Chapter 62: The Warrior Lords and the Oxen and Horses

Amid the woman's screams, the fat merchant swiftly tucked the salt and wooden comb back into his clothes, and with a speed utterly at odds with his bulk, dashed into the sheep-and-horse enclosure.

At that moment the sheep-and-horse enclosure was a chaos of shouting men, neighing horses, and bellowing camels — seemingly panicked, yet concealing an underlying order.

These merchants, who had traveled as far as Liangzhou or even Chang'an, were absolutely the most widely traveled and knowledgeable people of this age, and they had seen far too many clashes of a few hundred men like this one.

The fat merchant hastily threw on a coat of mail from Persia; slovenly as he looked in it, the mail itself was polished to a gleam. He grabbed a long spear and had just run to his camel's side when he saw the merchants around him had already armed themselves as well.

"Woo-woo-woo!" A horn sounded. A burly man with a turban wrapped around his head and a stiff bow in hand was blowing the ox horn in his grasp.

The fat merchant and the nearby traders all hurried over again. In no more than eight or nine minutes, over a hundred men among the merchants inside the sheep-and-horse enclosure had armed themselves.

"Thwack!"

All of a sudden, with a sharp crack, the burly horn-blower tumbled off a cargo crate in a spectacular face-plant. The fat merchant stared wide-eyed: an arrow was lodged in the burly man's shoulder, its fletching still quivering.

The atmosphere turned tense at once. The burly man was the head of their merchant band, the most experienced of them all whether in battle or in trade. Nothing must happen to him, or the rest of them would have a hard time getting back to Stone City.

Fortunately — the fat merchant's prayer had barely finished when the burly man scrambled up from the ground. Though his face was smeared with camel dung from the fall, that was far better than being wounded or dead.

"It's a warning arrow! They're warning us!" The burly man yanked the bone arrow from where it hung on his mail, his expression relaxing. Since it was a warning, it meant they were not the target.

"Who's in charge here? Send out two headmen to parley. The King of Zhongyun has forgotten his manners and offended our Commandant, the young lord. We've come to settle accounts with him — it has nothing to do with anyone else!" Sure enough, after the warning arrow, the negotiators arrived.

At these words the burly man looked ahead. A fearsome giant of a man had appeared at the gate of the sheep-and-horse enclosure, wearing a cotton robe over lamellar armor, a suanni-crested helmet on his head, a long lance gleaming cold in his hand, mounted on a tall, powerful horse.

Behind the giant, more than ten armored soldiers had dismounted, bows and crossbows at the ready, every one of them in lamellar armor. Few as they were, one look told they were battle-hardened elites. Even if all the merchants here attacked together, they would come off the worse.

"We are all traveling merchants, poor wretches who trade our lives for money. We've come three thousand li east just to earn a few silver coins to take home. We can spare a little of our goods and coin, but not too much — we beg this lord's mercy!"

The burly man and several other merchant headmen walked over. Though their words were humble, the weapons in their hands never lowered.

Behind them, the ordinary merchants were frantically hauling cargo crates and all manner of odds and ends to block the road, and before long a crude barricade had taken shape.

"Heh! Hardship you may have, but poor you are not!" Bai Congxin put on an air of lofty disdain and snorted a few times.

"But you're in luck. Our Commandant, the young lord, is a reasonable man. He knows this road cannot do without people like you, so he never robs traveling merchants — in fact, he even has benefits for you!"

Never robs merchants — bullshit! The burly man did not believe a single word of it. It was only that he couldn't rob them, so he didn't. Still, since the leader of the armored soldiers across from them said so, they certainly would not be robbed today.

"The King of Zhongyun has been discourteous! I expect he'll soon realize his mistake and come out to compensate our Commandant, the young lord, for his losses. Cloth, grain, salt, wine — we certainly can't carry all that away with us. Discuss among yourselves, set a price, and we'll sell it to you shortly!"

His intimidation delivered, and seeing that the other side had no intention of a head-on clash, Bai Congxin — whose own heart was somewhat uneasy — laid out his terms. After all, these merchants did not look like easy prey; pushed too far, they still had some fight in them.

We're safe!

The moment the merchant headmen heard this, they knew the other party truly had not come to rob them.

But still! That turtle shell of the King of Zhongyun was not easily cracked. Over the years, many had come looking for trouble with him, but not one had succeeded.

"Then many thanks to you, my lord!" The burly man and the other merchant headmen bowed once and began walking back, all of them wearing expressions of anticipation for a good show.

"Fire! Fire! Fire!" They had taken only a few steps when flames erupted in the inner city where the Zhongyun warriors lived, and the fire spread with terrifying speed — apparently started with oil.

They've really gone all out! And they'd found their mark precisely, knowing exactly where the Zhongyun warriors' quarter was. The burly man stroked his chin and suddenly felt this group might actually succeed.

As the fierce flames leaped skyward, the northern part of Yuni City instantly descended into chaos.

Tung oil plus dry firewood made a formidable blaze, and what was more, they were burning the quarter where the Zhongyun warriors lived, where the wooden houses and felt tents caught fire with the greatest ease. Fed by the early morning breeze, the fire burned hotter and hotter.

It was just barely dawn. The Zhongyun warriors who were off duty — those who did not need to rise before daylight to toil for a living — had not even gotten out of bed.

Only when the raging fire was fully ablaze did they come howling out of their houses in their underclothes, preparing to fight the flames.

Ma Yaozi sat astride a dun horse, his heart brimming with satisfaction. Watching those men and women wailing and fleeing in all directions, watching their homes turn to ashes before their very eyes, he was filled with a perverse, almost orgasmic thrill.

After setting fire to one warrior's house, Ma Yaozi did not follow Zhang Zhao's order to regroup at the Zhongyun king's palace tent. Instead, he led his riders toward the southern part of the city, where the common Zhongyun people lived.

But he was not going there to set fires. Even if he wanted to, those mud huts would not catch fire easily in a short time.

He was going there to give away money!

Though Yuni City had only six or seven thousand people, it was after all the capital of a "kingdom," and it still had its basic organization.

For instance, when the inner northern city caught fire, the people of the southern commoners' district were required to help put it out — one man from every ten households, and anyone who dared not come out to fight the fire could expect a knife.

So when Ma Yaozi charged into the southern commoners' district, the people there had already fetched water from their own household vats and even from the river. If they were really allowed to go through, they would likely put the fire out in no time.

And worse, they might well be organized by the warriors here, and then the young lord and his men would be in trouble!

Though mostly commoners, there were still two thousand able-bodied men among them. If they were all organized — and they were locals besides — it would not be easy for a hundred-odd armored soldiers to fight their way out.

So Ma Yaozi smiled a dark smile. He pulled a handful of Kaiyuan Tongbao coins from his pouch — genuine, excellent coins, each worth a dozen or more ordinary ones. He had asked Zhang Zhao for them before setting out, precisely for a situation like this.

A rain of coins fell from the sky. An old Zhongyun man with a big bald head, carrying a wooden bucket, was struck with a "bonk." He hesitated, then snatched at the thing that had bounced off his head and fallen before his eyes.

It was money!

It was Great Tang copper coin!

The old Zhongyun man's face instantly lit up with fervent gleam.

The Zhongyun often bartered goods, and cloth currency also circulated, but the most influential was without doubt the Great Tang copper coin, because with this thing one could buy any goods from the distant Great Tang.

The traveling merchants even preferred these copper coins to the silver coins of the Samanid dynasty or the Karakhanids, because copper coins required no conversion and could not be used by Central Plains merchants to cheat them on the exchange.

And here in the land of Zhongyun, one such copper coin could buy three and a half jin of coarse wheat — enough to keep two lives, one large and one small, alive!

"My lord! Tang lord! A little more charity, please!"

With a "splash," the old Zhongyun man dumped the water from his bucket, then with a "clink" dropped the coin into the bucket, and went chasing after the rump of Ma Yaozi's horse!

Fight the fire?

Fight what damn fire? Can the warrior lords give you money?

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