Chapter 152: All-Out Attack

Source of *The Stubborn Bandit*:

Fenzhou City.

Li Shien, Vice Commissioner of the Circuit Intendant for Southern Ji Defense, strode briskly out of the prefectural yamen.

He thought to himself, another polite brush-off.

The full title of the Circuit Intendant is "Circuit Intendant for Rectifying Such-and-Such Defense Circuit"; he held only a seal of office, not an official seal, and could command guard-battalion troops but was subordinate to the supreme commander and governor.

His duties were drilling guard-battalion troops and local militia, capturing bandits and suppressing civil unrest, and managing guard-battalion troops, pay, provisions, and military farmlands.

Originally established on an ad hoc basis, the post had now become permanent in order to strengthen local defense.

Lately, Li Shien had been busy with one thing: requesting grain.

His post was Circuit Intendant, but the position in Shanxi was extremely awkward; the guard battalions of Fenzhou Prefecture had originally all been princely fief herd-administration battalions, and to this day they still answered to the prince.

Simply answering to the princely estate was not the problem — that was easily solved.

But the decay of the military farmlands had made the guard battalions economically dependent on the princely estate, and that left no remedy; one works for whoever puts food on the table — that is heaven's own truth.

Li Shien, though a native of Northern Zhili, had studied in Xizhou in his early years when his father held a post there, and he understood the situation in Shanxi very well.

So from the very start of his tenure, Li Shien knew exactly what his job as Circuit Intendant was supposed to be.

He could forget about rectifying the guard battalions — that was not something a mere rank-four official could accomplish.

Circuit Intendant, Circuit Intendant — the post was mainly created to suppress popular uprisings, so his mission was simply to prevent any uprising from breaking out in Fenzhou Prefecture.

The drought had persisted for several years, growing worse by the year; only this year had the drought in Shanxi slightly eased, yet west of the Lüliang Mountains the people's livelihood remained destitute.

Fenyang, where Fenzhou City was located, lay east of the Lüliang Mountains, but that did not mean the land west of the Lüliang Mountains was not part of Fenzhou Prefecture.

So after consulting with the prefecture's many officials, he took charge of water-conservancy projects and city-wall construction, planning for the time being to restore the long-abandoned irrigation works in Ningxiang, Shilou, and Lin counties, and to heighten the city walls to guard against Shaanxi bandits entering Shanxi.

The idea was excellent, but carrying it out required money.

That was the hard part: those three counties were dirt poor, their county revenue offices could not even produce a thousand taels of silver, so there was simply no way to begin.

And the prefectural yamen would not part with a single coin, so the matter fell into a dead cycle.

Today he had once again entered the prefectural yamen to discuss building waterworks and drilling the three counties' able-bodied militiamen; the moment the others heard it, they knew he wanted money, and without even letting him open his mouth they began wailing about their poverty.

In the end, with no recourse, he had to wait until dusk and slink dejectedly out of the yamen.

Off duty, he planned to go have a couple of drinks to ease the bitterness in his heart.

He had barely stepped out of the yamen when he heard someone beside him shouting, "Brother Shien! Brother Shien, don't go!"

Thinking it was some good friend who had come to Fenzhou Prefecture, Li Shien turned his head.

It was a slightly aged middle-aged gentleman, wearing a cloud-brocade square cap and a light-blue Daoist robe with subtle patterns, jade and a sachet at his waist — graceful and poised, yet his clothes were travel-stained, a treasured sword also hung at his waist, and he was walking over quickly.

No matter how Li Shien racked his brain, he could not recall this man, and he could not help raising a hand to ask, "May I ask who you are?"

"Brother Shien, it's me! You and I studied together at the Xizhou County School. In the forty-second year of Wanli, when the earthquake struck and the county school collapsed, you were reading on the back hill — I was the one who called you out and helped you run down the mountain path, and right after, the mountain roared and crumbled like thunder."

The old gentleman was very agitated; he walked up to him and said, "Forgotten? Xizhou Government Student Che Cai!"

At his words, memories gradually surfaced before his eyes; Li Shien's expression softened, and then he raised a hand to clasp Che Cai's arm. "Brother Che! How many years has it been! Are you still in Xizhou?"

In truth, Che Cai was nearly ten years older than Li Shien.

"Still in Xizhou. Later, you passed the provincial exam and then the metropolitan exam. After you left, I served as a Confucian instructor in Xizhou for two years, and after that... ah, it's a long story."

Reuniting with an old friend, Li Shien turned and had someone ready a carriage, then took Che Cai by the arm and walked forward. "A long story, then we'll talk slowly. Tonight we have all the time in the world. You've been in Xizhou but never came looking for me — you'll have to drink a few extra cups later!"

When the coachman arrived, the two rode out of the city and headed straight for Wen Lake east of the city. By the lakeshore they found a private room in a wine house, ordered three meat dishes and three vegetable dishes and two pots of Fenzhou wine, opened the windows to listen to the fishermen's evening songs and watch the sun sink behind the western hills.

After three rounds of wine, Che Cai slowly recounted his experiences over the years: "My family has been a single line for three generations. My old father always wanted to hold a grandson early. My wife and I were married over ten years and had no child — I don't know whose issue it was. I thought of taking another wife, but it was no more than a thought."

"Brother Shien knows as well: my family has farmed at Stove King Mountain for generations and was never well-off. Only in my generation did we manage to study. Back at the prefectural school, my dormitory mates never stopped mocking my family's poverty, but before I had even passed the Government Student exam, Su'niang was already with me."

Li Shien set down his wine cup and nodded, sighed, and asked, "Brother Che, to this day, still no heir?"

"I adopted a distant nephew, but who doesn't want a child of their own? Last winter, Su'niang allowed me to take a concubine. I sought out a musician-household woman from Fan Family Mountain in Yonghe County — she had a proper face, knew the pleasures, and could play the zither and dance. A while ago I brought her into the household."

Hearing Che Cai say this, Li Shien cupped his hands and showed an envious smile. "In that case, Brother Che, with a beauty by your side enjoying the blessings of two wives, what more could a man ask for!"

But Che Cai's face held little joy; instead, it bore an unspeakable sorrow, and his eyes even held a deep, deep hatred. "Yet seven nights ago, troops entered Stove King Mountain — troops of the Fenzhou Guard!"

Li Shien had just raised his wine cup to clink with Che Cai's; at these words he froze, and the smile on his face solidified. "Troops of the Fenzhou Guard?"

"The Fenzhou Guard's banner troops crossed the border on a sortie, and the Military Commissioner actually knew nothing of it?"

Che Cai's eyes seemed to blaze with fury. "My concubine's surname was Du. She had a younger sister not yet betrothed, and the family was truly poor. Three days after her elder sister entered my home, she returned to invite relatives and friends to a feast. I had promised the younger sister I would find her a good match, so I went to Lin County to visit a friend."

"Had it not been for that, today, wanting to share wine and good cheer, I would have come to you in your dreams dressed all in mourning white!"

The wine cup dropped.

Li Shien shook his head in alarm. "I — Brother Che, I truly did not know the Fenzhou Guard crossed the border. That Commander Zhang Zhan was stationed at Shilou half a month ago to guard against routed troops returning from the capital relief expedition in Northern Zhili. How dare he cross the border?"

After a brief moment of panic, Li Shien collected himself and quickly pressed, "What of Stove King Mountain now?"

"Gone. Stove King Mountain and Fan Family Mountain — both gone. Not a single person left. The house on Stove King Mountain was burned to the ground in a blaze; I could not even tell which corpse was Su'niang. Fan Family Mountain was also slaughtered clean. Yue'niang, even in death, still wore the figured silk I had made for her."

The old Government Student sat in his armchair, both fists pressed rigidly beneath the table. In truth, he himself did not know why he had sought out Li Shien.

His hometown suffering a military rampage was not the first bad thing he had encountered.

In fact, in Lin County, he had not been able to find his old friend — that place had suffered a military rampage as well.

The great bandit Bu Zhan'ni, coming from Qin, had led his horde from Jiazhou to seize civilian boats, mounted small cannons to bombard the Kehu Fortress ferry crossing, and then crossed the border with his entire force; thousands of men and horses swarmed through Lin County for two days before striking north straight for Xing County.

When Che Cai left Lin County seat, he heard that the Kelan-Shilou-Xizhou Garrison Commander was mustering troops, but up north the Hequ Mobile Corps Commander had been defeated by Wang Jiayin, and the two bandit forces were jointly attacking Kelan Prefecture — the Garrison Commander might not be able to hold them off.

And as Che Cai traveled south, he also heard that the great brigand Gao Yingxiang from Shaanxi had first taken Wubao, forcing the Mengmen Pass defending general to abandon the pass and flee, and then the Qinglong Ferry Patrol Office had been slaughtered to the last man, after which he swept through Yongning Prefecture with several thousand men.

In fact, he had even been tied up once on the road — a dozen or so bandit riders swept in, bound him, and planned to demand valuables from his family, but later, for some unknown reason, when they heard he was from Yonghe County in Xizhou, they let him go.

They only took his travel money.

At the time, Che Cai, having survived the calamity, was quite happy; how could he have known that when he returned to Xizhou, what awaited him was the destruction of his family and home.

These past few days he had passed in a daze, utterly at a loss as to what he should do, unable even to collect and lay out the corpses.

The day before yesterday he had tried to seek out the Yonghe County yamen, but before he had gone a few steps south, in a village where he stopped to rest, he overheard the villagers talking.

They said General Liu, who came from Shaanxi, defeated the banner troops of the Fenzhou Guard in Yonghe County, and executed over four hundred banner troops who had taken part in the massacres at Zaowang Mountain and Fan Family Village.

Che Cai didn't believe it, and he no longer dared to go to Yonghe County either.

When he was in Lin County, he still had some silver on him, but now his home had been burned down, and he had not a bit of surplus wealth left on his person. If he went over there and got caught by bandits, this time he'd have no money to give them.

Only later did it occur to him that the Military Defense Circuit of Fenzhou Prefecture was a former classmate from his days as a licentiate, which was why he sought out Li Shien.

Che Cai recounted these matters to Li Shien one by one, leaving Li Shien utterly dumbfounded.

How had things suddenly come to this?

That so-called General Liu came from Xi Prefecture, General Gao entered Yongning Prefecture, no, General Ni went to Kelan Prefecture, and then there was General Wang who struck Hequ.

The Yellow River line in Shanxi was almost entirely undefended.

And most importantly, there was what Che Cai had said about the Fenzhou Guard.

"That bastard Zhang Zhan, he just got the troops under my command wiped out like that?"

Seventeen hundred banner troops — Li Shien's heart was bleeding.

The Fenzhou Guard had always been understrength. In theory, it had just under four thousand banner troops, but many of these four thousand were scattered across the Eastern and Western Princely Estates and various princely manors. Those that could be normally mobilized numbered only about two thousand.

If you really had to count, there might be another two hundred.

All of them, from the commander down to the hundred-household officers, were hereditary military officers who had never secured substantive posts.

And now, all at once, they were nearly all dead.

Li Shien no longer had the heart to drink. The pleasing, beautiful scenery outside the window now seemed strange in his eyes.

Bandits had entered west of the Lüliang Mountains — he knew that.

But his former classmate's experience stirred an indescribable sense of dislocation in his heart.

The things these people did were strange. What were they up to?

What were the soldiers doing, and what were the bandits doing?

The banner troops, relying on the protection of the princely estates, grew ever more brazen in an increasingly chaotic world.

The bandits defeated the government troops, then set up a court right there in the valley, publicly exposing their crimes for judgment and punishment.

Events unfolding just a few hundred li away had become two separate worlds, divided by a single Lüliang Mountain range.

This tranquil, peaceful scene outside the window, with fishermen singing their evening songs — was this now-false scenery even worth looking at?

He turned his head and asked Che Cai, "Brother Che, what do you plan to do now?"

Che Cai shook his head, his face ashen. Having suffered an unprovoked calamity that destroyed his family and home, what plans could he possibly have?

"My mind is in utter turmoil right now. I must report this news to the prefectural office as quickly as possible, and also inform the two prefectures of Taiyuan and Pingyang so they can coordinate to set up a defensive line in the Lüliang Mountains. Since you, Brother Che, have no plans either, why not stay by my side for the time being and lend me a hand? What do you say?"

Matters having come to this, Che Cai knew this was Li Shien's self-deprecating way of speaking. There was nothing he could really help with; Li Shien was merely finding him a place to stay.

After Che Cai expressed his thanks, Li Shien hastily rose. "There's no time to lose. I'm heading to the prefectural city right now!"

The fourth day after Liu Chengzong annihilated seventeen hundred banner troops of the Fenzhou Guard.

The eleventh day of the third month, in the third year of the Chongzhen reign.

The news was first brought by Che Cai, a licentiate of Xi Prefecture, to the Military Defense Circuit Li Shien.

Subsequently, Li Shien relayed the news to the prefectural city. The prefectural city's response strategy was to first dispatch reconnaissance riders west into the Lüliang Mountains to scout for intelligence in the various counties.

However, at the repeated insistence of Military Defense Circuit Li Shien, who guaranteed the authenticity of the source,

this report was ultimately dispatched that very night by fast horse from Fenzhou Prefectural City, heading east to the Hongshan Post Station between Pingyao County and Qi County.

But because the night was already late and there were no boatmen on the Fen River, the messenger on the fast horse lost time searching for a boatman along the bank. By the time this report was relayed from Hongshan Post Station to Taiyuan and Pingyang, it was already the morning of the twelfth.

In the end, it was still a step too late.

What was late was not the defensive line set by the authorities, but rather that just the day before, forty banner troops from the Ningshan Guard in Ze Prefecture, escorting two red-barbarian cannons loaded on four-wheeled gun carriages, had already passed Xi Prefecture City and entered the borders of Yonghe County.

But the owner of these two red-barbarian cannons, Old Master Huo, was no longer among the living.

Liu Chengzong was sitting in the main hall of the Huo Family Fortress, doing calculations together with Chengyun. They weren't calculating how much money the eight sentries of combat and support troops under his command should be allotted, but rather the number of carts needed to transport supplies.

They wanted to establish a supply line between Yonghe County and Yanchuan County.

But it wasn't the rear supplying the front — it was the front supplying the rear in reverse.

Old Master Huo was an interesting local gentry figure. His family didn't have much farmland, and their grain stores were just over a thousand shi, yet the household possessed a full twenty-two thousand-plus taels of silver.

Even after deducting the portion distributed to the soldiers, the silver retained at Liu Chengzong's battalion headquarters was still enough to cast a thousand-jin red-barbarian cannon.

The officers and non-commissioned officers of the Lion Battalion had already received their share. For now, the Lion Battalion remained in a state of having silver but not knowing how to spend it, so everyone displayed an extraordinary spirit of dedication.

From the sentry commanders down, nearly all officers spent their silver on purchasing arms and equipment for their subordinates. There were buyers as well as sellers, and the replaced gear was sold once again to the Work Sentry.

Now the Work Sentry had mountainous piles of various weapons, armor plates, padded coats, military gear, and the like.

They couldn't carry these things forward; the Baggage Sentry couldn't haul them.

Liu Chengzong planned to ship these items back to Apricot River and have Lin Wei mobilize the craftsmen of the princely manor to sort through them, repairing the damaged armor plates and weapons.

Just then, Wei Qian'er announced himself at the door and strode into the hall, saying to Liu Chengzong, "General, the banner troops from Ze Prefecture have already stopped at Sangbi Mountain. The men they sent over have been detained."

Liu Chengzong set down his brush and laughed. "Ha, what did the men they sent say?"

"They came hoping Old Master Huo would send people to receive the cannons. However, I was worried they might learn about the Huo Family Fortress from the common folk, so I've sent men to watch them from a distance."

"Then what are we waiting for? Chengyun, keep working on the numbers here. Send someone to have Li Wanqing take troops into Yanchuan."

Liu Chengzong stood up, rubbing his hands together. "Have the Left Sentry break camp. We're going to fetch my cannons!"