Chapter 371: Luring the Snake Out of Its Hole

The moment talk turned to planning, the bandit chieftains all looked listless. They were used to rampaging and looting wherever there was something to take — they had never had any plan. Some had only come intending to grab a meal and could not even see the current situation, still thinking it was like before, that if they ran fast enough they could escape and keep on rampaging.

Seeing that no one spoke, a big man in a felt hat and blue coat stood up. He cupped his hands toward Purple Gold Liang and said, "Fifth Great King, now that government troops are gathering from all sides, their numbers are indeed not small, but each of their columns can only hold one place, which is not as convenient as us. We ought to change our way of thinking. I think we can't just keep fleeing and paying road tolls. We must pick one government column and fight them hard. If we can kill one or two of those damned officials, the other government troops will come to fear us. Then wherever we go after that will be easier."

Gao Yingxiang slapped his palm on the table at the head seat and laughed loudly. "I, your old man, just love an idea like that. Our thirty-six camps, inside and out, add up to two or three hundred thousand men. Right here within a few dozen li of Qinghua Town, there are seventy or eighty thousand. With so many people, what is there to fear? If you want your head to have food to eat, you have to be willing to risk your head."

Someone below immediately shouted in response, "I second Brother Li. Kill that cur Zuo Liangyu."

"Better to kill the Capital Garrison. The Capital Garrison is the Emperor's heart's flesh."

"The Capital Garrison is bullshit. Yesterday I, your old man, with twenty-some men routed over three hundred of them. They even paid silver as road toll to me, your old man."

"Kill that wench Zhang Fengyi of the Sichuan troops! Capture her and I, your old man, want to have a taste."

"Kill Big and Little Cao! I, your old man's, brothers died at their hands."

"Kill Lu, King of Hell..."

The bandit leaders below all began arguing noisily, clamoring to deal with their respective enemies.

"All of you, shut the hell up." Zhang Xianzhong stood up and said, "What Dashing General Brother Li said, I wholeheartedly second. But what he was talking about was the Henan troops. What are you all yapping about? Big and Little Cao are in Shanxi. Have you stuffed yourselves stupid or what, to have the strength to go back over the mountains? Over here in Henan we've already fought several battles. If you ask me, old man, if we're going to fight, we fight the fiercest ones. Kill that bunch of Shandong troops. Wipe out that crew, and the Henan soldiers will lose their nerve. Who would still dare to follow us all day then?"

That Eighth Great King from before said in a sarcastic tone, "Fine, fine. After we kill the Shandong troops, we'll snatch back Yellow Tiger's donkey balls for him. I'll let you keep my wife a little longer."

"I'll fuck your mother's cunt hair." Zhang Xianzhong, provoked again, did not even bother to pick up his knife. He grabbed his chair and hurled it over. With a crash, it smashed the Eighth Great King to the ground, drawing blood on his forehead. The Eighth Great King leapt up and was about to come to blows. Even Purple Gold Liang could not shout them down.

The hall fell into chaos. The personal followers of both men began brawling with each other. Some minor leaders from each side joined in to help. They did not draw blades, and a mass fistfight broke out right there in the main hall. Suddenly, a scream rang out. Blood spurted wildly from the chest of one bandit. Both sides were startled and hurriedly pulled apart. They saw that Gao Yingxiang had somehow entered the fray. Silently swinging his blade, he hacked madly at that bandit on the floor.

He slashed over a dozen times in a row before stopping, panting heavily. The bandit on the floor had his head nearly hacked off. The Dashing King then tossed his knife to his own men, sat back down at the head seat, and wiped the bloodstains from his body, muttering to himself, "Fuck your mother's cunt hair. I told you all not to fucking fight, and you still dared to draw blades in front of me, your old man."

Purple Gold Liang pointed at that Eighth Great King over there and said, "If you, damn you, spout any more nonsense, then don't come begging me, your old man, for help in the future." That Eighth Great King sullenly crouched back down.

Now even Zhang Xianzhong stopped his bluster and sat back down in his seat, huffing with anger. The bandit chieftains all returned to their places. The corpse on the floor was just left lying there. Purple Gold Liang did not call anyone to take it away.

"Just now Old Eight proposed attacking the Shandong troops. Do any of you still want to attack some other column?" Purple Gold Liang stood in the middle and asked. For a moment, none of the bandit leaders spoke.

"You bunch of bastards, if you don't speak, does that mean you agree? Then tell me, how many troops will each of your camps contribute?"

Still no one spoke. Purple Gold Liang swept his gaze around, preparing to call on some people to speak. As he turned his head, he saw a bandit leader in front of him. The blood from the bandit on the floor was flowing right to that leader's feet. The bandit leader had his head down, had caught an ant, and was tossing it into the pool of blood, playing with keen interest.

Purple Gold Liang cursed, "Fuck your mother, Old Seven. I, your old man, have been wasting my spit here for ages. Are you even listening?"

That man looked up, his face all smiles, at Purple Gold Liang. "Fifth Brother, three have drowned already."

Gao Yingxiang also cursed, "Luo Rucai, Fifth Brother is asking you nicely. What are you playing dumb for?"

Luo Rucai smiled broadly and cupped his hands toward Gao Yingxiang. "Sixth Brother's lesson is well taken."

Purple Gold Liang said impatiently, "So are you going to fight or not? If you are, exactly how many men will you send?"

Luo Rucai said very respectfully, "I also agree with striking one column. Since the Shandong troops are the strongest, beating them would also yield more spoils. Now that government troops are massing at Weihui Prefecture, whichever column we strike, we will be surrounded and attacked by the other government troops. If we want to strike the Shandong troops, we must lure the snake out of its hole."

Gao Yingxiang grew interested. "How do we lure it out? Don't fucking keep us in suspense."

Luo Rucai looked around the main hall and said unhurriedly, "Fellow chiefs, have all your men go outside for a moment. With too many people listening, I, your old man, don't feel like talking."

The bandit leaders looked at one another and one after another shooed their underlings out, waiting for Luo Rucai to continue.

"Right now they are in Huixian. Xue Rengui was also fucked over by them once. We send men toward Huixian to lure them, drawing them to the area north of Xiuwu. That place is close to Huixian, so the other government columns won't come and join the fun. When the time comes, every camp's troops will head north of Xiuwu. We just wait for them to come out, and then everyone swarms them at once. It's not like they have three heads and six arms."

Purple Gold Liang frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "It is an idea, but with so many of us, it will be hard to hide our movements. Won't the Shandong troops find out?"

Luo Rucai said, "This matter can't be hidden to begin with, but we come and go unpredictably anyway. Send some smaller camps with their troops marching elsewhere, throw Weihui into chaos. The Shandong troops won't easily figure out for a while that it's aimed at them."

Li Zicheng, wearing the felt hat, said to Luo Rucai, "As expected of Cao Cao indeed. It's just that our cavalry is fast, but the infantry moves slowly. What if, with so many people and loose talk, a few get captured..."

Luo Rucai cut him off. "Exactly. So none of you chiefs should tell your subordinates where we are going. Anyone with a loose tongue, off with their heads, no exceptions."

Zhang Xianzhong also walked to the center and asked Luo Rucai, "What if they don't move?"

"Then we send a force to feign an attack on Xiuwu. Old Eight said the Shandong troops are bold and dare to fight. They will certainly come the fastest. We can still hit them first just the same."

A bandit leader beside them asked, "They also have several thousand troops. What if we can't finish them off quickly?"

Luo Rucai unhurriedly sat down, took a sip of wine, and only then said, "Then what do you suggest? Aside from Old Hui, all the best fighters are right here. If with so many of us we still can't beat them, then from now on, whenever we see them, we take a detour. Otherwise, we honestly pay up for road tolls, and never bring up attacking the Shandong troops again."

Five li northeast of Qinghua Town was the encampment of the Western Camp's Eighth Great King, Zhang Xianzhong. He had suffered a head-on blow from Dengzhou Garrison at Linxian, and then had Zuo Liangyu rob him while his house was burning. Fleeing in disarray into Weihui Prefecture, he had seized commoners along the way and also absorbed some mountain bandits, local thugs, and scattered remnants of other roving bandits. Now his numbers were back over five thousand.

In the middle of their camp was a fortified village they had just overrun. The cavalry lived inside it. The other roving bandits were just scattered across the open plain like this. The refugees dug for rodent burrows everywhere in the wilds, or went north to the fringes of the Taihang Mountains to cut firewood and pick wild fruits. Occasionally, some cavalrymen would ride past outside.

From the east, a dozen or so roving bandit cavalrymen came galloping from afar. They had just returned from a looting raid. Two of them stayed in camp for a while, then rode out again, heading for the mountain forests to the north. At the edge of the woods, they found another mounted bandit. He was there supervising some refugees cutting firewood.

The three met up and moved aside. All three spoke with Shanxi accents as they talked. The mounted bandit by the woods raised his head to look around. It was unmistakably Bucktooth from the Special Duties Unit.

He had a red cloth wrapped around his head, dressed exactly like a roving bandit. This was the hidden piece Chen Xin had planted. The great battle at Huanshui had thrown the roving bandits' organization into chaos. Nine Shanxi-born members of the Special Duties Unit had taken the opportunity to pose as small groups of scattered cavalry, swapped for captured weapons, and split into three teams to infiltrate different roving bandit groups. This tactic only worked on a chaotic organization like the roving bandits.

The roving bandits, having suffered heavy losses, were in urgent need of replenishing their strength. Seeing that their riding skills were good, they were immediately taken into the cavalry. Bucktooth's team first found Scorpion Block, and then later joined Zhang Xianzhong. The roving bandits' structure was loose and their organization chaotic, much like large gangs of bandits. Cavalrymen often switched masters. Bucktooth had also done his homework, claiming he had previously been a Night Scout in the Shanxi Garrison, had turned to banditry in Zezhou after his unit was routed, and had served in many camps. He was very familiar with Shanxi and spoke convincingly about it. Coupled with his authentic accent, the roving bandits did not become suspicious. And so he had followed the Eighth Great King's band for over half a month and had finally located Purple Gold Liang and the Dashing King.

Bucktooth gazed at a group of cavalry galloping past on the main road outside and asked the other two, "There's been a lot of coming and going today. They're all heading for Qinghua Town. Looks like they're discussing some big matter."

"Purple Gold Liang is summoning all the various camp leaders from Huaiqing at Qinghua Town. From what I've seen and heard on my side, there are over a dozen big and small chiefs. The Dashing King is among them too. The total should be over twenty, maybe over thirty."

Bucktooth ran his tongue over his own gums, his eyes shifting constantly. Chen Xin's order to him was to scout the encampment of Purple Gold Liang or the Dashing King. He had found it now, but the total number of roving bandits around here exceeded seventy thousand, with around four thousand elite cavalry, plus quite a few infantry carrying weapons. He did not know if this counted as a suitable opportunity. The other Ming troops moved slowly. If they brought them along, the roving bandits would certainly discover them, and then they would flee and scatter.

Dengzhou Garrison had left one division in Linxian. The main camp at Huixian needed guarding. If they came to attack this place, the most they could dispatch would be a little over three thousand men. If an isolated force penetrated deep and was discovered, it might also be surrounded and attacked by the massed bandits. These roving bandits had done exactly that many times before. And at that time, they might not necessarily be able to count on the other Ming troops.

Another team member said to Bucktooth, "How about we just wait until they disperse, then talk."

"No." Bucktooth made up his mind. "A rare opportunity. With so many leaders gathered here, once they scatter, it will be even harder to strike. Whether to strike or not is for Lord Chen to decide. Our job is just to get the word back."

Both men nodded. Bucktooth asked in a low voice, "When you went out today, did you note down all the fording points on those rivers?"

"Noted them down. We also made markers in the surrounding area."

Bucktooth pointed at the nearby mountain forest and instructed, "Two of us will go deliver the report. Leave one to follow the main camp. You two go scout the mountain paths first..."

Just then, a cow horn sounded from the edge of the camp. It was Zhang Xianzhong summoning the cavalry. Right after, several other roving bandit groups nearby also sounded horns or bugles. The few men looked at each other in surprise. Summoning the cavalry could mean they were about to move camp, and they had only just arrived here.

"Captain, do we go back or not? If they're about to move out immediately, we won't be able to slip away for a while."

Bucktooth hesitated for a moment, then cursed somewhat unwillingly, "Turtle bastards. Several camps are all blowing horns. Maybe they're all moving camp. Let's head back to camp first and see where they're planning to go." (To be continued...)