Chapter 287: When Men Count the Tiger, the Tiger Counts Men Too

Boom!

At the turn of spring and summer, a torrential downpour poured. The Yellow River swelled violently, surging and roaring.

Carrying yellow, murky silt like an unrestrainable earth dragon, it rushed downstream, breaking the unreinforced riverbanks and hurling the silt into the raging waters.

In the dim space water was everywhere; the liquid flowing on the ground could be river water or rainwater, forming rivulets that darted in all directions. Along both banks of the Yellow River, whether on the pebble‑strewn post road or the rugged hills, not a single person could be seen!

Spanning both banks of the Yellow River is Wulan Pass; on a hill near the Hedong bank, the Tang Empire had built Wulan Fortress many years ago to guard the pass.

It now stands amid wind and rain.

This place was originally not the garrison of the New Spring Army under the Hexi Jiedushi.

Only later, after erosion dried up the spring at its original base (hence the name New Spring), the New Spring Army moved its garrison eastward to a key Silk Road node near the Yellow River crossing at Wulan Pass.

They rebuilt Wulan Fortress atop the hill; the New Spring Army was demoted to the New Spring Guard, its troops dropping from four thousand to one thousand, stationed here to guard the pass and no longer partake in routine patrols.

Since the end of the Kaiyuan era, the unit was further downgraded to a border garrison not under any Jiedushi, retaining only the name New Spring Army, its strength shrinking from a thousand to two hundred, tasked solely with the daily affairs of Wulan Pass, no longer a Tang frontier field army!

Although it was later upgraded from Guard to Army, the New Spring Army had become a place name, generally referring specifically to Wulan Fortress.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

In the rain curtain of extremely limited visibility, the murky, raging Yellow River smashed the wooden‑and‑iron Wulan Bridge straight away!

Those costly iron and timber were swept into the torrent and vanished in an instant.

The New Spring Guard commander hurried into the record room and, bowing to Fang Chongyong, who was reading Wulan Fortress files by torchlight, said:

"Jiedushi Fang, today's torrential rain has caused the river to swell and smash the Wulan Bridge! If you wish to cross the river to Liangzhou, you'll likely have to detour and take a skin raft. I humbly suggest postponing for two days until the water steadies before crossing; Liangzhou is not far from here—just head west…"

"Understood, you may attend to your duties. If anything arises, report to me directly!"

Fang Chongyong waved his hand amiably; the New Spring Guard commander breathed a sigh of relief, bowed, and withdrew.

"It seems the campaign into the Western Regions will inevitably involve autumn‑winter marching.

I wonder if this torrential rain will affect Wuwei City."

Fang Chongyong couldn't help but sigh; in Hexi, autumn arrives earlier and departs sooner, winter turns cold quickly, and the farther west one goes, the colder it gets. For a long‑range expedition, such climate is a considerable challenge.

Suddenly, the door was pushed open; He Changqi, drenched like a drowned chicken, stood outside with a weary face, refusing to come in, apparently waiting for his rainwater to lessen before entering the record room so as not to wet the stone floor.

From his appearance it was clear he had been hurrying through the rain for an unknown distance.

"Go take a shower, have some ginger soup, then return; there's no rush for a single incense‑burning interval."

Fang Chongyong looked up, his expression calm as he spoke, not even standing, yet radiating unruffled authority.

He Changqi, unsure whether it was the cold or his nerves, shivered, replied "Fine" and turned to leave.

Sure enough, in less than the time it takes a single incense stick to burn, he returned in the black uniform of the Hexi Tang troops, slipped silently into the record room and closed the door behind him.

He Changqi sat upright on his knees before Fang Chongyong, awaiting his admonition.

"A dozen days ago you said you had business and would leave the unit, returning to Liangzhou on your own; I didn't press further.

Now you're back, shouldn't you give me an explanation?"

Fang Chongyong placed the scroll he held onto the desk, weighted it with a paperweight, then smiled and asked He Changqi.

"Can I remain silent?"

He Changqi swallowed and asked.

"You may stay silent, but after the rain stops, you should return to Chang'an and serve under my grandfather's command.

My trusted subordinate must not harbor a second heart toward me."

Fang Chongyong replied indifferently.

"Junior officer, by order of Jiedushi Fang, went to the Que Shu Valley in Fen Prefecture, completed the task, and has now returned."

He Changqi said insincerely; the statement was not a lie, but only half the truth.

Fang Chongyong asked in puzzlement:

"What did you go to Que Shu Valley for? Were you there to observe how Emperor Taizong once crushed the Song and Jin?"

"Uh, I wasn't in the mood for scenery; I only went there to behead An Lushan's men."

He Changqi gritted his teeth and said.

"Huh?"

Fang Chongyong wondered if he had just imagined it.

"You said you beheaded whom again?"

He repeated it.

"An Lushan, the former Pinglu Jiedushi."

He Changqi said word for word.

At that moment a cold draft slipped through the wooden wall cracks, the torchlight flickered, and the shadows on the wall twisted a few times, like wandering specters.

Now Fang Chongyong understood.

He sprang up, his face startled as he stared at He Changqi, then, as if recalling something, slowly sat back down.

Fang Chongyong pressed his temples with both hands, pondering the implications.

"All by yourself?"

After a few deep breaths, he suppressed his shock and asked.

"No, a thousand elite soldiers were ambushed in Que Shu Valley for three days and three nights; I was only in charge of command, and personally beheaded the general to eliminate any future threat."

He Changqi whispered, at the time his blood was hot and he didn't consider the consequences, but now, in hindsight, it makes him deeply uneasy.

That was the Pinglu Jiedushi, commander of tens of thousands of troops in Yingzhou!

"An Lushan, An Lushan, a thousand elite soldiers… How could my grandfather mobilize the Shen Ce Army to Fen Prefecture?"

Fang Chongyong suddenly realized the matter might not be simple!

Without an imperial edict, moving the imperial guards without informing Ji Ge—no matter how many holy benefactors, they couldn't bear it!

"Old Jiedushi Fang did not mobilize the imperial guards.

It's true he controls the Divine Strategy Army, but large bodies of imperial guards cannot be deployed at will without an edict. An Lushan has five hundred personal guards—if we send too few men, we won't be able to kill An Lushan; if we send too many, it's easy to expose our movements. We can only join forces with others in a strong alliance.

They will be the main force, and we will merely provide assistance from the side."

Huh?

This matter doesn't seem quite the same as what he'd imagined!

Fang Chongyong pondered to himself: Fang Youde wanted to kill An Lushan because of his own obsession. But why would others also want to kill An Lushan?

From He Changqi's tone, although this matter was planned by Fang Youde, the main force carrying it out was someone else.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck his mind, and he couldn't help asking He Changqi:

"They? Who are they? Could it be... Huangfu Weiming?"

Now it was He Changqi's turn to lose his composure!

"How did the Jiedushi know it was Huangfu Weiming who made the move?"

The reason He Changqi knew was that Fang Youde had told him, Xu Yuan had told him, and he had inquired at the scene. But Fang Chongyong had neither gone to Que Shu Valley nor participated in it—how could he know it was Huangfu Weiming who sent people to make the move?

"Huangfu Weiming's clan elder sister was a consort of the Sage before he ascended the throne, and the family has deep connections in Chang'an.

If the Sage wants An Lushan to command the two northeastern garrisons, then this matter certainly cannot be hidden from Huangfu Weiming's eyes and ears.

Given that the rise and fall of his family is at stake, Huangfu Weiming is clearly unwilling to yield the position of Fanyang Military Commissioner to An Lushan, a Hu man.

My father only needs to write a letter explaining the pros and cons, and I believe persuading the Fanyang Military Commissioner Huangfu Weiming would not be difficult at all.

When Xu Yuan came to Chang'an to find my father, my father had gone to Heyang at the time. He must have come to deliver a message that Huangfu Weiming's side was already prepared and ready to act at any moment!"

Fang Chongyong said unhurriedly, wearing an expression of sudden realization, and the more he spoke, the more he felt his conjecture was correct.

"Jiedushi Fang, you truly are a master of divine calculation! The facts are indeed exactly as you described!

Huangfu Weiming was deeply worried about being dismissed by the Sage. As long as An Lushan is eliminated, not only can he continue to stay in Youzhou, he even has the chance to concurrently hold the post of Pinglu Military Commissioner by seizing the opportunity.

This is a case of man scheming against the tiger, and the tiger also scheming against man.

When An Lushan was secretly scheming for the position of Youzhou Military Commissioner, how could Huangfu Weiming not also be plotting against him?

Old Jiedushi Fang merely guided things according to the circumstances, using one force against another, that's all!"

He Changqi looked at Fang Chongyong with an expression of admiration and said.

"People die for wealth and birds die for food, that's all. Not worth mentioning."

Fang Chongyong said listlessly. The wheel of history had twisted slightly, and An Lushan was done away with.

But he believed that even without An Lushan, as long as the court did not resolve the problems in Hebei, there would still be a Liu Lushan, a Zhang Lushan, or whatever.

Previously, Fang Chongyong had projected the biases of his past life, believing only Fang Youde wanted to kill An Lushan. But thinking it through carefully, the matter was not that simple.

Now, before the An-Shi Rebellion had erupted, An Lushan was nothing more than a Hu frontier general with slight ambition, and his abilities were not particularly outstanding.

In the eyes of the powerful, such a cur wasn't even worth killing.

But the specifics must also be analyzed specifically.

From the perspective of the An-Shi Rebellion, An Lushan isn't worth killing now; but from the perspective of a political rival and a stumbling block, this person is worth killing thoroughly and grinding his bones to dust!

Back then, when Geshu Han was still a Deputy Military Commissioner, he killed another Deputy Military Commissioner of the same rank with whom he had long been at odds, right in front of many people. Afterward he offered some explanations, and nothing happened at all!

In the Tang dynasty, mutual infighting and killing among frontier garrison generals was extremely common.

Seeing blood or even death was nothing out of the ordinary, and afterward reporting to the court and filing secret complaints was something everyone did.

For instance, Wang Zhongsi had filed quite a few secret complaints to Brother Ji about many people!

Many times, the perpetrator merely got a token punishment.

The unlucky one died and that was that—the dead have no value to be exploited, and they have no voice!

In fact, compared to Huangfu Weiming, the utterly rootless An Lushan was the weaker party! This is something very easy for transmigrators to get confused about!

The current An Lushan was nothing more than a rootless Hu man who was politically suppressed.

Not only did he occupy the position of Pinglu Military Commissioner, he was also scheming to hold two garrisons simultaneously, which had already crossed the political red lines of many Chang'an powerholders!

Moreover, between the two northeastern garrisons, Fanyang was a major garrison and Pinglu was a minor one. The economic strength and resource potential of the area under Pinglu Garrison's jurisdiction were far from comparable to Fanyang Garrison.

The troops were also far fewer.

The prestige and political influence of the Fanyang Military Commissioner far exceeded those of the Pinglu Military Commissioner.

What An Lushan had previously wanted to do was somewhat akin to a minor branch merging into the main branch of an aristocratic family!

Why would Huangfu Weiming, who had a network of connections in Chang'an, just sit by and watch An Lushan "climb upward" without raising the butcher's knife?

Who is more foolish than whom, and who is more kind than whom?

In fact, the reason certain Chang'an powerholders did not activate their connections to stop this matter, allowing Brother Ji to easily issue edicts promoting An Lushan, was because someone deliberately laid low and held back their strength!

In their view, An Lushan was already a dead man. Since he was a dead man, letting him enjoy a bit of glory while still alive was merely a matter of smiling wordlessly and watching his disgraceful behavior from the sidelines.

The depth of these people's scheming and the ruthlessness of their methods made even Fang Chongyong feel a chill in his heart!

However, there was still one question Fang Chongyong hadn't figured out.

He hurriedly found from his luggage a finely drawn, official map produced by the court's Ministry of Works and spread it on the desk.

"He Laohu, there are at least three routes from Guanzhong to Hebei. Going from the two-capital official road to Hebei requires crossing the Yellow River, and An Lushan fears water and refuses to take it, which is understandable, so let's set that aside.

But the route from Fengling Post through Zhiguan Pass to Henei is fast, easy to travel, and shorter. Why doesn't An Lushan take this road, and instead insists on heading north to Taiyuan to pass through Que Shu Valley?"

Fang Chongyong asked a question that struck at the very soul.

This question had great historical depth for people of this era. If He Changqi were not a military general, he would truly have found it hard to answer.

From the rivalry between Northern Qi and Northern Zhou to the warlords' struggles at the end of the Sui, Que Shu Valley was in fact always a contested strategic point. Even though it was rugged and narrow, it had no choice but to become a vital thoroughfare.

Because depending on the disposition of the two armies facing each other, if army supplies didn't pass through here, then there was no road to take!

This was the boundary between the Linfen Basin and the Taiyuan Basin, and the key to the struggle between Northern Zhou and Northern Qi back then was the repeated back-and-forth over the Linfen Basin!

And later, during the late Sui period, similar geopolitics produced similar political and military patterns, keeping the strategic importance of Que Shu Valley perpetually high!

Moreover, it was here that Taizong of the early Tang dynasty first made his name in battle!

But afterward, the Great Tang enjoyed a century of peace, and political factions were no longer divided by inside or outside the passes, or by Hedong and Hebei, so the geopolitical landscape changed along with it! The Queshu Valley of yore had now become overgrown with weeds and rarely visited.

Because the people of the Taiyuan Basin no longer needed to risk taking this route—they had better roads to reach Guanzhong!

Fang Chongyong remembered clearly that in his previous life, Queshu Valley was also a rarely visited spot for tourism and adventure! Not any kind of major thoroughfare.

"When An Lushan came to Guanzhong, he took the Henei Circuit, and Old Jiedushi Fang deliberately gave him a hard time at that time.

On the return trip, An Lushan was already Military Commissioner of two garrisons. Not wanting to be harassed by the Divine Strategy Army again, and also worried that Old Jiedushi Fang might kill him to vent his anger, he deliberately took a detour.

That is this subordinate's guess. As for what actually happened, we would have to find An Lushan and ask him."

He Changqi spread his hands with a sheepish smile; he had simply put himself in An Lushan's shoes for a moment.

What An Lushan was thinking was now completely unnecessary to investigate—this person was dead and could not be deader.

He Changqi felt that the Three Cities of Heyang were also along the Yellow River. If Fang Youde had his men tie An Lushan up and throw him into the Yellow River to drown, then report that An Lushan had accidentally fallen into the water late at night... this excuse, though brain-dead, but what meaning would there be in the Sage speaking up for a dead man?

An Lushan was not some deeply rooted aristocrat!

If Fang Youde wanted to kill someone right under his nose, could he really not come up with a way? Anyway, afterward it would all be an untraceable mess!

An Lushan's worries were actually very easy to empathize with, and He Changqi could understand the unease in An Lushan's heart.

It was perfectly normal for him not to take the Henei Circuit, which Fang Youde had choked off.

"Are you saying that my father was certain An Lushan would take Queshu Valley, and then he notified Huangfu Weiming to have his trusted men lie in ambush on the hilltops near Queshu Valley..."

Fang Chongyong rested his chin on his hand, deep in thought, and muttered to himself.

Looking at the Northern Qi's strategy back then, Hebei troops entering Bingzhou via Jingxing and then lying in ambush at Queshu Valley to kill people was truly nothing new.

It was far more reliable than Fang Youde sending someone to assassinate An Lushan! The route was also much shorter!

Fang Chongyong thought it over and felt that the success of this ambush could be called unexpected yet reasonable.

If An Lushan had traveled light with few attendants, or simply not taken this route, nothing would have happened! A person sitting inside a carriage—who knows who was inside! Queshu Valley had no shortage of travelers coming and going on ordinary days, and the ambushers could not possibly kill everyone they saw.

If An Lushan had really just brought a few attendants and hurried through Queshu Valley, he would have been safe instead.

The troops ambushing in Queshu Valley judged that they were the targets precisely by observing that An Lushan's party was several hundred men marching together.

Various factors combined to announce that An Lushan had stepped onto the road of no return—this was the tribulation of his fate!

Fang Chongyong figured out all the connections.

Of course, if Fang Chongyong learned that An Lushan had also divined once at Fengling Relay Station, and that it was An Lushan himself who wanted to head north to Taiyuan, he would surely sigh that it was all a matter of timing, fate, and fortune.

When a person's luck is too bad, no one can help them.

"Jiedushi Fang, An Lushan was bound to die.

Even if the ambush at Queshu Valley had failed, Huangfu Weiming would still have prepared a tough dish for An Lushan in Hebei at Youzhou.

Just think about it—the Sage has already passed sixty years of age and cannot hold on for many more years.

No trust is more trustworthy than the Changsuo in your hands; only with troops and horses in hand can you guarantee your family's safety.

Why should Huangfu Weiming willingly let the Sage manipulate him at will?"

He Changqi lowered his voice and spoke—a single remark that awakened the dreamer.

So that was how it was!

Fang Chongyong abruptly stood up again!

The only blade that Brother Ji could currently control was Fang Youde and his Divine Strategy Army!

Fang Youde did not want An Lushan to become a military commissioner, and so this blade went dull!

It was precisely because Huangfu Weiming received Fang Youde's promise and "guidance" that he dared to swagger and take out An Lushan!

Because he knew that as long as he joined hands with Fang Youde, Brother Ji could not possibly do anything to him in the end.

All the stakes were plain to see.

An Lushan was just a dog; dead is dead, and Brother Ji would find another way to get a new one.

Between Fang Youde and Huangfu Weiming was a barefaced exchange of interests. If one did not consider that Old Fang killing An Lushan was "eager to fulfill a vow," then in this round of dealing he took a huge loss—apart from gaining a "little secret" of advancing and retreating together with Huangfu Weiming, he reaped almost nothing!

"My father will definitely resign from office. If he does not resign, I would not be surprised if the Sage sidelines him in the future."

Fang Chongyong sighed softly and said.

Fang Youde resigning was a gesture of yielding to Brother Ji, showing that he had no intention toward power. Even if Brother Ji suspected him, without ironclad proof, he naturally could only take the out and let the matter drop, and would not expose it.

Fang Chongyong was speechless and choked up; Old Fang's obsession with killing An Lushan was so deep that truly no one could stop him!

This father really knew how to dig pits. So what if he killed an An Lushan? When Hebei was destined to fall into chaos in the future, it would still fall into chaos!

Fang Chongyong felt that Old Fang's vision was too narrow.

"Jiedushi Fang, how did you know!

Old Jiedushi Fang said the same thing! He said that from now on he was going to slack... right, from now on he was going to slack off."

He Changqi said with a look of surprise. He was thoroughly convinced by Fang Chongyong's "brilliant calculations"!

"Follow me wholeheartedly from now on. What happened before is not to happen again."

Fang Chongyong looked at He Changqi with deep eyes and spoke. The latter was so frightened that he immediately dropped to the ground and dared not move, feeling only that this young Hexi Jiedushi inspired fear from the bottom of one's heart, as if he could see through what you were thinking with a single glance.

"Rise. What this Jiedushi needs are claws and fangs, not lackeys.

Listen well. In the future, even if this Jiedushi raises an army to purge the Sovereign's side, you must clear the way ahead of me. Understood?"

Fang Chongyong helped He Changqi up and brushed the dust off him.

"How dare this subordinate not fight to the death!"

He Changqi said with a face full of excitement.

Fang Chongyong gave a slight nod, unable to resist saying a word of thanks to Fang Youde in his heart.

He Changqi had personally killed An Lushan and slapped Brother Ji's face; he could only follow him down this one road to the bitter end.

This was a sharp blade that Fang Youde had gifted him before "retiring"!

(This chapter ends)