Chapter 131: Starving and Freezing

On the day Commandant Yang Yanchang led his troops onto the road to serve the throne, Prefect Zhang Nian of Yan'an led the common folk to line the streets and see him off. Musicians blew suonas, and firecrackers crackled and boomed.

It was said that before Commandant Yang set out to serve the throne, he personally wrote to the various counties, warning the bandit chieftains everywhere not to take advantage of his absence to act rashly and harm officials and civilians. He called the roving bandits starving, suffering children of the court, and urged them to understand the greater good.

Afterward, the bandits indeed lowered their banners and silenced their drums, and Yan'an Prefecture appeared utterly peaceful, to everyone's astonished admiration.

On the hills flanking the Yan River, the various bandit chieftains entrenched across Yan'an Prefecture all gazed from afar and paid their respects to Commandant Yang as he led his troops to serve the throne.

People said General Yang had always possessed great prestige and could keep the bandits of Yan'an Prefecture in check.

That day, Liu Chengzong was also on the hill, in the very same concealed pit dug half a year earlier while watching Li Bei march out his troops.

But his state of mind was vastly different. In his eyes, this was not a picture of government troops serving the throne.

It was his merchant caravan — a caravan setting out with its goods.

Du Laowu walked beside Yang Yanchang, forming, along with ten other border soldiers, the deserter guides for this campaign to serve the throne.

Watching their retreating figures from the hill, Liu Chengzong clenched his fists tightly: You must come back alive!

If fortune truly fails and we take a loss, it really doesn't matter. Three hundred warhorses are precious, but people are always more precious than horses.

The new soldier uniforms were excellent in every way — warm, comfortable, and not bad-looking — but their single greatest flaw was that they showed dirt easily.

Liu Chengzong had tricked Shangtianhou into washing his clean, yet within days of putting on the new clothes, the uniform on him had already changed color.

That uniform would get as filthy as if he had rolled in the mud.

The weather soon turned cold, and Liu Chengyun came running back to Wangzhuang Fort to practice archery again.

After being informed, Liu Chengzong stood on the fort wall and watched for a while. Seeing him shoot for ages without a single hit, he called out clearly: "Chengyun, stop shooting. Come inside."

This kid was stubborn. If you can't hit it, just move the target closer — why insist on shooting from so far away, then turn around and go fetch your arrows afterward?

It created the illusion that his goal was not archery but coming over for a run.

Once inside the fort, Chengyun clapped his hands and sighed: "Why is it, brother, that you shoot so accurately?"

He still remembered the day they raided the county jail — Liu Chengzong had drawn his bow and shot, hitting whatever he aimed at. Watching himself, his movements seemed about the same; how was it that he could only aim at whatever he hit?

"Diligent study and hard practice. I've been learning this since I was little — you've only been at it a few days."

Liu Chengzong smiled and led Chengyun inside. He lit the long-burning stove outside to heat the kang and boil a pot of water, then squatted by the fire, warming his hands, and asked: "So, how have the supply scouts been doing lately?"

"Nothing left."

Liu Chengyun answered crisply: "The newly acquired cloth, plus the old cotton we collected later — by year's end, we'll have around two thousand sets of soldier uniforms and over seven hundred pairs of padded shoes. After that, nothing. Today I brought two hundred and forty sets of soldier uniforms."

Two thousand sets?

"The uniforms are down in the river valley? I'll go distribute them to Yang Yao's group later."

Liu Chengzong sat on the edge of the kang, raised a hand to his forehead, and pondered. "Can we get any more? Other padded clothes would do too. We also need to speed up making the soldier uniforms. It's getting colder by the day — if we're late, I'm afraid people will die."

Liu Chengyun nodded. People freezing to death in winter was all too common. He shook his head: "Blame the timing. If Li Bei had come to attack earlier, two months earlier, we could have finished all the uniforms."

"Tch. Two months earlier, the government troops wouldn't have let me off either."

Liu Chengzong gave a scornful laugh: "This breathing room we have now is precisely because it's cold and the government troops lack winter clothing, so they won't campaign. I have over a thousand deserters and surrendered soldiers — many are wearing clothes stripped from the dead. We barely scraped together seven or eight hundred sets of padded armor."

"If we don't insist on soldier uniforms, I can think of ways — we can probably still buy some padded jackets, but not many. Brother, you've got vanguard, center, rear, left, right, engineering, artillery, and supply."

Chengyun also came over to the fire to warm his hands. Squatting, he turned his head: "Plus the household troop instructors. Eight sentries and two squads, over four thousand men — padded jackets and padded trousers for everyone, in just over a month. It's too hard."

"It's fine. You do your best to find a way, and we'll do everything we can. Leading troops... leading troops is truly hard, isn't it?"

Liu Chengzong walked over and patted Chengyun on the shoulder to comfort him, then shook his head with feeling: "I'll find ways too. They've followed me — I can't let them freeze or starve to death."

Liu Chengzong had promised them that they would die unnatural deaths — not be sent to their deaths or starved to death.

He sat back at the desk and wrote for a while. Once Chengyun had warmed up by the fire, he picked up a stack of papers and asked: "I'm heading down the mountain — you coming?"

Chengyun knew that when Liu Chengzong went down the mountain, he was either going to the artillery sentry or the engineering sentry. He stood up, patted his padded trousers, and said: "I'm coming too!"

Liu Chengyun was very interested in the Frankish hand cannon, and also in the things Liu Chengzong wrote. He asked questions the whole way, and when he heard it was the training plan for the eight sentries and two squads, he immediately opened the floodgates.

"Training once every three days? If they're eating that well, shouldn't they train every day?"

"And what's this sentry drill every ten days? And what's the grand drill every twenty days for?"

When asking about these things, Chengyun's eyes lit up, and he kept asking about this and that.

Liu Chengzong, patient as ever, explained the reasons for each drill in detail: "When we hadn't stockpiled enough winter grain, everyone had to go out foraging and had no time to drill. Now that the grain is sufficient, naturally we drill every day. But they don't form up as units — mainly the squad leaders lead them in weapons practice, strength training, and running, with only a little formation drill."

"A squad is one combat soldier and two auxiliaries. The combat soldiers have all served before — they teach the auxiliaries, and the squad leaders inspect their training results. What's called 'training once every three days' is combined squad drill, mainly formation, technique, and squad-level coordination."

"As for the sentry drill every ten days, that's a full sentry assembly drill — formation changes, and the use of the sentry's supply squad and household troop squad. The reason it's every ten days is that on the day of each sentry's grand drill, they have to march their troops over."

At this point, Liu Chengzong smiled and greeted a soldier carrying goods up the mountain, then turned to Chengyun and said: "I can't not see my soldiers. I have to speak with every one of them and encourage them."

This training plan was almost entirely copied by Liu Chengzong from the border army drills at Yuhe Fort, combined with the training methods of the Black Dragon Mountain militia, and then adapted to their current environment — devising a training method suited to them based on local conditions.

Troops could be drilled anywhere along the banks of the Apricot River, but only the open ground outside Wangzhuang Fort was large enough to spread out the entire camp for a full assembly drill.

At times like this, Liu Chengzong felt the lack of officers more and more acutely.

In the entire camp of over four thousand men, not a single one had ever been exposed to how to conduct an assembly drill for more than four hundred men.

There was Li Bei locked up in Wangzhuang Fort, and Liu Chengzong had the mind to humbly seek instruction from his inferior, but the man refused to teach him.

At the mention of Li Bei, Chengyun asked with keen interest: "By the way, brother, I heard from Sentry Leader Cao that General Li wants to offer you amnesty and recommend you for the post of Brigade Commander. The camp is buzzing with rumors — is there any truth to it?"

"There is. I wanted to ask him how I should conduct combined drills for this camp of mine. Not only did he refuse to tell me, he told me to go be a Brigade Commander for the Emperor and follow him to Liaodong to fight the eastern invaders. Isn't that ridiculous?"

"I told them — you just got back so you don't know — this proves that following your brother in rebellion definitely has a future."

Liu Chengzong scoffed disdainfully: "Oh, before rebelling, I was a lowly household soldier. After rebelling and defeating a Regional Commander, I can become a Brigade Commander. Next time I beat Wu Zimian up, I'll be promoted to Regional Commander of Yan'an. Then I'll turn around and thrash the allied forces of the Five Garrisons, and after that, the Chief Regional Commander of Yansui Garrison will be me. All of you will be my Regional Commanders... damn, I almost forgot something important!"

His words stopped mid-sentence. He patted Chengyun and said: "Maybe I won't even need to fight Wu Zimian. Soon, the court will probably make me a Regional Commander."

Chengyun froze halfway up the mountain and blurted out: "Then who would you have to fight to become Regional Commander?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head: "Don't tell anyone about this. Think of a way — if the Supreme Commander of the Three Borders sends someone to offer amnesty, what about Zuantianmao's side, or Tall Chuang King's side?"

He had been so busy lately with Yang Yanchang's campaign to serve the throne, and once he confirmed that a breathing spell had arrived, Liu Chengzong had lost his sense of vigilance and hadn't considered how Supreme Commander Yang He might deal with him.

But chatting with Chengyun about Li Bei's attempt to subvert him made him remember that there was still someone like Yang He in Guyuan.

Yang He had no one left under his command. Earlier, he had only felt that with the elite troops of the Three Borders and Five Garrisons away serving the throne, the military pressure had lessened considerably. But now, thinking it through carefully — the man still had the skill of offering amnesty up his sleeve.

If next year the King's Service Army returns early, Yang He will certainly redeploy troops to deal with him; if they return late, leaving Yang He without crack troops at hand, he will very likely use amnesty to deal with him.

Amnesty.

Ever since the rebellion began on the twenty-second day of the sixth month, the force had been under such immense military pressure that he had no time to consider other matters.

Thinking back on it now, amnesty and sowing discord to incite defection were always a combination punch.

He did not fear amnesty, nor did he intend to accept it.

But what if that battalion commander's post were given to someone else?

Liu Chengzong had no time to worry about others right now; he had to look after his own force first. Coming down the mountain, he happened to run into Wei Qian'er returning from walking the horses. He waved him over, checked the time, and said: "Wei Qian'er, have the scout riders go to the eight outposts and two companies to pass the word — summon three hundred warrant officers to the fort tonight."

A flicker of doubt crossed Wei Qian'er's eyes, but he did not ask further. He acknowledged the order, turned, and ran off to relay it.

Soon the scout riders were on the road, heading for the eight encampments — three inner and five outer.

A moment later Wei Qian'er walked back over and asked, "General, is there anything else?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head, then glanced at the training plan in his hand. "Nothing else... summon the household guard squad, and then put this back in my room."

Since he was summoning all the army's warrant officers anyway, there was no need to deliver this training plan outpost by outpost. He could simply have them take it back when they returned to their units, to show each squad leader, company commander, and outpost commander.

In the river valley below the mountain, Liu Chengzong and Cheng Yun led the household guards in a careful inspection of the delivered soldiers' uniforms.

The uniforms had all been made by the estate women of the Wang Estate, so minor flaws were inevitable. Basically, wherever there were specifications, the work had been done with great care; wherever there were no specifications, the work had been done with considerable imagination.

Two sets of uniforms placed side by side made it hard to believe they were cotton-padded jackets and trousers of the same pattern — at most, the color was the same.

But ten sets placed together, and you could tell they were the same set.

No real harm done.

Liu Chengzong cared only whether the clothes were warm. Each uniform had a name sewn into the hem of the jacket and trousers, so any problems could be traced.

The household guards took scales and weighed each uniform. There was no obvious skimping on materials, but there were indeed cases of short weight, and when that happened, a household guard had to make a trip.

If the weight was off by less than two taels and an estate woman had made it, they would reclaim the sewing fee.

When estate women made uniforms, they were paid a sewing fee. The work-outpost craftsmen received no sewing fee — they were fed grain — but grain already eaten cannot be spat back out, so they would get the plank instead.

But in truth, no work-outpost craftsman had embezzled cotton. The work-outpost craftsmen received camp rations and also earned income from repairing weapons, mending clothes, fixing saddles, and other gear for the soldiers. They were far better off than common folk.

The camp-affiliated work outpost was northwest of Wang Estate Fort, near the charcoal kilns.

That was the liveliest spot in the Apricot River basin — flanked on one side by the encampments of the artillery outpost and the baggage outpost, and on the other side opening toward several tenant-farmer villages in the mountains.

Skirting the hill ridge of Wang Estate Fort, even before drawing near the camp, one could see the smoke rising from the blacksmiths' forge fires.

The camp was a hubbub of voices. There were not only soldiers coming to ask the craftsmen to repair weapons and armor, but also farming households carrying on their shoulders the farm tools they would need come spring plowing next year, hands tucked against their chests cradling an egg, asking the craftsmen for repairs.

There were even craftsmen who set out finished wares on stalls outside the camp — it looked just like a small market.

Liu Chengzong liked seeing scenes like this. It made him feel alive. Before he had even entered the camp, the corners of his mouth had unconsciously curved upward.

Happy as he was, who was he — neither a farmer nor a soldier.

He still let out a laugh, then said to Cheng Yun, "See? Can we get by without setting training regulations? It's already this chaotic."

From a distance, they spotted the household guard squad pushing a cart over. Someone in the craftsmen's camp quickly ran to summon the outpost commander, Shi Chengwo. The moment the others saw, they were overjoyed — Liu Chengzong did not even need to give notice. The entire outpost assembled at once, forming crooked, slanted ranks in the open ground outside the camp.

The combat squad leader assigned to the craftsmen's outpost was a tall, lean man named Hu Sanhuai, formerly a company commander back in Guyuan.

Seeing Liu Chengzong, he glanced back at the craftsmen standing in their crooked, slanted square formation, dropped to one knee in salute, and lowered his head in deep shame. Even his greeting was barely audible: "General..."

"Get up, quickly — no kneeling salutes."

Liu Chengzong helped him up and asked with a smile, "The work outpost will inevitably see battle someday. Outpost Commander Shi manages the men, but training the troops still depends on you. What difficulties are there?"

Hu Sanhuai cupped his fists and said, "The short time is only the first problem. We have few combat soldiers and heavy duties. Since the camp was merged and organized, your subordinate has trained each company separately — the least have had only half a shichen, the most no more than two sessions."

"Mm..."

Liu Chengzong glanced at the ranks of craftsmen and nodded. "No matter. We finally have time now. Captain Hu, go form up the ranks first. Have the brothers who haven't received their uniforms line up in fifteen files. I'll hand out the clothes."

Hu Sanhuai took the order and went to form the ranks. Behind Liu Chengzong, the household guards exchanged smiles and, following their earlier weighing and thickness checks, sorted the clothes into three columns — large, medium, and small.

This was not their first time issuing uniforms. In fact, no matter what was being handed out, their general insisted on doing it personally, hand to hand. They were long used to it.

The craftsmen stood fifteen to a row, facing Liu Chengzong, smiles unconsciously spreading across their faces.

People wanted to curry favor with this young man who had led them to victory.

People also wanted to be remembered by him.

Liu Chengzong, judging each man by height and build, selected a folded set of uniforms for each and placed it into their hands himself.

Whenever Liu Chengzong approached a man, that man would loudly call out his own name and unit.

When an entire row stood holding their uniforms, Liu Chengzong would speak a few words to them, then move on to hand out the next row's.

"Back in the border forts, the court made me wear a padded jacket with all the cotton run out of it. In winter I was so frozen I couldn't stretch my limbs. I know how hard it is for you brothers. The first thing I did after the battle was get you all winter clothing. You've followed me — I won't let you go hungry or freeze!"