Chapter 33: In the Face of the Army, Agreements Are Nothing but Scrap Paper!

Although everyone in the Little Devils’ army knew this was all orchestrated by Da Hu Tang Yu, without concrete evidence, they were helpless to act. The hostility from the Chengyun faction toward them was growing ever more obvious. Tian Zhongyi, the main king who had occupied the province of Chengyun without fighting a battle, understood well that if Wang Lin were allowed to continue his unchecked rise, the province—once under the control of the Little Devils—might slip from his grasp entirely.

Thus, following a cabinet decision, Tian Zhongyi urgently dispatched an envoy to win over Old Deng the Third. By supporting Old Deng, who was at odds with Wang Lin, they hoped to pose a threat to Wang Lin’s position in Chengyun.

As Old Deng’s attitude wavered, a glimmer of delight flashed in Kawashima’s eyes, and he continued speaking: “General Yan, you can see the current situation for yourself. Although from a strategic standpoint you are still winning each engagement, your forces are now deeply mired in the Shui Fang’s network of rivers. Once the Shui Fang’s little fellows recover, the tide of battle between you will shift dramatically!”

At these words, Old Deng’s expression darkened. He wanted to refute Kawashima, yet he had to admit that the situation had indeed reached a stalemate, just as Kawashima described. Compared to the unified forces and the troop movements of the Shui Fang, the weaknesses of the three-party military alliance were becoming glaringly apparent.

In the early stages, when the campaign was going well, every unit fought fiercely to advance, fearing that if they lagged even a little, the spoils would fall to someone else. But now, as the conflict entered a war of attrition requiring endless lives to fill the ranks, the other two military groups began to shirk their responsibilities, seeking to preserve their own strength and avoid becoming cannon fodder.

As a result, their attack lost all coordination, and vast defensive gaps emerged along the junctions of their battlefronts. Once the Shui Fang’s side regained its footing, the three military groups would face the fate of being defeated one by one.

For Old Deng the Third, who had risen from nothing, struggled most of his life, and only recently seized the title of Grand General, this was not an outcome he wished to see.

“If General Yan agrees to cooperate with our Great Little Devils Dynasty, then, just like Wang Lin, you will receive a full set of our army’s equipment!” Kawashima offered.

Hearing this, Old Deng felt another surge of envy. Thanks to years of support from the Little Devils, Wang Lin’s growing power in Chengyun was plain for all to see. What took others a lifetime to build, that young man had accomplished in just seven or eight years with their backing. It would be a lie for Old Deng to claim he was not envious.

“But the problem is,” Old Deng said, his tone full of righteous indignation, “this is a civil war among our own people. If I accept your help, won’t I be placing myself in a position of great dishonor?”

Though his words sounded upright, his tone betrayed a lack of sincerity.

“General Yan, you need not worry about that. As long as you can persuade the other two groups to keep up the attack, our dynasty will exert political pressure on the Shui Fang. Militarily, we will gradually provide your army with equipment for twenty divisions. And if the situation becomes truly unavoidable, we can send our own well-trained troops, under the guise of reinforcements, to join the war.”

Had these words been spoken to Feng Xiang, who was staunchly anti-Devil, he might have slapped Kawashima then and there. But for Old Deng, who always played both sides and put his own interests first, there were no eternal enemies or friends—only eternal interests. As long as it benefited him, what did it matter whom he cooperated with?

At this, Old Deng steeled his heart and said through gritted teeth, “In that case, I have decided to cooperate with you!”

The moment Old Deng fell into the trap, Kawashima seized the opportunity to make numerous demands. For example, should they win the war, Old Deng was to launch an attack on Chengyun and secure the rights to construct the Jin-Jing to Chengyun railway. Old Deng agreed almost without hesitation. His swift response stemmed partly from his urgent need for military assistance to break through the Shui Fang’s lines, and partly from his belief that such agreements would be nothing more than scraps of paper once he held the army.

He was convinced that once he unified the situation by defeating the Shui Fang, he could simply turn his back on the Little Devils and discard them without a second thought.

However, unlike Wang Lin and other warlords who truly understood the might of the Little Devils, Old Deng—even as a graduate of the sixth class of the Devils’ Army Academy—still judged the Little Devils’ industrial power through the lens of an agrarian regime. Decades had passed, and he remained almost entirely ignorant of the Little Devils’ rapidly growing military strength. This disconnect led to repeated miscalculations in the chaos that followed, leaving him ultimately despondent.

On September 1st, 190028, Old Deng, as the main force of the Anti-South Military Alliance, publicly declared Shui Fang’s legitimate government a betrayer of the revolution, a criminal against the dynasty above and the people below, guilty of countless offenses. To ensure the revolution’s proper course, Old Deng announced he would rely on international support to oppose the Shui Fang’s little fellows.

Almost simultaneously, the Little Devils denounced the Shui Fang government as illegitimate, closed its offices, and cut off all aid to the Shui Fang’s little fellows. They rapidly equipped Old Deng’s forces in Chaha, sending them south by rail to join the battle. While the other two military groups hesitated, a highly trained, well-equipped army landed as reinforcements, engaging the Shui Fang’s forces in fierce, protracted combat. In the end, they successfully thwarted the Shui Fang’s counteroffensive and pushed the fighting further into the distant region of Xuzhou.

Witnessing this turn, Feng Yuko swiftly reversed his previous stance, mustering a grand force for a fierce assault at the critical Longhai Line, attempting to open the vital Jinpu railway to converge in Xuzhou. The Shui Fang’s little fellows, fully aware of the area’s strategic importance, poured in more troops. The two sides stood on the brink of open war, and the conflict escalated rapidly.

In the ensuing blows, the Shui Fang’s leader was first stunned, then furious. He not only dispatched troops to fill the gaps at the front but hurriedly sent envoys to the Western dynasties seeking international aid. But with the Great Depression erupting early in the Beautiful Dynasty and quickly spreading worldwide, the Western dynasties, facing factory closures and soaring unemployment, were consumed by their own social crises and had no attention to spare for the affairs of the new dynasty. Thus, every plea for help was either flatly refused or met with silence.

Seeing Old Deng and his allies winning victory after victory, nearly breaking through the key region of Xuzhou, the Shui Fang’s little leader finally found himself unable to sit still any longer.