Chapter 109: Magnanimity and Grandeur

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This was not right, was it?

Liu Chengzong was naturally delighted when two hundred and forty frontier soldiers came over to join him.

But afterward, he sank into deep concern.

The disorder among the various armies outside Baijiachuan a few days earlier had not seemed like much. After all, everyone else had performed poorly, while only Gao Yingxiang’s own men and his Mule Camp had remained standing in orderly formation.

It had not been enough to put Gao Yingxiang in an awkward position.

He and Gao Yingxiang had never been particularly close. Someone narrow-minded might even insist that his father had once had some unpleasantness with Gao Yingxiang.

Their so-called master-and-disciple relationship had been born of helplessness in prison back then, and was now merely the natural result of joining forces to survive.

But Yang Yao’s sudden display, appearing from who knew where, made Liu Chengzong think that if their positions were reversed, Gao Yingxiang would be deeply displeased.

Who, exactly, was the leader?

Judging others by oneself, this was clearly a case of the guest usurping the host’s place.

If he continued on this way with Gao Yingxiang, sooner or later they would be united in name only.

Smack!

Gao Yingxiang brought his palm down hard on the table, startling Liu Chengzong. His hand, which had just relaxed, returned to the hilt of his sword.

Damn it, I was just worrying about becoming united in name only, and now Master Gao will not even let me keep the “united” part?

But Gao Yingxiang was not looking at him at all. He raised his arm and pointed at Yang Yao.

“Damn it, am I, Gao Yingxiang, really not worth anyone’s coming to join?”

Then he threw back his head and laughed loudly. Slapping Liu Chengzong on the shoulder, he said, “Lion, this is a good thing! Don’t keep making them kneel there. Hurry and accept these brothers of yours. From now on, you must serve General Liu loyally—or we’ll all hold it against you!”

This was the second time Liu Chengzong had witnessed Gao Yingxiang’s greatest strength. He truly possessed a broad and generous spirit.

If the same thing had happened to someone else, very few people could have sincerely rejoiced on another’s behalf.

Even offering congratulations against their true feelings would have gone against human nature.

Whether sincere or not, it was an act of great magnanimity.

When Gao Yingxiang saw that Liu Chengzong still had not moved, he assumed that the younger man was worried about provisions. He leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry. I still have grain and fodder here.”

Liu Chengzong said nothing. He rose, stepped back, and bowed deeply to Gao Yingxiang with clasped fists, his heart full of gratitude.

Gao Yingxiang reached out and patted his arm, then pointed toward Yang Yao. His expression plainly said, Go ahead and do what you must. Your big brother has your back.

He thought Liu Chengzong was thanking him for the provisions.

In truth, Liu Chengzong was grateful to him for teaching him a lesson.

Becoming a leader was easy.

When everyone else had no idea where to go, the person who led them onto a path naturally made his own convictions the direction of the entire group.

But being a good leader was difficult. The world was full of people born with the qualities of emperors and ministers who had ultimately ended up abandoned by all.

Generosity of spirit mattered greatly.

Liu Chengzong turned and approached Yang Yao with a trace of caution. He helped him to his feet and asked, “You said you were a Hundred-man Commander from Guyuan. How did you find me?”

Yang Yao rose. Liu Chengzong was younger than he had imagined, and for a moment he failed to react. After a brief pause, he nodded, understanding that the question concerned his background. He clasped his fists and said, “General, you were once a frontier soldier yourself, so I will say nothing more about unpaid wages. Last year, in the twelfth month, several deserters in our camp were caught by the Battalion Commander during the Longevity Festival and flayed alive on the command platform.”

So these were the frontier soldiers involved in last year’s mutiny at Guyuan.

Liu Chengzong nodded and glanced at Cao Yaoi, Gao Xian, and the others seated at another table. He knew this matter better than most. Their two companies of frontier soldiers from Yihe Fort had been disbanded and sent away by lot precisely because of the trouble at Guyuan.

Yang Yao continued, “We brothers killed the Battalion Commander, then fought our way through Sanshui, Yaozhou, and several other places. Later, we joined Brother Wang the Second, the King of Baishui. After Brother Wang died, government troops hunted us down, and we wandered from place to place.”

Yang Yao did not need to explain. From the armor covered in scars alone, Liu Chengzong could tell how many battles they had endured.

“When we were utterly despairing, we heard that you had defeated government troops at the relay station in the north, released defeated soldiers, and never troubled the common people. We wanted to join you, so we gathered information along the way. As luck would have it, we met the Heavenly Monkey on the road and learned that you were camped here. So here we are.”

Liu Chengzong nodded inwardly. That explanation made sense.

“These are extraordinary times,” he said. “Since you once joined Brother Wang the Second, did you know an elite commander named Song Shouzhen among his men?”

“An elite commander?”

Yang Yao thought briefly, then shook his head. “All the brave men under Brother Wang were our brothers. There was no elite commander named Song Shouzhen. There was, however, a man surnamed Song who played the two-stringed fiddle. He was a musician from Fuzhou.”

That settled it.

All Liu Chengzong’s doubts vanished. He stepped forward, took Yang Yao by the arm, and clasped his fists.

“Exactly—a musician. Since we are all brothers from the frontier, I shall rely on you greatly from now on, Brother Yang.”

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Everyone was delighted. Gao Yingxiang waved his hand.

“Bring a few more bowls. Ying’en, go with the Heavenly Monkey outside the camp and arrange quarters for Hundred-man Commander Yang’s men. Then call all the officers in his company here. We’ll drink and eat meat, and let Lion get acquainted with the new men who have joined him.”

The Star of Central Struggle and the Heavenly Monkey accepted their orders and went to make the arrangements. Yang Yao was pulled to the table by Liu Chengzong.

Gao Yingxiang seemed about to speak, but in the end he could not hold back. Holding his wine bowl, he fixed Yang Yao with a very strange look.

“Hundred-man Commander Yang, you… Lion, I swear I’m not trying to pry up the bricks of your family wall. I genuinely want to know: have you really never heard of my name?”

It was strange. Gao had spent so many years traveling among the four frontier garrisons. Even Mongols from beyond the passes who fled into Han territory knew to come and join him. Could his reputation truly be so insignificant in Guyuan?

Yang Yao answered with formal courtesy. “The great name of King Gao the Raider is as familiar as thunder. I had heard of you long ago.”

Gao Yingxiang froze, as though something had lodged in his throat. Only after adjusting his breathing did he recover from the awkwardness. He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Yang Yao.

“Then why didn’t you join me?”

This was the point Gao Yingxiang found most puzzling.

It was not that Liu Chengzong was inferior. Liu Chengzong was excellent—otherwise Gao Yingxiang would not have gone out of his way to detour into Shanxi in search of him.

But when it came to joining a rebel army, was it not better to seek shade beneath a great tree?

Anyone with eyes could see that Wang Jiayin was a great tree, and so was Gao Yingxiang. Liu Lion, however, was a wall on the verge of collapse. Joining someone else was safe; joining Liu Chengzong was dangerous.

There was nothing strange about Yang Yao’s group deliberately seeking out Liu Chengzong. They were all frontier soldiers, after all, and possessed a natural foundation of trust.

But Gao Yingxiang was plainly right there. It was impossible that the Heavenly Monkey had not mentioned him, yet Yang Yao had still not spared him a glance.

Gao Yingxiang wanted to know where, exactly, the problem lay.

He looked first at Liu Chengzong, then at Yang Yao, and explained, “This has nothing to do with your joining Liu Lion. If more people join Liu Lion in the future, or join the Heavenly Monkey, that is perfectly fine. Everyone has their own aspirations. But I must know…”

He sat upright and patted his broad chest.

“Am I unable to win people over, or is my reputation poor? I need to change.”

A Hundred-man Commander was not a particularly high position, but men who reached it were generally not lacking in ability, intelligence, or education.

An ordinary soldier had to have taken part in at least two battles and earned merit in both. In between, he needed to lead a unit as a squad commander and study military knowledge at a military academy or fortress before he could serve as a Hundred-man Commander.

The other possibility was that he came from a hereditary military family. That path was much simpler. With family learning and instruction at a garrison academy, most such men were capable of serving as officers over regular troops.

Besides, Yang Yao had fought his way out of a mutiny. After only a short time among them, he had already realized that his actions had placed Liu Chengzong in an awkward position.

He also had his own苦衷, though he could not speak of it. He had assumed that, judging by Liu Chengzong’s abilities, even if the young man joined forces with these refugee armies, he would be treated in camp like an ancestor and walk outside with everyone bowing before him.

Who could have guessed that Liu Chengzong was so young?

“General Liu, King Gao, I will be frank. Before I came, I never imagined that the general would be so young and accomplished. But even if I had known, I still would have joined General Liu.”

As he spoke, Yang Yao watched the expressions of the men at the table.

“I do not know how capable King Gao is, but in Qingyang and Ningzhou I once joined forces with local bandits such as Sun the Monkey and He Zije. Later I also joined Brother Wang the Second. All of them treated us frontier brothers with great kindness and respect. Because of that treatment and regard, we had more than eight hundred brothers.”

This description was essentially identical to Liu Chengzong’s position under Gao Yingxiang: his provisions were entirely supplied, he was not required to perform labor, and an entire contingent was maintained solely so that, when government troops appeared, they would have a guardian to protect them.

Yang Yao raised two fingers. Grief that could not be concealed filled his face.

“Some died, some scattered. Now only this handful remains. I did not originally want to join a great leader, but if we were allowed to plunder freely, our hearts would scatter.”

It was a dark truth.

The Book of the Later Han compared employing men to raising hawks: when hungry, they could be put to use; once full, they would take flight.

Of course, hunger and fullness did not mean merely whether they had enough food to eat. They referred to the security, wealth, and satisfaction of every desire that a group could provide.

A band of frontier soldiers could plunder on a grand scale and acquire wealth without much difficulty. But once they had obtained money and goods, why would anyone continue following their leader? Why not take the gold, silver, and silks home?

You were the bandit chief. The soldiers were not.

Even if they remained at your side, a group of desperate men would become a group of wealthy landowners. How much of their desire to fight would remain?

Put simply, so long as they could live decent lives, no one wished to spend their days unsure whether they would survive until tomorrow.

“Since we had to join someone, we had suffered enough from the misery of coveting wealth when we should have fled, fighting when we should have fled, and fleeing in panic when we should have fought. We had to join someone who understood military affairs—not merely a leader who knew war, but one whose subordinates were also true men.”

After speaking, Yang Yao raised his bowl to Liu Chengzong.

“Among the leaders whose names are known today, I would join only General Liu’s forces. They possess the bearing of a righteous army.”

Liu Chengzong listened and nodded inwardly. He glanced back, then took a small sip from his bowl.

He had grown up drinking the wine of the condemned and had an excellent tolerance for alcohol.

But he was not fond of drinking. In fact, he was somewhat afraid of it.

He always felt that drinking was a kind of summoning ritual.

As if the moment he lifted a bowl and poured wine into his mouth, his stern elder brother would be summoned behind him and angrily rebuke him for drinking alcohol in the army.

Yang Yao was an interesting man—a Hundred-man Commander who pursued the greater cause.

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Liu Chengzong understood what that greater cause meant.

Nearly a thousand years of rivalry during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods had driven Central China’s military theory and technology forward at tremendous speed, until they reached the limits imposed by the conditions of the age.

Thereafter, every dynasty relied on the ideals of defending one’s homeland and serving one’s honor to sustain its regular armies.

But every state had its periods of prosperity and decline. When a dynasty first rose, it possessed not only ideals, but also practical rewards: honors and titles for meritorious service, land for military achievements, and even hereditary privileges for one’s descendants. At the height of an era, goods were abundant, the people prosperous, and the nation strong. The rewards available to soldiers were even greater.

By the end of a dynasty, however, usually only those ideals remained to keep the army’s spirit alive.

Yet Liu Chengzong felt that, after searching through the histories, he could find few examples of an army as miserable as the one before him.

There had been countless peasant uprisings across the land, and even more bands of roving bandits and thieves. But the government armies had always stood on the side of righteousness. Even at the end of a dynasty, during the early stages of rebellion, few regular soldiers surrendered to insurgents.

Suppressing rebellion for the state, earning promotion and noble rank: it was a perfect union of the nation’s fate and an individual’s advancement.

Especially in the Great Ming, an age when organization, training, morale, firearms, armor, and military equipment were all incomparably more complete than in earlier eras.

In more than a thousand years, the disparity in strength between peasant rebels and government troops had never been so enormous.

At that moment, Liu Chengzong suddenly wanted to laugh, yet feared that laughter would bring tears.

Across from him sat a former officer of the Great Ming Empire whose heart still yearned for righteousness.

When the ideal of defending the country and protecting the people had been crushed beneath hunger, he could only search for a balance between letting his soldiers run wild and protecting the land and its inhabitants—a balance that would allow them to fill their bellies and preserve their lives.

There was nothing laughable about that.

It was bitterly ironic.

What was laughable was that, in Yang Yao’s eyes, Liu Chengzong was that point of balance.

Before long, several of Yang Yao’s subordinates were brought over by the Heavenly Monkey and seated at another table in the camp.

The infantry Hundred-man Commander Wang Wenxiu looked not the least bit refined. His great beard joined his hair in a single mass.

Hu Sanhuai and Wu Yangchen, both squad commanders, were one thin and one fat. The brothers Han Shipan and Han Shiyou were both powerfully built and served as heads of household troops.

All were elite soldiers from the Guyuan garrison.

When they first met, the newcomers were somewhat reserved. Gao Yingxiang no longer persisted in asking what deficiency had caused the frontier soldiers to overlook him. Instead, he drew on his experience traveling through the four garrisons to enliven the drinking table.

At that, he was truly the best in the world.

Even Liu Chengzong, who disliked drinking, had half a bowl. And he had remained tense throughout.

As for Cao Yao, there was no need to mention him. He loved drinking, and after finally getting his hands on alcohol, he was unlikely to stop before someone carried him away.

Liu Chengzong had been a little worried that Cao Yao would drink too much. At first he glanced over and saw that the man was still perfectly well. The two even chatted for a while, with Cao Yao sighing that he ought to return to Yan’an and that he missed his wife.

A little later, when all the meat on the table had been eaten and the gathering was nearly over, Liu Chengzong looked back again.

Cao Yao and Feng Rang were no longer at the table.

The two men had gone to the crest of the hill, piled up several stones facing east, and begun knocking their heads against the ground.

As they bowed, they shouted out names. In the end, slurring their words, they embraced each other and wept bitterly.

Down below, Gao Xian and Wei Qian’er, the only two men who had not been drinking, stood with their arms folded, utterly embarrassed.

The pair called out more than a hundred names Liu Chengzong had never heard before. If he had not caught the name Liu Yujie among them, he would never have known what they were doing.

Even Gao Yingxiang and the others were roused by the commotion. They came over and looked toward the hill, then asked Liu Chengzong, “Lion, what are those two brothers of yours doing? Who is Liu Yujie? The name sounds familiar.”

Liu Chengzong sighed.

“A subordinate of General Du. He led the two of them out of Sarhu in the forty-seventh year of the Wanli reign. They encountered Regional Commander Xiong at Liaoyang and were executed… Forgive us, Master Gao. The two of them drank too much. They are paying respects to comrades who died in battle.”

“Carry them back to camp. Keep an eye on them tonight. If those two go on another drunken rampage, they could cause a camp panic.”

After giving this order to Wei Qian’er, Liu Chengzong turned to bid farewell to Gao Yingxiang. Then he said to Yang Yao, “Come on. We should return to camp as well. I will assign you and Hundred-man Commander Wang to the front and rear platoons. We can discuss the details once we are back. Tomorrow, come with me to Yan’an.”

The men carried torches and made their way through the mountains, each returning to his own camp.

The brothers Han Shipan and Han Shiyou became captains of Liu Chengzong’s household troops. Yang Yao and Wang Wenxiu each took command of one of the front and rear platoons, while the frontier soldiers under them were reorganized on the spot into combat troops within those platoons.

At dawn the next day, Liu Chengzong bade farewell to Gao Yingxiang and led his men toward Yan’an.

They had only just emerged from the mountain pass when someone shouted his name.

He turned around and saw Gao Yingxiang galloping after him, a thick-shafted spear tucked beneath his arm.

When he came closer, Liu Chengzong realized that what Gao Yingxiang carried was not a spear. The vermilion shaft had no point. An old tassel, pheasant feathers, and strings of beads had been attached to it with materials gathered from who knew where.

It was a large furled banner of red satin edged in yellow.

“Master Gao? What is this?”

Gao Yingxiang did not answer. He only smiled from horseback, raised his arm, and shook the four-foot-long banner pole in his hand.

The great banner unfurled in the wind. At its center, embroidered in yellow thread, was a huge character spelling Liu.

Gao Yingxiang rode over and placed the banner in his hands.

“You ought to have a banner of your own by now, General Liu.”

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