Chapter 188: The Pledge of Loyalty

He Yilong said with a gloomy face, "To hell with Fang County! Our hideout's been raided! Hurry up and prepare some food—the brothers have been walking for most of the day and are starving!"

Liu Guoneng asked in confusion, "What do you mean? What happened?"

Luo Rucai, his face dark, dismounted from his horse. A trusted subordinate took the reins and led the warhorse aside. Luo Rucai walked toward the fort as he spoke: "This isn't the place to talk. Let's discuss it in your tent!"

Liu Guoneng glanced at the men behind the two, sprawled about in disarray, some sitting, some lying down. He shot a look at Wang Erwa beside him, then accompanied the two into the fort, giving orders as he walked: "Go prepare some food and hot water—let the brothers have a hot meal!"

His men acknowledged and went to prepare the food, while Wang Erwa quietly made his way toward Li Fang's tent.

Inside Liu Guoneng's main tent, Luo Rucai and He Yilong removed their armor and each plopped down onto a chair. Liu Guoneng sat down as well and asked, "Old Luo, why do the two of you look like you've lost your own fathers? What the hell happened? Liu Shuan, go prepare some wine and dishes—properly entertain these two chieftains!"

Luo Rucai let out a sigh and briefly recounted the ambush by government troops a few days earlier, concluding, "This time Yellow Tiger has no way out! First the Dashing King, and now Yellow Tiger—we've been dragged down with them too. Could it be that this rebellion has no future?"

He Yilong said dejectedly, "We're not like those two. We rebelled just to drink wine, eat meat, and enjoy ourselves. The Dashing King and Yellow Tiger both had ambitions too big—they wanted to be kings and overlords. Well, now they can go be kings in the underworld!"

Liu Guoneng wore an expression of utter disbelief. If Zhu Youjian were present, he'd certainly award him the title of acting emperor.

He spoke: "What are we to do? If the government troops wipe out Yellow Tiger, they'll surely come for us next! Old Luo, where should we go from here?"

Luo Rucai sat up straight and said seriously, "After much deliberation, I think the only proper course is to settle in Shu. After resting here a few days, we'll plunder more supplies, then head south to Jingzhou Prefecture, then turn west and grab a guide to lead us into Sichuan! Once we're in Sichuan, the government troops will find it hard to hunt us down! Brother Liu, what do you think?"

Liu Guoneng feigned magnanimity and nodded in agreement: "Fine! Old Luo, you've got plenty of tricks—we'll follow your lead!"

The few of them chatted for a while. After some time, steaming wine and dishes were brought out, and Liu Guoneng called Wang Erwa, Liu Shuan, and He Sanguan over to join the drinking.

Luo Rucai and He Yilong were already in low spirits to begin with, and with Liu Guoneng and the others taking turns urging them to drink, although the rice wine was low in potency, the combined effect of several factors soon left the two seven or eight parts drunk.

Liu Guoneng used the excuse of relieving himself, left the tent, and went to Li Fang's tent not far away.

Li Fang sat upright in a chair, reading a book by the faint candlelight. Four personal guards stood watch—two outside the door, two within the tent.

These candles had been specially purchased by Liu Guoneng's men from Xiangyang Prefecture, for fear that Li Fang would be unaccustomed to the heavy smoke of oil lamps.

After entering the tent and seeing Li Fang's composed demeanor, Liu Guoneng couldn't help but feel immense admiration: those who have studied the sages' books truly are different from ordinary men. If it were him in a bandit camp with such uncertain circumstances, he wouldn't be able to read a book—he probably couldn't even eat.

Little did he know that Li Fang had been terrified out of his wits these past days as well, but he had come at his patron's behest and had no choice. Reading was merely his way of forcing himself to stay calm.

If Liu Guoneng could read, he would have noticed that the book Li Fang was holding was upside down.

"Master Li, the bandits are now drunk. I've come to ask your counsel—should we execute them directly or take them alive? And how should we deal with the thousand-odd bandits?" Liu Guoneng bowed with clasped hands.

Li Fang set down the book in his hand and said unhurriedly, "General Wang came to inform me just now. After much deliberation, I believe taking the bandit chiefs alive would be somewhat more appropriate than killing them. As for the rest—since they have joined the bandits, it would be best to execute them all! We men of learning speak of the principle of eradicating evil completely. General Liu must not entertain any other thoughts! Go now, go!"

As long as Liu Guoneng delivered this pledge of loyalty, he himself would be completely at ease, no longer needing to live in fear. Having ventured deep into the bandit camp, personally directing a surrendered general to capture the great bandit chiefs and kill over a thousand bandits, his patron would surely reward him upon his return. In the future, when drinking and chatting with his friends, this would be a proud tale to tell. At this thought, Li Fang couldn't help but feel secretly delighted.

Liu Guoneng withdrew from Li Fang's tent after offering a respectful salute, thinking to himself: Damn it, these scholar types have hearts even more ruthless than this rebel's. He had been thinking of just killing Luo Rucai and He Yilong outright and absorbing the thousand-odd men into his own force. Damn it all—from now on he'd have to stay far away from bookworms.

Around the xu hour that evening, the tents of Luo Rucai and He Yilong's forces, which were camped separately outside Anping Fort, burst into flames one after another. Under Wang Erwa's direction, several hundred archers shot fire arrows onto the hundred-odd tents. These thousand-odd roving bandits, exhausted from days of marching, had fallen into deep slumber in their tents as soon as darkness fell. The sudden blaze and arrows sent many to their deaths in their dreams. The few bandits who woke in alarm ran out of their tents screaming in their underclothes, only to be mercilessly shot down. A quarter of an hour later, the flames died out, and Wang Erwa ordered five hundred shield-and-sword men into the camp to finish off the survivors.

Luo Rucai and He Yilong had long since been overpowered and bound. Their dozens of trusted subordinates had been slaughtered to the last man. He Yilong and Luo Rucai cursed endlessly in confusion and fury—they couldn't understand what Chuang Tiantian was playing at. Only when Wang Erwa ordered their mouths stuffed with rags, then smugly informed them that Liu Guoneng had already surrendered to the court with his forces and that the two of them were the pledge of loyalty, did Luo Rucai and He Yilong lower their heads and fall silent.

Li Fang arranged for one man to return with the news, while the other three stood guard over the tent holding the two captives, forbidding anyone from approaching. This credit belonged to Fang Kongzhao.

On Huangmao Pass, Li Dingguo, drenched in blood, desperately thrust his spear into a government soldier climbing up the wall, then quickly scanned his surroundings. He saw that large numbers of government troops had already climbed onto the pass wall, and his own men had lost all will to resist—they were fleeing down the stone steps from the wall and running toward the mountain behind. Li Dingguo knew the situation was hopeless. With a long sigh, he turned and stepped onto the stone stairs, following his men in flight toward the mountaintop.

When Pan Du'ao and Xu Yixian had originally suggested that Zhang Xianzhong hold fast in Zhushan County town, Li Dingguo had vigorously opposed it.

He had advised Zhang Xianzhong: "Our strength has grown over the years precisely because we've been constantly on the move, attacking here and there. Defending cities is not the Xi'an camp's strength—mobile warfare is our specialty. To use our weakness against the enemy's strength is to court death! Right now we should either abandon Zhushan and Zhuxi and continue mobile operations, or retreat entirely to Huangmao Pass—and if we can't hold that, we can still cross the mountains and escape."

Zhang Xianzhong had been somewhat hesitant after hearing this. He knew Li Dingguo possessed exceptional insight into warfare, and his words made good sense. The Xi'an camp's forte was fighting when victory was possible and running when it wasn't—defending cities was something they'd never done.

Pan Du'ao sneered at Li Dingguo's words and said to Zhang Xianzhong, "If the King wishes to accomplish a great undertaking, he must hold a city and a territory. If we keep wandering about as before, how can the people's hearts turn to us? He who wins the people's hearts wins the realm. If the King can hold Zhushan and repel the government troops this time, the people here will witness the King's true strength and will thereafter sincerely submit to him. The King's reputation will gradually spread. Then, if the King distributes some grain and money to the people, they will be grateful for his kindness. The King will gain a firm foothold in Zhushan and Zhuxi. In the future, by organizing the people to clear wasteland, stockpiling provisions, and recruiting soldiers and horses, within a few years the entire southern Yun region will belong to the King!"

Xu Yixian also seized the moment to add: "The Great Ming court is now besieged on all sides, its decline growing ever more apparent. Righteous armies have sprung up across the land like a prairie fire. The government troops cannot focus solely on the King's position—they must also contend with other righteous armies! Moreover, if we win this battle, given the government troops' habit of bullying the weak and fearing the strong, it would be years before they could muster another strong force to attack us. By then our Xi'an camp will have grown immensely—whether we head to Shu or continue developing here, why fear their coming? This battle absolutely cannot be avoided—we must win ourselves a reputation!"

The two men's arguments were not without reason. Zhang Xianzhong hesitated repeatedly before finally deciding to heed his two military advisors and remain in Zhushan County town.

But to be safe, Zhang Xianzhong still decided to keep an escape route open. If the government troops attacked fiercely and the county town could not be held, they would retreat across the Dusui Bridge outside the west gate to Huangmao Pass. Men would be left to defend both Dusui Bridge and Huangmao Pass to ensure the retreat route remained secure.

Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang pleaded earnestly but could not change their adoptive father's decision. Helpless, they could only split the heavy responsibilities of defending the bridge and the pass between them.

Zhang Xianzhong's deployment would have been defensible in the original course of history. Historically, the government troops were indeed as Pan and Xu had described—few possessed real tenacity, and there was basically no instance of tens of thousands of troops under strict unified command encircling and exterminating bandits.

Even setting that aside, even if Zhushan County town fell, the escape route Zhang Xianzhong had prepared was still highly effective. No matter what, survival would have been no problem at all. When government troops attacked a county town, their aim was to recover lost territory—few planned to annihilate the roving bandits in one stroke. Even if someone wanted to, at this time the largest concentration of government troops was under Hong Chengchou in northern Shaanxi. Forget an army of tens of thousands—even ten thousand men would be hard to assemble.

Of course, all of this was predicated on the original course of history. But now history had been completely altered. A person who should never have existed had quietly descended upon this world, and the fates of many had undergone tremendous changes as a result. Several armies that had never appeared in history had already laid their trap, just waiting to bag Zhang Xianzhong and bury him.

Huang Degong, having climbed up to Huangmao Pass, saw the roving bandits scrambling to flee toward the rear mountain. He sent his personal guards to summon Wu Qun and the other commanders for a council.

He and Li Chongjin had been ordered to make a rapid strike on the bandits in the Zhuxi County area. Unexpectedly, when they arrived, they found the bandits had already retreated. The two then led their forces toward Zhushan.

Two days later, both forces arrived at Huangmao Pass one after another. Seeing the roving bandits holding the pass, Huang Degong and Li Chongjin conferred briefly, then ordered the logistics camp to fell trees and construct simple scaling ladders before launching a fierce assault on Huangmao Pass.

The pass wall of Huangmao Pass was only about two zhang tall, so climbing it didn't require very tall ladders. The logistics camp quickly produced a dozen or so long ladders. Huang Degong formed three square formations from five hundred arquebusiers and a thousand archers to cover the shield-and-sword men climbing the ladders in the assault. Li Chongjin, meanwhile, selected a dozen or so crack marksmen from his troops and positioned them to pick off the more ferocious bandits.

Although Li Dingguo, defending Huangmao Pass, had several thousand men under his command, most were ordinary bandits without armor. The elite old camp numbered only five hundred, and the archers only a few hundred. Seeing the government troops below the pass advancing with overwhelming force, knowing they were outmatched, they could only steel themselves and organize a defense.

Under the leadership of their respective squad leaders, the archers and arquebusiers, wearing cotton armor and iron helmets, advanced to fifty paces from the pass wall and formed up. A thousand shield-and-sword men raised their shields and carried the ladders, preparing to charge.

Li Dingguo could only spread his few hundred archers out to shoot down the climbing government troops, then used a hundred veteran soldiers with five hundred ordinary troops to defend the wall in segments. He personally led a hundred veterans as a reserve force, ready to reinforce any dangerous section at a moment's notice.

With the shrill sound of the trumpet, amid the thunder of arquebus fire and the twang of bowstrings, the front ranks of shield bearers raised their great shields to clear the way, and the government troops carrying ladders and wielding swords surged toward the pass wall.

The dense government firepower pinned down the bandits on the wall so thoroughly they couldn't even rise. Cries of agony from bandits struck by arrows came from the wall from time to time. A dozen or so ladders were smoothly set against the wall. The elite vanguard soldiers in the front ranks, clad in iron armor, held a shield in one hand and gripped the ladder with the other, biting their long sabers between their teeth as they climbed swiftly upward.

A burly government soldier was the first to reach the top of a ladder. Just as he was about to swing his leg onto the pass wall, a bandit suddenly rose, swung his iron staff in a full arc, and smashed it viciously at the soldier.

The soldier hastily raised his shield to block. With a dull thud, the soldier, shield and all, was knocked tumbling down from the ladder.

Before that bandit could duck back behind the parapet, a crack marksman from the Guanning army who had been watching the wall intently shot him down with a single arrow.

By the time the government archers had loosed eight volleys and the arquebusiers had each fired one round, government soldiers had already climbed onto the pass wall.

Whether in terms of individual ferocity, protective equipment, or firepower suppression, the roving bandits simply could not compare with the government troops. No matter how brave Li Dingguo was personally, it was useless in the face of such an overwhelming tide.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the roving bandits could no longer hold. When the first bandit fled, nearly all the bandits' morale collapsed. At that point, who cared about orders? The bandits on the wall scattered in complete pandemonium.

Wu Qun and the other commanders gathered around Huang Degong, awaiting the main general's orders.

Huang Degong pointed at the rear mountain of Huangmao Pass and ordered: "Wu Qun, take three thousand men to search the mountain—leave no bandit alive! Have the logistics camp clean up the battlefield and tend to the wounded and fallen. I'll lead the rest of the men to Zhushan. It seems the Xi'an bandit is hiding in the city—this time, no matter what, he must not escape!"