Jizhou City.

Li Chi sat atop the city wall looking out into the distance. He looked as though he were daydreaming — but not for a single moment did his mind rest idle.

He was turning over the question of how to ensure that Jizhou would no longer have to worry about its shortage of troops in the shortest possible time. And yet this seemed to be a problem that could not be solved overnight.

Years of war had ravaged Jizhou, and the population losses had been catastrophic — leaving him with two inescapable difficulties to confront.

The first was the need to implement the military farming settlement system, gathering those capable of both cultivation and training into consolidated settlements.

If the common people were left scattered across the land in all directions, civilian governance could not be properly administered, and the land could not be used to its fullest advantage.

The second was that recruiting soldiers was enormously difficult. Tang Pidi’s demand had been, from first to last, for quality over quantity — which only made an already hard problem harder.

Jizhou already had few able-bodied men to begin with, and from those few, talented individuals still had to be selected and cultivated. This made the pool of available recruits far narrower compared to other forces.

Other armies cared only about numbers, not quality. Take Jiang’nan’s great brigand Li Xiong-hu — his pursuit of sheer scale of force far outweighed any concern for the combat effectiveness of individual soldiers.

When Li Xiong-hu took the field, he invariably brought armies of a million men. And it must be said — a million men on the move did indeed carry with it the momentum of roaring mountains and crashing seas.

As of now, the Ning Army’s total regular combat troops still numbered only slightly above one hundred and thirty thousand.

Of those one hundred and thirty thousand, fully one hundred thousand were in Tang Pidi’s hands, all committed to the campaigns in Youzhou.

Within the thousands of li of Jizhou territory, true combat-ready troops numbered only around thirty thousand. More than twenty thousand were posted to the northeast at Dragon’s Head Pass, to guard against the constant threat of incursions from the Shanhai Army in Yanzhou.

Over ten thousand were posted to the northwest to respond and provide support to the Liangzhou forces dealing with the conflicts involving the Western Regions peoples.

Beyond these, all other forces within the territory could not be called combat troops — they were little more than what the old Dachu dynasty would have called local garrison militia.

A household head managing five or six family members could not necessarily manage them all well. A county magistrate administering a county of a hundred thousand or even several hundred thousand people would inevitably have gaps and oversights. A military commissioner with tens of millions of people under his authority — even more so, one could not expect him to attend to everything.

In Li Chi’s own words, he was right now a clever housewife being asked to cook without rice.

No soldiers — no source of soldiers even — and yet he still had to make something fragrant and delicious for Tang Pidi and the others. Truly, it was difficult.

Changmei the Daoist, supported by Gao Xining’s arm, made his way up the city wall. They had looked for Li Chi in the Prince Ning’s Residence without finding him, then in the transport yard, also without finding him — so they guessed he must be up on the city wall.

Jizhou was so vast, and the city walls so long — to find him at a moment’s notice seemed well-nigh impossible. Yet across the entire world, there were perhaps only three people who could guess his location correctly.

And two of those three happened to be Changmei the Daoist and Gao Xining.

“The wind is strong.”

Gao Xining held Changmei’s arm with one hand, and with the other passed Li Chi the heavy cloak she’d been carrying.

Li Chi smiled and draped it over his shoulders. “What brings you both here?”

Changmei the Daoist smiled and said: “Last night Master Yan came to see me — we had dinner together. We got to talking about the difficulties you’re facing right now, and this old man was suddenly seized with such worry that he could barely sleep all night. I lay there thinking it over for you.”

He laughed. “But I couldn’t come up with any proper solutions — all I managed were low-grade, disreputable jianghu tricks.”

Li Chi said: “Master, stop teasing me. Everything I know, I learned from you.”

Changmei chuckled, looking rather pleased with himself.

He said to Li Chi: “I didn’t see you at breakfast this morning. When I mentioned it to Ning’er, she also thought it through, and came up with quite a few ideas. In the end we put our thoughts together and came up with a terrible scheme.”

Li Chi looked at Gao Xining. Gao Xining grinned. “Truly terrible.”

Li Chi laughed.

Changmei the Daoist said: “I am a Daoist priest, yet I know as well as anyone that there is no magic in this world that can turn beans into soldiers. With no source of troops, even the cleverest mind cannot conjure a million-strong army out of nothing.”

“So…”

Changmei the Daoist paused, looked at Li Chi, and said: “In the jianghu — if the enemy’s sect has many people and we have few, what do you do?”

Li Chi said: “If we can fight, we fight. If we can’t, we run.”

Changmei: “And if we add one more condition — we have few people but plenty of money, and they have many people but no money?”

Li Chi’s brow lifted slightly, as though something had suddenly clicked into place.

Changmei pointed in the direction of the northeast and said: “Yanzhou over there may not see many full-scale battles, but bandits run rampant, farmland lies waste, and the common people have nothing to live on. The vast majority are surviving hand to mouth, with no certainty of their next meal…”

Li Chi said: “Poach them.”

Changmei gave a sound of agreement. “Find a way to let the people of Yanzhou know that anyone willing to come to Jizhou will receive an allotment of farmland, provisions — even gold and silver coin.”

He smiled. “Don’t be discouraged if few come at first. Every person who comes is one more in Jizhou, and one fewer in Yanzhou.”

Li Chi nodded. “Understood — and not only Yanzhou. We can spread this word among the people of Qingzhou and Xuzhou as well.”

He paced along the wall. “But how do we spread the word?”

Jizhou’s borders: northeast to Yanzhou, southeast to Qingzhou, with only a small stretch touching Xuzhou — almost negligible.

“I’ll set the Tingwei Corps to work, and have Ninth Sister’s intelligence network mobilize as well.”

Gao Xining said: “A few days ago when I had nothing to do, I happened to be browsing through the volumes Master Li left you — and one of the stories in it gave me an idea.”

Li Chi tried to recall which of those volumes it might have been — he had already read all of them more than once — and was curious which story had sparked Gao Xining’s imagination.

“Common people are particularly drawn to things with a touch of mystery about them — such as the tale of the blade-on-credit pedlar.”

As soon as Gao Xining said this, Li Chi immediately understood.

“The blade-on-credit pedlar is mentioned in Master Li’s volumes, but in Dachu such a figure never actually existed — and if you go back thousands of years before Dachu, there’s no record of it either.”

Changmei the Daoist said: “Common people may know nothing of the blade-on-credit pedlar, but they do know the disciples of the Daoist orders…”

Gao Xining said: “Have the Tingwei Corps and intelligence operatives all dress as Daoist priests and travel through Yanzhou performing acts of charity. They’d likely need to carry large quantities of printed circulars to hand out as they go, distributing them wherever they pass.”

Changmei the Daoist smiled. “And throughout Yanzhou, engineer some manner of miraculous occurrence — for instance, a stone stele suddenly washed up in a river, bearing an inscription.”

Li Chi said with a laugh: “Steamed buns in the neighboring land of Jizhou — buy one, get one free, and a bowl of tofu soup to go with it…”

Gao Xining laughed and said: “Actually — we could also try praising the Yanzhou Shanhai Army to the heavens, singing their praises even louder than our own. Who knows what unexpected results that might produce?”

Li Chi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Wicked. You’re truly wicked.”

Meanwhile, in Yanzhou.

West Capital City.

In a small courtyard, Cao Lie tilted his head and listened to the wind outside. In Yanzhou the winters were frozen solid and dreary enough, but he had never in Youzhou seen snowflakes that enormous drifting down, nor wind that howled as though it might tear off the roof at any moment.

Heavy snowflakes could at least carry a certain beauty if they fell gently. But snowflakes driven by a raging gale and slashing across one’s face felt like being stabbed by a dense grid of ice needles.

He strained to listen, but it was not the wind he wanted to hear.

The wind, however, was far too loud, drowning out the sound he sought.

Someone stopped outside the door and knocked. “Young Lord.”

Hearing Mu Fengliu’s voice, Cao Lie could not help the faint upward curl of his lips. Mu Fengliu had returned safely — which meant the matter had succeeded.

“The wind is strong — come inside quickly, sir.”

Cao Lie said quickly.

Mu Fengliu came in from outside and hurriedly pulled the door shut behind him. His hair had been blown into something resembling a haystack — a complete and utter tangle.

“How did it go?”

Cao Lie asked.

The tone sounded calm enough — but the fact that he asked before Mu Fengliu had even finished closing the door said plenty about the urgency he felt inside.

“It’s done.”

Mu Fengliu smiled as he came forward and bowed. “Congratulations, Young Lord — the plan has succeeded in eliminating the traitor Lu Wuman.”

“Ha ha ha ha…”

Cao Lie finally let out a long breath of relief. He burst into laughter, then rose and steadied Mu Fengliu with a hand. “It was all your scheming, sir — I was merely the lazy one along for the ride.”

Mu Fengliu said: “Without the Young Lord charting the course and providing the strategy, I would not have been able to see things through.”

Cao Lie said with a smile: “Let’s spare each other the mutual flattery, sir. Give me the details.”

Mu Fengliu said: “Exactly as the Young Lord predicted, Lu Wuman came rushing back in a hurry — and without informing Mei Wujiu, brought troops and appeared suddenly outside West Capital City.”

Cao Lie said with a smile: “Mei Wujiu must have been overjoyed?”

Mu Fengliu said: “He was… at first, perhaps, Mei Wujiu wasn’t entirely certain that Lu Wuman had truly returned with intentions against him. But then Lu Wuman did not enter the city — instead he led his troops directly into the White Mountain Army’s camp outside the walls. That was when Mei Wujiu gave up all doubt.”

“I had told Mei Wujiu in advance — if Lu Wuman suddenly returns without telling you, and instead of entering West Capital City goes straight into the White Mountain Army’s encampment, it means he intends to seize military command first and kill you after…”

Cao Lie laughed. “So Mei Wujiu would inevitably set an ambush inside the White Mountain Army camp.”

Mu Fengliu said: “Mei Wujiu’s full military force disguised themselves as surrendered soldiers of the White Mountain Army. The moment Lu Wuman charged in, he walked straight into the trap. He suffered heavy losses — three or four in ten of his men killed, and the rest surrendered. His personal bodyguard unit fought to protect him and broke through the encirclement. He escaped, but reportedly with severe wounds — unlikely to have gotten far. Mei Wujiu personally led troops in pursuit.”

Cao Lie gave a sound of acknowledgment, then asked: “How is our other matter coming along?”

Mu Fengliu said: “The people we arranged have sent word back — already seven or eight parts certain.”

Several months prior, Mu Fengliu had arranged for a strikingly beautiful woman to engineer a seemingly accidental meeting with Mei Wujiu’s only son, Mei Yan. Mei Yan was a man of depraved tastes — greedy, lecherous, and utterly useless, with no talents beyond eating, drinking, and chasing pleasure.

Within just a few months, the woman had him completely bewitched, wholly entranced, and willing to do her bidding in all things.

Cao Lie asked: “How confident are we?”

Mu Fengliu answered: “At least seven parts.”

Cao Lie smiled. “Seven parts is substantial. When does sir plan to make the move?”

Mu Fengliu said: “Give Mei Wujiu a few months to stabilize things on behalf of the Young Lord — then we act. It’ll be less effortful that way.”

Cao Lie broke into open laughter — the first time he had laughed so freely since leaving Youzhou.

“In today’s matter, sir’s contribution is beyond measure.”

Cao Lie rose and cupped his fists. “Please accept my bow.”

This gave Mu Fengliu quite a fright. He quickly reached out to stop Cao Lie. “Young Lord, you must not.”

Cao Lie slowly let out a breath and said: “Send for Butterfly — I wish to speak with her directly.”

Mu Fengliu gave a sound of assent, then said: “She has given everything she has for the Young Lord.”

Cao Lie sighed. “I have always had the deepest contempt for using women as instruments of strategy — and yet this time I made exactly such an arrangement with my own hands…”

He shook his head. “Sir, you once said — when a man no longer concerns himself with whether his methods are honorable or dishonorable, and looks only at whether they are effective or not, then that man…”

Mu Fengliu said: “Then that man is fit to be a great lord.”

Cao Lie was momentarily stunned. He looked at Mu Fengliu and bowed again. “After the defeat in Youzhou, to still have sir by my side — guiding and instructing me — is Cao Lie’s great fortune.”

—