Exiled at the Border: I Turned the Criminal Army into a National Cavalry

In the last years of the Qian Dynasty, the northern border was defeated year after year, but the court only focused on party strife. Chen Zhaoye offended the powerful and was charged with "collaborating with the enemy and diverting the army." He was exiled to the border and took over an isolated city that was about to be lost. There is no food in the city, no pay in the army, and the defenders are a group of criminals that everyone despises: prisoners on death row, deserters, veterans, ruthless bandits, and the queens of the generals who were wrongly admitted to the camp. The imperial court left them here not to defend the city, but to let them die at the hands of the barbarians. Everyone thought that Chen Zhao could not survive for more than three days. But he refused to accept his fate. He rectified military discipline, distributed grain and grass, practiced formations, and built city defenses. He first used 300 criminal troops to defend the isolated city, then suppressed bandits and seized grain, opened up wasteland for farming, gathered refugees, and rebuilt the border army. A year later, there was food and soldiers in the north. Three years later, the guilty army became a cavalry. When the barbarian army moved south and no one was available in the court, the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty finally remembered the young man they had thrown to the border to die. The imperial edict came to the north, ordering him to return to the capital and surrender his military power. Chen Zhaoye stood in front of Fengxueguan and only replied: "Back then, you abandoned me at the border and left me to fend for myself. Now I have defended the northern border with one sword and one shot. Why do you want me to hand over my military power?"