Chapter 104: Creditor

On the ridge west of the Yellow River, among the great banners snapping in the wind, few were proper battle flags.

Most were large pieces cut from plain or patterned cloth, scrawled with names like "Heaven-Roaming Monkey" or "Sky-Stirring Monkey."

Amidst a host of divine-beast banners, one black flag stood out for its fine fabric, flanked by a leopard-tail pennant and even a Mongol chieftain's ornate yak-tail standard.

That flag bore a single character: Rush.

The men beneath it were all chieftains. They varied in appearance, but all wore relaxed expressions as they watched their scattered followers, spread across several li, ford the river.

Under the Heaven-Roaming Monkey banner, a man with matted hair and a grimy face lifted his clothes, peeled a large patch of caked filth from his belly and tossed it onto the path, then scratched at his tangled, matted locks, caught a louse, crushed it between his fingers, and turned to say with envy, "Chief Gao, you know why the King Across the Sky ordered us south, but I, Monkey, chose to follow you instead?"

Not far from him, beneath the Rush banner, stood a tall man whose skin was tanned bronze. His clothes, however, were clean. He wore lamellar armor, wrapped in a white robe, with a white cloth tied over the brow guard of his helmet. His hand rested on a long-handled guandao, its butt-spike planted in the earth.

He seemed deep in thought and, irked by the interruption, turned his head. "Why?"

Heaven-Roaming Monkey said, "Because your name is good. Not like mine."

"Liu Jiusi, what's wrong with it?" Gao Yingxiang dismissed the notion. "I think your name is fine too."

Heaven-Roaming Monkey shook his head. "You don't get it."

His rebellion, truth be told, had nothing to do with drought or corrupt officials.

Long before the drought struck, he had already gambled away his family fortune in Qingjian and then joined a gang of gamblers to prey on others — swindling, cheating, and extorting like a wretched ghost.

Later, when there was no one left to prey on, he drifted with the refugees to another place. When recruiters came, he lied about being literate to earn a little extra silver for his gambling pool and took a job registering people's names.

How does an illiterate man register names? He bluffed his way through one extra meal, got beaten and chased off by guards, fought back and killed a man, and thus set foot on the path of rebellion.

He thought to himself, Gao Yingxiang's name was truly good — damn good!

Whether it was Yingxiang, Yingxiang, or Yingxiang, those were all common characters seen at wine shops, pawnshops, and gambling dens. He could write all six of those characters!

If the man who had come to register that day had been Gao Yingxiang, he probably wouldn't have taken that beating.

His own name, on the other hand, was a bit of a problem. "Last time we caught that storyteller, he'd just taught me how to write the character 'Jiu' when he got beaten to death before he could teach me 'Si.'"

Gao Yingxiang had no time for him. He was watching the army ford the river with intense concentration. Government troops were massing at Yonghe Pass. His face grave, he tossed out a remark: "Wash yourself clean later, and I'll find someone to teach you."

Even at this rebuff, Heaven-Roaming Monkey showed not a trace of shame. Grinning, he pointed at the Yellow River and said, "Once we take Yonghe Pass, I'll jump in the damn Yellow River for a bath, alright? Give me a hard time — if we had that water for the brothers to drink, how much better would that be? I just hate bathing, it really pisses me off!"

Sky-Stirring Monkey, listening nearby, waved his hands hastily. "Don't! For heaven's sake, don't jump in the river. You're filthy as a ghoul. If you bathe in the river, folks on both banks of the Yellow River will catch a plague."

"Enough. You bickered at the King Across the Sky's place, you bicker out here, and you're still bickering when a battle's coming. Why don't you two line up your troops and fight it out? Whichever one dies, the rest of us brothers will finally have some peace and quiet."

The speaker was Zhang Cunmeng, nicknamed No-Touch-Mud, a major chieftain from Suide.

He turned to Gao Yingxiang and asked, "King Rush, the King Across the Sky ordered us south to link up with Luochuan's Wang Hu and Black Fierce God, and to bring along Yichuan's Flying Mountain Tiger and Big Red Wolf, tearing down every post station along the road to Yaozhou. Why are we attacking Yonghe Pass in Shanxi? I don't see anything worthwhile in that pass."

Gao Yingxiang, leaning on his eight-jin long guandao, turned his head to glance at No-Touch-Mud and said, "You only know about tearing down post stations. Do you know whose idea tearing down the post stations was?"

"Liu Chengzong from Yan'an Prefecture? Oh, I see."

No-Touch-Mud chuckled. "I heard he struck Yanshui Pass and went all the way into Shanxi. King Rush wants to invite him to come along. But I've heard he's not like us — he's a licentiate, and his men can really fight, probably all border troops. Would he join forces with us?"

At No-Touch-Mud's words, Gao Yingxiang's right hand clenched tightly around his guandao. His bronze-tanned face betrayed no emotion. "We'll try... heh."

His taut face suddenly broke into a smile. Shaking his head, he said, "This court... how did they drive even a man like Fourth Master Liu to rebellion? That nickname of yours, the one that forces people onto the road, should belong to Liu Chengzong."

No-Touch-Mud asked, puzzled, "Fourth Master Liu? I heard Liu Chengzong is the second son. His elder brother seems to be a licentiate too. It's funny, really — it's no surprise that people like us rebel, we never had any good fruit to eat anyway. What are people like them rebelling for?"

"I'm talking about his father. He used to be an official in Mizhi. I was captured once."

The expression on Gao Yingxiang's face was complex, torn between anger and laughter. "A jail warden. The court paid him just three dan of rice a month. My brother brought him thirty taels of silver in a wooden box — he refused it. Thinking he thought it was too little, we gave him eight jin of raw silver. He sent that back too."

"Damn... there's an official like that?" No-Touch-Mud laughed as he slapped dust from the tassel on his helmet. "How am I supposed to believe that?"

"That's what I'm saying." Gao Yingxiang laughed. "I remember Fourth Master Liu very clearly. Never went back to Mizhi after that."

"Tch, so that's it. You got out in the end anyway." No-Touch-Mud asked, "How much silver did they take from you in the end?"

Gao Yingxiang raised three fingers. "Still thirty taels. Gave it to the county magistrate, and I walked right out of jail."

The chieftains roared with laughter. No-Touch-Mud said, "Well, that magistrate wasn't so bad then. Let you go for thirty taels. Took the money, did the job — a good man, really."

His laughter subsiding, Gao Yingxiang turned to the others with a serious face. "Alright, prepare to ford the river. The government troops at Yonghe Pass won't dare close in and strike right now, so the most dangerous moment has passed. Sky-Stirring Monkey, hold Yanshui Pass. The rest of you, cross the river with me."

The men roared their approval. The chieftains turned to issue orders, and before long, several columns of better-equipped troops emerged from the mountain paths, spreading out in a line along the riverbank — over a thousand men in all.

These were the backbone of the force.

Just as the chieftains were about to split up and rejoin their formations, the sentries on the hill sounded a warning. Everyone saw a large body of government troops massing on a loess knoll across the river, slightly to the north.

This made Gao Yingxiang and the others halt, frantically waving flags at the fording troops.

They had all expected the government forces to meet them in battle at Yonghe Pass to the south; no one had imagined troops appearing from the northern knolls.

"They don't look like government troops."

Gao Yingxiang had many surrendered government soldiers and Mongol defectors under his command, men well-versed in government encampments. Pointing, he said, "No banners. Could it be Liu Chengzong? Send someone to ask."

No-Touch-Mud asked, "Even if it is Liu Chengzong, what do we say? Tell him we're the King Across the Sky's men, and he should bow his head and call us big brother?"

Gao Yingxiang slowly shook his head. "Tell him I am Gao Yingxiang."

"Damn, you've got some swagger. Why not tell him I'm Zhang Cunmeng?" No-Touch-Mud said with a mocking grin. "He'll just reply, 'I'm Liu Chengzong.' What good would that do?"

"Telling him you're Zhang Cunmeng is useless. He might even want to give you a slash. But telling him I'm Gao Yingxiang will work. Don't believe me? Try it."

Gao Yingxiang looked up at the blade of his guandao, glinting in the sunlight, pondering exactly how to describe the relationship between them.

After a moment's thought, he found a very fitting word.

"I'm his creditor. He owes me a meal."