Chapter 710: Zhao Long

But here, there was none of the excellent supply they had enjoyed at Qingjiangpu. Nearly two thousand cavalry, men eating and horses chewing — the consumption was truly enormous. The salt merchants might have money, but here in Pizhou they were utterly helpless; they could only rely on supplies from Regional Commander Zhou Baolu and the Pizhou magistrate's yamen, and it was a severe strain.

"We must fight fast and finish fast. From here to that He Village is barely a day and a half by fast horse. We will strike straight at their heart, publicly proclaim Zhao Jin's great crimes, throw his followers into panic and scatter them, then seize the man for judgment — in fast, out fast. Once Xuzhou falls into chaos, we can come back and clean up." Ma Chonghao laid down the rule.

Greedy for money they might be, and fond of bickering, but the several men who had brought elite cavalry here still understood march formations and encampment, and they had competent, by-the-book responses. No one raised any objection to Ma Chonghao's words.

With Regional Commander Zhou as their local channel, news from Xuzhou kept coming in. The first report was that the rebel Zhao Jin had already gathered nearly five thousand men under him, entrenched at He Village, and was preparing to resist the imperial forces!

Upon hearing this news, another twenty-some of Regional Commander Zhou's personal guards were "wounded" and withdrew. The rest dismissed it with contempt.

"Fewer than five thousand men, and their mounted troop not even six hundred. A local bully's horse troop is at best on the level of mounted bandits and brigands — how can they compare to our elite cavalry? We have a full eighteen hundred! What's more, Xuzhou is flat ground. We lead our lads out, deploy in formation, and charge — never mind a local strongman, even if Yang Gao brought that hundred-thousand-man army, a charge like ours would likely break him!" Xu Tiebiao declared, brimming with confidence.

At this comparison, everyone burst into laughter. In the Ming military system as it now stood, the army's finest and fiercest were the personal guard retainers around the commander, and among those personal guard retainers, the cavalry were the strongest. One could say that the men Ma Chonghao had gathered here were the very cream of the entire Southern Metropolitan Region's military — naturally they had this confidence.

Only Ma Chonghao, hearing this joke, furrowed his brow slightly, though he said nothing at all.

The second report was that many of the city's commoners were leaving town — some going to relatives' homes, some to wherever they could find lodging — all seeking temporary refuge. These people were the family members and kin of the retainers, afraid of being implicated by this affair. Furthermore, all of Xuzhou, high and low, still feared Zhao Jin's tyrannical might and dared not come out with baskets of food and pots of drink to welcome the imperial army. Even Regional Commander Zhou's men, after several hints to the magistrate's yamen, found them all playing deaf and dumb.

Another item, pure rumor, said that Zhao Jin's wife was about to give birth or had already delivered a child, but because of the army's arrival, the news had been kept strictly secret and not announced.

"Now that it has come to this, none of us can afford to be careless. Xuzhou is enemy territory. We must be cautious at every step. When we do strike, we cannot fret over pots and pans. Until Zhao Jin is captured, nothing is certain. Only when we have seized that little brigand and everything is settled will those things be ours for the taking!"

These words made everyone nod in agreement, but Ma Chonghao's next remark set them laughing: "They don't even dare announce the birth of a child — this clearly shows they fear us, that they are already prepared for defeat and ruin, hoping to leave behind a thread of blood and bone. Their courage has shattered. This venture is as good as done!"

Zhao Jin's second child was a boy.

When the first child was born, Zhao Jin had no real concept of it; he simply applied the childbirth knowledge from his memories to the present, never realizing how extremely dangerous childbirth was for the mother, and that cases of both mother and child dying were far from rare.

Once he learned this, in the time that followed, what he heard and saw brought home quite a few examples. When Xu Zhenzhen became pregnant this time, Zhao Jin was deeply worried.

"Husband, go attend to your important affairs. Pay less mind to matters of women and children." Xu Zhenzhen did not want Zhao Jin fretting too much over this.

Yet how could Zhao Jin not think about it? And as ill luck would have it, just as she neared labor, urgent dispatch after urgent dispatch kept arriving in his hands: the Nanjing Brocade Guard Assistant Commander Ma Chonghao had led his force across the river; the main body had already reached Yangzhou; they had already reached Qingjiangpu; the Qingjiangpu merchants had already surrendered and pledged allegiance...

In Xuzhou, Zhao's Camp did not blockade the news — in truth, they could not blockade it. Following the predetermined plan, they simply sat back and watched how the people of Xuzhou would behave.

This news likewise reached his parents, and reached Xu Zhenzhen. Zhao Zhentang took it fairly well, merely asking Zhao Jin for a thousand militia to serve as garrison troops for Xiao County. But his mother, He Cuihua, was terrified and anxious, yet afraid of hindering Zhao Jin's affairs, she wept secretly at night. In the end, Meng Ziqi told her brother, and her brother Meng Zhiqi passed the word on to Zhao Jin.

Even the ever-steadfast Xu Zhenzhen lost control of her emotions. When husband and wife talked idly at night, often as they spoke, tears would stream down her face uncontrollably.

"What are you crying for? I'm not afraid — what are you afraid of? Don't frighten Little Feng." At times like this, Zhao Jin was truly at his wits' end — he could not scold, could not reason.

And just at this time, Zhao Feng had grown just sensible enough to notice things. Seeing her mother cry, she had no idea what was happening, only knew to wail along, giving Zhao Jin an even worse headache.

"Husband, you really should bring Sister Xiaolan back. If anything should happen to me, Sister Xiaolan could at least take good care of Feng'er." Xu Zhenzhen said, wiping away tears as she spoke.

Zhao Jin, while soothing his daughter, did not know whether to laugh or cry. Helplessly, he said, "Do you realize, I didn't even bat an eye when Ma Chonghao brought his agents here, but what you just said truly gives me a headache. It's completely unrelated."

"Could it be that Husband wishes to bring that girl from the Meng family into the household? That girl is quite fetching, and what's rare is she's well-bred, but I worry that after she enters, Little Feng might suffer!" Xu Zhenzhen apparently had more than one candidate in mind.

By this point, Zhao Feng had stopped crying and was watching curiously, sucking on her finger. Zhao Jin jiggled his daughter and frowned. "Stop this nonsense. Everyone outside is busy to death, and I finally steal a moment to spend with you, only to end up discussing finding a stepmother for our daughter. Isn't this a joke?"

After this lament, Zhao Jin grew curious himself and could not help asking, "Why would Meng Ziqi coming in mean Little Feng suffers? And don't give me that look — I'm just curious!"

"Sister Meng has a brother, and that brother of hers looks shrewd and sensible — he's bound to have a future." Xu Zhenzhen did not answer directly.

Zhao Jin rolled his eyes skyward, now understanding Xu Zhenzhen's meaning. Mu Shulan had no one to rely on and had grown up with him since childhood; if she entered the household, she would only care for and cherish Zhao Feng, treating her as her own daughter. But Meng Ziqi had a brother on the outside, and that brother was destined for a great career within Zhao's Camp. Under such circumstances, there would be power plays and calculations — there would be risk.

"Don't let your thoughts run wild, and don't worry about my affairs outside. The person who truly needs to take care right now is you. What I can promise you is very simple: after the child is born, he will not be without a father." Zhao Jin spoke with brutal simplicity, yet precisely because he put it this way, Xu Zhenzhen's face lit up with joy.

When the time for birth drew near, his mother He Cuihua not only demanded secrecy from everyone but even wanted Xu Zhenzhen to hide away somewhere else to give birth.

"If I'm gone, mother and child won't survive either. If I'm here, why would they need to leave?" Zhao Jin spoke just as bluntly to his own mother. But the old woman insisted on secrecy, and there was no helping that — he could only let her have her way.

It was said that after a woman's first childbirth, the risks for the second were much smaller, but that was only relative. And with the stifling heat lasting until now, recovery and everything else were troublesome. Zhao Jin could not set his mind at ease.

What made it even more frustrating was that Ma Chonghao's force had stopped at Qingjiangpu and would not leave. Waiting endlessly like this only made everyone's mood more irritable.

When the time came, Zhao Jin was even more anxious. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Meng Zhiqi, who had been waiting there for news, came running back at full speed, his face beaming, and told Zhao Jin, who was drilling the retainers, that the mistress had given birth to a son.

Because of He Cuihua's demands, the news was sealed extremely tightly. The midwife and the serving maids were not permitted to leave the inner courtyard. The only people who knew were Zhao Jin and his closest, most trusted companions.

"This time, the foundation of our Zhao's Camp is secure!" The one who said this was, of all people, Chen Sheng. The others all wore expressions of deep gravity and excitement.

Zhao Jin had wanted to make a joke, but seeing everyone's expressions, he merely nodded. He had never quite understood the importance of continuing the family line, but now he was beginning to grasp it more and more.

"There are some words I can say now." When Zhao Jin went to see Xu Zhenzhen after the birth, he never expected her to come out with such an abrupt, unconnected remark.

The matter of naming was still decided by Zhao Jin alone, and this time the name was just as simple.

"Since the elder sister is called Feng, then the younger brother shall be called Long — Zhao Long. Easy to call out, too."

This name left the family and the brothers somewhat at a loss whether to laugh or cry. The character "Long" — dragon — was certainly majestic, yet in the popular story-cycles, the local bully whom the heroes and gallants trounce was often named exactly that. But such things were good for a laugh once and then best dropped; no one could say much, and Zhao Jin was habitually terse in these matters anyway.

No matter how confident Zhao Jin was, a newly delivered Xu Zhenzhen and the children could not conveniently remain here. Thus, there were two plans. Depending on how long Ma Chonghao's people dallied at Qingjiangpu — no one knew when they might arrive — if it could be delayed until after the child's full-month celebration, then Xu Zhenzhen and the pair of children would be moved to Dangshan, ready to cross the river at any time to Kong Family Village. The Xu family also had their own influence on the north bank of the Yellow River, more than enough for stability. But if hostilities broke out early, they could only recuperate at a manor near He Village.

On the morning of the twentieth day of the seventh month of the forty-eighth year of the Wanli reign, the clouds in the sky grew thicker and thicker, heralding the arrival of a summer rain. Yet the people who had been craning their necks in the stifling heat, waiting so long, still did not get the long-awaited raindrops. Though the blazing sun in the sky was slowly veiled by dark clouds, the mugginess in the air did not lessen by half.

On the official road at the border of Xuzhou and Pizhou, several sturdy young men sat on stones by the roadside, ceaselessly fanning themselves with straw hats, vainly trying to dispel the oppressive heat. The cool boiled water in their gourds was nearly drunk dry; clearly, they had already covered a fair distance.

Strangely enough, though these men were plainly dressed, they were very clean. Their bearing did not suggest farmers, nor did they look like bandits with ill intentions, yet neither did they resemble merchants hurrying on their way. But in these troubled times, a group of men traveling together inevitably made people somewhat uneasy, so passersby all hurried past, not daring to pause beside them for a moment.

Thanks to "Wu Liulang, Mu Ming, Yuan Heng Li Zhen, Book Friend 1287208672, Book Friend 47364692, Zhitian Bai, Tianmi de Ganzhe," several old friends, for their tips. Thank you all for your subscriptions and monthly tickets. Drank too much tea, stayed up all night, exhausted.