Liu Bei POV

This time, as though Huang Zu knew exactly what she was about to say, she interrupted Su Fei before she could utter the 2nd syllable.

And she did so in a more severe and loud voice than she did before. When I saw this, I finally understood what Liu Qi meant back then. Looks like Huang Zu’s hatred for Gan Ning runs deep.

I then s.h.i.+fted my gaze to Gan Ning who was sitting at the last seat. Half her face was buried into her scarf and all I could see were her eyes so I couldn’t tell what her reaction was.

Over here, Su Fei was still trying to make her case, “But Administrator Huang Zu, Gan Ning was a pirate before so her ability to navigate the waters is exceptionally good. We should use this against our enemies–”

“My Jing state is big and abundant, with talent everywhere, why do I need to resort to having a pirate lead our operations!” She swung her fist out as she said so, and shattered the nearby water pot with her small fist.

“Administrator, it’s a little unsightly for you to behave this way.” Liu Qi couldn’t watch any further and hurriedly tried to alleviate the situation.

“Yes. No matter what, we should look at what people can do not who they are.” I hurriedly added on as well.

“No need to say any further! My will is set! Apart from a pirate, anyone else is fine!” Huang Zu’s expression was blank when she yelled out but we all felt her unadulterated fury. Liu Qi and I looked at each other, and she shook her head which told me that there was no hope and so we remained silent.

“…”

Suddenly, Gan Ning stood up from her seat. It gave me a big shock, and all the other generals looked over as well. Only Huang Zu continued staring ahead, and did not look at Gan Ning to the side.

Gan Ning didn’t speak, and stood there for a short while before she parted the curtains and left the tent. From the time she stood up till mow, Huang Zu had not addressed her.

“Administrator, though Gan Ning was a pirate before, that was something that happened a long time ago. Leaving aside everything else, Gan Ning has achieved merits for defending the city and has done a lot for Jiangxia, shouldn’t you give her an award commensurate with–”

“There will be no reward for pirates! Giving them a sub-appointment is so they can repay for their crimes and make amendments for all those they killed!” No one else dared to say any further when Huang Zu said this. Nor did anyone bring up the detrimental contribution which Huang Zu had made in this battle.

I thought I understood Huang Zu’s hatred but now that I see it in person in full glory, I’m starting to feel that her hatred is a little too extreme. Even under such circ.u.mstances where we need Gan Ning’s expertise, it’s very unprofessional and inappropriate of her to not be able to let go of her personal enmity. Can’t Huang Zu understand this as an Administrator?

I didn’t verbalise all these thoughts as well. I felt that everyone felt the same as me mire or less but n.o.body dared to raise this. This situation was truly dire.

This is what it means for an organisation to fall into disunity, I guess.

In the end, Huang Zu became the overall commander for the naval battle and trained up the land troops to get them used to fighting at sea with Su Fei. Of course, Liu Qi and I had given our command tallies to her so we were included in the training sessions.

As we left the tent, on the way back, Liu Qi’s expression wasn’t too bad, but she was still very glum.

“What’s the matter Liu Qi?”

“Eh, the way this war is going on of course.” She was dismayed about this as expected, and she relaxed her hands and lay on the back of the horse as she continued, “I thought we could still last for 1 more battle after this, but now, I doubt there is any hope left.”

Things seem very bleak. I felt the same as she did, but I didn’t say it.

“Will there be more reinforcements?”

“… Yi Ji.” At my question, she called someone else out instead. When Yi Ji received the order, she walked up to me and pulled out a piece of silk from her sleeve.

“This is?”

“A message from a general I left in Xiangyang. According to him, father has already realised that he cannot hold on to Jiangxia so he has sent reinforcements to the cities surrounding Jiangxia to defend against follow-on attacks.” Liu Qi softly said in a melancholic tone, “In about 2-3 days, we will get an order to retreat.”

Father still cares fo me huh.

She whispered this sentence under her breath.

Well of course he does. How could there be any parent who would willingly send their child to die?

Ah, but that means…

“What about Huang Zu? Will she be retreating with us?”

“Her?” Liu Qi seemed bewildered, and shook her face as she frowned, “She is going to continue to defend Jiangxia of course. To the death.”

“Till death?”

“That’s right. You saw what she wrote on her plate skirt right?”

I thought back for a moment, “…’死守’ defend to the death, right?”

“死守, defend to the death. If she doesn’t die, then she will continued to defend, and defend she shall, until she dies. This is the military decree she asked father to give to her. She then wrote it on her with her own blood.”

Ah… She really is loyal huh. Though she’s a really stubborn person, stubbornness has its good sides as well.

“So we’ll be retreating before the decisive battle then.”

“Yes. Though they’re Cai Mao’s troops, they are still the primary force of Jing state so we can’t throw them all away here.” Liu Qi actually used throw them away. She really believes that we have no hope of winning here.

“But the command tally is still with Huang Zu.”

“When we get the official doc.u.ments, even if it’s Huang Zu, she’ll have to return them to us.”

But that means that the troops left to defend Jiangxia will be significantly reduced.

All of a sudden, I began to feel that this was a little too cruel to Huang Zu. At the very end, do we need to give her a final shove into her grave? Even if just a little, shouldn’t we be looking into ways in which we can support Huang Zu?

“Imperial Uncle.” Just then, Chen Gong who was silent all this while called out to me while she stared coldly at me, “Please don’t think about anything else.”

She clearly meant what I was thinking about, and I knew it. She’s probably afraid that I might propose to stay because Huang Zu would be left alone otherwise.

“… Un, I understand.”

This is war after all. I can’t wager with the lives that I’m responsible for for my own selfish wilfulness.

—

It was now nighttime, and as I predicted, I was having difficultly sleeping again.

This time, it was because I was thinking about too many things. On 1 hand, I was thinking about the things here, and on the other, I was thinking about Yun Chang and the rest.

Of course, I also thought a bit about Sun Quan’s side and Meng De’s side here and there as well.

In any case, I’m having insomnia.

After leaving my tent, I clumsily walked out and looked around and saw that it was completely dark out. There were only a few spa.r.s.e lights from the few who were on night duties. The braziers were already out, and unlike before, Chen Ging didn’t seem to have insomnia this time. As for Chen Dao, she was sleeping alone because of her injury. At the same time, she was spared from having to listen to Zhou Cang’s snores.

The night was quiet, very quiet. Quiet to the point that it seemed like something was about to happen

As I slowly walked towards the outside of the camp, the soldier on guard duty tried to stop me as he was afraid it might be dangerous for me to leave alone. And so I gave up there, and snuck out somewhere else by crossing a shorter part of the barricade.

This wasn’t a true encampment after all so it was more of a fence than a true barricade, which couldn’t possibly stop me.

I walked out of the encampment, and headed towards the civilian residential district where it was currently past curfew already. After a few steps, I felt that letting out loud footsteps might be a little rude to the ordinary people, and I might be mistaken for a spy which would bring trouble. Additionally, the empty alleys were a little boring and even seemed a little spooky because of how dark and empty it was.

So I stopped and turned back to head to the walls. I looked up at the city towers at the main gate and felt that it might be nice to look down at the city from up there so I made my way there.

Of the 4 walls, the ones at the main gate were the st.u.r.diest, which was why Zhu Ran and Zhu Zhi did not dare to attack that side, and went for east and west instead.

I calmly climbed the city tower step by step and found that there was someone on guard duty every few levels. Whenever they saw me, they tried to stop me at first but after they saw clearly who I was, they got into a very formal stance and let me pa.s.s. Throughout my climb, I didn’t detect a hint of sleepiness from the troops.

Looks like military discipline is pretty tight here.

“Ya! Ha!”

Un? In the quiet night, I seemed to hear several long yells.

I thought that I was having auditory hallucinations from the harsh battles today but this voice got clearer as I climbed up higher.

Who could be training at such a late time?

As I made my way to the top of the city tower, just as I made it to the top, I stopped and poked my head out through a crevice to see what was happening outside.

“Ha!”

Along with a furious bellow, a silver spear danced under the moonlight. Under the reflection from the spear, ripples of light glimmered across the city walls. And the figure of the one who was practicing, was lit up by the moonlight and her elegant moves seemed like a dance.

Beautiful.

Who is this general? I don’t remember seeing her.

“Who?!”

An angry roar pulled me back to reality, and I instinctively lowered my head. I felt a sudden strong gust of wind blow across the top of my head, and when I looked up, I saw the silver spear stuck in the the bricks of the city walls.

“Who goes there in the dead of the night? Report your name immediately or you will executed as a spy!”

“M, me!” When I heard this, I hurriedly walked out from the stairs and respectfully bowed as I introduced myself, “I’m Liu Bei Liu Xuan De, and I’m here with the Jiangxia reinforcements.”

“Oh? Imperial Uncle Liu?”

Eh? She knows me?

I raised my head and saw her slowly walking over to me. As my eyes got used to the moonlight, I got a shock at what I saw.

“Huang Zu– Administrator?” I nearly called her by just her name, but I managed to remember to add on her official t.i.tle.

But I really didn’t think that the beautiful show of martial arts was by Huang Zu. It felt like seeing a gangster girl perform ballet.

“It’s me. What’s the matter?” She seemed to be at a loss when she saw my surprise.

“Ah, no. I was just surprised to see that you haven’t gone to sleep yet.”

“Aren’t you awake as well?”

“Hahaha, I guess you’re right.” I knew my excuse was terrible so all I could do was laugh awkwardly.