Chapter 155: All-Out Offensive

Fenzhou City.

Li Shien, Vice Commissioner of the South Ji Defense Circuit, strode quickly out of the prefectural yamen.

He thought to himself, Another polite brush-off.

The full title of the Defense Circuit is "Defense Circuit for Rectifying Such-and-Such," holding a seal of authority but no official chop, able to command guard-battalion troops yet subject to the control of the governor and grand coordinator.

Its duties were to drill guard-battalion troops and local militia, capture bandits and suppress civil unrest, and manage guard-battalion troops, provisions, funds, and military farms.

Initially established on an ad hoc basis, it has now become a permanent office to strengthen local defense.

Lately, Li Shien had been consumed by one matter: securing grain.

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

Simply answering to the princely estates 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 estates, and that was hopeless; you do the work of whoever feeds you — that is an unalterable principle.

As for Li Shien, although he was a man of Northern Zhili, he had studied in Xizhou in his early years while accompanying his father at his post, and he understood the situation in Shanxi very well.

Thus, from the moment he took office, Li Shien knew exactly what his job as Defense Circuit was supposed to be.

Rectifying the guard battalions was out of the question — that was not something a mere fourth-rank official could accomplish.

Defense Circuit, Defense Circuit — it was established primarily to suppress popular uprisings, so his mission was simply to prevent popular uprisings 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 eased slightly, but 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 lands west of the Lüliang Mountains were not part of Fenzhou Prefecture.

So after discussions with numerous prefectural 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 County, and to heighten the city walls to guard against Shaanxi bandits entering Shanxi.

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

That was the difficulty; those three counties were dirt poor — their county revenue offices could not even produce a thousand taels of silver, making it impossible 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 training militia in the three counties; the moment others heard it, they knew it was about money and simply began lamenting their poverty before he could even open his mouth.

In the end, with no recourse, he had to slink out of the yamen as dusk fell, utterly defeated.

Off duty, he planned to go have a couple of drinks to drown his frustrations.

He never expected that just as he stepped out of the yamen, he would hear 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 somewhat aged middle-aged gentleman, wearing a cloud-brocade square cap on his head, a light-blue Daoist robe with subtle patterns, jade and a sachet at his waist — graceful and poised, though his clothes were travel-stained, and a treasured sword hung at his hip as he strode quickly over.

No matter how hard he thought, Li Shien could not recall this man, and he could not help raising his hand to ask: "May I ask who you are, sir?"

"Brother Shien, it's me! We 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 crumbled with a roar like thunder."

The old gentleman was very agitated; he walked up before him and said: "Have you forgotten? Xizhou licentiate, Che Cai!"

With his words, memories gradually surfaced before Li Shien's eyes; his expression softened, and then he raised his hand and clasped Che Cai, saying: "It's Old 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 afterward... ah, it's a long story."

Reunited with an old friend, Li Shien turned and ordered a carriage prepared, then took Che Cai by the arm and walked forward: "A long story calls for a slow chat; we have all evening. You've been in Xizhou all this time and 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, where they found a private room in a lakeside tavern, ordered three meat dishes and three vegetable dishes and two pots of Fenjiu liquor, opened the windows to listen to the fishermen's evening songs, and watched the sun set 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 longed to hold a grandson early. My wife and I were married for over ten years without a child — I don't know whose issue it was. I thought of taking another wife, but it was nothing more than a thought."

"Brother Shien knows as well — my family has farmed at Zaowang Mountain for generations and was never wealthy; it was only in my generation that we managed to study. Back at the prefectural school, my fellow students never stopped mocking my family's poverty, but before I had even passed the licentiate exam, Su'niang chose to be 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 permitted me to take a concubine. I found a woman from a musician household in Fanjia Mountain, Yonghe County — she was comely and knew how to please, could play the qin 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, saying: "In that case, Brother Che, with a beauty by your side enjoying the blessings of a harmonious household, what more could you ask for!"

But Che Cai's face showed little joy; instead, it bore an indescribable sorrow, and even deep hatred in his eyes: "Yet seven nights ago, troops entered Zaowang Mountain — troops of the Fenzhou Guard!"

Li Shien had just raised his cup to clink with Che Cai; hearing this, 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 military operation, and the Military Defense Commissioner did not even know?"

A raging fire seemed to burn in Che Cai's eyes: "My concubine's surname is Du; she has a younger sister not yet married, and their family is truly destitute. Three days after her elder sister entered my household, she returned home to invite family and friends to a banquet. 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, instead of sharing wine and conversation, I would be visiting you in your dreams dressed all in mourning white!"

The wine cup dropped.

Li Shien shook his head in alarm and said: "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 defend 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 Zaowang Mountain now?"

"Gone. Zaowang Mountain and Fanjia Mountain — both gone. Not a single soul left. The house at Zaowang Mountain was burned to the ground; I could not even tell which corpse was Su'niang. Fanjia Mountain was also slaughtered clean. Yuenuang was still wearing the brocade I had made for her when she died."

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

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

In fact, in Lin County, he had been unable to find his old friend — that place had also been ravaged by soldiers.

The great bandit Bu Zhan Ni, coming from Qin territory, had led his forces to seize civilian boats at Jiazhuo, mounted small cannons to bombard the Kehu Fortress ferry crossing, and then crossed the border with his entire force; thousands of men and horses gathered at Lin County for two days before sweeping north straight for Xing County.

When Che Cai left Lin County seat, he heard that the Kelan-Shilou-Xizhou Defense Commander was mobilizing troops, but the Hequ Assistant Regional Commander to the north had been defeated by Wang Jiayin, and two columns of bandit troops were jointly attacking Kelan Prefecture — the Defense 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 seized Wubao, forcing the Mengmen Pass garrison commander 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 captured once on the road; a dozen or so bandit riders swept in, tied him up, and planned to demand ransom 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 traveling money.

At the time, Che Cai had been quite happy to have survived the disaster; how could he have known that upon returning to Xizhou, what awaited him was the destruction of his family.

These past few days he had been wandering in a daze, utterly at a loss as to what to do, unable even to collect 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 had come from Shaanxi, had defeated the Fenzhou Guard banner troops in Yonghe County and had executed over four hundred of the banner troops who had taken part in the massacre at Zaowang Mountain and Fanjia Village.

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

Back in Lin County, he'd still had some silver on him, but now his home had been burned, he didn't have a single bit of spare wealth left anywhere 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 an old classmate from his days as a licentiate, which was why he sought out Li Shien.

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

How had things suddenly turned into this?

That so-called General Liu came from Xi Prefecture, General Gao marched into Yongning Subprefecture, and wasn't there also General Ni heading for Kelan Subprefecture, plus General Wang striking Hequ.

The Yellow River line in Shanxi was practically undefended.

And most important of all was what Che Cai had said — the matter of Fenzhou Guard.

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

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

Fenzhou Guard had always been understrength; in theory it had just under four thousand Guard troops, but a good number of those four thousand were scattered among the eastern and western princely estates and various princely manors, so the troops that could actually be mobilized normally amounted to only two thousand.

If you had to count them, maybe another two hundred.

All hereditary military officers from Commander down to Company Commander who hadn't managed to secure substantive posts.

And now, in one stroke, they were nearly all dead.

Li Shien no longer had any heart for drinking; the pleasing, delightful scenery outside the window now looked strange in his eyes.

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

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

What these people were doing was strange — what were they up to?

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

The Guard troops, relying on the princely estates' protection, grew more and more reckless in an increasingly chaotic world.

The bandits defeated government troops, then set up a court right there in the valley, publicly exposing their crimes and subjecting them to trial and punishment.

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

This peaceful, tranquil scene of fishermen singing evening songs outside the window — now a false vista — was it even worth looking at anymore?

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 — struck by unprovoked calamity, his family ruined and his home destroyed, 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 have Taiyuan and Pingyang Prefectures informed, so they can coordinate to set up a defense line along the Lüliang Mountains. Since Brother Che also doesn't know what to do, why not stay by my side for the time being and lend me a hand — what do you think?"

Matters having come to this, Che Cai understood that this was Li Shien's self-deprecating way of putting it — there was nothing he could really help with; Li Shien was simply finding him a place to stay.

Once Che Cai had expressed his thanks, Li Shien promptly rose: "There's no time to lose — I'm heading to the prefectural seat right now!"

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

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

The news was first conveyed to Military Defense Circuit Li Shien by Xi Prefecture licentiate Che Cai.

Li Shien then relayed the news to the prefectural seat; the prefectural seat's response strategy was to first dispatch reconnaissance riders west into the Lüliang Mountains to investigate intelligence on the various counties.

However, under the repeated insistence of Military Defense Circuit Li Shien, along with his guarantee of the source's authenticity.

This report was ultimately dispatched that very night by the Fenzhou prefectural seat via fast horse, sent east to Hongshan Post Station between Pingyao County and Qi County.

But because night had already fallen and there were no boatmen on the Fen River, the mounted courier searching along the riverbank for a boatman caused a delay, so the report was only relayed onward from Hongshan Post Station to Taiyuan and Pingyang on the morning of the twelfth.

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

What was late was not the defense line set by the authorities, but rather that just the day before, forty Guard troops from 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 territory 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 — not calculating how much money the eight sub-camps of combat and support troops under his command should be allocated, but calculating the carts needed for transporting supplies.

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

But it was not the rear supplying the front — rather, the front would be sending supplies back to the rear.

Old Master Huo was an interesting sort of local gentry: his family didn't have much land, and their stored grain was only a bit over a thousand shi, yet the household held a full twenty-two thousand-plus taels of silver.

Even after deducting what was 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 Lion Camp had already received their share, and Lion Camp was still in a state of having silver but not knowing how to spend it, so everyone displayed an extraordinary spirit of dedication.

From sub-camp commander on down, nearly all officers spent their silver on purchasing arms and equipment for their subordinates — there was buying, but also selling, with replaced gear being sold once again to the Engineering Sub-camp.

Now the Engineering Sub-camp had mountainous piles of all kinds of weapons, armor plates, padded coats, military equipment, and the like.

They couldn't carry these things forward with them — the Logistics Sub-camp couldn't pack them.

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

Just then, Wei Qian'er announced himself at the door, strode into the hall with long steps, and said to Liu Chengzong, "General, the Guard troops from Ze Prefecture have already halted 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 over wanting Old Master Huo to send people to receive the cannons, but 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 on with the calculations here. Send someone to have Li Wanqing lead troops into Yanchuan."

Liu Chengzong rose, rubbing his hands together: "Have the Left Sub-camp break camp — go fetch my cannons back!"

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