Shaking Mountains Is Easy, Shaking the Lu Family Army Is Hard

Shaking Mountains Is Easy, Shaking the Lu Family Army Is Hard

[Over the following three months, beacon fires filled the sky, and battles large and small came one after another. Every time, you anticipated the enemy first, coming without a shadow and going without a trace, making Tuoba Shuyi's three-hundred-thousand-strong army show all its exhaustion amid endless running, worn out beyond endurance.]

[Faced with your ghostlike appearances and disappearances, Tuoba Shuyi had no choice but to give up pursuing you. Instead, he adopted a plan of making a feint to the east while striking in the west, pretending to give chase while secretly leading his main army straight toward Hulao Pass.]

[However, he had not expected that you had already foreseen this and laid an ambush. Together with Wang Yang, you formed a pincer at Hulao Pass and shattered the North Wind army in one blow.]

[After this crushing defeat, Tuoba Shuyi could only lead his troops in retreat.]

[This war lasted a year and drew the eyes of all under heaven.]

[Every battle you commanded ended in repeated victories, the few overcoming the many.]

[The name Lu Chen shook the world.]

[With your father and brother relying on illustrious military achievements, the three of you rose four ranks in succession. You were also granted the office of Military Commissioner Along the River in Jiangnan West Circuit, ranking as Subordinate Third Rank.]

[You did not stop there. You continued to command the army northward, breaking eighteen cities in two months. The north fled at the mere rumor of your approach, and you recovered both Yan Prefecture and Yun Prefecture.]

Yun Prefecture lay on the northern frontier.

The climate was bitterly cold.

By late autumn, a sudden blizzard swept across the whole world.

It dyed the entire region for several thousand li around in a sheet of frosty white.

Amid this wind and snow!

A company of men and horses galloped through the vast white snow.

At their head was Ma Bao, the seal-holding eunuch. He wore a heavy sable coat and rode a Night-Shining Jade Lion.

This horse was a royal mount, divinely handsome and extraordinary, worth a thousand gold.

At last!

After suffering countless hardships, the party arrived before a towering military camp. Ma Bao swung down from his horse, his movements vigorous and clean.

He was of medium build and held a precious sword in his arms.

His features were fair, yet there was not the slightest trace of effeminacy about him; instead, a heroic air showed between his brows.

His eyes flashed with awe-inspiring righteousness, making others dare not look too closely.

Ma Bao was the confidant of the Great Qing emperor. As his chief companion, he had attended the emperor since childhood.

More than twenty years ago, the current emperor of Great Qing had leapt from an idle prince to the Son of Heaven.

Ma Bao had risen with the tide as well, becoming one of the most powerful eunuchs in the Great Qing court.

However!

Ma Bao, this eunuch, stood apart from the rest. He did not form cliques for selfish gain, nor did he bully the officials.

He was upright and unyielding, honest and selfless, deeply respected by both court and common folk. Among the people, they praised him as "more genuine than a man."

Not only did he enjoy a lofty reputation in court, he was also a first-rate swordsman in the jianghu. His swordsmanship was swift and fierce; with a long sword in hand, he was like a flood dragon emerging from the sea, leaving all who saw him gasping in admiration.

However, the days of continuous travel had left even him somewhat tired, a little unable to bear it.

All this toil was because of the father and sons of the Lu Family Army.

Ever since the North Wind army had retreated, the Lu Family Army had swung northward with the momentum of splitting bamboo, taking a city in only a few days.

Afterward, the Lu Family Army led several thousand elites north like a violent storm, seizing three more cities within a short half month and successfully taking half of Yan Prefecture's territory.

Then they entered Yan Prefecture, took control of all its troops, and their momentum pierced the heavens like a long rainbow. They broke ten cities in succession, sweeping away all before them.

When the news returned, the world shook.

In Ma Bao's eyes, all of this seemed so inconceivable. In barely more than a month, Yan Prefecture had returned to Great Qing's embrace.

One had to know!

For twenty years, Great Qing's soldiers and horses had not crossed even half a step beyond the Yellow River.

For twenty years, no Great Qing army had ever fought its way here.

Yan Prefecture was land that Great Qing had once lost twenty years ago, yet now, in the hearts of most people, it still turned toward Great Qing.

Along the way, Ma Bao had witnessed the people's fervent welcome. They offered up melons and fruits one after another, expressing their respect and gratitude toward the Lu Family Army.

At the same time, he also felt the novelty and changes along this road, his heart filled with astonishment toward the new leader of the Lu Family Army.

The discipline of the Lu Family Army: "Freeze to death, but do not tear down houses; starve to death, but do not plunder!"

Those who bullied or coerced the common people were punished lightly with the rod, and severely by beheading before the crowd.

Ma Bao knew well the darkness within armies. Sometimes, soldiers in the army, to vent their frustrations, would disguise themselves as horse bandits and slaughter the people. Military discipline this strict was rarely seen in the world.

Ma Bao murmured to himself, "Lu Chen, courtesy name Shenzhou."

And these guiding principles of the Lu Family Army had been created single-handedly by Lu Chen.

Across the northern lands, even children had folk songs.

"Shaking mountains is easy, shaking the Lu Family Army is hard!"

Lu Chen... no.

Now, the court had already enfeoffed him as Junior Guardian, and he was respectfully called Junior Guardian Lu.

Ma Bao was filled with curiosity and interest toward this young heroic talent.

Now!

They had reached north of Yun Prefecture, and the Lu Family Army had once again gathered sixty thousand men, preparing to recover Yue Prefecture.

To recover two prefectures in less than three months—such battle achievements stirred the heart beyond measure.

By the Son of Heaven's command, Ma Bao had originally intended to hold the investiture ceremony for the Lu Family Army on the banks of the Yellow River. Who would have thought the Lu Family Army had already crossed the Yellow River and marched north?

Hearing the news, he spurred on in haste, riding without pause all the way to Yan Prefecture. Yet another victory report arrived: the Lu Family Army had already attacked as far as Yun Prefecture. The speed of their marching and the swiftness of their city-taking made one sigh in wonder.

Ma Bao pursued them without letting up, and only now did he finally reach the Lu Family Army's main camp.

On this journey, he had detoured a thousand li. Though he had gone back and forth in vain, there was no complaint in his heart; instead, he felt somewhat pleased.

At this moment, Ma Bao stood quietly outside the military tent, waiting to be received.

Naturally, a subordinate went into the main tent to pass on the message.

It was not that he relied on his status, but that he himself was an imperial envoy, representing the majesty of imperial authority and the Son of Heaven, and therefore he had to be treated solemnly.

In less than a moment, footsteps came from afar.

Ma Bao's eyelids twitched slightly, and his gaze followed the sound.

He saw, not far away, dozens of figures moving in orderly steps, their entire bodies exuding the aura of slaughter. At a glance, one could tell they had fought their way out through mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the army.

The Lu Family Army truly deserved to be called an iron army.

That line sounded again in his heart.

"Shaking mountains is easy, shaking the Lu Family Army is hard!"

They came to Ma Bao's two sides and stood tall in the wind and snow, like javelins, standing motionless as if cast in steel.

Three men walked out shoulder to shoulder, each with a different presence.

In the center was an old general with a head of white hair, the vicissitudes of time all written on his face.

On his right was a young man clad in armor, heroic spirit pressing upon others.

Ma Bao merely swept his gaze over them lightly and guessed their identities.

Lu Jiaxuan and his son Lu Yu.

Though Lu Jiaxuan had struggled for more than ten years, in his clashes with North Wind, he had always lost more than he won, and had never managed to make his name through great achievement.

As for Lu Yu, though he was a great general and was praised as "a match for ten thousand men," in a country like Great Qing, generals like him were not uncommon.

However, Ma Bao's gaze did not look toward the young man walking half a step behind on the left.

This person should be Lu Chen.

Among the scholars of the south, he enjoyed a renowned reputation and was called "unsurpassed in the art of war for four hundred years."

Tuoba Shuyi, who had once issued a helpless lament on the banks of the Yellow River:

"Since heaven gave birth to me, Tuoba Shuyi, why did it also give birth to Lu Shenzhou?"

The young man walked out from the shadows.

He was tall and slender, dressed in ordinary clothes, with a Daoist hairpin fastening his hair. His features were handsome, and his entire bearing was calm and steady.

Sensing Feng Bao's gaze, the young man smiled faintly at him.

Feng Bao instinctively felt that the young man's eyes were extraordinarily bright, as if they could see through the human heart.

[This year, you were twenty-five. You were enfeoffed as Junior Guardian, and the Lu family was granted the right to open an office and discuss the affairs of the three armies.]

[In early spring of the second year, you personally led forty thousand soldiers of the Lu Family Army and recovered six prefectures in succession. In half a year, you fought more than thirty battles; every attack took its target, every battle ended in victory.]

[That same year, North Wind sent an envoy group south to negotiate peace.]