Chapter 189: The Great Mutiny

Yang Yao scrambled up the mountain in desperate haste, heedless of slipping and falling, until he crested the ridge and looked east toward the mountain pass of the Yellow Dragon Range — at last, an expression of utter relief spread across his face.

Inside the encampment, the government troops were deploying: first they massed on both sides of the official road at the pass, then they filed out and formed ranks on the western side of the camp.

Zhang Tianlin took a great deal of effort to climb up after him and grumbled, "What did you rush up so fast for…"

Then he saw the government troops shifting formation at the pass on the opposite bank and, shocked and furious, cursed: "Damn it all, we're going to have to fight a battle with the government troops."

Yang Yao shook his head. "The General is here. These men don't want to march out and fight."

He was brimming with excitement. He had a few guesses about what was about to happen, yet in his heart he hardly dared let his thoughts go in that direction.

He could only stare fixedly, eyes wide, toward the mountain pass.

The main body of government troops defecting to the bandit soldiers — what sane person would dare let their mind go there?

Yang Yao had merely entertained the beginning of the thought and already felt he had committed an offense against Heaven itself.

Zhang Tianlin found the Ningxia troops' reaction even harder to accept. The insufferably arrogant Ningxia border army, the moment they saw him they could hardly wait to fire a cannon at him — but the moment they saw Lion Liu they turned this docile?

On the other side of the battlefield, the officers from Ningxia watched helplessly as their army fell apart.

Some officers of high virtue and prestige were swept out of camp by the press of soldiers.

Some officers known for harsh military discipline tried to draw their blades and shout the men down, only to find their own subordinates turning swords against them.

And some who had always treated the rank and file poorly were, naturally, killed by the mutinying soldiers.

Grievances were settled, vengeance was exacted.

After exiting the stockade, the troops were directly received by Lion Camp and reorganized on the spot.

Liu Chengzong had already decided on their disposition while on the march: first, soldiers suffering from wind-chill, fever, or injuries were sent to the supply outpost, leaving over five hundred men who were broken up and dispersed into the various outposts.

In an instant, the previously near-even balance of forces transformed before their eyes into Lion Camp, with three thousand men, surrounding the three hundred-odd men He Huchen still had inside the stockade.

Everything happened so fast that He Huchen inside the stockade had not even had time to order his soldiers to seal the camp gates before the various units, led by their junior officers, were already filing out in a steady stream.

Even the wounded soldiers with broken legs were hopping out of camp leaning on crutches.

He Huchen, who had fought in Northern Zhili and Shandong, had never seen anything like this.

When fighting the northern barbarians in Ningxia, the Ningxia troops had always been loyal and brave, hardy and uncomplaining, unafraid even of death — even on the imperial relief expedition, the Ningxia relief force under You Shilu had hardly mutinied at all.

This sudden, large-scale defection — He Huchen could not fathom it. What kind of bewitching potion had Lion Liu poured into his soldiers?

In a matter of moments, only a little over three hundred men remained inside the encampment.

These men were basically officers of various ranks and a portion of household retainers; ordinary soldiers who stayed behind were exceedingly few.

He Huchen ordered the camp gates sealed: "Hold until Commander-in-Chief Du leads his army to relieve us — we can still turn the situation around."

Men from Lion Camp shouted from below the walls: "Grand Marshal He, Grand Coordinator Hong has called Grand Marshal Du back to the border wall — surrender!"

In truth, Liu Chengzong still could not be certain whether Du Wenhuan had actually left or not — he might well be right behind them.

But that did not stop him from using words to shatter He Huchen's will to resist.

Doubt crept onto He Huchen's face, and the assembled officers atop the stockade turned ashen as death.

Gao Guangxian, in particular, raged: "Grand Marshal, I always knew that Du fellow couldn't be relied on!"

He Huchen did not reply. After pondering a moment, he turned to the others and asked: "The camp has insufficient provisions; holding out a few more days will not improve matters. I, He, intend to go out of the stockade and fight the bandits in the field — to lay down my life for His Majesty this very day. You have all received imperial favor; are you willing to follow me?"

The group of military officers, led by Gao Guangxian, threw themselves to the ground and roared: "We swear to follow the Grand Marshal to the death!"

The camp gates swung wide open. Over three hundred infantry and cavalry surged out and formed two battle arrays to the east of the stockade. Immediately, Lion Camp's central outpost pressed forward, its flanks screened by mounted troops.

But before the two sides came within engagement range, a single rider on a red-haired horse with a faded mane, carrying a banner, rode out before the formation.

Liu Chengzong planted the great banner bearing the character "Liu" into the ground, strapped a shield onto his left arm, and only then shouted from a distance: "He Huchen, look at the men behind you."

"Do you know what they gave up to stand with you? And you're going to lead them to their deaths?"

To tell the truth, the men still standing behind He Huchen right now had not really given up anything.

Yinchuan had not suffered drought before this year, so the household retainers had not gone hungry — they were merely short on pay and rations.

As for the officers, there was even less to say: their salaries had never been interrupted, especially those above the rank of centurion. Even if they joined Lion Camp, their treatment might not necessarily be better than before.

Moreover, the households these men belonged to were the portion of Ningxia's population that had the average number of family members.

But He Huchen's mind was already in turmoil at this moment, and besides, from his position, he had no way of knowing what ordinary government soldiers could actually gain from Lion Camp.

Liu Chengzong's words instead caused his long-firmed resolve to die to slacken.

He Huchen turned his head and looked at his subordinate officers with eyes full of guilt, and his officers all breathed a sigh of relief as well.

If the Grand Marshal wanted to lead them in a charge, then they would charge the enemy lines like those heroes of ancient times — such an end was not a bad one for a military officer.

But if the Grand Marshal had changed his mind, that was an even better thing for them.

After all, the crime of surrendering would then be borne entirely by the Grand Marshal; they would merely have been following orders.

But for He Huchen, it was not so simple.

Liu Chengzong noticed that no arrows were being shot at him from the enemy formation, and knew in his heart that the government troops' ranks held no will to die. He continued his loud exhortation to surrender: "Surrender. I will send you home, to guard the frontier for the court. If so many officers die together today, how long will it take Ningxia Garrison to recover?"

Even if these officers did not die, Ningxia still would not recover!

How many people did Ningxia even have in total? A few thousand gone on the imperial relief expedition, and now a few thousand surrendering here — the remaining troops could not even manage to dig through sand.

He Huchen turned and cupped his hands in salute to the officers who had followed him: "The battle has come to this; the blame rests entirely on me, He. You gentlemen may surrender. Let this bandit Lion send you back to Ningxia."

"I, He, as a Regional Commander, may win or lose, may live or die — but the one thing I cannot do is surrender and boost the bandits' prestige."

Gao Guangxian was frantic: "Grand Marshal!"

It was not only because his relationship with He Huchen was relatively close — if He Huchen killed himself here, then the blame for leading the officers to surrender would fall squarely on his own head.

He blurted out the words straight from his heart: "Grand Marshal, you must not die!"

Almost at the same moment he shouted, He Huchen drew the sword at his waist, but before he could lay it across his neck, someone flew at him with a kick and sent the sword flying.

It was He Zan.

He tackled his father to the ground and shouted, "General Gao, now!"

The rapid succession of events left Liu Chengzong watching in extreme puzzlement. He had originally thought his shouted words had taken effect, only to see He Huchen draw his sword.

He Huchen had just drawn his sword when his son tackled him to the ground again. In the chaos that followed, amid the clang and clatter, weapons dropped, and over three hundred officers and household retainers bound He Huchen and brought him over to surrender.

Liu Chengzong pulled the great banner from the earth, a profound satisfaction filling his heart.

This was the first time — the first time government troops who still had fight in them surrendered to him in formation.

Yang Yao and Zhang Tianlin also came running with their troops. Watching the units absorbing new soldiers everywhere, Yang Yao's eyes burned with envy, his head full of questions: "General, what on earth happened here?"

"What happened? We won, that's what."

At this moment, Liu Chengzong's suspended heart could finally ease. He sent men east through Yellow Dragon Mountain to scout for news of Du Wenhuan.

But the men he sent had not gone far before they met a messenger coming from the south.

To be precise, it was someone sent by Liu Chengzu from Lion Bay, delivering the message Yang Yao had dispatched eastward before the battle — that Du Wenhuan had at least two thousand troops moving east from the prefectural city.

This was the third man Liu Chengzu had sent. The first had left the valley and run into Du Wenhuan's outpost cavalry near Cloud Crag Town and was killed; the second, not daring to take the main road, had gotten lost in Yellow Dragon Mountain.

By the time the third man set out, Du Wenhuan's force had already retreated north from the east, entering the official road through Yellow Dragon Mountain from Yichuan — but the mud-choked road was nearly impassable.

The two forces had already joined up by the time the message was delivered.

But there was no one to blame for this — if blame there was, it lay with the mountain roads.

As Liu Chengzong left the mountains, he glanced back at the deep valley road and made up his mind: unless absolutely forced, he would never again in this life plunge into the official roads of such a great mountain range.

Better to take the wild village tracks through the lesser hills.

Liu Chengzong thought highly of He Zan. After He Huchen and the other officers had been placed under temporary guard, he sent someone to fetch He Zan alone.

The various outpost units of Lion Camp were encamped on the east bank of the Luo River, and the two men also found a dry, ancient stone pavilion on the east bank, where they sat and talked for a while.

Liu Chengzong asked, "You — how did you come to see things clearly?"

"I didn't see things clearly. It's just that victory was impossible. Fighting you is utterly meaningless."

He Zan had, in truth, seen Lion Camp's situation clearly, and understood the reason Lion Camp could rally the border troops.

It was because of this great drought.

The court had been shortchanging the lower-ranking border troops for far too long. It was not that Lion Camp was too strong, but that they were too weak.

This strength and weakness did not lie in the soldiers' fighting ability or morale, but in the fact that the expeditionary force had no complete deployment plan... The court had never treated this as a war.

They treated it only as suppressing a civilian uprising, the objective being to kill the bandit chieftain.

Yet in the prisoner-of-war camp of Lion Camp, after a brief two-day stay, He Zan already understood with perfect clarity that what the court faced in Shaanxi was not a civilian uprising, but a war.

One could even call it a war between states.

The old methods — the things the western armies habitually used against the northern caitiffs — no longer worked.

The court's way of dealing with the northern caitiffs was to bleed them: each border-wall garrison would select crack troops and fierce commanders to strike deep into the great desert, repaying the caitiff raids and plunder with killing in kind.

Supplemented by the Great Wall's economic blockade, they ensured the northern tribes could obtain neither coin, grain, nor iron tools, nor could their children grow to adulthood.

But this set of methods was useless against Liu Chengzong — even killing him would be useless.

The correct approach was to lock down Yan'an Prefecture, have every city seal its gates and strip the countryside, blockade all key routes, and have the Six Ministries of the court plan the forces needed to deal with the bandits, calculate the troops to mobilize, and tally the coin and grain required — then annihilate them completely in a single campaign.

Not like now, squeezing out a little strength and stuffing one unit after another into northern Shaanxi.

The border troops' morale was already low from unpaid wages; after suffering a defeat, they instead received tremendous comfort from the bandit soldiers once captured.

This made He Zan feel that the Ningxia soldiers were like a troupe of gift-bearing boys of fortune.

But these were things He Zan could not solve — even He Huchen could not solve them.

If both father and son died here, it would do nothing to help matters. Better to stay alive.

"I also think it's meaningless. If you had just guarded the border properly in Ningxia, you wouldn't have ended up like this today." Liu Chengzong sighed. "Dead or alive, we're all soldiers. Why inflict mutual ruin?"

With that, he said to He Zan, "You may go. Those who rebel are either famine-crazed refugees or poverty-crazed border troops. Guard the border well, and don't come meddling in affairs here again."

Liu Chengzong said it so easily — letting them leave — that He Zan found it hard to believe.

But then he understood. In truth, whether they surrendered or fled made no practical difference to Liu Chengzong's Lion Camp.

After all, if they surrendered, no one would do any work for Lion Camp. But the process of their surrender was very important to Lion Camp's soldiers.

Only with their surrender could it truly count as Lion Camp having defeated, fair and square, a government army force sent to suppress them under a Regional Commander.

He Huchen had led over two thousand Ningxia soldiers a thousand li from home, sweeping in with great momentum — and in the end, with over three hundred officers and household retainers, returned in dejection. Lion Camp escorted them ten li and watched as they led their force into the mud-choked official road of Ziwu Ridge.

Just days before, they had dealt Li Laochai a heavy blow at a bend on that very mountain road.

Seizing this rare moment, Lion Camp also conducted a full inventory at their camp southeast of the Luo River, tallying all the spoils of the Battle of Yellow Dragon Mountain.

The losses were considerable. Besides soldier casualties and illness, a large amount of provisions had been soaked, all seven heavy cannons were lost, and only the thousand-catty red-barbarian cannon — which had rendered great service — remained, still being slowly dragged along the mountain road.

The gains were also great. After a battle of the utmost peril, every man in Lion Camp now, whether battle soldier or auxiliary, unconsciously walked with head high and chest out when marching in formation.

And the addition of large numbers of Ningxia soldiers not only filled Lion Camp's gaps from battle deaths and wounds, but swelled the strength of the six combat outposts to over forty-five hundred. Together with the supply outpost and the labor outpost, total strength approached six thousand.

Most important was the scout cavalry. He Huchen's subordinate force had a full twenty-four squads, two hundred and eighty-eight scout riders — all were incorporated under Wei Qian'er's command, combining with the original twelve squads to form a scout cavalry unit of over four hundred men.

With a little consolidation and training, this scout cavalry force would, in future battles to shroud the battlefield, win even greater advantages for Lion Camp.

The force structure of the various outposts also underwent great changes with this influx of manpower. The most notable feature was that the six combat outposts grew from their original five hundred men each to seven or eight hundred.

Afterward, each outpost began reporting battle merits starting from the squad-leader level. In truth, their battle merits were hard to record accurately, mostly consisting of reports on conduct during the fighting.

In the end, all auxiliary soldiers — except for fewer than seventy who had truly shown cowardice in battle — were promoted to battle soldiers, while the Ningxia soldiers who had joined from the captives became auxiliary soldiers.

Lion Camp's structure underwent a strange shift, changing from the previous one battle soldier leading two auxiliaries to two battle soldiers leading one auxiliary.

And the auxiliaries' combat skills were no worse than the battle soldiers'.

In fact, some of the auxiliaries' combat ability was not sufficient to fulfill the duties of a battle soldier.

Men like Heaven-Monkey, Wang Wenxiu, and Cao Yao all reported this to Liu Chengzong, but Liu Chengzong decided he could not forget the old hands.

Skill was skill; merit was merit.

The newly arrived Ningxia soldiers had not earned an inch of merit — what would be the point of putting them in battle-soldier positions?

Besides, Liu Chengzong had no intention of keeping Lion Camp in this structure forever. This was merely a temporary expedient, using two soldiers to keep an eye on one newly joined border soldier.

The battle was over. Li Laochai let out a long sigh.

He was the biggest loser in this battle after He Huchen alone — over three thousand men reduced to just over a thousand, and the grain they had seized in Qingyang Prefecture all thrown into a mountain ravine, only for it to start raining.

He gained nothing at all, and on top of that, he now owed Liu Chengzong three thousand shi of grain.

Besides, Liu Chengzong… he was not someone he could afford to offend. The very day the battle ended, he turned himself into a tool, leading his troops south toward Zhongbu and Yijun, the two counties of Fu Prefecture, to requisition army provisions for Lion Camp.

The rain had stopped. Liu Chengzong was thinking about Du Wenhuan.

Du Wenhuan had indeed withdrawn his troops from Yichuan — so what was he doing right now?