Chapter 143: Gone

The news came a little sooner than Liu Chengzong had imagined.

Fu Renxi went and returned within half a day, bringing news from Fenzhou Garrison.

"General, the Left Thousand-Household of Fenzhou Garrison sent someone to ask about my situation. They want me to request reinforcements from them, so that Fenzhou Garrison's banner troops can cross the border. What should I do?"

This news did not make Liu Chengzong happy, nor was he afraid — it brought deep suspicion. He asked, "They got word this fast?"

He knew perfectly well he was no renowned general of old, unworthy of discussing strategy and tactics.

Even with that other set of memories, all it could offer was a far-sighted vision of the future. If he truly acted according to those memories, he would be dead before taking two steps.

After all, that was a character who couldn't even coordinate twenty-five people running a dungeon.

But those memories still gave him a powerful gift: calculation.

In the most basic tasks, vast and complex calculations became simple for him.

Fenzhou Garrison was at Fenyang, over a hundred li from here, with the Lüliang Mountains to cross in between. Even if someone saw the beacon smoke and set off to report it, they still wouldn't be past the Lüliang Mountains by now. How could Fu Renxi already be in contact with Fenzhou Garrison?

Was everyone Li Bei?

He didn't believe it.

But it wasn't up to him to believe or not. Fu Renxi said, "Fenzhou Garrison's Left Thousand-Household is stationed at Shilou. It seems they sent men sneaking across the border a few days ago."

Liu Chengzong thought it over briefly, mentally cross-referencing this intelligence with the accounts of the women rescued from the Yatoushan bandits. It matched.

Those two women had gone back and returned, saying their home had been looted by bandits and then burned by government troops. He figured it was the work of Fenzhou Garrison's government troops.

Those men hadn't left yet — they were still stationed at Shilou.

It seemed they'd gotten addicted to looting.

"If they want to cross the border, then let them cross for that chest of gold. Request reinforcements — but request them from Fenzhou Garrison. Tell them I have a lot of men, and they'll need to bring the entire Fenzhou Garrison army to handle it."

But the moment Liu Chengzong said this, Fu Renxi was horrified. "General, that absolutely won't work. I don't know the situation in Shaanxi, but here in Shanxi, garrison banner troops are no weaker than the border army."

Garrison banner troops no weaker than the border army?

Was that even possible?

Even Yang Yanchang wouldn't dare claim his banner troops were stronger than the border army.

But Fu Renxi said exactly that, and even explained: "General, you may not know, but Fenzhou Garrison is different from other garrisons. It was originally just a defense thousand-household station. In the Chenghua era, it was upgraded to Fenzhou Garrison's Center Station. The Left and Right Stations were converted from the herd-administration stations of the Qingcheng and Yonghe princely estates. Even now, they're still closely tied to the two princely mansions in Fenyang."

"The princely estates don't treat them particularly well, but when it comes to food, they really do eat better than us."

How pathetic — government troops eating less than some garrison's banner troops.

He thought that privately, but Liu Chengzong was not an arrogant or conceited man. He calculated in his mind for a moment, then said to Fu Renxi, "In that case, send word to Shilou. Tell them my men are numerous but weak, easy to defeat, but they'll scatter in all directions. Have them bring another seven or eight hundred men besides the Left Station to help."

Liu Chengzong was staying here to besiege a point and strike the reinforcements.

His men had already thoroughly scouted the roads. From Yonghe County eastward into Pingyang Prefecture, the only route was through Xizhou.

After Xizhou, one had to choose among the northern, central, and southern mountain paths through the Lüliang Mountains to reach the Fen River plain.

There were many roads, but in truth, Liu Chengzong had no real choice.

The northern route led to Fenyang, the central route to Huozhou, and the southern route to Linfen.

Fenzhou Garrison was at Fenyang, and Pingyang Garrison was stationed at Linfen.

These two garrisons meant he couldn't rashly enter Huozhou, or he'd be caught between north and south on the plain. Meanwhile, the road from Fenyang to Xizhou could extend further west to reach Yonghe County, but Linfen had no second mountain road that could loop around behind him.

So if he wanted to take the Linfen route, he had to first knock out Fenzhou Garrison to the northeast. If he wanted to take the Fenyang route, he likewise had to first knock out Pingyang Garrison.

He didn't need to annihilate them completely — as long as he could wipe out the bulk of their forces in one blow, leaving the remainder too afraid to fight in the field, the matter would be settled.

And he had to say, Fu Renxi was remarkably considerate, utterly unwilling to consider Fenzhou Garrison's problems from the government troops' perspective.

Fu Renxi's family had guarded the frontier for four generations. His great-grandfather died beyond the passes, his grandfather fell in Korea, and his father perished in Liaodong.

Only in his generation had he finally risen to the rank of Battalion Commander.

But he wanted to go to Liaodong — he had no desire to guard this neglected, forgotten pass.

For a long time, Fu Renxi had been troubled by how to achieve his ideal.

To go to Liaodong, he needed crack troops. To have crack troops, he just needed to feed his men well. To feed his men well, he needed to loot the common people.

But if he looted the common people, his troops would no longer be crack troops. Zhang Honggong's precedent was right there — even with full bellies, once they reached the capital region, they'd still mutiny.

Fu Renxi gave up. He had no solution at all — until that night when Chengzong called for his gate to be opened.

The two of them shared drinks, cups filled with coarse tea dust, but what Chengzong said opened a brand-new door for him.

Government troops couldn't rob the rich, and even robbing the common people still left them hungry. But roving bandits could be robbed.

If the roving bandits robbed and shared a bit with him, added to the half-rations allocated by the court, wouldn't his soldiers be able to eat their fill?

Only, this still left him lost. Then what am I supposed to do?

A man can't live just for the cravings of the belly. Though eating well was important, Fu Renxi himself had always been able to eat his fill — it was his soldiers who couldn't. So the soldiers had no ideals, but he did.

He wasn't even fighting roving bandits. Just eating his fill and resting, resting his whole life, retiring to his hometown as a Battalion Commander — what meaning was there in that?

Chengzong said: Isn't that simple?

The Liu family had practical experience with this sort of thing.

He even laid it out step by step: first, knock out the local administrative apparatus; then knock out the courier stations handling communications; then annihilate government troops in formed units; and finally, lose to Fu Renxi.

Weren't those just heads? Were heads a problem?

Fu Renxi could never have dreamed that the problem which had plagued him all winter would be so easily unraveled by a young man from Yan'an Prefecture.

You want to go to Liaodong? I'll send you there as a Regional Commander.

Once you're a Regional Commander, won't you have to take a post at Ji Garrison?

You'll never run short of chances to fight the eastern caitiffs.

Fu Renxi thought it would work. Besides, he'd long found this Lord Huo an eyesore.

Which of the soldiers under my command isn't worth more than you, a man who holds a post and eats without working? Why does a bastard like you get to live in silks and eat delicacies? He just couldn't afford to provoke him.

Nothing to be done.

Now that someone was stirring up trouble, Fu Renxi was determined to fan the flames no matter what.

In Shilou County north of Yonghe County, banner troops from the Left Thousand-House of Fenzhou Guard had split into detachments and garrisoned four deserted villages.

Left Guard Commander Zhang Zhan was addressing his subordinate chiliarchs and centurions.

Each of the three guard posts in Fenzhou Guard had its own commander. Zhang Zhan's ancestor had risen as high as Assistant Regional Commander of the Shanxi Regional Commission during the Chenghua era, but was later impeached for using soldiers as personal servants and demoted to Left Guard Commander.

After that, for all these years, the Left Guard Commander position had always stayed in their Zhang family.

They had committed no further offenses to be impeached for, nor rendered any further merit to the court.

Just muddling along.

But in recent years, muddling along had become impossible.

The reasoning was actually the same as Fu Renxi's — when you can't muddle through anymore, you have to find someone to lean on. Stone from another mountain can polish jade; what you can't solve yourself, others can.

At the same time, you yourself could solve things others couldn't.

For instance, the expansion of princely estate lands — if the landowner was alive and unwilling to sell, wouldn't it work if he were dead?

If the banner troops under his command, just to stay alive, acted as a chang ghost, was that shameful?

Not shameful.

But these past two days, Zhang Zhan had been very angry.

His men at Yatou Mountain had gone silent.

That was a group of off-the-books personnel from the Left Guard of Fenzhou Guard. Zhang Zhan had several more crews like them under his command.

They were made up of local idlers, bandits, robbers, and thugs. Though a genuine rabble, each of them had leverage held by Zhang Zhan's man Zhang Nian, making them extremely useful.

Their greatest virtue was tight lips — even if caught by the authorities, they dared not reveal their connection to Fenzhou Guard.

Together, they, Fenzhou Guard, and the Qingcheng Princely Estate formed a vast spiderweb entrenched across Fenzhou Prefecture.

A new development had emerged since last winter: many reinforcement troops who had fled back from the frontier formed various bandit groups operating throughout Shanxi.

Logically, these bandit groups should have made Fenzhou Guard's operations easier, but Zhang Zhan didn't care — the local authorities posed no threat to him whatsoever.

On the contrary, these bandit groups would steal their prey and even threaten the princely estates of the Qingcheng Princely Estate.

The soldier he had sent to Yatou Mountain to observe the situation came running back. He hadn't brought intelligence from Yatou Mountain, but instead brought news that Huo Family Village was besieged by bandits and had lit its beacon smoke.

Old Master Huo of Huo Family Village... Zhang Zhan had some impression of him. He had served as an official in Yangzhou for a few years, then returned to his hometown looking down on this and that, holing himself up on some damn little hill every day.

If you look down on everything, what did you come back for? Just stay in Yangzhou.

A pretty foolish man. In any case, Zhang Zhan couldn't stand that sort of creature.

Now, though he hadn't found word of Yatou Mountain, getting intelligence that Huo Family Village was besieged wasn't bad either.

After all, this was a man who had been an official in Yangzhou for a few years — the silver stored in his home couldn't be little.

The bandits might not be able to breach his fort, but Zhang Zhan could!

"All of you listen up. When we reach Huo Family Village, first clean up that bunch of bandits who popped up from who knows where. When you go back, tell your banner troops — every last one of you keep them damn well disciplined."

Zhang Zhan swept an authoritative gaze over his subordinate centurions. "Don't put on that act that's more bandit than bandits. Let Old Master Huo know that wherever the Left Guard of Fenzhou Guard passes, not a single blade of grass is disturbed."

A centurion asked, "General, if not a single blade of grass is disturbed, then why bother with Huo Family Village at all? I've heard that Old Master Huo is stingy as they come. Even if we eliminate the bandits, there's no way he'd give us anything."

Zhang Zhan was deeply worried by his subordinate's intellect. "What do you want him to give you? If we don't leave every blade undisturbed, with those high walls of Huo Fort, if we can't count on them letting us in, are you going to use your head to smash the fort open for me?"

At this, the centurions suddenly saw the light — so what the commander meant wasn't truly leaving every blade undisturbed, but leaving every blade undisturbed for now.

Zhang Zhan calculated the time. He slept in the village until midnight, when Chiliarch Chen, who had rushed over from Fenzhou Guard, arrived with his troops, bringing the total strength under his command to over seventeen hundred. Only then did he have the centurions distribute the dried persimmons to the banner troops.

The dried persimmons were offerings the common folk of Xi Prefecture used to worship the Kitchen God during the New Year — they had just been looted by them.

Perhaps in this complex historical period, every man who led troops had his own confidence.

For Zhang Zhan, he had never even considered the strength of the bandit troops besieging Huo Family Fort.

He had participated in Shanxi's martial assemblies and had some understanding of the border troops at Xuan-Da. Those border troops' rations were far worse than his banner troops' — and not by a little.

In battle, discipline and morale mattered most, but those two things were only worth mentioning when the men were well-fed.

In times like these, just being able to think about those two things already made you formidable.

Bandits — can bandits eat their fill?

Can bandits speak of discipline?

Zhang Zhan didn't believe it.

Before dawn the next day, the seventeen hundred banner troops from Fenzhou Guard furled their banners and set out. They had sixty li to travel to Huo Family Village, but they were in no hurry.

From Zhaiyuan they crossed Forty-Li Mountain, took Ge Family River into Yonghe County, and looted a village along the way.

This time they didn't set fires. They killed all the men the first day, slept the night, and killed the women the next day.

Listening to people scream and flee, Zhang Zhan felt it was rather a pity. Facing the corpses lying in pools of blood, he said, "Blame the bandits at Huo Fort. If not for them, I wouldn't have come."

After a night's rest and recovery, the entire force was in high spirits as they continued advancing toward Huo Family Village.

Though inwardly supremely confident, Zhang Zhan remained extremely cautious on the approach. He sent out scout riders at thirty-li intervals, but it wasn't until they were five li from Huo Family Village that they finally spotted bandit sentries.

The bandit cavalry scouts dared not engage them. Throwing down their helmets and dragging their banners, they fled toward the valley to the southwest.

Receiving the forward scouts' report, Zhang Zhan looked at the red-lacquered "Courage" helmet the scouts had seized and revealed a smile of assured victory.

This is their level?

The army immediately split into two routes. Chiliarch Chen led his troops along a flanking mountain path straight for the bandits' rear, and also sent men to cross the mountains on foot to contact Yonghe Pass garrison commander Fu Renxi. Then Zhang Zhan personally led his main force to slowly press forward from the front toward the valley.

"General, the main force of Fenzhou Guard has passed the concealed mountain pass where the forward sentries were and is now advancing north of the rear sentries. They've dispatched a flanking force circling around north of the mountain — that's where the middle sentries are holding the pass."

Scout cavalry captain Wei Qian'er was seething with pent-up anger as he reported to Liu Chengzong on the mountain: "My men have all pulled back. They slaughtered an entire village to the north."

Wei Qian'er's scout cavalry had ranged fifty li ahead, relaying intelligence to Liu Chengzong at Huo Fort at every moment, including last night.

Though the scout cavalry squad's members weren't from the border army, their opponents were guard battalion troops, so they felt no fear at all. And having experienced battle with Li Bei, they were already the sort whose skill made them bold.

At the closest point, Zhang Zhan's sentries had set up an observation post in the mountains, and one of Wei Qian'er's scouts was right at the sentry's feet, unable to withdraw in time. He crouched there half the night without being discovered, finally slipping away when the watch changed.

Zhang Zhan's force was almost completely exposed before Liu Chengzong's eyes.

Step by step they advanced into the valley, Yang Yao leading his troops at the rear; Wang Wenxiu led his troops in the center, while Feng Rang and Cao Yao waited at the very back for them.

Liu Chengzong planned outside Huo Family Village, gesturing back and forth over a rough sketch he had drawn, and finally concluded: "It seems the enemy's flanking force will clash with the Center Sentry first, and only then pass through the Rear Sentry's ambush point. Wei Qian'er, go deliver the order."

"Have Chengyun hold Yonghe Pass securely. Sentry Commander Feng, take your troops to support Sentry Commander Wang. Engage the government troops ahead of schedule — destroy their main force first, then envelop the flanking force."

He turned to Gao Xian, who had been waiting beside him for quite some time, and said: "Brother Gao, plugging up Old Huo's earthen fort will have to rely on you for now."

After that, he led the household guard unit and Cao Yao toward the high ground south of the mountain, where the soldiers of the battalion artillery sentry were concealed.

That was a strategic vantage point from which artillery could bombard the valley, and which also commanded a full view of the entire battlefield.

Soon, from three li to the north, came the sounds of armies clashing.

Liu Chengzong and Cao Yao exchanged a glance, each able to see the excitement in the other's eyes. The Left Station of Fenzhou Garrison... was finished.