April had brought warmth back to the land. In peaceful times, the fields would be at their most demanding now — but in this age of chaos, most farmland had long since gone to ruin.

The northwest was no great land to begin with: scarce water, sparse rain, mountain country everywhere, yields never matching those of central and southern Jizhou, let alone Yuzhou. And with the peasants all turned to banditry or swept up into the Eastern Mausoleum Way, farming was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Li Chi had originally planned to skirt the heavily garrisoned county seats and strike Eastern Mausoleum Mountain directly after linking up with Tang Pidi — but things didn’t go as planned. He hadn’t anticipated the armies of all five counties being mobilized and converging on Linbing County.

When Yanshan Camp’s eight thousand elite soldiers were spotted by the massing bandits midway, the so-called divine soldiers throughout the Linbing County area rallied and massed in preparation for battle.

That actually suited Tang Pidi well. Having the enemy gather in one place saved him from clearing the counties one by one.

Against an enemy like this, Tang Pidi felt that spending more than half a day on it was already excessive.

On the Linbing County side, the gathered bandit soldiers were growing in number — already well over tens of thousands.

Though the Eastern Mausoleum Way claimed followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands, how many of those could actually fight was another matter entirely.

These five counties — conscripted, coerced, lured, assembled by every means imaginable — had mustered roughly forty-five or forty-six thousand men. No decent weapons or armor. No protection worth the name. Not even a coherent command structure. If they could be directed with any smoothness at all, that would be the true miracle.

Yet ten thousand men already made for an overwhelming spectacle. Forty or fifty thousand gathered together — they felt themselves capable of devouring mountains.

The phrase *overwhelming numbers* captured precisely this human tendency: when tens of thousands massed together, every single one of them felt invincible.

Tang Pidi was thoroughly contemptuous, especially after inspecting the enemy’s forces up close.

It was as if Li Chi had coaxed and cajoled him into coming for a grand feast — and when he arrived, it was nothing but a bowl of coarse dumpling soup, and not even a very generous bowl at that.

“Looks substantial from here,” Tang Pidi said from horseback, gesturing toward the bandit camp spreading as far as the eye could see beyond Linbing County’s walls. “Actually a block of tofu. Bean curd dregs at that.”

He couldn’t bring himself to think much of them. Clearing all forty or fifty thousand of them wouldn’t even yield much in the way of iron weapons, let alone proper arms and armor.

“You might at least put on a convincing show of taking it seriously,” Li Chi said. “This is the first official campaign. If you carry on with this air of complete indifference, the soldiers will—”

“Alright, alright.”

Tang Pidi turned back. “Is the morning meal ready?”

Jia Ruan, the senior brother of the Hook-Sword Sect overseeing logistics, stepped forward. “Ready, General.”

“Then serve it,” Tang Pidi said. He swung down from his horse and walked off. “Pass the word — no need to set up for midday here.”

Jia Ruan blinked. “No midday meal?”

“Not *no* midday meal — not *here* for midday,” Tang Pidi said. “After we’re done, we eat in the county seat.”

About half an hour after breakfast, Tang Pidi gave the order to sound the horn. The soldiers assembled with swift precision.

“Commander Liu,” Tang Pidi said. “This is the first engagement. Our Yanshan Camp soldiers may be a bit rattled. Lead your men and show them how it’s done.”

Liu Ge grinned. “Understood.”

“Dantai — the rest of the forces are yours. Once Commander Liu punches through, take your men in to clean up.”

Dantai Qi nodded. “Understood.”

Orders given, Tang Pidi looked at Li Chi. “How far from here to Eastern Mausoleum Mountain?”

“About two days’ march,” Li Chi said.

Tang Pidi immediately called out: “One hour to break them. One hour to clear the field. Midday in Linbing County. We march out after eating.”

“Huo!”

A unified roar from the troops.

Tang Pidi limbered up, then added: “Once it’s over, tell those so-called Eastern Mausoleum Way believers — renounce the sect and live; stay in it and die.”

“Sound the horn!”

With the long moan of the war horns, Liu Ge led three thousand government troops forward in a slow advance.

The training of Dachu’s regular government troops — how could that compare to this rabble?

Truthfully, if Yu Jiuling hadn’t come back and reported hundreds of thousands of Eastern Mausoleum Way followers, Tang Pidi wouldn’t have come himself. He’d have sent Liu Ge with three thousand men and that would have been that.

Liu Ge drove his troops straight for the enemy’s main body.

No probing. No need for probing.

Three thousand troops in a square formation, advancing. At the moment of contact, the formation shifted into a swallow-tail, and they struck directly at the bandit center.

Up on the high ground, Tang Pidi sat down, looked at the battlefield once, and immediately lost interest.

“How much grain did they have in reserve?”

He asked Li Chi.

“Not much,” Li Chi shook his head. “Slim pickings — like gnawing a fish spine. Not worth tossing away, but there’s not much to it.”

“Then it’s even less interesting,” Tang Pidi said.

“Another round of the game?”

“I didn’t bring the game box. How do we play?”

“A round of Block the Privy?”

Tang Pidi stared at him. “We are a great chieftain and a commanding general, mid-battle — and you want to play Block the Privy with me?”

He glared, then said: “First, no cheating.”

Block the Privy was a game popular among Jizhou folk — only four pieces, two per player. Also called Jump the Well, Trap the Ox, and a dozen other names depending on where you were. No need for actual pieces; whatever was at hand would do, as long as the two sides could tell their own apart.

Li Chi drew a long breath, expression solemn.

“You’re taking Block the Privy *this* seriously?”

“It’s just that…” Li Chi said. “Crouching here for a while… and with all this talk of *privy*… I feel some mysterious force calling from deep within my gut…”

“Knocking at the door?” Tang Pidi asked.

“Almost…”

“Go quickly, and don’t come back here stinking the place up.”

—

At the same time, two days’ march from Jizhou, the Yanzhou army was advancing — fifteen full divisions, spreading across the plain as far as the eye could see.

Luo Jing was galloping ahead when someone rode up hard behind him and called his name. He turned: a courier from Youzhou.

The messenger had ridden all the way from Youzhou to catch him. He came before Luo Jing, clasped his fists in salute, and produced a sealed letter.

Luo Jing opened it and his expression changed at once.

It was in his father Luo Geng’s own hand. The letter told him that Yanzhou bandit chieftain Lao Shui Ze had arrived with two hundred thousand troops and would attack Zhou Shiren from behind; Luo Geng was telling him to find an opportunity to slip away from the Yanzhou army.

When Zhou Shiren’s troops broke through into Jizhou, he would be at his most jubilant — and most careless. That was when the White Mountain Army would strike hard from the rear.

The letter also mentioned that, to season the White Mountain Army’s fighters, they had already begun marching north — heading to attack Yanshan Camp.

Luo Jing’s expression shifted and changed. He was quiet for a long time. Then he pocketed the letter and said to the messenger: “Go back and tell my father I understand. I’ll act accordingly.”

The messenger obeyed, turned his horse, and rode off.

Long after, Luo Jing finally could not keep it in. He turned to Luo Zhi Jie at his side and said: “Help me with one thing. No one else can know — not even my father.”

Luo Zhi Jie bowed. “Young General, only name it.”

Luo Jing lowered his voice. “Ride to Yanshan yourself. Find the Green-Eyebrow Army’s camp. Tell Li Chi that the White Mountain Army — two hundred thousand strong — is marching to attack his stronghold. Tell him to make preparations.”

Luo Zhi Jie’s face changed. He said haltingly: “Young General, this was just sent to you by the Grand General. It must be the Grand General’s arrangement. If you send me to Yanshan Camp and the Grand General finds out…”

“Will you tell him?” Luo Jing said, a slight frown creasing his brow.

“This subordinate would not dare.”

“You’re only going to give Li Chi a word of warning,” Luo Jing said. “Not going to fight the White Mountain Army for him. I’ve heard Li Chi is at Yanshan Camp now with barely ten thousand troops and just a few commanders. How could he withstand two hundred thousand? I only want to repay him a debt.”

Luo Zhi Jie had no choice but to agree. He took a small escort and left the main column, turning north.

Luo Jing breathed out at length, murmuring as if to himself: “This time, consider the debt truly repaid… Li Chi, Li Chi — look to yourself. This game that all the world is playing — it isn’t one that a person like you can just walk into freely.”

—

Linbing County.

One hour to break the enemy. One hour to clear the field.

Three thousand government troops drove straight into the bandit center. In truth, it didn’t even take a full hour — barely half that to cut all the way through.

The renegade Taoist Fang Yuzhou had no idea how to command troops in battle. He could only kill to compel his men to charge.

His personal martial skill was one thing. His ability to wage war was quite another.

Once the government troops broke the center, the Yanshan Camp soldiers watching from the side saw how effortless it had been and their morale surged. Under Dantai Qi’s command, they hit hard from the other flank.

Eight thousand men — pulling off a two-sided envelopment of forty-odd thousand. Quite unreasonably. And pulling it off comfortably.

—

On the hillside, Li Chi looked earnest and sincere. “I really mean it this time. Eleven wins out of twenty-one — this is the deciding round!”

Tang Pidi squinted at Li Chi. From best of three to best of five to best of seven, and now best of twenty-one out of eleven — Li Chi had elevated shamelessness to a high art.

“General!”

Liu Ge’s courier came galloping over, dismounted at a run, dropped to one knee, fists raised in salute. “Report, General — we’re done!”

Tang Pidi rose. “Let’s go have a look.”

“Really not playing one more round?” Li Chi asked.

“Your game is more foul than a fart,” Tang Pidi said.

“Rubbish. Come and smell for yourself.”

Tang Pidi: “…”

—

At the Linbing County gate, Tang Pidi looked around. Kneeling in dense, dark masses in every direction — surrendered soldiers.

“I’ll go up and shout a few things. Then I’ll come back down.”

Li Chi smiled. “You shout your fill. I’ll go look at the spoils.”

Tang Pidi climbed the Linbing County wall, swept his gaze down below, cleared his throat, and bellowed: “Get yourselves home and farm! Come autumn I’ll be here to collect grain — anyone who doesn’t have grain, I’ll chop the lot of you then!”

Liu Ge called up from below: “Chase them all off — these pathetic spineless creatures. We don’t want their surrenders.”

The Yanshan Camp soldiers kicked out in all directions, boots connecting with backsides as the so-called divine soldiers scrambled and fled in undignified rout. What had been ordinary peasants pressed into service scattered in chaos.

Liu Ge looked up at Tang Pidi as he came back down the wall. “Will you actually come to collect grain in autumn?”

“On land like this, if they can grow enough for themselves, that’s already something,” Tang Pidi said. “Spare them — most were forced into this. No killing this time.”

Liu Ge smiled. “You’ve probably scared off a good portion of them for good.”

Just as they were talking, Jia Ruan appeared with the logistics team — an expression of absolute disbelief on his face. “We haven’t even finished washing the breakfast pots and it’s all over?”

Li Chi had just been passing and overheard. He smiled. “Sister Jiu, note this down — Jia Ruan is too slow at pot-washing. Demerit.”

Jia Ruan: “…”

—