Loser System and Berserker Me

【Woohoo! This is amazing!】

System 12345’s heart was put at ease when it saw the Holywolf Warrior maxing out her loyalty toward Shu Yichao.

My host has conquered one of the top powerhouses here. What else can stand in his way?

System 12345 felt ashamed that it had been worried about Shu Yichao.

【Looks like I was overthinking it. Now that I think about it, there hasn’t been a target that my host hasn’t been able to settle thus far. I bet everything that happened before was just him trying a new tactic. I should have known just by looking at the data.】

【Tsk tsk, my host. You’re hunting them down like prey.】

【The lady flees in a fluster, but you slowly press on with your relentless attacks, deepening her fear for you bit by bit. She clutches onto the hope that she can escape you, but little does she know that she can never escape your palm.】

【Finally, on a dark, moonless night, you appear like a phantom and abruptly take her down, much to her horror… As her pride is ripped to shreds, she closes her tearful eyes… Ah!】

System 12345 was so excited that it thought that its CPU might overheat.

【I bet my host intentionally let Weryomahners go. She might have ‘escaped’, but look at how her fear escalates over time… Is this his new game? Ohoho!】

…

The early spring sun cast its rays on the lands, melting the accumulated snow into little streams that nourished the lush fields.

A platoon carrying bright red flags was marching across the fields. There weren’t many soldiers, but they received respectful gazes wherever they went.

For they belonged to Great Tang.

“They are the Tangs, right?” the nomads muttered among themselves.

“I think so.”

“It’s the same flag used by the Gatling Khan.”

Shu Yichao’s title was too long for most to remember, so most called him Gatling Khan or Protectorate-General Khan.

By now, Transoxania had fallen under the Anxi Protectorate’s control.

Shu Yichao’s fame was resounding in Transoxania after defeating the high shaman and the Holywolf Warrior. All kings and chieftains shuddered at the mention of his name.

What was the best way to build up one’s reputation upon arriving at a new territory?

The answer was to drag out and beat up the strongest person in the region. That taught others that one was not to be trifled with.

And that was what Shu Yichao did.

He massacred the regional powerhouses and showcased them in his zombie army. Transoxania’s nations submitted to him with sliding dogezas, giving him everything that he demanded, be it money or rations.

Some even ceded control over their territories to the ghost horsemen.

All they wanted in return was for the Anxi Protectorate-General to spare them.

“This place…” Standing before a glistening lake, Shu Yichao tapped into his minimap to take a look. “It’s the Aral Sea, right?”

Shu Yichao had dominated Transoxania and expanded the boundaries to the Aral Sea, but his military campaigns were still conducted under the name of restoring lost land.

Back in Emperor Gaozong’s era, these lands had been part of Great Tang’s map. They might not have stationed soldiers here, but these nations had been vassals who gave annual tribute.

Just then…

“Protectorate-General!” a familiar voice echoed.

Shu Yichao turned around to take a look. Oh? Isn’t that the one who is from Shule?

“Protectorate-General!” the excited Zeng Lu called out as his exhausted sand monitor rushed up to Shu Yichao.

This winter had been like a dream to him.

Shu Yichao had reclaimed the Great and Little Patola in the west, invaded the Tibetan Empire down south, and vanquished the Karluks up north. Over a hundred nations pledged their loyalty to the Great Tang, offering an annual tribute and housing Great Tang’s soldiers and officials.

This left the Tang army extremely busy.

Often, they would be taking over a city when another one was conquered. While they were discussing what to do with the second city, a third one would have already fallen into their lap. Work was piling up faster than they could handle.

Their eyes were bloodshot, but the Anxi army was more motivated than ever.

By the time all the nations surrendered, the Anxi Protectorate was overflowing with cloth, rations, livestock, metal, and so on.

Zeng Lu believed that even if Shu Yichao and the ghost horsemen took a back seat now, the Anxi army would still be able to stand its ground against the neighboring empires.

“Protectorate-General!” Zeng Lu excitedly passed a document to Shu Yichao as he exclaimed, “The Uyghurs’ Baoyi Qaghan will dispatch troops with us to launch a pincer attack against the Tibetan Empire! With that, we will stand a chance even against the Beiting Protectorate!” (T/N: Qaghan means ‘Great Khan’. It refers to an emperor.)

Once they conquered Beiting and Anxi, the only one left would be the Hexi Corridor. They would be Great Tang’s heroes if they succeeded in this endeavor!

Abbot Palkyi was only passing by Uyghur to deliver updates to Great Tang’s imperial court, but who could have thought that he would bring in another ally while he was at it?

“Uyghur?” Miazova, however, wasn’t optimistic about it. “Hmph! Those greedy fellows must have requested something ridiculous for that. Tell me, what did they demand this time?”

It had experience liaising with the Uyghurs back when it was still Shu Wenchang’s aide. The Ugyhurs were a group of powerful nomads residing in the Gobi Desert. Following the Göktürks’ downfall, they took over them and grew to become a powerful empire.

Unlike the Göktürks, the Uyghurs were on close terms with Great Tang. The Tangs had borrowed soldiers from Uyghurs many times back when they were busy quelling the flames of rebellion.

While the Uyghurs had been willing to help, they were the farthest thing away from being charitable. They would demand a hundred dollars for a dollar’s worth of work, and in the course of carrying out the work, they would steal fifty more.

“Ugh…” Zeng Lu looked conflicted. “It isn’t that bad. They just want to plunder Beiting.”

“What? You think that’s not bad?!” Shu Yichao was infuriated. “Hah, the Baoyi Qaghan must have a death wish. Very well, let’s deal with him right now!”

Beiting might be under the Tibetan Empire now, but that’s still my turf! How dare those bastards steal my money? And who knows how many people in Beiting will die by the time they are done plundering?

If I let those Uyghurs get their way, I’ll never reach the population requirement to upgrade to a tier-3 city.

“…” Zeng Lu was stunned.

W-wait, what’s going on? I came here to inform you that we have found allies. I know that the Uyghurs can be greedy, but they are on our side. Why are we attacking them all of a sudden?

“But Protectorate-General, our territories aren’t connected to the Uyghurs. There’s a Beiting between us!” Zeng Lu exclaimed.

“Big deal.” Shu Yichao was unfazed. “We’ll just hit both at once.”

…

South of Transoxania, those residing in Khorasan and the Persian Plateau had their hearts nearly beating out of their chests.

Over at Merv’s Governor Manor… (T/N: Merv is a city in Khorasan)

“What’s the situation with the Tangs? Are they planning to invade southward? What’s Samarkand doing?” a fully armored general asked the spies who had just returned from the other cities. (T/N: Samarkand is a city under the Abbasid Caliphate.)

The name of the general was Tahir. For this contribution to the enthronement of the Abbasid Caliphate’s incumbent caliph, he was bestowed with the position of Khorasan’s governor.

His appointment should have been later, but Shu Yichao had caused too big of a fuss.

News was often distorted when spreading across distance; the version that had reached the Abbasid Caliphate was that the Tangs had revived an army of undead that was swiftly turning into a huge calamity, and this army of undead wouldn’t stop until it brought death to everyone.

And so far, the Tangs had already caused a huge mess in Transoxania.

In recent years, the Abbasid Caliphate had been slowly spreading its religious teachings to Transoxania with a book in one hand and a sword in the other, though it hadn’t been easy.

In places oppressed by the Eastern Romain Empire and the Sasanian Empire, the populace thought that the Abbasid Empire’s relatively lower taxes were a blessing. The Easterners, on the other hand, thought that their taxes were unbearably high. (T/N: The Sasanian Empire is the last Persian Empire before the region was conquered by the Muslims. It’s already gone by the current timeline.)

That resulted in conflict, violence, and war.

To this day, the Abbasid Empire’s influence remained mainly centered around Samarkand.

And Samarkand was just a Syr River away from the Dayuan Protectorate.

So, Tahir was urgently appointed to Khorasan to take over the local military and prepare for war with the Tangs. At least, they couldn’t allow Transoxania to completely fall to the Tangs.

But Tahir felt his brain turning into mush after arriving at Khorasan and compiling some intelligence.

The incarnation of the Gatling Buddha? Are they saying that the Tangs’ Protectorate-General is formidable?

And what the hell is with the White Calamity and Black Calamity?

I have heard that the war at Transoxania was intense, but isn’t this too much? How am I supposed to fight against millions of undead?

Worse news soon arrived.

Transoxania’s high shaman and Holywolf Warrior had been killed, and the Tangs’ red flags were hung all over the region… and he wasn’t even done with his preparations yet.

If the Tangs built on this momentum and invaded southward toward Samarkand and Khorasan, he would be in trouble.

“Lord Emir,” the scouts said, “the Tangs have not shown any inclination of moving southward, but we suspect that the Sogdians and the Khwarazms are trying to reach out to them.”

“Hmph!” Tahir’s heart eased in relief before letting out a cold harrumph. “Those fence-sitting heretics. I knew that they can’t be counted on! Have any of you crossed blows with the Tangs’ specters yet?”

He did have a sizable army at hand. If a war broke out, he should be able to mobilize at least 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers. If he demanded nearby small states to pool in their soldiers too, he should have no trouble gathering 100,000 soldiers.

The problem was that he didn’t know how strong the Tangs were. Even an army of a million pawns was a force to be feared.

His first thought was to take a defensive stance, but he heard rumors that the specters were so weak that they couldn’t even beat a farmer.

Maybe the specters only serve to wear down the enemies. The ones doing the work are still their ghost horsemen.

This set Tahir thinking.

Could the Tang army comprise a lot of ordinary footsoldiers mixed with some elite cavalrymen? That doesn’t sound impossible to deal with. It feels like I can at least give it a try.

“We haven’t engaged them yet.”

Everyone shook their heads.

No one here was a fool. They knew better than to dawdle around and fight when the Tangs’ wave of specters started to settle in. Those who were slower on their feet or were hot-headed enough to confront the ghost horsemen wouldn’t be here.

“This…” Tahir faced a dilemma.

He lacked concrete intelligence to gauge the Tangs’ fighting prowess. It would be foolish to blindly trust hearsay from merchants and nomads.

“Let’s gather our soldiers first,” Tahir instructed. “Also, have Samarkand dispatch a small platoon to probe the Tangs’ fighting prowess.”

…

Meanwhile, others saw an opportunity in this crisis, such as Samarkand’s governor.

He was a Persian, and despite his lofty standing, he remained dissatisfied about the Abbasid Caliphate’s occupation of Persian soil. The resurgence of the Persian Empire was his wish, as well as the wish of many Persians.

However, the Persians had always been one of the weaker powers, and it didn’t help that there were Persians like Tahir who were loyal to the Caliphate and served as their claws.

Reviving the Persian Empire would be a Herculean task.

But Great Tang’s return brought them a ray of hope.

Samarkand’s governor, with his city located more in proximity to the Western Regions, was well-versed with the situation over in the east. The further east one went, the more frightening the adversaries became.

Powerful nations like the Tibetan Empire and the Karluks had struggled against the Anxi army. Even top experts like the high shaman and the Holywolf Warrior had fallen to them.

If I could secure the Tangs’ support…

“I need to find a way to strike a connection with the Tangs’ Anxi Protectorate-General…” Samarkand’s governor murmured.

He ordered his subordinates to prepare some gifts and relevant documents to pay a visit to the Anxi Protectorate-General. Still worried, he beckoned his aides over and asked, “Tell me, what treasures would please the Anxi Protectorate-General?”

“Good steeds?” someone proposed. “I heard Great Tang’s Anxi Protectorate-General spilled a river of blood in Transoxania over flying pegasi. If we can find a batch of excellent steeds…”

“He already has the pegasi. Do you think he’d still be interested in normal steeds?” another person retorted.

“What about jewels? Maybe he’d be interested in those?”

“What are you thinking? Khotan produces fine jade; I reckon no jewels in this world are beyond his reach. With his wealth, I bet he’d have no trouble getting princesses onto his bed.”

Much to their embarrassment, they quickly realized that there was nothing they could offer that was of significant value to the other party. But someone soon thought of something.

“Lord Governor, I have something that might interest the Anxi Protectorate-General.”

“Oh?”

“Come with me.”

The aide led Samarkand’s governor and the others into a garden and over to a huge cage covered by a cloth. The moment the cloth was pulled off, everyone gasped in astonishment.

“What a beautiful lion!”

In the cage was a dashing, white lion. Its snowy-white fur was devoid of other colors, and it looked imposing even when lying on a stack of grass.

“This is good stuff!” Samarkand’s governor exclaimed.

This white lion would make an excellent gift!

He turned to his aide and complimented, “Good job! You have made a huge contribution this time! Draft a letter right now to request an audience with the Anxi Protectorate-General!”

He hesitated briefly before adding, “Send the letter in the name of Great Tang’s Persian Military Commandery.”

—Starve’s Translation Note:

The last ruler of the Sasanian Empire, Yazdegerd III, requested help from Great Tang to deal with the Muslim Arabs’ aggression, and the Tangs established a Persian Military Commandery later too.

—

There are a lot of names, and they can be hard to follow, especially for those not familiar with the history (I’m opting to use historical names wherever possible so that it’s more apt, such as Persia > Iran)

I don’t have a good solution for that, so I can only try my best to highlight bits and pieces that are more historically relevant, as well as to highlight affiliations of some cities.