Chapter 426: Worth It or Not

That Master Li's expression did not shift. He drew his short spear across in front of him and said with a cold laugh, "There are always those who like recruiting men from bandit stock, going on about how the greenwood is full of stout fellows and strong hands. That rabble is fine for burning, killing, and looting, but when they run into real trouble they scatter like sand. If we could have just formed ranks and pushed through squad by squad, how could those foot soldiers possibly have held out!"

"Then..."

"We can't make a move. Can you guarantee right now that we'll keep every last one of these several dozen men here?" Master Li said coldly. After this he gave another cold laugh. "No wonder those gangs holed up for the winter took such heavy losses. When I saw the bodies on the road, I thought they'd fought among themselves. So it was this lot who did it. These aren't the methods of the rivers and lakes riffraff!"

No one dared give such a guarantee. The situation had already collapsed — nearly a hundred corpses lay on the ground, men were still fleeing in rout, and even if they rallied for a bitter fight, there was no advantage left to speak of.

Seeing that no one answered, that Master Li said in a muffled voice, "Then there's no rush to move now. Such crack troops, such armor and weapons — south of the river or north, only a handful of great figures have men like these. For them to suddenly strike at us, who knows what the reason is. Go back and report to the Old Master and the Grand Old Master. Let them handle the dealings. The affairs of such great figures are none of our concern."

With that, this Master Li urged his horse forward and headed west, his face showing not the slightest reluctance or regret. He merely said, "First go keep watch near Suqian. Since they're taking this road, they'll come out that way sooner or later."

Several dozen men followed, sweeping away with him. Once the backbone was gone, the others had even less heart to keep fighting and each fled at a run. But after the battle just now, Zhao Jin and his men dared not split up, fearing the enemy cavalry might strike again. Fighting in formation naturally meant they had no speed, and they could only watch as the men around them escaped.

Zhao Jin did not pursue. He only watched for where the retreat was slow, then led his men over to charge for a spell. Before long, the campfires dimmed and the enemy had been mopped up.

"Ji Xiang, take some men and find survivors — I want them questioned. Bingfeng, take three men back to camp and have the men left on guard ride over with the horses. Liu Yong, get men organized to round up the horses. Dasheng, take ten men and bring over all our own mounts." Zhao Jin gave his orders, then took Ding Jun with him and headed toward the tents.

The women and children who had been carried off were all there. The children, not even qualified to be inside the tents, huddled together for warmth, shivering uncontrollably from the cold, many of them weeping. Some of the women had their clothes in tatters and were crying as well. When they saw Zhao Jin and the others approach, far from coming forward, they shrank back in fright. Only when they spotted Ding Jun behind Zhao Jin did they realize they had been rescued, and they broke into loud wails.

"If you have no clothes, strip them off the dead. Wrap up every woman and child tightly. Get them quiet. It's not time for crying yet. If they want to cry, they can cry every day from now on!" Zhao Jin gave the order without the slightest courtesy.

Ding Jun was both agitated and grief-stricken. Holding back his tears, he agreed with desperate urgency.

In the fighting just now, those who had clashed directly with Zhao Jin and his men had mostly ended up dead or gravely wounded. The so-called survivors were those who had been cut down by their own side in the chaos or trampled by horses.

Getting the facts clear was easy enough. Among these two hundred-odd men were two bands of horse bandits from nearby, each several dozen strong. Because they fenced and disposed of their loot through the Feng family's estate and resupplied and rested there, they were in fact already under Feng family control. There were also private soldiers raised by several nearby fence-masters. These men had grown rich off the Feng family's illicit salt and were effectively Feng family vassals.

Over the years, more and more illicit salt had been trafficked out of the reed marshes, and more and more salt-making households had fled. The Feng family had put real effort into sweeping them out. Taking the official road from Shuyang to Qingjiangpu as the dividing line, any refugee settlements west of the official road were to be killed without exception. Those west of the road were to be captured as slaves and sent to work as slaves on the Feng family's own private salt farms and salt estates.

From Yangzhou to Huai'an Prefecture, it was only after passing Qingjiangpu and entering the wild grass flats that the land grew desolate and sparsely populated. Before that, prosperous towns and markets were thickly clustered. If they sent large numbers of men north, it would certainly draw too much attention. So every time the Feng family swept the reed marshes, they would send a few dozen mounted veterans north as a backbone, then summon their forces to enter the marshes and plunder.

No one dared be anything less than wholehearted in carrying out the Feng family's orders. Besides, inside the reed marshes they could act without the slightest restraint, and everyone was keen for that pleasure.

The Ding Family Enclosure originally had few people, just folk who farmed their own land for a living. Moreover, the headmen of the Ding Family Enclosure knew how to handle affairs well. Though they were very poor, they regularly paid their respects to the various gangs and curried favor everywhere outside. But in recent years, the Ding Family Enclosure's population had grown larger and larger. They had begun moving out to the roadside and had also started trading privately with the salt-making households that dealt in illicit salt. They would carry the salt out to sell and had to offer tribute from the money they earned to all quarters. They had kept things running passably well.

But when the Feng family decided to wipe them out, no one dared say a word against it. Those who had taken benefits from them in the past were this time the most eager to be first.

The man leading the troop was called Master Li. His full name was Li Dajin. Whenever the Feng family resorted to armed force, they always sent this Master Li to take charge. The man was quite methodical in his actions and highly skilled in martial arts. Those who disobeyed orders were often simply cut down on the spot. Otherwise, men followed him with heartfelt obedience. Over the years, though he was not constantly present here, his authority had grown very high.

This time, the destruction of the Ding Family Enclosure had been led by Li Dajin. They had advanced the whole way in separate squads at a jog so as not to alert the enclosure, assembled not far away, then advanced on foot leading their horses, and struck on horseback once they were close. The whole process had gone very smoothly.

Li Dajin was very flexible in his methods. So long as orders were obeyed, he did not stand in the way of anyone's perks. They had thought the Ding Family Enclosure was a place so poor the dirt itself was worthless. To their surprise, they had still dug out over two hundred taels of fine-quality silver. The young women and children were worth money too. The human market in Pizhou was booming these days — taken there to sell, they would fetch over a hundred taels at the least.

Since they had taken captives, they naturally could not bring them along on the march. They had simply brought them outside to store for the time being, then gone back in to continue the sweep. By prior estimate, there were five villages in total along this road, and this time they meant to clear them out completely.

With captives in tow they could not move quickly anyway, so they had simply made camp early to enjoy themselves. None of them had imagined that Zhao Jin and his men were following on their heels.

Reckoning the time, Li Dajin and his men had entered the reed marshes one day later than Zhao Jin. At the entry point they had encountered the remnants of several bandit gangs, and along the road they had seen corpses strewn everywhere, though they had taken it only for gang infighting.

As for merchant convoys and the like, Li Dajin and his men were not worried in the least. Anyone coming in or out was an outsider anyway, and none of them would put down roots in these reed marshes. If they ran into them, they would deal with them in passing. If not, they paid them no mind.

Having dealt with them for a long time, these men knew quite a bit about the Feng family's affairs. For instance, the Grass-Turning Serpent operation was run by the son of one of the Feng family stewards. Every year a huge volume of salt moved out through the Grass-Turning Serpent. The Feng family had already built two estates near the Lian River, where a great deal of salt beyond the official salt-farm quotas was stockpiled, then taken directly through Pizhou to Xuzhou and trafficked to all quarters.

Every year, the output of the Haizhou salt farms had quotas set by the Ministry of Revenue. The salt farms naturally produced extra on the side, but this extra production still had to be shared out as profit among all the interested parties. What the Feng family did, however, bypassed many of those connections, and the profit was far greater.

Once they had asked all they needed to ask, Zhao Jin and his men left no survivors. The corpses were simply tossed aside — the wild beasts would come deal with them soon enough.

The mounts that had been left not far away were brought over, and the men who had remained on guard at the camp also hurried over. The Feng family's horse troop had left nearly a hundred horses here. These well-trained riding horses would not stray too far; even if spooked, they would only wander nearby. As for the tack and gear, that was all still here as well.

After the fierce battle, no one rested. They fitted all the horses here with tack, then gathered fodder and fed them. Zhao Jin did not intend to make camp here. He wanted to move forward a stretch under cover of night before halting.

"So we don't get killed by someone striking back in the middle of the night!" That was the reason Zhao Jin gave.

Women who could not ride were tied onto the horses and led forward by the riders of Zhao Camp. The children were placed in bundles and hung from both sides of the horses.

"If they fall off, that's just their bad luck. We can't let the people we're rescuing hold us back." Everyone was very clear on the stakes in this.

The campfires were extinguished and then lit again. By the time everyone had finished their work, reckoning the hour, it was already well past midnight.

Before setting out, Zhao Jin made a point of loading the campfires with enough fuel to make the whole area blaze especially bright. Only then did he lead the men and horses out. Though the night was pitch-dark, their column carried only a few torches.

They traveled for the better part of a double-hour before stopping. The glow of the campfires behind them was still visible. This time when they made camp, they merely unloaded the women and children and the dry rations and fodder from the horses' backs. Tack and gear were not removed, nor were fires lit to cook. Everyone took out cold dry rations, shared them among themselves, and waited there in silence.

"We ambushed others — let's not let others ambush us," Zhao Jin reminded his comrades.

That night's rest was divided into only two watches. Zhao Jin did not intend to sleep at all; he simply waited there for dawn. Chen Sheng also said he could not sleep.

"We had four wounded and three dead. Does it grieve you or not?" Chen Sheng asked in a muffled voice.

They had charged in and caught the enemy off guard, but the enemy had been no weaklings. No matter how well they fought in formation, no matter how fine their equipment, there were still moments when they could not defend. And when the mounted troop had crashed straight into them, several of the spear-wielding soldiers had been shaken and injured by the impact.

But the ones who died were all men of the rivers and lakes from the Inner Guard. They were good hands in single combat, but in a chaotic melee like this they were unfamiliar with Zhao Camp's drill manuals and did not know how to coordinate. Some panicked, some tried to show off. Once they lost the cover of the formation and faced a numerically superior enemy, they naturally came to no good end.

"It grieves me. They were all elite seeds of our Zhao Camp. To lose them like this — of course it grieves me," Zhao Jin said in a muffled voice.

Chen Sheng sighed. Zhao Jin spoke again, "But if I'd let this matter go, I would have felt sick at heart, and morale would have taken a heavy blow. If you have to weigh the pros and cons of every single thing, you turn into a slick old hand. Once the hot blood and the earnest heart are gone, our Zhao Camp will be finished!"

The backbone of Zhao Camp were all young men. If a matter like this, which filled men with righteous indignation, had been forcibly suppressed and ignored, it would certainly have wounded morale.

"Sometimes when you do a thing, you can't just look at whether it's worth it or not!" Zhao Jin said. Even as he spoke, his own conviction sounded lacking.