Tiger of Zichuan

After the Battle of Walun, Sterling, commander of the Central Army, did not wait for Deputy Commander Qin Lu's Central Army infantry to rendezvous with him. As soon as the wounded had been settled, he personally led the main force of thirty thousand Central Army cavalry straight into Yun Province, the heart of the rebellion. His advance was so swift that it could almost be called reckless, throwing the Imperial Capital into a panic: "Don't let there be another Chishuitan!" Back then, three hundred thousand Zichuan Army troops had suffered a crushing defeat at Chishuitan in Yun Province, nearly wiped out to the last man!

Urgent orders from the Commander-in-Chief's Mansion and the Commanders' Office caught up with Sterling several times, telling him to "proceed with caution and fight steadily!" In their eyes, charging into a rebellious province at the eye of the storm with only thirty thousand men was practically suicide! The Family simply could not endure a second Chishuitan!

Yet Sterling, always steady and obedient, behaved entirely out of character this time. He hastily wrote only a few lines in reply to the Commanders' Office: "An opportunity in battle slips away in an instant. When a general is in the field, he need not obey every order from his sovereign!" It was as though he was too busy even to spare the time to explain himself.

At this time, only Zichuan Xiu and Di Lin in the Imperial Capital understood Sterling's intentions:

First: the Far East rebellion had spread with astonishing speed, so swiftly that the million-strong Far East Army had seemed to collapse overnight. Sterling judged that large numbers of border garrison troops and Border Defense Army forces must still remain in the rebellious provinces. They had merely been cut off and surrounded by the insurgent populace, leaving them unable to move. If they could be brought together, then little by little, they would form a formidable armed force.

Second: Deya and Ilibat, two provinces in the Far East, remained under the control of the Zichuan Family's garrison forces. Since their inhabitants were predominantly human, they had not been swayed by the rebellions of the other races. But according to prisoners, rebel leader Lei Hong had already led a powerful force of fifteen divisions to deal with them. Whether from military strategy or humanitarian duty, Sterling was obligated to rescue the five million inhabitants of these two provinces, who were surrounded on all sides by rebellion yet had remained unwaveringly loyal to the Family.

Third: the third reason, and the most important objective—hundreds of thousands of rebel troops defeated beneath Valen City had become birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. The slightest rustle of wind or cry of a crane sent them into a panic. In Zichuan Xiu's words: "Anyone who sees a chance like this and doesn't seize the advantage must be the product of inbreeding!" Sterling, too, knew how rare this opportunity was. If the hundreds of thousands of rebels were allowed time to catch their breath and turn back to fight, the Far East rebellion would drag on for years. By the time the Family's troops and the rebels had fought each other to exhaustion, if the ever-watchful Liufeng Family or the Demon Kingdom decided to stick a foot in—then the Family's cause would be lost! They had to seize this rare chance and extinguish the rebellion as quickly as possible!

But with the forces Sterling had at hand, he had no ability to wage an encirclement-and-annihilation battle—when a rabbit is driven desperate, it bites! If several hundred thousand routed troops were forced into a counterattack, thirty thousand men would not even be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth! At that moment, he recalled the campaign between Zichuan Xiu and Liufeng Xishan six years ago...

Whenever the shaken rebel troops stopped to rest and eat, Sterling's cavalry pursuit units would immediately appear. Several thousand sabers swept into the rebel soldiers still holding their bowls with lightning speed, too fast to cover their ears. Though numerous, the defeated rebels had no heart left to fight. With a crash, hundreds of thousands of troops threw down their bowls and scattered in flight.

Sterling's cavalry did not try to stop them. They focused only on surrounding and killing those who remained in place to resist—there had not been many such fools to begin with, and later there were none at all!—as well as those who ran at the rear. This gave the rebel soldiers great comfort: it did not matter if you could not outrun human cavalry, so long as you could outrun your companions...

After the same process had repeated many times, fleeing at the sight of Sterling's cavalry had practically become a conditioned reflex for the rebel soldiers. They had grown used to it, and had even worked out all sorts of rules:

The best time for them to come was before breakfast. The air was fresh then, their energy abundant, perfect for a long-distance run. It also improved the appetite, opened up the stomach, and benefited both body and mind...

If they came at lunchtime, well, that was tolerable—we could put up with it. Five thousand human cavalrymen, sabers waving as they shouted and chased behind them, while hundreds of thousands of rebel troops of every race and grotesque shape fled across mountains and plains with bowls in hand. Some had even trained themselves to eat while running...

"We firmly oppose Sterling launching sneak attacks after dinner!" the rebel soldiers declared. "This is the most inhumane business imaginable!" With their bellies stuffed full, they still had to scramble, leap, and run all over the mountains—just imagine how painful that was! During pursuit, scenes like this often occurred: as they ran, a Beastman would suddenly stop, clutch his stomach, roll on the ground, and howl—it had run itself into appendicitis, making the pursuing cavalry laugh so hard they nearly rolled off their horses...

Had it only been at mealtimes, that would have been one thing. But the facts proved that Sterling was truly "courteous" and "considerate" toward the rebels. In the morning, he came to say "Good morning"; at noon, he came to "greet" them; in the afternoon, he invited everyone for "afternoon tea"; before bed, he came by to say, "Good night!" He even came in the middle of the night to "thoughtfully" check whether everyone was sleeping "soundly." Of course, his methods were somewhat rough: several thousand sabers waving, expressing "familial affection" and "friendship."

Sterling's attacks came ever more frequently. Often, one unit had barely departed before another appeared. As a result, many exhausted rebel soldiers would rather become prisoners than keep running. The rest were baffled: "Do Sterling's troops never get tired?"

Sterling divided his thirty thousand cavalry into six units of five thousand each, sending them out in rotation. Thus every unit maintained ample stamina when it attacked. He had also specifically instructed them: "There is no need to kill them all. Leave the rebels a road to escape." Relying on the cavalry's superior mobility, no matter how frantically the rebels ran in every direction, Sterling kept his main force less than ten kilometers from them.

Using an inferior force to pursue an enemy far stronger than oneself, and then dispersing one's own troops besides—this utterly violated the common sense of military theory. Had such an arrangement not come from the famed general Sterling and succeeded besides, military scholars and military historians of later generations would surely have condemned it in one voice: "Idiot!" Now, however, they could only sigh and call it a "miracle," then scramble about trying to find theoretical grounds to prove Commander Sterling's extraordinary brilliance. After all, once anything had happened, veteran historians would always emerge to declare that it had been bound to happen—they would certainly find their reasons.

Sterling himself knew that this pursuit looked dangerous but was actually safe. Under such relentless harassment, even if the rebels wanted to set traps or ambushes, they lacked both the will and the strength. The allied army of various races suffered more than ten surprise attacks and raids a day. They could neither eat properly nor sleep, while their numbers and morale weakened day by day... They simply had neither the time nor the spare energy to lay traps. All day long, they were busy running!

This pursuit campaign, later known as the Far East Marathon, crossed six Far East provinces and covered more than three thousand kilometers over twenty-three days. On August 12, the rebels beneath Valen City still claimed to number "one million"—though according to estimates from Far East Army Deputy Commanders Luo Bo and Lin Bing, there had been at least seven hundred thousand. By September 5, fewer than one hundred thousand bedraggled rebels had retreated back to Yun Province, where the rebellion had begun. This was how Sterling avenged the Family army's defeat at Chishuitan, shaving away hundreds of thousands of rebel troops as though peeling potatoes.

It was as though people could see a dazzling new star slowly rising over the Family's Far Eastern frontier! Beneath its blazing light, from the imperial palace in Demon God's Fortress of the Demon Kingdom at the easternmost edge of the continent, to the great assembly hall in Yuanjing, capital of the Liufeng Family in the far west; from the Commanders' Office in the Imperial Capital to rebel camps in the Far East; from civilians...

In every corner of the continent, people of every language, with every feeling and every expression, repeated the same name: "Tiger of Zichuan"—Sterling!