Chapter 89: Jingjiagou

Liu Chengzong climbed the ridge and looked out over Jingjiagou.

He had helped those commoners resist taxes there, and even led the villagers to overturn the grain chief's house.

So he was very familiar with this village.

This mountain gully produced salt, iron, coal, and pottery; it grew plenty of pasture grass, medicinal herbs, and trees, but had very little farmland.

It was originally a coal mountain. Later, the easily mined coal was all dug out, leaving the commoners to settle here. Even in normal years, they could only scrape by with handicrafts.

They made wine bowls, clay pots, and roof tiles from the clay, and fashioned some farm tools from the poor iron ore in the mountain, carting them out load by load to sell for money.

The commoners lived so tight they wished they could dig last year's unsprouted seeds out of the fields to eat. The government troops, on the other hand, had made themselves quite comfortable occupying the place.

On the ridge, the commoner who had brought word was named Jing Xiaoliu. Pointing at the gully, he said with deep hatred, "The villagers all ran off. They seized the village, turned out everything left in the houses, and they're even cooking noodles!"

Northern Shaanxi is a strange place, crisscrossed with ravines and gullies.

Two spots that look very close — Liu Chengzong was barely a li from the village — but to get there, no matter which path you took, you'd have to detour seven or eight li.

The government troops had set up a sloppy defense in the village. Besides the front and rear sentries visible at a glance, Liu Chengzong also spotted two hidden sentries.

"Look there. My brother often stuck a hidden sentry in a spot like that."

Liu Chengzong pointed it out to Cao Yao, then immediately frowned and asked Jing Xiaoliu, "You killed the horses — didn't you say it was to sell them for money?"

In the courtyard of the grain chief's big house in the village, two pots had been set up, and the mess soldiers were dropping meat into them.

A large crowd of soldiers sat all around, packed three rows deep and three rows wide around the pots.

From Liu Chengzong's position, he could only make out the skeleton of a large draft animal.

"How could we bear to kill the horses? We sold three to trade for grain, plus that fine horse from the grain chief's house. The three left over, nobody wanted to buy. When the government troops came, we led them all into the mountains."

Jing Xiaoliu spoke with pent-up frustration, pointing into the village. "That's the grain chief's lame horse. It wouldn't walk and wouldn't obey. The villagers couldn't take it with them, and the government troops couldn't ride it, so they slaughtered it."

As he spoke, Jing Xiaoliu shuddered. "When they killed it, I was hiding on the mountain right over there. That horse screamed terribly. They tied it up and even broke the knife stabbing it — had to stab it several times before it died."

Liu Chengzong had no interest in how the horse died. He asked, "Do you know where these government troops came from, and how many they are?"

"Five hundred!"

Jing Xiaoliu was absolutely certain. He spread his hands. "They ordered Jingjiagou to prepare meals for five hundred men, so we all ran off."

Cao Yao laughed so hard he shook. "The hell — no matter how I look, I can't see three hundred men here!"

The village followed a single road along the gully: eastward, it opened onto the official road at the mouth of the valley; westward, it led into the mountain mines.

The government troops were all holed up in the houses and cave dwellings — at most two hundred men, by any count.

Troop numbers could fluctuate up or down due to empty pay slots, battle injuries, leave, and other reasons, but the number of mid- and low-ranking officers in a regular army unit couldn't lie.

Two company commanders and three squad leaders were drinking in the big house's courtyard. The other squad leader looked like some unlucky sod who'd been squeezed out, riding around the village on horseback with a few attendants.

The numbers of officers and soldiers matched up.

Cao Yao leaned in and asked, "Lion, what do you think? Go down and talk it over with Gao Laosan and Rangzi?"

"Good and bad. The good part is they've got two hundred men — we can make a move."

Liu Chengzong drew a deep breath and pressed his lips together. "The bad part is they're near full strength. Xiaoliu said the government troops are led by a Mobile Corps Commander surnamed Lu, spread across four villages. Damn."

Using his real name was meant to draw the government troops' attention — after all, if he went by some title like Tiger General or Lion General, the government troops wouldn't even know who he was.

Only Liu Chengzong — the government troops knew this was the man who had looted Yan'an Prefecture.

But he hadn't expected using his real name would draw this many government troops.

At this ratio, this Mobile Corps Commander had probably brought around a thousand men looking for him.

Not easy to deal with.

Liu Chengzong and Cao Yao withdrew from the mountain, pondering the whole way what to do after striking this government force.

Just as they reached the mountain hollow where the troops were encamped, they heard the sound of hoofbeats approaching.

Wei Qian'er was coming back with two men, controlling four horses, a person tied to one of the horse's backs.

When they arrived, they flung the man to the ground, leaving him dazed and disoriented.

Wei Qian'er stabbed his eight-foot red-tasseled spear into the earth, jumped off his horse, and strode over with his head high and chest out, immensely proud. "Chief, caught a messenger."

He casually grabbed the captive by the head, snatched the iron helmet off him, and plopped it onto his own head — looked pretty convincing, actually.

"Well done!"

Liu Chengzong walked over with a smile. The captive's mouth was stuffed with a rag, his body bound tight, and a signal flag was still stuck in the back of his brigandine.

A dispatch rider.

He'd come from somewhere else, and very likely held intelligence on Mobile Corps Commander Lu.

He shot Cao Yao a look, telling the scout chief Feng Rang to take the captive away for interrogation.

Then he asked, "That's a dispatch rider — how did you catch him?"

"Stretched a rope across the road, tripped the horse, and beat him up."

Liu Chengzong looked down. Wei Qian'er's two fists were bruised purple and blue, and the palm of one hand was torn open. He asked, "What happened to your hand?"

"Burned it. He tried to launch a fire rocket." Wei Qian'er said, "I crushed the fuse tube out with my hand."

A ruthless man.

A fire rocket was a large firework, a kind of pyrotechnic that shot high into the sky when lit.

Civilians used them as toys; the military used them to relay alerts.

Especially at night, the shriek and flash could alert an entire camp.

Liu Chengzong found him a clean cloth to wrap his hand, then said to Cao Yao and Gao Xian, who had gathered around, "If there are no other hidden sentries, they'll probably spot us from two li out.

Fortunately, Jingjiagou is closed off — we can bottle them up in the gully and fight. No need to worry about them escaping.

But that's enough time for them to form ranks, and once they've set their formation, it'll be very hard for us to win."

Cao Yao said, "More than just very hard. Those two donkey carts at the courtyard gate, with tarps over them — judging by the size, they're carrying something two or three hundred catties. I figure they're two cannons.

If they form up right there on the threshing ground, we'll walk straight into their range."

If that's a general cannon, it can fire at us twice; if it's a Frankish culverin, we'd have to eat at least four rounds of shot.

Cao Yao's meaning was very clear.

Their recent successive assaults on post stations had all gone smoothly, and the morale of the five hundred men under his command was high.

Even knowing they were about to face government troops in battle, they showed no obvious fear.

The enemy was few in number, after all. Even if they had strong bows and fire lances, if they closed in and used those four small cannons to bombard them together, there was a chance to break them directly after a brief, bitter fight.

But enduring two or even four volleys of cannon fire — whether solid shot from over three hundred paces or grapeshot from within a hundred paces — was something they could not withstand.

After thinking for a moment, Feng Rang stepped forward and said, "I've got it clear. The whole force is over nine hundred men, from the Jingbian Garrison and the Jingbian Thousand-Household Station. Two hundred are here.

The Mobile Corps Commander Lu Cheng split them into four squads. The farthest is twenty li out, the nearest eight li."

Having said this, he lifted his chin toward Liu Chengzong and said, "They're here for you."

Liu Chengzong gave a brief laugh and asked, unconcerned, "What messages are the patrol riders relaying?"

"Routine reports, once every two hours."

As soon as Feng Rang finished, Cao Yao narrowed his eyes and said, "Then if this patrol rider doesn't go back, the government troops in the village will get suspicious. We don't have much time... do we fight or not?"

"We fight. They have cannons, so we won't let them form ranks. Wei Qian, didn't you say you'd beat me till I was spitting teeth?"

Liu Chengzong smiled. "You've got nerve. Do you dare follow me and charge the village with cavalry, piercing straight through?"

"Tch, what's there to be afraid of? If you dare, I dare."

Wei Qian'er stiffened his neck and spoke tough, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he couldn't help swallowing hard. Only then did he mutter under his breath, "My name is Wei Qian'er. Wei Qian is my father."