Chapter 88: Mule Camp

Seven days.

Yan'an's Jinming Post, Ansai's Yuanlin Post, and Yanchuan's Gangu Post were all attacked.

The prefectural city and the three counties' ten-li, twenty-li, and thirty-li relay stations were all burned clean to the ground.

The fires spread across the three counties, only halting slightly after burning into Yanchuan and destroying Wen'an Post and all the express relay stations to the north.

Yanchuan was not safe.

Only because of a heavy rain did the common folk return to farming, presenting a brief, fleeting peace.

Though the land here was still barren, the toiling folk laboring in the fields had something to strive for.

In northern Shaanxi, common people willing to scratch a living from the dirt never feared hardship.

Liu Chengzong's force swelled during the plundering, recruiting nearly two hundred promising seedlings.

These men included post-station hands who could ride and shoot, and relay soldiers accustomed to running ten li in three quarters of an hour.

They also got hold of over three hundred horses and more than six hundred donkeys and mules.

He did not disturb Yanchuan's tranquility, and even did quite a few good deeds.

In several villages on the southern and northern plateaus, he used grain taken from Wen'an Post to keep the people breathing.

In places like Jingjiagou and Huoshaoyao, he helped the people resist taxes, surrounding and accepting the surrender of the yamen runners on the spot.

He also spent two days at Sleeping Tiger Mountain south of the county seat, digging an irrigation channel for the local people.

He was no great philanthropist; he did these things for two purposes.

First, to summarize and refine his own thinking.

In arid regions versus non-arid regions... Liu Chengzong crossed out "non-arid regions" in his little notebook and wrote "rainfall-arid regions."

Different strategies must be used.

In arid regions, methods like armed resistance, grain distribution and recruitment, destroying county towns, raiding wealthy households, and attacking post stations can be used to demolish the court's grassroots power.

But in rainfall-arid regions, such methods do not work.

As long as the common people see a sliver of hope, most will not risk their necks to rebel; even the usurious wealthy households can gain the people's support.

Liu Chengzong wrote these words in his notes, pondering solutions more deeply.

Another set of memories told him that everything must be viewed as having two sides.

In this situation, one must do good deeds for the people — distribute grain, carry water, seize the chance to resist taxes, dig channels. Even if a bandit, one must appear before people's eyes as a righteous outlaw.

In this way, merely displaying a moral standard slightly higher than that of an ordinary person can also achieve the effect of destroying the officials' grassroots power and winning the people's hearts.

Because even if the common people escape the drought, they cannot escape the tax collectors and yamen runners after the drought; and even if they escape them, they cannot escape the debt-collecting hired thugs.

Even if their luck is so good they evade all of these, wherever he is, government troops will sooner or later come there too.

Drought, wealthy households, officials, and government troops.

This combo move is immensely powerful, and once knocked the Licentiate Liu of Black Dragon Mountain flat.

Liu Chengzong did not believe anyone could fully block it.

If a single move cannot be parried, one ends up either a dead ghost or a rebel.

As for the second purpose of doing good deeds, it was much simpler.

He wanted to trade the post-station horses for the donkeys and mules of the wealthier farmers.

Horses simply eat too much; Liu Chengzong could not bear the grain consumption brought by over three hundred horses.

Soldiers can be raised like sons — feed them one and a half jin a day and no one complains, two jin and they're over the moon.

Horses must be served like ancestors — five jin a day counts as half-full, and only at eight jin are they willing to carry you at a run.

Mules are far more comfortable — feed them two jin of feed and they'll do whatever you ask.

Trading one horse for two mules was a very good deal for Liu Chengzong.

Very quickly, the entire force achieved two mules per man, and Lion Camp became Mule Camp.

Of course, they still kept over eighty horses. Apart from twenty-odd for the officers, the remaining warhorses were all assigned to the post-station hands skilled at riding, forming a scout cavalry unit to screen the battlefield.

On the day Mule Camp completed its full equipment change, Liu Chengzong assembled the squad discipline officers and had each of them pick a short stick to tie at their waists.

Mule Camp's first order: except by special command or for the wounded and sick, no one is permitted to ride the pack animals while on the march.

If discovered, be prepared to be lashed by the short sticks.

All in all, until the seventh month, Liu Chengzong lived quite comfortably in the mountains east of Yanchuan.

With grain plundered enough anyway, he led his men marching through the mountains every day, going here, looking there, covering fifty li a day.

Apart from marching in column, they conducted no training in formation changes or the like.

Liu Chengzong merely tried his best to imitate his elder brother's manner, repeating to his subordinates some of the pointers his brother had taught him in the past.

Because when it came to drilling troops, Liu Chengzong only knew how to assign men; he was not familiar with actual troop training.

Cao Yao did know how to drill, but the man was too lazy to do it. He felt training peasant soldiers was a thankless task — these men were bound to die sooner or later, and if they survived a few battles they'd get familiar with war.

Teaching them later wouldn't be too late, saving himself the emotional investment. Painstakingly training someone only to have them gone after a single battle — how miserable would that feel?

This led to a cognitive gap appearing in Mule Camp on military matters.

Liu Chengzu's personal instruction had aimed to teach Liu Chengzong the mistakes ordinary people commonly make.

Liu Chengzong had learned those very well.

But mistakes that ordinary people would not even make — those Liu Chengzong did not know.

He was only busy recording the mountains and river terrain, to make guerrilla warfare easier later.

Incidentally, he also took the old brothers in the force who had never left their home village within ten li to see famous historical sites — ancient stone carvings, Helian Bobo's White Lump Temple and burial ground.

They followed the Qingjian River southeast all the way to Shequ, and gazed upon the surging, rolling Yellow River.

Further north was Yanshui Pass.

That place had been a ferry crossing since the Qin dynasty; from there, in just half a day, the entire force could cross the Yellow River into Shanxi.

Under the court's existing regulations, government troops in Shaanxi could only suppress bandits in Shaanxi; if the bandits fled into Shanxi, Shanxi's forces had to do the suppressing.

These several ferry crossings along the Yellow River could all serve as bridges for them to move back and forth.

Only, the problem now facing Liu Chengzong was that this place was called Yanshui Pass precisely because the court had established a pass here.

It was garrisoned by a Squad Commander.

Liu Chengzong did not dare bring his company close; he only took a few men to gaze from afar atop a mountain.

Conditions here were far better than in most places in northern Shaanxi — perhaps because of convenient transport. Not only were the troops sufficient in number, but judging from the cooking smoke, the soldiers could eat two meals a day on time.

Holding a pass, sufficient troops, able to eat their fill.

Government troops like these could fight very well.

Liu Chengzong had no intention of provoking them, yet he never imagined that while the tiger had no thought of harming men, men harbored thoughts of harming the tiger.

On the evening of the twelfth day of the seventh month, the Mule Camp was resting in the mountains when the outpost riders on sentry duty rapidly relayed word back by means of gradual withdrawal and flag-waving.

Government cavalry had turned off the official road toward Yanshui Pass; it looked as though they were relaying military intelligence. No movement from the government troops had yet been detected.

Immediately after, a second message came back from the outpost riders: villagers from Jingjiagou in Yanchuan County, who had been helped before, had risked their lives to bring word — a unit was encamped west of the county seat.

This unit was commanded by a Mobile Corps Commander surnamed Lu, who was currently dispersing his men among four villages to demand grain.

It was said these government troops had come once ten days earlier, but because the post stations and express relay posts had all been destroyed, they assumed Yanchuan had fallen and withdrew.

This time they had brought somewhat more provisions and fodder, but since they had few horses and mules, they still had to rely on Yanchuan County for resupply.

The county office had already been tormented by Monk Wang for a year and had no means to support their villages, so they could only set their sights on the common folk.

That the common folk came running to bring word filled Liu Chengzong with great gratification.

In his heart he exclaimed that the grain had not been scattered in vain, nor the water carried for nothing.

Yet he never expected the commoner's next sentence would nearly make him faint: "Tiger General, go quickly and wipe them out — if they keep plundering, the village will have nothing left."

This world was too absurd.

I am a bandit, the biggest bandit in Yan'an Prefecture — it stands to reason that you'd ask me to kill and burn.

But to ask me to wipe out government troops?

Clearly I am the one who ought to be wiped out, yet why does it actually sound a little tempting?

Cao Yao clapped Liu Chengzong on the shoulder and said, "Don't listen to his nonsense — we ought to be running."

"But Brother Cao, this government unit came precisely looking for us. With luck, we hide in the mountains and evade them; without luck, we get overtaken and still have to fight them."

Liu Chengzong analyzed: "While they've scattered to gather grain, concentrate our forces and knock out a portion. Even if we can't knock them out, launch a raid and then run."

He had a premonition — after Li Bei's pursuit of Old Huihui, the second marathon of the Chongzhen era in northern Shaanxi was about to begin.