The Great Khan forcibly took Li Guanyi’s strike head‑on, blood spurting from his mouth.

He led the main host away from this place, turning back; here the number of Turkic troops far exceeded several times the combined forces of Chen Country and the Qilin Army, yet at this moment the Great Khan’s heart faintly quivered, unsteadied. He forced a breakout, and when Li Guanyi drew his bow and loosed an arrow, the Great Khan turned in the saddle and struck the arrow down.

Originally he had feared that Li Guanyi would lead his army in a reckless charge to smash through the rear; the Great Khan had driven his army in one breath nearly a hundred li away. Yet Prince Qin’s troops did not pursue. This was clearly a good thing, and yet an inexplicable unease rose within the Great Khan’s heart.

Something is wrong, extremely wrong.

When the Great Khan intended to turn back to the Golden Tent, he discovered that the rear was already occupied by the strongest Divine General under heaven.

At the same time, in the direction of Xiyi City, another cavalry corps sallied forth. Li Zhaowen personally led a Light Cavalry corps with the Xuanjia Army as its core, and while the Great Khan was at a loss front and rear, they drove in like a long spear, piercing into another sector of the steppe.

Victory followed victory, and yet this time, after defeating the enemy, they did not simply lead away cattle and sheep and depart, but directly began to garrison, and began to relocate the Turkic people here, taking them away.

This was something almost impossible; the tribes of the steppe are, by nature, like the grass upon that vast earth—tough to the extreme, obstinate, each clinging to its own logic. Yet just as they drew their blades, intent on fighting to the death, a familiar voice rang out.

Ashina, the Seventh Prince of the steppe.

In the songs, he was a king bearing the bloodline of Longevity Heaven, who had once led the Iron Futu to take part in the war that annihilated Tuyuhun, seizing vast stretches of grassland and territory—a hero of the steppe.

Ashina drew a deep breath and entered these gathering places alone, to parley with the chieftains there. At times clashes erupted, at times the sound of blades crossing rang out, yet in the end, by the rules of the steppe, he took away the land and people held by those chieftains.

He migrated them into the vast and unfamiliar Western Regions, broad of land and sparse of people.

It was still the Qilin Army’s strategy.

Since they were to fight, they would completely resolve the calamity here.

Li Zhaowen, mounted on his Divine Steed, watched Ashina subdue one tribe after another upon the steppe—sometimes with words, sometimes with the blade, or else, as now: the forty‑odd‑year‑old Seventh Prince bare‑chested upon the earth, wrestling with the bravest and strongest man within the opposing settlement.

Ashina flipped the man and pinned him to the ground.

The other side finally submitted, gasping for breath. "That Qilin King— is he a man stronger than you?"

Ashina was silent for a long time, then said, "He is."

From Xiyi City outward, Li Zhaowen’s forces ceaselessly reaped the steppe’s foundations, carrying away population, land, and cattle and sheep, gaining supplies; at the same time, the great host slowly pressed forward.

At Li Zhaowen’s side, one Deputy General was the former Princely Heir of the Dangxiang Kingdom, now one of the army’s strategists; the other was the Turkic Seventh Prince Ashina, with an expression incomparably complex. Mr. Po Jun personally served as this army’s Think Tank.

Li Guanyi, meanwhile, personally led the main army, advancing forward from Zhenbei City. Upon the steppe, in an instant one could say the winds surged and clouds boiled, a faintly murderous aura surging; yet no side chose to send Light Cavalry rashly ahead, and none entertained the plan of killing the Great Khan in a single battle and thus settling the matter.

A pity, a pity.

The monarchs of this generation, if placed in any era within these three hundred years, would have had no equal; each would have had immense hope of sweeping across Wan Li to found a hegemonic enterprise. But the lamentable thing is that they have appeared in the same age.

For the Turkic people of the steppe, it was as though they had at once drawn in the highest‑caliber batch of Overlords and Divine Generals from three hundred years of chaos. They all realized in an instant that this was the possibility of completely eradicating the external scourge of the Central Plains.

This time, it would become a National War.

Either they preserved the overall situation and did not act, or else, having acted, they would strike to the very end.

The Central Plains was about to open its final battle.

The Divine Generals of Ying Country, and the Divine Generals of the Qilin Army as well, all perceived this. Thus, to prevent themselves—or their rivals—after victory from lacking the strength to resist the outside and protect the Central Plains, they tacitly chose, before the final battle, to first resolve the external foe.

Tracing back eight hundred years, even several thousand years, there has been slaughter and hatred between the agrarian warlike peoples of the Central Plains and the steppe nomads who chase the waters across the grasslands.

Prince Qin, Li Zhaowen, the armies of Chen Country, the armies of Ying Country.

The four sides did not choose to hastily pursue the Great Khan, but like sharp blades carved apart the entire steppe. The Heavenly Strategy Mansion sought population, grain, and land; Jiang Su, by contrast, unhesitatingly, with cold and efficient methods, beheaded the enemy, gathered the men into the Vanguard Camp, drove them into battle, and used them to replenish Ying Country’s armies.

The Turkic people of the steppe excel in tactics like those of a wolf pack.

They will clamp onto the enemy and not immediately fight to the death, but keep a neither‑near‑nor‑far distance, constantly applying immense pressure, letting the foe, in terror and desperate flight, gradually exhaust their strength and collapse in spirit.

Then they deliver the killing blow.

The method of the Central Plains, however, is like a great hunt. They do not chase the enemy, for the enemy has nowhere to go; instead they ceaselessly weaken the enemy’s living strength, depriving them of all routes and space for shifting or escape.