the south-west.

Shi Tingyun rolls up his yellow scarf: “Not yet.”

Yan Yuanheng took a breath.

Shi Tingyun, as if anticipating what he would say, turns sideways, pads one ear with his arm and plugs the other with a yellow scarf.

Yan Yuanheng said resolutely, “Although Uncle Shi approves of your war strategy, I still think it is too risky to let the whole main force cross the river to fight.”

He said, “It is difficult to keep news of our shipbuilding under wraps, and now even the people in the nearby towns are asking if there is really a great battle to be fought. If the Pa Sha ministry has prepared for it, would we not be throwing ourselves into a net if we went there ……”

He said a lot of things about his concerns, but when he didn’t get a response, he turned his gaze and Shi Tingyun had fallen asleep with his ears plugged.

Yan Yuanheng : “……”

He looked down at Shi Tingyun’s sleeping face.

When Shi Tingyun sleeps, he is not as wanton as he is during the day, and his brow is gently furrowed, as if he has something on his mind. His eyelashes are long, little fan-like and soft to the touch ……

By the time Yan Yuanheng came back to his senses, he had flicked Shi Tingyun’s eyelashes back and forth several times.

…… He was scared off by his own odd behavior.

After taking a couple of small breaths away from Shi Tingyun, Yan Yuanheng returns, picks up the sleeping youth and gently puts him on the bull’s back, then leads the two well-fed cows slowly towards the camp.

He wondered over and over again what was wrong with me.

The lurching of the bull’s body woke Shi Tingyun up for a while.

He looked ahead at the man who was burying his head in his thoughts while holding a cow and called sleepily, “…… Yuan Heng .”

Yan Yuanheng turned around, “Hmm?”

Shi Tingyun : “It’s okay, call you.”

Yan Yuanheng : “…… hmm.”

Shi Tingyun wanted to get up, but Yan Yuanheng said, “You don’t have to come down. You can sleep a little longer. I’ll hold this one.”

It is night.

Yan Yuanheng returned to his tent, where the medic changed his medicine and the slightly bloodstained linen was removed and piled next to him.

The army doctor said eagerly, “Thirteenth prince, your wound is already shallow and you have a good foundation, so if you apply medicine for two more days, you will not even have a scar.”

Yan Yuanheng nodded once, not really caring about that.

The medic looked down, ready to take away the old linen he had removed, but could not find it anywhere.

Where did …… go?

Could it be that the party failed to take care of it and it was taken by the Thirteenth Prince’s personal people to dispose of it?

After the doctor had left in a daze, Yan Yuanheng lay under the covers and, by candlelight, cut the linen cloth with the two geese on it with a pair of candlewick cutters and stored it close to his body, then quietly buried the cut linen cloth at the root of the tent in the night.

Back in his tent, Yan Yuanheng lay flat again, still wondering why Shi Tingyun and Shi Jinghong were so sure that the main force of Pa Sha’s army was no longer in the city.

Three days later, the wind finally turned due south.

Pa Sha sat in the main tent of the military tent in Guining and lit the candles in all directions, looking at the banners flying towards the north outside the tent, drinking a few sips of tea, but it was not enough to be elegant, so he ordered someone to fetch the “Khar Nai”, a 72-stringed pipa, playing the majestic sound, waiting for the northern army to throw themselves into the net.

Indeed, just after midnight, there was a faint sound of shouting and killing coming from the Cang River.

…… is here.

Pa Sha, with a smile on her lips, calmly strokes the zither, the sound of the zither refracting like the clear song of a phoenix.

His lieutenant, who was responsible for supporting the incoming army on land, was not with him. A curtain-keeper refilled his tea and said, “The general plays the zither well.”

Pa Sha said, “This is a family lesson, my father is good at the zither and has taught me since I was young. Since I was a child, I have learned the five and six arts, so I am playing a war song to inspire the soldiers in the battlefield.”

Shubin laughed, “The winds of the southern border will surely convey the general’s thoughts to the armies ……”

As soon as the words left his mouth, a loud and clear sound came from the river, a few miles away, but still majestic and straight to the clouds.

Makuhari: “Who’s playing the oboe?”

Pa Sha : “……”

It’s an oboe, and it’s still playing The Hundred Birds of Prey.

Even the knowledgeable Pa Sha can’t quite imagine what it must have been like for an army to come across the river with suona blowing.

He couldn’t help but snicker: a child’s trick.

The more this happens, the more bluffing it is, isn’t it?

The land-based messenger soon arrived on a fast horse and shouted, “General, there’s a northern army on the move! They are approaching Changling!”

Pa Sha put down the piano without moving: “How many people are coming?”

The messenger said, “The other side is marching by night and has no torches. It was very dark at night, so I couldn’t see how many men there were, but from a distance, the deputy general could see that the dust and smoke were rolling around, and the procession stretched for at least a hundred miles!”

Pa Sha strokes his palm: “Go down and rest.”

Shubin wasted no time in coming forward to clap his horse: “The general is a good judge of events! The army that stretches for a hundred miles, at least 20,000 men have come.”

Pa Sha is no Wu Yichun, and doesn’t have the vice of making those around her hold their feet to the fire, but everyone loves a good word.

He took a leisurely sip of his tea and saw that the river was also poised for action as the sky was dyed red in large swathes.

About a quarter of an hour later, a second messenger, full of joy, ran into the camp: “General! The Chinese dogs have launched their boats into the water, and with the wind at their backs, they are already halfway across the 100-mile river, but those who know how to use the water can see that the Chinese boats are connected to the sampans by iron locks!

Now, even Pa Sha can’t help but be overjoyed.

Shubin even exclaimed, “Great goodness! What a good deed! God is helping the General! My son is well read in military books, but he didn’t know that when Zhou Lang defeated Cao Cao at Red Cliff, it was because Cao Cao used iron locks to connect the ships that the fire attack plan was successful!”

Pa Sha sat back in his fur-covered chair, smiling with his eyes and saying “yes” three times in a row, showing that he was in a happy mood and could hardly contain it.

Chu Ziling is no longer useful, so what?

He Pa Sha, on his own, has pulled off a miraculous move!

The fires by the river are boiling back and there are faint cries coming from the river, which is pleasant to hear.

However, within half a moment, the sound of horses’ hooves came again.

Shubin laughed, “I wonder where the good news is again.”

After the words were said, from outside came a black and stained southern frontier soldier, rolling off his horse and falling on his knees in front of Pa Sha with cries, “General! General – the northern army …… has come across the river!!!”

Pa Sha turned pale and lifted the man from the ground: “What? Where’s the fireboat crew?”

The black-faced messenger cried, “The fireboats were all light boats, and when they came close, they burst into flames. Our men jumped into the water, but who would have guessed that …… there were ambushers of the Northern Army under the water! They also know how to swim and have blades in their hands. Everyone who jumped off the boats was killed in the water ……”

”Where are the rockets?!”

”It was sent …… we sent at least 10,000 arrows more, yet their ships were not even on fire ……”

”…… How can this be?! How can a wooden boat not catch fire when it meets a fire?!”

”I also did not notice until the ship was close! …… They used black mud to coat the hull of the ship, turning it into a black ship …… The black mud was so thick and tough that rockets falling on it could not hurt it a bit …… They also put huge logs across the hull of the ship Any fireboat that came close was stopped by the huge logs a few feet away from the ship ……”

The messenger sobbed, “They were aided by the wind, and in a moment they were near the shore. They were heavily armed and covered with hoods, not only with rockets, but also with water hoses and stone throwers on the back boats. …… Before they got close to the shore, the leader of the northern army, that Shi Tingyun, ordered the water hoses to be opened and sprayed on the shore, and the water hoses were filled with kerosene – – Shi Tingyun gave the order to throw stones and hit only the copper furnaces used to store kindling and light rockets on the shore, and now the river bank was a sea of fire-”

Shubin was a little flustered, “General ……”

Pa Sha gritted his teeth, “Don’t panic, they’ve also divided their troops, only a few thousand remain, ten thousand at most! There are still 12,000 men left in Guinness!”

…… actually had 2,000 wounded soldiers, which, after shaving off, left 10,000.

It’s always possible to resist for a while.

However, Pa Sha had a bad feeling in his heart.

Why did Shi Tingyun resort to the most taboo tactic in naval warfare, the iron lock on the river?

Without waiting for Pa Sha to think further, a fifth messenger stumbled into the tent: “General! The North’s army is attacking! They’re coming this way. ……”

”Called?! How many have come?”

The messenger’s two strands warred, “It’s all men …… it’s all men. At least 50,000, no, 100,000 ……”

”Fuck that shit!” Pa Sha finally stormed out, “Where did you get the 100,000?”

”They are all shouting ……” the messenger shivered, “One hundred thousand Yan Luo cross the Cang River …… to punish, to punish Pa Sha , to send the king’s son ……”

Pa Sha flipped the man over with a kick and cursed, “Bluff! This is a bluff! Tell the men to stay behind and prepare for battle!”

Just now, in a flash of lightning, he finally figured out why his opponent had used the Iron Locked Lianjiang Formation.

…… He allowed Shi Tingyun to build a long bridge to carry troops from one shore to the other right under his nose!

He rushed out of the camp and saw in the distance the sky by the Cang River was flaming red.

Hundreds of miles of river, with firm boats locked up.

What burned up was his soldiers and horses, and what burned down was the fighting spirit of the soldiers of the southern border.

There was an endless stream of terrified shouts.

”One hundred thousand troops! A hundred thousand troops have come from the Northern Government Army!”

”A hundred thousand people have fought their way across the river!”

The fifth messenger said that the two thousand vanguard troops on the river, in fear of the fire, had been exterminated in their entirety.

And the news that 100,000 people had come from the Northern Government army was like a river breeze wrapped in the smell of charcoal, instantly blowing across the whole of Guining.

Pa Sha has done the math, how can there be 100,000 men in the northern army?

But how was he going to convince the panicked soldiers of his judgement?!

Pa Sha took the letter Chu Ziling had sent him out of his pocket, unfolded it for a moment, crumpled it up and shouted with a fierce, twisted face: “Chu Ziling!

Pa Sha finally knew what Chu Ziling was up to.

He’s afraid he’s really up to no good!

Seeing the decline of the southern border, he, an illegitimate son, might not really be able to get away with it even if he became a royal son, so he wanted to establish a military career in the Middle Kingdom and become a general of the Middle Kingdom!

After all, the throne of a prince is illusory, but only military success can be firmly clutched in the hand.

He was afraid that Shi Tingyun had really found out about him, so he was able to put the blame on Shi Tingyun, saying that he was working for the southern border, but he was planning for the Central Plains, and that it would not be difficult for him to convince Shi Tingyun that he could use the trust of his people to get rid of them one by one, and to take their lives as a form of betrayal. –

What a poisonous scorpion!

Maybe, maybe, it was wrong from the start, even the illegitimate child was deliberately faked by him ……

The North’s army’s oboe corps, playing an ever louder version of “The Hundred Birds of Prey”, pressed closer and closer.

Pa Sha came back to his senses and, without thinking any further, gave a stern order: “Pass the word! Retreat!!! Retreat! Retreat to Changling at once! Join our troops!”

Meanwhile, a hundred miles away, the adjutant general, who was lurking quietly with 10,000 troops, waited for a strange message.

”…… What did you say?”

”In reply to the adjutant general, what stirred up a mist of dust and dirt for a hundred miles in the distance seemed to be a herd of …… horses.” The commander was equally suspicious, “The horses had grass targets tied to their tails and were dragging on the ground, hence the dust and smoke. There seemed to be someone in that herd directing the horses and making them run back and forth, but there were only a few dozen at most.”

The deputy general’s staff officer looked back at Guining several times, only to see that the troops there were on fire, so he couldn’t help but feel worried: “I wonder how the battle in Guining is going?”

The deputy general was confident: “With General Pa Sha here, what is there to fear? I want to see what the North’s army is up to.”

In the midst of the dust and smoke, directing the horses that had been assembled for months, Chu Ziling was choking on dust and stinking of horse manure.

And he had to be more worried than many about the war in Ning.

”What are they doing, these fools?” Chu Ziling, anxious, licked his mouth full of sores, wiped the grey foam from the corners of his mouth and looked again in the direction of Guining, “…… I clearly told them to run, why didn’t they run?”