Chapter 458: Outside the Refugee Stockade

"Send out all your best riders and archers. Sweep clean the sentries circling this bandit refugee stockade—don't let them get word out. Then lock it down tight, keep them bottled up inside. As for the stockade itself, leave it be. We'll move at dawn tomorrow," Li Dajin announced loudly.

Although everyone held Feng family's guard captain Li Dajin in considerable awe, they still thought his excessive caution was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Master Li, those are just rabbits huddled in the grass. It's only a matter of how we catch them tomorrow—why go to all this trouble?" a bold voice called out from below.

Li Dajin offered no explanation, merely raising a hand. "One tael per head. Five heads, ten taels. Show me the heads and you get silver on the spot!"

At those words, the crowd below erupted with excitement. No one bothered to ask if it was true—who didn't know the Feng family had money? After a brief clamor, everyone turned and ran for their own camps, hurrying to send men out. This was a golden chance to get rich. As for what skilled fighters that refugee stockade could possibly have—they were nothing but pigs and sheep awaiting slaughter, meat on the chopping block.

Someone in the crowd even tossed out a phrase: "Master Li is a fierce tiger pouncing on a rabbit!"

Shouts rang out one after another. The camp descended into chaos, inside and out, as many men mounted up and rode off toward the refugee stockade, yelling as they went.

The government troops had long since received their orders. Thirty-some sturdy men strung their bows and swung onto their horses, riding out of camp. They didn't rush into action, merely spreading out and following behind.

"In matters of blade and blood, it's always best to be careful," Li Dajin said to Li He beside him.

Before Li He could answer, he spotted a young man emerging from a tent over there. Li He gave a cold laugh. "Your Feng family's Grand Eunuch is here. I can't be bothered with him—deal with him yourself!"

Just as Li He walked off, that young man in a padded robe and short boots came striding over. Without any courtesy, he said bluntly, "Old Li, the Feng family's silver is hard-earned. You certainly don't seem to mind throwing it around."

"Young Master Bao, trading silver for heads is good business. Better than paying death compensation!" Li Dajin replied coolly.

This Feng Bao was a son of a Feng family branch line. He had trained in martial arts since childhood and was also one of the guard commanders. But because his name was identical to that of the former Director of the Directorate of Ceremonial, the eunuch Feng Bao, people mockingly called him "Grand Eunuch." Feng Bao and Li Dajin held roughly equal rank, but his experience and ability fell short of Li Dajin's. The guards and martial men below listened mostly to Li Dajin, which infuriated Feng Bao.

Li Dajin could do little about Feng Bao either—the man was a Feng family member, after all. And he knew full well that Feng Bao was sand mixed in by the Feng family. With so much power at stake, how could they feel at ease letting an outsider like him hold sole authority?

On any other day, Li Dajin might have offered a few words of explanation. But now, with every force mobilized and everything set in motion, Feng Bao only grated on his nerves.

"If you think I'm doing it wrong, go complain to the Old Master or the Master. Here, I'm in charge. Spare me your nonsense!" Li Dajin's voice was ice-cold.

Feng Bao flew into a rage at once, but meeting Li Dajin's gaze, he couldn't suppress a shiver. He could only jab a finger at Li Dajin and say, "Fine. You just wait. Wait till we're back in Yangzhou!"

Li Dajin ignored him completely, turning to look northeast. The mounted troops that had surged out moments ago were already far in the distance.

Around the refugee stockade, an earthen wall taller than a man had already been raised, with a deep trench outside it. Compared to the rather orderly wall and moat outside, the living quarters within were crude—nothing more than simple shacks. Yet the various areas were well laid out: latrines, storehouses, every kind of designated space was there.

Wei Mugen was a young man of sixteen. He too was a refugee who had come from Shandong. Wei Mugen's luck could not be simply called good or bad. If it were good, his family would not have been destroyed, and he would not have traveled all the way to Xuzhou. If it were bad, he would not have escaped starvation, nor would he have survived beneath the walls of Xuzhou City without being killed.

After a journey of relentless hunger, after mountains of corpses and rivers of blood beneath the city walls, having lived through all that, being able to eat two meals a day and sleep soundly at night—with just these few things, Wei Mugen felt deeply content.

When he was chosen to come to this grassy wasteland, he had been terrified, thinking those fiends from Xuzhou meant to cast them out. But now he no longer wanted to leave. Life here was actually better than in Xuzhou. He could eat his fill of sorghum every day, and occasionally there was even salted fish to go with the meal—that was like celebrating the New Year.

Yet the work here was grueling. The moment they reached the stockade site, everyone immediately began digging trenches and raising walls. Although spring had arrived, the ground had not yet fully thawed. The oxen and horses used for pulling carts proved useful then—they were actually harnessed to heavy plows to break the earth.

Moreover, the mud bricks for the wall had to be roughly processed, mixed with chopped straw and packed as solid as possible. And "as possible" was the limit, for out on this wild grassy flat, there were no conditions for making proper sun-dried bricks.

Even so, the several thousand refugees were worked to the point of exhaustion. They toiled from dawn to dark every day, collapsing into deep, snoring sleep the moment they lay down. They finally finished that job, and before they could even recover, a host of other assigned tasks followed.

The wild grass all around had been cut clean. Everyone had already begun enclosing and turning the soil, preparing to break the land and plant crops when the time was right.

The bulk of the manpower was thrown into this work, while the several hundred Xuzhou martial men who had accompanied them maintained strict vigilance. They dared not relax in the slightest, inside or out. They patrolled within and posted sentries without every day. They even drafted the tougher specimens among the refugees, issuing each a sharpened, fire-hardened bamboo pole to join the patrols and guard duties.

These several hundred martial men worked in three rotating shifts. Some escorted and guarded supplies transported in from outside. Some supervised the refugees at their labor, allowing not the slightest slack. The rest patrolled every part of the area.

The refugees who had come here no longer felt the same terror as when they were first captured. Many harbored secret schemes. Some, seeing the desolation all around, thought they could escape. In the dead of night, when vigilance slackened, they would flee in groups toward the direction of Luoma Lake.

The Xuzhou martial men had long been prepared for this. The first night, those caught were given fifteen lashes each—painful enough, but not enough to stop them from working. The second night, the captured were simply beheaded and their bodies tossed outside. By the third night, no one dared run anymore.

Wei Mugen had never wanted to run from the start. He thought it was fine here. He felt even less attachment to his old home in Shandong. There was never enough to eat, so many people died, and it was a fellow villager who had tricked him into coming here. Here, at least there was food. The rules were strict, but he didn't have to worry about being cheated. Every day, he just had to follow the rules.

When everyone first arrived at this grassy land, they were all curious about the vast, wild flat. At the same time, they were deeply fearful of the several hundred men of the jianghu who had escorted them here.

All along the coerced march south, and through the siege of Xuzhou City, those jianghu martial men in the ranks had been vicious and terrifying, treating the refugees like livestock. Beatings, curses, and abuse were routine. Killing on a whim was nothing unusual. Seeing Zhao Jin send similar men again, everyone was terrified.

To their surprise, this group was very disciplined. Though hardly warm, there was no more bullying. Everything was done according to the rules.

Ever since being captured by the Zhao Character Camp, Wei Mugen had begun to learn about rules. In the Xuzhou estates, there had been rules for this and that. Everything had to follow the rules. Those who broke them were either beaten or even put to death.

After being chosen to establish the stockade on the grassy land, Wei Mugen and his companions were taught all manner of rules again. They were told that following the rules meant staying alive; breaking them meant death.

Because Wei Mugen was sharper than the others and had a sturdier build, he was chosen as a guard among the refugees. Normally, he carried a sharpened, fire-hardened bamboo pole and stood sentry or patrolled everywhere.

Wei Mugen didn't think much of this duty. His daily share of heavy labor was not reduced one bit. After finishing work, while others rested and slept, he still had to take his pole and go out on patrol.

He found it exhausting, but those jianghu men who stood sentry and kept watch with him all said it was good. They even said this gave him a chance to become a militia soldier, or possibly even join the main force of the Zhao Character Camp—and then his future would be boundless.

From the journey until now, Wei Mugen had heard a great deal, though he only half-understood it. For instance, these jianghu men were always grumbling that their own leaders lacked foresight. If they had been more decisive and let everyone come under the Zhao Character Camp's command, they would certainly be reaping great benefits by now. As it was, a bunch of twenty-year-olds had climbed over their heads.

Wei Mugen knew of those twenty-year-olds too—around a hundred of them in total. He couldn't tell if they were good or bad. His only impression was how orderly they were. In action and work, they were very disciplined. In speech and manner, the jianghu men treated them with deep respect.

"It's just a mixed unit, not even the main force. What are they so cocky about?" Wei Mugen had once heard someone remark, the words dripping with sour envy.

Listening day after day, Wei Mugen grew more and more envious of those damned "mixed unit" youths, wishing he could join them too.

In his mind, sentry duty meant standing somewhere and looking around, shouting at any sign of movement. But the rules were different. Sometimes he stood on high ground to scan the distance. Sometimes he crouched low, hiding in the thick grass. Sometimes he even had to dig a hole in the ground, cover it with grass, and poke his head out to look at set intervals. He didn't understand it, but he had grown used to just obediently doing as he was told.

Today, he was hidden in one of those holes in the ground, popping his head out from time to time. Wei Mugen disliked this assignment intensely. It was cold and damp inside. The jianghu man who assigned it had even warned him specifically to keep moving from time to time inside, or he might freeze to death.

It was pitch-black but not stuffy, and the surroundings were fairly quiet. Wei Mugen, exhausted from a full day of digging yesterday, felt weariness wash over him. Despite the cold and damp, his eyelids fought each other and he could not keep from dozing off.

For some reason, the wild grassy flat outside always reminded Wei Mugen of his old home in Shandong. Years of drought and locust plagues, entire villages dying off or fleeing famine, a hundred li without a trace of human life. If it went on like this, it would probably turn into a wild grassy flat just like this one.

Just as he began to drift off, Wei Mugen pinched his own leg hard. Falling asleep on sentry duty meant a lashing. But he was simply too tired. Pinching and pinching, Wei Mugen still fell asleep.

A muffled "thump" sounded above his head. Wei Mugen jolted awake with a start—he had just been dreaming of the hellish scenes in his home village a few months ago.