The Human Emperor c1-2382

by Huangfu Qi (皇甫奇)

  The air grew more oppressive the farther south they traveled. Wang Chong had clearly sensed this change, but he said nothing.

  I wonder how Li Siye is doing. Given how much time has passed, he should have reached that place by now.

  On his horse, Wang Chong inexplicably began to think about the departed Li Siye, raising his head to the sky.

  Hesitation and doubt were quite normal, so Wang Chong hadn't felt the need to say anything. Everyone believed that he was the primary force of this southern campaign, but only Wang Chong knew that the true primary force was the one thousand cavalry that Li Siye had left with. The important thing was that at this moment, not even Li Siye knew what he was doing or the significance of his actions. Only Wang Chong knew.

  "Hyah!"

  Wang Chong urged his horse onward even faster.

  ………

  Time flowed by, and one's gaze drew away from the south, crossing countless hills and plains, headed west, to a place more than two thousand li from Wang Chong's current location. Here, horses were neighing as more than one thousand Great Tang cavalry stood in orderly ranks, their killing intent soaring into the sky as they waited.

  "Someone, bring that item forward."

  Li Siye put the thin slip of paper back into the silk bag and issued an order.

  Clangclangclang!

  There was a clattering of metal as several stalwart figures hurriedly brought forth from the rear of the army a large iron chest, placing it on the ground. Buzz! The moment the chest was placed on the ground, a magical spell seemed to be cast over the army. The atmosphere suddenly became strange as everyone peered curiously at the chest.

  Although no one said anything, their eyes completely sold them out.

  Other than those life-or-death battles, the most mysterious thing on this journey had been this large chest that Wang Chong had given to Li Siye for this mission. This was something that Wang Chong had readied for pickup when leaving the capital. Other than the two soldiers who were guarding the chest, no one had been allowed to approach it.

  Let alone others, even Wang Chong's trusted aides like Zhao Jingdian or Old Eagle were not allowed to open the box.

  Not only that, Wang Chong had also ordered that the troops guarding the box had to keep a distance of at least eighty meters.

  Even when the battles were at their most intense, they were permitted to not take part.

  Everyone was filled with curiosity as to the contents of the chest.

  "We can finally open it!"

  "I wonder what Young Master put inside?"

  "I'm so excited! Why isn't Milord opening it yet?"

  ……

  The soldiers waited in excitement, occasionally shooting a glance at Li Siye.

  "Open the chest!"

  Li Siye had no mind for their glances. With a wave of his large hand, he sent out the order. Speaking frankly, he was just as curious as the rest. After all, not even he knew what was inside. Wang Chong was far too good at keeping secrets.

  "Wonderful!"

  The soldiers cheered, but Li Siye only quietly stared.

  Clack!

  The chest opened, and everyone instantly looked over, some of the soldiers even blocking Li Siye's view to take a look. However, though they were all filled with anticipation, they suddenly fell silent a moment later.

  "This is…"

  "A bag?"

  The soldiers looked at each other in surprise. The only thing in this mysterious chest was a grayish-brown bag made of shabby hemp.

  "Ugh, it stinks!"

  The soldiers began to back up as if they were avoiding a plague. They hadn't noticed at the start, but now that they were close, everyone could smell a foul stench, like something had been decaying for a very long time.

  "What in the world is in there?"

  Wang Chong had trained the clan experts up to standard, but right now, they were all holding their noses and backing up. After all, Li Siye was not Wang Chong. Although he was stronger and looked much more imposing, he was a soldier. He did not have Wang Chong's revered and transcendent status.

  Other than when he was training or fighting, Li Siye actually had a rather friendly attitude.

  Thus, in front of him, the soldiers acted a bit more carefreely.

  ……

  Li Siye said nothing, but he was just as surprised as everyone else. Wang Chong had given this mission not to his trusted aides Zhao Jingdian or Old Eagle, but to him. Moreover, Wang Chong had clearly stated that this mission was extremely important and that he had to do exactly as the orders in the silk bag said.

  Li Siye only decided to open the chest upon reaching his destination. And he didn't believe that the object that Wang Chong had prepared such a long time ago was something as simple as a bag.

  Clop clop!

  As his horse slowly trotted over to the iron chest, it sneezed. Li Siye silently thought for a few moments, then his right hand reached for the giant Wootz Steel sword on his back and waved it through the air. Swish! A blur appeared before the eyes of the crowd as the Wootz Steel sword cut open the bag in the chest.

  Fwoomp!

  A clump of meat and bones, pitch-black and moldy, fell out.

  "This is…"

  Everyone was dumbfounded. What was this? Why had their commander given their general this thing?

  The soldiers were completely dazed.

  Even Li Siye's mind was blank for a moment. But he quickly thought of something, and his pupils contracted in understanding.

  Sheep meat!

  Li Siye suddenly understood. Although it was already impossible to distinguish the original shape of this pile of meat, Li Siye could tell from the thin bones that this was a sheep, an adult ewe. Li Siye had spent a significant amount of time in Beiting, where he had seen many sheep flocks and eaten a great deal of sheep meat.

  He would hold the bone when eating that delicious and oily roast sheep meat, so he was very familiar with what they looked like.

  However, this was not any ordinary sheep meat!

  This is a sheep that died from plague…

  With a flash of understanding, Li Siye became extremely solemn.

  Chapter 519: The Superior General Breaks the Enemy's Schemes!

  Chapter 519: The Superior General Breaks the Enemy's Schemes!

  Translated by: Hypersheep325

  Edited by: Michyrr

  "Listen up! Starting from now, no one is allowed to approach without my order!" Li Siye suddenly declared.

  "Milord…"

  "Any who defy this order will be executed!"

  Li Siye's right hand swung down, the Wootz Steel sword in his hand unleashing a stream of Sword Qi into the earth. Rocks splattered everywhere and dust plumed into the air, leaving behind a massive slash in the ground. In an instant, the crowd was silenced, the soldiers subconsciously beginning to back away.

  "Yes, Milord," someone said in a soft voice.

  Li Siye had never put on airs for no reason. If he ever got serious, then it meant that the matter was of utmost importance. At this moment, no one dared to provoke him.

  Young Master, is that the crucial point of the war that you spoke of to me? Li Siye thought to himself.

  By now, he understood why Wang Chong had given him this chest. The sheep plague was a rare sight on the steppe, but when it appeared, it was a disaster. Unlike the people of the Central Plains, the people of the steppe had little understanding of medicine. Unlike the people of the Central Plains, they did not know to bury the bodies of sheep that died from plague.

  And this was coupled with the fact that the people of the steppe were herders, their herds of cattle and sheep numbering in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions. Thus, once a sheep plague broke out, it was always a large-scale calamity.

  The people of the steppe would turn pale at the mention of the plague.

  However, because the steppes had always been the enemy of the Central Plains and because cattle and sheep constantly roamed in
pursuit of new pastures, the sheep plague was a very rare occurrence. Many shepherds didn't even know what the sheep plague was. This lack of knowledge could allow someone to take advantage of the nomadic people of the steppe.

  It was very clear what Wang Chong had prepared this thing for.

  In the past, Li Siye would definitely have strenuously objected. But right now, the 180,000 elites of the Annan Protectorate had been routed, as had Li Zhengyi's 60,000 reinforcements. The door to the Great Tang's southwest was wide open, its almost one million civilians bereft of protection, completely exposed to the armies of Mengshe Zhao and Ü-Tsang. At this time, if he continued to be soft-hearted and worry too much about reputation, then he would be guilty of inflexibility.

  Kindness to the enemy was cruelty to oneself.

  …But will this really be effective?

  Li Siye mentally sighed.

  Even if he understood the purpose of this object, Li Siye didn't understand how it would be useful to this war. Whether the sheep plague could inflict harm and how much harm it could inflict were matters for the future, whereas the war in the southwest was a danger close at hand. Moreover, even if he completed his mission, the Tibetan army would remain unaffected.

  Would this method really be useful?

  Li Siye took in a deep breath and ordered, "Someone, give me a bag of provisions!"

  "Yes, Milord."

  A soldier quickly took out a bag of soybeans and grains and handed it over. Li Siye allowed no one else to participate, personally mixing the bag of soybeans, peas, and other rations into the clump of meat.

  Buzz!

  After finishing this, Li Siye suddenly shook his wrist, letting out a burst of Stellar Energy. The chest closed with a thump, upon which Li Siye raised his head to look into the distance.

  Form here, one could see herds of cattle and sheep scattered over the lush landscape like clouds. If one looked carefully, one could even see shepherds among the sheep herds. Their tall bodies mounted on highland steeds made them very obvious amongst the herds, even at great distances.

  Only Tibetan shepherds rode horses like these while tending to their flocks.

  "Since you've decided to help our enemies in the war, you're also our enemies. Don't blame me for what happens next!"

  Li Siye gazed at the distant shepherds, his eyes flashing with an icy light.

  "All soldiers, hear my orders. Don't let a single one of these Tibetans go!"

  Li Siye drew back his energy, his entire body now exuding an aura of absolute cold.

  "Yes, Milord!"

  With this order, the army began to rumble forward, the more than one thousand elite cavalry picking up speed, leaving a trail of dust as they charged.

  "Aaaaah!"

  "It's the Tang!"

  "Run!"

  ……

  Screams came from the distance as the shepherds of Chilechuan panicked. Many people began to drive their herds in a bid to escape, but it was too late. These two countries were at war, so how could Li Siye give them any chance to escape!

  Rumble!

  The hooves thundered even faster!

  And with the thundering of hooves, another 'battle', unbeknownst to anyone else, began in the rear of the Tibetan army.

  'Before the troops and horses can be mobilized, the rations and fodder must be prepared.' This had been a principle of war since time immemorial, noted down in the books of strategy and war. However, this was a principle only on the strategy books of the Central Plains. The Tibetans and the people of the steppe had never had this problem.

  Through his research, Wang Chong had discovered that the Tibetan method of logistics was completely different from that of the Central Plains.

  For a large-scale war, the people of the Central Plains would have to prepare for two or three years, and this effort would only result in enough supplies to last a few months. Past three or four months, the war could no longer be fought. In the founding period of the Great Tang, when Emperor Taizong sat upon the throne and the empire was at its most powerful, it still could not deal with Goguryeo. Goguryeo's hardy fortifications and scorched-earth policy made it so that the Great Tang's logistics train couldn't keep up, so after four months of battle, a lack of provisions forced the army to retreat without any progress, ending a war that had consumed a great deal of resources and manpower.

  But that four-month war was the longest war fought in all the history of the Central Plains. For that war, the Great Tang had stockpiled supplies for three straight years!

  For the dynasties of the Central Plains, a war like that could not be started carelessly.

  But the Tibetans and Turks were different. If they wanted to start a war, they could cross one thousand li at any time and not worry about any logistical difficulties. If they were as limited as the Great Tang and had to start preparing for their attacks many years in advance, the people of the steppe would have been incapable of fighting, much less posing any threat to the Great Tang's borders.

  It wasn't that the Tibetans or Turks didn't need to eat. Fundamentally, it was because they had completely different eating habits from the people of the Central Plains.

  The people of the steppe treated meat as their primary food source, eating it at every meal with no difficulties. But if the people of the Central Plains had to eat meat and nothing else for every meal, they might be excited at first, chowing down with gusto, but after three or four days, they would get sick of it. A month later, and the army wouldn't even be able to fight.

  The primary foods of the Central Plains were rice, chestnuts, millet, sorghum, and other such plants, inherently different from meat. And the stockpiling, transportation, cultivation, and cooking of such foods were more troublesome and time-consuming. Moreover, the food of the Central Plains emphasized matching meat and vegetables and had many different cooking methods, like boiling, steaming, frying, and searing.

  With only rice and no meat, one's stomach would lack flavor, and so the battle would be fought weakly.

  Thus, before the people of the Central Plains fought a battle, they would fire up many stoves and hold a great feast. From this came the saying, 'Only when your stomach is full can you have strength!'

  This was a custom of the Central Plains, and no War God, War Saint, or grand strategist from ancient times could do anything about it. They could only follow the trends and write, 'Before the troops and horses can be mobilized, the rations and fodder must be prepared.' This was their nature, so how could it be changed?

  But the people of the steppe were different. Their eating habits were not so complicated. They only needed the meat to be cooked, and they sometimes didn't even mind eating it raw.

  And when the army moved, the shepherds moved with it. The army in front served as the firm shield while the cattle and sheep driven by the shepherds supplied the army. Cattle and sheep grazed on grass. They didn't need to be planted or plowed, and they didn't require massive amounts of water and several months to grow.

  More importantly, cattle and sheep would never get moldy, nor would any of the other problems that came from storing food crop up.

  Wherever the army moved, the cattle and sheep would follow, never suffering from problems of lack of freshness, humidity, or moldiness. As long as there was grass, the army would never be lacking provisions.

  In addition, the soldiers of the steppe were drawn from the shepherds.

  They might be logistics officers and shepherds today, but on another day, they could be soldiers. And if there were too many cattle or sheep, the people of the steppe could slaughter them and cure the meat to make jerky.

  This was the case whether one was an elite expert or ordinary nomad!

  In this world, the only thing that could truly affect them was extremely cold weather!

  Wang Chong had once concluded that in the various aspects of the war, it was logistics that the people of the steppes had the least worries about. This was the case for both the Turks and the Tibetans.

  In logisti
cs, agricultural societies had never stood on equal footing with nomadic societies!

  As a result, even though the nomadic people were not as well-equipped or as numerous as the dynasties of the Central Plains, even though they lacked a dazzling culture or any texts on war or strategy, they could still pose a grave danger to the consecutive dynasties. In the histories of these dynasties, one would always be able to find phrases like this:

  'On XX year, the Turks invaded the border'; or, 'on XX year, the Tibetans raided the border and left with their plunder'; or perhaps, 'on XX year, Yingzhou, Youzhou, or some other place was plundered by bandits'!

  Such records could be found all over the histories, and new ones were still being added.

  ……

  But it wasn't like this strategy of the nomadic peoples couldn't be exploited.

  If one could detour around the main army and kill all their herds in the rear, one could deal them a heavy blow. In normal circumstances, however, this was impossible. The Tibetans would have never given the Great Tang this chance. But right now, the Tibetans were completely focused on Lion City.

  Li Zhengyi's forces had already been taken care of, and the Tibetans had left armies at the three important passes.

  To the Tibetans, the rear of their army was as safe as a fortress, with nothing able to threaten it. This provided Wang Chong a superb opportunity.

  And the sheep that had been killed by the plague were a fine gift that Wang Chong had prepared for the Tibetans.

  The Tibetan sheep herds were truly too numerous. Unlike the herds of the Central Plains, they never consisted of just a few sheep, or ten-some sheep, or perhaps several dozen sheep. The nomads always had several hundred sheep, or thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of sheep. This was something that the agricultural society of the Central Plains would find difficult to fathom.

  In addition, the nomadic people took the tribe as a unit, and when they let out their flocks to graze, they naturally did so as tribes.

  For this reason, it was never said that one person was raising such-and-such number of sheep, but that one tribe was raising so many sheep.

  And this number of sheep was always enormous.