Chapter 106: Yan'an Garrison

Yan'an Prefecture, Jialing Mountain, the South Pass Walled City.

Under the moonlight, a banner soldier in a conical helmet atop the pass gate strained at the windlass; the clanking of iron chains rang out, and finally, with a heavy thud, silence returned.

Above the dry moat lit by torchlight, amid the billowing dust where the drawbridge had slammed down, a lone rider entered the pass through the haze.

The guard soldier who opened the gate called out a greeting: "Young Master Liu, the General and Battalion Commander Ren are waiting for you at Fan Gong Well."

"Got it."

The man in the dust was Liu Chengyun.

He swung down from the donkey, pulled up the scarf that had shielded him from the dust, waved away the dirt before him, and said to the guard, "Been waiting long?"

"Not long, not long." The banner soldier spoke while standing on tiptoe to peer behind Chengyun, looking at the donkey cart. "Young Master Liu, what's all this back here?"

"A few brothers got hurt, they'll recover here in the walled city. And I brought soybean oil from the oil mill, to give the brothers a little extra."

No sooner had he spoken, and while the guard was still delighted, than Liu Chengyun pulled a handful of pistachios from his bosom and pressed them into the man's hand. "Pistachios, from the western regions. Crack them open tonight."

The guard beamed with joy, calling men over to unload the goods and escort the wounded into the city, not forgetting to say, "Many thanks to Young Master Liu for still remembering us old brothers of Lion Camp."

Liu Chengyun waved his hand dismissively and strode into the South Pass Walled City, which was built against the mountain.

The garrison commander inside this city was Yang Yanchang.

Yang Yanchang was no longer the probationary battalion commander who had nearly turned to banditry just to survive; now he was the fully commissioned full battalion commander of Yan'an Garrison's South Pass Walled City, clad in brocade riding robes, standing with his hands behind his back gazing at the moon by the well — an image of absolute authority.

Only, no one knew how bitter his heart truly was.

This had to be traced back to the day Liu Chengzong raided the county jail.

Chaos had erupted both inside and outside the city, and Battalion Commander Zhang Xiong had led his troops out of the walled city.

Yang Yanchang had originally planned to use the chaos to lead the remaining garrison in looting the walled city's treasury silver and grain stores, then flee to join Liu Guoneng as an outlaw.

He never imagined that both Commander Wu and Battalion Commander Zhang Xiong would die one after another at Liu Chengzong's hands.

With his direct superiors dead to the last man, he no longer needed to run.

But by not running, he became the last serving officer of Yan'an Garrison.

When the resolute Liu Chengzu, Zhang Tianlin, and Monk Wang led their forces in a wild gallop outside the city,

the South Pass Walled City, with only thirty-six banner soldiers left, was the government's final stronghold that day.

The situation was so dire that even a famed general of old could not have defended Yan'an Prefecture.

But Yang Yanchang could.

He packed the thirty catties of silver he had just gathered into a small wooden chest, wrapped it in red silk, and sent it straight to Liu Chengzu in person.

Probationary Battalion Commander Yang Yanchang, astride his fine steed and wielding an iron spear, charged alone through the battle lines of hundreds of bandit troops, meeting no worthy opponent, as if strolling through an empty field. Shouting to drive out the bandits and protect the Prefect, he broke through alone into the city of Yan'an Prefecture.

That afternoon, when the bandit army surged back, a well-fed and well-rested Battalion Commander Yang once more rode out of the city, slashing his way in and out of the enemy formation seven times, scattering the bandits in terror.

By evening, the Prefectural Yamen inspected the battlefield where the fierce general had charged and verified over thirty bandit corpses — all sturdy, unfamiliar young men, though their wounds varied, mostly from blades and arrows.

But that was a minor detail; a new star of war was rising over Yan'an Prefecture.

When word reached the Supreme Commander's Office of the Three Borders in Guyuan, Supreme Commander Yang He was furious, summoning Yang Yanchang to Guyuan for a personal audience. He deeply lamented the rot in the garrison system, how petty schemers had usurped high posts, leaving such a brave warrior as a mere probationary battalion commander.

Not even a fully commissioned rank!

A disgrace! An utter disgrace!

Merits were memorialized, and he was promoted three ranks, transferred to be the garrison commander of Hancheng, to defend against the bandits invading from the south.

Afterward, orders were sent to the garrisons of Xi'an, Tong Pass, Qingyang, Fengxiang, and other places to select and train warriors, purge incompetent garrison officers, and make room for men of true ability.

Later, under Yang Yanchang's repeated counsel, Yang He also realized that Yan'an Garrison was critically short of troops and officers, with no one to defend it, and feared the strategic pass might be lost. Only then did he memorialize for Yang Yanchang to be appointed Battalion Commander of Yan'an Garrison.

The Supreme Commander even sent a personal letter to Yan'an Prefect Zhang Nian, extolling Yang Yanchang's feats in terrifying the bandits and preserving Yan'an, urging civil and military officials to work in harmony to expel the bandits.

The Supreme Commander Yang's deep favor, the effusive praise heaped upon him by officials of every rank, even the daily storytelling scripts at the teahouse by Yan'an Prefecture's city gate... every word that reached Yang Yanchang's ears stabbed at his heart and carved into his bones.

He was a counterfeit famed general; there was no astonishing valor in him at all.

Could he even handle the duties of a battalion commander? The truth was bound to come out sooner or later.

Amid this torment day after day, Yang Yanchang made a surprising discovery: his job was exceedingly simple.

All he needed to do was serve as a figurehead and do absolutely nothing.

The work at Yan'an Garrison could no longer be described as splitting bamboo with ease; the bamboo was splitting itself and hurling itself onto the blade.

He needed to recruit troops, forge weapons, and find ways to secure provisions.

But before the recruiting officers had even set out, several hundred men, without so much as a word, arrived with their own weapons and dry rations to enlist.

The sheer enthusiasm of those military households volunteering for service left Yang Yanchang utterly dumbfounded.

Since the days of the Daoist Emperor Jiajing, had there ever been a sight in our Great Ming of hundreds of men volunteering for military household service?

Aside from the fact that most of these men were surnamed Liu, everything else about them was excellent.

"Ahem."

A cough from behind interrupted Yang Yanchang's moon-gazing reverie, pulling his thoughts from memory back to the nighttime South Pass Walled City.

He turned his head; Liu Chengyun had arrived.

The famed general who presented such a forceful front in the prefectural city now appeared utterly helpless before the slight-framed Liu Chengyun. He sighed. "Chengyun, you've come again to deliver more wounded soldiers?"

Liu Chengyun grinned and cupped his hands toward Yang Yanchang. "General Yang, your place here is short on men, so we've brought some over."

"Where did you raid this time? I've heard you've been stirring up villagers in every village to extort grain from the wealthy households, resorting to blades at the slightest dissatisfaction. The Prefectural Yamen doesn't yet know who's pulling the strings, but word will leak sooner or later. Besides..."

A trace of displeasure showed on Yang Yanchang's face. "You're treating Yan'an Garrison like a wounded-soldier camp."

Liu Chengyun, utterly unconcerned, waved greetings to the garrison soldiers around him before saying, "General Yang, you can't put it that way. The men Lion Camp sends are all good soldiers. They've fought, they've been wounded. When the day comes that the General needs to use troops, won't they be far more useful than recruits pulled from refugees?"

"The day I need to use troops..."

Yang Yanchang's head throbbed at those words. "Aside from suppressing you lot, what other occasion would I have to use troops?"

Yan'an Prefecture was now one giant bandit's nest, and half the chieftains were surnamed Liu.

Liu Xiangyu, Liu Chengzu, Liu Chengzong, She Tiantian, Chuang Tiantian, Guo Tianxing, Monk Wang, Cao Cao.

That bunch — except for the last one — I'd already greeted every one of them when I delivered the silver. I know them all.

"Then we suppress them. If the prefectural office gives the order, Yan'an Guard marches out, suppresses them — twenty or thirty heads. We'll go suppress a couple of rich households who abuse their wealth."

Liu Chengyun waved his hand. "The General and my second brother are old acquaintances. Everything's negotiable between us. If you like money, we'll just split the money together."

"Suppress? Suppress my ass. Under me there are four company commanders in total — three are you Lius from Black Dragon Mountain, and the one left is that Ren Quan'er."

At the mention of this, Yang Yanchang grew even angrier. He stepped forward and said to Chengyun, "Can you tell me — your second brother and Ren Quan'er are the same age, so what kind of bewitching potion did he feed him? In one month the kid turned into this."

Ren Quan'er was his old subordinate from before.

A common soldier by origin, an eighth-generation hereditary guard-household military household. Since childhood he'd carried Yang Yanchang's foot-washing water — a role so loyal it couldn't be more loyal. In a wealthy household outside, they'd call someone like that a house-born servant.

All because he'd delivered cannons for Liu Chengzong once, and stayed at Tiger Waist for over a month.

When that kid came back, he was like someone possessed.

Every word out of his mouth was "I'm Commander Liu's man," and he'd repeat just one line over and over: "Commander Liu treats me well."

Dare he suppress them?

Could he even move them if he tried?

Who in the guard post could Yang Yanchang actually command?

On the surface he was a chiliarch, but his actual command ability was negative one. Never mind commanding troops — he couldn't even control himself.

Liu Chengyun only chuckled. "What bewitching potion could he have fed him? He was just good to him, that's all."

How good?

Washed his feet, treated his wounds, let him rest without working — treated him better than Ren Quan'er's own father ever did.

After three hundred years of a ranked society, Yang Yanchang, born of guard-officer stock, wasn't incapable of understanding what it meant to treat someone well.

But his brain simply never, by its nature, conceived of any reason to be good to the human-shaped tools of the guard post.

There was no need. Eight generations of ancestors had all gotten by this way, each generation utterly loyal — was there any need to treat them well?

This was the consensus among guard officers.

But now Yang Yanchang knew: he had to treat the military households well.

Because a lot of the military households were surnamed Liu. If he didn't want his head lopped off at any moment, it was necessary to treat the military households well.

Lion Camp kept sending wounded soldiers to Yan'an Guard, and Yang Yanchang had no way to stop it. He said, "Chengyun, all these matters of mine — were they arranged by your second brother before he ran?"

This question had been pent up in his heart for a long time. In Lion Camp, only Liu Chengzong knew him.

Everything about his promotion had gone too smoothly — from the fake battle outside the city that left corpses, to someone inside the city writing story-scripts for the teahouse storytellers, to sending men into the besieged city the moment he became chiliarch.

Even later arrangements — having Yan'an Guard find craftsmen to make weapons, tending wounded soldiers, and Ren Quan'er too.

Liu Chengzong had also fought two bouts at the county office, fought two more outside the city, fled ten li, turned around, came back, and beheaded Zhang Xiong.

The more he thought about it, the more Yang Yanchang felt that his own counterfeit title of peerless brave general fit Liu Chengzong better.

And the man was clever too — arranging the aftermath in such detail, so detailed it frightened Yang Yanchang.

Setting aside everything else, the story-script now circulating in the prefectural city, "General Yang of Yan'an Prefecture Greatly Smashes the Bandit Army" — there was no way that had been written beforehand.

Even if he'd started scheming against him from the very day they met at Nanjia Mountain, he couldn't have schemed this meticulously, could he?

To his surprise, his words made Liu Chengyun burst out laughing. "How could that be? The day my second brother killed Zhang Xiong, he was so exhausted he didn't say a word — just sprawled across his horse's back and fell asleep. Later he gave us some instructions on what we should and shouldn't do, then took his men and left. When would he have had the time to scheme against you?"

Yang Yanchang shook his head, convinced in his gut that Chengyun wasn't telling the truth. "I've met all of your leaders. Except your second brother and Shot-Down Sky, none of the others knew me before that day."

As for Shot-Down Sky Li Wanqing?

Yang Yanchang had known him long ago through Liu Guoneng — he didn't believe that hunter boy had this kind of ability.

"Someone knew you."

Beyond that, Liu Chengyun couldn't say more. He only said, "No one wanted to scheme against you. It's just that the higher you rise, the safer everyone is. Not you Lion Camp — you, General Yang, Yan'an Guard, and us — we're all Lion Camp."

Yang Yanchang's promotion, from battle merits to manufacturing public opinion, had truly been a collective effort.

Yang Dingrui had contributed the majority of the ideas, including dumping the corpses. The corpses were all Yan'an Guard banner troops — though they were those bandits who'd fled from Old Huihui's forces and then joined Yan'an Guard.

The storyteller's script fabricating the details of the battle outside the city came from the brush of Liu Chengzu, who had personally experienced the fight.

The famine-bandit Song Shouzhen, of musician-household origin, had even composed a tune for it, with lyrics filled in by Liu Xiangyu. They'd originally wanted the litigation master Wang Kun to have his adopted daughter, who worked in the pleasure quarters, sing it around.

Unfortunately, because of the bandit incident, the prefectural city was under curfew every day, which dealt a severe blow to the pleasure-quarter businesses operating outside the moat. In the end, Old Master Liu's lyrics went unused.

"Who else?"

Yang Yanchang asked, "The county office's chief manager, Vice Magistrate Meng, and the Household Office's Clerk Zhang — were they in on it too? When I went to the county office on business, that Clerk Zhang recognized my subordinate banner troops as Liu family men. And later Vice Magistrate Meng actually told every office to prioritize Yan'an Guard's matters first."

Clerk Zhang?

Liu Chengyun knew Vice Magistrate Meng. He knew his second brother had a prior agreement with the vice magistrate — no matter what happened, Liu Family Village was not to be touched. But they didn't trust the vice magistrate.

That was why Yang Dingrui had so many Liu family members go to Yan'an Guard to enlist. But that Vice Magistrate Meng indeed hadn't touched Liu Family Village — he hadn't even moved against Black Dragon Mountain, only sent men over to take a look.

But as for the clerk Zhang Pan, he had no idea what that was about.

Not knowing aside, Liu Chengyun said with a grin, "General, don't worry about them. If you go ask them, they won't admit to colluding with bandits either. If someone asked you, would you admit it? The General called me over…"

Chengyun stepped forward and asked, "Is there news of my second brother? Where is he?"

"Stop fretting about your second brother. He's formidable enough."

By all logic, having smoothly and justifiably become a chiliarch, Yang Yanchang ought to be happy. Yet he simply couldn't feel happy — he constantly felt controlled at every turn.

But when it came to cutting ties with Lion Camp, he was unwilling.

His state of mind was deeply contradictory. Everything was clearly going his way, yet he was under others' control — it was as if nowhere felt comfortable.

Yang Yanchang shook his head and looked toward the pitch-black east. "He destroyed the postal relay stations so thoroughly that no news can get out of Yan'an Guard, and no news from outside can get in. Sending one letter can exhaust a Heshui County postman to death."

Heshui County was already in Qingyang Prefecture. Several deliveries of letters had all been held up in Fuzhou City. The local postmen, hearing about the situation in Yan'an, didn't dare travel north.

In the end, a Qingyang postman had to grit his teeth, endure not knowing the roads, and run three hundred li just to deliver the message to Yan'an Prefectural City.

"Your second brother has probably entered Shanxi. At Yanshui Pass he killed the mobile corps commander Lu Cheng, who'd been sent to suppress him… Chengyun, do you realize how many twists and turns it took for this letter — which twenty relay-station soldiers could have delivered in a single day?"

Yang Yanchang shook his head. News of the battle at Yanshui Pass couldn't be sent south, so it had to go north — through Qingjian, Suide, Mizhi, all the way to Fish River Relay Station at Fish River Fort.

From Yühe Post Station they were sent up to the Second Border Wall, where border troops galloped along the Great Wall all the way to Yanchi Post Station, where the Ningxia Rear Guard was stationed; from there, relay soldiers from the express delivery stations along the route ran the message in relay, delivering it to the Three Border Supreme Command in GuYuan Prefecture.

Finally, from GuYuan Prefecture, it was sent all the way into Yan'an Prefecture.

"The Supreme Commander had just taken office when the prefectural city was breached, and a Mobile Corps Commander was killed in action — Commissioner Yang is furious."

Yang Yanchang patted Liu Chengyun and said with utter seriousness, "The government troops of Yansui Garrison are moving south. The border troops of GuYuan Garrison mutinied just last year, so the Supreme Commander doesn't dare move them, but Qingyang Guard is also assembling forces to advance on Fu Prefecture."

Chengyun was young after all, and panicked the moment he heard this. "Then my second brother is in great danger — we have to find a way to get word to him!"

"The disturbance your second brother has stirred up is too great. In the official documents transferred between government offices, he's already been listed alongside Hengtian King Wang Jiayin and Wang Zuogua as a first-rank bandit chief. But don't worry too much — your brother is clever. As long as he stays hidden in Shanxi, the Qin troops can't cross the Yellow River."

Yang Yanchang raised a hand and pointed at Liu Chengyun, his face full of worry. "On the contrary, it's you all I'm concerned about. Once the Qingyang government troops arrive, I may well be conscripted too. By then, when the chaos around the prefectural city is pacified and the post stations and express relays are reestablished, if they can't find Chengzong, they'll certainly come looking for you. Don't stir up any more trouble in these coming days... The last thing we need is for one of us to get captured and drag the whole string of us down to ruin!"