Chapter 134: Sun Ce's Assassination, the Imperial Uncle Heads South (Special thanks to patron Zisu Ling for the generous sponsorship)

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By early April, the sunlight had already stripped away spring’s warm veil, exposing its scorching face as it wantonly poured out its fervor and baked the earth.

When the eastern horizon had only begun to pale, the war was already over.

Across several square kilometers of land east of Purple Cloud Mountain, burning vehicles, shattered shields, weapons, banners, and fallen bodies lay everywhere one looked.

No one had won this battle. Everyone had lost.

Shen Chen had lost because nearly a third of the elite troops from Yellow Gate Pavilion had been wiped out, while almost every survivor was wounded—including Shen Chen himself.

Cao Cao, on the other hand, had lost because he had been defeated.

Yes.

He had been defeated.

This ambush had already pushed Cao Cao to his limit. If he could annihilate Shen Chen quickly, all would be well. But if Shen Chen managed to withstand it, Cao Cao himself would collapse.

Thus, under Gan Ning’s assault in his war chariots, Cao Cao’s infantry had essentially disintegrated. He could only lead his cavalry northward in retreat.

Many people wondered: if the enemy was stronger and their own forces weaker, why pursue them?

Because when the enemy is retreating, pursuit is the best way to expand one’s gains. As the great man once said, “Press on with the courage that remains; do not abandon the pursuit merely to win a reputation like the Hegemon-King.”

Fu Jian had been driven back to his own gates by Huan Wen, yet when Huan Wen withdrew, Fu Jian had still dared to pursue him and inflict a crushing defeat on the Jin army.

When Zhuge Liang emerged from Mount Qi and provoked Sima Yi so brazenly, Sima Yi refused to fight and remained behind his walls. Yet when Zhuge Liang finally withdrew, Sima Yi dared to begin pursuing him. Was he a lunatic and an idiot?

The same principle applied here.

Shen Chen had studied whether pursuing Cao Cao was feasible. He had decided to pursue only after determining that it could be done.

The pursuit had two strategic objectives.

The first was to enlarge their victory. If Cao Cao’s forces stationed along the southern front could be crippled, then after the Battle of Guandu began, there would be less resistance to Shen Chen’s continued advance northward and harassment of Xudu.

The second was to consolidate the defensive line. Only by weakening Cao Cao’s forces could they prevent him from sending additional troops south to deal with Shen Chen. Otherwise, if Cao Cao withdrew intact, he would return to attack Kunyang again after ten days or half a month, once his troops had recovered.

There were also five reasons why pursuit was possible.

First, Cao Cao’s army had been fighting continuously for days. They were exhausted, and both their morale and fighting spirit were unstable.

Second, the troops Cao Cao had brought were not his main elite forces. His best troops were currently at Guandu. Most of the soldiers under his command had been recruited by Li Tong in Runan, and their overall quality was questionable. Their will to fight should not have been particularly strong.

Third, even if Cao Cao had prepared another ambush, it could never have been as fierce as the one in the preceding days. Instead, the army might have been weakened by the old pattern: “The first drum raises the spirit, the second weakens it, and the third exhausts it.” Once the enemy was routed, defeat could be turned into victory.

Fourth, during a retreat on the march, if Cao Cao’s army came under attack, it would be impossible for them to deploy their formation fully. At most, Shen Chen would face Cao Cao’s rearguard, which would not pose too great an obstacle.

Fifth—and most importantly—Cao Cao was anxious to return and strengthen the defenses of Yuzhou, lest Sun Ce lead an army northward.

Compared with Sun Ce’s tens of thousands of troops, Shen Chen’s few thousand posed an obviously smaller threat. It was therefore highly likely that Cao Cao himself possessed little desire to fight.

It was much like when Zhang Xiu pursued Cao Cao and defeated him, yet Cao Cao did not annihilate Zhang Xiu’s army. Instead, he hurried back to Xudu to strengthen the northern defenses.

When faced with the threat of a stronger enemy, the danger posed by a weaker one naturally became less urgent. Cao Cao was an exceedingly intelligent man; he knew how to distinguish the principal contradiction from the secondary one.

Thus, after weighing everything together, Shen Chen believed that while Cao Cao could not determine when Yuan Shao would march south or when Sun Ce would move north, every minute of delay caused by the pursuit would force Cao Cao to remain anxious for another minute. Their chances of victory were therefore extremely high.

Unfortunately, Cao Cao’s military ability truly was formidable. Even with his soldiers utterly exhausted and his army composed largely of second- and third-rate troops, he had still managed to make careful arrangements and inflict enormous casualties upon Shen Chen’s forces.

This also made Shen Chen clearly recognize that Cao Cao, a ruthless hero capable of achieving great things, possessed extraordinarily high personal military ability. He could not be underestimated.

By the following day, Li Tong, Cao Hong, Xiahou Yuan, and the others had gathered the scattered troops. The army that had originally numbered twenty thousand was left with only a little over sixteen thousand. Four thousand had either died in battle or gone missing, and many more were wounded. In miserable spirits, they returned to Xudu.

Shen Chen and Gan Ning also withdrew to Kunyang. Postwar statistics showed that from the moment Gan Ning’s forces had marched out of Duyang to attack Cao Hong until now, his original seven thousand troops had been reduced to fewer than five thousand—approximately four thousand eight hundred men.

The casualties among the soldiers of Yellow Gate Pavilion were even more severe, reaching ninety percent. The death rate alone had risen to one-third. Of the three thousand men, only nineteen hundred remained.

In the span of half a year, they had already lost more than three thousand soldiers and horses.

Yet their achievements had been extraordinarily significant.

In the Battle of Ye County, they had wiped out more than two thousand of Cao Cao’s troops. In the battles of Kunyang and Wuyang, they had killed or captured more than three thousand enemy soldiers. They had slain Liu Dai, Cao Cao’s Chief Clerk of the Secretariat and the commander of Kunyang, as well as the commander of Wuyang, Wang Zhong, who would later become a Light Cavalry General of Wei.

In an ambush against Xiahou Yuan at Linying, they had killed several hundred men. Then they had fought Cao Cao again. After days of attacks on the city, followed by the Battle of Purple Cloud Mountain the previous night, Cao Cao’s casualties and missing soldiers had approached ten thousand.

For Cao Cao, who urgently needed to guard against Yuan Shao, Sun Ce, and the others, this was an enormous loss.

After Cao Cao returned, a flood of chaotic matters caused by the failure to take Kunyang came crashing down upon him. Xudu itself was seething beneath the surface, with countless trivial problems demanding attention. He was driven nearly frantic and could only remain in Xudu for the time being to stabilize the situation.

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Moreover, Cao Cao believed that his previous attack on Shen Chen had failed because he had acted too hastily and had not resolved many underlying problems.

He therefore immediately rested and reorganized his army, restoring the soldiers to proper condition.

Although he very much wanted to launch another attack on Shen Chen after reorganizing his forces, the threat posed by Sun Ce forced him to send Li Tong back to Runan to defend against Jiangdong.

At the same time, he stationed Xiahou Yuan at Xiangcheng and Cao Hong at Linying, while transferring Man Chong from Xincai to Dingying and reconstructing the southern defensive line.

For Cao Cao, the situation had become an extreme disadvantage. He faced internal troubles and external enemies on every side.

Henan was itself a land of constant warfare. Nanyang remained unsettled because its lower regions could not be brought under control. Yuan Shao’s army was about to march south, while Jiangdong posed the danger of a surprise attack on Xudu. Cao Cao was therefore overwhelmed and exhausted from dealing with one crisis after another.

But it was not as though there was no good news at all.

Zhong Yao of Guanzhong had written letters persuading Han Sui and Ma Teng to send hostages to Xudu and submit memorials acknowledging Cao Cao as their sovereign. They had also sent two thousand warhorses, helping him increase his cavalry by another two thousand men.

This held a certain strategic significance for Cao Cao. At the very least, while worrying about Yuan Shao, Liu Biao, and Sun Ce, he no longer needed to fear the warlords of Guanzhong joining the fray.

Still, his immediate priority remained dealing with the threats posed by Yuan Shao and Sun Ce. The temporary pacification of Guanzhong could only be considered better than nothing. In truth, the two thousand warhorses were far more valuable.

If the stabilization of Guanzhong and the arrival of two thousand warhorses could be considered merely modestly good news, then the other piece of news was cause for overwhelming joy.

In June, news reached Xudu that made Cao Cao so delighted that for several consecutive nights, he slept soundly and dreamed sweetly.

Sun Ce had been assassinated!

At the beginning of the previous month, Sun Ce had indeed gone hunting alone, just as Guo Jia had predicted. He was ambushed by retainers of Xu Gong. Although he did not die immediately, his wounds worsened after he returned, and he died not long afterward.

The forces of Sun Ce were thrown into panic.

Zhou Yu, Zhang Zhao, and the others immediately took measures. First, they kept the news of his death secret. Then they joined forces with the Four Generals of Jiangdong and other commanders and strategists loyal to the Sun clan to support nineteen-year-old Sun Quan. Before Sun Ce’s spirit tablet, Sun Quan formally inherited his position.

The news did not spread until the end of May. Jiangdong was shaken from one end to the other, and Sun Quan, newly enthroned, suddenly found himself beset by internal and external crises and confronted with enormous challenges.

Sun Ce had been able to pacify Jiangdong by using his ruthless nature to force countless minor warlords into submission.

But who was Sun Quan? Did he really think they would obey him?

As a result, those who refused to follow Sun Quan’s orders, those who carved out independent territories, and those who fled northward were too numerous to count.

The opposition came not only from outside forces in the various commanderies of Jiangdong, but also from within the Sun clan itself.

For example, the imperial kinsmen Sun Fu and Sun Gao were both Sun Jian’s nephews and Sun Quan’s cousins. Each harbored ambitions of rebellion and usurpation.

There was also Li Shu, the Administrator of Lujiang appointed by Sun Ce. While Sun Ce was alive, Li Shu had treated him with the utmost respect. The moment Sun Ce died, however, Li Shu began considering rebellion and separatism, virtually ignoring Sun Quan’s commands.

Thus, Jiangdong was now in utter chaos.

When Cao Cao learned the news, he laughed so hard that his teeth nearly fell out. He immediately transferred Li Tong from Yang’an to Xiping.

This meant he needed to defend himself only against Shen Chen and Zhang Xiu in Nanyang, without worrying any longer about Jiangdong advancing northward.

One had to admit that some people really did seem to be children favored by Heaven.

Many people said that Liu Xiu possessed unmatched fortune.

But Cao Cao was hardly lacking in luck himself.

He occupied the land of Yanzhou, a region beset by enemies on every side. Even after taking the Son of Heaven hostage and using his authority to command the feudal lords, Cao Cao had only become somewhat stronger.

On the eve of Guandu, his situation had become extremely precarious. Yuan Shao threatened him from the north, while Liu Biao and Sun Ce threatened him from the south.

Then, just as he was overwhelmed by troubles, the four commanderies of Jingnan rebelled, forcing Liu Biao to go south and suppress the uprising.

One of his three enemies had disappeared, and the pressure instantly fell.

Then, at the critical moment when Yuan Shao was marching south and Sun Ce was moving north, Sun Ce was assassinated. The game had suddenly shifted from nightmare difficulty to hard difficulty.

By the time of Guandu, although the fighting remained difficult, Xu You’s delivery of intelligence turned hard difficulty into easy mode.

Compared with Liu Bei, that perpetually unfortunate man, Cao Cao’s fortune was truly the stuff of destiny. It was scarcely inferior to Liu Xiu’s.

Yet while Cao Cao was rejoicing, the situation in the north was beginning to grow desperate.

By April, Yuan Shao’s main force had already reached Liyang. After Cao Cao slew Yan Liang and executed Wen Chou, withdrawing to Guandu, Yuan Shao’s main army crossed the Yellow River and launched an offensive along two routes.

One force crossed the river from Liyang, occupied Baima, Yan County, and Fengqiu, and stationed itself at Yangwu County north of Guandu, only forty or fifty kilometers away.

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The other force crossed the river from Huojia County in Henei Commandery—modern-day Xinxiang—under the command of the great general Han Meng. It marched south through Gushi toward Mount Jiluo, harassing Cao Cao’s rear.

Mount Jiluo lay north of Mixian, west of Guandu. Once the army moved south through Xinzheng, it would reach Yingchuan, posing an almost direct threat to the safety of Xudu.

When Cao Cao heard that Yuan Shao’s main force had reached Yangwu, he hurried north to Guandu to prepare for battle. At the same time, he ordered Cao Hong to atone for his past failures through meritorious service, leading part of the army north to Mount Jiluo to meet Han Meng’s flanking force.

Historically, this task had been carried out by Cao Ren. But Cao Ren was now dead, and Cao Cao had lost one of his most trusted aides. He could only give Cao Hong a chance to redeem himself through victory.

At the same time, Liu Bei crossed the Yellow River with Yuan Shao and arrived at the Guandu front.

In April, he had received from the men Shen Chen sent to him the advice that he should resign from Yuan Shao’s service, travel south, and seek an alliance with Liu Biao.

Thus, in May, Liu Bei formally explained his intentions to Yuan Shao. By June, he had arrived in Runan.

“Brother Shen!”

“Hmm!”

As Shen Changqing walked along the road, he exchanged greetings or nods with acquaintances whenever he encountered them.

But regardless of who they were, no one wore any unnecessary expression. They all seemed indifferent to everything around them.

Shen Changqing had long since grown accustomed to this.

This was because the place was the Demon Suppression Bureau, an institution responsible for maintaining the stability of the Great Qin. Its primary duty was to exterminate demons, monsters, and strange apparitions, though it also engaged in various auxiliary occupations.

It could be said that every person in the Demon Suppression Bureau had shed a great deal of blood.

Once a person had grown accustomed to life and death, many things naturally became distant and indifferent.

When Shen Changqing had first arrived in this world, he had found it difficult to adapt. But with time, he had gradually grown used to it.

The Demon Suppression Bureau was enormous.

Those who were able to remain there were all powerful experts, or people with the potential to become experts.

Shen Changqing belonged to the latter group.

The Demon Suppression Bureau was divided into two professions: Guardians and Demon Exterminators.

Everyone who entered the Demon Suppression Bureau began at the lowest level as a Demon Exterminator.

From there, they advanced step by step, ultimately gaining the opportunity to become a Guardian.

Shen Changqing’s predecessor had been a probationary Demon Exterminator within the Demon Suppression Bureau—the lowest rank among all Demon Exterminators.

Because he possessed his predecessor’s memories, he was extremely familiar with the environment of the Demon Suppression Bureau.

It did not take him long to stop before a certain pavilion.

Unlike the other places in the Demon Suppression Bureau, which were filled with an atmosphere of grim slaughter, this pavilion seemed to stand apart from the rest. Amid the bloodshed that permeated the bureau, it possessed an unusual tranquility.

The main doors of the pavilion stood open, and people occasionally entered and left.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Shen Changqing stepped inside.

The instant he entered the pavilion, the surroundings suddenly changed.

The fragrance of ink, mingled with a faint smell of blood, rushed toward him. His brows instinctively drew together, but quickly relaxed again.

The bloody scent clinging to everyone in the Demon Suppression Bureau was almost impossible to wash away completely.

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