Chapter 973: Xuzhou Is the True Immortal Realm

At first light the next morning, the walls of Jining were already thick with heads — it seemed the city still held a considerable remnant of the Smelling Incense Sect's rebel forces, enough to mobilize so many defenders.

By all normal reasoning, after yesterday's field victory and capturing so many refugees, the Xuzhou troops should be driving those captives at the walls today — that was exactly how the Smelling Incense Sect always did it. Yet the Zhao Battalion sat motionless. The only activity came from the mounted retainers patrolling around the city and the canal boats constantly docking, unloading grain and supplies for the main Zhao Battalion force on the bank.

From a distance, they could see about a hundred people being led out from the refugee mass. The watchers on the wall began guessing — was this an execution? After a battle like this, you always had to kill a few to make an example.

Seen up close, these hundred-odd refugees were sturdier than most, though not equal to Xu Hongju's veteran core. They carried themselves with a certain solemn discipline. Despite numbering only a hundred or so, they instinctively fell into formation as they walked, almost on par with the Zhao Battalion's militia.

They were brought before Zhao Jin's command tent, all standing with heads bowed. When Zhao Jin emerged from the tent, every one of them dropped to their knees unbidden.

"Is this all of you?" Zhao Jin swept his gaze over them and asked loudly.

Hearing his tone was not too harsh, they answered raggedly from below: "It's just us few, sir."

"If anyone's too dim-witted and still hiding among the crowd, missing today's chance — if they're caught and exposed later, they'll be beheaded as spies." Zhao Jin said it flatly. No one below answered.

Zhao Jin took a few steps forward. Liu Yong followed tensely, and the guard retainers closed in behind. Zhao Jin looked at the kneeling men and said, "Don't be afraid. If I meant to kill you, I'd have dragged you out and beheaded you yesterday."

At these words, the hundred-odd men relaxed considerably. Zhao Jin did not walk among them but studied them from a few paces away, shaking his head. "You look better than those starving refugee corpses, but worse than when you were in Xuzhou. You were training elite troops for the Smelling Incense Sect — what, they couldn't even spare you a mouthful of meat?"

The kneeling crowd had been utterly silent, but at this, a stir ran through them, and some could not hold back their tears.

"Master, we were possessed by devils! We didn't know enough to stay in Xuzhou, eating our fill and living in peace, but stupidly came back to this godforsaken place. Let alone eating our fill, just getting a bite of anything is hard. We had no choice but to sell our lives to this heaven-struck Smelling Incense Sect. Some who tried to go back to Xuzhou just died on the road halfway. We had no way out, master!" One with a glib tongue wept as he poured out their plight.

"Training troops for this Smelling Incense Sect, the most they'd ever let a man eat was seventy-percent full — and they never trusted us anyway..."

"We led men in life-and-death battles against the government troops, but all the rewards went to the sect leader's relatives. Nothing ever trickled down to us below."

As the words poured out, so did the grievances. Zhao Jin and his comrades listened with strange expressions. These men were all refugee militia who had fled from Xuzhou back to Shandong — the very ones who had trained the Divine Protector Heavenly Soldiers and Divine Protector Holy Army. After routing the refugees, the Zhao Battalion had immediately ordered a search among the captives and fished them all out.

Listening to their accounts, at first they merely stated how they'd had no choice, but as they talked on, a trace of defiance even crept in. The gist was: if the Smelling Incense Sect hadn't been so utterly corrupt, so steeped in cronyism, the Divine Protector Holy Army they trained might actually have given the Zhao Battalion a real fight.

Refugee militia stock, never chosen as retainers or staff, yet single-mindedly bent on fleeing back to Shandong — these were not the sharpest minds, hardly worldly-wise, and their tongues were indeed none too careful.

Still, dim as they were, some now caught on, muttering low and coughing loudly, and soon silence fell again.

"You trained these forces to stand against the Zhao Battalion. That makes you the chief culprits. Beheading you would be entirely justified." Zhao Jin's tone did not change, but many of those kneeling below began to tremble.

These very men had once besieged Xuzhou as refugees and witnessed the Zhao Battalion's might back then. In the battles at Wild Grass Flats, they had seen the Zhao Battalion's prowess again, and this time they had been utterly cowed and crushed. Having just relaxed a little, these words instantly brought back the thunder and lightning, the mountains of corpses and seas of blood — they felt as though their whole bodies had been plunged into an ice pit.

"Still, I never imagined anyone else could train troops nearly on par with the Zhao Battalion. You do have some talent." Zhao Jin offered a word of praise.

Regarding these Smelling Incense Sect rebels of militia background, the Zhao Battalion from top to bottom — Zhao Jin and his comrades — were unanimous: keep them, and put them to use as much as possible. They were seeds of officers and sergeants, worth retaining and cultivating. Whatever else, they had at least trained a force that looked the part and gained real combat experience. The ability to train troops with real battle experience — even among the Zhao Battalion's own retainers, that was rare. Truly valuable.

"You fled Xuzhou and made yourselves enemies of the Zhao Battalion. For crimes like these, death by a thousand cuts would be light." Zhao Jin's voice hardened. At these words, some below began kowtowing uncontrollably, and the rest followed. Some tried to speak, to beg for their lives with trembling voices, but could not get a coherent sentence out.

Zhao Jin's words were not harsh, and they left room, but after the bloody battle, these captives below felt a murderous chill radiating from him, and were naturally shaken to the core.

"Though you set yourselves against Xuzhou, you did it no real harm. At this juncture, your crimes are not so heavy. I will give you a way out: take these tens of thousands of people to Yutai County. Someone there will make arrangements for you. If you can bring them there safely, without incident, without desertion along the way — that will be your merit..."

By this point, the atmosphere had relaxed. But just then, among those kneeling below, someone boldly interrupted: "Master, can we still go back to Xuzhou?"

"Of course you can go back," Zhao Jin answered, inwardly puzzled. He had just said so much — every word more important than returning to Xuzhou, with hints of future prospects woven in.

What surprised Zhao Jin even more was that at his answer, some among the kneeling men broke into loud wailing, crying out as they wept: "The great master shows mercy, letting us small folk return to Xuzhou!"

Others were too choked to speak: "Back then I brought my wife along. I can't tell you the hardships on that road. My wife died halfway. Before she died, she said we had to go back to Xuzhou — that being a dog there was better than being a person here."

"Xuzhou is a land of peace and plenty. Xuzhou — that is the true immortal realm among men."

This conversation had touched something deep in their hearts. Hearing their cries, Zhao Jin and his comrades exchanged glances, each reading the others' thoughts clearly: these men could be trusted, more or less.

The watchers on the wall, of course, could make no sense of these tragicomedies below. But their taut nerves could at last ease a little, for the Xuzhou troops remained motionless before the city. That made sense, after all: a great fortified city — no matter how elite and fierce you were in the field, you still had to spend lives scaling the walls, a grinding cost in blood. The Zhao Battalion of Xuzhou, strong as they were, were too few in number. They couldn't afford the cost!

And what relaxed the defenders on the wall even more was seeing the captives withdrawing in column after column, moving south along the river. This posture made it even clearer that the Xuzhou troops had no intention of assaulting the city — otherwise, these captives would have been the first wave of expendable fodder.

On the third dawn after the great battle, just as the sky began to lighten, the tense defenders on the wall noticed the Xuzhou troops stirring again. It seemed another force was leaving Jining. As long as it wasn't heading for the city, there was no need to pay much mind.

But the men on the wall never imagined that Zhao Jin himself was among this force: four hundred cavalry, eight hundred infantry — some of the cavalry riding two horses per man — with a dozen heavy supply wagons following.

Under prior orders, his comrades had stayed behind to hold the camp. Only Liu Yong accompanied him. The foreigner Louis had even come to see them off at the camp gate.

"Is it there?" Following Louis's pointing finger, Zhao Jin looked from horseback. The southeast corner of Jining's wall loomed dimly in the lingering night.

"Yes, that's the place," Louis confirmed.

Zhao Jin nodded from the saddle and said, "Once I return from this business, we'll begin. Prepare well these next few days. If you need anything, ask Chen Sheng for help."

Louis hastily agreed. Watching Zhao Jin wheel his horse around, he bowed deeply with clasped hands and said, "I wish Master Jin success on this journey — smooth sailing, victory at first banner!"

His accent was quite authentic now, though the phrasing still had flaws. Zhao Jin couldn't help laughing on horseback and shook his head. "You've learned well. Just keep learning like this."

The thousand-odd troops departed in silence, heading south like the other departing forces. The defenders on the wall had grown numb to this and paid no attention — they would not notice that twenty li out, Zhao Jin's force turned and struck northeast.

By now, Yanzhou Prefecture was no longer aflame in every corner. The Smelling Incense Sect rebels, dragging refugees with them, were encamped in a few locations — some guarding cities, others storming county seats. All grain and supplies had been stripped bare. The refugees could only eat by following along; scattered on their own, there was no path to survival. If the mounted bandits didn't kill and plunder them, they starved.

The force Zhao Jin led moved in silence. A column of this size — the mounted bandits weren't fool enough to attack it. As for other Smelling Incense Sect rebel bands, if they spotted it, they'd only assume it was some other contingent of the sect, maybe Divine Protector Holy Army or Heavenly Soldiers from Jining...

Because Zhao Jin's force had deliberately dirtied their clothes and kept as ragged as possible. The cavalry, meanwhile, ranged far ahead, with no visible link between them. As long as they didn't wear government army uniforms, anyone would take them for just another refugee band.

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