Chapter 175: Fu Prefecture

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South River Plateau, Yanchuan County.

On the dry-farmed terraces, common folk leaned on their tools and craned their necks to watch. Not far away, on a plateau a hundred paces square, countless arrow targets and gun targets had been set up, and the household cavalry of Lion Camp were drilling.

The low moan of horns sounded.

Han Shiyou swung onto his mount, led two warhorses forward at a walk, then spurred into a gallop. From horseback he executed in sequence: hiding on the left flank, hiding on the right flank, and switching horses at full speed.

Then, as his warhorse galloped past a line traced in pot-bottom ash, he vaulted up, nocked an arrow, drew his bow, and loosed it far toward the target ahead — an arrow target standing at the plateau's edge, sixty paces distant.

While the feathered arrow still flew through the air, he had already drawn his bow leftward and loosed an arrow at a target twenty paces away. As that arrow struck the bullseye with a thud, the bow was already in his right hand; he drew again and loosed at the target twenty paces to the right.

Having completed these three shots in sequence, he thrust his bow back into its case. His warhorse slowed. He vaulted onto the other warhorse, raised his cavalry lance to the left, and flicked a helmet off a straw dummy, then thrust right, driving the lance into a straw dummy's chest.

Finally, he drew his saber, held it level at his side, and sliced the last straw dummy clean in two.

Then he rode the final ten paces and, at the arrow target at the plateau's edge, retrieved the arrow that had struck two inches from the red bullseye.

The chain of tactical maneuvers left onlookers dazzled. The household cavalry behind him roared their approval.

The farming folk on the dry terraces each wore an expression as though they had witnessed a god descend to the mortal world.

One father lectured his son: "See that? And you think just because you've picked up a bit of spear and staff play, you're ready for Lion Camp. What kind of skill do they have, eh?"

The son, stripped to the waist and solidly built, craned his neck, watching so raptly he couldn't close his mouth. He looked down at the iron spade in his hands and turned the soil with renewed vigor.

As the saying goes, summer days are spent in the furrow. The Lesser Heat at the end of the fifth month had already passed. The common folk of northern Shaanxi are toilers. Before the broomcorn millet yellowed, they had to plow the wheat fields several times under the stars and moon, racing to sow while the soil held moisture around White Dew.

Once the wheat was planted, with not a moment's rest, they had to cut the millet, harvest the grain, pick the beans, gather the cotton, pull the black beans, tip the sesame, and then sun-dry, mill, thresh, and winnow certain crops.

After the autumn harvest, they still had to turn the fields and prepare the land, working right up to the Start of Winter.

Even in winter, few could truly rest. There was still firewood to chop or coal to dig from the mountains, enough to supply the household for half a year.

But this was not Guanzhong. There was no livelihood guaranteed against drought or flood. One ill-timed cold snap, one drought that stole the soil's moisture, and half a year's hard toil could be wiped out in an instant.

Yet no matter how bitter the hardship, the farming folk still had to carry on, even if a mu of land yielded only a few dozen jin of grain.

The drill of the household cavalry's right company on another plateau was far less of a spectacle.

But where their skill fell short, they made up for it with sound and fury.

Fifty riders, divided into five squads, galloped forward in succession. Their target was a broad expanse of square wheat-straw stacks, with a foot-high plank fixed at chest height.

The cavalry squads completed their acceleration, charge, and deceleration within a hundred paces of the straw stacks. Their horses' hooves pressed against the eight-pace ash line as they turned. Each rider extended an arm and fired a Frankish hand cannon at the target.

A thin line of gunpowder smoke rose. They wheeled and rode back, and on the way reattached the match cords shaken loose by the gunpowder's blast, removed the sub-chambers, and reloaded.

Then another squad repeated the maneuver. Once the entire company had finished firing, Zhong Bao carefully counted before the targets, then shouted: "Thirty-eight hits!"

Then the company inspected the spent sub-chambers. Some men had certainly missed, but it was hard to tell who.

And some men's guns had certainly failed to fire — that was easy to tell. These men were hauled out and given a scolding. After the scolding, they were formed into small squads and sent off to practice mounted shooting.

Those who remained cleaned their gun barrels, stowed their weapons, and practiced riding maneuvers on horseback.

Not all of them had been cavalrymen skilled in archery and horsemanship in the past.

Liu the Lion would select men for the household cavalry for all sorts of reasons.

For instance, if a man was wounded in a battle — the injury not severe, but enough to impair his combat effectiveness for a while — and the next battle was one others still had to fight, Liu feared he might die, so he'd place him in the household cavalry first.

Once the wound healed, if the man still wished to stay by the Lion's side, then he would remain in the household cavalry.

So some men's riding skills had been honed on muleback. These men were all in the right company.

There was even someone like Fan Sanlang.

Fan Sanlang had not touched a bed for two months straight. Ever since Lion Camp garrisoned Yanchuan, she had spent every night sleeping sprawled across the back of a different mule.

This was special training for Lion Camp. Each post selected a few men every day for night patrol. The patrol would split into two groups: one rode mules and wandered the mountain paths; the other rode mules and slept while following them.

Others spent one night in five sleeping on muleback. Fan Sanlang, by Liu the Lion's arrangement, was bounced around on muleback every single day.

Others could sleep. She could not. Every night on patrol, she watched others sprawled on their mules, sleeping. Their bodies would slump to the left, bit by bit, until they seemed about to fall — hey! — then suddenly right themselves, and then slump bit by bit to the right.

Fan Sanlang was different. When she grew unbearably drowsy and dozed off, her body would start slumping to the left — and then she really would fall off.

People gave her the nickname Kowtow Sanlang.

Last month, her job was practically: dozing while standing, dozing while sitting, dozing while eating, dozing while swinging a blade, dozing while shooting arrows, dozing while firing a gun, and falling off muleback.

And always a different mule's back, because Liu the Lion said mules needed sleep too — they couldn't accompany you wandering the mountains every day.

So it turned out everything needed sleep. Only she didn't.

This month, Fan Sanlang's situation had improved slightly. Her skills hadn't progressed much, but her body had grown accustomed to falling asleep anytime, anywhere.

For example, right now.

During the summer harvest, the people of Crouching Tiger Mountain had been short-handed and borrowed some men from Lion Camp to help. Now that the wheat had been milled into flour, the people joyfully brought a hog and carried white flour to Lion Camp.

Seeing the people so warm-hearted, Liu the Lion could hardly be stingy. He simply called over the entire village, slaughtered a lame horse, made flatbread with the white flour, and treated the combat auxiliaries and common folk who had gone to help at Crouching Tiger Mountain to a hearty meal.

This was also a case of "buying a horse's bones with a thousand gold." He didn't need to tell the combat auxiliaries to help the common folk, but when someone did it, Liu the Lion made sure they benefited. In the future, people would naturally know what to do.

During the meal, Liu the Lion sent Fan Sanlang back to the command tent to fetch something for him. When the meal was finished, she still hadn't returned.

He went back to the command tent and found Fan Sanlang sitting cross-legged on the cot, her back to the entrance. Her helmet rested on her spine, her head hung in front of her body, in a posture of deep prostration toward the tent canvas. Her whole body was curled into a tiny lump, snoring softly.

She had fallen asleep.

Liu Chengzong raised a hand and scratched his cheek, unable to suppress a smile.

The last time he had seen someone sleep like that was when Sixteen had plunged headfirst into the stables at Fish River Fort.

It made him wonder despite himself: was sleeping on muleback really that hard?

Mules are so steady!

Liu Chengzong did not disturb Fan Sanlang's sleep. He simply turned and left the tent to walk among the various posts.

He had a thought in mind — a plan to find somewhere to place Fan Sanlang. She simply wasn't soldier material.

Being a soldier is hard, but being a roving peasant army is even harder.

And in Lion Camp, it was far, far harder than in a peasant army.

Stepping out of the command tent, he happened to run into Wei Qian'er's scout cavalry reporting: "General, the Deputy General is back!"

Sky Monkey had arrived. Liu Chengzong did not lead him to the command tent but casually picked a tent and went inside, asking, "Well? Any news from the south?"

"We've got it!"

Sky Monkey looked very excited and said: "After Grand Coordinator Liu retired citing illness, the new Grand Coordinator has been decided. His name is Wang Shunxing, formerly the Left Administration Commissioner, a native of Xutong in Henan, a presented scholar of the thirty-eighth year of the Wanli reign."

"That silver is finally about to be shipped. It should be around one hundred thirty thousand taels."

Sky Monkey raised his index finger and tapped it on the small wooden table, tap by tap: "Guess how I came to know about this?"

"I didn't go looking for the news — the news came looking for me!"

"The news came looking for you?" Liu Chengzong said, surprised. "What do you mean by that?"

Sky Monkey just kept laughing, and only after laughing for quite a while did he say: "General, do you remember that Ma, Ma Maocai?"

"You mean Ma Maoguan?" Liu Chengzong had an impression of that name. "Ai Mu's subordinate, the squad leader who went into the valley to take Yang Chengzu's head?"

"Right, that's him! Him and his brother-in-law."

Sky Monkey went on to explain: "His brother-in-law was on the city wall. The corner tower was bombarded and collapsed. The men under him were either dead or wounded. Later he surrendered and found his own brother-in-law in the prisoner camp. Both of them took travel money and grain and went back to Guanzhong."

"Originally one was a squad leader and the other a file leader. When they went back, both were stripped of their posts. The brother-in-law, called Qi Shuangquan, even got beaten up by his superior officer. He lay in bed for a month and nearly died."

After Sky Monkey finished saying this, he stared at Liu Chengzong and said: "The ones escorting the silver — it's them."

Liu Chengzong burst out laughing, incredulous. "Is the Xi'an Prefecture out of its mind? These men were just released and sent back, and now they're dispatched to northern Shaanxi again?"

Only after laughing did he think it over carefully and ask, "Could this be a trap? Is Guanzhong out of troops or what, that they can only send them?"

"It really isn't. I heard that the troops in Guanzhong simply don't want to come to northern Shaanxi. They get no supplies along the way, and there are no post stations. So when it comes to deploying troops and assigning officers, it's always been this bunch doing the hard labor."

Liu Chengzong thought for a moment and asked, "How did they get in touch with you?"

"Li Laochai of Fuzhou, a chief with over three thousand men under him, is quite familiar with Liu Liu, Liu Qi, and Hao Lin'an from Qingyang. Ma Maoguan's brother-in-law went to him and asked Li Laochai to find you, and so he found me."

Sky Monkey analyzed: "I figure if this were the authorities pulling a trick, they'd trick Li Laochai directly. That fellow is anything but peaceful."

"Originally Fuzhou still had that bunch like Flying Mountain Tiger and Big Red Wolf. I wouldn't say they were fighting over turf, but they all kept well away. Now Flying Mountain Tiger has been beaten to death by Chen Qindai, and Little Red Wolf took a pardon tablet and was settled who knows where."

"In a Fuzhou that big, he's the only one left. Today he robs this, tomorrow he robs that. Even if the authorities wanted to pull a trick, they'd have to kill him first. They wouldn't bypass him to come after you."

Liu Chengzong slowly nodded, accepting Sky Monkey's analysis, and asked, "So now, what do they plan to do?"

"What to do... nothing much to it. Lion Camp does three things: take the silver, strike Golden Lock Pass, and settle these people."

"Strike Golden Lock Pass?"

Golden Lock Pass lay south of Yijun County, at the northernmost edge of Yao Subprefecture. Beyond that pass was Guanzhong.

Liu Chengzong didn't quite follow. "Why strike Golden Lock Pass?"

"Their families are all south of Golden Lock Pass and can't get into northern Shaanxi. They need us to make a trip to Tongguan County, help them bring their families up north, and then give them some silver. We could also go to Yao Subprefecture to forage for grain."

Liu Chengzong wasn't all that enthusiastic about entering Yao Subprefecture to forage.

Because his maternal uncle had once been in Sanyuan, he had some understanding of the situation there.

To be honest, he was unwilling to leave drought-stricken areas and much preferred to follow the drought as it advanced.

He had his own set of principles for conduct.

If a place had no drought, then however exploited or oppressed the common people might be, they hadn't yet reached the point of eating dirt and fighting to the death. So long as his own men hadn't reached a dead end, he was unwilling to lead troops in and disrupt others' peaceful lives.

It wasn't because of morality, but because such land had no foothold for him.

The common people would naturally rally around the gentry, just like at Black Dragon Mountain.

Of course, he could always borrow the name of justice to do work among the common people, plunder the great households and gentry who had madly annexed land, and distribute the fields to the people.

But distributing land was easy — what about after?

After the distribution, when he left, what would the common people on the Guanzhong Plain, stripped of armed support, use to protect their land?

When those common people died, their deaths would tell everyone else on the Guanzhong Plain: trust Lion Camp and you die; follow the authorities and you live.

Then he could forget about ever entering Guanzhong.

Only in Yan'an Prefecture, shielded by drought and mountains, could Lion Camp crush one Regional Commander after another and use force to protect the common people who believed in him.

At least in those places, even if he were defeated, the authorities would have no way to settle scores with the common people afterward. They could only barely consolidate villages and combine tax households, struggling to collect a bit of tax.

But under these principles of conduct, his strength was becoming increasingly stretched.

If he wanted to enter Shanxi, and government troops re-entered Yan'an Prefecture, he would have to bring his troops back to fight a decisive battle with them.

When his sphere of influence extended to Fuzhou, then when government troops entered Fuzhou, he would have to go to Fuzhou and fight them.

In fact, he was very worried that government troops would discover this trait of his. Once they did, they would attack where he was forced to defend and wait at ease for his exhausted forces.

Liu Chengzong said nothing for a long while. Only after a long time did he ask, "How many men do they have?"

"Five hundred."

Sky Monkey said: "The silver escort unit has five hundred men in total, with twenty silver-transport carts. Ma Maoguan has united forty-six men. After they pass Golden Lock Pass, they'll unite more. I estimate there will be over a hundred inside collaborators."

"The families of those forty-six men, after the silver unit passes Golden Lock Pass, will secretly enter Tongguan County. The families number around seven hundred or so."

"This is a good thing. The drought in northern Shaanxi isn't as severe this year. They'll arrive just in time to plant wheat. How much money do they want to split?"

Sky Monkey paused, then said: "Ma Maoguan says the forty-six of them each want five hundred taels."

Liu Chengzong laughed. "Are they dreaming?"

"They want me to strike Golden Lock Pass for their families, bring them here and settle them. They want me to fight the government troops. They don't have to do a thing, and they walk away with twenty-three thousand taels."

"After Golden Lock Pass, they'll subvert a few more people and end up splitting forty or fifty thousand taels." Liu Chengzong raised his hand and pointed outside. "Go ask the brothers of Lion Camp if they'd agree."

"To rout them, we only need to spend two hundred taels on travel money for the prisoners. Actually, I wasn't even planning to give those men travel money in the first place."

"If we can get in touch with them again, tell Ma Maoguan there's no need to subvert anyone else. Have him keep the news secret. After the deed is done, give him ten thousand taels."

Liu Chengzong stared at Sky Monkey and said: "Under the name of Ai Mu's routed household troops, rob those twenty carts of silver. Damn it, smear the blades with gold juice."