Chapter 169: A Very Good Start

He Yong sat cross-legged on the kang and went over the calculations himself several times.

He kept at it until his head swam and he felt as if he were drifting through the clouds — only then did he finally confirm that he had found himself a new job.

The monthly gazettes and intelligence reports all had to be kept on file at the Garrison Command, and they would only be bundled up for disposal after a very long time, so he had no way to bring Liu Chengzong the original files.

He could only transcribe fresh copies, and the monthly intelligence reports and gazettes gathered every matter of military and civil administration under heaven, selected by the Ministry of War and distributed to government offices everywhere according to rank — the word count was substantial.

So this was hard-earned money.

Very handsomely paid hard-earned money.

But was He Yong afraid of hard work?

He was not. He had been toiling hard at He Renlong's side for over ten years. For over ten years, all because of that one line from his mother — telling him to strive so that even the chickens and dogs might rise to heaven — he had never shirked hard work.

The richest reward he had received in over ten years was three taels of silver.

One time was this trip into Lion Camp to see Liu Chengzong; the time before that was in the second year of Tianqi, when he took three arrows shielding his master's household.

Back then he was still young, a youth just turned twenty, and three taels of silver was no small sum.

Now ten years had passed, yet neither his status nor He Renlong's had changed. He Renlong still had that same income, his own pay was even less than ten years ago, and three taels of silver had actually become more money.

This time He Yong knew perfectly well that it was only because of the personal sentiment built up over more than ten years of service, mixed in to some degree, that he could earn those three taels of silver.

But this was five taels a month, with almost no risk whatsoever, and he might even earn two hundred taels of silver in a year.

For the longest time, He Yong had thought of himself as one of those chickens or dogs that never got the chance to rise to heaven — he had never imagined that he was actually a little silver man.

Twelve years, two thousand four hundred taels, one hundred and fifty jin.

One hundred and fifty jin of white silver — the same weight as himself.

He Yong stayed three days at Wen'an Post Station, then mounted his horse and rode back.

The season had entered the fourth month. The wheat fields around Mizhi were nearing ripeness, but bandits were stirring everywhere. The common folk, fearing that the ripe grain would draw brigands, had already begun harvesting early before it was fully mature.

When buying grain, He Yong heard a farmer say that this year's harvest was still no good, but the price of flour had dropped a little after all. He spent two taels of silver on seven dou of flour, spent a bit more on a jar of thick fermented wine, and used his horse to carry it all back to Yuhe Fort.

Yuhe Fort was much the same, though because of last year's snowfall, conditions were far better than the year before.

They had no fear of bandits — the three hundred able-bodied men in the fort even looked forward to a visit from brigands — and so the military farmlands outside the walls were steadily turning from lush green to golden yellow.

Although the wheat had lodged over large areas, these seized military farmlands, no matter how much they yielded, would still add extra provisions to Yuhe Fort's military grain supply.

He Yong's mood was excellent the whole journey back; everything he saw delighted him.

When the general returned with his men from setting up camp outside the walls, He Yong hurried over to report.

"You're back? Just a few days after you left, Ai Mu passed through Yuhe Fort with a dozen or so broken remnant soldiers."

He Renlong had both hands tucked into the leather belt at his waist. As he led He Yong into the official residence, he shook his head and sighed, "That little lion really can fight."

Once inside the residence, He Renlong unfastened his leather belt and hung it aside along with his saber. Only then did he rub his belly, which had been squeezed by the belt, let out a long breath, and sit down. "Tell me, this trip of yours to his place — how was it?"

"General, by the time this humble one arrived, the battle was already over. Over a hundred men in Lion Camp had been wounded by cannon fire. Nearly two thousand of the Guanzhong troops led by Ai Mu had surrendered. In the end, the post city was breached. There was a battalion commander inside the city who led several hundred men, preferring death to surrender, but they couldn't hold them back."

"Couldn't hold them back?"

He Renlong had not been particularly interested in how this battle was fought at first.

But hearing He Yong say this, he frowned. "Inside a city, and they still couldn't hold them back?"

"Couldn't hold them back. The Lion's force is called Lion Camp, and the men in it really are like lions. A lot of them are former frontier soldiers, mainly from Guyuan and Yansui garrisons. They eat far better than we do in the fort."

At the mention of this, He Yong unconsciously licked his lips, then noticed He Renlong watching him and gave an embarrassed grin.

"Hey, hold on." He Renlong stopped him and asked, "What happened to your tooth? You get hit?"

"Oh, you mean this."

He Yong bared the left side of his teeth and pointed to a chipped canine, shaking his head with a smile. "No. I was eating a donkey-meat huoshao, and there was a bullet fragment they hadn't picked out. It cracked a piece off... Ah, Cao Yao made it."

Cao Yao.

He Renlong remembered now — the squad leader he had released earlier, a bandit recruited years ago. "He knows how to make that?"

"He does, knows how to make all sorts of things. He made a donkey-meat one once back at Yuhe Fort. Didn't he used to serve in the capital army's firearms division? Now he's the cannon sentry commander at Lion Camp."

A touch of resentment stirred in He Renlong's heart. "They eat this every day out there?"

To think that on the day he released those soldiers, He Renlong had felt so bad, afraid his men would suffer hardship out in the world.

Turns out he had released them to go enjoy themselves!

"Not every day. They eat dried meat more often. This horse-meat huoshao is usually only eaten after a victory."

He Yong offered a word of explanation, then continued, "Though from what I hear, they've been fighting all year — four or five battles in Shaanxi, another four or five in Shanxi. And the Shanxi soldiers weren't even willing to follow him."

"Fighting means grain, dead horses, donkeys, and mules. Those men don't lack for meat. They're plenty well off."

He Yong shook his head. This trip to Lion Camp had truly broadened his horizons. He stared wide-eyed and said, "Even those Guanzhong prisoners — two or three hundred of them with feet torn up by caltrops — the Lion sent medical orderlies to treat them, bandaged them up, and let them eat good meals for a couple of days."

At this point, he paused deliberately, letting He Renlong imagine the rest for himself.

And He Renlong was indeed imagining it, nodding slowly without pause.

This food, this treatment — to put it bluntly, in the frontier garrison at Yuhe Fort, the entire fort had only a father-and-son pair of medical orderlies, and they were the kind who treated men and livestock alike.

Lion Camp's medical orderlies were so well-supplied that after treating their own wounded, they could still treat prisoners. On top of eating their fill, they ate well.

If they couldn't fight, who could?

This matter left a tangle of emotions in He Renlong's heart.

A goal he himself had pursued for over ten years and never achieved — a former household retainer had gone out wandering for a year and accomplished it.

By this point in He Yong's account, even though he had not directly answered the question Du Wenhuan had sent him to ask, He Renlong already had his answer.

Liu the Lion could not possibly be persuaded to surrender.

Supplying that force cost six times more in coin and grain than He Renlong had estimated.

He Renlong's original idea had been to trim four thousand men down to a crack force of one thousand, then report provisions and pay for four thousand troops. That way, the rations allocated by the court would be enough rice and flour to fill a thousand men, plus feed a thousand mules.

But these four thousand men ate meat.

In Liu the Lion, He Renlong saw an omen that the court's pacification plan was headed for bankruptcy.

If Liu the Lion were to accept amnesty,

and three thousand men were disbanded — even if he stopped raiding, those three thousand would keep on raiding.

And if he did not disband his troops, then Liu the Lion himself would simply carry on raiding.

The court had a rather rosy view of amnesty, as if the moment a military inspector or pacification commissioner opened his mouth, the mud-legged peasants would come crowding in to serve at his stirrups.

If they really were mud-legged peasants who had never seen anything, there might be some chance of that.

But the court's plan was clearly to weed out the true mud-legged peasants from the peasant army, keep the battle-hardened elite troops, and put them to work for the court.

How could men like that possibly be willing? People fawn on high officials never because of the official's talent or character, but because they want to use flattery to trade on the power in his hands for real gain.

I've already flattered you — you can't turn around and lecture me about moral purity.

He also saw what would come next once the court's amnesty plan fell apart: the way to settle the problem… killing.

Even if the killing went on until I became you and you became me — if they couldn't be wiped out, the killing would just go on.

He Renlong could already see Shaanxi turning into a living hell. He shook his head, cast the thought aside, and asked, "So how many men does the Lion have now — six thousand?"

"Still a little over four thousand."

He Yong said, "He doesn't seem willing to expand his forces aggressively. He recruits from prisoners, lets them volunteer — stay if they want to follow him, leave if they don't — and even gives them travel money and dry rations to send them back to Guanzhong."

"So not many stay, only about three hundred or so — just those with nothing tying them down in Guanzhong."

He Renlong's brows knitted together, his mouth slightly open as he drew a breath. He leaned back in his chair, paused a moment, and asked, "He's always done it this way?"

"Yes. I asked around. He's done it this way since the very beginning at Yanshui Pass, which is why his numbers have never been large."

He Yong had practically turned the Lion Camp inside out over the past few days, and now he spoke of it like a man counting his own treasures: "When other leaders could gather several thousand men, he had only four or five hundred."

"When those several thousand ran into government troops, they'd either flee or die, leaving a hundred or two. There was one called Cao Cao — three thousand men last winter. The whole winter went by without anyone attacking him, and he lost his men to infighting anyway. Recruited two thousand more, ran into Ai Mu, and in one round they were gone again."

"The Lion Camp is different. Their numbers grow little by little. Especially against the border troops — the border troops are hungry. Out of two hundred prisoners, he can recruit a hundred and fifty. But after four or five battles in Shanxi, he still has fewer than two hundred Shanxi men under him."

He Yong drew his conclusion: "Same as the Guanzhong troops — in places where people can eat their fill, no one will follow him."

He Renlong said nothing.

Before today, he had not really taken Liu Chengzong's force seriously.

But after hearing He Yong's account, He Renlong realized that compared to Liu Chengzong, the other chieftains rampaging across northern Shaanxi were nothing at all.

As a mid-ranking officer, he did not pay much attention to the fighting strength the Lion Camp displayed.

Fighting strength can be gained through a hundred battles — in other words, the men who had followed Liu Chengzong from the very start had by now fought nearly ten engagements against government troops. Their combat experience was even richer than that of the border troops.

What He Renlong paid far more attention to was the Lion Camp's unity of purpose.

This was the heart of a desperado.

Never mind the deserters and surrendered soldiers from Yansui and Guyuan, or those willing recruits from Shanxi and Guanzhong — every last one of them, a desperado with no ties and nothing to lose.

He had never imagined anyone could organize an army in such a way.

Because He Renlong had heard something of what the Lion Camp did — this unit's moral standards were well above the average.

Only in their own bizarre age could a band of desperadoes be organized and kept under restraint.

In any previous era, if you wanted to discipline soldiers, you could only use sons of good families.

But in this era, it was very easy. Whether you were a mud-legged peasant who had failed to scratch a living from the soil, or a heroic fellow who could draw a hundred-catty heavy bow — what people sought and could not get was a full belly at every meal.

At this thought, He Renlong could not help but feel abashed.

The Lion Camp's survival depended on one very important thing.

There were always government troops going after him.

There were always government troops who, having no idea what the Lion Camp really was, went at him the way they would a refugee mob.

Wasn't that just delivering meat to the lion's mouth?

At this very moment, He Renlong could say without the slightest modesty that he was now the officer in the Yansui Garrison who understood the Lion Camp best.

"So when you went over, what did Liu the Lion say?"

He Yong shook his head. "Not much. I tried to chat with him, but he wasn't interested. He just told me to state my business, so I said the General sent me because he's not satisfied with how things stand."

At this point, he stole a glance at He Renlong's expression. Seeing that the Defense Commander had not flared up, he went on: "He told me to bring the General twenty taels of silver, and ten taels for myself."

As he spoke, He Yong produced a money pouch from beside him, opened it, and set it on the table. Inside lay thirty taels of silver.

"Apart from that, he also wants me to make a copy of the Defense Command's military dispatches and court gazettes every month and deliver them to him."

A look of delight spread across He Renlong's face. "Deliver them where?"

"He told me to deliver them to Lying Tiger Mountain in Yanchuan. It's just a village, seventy or eighty households still living there. The villagers aren't in league with the bandits. According to him, someone will come by every month to pick them up."

Lying Tiger Mountain in Yanchuan — it had basically no connection to Liu Chengzong at all.

If one had to name a link, it was that the first time the Lion Camp entered Shanxi, Liu Chengzong had led his men there to dig an irrigation channel for the local people.

Liu Chengzong had told He Yong this honestly, precisely because he did not want Yuhe Fort to do anything stupid and harm the local people.

He Renlong nodded and raised a hand with a smile. "Clever."

He was not praising He Yong. He was praising Liu Chengzong.

He Yong cautiously added, "He said if I deliver the military dispatches and court gazettes on time every month, he'll give me five taels of silver."

"Deliver them. If you don't give them to him, he'll find another way to get them."

He Renlong took a very relaxed view of the matter.

Military dispatches and court gazettes had a certain degree of confidentiality — different ranks saw different things, for instance — but that was only relative.

In practice, every official was surrounded by countless intentional and unintentional leakers. If someone truly wanted to see them, it was not difficult.

The best safeguard of secrecy was, in truth, the literacy level of the common townsfolk.

After all, this was a deeply bizarre age. In the second year of Tianqi, Du Wenhuan, to dodge the deployment to Liaodong, led his troops straight at a Mongol tribe to raid their camp.

The Mongols' retaliation for this was to submit a petition to the Supreme Commander of the Three Borders of Shaanxi, stating that Du Wenhuan had attacked them solely to avoid Liaodong, and they hoped the court would see justice done.

No justice was done, so the Mongols broke through Yan'an Prefecture heading south.

If they truly wanted to know, even what Du Wenhuan was thinking couldn't be hidden from the Mongols.

Much less the mere garrison-post bulletins and court gazettes that a Guard Office could see.

He Renlong glanced at the money pouch on the table, chuckled, and said to He Yong, "Keep this silver. It's time you settled down — if you've got your eye on some woman, I'll go propose for you."

He smiled, then tied the pouch and handed it to He Yong, never expecting that this casual gesture would make He Yong drop to his knees and kowtow: "General, your great kindness — this humble man has no way to repay it."

It startled He Renlong, who laughingly helped him up and asked, "Don't tell me you really do have your eye on someone?"

"Heh, not yet, not yet."

He Yong stammered a little, thinking hard before saying, "This humble man truly meant to ask the General to step in someday... I never thought the General would say it first."

"Between you and me, no need for such formality." He Renlong clapped He Yong on the shoulder. "You did very well this time — an excellent start. In the future, he'll be able to provide us with intelligence too. These things are the foundation for us to leave Fish River Fort."

He Yong drew a deep, heavy breath and nodded. "Yes — an excellent start."

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