Chapter 552: Chen Qiyu Grows Up

Liu Chengzong went to meet with the Dragon King. Liu Xiangyu sat alone in the study of the Marshal's mansion, engrossed in a picture-story book.

This was not meant for children — the script had a fair amount of text, and the artwork was especially exquisite. The only blemish was the mediocre woodblock printing craftsmanship. It was printed on the Marshal's mansion's official document paper, and because they had rushed the job, it wasn't colored.

Still, it was already quite something to look at. The cover bore the names of the scriptwriter, the painter, and the woodblock carver. The scriptwriter was, naturally, Liu Shizi. The woodblock carver was no one famous. The painter, however, was a renowned artist of the Marshal's mansion — a Commandant from northern Shaanxi named Xue Heshang.

Xue Heshang was no monk; he was just a bald man.

This fellow and that Li Baliang under Luo Rucai were from the same hometown, both men of Wen'an Post. In the peaceful years past, both had been local celebrities at Wen'an Post. Li Baliang was a peddler notorious for short-weighting his goods; Xue Heshang was a painter who, whenever the spring outing season came around, would paint portraits of beauties for people — one painting for one jin of beef.

When the drought struck, these two brothers in misfortune successively fell into becoming roving bandits. Li Baliang followed Luo Rucai, while Xue Heshang, even earlier, had followed Wang Zuogua. Later he surrendered to the government troops and served as a soldier under He Renlong. Only during the He-Huang campaign did he surrender to Liu Chengzong.

This fellow never even managed to become a minor squad leader under Wang Zuogua, and under He Renlong he certainly didn't gain any official rank. It wasn't until he surrendered to the Marshal's mansion that he thought of using his hometown connections to send gifts to Soaring Monkey Liu Jiusi in hopes of a promotion.

Soaring Monkey accepted the gifts and did try to handle the matter. The main issue was that Xue Heshang was so poor he'd pawn his trousers — even his gifts were just a few paintings. Liu Jiusi took the paintings to Liu Xiangyu. After Liu Xiangyu saw the paintings, he directly tossed the man into the academy to study surveying and cartography.

The Marshal's mansion's surveying and cartography standards were extremely crude. The academy instructors and assistant instructors in charge of this subject actually had weaker painting skills than Xue Heshang. So after barely a year of study, he was granted Valiant Cavalry origin, appointed as a cartography assistant instructor at New City Academy, and was now a third-rank Valiant Might Commandant serving as an instructor.

This time, when Liu Chengzong needed someone to produce illustrations for the storybook, Xue Heshang was the right candidate.

Liu Xiangyu read with great relish. Not only did he read it himself, he also sent someone specifically to summon Yang Dingrui to read it together. Afterward, the two of them dispatched men to Xining to fetch Lin Wei, who oversaw the military farm colonies along the Yaoshui River.

It wasn't that Liu Shizi's Tale of Hexi was so grippingly told. Liu Xiangyu and Yang Dingrui already knew the entire story. The protagonist was Zou Feng, the Commander of Duogan Dan Guard. The plot concerned his time as the Postmaster of Huangyuan Post, when he faced the southward advance of Choktu Taiji and held the Yellow River line.

Liu Xiangyu and Yang Dingrui had both seen these events in the battle reports back then, and they had left a deep impression.

But a battle report that brushes past in a single line is one thing; now, broken down, elaborated, and accompanied by illustrations, it gave a far stronger sense of being there in person.

From Lion Camp to the Marshal's mansion, Liu Chengzong had fought for six full years. Yet in those six years of warfare, because Liu Shizi's command was consistently steady and he excelled at overwhelming opponents with sheer force, the war heroes who emerged were only a scant handful. Zou Feng counted as one.

This man had been personally promoted by Yang Dingrui.

The first half of Zou Feng's life was as unremarkable as men like Zhao Kebian. He came from the Ningxia border army. When Liu Chengzong campaigned south into Kangning Prefecture, Zou Feng was serving as a squad leader. He caught the eye of Kangning's Prefect Yang Dingrui, who sent him out to Huangyuan Post as a ninth-rank postmaster — a sesame-seed-sized official — and he became the son-in-law of a local tribal chief.

It happened that the Khalkha Choktu Taiji invaded, overrunning the post stations in succession and cutting off north from south. Facing the deaths of his comrades, Zou Feng, with a dozen-odd brave men and two ferries, fulfilled his duty to the utmost. Facing tens of thousands of Mongol troops, he held the strategic choke point, won nine battles out of nine, sank over ten enemy vessels, and pushed the Mongol army five hundred meters north. He fought until the Mongols dared not graze their horses within a li of the riverbank, holding out until Liu Chengzong led the Marshal's mansion's main army back in relief.

Afterward, Duogan Dan was established as a county and a guard. The fallen post soldiers were all enshrined as City Gods and Earth Gods, and Zou Feng was selected by Liu Chengzong as the first County Magistrate and concurrently Commander.

After Old Master Liu finished reading Tale of Hexi, though inwardly he thought the picture-story book was exquisitely made, he still looked puzzled and asked Yang Dingrui, "Shiwa says this is a sharp weapon for the Marshal's mansion to take control of Guanzhong. What do you think… how much effect can it have?"

Yang Dingrui's mind had already begun to wander.

After all, he had the experience of garrisoning Kangning, and his breadth of knowledge was indeed broader than Old Master Liu's, who had been stationed at the center of power. The things Liu Shizi brought out — the two of them wouldn't just view them as mere entertainment. After seriously pondering every possibility, Yang Dingrui felt that Liu Shizi hadn't told them the whole story.

He pointed at the Tale of Hexi resting on the tea table, but instead of talking about Tale of Hexi, his words suddenly leaped across half the realm. He said, "In Changhexi, there's a chieftain named Muya. Brother Xiangyu, you must have heard of him."

Liu Xiangyu naturally nodded. This Muya could be said to be the most famous chieftain in the Marshal's mansion's domain. He smiled. "I've heard Cai Zhongpan mention him."

"I estimate that this Tale of Hexi is an approach the Grand Marshal learned from his experience in Kangning."

Before Old Master Liu could voice his doubts, Yang Dingrui laid everything out: how Muya had helped Liu Chengzong spread his influence across the Kham-Tibetan region, hiring literati and monks, using the southern campaign against Kangning as a blueprint, combining it with local theological scriptures to create new stories, and sending out ascetic monks and bardic singers to roam the land.

"So this is merely a repeat of an old trick. However, I think it won't be of much use in Guanzhong."

Yang Dingrui spread his hands and smiled. "When I say this, it's not that the picture-story book is useless, but that we are all men of Qin — our native accent hasn't changed. The difficulty in taking all of Shaanxi lies not in the people's hearts, but on the battlefield. Right now, half the court's rebel-suppression forces have entered Shaanxi. One part is under Hong Chengchou in Ningxia; the other is under Chen Qiyu in Fengxiang. It's really the locust plague that has bogged them down. Otherwise, that Five-Province Supreme Commander would have long since slunk off to Henan."

Liu Xiangyu slowly nodded at this. It wasn't that the two of them looked down on Chen Qiyu — quite the opposite, they took him very seriously. It was Hong Chengchou they looked down on.

This was reflected in their intelligence. The Marshal's mansion's intelligence on the Ningxia direction was very limited; at the very least, they had no spies beside Hong Chengchou. In contrast, Yang Dingrui had dispatched dozens of live agents to Qinzhou and Fengxiang Prefecture, and the local agents and internal agents they had bought off numbered in the hundreds. They had almost completely ferreted out the intelligence on men like Chen Qiyu and Lian Guoshi.

Comparatively speaking, Chen Qiyu commanded quite a lot of troops — at least on paper, no fewer than Hong Chengchou. Not counting garrisoned guard-and-battalion troops, his field forces alone consisted of six understrength battalions. But the Ming army's morale in the Shaanxi sector had a very big problem.

In a place where people can't eat their fill, morale is bound to have a very big problem. No matter how capable Yang Dingrui and Liu Xiangyu were, without grain, they too had been at their wits' end back at Black Dragon King Temple Mountain. Now Chen Qiyu was in the same boat.

Shaanxi's six battalions were mainly divided into two parts. One was the Qin Army led by Zhang Yingchang, featuring those two gods of war, Yang Yanchang and He Renlong. The other was the Relief-and-Suppression Army led by Zuo Liangyu, featuring those two gods of war, Tang Jiuzhou and Deng Qi. The lineup was, by Great Ming standards, quite luxurious.

The Relief-and-Suppression Army in particular — they had few troops. Entering Shaanxi from Henan, their three battalions combined numbered less than six thousand men. They had also gone through the mutiny of Deng Qi's unit, and only after absorbing over a thousand peasant soldiers did they recover to six thousand men. But these were the elite of the elite.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, the three battalion commanders were all the most dazzling great generals of the Great Ming, having fought from Jiliao all the way to Shaanxi — one could say they had battled across the entire north, from east to west.

Zuo Liangyu was famously brave and skilled in battle. Since his reinstatement at the end of the second year of Chongzhen, there was hardly a month he didn't fight. He first fought the Later Jin at Zunhua, then at Dalinghe. In the fourth year of Chongzhen, he achieved the highest battle merit at Songshan and Xingshan. Leading his isolated and outnumbered two thousand Changping troops, he fought his way across Henan, Shanxi, and Northern Zhili, his merits resplendent.

Tang Jiuzhou's prestige and merits ranked alongside Zuo Liangyu's. He too fought alone across various regions, his subordinate officers dying and being replaced in waves.

Deng Qi was an even more formidable man of great toil and merit. He rose to prominence during the She-An Rebellion, earning the title of bravest among all generals — a fierce Sichuan warrior who raided bandit camps at night. His merit in cutting men down promoted him all the way to Sichuan Vice Regional Commander. In the second year of Chongzhen, he led six thousand Sichuan soldiers out of the province to serve the king. Wherever the Emperor pointed, he struck, not returning home for six full years. His loyalty to the Great Ming could be witnessed by the sun and moon.

And the Qin Army, drawn from Shaanxi soldiers, was no slouch either. They were already in Shaanxi, the region with the highest intensity of warfare. In Liaodong, at least, major battles only happened every winter when the marshes froze. In Shaanxi, ever since the second year of Chongzhen, bandits had swarmed and roving rebels had scattered in all directions — the fighting had never stopped.

Apart from a minority like Du Wenhuan, the type who sold horses while others marched and drank with courtesans while others fought, the survival environment for the vast majority of Shaanxi generals was no different from hell. They were either dead or about to die.

Take, for example, Shenmu Mobile Corps Commander Ai Wannian, also a fierce general. The year drought struck Shaanxi, he took up his blade and mounted his horse. For seven years of suppressing rebels, the man never took off his armor and the horse never shed its saddle.

For years on end, he chased the rebels through deep mountains and vast valleys, drinking filthy water by day and sleeping in the wilds by night. While out at war, he suddenly heard that both his parents had died back home in Mizhi. As he kept fighting, he heard his brothers and sisters were all dead. As he kept fighting, he heard his wife and children had perished together. Yet the war still had to be fought, the bandits still had to be chased. Illness couldn't be treated, wounds couldn't heal properly.

The Ai family was a prominent household in Mizhi. Many Shaanxi generals didn't have his family background. Yet even with that background, after Ai Wannian's parents, elder brother, and wife died, their bodies were placed in coffins and kept in state. He continued suppressing rebels until just last year, when he was finally able to request leave to go home, collect the bodies, and bury them. Because he had camped outdoors for years, he suffered from rheumatism and numbness. From sitting on horseback so long, he developed hemorrhoids and rectal prolapse. The man coughed up blood every day. He didn't have much time left to live.

Zhang Yingchang was a figure similar to Ai Wannian. The only difference was that he had always been suppressing rebels within Shaanxi and hadn't gone to Shanxi like Ai Wannian. He Renlong was similar too. Among the rebel-suppression generals of this period, never mind ability — if your luck was even slightly poor, you wouldn't have survived to this day.

Finally, there was Yang Yanchang.

To be honest, Chen Qiyu had for a time been extremely wary of the Yan'an Battalion. He wasn't wary of any one individual, but of the entire Yan'an Battalion.

Many of the Yan'an Battalion's officers at various levels had unclear origins. Some of their names were particularly bizarre, appearing to share the same hometown, clan, and generation as Liu Chengzong. Their conduct, equipment, and military bearing were so good they seemed fake. Who wouldn't be wary of something like that?

No matter who you were, if they were beside you, you'd have to rather kill a thousand by mistake than let one slip through.

But with a massive army pressing the border and a desperate need for capable men, Chen Qiyu's handling had to be gentle. He could only seek to divide and dissolve them. However, as more than half a year passed, especially after Zuo Liangyu, Deng Qi, and Tang Jiuzhou arrived in Shaanxi, Chen Qiyu carefully thought it over.

He realized that a year ago, he had been too young. There was no problem at all with the Yan'an Battalion. The times had changed.

Because he had seen the performance of both Zhang Yingchang and He Renlong with his own eyes. Zuo Liangyu, Deng Qi, and the others had all arrived too.

Did the Yan'an Battalion kill innocents to claim merit? No. Zhang Yingchang did.

Did the Yan'an Battalion rob and kill wealthy households? No. He Renlong did.

Did the Yan'an Battalion plunder and loot at will? No. Zuo Liangyu did.

Did the Yan'an Battalion passively slack off in battle? No. Tang Jiuzhou did.

Did the Yan'an Battalion stir up mutinies? No. Deng Qi did.

And as for officers of unclear origin — all the above battalions had them. Especially Zuo Liangyu and Tang Jiuzhou's two Changping battalions, and Deng Qi's post-mutiny reorganized Sichuan Battalion. Many newly recruited officers went directly by nicknames.

The Yan'an Battalion had good military bearing and good conduct — was that a problem? Oh, so you, Zhang Yingchang, garrisoned at Chankou for three months without engaging the Marshal's Army, reporting a great victory one day and a minor defeat the next. Do you really think I, Chen Qiyu, Old Master Chen, have no idea how those battle reports came about?

You, Zuo Liangyu, have utterly ruined military discipline, repeatedly disturbing the local peace. If not for the Minister of Revenue Hou Xun's vigorous protection, could you live so freely and easily? You, Deng Qi, were incompetent at managing your troops, leading your army to riot and mutiny. After the mutiny, no one dared speak up. The impeachment papers flew into the Forbidden City and vanished without a trace. Doesn't that all rely on the protection of your fellow townsman, the Eastern Pavilion Grand Secretary Wang Yingxiong?

Just because men like Yang Yanchang and Ren Quan'er have no one backing them above, I, Chen Qiyu, should hold them in contempt?

Moreover, he found that these problems were all understandable in this era — after all, the droughts, locust plagues, pestilence, and military disasters that Jingning Subprefecture had endured were not confined to Jingning Subprefecture alone; the lands these pacification armies had passed through had all suffered the same effects.

In the territory of Shaanxi, apart from the Three Frontiers and Five Garrisons, where else could supply the provisions for a great army of ten thousand, men eating and horses chewing?

They fought their way from place to place, the court's supplies often failed to keep up, the army had replenished its ranks with many captured roving bandits, and there was no time to drill troops or reorganize — yet the court kept ordering them on eastern campaigns and western expeditions. What the army would do when requisitioning supplies was easy to imagine.

Everything was barely holding on.

The army was barely suppressing the bandits, and the breakdown of military discipline was because there was no other way; the court was barely reining in the army, and even seeing discipline collapse, it could not punish them, because the fighting was not yet over.

In truth, it was not that the court had no one else to use — the reason they kept seizing on these few senior generals and using them relentlessly was precisely because they had ways to raise provisions while leading troops into battle. This was something everyone tacitly understood. The wrongs they committed were all being noted down — once the chaos of war settled a little, they would certainly be stripped of office and busted down to common soldiers.

Death was probably unlikely; Emperor Chongzhen at most would bust a military officer down to a common soldier. After all, these were troubled times, and when trouble came again, they would be given back great authority and reinstated.

So for Chen Qiyu, the situation in Shaanxi right now was very clear.

Apart from big brother, everyone else was a mole.

That is to say, apart from himself, the Five-Province Supreme Commander, the troops of all six battalions could very well be moles. Everyone was fine today, but tomorrow, over some trifling matter, they might mutiny, turn bandit, or be subverted by Liu Chengzong.

Zhang Yingchang's soldiers killed innocents and passed them off as war trophies — did anyone dare speak of it? He Renlong, relying on being from the same hometown, secretly plundered wealthy households at night and traded the loot with Li Zicheng — did anyone dare speak of it? Zuo Liangyu's soldiers took goods without paying and bullied people — did anyone dare speak of it? Tang Jiuzhou led his troops passively, always camping farthest from the front lines — did anyone dare speak of it? Deng Qi's troops mutinied in a flash, looted for a spell, and then were gathered back up — still, no one said a word.

Every last one of these generals would be busted down sooner or later.

The one who seemed least likely to be subverted among them was the Yan'an Battalion. As for robbing He Renlong and Zhang Yingchang — what did that even count for? After all, the Yan'an Battalion had to eat too.

Most crucially, Chen Qiyu was no fool. He had already seen that the Shaanxi army could not fight a large-scale pitched battle against Liu Chengzong. With the gallery of heroes under his command, one on one, those adjutant generals of the Marshal's Manor might not necessarily be their match.

But all together… Chen Qiyu felt the odds of victory were very low. To avoid disaster, they would probably have to get the Chongzhen Emperor himself to lead the campaign in person.

When things truly went wrong, he would still have to count on Yang Yanchang. As for the others, Chen Qiyu could not trust a single one of them now.

And so Yang Dingrui was not the least bit worried about Chen Qiyu. If not for the droughts and locust plagues, this war would have been over long ago. His hand traced a line eastward across the tea table. "The place where this thing will be useful is the southeast."

Good evening!