Chapter 1011: West to Xuzhou

Some muttered about good luck, but Xie Mingxian knew better — it was because he had left an extra fifty taels of gold, along with a threatening note saying they had men waiting outside, that if anyone reported them to the authorities the entire estate would be washed in blood, and then added one more line: if you report us, do you think you'll keep that one hundred fifty taels of gold? Do you think this estate can hold out and keep the government troops from plundering it?

During the days they lay hidden inside the estate, more than one group of government troops came asking questions, and seeing those men's fierce, aggressive manner, the estate kept its gates firmly shut and its guards up on the walls, not daring the slightest slackness — besides, word had come from elsewhere that the troops were moving about without any restraint, killing people and seizing property in more than a few incidents, so with threats and bribes both applied, the man in charge of that estate surely understood the message.

And so they arrived in the territory of Yutou Town by Lake Luoma, and relying on their shared ties to the Smelling Incense lineage, plus the solid weight of gold, the grain-transport boatmen they had taken hostage agreed to go and put in a word for them — yet even at this moment, Xie Mingxian dared not relax in the slightest; he told the men who had come out with him plainly that this was a gamble: if the other side was willing to accept their surrender, then everyone still had a road to live, and if the other side was not willing, then they would fight their way out and each man's fate would be his own. Wen Tiejun was deeply dissatisfied with this decision and had been looking all along for a chance to break out, but there was no help for it — the Zhao Battalion's militia guard was tight and vigilant, and once word got out, across the vast Lake Luoma no boat dared come near them, and more than a few grain-transport boats even blocked their way; once the main force arrived, there would be even less road of escape, and only death awaited.

After going through all this at Yutou Town, Xie Mingxian and his men finally realized just what kind of power the Zhao Battalion was — able to control every faction along the grain-transport route, acting like the government itself here in the Southern Metropolitan Region, the very heartland of the Great Ming, rampaging to such a degree; their defeat was no injustice. They all obediently disembarked and accepted their disposition — at this moment, they were the fish on the chopping block, and being searched, bound, and marched under guard drew not a single word of complaint.

Xie Mingxian and his party were not surprised by the prosperity of Yutou Town — every place in the Great Ming that lay beside the Grand Canal, or was fortunate enough to sit at a canal junction, invariably flourished on the benefits of the grain transport; the wealth and bustle of Jining and Linqing even surpassed this place, so this counted as nothing much. Strictly speaking, Yutou Town was truly nothing compared to the great cities of the Liao garrison region like Liaoyang, Shenyang, and Guangning.

This column of theirs was being escorted to Xuzhou — over seven hundred men, naturally with no carts or horses provided, so they could only march on foot. After leaving Yutou Town, all they felt was how level and broad the road was, how well-ordered the farmland along the roadside, with irrigation ditches crisscrossing everywhere, and the common folk walking the roads all at ease and unhurried — even those who moved in haste had the look of people living in times of peace and contentment. Could it be that this little Yutou Town's influence radiated so far, that all the surrounding area could bask in its light? Thirty li outside Jining, one could already see corpses of the starved.

The further Xie Mingxian and his men walked, the more dumbfounded they became — it was not just the vicinity of Yutou Town that was like this, but everywhere along the way. To put it plainly, public order was good, fields and homesteads were orderly, and no one lacked food or clothing. This was clearly Great Ming territory — they had clearly come here by boat, they had not ascended to some other realm, nor gone to any damned fairy kingdom on earth — so how could they be seeing such a scene of people living and working in peace and contentment?

In the Liao garrison region, in Shandong, it was not that they had never seen displays of wealth and luxury, nor that they had never seen bustle and prosperity — but they had never seen common folk living in peace and contentment, in such an orderly state. Since when could the common people of the Great Ming live such days?

Like all those who came to Xuzhou for the first time, Xie Mingxian and his men also suspected it was all a front — that what they were seeing was only for outsiders, and that a little further on it would surely turn into some shabby, impoverished mess. But even they themselves did not believe such talk; the men escorting them were fairly lenient, and so long as they did not run wild or move about recklessly, no one bothered them too much.

From Yutou Town to Xuzhou, following the river the whole way, it took three days and three nights or even more. Marching along like this day after day, Xie Mingxian suddenly realized that his seven-hundred-odd men could obtain supplies all along the route — at every day's stop, when they halted for the night, every single man could eat his fill. One had to understand that these seven-hundred-plus men of his, together with the thousand-plus men escorting them, came to nearly two thousand mouths, and the daily provisions were a huge amount — yet they were just casually fed three full meals a day?

One had to understand that within the Smelling Incense Sect, the number who could eat three full meals a day was less than four thousand — even his own core battalion only received such treatment when battle was imminent. And the Zhao Battalion just casually managed it? Xie Mingxian even made a point of watching those escorting household troops and militia, to see whether they wolfed their food down — from the speed of their eating, one could tell whether they normally received such treatment.

When he saw the cavalrymen of the Zhao Battalion breaking up grain cakes to feed their horses, Xie Mingxian finally understood that what he had seen along the way was no show put on for outsiders — yet seeing this, Xie Mingxian only felt a pang of heartache, thinking how could such fine grain cakes be fed to beasts of burden, what a terrible waste...

About half a day's march after Xie Mingxian and his men left Yutou Town, they caught sight of a militia company patrolling along the road, and seeing how orderly their formation and marching were, and how fine their weapons, they could not help but sigh a few times, saying the Smelling Incense Sect's defeat in Shandong was no injustice — even an ordinary battalion of the Xuzhou troops had such bearing. But when they said this, the household troops escorting them retorted: what do you mean ordinary battalion? These are men who never even get a chance to take the field — among the Zhao Battalion's household troops and militia, they don't even rank third-class.

Everyone assumed the household troops escorting them were just boasting, but after encountering them several more times, each time these patrol units moved off the road to make way, while the household troops escorting them visibly showed proud expressions — the distinction between superior and inferior was stark. Seeing this, everyone stopped even bothering to comment: facing a force like this, their defeat was no injustice; they could only blame the sect leader Xu Hongru for being too wildly fanciful, thinking he could sweep up the mobs and utterly smash Xuzhou. With strength like this, how could anyone shake it?

Xie Mingxian's column of captives marched along the main road, but in times of peace, merchants and civilians had priority, and their large column often had to yield to passing merchants and wagon trains. Eventually the escorting troops grew so annoyed that they simply marched everyone along the roadside, only moving back onto the official road when they passed farmland.

"What are those ditches dug beside the road for? Could they be for burying those who drop dead on the road?" "Have you lost your mind? They're for drainage — when it rains, the water drains off through these ditches. Tsk, tsk, how much labor must that have taken? Back in the Liao garrison region, only the great households above the rank of Mobile Corps Commander had such arrangements in their estates!"

"These trees are really nice — in this blazing sun, there's a bit of shade, and walking under them is comfortable. A pity the trees are so small; when they grow big, it'll be a different story."

After two days of marching, although the household troops escorting them remained stern and guarded, there had been no casual beatings or cursing, nor any extortion or fleecing — they simply carried out their task. This attitude allowed Xie Mingxian's column to relax considerably, and they began to have the leisure to observe the surroundings along the way. This was also Great Ming territory, the people also wore Great Ming clothes and bore Great Ming faces, yet this place was utterly different from the Liao garrison region and Shandong.

Xie Mingxian observed more carefully than his subordinates — when the talk turned to the shade of the trees, he noticed that the trees along the roadside were all saplings only a few years old. That meant this road system was not something left from before, but something Zhao Jin had built up. In fact, looking at everything neat and orderly along the way, one got the same feeling — it was all very new. And it was not only their own party that was astonished; among the merchants and travelers they met along the way, many were clearly from other provinces, here for the first time, and they too were looking all around, their faces full of amazement. From this one could also judge that this place had not always been like this — it was something Zhao Jin had made.

When the Smelling Incense Sect threw Shandong into chaos, everyone from Xu Hongru on down knew that Xuzhou was bound to move, and that Xuzhou was the Smelling Incense Sect's greatest threat, so they had to frantically build up strength and set the stage for battle — yet no one imagined that the Xuzhou Zhao Battalion would be mighty to this degree. After hearing his subordinates report the battle situation, Xie Mingxian already knew that this Zhao Battalion was not something the Smelling Incense Sect could shake, and it was from that moment that he began to speed up his arrangements for a retreat.

Xie Mingxian had traveled and lived in the Liao garrison region, Shandong, and the Northern Metropolitan Region, and had seen the strength of every sort of government army. Comparing the two, the Zhao Battalion was the mightiest — one could no longer use the standards for judging government troops to measure these Xuzhou "militia and local braves." With such strength, and expanding outward so steadily and actively, putting down roots and building up, Xie Mingxian could of course guess that Zhao Jin had far-reaching ambitions. Yet what puzzled him was this: with such ambitions, it should be enough to simply drill the troops diligently and expand outward, while maintaining internal stability — why go to such lengths of construction, building this place up like some blessed immortal realm? Did he not know that this little Xuzhou was only a temporary foothold, that if his ambitions were far-reaching, Zhao Jin's goal should lie elsewhere? Or was everything Zhao Jin did merely for the sake of peace and enjoyment, and his ambitions were not so grand after all?

Amidst these doubts, they entered the territory of Xuzhou. After entering Xuzhou, Xie Mingxian and his men were even more astonished — they had not expected the prosperity here to surpass even the Pizhou area, and this was some distance from the Grand Canal, no less. Besides, the common folk of Shandong south of Lu all knew that after the canal changed its course, Xuzhou had immediately withered into decline — how could it be bustling to this degree?

Around the villages and stockades beside the official road, workshops and manufactories were everywhere — from some drifted a thick aroma of liquor, from others the stench of tanning leather, and outside some were piled hill-like heaps of bamboo and timber, while there were also smithies belching smoke and flame. Ox-carts and horse-drawn wagons shuttled back and forth without cease. The official road they walked followed the Yellow River, and they could see carts coming out of the villages heading to the river crossing, loading their goods onto boats, which then traveled east or west.

"Are all those Yellow River boats we saw at Pizhou coming from Xuzhou?" "I thought they were from Henan or Shanxi!" These words were spoken by the more knowledgeable men in Xie Mingxian's column — at least they knew which provinces the Yellow River flowed through.

Everyone they saw on the road moved in haste, none willing to waste a moment of money-making time. Such hurry made Xie Mingxian deeply uncomfortable — even in the desperate, starving disaster-stricken lands of Shandong, the refugees' movements were slow; with nothing to do, naturally no one valued time. Of course, there they could not move fast anyway, because with empty stomachs they had no strength.

This is a scheduled update. When I posted this, there were twenty-two votes to go until the next bonus chapter. It's the double monthly votes period, and the last three days of the month — everyone, throw all your monthly votes at Great Ming Martial Hero, and see how many bonus chapters you can make Old Bai post. The rest of the promises still stand — just send them over!

Thanks to old friends "User Cold Night, Twilight Cry, User Looking Back at the Red Dust, Qi Sanwen, Suixin Ziwo 0" for the tips, and thanks everyone for your subscriptions and monthly votes — all your support, throw it all at Great Ming Martial Hero!