Southwest Conflict
After bidding farewell to her soldiers, Lu Yunchu led her personal guards to the Yangcheng camp in the southwest. Traveling south, the humid heat, unlike that of the northern border, followed. Conditions in the northwestern military camps were already quite harsh, but the scene at the Yangcheng camp made her frown even more.
Most of the soldiers had sallow complexions, and many were suffering from scabies and fever, resulting in very low morale. However, strange arrangements could be seen throughout the camp: hanging talismans, stones placed in specific locations, and even soldiers secretly worshipping strangely shaped mountain god statues.
“General, this place is quite superstitious,” Jiang Liu reported in a low voice. She had just returned from her inspection and her complexion was not good. “The army is rife with talk of feng shui, believing that the previous defeats were due to angering the mountain demons. There are also rumors that women are yin in nature and that joining the army will clash with the yang energy of the camp, bringing disaster upon themselves.”
Lu Yunchu immediately wrote a letter and used the secret channels that Chu Qin had already laid out to send it directly to the Imperial Observatory, which was now completely under his control. Soon, a new rumor began to spread in Yangzhou and even throughout the entire southwest region: "Auspicious purple clouds come from the east, and phoenixes cry in the fields. The divination shows that the war in the southwest requires the use of yin water to overcome yang fire. Women joining the army will not only be harmless, but will also harmonize the violent atmosphere in the military camp, attract auspicious omens from the earth, and protect our army."
Although the local soldiers still disliked Lu Yunchu and his group, it was not too obvious on their faces.
Compared to the tension in internal relations, the disease was more pressing. The mountains and forests of the southwest were dense, humid and hot, and malaria was rampant. Soldiers from the dry north were not used to the climate and fell ill day by day. The army doctors were also helpless against the local epidemics.
Mo Sheng grew up in the southwest and knew every plant and tree in this land like the back of her hand. With her fluency in the languages of various tribes, she quickly gathered many local women and went deep into the mountains with them. Based on the teachings of the tribal elders in her memory and a few tattered ancient medical books, she found herbs and built a temporary medicine shed, treating patients day and night.
After the patients were treated, she addressed the root causes by transforming the military camp environment. She built stilted tents modeled after local bamboo houses, keeping the living quarters away from the damp ground. She also encouraged soldiers to raise geese and ducks under the stilted houses, which would feed on insect eggs and scare away snakes and rats.
She also made great efforts to reform the diet, introducing local ingredients such as houttuynia cordata and bitter greens, which are known for their heat-clearing and detoxifying properties, and ordered the entire army to drink boiled spring water.
Military challenges followed one after another. The Southern Dynasty and the Ze Kingdom joined forces, taking advantage of their familiarity with the terrain, and constantly harassed the enemy by appearing and disappearing among the mountains and waterways. Soldiers from the northwest faced repeated setbacks due to the crisscrossing river network and rugged mountain roads.
Mo Sheng knew that although the Southern Dynasty and the Ze Kingdom were allies, they belonged to different ethnic groups, had different totem beliefs, languages and customs, and had historical grievances.
She suggested a divisive tactic, carefully selecting some soldiers to disguise themselves as Southern Dynasty spies and deliberately have them captured while operating on the border of Ze Kingdom, carrying secret letters bearing the Southern Dynasty's seal. At the same time, she also had spies who knew the Ze Kingdom dialect spread rumors among the Ze Kingdom army that Southern Dynasty soldiers were insulting their totem.
This move precisely exploited the distrust between allies, and soon, a small-scale conflict broke out between the two countries.
Meanwhile, Mo Sheng volunteered to train the navy. She set up water fortresses beside the turbulent river and personally demonstrated how to maintain balance in the current. She incorporated the climbing techniques of the mountain people into boarding operations, training soldiers to walk on the swaying hulls as if on flat ground. She also found local craftsmen to replicate and improve a small assault boat from the Ze Kingdom, with a long and narrow hull and extremely high speed, suitable for inland river raids.
"Soldiers in the Northwest are used to riding horses. When they get to the water, they must first overcome their fear, then learn to swim, and finally learn to handle boats and fight naval battles!" Mo Sheng instructed the soldiers to familiarize themselves with the water first and proceed steadily.
Not long after, Lu Yunchu received a secret letter from Su Xike in the capital: "For the final victory, we must exhaust all our men. If necessary, we can make some arrangements in terms of military equipment, provisions, and battle orders..."
After reading it, Lu Yunchu silently brought the letter close to the candlelight, watching it eventually turn to ashes. She understood that this was the fastest way to reduce future resistance, and it was also the common consensus of her allies, but seeing the heavy casualties among the soldiers, she still felt a pang of pity, especially for the soldiers who had come from the Northwest, all of whom were comrades-in-arms who had fought alongside her.
She ordered that every effort be made to treat the wounded and to train more military doctors, especially those who knew how to treat the local epidemics.
But reality was far harsher. The soldiers in the Yangcheng camp were a diverse group, consisting not only of troops directly under the imperial court but also, and more importantly, the private armies of local powerful clans and chieftains from the southwest. The hierarchy was rigid; many soldiers, especially the captured slaves, were not considered human beings by their leaders, but merely disposable commodities. She saw soldiers driven to the front lines, clad in tattered leather armor, some even barefoot; many were just teenagers, emaciated, with blank stares, clearly having received no proper training.
She felt sorry for them and tried to allocate a batch of better quality weapons to them, but this was opposed by middle and lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers.
Even more suffocating was the camp's system of brothels. These women were mostly abducted or sold into the army due to poverty, and their plight was miserable. To boost morale, it was stipulated that only officers who had distinguished themselves in battle or held high ranks could come. The girls were concentrated in a few dilapidated tents, and many of them suffered from serious diseases.
Lu Yunchu secretly ordered Jiang Liu to find a way to relocate some of the seriously ill or destitute women, but soon new women were added to the list.
To ensure the safety of the female army, Lu Yunchu set up their training camp in a remote valley far from the main camp. She strictly ordered the female soldiers not to enter or leave at will, and at the same time let them see the situation of the women in the main camp.
The soldiers here were even more depraved than those in the southwest. One night, while Lu Yun Chu was handling military affairs in her tent, a local chieftain attempted to sneak in. Fortunately, the soldiers on duty were alert and captured him on the spot. These men openly and secretly insulted Lu Yun Chu and the women who fought alongside her, using extremely vulgar and offensive language. Their lecherous eyes never ceased to peep, and they even hid under the latrines with malicious intent. Her last remaining compassion was finally exhausted, and she focused solely on waging war against both countries.
On the border, a small chieftain tribe, which was subordinate to the Southern Dynasty, became the focus of contention between the two sides due to its strategic location. Lu Yunchu did not launch a direct attack, but instead ordered Mo Sheng to select spies fluent in the local language to infiltrate the tribe and spread rumors: "The Ze Kingdom's army is crossing the border like locusts ravaging the land, plundering our grain and fodder, and treating our southern border tribes like pigs and dogs!"
At the same time, she sent small elite troops, disguised as soldiers of the Ze Kingdom, to carry out several small-scale raids on the edge of the tribe, deliberately leaving behind Ze Kingdom-style arrows and vulnerabilities.
Lu Yunchu personally wrote a letter to the chieftain, offering priority in post-war salt and iron trade on the condition that he befriend him.
Soon after, a grain transport convoy from Ze Kingdom was robbed near the tribe's territory, and the Ze Kingdom general directly held them accountable. That same night, the chieftain opened the border, allowing elite Chu troops to infiltrate and, with the help of those inside, occupy the area.
Not far from here is a strategically important mountain city occupied by the Southern Dynasty army; a direct assault would inevitably result in heavy losses. Due to the war and the Southern Dynasty's exorbitant taxes, a large number of refugees have gathered outside the city, and signs resembling a plague have begun to appear within the city.
She ordered the establishment of soup kitchens and medical camps outside the city, led by Qi An, to treat all civilians who came for medical help and the wounded who fled the city, regardless of whether they were friend or foe.
Initially, the city's garrison strictly forbade civilians from leaving the city and affecting other areas, even shooting several sick people who tried to escape. But fear overcame the orders, and many civilians risked their lives to seek refuge with them. Lu Yunchu strictly ordered that isolation be carried out, that no one be obstructed, and that meticulous treatment be provided, and distributed the prepared preventative medicine to the refugees.
This move shook the morale of the city's troops, and some lower-ranking soldiers mutinied at night, killing the Southern Dynasty officers who advocated for a desperate defense and surrendering the city gates. The Chu army captured the city without losing a single soldier, and Lu Yunchu's fame spread far and wide. The Women's Alliance also saw a large influx of homeless women receiving training.
The allied forces of the Southern Dynasty and the Ze Kingdom, relying on their naval superiority, controlled the main waterways within their territories, displaying their large warships in a show of force. She adopted Mo Sheng's suggestion to build and requisition large numbers of small, fast boats and bamboo rafts, with soldiers carrying only short weapons and oil canisters. She ordered people to observe the weather for an extended period, finally waiting for a dry night when a southeasterly wind began to blow.
With a shortage of male soldiers who could swim, Mo Sheng seized the opportunity to lead the female soldiers in small boats, stealthily approaching the harbor where the enemy ships were anchored under the cover of night. They lit bundles of dry firewood and straw coated with flammable grease and pushed them downwind toward the enemy ships. At the same time, another team of soldiers with excellent swimming skills dived into the water, drilled holes in the enemy ships below the waterline, and hung lit kerosene cans on them.
The wind fanned the flames, and in an instant, the water fortress was engulfed in flames. Large warships, unable to maneuver, collided with each other. Enemy troops who managed to escape the inferno were then ambushed by fast boats piloted by Mo Sheng's naval forces, who had been trained by him, lying in wait upstream and downstream.
After their naval offensive failed, the two countries, taking advantage of the dense forests and toxic miasma in the southwest, continued to infiltrate the deep mountains and forests, relying on their familiarity with the terrain to harass the enemy.
Lu Yunchu instructed Mo Sheng to select the most skilled warriors in mountain and jungle warfare from the local tribes that had submitted to him, forming several mountain battalions. These soldiers did not wear heavy armor, but only light rattan or leather armor, and used poisoned blowguns, small crossbows, barbed hooks, and traps coated with local venom.
The mountain battalion infiltrated the dense forest without flags, operating in teams of five, appearing and disappearing unpredictably. They ambushed the enemy, disrupted supply lines, poisoned water sources, and used sounds mimicking wild animals and ghosts to frighten the enemy at night, buying them valuable time for training and adaptation.
The series of defeats forced the enemy's main force to retreat to its last stronghold built against the mountain, a position that was easy to defend and difficult to attack.
Lu Yunchu did not rush to attack. She once again used the wizard's knowledge of the local weather and geography to judge that there would be a rainstorm lasting several days in the near future. She sent the rock climbing experts from the mountain camp to secretly infiltrate the steep slope above the enemy camp and plant a small amount of gunpowder in several key vulnerable points of the mountain structure.
The torrential rain arrived as expected, causing rivers to swell and mountain roads to become muddy. At midnight, when the rain was heaviest and the thunder was loudest, the pre-prepared gunpowder was ignited, and in an instant, the fortified fences and watchtowers were washed away.
The soldiers who had narrowly escaped death were terrified, believing it to be divine retribution. They lost all will to fight, abandoned their supplies, and retreated in disarray. Lu Yunchu, meanwhile, led his main force, which had been resting and recuperating, in pursuit after the rain, capturing several cities in succession.
In these battles, the women's army played a significant role. When crises arose, the male soldiers would ask the women for help. After returning victorious, Lu Yunchu distributed rewards according to the law, but the male soldiers were dissatisfied and scolded the women for being lucky.
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