Chapter 146: Qiao'er

On the eighth day of the third month in the third year of the Chongzhen reign, warhorses galloped through the western township of Yonghe County.

General Liu of Yan'an Prefecture intended to crush the banner troops of the Fenzhou Guard. He conscripted civilian laborers to bury the corpses and, at the same time, searched for survivors from Fanjia Valley, Zaowang Mountain, Chakou Mountain, and other places that had been burned and massacred by the banner troops, so they could come and identify the perpetrators.

Most common folk only had a spectator's curiosity about the latter, but when it came to burying corpses, some were more interested.

The cavalry messengers delivering the word knew this perfectly well. Every time they passed through a village, they would shout out a reminder: "Bring your tools and head over — General Liu provides the meals! Those who sign up get seven fen of silver and five jin of yellow flour!"

The common folk had no idea who General Liu was, but they recognized silver and yellow flour.

With a clamorous stir, they managed to attract five taels of silver's worth of able-bodied men.

Chengzong scratched his head on the valley battlefield, extremely dissatisfied with this number, and grumbled to those beside him: "Second Brother approved a hundred taels. I figured we'd get fifty taels' worth. Now we've only got five taels' worth of men. Is it really appropriate to spend so little?"

His subordinates in the Logistics Squad were equally distressed: "Squad Leader, back in Yan'an Prefecture it was always two jin of yellow flour — however much flour, that many men. This isn't how we expected it to go!"

Someone nearby said, "Could it be that we offered too little money?"

Chengzong waved his hand dismissively, planted his hands on his hips, and thought it over with an air of great importance for a moment. Then he pointed at the common folk trembling not far away and asked, "Where did they all come from?"

"Seventy-five able-bodied men. Eighteen from Anzi Mountain, twenty-four from Sibu Bay, and the rest from various places in the western township. Some villages sent one or two; some villages sent none."

Chengzong nodded to show he understood and said curtly, "First, cook the porridge. Then have them dig the pits. I'll go speak with the General."

He now understood what was going on.

It had nothing to do with the amount of money. If one had to insist it was about money, then perhaps the money offered was even too much.

In this day and age, hiring labor was divided into two tiers based on skill level: one was the artisan, the other was the laborer.

The market rate for labor wages was three fen of silver per day for a laborer. For an artisan, depending on the trade and the length of the job, it ranged from four to seven fen of silver. Neither included room and board.

For the kind of work a laborer does — the sort any right hand could manage — paying at the wage level of a porcelain glaze-firing artisan was already extremely high.

Not to mention that grain is precious these days; five jin of yellow millet is actually worth more than one qian of silver.

This should have been a matter where recruits flocked in droves, yet only seventy-five people came.

And half of them were from just two places: Anzi Mountain and Sibu Bay.

Earlier, at Yatou Mountain, the three men who had been detained and tortured by the bandits were from those two villages.

Since those two villages were willing to send a dozen or even twenty-plus people, then it wasn't a matter of money or grain.

It was a matter of distrust.

They say fortune and glory are sought amidst danger, but there are different kinds of danger. The ultimate goal is to stay alive, or even live better.

And one must first be certain the fortune and glory exist before venturing into danger to seek it.

A bunch of roving bandits from another province trick your grandpa into hauling corpses and digging grave pits, and when the job's done, they shove your grandpa right in — what then, huh?

Even guest troops stationed in an area will, at best, commit petty theft and, at worst, engage in open plunder and kidnapping — let alone roving bandits from another province.

Once they left Yan'an Prefecture, many things they'd never had to consider before now had to be factored in.

Full of guilt, Chengzong told Second Brother that they had only managed to recruit seventy-five able-bodied men. Liu Chengzong was not surprised; instead, he smiled and said, "Why the long face? This is already very good. Did you find any survivors?"

In truth, even if only a single able-bodied man had come, Liu Chengzong would not have considered it a bad thing.

Perhaps, in Chengzong's view, it was important for the common people to witness them executing, after trial, the banner troops who had committed crimes.

But to Liu Chengzong, this was not important.

Chengzong shook his head: "They killed everyone. Where would any survivors be?"

Liu Chengzong narrowed his eyes and looked into the valley, where the unarmed banner troop captives knelt on the ground in four square formations. He said quietly to Chengzong: "Send more men to search. Those men must die. This is far more important than hiring civilian laborers."

"Must die?"

"Yes, must die. If many common folk come, they die. If few common folk come, these men still die. Even if no common folk come at all, what they did deserves death."

"But I heard people say they're quite capable fighters."

Liu Chengzong kept his voice low the entire time. He looked toward those captives: "It has nothing to do with whether they can fight or not. You've never been a soldier. Once you have a blade in your hand, there's no one who doesn't want to run wild, killing whoever they please, sleeping with whoever they please. Is there anyone in this world who doesn't wish to do whatever they want?"

Liu Chengzong was a soldier; he knew how others thought.

In every person's heart lies a dark, violent side. For some, it's suppressed by reason; for others, by rules. This is especially true for those who carry blades.

Under conditions where one can act with reckless abandon, restraining one's behavior is particularly rare.

In his heart, actually, it wasn't that he wanted to kill only those who could be convicted — rather, for those who couldn't be convicted, he would find another way to kill them.

If he couldn't kill them all, he'd send the rest to scale fortress walls.

If Lord Huo couldn't be beaten to death, there were other lords. If lords wouldn't do, there were still princes.

Letting these men live would be the greatest insult to the soldiers of the Lion Battalion, to those soldiers who had long abided by military discipline.

In truth, executing so many people — Liu Chengzong had no experience in this matter. He struggled internally for a very long time, and in the end, he even tried to find a reason to let them live.

He couldn't find one.

First, the crimes of these men in massacring ordinary civilians had already been fully reported to the several squad leaders by the reconnaissance riders of Wei Qian'er's unit, and through these squad leaders, the news had spread throughout the Lion Battalion.

Second, this was not a small squad looting on its own, but an organized, habitual massacre led by a Commander — a unit that had completely devolved into beasts.

If they could get a second chance, then could the soldiers of the Lion Battalion temporarily slip away from the ranks, go out and slaughter a village, seize some women, have a wild time, and then come swaggering back to kowtow and admit their mistake?

If even repeat-offender villains can be forgiven, why can't you forgive the old brothers who have faced life and death with you?

They are soldiers. You say the Zhu Ming emperor is no good — overthrow him, the brothers all agree. But there aren't enough generals in the whole country for more than four thousand brothers to each get one.

Tomorrow, when we fight another guard battalion unit, the brothers form square formations and march right into the face of government cannon fire. They won't live to see the good court you're building. Those banner troops got to have their fun and then still sold their lives for you — but your old brothers can't?

So, can they or can't they? If they can, then just honestly be a scourge of the people. If they can't, then you, General, better step down first, and the brothers will find someone who can.

Chengzong was deep in thought. Ever since they rebelled, things had been far too stimulating — every day brought new questions and new knowledge to learn.

Yang Yao came back with his left shoulder bared. He had sustained quite a few injuries when charging into Commander Chen's formation.

Four arrows were embedded in his armor, all armor-piercing cone points. After penetrating the armor, they had jabbed four small holes in his chest and abdomen.

His shoulder had also been stabbed by a long spear. The spearhead had thrust in through a gap in the chest armor plates, grazing the shoulder guard and slicing a long gash across his left shoulder.

He had just now had the Logistics Corps medic apply medicine, but his spirits were extremely high. Still on horseback, he swayed over, his face full of excitement: "General, the spoils have been tallied. These guys were filthy rich."

From seventeen hundred men, they had seized over fifty-seven hundred pieces of various armor and more than four thousand polearms of various types.

Yang Yao rattled off the numbers, and Liu Chengzong was taken aback — during the battle he hadn't noticed they had this much armor.

After asking carefully he realized it was a counting issue: every piece of armor had been tallied as one item, because these men weren't dressed very uniformly, and the red padded jackets had been included too.

But even so, their armor was indeed plentiful — every man had a helmet and battle jacket, and the remaining armor pieces could make up nearly a thousand sets.

There were over eight hundred chest-and-back-protecting double-faced armors and mail coats, and nearly a hundred full suits of armor.

Weapons were even more abundant: spare short blades a single foot long alone numbered seven hundred, waist sabers twelve hundred, plus over a thousand shields and long spears, more than two hundred firelocks and three-eyed guns, and one hundred thirty-three bird guns.

Twelve light cannons under a hundred catties each, ninety-four rounds of cannonballs, three hundred thirty-two catties of gunpowder.

Also two hundred forty-four war and pack horses, sixty-nine dead horses, one hundred thirty-four large livestock including oxen, donkeys, and mules, thirty-four carts, and one hundred seventy dan of fodder and grain.

Valuables worth one thousand two hundred seventy taels of silver, six hundred sixty bolts of silk, satin, brocade, and thin silk.

To be honest, Liu Chengzong felt it was like New Year's.

Yang Yao, his left arm in a sling, swept his right hand before him and said, "General, nothing else is urgent — just give us two of the dead horses first. My sentry's fire soldiers have already sharpened their knives, ready to dig out the lead balls and stew the meat."

In an instant it pulled Liu Chengzong back to his days as a soldier at Fish River Fort, making him burst out laughing.

He reached out a hand and asked, "What, did the other sentry commanders see how wretched you look and specially send you to tell me?"

Yang Yao wasn't the least bit embarrassed, just tilted his face up and grinned.

Liu Chengzong said, "Here's what we'll do. Send word to the fire soldiers of all eight sentries: each is to first collect two dead horses from the supply sentry and turn in the horsehide. The fire soldiers won't be resting for the next few days — they need to prepare jerky."

"Haha, good, I'll go right away!"

"Wait."

Liu Chengzong stopped Yang Yao and said, "The supply sentry should be calculating the silver rewards for the soldiers after the battle. Once that's done, for those short on weapons and armor, have the squad leaders go to Cliff Head Mountain's work sentry to purchase them at set prices."

"We still have to buy them?"

"Nonsense. Some of those weapons and armor are good, some are bad — what needs repair must be repaired. If we don't buy them, how do we divide them? But it's fine. Soon enough, everyone's going to experience a sudden windfall."

Liu Chengzong turned his head toward the direction of Huo Family Fort. Yang Yao understood in a flash, laughed heartily, and rode off.

Watching his departing figure, Liu Chengzong felt this was Lion Battalion's finest hour.

Without outside interference, they had ample time to figure out how to distribute spoils of war, how to reward soldiers — Liu Chengzong had even considered several times whether he ought to set a regular soldier's pay.

But he didn't dare.

Monthly pay — if you don't specify it, there's no problem, but once you set it, it naturally strengthens the unit's cohesion. Yet when you can't deliver the pay, its destructive power is also considerable.

After all, the core force in his hands was over a thousand border troops from the Three Frontiers of Shaanxi — men who had all suffered their fill of unpaid wages.

The court withheld your pay, and now you come to Lion Battalion and your pay is withheld too — how could that be acceptable?

On the third day of Huo Family Village being besieged, the soldiers of Lion Battalion were overjoyed.

No matter where each sentry pitched camp, the fire soldiers were so busy their feet never touched the ground. Sentry Commander Cao was especially busy that afternoon — he called in over a hundred helpers from the work sentry and pulled off something big.

The other seven sentry camps had only set up a few earthen stoves each, but his artillery sentry camp alone set up fifteen stove platforms — five for stewing horse-meat soup, the remaining ten all for baking flatbread.

Cao Yao finally had a chance to show off his culinary skills, directing the artillery sentry's fire soldiers to make over four thousand horse-meat-stuffed flatbreads, which prompted the other sentries' fire soldiers to be pushed by their comrades over to the artillery sentry to learn this craft from Northern Zhili.

Sentry Commander Cao had not been this excited in a long time; he spoke with spittle flying, from the Altan Khan tribute treaty to the decline of the horse administration, and from the decline of the horse administration to the mass slaughter of horses bought back through border markets.

Fattening the petty officials who made money off the court by passing off inferior warhorses, the horse-management officers, the horse traders in the capital who monopolized the resale, the veterinarians of the Court of the Imperial Stud, the horse inspectors, even the officials of the Court of the Imperial Stud, the Ministry of War, the powerful households of the capital, and the generals of the capital garrison and Liao Garrison.

He said, "Donkey meat is fine, so why not horse meat? In this rotten world, everyone feeds off the court. Look at us — do we feed off it? But damn it, if you became an official, wouldn't you feed off it too? There can't be a court."

Liu Chengzong ate his horse-meat flatbread, watched the artillery sentry's fire soldiers preparing horse-meat sausages for smoking, and finally looked at the impassioned Cao Yao, shaking his head with a smile.

They would eventually have to search out a path suited to this era and this country, and along the way there would inevitably be clashes of various currents of thought, attempts at various systems.

He knew that Cao Yao's high-minded talk was suited to a small state with few people — in reality it was the thinking of desperate men who seize a mountain and declare themselves kings, a path not worth taking — but he didn't mind Cao Yao doing the thinking.

In truth, in another set of memories, this land, in a short span over two hundred years later, had tried nearly every system on the entire planet.

People must first know what is wrong before they can seek what is right, and only then can they follow the right path with firm and tenacious steps.

At least right now, his sentry commanders, his combat troops formed from border soldiers, his auxiliary troops formed from a few border soldiers and a great many famine refugees — they all knew that the Great Ming's way didn't work, and that was why they followed him resolutely.

On the fourth day of besieging Huo Family Fort, the villagers who had come the day before to dig pits and bury corpses brought back bits of silver and grain, and they brought even more common folk with them. This time the hired commoners numbered nearly three hundred, and work efficiency greatly improved.

The work process, however, was a bit eerie — after roughly enough pits had been dug to bury the corpses, the laborers were extremely resistant to digging any more.

They believed those pits were meant to bury them.

Fortunately, after two days of identification, forty-six utterly wicked and evil men had been singled out from the captives divided into four groups. Liu Chengzong gathered the commoners, had the fourth group of captives marched toward the pits, and in front of the remaining three groups, read out their crimes one by one.

The hired laborers, just listening to their crimes, were stunned speechless — some even trembled involuntarily.

After all, among those sorted into the fourth group, only one man was merely hot-tempered, often killing people after quarrels — his victims included a date-selling peddler in Fenzhou's prefectural city, a passing woman he robbed of her bracelet in East Village, and a brothel pimp who had cursed at him.

Everyone else had committed crimes like exterminating entire families, chopping off people's hands and feet and torturing them, or seizing women to sleep with and then, when they woke, locking the door from outside and setting the house on fire.

Realizing what awaited them, the fourth-group captives struggled violently, some even cursing furiously, but they had long been bound with ropes and were escorted by soldiers — utterly powerless to resist.

Liu Chengzong gave them one chance: if they could identify five guilty men from among those deemed innocent, their death sentence would be temporarily commuted, and they could redeem themselves by storming cities and seizing passes in future battles.

After a brief chaos, the newly formed fifth group had seventeen crime-soldiers, and the fourth group gained eighty-five utterly wicked and evil men.

Ten at a time, the sentences were read out in full, after which the spearmen carried out the executions.

Those in front were still struggling as those behind continued to have their sentences read, and still others wanted to continue identifying criminals.

Some of the laborers had seen official executions before, but never executions like this — each was so terrified their legs went weak, yet one small-framed fellow who had been working clumsily turned and ran up the mountain.

Wei Qian'er's scout riders hurried to chase him, but before they could climb the hill, the small fellow came back, a blue-flower cloth bundle on his back, a waist saber and bow and arrows at his hip, running back panting heavily.

The way he ran was rather foolish — clearly someone who didn't know martial arts, so much so that the household retainers with drawn blades and nocked bows had no thought of shooting him dead.

As he drew near, he was so terrified his whole body trembled, yet he gritted his teeth as if to bite through silver and forced himself forward as though bleeding.

He walked straight up before Liu Chengzong and performed a salute that was extremely awkward — it seemed he wanted to make a woman's curtsy, and only then did he prostrate himself.

"General, I want to enlist."

That voice, round and smooth as pearls and jade, was unmistakably a young woman's.

Liu Chengzong's brows twisted into a peculiar shape, one eye large and one eye small. He studied her carefully for a moment, inwardly quite admiring her courage, and asked, "Miss, did your family raise you as a boy since you were little?"

The young girl, dressed from head to toe in men's clothing, was not the least bit embarrassed at being found out. She gently shook her head. "Please, General, let me enlist. My name is..."

She raised her head high, a glint of barely-suppressed tears flickering in her eyes, and said, one word at a time: "Fan Sanlang."