The Greatest General in Three Hundred Years

"Red General?" The He father and son looked at each other in astonishment. "The Red General died before Zhong Shengguang?"

"Zhong Shengguang had many fierce generals under his command, but if you asked who was the greatest on the battlefield, there was no one but the Red General." Mentioning the famous generals of old, Sun Fuping gazed into the distance with wistful longing. "In the next twenty years, nearly the entire iron army of Coiling Dragon City was built by his own hand. The letter left behind by the Coiling Dragon City man I acquired mentioned that he commanded troops like a god and looked down on the battlefield, taking much of the pressure off Zhong Shengguang."

"Mm. Do you know that after guarding the city for twelve years, Zhong Shengguang was already covered in wounds and illness, and could hardly keep going? They say, 'A general dies in a hundred battles.' Iron will alone is far from enough. You need a body of iron, too."

"I've heard that one. They say the Red General once took several dozen men to scout behind enemy lines, only to run headlong into two thousand Xianyou soldiers. So a few dozen fought two thousand. His men were almost all killed, but the Red General only grew more and more valiant as he fought. He actually drove the enemy into a panicked rout, creating the legendary feat of a handful of men chasing two thousand. I wonder if he entered a state of indestructibility..." The phrase made everyone furrow their brows. He Lingchuan hurriedly cleared his throat. "Anyway, reinforcements arrived in the end, and Coiling Dragon City won a great victory. Blackwater City is full of legends about the Red General. I could tell them to you for three days and three nights without running out."

It was an exaggeration, but people loved stories that were both exaggerated and stirring.

"That was the Battle of Heisong Pass." Sun Fuping nodded. "Do you know what year it happened?"

"I'm not sure." He Chunhua thought for a moment. "Was it after Xiluo and Xianyou failed to reach an agreement, and Coiling Dragon City was besieged again?"

"It was in the autumn of the same year that Xianyou Kingdom resumed its war with Xiluo, the Coiling Dragon Wilderness once again became an isolated enclave, and Coiling Dragon City became a lone city once more!" Sun Fuping said slowly. "The wording in the letter was interesting, too. It called the Red General a 'sudden emergence from nowhere,' resisting waves of enemies from all four directions and steadying the Coiling Dragon Army's morale!"

Sun Fuping sang the tune, and He Lingchuan chimed in, playing the attentive listener. "Exactly. How could such an unparalleled warrior, the savior of Coiling Dragon City, have had no presence at all before, only to 'emerge from nowhere' at that moment?"

He was as familiar with the legends of the Red General as anyone in Blackwater City, but legends were legends. With almost no records to go on, who would seriously investigate the historical details of events from over a hundred years ago?

Nian Songyu picked up the thread. "The Grand Marshal studied the historical records and concluded that Zhong Shengguang's offering to the gods came first, and the Red General's sudden emergence came later. The two must be connected."

He Chunhua said, "So, aside from the Great Square Pot, the gods' assistance actually took form through the Red General?"

Two kinds of aid at once. This god had been exceedingly generous.

"At the very least, he was a crucial part of it," Sun Fuping continued. "The bodyguard's letter also mentioned that the Red General left Coiling Dragon City twice. Once, he went to Xiluo, and the other time, he reached Xianyou Kingdom! He regretted not going with him. Otherwise, he might have had the chance to be stationed in his homeland instead of being buried in the wilderness."

The He father and son were astonished. "The Red General actually returned to Xiluo?"

"Wasn't Coiling Dragon City besieged and made into a lone city?" He Lingchuan clicked his tongue twice. "He could even go to Xianyou... Hmm, what did he go to Xianyou for?"

"That's not clear." Nian Songyu shrugged. "The records we have don't say when he went, when he returned, or what he did there."

"Even though he was the greatest general in three hundred years, his deeds were beyond imagination. Perhaps he was an immensely powerful sorcerer, with the fortune of the entire Coiling Dragon Wilderness added to his own." Sun Fuping let out a long breath. "But I'm more inclined to believe that the Red General was no longer human, but had the body of a demigod!"

"The body of a demigod?" He Chunhua exclaimed. "You mean a divine descent!"

"Exactly. A divine descent!"

The usually composed and steady Governor He looked both astonished and bewildered, but he quickly regained his composure.

"There have only been three documented cases of divine descent throughout history." The Red General's achievements had been so extraordinary that attributing them to a god seemed easier to accept. "They say the requirements for a divine descent are exceptionally strict. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so few examples."

He Lingchuan immediately searched his original body's memories for the words "divine descent," but after turning them over for a long while, he found only a vague impression. People said that gods were three feet above one's head, but in truth, the gods dwelled beyond the heavens and could not descend directly into this world.

Though the true gods themselves could not come, under very limited circumstances, they could act by attaching themselves to a person through a "divine descent." This, too, counted as entering the mortal world indirectly.

Those who received a "divine descent" were also called demigods.

"Mm. The gods usually don't interfere in mortal affairs, but there are exceptions to every rule." Sun Fuping said, "In the spring of the thirty-second year of Coiling Dragon City's defense, Xianyou, Baling, and five vassal states joined forces to send troops. They also sought six hundred demon soldiers from the northern demon kingdom. Together, they launched an unprecedented assault on Coiling Dragon City. They say the fighting was so fierce it 'leveled the mountains,' and the entire Yindou Mountain to the north was flattened."

"In that battle, all six hundred demon soldiers and the two demon generals leading them were killed. Of the five grand masters sent by the seven states, three died and one was gravely wounded. There's no need to mention the casualties among the soldiers. They say that for five years after the battle, 'eight out of ten fields lay empty' in Xianyou Kingdom, which didn't have enough able-bodied young men to work the land."

Nian Songyu sighed. "Even Xianyou Kingdom, the victor of the invasion, couldn't bear losses like that. Just a few years after the great battle at Coiling Dragon City ended, civil war broke out, splitting it into several small states. The fighting has continued to this day."

"The letter mentioned that the Red General fell in that world-shaking battle. Three days after his death, Coiling Dragon City fell, and Zhong Shengguang took his own life."

"I see." He Chunhua couldn't help sighing. "What a pity."

Tens of thousands of loyal souls had been buried in the Coiling Dragon Wilderness, yet in the end, they still hadn't defied fate.

"Not just a pity. It's terrifying, too." He Lingchuan sighed as well. "An army that all seven states could barely defeat has now become the vengeful spirits we have to face. Still, no matter how powerful the Great Wind Army was, it couldn't have done without the Great Square Pot's help. But Coiling Dragon City was eventually taken anyway. Did the Great Square Pot stop working?"

"That's not clear." Sun Fuping spread his hands. "There's no record of it anywhere. It was hard enough to deduce what we have from the limited materials available. All we've done is glimpse the leopard through a narrow tube—we've seen only a fraction of it. The truth may never be known."

Nian Songyu stood and stretched. "Get some rest early. Starting tomorrow, we may not get another peaceful night's sleep."

The meeting was over.

The He father and son shared a small room.

The room was tiny, barely large enough to fit two narrow beds. When the two grown men lay down, they could hardly stretch out their legs.

But the bedding was surprisingly dry. He Lingchuan guessed that it was because the desert air was so arid. There was a little sand on the floor, but none of those pesky little creatures.