Chapter 431: Intelligence

Chongzhen 11th Year, 23rd day of the 11th month, Zhending Prefectural City.

Lu Xiangsheng had arrived at Zhending on the 20th; by now the Qing army had already left, replaced by the Xuan-Da forces, the two sides still in a state of disengagement.

A small squad of cavalry reached the camp gate. The soldiers guarding the gate were listless, showing no intention of checking tokens or registering them. The leader glanced over, saw someone he recognized, and waved them through. The other sentries huddled in their tents, not even lifting their heads.

Qin Jiuze walked at the very rear. Passing the camp gate, he looked up — two human heads hung from the crossbeam, already encased in frost.

None of the group looked at them. They rode straight out the camp gate and onto the official road heading south. Other cavalrymen were also traveling the road, all looking equally listless. Most of the riders passed each other without a word, each trudging along in silence. Some horses stopped dead in place, refusing to move, and their riders cursed and kicked at them.

Qin Jiuze gazed outward. On the fields flanking the official road, discarded household goods lay everywhere, corpses were scattered all about, flocks of crows swooped down, and wild dogs gnawing at the bodies charged in with low growls, sending the crows bursting skyward with a roar of wings.

They all dismounted and led their horses south for five or six li, at which point the Centurion leading the group tugged his horse's head and left the official road, cutting through a ruined market town and walking another two or three li away from the main road.

Qin Jiuze lifted his head to look. Nearby, mounted figures moved about; their uniforms marked them as government troops as well. The scouts sent out by each unit had all gone somewhere other than where they were supposed to be.

Ahead stood a walled residence with a rather imposing gate, clearly the home of a wealthy family. The outer walls were intact, only the main gate broken. White smoke billowed above the compound.

The Centurion pointed at the residence. Two riders vaulted onto their horses, circled the compound once, and upon returning to the gate nodded at the Centurion, who then led the way toward the courtyard gate.

Qin Jiuze kept his hand on the hilt of his sword to stop the blade from swinging back and forth, his left hand leading his horse as he followed through the main gate.

In the first courtyard, several government troops were already there, busy chopping apart a gate leaf. They paid no attention to Qin Jiuze and his companions.

The Centurion made a circuit inside, then continued into the second courtyard. From a room on the west side came the shrill, wretched cries of a woman. The Centurion did not look; he went straight to the entrance of the third courtyard, peered inside, then waved the group in.

There were other government troops in the third courtyard as well, their horses tethered to the western veranda pillars. Most wore padded cotton armor — household retainers of some camp or other. Seeing newcomers, they eyed them warily, but once they saw that Qin Jiuze's group showed no sign of provocation, they ignored each other, not even bothering to ask which camp head they were from.

A fire burned in the open ground, thick white smoke churning skyward. Those government troops were still smashing apart a bed frame, tossing the broken pieces of wood into the fire, sparks flying everywhere.

An iron pot sat directly on the firewood, water boiling inside, with leftover chunks of ice still floating on the surface.

Several household retainers crouched by the iron pot. Three severed heads lay on the ground, all with full heads of hair — clearly not Tartars. One soldier held a razor, shaving the hair off one of the heads.

Qin Jiuze walked a circle around the courtyard. Bloodstains and livestock dung were everywhere; Qing cavalry must have briefly bivouacked here earlier. In a corner outside the main hall, several corpses were piled up, their clothes completely stripped off, encrusted in frost, impossible to tell whether they were men or women.

The Centurion stopped at the eastern wing of the third courtyard, and everyone tethered their horses to the veranda pillars.

Qin Jiuze paid no attention to those soldiers. He searched the courtyard on his own for a while, confirmed that no forage whatsoever could be found, then returned to his squad leader and said, "That smoke is too conspicuous. The side gate is small, and leading the horses out would be slow. We need someone on the rooftop keeping watch."

The squad leader said to one of his men, "Get up on the roof and keep an eye out."

The man tilted his head and said, "The wind up there is freezing."

The squad leader fixed him with a fierce glare. The cavalryman backed away two steps in fear, and finally, grudgingly, climbed onto the outer wall, then followed it up onto the roof. The squad leader tossed a filthy blanket up from below; the cavalryman caught it, wrapped himself, and lay flat on the roof ridge.

The three rooms of the eastern wing were all silent. Qin Jiuze pushed open one door. Inside, two pairs of suspended feet appeared, the skin already blackened. The Centurion fanned the air twice with his hand, turned, and went to the room next door.

The squad members each found firewood and started fires in the wing rooms. After a while, the temperature inside began to rise.

Qin Jiuze leaned diagonally against the doorframe. He took out his step bow and rested it against the wall, standing his arrow quiver upright on the ground so that the fletched ends of several arrows were within easy reach.

Among the soldiers across the way, someone was sizing up the horses tethered to the veranda pillars, then stealing glances toward the wing room. Qin Jiuze's gaze was very calm, yet every time it met those ill-intentioned looks head-on.

After a while, both sides judged that the other was unwilling to start a conflict and gradually grew accustomed to each other's presence, no longer probing with their eyes.

Qin Jiuze relaxed slightly as well. From the room behind him came voices. The Centurion said in a low voice, "Today's assignment was to scout toward Huolu. Without fodder beans, the horses can't make it that far. We'll rest here until nightfall and then return to camp. We'll just say we reached the outskirts of Huolu and saw no Tartars."

The whole squad acknowledged. No one thought there was anything wrong with this. A scouting mission to Huolu required going and returning the same day, which was extremely taxing on the horses' strength — especially now, when not only were fodder beans scarce, but after tens of thousands of Tartars had passed through, not a single blade of grass remained. The horses' stamina could not be replenished, and they would soon grow gaunt and weak.

A cavalryman's mount was the very foundation of his survival. Without supplies, no one was willing to drain their horse's strength.

Slapping sounds rang out in the courtyard. Qin Jiuze's gaze slowly shifted over. The soldier by the iron pot had grabbed a dripping cloth shoe in one hand and a severed head in the other. The head's remaining hair spread out across the ground. The household retainer raised the cloth shoe and smacked it hard against the hair, beating it until it was soaking wet, fine, dense droplets of water spraying everywhere.

Qin Jiuze's deeply wrinkled face showed no ripple of emotion. These soldiers were trying to erase the binding marks in the hair. Because Tartars did not bind their hair, there were no horizontal creases in it. To pass the heads off as Tartar heads, beating out the hair marks was the first step.

One of the household retainers, apparently satisfied with the beating, propped up a small rack with a few branches, tied the head's hair to it, and with a thud tossed it into the pot. This was to boil the head until it swelled, so that the inspectors would have no grounds to reject the head as a valid kill.

Qin Jiuze crouched down along the doorframe, sitting on the threshold of the wing room, his step bow laid across his knees. In his ears, he listened to the people inside continue talking.

"Master Xu, I hear some camp head reported the Tartars have gone toward Shanxi. Should we follow them back to Shanxi?"

The squad leader's voice asked, "Whose camp reported that?"

"They say it came from Wang Zongzhen's side."

Someone snorted. "A great army leaves a huge trail when it moves. Even if snow covers it, you sweep it aside and look closely, you'll know. The horse dung on the official road all heads south. The people the Tartars abducted die one after another along the way — just follow the corpses and you'll know they went south. Only one branch went west. Does he take everyone for blind men?"

The squad leader's voice said coldly, "Those of us who run around out here don't say a thing. You say the Tartars went south, and the higher-ups will send you to scout it out for certain. Once you've scouted it out, you go fight and kill Tartars. And when the time comes, you can do the fighting and killing yourself."

The man fell silent. The squad leader continued, "Remember this: no matter who asks, you say you saw nothing."

Silence fell inside for a moment. Qin Jiuze furrowed his brow, the knife-carved wrinkles at his brow deepening further, and he lowered his head.

After a while, Centurion Xu's voice said, "Go find some more firewood. If other groups show up later and there's no firewood left, how are we supposed to get through the day?"

Just then, a burst of wailing and shouting came from outside. Qin Jiuze lifted his head. The cries were entering the courtyard through the side gate.

Qin Jiuze rose and stepped out to the veranda. Two men dressed as commoners were being escorted in by several household retainers. The moment they entered the courtyard, they dropped to their knees and kowtowed desperately.

"Caught two more."

The soldier who had been shaving heads earlier let out a gleeful shout, got up, and went over to one of the commoners. He grabbed the man by the hair and twisted his head this way and that, sizing up his skull — perhaps gauging whether it would be easy to pass off as a fake.

The man, seeing the human head boiling in the pot, was already terrified beyond measure, his whole body trembling like chaff in a sieve. Stammering, he cried out, "S-soldier lords, spare me! This lowly one fled into the mountains to hide from the Tartars. I shouldn't have come back and disturbed the soldier lords' peace. I beg the soldier lords to spare my life! This lowly one will go back to the mountains at once! Soldier lords, wuwu..."

In the courtyard before him, the blazing wood crackled and popped crisply, thick smoke rolling upward. The household retainers were still beating the hair furiously with shoe soles, water droplets flying everywhere. The two captured men wailed at the top of their lungs, begging those soldiers to spare their lives. The squadmate on the rooftop, huddled into a ball, still poked his head down to watch the spectacle.

Snowflakes drifted onto his eyebrows, piling into a thin layer. Qin Jiuze stared blankly at the scene before him, a faint puff of white breath escaping his lips. "Living... is hard."

25th day of the 11th month, Luqiao Town, Jining Prefecture. Every merchant's door planks were shut tight.

At the crossroads outside town, a row of six cannons had their covers removed, their muzzles aimed squarely at the official road. Cannoneers cradled powder charges wrapped in cotton cloth, their ramrods at their feet, ready to begin loading at any moment.

Over a hundred iron-armored infantry stood at the ready behind the cannons, everyone gazing out toward the official road.

Pang Yu also raised his extendable telescope to observe. Up ahead on the official road, a stream of people surged — a unit of government troops marching without banners, heading not north but toward Xuzhou. They moved in great haste, carrying quite a lot of belongings. Some cavalrymen even had women laid sideways across their horses' backs.

Chen Rulie said from the side, "Forces under Shandong Regional Commander Ni Chong. They are withdrawing to Xuzhou."

Zhuang Chaozheng said in a measured tone, "The Tartars are to the north. Why are they heading south?"

"They say the Ministry of War did not summon them for rally to the king, so it would be inconvenient to violate military orders. They also asked which unit we belong to."

Tu Section Clerk from the Advisory Room tilted his head toward Chen Rulie. "How did Battalion Commander Chen answer them?"

"I told them we are guest troops suppressing bandits within the Fengyang Governor's jurisdiction, not marching for rally to the king. It's the Purple Tenuity Star who is pillaging in Xuzhou, and we accidentally crossed the border while in pursuit."

Wu Dacai stood beside Pang Yu; without a Telescope, he squinted ahead for a moment, then said to Pang Yu, "My Lord General, this Ni Chong must have gotten reliable word to turn and flee south. The Tartars may already have reached Linqing."

Several Cannoneers nearby overheard and turned their heads to steal a glance this way.

In recent days, the atmosphere around Jining had also grown tense. The shops in the market towns along the route had all shut their doors, and the population had fled into walled cities or the countryside. If the Tartars' target was Linqing, they would not necessarily stop at Linqing.

Pang Yu was only a few days' march from Linqing. Now not only could he not go to Dezhou, he could not go to Linqing either — he hardly dared take a single step forward. Falling back seemed equally improper; it would plant doubt in the soldiers' minds. For now, he could only linger at Luqiao, but today Ni Chong had put on this show of turning tail and fleeing, which would surely shake the morale of the Anqing Battalion.

Pang Yu asked Chen Rulie, "Any new intelligence on the road? Have the mounted scouts discovered any Tartar movements at Linqing?"

"The mounted scouts have yet to send word. It was a staff officer of Ni Chong's whom I encountered who said the Tartars were besieging Danger County and heading for Linqing. But people coming later said the Tartars had gone toward Shandong. There was also a Relay Horse heading south; he heard rumors on the road that after striking Linqing, the Tartars would exit the border via Shanxi."

"Shanxi? Strike Linqing, then go via Shanxi…"

Pang Yu crouched on the ground. A few men gathered in a circle around that crude map. Their intelligence was utterly vague; they had no idea where the Tartars were or what their objective was.

If the Qing army struck Linqing first, swept from east to west, and then exited via Shanxi, that was indeed a route Pang Yu had never even considered before — because once inside Shanxi, there were endless mountain ranges, the roads sealed and difficult to traverse. Marching in a single long serpentine column, if they were blocked, it would be hard to bring the Qing army's fighting strength to bear.

The Qing army itself numbered in the tens of thousands, with a large number of Carriages attached. On the return journey they would also be carrying captured populations, so the column would be enormously large. No normal person would choose such a route. But in war, the way is deception — it would indeed catch people off guard. Pang Yu could not now say with certainty that the Qing army would not take that path.

Pang Ding, who had been listening in, looked around at the others and then said to Pang Yu, "My lord, the way I see it, the Tartars have only just begun their plundering. There are far too many places to plunder. Perhaps even the Tartars themselves don't know where they'll plunder next — they probe and go wherever they find no defenses. If we guess wildly, we might just run right into them. Better to stay right here and wait for the Tartars to withdraw. When they withdraw to exit the border, they'll have to go north — only one Direction. Then it'll be easy to guess."

Pang Yu nodded approvingly. "That is the most prudent approach."

The group conferred a while longer but still grasped no key point. They could only decide to wait one more day at Luqiao. Chen Rulie and the others returned to their respective Military Camp. Once everyone had dispersed, Pang Yu pressed both hands over his face and cursed under his breath, "Where the hell are these fucking Tartars going? Who'll give me one solid piece of intelligence?"