The spring and summer of Tianyou’s fifteenth year were the most agonizing half-year for Feng Changyu, former Qianyang County Magistrate and patriarch of the Xuzhou Feng clan.
In Tianyou’s thirteenth year, when Han Daoxun took office in Xuzhou, the prison riot was planned by his son Feng Jin. By the time Feng Changyu learned of it afterward, it was too late to stop. He could only urgently contact clan members of the Xi, Yang, and Xiang clans in Qianyang City to withdraw, hoping the prisoner uprising would drive the new Provincial Governor Han Daoxun out of Xuzhou.
Who could have imagined that the Han father and son could suppress the prison riot that very night with thunderous force before any faction could react?
Even if Feng Changyu were deaf and blind, he knew that little harlot Xi Ren had completely forgotten her brother’s murder and thrown herself into Han Qian’s embrace to play coy and please him. He wasn’t unaware that the Xuzhou Boatmen’s Guild had secretly gathered Xi clan members through ransom payments.
However, even if the weak Xi clan had over a thousand people reassembled below Qianyang City, what could they possibly accomplish?
After Han Qian captured and killed Ministry of War Bureau Chief Ji Kun through trickery, Feng Changyu thought he could endure for a few years until the court transferred Han Daoxun elsewhere, and he wouldn’t need to worry about this troublesome father-son pair.
He never imagined that at the height of his success, Han Qian would flee to Xuzhou with his followers, intending to establish independence with his father in Xuzhou.
Even more unexpected to Feng Changyu was that the court actually acquiesced to this fait accompli, conferring official positions and noble ranks on the Han father and son. The court also approved all the Han father and son’s adjustments to Xuzhou officials, resulting in the more important positions in Xuzhou now being occupied by the Han father and son’s trusted confidants.
Next came tax reform.
Although tax reform currently only touched the interests of major immigrant households in Qianyang County, for the Han father and son to maintain nearly three thousand elite troops in Xuzhou as the foundation of their regional control, merely harvesting from Qianyang County’s immigrant households was far from sufficient. Sooner or later, their reach would extend to the major native clans!
At this point, the Han father and son had also begun targeting tribal settlements within Qianyang County, even going so far as to suppress two small settlements that resisted fiercely, in order to extend tax reform to the native tribal households.
This meant the possibility of temporarily pretending to submit to the Han father and son no longer existed.
Moreover, action should be taken sooner rather than later.
When Han Qian led Feng clan bondservants to garrison Wuliu Creek and recruited refugee men to extensively dig canals and construct dams, no one believed Han Qian could succeed, thinking this would only wastefully consume the limited resources in the Han father and son’s hands.
After all, over several hundred years, countless people had tried to tame Wuliu Creek to cultivate the Great Bend area, but after all these years, only a dozen small tribal settlements had established themselves in the Great Bend region.
The Wuliu Creek diversion weir was completed in early April. After that came the rainy season in Xuefeng Mountain and Longya Mountain. By early May, Longya Mountain experienced days of torrential downpours, yet through the diversion of Sha River and Wuliu Creek, the Great Bend area at the southern foot of Longya Mountain remarkably experienced no catastrophic flooding.
The various clans recognized that the Han father and son’s ability in dam construction and water control indeed exceeded what tribal settlements could achieve, but this also meant that with each day’s delay, the Han father and son’s foundation in Xuzhou deepened further.
Three to four hundred draft oxen were transported into the Great Bend area. Longya Mountain produced new curved-shaft plows and numerous sturdy, durable iron implements. Concentrating manpower, they could cultivate three to four hundred mu of new fields daily along the banks of Sha River and Wuliu Creek and dig three to four li of irrigation channels.
The banks of Wuliu Creek and Sha River, which flooded every year, had accumulated fertile soil. Just scattering seeds without much care would cause seedlings to sprout vigorously from the earth.
The refugees who had flooded into Xuzhou since last year quickly took root under the new recruitment and naturalization policy the Han father and son had just implemented, causing the Xuzhou camp forces to rapidly expand to twenty-five hundred men.
Although in the eyes of the various clans, most of the Xuzhou camp troops were still a rabble, the money and grain the Han father and son had scraped together during this period were all invested in training these twenty-five hundred soldiers.
This also meant that with each day’s delay, the military forces controlled by the Han father and son grew stronger.
The tribal settlements belonging to the Feng, Xiang, Xi, and Yang clans were scattered among the mountains and waters of Langxi and Tanyang. Even if the four families could muster two to three thousand elite troops, and though Feng Changyu believed tribal soldiers were brave and skilled in battle, how could forces be concentrated and coordinated to deliver a fatal blow to the Han father and son?
Attacking the high-walled, fortified Qianyang City wasn’t realistic. Should the four families combine forces to attack Yushu Bend, which faced the Yuan River completely exposed?
Feng Changyu walked out of the settlement hall, staring at the tribal warriors training day and night before the settlement tower.
The Feng clan controlled over twenty large and small tribal settlements in Langxi, governing over fourteen hundred native tribal households. On the surface, they had only seventy-two hundred people, but Feng Changyu knew clearly these were numbers from the Wuzong period of the previous dynasty. With population growth over the years and absorption of the Xi clan and other small settlement forces, the population under Feng clan control had already reached over twelve thousand, with roughly thirty-six hundred adult men aged sixteen to fifty.
Drafting one in six, the Feng clan’s six hundred warriors struck terror throughout settlements along the Yuan River and had also let him taste how soul-consuming and bone-melting the voluptuous, enchanting body of Gao Xi Shi truly was.
Thinking of this, Feng Changyu somewhat regretted sending that little harlot Xi Ren to that bastard Han Qian.
Though advanced in years and no longer capable in matters between men and women, he had thought sending her away would free his mind from attachment, but facts proved him wrong.
Even without the energy, extending his hand to touch that delicate body smooth and white as silk and milk, feeling that soft elasticity to the touch, sensing how intoxicating that youthful aura was—it could make his state of mind much younger. After sending that little harlot away, Feng Changyu realized how unforgettable that sensation was.
The young women in the settlement, besides having rough skin, were all coarse and vulgar in manner, completely incomparable to that little harlot.
After daydreaming for a moment, Feng Changyu turned to walk back into the settlement hall. Hearing “thud thud thud” footsteps climbing up, he turned to see his son Feng Jin and Gao Bao arriving. He asked: “Did you see the Supervisory Commissioner?”
“We did. The Supervisory Commissioner said if our Feng clan sends troops and can eliminate the Han father and son, he will petition to have Father replace that old thief Han.” Feng Jin couldn’t suppress his excitement.
Feng Changyu couldn’t help wanting to roll his eyes at his son. If they could truly eliminate the Han father and son and Xuzhou fell back into the hands of the Four Great Clans, would he worry about not being able to replace them?
Right now, the key issue was what kind of help Supervisory Commissioner Zhang Ping could provide.
“Did the Supervisory Commissioner say how we should eliminate them?” Feng Changyu asked.
“The Han father and son maintain tight security in Qianyang City, making it difficult to attack. They’re also extremely vigilant against the Supervisory Commissioner. If our Feng clan raids Wuliu Creek or severely damages the settlers along Wuliu Creek and Sha River but cannot capture Longya City and Wuliu Fort in the first instance and cannot establish a foothold at the southern foot of Longya Mountain, we’d be vulnerable to counterattack from the Han father and son deploying from Qianyang City,” Feng Jin said. “The Supervisory Commissioner advocates that we raid Yingyu Fort!”
“Yingyu Fort?”
Yingyu Fort was what the Tanzhou forces currently occupied at the foot of the western slope of Zhongfang Mountain—Zhongfang City.
Feng Changyu was suddenly alarmed, hardly able to imagine that Supervisory Commissioner Zhang Ping would actually advocate raiding Yingyu Fort!
“The Supervisory Commissioner has already detected that the Han father and son secretly colluded with Tanzhou long ago. When Han Daoxun lifted the land prohibition at the end of Tianyou’s thirteenth year, he was actually allowing Tanzhou forces to infiltrate. Yingyu Fort was built by Tanzhou infiltrators gathering refugees—it’s ironclad evidence of the Han father and son’s collusion with Tanzhou. Moreover, Provincial Medical Doctor Zhao Zhixian is a nail Tanzhou has secretly embedded in Xuzhou these past years, serving as the liaison between the Han father and son and Tanzhou for the past two years. Now the Han father and son propose establishing a new Zhongfang County below Zhongfang Mountain and intend to recommend Zhao Zhixian as Zhongfang County Magistrate. If it comes to that, the Four Great Clans probably won’t have any foothold left along both banks of the Yuan River…”
Feng Jin said, licking his lips.
“Zhao Zhixian is Tanzhou’s man?” Feng Changyu asked in shock, but realizing the question was redundant after speaking, he gestured for Feng Jin to continue.
Feng Jin continued:
“Gao Bao has also confirmed that Tanzhou currently has few troops gathered at Zhongfang Fort—less than four hundred men. This matches closely with the numbers the Supervisory Commissioner has. If we can capture Zhongfang Fort in a surprise attack, we could not only use Zhongfang Fort to cut the connection between Qianyang City and Longya Mountain, but also further concentrate forces from the Xiang, Yang, and Xiang families at Zhongfang Fort, avoiding being left without foothold under the Han father and son’s counterattack.”
“Tanzhou doesn’t have many troops gathered at Zhongfang Fort, but can we afford to provoke Tanzhou?” Feng Changyu had to consider Tanzhou’s possible retaliation after raiding Zhongfang Fort.
“The Han father and son’s collusion with Tanzhou to scheme for Xuzhou has already prompted the court to decide to move against Tanzhou. The court is already assembling forces on a large scale in Ezhou. The Supervisory Commissioner’s suggestion that we raid Zhongfang Fort is also hoping we’ll deploy from Xuzhou to contain Tanzhou when the time comes. That’s why he promised our Feng clan hereditary succession to the Xuzhou Provincial Governor position. After we act, the Supervisory Commissioner will come join us, and then we can invite the major clan forces from Chenzhou and Jingzhou to deploy troops…”
Feng Jin urged anxiously.
“But at this point, with the Han father and son colluding with Tanzhou to scheme for Xuzhou, can we still view the Han father and son as separate from Tanzhou? Isn’t moving against the Han father and son the same as moving against Tanzhou? Or should we just sit in our settlement waiting for the Han father and son to send troops to forcibly collect autumn grain?”
The vast majority of native tribal people in Xuzhou were enslaved under the major clans. Therefore, the settlements controlled by the Four Great Clans only paid over a thousand shi of money and grain annually. But under the new tax policy, annual field taxes would surge to over forty thousand shi and over two thousand strings of cash.
This was effectively digging out the fat meat the Four Great Clans ate every year from their mouths to fill the seemingly bottomless pit of the Han father and son’s greed.
This was absolutely not what Feng Changyu wished to see.
Since the Han father and son had already colluded with Tanzhou since the end of last year, moving against the Han father and son was no different from moving against Tanzhou, was it?
Could Tanzhou really remain indifferent after they eliminated the Han father and son?
Feng Changyu stroked his sparse beard and stared at his son Feng Jin, asking: “The court moving against Tanzhou—is this an indisputable fact?”
“Your son sent others to observe in Ezhou. Even if the court doesn’t move against Tanzhou before this winter, the large-scale increase in garrisoned troops is fact. Tanzhou must have noticed too. If we act decisively in Xuzhou and can control the situation before Tanzhou reacts, Tanzhou surely won’t dare deploy troops deep into the Wu Mountains,” Feng Jin said.
Feng Changyu pondered for a long time, then asked Gao Bao: “Is Feng Xuan reliable?”
Gao Bao swallowed and said: “During the voyage to Jinling, the Han father and son made many overtures to Feng Xuan, but the Han father and son’s subordinates often view us as foreigners with much mockery. Feng Xuan also often privately laments that Han Daoxun is Xuzhou Provincial Governor, so serving under him is unavoidable. Gao Bao believes for such secret matters, perhaps we needn’t rush to involve Feng Xuan. After we capture Zhongfang City, we can then have Feng Xuan deploy troops.”
“Father, we mustn’t delay!” Feng Jin urged in a low voice.
“Yingyu Fort has solid walls and is also difficult to attack directly, and Yingyu Fort is only about forty li from both Qianyang City and the Han father and son’s garrison at Wuliu Creek…” Feng Changyu said anxiously. He wanted to act, but without thorough consideration, how could he act rashly!
“We can use a stratagem to lure them…” Gao Bao said.