“It is because your army is powerful.” Taishi Ci answered almost without hesitation.
The current Qihuo Army, after defeating Yuan Shu’s forces, had achieved an astonishing armor rate of nearly eighty percent.
If not for the absence of their distinctive banners, a quick glance would have made Taishi Ci think these soldiers were the Imperial Army itself.
“Ziyi, you are mistaken.” Zhang Jing shook his head and said slowly, “The reason our army has been able to establish itself in Yan Province is not because of military strength, but because of the two words Qihuo—’Seeking Survival.'”
“Since I inherited command of this army, the shortage of grain has been severe.”
“There were more than 1.3 million people under our protection, yet all our grain combined amounted to less than two hundred thousand shi.”
“Even if everyone ate nothing but porridge twice a day, it would only have lasted seven days.”
“Then, on the day before the seventh day, the idea of Qihuo was born.”
“And on the seventh day itself, our army braved snow and freezing winds to attack Wuyan City, which was defended by twenty thousand Han soldiers…”
Sima Ju’s expression turned grave.
His mind drifted back to the events of several months earlier.
At that time, he and Pei Yuanshao had each been responsible for one of the city gates and had not personally participated in the assault.
Yet he knew better than anyone how difficult that battle had been.
“Ziyi,” Zhang Jing continued, “do you still believe that our army occupies four commanderies because it is powerful?”
“…” Taishi Ci remained silent.
“Even ants struggle to survive, let alone human beings.” Zhang Jing said calmly, “If we had not been driven into a desperate situation, why would I have chosen Qihuo—’Seeking Survival’—as our name?”
“It is no different from the rise of the Way of Great Peace.”
“If the common people had not been left with no path forward, who would willingly join the movement, carrying their lives in their hands every day and becoming the Yellow Turban bandits despised by the world?”
“Ziyi, do you know?” Looking at the soldiers drilling below, Zhang Jing’s face carried a trace of mockery.
“When the Great Virtuous Teacher was defeated, the Han general Huangfu Song raised his butcher’s knife against hundreds of thousands of surrendered followers of the Way of Great Peace.”
“His justification was that they were ‘beyond instruction and reform.'”
“Among them, only several tens of thousands were able-bodied men.”
“The rest were the elderly, women, and children.”
“And Huangfu Song used their corpses to build more than a dozen jingguan—mounds of severed heads.”
“And because of this, Huangfu Song became celebrated throughout the realm as a great general.”
Hearing this, Taishi Ci said nothing.
Sima Ju, however, exploded in anger.
Clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, he shouted, “That old bastard Huangfu is a worthless fool!”
“Back then, Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun led tens of thousands of troops into Yu Province, only to be utterly defeated by General Bo Cai and trapped in Changshe for more than two months.”
“If summer hadn’t arrived, and if the vegetation around our camps hadn’t been so easy to burn, that old thief Huangfu Song would have died there without a doubt!”
“Enough.” Zhang Jing raised a hand, interrupting him.
“I hate that old thief Huangfu as well.”
“But what I hate even more is the claim that the followers of the Way of Great Peace were ‘beyond instruction and reform,’ and therefore deserved slaughter.”
“I still remember, when my father was alive, he cursed Huangfu Song countless times for his cruelty.”
“At the time, I was still young. I didn’t understand why.”
“Later, my father explained it to me. It turned out that Huangfu Song’s uncle, Huangfu Gui, was also a famous general of the Han.”
“And this famous general’s greatest achievement was persuading the Qiang tribes to surrender.”
“Whenever the Qiang rebelled, he would be sent to pacify them. And he could often do so without resorting to warfare.”
“On several occasions, when the Qiang launched large-scale invasions, he subdued them without slaughter, seeking only to civilize and educate them.”
“Once, when more than a hundred thousand Qiang tribesmen rebelled, Huangfu Gui led an army against them.”
“Yet an epidemic broke out among the Qiang.”
“Not only did he refrain from attacking, he even ordered people to gather medicinal herbs and sent all of them to the Qiang.”
“After learning these things, I felt exactly as my father did.”
“I could not understand why the followers of the Way of Great Peace—who were Han people—could not be educated and reformed.”
“Yet when dealing with foreign tribes that rebelled time and again, the Huangfu family displayed immense tolerance and patience.”
“Ziyi.” Zhang Jing walked to a section of the wall overlooking the training grounds and stopped.
Turning toward Taishi Ci, whose eyes now showed a trace of confusion, he pointed at the soldiers below.
“Look at these brothers of ours.”
“Do you also believe that they are beyond instruction and reform?”
“……”
Taishi Ci looked at the soldiers below, their movements disciplined and synchronized, their spirit soaring toward the heavens.
He did not answer Zhang Jing’s question.
Because he did not know how to answer it.
Beside him, Sima Ju grew angrier with every word he heard.
He thought to himself:
“No, I can’t take it anymore. That old bastard Huangfu and his entire family are utterly disgusting. Later, I must have the brothers dig up the Huangfu clan’s ancestral graves and throw their bones into a latrine pit.”
“Sima Ju.” Zhang Jing turned toward him.
Seeing the veins bulging on his forehead and the constant changes in his expression, he said, “You may leave now. I’ll take Ziyi around and show him a few places.”
“This subordinate obeys!” Sima Ju immediately cupped his fists and responded loudly.
Truthfully, he had wanted to leave for some time.
The matter of “dealing with” the Huangfu clan had made him somewhat impatient.
“General Yuheng…”
Hearing that Zhang Jing intended to continue showing him around, Taishi Ci began to understand what Zhang Jing was trying to do.
He opened his mouth, intending to speak frankly.
Yet in the end, he said nothing.
Because he worried he might be overthinking things.
Although he had no intention of joining the Qihuo Army, its strength and influence were already considerable.
If Zhang Jing did not actually have that intention, then speaking up would only make things awkward.
“Come. We can talk as we walk.”
Seeing Taishi Ci’s reserved expression, Zhang Jing roughly guessed what he was thinking.
He chose not to expose it.
Before long, the group rode out to the villages surrounding Fenggao.
In this era, village homes were mostly tiled houses built from rammed earth.
What Zhang Jing knew was that in his previous life, such widespread use of tiled houses had disappeared for nearly two thousand years.
During those long centuries, most commoners could only live in thatched huts.
“Ziyi.” Riding along a narrow dirt path between the fields, barely wide enough for a person to pass, Zhang Jing held the reins and pointed toward a peaceful village in the distance.
“Tell me, does this look like the dwelling place of rebels and bandits?”
“No.” Taishi Ci shook his head.
The scene before him looked nothing like a refuge for rebels.
One could even say it resembled a village under a peaceful and prosperous government.
And he would have believed it.
“Lord!”
They had not traveled much farther when a middle-aged man in worn cloth clothing, around forty years old and missing his left arm, came hurrying toward them with four others.
As they approached, they called out loudly.
“Lord!”
The one-armed man stepped forward, his face filled with excitement, and respectfully bowed.
“This subordinate is Zhang Niu, the village chief here. These are the village officials under my charge. We were unaware of Your Lordship’s arrival. We beg punishment for failing to receive you properly.”
“We pay our respects to the Lord!”
The four men behind Zhang Niu also respectfully cupped their fists.
They were the village’s assistant officials: the village elder, gate supervisor, village constable, and village clerk.
All of them had once been members of the Qihuo Army.
Though a village might contain only around a hundred households, its administrative structure was fully established.
“You may all dispense with the formalities.”
Zhang Jing noticed that their clothes were stained with mud in many places and asked curiously, “I am not so important that you need to make such a fuss.”
“If I remember correctly, the spring plowing here has already been completed.”
“So why do all of you look so disheveled?”
Upon hearing this, Dian Wei, Taishi Ci, and the others also looked over the five men with curiosity.
“Reporting to the Lord,” Zhang Niu answered respectfully, “We have been building houses within the village.”
“Just now, a child from the Lu family reported that strangers had arrived, so this subordinate hurried over with the others to investigate.”
“I never expected that it would be Your Lordship himself who had come in person.”
— The end of the Chapter–
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