Chapter 55: Assassination

Most of the roving bandit chiefs came from humble origins and had never received any formal training. Moreover, they traveled with their entire families, making their numbers enormous, and they simply went wherever the fighting took them. As a result, they had never placed much importance on setting up camp. Only a chief like Zhang Xianzhong, who had once served in the official army, paid somewhat more attention to camp arrangements.

Ma Shizhong's forces, which were attacking Chuzhou city, had basically left their rear facing Hezhou undefended. Lu Xiangtong, wearing robes stripped from the corpses of bandits, sent a few men back to camp with the captured horses to report the news, then led Zhao Yong and six others toward the bandit camp.

The outskirts of the bandit camp were littered with all kinds of tents, wooden sheds, and grass huts. Bandits who were not participating in the assault on the city either gathered in groups of three or five boasting idly, or huddled around fires roasting various foods. Almost no one paid any attention to Lu Xiangtong's squad of cavalry. The occasional curious onlooker who noticed the bloodstains on their robes merely assumed they had gotten them from another raid or killing.

Lu Xiangtong and his men rode along boldly and openly, but as they continued forward for a stretch, they found the bandits' attire becoming increasingly regular, and they encountered quite a few patrols of ten men each. Lu Xiangtong lowered his head and pulled down the wide brim of his Fanyang hat, covering most of his face, and led the group onward. Zhao Yong, riding beside him, looked left and right, then suddenly gave a light cough. Lu Xiangtong followed his gaze and saw, several hundred paces ahead to the right, a broad, spacious tent. Apart from a few smaller tents surrounding it, there were no other structures. Two bandit guards carrying long blades stood vaguely visible before the tent's entrance. Lu Xiangtong knew in his heart that this must be the tent of an important bandit leader, so he urged his horse forward toward it.

As they drew closer to the great tent, sounds of raucous drinking and gambling drifted faintly from the surrounding tents, mixed with the voices of men laughing wildly and cursing their mothers. No one paid any attention to the noise of several war horses approaching.

The two bandit guards before the tent spotted Lu Xiangtong and his men. By now they were only a few dozen paces from the tent. One guard, hand resting on his sword hilt, barked: "Halt! Whose unit are you from?"

Zhao Yong, still urging his horse forward, replied in a northwestern accent: "We're scouts from the horse brigade, we have intelligence to report to the Great Chief!" As he spoke, they drew closer and closer to the two men. Several of those behind Lu Xiangtong...

The two bandits grew wary, drawing their blades and continuing to shout: "Dismount!"

Lu Xiangtong raised his hand, and the group reined in their horses and dismounted. Zhao Yong laughed and cursed: "You bastards, what's there to fear in your own camp?" While speaking, he walked toward the great tent. Three men stayed by the horses, while the remaining few followed behind.

The commotion here did not draw the attention of the bandits in the surrounding tents. Though the other bandits were numerous, they were clearly accustomed to seeing scouts returning to report intelligence, so no one looked their way. Most importantly, no one would ever imagine that someone would impersonate them—it had never happened before that official troops disguised as roving bandits had burst into the camp.

Just as the two sides were only a few paces apart, Li Shitou and the others behind Lu Xiangtong suddenly lunged forward. With a flick of their arms, several short axes flew from their hands, striking the two bandits' necks and faces in the blink of an eye. Without even making a sound, the two men toppled straight to the ground.

Zhao Yong and the others quickly dragged the corpses toward the great tent, while Lu Xiangtong rushed inside with a blade in his left hand and an axe in his right.

Ma Shizhong had just finished venting himself on the beautiful woman and was lying on the couch in the rear compartment with his eyes closed, letting the woman massage his head to sober him up. When he heard his personal guards' challenging shouts, he struggled to open his bloodshot eyes, his mind foggy as he tried to think who had come. Then came the guards' second shout, followed by the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground. Ma Shizhong's mind suddenly cleared—because no matter who came to see him, they had to dismount a hundred paces from the great tent. Realizing something was wrong, he leaped up from the couch, ran barefoot to the rack where his long blade hung, snatched the scabbard, drew the sword, and dashed to a corner. Raising the blade, he hacked furiously, trying to cut open the tent to escape. But the tent was made of thick, tough oxhide with great resilience—one chop only split a small gash.

At that moment, the beautiful woman on the couch suddenly cried out loudly: "He's in here!" Enraged, Ma Shizhong turned and strode to the couch, raising his blade and bringing it down savagely. The woman he had seized was instantly decapitated, her head separated from her body.

In the span of a few breaths, Lu Xiangtong, hearing the sound, had already thrown open the tent curtain and burst inside. The two were only a few paces apart. Ma Shizhong stepped forward to raise his blade for a chop, but Lu Xiangtong hurled his short axe. The axe blade sliced into the shoulder of Ma Shizhong's right arm that held the sword. Screaming in agony, Ma Shizhong dropped his long blade, which clattered to the ground. Lu Xiangtong lunged forward suddenly, both hands gripping the sword as he thrust it out—the tip driving straight into Ma Shizhong's lower abdomen, then slicing downward. Ma Shizhong let out an inhuman howl, collapsing to his knees in pain, both hands clutching tightly at the blade. Blood mixed with colorful intestines gushed from his belly, while excrement and urine also poured from his lower body. A foul stench immediately permeated the tent. Lu Xiangtong yanked the blade back, then raised it and swung. Ma Shizhong's head flew through the air. This murderous, evil-filled ferocious bandit had finally met his deserved end.

The woman's cry and Ma Shizhong's screams of agony finally alerted the gambling guards around them. Several dozen bandits surged out of the surrounding tents, weapons in hand, quickly converging on Ma Shizhong's great tent. Zhao Yong threw open the tent curtain and rushed in, urgently saying: "Chief! We need to go now!"

Lu Xiangtong bent down and pulled the short axe embedded in the corpse, tucking it into his waist. He looked at the woman already dead on the couch and shook his head regretfully. Had she not cried out to warn him, who knew what the outcome might have been if they had delayed even a moment longer.

The two men emerged from the great tent. The other six were already locked in fierce combat with the bandits who had rushed over. The two pulled out their cocked hand crossbows from beneath their robes and charged out of the tent. Li Shitou and another soldier had already been wounded. Lu Xiangtong shot one fierce bandit dead with his hand crossbow, then casually hurled the crossbow at another bandit, drew his short axe, and threw it—striking a bandit square in the chest. The bandit screamed and collapsed. Lu Xiangtong shouted: "To the horses!"

Zhao Yong had also killed or wounded two men. The group rushed to their horses in one burst and mounted up. Ma Shizhong's personal guards had no idea what was happening inside the tent, whether their chief was alive or dead, or even who these people were. Combined with the extraordinary ferocity of Lu Xiangtong and his men, they did not block them with suicidal determination. Once the soldiers cleared the tent entrance, several dozen men scrambled inside to check, while larger groups of bandits began gathering toward this area.

After mounting, the group wheeled their horses around and spurred desperately toward the camp exit. Just as their horses were picking up speed, the bandits inside the great tent came pouring out again. Some shouted furious curses, some screamed for those ahead to intercept them, some wailed loudly, some cried that the Great Chief was dead, and several more ran behind the tent to fetch horses, mounted up, and began the pursuit.

Lu Xiangtong and his men galloped at full speed. The bandits on the camp's outskirts had no idea what had happened—they only saw a few riders gallop past, kicking up a cloud of dust. Before the dust had even settled, several dozen more riders thundered by, the horsemen brandishing weapons and howling in fury as they whipped their horses in desperate pursuit.

The eight riders raced out of the bandit camp without any obstruction. Lu Xiangtong brought up the rear, constantly turning his head to look back. The pursuing bandits were about two hundred paces behind. Under normal circumstances, such a distance would be impossible to close, but they had after all ridden several dozen li from camp, encountered a small skirmish along the way, and their horses' stamina had been considerably depleted. Two of their comrades were wounded and could not control their mounts as well as usual. The bandits' horses, however, had been resting the entire time with no loss of stamina whatsoever. At this rate, they would be caught within another dozen or so li.

Lu Xiangtong grew anxious inwardly, but could think of no solution. After all, the disparity in numbers was too great—even if all eight of them were in perfect condition, they could not defeat the several dozen riders behind them. Leaving a few men to hold the rear would undoubtedly be sending them to their deaths, and the bandits could simply split their forces and continue the pursuit.

After about a quarter of an hour, they reached the vicinity of the woods where they had ambushed and killed the bandit scouts. The distance between the two sides had closed to within a hundred paces. The wounded Li Shitou and another Night Scout could finally hold on no longer. Li Shitou had been stabbed in the lower abdomen—though the cotton armor beneath his robe had absorbed most of the damage, a gash had still been cut, and there had been no time to bind the wound. Under the jarring of the galloping horse, blood had already soaked the hem of his robe red. From excessive blood loss, his face was terrifyingly pale, and he was in a dazed, half-conscious state.

The other wounded man, Zhao Goudan, was not much better off. A bandit's iron hammer had shattered his right shoulder, and his entire arm hung limp. He had endured the pain the whole way, controlling his horse with his left hand alone, his weapon long since discarded. He too was now at the end of his strength.

Both sides' horses had slowed considerably, their mounts drenched in sweat. But the bandits remained relentless in their pursuit, dead set on cutting down every last one of them.

Zhao Yong slowed his horse slightly and dropped to the rear, turning sideways to shout at Lu Xiangtong: "Chief! You take Shitou and Goudan and run ahead! I'll stay with Shuanzhu and the others to hold them off for a while! Otherwise none of us will get away!"

Lu Xiangtong roared back: "You take the wounded and go! I'm staying!"

Zhao Yong shouted to Zhao Shuanzhu and the others up ahead: "Shuanzhu! Today we die here!" Then, pulling a short blade from his boot, he stabbed it into the rump of Lu Xiangtong's horse. Startled by the pain, the mount instantly exploded with tremendous energy and surged forward. Zhao Shuanzhu and the others did the same, and the horses carrying the two wounded men also accelerated and charged ahead.

Tears streamed down Lu Xiangtong's face. He wanted to turn back but could not. From behind came Zhao Yong's booming laughter: "Chief! Don't forget to burn some paper money and offerings for us!"

Just as Zhao Yong and the others were slowing their horses to meet the enemy, a patch of red suddenly appeared on the horizon, moving rapidly toward them. Lu Xiangtong reacted instantly—their reinforcements had arrived. He immediately turned his head and roared: "Reinforcements are here! Run!"