Chapter 666
The Suppression of Bandits at Wofo Mountain
The death of Chen Ji became famous throughout the capital, and the news spread throughout the city in just half a day.
The people spread the news, and the gavel was struck in the teahouse. The young man who had fought his way in and out of Chongli Pass, the madman who spent lavishly in the Jiaofangsi, and the man who was cursed as a eunuch, Li Changge, perished in the fire at the Qi family's mourning hall.
In front of the City God Temple in Chongnanfang, hundreds of women spontaneously gathered, though it's unclear who started it.
They cut paper flowers and arranged them one by one at the foot of the stone steps, then lit paper money. Wisps of smoke mingled with sobs as they chanted Li Changge's name.
Hearing the crying, Zhang Li sat on the stone steps with the blank book spread out on his lap, watching the words slowly emerge.
The wordless book had just written: "White feathers once proudly held jade bridles, silver saddles knew nothing of the frontier dust. Drunk, they twirled flying blossoms to mock tiger generals, waking up to throw away a thousand gold coins for a wine cup, their lives a dream of the capital. Suddenly, startled awake from their drunken stupor, they abandoned their playboy lifestyle to join the army. The Anding Gate opened, the wind and snow darkened, new white bones lay beneath the walls of Guyuan, and songs of mourning echoed for the old friends."
Zhang Li scratched his head in frustration, muttering to himself, "You're writing way too slowly! You've been writing for ages, and you're still writing the verdict for the Imperial Guards? When will we find out if Chen Ji is dead or not? If he's dead, all my new storytelling will have been for nothing!"
Just then, a guard rode up on horseback, tore off the arrest warrant posted in front of the City God Temple, and put up a new one.
Someone looked over and saw a portrait of a middle-aged man: "Yao An, a traitor, a native of Shuntian Prefecture..."
This was the arrest warrant issued by the Secret Service after Bao Hou reported to Bai Long, and it was to be delivered throughout Ning Dynasty by express courier within half a month.
The onlookers began to whisper among themselves: "Who is this person? Why are they posting his wanted poster? Could it be that he killed Li Changge?"
Zhang Li paid no attention to the discussions, staring intently at the blank book. After an unknown amount of time, the book turned page after page until a line of text appeared: "Then Chen Ji was seen standing at the bow of the ship, and urgent sounds came from afar, it was..."
The words on the blank book startled Zhang Li so much that he stood up: "Holy crap!"
The women who were mourning Chen Ji asked anxiously, "Taoist Master, what's wrong?"
Zhang Li hurriedly explained, "It's nothing, it's nothing."
He closed the blank book, stuffed it into his sleeve, and turned to leave.
Just as the women were about to ask further questions, they saw several more riders gallop past. These guards, all carrying black lacquered tubes, were delivering urgent messages over 400 li to all directions.
……
……
One day later.
On the gate tower of Xuanhua Prefecture, a flag-bearing infantryman looked out and saw a line of more than a hundred horsemen slowly appear on the horizon.
These hundred or so riders were all armed, some carrying iron-rimmed bows, and some even had sixteen-foot-long lances hanging beside their saddles.
In the army, those who can wield the horse lance are truly masters of the art of man and horsemanship. If a family possesses an ancestral horse lance, then going back three generations, one is sure to have a person of great renown.
As the hundred or so riders drew closer, the flag-bearing foot soldier squinted and looked more closely. He saw that every man on horseback was covered in blood, and on the side of each horse's saddle hung one, two, three or five heads that looked like they had died with their eyes wide open.
The severed heads swayed back and forth in the turbulence, like strings of dried fruit.
As these men and women moved slowly, surrounded by human heads, they continued to chat and laugh as if they didn't care at all how bloody those heads were.
The foot soldiers gasped and raised their command flags.
Suddenly, the sound of drums rose from the Drum Tower.
The infantrymen guarding the city climbed onto the city wall and tied their bowstrings to the hard bows.
The hundred or so cavalrymen were not moving fast. By the time they reached the city walls, the commander of Xuanhua Garrison had already arrived after hearing the news. He stood on the city wall and asked loudly, "Who comes here?"
The leader below the city wall held up a fire-tipped warrant from the Ministry of War and announced loudly, "Li Xuan, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guards in the capital, has been ordered by the Ministry of War to go to Guyuan to join the army!"
The commander of Xuanhua Prefecture looked closely and said, "Let me take a look."
The infantrymen guarding the city lowered a basket with a rope and brought up the Ministry of War's fire warrant. The commander waved his hand and said, "Go and fetch the map."
The officer went to retrieve the photograph, and the group compared it with the three seals on the fire ticket; they were exactly the same.
The commander muttered to himself, "Didn't the Ministry of War's fire warrants indicate that they had already set off? How come they only arrived in Xuanhua Prefecture today?"
He looked down at the city walls again: "Where did the heads on your saddles come from?"
Li Xuan patted the heads next to his thigh: "Black Eagle, the leader of the Straw Hat Mountain bandit den, Grass Flying, the second leader... and the third, fourth, and fifth leaders are all here."
After Li Xuan finished speaking, Qi Zhenzhuo pointed to the head next to his saddle and said, "Wang Lei, the leader of Wofo Mountain, and Jiu Lao, the second leader..."
The Imperial Guards reported the names of the heads one by one, and they were all bandits who had been entrenched in the mountains and had been wiped out by the Imperial Guards as they attacked and captured cities and strongholds.
The commander was filled with doubt and uncertainty. These bandits' strongholds were all located in the deep mountains and forests, places that were easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Xuanhua Prefecture government troops had repeatedly tried to encircle and suppress them but failed. Either the bandits escaped, or they were unable to rush up the mountain. He didn't know how these Imperial Guards had managed to fight their way up.
At this moment, Li Xuan shouted, "This time, the purpose of suppressing the bandits is threefold: first, to rid the people of a scourge; second, to train the troops; and third, to... collect the rewards." Only then did the commander realize that these bandits with names and surnames were criminals for whom the imperial court had issued rewards, ranging from fifty taels to five hundred taels. Just looking at the heads hanging on the saddles of the Imperial Guards, they could probably collect several thousand taels of rewards.
But aren't the Imperial Guards all spoiled brats from the capital? Why would they need to work so hard to suppress bandits and make money?
The commander snapped out of his daze: "Open the city gates and welcome the Imperial Guards!"
He walked down the city wall and gestured to his infantrymen to take away and count the heads: "My colleagues, please come with me to the post station to stay for now... I will inform the prefect so that you can sign the Ministry of War fire warrants."
Holding the Ministry of War's warrant, one must follow the route set by the imperial court. At each city along the way, the prefect must affix his seal, and the route cannot be changed at will.
Qi Zhenzhuo watched as the city guards took the head and said anxiously, "Wait, what about our reward money..."
The commander hurriedly explained, "Please be patient, everyone. The matter of receiving the reward money cannot be rushed. We need to find those bandits and villagers to identify them. Only after confirming that there are no mistakes can we withdraw the money from the public treasury."
Li Xuan and the others all breathed a sigh of relief.
Their purpose in suppressing the bandits was indeed to train their troops, but they were also genuinely short of funds. In a moment of impulsiveness, they went to serve as the ceremonial guard for Chen Ji's wedding, and before they even had time to pack their belongings, an imperial edict banished them from the capital.
If I don't earn some money soon, things will only get worse in Guyuan. I won't even have the money to get married and settle down.
The group dismounted in front of the post station. At the end of the group, a member of the Imperial Guard was carefully helping a woman dismount.
The woman wore a worn-out blue cotton-padded jacket, and her hair was held up by a single wooden hairpin, without any hairpins or ornaments. She dismounted and stood timidly behind the Imperial Guards, her head bowed and her fingers clutching her cuffs.
The Imperial Guardsman spoke in a low voice of concern, while Qi Zhenzhuo, not far away, jeered, "Wang Peng, can you stop showing off, you son of a bitch?"
When Chen Ji first went to the Jiaofangsi (a government-run entertainment district) to redeem Princess Baili, the Imperial Guards scraped together what they could, but Wang Peng couldn't come up with the money. He was so anxious that he ran around in circles. Finally, he gritted his teeth and went to the Eight Great Hutongs, where he borrowed 670 taels of silver from a courtesan.
That was the money the woman had saved up for three years to redeem herself.
After Chen Ji finished his business, he returned the silver, which Wang Peng then gave back to the woman. He placed the silver on the table and turned to leave. As he reached the door, the woman asked him with tears in her eyes, "Isn't this ransom money enough to show my feelings?"
Wang Peng didn't dare look back and ran away as if fleeing.
Later, when the imperial edict ordered them to leave the capital, Wang Peng always looked in the direction of the Eight Great Hutongs.
Just as he was about to leave the city gate, someone shouted, "You still owe them an explanation!" Fueled by alcohol, he rode through five streets and stopped his horse in front of the Qingyin Xiaozhu (a small, quiet abode).
The woman stood inside the door looking at him. He hesitated for a long time before finally managing to utter, "Guyuan is very windy and sandy. Are you... are you afraid?"
The woman simply looked up at him and asked, "Does Guyuan have any wine?"
Wang Peng hurriedly replied, "Yes, yes."
The woman turned and entered Qingyin Xiaozhu. When she came out again, she was carrying a light little bundle in her left hand and the contract in her right: "Let's go."
……
……
Just as the Imperial Guards were about to enter the post station, they saw a wanted poster on the door. Before Li Xuan could see anything else, he saw the reward of 10,000 taels of silver.
When he finally saw clearly who the person in the painting was, he suddenly turned to the commander of Xuanhua Prefecture and asked, "What's going on? What has he done wrong?"
The commander paused for a moment: "I don't know either. It was sent three days ago by express courier, and it's said that the perpetrator committed a serious crime of treason, for which there is a reward of ten thousand taels of silver."
The Imperial Guards looked at each other, and just as they were about to step forward and tear off the arrest warrant, Li Xuan grabbed their wrists and said in a deep voice, "These arrest warrants have already been sent to various prefectures. What good will tearing this one off do?"
Qi Zhenzhuo reluctantly withdrew his hand: "We can't just watch Master be wanted by the imperial court like this, there must be some misunderstanding."
Just then, the prefect arrived upon hearing the news. Li Xuan clasped his hands and said, "I never expected to alarm the prefect."
The prefect, supporting his arm, smiled and ushered him into the post station: "You all helped Xuanhua Prefecture rid it of bandits, how could I not come to see you? You don't know, Xuanhua Prefecture has suffered from bandits for a long time. Last spring, the Zhao family in the south of the city was sending their daughter off to her husband's home with great fanfare. But when the bridal sedan chair reached the foot of Wofo Mountain, bandits abducted the bride and took her up the mountain. The Zhao family reported it to the authorities, and Xuanhua Prefecture sent troops to besiege the mountain three times, but they failed to break through each time. The terrain of Wofo Mountain is so strong that one man can hold off ten thousand. Before the government troops even reached the halfway point, logs and rocks started rolling down."
"Thirty li north of Xuanhua Prefecture, there is a place called Liujiabao. Liujiabao is a large village with about two hundred households, and they live a fairly prosperous life. The winter before last, bandits from Caomao Mountain sneaked into the village and killed about a hundred people."
The prefect rambled on, saying, "Gentlemen, not only am I coming, but all the gentry and powerful people of Xuanhua Prefecture will also be coming later. They will not only bring the imperial reward money, but also present gifts of gratitude."
Li Xuan hummed in agreement. Unable to refuse such hospitality, they could only enter the post station and take their seats.
The prefect suddenly changed the subject: "May I ask which one of you is Mr. Chen Chong, the 'Long-Handed Poet of Daning'?"
All eyes of the Imperial Guards turned to the Gelaohui (a secret society), who scratched his head with his little finger: "I am Chen Chong. Does the Prefect know me?"
The prefect rubbed his hands together, his gaze burning: "Your journey to suppress bandits in the mountains has delayed your travels, but Mr. Chen's poem 'Man Jiang Hong' arrived in Xuanhua Prefecture before you... I wonder if Mr. Chen could leave behind a piece of his calligraphy, as a final farewell?" (End of Chapter)