Every garrison soldier at Chishi Pass knew that Lu Qingye was a strange one.
While others gambled and drank, he plotted formations in the sand. While others mocked him as a "frontier scholar," he could shoot down a hawk a hundred paces away with a single arrow.
In the seventeenth year of the Tianshuo era, a hundred thousand Northern Barbarian cavalry besieged the pass. A renowned general fell, and the border city was reduced to scorched earth. When the empire's banners toppled amid the smoke of war, everyone thought its fate was sealed.
Lu Qingye rose amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and picked up a battered military standard.
He had no magic to summon wind and rain, only a million military strategies memorized by heart. He had no invulnerable martial arts, only a bow in one hand and a blade in the other.
First, as a general, he broke the enemy with unorthodox formations and reclaimed lost land.
Then, as a commander, he secured the realm with strategy and maneuvered through every political game.
From the borderlands to the imperial court, every step he took was laid over the bones of enemies and the loyal souls of allies.
Many years later, a historian asked him how he had risen from a common soldier to marshal.
He replied, "I was born neither to a family of generals nor to a noble house. I was merely a speck of dust that refused to be scattered by the wind. Fortunately, I became a dust storm that covered the world, a banner that guarded the nation."
