Chapter 735: Arrayed in Front
On the Bottle Gourd Continent. At the summit of the Southern Peak, outside the shrine of the mountain god, a crude structure resembling a military tent palace had been temporarily erected. Civil and military secretaries from the Great Li, as well as vassal military officers from various nations, streamed through here incessantly, their footsteps hurried. Everyone wore a jade pendant that temporarily served as a passport, styled after the Old Dragon Rain-summoning Jade Pendant of the Fu family of Old Dragon City. In a relatively secluded area, an old man and three youths leaned on a railing, gazing into the distance at the southern battlefield. All four came from the Central Continent. Among them, an old man held two military armor pills in his hand, gently rotating them like a small-nation martial artist playing with iron balls. With his other hand, he grasped the Rain-summoning Jade Pendant and said with a smile, "What a fine Embroidery Tiger—good at making money, saving money, and spending money. Old Jiang, have you learned anything about saving money? Inside and outside the Great Li battlefield, by our rough estimate, there have been about three thousand six hundred matters great and small. Earning and spending money account for the majority, while saving money amounts to only two hundred and seventy-three matters. This kind of small matter, like the jade pendant, is actually the key to revealing the Embroidery Tiger’s true skill. In the future, Old Jiang, when you teach on your ancestral mountain, you can emphasize this point."
The other old man, called "Old Jiang," wore coarse linen clothes and carried a small fish creel at his waist. He nodded, then looked at the intricate and dense array on the distant battlefield and said with emotion, "The offense has standing formations, the defense has seated formations. They crisscross and interlock, staggered and orderly, all in accordance with the principles of war. Moreover, there are matters beyond military books but within military strategy—national talent reserves and vertical and horizontal alliances. I can see some familiar traces and clear patterns. It seems the Embroidery Tiger truly admires Brother Wei. No wonder it is said that during his youth as a traveling scholar, the Embroidery Tiger read and wore out three books, among which was Brother Wei’s military treatise."
The old man surnamed Wei stroked his beard and smiled. "The other two books were somewhat redundant. They were probably just extras, two side dishes for wine. My military treatise is the real fine wine."
It wasn’t that this old cultivator from the Central Continent couldn’t handle praise. In fact, Old Wei had received enough praise in his life, both inside and outside of books.
The old man sincerely added, "In the past, I only thought that this kid Cui Chan was too clever and deep. His real effort only went into self-cultivation and scholarship. He would have been more than qualified as a vice-chancellor of the Confucian temple. But when it came to military strategy beyond the books and actual combat, I feared he might be an armchair strategist. Now it seems I underestimated the Embroidery Tiger’s ability to govern a state and pacify the world. It turns out that the Haoran Embroidery Tiger truly has extraordinary skills. Very impressive."
Both old men came from the ancestral court of the School of War in the Central Continent. By tradition, this was the upper sect of Wind and Snow Temple and True Martial Mountain. This ancestral mountain, deeply connected to martial fortune and with a long history, was the true orthodox seat of the military strategists in the world. And these two old men, one surnamed Jiang and the other Wei, were naturally the undisputed founding patriarchs of the School of War. However, Jiang and Wei could only be considered reviving patriarchs of the School of War, since the old almanac of the School of War had many blank pages.
Standing beside the two old men were a young man and a young woman. The man was Xu Bai, renowned for his expertise in chess and known as the "Young Jiang Ziya" and "Xu the Immortal." The young woman, named Chunqing, wore a cyan robe woven from fine bamboo threads. She tied her hair in a ponytail that draped over her shoulder and hung in front of her, with a bamboo knife and bamboo sword at her waist. Chunqing came from the Bamboo Sea Cave Heaven and was the sole direct disciple of the Green Spirit Mountain Mistress—both her first and last disciple.
Xu Bai asked in a low voice, "On the Bottle Gourd Continent, both the mountain and the foot of the mountain are utterly undisturbed. Can people’s hearts really be put to great use? We traveled from north to south, even deliberately touring ten thousand miles along the coast. It seems there wasn’t even a single cultivator trying to flee the Bottle Gourd Continent. Isn’t that strange? Not to mention the Tongye Continent, but even the Fuyao Continent and the Golden Armor Continent, known for their willingness to die and fight, their mountain cultivators are far from reaching this exaggerated level. Roving cultivators often flee in groups, secretly leaving a continent’s land."
Old Jiang smiled and said, "The reason is simple. The cultivators of the Bottle Gourd Continent dare not, cannot, and are unwilling to do so. They dare not because the Great Li laws are harsh, and the existence of various coastal battle lines alone is a deterrent. The heads of mountain gods and immortals are not one more than those of common mortals. Deserting one’s post without permission leads to execution without trial—that is the current rule of the Great Li. They cannot because the various vassal courts, mountain and water spirits, their own ancestral halls, and rogue cultivators reporting information all watch each other. No one wants to be implicated. They are unwilling because this war on the Bottle Gourd Continent is destined to be more brutal than the three-continent battlefield, yet it can still be fought. Even the young children in village schools and the wandering local thugs don’t think this war is one the Great Li—or rather, the Bottle Gourd Continent—will definitely lose."
Xu Bai looked toward a battlefield on the earth and found a military general clad in iron armor. He asked softly, "Even though he has already reached the highest rank of a Great Li military officer, he still has to die? Is this voluntary, or does the Embroidery Tiger need him to die to serve as a model for the Great Li border army, to placate the vassals after the war?"
Old Jiang smiled slightly. "Which general in the Great Li border army hasn’t risen from a pile of dead bodies? From Song Changjing to Su Gaoshan and Cao Ping, it’s the same. If they become unwilling to die once they get a big official hat and think their lives are too valuable to lose, then the Great Li iron cavalry wouldn’t be so strong. Xu Bai, have you ever considered this? The Great Li Pillar of State title can be hereditary and perpetual, and in the future, it will increasingly become a civil official title. Then, what about the military rank of Patrol Inspector, the highest military order? The Great Li emperor has never spoken of this, naturally because the state teacher, Cui Chan, has never mentioned it. Why? Because there will be a Patrol Inspector—either Su Gaoshan or the eastern front commander Cao Ping—who dies a magnificent death in battle. Only then can the Embroidery Tiger bring up this matter and make it legitimate. I imagine that Generalissimo Su Gaoshan is well aware of this..."
Xu Bai couldn’t help but interrupt, "But Su Gaoshan is only in his fifties now. If he dies on the battlefield, even if it benefits his descendants for generations of glory, how can it be guaranteed that the military merit of Patrol Inspector will be inherited for several generations? Human nature dictates that he must worry..."
Having said this, Xu Bai nodded to himself and continued, "I understand. After dying in battle, he will ascend as a heroic spirit in the military temple. Like the two Pillars of State, Yuan and Cao, with Gao Cheng and Zhong Kui wielding their divine powers, he can continue to command ghost troops on the battlefield. Even if he dies and the curtain falls, he can still look after his family a little."
Chunqing said, "Mr. Cui has great talent and bold strategy; he sees deeply into people’s hearts."
In his younger days as a Confucian scholar, Cui Chan actually had some "grievances" with the Bamboo Sea Cave Heaven, but Chunqing’s master, the Green Spirit Mountain Mistress of the Bamboo Sea Cave Heaven, actually had a favorable impression of Cui Chan. Therefore, although Chunqing was very young and had never interacted with the Embroidery Tiger, she had a good impression of him and sincerely called him "Mr. Cui." According to her mountain master’s words, a certain swordsman had extremely poor character, but anyone that swordsman considered a friend must be worth befriending. Green Spirit Mountain didn’t mind a few jugs of wine.
Xu Bai suddenly widened his eyes.
A young man in white approached from afar, swimming as if leisurely, but in reality moving like wind and lightning. The heavily guarded Southern Peak summit seemed unfazed, deliberately ignoring him. Xu Bai immediately remembered who he was—a mysterious and enigmatic figure. This guy wore a string of titles and identities. Not only was he the leader of the Great Li’s southern spy network, but he was also the behind-the-scenes supervisor of construction for the central secondary capital and a great river. He held no official position in the Great Li on the surface, yet he was an extremely key and transcendent figure.
The young man swam and circled around the group of four, feigning shock without any sincerity, shouting, "Oh my, isn’t this our Old Jiang, truly invincible in chess? Still dressed so plainly! Come to fish? No problem, no problem! With such a big pond, what fish and shrimp aren’t there? There’s a woman called Fei Fei—she’s a huge fish. With Ancestor Wei helping with the net, catching Fei Fei would be a piece of cake! The only worry is that little fish creel at Old Jiang’s waist might not fit her..."
An old Confucian scholar with graying temples suddenly appeared. He pressed one hand on Cui Dongshan’s head, stopping the latter from continuing. The white-clad young man crashed to the ground with a loud thud. He feigned a furious shout and tried to do a carp jump, but couldn’t get up. He flopped a few times and fell back to the ground several times, like the clumsiest martial arts trick from a cheap academy, showing off and making a mess. Finally, Cui Dongshan had to get up grudgingly. Xu Bai, who was always strict with propriety, was baffled. The Great Li Embroidery Tiger didn’t seem to have used any spells or restrictions, so why was this young man so humiliated?
Cui Chan, in his Confucian identity, bowed to the two ancestral war patriarchs with his hands clasped.
The two old men, who had been laughing lightly, returned the salute solemnly with cupped fists.
Respect was something you couldn’t beg for, but if it came, you couldn’t stop it either.
Cui Chan smiled and said, "Ancestor Jiang, Mr. Wei, care to walk with me and chat a bit?"
The two ancestral war patriarchs followed Cui Chan into the distance, leaving behind three seemingly age-matched youths. Cui Dongshan’s "real" age, if counted from when his soul separated and entered the Lizhu Cave Heaven, was indeed close to that of Chunqing and Xu Bai.
Cui Dongshan leaned on the railing. About ten thousand miles away was the boundary between the southernmost tip of the Bottle Gourd Continent and the sea.
Now, except for Old Dragon City, the entire territory of the Southern Peak had become the second battlefield of the Bottle Gourd Continent after Old Dragon City for defensive warfare. War with the endless flood of demon armies from the Wildlands pouring onto the land was imminent.
The vast battlefield south of the Southern Peak, with its mountain ranges and peaks, had been completely moved and relocated. The Great Li and its vassal elites had long assembled here: 300,000 elite Great Li cavalry, including 250,000 light cavalry and 50,000 heavy cavalry. The light cavalry, both man and horse, were clad in Water Cloud Armor. Each suit of armor had flower and cloud patterns engraved by talisman cultivators, without overly pursuing perfection in the details of talisman inscriptions.
The 300,000 Great Li cavalry were commanded by General Su Gaoshan.
Su Gaoshan came from a humble family of the Great Li dynasty. Relying on his brilliant military achievements, he had successfully attained the newly established rank of Patrol Inspector in Great Li history, equal in rank to the old title of Pillar of State.
800,000 infantry were divided into five great phalanxes. Although each phalanx seemed to be dozens of miles apart, for this kind of war and this battlefield, that distance was completely negligible.
A full 800,000 heavily armored infantry had been drawn from various vassal states in the south, including the old White Frost Dynasty. They were uniformly heavy infantry. Depending on the different positions of the phalanxes, the soldiers wore Mountain Pattern Five Peaks Armor of different colors, corresponding to the five-colored soil of the mountains and rivers of Haoran Realm. All the five-colored soil came from the mountains and crown prince peaks of the various vassals. In the early years, under the supervision of the Great Li border army, without harming the national fortunes, dragon veins, or fate of mountains and rivers, thousands of mountain-moving mountain and river spirits, Mohist mechanical puppets, and talisman strongmen jointly excavated large and small mountains. The materials were handed over to the Ministry of Works of the Great Li and various vassal states for coordination, mobilizing countless laborers under the leadership of mountain cultivators, working day and night to forge the Mountain Pattern Five Peaks Armor.
The 300,000 cavalry were divided into five cavalry units, three light and two heavy, positioned within the gaps of the infantry, forming a battlefield layout where mountains and waters depended on each other with the five heavy infantry phalanxes.
Generalissimo Su Gaoshan stood in the midst of the army, holding an iron spear.
In thirty years of military career, he had risen from an obscure border soldier to the highest military official of a continent-nation.
Su Gaoshan sat high on his horse and looked back. Unfortunately, the Southern Peak blocked his view. Otherwise, looking all the way north, the magnificent landscape would be within sight. Within and beyond his reach, mountains and rivers were all territories of my Great Li. For a common man, life could not be more timely, and death could not be more worthy.
Su Gaoshan patted the hilt of his saber with one hand and raised the other to pat his helmet heavily. This Patrol Inspector, the only one from a humble family in the Great Li border army, had a firm gaze and murmured in a low voice, "Let Su here pave a broad free road for all future sons of humble families."
In front of both cavalry and infantry, at the very forefront of the battlefield, there was also a line of caltrop arrays, formed by astonishingly strong young border soldiers from vassal states, numbering as many as 80,000. Behind them, the second line of troops held huge horse-slaying swords. Both sides signed military pledges with their respective courts and served as death warriors, building an unprecedented caltrop and horse-slaying formation.
Between the cavalry/infantry and the sword array was the formation of mountain cultivators from the Bottle Gourd Continent, along with 120,000 archers and crossbowmen, 12,000 catapults arranged roughly in a crescent shape, and additionally, 3,000 bed crossbows. The bolts from the bed crossbows were as big as iron spears and flew as fast as thunder, their momentum not inferior to the flying swords of middle five realm sword cultivators below the Earth Immortal level.
On this battle line, military cultivators from the True Martial Mountain and Wind and Snow Temple, the two ancestral courts of the School of War on the Bottle Gourd Continent, served as the main commanders. The cultivators of True Martial Mountain were most familiar with battlefield formations; most had long joined the ranks of the Great Li and its vassals and were already mid- to high-level military officers. When deployed in formation, besides charging and killing, they also had to command troops. The fighting style of Wind and Snow Temple cultivators was more like ronin; they were mostly cultivators accompanying the border armies of various nations. Among them was one of the ten young candidates, Ma Kuxuan, who was present on this battlefield, commanding over a dozen True Martial Mountain ancestral court spirits to stand shoulder to shoulder on his left and right.
The female sect master of the Linen Mourning Sect, Guichi Immortal Zhu Quan, wore a saber inscribed with the characters "Mighty Heavenly Power, Smite Ten Thousand Ghosts."
She stood side by side with a bone sword cultivator from the Ghost Valley at Skeleton Beach, the swordsman Pu Rang. The latter had a slender figure, wore a pitch-black robe, and used an illusion spell to restore flesh to bone, revealing his true face before death for the first time—a spirited young woman.
Zhu Quan laughed and said, "Pu Rang, so you were born this beautiful! A beauty, a great beauty! That bald donkey from the Great Full Moon Temple must be blind. If he can return home alive, I want to defend you. You can’t bear to scold him, but I’m an outsider. I’ll find some excuse to scold him a few words and make that bald monk even more confused."
As soon as Zhu Quan finished speaking, a monk and a Daoist, each wearing a first-class Peace Token from the Great Li Ministry of Justice, flew over together and landed on either side of Zhu Quan and Pu Rang respectively.
One was a true person from the Small Mysterious Capital Temple, and the other was the monk from the Great Full Moon Temple who hadn’t been able to resolve his heart knot and become a Buddha.
The monk stood beside Pu Rang. Pu Rang immediately dispelled the illusion and showed his bone face again.
The monk just turned his head to look at her and said softly, "Those who become Buddha become Buddha; those who pity you pity you. If this means I cannot become a Buddha, and there must be a mistake, then let it be me who mistakes the Buddha Tathagata."
Pu Rang first turned his head and then his whole body, turning his back to the monk as if he dared not face him.
Zhu Quan stomped her foot and said, "Mother, that’s so cheesy!"
The old true person laughed. "Sect Master Zhu, you’re ruining the atmosphere again."
Zhu Quan pressed her hand on the saber hilt, raised her head high to the south, and sneered, "Bullshit! I, Li Cai, and Pu Rang—we women of the Northern Ju Continent, whether sword cultivators or not, living or dead—we are the scenery ourselves!"
A large number of cultivators were stationed on several mountain ranges of the Southern Peak. Those with relatively lower cultivation realms, mostly Qi cultivators of the lower five realms, were gathered on the main Southern Peak mountain, stretching from the foot to the halfway point. The spiritual qi in the air was so dense and abundant that it condensed into a vast, misty fog, making some lower five realm cultivators feel as if they were drunk.
Further up, sword boats hovered in the air.
The vassal king Song Mu, clad in a python robe, personally took command in the military tent outside the shrine on the Southern Peak summit.
During the Battle of Old Dragon City, Song Mu had retreated very late.
The vassal king defended the nation’s gate.
At the halfway point of the Southern Peak stood Gao Cheng, the heroic spirit of Jingguan City, and Zhong Kui, a ghost being originally a Confucian gentleman from the Tongye Continent Academy. They stood beside an old monk who was rubbing his own bald head.
Behind Gao Cheng was a child, who looked at Gao Cheng’s back, called out "Brother," and told him that the master, Cui Dongshan, had arrived at the Southern Peak.
Gao Cheng paid no attention.
At the crown prince peak of the Southern Peak, two tenth realm martial artists, Li Er and Wang Fusu, stood side by side. Also present was Zhou Mi, the academy head of the Yufu Academy from the Northern Ju Continent, who shared the same name as the throne great demon Wenhai of Tuoyue Mountain. So Academy Head Zhou had left his academy and traveled south to the Bottle Gourd Continent with a large group of Confucian scholars, though he left the disciples in the central secondary capital and came alone. Now, together with his friend Li Er and the old brute Wang Fusu, he was responsible for guarding the Southern Peak crown prince mountain.
At an immortal mansion on this Southern Peak crown prince mountain, second in elevation only to the shrine at the summit, the major surname powers of Old Dragon City were currently stationed. Besides the Fu family of Old Dragon City, and the Sun and Fan families, there were also several great sword immortals and old sword immortals from Zhengyang Mountain, as well as Xu Hun, the city lord of Breeze City. They were all staying in various quiet courtyards. The young city lord of Old Dragon City, Fu Nanhua, was catching up with Jin Jianjin, the Nascent Soul patriarch of Cloud Mist Mountain.
The major surname families of Old Dragon City had all relocated out of the city. Nevertheless, the losses were still incalculable. Fortunately, before the war, their trade routes had allowed them to amass considerable wealth. Even if they were severely injured, they wouldn’t be completely finished. As long as the Bottle Gourd Continent was defended, everything would be fine. This was essentially a huge gamble: either win big or lose everything. Moreover, the Great Li wouldn’t allow Old Dragon City to refuse.
Besides, as the bellwether, the Fu family of Old Dragon City gave their utmost effort, so the several vassal families could only swallow their teeth and blood, force smiles in daily life, and maintain a facade of calm, not daring to show any resentment. After all, if they truly won this great war, the profits would be huge.
As for the several cross-continent ships of Old Dragon City, including Osmanthus Island and Mountain Sea Turtle, they had already been relocated to the northern region of the Bottle Gourd Continent.
The couple Xu Hun and his wife, along with their legitimate son Xu Binxian, were secretly discussing matters with the Tao family patriarch of Zhengyang Mountain, the mountain guardian elder, and the woman Tao Zi.
City Lord Xu Hun was now a Jade Vessel realm military cultivator, wearing a wart armor suit.
His legitimate son was Xu Binxian. In earlier years, a graceful Daoist nun had traveled to Breeze City and personally bestowed the name on Xu Hun’s son, meaning "a mountain person skilled in both civil and martial arts."
The relationship between Zhengyang Mountain and Breeze City was more than simple alliance. The few people in the study shared a bond where one’s glory and loss affected all.
Xu Hun had a blank expression as he looked at the fearful woman who had come to apologize. His tone was not particularly harsh. "The Fox Kingdom is not a city where you can shut the gates and activate the city defense formation to cut off all news. Such a large territory, thousands of li in radius, cannot vanish into thin air without any news spreading. Didn’t we have pieces in place earlier? Have they sent any reports back to Breeze City?"
The Xu woman shook her head. "I don’t know why, but we haven’t received a single message."
Xu Hun frowned slightly. "Is that outsider called Yan Fang truly a remnant of the Dugu clan of the Zhu Ying Dynasty?"
The woman said cautiously, "The Zhu Ying Dynasty fell many years ago, and the situation was chaotic. That dynasty, with its numerous sword cultivators, was notorious for the deep entanglements between its mountains and the mortal world. Many hermits and recluses had obscure identities. This fellow, going by the alias Yan Fang, acted too furtively. Many clues about the Zhu Ying Dynasty are broken and fragmented; they can’t be pieced together into the truth. To this day, it’s hard to determine if he belongs to the Dugu remnants."
This was not the woman’s excuse. For example, in the former White Frost Dynasty, the mountain-descending Daoist named Cao Rong, after appearing on the Old Dragon City battlefield, displayed many profound supernatural powers that greatly surprised the cultivators of the Bottle Gourd Continent. He turned out to be such a powerful true person. Although his exact realm was still difficult to guess, his methods were so mystical, his arts so advanced, that he could be considered an immortal.
Indeed, his Daoist arts were in no way inferior to the newly promoted Great Heavenly Lord of the Bottle Gourd Continent, Qi Zhen of the Divine Oracle Sect.
While the Bottle Gourd Continent was shocked, it was more filled with a sense of shared pride: My Bottle Gourd Continent truly hides dragons and crouching tigers—mountains too high to climb, waters too deep to fathom.
Therefore, even though Old Dragon City had become a battlefield ruin and temporarily fell into the hands of the wild beasts from the Wildlands, the morale of the mountain cultivators, the iron cavalry, the vassal border troops, and the people on the Bottle Gourd Continent only increased instead of decreasing.
Even if many people died in this war, at least it wasn’t aggrieved or pathetic. So it was worth fighting, and fully fightable!
As for the Tongye Continent—truly a rotten mess that could be broken with a single poke. It was a shame that in earlier years we considered our Bottle Gourd Continent a small household and always thought that southern neighbor with its grand gates was so extraordinary. Numerous mountain-and-water gazettes often spread the word that a Golden Core cultivator from Tongye Continent could kill a Nascent Soul from Bottle Gourd Continent, and many cultivators actually believed it deeply. But now it turns out that our own mountains and rivers have a solid foundation and great boldness.
However, for Breeze City today, half of its financial resources had been inexplicably cut off and stolen, without even a relatively accurate clue to track down. Naturally, there was no good mood.
"Even if Zhengyang Mountain helps and we get local sword cultivators from the central peak region to search for clues, it will still be very difficult to dig out Yan Fang’s background."
The woman was on the verge of tears and took out a handkerchief to wipe the corners of her eyes.
Xu Hun waved his hand. "Then let’s discuss it another time."
Some of the real inside stories were better discussed behind closed doors among family.
The Tao family patriarch said with a grin, "So far, no one from Luopo Mountain has appeared on the battlefield."
"Maybe they have, but they didn’t earn any fame."
Xu Binxian laughed. "It seems they gave the Great Li military a dragon-boat ferry. Does that count as contributing? Hypocritical, after doing business for so long, they’ve learned how to win people over. Quite a tactic. Basking in the glory of Wei Bo, the mountain god of Piyun Mountain, and relying on the Oxhorn Mountain ferry, they latched onto big immortal clans like the Linen Mourning Sect and Spring Dew Garden of the Northern Ju Continent. Now they’ve become the biggest landlord in the old Lizhu region, with more vassal mountain peaks than even the Longquan Sword Sect."
The white-clad old ape from Zhengyang Mountain, tall and sturdy, crossed his arms and sneered ironically. "What a turn of fortune, making a base fellow achieve fame and power."
Xu Binxian couldn’t help but say, "The Northern Peak, Piyun Mountain, truly has a terrifyingly profound foundation. But Wei Bo was clearly abandoned by the Great Li; his earlier divine position was just the earth god of Chessboard Mountain. His rise is too strange. Who could warm up such a cold stove? Luopo Mountain is lucky."
The Xu woman said timidly, "I just wonder why that young mountain lord has had no news for so many years."
The white-clad old ape curled his lips. "A bastard from Mud Vase Alley. In less than thirty years, how big a waves can he make? Let him come and take revenge. In the past, when I was at Zhengyang Mountain, he didn’t dare to come. Now that he’s left Zhengyang Mountain, he’s still hiding and skulking. This kind of cowardly and timid scum is not even worthy of having his name mentioned by Lady Xu."