Chapter 142: It Was Here Long Ago

On the third day of the third lunar month, in Huo Family Village, located on the western side of Yonghe County.

This place lay at the intersection of two provinces, far away from any walled city. There were no more than a hundred households here, yet when the spring sunlight was brightest, the ancient cypress trees amidst the mountains were wreathed in clouds and mist, forming a landscape of breathtaking beauty.

The soil here was naturally barren, and in earlier times it had been nothing more than wild and desolate hills. A scholar surnamed Huo had purchased the land, leading servants and boys to reclaim it and build pavilions.

Later on, that scholar passed the imperial provincial examinations and served as an official in the south for over a decade before returning to his hometown to settle in this place. Through generations of propagation, the Huo Family Village came into being.

By the present day, the village had been passed down for six generations, producing two provincial graduates and seven prefectural scholars. The highest-ranking among them, Master Huo, had risen to the post of Vice Prefect of Yangzhou of the direct sixth rank. The year before, he was promoted to Assistant Prefect of Ganzhou of the direct fifth rank, but hearing that the miners there were in open rebellion, he never assumed the office.

Besides, this promotion was truly meaningless, feeling much like a demotion.

While the official rank was elevated by two grades, could the Vice Prefect of Yangzhou truly be compared to the Assistant Prefect of Ganzhou?

Master Huo was a man of integrity. During his four years in Yangzhou, he had never once performed any illicit or criminal deeds for wealthy and powerful families. Apart from the customary dues sent up by the minor clerks—which everyone received—he did not take a single cash.

Throughout his four years in Yangzhou, Master Huo forbade any member of his family or clan from purchasing fields or property. Every year, he shipped back to his ancestral home 7,400 taels of customary silver along with 65 taels representing his converted salary.

The sum of the customary dues was terrifyingly large, but in Yangzhou, one could not afford to refuse it.

This silver was specifically set aside by the minor clerks of various counties when collecting all manner of taxes and fees, with a portion expressly reserved for submission upward.

It reached from the county magistrates down to the unranked registrars.

Since they all received their share, how could a portion not be sent onward to the capital?

Everyone had a share—are you, the Vice Prefect, going to refuse it?

If you refuse it, why even come to Yangzhou?

Even if you refuse it, the common people still find that for every single tael collected by the imperial court, the yamen collects two.

Take it or leave it.

This was not Shanxi or Shaanxi, where official posts sat vacant and unwanted, and a county might have a mere registrar and a chief of records to represent the entire officialdom.

The Yangzhou Prefecture possessed a complete bureaucratic apparatus, and even the humblest minor clerkships were fiercely contested by men ready to break their heads for them.

Recalling those years of serving as an official in Yangzhou, Master Huo had witnessed far too many gardens being built, pleasure quarters being visited, and slender young courtesans being purchased—a life of extravagant feasting, pleasure-seeking, and drunken dreams of gold and jade.

Some men would recklessly toss away tens of thousands of taels on gold leaf, climbing up Golden Hill to scatter it down the wind, letting the populace of the entire city scramble for it, solely for the sake of a moment's laughter.

His own modest annual allowance was hardly worth mentioning in Yangzhou.

Having returned to a small mountain village in Shanxi, Master Huo had little desire to see people. When his family members suggested purchasing a large courtyard in Fenzhou Prefecture, he refused, stubbornly insisting on living among the mountains of Yonghe County.

Every day he looked at the mountains and the trees, ate meals, relieved himself, drank wine, and slept.

Wealth—other people's wealth.

Sometimes, seeing others earn three or five hundred taels, he would think how remarkable they were and resolve to work harder himself.

Sometimes, seeing others earn three or fifty thousand taels, he would begin to doubt the very fabric of the world.

Having witnessed too much of that, a man found little purpose left in this lifetime.

Regardless of how materialistic the world became, try as one might, a man could never earn that much money in a single lifetime.

And should one worry about the state of the nation and the family, no matter what one did, a sixth-rank official could do nothing to remedy such matters.

Suddenly, a house-born servant ran swiftly up the mountain pavilion, his heavy footsteps interrupting Master Huo's reverie. "What are you panicking about? You'll trip and hurt yourself. What has happened?"

The house-born servant, Xiasheng, braced his hands on his knees, lifted the hem of his deer-leather arrow-sleeved robe, wiped away his sweat, and said, "Master, a large crowd of people has come up the mountain, carrying banners and beating drums, armed with spears and guns. Many of them are even wearing the cotton armor of the western frontier garrison."

"The western frontier garrison?"

Master Huo felt a trace of alarm. He looked down toward the foot of the mountain, but could see no figures. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he asked, "Has Fu Renxi in Yonghe Pass gone mad with hunger? If he wants money, let the accounts disburse twenty taels to him. Later on, I shall send down a slip of paper. The scoundrel, daring to raise weapons against my home—does he have a death wish?"

"No, no, it's not Commander Fu. It's the armor of the Shaanxi frontier garrison."

The servant could not explain it clearly and simply pointed his arm backward. "Master, you had better go down and see for yourself."

Ming dynasty laws placed strict limits on the number of servants one could keep, so any excess could not be called servants; they were registered as adopted sons and daughters.

"Let us go."

Master Huo asked no more questions. He took two steps forward, returned to the pavilion to retrieve his wine flask, and followed the servant all the way down the mountain.

When they reached a bend midway down the slope, they could see the appearance of the Huo Family Village.

The Huo Family Village possessed a fortified stronghold perched upon a loess ridge.

When Wang Er of Shaanxi had rebelled for three months the previous year, they had begun constructing this stronghold here. At most, it was delayed only by the time it took for a letter to reach Yangzhou and return. Afterward, they had tamped down loess earth to form a square earthen enclosure with high and thick walls.

As for the hundred-odd households, they lived scattered across two other hilltops outside the earthen enclosure.

The dry- farmed terraced fields on the mountainside were lush and green, planted with corn stalks that had just grown a foot tall. With the time for top-dressing approaching, heaps of composted fertilizer were scattered everywhere across the fields.

At first, Master Huo did not spot anyone, but even without the servant's words, he could infer the state of affairs from the unusually panicked expressions of his clansmen and relatives within the village.

Villagers were driving carts, sheep, cattle, and horses hurrying into the stronghold amid the constant crowing of chickens and barking of dogs.

The young men studying in the clan school had also taken up bows, crossbows, swords, and matchlocks, and were led by their tutor up onto the stronghold walls.

Master Huo hurried toward the stronghold as well, and it was then that he caught sight of the newcomers.

First came a scattering of a dozen or so men approaching from the mountain path, all dressed out like scouts: wearing light brigandines studded with brass nails, iron helmets marked with characters of valor, and with various small flags stuck into their backs, riding horses along the mountain paths.

They operated in squads of three: some blocking the mountain paths, some seizing the field ridges, some bypassing the village stronghold to occupy commanding heights at strategic points. Some stood waiting with bows in hand, while others waved flags as signals.

Within a short moment, suddenly dozens of horsemen carrying spears and bows leaped out from the slopes, over a dozen men carrying bird-guns emerged from the woods, and horses pulled and men pushed cannons along the official road.

By the time Master Huo climbed up to the stronghold ramparts, weapons and helmets filled the fields in every direction, numbering in the hundreds and thousands, making his heart leap with fright.

His nephew, accustomed to acting overbearing and arrogant, stepped forward with a disgruntled expression and said, "These vulgar soldiers—uncle, I'll go down and ask what they think they're doing!"

"You had better forget it. They are acting without fear, which means they are not ordinary soldiers. Do you see that banner?"

If the incoming force had been government troops, Master Huo would not have felt even half an ounce of fear—he would have been willing to walk upside down all the way to Zhangjiakou.

Yet clearly these men were not regular soldiers. His nephew followed his gaze and saw that amidst the sea of armor and weapons across the mountains and plains, there fluttered a red banner, upon which the character 'Liu' was simply embroidered in gold thread.

"What comes here are likely the bandits from the land of Qin."

"Bandits from Qin? Drought-stricken starving refugees?" His nephew looked as though he had seen a ghost. "Drought-stricken starving refugees cannot look like this, can they?"

"Of course drought-stricken refugees do not look like this, but there is only one Liu in the land of Qin: Liu Chengzong of Yan'an, who first killed a regional vice commander and then a regional commander. It is only regrettable that the newly cast Red Barbarian cannon has not yet arrived."

There was no discernible change in Master Huo's complexion. He raised his wine flask, took a sip, patted his eldest nephew on the shoulder, and said, "You need not go out of the stronghold either. Go to my chambers and fetch my tobacco pipe."

Fetch the tobacco pipe?

The nephew wore a look of extreme reluctance, but turned and sent a servant instead, returning to ask, "Uncle, if—if these are not soldiers but bandits, what shall we do?"

"If I told you to go down, then go down. What can we do? Let them surround us. We have water and grain, and you won't starve to death. Stop lingering around me and go light the wolf-smoke signal."

The nephew acknowledged the order and ran downward.

Master Huo braced his hands against the crenellations of the stronghold wall. He exerted force in his arms, but could not stop his legs from trembling—when a person was truly afraid, it was genuinely impossible to control.

He thought to himself that back then he had been reluctant to build this stronghold, but now it seemed he might have to rely on it to save his life.

Indeed, at the time, he had truly not wanted to build it.

When the letter arrived, Master Huo had been drinking heavily, enjoying the snow by Slender West Lake.

He had not even read the letter carefully, merely hearing the delivering servant say that the family needed to build a stronghold, estimated to cost six hundred taels.

Six hundred taels—how painful it was to part with that much.

Men like him, serving as officials in Yangzhou, could never truly find their proper footing.

Day after day, sons of salt merchants would bring them along to feast and make merry; wherever they went, nary a coin needed to be spent. They enjoyed the finest luxuries and scattered gold like dirt.

Yet on the other hand, all of this was castles in the air. Who did not know that this illusion came hand in hand with power, and would naturally depart when power departed?

When it came to digging silver out of his own pockets, weighing it against his official salary and instantly tossing away ten years' worth of earnings, who could bear it in their heart?

Yet even if he could not bear it, there was no help for it with others looking on; he could not lose face, and so he had agreed to the matter and built the stronghold back in his hometown.

At the time, Master Huo had never once imagined that this stronghold would one day actually come in handy.

However, to call him stingy would not be entirely accurate.

Perhaps feeling a sense of guilt, when he heard last year that the Eastern Captives had broken into Jizhou, he had instantly tossed out six hundred taels of silver, entrusting the Zezhou Garrison to commission Zezhou craftsmen to cast one thousand-catty bronze Red Barbarian cannon and one fifteen-hundred-catty iron Red Barbarian cannon, intending to donate them to the imperial court to equip the Shanxi reinforcements guarding the capital.

It was likewise six hundred taels, yet he had tossed those six hundred taels away without even blinking an eye.

The price of cannons was actually not expensive.

Wages, material costs, plus a little "squeeze" money given to the commander of the bulky soldiers—that made up the cost for Master Huo to donate and cast a Red Barbarian cannon.

There was no added value for the craftsmanship of the artisans.

Yet in a supreme irony, as long as the commander's squeeze money was sufficient, it guaranteed the artisans' enthusiasm for work, ensuring their craftsmanship would not falter.

Ever since the Tianqi reign, it had been fashionable to donate and cast Red Barbarian cannons for the imperial court.

Now the cannons were cast and were currently being transported here from Zezhou.

There was no helping it; if he didn't ship them home, Zhang Honggong and Geng Ruqi had both been thrown into prison. Even if he wanted to donate them, who was he to donate them to? He could hardly push the cannons to Beijing himself.

Master Huo thought to himself: Why hadn't Later Jin invaded sooner? Had Later Jin invaded sooner, he would have cast the cannons sooner, the emperor would have thrown Zhang Honggong and Geng Ruqi into prison sooner, and the Red Barbarian cannons could have entered his home sooner.

Although lacking skilled artillerymen and harboring no illusions that a single cannon shot could blast Liu Chengzong to death, having two heavy cannons displayed upon the walls could at least awe the bandits from without and boost morale from within.

He knew of Liu Chengzong. Throughout the entire winter of the previous year, gentry members had gathered to visit relatives and friends, admiring the snow and mountains while Li Bei, the regional commander of Yan'an Prefecture, dying on his way to take up his post had been their greatest topic of conversation.

A single person knowing it would smile inwardly; two people knowing it could exchange insights; and three people sitting together could thoroughly dissect the matter.

Ah, so the regional vice commander Lu Cheng had also perished at Liu Chengzong's hands beforehand.

This tangibly proved Liu Chengzong's strength, yet it did not prevent the scholars from sitting together to mock the vulgar soldiers, wearing expressions of earnest patriotism and fierce frustration at their failure to live up to expectations.

Of course, their eloquent discourse during the winter did not prevent Master Huo's legs from trembling to the point of nearly pissing himself at this very moment.

Bragging was something everyone was prone to, after all.

While Master Huo was busy counting heads atop the wall—having just counted up to two hundred—someone escorted by several shields walked beneath the stronghold and loudly urged them to surrender.

Master Huo cursed with a trembling voice, "Surrender my ass! You bandits wait; the moment the imperial court's grand army arrives, this shall be the place where you are buried!"

Though he maintained a tough front, as he caught the pungent odor in the air and looked back at the black smoke rising into the sky within the stronghold, he was abundantly aware that the fate of his entire clan was no longer in their own hands.

It all depended on when the vulgar soldiers of the Fenzhou Garrison, the Pingyang Garrison, and Yonghe Pass commander Fu Renxi would arrive.

Fu Renxi arrived first.

Strictly speaking, if one took a radius of one mile around this sturdy earthen stronghold as the boundary, Fu Renxi had arrived even earlier than Master Huo.

On the loess ridge directly facing the earthen stronghold.

Liu Chengzong wore a pot-helmet padded with wolf fur on his head, lowered his telescope, turned around, and asked, "Brother Fu, is this the stronghold you spoke of?"

Fu Renxi stood right beside him, wearing a military robe whose fabric was inferior to that of the Huo family servants, with a black cloth mask covering his face. He lowered his head, hunched his waist, raised a single finger to his lips, and whispered, "General, don't call me by my surname!"

He was cursing his mother inwardly; he had been scared half to death just doing this for the very first time, and yet Liu Chengzong had to shout out his surname!

If these bandits were later wiped out by government troops, and they captured a prisoner and interrogated him, wouldn't he be utterly finished?

Seeing him act with such extreme caution, Liu Chengzong burst out laughing. "Then what should I call you?"

"Call me... call me 'A Box of Gold'."

That nickname wasn't bad—very prosperous.

The reason Liu Chengzong had come here was entirely because of Fu Renxi.

He had always thought Chengyun was timid, but the boy wasn't timid at all; he simply hadn't killed anyone yet.

He had arranged both Chengyun's baggage guard and engineering guard at Yantoushan, with Shicheng responsible for repairing the stronghold, Chengyun assisting, and observing the movements of the Yonghe Pass garrison. If possible, they were to build rapport and discuss matters regarding transporting supplies from Shanxi to Shaanxi in the future.

Who could have imagined that the very day after Liu Chengzong left, Chengyun slipped into Yonghe Pass all by himself that very night to share a meal with Fu Renxi.

A single night and a single meal had conjured up the Huo Family Stronghold.

When Liu Chengzong found out about this, he was hopping mad and severely scolded Chengyun, only for the brat to talk back, claiming that Fu Renxi killing him wouldn't bring any benefits anyway, so why be afraid?

Still, measuring others by one's own heart: Chengyun entering Yonghe Pass alone had earned the fact that Fu Renxi dared to meet Liu Chengzong alone.

"It's this very stronghold. This Master Huo used to be the Vice Prefect of Yangzhou, shipping twenty or thirty thousand taels of silver back to his home every year. His family's stronghold is definitely wealthy!"

"Twenty or thirty thousand taels—is it twenty thousand every year, or thirty thousand every year? Did you see it with your own eyes?"

Liu Chengzong did not trust estimates made by others. When he had first bought the land of Liu Family Village and Song Shouzhen's group was gathering intelligence, someone had even claimed there were tens of thousands of taels on Black Dragon Mountain.

Without seeing it with one's own eyes, rumors multiplying through hearsay—who truly knew whether someone was wealthy or not?

"I didn't see it, but they're definitely wealthy! Last year he even donated two Red Barbarian cannons to Shanxi; those cannons were probably just cast in February."

Fu Renxi asked, "What is the General's plan? Just surround them like this? Why not blast them with cannons!"

"What you say is very good, but there's no rush to attack them just yet. Let's surround them for a couple of days."

"General, if you're going to surround them, I won't stay here to keep you company." Fu Renxi was still deeply worried, and said, "What about the agreed-upon silver?"

"Rest assured, what was promised to you will not change. Are you certain this stronghold has ten thousand taels?"

"Certain, it definitely has ten thousand taels! If it doesn't, you can take a cannon and blast me once you break this stronghold!"

"Very well. Later I'll have Chengyun send one thousand taels over: five hundred taels for A Box of Gold, and five hundred taels to help me buy medicine. Once the deed is done, there will be another eight hundred and eighty taels to distribute among all the brothers in the pass."

With that, Liu Chengzong nodded to Fu Renxi, sent a squad of men to escort him back, and then turned his gaze back toward the stronghold with a smile.

If he did not occupy Yonghe County before advancing eastward, the banner troops of the northern Fenzhou Garrison would cross the border and cut off his retreat.

This stronghold was exceedingly suitable: an official's household with massive sums of money.

Now it all depended on whether the Fenzhou Garrison or the Pingyang Garrison would arrive first.

Liu Chengzong took a deep breath, thinking to himself that even if they were both cowards, it mattered little.

Then he would simply wait for those two cannons.