Chapter 991: Anxious All the Way

Before long, word came back. On the city wall, someone overcome by the violent swing from great joy to great sorrow burst out wailing. It turned out there had been chaos at the East Gate as well — the gate had already been pried open. But Instructor Lian was no slouch; with the long spear in his hands he skewered several roving bandits one after another, while others grabbed blades and hacked wildly outward alongside him. Somehow they managed to force the gate shut again at the risk of their lives and reseal it with earth and stone.

Thinking how close the entire city had come to falling, even Magistrate Lian trembled all over from lingering fear, and many more were so terrified that tears streamed down their faces. After this deed of merit, Yan Blackface unceremoniously took over the city's defense. The nearly two hundred salt-guard fighters under his command were now the strongest force in the city, and they had also proven themselves reliable.

Jining had been breached, and Zou County had been breached as well. By the time the Smelling Incense Sect's rebel army and refugees reached the walls of Teng County, they no longer possessed that same edge and ferocity. Their opportunistic attempt at internal collusion had failed, and when they prepared to launch wave after wave of desperate, all-out assaults, ready to gnaw down Teng County's walls with human lives, they no longer had the same overwhelmingly fierce momentum they'd shown at Jining's walls.

The first wave of attack was still terrifying. The refugees braved rolling logs, stone missiles, boiling water, and scalding oil to raise their scaling ladders, and they even charged onto the wall. But they could not gain a foothold atop the wall at all — Yan Blackface immediately led his men to cut them all down and drive them back off. Their courage was exhausted at that moment. The second wave could not even be organized. They tried to press forward layer by layer with threats, but each layer collapsed. The entire host was on the verge of disintegrating, so they could only call a temporary halt and attack again another day.

After that, they never again mounted the wall. They merely besieged Teng County, then dispatched detachments in all directions to forage for grain and seize captives, preparing to drive the common folk of Teng County ahead of them as cover. But Teng County was different from other places — this was already the sphere of influence of the Zhao Camp. All the villages and stockades had been forewarned: whenever marauding bandits struck, they were to withdraw into the Zhao Camp's manors and hold fast. Inside were local militia, manor tenants and able-bodied men who had undergone simple organization and training, and they could call upon one another for mutual defense. Moreover, from the northern part of Huai'an Prefecture in South Zhili, powerful local armed forces and Xuzhou militia began continuously moving in to provide support.

Battle after battle like this, they failed to seize any grain, and instead their morale grew weaker the more they fought. In the end, the thirty-thousand-strong Smelling Incense Sect refugee army could only station its main force at the North Gate, while the other three sides were merely token blockades and harassments — they dared not even make any major moves, for fear that if they pressed too hard, these tens of thousands would scatter in a mass rout. Under such circumstances, Teng County's seat was even able to continuously bring militia into the city to replenish its strength, and news from outside flowed in without cease. Teng County's seat held ever more securely. The greatest danger at this point came instead from within the city. The Smelling Incense Sect had laid its plans in Teng County too early and planted too many hidden agents. At this juncture, whether willingly or under duress, they kept stirring up trouble and chaos, attempting to let the rebel army outside into the city.

But those most unafraid of death had all died off. The later disturbances caused no great calamity either. Usually, as soon as chaos erupted, the constables and able-bodied commoners would rush over, and then it was like chopping melons and slicing vegetables. After a few times, the situation inside the city grew more and more stable.

To ensure stability, Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui reorganized the militia within the city. Originally, the militia organization inside Teng County's seat was very crude — as long as you were an able-bodied man with some strength, you were immediately conscripted to the wall, provided meals by the authorities, and issued weapons. Respectable and wealthy households, unless they had sons who practiced martial arts or were of a generous and zealous disposition, would often resort to tricks, such as paying someone else to serve in their stead. Naturally, all sorts of characters had infiltrated the ranks this way.

This time, Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui, leveraging the prestige gained from defending the city and the awe of Xuzhou, kept the original militia intact and then formed a new company besides. This company recruited almost no one from impoverished households. It drew from the gentry and local magnates, the scholarly literati, wealthy merchant households, and the clerks and runners of the yamen — specifically conscripting the able-bodied males of their families. Each household had to provide a certain number of males in proportion to its total population, and they also had to furnish their own weapons and provisions.

A burden dropped from the sky, with the added danger of death and injury — certainly no one was willing, and resentment was naturally unavoidable. However, the magistrate of Teng County summoned everyone, and Yan Blackface made it clear in public: the people most trustworthy in this city were precisely all of you gathered here. The poor and destitute, seeing no benefit or path to survival, naturally turned to burning incense and believing in the sect, hoping to change their lot in this life or the next. But those from whom this new militia company was drawn were all families with property and standing, people who had benefited from the current order of things — they would not naturally join in burning incense and rebelling. Moreover, now that this great chaos had erupted, those propertyless and jobless poor households suffered little harm, but those with family estates faced the ruin of their homes and the death of their kin. And once the great chaos breached the city, the poor households would surely turn on the wealthy ones first.

By explaining the stakes, they finally got this matter through. The magistrate of Teng County, who possessed a certain spirit, even enrolled several of his own relatives into the newly formed militia company, which left the city's gentry and prominent households with nothing more to say.

Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui had seen enough in Xuzhou and the Zhao Camp to know perfectly well that this new militia company could hardly be called a fighting force — it would be good enough if they didn't become a hindrance. But this force had one advantage: there would absolutely be no internal agents or spies of the Smelling Incense Sect within it. Even if, in ordinary times, some had been muddle-headed enough to burn incense and believe, at this moment of life and death, they would put their own family property and wealth first.

With this newly formed militia company, whenever trouble broke out inside the city, this company would rush over. Even if they could not suppress it, they could at least pin it down and prevent it from spreading and expanding. Furthermore, a force of several hundred men was still strength in itself. With these extra hands, deployment and allocation became far more relaxed.

Inside the city, they prepared for the worst, but the situation developed in a favorable direction. The Smelling Incense Sect's rebel army besieging Teng County's seat found it harder and harder to hold together. Every day saw massive numbers deserting and fleeing, and some even went directly to surrender at the local manors of the Cloud Mountain Trading House. Messages passed back and forth, further settling the hearts of the people in Teng County. It was said that within this rebel army, the leading chieftains were busy extorting wealth and seizing women, utterly indifferent to the lives of those beneath them. Whenever battle commenced, they simply drove them forward layer by layer with threats. This tactic had worked when the refugee uprising first erupted, but now that earlier despair and resentment had long since dissipated, it was completely ineffective.

The optimism within Teng County's seat did not last too long. Those fleeing refugees brought word that the "court" in Zou County had already dispatched its elite army, determined to take Teng County's seat. Though the Smelling Incense Sect's elite army was nothing much in itself, it was still stronger than the rabble they faced now. Everyone, high and low, grew tense and vigilant.

Soon after, several more pieces of news entered the city. Jining had been relieved. Then, the Third Great Company led by Li He had already moved north and was no more than a day's march from Teng County's seat. This news sent a wave of jubilation through Teng County. Although everyone knew the coming defensive battle would not be easy, they also knew that the Smelling Incense Sect's rebel army was not far from annihilation.

The reason they wanted to attack Teng County was probably to carve out a path of survival southward for themselves. In the current situation, the Smelling Incense Sect had already lost Jining, and the other departments and counties had long since been abandoned. They held only the seat of Zou County, which gave them absolutely no room to maneuver. Calculating the distances and the balance of attack and defense, only Teng County was a viable target now.

The people of Teng County, high and low, had already witnessed the fighting prowess of Yan Blackface, Qi Erkui, and their men. Hearing that the nearly one thousand newly arrived troops were even more elite and formidable, their hearts grew all the more settled. With no worries about defending the city, what else was there to fear? Teng County was also part of the southern Shandong region and had heard the tales of the Xuzhou village braves routing government troops. Back then, they had treated it as a story for amusement, but now it became a pillar of their confidence.

Li He led six companies of the Third Great Company and six companies of militia into the county seat through Teng County's South Gate. Over ten thousand of the Smelling Incense Sect's rebel troops still encamped at Teng County's North Gate. They knew reinforcements had arrived but dared not advance to give battle — they no longer had the courage for open-field combat.

When they saw the orderly ranks and imposing, stern bearing of the Xuzhou household retainers and militia, the hearts of everyone in Teng County, which had just begun to rise with anxiety, settled back down. All rejoiced and took heart, thinking that this time the city was free from worry.

However, Li He, the commander of this Third Great Company, did not want to merely defend the city. He had originally been a chiliarch in the government army, had experienced more than those company commanders and great company commanders who had risen from the household retainers, and thus thought more broadly. He knew that his position as great company commander ranked last among them all. Many company commanders of household-retainer origin were more qualified than he was. The reason he had been exceptionally promoted to this position was, nine times out of ten, to win over Li Dajin — he himself was merely a makeweight thrown in.

Li He was a man who could take things in stride, but he could also see that Zhao Jin's ambitions were far-reaching. The possibility of climbing upward within the Zhao Camp system and seizing even greater wealth and rank was greater than when he had been a chiliarch in the government army. To advance further, he needed to earn merit. But the role of the various great companies was to garrison their local areas — opportunities to go out on campaign and fight a major battle were rare. This time, the opportunity had come.

"The thousand-odd men under my command can all take the field. You several commanders of the salt-guard militia have another five hundred able-bodied men. That makes nearly two thousand. Our Xuzhou troops against these roving bandits — can't one of us beat ten of them?" Li He proposed bluntly.

Seeing the hesitant expressions on Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui, Li He spoke even more plainly: "Brothers, I'm not content to spend my whole life as just a great company commander. You two have been here even longer than I have — are you content just managing the private salt business? And speaking plainly, in normal times I'm stationed in Pizhou and you run the salt route — what opportunities do we have to earn merit? Isn't this one right before our eyes?"

At this, both Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui were stirred. Instructor Lian was even more excited. Li He said in a low voice: "Holding this city is only a minor merit — it won't showcase our true ability. Only by marching out and sweeping away these roving bandits, and smashing that so-called elite force of theirs as well — only that will count as real merit. What do you think?"

"Once this fight is over, knowing our Master Jin's temperament, he'll surely want to consolidate and settle things for a while. We're none of us young anymore — if we don't seize the chance to earn merit now, there won't be another opportunity!" This one sentence from Li He swayed them. It was indeed true. Compared to those household retainers who had entered the Zhao Camp in their teens and were now only in their early twenties, these men in their thirties and forties genuinely felt a sense of crisis. Especially since their own children were still young and could not yet fill the gap for a time, meaning their families had no forward progress and they could not even help their children along. Watching the Zhao Camp's daily flourishing momentum, how could their hearts not be anxious?

Li He's words stirred everyone, yet Yan Blackface still had misgivings: "Between us, we have only a few dozen bows, and half of those don't even dare take the field. Are we supposed to just go poke them with long spears? Master Jin made it clear every time he fought — this long-spear formation absolutely must be protected by bows and firearms, otherwise it's just a target."

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