Chapter 1: The Green Mountain is Fortunate to Bury the Loyal Bones (Part 1)

  Xiao Shouren has crossed over! He has achieved many otaku's day and night dreams.

  Xiao Shouren opened his eyes to see not a lovely and charming personal maid, nor the elegant furnishings of sandalwood, but seventeen soldiers covered in blood and a field of vision filled with corpses.

  Before he could even digest the shocking scene, Xiao Shouren was picked up by a tall soldier in front of him and carried away like a madman, with sixteen other soldiers dressed in the same attire following behind them.

  Eighteen people thus began their legendary escape journey. It's called a legend because of Xiao Shouren's participation, and it's called an escape because the victorious Goguryeo soldiers had already started cleaning up the battlefield. If they didn't escape soon, they would probably be swept away by the Goguryeo soldiers to the underworld.

  Xiao Shouren, who was lying on the back of a tall soldier, didn't feel comfortable. The source of his discomfort was the chest being squeezed by the arrow that had pierced through, an arrow that had been shot randomly. The body Xiao Shouren occupied had been hit by the random arrow and died instantly. The long arrow shaft had entered from the back and penetrated the front chest. The owner of this body had died a death that couldn't be undone, thus giving Xiao Shouren's ghost an opportunity.

  After cutting off the arrowhead with a knife, they did not pull out the arrow. This is the experience of many years of bloody battles. If you don't pull it out, there's still hope to survive; if you pull it out, you'll die faster due to excessive blood loss.

  So, with the constant jolts and squeezes on his wound as well as the broken arrow inside, Xiao Shouren was a man, not a god, and also a seriously injured patient, so he finally fainted beautifully.

  In a daze, Xiao Shouren felt a light in front of him, a white light. He felt that this white light had a very familiar flavor, and inexplicably, he had a sense of intimacy. Slowly stretching out his hand, opening his palm, the white light landed on his palm, slowly seeping into it, just like that, it seeped into his palm. Then Xiao Shouren felt his arm go numb, as if something was running inside, straight to his forehead. With a bang, it reached his brain, and Xiao Shouren lost consciousness.

  Xiao Shouren was woken up by the sound of horseshoes, his head aching badly. Suddenly, many things appeared in his mind, and he couldn't understand why they were there. After thinking about it for a while, Xiao Shouren realized that these must be the residual memories of the previous owner of this body after death. It just so happened that this person was also named Xiao Shouren. Fate is indeed mysterious, and the two people's names are actually the same. This must be fate.

  This is an era that Xiao Shouren is more familiar with, the Great Sui!

  However, after Xiao Shouren sorted out his memories carefully, he found that something was not quite right. The course of history in this world had taken a big turn, a very big one.

  It is now the eighth year of Daye, and the one sitting in the Longting Hall is naturally Yang Guang. He succeeded Yang Jian, which is correct, but the mistake lies with Liu Adou. Originally, everything was normal, but once it came to Liu Adou, things became abnormal. From the merged memories, Xiao Shouren knew that before the Eastern Han, this history overlapped with his previous knowledge of history: the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period, the Seven Warring States, Qin Shi Huang's unification of the six directions, the Chu-Han contention, the Wenjing governance, the Seven Kingdoms' chaos, Wang Mang's usurpation, Guangwu's restoration, the eunuchs' interference in politics, the hen crowing at dawn, and the division of the world into three by Wu, Wei, and Shu. However, the subsequent history was not the unification of the world under the Sima family, but rather Liu Adou's conquest of the world, sweeping across the land, asking for the tripod in the nine provinces, and receiving tribute from the eight wilderness regions.

  I thought I could rely on my limited historical knowledge to predict the course of history, and getting promoted and rich wouldn't be a problem. But now this happens, Xiao Shouren is confused - doesn't history follow the history books? This isn't just making trouble!

  The great Shu kingdom was established for three hundred years, with soldiers and armor stored away, horses released to graze on the southern mountains. Three hundred years of peaceful life finally led those in power to become increasingly arrogant and extravagant, ignoring the suffering of the people, increasing corvée labor, and a corrupt court that could no longer be tolerated, ultimately sparking a peasant uprising, with beacon fires burning everywhere, warlords carving up territory, and the emergence of two rival courts, north and south. The division between the northern and southern regimes lasted for another two hundred years, until Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, took up his spear and unified the world under one rule.

  Xiao Shouren was one of the soldiers in Yang Guang's expedition against Goguryeo. The seventeen soldiers beside him, to be exact, were now deserters. They fled, with the Goguryeo army in pursuit. They were comrades from the same tent, and out of the forty or so people who remained, they had stuck together due to their good relationship. On the battlefield, they had watched each other's backs, and earlier, it was Mu Yi, a tall soldier, who had risked his life to save him. The two men were very close.

  It is now the eighth year of Daye, in the seventh month, which is also the time when Yang Guang launched his first expedition against Goguryeo.

  Xiao Shouren and the eighteen others came to this battlefield littered with corpses just to conquer Goryeo, as young men of great ambition with strength, aspirations, ideals, and pursuits, so they joined the army without hesitation, seeking glory and honor on the battlefield, true heroes!

  Those who don't manage a household don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are; those who haven't been to the battlefield don't know how precious it is to be alive.

  Those hoofbeats were not from the Sui army, having mixed in with the great army for many years, one listen and it's clear, this is the Goguryeo pursuing troops chasing after the escaped fish.

  At this moment, Xiao Shouren and his men were hiding in the woods beside the official road. Although it was very hot and there were many mosquitoes, everyone remained silent, quietly lying still, waiting for the pursuing soldiers to pass by. They planned to hide during the day and rush at night, hurrying back and forth.

  When the hoofbeats had faded away and were no longer audible, Xiao Shouren saw Mu Yi put the bamboo tube he was carrying with him on the ground, his ear close to the tube listening for a while, then nodded to the sixteen brothers behind him, and everyone got up to prepare to take advantage of the dusk to hurry along.

  "Ai, where are we going now?" Xiao Shouren couldn't help but ask aloud.

  "Xiao Ge, you finally woke up, we were all scared to death. We thought you wouldn't make it. Luckily Ah Cheng was there and he got some hemostatic herbs to apply to your wound. If not, when we pulled out the broken arrow, you would have been gone for good. It was terrifying, the blood was flowing so fast." Mu Yi heard Xiao Shou Ren's words and was so excited that he almost jumped up.

  Mu Yi is two years younger than Xiao Shouren, and Xiao Shouren is already 27 this year, belonging to the older youth. Originally among the forty or so people in their tent, Xiao Shouren was third in age, with one person over fifty and another over sixty. However, just now on the battlefield, due to his slow legs, he couldn't run and still couldn't escape this disaster. Among the remaining eighteen people, Xiao Shouren is now the oldest, while the youngest, A Cheng, is only thirteen years old and still a young man.

  Ah Cheng's real name is Yang Cheng, and he and Mu Yi are fellow villagers. Ah Cheng, Mu Yi, and Mu Yu joined the army together. Originally, Ah Cheng's family were pharmacists, so he had some basic knowledge of medicine and knew which herbs could stop bleeding and which could detoxify.

  "Xiao Ge's life is tough, he won't die that easily. Where are we going now?" Xiao Shouren asked with a forced smile.

  "We are now ready to go and join the main army, once we find the main army, we will be safe. We lost that last battle miserably, Goguryeo's main army is now pressing in on our army, they didn't even have time to clean up the battlefield before setting out with light cavalry, I estimate they should already be at the Yalu River by now." Mu Yi replied.

  This expedition against Goguryeo was the result of Yang Guang's preparation for nearly four years, and from the beginning of Da Ye 3, perhaps even earlier, Yang Guang had planned to conquer Goguryeo.

  The scale of this expedition was enormous, with a military force of 1.13 million people, claiming to be two million outside, and the momentum was overwhelming, advancing in twenty-four routes at the same time, both water and land, unstoppable.

  Xiao Shouren and his men were assigned to General Xue Shiying's camp, awaiting orders.

  It has been seven months since the imperial edict was issued to attack Goguryeo on the second day of the first month, and although many small victories have been won, they are all minor successes, and not many Goguryeo soldiers have been eliminated, without hurting their vitality.

  The army on land was mainly led by Yuwen Shu, Yu Zhongwen, Xue Shixiong and Cui Hongyu.

  Yuwen Shu, Yu Zhongwen, Xue Shixiong and Cui Hongyu led the army to bypass the city of Gao Yunli in the east, gathered at the west of Yalu River, attempted to cross the river southward directly to Pingyang, and merged with the navy to shake the enemy's foundation.

  The Suishu says that the Sushen were led by a female chieftain, and Pyongyang was exactly the capital of Goguryeo.

  Pyongyang was originally a territory of Zhongyuan, but due to war, Goguryeo took advantage of the emptiness and seized the city.

  After the 300-year division of the Great Shu regime, Goguryeo watched as the Central Plains were fragmented and war-torn, and took advantage of the situation to march south and occupy Lelang Commandery. The following year, it also occupied Daifang Commandery, and soon moved its capital to Pyongyang Castle in Lelang Commandery.

  The four generals' plan was good, but there were too many troops and logistics supplies were difficult. Goguryeo had cleared the walls and fields, everything on the road that could be eaten or not eaten was burned to ashes, wells were filled with earth and mud, leaving only the muddy ground underfoot.

  The expeditionary army had to bear its own expenses. When the large army set out from Luzhou and Huaiyuan, each route was given a hundred days' worth of grain, as well as equipment such as armor, guns, tents, clothing, etc., with each soldier carrying more than 3 dan (a unit of weight). The long journey was exhausting for both men and horses. During the march, a military order was issued: "Soldiers who abandon their rice and millet will be beheaded."

  There are policies from above and countermeasures from below; the wisdom of the ancients is worthy of respect.

  There were actually soldiers who couldn't carry their loads, and when they camped, they would secretly dig holes under the tents to bury their rations in order to lighten their marching burdens, hoping to plunder millet and wheat for use when they entered the territory of Goguryeo.

  They were fighting with the intention of using war to feed war, but human plans are never as good as heaven's plans.

  As a result, the army had only just reached the middle of the road when they were about to run out of food.