Peace Order

Chapter 1703 - 56: The Overwhelming Tide

"We old fellows like us have our own choices as well. How could we be the ones sewing wedding robes for others? Only by going all out, by sparing no means, by killing on the battlefield until every inch of bone is shattered—only that is worthy of matching the end of an era."

"If I do not defeat Li Guanyi, how can I unify the world?"

"If Li Guanyi does not kill me, how can he open the age of Taiping?"

"The tide of the world has surged to this point; there is not the slightest room left to turn back. In the end, it can only be such an ending."

Jiang Wanxiang looked at Jiang Su before him, the aging emperor saying, "Grandmaster, you actually speak of death, you actually speak of defeat. Has Li Guanyi placed such pressure upon the military god who was invincible wherever he went?"

Jiang Su said, "For a battle general in the army, to think first of defeat before victory—that is only the norm."

Jiang Wanxiang said, "But in every great war of the past, you never once spoke of defeat."

Jiang Su held the teacup in his hand, his sound eye gazing out the window. This powerful, disdainful, invincible, and also unscrupulous, filthy, hideous Divine General who had propped up this country for several hundred years, said:

"Therefore, he is an opponent."

"All those battles we won without fail, what we defeated were no more than weeds. Only those who stake life and death upon the scale are qualified to be called an opponent, are they not? Your Majesty, he is your opponent and mine, and he is also the opponent of these three hundred years of Daying, the opponent of the world as we see it."

Jiang Wanxiang burst out laughing: "Hahahahaha, good!"

"I never thought that, at the brink of death, there would still be such an opponent to fight."

"Grandmaster."

"This is your fortune and mine!"

"However, as for Li Guanyi and for me, I too must make that ’final decision’. An enemy this formidable cannot be treated with courtesy any longer. Even if it be foul, even if it be by any means necessary, we must wager everything we have."

"But, Grandmaster, there is one thing you said that was wrong."

Jiang Wanxiang calmly raised his teacup and said, "You just said: among all these great clans, these cities, these local powers—are there any that can block Prince Qin’s spearhead?"

"I say, there are."

"Because he is poor!"

"War costs money—ahahahahahaha!"

Even the corners of Jiang Su’s mouth curled slightly. In this late May in the Central Plains, in this vast imperial capital with its three hundred years of imperial fate, the broad-spirited emperor and the military god raised their teacups and clinked them as if they were drinking wine.

Then they burst into loud laughter.

Laughing loudly, casting aside all talk of enmity, of pressure, of ideals—laughing only to their heart’s content.

Since it is so.

Then let us kill each other!

A thousand autumns in the green chronicles of history.

Only heroes die by a hero’s hand.

And at times, even knowing one must face the greatest opponent, there can not be the slightest turning back. To carry through one’s own path, to steel one’s own will, and to brandish one’s Weapon, galloping across this chaotic world until one’s great vow is fulfilled, or else dying without taking a backward step—whoever does so is worthy of being called a mighty hero.

On that day, the Great Khan of the Turkic was silent for a very, very long time.

The man who had defeated him, Li Guanyi, in an even swifter fashion and at an even more unexpected speed, had also defeated the emperor of Chen Country, Chen Dingye. This time, Chen Dingye abandoned the capital city they had held for so many years, and then moved north.

North, toward Zhenbei City.

The Great Khan was silent for a long time and could only sigh, "Li Guanyi, Li Guanyi."

"What methods, what methods indeed!"

The Great Khan, who had fought and killed his way through a lifetime, had previously begun to doubt himself, to wonder whether he had simply stayed too long upon the grasslands, whether he had already passed his prime, whether his blade had dulled, his horse grown weary, that he could no longer fight.

Could it be that I do not understand war?

Could it be that the title of former second Divine General under Central Heaven was but a jest?

Now, seeing the state Chen Dingye was in, seeing the embarrassment of Chen Country beneath this spearhead, the Great Khan regained his confidence.

So it seems I am still very strong after all.

It is not that I do not understand war.

It is because the opponent is simply too powerful for his age. This is no fault of war itself.

Only that such a tyrannical sovereign is still so young.

Jiang Wanxiang is already decrepit beyond recognition, with only a few years of life left. He may well die earlier than that old Swordsman whose allotted years had already run out, yet who still clings to life forced by the Life Extending Gu.

So it seems, the lord of the Central Plains is fated to fall to Qin.

Will the Central Plains be unified once more?

The Great Khan’s expression grew heavy. Even though there were no so-called official histories in the nations of the grasslands, they too had their orally transmitted epic tales. When the states of the Central Plains fall into chaos, that is when the grasslands are most elated.

At those times, the grasses grow lush, the cattle and sheep grow fat.

Once the realm of the Central Plains returns to unity, it will inevitably begin to expand in all directions.

A unified Central Plains will turn its spearhead toward the grasslands and come once more to slaughter.

This is almost a tradition of the Central Plains.

And after the Central Plains has gone through a Gu-breeding-like age of internecine slaughter, the armies of the Central Plains in the early founding years are always at an unbelievably ferocious, overbearing level. The eras that birthed the sorrowful epics of generations almost all belong to times when the Central Plains was unified and its sovereign rose to action.

"...We absolutely cannot, in such a situation, simply sit by and watch the Central Plains be unified again. To do so would be nothing more than waiting for death. Yet we are not their match either. For the present, what is to be done, what is to be done..."

The Great Khan remained mute for a long time. He sat upon the hillside outside the royal tent of the grasslands, his curved blade thrust into the earth beside him. When the wind blew, the grasses of the steppe rose and fell like waves.

Just like the grand tide of Prince Qin.

The Great Khan tilted his neck back and drank his mare’s milk wine, his brows knotting.

It was as if he could already see the shape of the future: if one does not interfere in the affairs of the Central Plains, then within ten to twenty years the Central Plains will inevitably be unified. By then, Li Guanyi will be at just about thirty to forty years of age.