I Came, I Saw, I Withdrew

"To the President Commander of the Family Commanders' Office, Lord Luobo Minghai, with highest respect:

Our forces arrived at Chishuitan, Yun Province, on September 15.

Acting Commander of the Central Army, Sterling"

Chishuitan in Yun Province was neither a military stronghold nor a strategic fortress, yet Commander Sterling, busy as he was with military affairs—he still did not know he had already become a full commander—had made a special exception to take the time to write this battle report to the Commanders' Office. This showed just how great the historical significance was of this place once more falling under Family control. In the summer of Imperial Year 779, this spot, so small it was not even worth marking on a map, had brought the Zichuan Family nightmare-like memories of bitter pain. A month ago, 300,000 elite Family Far East troops had fought an unprecedented million-man battle here, on this narrow plain divided by River Hill, against 500,000 rebel civilians and 150,000 troops under Lei Hong.

Tang Chuan, a scholar of Family military history, once commented on Chishuitan thus: "Here, the Zichuan Family lost 230,000 loyal and battle-hardened soldiers. The Zichuan Family's two centuries of rule over the Far East Region, the glory and dreams of seven generations, and its right to dominate Xichuan Continent were mercilessly crushed beneath hooves the instant Lei Hong's army appeared on the Chishuitan Plain. The weakening of the Family's strength caused by its defeat at Chishuitan was also the cause of the series of disasters that later befell it. Chishuitan may be called the turning point in the Zichuan Family's fate, where it passed from strength into decline."

Sterling was stunned by the slaughterhouse before his eyes.

Across the vast plain below the mountain, as far as the eye could see, corpses lay everywhere, clad in shattered armor. This was the fate of the Far East Ironclad Cavalry, once the Family's greatest pride: left exposed in the wilderness. Whether out of hatred or a desire to flaunt their triumph, the victors of the Battle of Chishuitan had not been kind enough to bury the defeated men's remains. Even from several kilometers away, the heavy stench of rotting corpses in the air was unbearable.

A dense carpet of broken spears and snapped shafts stretched all the way to the horizon. In the distance, a tattered banner stood tilted beneath the setting sun. The evening wind snapped it fiercely, and one could still vaguely make out the words, "Far East ## Cavalry # Army"—the banner remained, but the warrior who had carried it had long since become white bones.

Flocks upon flocks of carrion vultures darkened the sky, rising and falling as they let out strange cawing cries, as though celebrating their good fortune.

A sudden, nameless rage rose in Sterling. He drew an arrow and shot down one of the screeching vultures with a whistling shot, then let out a long, melancholy breath.

The senior officers behind him watched their normally steady and calm young commander uneasily, unable to understand why he was so irritable.

"Stop the advance. Bury the bodies of our comrades. They died fighting for the nation. We cannot leave them exposed in the wilderness like this."

The officers stirred. Ma Yuan, banner captain of the Third Cavalry Division, objected, "My lord, this will delay us greatly. We won't be able to catch up with the rebels."

Sterling said coldly, "Can we catch up with them now?"

Ten days earlier, Sterling had led 20,000 Central Army cavalrymen into Yun Province in pursuit of the rebel main force.

Ever since the pursuit entered Yun Province, the rebels had moved with the nimbleness of fish returned to water. This was their turf, their homeland. They knew its terrain as well as they knew their own rooms. By contrast, Yun Province's steep mountains and rugged roads made every step difficult for the pursuing human cavalry. Worse, unfamiliar with the terrain, entire columns often set off in the morning beneath a curtain of cloud, then spent a hard day twisting and turning through winding mountain paths, only to discover at dusk that they had returned to the very campfire where they had slept the night before last.

Their only guide was a twenty-year-old Far East Travel Handbook—where it marked a road, there was now a great river; where it claimed there was a bridge, only a few wooden posts remained; and it described one place as "scenically beautiful, with pleasant surroundings, ideal for wilderness camping!" That night, had they not run fast enough, the entire army of 20,000 would have been buried alive in a mudslide! Sterling discovered furiously that this map book, riddled with errors and omissions, was a pirated edition!

Sterling had also considered hiring local native guides, but no matter how much he offered, the villagers would only stare at him coldly like idiots—or perhaps as if he were the idiot. Their dull eyes made one's scalp crawl. At last, an old Beastman "volunteered" to guide the army, only to lead an entire cavalry company into a swamp, where it was swallowed whole. Sterling had no choice but to abandon the notion of hiring local guides, watching helplessly as the routed enemy drifted farther and farther away until they vanished from sight...

Another major reason for the army's slow advance was the local people's hostility toward the Family. The great Far East rebellion had begun in Shaluo Province, but it had flourished most greatly in Yun Province. The moment news of the uprising arrived, all of Yun Province responded as one. Its young and able-bodied men immediately seized crude weapons and threw themselves at the local garrisons, then besieged the provincial capital and slaughtered all the hundred thousand-plus human soldiers and civilians trapped within. Yang Li, the provincial governor and a Red Guard Captain, surrendered when the city fell, only to be tortured by the rebels for three full days before they finally showed him mercy by killing him. It could be said that throughout the province, everyone was either a rebel or a rebel's family member.

Though Sterling had prepared himself beforehand, he still had not expected Yun Province's residents to welcome their arrival with such "enthusiasm." Within twelve hours, the vanguard scouts encountered over a hundred attacks, ambushes, and traps, ranging from large bands of a thousand men to suicidal attacks by one or two people. While the column marched, a cold arrow would sometimes fly from the grass, or a javelin from the woods. When the army stopped to camp, the surrounding area became a clamor of gongs and drums, with not a moment's peace. When sentries were dispatched to investigate, they either found nothing at all—or none of those sent out returned. When Sterling inspected the captives, he was deeply shocked: nearly all were civilian women, children, and elderly people. Not one was an able-bodied young man. Where had their men gone? The answer was obvious.

Only then did Sterling understand why, despite Luo Bo's shrewd planning, Lin Bing's courage and resolve, and the Far East Army soldiers' bravery in battle, they had still suffered defeat at Chishuitan. When an entire race had resolved to fight to the death, the destructive force it unleashed was terrifying.

Sterling had once pondered: "What could have caused every living creature on this land to resist us with its last breath after the Zichuan Family had practiced 'benevolent rule' here for two hundred years? Where did we go wrong?" But he consciously stopped himself from seeking the answer further. Soldiers should not interfere in politics. Once an army began to think, it was the first omen of a nation's downfall.

Ma Yuan immediately fell silent. The officers exchanged glances, understanding that Lord Sterling was in an especially foul mood today, and warning themselves not to provoke his ire. Still, none of them could quite make out Sterling's intentions. If they were not pursuing the enemy, were they preparing to retreat?

The officers had long wanted to retreat. This isolated, weak force made up entirely of cavalry had pushed far too deep, leaving its infantry and supplies thousands of kilometers behind. Within a thousand kilometers in every direction, there were nothing but rebels—endless rebels, rebels of every kind: brutish Beastmen, sinister Snake Clan warriors, Dwarf Clan fighters fond of firing cold arrows, cruel Devil Race troops, howling Dragon Clan warriors...

The only force sustaining the army's continued advance was Sterling's unshakable will. Though he was the commander of the Central Army, he wore and ate as the soldiers did, chewing wild vegetables too bitter to swallow, rolling in muddy marshland, fighting like an ordinary soldier. At night, he tirelessly inspected posts and changed watches himself, attending to every task personally. He was the last to sleep each night and the first to rise every morning. The soldiers loved Sterling, supported him with all their hearts, and carried out every order he gave with utter devotion.

The middle-ranking officers, however, sensed danger. No matter how high the troops' morale, an army could not fight on morale alone. Officers came one after another to persuade Sterling. "My lord, it's time to withdraw!" "We've already won great merit. We've crushed hundreds of thousands of rebels—our achievements are great enough!" "My lord, let the troops rest. They've fought continuously for nearly fifty days and marched five thousand li!" Every time someone came, Sterling listened earnestly, occasionally voicing agreement: "Mm!" "That's right!" "I think the same way you do." But whenever the next day's operations were discussed, he would always say lightly, "The original plan remains unchanged."

Thus the officers' complaints grew louder. Some believed Sterling was too harsh; others believed he was gambling the soldiers' lives for the sake of earning merit and promotion. Even Luobo Minghai of the Commanders' Office sent him repeated letters of warning: "What exactly is your purpose!? You blindly seek merit and recklessly advance. Should some unspeakable event akin to Chishuitan occur, the icy edge of military law shall be waiting for you!"

Faced with his subordinates' misunderstandings and the Commanders' Office's reproaches, Sterling did not utter a word in his own defense. To him, personal honor and disgrace were truly insignificant. What tormented him was that despite winning so many battles and crushing rebel force after rebel force, the situation had not improved in the slightest. The Far East was still ablaze with war, and rebellions still rose one after another. Just as Di Lin had written in a letter: "A hundred victories cannot turn the tide, but one defeat brings calamity beyond recovery." His present position was like treading on thin ice. With meager forces, he had to contain and deter hundreds of thousands of rebels—as well as millions of Far East civilians who wished to become rebels. He could only win; he could not lose. Though he had already routed hundreds of thousands of rebels, Sterling knew it meant nothing. The rebels were a nine-headed hydra: cut off one head, and several more would grow back. They scattered easily, but at the slightest stir, they gathered again just as quickly. Where was the decisive battlefield?

He therefore firmly believed that the only way to quell the rebellion was to strike straight at its source, fight the rebels to the death, and wipe out the root of the uprising in one stroke. The rebels appeared greatly weakened after their defeat, but Sterling knew full well that their strength remained formidable. They had merely been stunned senseless by Sterling's lightning-fast offensive, too swift to cover their ears. Once they recovered their wits, the Family would have to pay a hundredfold price in blood to suppress the rebellion.

At this time, the only person who understood Sterling was Zichuan Canxing, the Zichuan Family's Chief. His letter to Sterling contained only one sentence: "I understand your worries; you know that I understand your heart." Reading it, Sterling could not help but weep. He had never sought reward for his efforts, but at last the Chief understood his painstaking devotion, his willingness to bend himself to exhaustion for the Family. In life, nothing was more precious than a true confidant. The dangers of bitter warfare, the grandeur of giving all one had, the toil of day after day and night after night, the pain of being misunderstood—now it seemed none of it had been in vain.

After a moment's hesitation, Wen He, commander of the First Cavalry Division, asked the question foremost in everyone's mind. "My lord, then what shall we...?"

Sterling did not answer. He turned to look at the dark mass of soldiers behind him. They were hungry, gaunt, exhausted, and dressed in rags. Their stiff, gold-trimmed uniforms had been torn into strips. As they marched, they looked more like ghosts than men. Their trembling hands could barely hold their spears and guns. They were as thin as a troop of armored skeleton knights riding skeleton horses. Compared to the day they had set out from the Imperial Capital, high-spirited and splendid in bright armor, they had changed beyond recognition. How small this force had become!

And yet, even so, they were still the most elite troops! Whenever the horns sounded, these half-dead soldiers immediately burst with vitality. Miraculously, their faces flushed red, lightning flashed in their eyes, and their battle cries soared. No matter how powerful the enemy, they dared to charge forward in great strides, never yielding an inch. Though supplies had been cut off for more than ten days, the soldiers had not voiced a single complaint. At Sterling's first call, they would follow him to the ends of the earth, all the way to Demon God's Fortress.

Looking at those young, haggard faces and those pairs of resolute eyes, Sterling thought of the many more young men just as resolute who had already fallen asleep forever in lands far from their families and lovers. Along the more than three thousand li from beneath Valen Fortress to Chishuitan in Yun Province, on average, a cross bearing the children of the Imperial Capital stood every fifty meters.

A sudden terror seized Sterling.

What right did he have to make these children pay for his stubbornness with their lives?

Was it not a sin to exploit the soldiers' devotion to him and lead them down the road to death?

For the Family's strength and unity, for the Far East to return sooner to peace and turn swords into plowshares, had the Central Army's sacrifices already become too great?

Was his judgment truly correct? Was there really a decisive battle that could transform the entire course of the war in the Far East?

Could an army like this still endure another great battle?

Turning to face the entire army, Sterling's hoarse, low voice reached every soldier's ears with perfect clarity.

"Soldiers, before us lie the comrades of the Family's Far East Army. They fought bravely and gave their lives for the nation. What we must do now is bury their bodies, and then—" Sterling closed his eyes. Two hot tears slowly rolled down his cheeks. "We withdraw."

A stir passed through the soldiers, but under the restraint of strict discipline, no one cried out.

"Soldiers, over the past month and more, you have fought seven great battles, twenty-five field battles, and two hundred and eleven assault engagements. You won them all, without a single defeat! You have defeated enemies twenty times your own number! Your performance has made the entire Zichuan Family proud, bringing glory to the Family Eagle Banner at the ends of the earth!"

"Your youth has not been squandered, nor has your hot blood been spilled in vain. Believe in the Family—it will never forget your loyalty and courage! And I ask you all to continue striving as before. The Family needs you!

On behalf of the Family, I say to you: 'You have worked hard, brothers! The Zichuan Family thanks you!'"

Sterling gave the entire army a crisp, solemn salute.

What answered him was a roar like crashing waves: "We are willing to follow you, sir!"

On September 15th, Imperial Calendar 779, Sterling led part of the Central Army to occupy Chishuitan in Yun Province.

On September 15th, Imperial Calendar 779, Sterling voluntarily withdrew his forces from Chishuitan, left Yun Province, and brought this mad pursuit to an end.

Later facts proved that Sterling had ended the operation at exactly the right moment. On September 21st, rebel forces, having received fresh reinforcements from the heart of the rebellion, launched a frenzied counterattack, attempting once more to sweep across the entire Far East. But after receiving rest and reinforcements, Sterling held fast to the main road through the Yun Province mountains like a nail, clutching the rebel dragon by the throat and locking it within Yun Province.

Fifty thousand Central Army soldiers and two hundred thousand rebel civilians once again fought a back-and-forth tug-of-war in the jungles of the Yun Province mountains. Once the rebels broke through this exit, nothing but flat, open plains lay ahead.

The Commanders' Office ordered Ming Hui's forces to rush to Sterling's aid. Under no circumstances could the rebel main force be allowed to break out of Yun Province. At the same time, it ordered the first batch of militia forces to advance toward the Far East.

On September 16th, on a stormy late night, an unexpected visitor suddenly called at Zichuan Ning's home.

The visitor asked Zichuan Ning bluntly, "Is Axu staying here?"

Zichuan Ning looked at the visitor warily. She was an exceptionally charming, mature woman, and from the moment she opened her mouth, it was "Axu this" and "Axu that," with such intimacy—Zichuan Ning could not help asking, "May I ask why you're looking for him...?"

"Oh, I'm his former mistress. I've come to demand child support and compensation for my lost youth."

The teacup in Zichuan Ning's hand fell with a smack, shattering into pieces.