Princess Agents novel translation, Chapters 128 - 138 Synopsis

Intro to Yan Bei and the Northern Expedition War

Chapters 128 - 138 Synopsis:  or, how one girl stands alone

Chu Qiao introduces modern military tactics to Yan Bei with no small degree of resentment from the older generals who have served this land for much longer, and the younger chauvinist leaders of DaTong.  Yan Xun has one sister still living, who gives a horse "A-Tu" to Chu Qiao.  Yan Bei conspires with Huai-Song against DaXia and Bian Tang and Chu Qiao reluctantly agrees to go along with it.  Yan Xun is victorious in a melee at the Melin Pass and boosts the morale of his people.

We get some insight into Zhuge Yue's family, and how he was not such a little twerp as everyone first thought.  He had shown pity to an orphaned relative not of the main line back when he was ten years old and they were very close at one point.   She comes to check on him after he's been placed on house arrest by his family.   Mrs. He Lian was adopted into the Zhuge House unofficially and lived under the protection of Zhuge Yue for three years of her young life, and eventually married at age 15 to a prominent branch of this family.  Zhuge Yue, offers to have Yue Qi make some arrangements for her (TN: it seems she is now widowed).

She recalls a younger Zhuge Yue, who had maintained a prominent position in the household despite the fact his mother had died early and despite jealousies of his brothers.  Zhuge Yue was as ruthless as the others, if not more so, doing things to show his position in the family, and he could not tolerate any betrayal.  In the end, Mrs. He Lian had also betrayed him, marrying into a prominent branch of the family to secure her position and leaving him behind in the lonely QingShan Pavilion.  She wants to revert back to how they were before but Zhuge Yue is no longer affected by her and dismisses her.

Instead he seeks out information of the north from Yue Qi.  The situation for Yan Bei is tense, the people are starving and rioting and their soldiers are too young and inexperienced.  Bei Shuo City is surrounded by enemies.  The situation is ripe for DaXia to attack.  Chu Qiao is in Bei Shuo, which causes Zhuge Yue great concern.  Yue Qi offers to have their spies retrieve her but Zhuge Yue dismisses the idea, saying he's in no position to do anything, and that Yue Qi should mind his own business. When Yue Qi apologizes, Zhuge Yue corrects him and says that comment was about his cousin Mrs. He Lian, not Chu Qiao. ^_^

Yue Qi notices that Zhuge Yue had been painting the scene of a prosperous street, with a girl on a horse looking back nostalgically.  In her hands was a rabbit lantern.  Yue Qi knows exactly who it is, and knows his master had been in love with her ever since then.  Zhuge Yue orders the servants to take down a painting hanging over his bed of an eleven year old smiling girl in a yellow shirt and green dress and gifts it to a servant.  It had been hanging there for over a decade.  (TN: I think this was Mrs. HeLian when she was young)

He goes over to his map and contemplates that it isn't Bei Shuo but ChiYuan port that is of greater importance and predicts that is where DaXia will strike.  

The generals in Yan Bei also come to the same conclusion.  Because of their frequent wins against the princes Zhao, they have become overconfident.  They want to charge directly into the imperial city, something Chu Qiao strongly argues against.  She urges the generals not to take prince Zhao Qi, who is cautious and has studied the art of war, for a fool.  She suspects they have been going through the Changyin Mountain pass to execute a pincer move while distracting Yan Bei's forces with small skirmishes.  The generals all leave in a huff at her suggestions and she contemplates whether she would assassinate them all if she had an automatic assault rifle in her hands right now.  (TN: Don't play with guns, kids)

She assesses the present army, newly minted soldiers and former serfs who were as young as ten.  She saw how the local official Cao Menteng had amassed power in Bei Shuo once Yan Xun was gone, and the city was now filled with people again.  The younger children in the city see Chu Qiao as a heroine who stands up for the people, and give her the title "Excellency."  Chu Qiao doesn't have the heart to be their hero since she knows many will be killed in battle.

She exchanges words with Xue ZiYuan, gloating at her being snubbed by the generals.  At this point she'd had enough of the DaTong Association members, but he asks if Yan Xun will abandon them.  Chu Qiao didn't want to believe it, but understands that Yan Xun had left Bei Shuo essentially undefended, taking his main force to MeiLin Pass, and both the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Second Army were no longer there.  She suspects that Yan Xun wanted to attack DaXia in revenge, abandoning the defenses of his people.  Xu ZiYuan said that minister Cao was shrewd enough to amass his own forces here, and the Second Army would not suffer many losses, and civilians were expendable.  Chu Qiao argues in Yan Xun's defense saying that he is not after the power hegemony.  Xue ZiYuan predicts she will be called away to the Blue City to avoid the carnage of Bei Shuo.

Then, Chu Qiao gets word that the caravan accompanied by her troops escorting her sisters to Yan Bei was attacked and the culprits made a demand to see Chu Qiao, adding they had no ill intent and that she would understand if she met them.  As she is about to meet them, her group of 500 men are overwhelmed by a large force of DaXia cavalry stragglers who had been hiding out since Yan Bei liberated itself.  Xue ZiYuan falls.

She meets up with the bandits who wanted to meet her and finds it was He Xiao and the Southwestern garrison forces previously abandoned by Yan Xun in the imperial city. They dared not return without Chu Qiao's backing.  He apologizes for the deception but she recognizes him as a comrade in arms, and dismisses it.  He Xiao's men quickly come to greet her, saying they missed her dearly and that they were going to rush into Bian Tang when they heard she was in trouble.  She welcomes them home and explains Yan Bei's predicament and calls upon their help.  They swear allegiance to her.  Here, the one they would one day call Xiuli Wang (The Beautiful Monarch) establishes her first army under the banner of the red cloud, not knowing that this banner would fly to edges of the map and they would change the history of the land forever.

Back in Bei Shuo City, the generals huddle together for a plan without Chu Qiao or Xue ZiYuan.  Cao MengTeng decided to use this battle as his first foothold to power and alerts the city they will fight.  General Cheng Yuan of XiCheng had received advanced notice from Xue ZiYuan of the threat and so was able to repel the DaXia forces.  He declines to open the gate to allow civilians inside.  He also refuses to open his gates to Chu Qiao and unleashes a rain of arrows on her and her army.  Her soldiers sacrifice themselves to protect her, and Chu Qiao solidifies her bond with this army that was once labeled as traitors and turncoats.  She demands to see the person in charge.  Cheng Yuan realizes his error.  When Xue ZiYuan wakes up from his wounded slumber he immediately demands they open the gate for her.  Cheng Yuan instead wants to ambush her.  Xue ZiYuan runs to the top of the tower to warn her, but he is shot through with arrows causing chaos and mistrust both inside and outside the city.  Chu Qiao withdraws, vowing to report his actions.

Chu Qiao and her band of 7,000 stand in a blizzard near HeLan Pass waiting for DaXia to arrive, still about 20 miles away.  She is wondering if DaXia is  to take ChiDu City to take control of ChiYuan Port.  Unfortunately she carries nothing of her authority and so is unable to have the city officials take any action.  She waits to see that the main DaXia force has crossed the HeLan Pass to take ChiYuan Port first.  Finally the gates of ChiDu open for them, and Chu Qiao takes her forces to defend the ill-equipped city. When the city elders threaten to punish her for her insolence she drags the head minister to the battlement to show him and the city leaders the forces waiting for them outside.  She tells them if they're still alive after this, she will accept their punishment.  She rallies the people inside the city saying Yan Xun will not abandon them, the Blue City will come to their aid, and they just have to hold on.  In truth Chu Qiao knows they will not receive any reinforcements.

She rallies the honor of her own troops asking them to fight and prove that they are not traitors.  Though they may not live to see the next harvest, the people will give thanks to them regardless.  Chu Qiao utilizes the city blacksmiths to make more modern weapons, including trebuchets, as well as traps for the assaulting DaXia forces led by Prince Zhao Yang.  Her weapons have heavier loads, more power and wider range.  In terms of numbers, they were still outmatched 20 to 1.  After taking out 30,000 of them, she introduced exploding ice bombs and burning fields of oil into the mix, and the DaXia forces were forced to retreat.

Chu Qiao knows that the victory will be short lived and understands her enemy will simply adjust.  When she received a missive delivered by four men from Yan Xun's assistant, Miss Yu, she was only told to go to Blue City.  Her escort proved to be kidnappers.  She defeated them and they were immediately subdued by her 30 or so personal guard left behind by Yan Xun.  There, her personal guard turned on her and Chu Qiao was bound, blindfolded and kidnapped.  Miss Yu reveals herself as the instigator of this plot, knowing Chu Qiao would not come willingly.  Despite Chu Qiao's protests to protect the people of Yan Bei, Miss Yu reveals that Yan Xun is willing to sacrifice them all.  Yan Xun effectively emptied out his forces from his territories, with the exception of General Cao, and Miss Yu was ordered to take Chu Qiao away.  Yan Xun was not even defending the MeiLin Pass.  Chu Qiao loses her faith in Yan Xun when she realizes he intends to storm the the imperial city using his own country as bait.

Without consulting her, Yan Xun's ambition no longer lay in Yan Bei but in the throne, and he painstakingly and impressively planned each and every move.  When Miss Yu asks if Chu Qiao remembered telling her when they first met that she hoped Yan Bei would no longer have orphans like her, Chu Qiao coldly responds that's because they will all die under this scheme.  When Miss Yu responds that there must be a price for their freedom Chu Qiao argues that their freedom and riches will be paid for with the lives of the Yan Bei people.  She tells Miss Yu that she is no longer worthy of admiration from the common folk if she's going to abandon them.  Chu Qiao puts a knife to her own throat and delivers a message to Yan Xun that she will be waiting for him.

Without her, her army and the militia fight bravely to defend the city, using themselves as weapons in sacrificial fashion.  Each of them have words of admiration for her before they die.  When she finally makes it back, her presence is an immediate morale booster for the army who again successfully repel the DaXia assault.  They suffered terrible losses however, and the weight of the situation would have brought her down but for the fact that everyone was counting on her to stay strong.  She watches a young man die on the side of the road and recalls the time when Yan Xun told her of Yan Bei for the first time; it was a wonderful land, like paradise.  In grief she swears she will defend Yan Bei even if no one else will and together they will wait for Yan Xun's return.

Meanwhile Bei Shuo city fell in less than five days in a grand catastrophic fashion under Prince Zhao Qi's assault.  General Xia An had already fled the city with his contingent, and General Meng was left to wonder where they had gone wrong.  He lamented not listening to Chu Qiao's words and picking the wrong time to take a stand.  They are unexpectedly saved by Chu Qiao's Black House Army under the banner of the red cloud, 20 - 30,000 cavalry strong led by He Xiao.  The entire city sang Chu Qiao's praises, and Chu Qiao herself gave orders to rush the central force and single handedly took Prince Zhao Qi's head.

She had essentially burned ChiDu City to ashes, which waylaid Prince Zhao Yang.  She took 10,000 cavalry and left.  She met General Lu Zhi on the road, who was General MengTeng's subordinate fleeing Bei Shuo by his command, who then merged forces under the banner of the red cloud.  They had killed 70,000 DaXia soldiers overall and took the head of one of the three princes who was a contender for the imperial succession on the 8th anniversary of the assault on Yan Bei.  Prince Zhao Yang then took his 500,000 strong army to once again encircle Bei Shuo.  Upon receiving the missive, Yan Xun orders his troops to return to Yan Bei.

Cao MengTeng had committed suicide so there was nothing left for Chu Qiao to be angry with.  In his last testament he left the command of the Second Army to Chu Qiao.  She made sure history recorded a flattering eulogy for him.

With the Bei Shuo defenses mostly defected, Chu Qiao realizes the heroes of history are not the generals or leaders of the army who turn tail and run or surrender when things get tough, it's the common people or the naive who want to defend their country.  Slaves, cooks, civilians and lower level bureaucrats were sitting around the table in the conference hall of Bei Shuo with her now.  They only had 70,000 and most of the grain storage was burned before the others fled.  Chu Qiao convinces them to stand for ten days and Yan Xun will come.  It is, of course, a lie, since she knows that Yan Xun had abandoned them all.  She knew that all of Yan Bei's defenses were now currently in Bei Shuo, and should they fall, Yan Bei would die.  That was why she was willing to concede ChiDu City. She believed her actions would cause Yan Xun to come back.

Zhao Yang hastily lay siege to Bei Shuo without much planning this time.  In response Chu Qiao had designed weapons with a modern technological flare to exponentially increase both aerial and projectile assault.  Zhao Yang did not think that Bei Shuo was similarly equipped as ChiDu City and he lost 70,000 men early in the war.  But after, when they ran out of artillery, there was no choice but close range combat.  When the situation seemed dire, her men begged her to leave the city and save herself.  Even Yin LangYu, General MengTeng's attache, encouraged her to take the women and children of the city with her army and storm out of Bei Shuo to the Blue City.  Chu Qiao knew there was no salvation there and refused to retreat, repeatedly saying that reinforcement would come.  In the end, Chu Qiao raised her own sword to fight, but finally, the reinforcements arrived, flying Yan Xun's Black Hawk banner.

Prince Zhao Yang receives a late command by the emperor to retreat and he watches his own army disperse and flee before his eyes.  He wonders if it is Heaven's Will that DaXia should fall.

In the end, Yan Bei lost 400,000 soldiers in Bei Shuo and ChiDu City combined.  Countless civilians died fleeing the cities in the cold.  Yan Bei was not rich, and their finances were stretched with this war.  On the other side, Daxia lost significant numbers of its main forces, one prince in the line of succession and half of the northwestern territories fell to Yan Bei.  The 300 year strong empire of DaXia began to wane.

Zhao Yu was imprisoned for his incompetence, and 300,000 troops drawn from the Southeast Army, the Northeast Army, as well as troops drawn from the large vassal families were placed under the command of the seventh prince, Zhao Che.

Zhuge Huai, the first son of the Zhuge house, had been sent with the Northern Expedition as a reserve officer, and so his name also suffered in the war's defeat and he was sanctioned by the government.  Therefore his father had no choice but to use his fourth son, Zhuge Yue, in the reserve military command.  Zhuge Yue wasted no time in following Prince Zao Che to the northwestern front.

Translator's Notes:  This is the non romance part of the story, I suppose.  Since the novel's title is literally Special Agent Princess: The Legend of Chu Qiao I am not surprised it follows her next character growth period very closely and reveals who Yan Xun is in this story arc.  Some of the plots were twisted a little too tightly, and some of the battles were a bit unrealistic (i.e. how did they create and assemble all those fancy weapons in so little time??) but in the end, we see how Chu Qiao amasses her own loyal following, and that would obviously be a problem for Yan Xun and his ambitious followers since her goal is so different from theirs.  We see how cunning he has become, and how much he actually conceals from her.

More Zhuge Yue in the next translations I promise!  It seems he cannot wait for an opportunity to save her (again) or perhaps make another attempt to throw his life away....  We can say for certain the man is constant and loyal.  Reminds you of Chu Qiao, doesn't it?  --KERO