Chapter 14: From Now On, She Will Protect the Subordinates of Her Father and Brother from the Northwest Army

“Come here.”

Shen Zhao’s sudden appearance startled the group. They hurried to salute her. “Greetings, General.”

“Rise,” Shen Zhao ordered, and they quickly got to their feet. The one she had singled out stepped forward, standing upright and proper.

Unlike the other soldiers in the army, these men regarded her with a faint sense of distance. Though Shen Zhao was puzzled by their attitude, she still asked, “Just now you said there are soldiers in the camp who sleep on the bare ground beneath the open sky. What’s going on? Do you not have barracks or tents to stay in?”

The man answered truthfully, “Reporting to General, the permanent garrison in the capital has barracks. It’s us, the later-recruited troops, who have none… I, along with Old Li and the others, were withdrawn from the Northwest front. We originally served under General Shen…”

As he spoke, his eyes reddened. “After General Shen was dismissed from office, the rest of us were divided among other camps. Life is already hard enough for the capital’s troops, let alone for us.”

What he didn’t say was that, because they were from the Northwest Army, they faced exclusion and suppression from the capital’s forces.

Shen Zhao was taken aback by his words. Her eyes stung, a mist of tears blurring her vision.

These men… They had all served under her father and brother! They were the Northwest Army!

She looked at their worn clothes, shoes with exposed toes, their bodies noticeably thinner than the other soldiers. A bitter ache welled in her chest.

How could their lives have come to such misery?

Cursed court! These men had all defended home and country. Why must they suffer such a fate?

And that scoundrel Chu Mu! Were the Northwest Army men not his soldiers too? Why treat them so harshly?

At that moment, Chu Mu, staring in confusion at the ledgers back at the general’s estate, sneezed out of nowhere.

Shen Zhao stepped forward and patted the man’s shoulder. “Come, take me to our Northwest Army brothers. I will see you get justice.”

The man jerked his head up, disbelief shining in his eyes. “General, are you truly…going to stand up for us?”

His reaction filled Shen Zhao with a sorrow she could not express. “Yes. You are my soldiers too. Whatever the capital’s troops have, you shall have as well.”

He turned to the two men behind him. “Did you hear that? We can finally live like human beings again.”

Damn it, why did his heart ache so?

Shen Zhao fought back the sting in her eyes and waved her hand grandly. “Assemble the Northwest Army on the parade ground.”

The three men hurried off, so excited they nearly tripped over each other.

Seeing this, Shen Zhao’s heart grew heavier. If she and Chu Mu hadn’t swapped bodies, how much more suffering would the Northwest Army have endured?

Shen Zhao stood atop the raised platform in the center of the parade ground.

Soon, several thousand men had gathered, trickling in one after another.

All of them looked gaunt and thin. Many had sallow complexions and dark circles under their eyes. Some looked ill, dragging themselves there with effort. They had no energy, and when they saw her, their salutes were perfunctory at best.

The man reported to her, “General, aside from the five hundred out on duty, the other three thousand five hundred are all present.”

Shen Zhao turned to him. “What is your name?”

“I am Lin Song.”

“Are there any Northwest Army officers in the capital’s troops?”

Lin Song hesitated, then suddenly knelt before her. “General, please save Young General Shen. He is of the same clan as General Shen and leads us four thousand now. Yesterday, when he went to a pawnshop in the city, he offended a noble from the capital and has been imprisoned in the judicial prison.”

Shen Zhao frowned. Young General Shen? Of her own clan?

She had never heard of such a person.

The Shen family was mostly scholars. Her grandfather had been the black sheep, choosing the military path and making a name for himself. Her father and brother had followed him into the army; among the Shen clan, only their branch served. The rest remained at the ancestral home in Jiangnan, many as local officials scattered across the land, but none as court officials in the capital.

They kept in touch; she had once written to the family for help to clear her father and brother’s names. But those letters had vanished without a trace. Her grandfather had broken the family rules by joining the army and cut ties with the clan.

Now this Young General Shen caught her attention—another black sheep after her own branch.

Lin Song thought Chu General misunderstood Young General Shen, frowning because he had left the camp without permission. Yet, though Young General Shen had indeed left without orders, it was all for the sake of the Northwest Army.

Hurriedly, Lin Song explained, “Young General Shen did not intend to break military law. He went to the pawnshop to pawn his jade pendant for our sake. For ten days now, we have been allowed only one meal a day. Many of our young and old soldiers are falling ill. Some have gone hungry by day and shivered through the night, coming down with winter fevers. Young General Shen spent all his silver buying medicine and food for us. Now, with nothing left but his valuables, he pawned them so we could eat and get medicine. General, please save him—he did it all for us.”

Young General Shen had been arrested the previous evening, after Chu General had returned to the grand marshal’s estate. The other officers had been informed, but upon hearing it concerned the Northwest Army, none intervened. They hadn’t reported it to Chu General today because Young General Shen and Chu General had always been at odds.

Young General Shen had often spoken before them of his dissatisfaction with Chu General, calling him cold and heartless, ungrateful and undeserving to be married into the Shen family. He had said he would rather starve or die than beg Chu General for help.

Truthfully, many of them felt the same. They had witnessed General Shen’s downfall, seen Chu General’s inaction with their own eyes. But they could not bear to see Young General Shen suffer for their sake. It was they who pleaded with Chu General; Young General Shen had not.

With Lin Song’s kneeling, the Northwest Army followed suit, one after another. Those close by understood what was happening; those farther off did not. Someone took the lead and cried out, “General, please save Young General Shen!” The rest echoed, “Please save Young General Shen!”

Witnessing this, Shen Zhao’s heart swelled with pride.

This was her Northwest Army—flesh and blood, full of camaraderie.

Shen Zhao raised her voice, full of conviction. “I will bring Young General Shen back to camp. I will not let you down!”

Amid the soldiers’ gratitude, she leapt from the platform.

She knew the weight Young General Shen carried among them—he was their pillar. If she wanted the Northwest Army’s true loyalty, she had to rescue him.

She went straight to the stables, mounted Whirlwind, and sped away.

Chu Yi and Chu Er, after much effort to reach the camp, watched helplessly as their general vanished again in a flash of motion before their eyes. The two exchanged glances, each seeing confusion in the other.

“After her!”

Shen Zhao’s destination was clear: the Magistrate’s Office.

On the way, she passed an empty lot, where construction of the Poetry Institute had only just begun.

She reined in Whirlwind.

The lot, about a hundred acres, lay not far from camp. Because the Poetry Institute was to be built here, all the surrounding land had already been purchased by Pang Qingyun and others—about fifty acres in total. Work had already started around the edges, mostly building restaurants, tea houses, and shops, while the Poetry Institute site itself remained untouched, with piles of timber and green bricks in the center.

Workers were still hauling materials.

A faint smile curved Shen Zhao’s lips as a plan formed in her mind—wasn’t this the perfect place to house the Northwest Army?

She squeezed her legs, urging her horse forward at a gallop, muttering under her breath: