Chapter 71 Further Amidst the Flames of War, White Bones Remain
The world was extremely cold. Jing Ye felt that every time he inhaled, it was not air, but thousands of ice needles as thin as a hair, which hurt his throat and lungs. He couldn't help but take off his cloak.
Wang Yuying quickly stopped her: "Why are you taking your clothes off? Don't get cold."
Jing Ye quickly turned around, using his burly back to shield Wang Yuying from the wind and snow after only a brief moment of draft. He wanted to give the cloak to her, but she refused. Jing Ye held the cloak and shifted his grip, still worried that she would get cold.
Seeing that his furrowed brows were covered in frost, Wang Yuying unconsciously softened her tone: "I'm not cold, you've shielded me from the wind and snow."
And the soft armor Zheng Yangzhi gave her was truly a treasure of the world, protecting her from both swords and spears as well as the wind.
Jing Ye remained silent for a moment, then asked, "Would you like to drink some strong liquor to warm up?"
Without hesitation, Wang Yuying shook her head. For some reason, she not only didn't have a craving for alcohol along the way, but she also felt a strange sense of resistance when she heard about drinking.
"Let's go! Let's go!" As soon as the wind and snow subsided, we had to cross the mountain immediately without delay.
Jing Ye was about to join the army in climbing, but Wang Yuying stopped where she was. Jing Ye couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong?"
She vaguely remembered hearing a thud, unsure if it was from a crack in the snow. She slowed her pace, listening intently, and thankfully, it was just a mishearing. Her feet touched solid ground; there was no hollow thud. Looking up again, she saw no snowballs sliding down the mountain.
There will be no avalanche.
Jingye looked up and couldn't help but sigh, "This mountain looks frozen."
Wang Yuying pursed her lips. Compared to having them frozen, it was better for them to crack. "Let's go."
The two walked one after the other, against the wind.
Yuan Wancheng, the commander of the central army, had already peeked around for a while and sighed inwardly that A Ye was really a fool. He had also overheard a bit on the high platform. Although the emperor had entrusted Jing Ye to take care of the deposed empress, he couldn't be too devoted to her. What if he developed feelings for her? Could the emperor tolerate that? He almost couldn't explain it away at Tonghua Temple.
He needs to find an opportunity to talk to A-Ye about this.
Suddenly seeing Wang Yuying turn around and come back towards him, Yuan Wancheng immediately sat up straight, pretending not to have been watching.
Wang Yuying approached the horse and bowed: "Commander-in-Chief."
"What is it, Lord Wang?" Yuan Wancheng asked with a smile, while also trying to give Jing Ye, who had come along, a meaningful look.
"I almost forgot," Wang Yuying said, clasping her hands in a fist salute. "The soldiers have been freezing for a long time. We must pass down the order that they should gradually warm up before and after entering the tent. They should not go directly close to the stove or charcoal brazier, otherwise they will be stinging, red, swollen, and scalded. They should also never drink water that is too hot."
Yuan Wancheng nodded and ordered the order to be given. The army crossed the mountain and arrived at the main supply depot and granary in the northern frontier. The rear army commander and the grain officer personally greeted them, exchanged names, and the commander invited them into his tent, while also reminding them: "Marshals and generals have come from the south, and may not know that we should gradually warm up before entering the tent. We must avoid sudden changes in temperature..."
He said the same thing as Wang Yuying, but Yuan Wancheng didn't say much, only thanking the governor. All the generals breathed on their hands and pressed them to their cheeks to improve blood circulation before entering their tents.
Jing Ye also looked at his palm, and Wang Yuying whispered to him, "Remember to use a handkerchief to brush off the frost on your eyebrows later."
She had seen eyebrows freeze so hard that the skin on the brow bone could be peeled off with a rub, and imagining that Jing Ye might be like that... her heart suddenly panicked.
Even though there were many people and it was inconvenient to say much, I still couldn't help but remind you: "Remember to brush lightly, don't rub hard."
Jing Ye nodded slightly: "I understand."
Once inside the tent, Jing Ye, as the deputy commander, sat separately from Wang Yuying. She peered at him through a head and, seeing that he had indeed gently wiped away the frost, was finally at ease.
The rear army commander clasped his hands in greeting to the crowd: "We have been fighting the Di people for a month now. Although our army has lost several fortifications, our core remains intact and our central position is still strong. Both sides have suffered heavy losses, and we are gradually locked in a stalemate."
Everyone inside the tent had a solemn expression.
The rear army commander continued, "Our dynasty's advantage lies in its national strength. As long as our food supplies are not exhausted, we can maintain a prolonged stalemate. The Di people, on the other hand, excel in horsemanship and archery, move like the wind, and plunder without warning. Their campaigns are especially dangerous when their king personally leads the troops. If our army were to engage in battle this month with other Di generals, we could still engage in a back-and-forth struggle and regain lost territory. However, if we were to encounter the Northern Di King Hugu Xumi, we would surely suffer a defeat, and none of the cities we captured would be able to be recovered."
Before he could finish speaking, a general from the Northern Expeditionary Army shouted, "How can the Commander-in-Chief dampen our own morale and boost the enemy's prestige? The barbarian king is nothing but a scoundrel, how dare he shake the banners of our Celestial Empire?"
The governor glanced at the man and curled his lips: "General, do not underestimate the enemy. Not to mention the Di King, the female cavalry that come to plunder our grain are like a persistent scab, causing endless trouble."
Thinking of the humiliation he suffered at the hands of the female rider, he couldn't help but exhale.
Wang Yuying was startled upon hearing this. This was the main supply depot. How dare the Di people come here to offend them?
She blurted out, "The Di people dare to invade this place?"
"Do the Di people also have female riders?" two generals asked.
Her voice wasn't completely drowned out by the men, but the governor only answered the two generals' questions. Because he knew one of them well, he spoke without restraint: "It's said that they were personally trained by the King of Di. The young women come and go like the wind, and every time they're enough to give us a hard time."
"Really? How do you drink it? Do women really enjoy fighting?"
Wang Yuying noticed the man glancing in her direction as he asked the question, and she couldn't help but lower her eyes. Jing Ye, observing Wang Yuying's reaction, spoke up to stop him, saying, "No foul language in the tent."
Upon seeing this, Yuan Wancheng declared: "Anyone who mentions cosmetics again will be subject to military law."
Jing Ye turned to the rear army commander and asked, "Commander, I would like to ask, how dare the Di people invade this place?"
The governor sneered: "These barbarians are rampant, what do they dare not do? Slaughtering villages is like a play!"
The grain inspector also said, “They treat our Han people like straw dogs! When the female cavalry first massacred, our army went to the rescue. Because the villagers were attached to their land and unwilling to move, they were allowed to stay in their homes afterwards. Who knew that the Di people would repeatedly massacre them? Now the people of the surrounding villages have all moved into the camp, but they are still not guaranteed to be safe.”
After a long pause, Wang Yuying said, “The strength of the Di people is usually described in eight characters: ‘Elite cavalry like the wind, plundering on the spot.’ Let’s turn this strength into a weakness, and use it to deceive them, so that they can’t tell which way the wind is blowing. Since they’re plundering, the Di people must not have much to spare. Once we get behind enemy lines and destroy their supplies, they will be thrown into chaos without food. As for the elite cavalry, we can use the terrain to set up an ambush and lure them into a dead end where they can’t move.”
The commander of the rear army had heard the rumors of the deposed empress. He slowly looked Wang Yuying up and down, and thought disdainfully: "All talk and no action, anyone can talk a good game."
He smiled slightly: "General, you are eloquent. It seems that next time the female cavalry attack, we will have to ask you to be the vanguard and personally instruct us."
Some of the generals exchanged glances and smiled knowingly; women with women, just right.
“Let’s be on guard for now, it’s better to be prepared than to lose our grain supplies.” Yuan Wancheng interrupted, turning to the grain supervisor, “Please, sir, show us the granary.”
The governor and the grain inspector dared not disobey their superiors. After inspecting the granary and its arrangements, everyone returned to their respective tents.
Wang Yuying had a separate tent, and the camp assigned a village woman to be her servant, helping her with general affairs. The woman could only speak the local dialect and couldn't understand Mandarin. At first, she was trembling with fear, but later she was surprised to find that the female general from the capital could also speak the local dialect. In addition, Wang Yuying said that she had also lived in the northern frontier, and the woman felt more and more at ease, and poured out a lot of her heart—her family was among the first to suffer from the bandits, her husband and eldest daughter had both died at the hands of the enemy, and now only the woman and her young son remained, hiding in the camp.
When the woman spoke of her sorrows, tears streamed down her face. Wang Yuying also felt distressed and couldn't bear to listen to her anymore several times. Then she noticed someone outside the tent. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small head sticking in and calling out "Mother" in the local dialect.
The woman quickly chased the boy away and apologized to Wang Yuying: "My son is ignorant of manners and has offended the general. Please forgive him."
"Let him in," Wang Yuying said softly.
The child was thin and frail, barely reaching his knees. He immediately said that he had woken up and couldn't find his mother, fearing she might be in danger, so he rushed to find her.
The woman immediately explained to Wang Yuying, "He was always worried that the Di people had come and wanted to protect me."
Wang Yuying's heart softened even more. She hadn't brought any children's toys, and for the sake of convenience during the march, she hadn't worn any jewelry. She only found a small gourd that hadn't been filled with wine and gave it to the boy. She also gave the woman a gold ingot, insisting that she accept it, and then asked, "How old is he? What's his name?"
“My son, Aye, has just turned four years old.”
Just then, Jing Ye lifted the curtain and entered. Wang Yuying couldn't help but say to him, "Aye, his name is also Aye!"
Jing Ye strode closer, smiling as he asked the reason, but his few words inadvertently stirred up the woman's painful memories. Wang Yuying relayed the story to Jing Ye in Mandarin, and he was filled with righteous indignation, his chest heaving.
That night, before midnight, Wang Yuying suddenly heard someone shout, "The female cavalry is coming!" and sat up abruptly. She never took off her clothes while sleeping during marches, so she put on her helmet and went out of her tent. She saw flames shooting into the sky and various units in the camp shouting to form ranks.
Both sides of the Di woman's saddle were fitted with half-foot-long iron hooks with three barbs, and the handles were reinforced with iron chains. The Di woman leaned forward, like a hawk swooping down on its prey, and the iron hooks precisely caught on the camp fence. The wooden posts, as thick as bowls, were pulled up by their roots. The female rider charged into the camp, not slowing down but accelerating instead.
Di Ma was also terrifying; he leaped straight over both low walls half a person's height and piles of firewood.
"Hook the horse's belly!" Wang Yuying cried out urgently!
“Do you need to tell me?” the local captain beside her replied. The captain held a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, aiming for the horse’s belly, but the female rider on horseback hooked him with her other hand. The iron hook pierced through the gap in the shield, caught the captain’s shoulder armor, dragged him off the horse, and then crushed him with its iron hooves. Wang Yuying clearly heard the sound of bones cracking.
"Ah Ye!" she heard a woman exclaim in the distance. Looking in the direction of the sound, she saw the boy rushing towards the female rider, cursing, "Kill, kill, kill that dog Di!"
Wang Yuying was frantic and spurred her horse to the rescue, but her efforts were futile. The female rider swung her iron hook, the curved hook piercing the child's neck, causing blood to gush out instantly. The female rider then swung the hook again, separating the child's head from his body, his head flying through the air in an arc.
Seeing this, the woman still rushed towards the horse, reaching out to catch the child's head. The female rider coldly ordered the horse to rear up and trample the woman's chest. Fortunately, Wang Yuying arrived in time, grabbed the woman, and threw her behind her, saving her onto the horse.
Our archers immediately stepped forward, unleashing a hail of arrows, but they were deflected by the female rider's armor.
Wang Yuying put the woman back to safety, then looked at the torches on the rack in front of the tent. She snatched the torches, gripped the reins tightly, rushed towards the female rider, ducked to avoid the iron hooks, and decisively set the horse's tail on fire. The warhorse was startled and jumped wildly, throwing the female rider off her.
The other female riders rushed to her aid, hurling their iron hooks at Wang Yuying. Jing Ye, arriving just in time, deflected the attack with a long spear: "Yingniang!"
Wang Yuying reined in her horse and joined Jing Ye. She used her sword to block the hook and shouted angrily with red eyes: "You even slaughter the old, weak, women and children!"
The female rider who had rolled on the ground earlier could roughly understand Wang Yuying's Mandarin, but didn't speak much. While hiding behind her companion's horse, she retorted, "You killed our people too!"
In her excitement, she spoke to Wang Yuying in a foreign language about how Han soldiers disguised themselves as civilians to lure her sister into an ambush, and how her sister's body would be displayed afterward. She also said that since becoming a vassal state, many of her people had been enslaved by being bound with leather straps.
Wang Yuying didn't understand because he was speaking too fast. She turned her sword around the iron chain and said, "You could have opened a market and traded with us properly, but instead you burned, killed, and looted, wanting to gain without working!"
She strained her sword, reversed the iron hook, and swung it forward to pull the fallen female rider to her own horse, while Jingye helped her fend off the other female riders who were trying to rescue her.
The female rider rolling on the ground didn't understand Wang Yuying's words, but the Di woman beside her did. She replied in broken Mandarin, "What plunder? Over the years, the tribute we've paid you has far exceeded this! We're just taking it back. Besides, this land was ours decades ago! You bandits who have seized other people's homes!"
"Those were ours a hundred years ago!" Jing Ye retorted immediately. Seeing a splatter of blood beside him, he hurriedly looked back and saw that Wang Yuying had killed the female rider on the ground with a single sword strike.
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