Chapter 150: Pincer Movement from Both Sides

Just as Liu Chengzong obtained the two Red Barbarian cannons, throughout the Fen River basin, the troops of the Shanxi provincial government were mobilizing toward the Luliang Mountains.

The Pingyang Garrison dispatched two thousand regular banner troops to be stationed separately in Daning and Pu County, while also sending another thousand-man commander to lead troops and station themselves at Liulang Fortress on the Luliang Mountains, thus seizing the choke point where Xi County entered Huozhou.

At the Kekong Pass Inspection Office, northeast of Shilou County, Li Shi'en, the Defense Commissioner of Southern Ji, put down a letter and let out a heavy sigh. He felt nothing but pure envy toward the Pingyang Garrison. The Pingyang Garrison had no imperial prince's household holding them back, and they even had a resident administration vice commissioner. With their five-thousand-odd banner troops running some here and leaving some there, they could still muster three thousand three hundred men for deployment. Their intent was also blatantly obvious: as long as the rebel soldiers did not disturb Pingyang Prefecture, they cared not about other places.

He was different. His official title in full was Vice Commissioner of the Southern Ji Defense Circuit, in charge of the two prefectures of Lu'an and Fenzhou.

Though the title sounded quite formidable, in reality, these two prefectures contained three imperial princely estates: the Qingcheng Principality, the Yonghe Principality, and the Shen Principality. Fenzhou and Luzhou were clearly named as regions equivalent to districts, yet they were designated as prefectural-level administrative units precisely because the three princely estates had formerly run amok, and the regional administrative ranks had left local officials at the mercy of the two prefectures. Because of this, during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor, Luzhou was upgraded to Lu'an Prefecture, while Fenzhou was upgraded to Fenzhou Prefecture in the twenty-second year of the Wanli Emperor's reign.

In this regard, Lu'an Prefecture was even more difficult to handle than Fenzhou Prefecture. Two very important counties in Lu'an Prefecture were named Changzhi and Pingshun. In ancient times, geographical names were always chosen to express wonderful aspirations—yet where there was peace ("An"), there was no peace; where there was tranquility ("Ping"), there was no tranquility; where there was smoothness ("Shun"), there was no smoothness; and where there was governance ("Zhi"), there was no governance. In this place called Pingshun, there had once been a minor official named Chen Qing who gathered a crowd to rebel in the Taihang Mountains. From the tenth year of the Zhengde reign until the seventh year of the Jiajing reign, at the peak of his power, he captured seven prefectures in the southern Taihang Mountains.

Therefore, Li Shi'en, this Defense Commissioner governing two prefectures, found himself with limited resources, feeling as though his hands and feet were bound, making it extremely difficult to accomplish anything. Over the past few days, he had forcibly requisitioned a portion of soldiers from various imperial manors and mobilized local militiamen from Fenyang, Xiaoyi, Pingyao, Jiexiu, and other places, barely cobbling together a force of six thousand men for defense. They were stationed respectively at Wucheng in the northern section of the Luliang Mountains and Kekong Pass in the middle section.

How should one describe this force of his?

Last year, the Shanxi army dispatched to save the capital mutinied and collapsed in flight. Fearing that the four counties of Fenzhou Prefecture would be plundered by the fleeing troops, Li Shi'en had spent the entire winter until the onset of spring diligently supervising the drilling of the militiamen. Consequently, the militiamen of Fenzhou Prefecture were well-trained, the troop numbers in various townships were not small, and Shanxi's iron-smelting industry was exceptionally developed. They could not be called a mere rabble.

However, the busy farming season had arrived.

After several years of drought, the previous winter had finally seen snow. The destructive impact of this busy farming season on the militiamen and banner troops was almost equivalent to rain falling on a peasant rebellion. Moreover, the rebels had not yet entered Fenzhou's borders; trying to drag these men out to fight was exceedingly difficult. One could only say they were thoroughly unwilling. Relying on them alone was not enough to lift the siege of Yongning Prefecture. As for the troubles in Xi County, Li Shi'en had even less time to care about them.

Subjectively speaking, Li Shi'en did not care much either. Over the past two days, he had dispatched reconnaissance cavalry through Shilou into Yonghe County. Among the gathered intelligence reported back, that rebel force led by "General Liu" seemed to have done only three things:
First, they annihilated Zhang Zhan's banner troops, established a "valley yamen," and executed over four hundred criminal banner troops.
Second, they besieged an earthen fort in the western township of Yonghe County. The commoners said an official老爷 (master) lived there, though the reconnaissance cavalry did not know which master specifically it was.
Third, they sent men to Zhaowang Mountain and Fanjiashan to bury the bodies of the victims, held a memorial service, and departed with their troops.

Aside from these, they seemed to have simply garrisoned the earthen fort, and nobody knew what they intended to do. Based on these three actions, Li Shi'en believed he should first hold the four counties of Fenzhou with his limited forces, at the very least preventing the rebel troops from crossing the Luliang Mountains. Then, he would summon reinforcements from the Luzhou Garrison to deal with "General Gao," who was leading his troops in plundering the wealthy households of Yongning Prefecture.

Che Cai, serving temporarily as an advisor to the Defense Circuit, asked, "Then what about that General Liu in Yonghe County? Shall we set him aside for now?"

"General Liu?"

Li Shi'en took a deep breath, raised his hand to place his fist against his mouth, and exhaled a heavy breath through his nose. "I have already requested reinforcements from Datong."

Che Cai blinked, suspecting he had misheard. He failed to grasp the logic of the matter and asked, "He hasn't done anything. Requesting reinforcements from Datong—even if you were to seek help from Datong, shouldn't you use Datong troops to fight that General Gao?"

"Brother Che, whether it's 'Undipped Mud' or the 'High King of Chuang,' none of them are as decent as this General Liu. He buried the corpses of the commoners and punished the guilty banner troops; he is not a bad person." Li Shi'en shifted his body on the chair to face Che Cai and said earnestly, "Yet you have seen rebels and know what rebels are like. Is he a rebel?"

Che Cai nodded, then shook his head, looking deeply troubled. Since General Liu had buried the corpses on Zhaowang Mountain, his family members must surely have been among them. The government troops had killed his entire family, and the rebels had avenged him and buried his family. Che Cai could no longer distinguish who was a rebel and who was a soldier. He asked, "Is it important whether he is a rebel or not?"

"I know Brother Che wants to say he isn't a rebel, and I also feel he isn't a rebel. Whether he is a rebel or not is not important, but what he is if he is not a rebel—that is very important."

Li Shi'en sighed. He had no idea what kind of person that General Liu was either. "Regardless, I draw the imperial court's salary and enjoy the Emperor's favor. With the meager resources in my hands, I cannot deal with him."

Che Cai remained silent for a long time, then raised his hand to tap lightly twice on the table. "Attack the High King of Chuang first."

Unfortunately, things did not go as they wished.

On March 12th, the Luzhou Garrison banner troops received their deployment orders. That very day, three thousand banner troops were mustered, laying aside their hoes to don armor, and marched rapidly toward Fenzhou Prefecture via the Qinzhou direction. They advanced with astonishing speed, setting off on the afternoon of the 13th and marching through two hundred li of mountain roads to arrive in Qinyuan County by the morning of the 16th.

However, that was as far as they got.

On the very night this banner troop set off, the garrison banner troops left behind in Pingshun County, conspiring with the fleeing capital-rescue soldiers hiding in the Taihang Mountains, raided the Shen Principality's suburban manor outside the city. The Shen Principality sent fast couriers to request reinforcements from the departing banner troops, forcing this force to dispatch fast riders to inform Li Shi'en of the situation and lead their troops back to Lu'an Prefecture.

Meanwhile, on the other front, the unit Li Shi'en had dispatched to station at Wucheng ended up in a fight. It wasn't with Gao Yingxiang, nor was it with "Undipped Mud" heading north; rather, they accidentally discovered a bandit stronghold.

The chieftain went by the alias "Bashanhu" (Tiger of Bashan), originally surnamed Gao and a native of Fenxi County. When the drought struck in the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, he and some fellow villagers slipped into the Luliang Mountains. They did not raid or plunder, but simply lived out their own modest lives. The local government had once tried sending inspectors to arrest them, but since they were all locals, the officials eventually reported that the bandits had fled and could not be found, and the matter was dropped.

Bashanhu had been living quite comfortably and had no connection to the Shaanxi peasant army's invasion of Shanxi. Suddenly receiving word that imperial government troops were entering the mountains, his instinctive thought was that these government troops were coming after him. He hurriedly gathered more than five hundred men, packed their belongings, and prepared to slip away, while sending scouts to monitor the movements of the government troops.

To his surprise, this group showed no sign of preparing for battle whatsoever. Over a thousand men were split into two columns, marching through the mountains in a single-file line.

How could he not strike them a blow?

Bashanhu's mood fluctuated, struggling internally several times. His nickname, chosen from *Journey to the West*, was indeed rather inauspicious. The underlings of the two demon brothers, the Gold and Silver Horn Kings, alongside Yihailong (Dragon Leaning on the Sea), had all been beaten to death by Sun Wukong with a single cudgel. He himself had a sworn brother named Yihailong who had clashed with government troops a few years prior and died. But looking at the stronghold he had lived in for years, he simply couldn't bear to run away just like that. In the end, he decided to strike.

He immediately divided his two hundred or so able-bodied men into four squads, laying an ambush along the mountain path and routing the more than one thousand completely unprepared government troops.

Bashanhu stood there with a puzzled look, leading his men to pack up the weapons, armor, flags, and warhorses abandoned by the government troops. He thought to himself: *I haven't come out of the mountains for years—have the government troops grown this weak?*

Little did he know, upon interrogating the prisoners, these men weren't looking for him at all.

When the news reached Kekong Pass, Li Shi'en choked while eating his meal. Being routed by mountain bandits was a bit unseemly, but understandable since reconnaissance had failed; he swallowed his pride. The withdrawal of the Luzhou Garrison troops, however, was utterly absurd. With the Prince safely inside his residence, did the rebels really dare enter the city and kill him?

Right at that moment, another messenger arrived, reporting: "Commissioner Sir, the militiamen are making a fuss and demanding to go home to farm."

This became the straw that broke the camel's back.

It infuriated Li Shi'en so much that he hurled his bowl to the ground. But upon second thought, remembering that every single grain of rice was hard-earned, he angrily scooped the grains back up from the floor and continued eating.

A subordinate advised, "Sir, let me dish out another bowl. Eating unclean food makes one prone to illness."

"Illness? If I don't die of illness, I'll sooner or later be driven to death by anger. Once I'm dead, I won't have to worry anymore." Li Shi'en shook his head with a deep breath and snapped, "Dying at one's post can also be considered repaying the Emperor's discerning grace—the best of both worlds."

To be honest, he even wanted to make a trip to the capital, sweet-talk some people, pull some strings, and get transferred elsewhere. He had no idea what sins he had committed in his past life to end up serving as an official right on the doorstep of the imperial princes.

Before he could even swallow the rice he had salvaged, yet another piece of news sent Li Shi'en's blood pressure soaring past his height: "Commissioner Sir, General... General Liu seems to have left Yonghe."

Li Shi'en stared at his subordinate. The messenger's phrasing was wrong: "What do you mean by 'seems'? What do you mean by 'left'?" At least tell me where he went!

The transmitting subordinate looked deeply aggrieved as well: "Our reconnaissance cavalry in Shilou were uprooted. The last transmission was yesterday afternoon, and there is no news from Xi County today either. This humble subordinate can only confirm that the two cities haven't fallen."

"The reconnaissance cavalry were uprooted?" That meant ominous fortunes and little hope of survival.

Li Shi'en slowly shook his head. Just as he had imagined, this was not a person he could handle with the manpower and resources currently at his disposal. His own subordinates could march right through the mountains without even knowing how to set up sentries, whereas the enemy moved only after first uprooting the opponent's reconnaissance cavalry. How was one supposed to fight that?

After turning the matter over in his mind, he decided to give up. He instructed his subordinates, "Send a final message to Yonghe County, Shilou, and Xi County. If the cities are besieged, light wolf-smoke signals, and have the reconnaissance cavalry relocate to Renjiazhuang. Stop sneaking around the perimeters of those three cities."

Renjiazhuang sat right in the middle of the three counties, roughly twenty li away from each city. In his view, his energy was currently limited; he had no capacity to handle Gao Yingxiang to the north while also worrying about Liu Chengzong to the south.

Anyway, Liu Chengzong did not harm the commoners, and on the other hand, he seemed to have no intention of attacking the walled cities. Therefore, let him play around in Xi County. As long as he didn't cross over, it wouldn't matter if he opened another small county yamen in the valley. After all, that was Pingyang Prefecture, and the Pingyang Garrison held the troops yet had no intention of coming north to help him; there was no need for him to offer warm-faced attention only to be met with a cold reception.

He got up, walked to the main hall, and wrote another letter addressed to the Prince of Shen, asking the princely estate not to harass the banner troops. He believed the Prince of Shen possessed great righteousness and would surely understand his painstaking efforts.

Actually, the Prince of Shen wasn't bad. The previous winter, when provisions for drilling the militiamen fell short, none of the seven counties in Fenzhou Prefecture provided him with money or grain, but the Prince of Shen, upon learning of the matter, donated grain to him. Furthermore, after the tenants paid their rent, the Shen Principality often spared some grain to be transported to Xuanfu and Datong to supplement military supplies. Although it was still not enough, it was already infinitely better than others.

Right, the "others" he spoke of were the Qingcheng Principality, which did nothing but constantly breed children. After all, this was a lineage that had changed the rules regarding imperial clan concubines in the Ming Dynasty by sheer force of will. Before the Hongzhi reign, the imperial court placed no limits on the number of concubines a member of the imperial clan could have. As a result, the Prince of Qingcheng banged out ninety-four children, prompting the imperial censor in Shanxi to suspect that the Qingcheng Principality was adopting babies from outside to defraud the court of its grain stipends. Upon auditing, it turned out all ninety-four children were the Prince of Qingcheng's biological offspring.

Later on, regulations were simply issued capping imperial princes at a maximum of four concubines, but even with this rule, it was useless; the next Prince of Qingcheng directly fathered seventy sons. This at one point resulted in the Shanxi imperial clan's grain stipends exceeding Shanxi's tax grain by two hundred and ninety thousand shi.

If a bad egg appeared in a normal household, that bad egg might fade into obscurity due to a lack of capability. But the probability of bad eggs emerging from princely estates was equal to or higher than this because they wielded power inherently. If other princely estates produced one bad egg out of five people, the Qingcheng Principality produced ten bad eggs out of fifty people. Who could withstand such destructive power?

Every day, Li Shi'en read reports about the High King of Chuang's forces plundering yet another gentry fortress, or else neighboring counties crying for help because they had been under siege for five days. Yet he dared not send troops west of the Luliang Mountains, leaving his forces pinned at Kekong Pass.

He could roughly guess where Gao Yingxiang's main forces were based on their attacks on gentry strongholds, but Liu Chengzong's forces had completely vanished from his field of vision—and once they vanished, they were gone for a full three days.

Every day felt like a year.

He even asked Che Cai, "Do you think that General Liu might have already returned to Shaanxi?"

Alas, that was merely a hopeful wish in his heart.

On the evening of March 19th, a dusty and travel-worn courier soldier came galloping frantically from the Fenyang direction, bearing a letter for help from Pingyang Prefecture.

"Where the fuck do I have any spare strength to send reinforcements!"

Hearing him break into curses, Che Cai curiously asked, "Brother Shi'en, what does the letter say?"

"That Liulang Fortress of theirs in the Luliang Mountains is easy to defend and hard to attack. And what happened? The letter says the lion-rebel Liu Chengzong's main force leaped into the Luliang Mountains, set up Red Barbarian cannons to bombard Liulang Fortress, and the Pingyang Garrison banner troops stationed there were beaten so badly they didn't dare show their heads. The main army immediately abandoned their baggage train and secretly crossed eastward!"

Li Shi'en handed the letter to Che Cai. "They've entered Huozhou!"

Che Cai rubbed his eyes, took the letter, and sighed after reading it for a moment. The letter also stated that the government troops stationed in Pu County had broken camp and marched north, attempting to pursue the rebel forces from behind, while the forces left behind by the Pingyang Garrison were also marching north in an attempt to form a pincer movement from two directions and trap this lion-rebel within the Luliang Mountains. Because the banner troops stationed in Pizhou numbered only one thousand, the authorities there worried that the force blocking the rear was insufficient and hoped the Pingyang Garrison banner troops could send men south.

Liulang Fortress was indeed easy to defend and hard to attack, but it was a military fortress from the Song Dynasty; when the location for garrisoning that fortress was chosen in that era, nobody had ever considered defending against artillery bombardment.

However, what puzzled Che Cai the most was not this.

He asked Li Shi'en, "Brother Shi'en, do the men you can mobilize have Red Barbarian cannons?"

"How could we have such things? Aren't those used for attacking and defending walled cities?"

"Then why does Liu the Lion have them?"

"Alas, how would I know? Why don't you go ask the Qingcheng Principality, Brother Che, and see if the Prince forged them for him? Right now, I feel like Fenzhou Prefecture's biggest enemies are right inside those two eastern and western cities—no!"

Li Shi'en wore an earnest expression as he pondered why others couldn't just be like him, obediently holding down a single place without moving. Clearly unable to defeat the enemy, inaction meant no mistakes, whereas action meant throwing away lives.

"They're all enemies! The ones crossing borders without authorization, the ones calling for reinforcements and mobilizing troops, the ones going home to farm, the ones ambushed on the road—can't they use their brains? Zhang Zhan's seventeen hundred men are all dead; can those one thousand men block his rear? Count them one by one, charge every single fucking one of them with collaborating with the rebels—not one of them is wronged!"