Chapter 1187: When Is the Right Time

"Master Jin is right. I don't know whether the government troops are being cautious or just scared, but after crossing the river they waited a long time over there for the various columns to assemble before starting to move toward us. Every day they spend two shichen just setting up and striking camp, and march less than three shichen. They're certainly slow, but there's no real opening to exploit either." Zhang Hubin's report was very detailed.

Zhao Jin nodded. The mounted household troopers had already begun taking turns leading their horses forward on foot; riding, they too moved ahead with the column. The formation of the second regiment of the Personal Guard Brigade was strict and imposing, their armor and weapons excellent. Even when Zhao Jin arrived, they did not let their attention wander. The Firearms Battalion's column, however, looked somewhat disordered. The matchlock and pike companies guarding the cannon were passable, but the cannon themselves could hardly maintain any kind of neat formation. Some cannon were pulled by a single horse, others by eight horses, and around the gun carriages civilian laborers helped push and haul, from time to time wedging planks and the like under the wheels.

"Except for the first-rank class, all the student cadets have returned to their original units." Noticing Zhao Jin's attention, Meng Zhiqi offered a brief explanation. The student cadets were all over with the Firearms Battalion. Their ranks were very orderly, but many of them were not marching with much concentration, looking around excitedly, curious about everything.

These student cadets, who had little battlefield experience, were different from ordinary household troopers and trained militiamen. The latter would be nervous, anxious, and fearful before their first battle, but the student cadets mostly came from military families, so their courage was not weak, and they were accustomed to the Zhao camp's victories. Thus, going out to battle this time, they were not particularly afraid or nervous, only excited.

"When the time comes, don't put these men in the front. If they go up, they'll just end up suffering for it." Zhao Jin shook his head and said.

Meng Zhiqi hesitated, then said, "My lord, going up might not necessarily mean they'll suffer."

The remark made Zhao Jin laugh in spite of himself. He turned and pointed at the cannon column off to the side and said, "What? These twenty-some cannon give you that much confidence?"

Before Meng Zhiqi could explain, Zhao Jin shook his head again and said, "If they follow along and win, they'll probably grow even more arrogant and lose all sense of proportion. If they become conceited and reckless, that's an even deadlier flaw. When they come out of the martial academy, they'll first have to go into the companies and serve honestly as household troopers. We'll talk again after they've been tempered by experience."

Meng Zhiqi hastily acknowledged the order. By this point, Zhao Jin's mood was very relaxed. He looked around and noticed the trained militiamen and volunteers. Although their equipment could not compare to the household troopers' and their ranks could not be called so orderly, they carried an air of confidence and composure. The reason for that was easy to understand: the trained militiamen and volunteers in Xuzhou had either been through battles or lived through famines, so they were more or less inured to such sights.

They marched on like this until the sun set. The supply-station manor ahead had already completed its preparations. Before the main force arrived, one could still see carts and horses laden with supplies going in and out. This truly made it hard for anyone to feel tense. The two sides were a little more than a day's march apart, yet this side could still calmly arrange the distribution of supplies, and the government troops had made no move to obstruct or intercept them. How could anyone get tense?

The drawn-out call of horns sounded. Mounted household troopers galloped back and forth along the column relaying orders. Each unit began to act according to plan: unloading supplies, constructing the camp fortifications, setting up defenses, and sending out additional light cavalry scouts. There were also battalion commanders who did not take part in the labor, but no one raised any objection, because these were the units assigned to nighttime combat readiness. Once the sky darkened, there was actually little need to worry about a government night raid. Without the Zhao camp's discipline and control, any nighttime movement would easily trigger chaos and rout. And if they wanted to take a Zhao camp fortification, a surprise attack by a thousand or so men would just be delivering meat to the door — utterly useless. If they could muster more troops than that, well, then they wouldn't be government troops…

Zhao Jin did not rest. As usual, he made a tour of the camp. Seeing that the commander was not resting, just like everyone else, kept the household troopers' morale steady.

"Master Jin, word just came back from the scouts up ahead. The government troops are encamped at Shang Family Manor. They stopped around midday." Zhang Hubin came over hurriedly to report the news.

"Shang Family Manor? The one belonging to the Guide garrison family?" Zhao Jin asked. After receiving confirmation, he nodded and said gravely, "It's not surprising that the Shang family made this choice."

Before the Zhao camp entered Guide Prefecture, all the benefits in Guide Prefecture, from top to bottom, had been controlled and divided up by the powerful gentry families. The prefectural and county officials had long since been reduced to figureheads, and the clerks and runners were all household servants of the gentry acting in those roles. Without their consent, nothing, great or small, could get done in the locality.

The eldest son of the Shang family was, by custom, to inherit the local garrison's battalion commander post. The family also supported its sons in study for the civil examinations. Over the years, they had produced both provincial graduates and presented scholars. In military terms, they could call out the military households and start a fight; in civil terms, they had kinsmen in the bureaucracy to look after them. Naturally, they ran roughshod over the locality. Guide Prefecture was divided up among a dozen or so such families. Calling it the king's land under Great Ming was less accurate than calling it these families' fiefs.

Once the Zhao camp arrived, everything was bound to change. The Zhao camp wanted to establish its own manors and manor laborers, spread the Cloud Mountain Trading Company's shops, and monopolize the salt routes and trade routes, even reaching into the trade on the Yellow River. This brought them into conflict with the local powerful families. Those who resisted openly were wiped out, their families exterminated; those who resisted covertly were steadily weakened; but those who proactively cooperated and submitted were able to hold on.

Powerful families of this sort had always bowed their heads to the strong. They possessed a set of survival skills handed down over many generations. Seeing how overwhelmingly strong the Zhao camp was, the clever ones immediately chose to yield.

Yet in the final analysis, the Zhao camp had still occupied their spheres of influence and encroached on their interests. Not to mention that the Zhao camp's current operations in Guide Prefecture were the object of covetous envy. The Great Ming government troops and these powerful families naturally stood on the same side. As soon as the government troops entered Guide Prefecture, and word spread that the court was sending a great army to besiege Xuzhou from all sides, those powerful clans that secretly nursed grievances would immediately turn their coats.

The Shang family had normally cooperated very well with the Zhao camp. Even in the spies' reports, there was no sign of the Shang family proactively contacting government forces. This choice now seemed sudden, but on second thought, it was entirely within reason. Where their fundamental interests lay, making such a choice was perfectly normal.

"I know Shang Family Manor. It's practically the size of a small county town. There's enough grain stored inside, and no way to cut off their water. Add to that the manor itself can mobilize two thousand able-bodied men and has a considerable stockpile of weapons. The government troops choosing that place is the best possible choice for them," Zhao Jin said.

After leaving He Family Manor, this stretch south of the Yellow River was completely flat and open, with no defensible terrain to rely on. The only places that could truly be held were these manors and fortified stockades. Such places had been built up by the great clans into veritable fortresses: rammed-earth walls towering high, moats both wide and deep, studded with spikes. Moreover, these manors were designed with troubled times in mind — for example, defensive works, granaries, and weapons stockpiles. To put it plainly, each was a small walled city.

"Could the government troops be thinking of relying on Shang Family Manor to fight us?" Zhang Hubin raised this question. Everyone had previously assumed the main government force would meet the Zhao camp's men head-on; no one had expected them to stop halfway.

Zhao Jin did not draw a conclusion. He only said in a deep voice, "There are several possibilities. But whatever the possibility, they're at Shang Family Manor now, so we'll head straight for Shang Family Manor. Once we're there, everything will become clear. The scouts and patrols must not slack off. Send more men. All news from over there must be relayed back as quickly as possible."

That night, the Zhao camp assigned extra men to night-watch combat readiness, precisely out of concern that the government troops might risk a night raid. But the night passed quietly; no one approached. Aside from the battalions on watch duty, many of the scouts and patrol riders also went without sleep all night, traveling back and forth between the camp and Shang Family Manor.

Riding at night held many dangers: mutual hunting and killing with the government scouts — the "night-owls"; encounters with men of the rivers-and-lakes underworld; even running into wild animals or getting lost. All were possible. But that night, there were not so many troubles. The men of the rivers and lakes had long since fled as far away as they could. Wild animals were also rare. What was even more puzzling was that the government scouts operated within a very limited range, only within about two li around Shang Family Manor.

Many of the Zhao camp's light cavalry had crept right up to the earthen walls of Shang Family Manor. They could see that the wall tops were crowded with many able-bodied men and soldiers on guard duty. But that was all. By the time the Zhao camp was lighting cooking fires and preparing breakfast the next morning, and had everything ready and set out, new reports came back: the government troops at Shang Family Manor still had not moved. It seemed they intended to dig in.

The mood among the Xuzhou men was somewhat subdued. Everyone had been straining at the leash to clash head-on with the enemy. Who could have imagined the government troops would suddenly stop moving? Such a change caught many off guard, and not knowing what the next move would be, their spirits naturally could not be high.

Zhao Jin could sense this mood. While on the march, he said directly to Zhang Hubin, "Our household troopers have still seen too little battle. They can't treat changes in the war situation with an even mind. Being brave and eager to fight is not a bad thing, but not being able to respond with equanimity — that is a shortcoming."

"My lord is right. If we can fight more and bigger battles going forward, naturally there won't be so much of this joy and sorrow," Zhang Hubin echoed.

Zhao Jin shook his head and laughed, then reached out and pointed at Zhang Hubin. "Are you still trying to fish a few words out of me? There's nothing to hide from you. Fighting is not a bad thing, but I don't want to tear our faces off and fight to the finish right now. It's just as I've said before — the time is not yet right. Look at the Shang family and those other families in Guide Prefecture. Normally, we had them pressed down and they seemed sincerely convinced of our strength. But the moment the government troops arrived, they immediately sided with them, without even bothering to see who was stronger and who would win."

The powerful households and great clans over in Guide Prefecture ought to have understood Xuzhou's strength very well. Ten thousand government troops was no small number, but Xuzhou could also field a force of comparable size. Who was strong and who was weak was easy to judge. Yet the powerful clans of Guide Prefecture still made their choice immediately.

"My lord, those great households in Henan all have hereditary military officers and civil officials in their families. They all recognize some 'great principle.' It's probably the same everywhere. Even if we wait longer, will there really be any change?"

"Perhaps one day, these gentry and commoners will fear the officials and detest the government troops, and will be longing for us to come. When that day arrives, then the time will have come." Zhao Jin answered with a smile. This answer made Zhang Hubin scratch his head; the look on his face clearly said he did not believe it, but he did not dare say so.

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