The scout collapsed onto the thick felt blanket, his body reeking with a pungent smell of burning.
The moment those four words left his mouth, the scout suddenly slumped forward, going limp on the ground without any further movement.
The smell was unpleasant, far stronger than the stench of raw meat thrown into a charcoal brazier and left to overcook.
No one spoke inside the tent; you could hear a pin drop.
Outside, the night wind howled as it tore at the flagpole of the central command tent, the cowhide roof flapping noisily in the gusts.
After a long silence, over a dozen chiliarchs and myriad commanders sprang up from their stools as if their backsides had caught fire.
"The grain supply line has been compromised? The Baiyin Grasslands have hundreds of heavy guards stationed there—how did this happen?" Bayaer’s eyes bulged as he pointed his riding crop at the dead body on the ground.
Another chiliarch, his face pale, stamped his foot repeatedly. "My tribe is camped thirty li east of the grasslands by the marsh pool. If this fire really spreads, where will the womenfolk and children in our camp go to hide?"
"Stop arguing! Call the army doctor right now to see if he's still alive or dead, and find out exactly what happened!"
Voices mixed together—some shouting at the top of their lungs, others using the chaos as an excuse to slink back, watching the commotion with cold eyes from the sidelines.
Ashina Dubi sat on the wolf-fur throne at the center, his calloused hand tucked inside his sleeve, thumb slowly rolling a set of bone prayer beads, betraying no sign of concern despite the scene before him.
The arguing below grew more reckless, with a few hotheaded men on the verge of drawing their blades. Finally, Ashina Dubi raised his eyelids and swept his gaze across the crowd.
"Bring me the grain registry."
One quiet remark froze all the chattering officers in their tracks. The quartermaster, his hands trembling like a sieve, raised the thick sheepskin ledger above his head from his chest. Ashina Dubi didn't reach for it; he ordered the man to read it aloud on the spot.
The quartermaster swallowed his saliva, flipped open the pages, and recited stiffly.
"If the Baiyin Grasslands supply remains intact, the provisions can feed a hundred thousand troops for twenty days. If it's all destroyed, what's left in camp—rice, wheat, dried meat, plus scattered rations from various units—divided among the divisions, will barely cover four days."
Four days.
When that number was announced, the men standing below exchanged glances, none of them making a sound.
After four days without food, the prairie cavalry would have to survive by slaughtering their warhorses.
Once the horses were gone, the great army would turn into armed beggars. Forget breaching the pass or raiding for supplies—they wouldn't even make it back to the royal court without leaving their bones in the wilderness.
Chen Changfeng stood by the corner of the command table.
With the situation about to collapse, someone had to speak up, so he raised his voice against several hostile looks.
"Gentlemen, don't panic. The Baiyin Grasslands are surrounded by steep cliffs, with only two passes to the north and south, heavily guarded at all times. Ordinary scouts couldn't even get close. Whoever pinpointed the exact time of the guard shifts and struck straight into the heart of the grasslands must be well-prepared elite forces."
He swept his gaze around and raised his tone. "That One-Armed General Xu Zhan from Zhenbei Pass has a hand-picked raiding cavalry. The man acts without any rules—only he would dare take such a risk, leading a force around a thousand li to strike our grain depot."
These words sounded steady enough, but they had no real substance.
Bayaer sneered immediately.
"Advisor, you can fool three-year-olds with that nonsense. Our roving sentries have been watching every gate of Zhenbei Pass around the clock. Over the past two days, Xu Zhan was hanging around the city walls facing off against us. How could he perform some magical split to reach the grasslands hundreds of li away and torch the supply? He commands soldiers, not divine spirits!"
Chen Changfeng was at a loss, the words stuck in his throat before he could respond.
He paused for a long moment, then added stiffly, "Perhaps troops from other border commands were secretly mobilized..."
Ashina Dubi ignored Chen Changfeng's forced explanation. He stood up, strode to the charred corpse, and used the toe of his boot to flip the corner of the scout's remaining clothing.
"This wasn't from arrows or horsemanship—it was fire." Ashina Dubi's tone was flat. "The burns on the scout's body came from an unusual kind of grease. The medic just checked: even dousing the flames with water didn't stop them—the fire only went out after burning through flesh and bone."
He straightened up, fixing his gaze on Chen Changfeng. "Advisor, among those southern Great Qian soldiers, what weapon can produce this kind of demon fire?"
One of the officers picked up the thread, his voice low but audible throughout the tent. "The Great Qian's incendiary grenades."
Everyone else fell silent. During yesterday's assault, the Great Qian hadn't dropped a single spark from the walls—they only used rolling logs and boulders.
They had assumed the Great Qian lacked incendiary weapons, never imagining they hadn't wasted any on city defense but instead unloaded them all on the Baiyin Grasslands.
If such a terrifying weapon had indeed detonated inside the grain depot, not only would the supplies be destroyed—even the stone would burn to ash.
Chen Changfeng's face finally lost its composure, pale one moment, flushed the next. Yesterday, he had confidently announced that the new walls of Zhenbei Pass were shoddy work built on embezzlement, only to have the army throw over a thousand lives at them without even scratching the plaster. Today, his deduction that Xu Zhan had split his forces was promptly torn apart by Bayaer.
From somewhere in the crowd, a sharp voice muttered, "Looks like the advisor's calculations might be off again, am I right?"
No one came out to argue, and no one spoke up to rebuke the remark. Chen Changfeng stood by the brazier, silent, thinking to himself: These barbarians truly are barbarians!
Ashina Dubi walked back to the table, lifted the tent flap, and looked outside.
By the campfire at the gate, clusters of soldiers huddled together, whispering among themselves. Several centurions with whips were trying to restore order, the firelight revealing faces filled with unease. The news had leaked too fast—the word that the grain supply was cut could no longer be contained.
These men of the grasslands weren't afraid of death; they were afraid of having no food.
He dropped the flap and turned to Chen Changfeng.
"Who set the fire and how it was set can wait. But you give me a plan: with no grain, how do we fight this battle?"
This was a real and pressing deadlock; smooth talk was useless.
Chen Changfeng walked to the center of the tent, clasped his hands, and laid out the situation.
"First, a direct assault is out of the question. That new wall in the south is cursed—our days of relentless attacks have gained nothing. Four days' worth of rations won't outlast the Zhenbei Pass defenses, and we'll just lose all our men beneath the walls."
"Second, sending troops out to plunder far and wide won't work either," he continued. "The Great Qian forces cleared the area five li outside the city a few days ago—filling wells with sand, burning buildings. We can't scavenge even a single grain of last winter's millet."
"Third, we can request food supplies from the Right Luli King. The Right Tribal Court is at least six days' travel from here. That's too far to help with what we need now, and who knows whether Ashina Gudu will be willing to hand over his rations. He'd be delighted to see us bleed our strength here."
"Fourth..." Chen Changfeng abruptly fell silent, leaving the word hanging.
Before he could finish, Bayaer stepped forward and tore through that final unspoken point with his shouting voice.
"Besides retreating, what else can we do! But if we pull back, where does that leave the honor of our central army? Those minor tribes and vassal chieftains who look obedient now? Their good behavior depends on the speed of our blades. When we fail to take the pass and lose our granary, crawling back to the grasslands empty-handed—they'll hatch other ideas, for sure! After this, leading the troops home won't be easy!"
Military retreat came at the cost of utter disgrace. That was the law of the steppe. A defeated alpha wolf could only be devoured by the pack. Bayaer's words were harsh, but they struck Ashina Dubi's deepest sore.
Ashina Dubi did not flare up. He simply stared at Bayaer.
There were no knives in that gaze, yet it forced the rough man to lower his head on his own accord.
"Pass the king's order," Ashina Dubi said as he sat back down, his tone flat and steady. "Strike camp. Retreat thirty li and pitch tents along the northern slope. Take every piece of supplies we can carry. Butcher the sick horses and make jerky."
He then pointed to the scribe at his desk: "Unroll the paper. I will dictate personally. Send it by eight-hundred-li urgent relay to the khan's court."
The scribe hurriedly ground ink and spread out a sheepskin scroll. Ashina Dubi spoke each word clearly.
"The Baiyin Grasslands have changed. Grain stores are completely destroyed. The central army has no reserves left and risks annihilation in the field. We have temporarily withdrawn to the northern slope to consolidate our forces. I await the khan's and the Right Luli King's decision."
He made no excuses about bad weather, did not blame the strategist for poor planning, and certainly did not throw his men under the cart. He laid out the facts plainly, without a shred of falsehood. Near the end, he paused for a moment and added a final sentence.
"In this Battle of Zhenbei, the troops did not shirk from combat. The enemy employed cunning tactics, and our retreat route was completely cut off. The fault lies with me alone, not with the three armies."
When he said this, the thousand-man commanders in the tent knelt as one.
Bayaer even cast his helmet aside and knocked his head heavily against the ground.
For the commander of an army to shoulder all the blame for defeat himself—such was the magnanimity that could steady the present chaos.
Ashina Dubi had lost face, but he had secured the loyalty of a hundred thousand soldiers. Reputation could be mended once shattered, but if the army was lost, he would truly be alone.
The council in the grand tent disbanded. The wind gradually died, and the clouds hung low in the sky, threatening snow.
Chen Changfeng stood alone outside the camp gate. His long robe fluttered in the cold wind.
He gazed southward at the scattered fires of Zhenbei Pass, his mind churning with turmoil.
Who had struck at Baiyin Grasslands?
Xu Zhan's forces had not moved, and the rest of the Great Gan border troops were all holding fast within the city.
Several hundred men, carrying firearms, had slipped silently into the heart of the great steppe without a whisper of warning.
Such maneuvering was not the style of the Great Gan regular army.
He replayed in his mind that strange concrete wall, then moved back to Baiyin Grasslands.
The fire-thunder bombs were Xu Qinghuan's creation, and the intelligence on the troop rotation had come from Great Gan spies.
Could it be that this woman had eyes and ears everywhere, that she had nurtured some shadowy bandit force on the steppe?
Or had she bribed the broken tribes like the Wanggu and the Tatars? Or even the utterly extinct Qiyan people?
The thought had barely surfaced before Chen Changfeng shook his head, dismissing it.
The steppe people valued bloodline above all else. For a Great Gan native to pull together steppe tribes in just a few months and have them fight the Left Luli King—that was harder than reaching heaven.
Those destitute men, given swords and salt, would only go after cattle and sheep—how could they risk their lives for such a desperate venture?
Such a thing could not possibly be accomplished...
