Chapter 86: Destroying the Foundation

Zhang Tianlin and Wang Ziyong, together with Liu Xiangyu and the father-son pair Liu Chengzu, went to Liu Family Village.

They were going to move the grain seized from plundering the Wang Estate.

Fortunately, the two men's followers numbered only a little over a thousand, and with the spoils from breaching the North Pass garrison city, they only needed a bit of resupply to hold out for a few days.

The first time Monk Wang laid eyes on Liu Chengzong, his face was filled with envy: "If I had your ability, I reckon I could have snatched victory from defeat several times over in Yanchuan."

Inside Cao Yao's old lair, Liu Chengzong smiled and cupped his hands toward the two in greeting: "Squad Leader Zhang, Chief Wang."

Monk Wang threw his head back in laughter and raised a hand, tracing a circle among the group: "I dare not accept such a title. Now, among the three of us, you are the great chief with crack troops and ample grain.

Up north, the Horizontal Sky King's good friend No-Stick-Mud has a headman under him called Night Scout, who's just like you — he can sleep lying on horseback."

The moment Liu Chengzong heard this, he knew this Monk Wang had never served as a soldier.

What was so remarkable about sleeping on horseback? At the Flower Horse Pool, Liu Chengzong had seen veteran patrol soldiers walking and sleeping at the same time, even turning corners along the patrol route in their sleep.

When humans get tired and sleepy enough, is there anything they can't do?

Cao Yao's stronghold, occupying a desolate mountain and an old temple, was utterly irregular — it didn't even have a Brotherhood Assembly Hall.

The few of them had no choice but to sit on the ground atop the mountain peak.

After clarifying the situation in Yanchuan and introducing Monk Wang's circumstances, he then said: "With Yan'an in this state, I reckon the Yan-Sui West Route will still send troops. What does Tiger General think — can we handle Li Bei?"

At this, Shooting Star looked a bit embarrassed: "Neither of us has ever met Li Bei, but we have seen Old Hui-Hui. Li Bei drove Old Hui-Hui beyond the passes — this man is formidable."

"I don't think we can beat him."

Liu Chengzong conceded defeat very naturally: "If I still had those two hundred men and you had me fight him, it might be possible after three months."

Right now, the thousand-odd men under his command came from sources that weren't complicated.

The Yan'an Guard banner troops numbered roughly one or two hundred; Li Wanqing and Black Dragon Mountain accounted for two hundred; three hundred came from famine refugees; the rest were all Old Hui-Hui's bandit soldiers from Yellow Dragon Mountain.

Among them, only the hundred or so men from Black Dragon Mountain had received proper training and were bound by clan blood ties — reliable and effective.

Once armed, these hundred-odd men could put up a fight against the well-fed Guard banner troops.

The others were no good.

The Yan'an Guard banner troops got three liang of flour a day and were familiar with weapons, true, but every man suffered from malnutrition and night blindness.

The hundred-plus at Tiger's Back, drawn from Li Wanqing's streamlined followers, had such a poor foundation that no amount of streamlining did any good.

As for Old Hui-Hui's followers who had fallen behind during the rout, they went without saying.

Every man a veteran of defeat — routed by Li Bei at Yellow Dragon Mountain, they fled all the way to Yan'an Prefecture.

Half joined the Lion Battalion at Tiger's Back; the other half were taken into the Yan'an Guard by Zhang Xiong.

Yesterday they were defeated by Liu Chengzu and also joined the Lion Battalion.

Morale, physical fitness, training, discipline — they lacked everything, and surrender had become a habit.

Fighting a winning battle and looting an earthen fort was their specialty, but facing regular troops in formation battle… even now, if someone shouted "Li Bei is coming," they'd take off running.

Zhang Tianlin said: "So what do you mean — should we run?"

"I heard from Chengyun that you two chiefs have the idea of merging camps with me."

Liu Chengzong shook his head and said: "Now that I've looted Yan'an Prefecture, I'm the target of all arrows. The court will send troops to suppress us before long. Merging camps with me at this moment is probably not a good idea."

He paused, then asked: "I'd like to ask — what is your purpose in raising troops, you two chiefs?"

Zhang Tianlin and Wang Ziyong exchanged a glance, both frowning.

Wang Ziyong said: "I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean merging camps isn't a good idea — are you telling us to leave?"

Zhang Tianlin said: "Didn't I tell you? The government troops wiped out my family, so I fight them."

"I'm not telling you to leave. I just woke up and only have a rough idea, not fully formed yet… It rained in Yanchuan — there's no soil for raising troops, so you came to Yan'an."

Liu Chengzong reached out and drew a map from memory on the loess ground: "To the north is Yansui Garrison, to the south is Xi'an Prefecture — both places have large armies stationed.

Yan'an has no government troops, and the grain looted from the Wang Estate stronghold is considerable. If we combine our two thousand men and carry the grain, we'll move slowly; if we don't carry it, all this grain goes to waste.

What's more, I believe that what I did in the prefectural city will embolden the surrounding bandits, mountain brigands, refugees, and famine victims — within these few days, they'll gather and start plundering the wealthy households."

At this, Zhang Tianlin raised a hand and cut in: "It's already happening. Down south there's a Collapse-the-Sky Liu Guoneng — he looted a fort last night. To the east, someone set fire to a landlord's compound, calling himself Cao Cao or something."

Clap.

Liu Chengzong clapped his hands in excitement: "That's exactly it. I know Collapse-the-Sky; no idea who this Cao Cao is.

We are in rebellion. Across all of Shaanxi, the court's ruling power has not yet collapsed. We can't resupply everywhere, and holding a defensible position to carve out a territory is seeking our own death."

At this, Liu Chengzong felt a twinge of regret — before leaving the city yesterday, he should have made one more trip to the prefectural magistrate's yamen and killed off all the officials there too.

He still hadn't broken out of a law-abiding commoner's mindset — not decisive enough.

Liu Chengzong asked: "What are your thoughts on the current situation, you two chiefs?"

"You said it yourself — carving out a territory is seeking death. So we run."

The moment Zhang Tianlin opened his mouth, he was a veteran long-distance runner: "Anyway, it's all about speed — fast grain looting, fast fleeing. By the time the government troops get word, we're already running somewhere else, making them exhaust themselves in pursuit. Even if they catch up, if we stick together, our chances of survival are a bit higher."

Wang Ziyong nodded repeatedly in agreement.

Seeing that both of them meant this, Liu Chengzong felt relieved and only then laid out his own thinking: "In my view, just running won't do — you need a purpose.

Aimless flight makes you a roving bandit; purposeful flight makes you a rebel.

The court is rotten to the core. To overthrow it, the prerequisite is having an army and winning the people's hearts.

An army's weapons, armor, and grain — if you rely on plunder, sooner or later there'll come a time when you can't plunder any more. So you have to establish a government.

But without the ability to annihilate the encirclement troops, we can't even hold a village or a mountain stronghold.

So the purpose of flight is destruction!"

Liu Chengzong reasoned backward, gradually straightening out the thoughts from his two sets of spacetime memories: "Destroy the court's local governance. Start from the villages — help the common people resist grain taxes and levies. Chief Wang here, with his White Lotus background, knows this best.

Ideally, we get the common people to voluntarily pass us information about the authorities.

Starting from Fushi County — from now on, the one in charge of county affairs is Vice Magistrate Meng. If anything comes up, send someone into the city to threaten him. Before the court dispatches a general, Yang Yanchang of the Yan'an Guard sold me weapons — we can keep in touch with him, bribe him to leak court military intelligence.

Anyone who isn't of one heart with us — get rid of them, and install our own people in the villages."

From now on, corrupt officials are our enemies in name only. In reality, they are doing the same thing we are — destroying the court's rule.

The villages will all be our people. Government orders won't reach beyond the county seat. When the official army comes, we mobilize the commoners to flee. Once they leave, the people go back. The official army will find no grain to resupply on our ground.

As one side wanes, the other waxes. Even if they are crack troops and fierce generals — if they win, we can concentrate our forces and annihilate them. If they lose, so long as the great drought persists, we will always have soil to recruit soldiers from.

Yan'an Prefecture is the best place to test this method."

Wang Ziyong listened, stunned and dazed, just short of clapping and cheering.

Zhang Tianlin was different. He had truly suffered losses trying to establish a base, and he had that natural feeling of once bitten, twice shy about it. He asked, "Tiger General, everything you've said is for later. Whether it can succeed is still uncertain, but the official army will be here soon.

Are you counting on Black Dragon Mountain and Liujiazhuang to starve the official army to death?"

"That is the most critical point, which is why I said merging camps is not a good idea. I'm not telling you to leave — if you leave, the court will still come looking for me."

Liu Chengzong paused, stood up, and stretched his arms. "The one they want to kill is the Liu Chengzong who attacked the county seat and killed the county magistrate in Yan'an Prefecture — not Zhang Tianlin or Wang Ziyong.

Today Chengyun asked me whether to stay or go, whether to fight or surrender.

My thinking is: stay and go. Neither fight nor surrender.

You take good care of my family. I'll go raid the earthen forts and draw the official army elsewhere."