Chapter Thirty-Five: The Enemy in Front

  Have you ever tried, after doing something bad, not only did no one ask you to settle the account, but instead praised you for doing a good job and wanted to reward you with a pie in the sky? That kind of happy feeling makes me want to laugh foolishly on the spot. However, sometimes the more beautiful the woman is, the more trouble she brings. Yang Taijun herself is a very good example, and Xie Amu is another one. It seems that before I reach the ability and position where I can completely ignore these troubles, my reckless behavior is quite unwise.

  But the next day, things developed far beyond my expectations. Angry, disdainful, heartbreaking, and disapproving gazes as well as shocked, coldly smiling, and gloating complex expressions appeared on many people's faces for the first time, because rumors that I had used despicable methods to seduce someone and was therefore forced to be bestowed in marriage by the emperor had spread far and wide.

  At the meeting, as soon as I made a brief remark, the crowd behind me erupted into a chorus of cold snickers, and even the keen-eared could faintly hear the sound of grinding teeth, like rodents gnawing on something that makes your heart ache. I turned around, and in an instant, they vanished without a trace. Looking at everyone's expressions (a mix of envy, jealousy, resentment, and sighs), the emotions were all over the place. The most prevalent was the painful and helpless feeling of inserting fresh flowers into cow dung, with some even showing inexplicable regret and sadness. Adding to that, her expressionless face in the face of her own fate was truly heartbreaking, making one's blood boil with a desire to stand up for her.

  What is this, if it continues to develop into a modern version of "one peach kills three knights"? It expresses the intention to get engaged but does not give a clear attitude, what kind of word game is this about choosing a date for marriage, a distant and uncertain concept. It implies both the favor bestowed upon me, a model of loyalty to the imperial family, and leaves enough hope for others. Does it want to put me in opposition to the public? This kind of pulling one way and pushing another idea shouldn't be the work of the old emperor, right?

  At this moment, I finally felt the power of her secretly large number of pursuers. If it weren't for my identity, just a multitude of piercing eyes staring at me together could have burned me to death.

  "Your Majesty, this is not right." Finally, a foolish bird couldn't help but speak out, listing in a stern and righteous tone the reasons why it was too hasty and unfair to her. I remained silent, coldly watching him finish his nonsense. With a fierce rebuke: "Are you also harboring intentions towards Shè Gong? What's suitable or not, are you dissatisfied with me or unwilling to accept it?" "Isn't that right?" "If not, then why come here to speak ill of the Emperor and Empress, do you think they don't understand as well as you do? Are you looking for death? Get out of my sight!" His face turned red and green from anger, and his long-winded arguments were forced back into his stomach. A few words sufficed to quash the opposing intentions of the others.

  Then I noticed that the prince, who was extremely difficult to detect, exchanged eyes with others and took the lead in shouting "Father Huang is wise, it's a good match", then retreated and turned around to give me a meaningful smile "I'm here to congratulate General Liang", followed by Wei Zhen, the head of the Imperial Secretariat, leading the chorus in unison. Their attitude seemed to guide the majority of people's attitudes, even if someone was dissatisfied, they could only remain silent.

  I watched this farce, suddenly feeling the need to regain some initiative. If I continued to be led by others like this, it would seem that as the main general, I lacked a standpoint. "Your Majesty's kindness is overwhelming, but please withdraw your order." Then, amidst an even greater commotion and surprise, with some people gloating, I explained in detail how men and women naturally fell in love and got married according to Western customs, frankly expressing my reluctance to force anyone into anything (of course, also hinting at her attitude). Next came the old emperor's relieved laughter, their emotional and reasonable persuasion, using both soft and hard tactics. Finally, they even brought up grand principles such as how a subject of the Great Tang should follow imperial orders, and in the Central Plains, one must follow local customs. They persuaded me to "reluctantly" accept the emperor's kindness, while her unspoken consent was taken as shy agreement. Afterward, with an urgent military report, this chaotic emergency morning meeting came to a close.

  I watched the endless stream of refugees pouring in, feeling terrible. Those who caught up with us one after another brought news from Chang'an, such as:

  The rebel forces went on a rampage around Chang'an, burning and killing everything in their path. The fires at the imperial palaces of Huaqing Pool, Lishan Summer Palace, and Ganquan Palace in Wanxian County raged for three days and nights, with flames visible from hundreds of miles away day and night.

  "The rebel troops of the Left Route, led by Ashina Chengqing, raided the Left Treasury and clashed with the Western Expeditionary Army's central army, led by Cui Yuquan, resulting in many deaths and injuries."

  "General Sun Xiaozhe's rebel army, under the orders of An Lushan, searched extensively in Guanzhong for escaped officials and nobles, capturing countless numbers."

  "The rebels indiscriminately killed and drove out the fleeing civilians, forcing them into the Wei River where countless people drowned."

  "Jincheng Wei holds the county magistrate hostage and defects to the enemy" and other intermittent bad news.

  We're moving too slowly, I really don't know what that Emperor is thinking, even the refugees who are fleeing with their elderly and children can catch up to us, let alone the rebel army. Feeling depressed.

  Yu Hou came to report, and another group of rebels fell into the ambush of the rear army, and they were in a fierce battle. At that moment, requests for battle kept coming from all sides. Some people even suggested letting the rebels come over, deploying troops, and letting everyone practice their boring military tactics.

  I shook my head, what kind of guys are these? The heart of underestimating the enemy has grown to this point. Not having seen a battlefield and being easily impulsive and gullible is just asking to be killed (although I was once like that too).

  These people who followed me to the military training because of the emperor's words, unexpectedly there are still some guys who read too many books on war and got their brains messed up, they always think about winning against the enemy with upright and righteous methods, in private they don't approve of my tactics to ambush the enemy, normally I wouldn't care if they were not in front of me, but today they dared to come out and give their opinions, so I scolded them until they were covered in dog blood.

  "Fart, soldiers have no fixed position, water has no fixed shape. If we followed the rules and regulations strictly, we would have been dead long ago. You're hiding behind and pointing fingers, of course, there's no risk for you. But for us soldiers, life is only once, being able to survive is the greatest achievement. And for a general, preserving himself with the smallest cost while inflicting maximum damage on the enemy is the greatest achievement. If you dare to mutter again, I'll send you to the battlefield." The generals and soldiers were moved and looked at him strangely, scolded until he was pale and didn't dare to make another sound.

  Earlier, there were some old guys who were full of righteousness and morality, who had some reservations about my methods. At the time, I just listened to him quietly and nodded in agreement. Just when he thought he could teach me a thing or two and was feeling smug, I asked the soldiers to escort him out. He was shocked and asked why, and I told him that I wanted to "invite" him to the battlefield. Since he said it was so useful, I would let his righteousness and morality take my place in blocking the pursuing troops. That way, we wouldn't have to fight to the death, and maybe we could even get An Lushan, the traitor's leader, to surrender and everyone could go home and live a good life. As a result, this guy didn't know whether he was angry or scared, but he fainted on the spot. Of course, my notorious name as a "rude and unrefined Western barbarian" also spread throughout the army.

  For the similar doubts of Xiaobai, I also have my own say. Soldiers have always existed to fight and kill, there is no such thing as benevolence or morality. The so-called unconventional methods can also save lives, spending a little more effort to create simple traps and mechanisms can reduce bloodshed.

  For example, this hoof pit is a small pit with a diameter of about half a foot and a depth that can easily break the legs of cavalry horses. These are short wooden stakes that are inserted into the grass and do not look conspicuous, but they can make anyone who steps on them cry out in pain and completely lose their mobility. It doesn't take much effort to set up, and there's almost no restriction on the terrain when using it. There are many such tricks that can make pursuing soldiers tremble with fear and be unable to defend themselves. (The biggest advantage is that they can often consume the enemy's morale and fighting spirit before the battle, which is not very useful in a large-scale war, but is very effective against small-scale ambush battles.) I don't care about being overly cautious.

  However, it seems that some people are already terrified by my endless stream of bizarre ideas, and are getting the chills. Of course, if someone were to unintentionally imagine these things "accidentally" appearing on their own path or on their own body, then that would be a consequence I don't need to worry about.

  (And finally, he was both solemnly respectful and ashamed for a while)

  Of course, facing those newcomers who often cry out in suffering, my approach is that rather than letting you get killed by others on the battlefield, I'd rather exhaust myself to train and drill you. In your free time, create more traps, perhaps it will let you live a bit longer.

  Of course, all of this is just a superficial appearance. If I were to say what I really think now, it's suffocating, completely suffocating. Do you think I'd be willing to stay in this place with no water, no electricity, and no internet, where the wind blows fiercely and the nights are eerily quiet?

  With this large group of miscellaneous soldiers, a bunch of unreliable subordinates, I don't know if my luck is good or bad now. Those hereditary imperial guards haven't experienced battle for many years, and they're still majestic when performing ceremonies, but if they really need to be deployed, they're not as useful as the border troops and local militia who escaped from various towns.

  I originally lacked the kind of leadership charisma, and as someone who blended into the crowd without standing out, I didn't even become a small leader in any university club over four years. I never thought about leading others before, but now I'm relying solely on knowledge from books and overnight gaming experience with "Empire" and "Starcraft" to lead this group of unreliable and unconfident subordinates, working hard for the safety of tens of thousands of people. It's truly laughable when I think about it myself.

  Constantly fighting, encountering the enemy, and I also seemed to get used to death in a very short period of time. If one can't learn to be indifferent to life and death, it's hard to survive on the treacherous battlefield. At first, I was just trying to save my own life by leading everyone to desperately think of ways to deal with the pursuing enemy, but now I've inexplicably taken on many responsibilities. Occasionally, some desires and impulses for conquest and slaughter would surface in my heart, causing me some distress, making me wonder if there really is a bloodthirsty and warlike factor hidden in my blood.

  In this era where I have no special skills and nothing to my name, the only resource I can utilize is the knowledge in my head, so I won't hesitate to use any trick or trap.

  I've lost count of how many times this has happened, watching the soldiers swiftly pulling arrows out of corpses. The urgent voices beside my ears say "Brothers, be quick and efficient, we can't afford to delay, there's another battle ahead". They have followed my teachings on fully utilizing remaining value, not even sparing the dead bodies, stripping them clean of armor, weapons, and anything that can be taken. Even the arrows shot into the bodies are pulled out, disregarding the bloodstains, to be reused. The corpses are left looking like slaughtered white sheep. Some abnormal individuals among us have shown some perverted tendencies, not only roughly handling the bodies but also skinning and cutting up dead horses to improve their rations. Those who processed the remaining bones, skin, and rotten flesh found it too troublesome and mixed them with the scattered corpses on the ground, giving rise to frightening associations for those who followed, leaving behind rumors of cannibalism and the ridiculous legend of the "bone-stripping army". This unintentionally added a lot of psychological pressure on our pursuers, greatly enhancing the enemy's effectiveness. Under my principle of fully utilizing all favorable conditions, everyone contributed their strategies, and even though some armor and weapons were damaged, they could still be used to deceive the enemy. These wretched devils fell for our disguised defeated army's trap and were killed in a pincer movement before they knew what hit them. They provided us with equipment and rations for a thousand men.