Han Qian merely set down the next operational objectives and requirements. More specific military action plans would be discussed and formulated by Gao Shao and the others. After that, he walked out of the great hall for some air.
Zhang Ping, avoiding suspicion, did not participate in discussions of specific military action plans. Following Han Qian out of the hall, he said: “At this time, conquering Shang Family Fort has greatly increased the Chishan Army’s prestige. Besides incorporating servants and desperately poor tenant farmers from Shang Family Fort, on my return I seemed to see servants coming to submit from both Liyang and Jintan counties?”
“…” Han Qian smiled and spread his hands, saying: “I did not want to attract servants from outside Jinling to come with their families, as this makes the Chishan Army increasingly bloated and massive. But when people come to our door to submit, I have no way to turn them away—over these past two days, servants and their families coming with households number six or seven thousand daily, bringing the total of Chishan Army soldiers plus women and children to over a hundred fifty thousand—now as long as we can transfer these people out, there’s nothing much to worry about.”
Zhang Ping sighed: “Indeed, if we can smoothly transfer out these hundred fifty thousand people and keep the passage south of Jinling City from being cut off, Wang Wenqian’s siege strategy will be more or less broken.”
Jinling would continue to face grain and food shortages in the short term, but transferring out a hundred fifty thousand people would not only reduce basic consumption by fifty to sixty thousand shi of grain monthly. As long as other civilians were not driven into Jinling City to be besieged, outside the city rivers, streams, and lakes crisscrossed everywhere—they could catch fish and shrimp, pick wild vegetables and grass, even tree bark and wood cores could be used to stave off hunger. Surviving famine would not be a problem. At worst, populations could be dispersed into the depths of Yi Mountain and Jiuhua Mountain to the south.
However, where could these hundred fifty thousand troops who required at least fifty to sixty thousand shi of grain monthly to meet basic needs be transferred?
Zhang Ping had no solution after much thought, but seeing Han Qian’s composed expression, he thought there must be deeper calculations, only that as someone from the Divine Mausoleum Bureau lineage, Han Qian did not trust him and was unwilling to tell him.
Thinking of this, Zhang Ping looked at Han Qian and said:
“What you’re doing, no one will recognize your achievements. After all, the siege did not actually happen. Even if some people see through it, there are only three to five at most. If we hadn’t heard Miss Wang of the Wang family point it out, we wouldn’t have thought of it either—what more people see is you being arrogant and domineering, arbitrarily seizing military authority. Many in Yueyang even say you came to Jinling to win people’s hearts and military loyalty because you resented being neglected, yet you don’t hesitate to make enemies of all the aristocratic families in the world. Do you think it’s worth it?”
Han Qian was slightly stunned, not expecting Zhang Ping to ask him these questions so directly. After pondering for a moment, he said: “My father could not bear to see warfare and common people suffer in Jinling. Though I cannot stop the weapons of war, doing what I can to let fewer people die also allows the old man to rest in peace beneath the Nine Springs—as for what people in Yueyang think, and matters going forward, I cannot attend to them for now.”
Zhang Ping pondered for a moment, then cupped his hands and said: “If Minister Han needs Zhang Ping to share your burdens in any way, please just say so.”
“Is Li Pu really so unpopular?” Han Qian smiled mockingly and asked.
“It’s hard to put into words.” Zhang Ping smiled bitterly.
“Can General Zhigao be relied upon?” Han Qian narrowed his eyes and looked at Zhang Ping, asking.
Zhang Ping’s eyes showed a trace of confusion. After pondering for a moment, he said: “Minister Han’s heart is sincere…”
“Situations change, and people’s hearts change too,” Han Qian cut off Zhang Ping’s words, saying: “Let’s first get through the current difficulties!”
At this time, noisy sounds came from outside the courtyard.
Han Qian looked out and saw several guards cursing as they drove someone away from the alley beside the western courtyard. Seeing that person was Shang Hu, who had fought with exceptional bravery when attacking Shang Family Fort, he asked: “What’s going on?”
“This fellow was poking his head around the courtyard where female dependents are detained. I’m afraid he had lustful thoughts. If he hadn’t yet committed any evil act, we’d have sent him to Master Guo to see how Master Guo would deal with him.” The guard said.
“I was just passing by and looked twice.” Shang Hu’s skin was already dark, but now his face flushed red with a purplish-black tinge. He stiffened his neck to defend himself.
“Passing by? Tell us what business you had that you just happened to pass by the courtyard detaining female dependents, and just happened to be peering over the courtyard wall?” The guard mercilessly exposed Shang Hu’s lie.
“Peering over the courtyard wall, as long as you didn’t shamelessly barge in, doesn’t count as violating military discipline,” Han Qian had the guard withdraw, then asked Shang Hu: “Which family’s young lady have you taken a fancy to and can’t stop thinking about? You tell me, and I’ll have Administrator Zhang help you ask. If the other party is willing, it’s settled. If unwilling, you shouldn’t think about it anymore.”
“No, no, I really just looked once, absolutely didn’t dare have any improper thoughts.” Shang Hu’s face flushed bright red as he stammered.
Seeing Shang Hu absolutely refusing to say the other party’s name, Han Qian let it be.
Shang Hu hesitated for a long time, unwilling to leave. Han Qian asked curiously: “Is there something else?”
“The Shang family has a blood feud with me for killing my father. I don’t want to use the Shang surname anymore. I want to ask Minister to bestow a surname on me—I actually came over wanting to tell Minister about this, but didn’t dare disturb you, and somehow ended up beside the courtyard detaining female dependents.” Shang Hu mustered his courage to say.
“It’s this matter?” Han Qian pondered for a moment and said: “My family has someone surnamed Han named Hu, so you can be called Han Donghu—just find Guo Nu’er to change the roster.”
“Thank you Minister for bestowing a name!” Han Donghu kowtowed excitedly with a resounding thud, then quickly went down the mountain.
Han Qian shook his head and smiled, not knowing what was so exciting about it. He said to Zhang Ping: “So many detained people still need to be quickly sent to Lishui, so quite a few people up and down won’t keep thinking about them.”
Shang Zhongjie and other family descendants fled with small numbers of elite retainers, but most female dependents in Shang Family Fort were abandoned. Han Qian had no thought of degrading enemy female dependents into pleasure camps or brothels for soldiers’ enjoyment. They were temporarily detained together. He also wanted Zhang Ping to quickly take them away…
…
…
Although the mountain valley at the foot of the mountain was thronging with people, behind the Leiping Peak Daoist temple, in the pavilion among stone cliffs, it still presented a scene of a paradise beyond the world.
Aside from people occasionally passing by to pick wild vegetables and fruits or hunt mountain beasts, the troops in the valley would not normally climb to Leiping Peak to disturb the temple’s peaceful cultivation.
On a scorching summer day, the sickly-looking old man in blue robes could not withstand the mountain’s chill. Over his jacket he also wore a robe as he sat in the ruined pavilion playing chess with Temple Master Yun Puzi.
“Marquis Li killed prisoners in Lishui City, impatiently entrusting great authority to submitting families without regard for the drawbacks of their fence-sitting and unwieldy tails. Will you really not appear to advise them?” Yun Puzi’s withered fingers held a chess piece, about to place it but not yet doing so. He squinted at the old man before him and asked.
“What I could teach hands-on, I’ve taught. What I couldn’t teach hands-on—I’m a dying man, who will listen to my words?” The old man spoke with equanimity.
“Killing prisoners is after all inauspicious.” Yun Puzi said.
“Killing prisoners is not quite proper, but one cannot speak of auspicious or inauspicious. Moreover, how much blood have my hands been stained with in this lifetime, my heart hard as iron—what qualification do I have to lecture the younger generation?” The old man said.
“I understand now. While you still have a breath left, no matter how great a disaster those youngsters create, others must still give you three parts face. That’s better than after you’re buried and they create heaven-shaking calamities!” Yun Puzi laughed heartily.
“As people grow old, none can avoid worrying for their children!” The old man sighed without confirming or denying.
“The Chishan Army has reached this point. Prince Xin and your Li family’s marquis have determined that Han Qian will represent Yueyang’s interests, leading the now-substantial Chishan Army to garrison the Mount Mao and Donglu Mountain line. They’re certain Han Qian won’t particularly care about the grain difficulties of the elderly, weak, women, and children—at most expanding their activity range into northern Xuanzhou. But you say Han Qian came upholding his father’s dying wish—so tell me, what will the Chishan Army’s next move be?”
Yun Puzi finally placed the chess piece in his hand, watching the old man in blue robes with great interest.
“Gu Zhilong is strictly on guard in Xuanzhou, and Huang Hua in Huzhou is even harder to provoke, right? When Han Qian first arrived in Jinling, grain prices were only ten to twenty strings of cash per shi. But today, two months later, each shi of unhulled rice in Jinling City has risen to seventy to eighty strings. Not a single cart or ship of grain from the east has managed to come west. Many poor people have endured several months of spring famine, starving until their faces are yellow and muscles thin. Yet after summer, more than half the harvest was forcibly requisitioned by the Southern Court Imperial Guards as military provisions to satisfy the needs of the capital’s nobility and officials. This means that after the Chishan Army conquered Shang Family Fort and their prestige greatly increased, over these ten days, three to five thousand people daily have come with their families to submit to the Chishan Army, bringing the Chishan Army’s current numbers to not quite two hundred thousand but close. I believe even more slaves and famine refugees will soon gather. However, the problem is that even if the Chishan Army can organize forty to fifty thousand able-bodied men, there are three hundred thousand elderly, weak, women, and children opening three hundred thousand mouths crying to be fed. Moreover, many are the weak ones aristocratic families abandoned first due to grain shortages. At this juncture when counties surrounding Jinling all lack grain, they won’t be so easy to care for! The old Prince judges that Han Qian has the thought to inherit his father’s dying wish, asserting he won’t abandon so many elderly, weak, women, and children, but will definitely lead them out to find grain to keep them alive. I assume all this is true, but with various powers watching from all sides, if the Chishan Army with thirty to fifty thousand rabble tries to shelter three to four hundred thousand women and children rushing east and west for grain, how many vulnerabilities will be exposed then—I imagine the old Prince can easily imagine? And in the eyes of aristocratic families and ordinary people living peacefully in Jiangdong, the current Chishan Army is no different from a refugee army, right? At this time, even if Huang Hua cannot block the Chishan Army’s eastward advance, when these three to four hundred million people enter Liang Zhe, they’ll be like locusts in any locality, devouring all local grain stores, causing even more famine refugees to be swept up. The entire Jiangnan East Circuit could be devastated—this is probably not what the old Prince wishes to see either, right?”
“You certainly have many questions. Seeing you’ve lost so much weight these past days, you’ve been pondering this matter all along.” The old man in blue robes smiled slightly.
“Others all predict Han Qian is a person who fishes for fame with sinister scheming, coming to Jinling unwilling to be neglected by Yueyang, intending to win the hearts of the Dragon Sparrow Army’s elite fierce soldiers. But you say he came to break the Chuzhou Army’s siege strategy, to inherit his father’s dying wish,” Yun Puzi said. “Yet I’ve thought it over a hundred times but don’t know how he can, surrounded by tigers and wolves, treat well those three to four hundred thousand rabble who will be hated by surrounding prefectures and counties and viewed as a locust swarm—or perhaps the old Prince misjudged this time?”
“Whether I misjudged or not, what does it matter? When Han Qian conscripted servants into military service, he anticipated Prince Xin would impatiently imitate him. The current situation is indeed so, causing the Chuzhou Army and Gu Zhilong to the south and Huang Hua to the east to be mutually wary, unable to form an alliance.”
The old man, seeing Yun Puzi had racked his brains thinking about this for days and today finally could not hold back from throwing out all his doubts, sighed and said:
“My younger brother has again been used by Han Qian to block the northwest. I think he must have calculated this early on—of course, I’m a dying man. Being able to play a few pleasant games of chess with an old friend fulfills my wishes. Why bother with those thoughts?”
“The old Prince doesn’t want to explain it to me, right?” Yun Puzi asked.
“What plans Han Qian has to break the deadlock—looking far, what the Han father and son did in Xuzhou, looking near, how Han Qian organized these elderly, weak, women, and children in Mount Mao over this past month—every thread and strand is laid out before you and me. If you need me to help explain even this, then even if I help explain, you still won’t see through it,” the old man sighed lightly. “I advise you, be content with your happiness in these mountains and waters, and don’t harbor thoughts of descending the mountain. These days Mount Mao’s every ravine and gully is packed with people. Only Leiping Peak can remain isolated from the world. Do you think Han Qian truly doesn’t know you and I are hiding here? Does Han Qian truly think only this old immortal is idly staying on Leiping Peak for no reason? Han Qian is deeply entangled with the Divine Mausoleum Bureau and most guarded against it. Your background cannot be hidden.”
Yun Puzi’s heart stirred slightly—Han Qian’s method to break the deadlock is truly laid out before them?
Yun Puzi still could not see through it, but his face broke into a smile:
“You can’t do anything about your Li family sons. The Divine Mausolium Bureau is split into factions, each competing for advantage. How could I not know my place—I’m just curious how Han Qian will clean up this mess.”
The old man saw a trace of bitterness and unwillingness still hidden in Yun Puzi’s eyes. He sighed and shook his head, no longer trying to persuade him, but also no longer continuing this topic deeply.