Chapter 79: The Blood Robe (IV)

The fierce flames illuminated the night, with a waning moon in the sky as the city fell.
In the latter half of the night, the torrential rain had ceased.
Looking back at Jiuqu City, now submerged in water, Li Kuo felt a sharp pang in his heart.
Was my strategy too ruthless? Was this going too far?
Besides the Tubo soldiers, there must have been herders in the city too—what fault did they have?
No, no! If we hadn’t breached the dikes to flood the city, we could never have forced the Tubo chieftain to flee in panic. Without his flight, the Tubo troops from Chiling wouldn’t have come to reinforce him. Then it would be our Tang soldiers and common people who would suffer! If anyone is to be blamed, it’s them for being born into the wrong family—not me, Li Kuo, for being heartless.
His ethnicity determined his stance; there was nothing wrong with that!
Though he thought so, the young man still had a kind heart and felt deep guilt.
“Qilang, what’s wrong?”
Seeing Li Kuo’s gloomy expression, Aina rode closer and asked concerningly.
“Nothing, just a bit of a headache.”
Not wanting Aina to get involved too much, Li Kuo waved his hand to brush it off.
“Hmph! You must be hiding something from me!”
Seeing Li Kuo change the subject, Aina put aside her gentle demeanor and said, “Fine, if you won’t tell me, I’ll go back to the river mouth now and take these three thousand White Wolf warriors with me!”
This panicked Li Kuo. It didn’t matter to him if Aina left or not, but without those three thousand White Wolf warriors, it would indeed ruin everything.
“Fine, fine! I’ll tell you.”
With a bitter smile, Li Kuo hurriedly said, “I’m just worried because the whole city has turned into a swamp.”
“Pfft!”
Aina burst into laughter at his words. “I thought it was some serious matter—turns out it’s just this. You’re really too naive and kind-hearted!”
She paused briefly before adding, “Do you know how the Tubo treat other tribes that resist them? Not to mention those far away—take Tuyuhun for example. When Fusi City fell, the cruel Tubo soldiers rushed in, beheaded all the men, and turned women and children into slaves! Trying to argue morality with them is just laughable.”
“Oh! I see. You’re afraid the Tang court officials will use this to accuse you?”
Winking, Aina tapped her head. “It’s strange. Those civil officials of yours keep talking about righteousness and morality, but they don’t realize those nonsense things won’t work in battle. To capture a city, you still need swords.”

He never expected her to think that way. Li Kuo grew annoyed: “How others impeach me is their business; what I do is my own. Could I, Li Kuo, ignore thousands of my comrades just because I’m afraid of the impeachment from a few corrupt scholars?”
“That’s exactly what would happen. You really are an idiot!”
Aina rolled her eyes at him and said, “Who has time to care about all that on the battlefield? You’ve even read some military books. Do you know the God of War, Bai Qi? He killed four hundred thousand surrendered soldiers—no one complained about that, did they?” (Note 1)
“You know Bai Qi?”
Li Kuo stared at Aina in surprise, unable to believe his ears. If Aina had spoken nonsense, he could have understood, but her thorough knowledge of Central Plains history was truly astonishing.
“What’s there to be so surprised about?”
Aina smirked and said, “Suyas told me all this. Not only Bai Qi, but also other generals—anyone who’s famous—I know a bit about them. That kid is quite learned, actually.”
Seeing Li Kuo’s pale face, Aina realized that Suyas had once tried to assassinate him. She stuck out her tongue and stopped talking.
Strangely enough, what grudge did that kid have with Shichiro? Ever since that night, he disappeared suddenly, not even leaving behind his leather coat!
Though her words were harsh, Li Kuo didn’t want to argue with a little girl. He waved his hand to tell her to continue.
“So, on the battlefield, only the strong survive.”
Coming from a nomadic tribe, Aina had been instilled with many masculine ideas since childhood—winner takes all, loser suffers; it’s an unchanging truth.
Losers have no right to complain; they can only blame their own lack of strength.
“Maybe so.”
The young man sighed and waved his whip.
“Hey, wait for me!”
“Gallop!”
Slapping the horse’s rump hard, Aina hurried after him.
“Once we cross this ridge, we’ll be in Shuanglong Valley!”
Tubo held the reins in one hand and waved his torch to guide Li Kuo.
“Hmm, tell the men to speed up. We must reach the valley before the Tibetans.”
Li Kuo nodded and said loudly, “General, we’re only about five thousand strong. How can we defend both passes?”
Dou Qing leaned closer to his horse and voiced his concerns.
Li Sheng replied, “We don’t need to defend both passes at all. As the military strategy says, defend one of the two paths while keeping the other open. As long as we lay an ambush at the junction of the two roads, the Tibetans won’t be able to escape Shuanglong Valley alive.”

Tuoba glanced at Li Sheng with approval and said, “This general is right. Although Shuanglong Valley has two paths, they converge at one point in the middle. As long as we deploy heavy troops there, no matter which path the Tubo people choose, they will be ambushed by our army.”
“In that case, let the Tubo Zanpu never return!”
Zhang Yanji felt filled with enthusiasm. Initially, their task was merely to force the Tubo army to send reinforcements, but who would have thought they now had the chance to capture the Tubo Zanpu alive! If they could indeed capture such a valuable prisoner, it would be worth more than countless soldiers—they could decide how much land to take and how much ransom to demand!
Unaware of his friend’s selfish plans, Li Kuo nodded and said, “It would be best if we could capture the Tubo Zanpu, but we must be careful not to alert them.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and the atmosphere in the army was very harmonious.
“General Li, General Li!”
Xianyu Yu Cheng rode a reddish-brown steed at full speed from afar. When he got closer, the young man dismounted, knelt on one knee, and reported, “General, scouts have spotted a large Tubo army thirty li behind us!”
“Pass my orders: everyone must move at full speed and reach Shuanglong Valley within half an hour!”
Li Kuo gripped the reins tightly and gave a firm order.
Note 1: During the Battle of Changping, Qin general Bai Qi set up an ambush to surround Zhao Kuo’s army and cut off their supply lines. King Zhaoxiang personally went to Henei and mobilized all able-bodied men to assist in the battle at Changping. The Zhao army was trapped for 46 days, ran out of food, and tried to break through desperately. Zhao Kuo was shot dead, and Bai Qi captured over 400,000 Zhao soldiers. Believing the Zhao soldiers to be disloyal, Bai Qi executed them at night, leading to the decline of the Zhao state.