Chapter 339: The Little Widow Within Reach Flew Away

Zhang Zhao was cursing, and inside Wugong County seat, Li Congyan was cursing too.

This Prince of Qi, who had played the grandson for years in Luoyang and earned a reputation for gentle mildness, was only faking that gentleness.

What choice did he have but to fake it? If he didn't, Li Siyuan would have cut him down with a single stroke.

And the one Li Congyan and all the Fengxiang officers were cursing was none other than me, Zhang Zhao, Minister of Works Zhang.

In fact, Zhang Zhao had never imagined that this rebellion of the Jingyuan Military Governor's Zhangyi Army and the Binning Military Governor's Jingnan Army was, apart from He Chuan being Zhang Congbin's trusted man, to a large extent instigated by Li Congyan.

These prefectures of Jingyuan and Binning had all once been Li Maozhen's territory. Although the Li family had been moved away, they still held great local influence.

For example, the garrison commander Wang whom Zhang Zhao had put to death in Weizhou was the son of Li Maozhen's adopted son.

Li Congyan's original intent had been to drive He Chuan and the others to rebel, wait until the court issued an edict ordering him to suppress the rebellion, then rise with his troops and strike from front and rear together with the court, destroying the rebel soldiers who had already broken through Chang'an.

That way, the wealth and goods the rebels had plundered from the four prefectures of Jing, Bin, Ning, and Qian, plus Chang'an, would all fall to the Fengxiang Army.

Li Congyan could also stay in Chang'an and refuse to leave, at the very least swallowing up the prefectures and counties east of Fengxiang and west of Chang'an.

But the rebels had only just broken through the West Wei Bridge when Zhang Zhao wiped them out completely.

Li Congyan had schemed for years; the cooked duck hadn't even reached his mouth before Zhang Zhao not only flipped his pot over, but smashed the stove too!

Although Li Congyan had taken Xingping County, which looked like he'd gotten a bargain at Zhang Zhao's expense,

in Li Congyan's view, how much could little Xingping County hold? Everything in Guanzhong was his, and he hadn't gotten even a tenth of it — how could he not curse!

Inside Wugong County, Li Congyan, feeling thoroughly stifled, had drunk a bit too much. He shifted his huge bulk and looked through drunken, bleary eyes at the Prince of Qi's chief clerk beside him.

"Write another letter to Grand Tutor An. Tell him to hand Kang Fu's Xiongwu Army over to my command as well. I swear to kill that Hexi brat!"

When An Shenqi had set out, he had already been promoted to Acting Grand Tutor, only Zhang Zhao didn't know it yet.

As for Zhang Zhao, Li Congyan did not take him seriously. In his eyes, Zhang Zhao was nothing more than a foolish young nobody from that poverty-stricken backwater of Hexi.

What mattered to him was getting Kang Fu's eight thousand Xiongwu troops, and then, while beating the grass to startle the snake, conveniently settle Zhang Zhao as well.

Drunken, bleary-eyed Li Congyan and the Fengxiang officers didn't take Zhang Zhao seriously, but Zhang Zhao's probing of the Fengxiang Army never stopped. He had a very useful group of people in his hands — the Sogdian merchants.

Zhang Zhao controlled the small Silk Road loop, holding every key point along the Silk Road, and he had sugar, tea bricks, cotton, and other flagship products. Not a single Sogdian merchant dared offend Zhang Zhao.

And so these merchants, who slipped into every crack, became Zhang Zhao's most effective spies.

Kang Jinshan, the commerce officer Zhang Zhao had appointed specifically to manage cotton and sugar production and trade, had even followed Zhang Zhao all the way to Guanzhong, precisely to better press these Sogdians into service.

After two days of probing, information on Li Congyan's Fengxiang Army, from top to bottom, had been fully gathered.

Which yabing officer was skilled in battle? Who was Li Congyan's chief strategist? How strong were the Fengxiang soldiers in combat? How were military rations supplied? Who held Xingping County? What were the temperaments of Li Congyan and the other key figures?

Zhang Zhao knew it all clearly, and he organized the officers to carry out dedicated analysis and formulate tactics.

During those two days of gathering intelligence, Zhang Zhao had not been idle either. Right outside Mapaoquan Village, he held a public trial assembly. What was publicly tried, naturally, was He Chuan and the more than six thousand rebel soldiers under him.

People came from Xingping, Wugong, Xianyang, even Qianzhou, Liquan, and elsewhere. Together with some of the common folk Zhang Zhao had rescued in Jingzhou and Binzhou, a vast crowd of over ten thousand brought their own rations and came to attend this public trial assembly!

Several thousand rebel soldiers were bound and made to kneel by the banks of the Wei River.

Zhang Zhao ordered that from the tens of thousands of commoners, several hundred village elders be selected by region and clan, along with a hundred or so victims burning with bitter hatred, to come forward and identify them one by one. Whoever was confirmed was punished on the spot.

The reason the spectacle could be made so grand, apart from Minister of Works Zhang's reputation for benevolence, was also the several thousand able-bodied men and women who had escaped before the rebel army was crushed. They too had come with their families — vengeance for grievances, repayment for kindnesses, and by the way, to thank Minister of Works Zhang.

Lady Han the Seventh, supporting a thin, frail man, walked over. This was Lady Han the Seventh's husband, Zhao Jinfang, the famous physician of Jingzhou.

Zhao Jinfang had been very lucky — or rather, it couldn't be called luck; it was his profession that had saved him.

A physician skilled at setting bones and treating spear and staff wounds would not be killed even by rebel troops, so Zhao Jinfang had been captured in Jingzhou and followed the rebel army for nearly a month, yet was still alive.

"This humble commoner Zhao Jinfang, and my wife of the Han family, kowtow in thanks for the Minister of Works' great kindness. In this life we have no way to repay it. If the Minister of Works does not disdain us, we two are willing to follow the Minister of Works to Liangzhou and repay him with our meager medical skills!"

Zhang Zhao rubbed his chin and glanced at Lady Han the Seventh. What a pity — how come Zhao Jinfang hadn't died?

This Lady Han had quite a bit of charm about her. After half a month of recovery, she'd grown rounder and fuller — a plump little widow!

Minister of Works Zhang had been eating vegetarian recently, and had been preparing to lure this little widow into his bed once Lady Han the Seventh failed to find her husband. But as it turned out, the husband was tough enough not to die.

"You worthy couple are willing to go to Liangzhou — I could ask for nothing more! This solves the suffering of my Liangzhou people, who have no way to seek doctors or medicine!"

But hearing that these two were willing to go to Hexi of their own accord, Zhang Zhao immediately tossed that little thought to the farthest clouds.

Physicians were among the high-level talents Zhang Zhao currently lacked most. Compared to that, a pretty widow in this era was truly not rare at all.

"Physician Zhao, Lady Han, do you still recognize who killed your parents and the clinic apprentice?" Zhang Zhao asked softly after helping Zhao Jinfang to his feet.

"How could I not!" Lady Han, having stayed with Zhang Zhao for over half a month, was far bolder than Zhao Jinfang. She walked up before a row of captives, her eyes reddening.

"Him! Him! Him! And him! I'd recognize them even if they were burned to ash!"

"Lady Han, be sure not to misidentify anyone. We cannot let a single beast go, but neither can we wrong a single good man!" Zhang Zhao reminded her sternly.

At these words, Lady Han the Seventh steeled herself and stepped forward to within a few paces of the captives, examined them carefully for a moment, then nodded firmly.

"Reporting to the Minister of Works, this slave has not been mistaken! It is them!"

"Good!" Zhang Zhao shouted. "By the Yonghui Code of the Great Tang, murderers pay with their lives! Cut them down!"

The words had barely landed when several captives, before they could even beg for mercy, had just opened their mouths to wail when they were dragged out from among the captives, hauled to the Wei River bank, and without even gagging them, beheaded with a single stroke.

However, some of the executioners were not very professional; a beheading job took several chops before the head came off, making the rebel soldiers howl in pain.

At once, laughter and weeping rose together by the Wei River — the laughter of the commoners watching their enemies lose their heads, the weeping of the bound rebel soldiers.

Lady Han the Seventh had opened the way, and after that the pace quickened. The elders and victims identified them one by one.

Generally, after being identified three times and still confirmed as the murderer, the man would be dragged to the Wei River bank and beheaded.

This public trial assembly went from the hour of Mao in the morning to the hour of Bu in the afternoon. By the Wei River, heads rolled in waves, the river water was dyed red, and headless corpses were carted away by the wagonload.

In all, one thousand six hundred rebel soldiers were identified and all beheaded.

Of course, those who remained were not necessarily good men. It was just that these men had committed rape, plunder, and robbery, but had truly not killed anyone, nor had they killed under duress.

But the commoners at the public trial assembly had already seen red. The rebel army had burned, killed, and looted all the way from Jingzhou; the dead alone numbered as many as twenty thousand, and those harmed numbered at least a hundred to two hundred thousand. Their enemies were beyond counting.

The moment Zhang Zhao appeared, countless commoners who felt their vengeance unsatisfied surrounded him again, kowtowing and pleading.

Zhang Zhao thought it over and agreed. Right now he had no prison system or anything of the sort. Some of these men, though they hadn't killed, had committed plenty of arson, murder, plunder, and rape.

So after thinking it over, he had the mutinous soldiers with three or more victims dragged out and killed another thousand or so.

At this point some of the common folk were still weeping and pleading, wanting all the mutinous soldiers who had raped their wives, daughters, and sisters to be beheaded as well.

Zhang Zhao would not agree to that. Rape and plunder once or twice, whether in this era or in later ages, would not be punished by beheading.

In the Qin and Han dynasties the punishment was mutilation — cutting off the nose or ears, and in serious cases direct castration, chopping off the tool of the crime.

By the Sui and Tang, mutilation had been abolished, so the penalty was changed to military exile and banishment.

Heh heh! Military exile and banishment! Minister Zhang is going to attack Li Congyan, and he is just short of cannon fodder and suicide squads!

This was also why Zhang Zhao would not keep killing. He had already killed nearly three thousand, close to half the prisoners. He had made his point, and now he could use them as cannon fodder.

Of course, on the surface, Minister Zhang spoke with high-sounding, righteous words. He stepped onto the platform, spread his hands and pressed downward, and the common folk immediately fell silent.

"The mutinous soldiers are indeed hateful! Indeed worse than beasts! I hate them deeply too, and I would like to kill them all — but I cannot!

Because no matter who it is, no matter what crime they have committed, punishment must follow the law. If today we can kill people at will without relying on the law, then what difference is there between us and these mutinous soldiers?

Capital crimes must be executed! Lesser crimes must be punished!"

Zhang Zhao spoke, and the quick-witted village elders also began helping to calm their neighbors who had been killing until their eyes were red.

They understood in their hearts that if it had been some other Military Governor, and he had gotten several thousand mutinous soldiers, he would have hurried to incorporate them into his army to strengthen his forces — how would he have openly enforced the law?

One had to know that among those killed, at least two or three thousand were veterans accustomed to battle, and their fighting strength was quite good.

Once the mutinous rank-and-file soldiers were dealt with, it was the officers' turn. These seventy or eighty men Zhang Zhao did not even need to interrogate; he decided to behead them all in one batch.

Among these men, the lowest was at least a junior officer commanding fifty or more men. If they had not wanted to follow the rebels, there were plenty of ways out — for them there was no such thing as being coerced.

He Chuan was already so frightened his nerves were near collapse. He had never imagined that this Hexi Military Governor Zhang Zhao could be so ferocious, cutting down several thousand heads in a single day.

And he did not even follow the rules — he would not recruit these yabing guards and officers whose fighting strength was so strong.

He looked at Zhang Zhao, his lips quivering a few times, wanting to beg for mercy, but he knew in his heart that Zhang Zhao would certainly not let him off. Zhang Zhao gave a cold smile.

"No need to beg for mercy, Troop Commander He. Giving you a quick death is already a great act of mercy from me!"

With that, Zhang Zhao directly had Man Xiong drag away this mutiny leader who had caused the deaths of tens of thousands, and then he said to Yan Jin beside him.

"I am going to attack Li Congyan, but I still do not have a secure rear area, and that remains a problem.

Chengjie, take He Chuan's head with you in a while. Go to Qianzhou and link up with Erzhu Jing, win over the several hundred men in Qianzhou city, then hold Qianzhou firmly and guard against any surprise attack.

You must hold the road for our return north. I would not trust anyone else with this — I can only send you!"

Yan Jin nodded solemnly. He knew the importance of Qianzhou. The words he had wanted to say about following Zhang Zhao to attack Li Congyan he wisely left unspoken.

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