Chapter 529: If Not You, Then Who?

On the day the Marshal's banner was raised once more over the Zhuanglang Garrison city, Liu Chengzong led an even larger army winding southward, the travel-worn troops trudging with heads down all the way toward the Yellow River.

When the choice between promotion and immortality was laid before the officers and men of the Western Camp, every last one of them chose the former without the slightest hesitation.

Zhang Xianzhong's decision came swiftly, but his arrangements were meticulous: taking the Zhuanglang Garrison's wealth, goods, population registers, and land records, he led twenty officers, forty private secretaries, and sixty military attendants, along with thirty fine horses and thirty chests of valuables, out of the Zhuanglang Garrison to have an audience with Liu Chengzong.

Also leaving the city with them was Feng Shilin, his face a mask of gloom.

Feng Shilin was thinking, what the hell is a Zhuanglang county magistrate anyway? What I want is to be the City God of Zhuanglang County.

For centuries to come, every magistrate taking office here would first have to go sleep a night in the City God Temple and await instructions — my main job would be delivering dreams to them. Every Earth God shrine on this land would be occupied by an acquaintance of mine, and the City God Temple of Zhuanglang County would be the ancestral temple of my Feng family!

Compared to that, dying thirty years early would just be returning to my post a little sooner.

Even if Zhang Xianzhong had him bound, carved up by a thousand cuts, his heart gouged out, his entrails ripped forth, and his body burned to ashes, Feng Shilin wouldn't have cared... a little suffering, a little torment — so what?

One foot already on the threshold of the Jade Emperor's palace, immortality right before his eyes — and then goddamn Zhang Xianzhong decides to leave the city.

As if Feng Shilin could possibly look pleased!

In the great camp west of the city on the opposite bank of the Zhuanglang River, Liu Chengzong sat upright inside the command tent and heard a scout report: "Commander, the Zhuanglang Garrison has opened its gates. Magistrate Feng is coming out with over a hundred people."

Yang Qi, standing in attendance at the central command, asked, "Commander, shall I instruct the Tiger Guard to give them a taste of intimidation?"

Liu Chengzong gave a soft laugh and waved his hand. "No need. Just welcome them in properly."

In his mind, he had already tested the matter of intimidation against Zhang Xianzhong.

Intimidation is essentially telling others you're not to be trifled with — or, put another way, that you're not the docile sort.

What Zhang Xianzhong had done in the Zhuanglang Garrison conveyed exactly that to Liu Chengzong: the impression that Zhang Xianzhong was not the docile sort.

Docile people don't make trouble for others, and Zhang Xianzhong was clearly very good at making trouble. Docile people never get enough of being taken advantage of; those skilled at stirring up trouble often benefit from it. These are two different life strategies — better rewards, greater risks.

He had seized the Zhuanglang Garrison and issued orders treating it as his own territory — that was, in fact, making trouble. Being skilled at making trouble is a formidable talent, because there is a measure to it. If you misjudge that measure, too little achieves nothing, and too much is courting death.

Zhang Xianzhong was not so inflated as to think that he, Liu the Lion, couldn't destroy him. He had only six thousand troops; facing the Marshal's headquarters' victorious army fresh from subduing Gansu, he had no chance of winning in a real fight.

He had simply calculated that destroying him wasn't worth it for Liu Chengzong.

For one, it would chill the hearts of a hundred thousand rebel troops; for another, he would still have to absorb losses. Even at a six-to-one exchange, taking a thousand casualties for the Zhuanglang Garrison wouldn't be worth it for Liu Chengzong.

If it wasn't worth it, he would have to use compromise outside of war — this was Zhang Xianzhong setting up his own target, creating an opportunity for Liu Chengzong to haggle. The core idea was to avoid being swallowed whole by Liu Chengzong.

His goal was to advance a foot by seizing the Zhuanglang Garrison: if circumstances were favorable, hold it for half a year or so; if unfavorable, retreat five inches, with Liu Chengzong recognizing his status as an independent allied commander and yielding the Zhuanglang Garrison.

If he succeeded, whether in tangible gain or prestige — at least for Zhang Xianzhong, with his few troops and weak position — any concession made by the Grand Marshal Liu Chengzong would be a victory for him.

But what Zhang Xianzhong truly hadn't anticipated was that the shape of Liu Chengzong's mind was unlike anyone he had ever met.

The problem he threw out, the target he set up — Liu Chengzong simply didn't engage with it at all. Instead, he turned around and hurled a soul-searing question of life and death at every single one of Zhang Xianzhong's six thousand troops.

If you want to live, I'm recruiting soldiers; if you want to die, I'm recruiting ghost soldiers. In short, you're all fellow countrymen from Shaanxi, and now that you're on my territory, I will definitely arrange a job for each and every one of you.

Zhang Xianzhong's greatest bargaining chip was the hundred thousand fellow countrymen in the Qinling Mountains. He thought he could be the thousand-gold horse bones.

He never expected Liu Chengzong to recruit a City God, create six thousand job openings, and solve the problem. Whether you wanted to live or die, he arranged work for you. With things handled to this degree, which fellow countryman could still say a single bad word about Liu?

Not only was the Western Camp soldiers' will to resist shattered — even Zhang Xianzhong himself no longer had any desire to be hostile.

If you defend the city to the death, you die and become a ghost separated from the living; if they attack fiercely outside the city and die, they get ranked among the immortals... there's just no way to fight this war.

Not long after, as Feng Shilin entered the central command, Liu Chengzong also caught sight of a weather-beaten Zhang Xianzhong, leading the Western Camp officers and standing outside the camp gate.

Yang Qi, acting on Liu Chengzong's instructions, went forward and ushered the commanders into the camp. Guards had long since arranged folding chairs, waiting only for everyone to salute and take their seats.

Feng Shilin stepped forward and said, "Commander, the commanders of the Western Brigade have received their commissions and entered the camp for an audience."

Liu Chengzong first studied Zhang Xianzhong carefully from a short distance, matching this man with the drunken constable on Black Dragon Mountain from so many years ago. He thought to himself that whether in appearance or expression, Zhang Xianzhong had undergone tremendous change.

Zhang Xianzhong's face still bore the faint sallowness of wind and sun. His two sword-like eyebrows paired with his burly frame made him look exceptionally imposing, but his face now had many pockmarks that hadn't been there before — likely smallpox contracted during these years of wandering.

The greatest change was in his bearing. Gone was the resentful, world-blaming attitude of his constable days; his entire person now radiated an air of competence and self-assurance.

At that moment, Zhang Xianzhong was also observing Liu Chengzong. Their gazes collided on each other's faces. For an instant, Zhang Xianzhong instinctively glared back with righteous defiance, then caught himself, reined in his expression, and averted his eyes.

Liu Chengzong, leaning on the low table, laughed silently. He swept his gaze over the Western Camp commanders, then looked up and said to the dejected Feng Shilin with a smile, "You seem very disappointed."

Feng Shilin turned his head to glance at Zhang Xianzhong and the others again, then turned back, cupped his fists, and said, "This humble official wouldn't dare."

"Good that you wouldn't dare. Avoiding fratricide is always a tremendous blessing at any time. When thousands or tens of thousands of lives are at stake, don't weigh personal honor or disgrace too heavily... Be a good county magistrate. The post of Zhuanglang City God — I'll keep it for you."

Feng Shilin's face broke into a delighted grin at these words, and he immediately prostrated himself to express his gratitude.

The guards in the central command all looked at him with exceptional envy — envious that he had two fine older brothers, and envious of his luck.

With Feng Shilin's background, he was, like Zhao Kebian, a model exemplar for the Marshal's headquarters. There was one minor downside to being an exemplar: whether serving in the military or in office, commanding officers and supervising officials would never give them opportunities to cause trouble or take risks.

This also determined that the road of life ahead of him was a smooth, open path — he would never achieve great wealth or high rank, but he would also never suffer the slightest hardship.

That his two fine older brothers had died in battle at the Zhuanglang Garrison was naturally the main reason Feng Shilin received such treatment, but the more crucial catalyst was that Liu Chengzong's Marshal's headquarters now truly possessed the capacity to carve out an independent domain in the northwest.

In earlier years, there had been cases of brothers, fathers and sons, uncles and nephews dying in battle in northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, but back then Liu Chengzong hadn't had the ability to promise anything. Moreover, being an exemplar itself meant that not everyone could receive such treatment — otherwise there would be no need for exemplars.

Becoming an exemplar was the combined result of favorable timing, advantageous terrain, and unity among people.

That said, exemplars themselves are useless to the majority who yearn for guaranteed outcomes; they are only useful to those ambitious sorts who yearn for challenge and achievement — people who will pour all their strength into a single stroke of chance.

And those are precisely the people whom exemplars stir to action.

As for Zhao Kebian and Feng Shilin, comparatively speaking, Liu Chengzong had given Zhao Kebian better treatment, but he had given Feng Shilin a better promise... While alive, a rank-seven county magistrate who could be promoted; if alive but not promoted, then upon death, promoted to upper-rank-four.

Zhang Xianzhong keenly noticed that the moment Liu Chengzong made this guarantee to Feng Shilin, a flash of excitement passed through the eyes of nearly every soldier in the central command.

He suddenly felt great admiration for Liu Chengzong. He had always thought he himself would be Liu Chengzong's thousand-gold horse bones, but he never imagined that Feng Shilin was the true thousand-gold horse bones.

Zhang Xianzhong admired Liu Chengzong's ability to squeeze every last drop from the human heart. Here was this utterly insignificant little fellow — alive, Liu Chengzong could use him as a prop to win people's hearts; dead, a City God, still a prop to win people's hearts.

Even an offhand remark about keeping a City God post for him could stir the morale of the entire central command.

Zhang Xianzhong mulled it over: this deification tactic — it really does seem goddamn effective.

What he didn't know was that the flash of excitement in the eyes of the Tiger Guard soldiers had absolutely nothing to do with what he was thinking.

The name "Tiger Guard Camp" came from the Marshal's headquarters' three-rank, nine-grade soldier honor system. The three ranks were Skilled Soldier, Tiger Guard, and Elite Cavalry, each divided into three grades. Skilled Soldiers were recruits, Tiger Guards were veterans, and Elite Cavalry were junior officers.

But at present, there were essentially no Tiger Guards in this camp, because the Marshal's headquarters had never conducted large-scale recruitment, so naturally there were no recruits — and without recruits, where would veterans come from?

They were all Lion Camp officers awaiting promotion and surrendered soldiers who had distinguished themselves in battle. Their soldier honors were generally first- or second-grade Elite Cavalry; the next step up was Commandant, and Elite Cavalry were also called squad leaders in other camps.

As for those standing guard and holding banners at such an occasion, they were basically all centurions. Because Ming-dynasty Shaanxi was so vast, the Marshal's Office officers had a very strong regional character — they were all shrewd veterans from Yan'an Prefecture, Yulin Garrison, and Ningxia Garrison who had led troops. Any one of them could see the future in Liu Chengzong's guarantee to Feng Shilin.

Liu Chengzong's guarantee to Feng Shilin was essentially useless to most of the Marshal Army. Even if Feng Shilin were granted the title of Great Sage Equal to Heaven, the old soldiers would feel no empathy with him whatsoever.

After all, the old soldiers of the Marshal's Office were not recruited through conscription. They did not have a mother who bore four sons and handed three to the Grand Marshal, nor brothers who could both die in a single battle, nor clan members who had become City God and could treat the City God Temple as their family shrine.

Even if some brothers in the army identified with the older brother, the one they identified with was the brother who died in Zhuanglang City, while the younger brothers mostly had no wish to see things from Feng Shilin's perspective.

The role model who could stir the old soldiers' motivation was Zhao Kebian — a centurion who, with real blade and spear, charged ten thousand troops with five hundred cavalry, pierced the State Preceptor with a single arm, and earned the rank of Manifest Bravery General of the upper third grade, serving as Director of the Hexi Military Affairs Bureau of the Marshal's Office Army Department.

The officers of the Tiger Guard Battalion could all see clearly what kind of people and what kind of matters a model like Feng Shilin held the greatest exemplary significance for — the greatest significance was for the clans, families, and able-bodied men under the Marshal's Office, as well as for recruitment work, new recruit training, and the inspiration of combat courage.

As long as this man lived, he was the Marshal's Office's gilded signboard for recruitment. If you fought bravely, surviving to achieve merit and establish your career was of course best, but even if you unfortunately died in battle, there was no need to rush into reincarnation — the Grand Marshal's Office had vast, boundless territory and a complete deification system. One man's death in battle brought glory to the entire clan.

And when would the Marshal's Office, which had never once worried about its source of soldiers, need large-scale conscription and new recruit training?

They were not far from going home — and not fleeing back to northern Shaanxi, but leading troops to fight their way back to their homeland.

This was precisely what stirred the old soldiers of the Tiger Guard Battalion most.

Just then, Liu Chengzong rose. He gestured to Zhang Xianzhong and the others, saying, "Since you have all decided to join my army, from now on we are one family. If you serve me loyally, I will certainly treat you all equally. So there is no need to stand on ceremony — please, all of you, be seated."

Hearing Liu Chengzong's tone, Zhang Xianzhong understood he had no intention of blaming them, and his heart lightened. He hurriedly led his officers to salute once more and ordered men to bring the gifts to the central command, then led them to take their seats in turn.

Liu Chengzong did not care about those trifling gifts. What mattered more was greeting the officers of the Western Brigade at every level. Their relationship was neither close nor distant — they had all started out in northern Shaanxi, they simply had never crossed paths before. The local customs were the same, and they had all served as border troops, so building rapport was quite simple.

However, once they had exhausted the talk of far-off matters and turned to the matters close at hand, the atmosphere grew somewhat heavy.

Zhang Xianzhong asked, "Grand Marshal, I have now received the post of brigade commander, but I still do not know where the four battalions of the Western Brigade are to be stationed, or where our provisions, pay, and supplies are to come from."

Liu Chengzong did not answer. He gestured toward Yang Qi.

Yang Qi had once been a regional commander and had also led the Supreme Commander's Guard Battalion, so he was most familiar with documents and military organization. Liu the Lion had discussed incorporating the Western Camp with him earlier. Now, hearing this, he spoke: "Commander Zhang, the four battalions of the Western Brigade are all understrength. You will temporarily be stationed in Zhuanglang County. Within three days, officials from the Marshal's Office Army Department will arrive in the army to organize the troop registers and set military merits, pay, and provisions."

"As for your subsequent station, you will follow the Grand Marshal's orders when the time comes."

Though Yang Qi said this, everyone knew in their hearts that the so-called station was just a pleasant term. In an age where soldiers and grain were precious as gold, no one with a full belly would incorporate an army just to have it sit in garrison. Incorporation today, battle tomorrow — that was the norm.

What Zhang Xianzhong truly wanted to ask was precisely the Marshal's Office's next direction of attack — whether it was Guanzhong or Sichuan.

But seeing that neither Liu Chengzong nor Yang Qi had mentioned the station, he did not press further. Instead, he cupped his fists and said, "I have just arrived and have yet to achieve any merit, yet I have received the post of brigade commander by the Grand Marshal's grace. Therefore, I request to go into battle."

"Oh?" Liu Chengzong's smile was complex, and he asked with keen interest, "At present, Ningxia, Lanzhou, and Turpan are all fronts in active combat. I wonder which direction Commander Zhang wishes to request?"

This question left Zhang Xianzhong dumbfounded. He had never even been to a place like Turpan, and Ningxia was even less worth mentioning — tens of thousands of border troops crying out with hunger. If he threw his six thousand men in there, they would be skinned and flayed alive. Why provoke them?

As for Lanzhou, he was unwilling to go there either. The situation in that place was far too strange. Within two hundred li, rebels and government troops were intermingled, as close as one family.

To the north, in Gansu, they fought to the death, yet near Lanzhou, brigade commanders could not command the rebels, and the Supreme Commander could not command the government troops. The whole field was playing at war. Zhang Xianzhong prided himself on having fought a hundred battles, but every single general who appeared on that battlefield — their actions were utterly incomprehensible to him.

Therefore, Zhang Xianzhong cupped his fists and said, "When the Grand Marshal advances into Guanzhong, I request to lead a detached force to break through Nanyang Prefecture via Shangluo, plant the Grand Marshal's battle flag atop the walls of Fengyang, the Central Capital of Zhu Ming, and then withdraw to Huguang to fight fiercely. This will surely prevent north and south from aiding each other, helping the Grand Marshal storm the capital!"

"A fine plan!"

Liu Chengzong clapped his hands and laughed heartily. And then you'll lead your army into Sichuan and establish the Great West, right?

To him, even if the officers and soldiers of the Western Camp requested battle now, he would not let them fight. They still needed to be tempered — tempered until they felt that not going into battle would be wasting their years.

He smiled and said, "However, there are some things you do not yet know. Magistrate Feng has come from Hehuang. Some days ago, he received court dispatches — the court, the Later Jin, and the Northern Desert forces are all gathering beyond the Xuan-Da passes. The situation is not yet clear. Beyond that... the Western Brigade still has a mission to carry out."

Zhang Xianzhong perked up, doing his best to look eager to take on responsibility. He watched as Liu Chengzong counted off on his fingers: "In the Zhuanglang River Valley, one Temple of Emperor Guan is needed, one City God Temple, one county school, and forty-seven Earth God shrines. Your troops are assigned to build them."

Zhang Xianzhong blinked, doubting his own ears. "Me, build temples?"

"Of course."

Liu Chengzong said, as if it were only natural, "My brother promised the officials and people of the Zhuanglang River three years of tax exemption. The Marshal's Office naturally cannot then impose corvée labor. That being the case, if you don't build them, who will?"

Good morning!