Chapter Seventy-Two: No Turning Back

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Songcheng in Suiyang Commandery, Henan Circuit—what kind of place was this?

Kong Sheng knew very well. Songcheng was the administrative center of Suiyang Commandery, which was to say, it was Suiyang City itself. In times of peace, Suiyang was one of the most prosperous regions in the Central Plains. Yet now, with An Lushan’s rebellion ablaze, Suiyang had become a fiercely contested strategic stronghold, the very heart of the conflagration. To seize Suiyang, the Yan army had launched dozens of assaults, amassing great forces and squandering unfathomable sums of money and supplies.

By Kong Sheng’s reckoning, most of Suiyang was now under the control of An’s forces, with only Jia Ben, Zhang Xun, and a handful of others stubbornly holding out in Yongqiu.

Jia Ben was the son of Jia Xuan, governor of Langzhou—a typical scion of officialdom, but a man of unyielding loyalty and valor, skilled in horsemanship and archery. At the outbreak of rebellion, he had led his troops to suppress the traitors. Zhang Xun, meanwhile, was even more illustrious in history. In the late Kaiyuan era, Zhang Xun had passed the civil service exam, serving as Attendant Gentleman to the Crown Prince and as magistrate in various counties. When the An-Shi Rebellion erupted, he raised troops to defend Yongqiu against the rebels. In the end, both men would lay down their lives in defense of the nation.

The following year, after An Lushan’s death, his son An Qingxu would gather a force of a hundred thousand to mount a massive assault on Suiyang. Zhang Xun and the others would abandon Yongqiu and fall back to Suiyang to make their final stand.

Kong Sheng’s brow furrowed, as he traced the subtle threads of history and its critical moments: it was late November now—Zhang Xun was likely still at Yongqiu, fending off the rebel general Linghu Chao.

Almost simultaneously, the Yan army had overrun Lu Commandery and Dongping in succession. Gao Chengyi, the governor of Jiyin, had surrendered his territory to the rebels. Prince Guo, Li Ju, was holding Pengcheng, retreating to Linhuai with his troops, while the traitor Yang Chaozong led twenty thousand infantry and cavalry to seize Ningling, attempting to cut off Zhang Xun’s retreat. Thus, Zhang Xun abandoned Yongqiu, led three hundred horses and over three thousand men eastward to defend Ningling, where he joined forces with Xu Yuan, prefect of Suiyang, and Yao Yin, magistrate of Chengfu. In this way, the grand curtain on the defense of Suiyang was slowly drawn open.

From that day forward, Zhang Xun and his fellows grimly held Suiyang, fighting over four hundred battles, beheading hundreds of enemy commanders, and killing more than twenty thousand enemy soldiers. Yet, in the end, their supplies ran dry, the city fell, and its defenders met death with unwavering resolve.

Starting from this moment, if Kong Sheng were to leave Jiangnan at once and travel to Suiyang to assume his post, it would be tantamount to a moth flying into a blazing fire—he would arrive just as An Lushan was killed, the situation in turmoil, and An Qingxu poised to descend with fury upon Suiyang. With the great battle imminent, what else could it be but courting certain death?

This was far beyond what Kong Sheng had anticipated. He had only hoped for a minor post at the grassroots, to quietly build his strength and climb upward step by step. Never did he expect that Li Heng’s fledgling imperial court would assign him to Suiyang!

What should he do?

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To refuse the appointment would be outright insubordination, a stain upon his name, marking him as a cowardly traitor to be denounced by all, leaving him no refuge in the world. Even if he sought shelter in the remote mountains where Sima Chengzhen lived in seclusion, the fiery-tempered Atai would surely drive him away.

A bitter smile flickered at the corner of Kong Sheng’s mouth. It was not death he feared, but rather the abrupt plunge into the eye of a future storm, knowing full well the fate that awaited him and struggling, for a moment, to accept it.

After a time, he slammed his palm on the table and rose with resolve. He had never been one to hesitate or waver, and there was a measure of pride and courage in his character.

Since there was no retreat, the only way was forward!

To strive for the impossible, to face fire and water for the sake of righteousness—this was the true calling of a man!

Those like Zhang Xun had held Suiyang with utter disregard for life and death, defending a single city to preserve the realm, pitting a few thousand exhausted soldiers against an army of hundreds of thousands, all for the sake of a single word: duty. Their aim was to safeguard the Jianghuai region, to stem the tide of chaos. That the country did not fall entirely, that millions of common folk were spared massacre, was due in no small part to Zhang Xun’s heroism.

Fate must be changed! This was his true calling!

Destiny must be seized firmly in his own hands—his fate belonged to him, not to Heaven!

Kong Sheng’s spirit surged. Unaware of when he’d leapt from his bed, he strode to the door. At his waist, the battered “Sword of Vanquishing” seemed to sense its master’s swelling passion and indomitable will, ringing sharply as it sprang from its scabbard, its blade gleaming fiercely.

Down on the street, the crowd had gathered beneath the inn, gazing up at the young man standing by the second-floor railing. His blue robe fluttered in the cold wind, sleeves billowing. He stood tall, body leaning slightly forward, arms at his sides, eyes fixed steadily ahead, as if ready to soar away on the wind.

No one understood or could fathom Kong Sheng’s state of mind at this moment. Outsiders believed that, as an imperial scholar with an official post, a life of glory lay within his grasp. They had no inkling that the place he was to report to was rife with peril, a mire of traps at every turn.

Owing to the war’s disruption of travel and information, hardly anyone—Yang Qi included—truly knew what was happening in Suiyang. People in Jiangnan merely heard that Henan was in turmoil, but had not the faintest notion of just how dire the situation had become.

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Dressed in white, Mu Changfeng ascended the stairs at a measured pace. When he arrived, Kong Sheng caught his approach out of the corner of his eye, his expression calm and remote.

“At this moment, I don’t know whether I should congratulate you, sir, or feel anxious for you,” Mu Changfeng said, a faint tremor in his voice. “Truly, I did not expect this—”

Though Mu Changfeng lived quietly in Jiangning, as a man of the martial world he had his own secret channels for exchanging news with the Central Plains. He had a general idea of Suiyang’s dire predicament.

Kong Sheng’s gaze sharpened. Turning slowly, he replied coolly, “Why do you say this, Brother Mu?”

Mu Changfeng smiled slightly. “Perhaps you do not yet know, but Henan Circuit is wracked by flames of war, and Suiyang is the very heart of the chaos. From what I hear, the Yan army is strong and well-equipped, gradually encircling Suiyang. Only a few imperial troops still cling to life there—the fall of the city is but a matter of days. The position you’ve received, magistrate of Songcheng, is little more than an empty title, a pie drawn on paper, without any real substance.”

“My advice is to give it up. In a land torn by war, the people are destitute and the authorities powerless. Even if you go to Henan, it will do no good.”

Mu Changfeng clasped his hands together, speaking with genuine concern.

During their recent acquaintance, Mu Changfeng had come to believe that Kong Sheng was a man of great ambition, concealing both literary and martial talent. Such a man was no ordinary figure. He could not bear to see a promising youth leap blindly into a pit of fire, and so had come to urge him to reconsider.

But what he did not know was that Kong Sheng understood Henan’s situation, and the course of the war, far better than he did. His grasp of the greater tides of the realm was beyond what any man of the martial world could fathom. At this moment, whether for the long term or the short, Kong Sheng had already made up his mind to go to his post.

The currents of history were as clear as daylight in his mind; the great wheel of the age rumbled forward, unstoppable by mere mortals. Yet as a singular anomaly in this era, Kong Sheng was convinced that a butterfly’s gentle flutter could set off a chain of consequences. Even if he could not alter history’s flow, he could still, with deft maneuvering, create a new chapter uniquely his own.