Assault of Broken Mountains

A series of battles waged high up in the Shungan Mountains during the War of Eternal Day. Emperor Zou's forces got word that the mountain villages were assisting the Old Empire Rebels and sought to stamp them out before they could provide a way for the rebels to cross through the mountains and flank the emperor's imperial armies at the capital city of Longjiang.

Early Involvement

The Old Empire rebels received both soldiers and supplies from the villages in the early stages of the war. Later, they met with representatives about bringing several divisions of cavalry through old, narrow roads - or crossing uncultivated terrain - to arrive at Longjiang in time to flank the emperor's armies. The plan was risky, but General Ruya Ilkin was confident she could accomplish the feat, as traversing seemingly impassable terrain was an oft-used strategy in Garal's military. Plans were made based upon maps and data given to the army by the villagers.

However, the emperor got word of the plan and sent his own troops around to the villages through the main pass and began razing them to the ground.

A Call for Aid

General Ilkin took a division to answer a call for assistance. During the battle, recognizing that hopes of victory were slimming, General Ilkin feigned a retreat with a large force of her cavalry in a risky Garalese maneuver. The retreat invited enemy forces to spread thin and expose themselves, after which the cavalry would then circle back around to charge through while a small force held in hidden reserve flanked the enemy, completing the deadly maneuver. Without the support of the smaller unit and proper timing discipline, the main force risked the feigned retreat turning into a true rout.

The lieutenant general left in charge of the hidden cavalry, Cai Yong, mutinied at this critical moment. Cai Yong, with others who were discontented with a Garalese commanding officer, refused to bring in his troops to flank the emperor's forces. This inaction would have caused the slaughter of the rest of the division but for the assistance of Zhang Huai Shi, who was attached to the division for supply purposes. General Ilkin commanded him to fly out and get the troops to flank the imperial army by whatever means necessary. Huai Shi confronted Cai Yong and killed him when he refused to order his men to attack. Then he and the surviving colonel, Dong Zihao, flanked the imperial army as General Ilkin pulled her cavalry out of their feint and charged at the imperial soldiers. The coordination saved the remainder of the rebels from absolute slaughter, retreating back down the pass with them. They were unable to reach the mountain villages in need, and all of them were destroyed by imperial forces.

Fallout of the Mutiny

En route back to Yinguonan, General Ilkin executed Dong Zihao, the other officer in charge of the mutiny. The act, something a commanding officer had authority to do in the Garalese military, was decried by many of the rebels. Zhenic military procedure called for the oversight of administrative officers in serious crimes. The controversy threatened to further unseat General Ilkin's authority. Upon her arrival and presentation of the severed head of Dong Zihao, her superiors Wei Ang Jian and Gao Zhong Hu quickly formed a united front with General Ilkin and condoned her actions, while she turned over the remaining mutineers to their discipline.

Path to Longjiang

Despite their defeat, the rebels decided to pursue the course through the mountains in preparation for a battle against the imperials at Longjiang, reasoning that the imperial army would likely withdraw after the slaughter of the villages and leave only a nominal amount of troops behind, as the information on how to get all the way south to Longjiang was seemingly lost. In the final stages of the war, General Ilkin again set out through the mountains, relying on the reports of her cultivator scouts, Zhang Ke Yuan and Bai Xue Ying. Few survivors were found remaining among the ruins of the villages, but the rebels helped those they could, including the orphan Cheng Li Shu.

The rebels encountered imperial troops at a key crossroads, but swiftly defeated them. From there they moved south on to lesser-known paths - and, at times, forging their own - to arrive at the southern end of the mountain range. The efforts paid off; the unlooked-for arrival of the cavalry in the Battle of the Red Tide played a key role in the defeat of the imperial armies and the end of the war.