Chapter 57: Hunger is Harder to Bear

A meticulous plan is never easy to make.

The young men of Black Dragon Mountain had already begun raiding the rich households, completely unorganized.

Bands of twenty or thirty women, young and married alike, would set out at dawn and roam the surrounding villages.

Women often strike up friendships with other women more easily than men do with men; they would join up with women from other villages, who pointed out the wealthy homes, and then they acted as the vanguard, shoving servants aside and charging into the courtyards. If anyone blocked them, they would simply scream and shout, and no one could do a thing about them.

Once inside a courtyard, they would take grain and start cooking. No matter which village they were from, they would gather and eat their fill, then head to another village in the afternoon, each returning home at dusk with a small pouch of grain to boot.

This was something men found very hard to do. Some fellows, seeing the women succeed, thought it was a fine method and wanted to try it themselves, but they were beaten and driven out before they even entered a village.

Several dozen men gathered together looked far more destructive.

Liu Chengzong had the illusion that the situation had worsened in just a matter of days.

Indeed, the arrival of that band of thieves, the Seed Management Brigade, had shattered the ecological balance of Yan'an Prefecture, and the people of Black Dragon Mountain, having suffered losses, were now wandering everywhere, aggravating the situation.

Faced with such a restless crowd, Liu Chengzong dared not reveal any news to his clansmen.

"They could rally over a thousand people for me in a single day, and within half a month that force would swell to five or even ten thousand, and then everything would spiral out of control. How many people would I have to kill just to feed them?"

In the dilapidated cave-dwelling out back, Song Shouzhen, an iron chain shackled to his ankle, glanced at Liu Chengzong. "Then why have you come to find me?"

"Because you're a bandit. You know where the fortified manors are—the ones you couldn't breach."

A mocking look flickered in Song Shouzhen's eyes. "If we couldn't breach them, can you do it with just twenty or thirty men?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "Ten good hands are more than enough. You had over a thousand men and not even ten good hands among you."

Before Liu Chengzong, the musician from Yijun County felt a tremendous sense of defeat; he had a feeling Liu Chengzong might be right.

But he could not be sure, because he had indeed never seen the kind of "good hands" Liu Chengzong spoke of.

They had a few defeated and surrendered garrison soldiers.

But most were townsfolk and peasants. Someone like him, a musician taught to read for a few years by his mother, was already the intellectual ceiling of the group.

This made him desperately want to see, just once, what a good hand was.

He strained forward a step, the iron chain around his ankle clattering. "Take me with you, and I'll tell you where the fortified manors are—the ones we couldn't break!"

"I can take you. After this is done, you'll have to follow me into the hills and become an outlaw. I can't let you bring disaster back to our homes."

Having gotten the information he wanted, Liu Chengzong locked the cave-dwelling and left.

The clansmen had originally intended to escort Song Shouzhen to the prefectural jail, but the officials had rewarded them with meaningless honorary titles, and people had lost interest in the matter.

Lately, they had been thinking of either releasing him or killing him, and had not yet made a decision.

Emerging from the cave-dwelling, Liu Chengzong called for Chengzu, Cao Yao, and Cai Zhongpan. Each led out a horse, and they rode west.

The fortified manor Song Shouzhen had described fit Liu Chengzong's vision perfectly.

"Where exactly are we going?"

Cao Yao looked thoroughly annoyed. He had been in the back cave, just about to get restless with his wife, when Liu Chengzong had called him out. "I hadn't even pulled my pants up, and you drag me out in a frantic rush. What's the matter, has the Emperor passed away?"

Liu Chengzu also had no idea what was going on, but upon hearing Cao Yao's words, he frowned and said, "Can't you hope for something good? We've already lost three in a row. If another emperor kicks the bucket, how are the common folk supposed to survive?"

Liu Chengzong said nothing the whole way. Only after they had left Black Dragon Mountain and traveled a while longer, with no one else around, did he speak: "I went to see Song Shouzhen today."

"That scoundrel..."

Cao Yao suddenly perked up, hastily spurring his horse forward a couple of steps to catch up. "Did he stash away money and grain somewhere before?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "They were so poor they'd pawn their own pants. Where could they hide anything? But I did learn of one place that has money and grain. It just depends on whether Brother Cao dares to come with me and take it."

Liu Chengzu sensed from his words what his younger brother was planning, and his frown deepened.

Cai Zhongpan, however, was already in the know and simply said, "Lion, stop keeping us in suspense. Out with it."

Liu Chengzong was about to speak with a grin when he saw over a hundred people trudging along the official road in a cloud of dust. He quickly drew his saber, stood on guard, and steered his horse aside.

That group was armed with clubs, blades, and spears. In their midst, one man held high a long plain-cloth banner, upon which eight characters were inked: The King's Law is Hard to Defy, But Hunger is Harder to Bear.

Famine refugees—angry famine refugees, already armed, already on the move.

Once they had passed in a mighty, chaotic procession down the official road, Liu Chengzong and his companions resumed their journey. He said, "About a hundred li to the southwest, on the border of Fushi, Ansai, and Ganquan counties, there's a princely estate with vast fields."

"It's called a princely estate, but in reality, it's been privately seized by a steward of the Prince of Qin's household. That steward is named Zhang Qing. During the Tianqi era, he encroached upon ten thousand qing of pastureland. When someone sued him, he gathered his cronies and beat the official to death. Even the Grand Coordinator couldn't touch him."

"The lawsuit went all the way to the Emperor, but the Emperor refused to intervene and ordered the Prince of Qin's household to handle it themselves. So they sent him here to be the estate's head manager. The Seed Management Brigade tried to besiege the place for five or six days earlier. The fort has its own water and grain. In the end, they were driven off by Assistant Commander Xiao Guandou, who was there observing his mourning leave."

Having said this, Liu Chengzong turned to the three of them and smiled. "So, what do you think? If we take it, does that count as executing Heaven's justice?"

Cai Zhongpan's eyes went wide. He had not imagined that when Liu Chengzong said he wanted to do something big, he actually meant something this big.

Cao Yao was somewhat tempted, but he did not agree outright. He merely said, "You're planning to go take a look first, right? The four of us definitely can't take it."

Before Liu Chengzu could speak, Liu Chengzong had already said, "Big Brother won't be involved in this. We're going to scout the place. Big Brother understands military matters—he can see how it should be attacked and help perfect the plan."

"Once we've seized the grain, I'll head for the hills. Even if I'm exposed, it won't bring disaster to the family. Our father can just pretend he never had a son like me."

That instantly blocked every word Liu Chengzu had been about to say.

He was furious. "You make it sound so simple. If you die out there, what are our father and mother supposed to do?"

"If I really die, then that's fate. When I was defending the Great Wall for the court, I never feared death. To keep my own family from starving, I fear death even less. Brother, let's not speak of this matter further."

"Lion's right. Chengzu, you're being pedantic! What's more righteous than filling the bellies of your parents and uncles?"

Cao Yao, ever the one who feared no chaos, even gave Liu Chengzong a thumbs-up. "Besides, what good is a princely estate? We'll rob it, leave no survivors, and it'll be as if no one knows a thing."

Liu Chengzu was silent for a long while. After much deliberation, he finally forced out a sentence: "Lion, never mind whether we can take the manor. If we do take it, have you thought about how to transport the grain away?"

This was a critical point.

Liu Chengzong had not previously considered striking a target so far away, but the temptation of hitting the princely estate was simply too great.

Setting aside the money and grain, at least on a moral level, he would bear no psychological burden whatsoever.

The lingering virtue of the Hongwu Emperor's expulsion of the barbarians had long been exhausted. The imperial clansmen were now nothing but leeches clinging to the vast map, sucking it dry.

He chuckled, spurring his horse. "Let's go take a look first. It's a journey of over a hundred li. We'll certainly need to mull it over carefully before we make a move."