The Demon Lords

Lord Pingye returned to his Snow Sea Pass, returned to his soldiers and civilians, and the army and people cheered;

The princess who came back with him, although she sat in the carriage and did not show her face when entering the city, the descriptions about the princess had already spread far and wide among the troops and commoners of Snow Sea Pass.

A princess—what a noble existence. And unlike the princesses of the Yu clan in Jin land: the bloodline of Emperor Jin has declined, causing the women of the imperial clan to have long since lost their worth. Princesses were still a little better off; back then, princesses of the Yu clan could still be married off to sons of the three great families—though of course, they could never marry the legitimate main-line sons.

As for the titled ladies below princess—such as the imperial ladies and county ladies of the Yu clan—their families often lived very hard lives: hard in that they had to maintain the dignity befitting the imperial clan on the one hand, while on the other facing the hardships of daily living, so they were in quite an embarrassing predicament.

This directly led to many collateral branches of the Yu imperial clan—various Prince’s Mansions, various Duke’s Mansions, various Lord’s Mansions and so on—openly putting price tags and stated betrothal gifts on the marriageable girls in their clans to "sell" them outside.

At that time, even the gentry and merchants of Jin land, as long as they had enough silver, could marry a royal daughter from those so‑called "noble houses" in the capital city to raise their own family’s status and let themselves bask in a bit of noble aura.

Anything that can be bought with silver has a fixed price, and once a price is set, the aura around her naturally fades. This directly resulted in the people of Jin land, over these more than sixty years, long since losing any feeling of awe for these so‑called noble ladies.

But on this day, regarding their own Lord bringing a Chu princess back, the faces of the army and people at Snow Sea Pass were all filled with proud smiles, sharing in the glory.

"So, even if a woman marries out and follows her husband, if she wants to live with dignity, she still has to rely on her maiden family to back her up."

Zuo Jiqian sat by the window of the restaurant, looking down at the crowd below, and sighed these words.

Clearly she had defected and come out, but precisely because Chu was still Chu, her status and rank were preserved all the same.

In this sigh, Zuo Jiqian also felt a sense of grief for himself. Back then, the Zuo Family was also a prestigious noble clan, and he himself had once knelt side by side with Lord Zheng in front of Lord Jingnan.

At that time, he and Lord Zheng were equals; in fact, he faintly surpassed him. They were both Commanders, but he was clearly the one with boundless prospects.

It was just that fate toys with people,

a single "horses trampling the great clans" campaign,

and he, Zuo Jiqian, was cast straight down into becoming a prisoner, demoted directly from Commander to prisoner soldier, locked in a cage like livestock, with a tag stuck on him waiting to be sold;

He did not even sell well, because no other Commander was willing to take him, fearing he was a faultfinder, and he had a whole group of Zuo clansmen around him. Whoever accepted him would be taking in a little faction.

In the end, it was Lord Zheng who had the appetite and took him.

After turning round and round through these years,

from several southern expeditions against Qian State, then to the capital city of Jin State, then to Shengle, and now Snow Sea Pass, Zuo Jiqian had witnessed Lord Zheng’s rise.

The feeling of jealousy had long since disappeared.

When someone is doing just a little better than you, you will be jealous of him; but when that person is already in the heavens while you are still on the ground, you can only look up to him.

Drinking today, with these few days of sticky, lingering rainy season for accompaniment, Zuo Jiqian couldn’t help feeling somewhat melancholy.

Jin Shuke narrowed his eyes and said, "Old Zuo, we’re men of war; what’s the use of getting all sour like this? All this bustle today is nothing more than because our Lord brought a princess back, and every shop in Snow Sea Pass has put on limited‑time discounts to celebrate together with the people, that’s all."

Zuo Jiqian smiled and no longer continued to brood.

At the table sat not only Jin Shuke and Zuo Jiqian, but four others.

One was Gao Yi, the commander of a thousand cavalry, who had been sent as a gift by Lord Jingnan back in Shengle;

One was Ding Hao, who had followed Lord Zheng from the very beginning; the remaining two were Keyan Dongge and Hsu Youcheng.

During the months when Zheng Fan was in Chu, the blind man and Liang Cheng reorganized and adjusted the military and civil system at Snow Sea Pass, with the aim still being to tailor things to local conditions and to meet the needs of Snow Sea Pass’s future development.

Five men formed a squad; ten men formed a file; a hundred men had a Centurion; above that, three hundred‑man units formed a standard.

Five standards formed a battalion; above that was a town‑level command.

Jin Shuke, as Brigadier General, commanded the Second Town, with three battalions of troops under him.

Keyan Dongge, as Brigadier General, commanded the Third Town, with three battalions of troops under him.

Jin Shuke and Keyan Dongge were both Barbarians, and the Keyan Division was the one force that had recently provided Snow Sea Pass with the greatest amount of tribal fighting strength. Together with the Barbarian troops originally under Zheng Fan, the majority of them had been divided between these two men.

Jin Shuke was one of their own; they needed him, as a fellow Barbarian, to suppress Keyan Dongge’s influence within the Keyan Division.

Ding Hao, as Vice General, commanded the Fourth Town, with two battalions under him, responsible for the city defense of Snow Sea Pass. Ding Hao had once been Lord Zheng’s instructor and was among the earliest batch of old hands to join. With him in charge of Snow Sea Pass’s city defenses, everyone could be at ease.

Zuo Jiqian, as Brigadier General, commanded the Fifth Town, with two battalions under him; his command was mainly composed of the early Yan prisoner soldiers and the Yan people absorbed later.

Hsu Youcheng, as Vice General, commanded the Sixth Town, with three battalions under him; his command was mainly composed of Jin people soldiers.

Gao Yi, as Brigadier General, commanded the Seventh Town, with one battalion under him; this battalion was entirely made up of elites, the personal guard of Lord Pingye.

The First Town was vacant and not yet established; the various generals guessed that it had been reserved for the Lord.

Only, Snow Sea Pass currently had just this many fighting men. If they were to separately form an even more elite First Town and draw elite troops out of the other six towns to fill it up, then the frameworks of those six towns could no longer be properly set up, so the First Town was left blank for the time being.