Chapter 840: The Martial Man of the Cai Juren Household

Baoding Regional Commander Lu Qin had already been stuck in Jining Prefecture for three days. He knew well that speed is the essence of war, but he also knew that without sufficient provisions and fodder, the morale of the troops under his command would be unstable. Never mind winning a battle — a mutiny was entirely possible.

Yet no matter how much he pressed, the provisioning of grain and fodder by the Jining local authorities remained unhurried, leaving the force under Lu Qin's command with only five to six days' worth of supplies. With so little, once they halted at Yutai County for two days they would have nothing left to eat. Were they supposed to go plundering through Shandong? The far more likely outcome was being ambushed and overrun by those lawless Xuzhou rebels, leading to a crushing and disastrous defeat.

Regional Commander Lu Qin did not want to step forward himself — that would leave no room for maneuvering on either side — but the advisors and trusted officers around him kept going to every office in Jining Prefecture to demand grain. Yet every office in Jining Prefecture met them with evasions.

The reason stated openly was that, because the canal grain transport had been cut off, Jining Prefecture's grain reserves were mainly designated to supply the vital capital region. If they were diverted for the use of the rebellion-suppressing army, the Son of Heaven, the inner palace, the court officials, and the people of the capital would all be severely affected. Could a mere rabble of gathered rebels possibly compare in importance to that?

The real reason behind it was simple: the Jining Prefecture side wanted fifty percent. That is, for every ten dan of grain and fodder allocated, only five dan would actually be delivered, while the army would issue a receipt for ten dan. The fifty percent held back would be the Jining Prefecture locals' profit.

Baoding Regional Commander Lu Qin, of course, would not agree to this. The customary rate was no more than thirty percent. If he let the Jining Prefecture side take fifty percent, how was he supposed to maintain his own apparatus? The soldiers' pay was already docked and discounted to begin with. The several hundred household retainers and personal guards under his command, the one or two battalions that could actually fight, his own and his apparatus's expenses, the benefits used to curry favor with superior officers and patrons — all of it had to come out of these grain and fodder supplies. He had thought that as a guest army on campaign, and on an urgent matter pressed by the central government, he would be able to draw more local supplies than the customary rate. Instead, he was getting less than usual. Who could agree to that?

It was not just Lu Qin who would not agree — his advisors and trusted men also depended on this to make their fortunes, and they absolutely could not agree either. Naturally, they were locked in a deadlock with the Jining Prefecture side.

The reason was something everyone could figure out. Jining Prefecture, situated along the canal, was long accustomed to feeding off the grain transport. This fifty-percent cut was truly not considered much by the Jining Prefecture locals, and naturally they would not break the rules for an outside army. They also knew that Lu Qin could not linger in Jining Prefecture for too long. If the delay dragged on, the central Ministry of War would inevitably start pressing him.

Regional Commander Lu Qin naturally knew this as well. He was already prepared to hold his nose and accept it. If the pressure truly became too urgent, then fifty percent it would be — fight this battle first and worry about the rest later. Compared to lining his pockets, the wrath of the capital and the central authorities was far more troublesome. It was said that Eunuch Wei was extremely knowledgeable about the workings of every link in the chain and had a ruthless disposition. Offending that man would likely lead to no good end.

What Lu Qin did not expect was that after spending a far-from-joyful Mid-Autumn Festival in Jining Prefecture, the situation suddenly took a turn. Three major local grain merchants came to his door of their own accord, willing to assist with military funds, grain, and fodder. Their condition was very simple: after the Xuzhou rebels were pacified, when the rebels' properties were confiscated, they were to be given the first opportunity to move in.

That matter was actually quite simple. If he won, he would not be staying long in Xuzhou anyway, and those spoils of war would naturally be sold to them. What puzzled Baoding Regional Commander Lu Qin, however, was this: mere grain merchants actually dared to defy the will of the local civil authorities and obstruct the locals from making their fortunes. Was their audacity not a little too great? Did they want to lose their heads? Never mind other charges — the crime of harboring seditious intent and colluding with imperial troops alone was a crime of high treason. Even Lu Qin himself would be implicated. He dared not accept such offers recklessly.

But what surprised Lu Qin even more was that the Jining local authorities suddenly fell silent. Someone even approached Lu Qin's trusted men to negotiate, saying that forty percent or thirty-five percent was not out of the question. Everyone was just trying to make money; there was no need to damage relations. Even thirty percent or twenty-five percent could be discussed. After all, no matter how much the profit, it was still profit.

Having risen to the position of Regional Commander, Lu Qin understood the dealings within officialdom perfectly well. He knew at once that behind these three major grain merchants there was very likely a patron the Jining local authorities could not afford to offend. Upon further inquiry, the Lu Prince Estate was vaguely implicated. Lu Qin immediately dared not ask any further. For troops and a princely estate to have dealings — that was the foremost capital crime of seeking death.

With both sides now on edge, matters actually became much easier to handle. Jining Prefecture swiftly prepared the grain and fodder for Lu Qin's force. Large numbers of civilian laborers were also conscripted and assembled to transport supplies and troops. Moreover, there was now a convenient advantage: because the canal grain transport was blocked, a great number of boats had gathered in Jining Prefecture and around Weishan Lake. Conscripting boats to transport grain, they could simply advance along the lake. And the route from Jining Prefecture to Xuzhou more or less followed the shore of Weishan Lake anyway.

On the seventeenth day of the eighth month of the first year of the Tianqi reign, the troops under Baoding Regional Commander Lu Qin's command set out south from Jining Prefecture. They would reach Xuzhou within days.

South of Jining Prefecture, both Jinxiang and Yutai counties already knew that a great battle was imminent. They knew the imperial government troops were almost upon them, and they had also heard the news that the Xuzhou Zhao family's forces were marching north.

The militia and village braves of Xuzhou's Zhao Jin were terrifying, but the imperial government troops were equally impossible to relax around. Based on the experience passed down through generations and what the common people had seen and heard with their own eyes, when it came to wreaking havoc on the countryside, it was truly hard to say which was stronger and which was weaker.

Those with money and means all fled toward the north and west. Those who could not leave packed their household valuables into bundles, and the womenfolk smeared their faces with stove ash all day long, ready to flee disaster at any moment.

The county seats of Jinxiang and Yutai now opened their city gates for only a single two-hour period each day. The runners and civilian laborers inside the cities were organized, ready to close the gates and resist at any time. Whether it was the imperial troops or the Xuzhou men, neither could be allowed inside the city walls.

From the gentry down to the common people, these two counties, along with the southern part of Jining Prefecture, were all on the verge of weeping in despair. This year's weather had been fairly favorable, and the crops were growing well. After the Liaodong war tax had flayed their skin and drunk their blood, there should still have been a little left over. But just as the autumn harvest was about to begin, great armies had come from both south and north. How could anyone dare to go out and harvest? Were they even being allowed to live?

There were, however, some who had vaguely heard that Yutai County remained entirely normal. That Xuzhou group ate and used only their own supplies and did not commandeer local grain. Even at those estates belonging to the Lu Prince Estate that no longer had any management, they took only thirty percent and let the tenant households divide the rest. And there had been no acts of ravaging the countryside.

Such things could only be confirmed by experiencing them firsthand. Hearsay could not be taken as truth. All they could do was go to the fields in terror and force themselves to harvest, in constant fear that one day a force of soldiers would emerge from the south or the north, and then great calamity would be upon them.

The great armies did not appear, but riders began to show up in twos and threes along the fields and field edges. These men had fierce, capable expressions and carried weapons on their backs. At first, whenever these men appeared, the common people in the fields would scatter in a panic. They had not expected that these men from the north, at most, would only ask for directions, showing not the slightest intention of harassing the people. They even kept their distance from the common folk. As for those coming from the south, they had yet to be seen.

Cai Huajun was one of the Xuzhou martial men who had followed and attached himself to the Zhao Character Camp on this campaign. Upon hearing his name, people tended to assume he was a clansman of the Yellow River Cai family. No one imagined that this Cai Huajun was actually a hunter from Qulipu in Xuzhou. A hunter — a man of the jianghu who staked his life in pursuit of wealth and status — actually being a scion of the Cai family, a house renowned as a scholarly lineage, was truly hard to believe.

This man, it was said, was born to a maidservant of a cousin of Juren Cai Zhengde. He was a male child with no formal status, and whether he could even be entered into the clan genealogy in the future was uncertain. Naturally, he received no care from the Cai family and could share in none of its benefits.

But there was one advantage to being in the Cai family compared to elsewhere: he could eat his fill. Cai Huajun's physique was also stronger than others. From childhood, he had been used as a servant, and he had learned some skills following the martial arts instructors who guarded the compound. Once, he had a conflict with someone of status in the Cai family, beat the man, and then fled.

Given the utter chaos Xuzhou was in back then, after fleeing, Cai Huajun should have become a bandit or thrown in his lot with some powerful magnate to do bloody work for money. But Cai Huajun's old mother was still in the Cai household, and he also wanted to preserve a clean identity so he could return home. So he traded for a set of gear and became a hunter, and somehow trained himself to a passable level of skill in archery and horsemanship. There were also rumors that this Cai Huajun was a lone-wolf bandit, said to often kill people for hire while masked. But no one had ever caught him red-handed.

After the person he had clashed with died of illness, Cai Huajun brought his old mother out of the Cai household, preparing to care for her in her final years. Tao Gui and Xu Yong of the Zhao Character Camp's cavalry company both called him Big Brother. So after Cai Huajun had settled down, he also helped the Zhao Character Camp with several matters. In the records of the Internal Guard and Yunshan Trading, this man Cai was noted as being very well-disposed toward the Zhao Character Camp, but because he had to look after his old mother at home, he could not work for the Zhao Character Camp. In the future, a Yunshan branch shop could hire him as a guard.

No one could figure out how a hunter could have a not-insignificant sum of silver in hand, but no one pressed the issue either. Martial men like this were not few on the Xuzhou ground. He lived a quiet life with his old mother, had married the previous year, and now his wife was already with child — a perfectly happy life.

Although he nominally bore the title of a Cai family descendant, everything about the Cai family had nothing to do with him. Its wealth and status were not his share, and its ruin could not implicate him. When Ma Chonghao had rallied various forces to march north, Juren Cai Zhengde had chosen the wrong side. Not only did he secretly communicate with the government troops, he also moved his entire household away. The sudden departure of such a locally renowned and prominent household set a terribly bad example, throwing Qulipu and even the prefectural seat of Xuzhou and the county seats everywhere into panic and uncertainty.

Of course, afterward the Cai family was completely purged. Some who did not know the inside story even targeted Cai Huajun, but once his relationship with the Zhao Character Camp was understood, he naturally remained safe and sound. He was even given a small Cai family residence.

Cai Huajun was very content with this life. Several times the Zhao Character Camp came to recruit him, and each time he refused. Cai Huajun was only in his early thirties. He could serve in the militia, the patrol corps, or as a guard, and the positions offered him were not low: head of the Qulipu patrol corps, or perhaps going to Xiao County to serve as chief constable of the county yamen. In the eyes of martial men all across Xuzhou and Pizhou, these were positions people would fight to the death over, yet Cai Huajun only wanted to live his own quiet little life.

But this year was different. Juren Cai, stranded away from home and unable to return, somehow thought of this lowly-born nephew. He arranged for someone to bring a message to Cai Huajun, saying that he was old and did not know how many more years he had left to live, but his ancestors for generations had all been here in Qulipu, Xuzhou. There was no reason for him to die in a strange land. He must return to his roots, or else he could not face his forefathers.

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