Chapter 750: The Fierce Wildcat

The reason Zhao Zaili came up with such an absurd idea as "surrender and lose only half" was that he himself believed this rebellion of his could be forgiven.

What! A rebellion can be forgiven?

In other dynasties, no — but in the Five Dynasties, it seems it actually could.

In other dynasties, rebellion was certainly a crime punishable by the extermination of one's entire clan, but in the Five Dynasties, it was merely one unremarkable act among countless identical farces.

Not to mention that this was the Weibo yabing guards, the very model of Five Dynasties yabing — wasn't rebellion their standard equipment?

Thus, Zhao Zaili did not regard this rebellion as anything particularly serious. The only thing he felt was different from before was that the atmosphere of the realm had truly changed.

In the past, any rebellion involving the Weibo yabing guards and the later-formed Silver Spear Effectuation Corps — which one had not been answered by a single call that drew a cloud of followers, with tens of thousands of men bringing their own weapons and armor to join within three to five days?

But this time, when he, Zhao Zaili, and Liu Jixun, old hands of Weibo origin, took the initiative to recruit, only three or four hundred men responded. The times had indeed changed.

As it happened, the reason Zhao Zaili had jumped out to rebel on his own initiative still came down to one word: money.

Originally, after Zhang Zhao entered the Eastern Capital, he had very much wanted to find an opportunity to do away with Zhao Zaili, because the name Zhao Zaili was simply too notorious. He had run through nearly the entire Five Dynasties and was the most typical embodiment of the Five Dynasties military man.

Greedy, overbearing, cruel, cunning, utterly devoid of loyalty. The phrase used to describe him, Zhao Zaili — "a thorn in the eye" — even became, in later generations, a common expression for the person one most hates and wishes to be rid of at once.

But at that time, after the great battle at Luoyang, that dog of a man Zhao Zaili had shown remarkable perceptiveness. While Zhang Zhao was still in Luoyang, he had become the first Later Jin Military Governor to lead his yabing guards in killing Khitans in the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, and to answer Li Cunhui's call.

By the time Zhang Zhao noticed this thorn in his eye, the man had already made a splendid turn and become a meritorious official who had welcomed the new dynasty's Emperor.

I, Sage Zhang, am a reasonable man. Although in my heart I wished I could kill Zhao Zaili at once, I did not act on personal likes and dislikes.

Yet there was always a thorn lodged in his heart, so he seized upon Zhao Zaili's extortionate plundering everywhere as a weak point, and repeatedly sent people to Zhao Zaili's door to hint that he should hand over his ill-gotten wealth if he wished to keep his life.

I, Sage Zhang, was greedy!

He Ning had made a rough calculation for Zhang Zhao: in Zhao Zaili's hands, counting only the landed property in his home district of Weizhou and the gold and silver cached in his cellars, there was at least around one million strings of cash.

If one added his shops and properties in Chang'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Xuchang, Shangqiu, Qingzhou, Xuzhou, and other places, they were worth at least one and a half million strings.

If so much property were to fall to Zhang Zhao, then I, Sage Zhang, could use this money to support the rebuilding of water conservancy works in the Hebei lands, and to cover part of the travel expenses for commoners relocating to Liaodong.

The landed property could be used for land equalization, and the shops in various places could be used to reward meritorious officials.

But Zhang Zhao sent people to hint at this three or four times, and even Zhang Lieming, the Deputy Commander of the Brocade Guard Personal Army, went to his door in person — yet Zhao Zaili still refused to relent.

The old bastard had the heart of a turtle that has swallowed a scale weight — made of iron. Never mind his entire fortune; he was not prepared to give up even ten thousand strings.

Because in Zhao Zaili's eyes, this wealth was more important than his life!

This was the family fortune he had built by braving wind and rain, nearly done in by the yabing guards below him several times, and nearly done in by the Son of Heaven and great kings above him several times, throwing away all face and shame, climbing mountains of swords and plunging into seas of fire.

What was more, because his deeds were so utterly wicked, the whole realm cursed him to die without descendants. And by a strange coincidence, of Zhao Zaili's four sons, apart from the eldest, who lived past twenty, all the rest died before reaching twenty.

So much so that although Zhao Zaili had a pile of wives and concubines and had fathered a pile of children, by now he had no close kin left except three daughters and a single grandson.

Therefore, in Zhao Zaili's eyes, how could this fortune of over a million strings be mere money? It was the lives of his four sons. How could he possibly be willing to offer it up to Zhang Zhao?

So Zhang Zhao had long since set his mind on killing Zhao Zaili, and Zhao Zaili knew the Emperor would certainly find a reason to kill him. Rebellion thus became the natural course of things.

Only now Zhao Zaili discovered that when he and Liu Jixun raised a call to arms, they could muster only a few hundred men, and could not even take down a patrol station at Yanhe Fort.

This old hand at stirring up military mutinies finally realized that the times had changed.

He suddenly felt that if he could surrender and lose only half — no! — if he could keep just one or two hundred thousand strings for his grandson and offer up all the rest, that might not be unacceptable.

Hmm... a bit fanciful, but there was also a little reasonableness to it.

Because Zhao Zaili's greatest asset was the gold and silver he had cached away. In this age there were no banks, and Zhao Zaili had long since melted this gold and silver into balls or long bars and buried them, and had also killed all the servants and craftsmen who knew about it. If he refused to speak, it would truly not be easy to find.

Judging from the situation since the Later Tang, a Military Governor below who rebelled could still, as long as he knelt and begged for mercy, have a high probability of keeping his life.

After all, they all came from Daibei and Hedong. Everyone has moments of failing to appreciate what is good for them; helping others is helping yourself.

So once this thought took shape, Zhao Zaili immediately shot a meaningful glance at the trusted confidant beside him.

The confidant was actually even more afraid than Zhao Zaili, because he knew far better than this old man, who had not left Weizhou City or even his own mansion gates for many years, just how formidable the Great Zhou now was.

Damn it all — the hills and fields were covered with archery societies and spear-and-staff societies, and in the more prosperous places there were even Qiji societies that had once existed only in Helong and Guanzhong.

And there was also a promotion route running from the rotating sworn-follower long-service braves, to county school Captain, to guard-post army squad leader, to deputy squad leader, to imperial army elite, to personal army trusted man.

What was more frightening was that this route even had fallback options. For example, if you reached the county school Captain step and could go no further, you could still become a constable at the county office, or join a guard-post army and receive equal-field land to become a minor officer such as a fire leader.

If one retired from the imperial army or the personal army, one could come down and become a local inspector or a centurion in a guard-post army. For officers, there were even paths such as county lieutenant or tax commissioner.

To a wildcat born in the countryside, desperate to change his fate, this held an enormous attraction. Plenty of men were willing to trade their lives for it.

The confidant could even sense that in the woods all around Yanhe Fort, the place was full of those red-eyed "wildcats," watching them with hungry gazes.

Better to run. Run back to Weizhou first. If that truly would not work — the confidant glanced at Zhao Zaili — then there would be no choice but to take Old Zhao's whole family and buy his own life with them.

In his agitation, the confidant quietly led over several horses, and also called up the dozen or so riders he was closest to on ordinary days.

Zhao Zaili glanced into the distance at Liu Jixun, nearly fifty years old, still personally charging at the very front to climb the walls of Yanhe Fort.

The pitiful fellow — in the Eastern Capital the Khitans had stripped him of his entire fortune; his wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law had all been violated by the Khitans and then stabbed to death; his son had been beaten to death outside Yanshi City. He was left utterly alone in the world.

He had also made a pile of enemies in the past. Now that he had lost his office, if he did not rebel, he would not even know when someone would come to his door and kill him.

"Let us go! Follow this old man back to Weizhou. We shall go kowtow to the Son of Heaven and confess our crimes. This old man will give up his entire fortune to protect you all."

Zhao Zaili thought it best to soothe them a little and bestow some favor, for if he could keep his life, then the one or two hundred thousand strings left over at the end would still depend on these men for protection.

The confidant nodded happily. As long as they returned to Weizhou, then whether they fled, or bought a way out with the lives of Zhao Zaili's whole family, either would be far better than the present situation.

Only, he glanced uneasily at the surrounding trees, afraid that a pack of reckless wildcats might burst out from within.

Unfortunately, sometimes the bad comes true precisely when the good does not.

When Zhao Zaili fled under the protection of his confidant, Kang Sanlang's entire clan of forty or fifty people had already been lying in ambush in the woods for a long time.

The reason they had not dared to come forward was that Zhao Zaili's men all had armor, and apart from those attacking Yanhe Fort, there were still twenty or thirty men present.

Among the Kang family members, there were only two or three spears and one bow; all the other weapons were farm tools, and armor was utterly out of the question.

Charging out like that would have no second outcome other than death, so they had not dared to go out all this time.

But now, with Zhao Zaili and a dozen or so men about to flee, their chance had come.

Kang Sanlang gulped down great mouthfuls of cold air, using that icy feeling in his lungs to steady his trembling hands and feet as much as possible.

He, Kang Sanlang, trained hard regardless of heat or cold precisely because he did not want to scratch a living from the soil like his father's generation. He wanted to become an official, to eat big fatty meat, and to drink wine by the bowl.

He wanted to marry a little lady with black hair, black eyes, and fair skin, so that his sons and grandsons would never again be mocked from childhood to adulthood the way he had been for his yellow hair and gray eyes.

Under the gaze of more than a hundred pairs of eyes, Zhao Zaili and his dozen-odd riders passed the woods where Kang Sanlang and his men lay in ambush. Kang Sanlang drew a sharp breath, and with his hunting bow in hand, loosed five or six arrows in the space of a few breaths.

The arrowheads were made of sharpened sheep bone, the shafts were not quite straight, and the hunting bow lacked power, so Kang Sanlang had to make up for quality with quantity.

His luck was good, because Zhao Zaili and his men were fleeing and had not dared to wear their lamellar armor, instead loading it onto the horses behind them.

So although the arrows came from a hunting bow, every one of them buried itself in the body of the foremost of Zhao Zaili's attendants. The man howled in agony, and his horse took an arrow in the rump as well, letting out a shrill neigh and instantly bolting.

"Kill the bandits!" A gong sounded, and the able-bodied men of the Kang family, like vicious dogs pouncing on food, came howling out of the woods with bloodshot eyes and threw themselves at Zhao Zaili and his men.

Moreover, their division of labor was clear: one group swept around to cut off escape from front and rear, while the fastest and boldest went straight for Zhao Zaili.

An old man like that still taking the field—he had to be a big official. Bah! He had to be the bandit chief. Take him down, and the military merit was theirs.

Kang Gouzi carried nothing, so he ran the fastest. Just hearing the name told you what his station was.

The Kang family had only thirty-odd able-bodied men in his generation, yet he could not even get a ranking like Kang Sanshilang—he was only fit to be called Kang Gouzi.

His eldest sister, who doted on him most, was betrothed, but when their parents could not produce a dowry, the match was called off, and in her humiliation she drowned herself in the river. His little brother clearly had a talent for study, yet he could only be called Kang Ergouzi just like him.

When his mother fell ill, he could only watch as she was tormented to death by sickness.

Kang Gouzi would never live such a life again. He refused to let the family go on being called Ergouzi and Sangouzi. He had no intention of surviving this.

Amid the howling, Kang Gouzi truly did seem like a hyena. He let out a wild, dog-like howl, lunged at the side of Zhao Zaili's horse, seized Zhao Zaili's thigh, and yanked at it frantically.

The warhorse was startled. It kicked and lashed out but failed to hit him. Zhao Zaili was terrified beyond measure. He wrenched at his sword hilt, trying to cut Kang Gouzi down.

But in his panic he could not draw the blade no matter how he tried. Left with no choice, Zhao Zaili brought the sword down, scabbard and all.

Once, twice, three times. Kang Gouzi was battered until blood streamed down his face, and his legs, dragging across the snow, had nearly lost all feeling.

But he would not let go. He strained with all his might, lifted his leg, and kicked at the little pecker of the warhorse beneath Zhao Zaili.

All the while he howled madly, "Sanlang! Sanlang! Sanlang!"

Even a gelded horse, struck repeatedly in the place where it pisses, could not bear the pain, and soon its pace slowed.

That single moment of slowness was enough. Countless Kang men surged in from every direction. They threw away their weapons just to run faster. Many risked death to grab the horse's tail, and some even wrapped their arms around its legs.

At last the warhorse could hold out no longer. Surrounded by more than ten men, it was tripped and brought to the ground, and Zhao Zaili had long since been dragged off its back.

The moment they saw Zhao Zaili was gone, his remaining trusted men panicked. Not daring to tangle any longer with these desperate bumpkins, they spurred their horses and fled at full gallop.

A thunderous cheer went up. Thirty or forty Kang men, covered in blood, cheered and roared. They had struck down four men in all, and captured the bandit chief.

The trusted men did not get far, because the sound of gongs was rising from every direction across this stretch of land.

From the eight villages around Yanhe Fort, from the patrol office, and from the Hua Prefecture Central Garrison, men had all come.

Zhao Zaili opened his mouth wide, about to beg for mercy. He desperately wanted to offer his family fortune in exchange for his life, but Kang Sanlang scooped up a handful of mud, rammed it into Zhao Zaili's mouth, and clamped his hand over it.

"Go! Move fast! The Zhao family of Heihan Fort has sent men. Don't let those donkey-fuckers steal our merit!"

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