Winter was drawing near, and with it the chill that seeped into the bones of men already exhausted from endless campaigns. For the Imperial army under Chancellor Luo Wen, fatigue was no longer just a physical burden but a shadow gnawing at morale. Every march, every skirmish, every fortress taken and retaken had become a stone tied around their necks. And though Luo Wen had discovered a brutal method to slow down the wear—by conscripting local peasants as cannon fodder—it had planted seeds of hatred so deep in the villages that the soil itself seemed ready to rise in rebellion.
Wei Lian, ever the strategist, recognized the opportunity hidden in this resentment. From the fortified city of Guangling he devised a plan, not aimed at fortress walls or open battlefields, but at the soft underbelly of his enemy: the rear. It was there, in the seemingly secure heart of Luo Wen's newly conquered lands, that the poison would seep and spread.
He summoned discreet envoys—men used to dealing with peasants, wanderers, and brigands—and sent them into the countryside armed not only with bags of silver but with promises of weapons and freedom. Their message was simple, sharp, and designed to ignite fury: Resist. Strike. Make the Empire bleed for every stolen harvest and for every son torn from your huts. He demanded no lasting allegiance, no grand sacrifice. He asked only for swift blows in the dark, sudden ambushes on lonely roads, and flames rising in the night sky.
The results were immediate. Within weeks, the roads behind the Imperial front grew dangerous. Supply convoys were waylaid by bands of peasants wielding rusty spears and sickles. Former bandits, now in the pay of Guangling, rebranded themselves as guerrilla fighters, ambushing patrols and slitting the throats of imperial messengers. Villages that had once provided men for Luo Wen's levies now refused even to deliver grain or horses. Officials sent to demand contributions were discovered days later, their corpses dumped in ditches or strung up from trees as grim warnings.
Reports flooded into Luo Wen's camp like a torrent of bitter rain:—"Caravans burned near Yanshan."—"A patrol annihilated in the hills of Shulin."—"Peasants from the village of Qiu'an lynched the tax collectors."
The Chancellor, hearing each new calamity, did not flinch outwardly, though his jaw tightened like iron. His response was swift and merciless. He decreed that any village suspected of harboring brigands or sympathizers was to be erased from the map. At dawn, his soldiers would march into settlements, encircle them, torch the granaries, and drag men into the squares for execution. Women and children were forced to watch the slaughter, the sight itself intended as a deterrent, a lesson written in blood and fire. Luo Wen believed fear would choke out rebellion before it could take root.
But instead of extinguishing the flames, his repression fanned them higher. For every village burned to the ground, three more swore vengeance. For every son executed in public, a brother escaped into the mountains, joining the swelling guerrilla bands. War no longer raged only along fortress walls—it spread into every hidden path, every abandoned field, every thatched hut where hatred smoldered like powder waiting for a spark.
Still, Luo Wen pressed forward with unshaken resolve.—"Let them burn my convoys, let them ambush my scouts," he growled to his generals. "We will advance regardless. If the rear becomes a swamp of blood, we shall wade through it without looking back."
The Imperial army tightened its discipline. Every caravan was now accompanied by full companies of soldiers. Engineer units moved with cavalry escorts. Couriers no longer rode alone but traveled with armed guards. These adjustments slowed the great machine of war and consumed additional resources, yet they kept the irregular war from collapsing the main campaign.
Meanwhile, the peasant conscripts continued to perish in droves along the disputed walls and fortresses. They were fodder, nothing more, dying so that the elite troops might survive. And though the countryside was ablaze with rebellion, on the front lines the Chancellor's banners still rose defiantly. Slowly, inexorably, the army pushed toward Guangling, one weary step at a time.
Wei Lian understood the limits of his own strategy. His raids and uprisings were daggers, not swords. They could bleed the beast but not sever its head. A convoy lost meant a siege delayed; a garrison slaughtered meant Luo Wen had to divert soldiers; a village burned by the Imperials meant yet more hearts hardened against the Chancellor. Each wound mattered, but none could yet stop the march entirely.
And still, the bitter truth loomed: despite all of it, Luo Wen advanced. He sacrificed villages, wasted thousands of peasant lives, but gained ground nonetheless. With feet of iron, he inched closer to Guangling, a storm that could not be dispelled.
That was the paradox of the winter campaign. The most hated man in the land was also its most unstoppable force. Wei Lian could see resistance flourishing, could witness guerrilla war blooming across the countryside, yet at the same time he watched the Imperial lines creep forward on the maps in his command tent, black lines spreading like poison—poison that neither fire nor blood could halt.
And so the whispered question echoed everywhere—among generals, among soldiers, among starving peasants hiding in the hills: Who would endure longer? The Chancellor, who burned the earth to keep advancing, or the commander who set it aflame to stop him?
The war of attrition had entered a darker, crueler phase. It was no longer merely soldiers who died, but entire communities erased in fire and ash. And on the smoldering ruins of every village, Luo Wen advanced one more step toward his grim vision of victory.