Chapter 647: Not Warriors, but Stalwart Fine Men

The racket from Zhu Jinzhong's bed was so loud that the guards outside were left drooling with envy.

Though they weren't doing too badly themselves — while they had no bewitching beauties from Tanzhou, a whore costing three or five coppers wasn't hard to find.

For men like them, personal attendants to the commander, holding a woman all night long was out of the question, but slipping out for a bit of fun was perfectly fine.

This was because a great many camp women had come along with the Chu army.

And these women had not been conscripted or seized — most of them had come of their own accord.

There were Han women and women of the various creek-and-grotto barbarian tribes, and what they all shared was that their families were desperately poor.

In such chaotic times, people's demand for morality was not especially high.

Khitan troops and certain Military Governor yabing guards of the Central Plains — armies that never even mentioned pay, whose provisions came mainly from plunder — naturally no one dared go near. But in Ma Chu, the soldiers were actually paid.

Moreover, though the Chu state looked large, its essence lay in the Dongting Lake plain, centered on Tanzhou (Changsha), Langzhou (Changde), and Yuezhou.

So even when Ma Chu troops went out to fight, looting and such were still relatively rare. The surrounding countryside was full of their own kin and neighbors, and most men couldn't bring themselves to be ruthless.

This was why so many women followed the soldiers: serve three years in the army, and a sow looks like Diaochan. Especially when men gathered in numbers with a bit of pay in their hands, it was easy to get carried away and pour every last coin into a woman.

Among women so poor they couldn't even fill their bellies, as long as the soldiers didn't kill or plunder, there were quite a few willing to take up this trade.

This was also why Ma Xi'e was so despised — because he had recruited large numbers of creek-and-grotto barbarians from the Wuling mountains to sack Tanzhou, breaking the rules of the Ma Chu state.

The direction Yuan Yougong chose, taking Guo Rong and the others, was a small village where large numbers of these women lived, because this direction was the great rear of the entire Ma Chu army, and its defense was the most lax.

On the battlefield at this time, the appearance of women was still considered taboo, so these women all lived in the rear, some distance from the Chu army.

And the Chu army also considered this place the safest. Officers and soldiers alike had unconsciously relaxed their vigilance in this direction.

Another reason was that only in this direction would some noise not overly arouse the Chu army's suspicion.

Because the Chu officers, on the surface at least, still had to restrain their men and wouldn't let them openly go fool around with these women.

The soldiers, for their part, usually chose to slip away for their fun around dusk or just before dawn, and many sentries even came here to shelter from the night wind.

Yuan Yougong looked at Guo Rong with a grave expression. "General, you must make it clear to the brave men under your command: past two villages from here, the ones living there are all prostitutes. If you want to sport and make merry, you must first crush Zhu Jinzhong.

If anyone can't hold back now, gets handsy, and starts raping and plundering, and that alerts the roving patrols nearby, then all our efforts will have been for nothing."

In Yuan Yougong's view, the greatest danger of this mission was not the assault on Zhu Jinzhong, but passing through these two villages full of women.

These prostitutes were mostly young women, and having plied the flesh trade for so long, they all had a bit of money on them. To the Zhou troops, as outsiders, they would surely look like excellent targets for plunder.

Women, money, and little ability to resist — all three boxes ticked.

Guo Rong grinned a silent grin, then beckoned over a soldier who looked utterly ordinary, even rather simple and honest, but who had already taken the heads of eleven Khitans.

"Zhao Chang, up ahead there's a little village where some whores live. Go have your way with them, and whatever money you take is yours."

The simple, honest Zhao Chang's eyes suddenly went wide. The lad was a bit slow-witted, and often couldn't tell whether someone was joking or speaking in earnest.

So when he heard Guo Rong say this, he immediately grew anxious. Though somewhat afraid of Guo Rong, he still stiffened his neck and said,

"Lieutenant, are you trying to ruin me or what? I still want to earn more merit and go back to Yunzhou as a patrol officer someday. I'm not going!"

"Still such a fool!" Guo Rong laughed and patted him on the head, then turned to a man beside him who looked lean and lanky but could actually swing a five- or six-jin mace in fierce combat for a full half hour.

"Xue Cunyuan, are you willing to go?"

Hearing Guo Rong's question, Xue Cunyuan immediately straightened up and gave Guo Rong a formal salute with hands crossed, stiff and proper yet radiating a strange sense of reliability.

"Lieutenant, please don't jest. By the military law of the Great Zhou, plunderers receive ten strokes and pay fivefold restitution. Rapists receive ten strokes and forfeit their reward silver. Plunder plus rape: execution without mercy!

Besides, I, Xue Cunyuan, was rescued from Anxi by the Sage himself. If I broke military law, what face would I have to go back and see the Sage?"

Back then, when Zhang Zhao sent Ma Zhaoyuan (Ma Yaozi) to defeat the army of Yusuf, governor of Keshgar under the Karakhanids, and rescue the last descendants of the Anxi Army of New Kucha, Xue Cunyuan had already been ten years old.

For thirteen years, whenever Xue Cunyuan recalled the afternoon he was saved, his whole body trembled.

Because before that, he had lived like a mule or horse on the open plain, hunted and slaughtered at will by the Karakhanids and the Samanid Persians.

And after that, his life had immediately become "Rome."

He was a third-generation member of the Eastward Return faction, the Sage Shaoming's most trusted inner circle. He regarded Zhang Zhao as a god, and whatever Zhang Zhao said must not be done, Xue Cunyuan would absolutely not do.

Seeing Guo Rong turn his gaze toward him, Wang Jingcun hastily waved his hands. "Lieutenant, don't ask me. If I did such a thing, before military law even got to me, my brother-in-law would beat me to death.

Besides, this rank of Chengxin Lang didn't come easily — I can't go throwing it away like that."

Wang Jingcun's brother-in-law was Zhang Cheng. He was the nephew of the Wang family's son-in-law from the old Upper and Lower White Horse Village.

Zhang Cheng was not only his cousin's husband; Zhang Cheng's father, the eldest son of the Zhang family, had saved his life several times on the battlefield. So the person Wang Jingcun respected and feared most was Zhang Cheng.

Wang Jingcun could speak so calmly to Guo Rong also because he came from the Lanzhou Six Valleys tribe, part of the most orthodox Liang-Lan Six Valleys faction.

If Guo Rong had not served under Zhang Zhao back when Zhang Zhao was still the Prince of Han during the attack on Xiazhou, and won merit by the Hun River, he would never have been able to command such a senior dragon-following veteran.

Guo Rong laughed heartily at this, then gathered the one or two hundred men around him and looked at them as he asked,

"All fine sons of the Great Zhou — do you remember what the Sage said when you entered the army camp?"

The men rose to their feet and answered in unison: "No rape, no plunder, no wanton killing. Glory is won from horseback, and the four seas shall be made one!"

After the soldiers finished, Guo Rong turned smugly to Yuan Yougong. "Brother Yuan, do you see? What stands before you are not mere warriors who know only slaughter, but the stalwart fine men of the Great Zhou!"

Yuan Yougong immediately gave everyone a deep bow with hands clasped. "It was I who thought like a petty man. Today I have learned that there truly exist in this world heavenly soldiers who do not rape, do not plunder, and do not kill wantonly. Zhu Jinzhong is doomed!"

Zhu Jinzhong was indeed doomed. The hour had already passed yinshi, yet in these two villages where the prostitutes lived, large numbers of soldiers were still wandering about.

The whole village was faintly suffused with the smell of wine. Guo Rong even spotted one fool who had drunk too much and fallen asleep outside, already frozen stiff as a fish.

It turned out that after Zhu Jinzhong had summoned his officers and men for a great feast yesterday, the rank-and-file soldiers had also grown rowdy, and Zhu Jinzhong had been forced to order the cooks to give the soldiers extra food and meat.

And after the banquet, he had taken the bewitching Tanzhou courtesans to bed under one great quilt. With the men below losing all restraint, large numbers of officers followed suit, some even staying overnight in the prostitutes' homes and never returning to camp.

With the officers acting like this, the soldiers grew even more lawless. Moreover, these past days the Zhou army had consistently shown weak offensive momentum, so the soldiers had come to regard the Li River as a natural moat, growing ever more contemptuous of the Zhou army and ever more reckless.

Wang Jingcun and Xue Cunyuan walked shoulder to shoulder. The two men shared similar circumstances.

Before Zhang Zhao arrived, Wang Jingcun's whole family had herded livestock for the tribal chief, living in extreme hardship.

His father had his legs broken on the orders of Dongpu Qiong merely because a wolf had carried off a half-grown calf.

In the end, having lost his means of livelihood, and unwilling to become a burden to his wife and children, Wang Jingcun's father stubbornly refused to eat and starved himself to death in his bed.

Wang Jingcun still remembered that dawn: his mother had somehow found a handful of wheat, cooked it into gruel, and knelt on the ground weeping and begging his father to take one bite, but his father only pointed a finger at him, meaning the food should be left for him.

So when Guo Rong had asked him earlier whether he would go plundering, what Wang Jingcun had really wanted to say was that he, Wang Jingcun, would rather starve to death than bully those suffering, helpless women.

Slaughtering all those cruel wretches who grew rich without benevolence and dividing the realm's farmland equally among the poor — that was his pursuit.

Xue Cunyuan was much the same. Until the age of ten he had no trousers to wear. From as far back as he could remember, he had been driven about like a wild dog with his family by one power after another.

He had a few more days of schooling than Wang Jingcun, and he understood better what Zhang Zhao often told them: the meaning of ending the chaos, rebuilding a great dynasty, and giving the common people peace.

The two men of bitter origin walked forward shoulder to shoulder. Their armor was rolled into cylinders and carried on their backs; their long sabers and maces were bundled together. In their hands each carried a long spear.

To be precise, it should be called a hook-scythe spear, and at the butt end of the hook-scythe spear there was also a small iron ring.

That way, on the march, the soldier behind could hook the scythe blade of his spearhead onto the ring at the tail of the soldier in front, thereby keeping formation and reducing straggling. Especially when passing through mountain roads, it often worked wonders.

The Chu army camp was distributed in a circle around Little Ferry Town.

The outermost ring was laborers and a small number of prefectural and county stout lads. One layer inside were the Wu'an Army and the barbarian troops of the various creek-dong tribes. The innermost were the Langzhou yabing guards, headed by the Wuping Army.

When the group had marched to within no more than half a li of Little Ferry Town, they halted.

The squad general of each squad began pulling a large bag from the pouch he carried, then handed out a small ball to each man.

This was a small rice ball, made by repeatedly steaming, pounding, and compacting polished rice, then mixing in high-energy foods such as honey, white sugar, and lard. It could quickly restore strength. Besides this rice ball, each man also had a mouthful of strong liquor to drink.

The soldiers gnawed at their rice balls and downed the strong liquor in one gulp, and at once felt some strength return to their bodies.

They hurriedly opened the padded cotton armor they had been carrying on their backs, swiftly put it on, fastened their leather belts, and thrust their hengdao sabers, maces, and bows and arrows into their belts or slung them across their backs.

Several hundred men moved together, yet produced only the faint rustle of clothing and armor. Considering that they had marched nearly ten li without even needing to hold wooden gags in their mouths, Yuan Yougong felt this was only to be expected.

Guo Rong began assigning tasks. They had been drawn from different units, so their original formations had already been broken up. The newly appointed camp adjutants could not yet fully command the soldiers.

In a group full of such fierce and daring men, it was not unheard of for soldiers to defy their officers. Therefore Guo Rong had to explain the details very clearly, and give the camp adjutants and even the squad leaders sufficient authority.

Everyone had long since memorized the defense map Yuan Yougong had drawn. Guo Rong decided to attack in three columns. The center column would strike straight at Zhu Jinzhong's command tent, while the left and right columns would first strike the left and right separately, set fires, and then join the center column in attacking the main army tent.

Guo Rong looked at the seven camp adjutants beside him — Zhao Kuangyin, Murong Yanzhao, Wang Shenqi, Pan Mei, Lin Renzhao, Lin Renhan, and Yao Kechou — and spoke.

"I will personally lead the center column. Pan Mei, Lin Renzhao, and Yao Kechou will follow me. We will charge and strike hard, breaking into the main camp at top speed to search for traces of Zhu Jinzhong.

Zhao Kuangyin and Lin Renhan will take the left column; Murong Yanzhao and Wang Shenqi will take the right. The pear-blossom spears must be strictly controlled — they may only be used at the critical moment to frighten disordered troops."

Outside Little Ferry Town, a few dim oil lamps flickered, swaying unsteadily in the cold wind, looking especially eerie.

A dozen or so laborers were crammed into a dugout shelter. A bit of simple straw, covered with some coarse hemp cloth from who knew where, made a place to sleep.

The dozen or so laborers were so cold that they all pressed tightly together. The one sleeping in the middle, in the most comfortable spot, was a yabing guard of the Wuping Army. They had come to supervise these laborers.

The yabing guard grunted. The campfire beside the dugout had long since gone out, making this early winter morning feel all the colder.

Too lazy to get up, he simply used the wooden stick in his hand to rap a random person nearby on the leg.

"Go! Gather some firewood, and see which camp's fire hasn't gone out — go light one up."

The one he picked was a young laborer, very thin, wearing only an even thinner hemp garment.

He had been sleeping on the outside and was already freezing badly. Now he was even more unwilling to leave this dugout that still held a trace of warmth.

But accustomed to obedience, he did not dare challenge the short, stocky yabing guard's order. He did not even dare cough loudly, and could only force himself to climb up.

However, he soon noticed something flashing in the distance. Unfortunately, the laborers' living conditions were so poor that his night blindness was rather severe, so even squinting hard, he still could not see clearly.

"Brother Zhou, what's that flashing out there? Which camp went out to gather firewood this early?"

The young laborer hesitated a moment, then asked the yabing guard sleeping in the middle.

"You dog-brained fool, that's your old man coming back after bedding your mother.

Now get out there and gather firewood and start a fire for your old man! If you freeze your daddy, I'll skin you alive the moment I get up!"

The yabing guard called Brother Zhou did not even raise his head, and gave the young laborer a thorough cursing.

Because the direction the young laborer was looking happened to be the village where those prostitutes were resting.

Brother Zhou naturally took the flashing light for the torches of officers returning after their pleasures, and felt a touch of irritation in his heart.

The surrounding laborers chimed in with low snickers. The young laborer stood up somewhat fearfully, then prepared to go gather firewood.

They lived in the outermost ring and did not even have the right to enter the town. If the firewood ran short, someone might well freeze to death at night.

But he had taken only two steps when he heard a strange sound — a twang, like a taut hemp rope suddenly snapping back.

And with that sound, a yabing guard carrying a saber not far ahead of him suddenly toppled to the ground.

The young laborer still could not see clearly what had happened. He turned back, wanting to ask again, but feared being cursed at even more, so he could only stand there dumbly, wanting to speak but stopping himself.

Then he saw Brother Zhou, who had been lying peacefully in the dugout, spring up almost as if launched from the ground, so fast it utterly exceeded the young laborer's imagination.

The laborers did not know what the sound meant, but Brother Zhou, who had lived by the blade for over a decade, knew it was the sound of a crossbow firing. He scrambled up, wanting to run into the town.

But it was too late. His figure was so clear in this silent, cold winter morning.

Murong Yanzhao, famed as a divine marksman, gently squeezed the trigger and immediately shot down the yabing guard as he sprinted like a wild hare.

This time the young laborer saw clearly. He saw Brother Zhou shot through the chest and belly by something.

Blood surged from Brother Zhou's waist. He even stretched out his hand, wanting the young laborer to pull him up.

But on the young laborer's face there suddenly appeared again that blank, harmless look of knowing nothing at all.

He walked over with perfect composure, pressed down on Brother Zhou's head, and shoved the mouth that wanted to howl straight into the mud.

All chapters have been cached for you. Download the app to view them.