Chapter 177: Rush to Attack

The next day, Ma Maoguan set out with the troops.

Having not slept all night, he wore heavy dark circles under his eyes and spoke to no one along the road.

Even when his brother-in-law asked him where the Military Defense Circuit and the Battalion Commander had gone, he ignored him, only saying to get the job done — if it was done well, not only would he be reinstated, he might even move up.

Last night, he had thought about many things.

First he thought about serving at the Grand Coordinator's side; perhaps in this life he could still secure titles for his wife and children.

Then he thought about making a career under the Military Defense Circuit; maybe the heavy responsibility of bringing glory to the old Ma family rested on his shoulders.

Not just promotion and riches, but even about... ideals.

In the latter half of the night, Ma Maoguan lay on the soft bed in the post station's official quarters, thinking about all sorts of random things.

He thought that one day, he might earn the rank of Martial Virtue General of the Fifth Grade, and win for his wife and his old mother — who had gone blind stitching shoe soles at home — the title of Lady of the Fifth Rank by Imperial Mandate.

He remembered his childhood, when he could not yet use farm tools but already knew of Guan Yunchang, Yue Pengju, and Wen Tianxiang, and wanted most to be men like them — loyal-hearted, righteous to the core, their valor surpassing ten thousand.

He surely never wished to grow up and become a thief skulking in the gutters.

Ma Maoguan walked at the very front of the column and said to his brother-in-law, "I don't want to be a thief anymore."

Qi Shuangquan showed little reaction, only saying with a heavy heart, "Whatever you say, brother-in-law."

This comforted Ma Maoguan greatly. For the moment, he had no time to ask why Qi Shuangquan was so downcast; his mind was only on his next move.

He had to figure out how to avoid being hacked to death by Liu Chengzong.

That was a very difficult thing.

Just as Ma Maoguan was still fretting, the deeply worried Qi Shuangquan finally made up his mind and said to him, "Brother-in-law, I don't know if I should tell you this, but last night it seemed someone tampered with the seals on the silver chests."

"Someone tampered with the seals?"

Ma Maoguan stopped in his tracks, his face drastically changing color. He asked, "Are you certain?"

Qi Shuangquan shook his head. "I can't be sure either, that's why I thought about it for so long. I'm telling you because I'm afraid something will go wrong."

"Yesterday, Old Seven and I were joking around, seeing if the two of us could lift a chest of silver. I remember the character 'An' on that chest's seal had an ink smudge that looked like two dots."

"But today I can't find that chest anymore. They all have just one dot. Old Seven saw it too, but he can't read."

Ma Maoguan trembled all over. "Halt the column. Search again. If we don't find it, open the chests."

Tampering with an official seal was a capital crime; opening the chests was naturally a capital crime as well.

Qi Shuangquan said hastily, "Brother-in-law, what if I remembered wrong?"

He had only been worried and at a loss, which was why he told Ma Maoguan, never expecting such a huge reaction.

What Qi Shuangquan did not know was that Ma Maoguan had thought of another possibility.

Perhaps there was no such thing in this world as a pie falling from the sky. What if this silver had already been embezzled by someone, and they meant to pin the blame on him?

This thought made him feel as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.

"Are you certain the seals were tampered with?"

With his life and his family's lives at stake, Ma Maoguan lost his composure. He paced round and round the twenty carts, and before long, every government soldier who had come from Guanzhong was on edge.

Once word spread through the column that the seals might have been tampered with, everyone panicked.

The men gathered around the silver chests, their hushed whispers turning into a chorus of grievances.

In a narrow, steep-walled valley, in the crevice of a rolling loess ridge range, five hundred men were thrown into panic by a strip of paper seal.

"Open it."

Ma Maoguan's voice was exceptionally resolute. His body shook uncontrollably, his eyes fixed dead on the silver chest.

"Brother-in-law, I don't know. If we open the seal, then..."

"If we don't open it, we die." Ma Maoguan turned and glared furiously at his brother-in-law, speaking very rapidly. "If there's no silver inside, will Liu the Lion let us off? Or can we bear the crime of losing the silver chests?"

His mind was racing. In that moment, what had looked perfect from every angle now looked like a trap from every angle.

Qi Shuangquan gritted his teeth and reached out to touch the seal. Just as he was about to tear it off, Ma Maoguan beat him to it, leaping onto the cart and shouting to those around him, "Brothers, hear me out."

The surroundings gradually fell silent.

He wiped his chin fiercely and said to the crowd, "Things have come to this. If there is silver inside, the seals are broken and we can't pay it back. We'll split the silver and return to Golden Lock Pass. Those unwilling to leave home can just say Liu Chengzong stole the silver."

"Those willing to leave home can bring their families, trick their way through Golden Lock Pass, and flee into northern Shaanxi. If there's no silver inside, and the higher-ups framed us, then come with me and join Liu the Lion. If they frame us, we won't let them off easy!"

No one spoke; no one dared to be the first. Then the seal was ripped away in one yank.

Ma Maoguan let out a heavy sigh and forcefully overturned the wooden chest, which was full of crushed stone, sending it crashing to the ground. The cart horse reared up in fright.

The crowd was like hot oil splashed with water — they erupted.

Then, one seal after another was torn open, one chest after another of crushed stone was dumped onto the ground.

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Ma Maoguan clutched his forehead and paced among the scattered stones. Suddenly, his hand shot up. "The official silver... the official silver is in Yichuan."

"All of you wait here for me. Don't go anywhere!"

With that, Ma Maoguan ordered only his brother-in-law to keep the soldiers in check. He unhitched four horses from the carts, mounted up, and galloped north.

Lion Camp was waiting right at the border between Yan'an Prefecture and Fu Prefecture.

The distance was nearly two hundred li. Ma Maoguan forcibly changed horses at the Zhai Road, Three Rivers, and Fu City post stations along the way, and by noon he was meeting with Liu Chengzong.

The moment they met, he looked as if he were seeing his savior.

"General Liu, the official silver isn't here!"

Ma Maoguan's ideal of walking the righteous path had been shattered once again. He could only run to Liu Chengzong to seek help.

Liu Chengzong did not get angry as Ma Maoguan had imagined. He simply listened expressionlessly as Ma Maoguan recounted the events in detail, thought for a moment, and asked, "What if you're overthinking it? Perhaps the Military Defense Circuit just wanted to bypass me and didn't trust you Guanzhong soldiers. What then?"

Liu Chengzong thought this possibility was high.

If Zhang Yundeng wanted to use this to frame Ma Maoguan, it made no sense.

Before yesterday, Zhang Yundeng didn't even know who Ma Maoguan was. Why would he frame him?

If he wanted to shift the blame, he could just dump it straight onto the Lion Battalion. With a golden signboard as big as Liu Chengzong — who's already gotten two Regional Commanders killed — is snatching a bit of silver really so outrageous?

There was simply no need to cook up this whole elaborate scheme just to frame a nobody like Ma Maoguan.

Liu Chengzong felt the biggest problem with this affair was that Zhang Yundeng never expected a mere tool to develop a mind of its own, daring to tear off the seal without permission.

More than the incident itself, Liu Chengzong cared about why Zhang Yundeng had done this.

Normally, Zhang Yundeng should have been uneasy about Yanchuan; after all, Liu Chengzong had defeated Ai Mu there last time.

Yet Zhang Yundeng deliberately yielded the Yan'an prefectural seat and specifically traveled along the Yichuan-Yanchuan line.

Liu Chengzong was somewhat baffled. Why?

Had someone leaked intelligence?

But that shouldn't be the case.

Liu Chengzong racked his brains. He had only one inside man in the silver transport unit — Ma Maoguan. Surely Ma Maoguan wouldn't expose himself.

Besides, even if Zhang Yundeng knew Ma Maoguan was an inside man, he shouldn't have let him continue leading the convoy forward, and especially shouldn't have wanted to see for himself whether the grain robber was Liu Chengzong, and if so, order Ma Maoguan and the others to abandon resistance.

This was very strange.

Liu Chengzong speculated: had the authorities already grasped the situation in Yan'an Prefecture, where his father, brother, and Teacher Yang were sidelining Zhang Nian?

If so, then Yan'an Prefecture was no longer safe.

Just as he was pondering this, a scout rider came to report that over at Zhiluo Town to the southwest, Li Laochai had led his troops westward, saying that since none of this silver was his share anyway, he was heading to Qingyang Prefecture to attack Heshui County.

Liu Chengzong felt like going too — his grain and fodder were running low.

Still, the silver right in front of him, a now-or-never opportunity, mattered more.

After thinking it over carefully, he didn't consider this a bad thing for him. At the very least, this situation showed that the authorities had no intention of ambushing him for now.

At the very, very worst, it just meant making him a scapegoat.

Otherwise, Zhang Yundeng wouldn't have needed to waver so much over his route.

On the contrary, it was an excellent opportunity.

Now there were two silver transport units.

One man could only hit one at a time. If Liu Chengzong robbed the Fuzhou unit, then Ai Mu's household troops could go and rob the Yichuan unit.

At this thought, his mood lifted considerably. He had Cao Yao take Feng Rang's post and advance eastward first, then sent Yang Yao to take Wang Wenxiu toward Fuzhou to confirm the silver chests Ma Maoguan had mentioned, the ones supposedly loaded with crushed stone.

As for himself, he stayed in the middle, watching for trouble on either side, ready to ride to the rescue at top speed if anything went wrong.

The next day, the Lion Battalion first confirmed that Ma Maoguan had not lied, then earnestly reassured him, promising that if the operation succeeded later and there truly were one hundred thirty thousand taels, they would still reward his whole unit with ten thousand taels as before.

He wouldn't need to figure out the Golden Lock Pass matter himself. Once his family returned, the Lion Battalion would still provide him with some farmland.

Liu Chengzong had no idea about Ma Maoguan's inner turmoil; instead, he thought the man was decent enough — even after all this, he still knew to come find him.

Immediately after, the Lion Battalion shifted north, outside the prefectural seat, and then marched eastward.

If the southern lead proved false, he could still race east at maximum speed.

He had a vague feeling that for a colossal sum of one hundred thirty thousand taels, the court sending a thousand-odd men to guard it wasn't excessive. But if you removed Ma Maoguan's group, leaving fewer than five hundred, then the moment this silver was targeted, it was practically as good as gone.

The court probably wasn't rich enough for that.

On the road, he remained deeply puzzled. Where had the government troops found the nerve to split their forces? He had been active in Yanchuan only a short while ago.

On the evening of the second day after Ma Maoguan set out, Liu Chengzong reached Yanchang County. On the third day, he reached Yanchuan County, gazing from afar at the road leading to Yanchang County.

On the fourth day, He Yong arrived from the north.

Meanwhile, far away at Yulin Garrison, the Yansui Grand Coordinator Hong Chengchou had also received Zhang Yundeng's plea for reinforcements.

Hong Chengchou had only taken up the post of Yansui Grand Coordinator in the sixth month, but he had served many years in Shaanxi before and was quite familiar with the frontier officers. However, he could not attend to this matter for the moment.

Neither he nor Du Wenhuan could attend to it; they were busy hosting a banquet for Wang Zuogua.

This news was brought by He Yong. He Yong came to advise him, saying, "Lion, you absolutely must not accept amnesty. Wang Zuogua is being kept in Suide right now, yet he's still plundering without restraint. Yansui Grand Coordinator Hong Chengchou is not a man who tolerates grit in his eye."

"What do you mean, not a man who tolerates grit in his eye?"

He Yong glanced cautiously left and right, then lowered his voice. "Up north, they're mobilizing Du Wenhuan to move south. I heard the General say that if Wang Zuogua keeps up this plundering, his life may be in danger."

He Yong's point was that the Yansui Garrison was moving troops toward Suide. Yuhe Fort was north of Suide — the Lion Battalion needed to be careful.

If Du Wenhuan finished off Wang Zuogua, or even bypassed him and marched straight south, He Yong would never be able to deliver a warning in time.

Liu the Lion had already seen Shaanxi's bizarre situation in the military dispatches and court gazettes. The Three Border Supreme Commander was a man inclined toward amnesty, while Hong Chengchou was a man inclined toward extermination.

The two of them had long moved past covert discord into open strife — one pushing for amnesty, the other for annihilation.

By the time Liu Chengzong led his troops to Yanchuan, the scout riders Cao Yao had sent south still had not reported back, making Liu the Lion even wonder if he had taken a wrong fork in the road.

Fortunately, on the sixth day, the forward scouts finally clashed with government army scouts from Fuzhou. At a place called Yunyan Town, the two sides engaged in battle.

The government troops numbered over four hundred. The Lion Battalion's first to reach the battlefield were only Wei Qian'er's hundred-odd scout riders.

But Wei Qian'er's men, tempered by several battles, were in no way inferior to the Fuzhou government troops in actual combat experience.

Shortly after, Liu Chengzong spurred to the battlefield with a hundred household cavalry, climbed a hilltop, and raised his telescope to observe.

The terrain here was a river valley flowing from northwest to southeast. The western bank was somewhat broader, over a hundred paces wide; the eastern bank was narrower, only sixty-some paces.

The government troops of the silver transport unit seemed to have spent the morning on the river's eastern bank, using the cliff face for shade.

Now they were using several dozen cavalry on the riverbank as cover, shielding the carts in the center, while the infantry on the outer edge donned armor and attempted to be the first to ford the Yunyan River, which was shallow, only reaching the calves.

Meanwhile, Wei Qian'er's scout riders, positioned on several ridges on both the eastern and western banks, were using superior numbers at each point to drive the government scouts off the ridges.

Seeing this situation, Liu Chengzong laughed. A while back, he had been mulling over how summer temperatures dictated the shape of warfare — expanding the controllable zone and operational space for the army.

Giving armored soldiers the chance to rotate squads, replenish water, and get rest.

Now the government troops' movements reminded Liu Chengzong of something he had overlooked, a crucial daytime factor: the sun.

Midsummer's heat and blinding glare would rapidly dehydrate and heat-stroke armored infantry, and make aiming difficult for archers.

It was already past noon, and the sun was sinking westward. Whoever seized the river's western bank would gain the initiative for the afternoon's battle.

Seeing that the troops behind were still marching and needed a little more time to reach the battlefield, Liu Chengzong gave the order to his household cavalry: "Pass the word — household cavalry, don armor. Harass them. Do not permit them to cross the river!"

After issuing this order, Liu Chengzong added another line for Zhong Bao: "Fan Sanlang stays here."

The captains of the two household soldier squads accepted the order readily. The troopers donned their armor, then spurred their horses into formation. Under the envious gaze of Fan Sanlang, fully clad in helmet and armor, they forded the river from the northeast of the battlefield and galloped from the west bank toward the southern front.

"General, why won't you let me go? Why? I've been training for two months!"

Two months training to sleep on a mule's back?

The entire household squad treated Kowtow Sanlang like a precious treasure. If this little thing got killed on the battlefield, his household squad would charge straight at the enemy lines.

Liu Chengzong glanced at her, then turned back and continued observing the battlefield expressionlessly, his tone serious: "You can protect me."

Fan Sanlang's small face flushed bright red, choked speechless by those words.

She was nothing like that great fool Wei Qian'er when he first joined Lion Camp, wanting to challenge Liu Chengzong to a duel on day one.

She had already asked around.

Where Liu the Lion's martial skill ranked in the camp was hard to say — too many men, and they'd never held a contest.

But what everyone acknowledged was that in the early days of Lion Camp, at the battle of Jingjiagou, Liu the Lion alone, with his mastery of bow and horse, had turned a rout into a great victory.

Fan Sanlang desperately wanted to ask: You need someone to protect you?

In the end, she was angered into laughter, let out a snort, and stood obediently to the side, listening as Liu Chengzong explained to her why they had to seize the west bank.

The government troops also spotted this galloping cavalry squad and hurriedly ordered several dozen of their own riders to speed across the river, to seize the riverbank position and shift their forces over.

The left squad, led by the Han brothers, spread into a horizontal line fifty or sixty paces apart and loosed their arrows toward the riverbank.

The right squad hovered at their flanks, in groups of three to five riders, waiting for chances to engage the enemy cavalry rushing to intercept them, spaced six or seven paces apart, raising their firearms and releasing bursts of gunsmoke.