Rebirth Episode 20 Recap
> Rebirth Recaps
Yan Xun stood before his assembled Black Eagle Army, his voice echoing across the grasslands. He declared that Biantang had trampled on the honor of Yanbei by failing to return his queen, Chu Qiao. With a roar for vengeance, he ordered his iron cavalry to crush Biantang, marking the beginning of a brutal invasion. In the capital of Biantang, the news reached the palace swiftly.
Urgent reports detailed that Yan Xun had already captured the cities of Yun, Xi, and Qiang, and his forces were now bearing down on Longyin Pass. General Li Qi was barely holding the line. Li Ce, having only recently ascended the throne, found himself in a precarious position. His court was filled with senior generals who were either pacifists or too arrogant to follow the new Emperor's lead.
When the suggestion arose to inform Chu Qiao, Li Ce refused, wanting her to rest while he dealt with the threat himself. Zhuge Yue approached Li Ce with a cold assessment of the situation. He recognized that Li Ce lacked trustworthy commanders and offered a deal: he would win the war against Yanbei in exchange for a military force of his own after the victory. Zhuge Yue also promised Li Ce a thirty percent share of a black gold mine.
Though Li Ce mocked Zhuge Yue for being a puppet stand-in for the King of Ximeng, the desperate situation forced his hand. He agreed to the trade, and the two prepared for the coming conflict. Meanwhile, Chu Qiao found herself practically a prisoner in her own residence. Every time she tried to head to the military camp, her attendants and the imperial guards blocked her path with absurd excuses about "inauspicious weather" and impending storms, despite the clear, sunny skies.
Even as Li Ce sent gifts and officially renamed the Crown Prince’s mansion as the Xiuli General’s mansion, Chu Qiao sensed something was being hidden from her. Eventually, she broke through the guards and entered the city, only to find it overflowing with refugees fleeing the fallen northern cities. The sight of the suffering commoners was heart-wrenching.
When Chu Qiao tried to stop soldiers from beating a starving man who had stolen a steamed bun, she used her own funds to buy grain for the crowd. However, the gratitude was short-lived. Once the people realized she was Chu Qiao, the woman Yan Xun used as a pretext for war, their desperation turned to fury. They blamed her for their lost homes and families, branding her a temptress and a curse upon Biantang.
Inside the imperial court, the ministers were unified in their cowardice, petitioning Li Ce to hand Chu Qiao over to Yanbei to appease Yan Xun’s wrath. They argued that the life of one woman was a small price for the safety of the nation. Chu Qiao entered the hall and silenced them with a calculated display. She presented a collection of hairpins and jewelry belonging to the ministers’ wives, claiming she had kidnapped them.
As the ministers erupted in outrage, Chu Qiao pointed out their hypocrisy. If they would not change their political stance for the safety of their own wives, why did they believe a conqueror like Yan Xun would abandon his lifelong ambition and a war he was winning just for one woman? Chu Qiao’s logic and resolve swayed the court.
Li Ce appointed her as the commanding general, and she vowed to repel the Yanbei army within a month or leave Biantang forever. To support her, Li Ce entrusted her with three thousand of his elite Imperial Guards, the finest soldiers in the kingdom. In contrast, the vengeful minister Xu Su attempted to sabotage her by providing twenty thousand "elite" troops who were actually untrained recruits and disabled veterans.
Before departing, Zhuge Yue presented Chu Qiao with a meaningful gift: the Sun and Moon Swords. He had spent months retrieving the fragments of their old weapons, the Sunset Sword and the Moonlight Sword, and forged them together. He promised that these blades, and he himself, would stand by her at Longyin Pass. However, Zhuge Yue harbored a secret. Knowing his body was still weakened by poison, he sought out the physician Mr. Xiao and demanded Huiyuan Pills.
These pills could temporarily boost his combat strength but were essentially a death sentence if taken in excess. He accepted four pills, promising the doctor his body for research if he did not survive, determined to live just long enough to see Chu Qiao through the war. At the front lines of Longyin Pass, the situation was dire. The stalemate had lasted over a month, and the bitter cold was taking its toll on the Biantang soldiers.
Chu Qiao personally tended to the wounded, but she soon discovered a more pressing crisis: food. The supply convoy was ten days late. When the grain finally arrived, Chu Qiao discovered that Xu Su had sent bags filled with sand instead of rice.
To keep the army and the nearby refugees from starving, Zhuge Yue dispatched his subordinate, Yue Shiyi, to the Qilin Bank in Yong to use his life savings and land deeds to purchase emergency supplies at high prices. In the Yanbei camp, Yan Xun monitored the stalemate. He knew Chu Qiao was a defensive specialist and would not easily be lured out.
To break her spirit, he ordered his men to spread a rumor among the refugees at Longyin Pass: if Chu Qiao surrendered herself to Yanbei, the war would end immediately and no more blood would be shed. The psychological tactic worked. A mob of desperate, starving refugees gathered outside the military camp, weeping and kowtowing to Chu Qiao, begging her to sacrifice herself for their sake.
Some, fueled by agitators, even tried to seize her by force, forcing the Xiuli Army to draw their weapons against the very people they were sworn to protect. Far from the battlefield, another shadow moved within Biantang. Prince Li Yan visited the tomb of the late Empress and recalled his father, Prince Chang, revealing the truth of his birth.
Twenty-one years ago, during a period of intense power struggle, the Empress had swapped her own son with the child of Prince Chang to protect him from the Emperor’s reach. Li Yan realized he was the biological son the Empress had always ignored in favor of Li Ce. Armed with this secret and seeing the elite guards moved to the front lines, Li Yan sensed that his moment to seize the throne had finally arrived.
