Chapter 927: Who's Trying to Be Clever

The sect must have a hidden force, roughly located in the mountains northeast of Dongping Prefecture, not far from the canal. The reason we know this is because a portion of the Incense Sect's funds and grain had to be shipped to a private canal port over there, then transferred into the mountains. Xu Hongju handled this batch of funds and grain personally with the canal men, keeping it from outsiders. It's only because Xie Mingxian and Shen Zhi both had the authority to review the accounts that they were able to piece this together.

That the sect possessed such a force yet kept it hidden from them left Xie Mingxian and Shen Zhi deeply uneasy. However, ever since Zhao Jin stormed the Zeng Family Manor and abducted Mu Shulan, Xu Hongru had placed increasing importance on martial fighters and the common folk, while growing wary of those who relied on strategy and schemes.

Xie Mingxian's words failed to draw the response he wanted. Xu Hongju merely gave a scornful laugh and declared loudly, "Official troops are worth shit. Never mind twenty thousand—even if he had two hundred thousand, they'd be no match for our sect. You bookworms just think too damn much. To accomplish great things, what matters is throwing your life on the line and fighting with everything you've got. What's the point of all this careful calculation?"

Xia Zhongjin and Hou Wu exchanged a glance and both burst into snickering laughter. Xie Mingxian's brow furrowed, anger rising in him. He said coldly, "The official troops are one front. What about that demon king in Xuzhou? His household soldiers and trained militia already number over ten thousand. While we're undertaking our great endeavor, is that demon king just going to sit and watch? He's bound to make a move too. When that happens, we'll be caught between two fronts—we'll have to fight the official troops and fight this demon king at the same time. How are we supposed to manage that?"

The Incense Sect revered Maitreya Buddha and the Eternal Venerable Mother. Though its doctrine was a hodgepodge, it leaned toward Buddhism, so its adversaries naturally fell into the category of demons and monsters. Zhao Jin had long been branded with the title "Heavenly Demon," but from top to bottom everyone was accustomed to calling him the demon king—a result of the far too many bitter lessons Zhao Jin's camp had dealt the Incense Sect.

The moment Zhao Jin and his camp were brought up, Xu Hongju's expression changed. He was about to retort reflexively, but the Incense Sect hierarch Xu Hongru, sitting across from him, took a sip of yellow wine and spoke first.

"Zhao Jin won't make a move..."

"Your Holiness, when it comes to that demon king, this sect absolutely must not be careless!" Xie Mingxian immediately grew agitated, rising to his feet and speaking with earnest urgency.

The Incense Sect hierarch Xu Hongru slowly turned his wine bowl and said leisurely, "With such a huge shipment of grain coming from South Zhili, do you think Zhao Jin doesn't know who the buyer is?"

"... Even if he didn't know, he'd have people investigate..." Xie Mingxian murmured. The grain purchases had been handled directly by the Xu brothers with sect members on the canal; he hadn't been deeply involved either. But with this one hint from the hierarch Xu Hongru, the whole sequence of events suddenly became clear to him. He felt a chill run through him, the hairs on his body standing on end, and then sheer panic set in.

"Your Holiness, then..."

He wasn't the only one panicking. The others were hearing this for the first time as well. They had all been congratulating themselves on how easily they'd acquired the grain, but now that they thought about it, they were all struck by a nameless, flustered dread. So the secret business they'd been conducting—that demon king Zhao Jin in Xuzhou had known about it all along!

Xu Hongru set down his wine bowl, swept his gaze over everyone, and said with a smile, "That Battalion Commander buying the grain went straight to Zhao Jin's subordinates. Did none of you know that?"

Of course none of them knew. Xu Hongju's face turned ashen, and with a savage expression he snarled, "That damned old dog! For the sake of a little profit, he sold out his fellow sect members. He should be dragged here and carved to pieces by a thousand cuts!"

"Since when have those boatmen on the canal ever considered us fellow members? Only when there's silver to be had, perhaps?" Xu Hongru sneered. Although the transport soldiers and canal laborers also burned incense and followed the faith, and had their own Incense Masters and Assembly Masters, they formed a world of their own. Neither the Wang family of Luanzhou nor Xu Hongru of Yuncheng could command or control them.

Everyone turned to look at the hierarch Xu Hongru, all of them extremely tense. Xu Hongru, however, remained perfectly calm and at ease. He simply continued, "When I first learned of this, I was alarmed as well. I even considered postponing our great undertaking. But as boat after boat of grain arrived, I understood what he was trying to do."

Among those seated, Xie Mingxian had already caught on. His face grim, he said, "He wants us to rise up. This demon king wants us to launch our great undertaking! He wants to sit back and reap the fisherman's spoils!"

"We fight to the death, and he wants to swoop in and snatch the prize? That filthy bastard!" Xu Hongju cursed savagely, raising his hand to slam the table, but Xia Zhongjin stopped him.

"I understand Zhao Jin's thinking," Xu Hongru said. "His power has grown large, but he can't start a rebellion himself. If chaos broke out, it would mean a joint punitive expedition by the Great Ming's official forces—quite possibly the combined armies of the entire realm bearing down on him. That would be a threat to his very heartland, more terrifying than even the Jianzhou barbarians. So this scoundrel wants chaos to break out somewhere else first—best of all, somewhere near Xuzhou. Then he can fish in troubled waters. Xuzhou's hand has already reached into Shandong. If we can create major chaos here, he stands to gain the most!"

"Your Holiness, if that's the case, then wouldn't our great undertaking just be sewing a wedding dress for Zhao Jin to wear?" Shen Zhi said worriedly.

Xu Hongju and the others might not fully grasp the "wedding dress" allusion, but they could guess the general meaning. Every one of their faces turned ashen. Xia Zhongjin said through gritted teeth, "We fight with everything we've got, only to let Zhao Jin snatch the prize..."

The Incense Sect hierarch Xu Hongru tapped the table lightly twice, and the room instantly fell silent. Xu Hongru continued, "Schemes are intangible, but this grain—boat after boat of it—is real. With this grain, we can ignite a great fire across the land of Shandong, rousing all those common folk who can barely draw breath. When that time comes, we will sweep away every obstacle standing in our path. The official troops won't stop us, and neither will Zhao Jin!"

The frustration and tension on everyone's faces gradually faded. Xu Hongru's words went on: "In these years of widespread disaster, we can mobilize tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions—even tens of millions of people. What is that? That is a surging flood. Zhao Jin fancies himself a strong swimmer, a tide-player, but against such a deluge, he can only drown at the bottom. All that grain of his, all those schemes—they've only done us a great service!"

These words stirred everyone's hearts. Those numbers, though merely descriptive, made them feel an unstoppable, overwhelming power. Only those within the sect could understand what kind of force the common people truly were. Normally meek as sheep, in times of utter desperation they became savage and terrifying. One person alone might be no more than a rat baring its teeth, but when thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even more common folk gathered together, they became a vicious dragon, a force to shatter heaven and rend the earth—nothing could stop them. And that was exactly the state of Shandong right now: corvée labor imposed by the court, horse-raising in the Three Western Prefectures, charcoal-burning in the Three Eastern Prefectures, exorbitant taxes and levies, bans on digging wells for irrigation along the canal, the Liaodong war tax, and the recent string of earthquakes—all of it had filled Shandong with desperate people. The Incense Sect had been operating here for nearly twenty years and had long since made every preparation.

"Zhao Jin fancies himself clever, thinking he's hatched a brilliant scheme, but Your Holiness has turned his own trick against him. Once the greater situation is settled, that will be the moment of that fiend's destruction. Still, the demon king of Xuzhou's troops are indeed elite and formidable—Your Holiness must exercise caution!" Xie Mingxian still felt compelled to offer Xu Hongru a word of warning.

The Incense Sect hierarch drew a deep breath, then picked up the wine bowl from the table. He drained it and said in a deep voice, "If we can transform this realm into the Pure Land of the West, the Homeland of Supreme Bliss, that would be best. If not, holding the territory of Shandong would be no small achievement either. If Zhao Jin can carve out a domain in Xuzhou, why can't we carve out our own domain here in Shandong!"

Li Ziyou had asked Zhao Jin to take in thirteen of his relatives. Five of them were former Liaodong garrison officers; the rest were the old, the weak, women, and children. When he entrusted them to Zhao Jin, Li Ziyou hadn't spelled out many details, but just one look at their bearing and complexion made it clear they had held no low status in Liaodong. Ordinary soldiers' families wouldn't be so robust and sturdy, and the children were actually wearing clothes of silk and satin—even in Jiangnan, only wealthy households could afford such things.

The five men ranged from just over thirty down to eighteen years old. They came from two branches of the family, an uncle's and a nephew's. The older branch had two brothers, Li Song and Li Yue; the younger branch had three, Li Sen, Li Lin, and Li Mu. According to Li Ziyou, these younger-generation relatives had all dropped the middle character from their names as a way of concealing their identities.

The oldest of the able-bodied men was only thirty-one. By all rights, their fathers' generation would be no more than fifty—men of military households at that age should still be in their robust prime. There was no reason for them not to have come along.

Upon asking, they learned that the fathers of both families had died in battle at Sarhu. As Li Song put it, "If my father and uncle hadn't fallen to the Tartar slaves, how would the Zu family dare bully ours?"

Back then, their family had at least been a collateral branch sharing lineage with Li Chengliang's clan. Deeply rooted and flourishing across the entire Liaodong garrison, they had people looking out for them everywhere. Who would have dared bully their family?

The previous generation of that Zu family, Zu Chengxun, had been a Regional Vice Commander, and the current generation's Zu Dashou served as a Mobile Corps Commander in the Grand Coordinator's Standard Army. Li Song's father had held the rank of Mobile Corps Commander, and his uncle had been a Commander—they had been evenly matched. Unfortunately, the Li family's foundations were all in Liaodong. When the Jurchen Jin army of Jianzhou swept through, all those holdings were destroyed in a single stroke. The military men of the household, the pillars who held up the family, died in battle one after another or were stripped of their posts. The Zu family, on the other hand, were latecomers on the rise, and most of their holdings lay in the Liaoxi Corridor. This time, they hadn't been touched by the flames of war and had suffered few casualties, so their power naturally swelled.

The Li family had been throwing their weight around for so long that they naturally looked down on the upstart Zu family. The Zu family, now powerful, naturally had no patience for these remnants of a distant Li branch still clinging to their airs. The armed clash within the ranks—the embezzlement of military pay had only been the spark.

Still, the Li family had deep roots in the Liaodong garrison after all. Even after the clash and the killings, these two families had managed to flee with their households intact. They didn't look as though they'd suffered too much hardship along the way, either. In terms of clothing and daily comforts, their families lived like the upper class right there in Qingjiangpu.

In Liaodong, the main line and even the close branches of Li Chengliang's clan lived in silks and ate delicacies. The distant branches, however, couldn't afford to neglect their martial skills. These five brothers—Li Song and the others—had all trained their bodies and drilled diligently in archery and horsemanship since childhood. When they came to pay their respects, their tough, battle-hardened bearing was immediately apparent.

The able-bodied men rode horses; the old, the weak, the women, and the children traveled in carriages, along with two carts of valuables, trunks, and baskets. At a glance, one could tell this was the style of a wealthy, prominent household. Yet when Li Song and the others came to meet Zhao Jin, though their manner was extremely courteous, their expressions and bearing showed no trace of awe or deference.

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