Chapter 459: Truth

Just after Cao Zong and his party emerged from the mountain pass and rode into Santun Camp.

Yang Er of the Guard Battalion — no, Deputy Company Commander Yang Weili — was standing on the watchtower atop the south city wall, raising his eight-power Zeiss binoculars and scanning the mountain path left and right.

Unknowingly, that young thief from back then was now twenty. In ancient times, most men this age had already married, established themselves, and become fathers. And now, dressed in a padded cotton coat, his bearing straight and tall, Yang Weili had likewise shed all his restlessness and youthful naivety, becoming a stern and resolute soldier.

Not long ago, in the final battle that erupted at high noon, Yang Weili, as a member of the wall garrison, had hit with every shot, killing or wounding quite a few Tartars in the midst of their escape.

After the battle ended, the garrison finally welcomed the main force arriving from the direction of Yongping, along with, incidentally, that Beile who had just fled from beneath the city walls — one school.

At this moment, a portion of the wall garrison soldiers had gone down to rest and reorganize. Before the company commander left to report, he transferred command authority to Yang Weili.

Not long after Yang Weili took over command, he saw through the binocular lenses a large cavalry force rounding the western mountain spur.

Looking more closely, these cavalrymen were all in Ming Army attire. On the banners they held high, the official rank side was unreadable due to the small characters, but on the other side, a giant character "Zuo" blazed forth with dazzling clarity.

Discovering a large body of troops approaching, Yang Weili, as the duty company commander on the wall, ordered someone to use the walkie-talkie to contact the transmigrators inside the General Headquarters while closely monitoring the newly arrived forces.

After rounding the western mountain spur, following the mountain road straight ahead for over four hundred meters led to the Death Road before Santunying Fortress.

At this moment, the Death Road was thickly strewn with Tartar corpses, both men and horses, totaling at least fifteen or sixteen hundred. The road surface, less than a single li in length, was entirely covered by bodies; dark brown blood flowed out and spread across both sides of the road, even forming patch after patch of blood pools.

Busy among the piles of corpses were about a hundred laborers brought from Tianjin, dressed in the ordinary clothes of Ming people.

The first step of these men's task was naturally to cut off heads, and incidentally to give a finishing knife to any Tartars not yet dead.

The main Ming force approached in a state of alert. After all, they had just been soundly defeated and driven back by the Tartars; having barely finished resting and reorganized, they had screwed up their courage to once more venture deep into the mountain path — a bit of trepidation was understandable.

However, upon reaching the scene, every cavalryman drew in a sharp breath. The first thing they all saw were several piles of Tartar heads placed by the roadside.

The scalps gleaming with a bluish sheen, the dead-fish stares, and the familiar faces — not long ago, it was these very heads, faces full of ferocity, that had driven their brothers back without mercy.

Now, those heads sat right there, like piles of gold and silver, just waiting to be taken.

"Central Army, what sort of goods is this damned Zhangchao Deputy Regional Commander? To have such gall, daring to defy the Military Commissioner's orders, privately sending troops to raid a city — no, to steal our brothers' battle achievements!"

The speaker was a Ming Army squad commander with a red tassel atop his helmet.

In the Ming Dynasty, high-ranking military officers such as generals and regional commanders wore no rank insignia on their shoulders when on campaign. Even the armor they wore was merely somewhat more exquisite mountain-pattern armor or chain mail — it was not Gold Saint Cloth, after all — so recognition was actually not high.

What truly marked a military officer's rank on the battlefield was the red tassel and pearl string on his helmet. Generally speaking, the longer the tassel ornament, the higher the rank.

This cavalry squad commander, upon seeing the heads piled on the ground, had long since gone red-eyed. He could not help but shade his eyes with a hand and glance toward the gate tower, then opened his mouth and pinned several capital crimes onto Regional Commander Cao.

"Hmph!"

Beside the squad commander, a mid-ranking military officer wearing a phoenix-wing helmet with two knots tied in his pearl string was none other than the master of the military banner behind him — Zuo Liangyu, Commander of the Liaodong Right Chariot Battalion.

Zuo Liangyu, a late Ming military strongman. In the years to come, this man would lead troops to suppress peasant armies, burning, killing, and plundering wherever he passed, with utterly corrupt military discipline, cunning and faithless, an expert at betraying allies. After Chongzhen hanged himself, this gentleman would entrench himself in Wuhan, using his troops to bolster his own power, trimming his sails to every faction, and after his death his son would lead the troops to surrender to the Qing.

Of course, the current Zuo Liangyu was merely a mid-ranking military officer under the Guanning Clique; it was not yet his turn to be promoted, command troops, and turn to the dark side. So on the whole, Zuo Liangyu at this moment could still be counted as a fierce general with ambition.

And that was precisely where the trouble lay.

Since he had ambition, then seeing pile after pile of experience points sitting right there, guarded by only a hundred or so civilian laborers — how could the Guanning Iron Cavalry, arrogant and overbearing as they always were, not be tempted?

One must know that what Commander Zuo lacked most right now was precisely heads!

Two years ago, a mutiny had occurred at the Ningyuan Garrison on the Liaodong front line.

The soldiers of the thirteen Ningyuan battalions sought to recover four months of back pay. Consequently, Fuzhou Governor Bi Zisu, along with the old general Zhu Mei, were both seized by the soldiers and pressed for wages.

But Bi Zisu had no money.

The fact was, even though Bi Zisu's own brother Bi Ziyan was the Minister of Revenue in charge of finances, and even though Bi Zisu had previously petitioned the court nine times to report the unpaid wages, the court's pockets were cleaner than a face — so the wages remained in arrears.

Thus, Bi Zisu, after being humiliated by the wage-rioting soldiers, ultimately committed suicide.

And Zuo Liangyu, then serving as Commander of the Liaodong Right Chariot Battalion, along with the old general Zhu Mei, all lost their posts because of this affair.

So to some extent, it was the Tartars who had saved Zuo Liangyu's career: were it not for this Later Jin incursion, he would not have been restored to his original post.

Precisely because of this, Zuo Liangyu, just reinstated and serving as cavalry vanguard under Assistant Regional Commander Cao Wenzhao, was at his most eager for battle achievements. So when he heard his trusted subordinate, the colonel, spouting nonsense, Zuo Liangyu did not refute him, merely giving a cold snort.

Indeed, what the hell was this damned Zhangchao Deputy Regional Commander? Right now, the main force of the Guanning Clique was massed here. From the Military Commissioner on down, who knew how many provincial regional commanders and vice generals there were? A mere miscellaneous-brand deputy regional commander from an outside route — when Ma Huihui mustered the generals, he probably did not even rate a seat. What the hell was he?

Most crucially, with so many Tartars dead before their eyes, why was there not a single Ming Army corpse to be seen? To claim that the Ming troops inside the city had killed these men — every Ming soldier from Zuo Liangyu on down would rather die than believe it. In their view, the Tartars had an internal falling-out on the road and for some reason slaughtered each other for a round — that was the most reasonable explanation.

Having thought through the causes and consequences, Zuo Liangyu opened his mouth: "It is entirely thanks to our brothers' hard work, chasing with all their might the whole way, that the Tartars were driven to a dead end, fell into internal strife, and perished."

Having set the tone, Zuo Liangyu lifted his chin: "Send some men to collect all the heads, and grab a few civilian laborers to question them — find out what the story really is."

"Aye!"

At Zuo Liangyu's command, the cavalrymen, who had long been unable to restrain themselves, immediately shouted and spurred their horses forward.

The civilian laborers, who had already stopped working and begun to stand guard, now saw the ferocious official army charging at them. They promptly threw down the chopping knives in their hands and fled screaming toward the south city gate.

Yang Weili, keeping watch from the tower, saw this scene. Without a word, he grabbed the hand mic beside him and began in a deep voice: "Attention. Incoming cavalry now confirmed as hostile. All units — load, aim, ready, fire!"

At the command issued through the loudspeaker, the one hundred warriors on the city wall, who had long since begun to take notice of the arrivals, immediately and proficiently fired a volley.

White smoke billowed. Several cavalrymen who had already charged to the very backs of the civilian laborers were instantly blasted to the ground, leaving only their horses leaping and bucking in place.

However, the greater firepower from the wall was concentrated on the area with the head piles.

After the few riders who had gone to seize the laborers charged out, a large number of cavalrymen dismounted and rushed toward the head piles on the ground. Quite a few even drew the sabers at their waists, preparing to carry on the unfinished work of the civilian laborers — hacking at the Tartar heads on the ground.

Then the Ming troops who had rushed up to the heads were struck down, twenty or thirty of them, by a single volley.

This volley effectively checked the Ming troops' mad actions. All those who had just dismounted, who were lucky enough not to have been shot, were now fleeing back, weeping and wailing for their parents. The ferocious, fiendish posturing of moments before had been flung to the four winds.

Zuo Liangyu, who had urgently pulled his horse back several steps, was at this moment equally shocked and terrified.

One must realize that his current position was over two hundred paces from the city wall — converted to later-generation meters, a full three hundred meters. How could the opponent's fire lances shoot so far?

The next moment, Zuo Liangyu froze: if the city wall had fire lances this devastatingly sharp, then were not these Tartars on the ground killed by those very men?

When the panting transmigrators climbed onto the wall, this was the scene they saw: dispersal by volley fire.

Then Qian Tieshan, upon seeing Yang Weili run over to report the situation, immediately asked with a stern expression: "You are the duty company commander. Then answer me now: why did you open fire?"

Yang Weili gave a military salute and loudly replied: "Reporting. Because the incoming cavalry attacked the civilian laborers and attempted to seize the heads beneath the wall, I judged the opponents to be hostile, not friendly, and therefore ordered to open fire."

"Did you not see those men below the wall holding the banners of the Great Ming official army?"

"I am the Deputy Company Commander of the Guard Battalion. I do not answer to the Ming Emperor."

Hearing Yang Weili say this, Qian Tieshan's originally taut expression slowly began to relax. The next moment, he abruptly raised his arm and forcefully punched the young man in the chest: "Not bad. The training we put you through wasn't wasted."

The other Transmigrators who had come along also grinned and clapped the young man on the shoulder: "Politically sound, rock-solid competence — lad's got a future!"

Qian Tieshan chuckled as he began to explain: "This painted-face kid here — I'd originally intended to recruit him into the Special Operations Team, but Wei Yuan stopped me. Ah, the Army really buries talent."

With the tense atmosphere gone, the group walked laughing to the rear of the City Wall and began observing the Left Commandant's reaction.

Zuo Liangyu, still badly shaken, had pulled his troops back another two hundred paces after enduring that last Volley Fire, and had dispatched an envoy who was now waving Banner signals as he approached Under the City.

"Yang Weili — that line the Navy always says, the one about truth or whatever, do you know it?"

After casting a few glances Under the City, Qian Tieshan leaned back against the parapet, casually lit a cigarette, and then tested the young man.

Yang Weili thought for a moment and said uncertainly: "Truth exists only within the range of a naval Cannon?"

"That's the one — you young people really do have better memories."

At those words, Qian Tieshan pointed at the restless Ming Army below and said: "Remember this — no matter what Power Base you're Facing, if you don't let the other side know you have the Capability to destroy them, then your opponent will Be Unlikely To ever speak to you as an equal."

As he said this, Qian Tieshan reached behind his back and took his assault Rifle, then shot the approaching envoy right off his horse with One Gun: "That order you gave earlier still had a flaw — how could one round of Volley Fire be enough? You should have ordered Rapid Fire."

After exchanging nods with Zhang Dongdong, Zhang Zhongqi, and the others, Qian Tieshan snapped his fingers and shouted an order at the Machine Gunner who had turned his head to look at him: "Fire half a belt."