After crossing the Hangou Canal and mounting horses hidden in the forest, everyone took advantage of the night to bypass obstructing streams and rivers, galloping northwest.
The further northwest they traveled, the more sparse the population became. Everywhere stood collapsed and abandoned houses, or roads flooded and washed away by floodwaters. Fortunately, the horses Han Qian and his group rode were exceptional steeds selected from hundreds, enabling them to advance quickly through such muddy terrain.
After traveling through the night, past dawn, Han Qian’s group bypassed the abandoned imperial highway and ducked into a dense forest to rest. They had now circumvented the Imperial Guards’ checkpoints and re-entered Shiliang County territory.
For anyone else, traveling through the night to escape danger as quickly as possible and conceal their tracks would be extremely exhausting. Han Qian completely disregarded his image, plopping down on the ground, leaning back against a round pine tree, tearing into wheat cakes with one hand holding a tin water flask, gulping down mouthfuls of cake and cold boiled water to fill his stomach.
After resting for about two hours, He Liufeng arrived with the rear guard troops for the rendezvous. He reported: “There’s been no movement from Yangzhou. Don’t know if they were truly intimidated, or if Wang Wenqian thought Your Excellency’s suggestion was actually quite good and didn’t dispatch pursuit forces.”
“Then they must have been intimidated,” Han Qian laughed. “Wang Wenqian can’t make decisions on this matter. If they weren’t intimidated, even if just for appearances, he would have deployed pursuit forces to intercept us.”
At that moment, a sudden rain shower pattered down. After the clouds cleared and rain stopped, He Liufeng and the rear guard continued resting in the forest, also watching the rear route for any Huaidong scouts that might approach. Han Qian and his group mounted their horses and left the forest to continue their journey.
Reaching the west bank of the Xiaota River, they found a shallow crossing and directly swam across. Han Qian’s group only arrived at White Hoof Ridge in the afternoon, reuniting with the families of the former Left Guangde Army subordinates who had migrated earlier, and Feng Liao, Guo Rong, and others who had remained there.
Han Qian had only been gone a few days, but the second wave of northern migrants had already arrived for the rendezvous. Nearly six hundred people from the former Left Guangde Army and their families had gathered at this low mountain ridge—except for Guo Xiao who remained in Yangzhou as a messenger, among the nine great leaders of the Chishan Association, Lin Sheng had also arrived early.
“How did it go? Are you confident you can persuade Huaidong? When will Yang Yuanyan give a definite reply?” Feng Liao asked somewhat impatiently.
Until matters here were properly settled, Han Qian wouldn’t leave easily. But with Han Qian remaining outside, if word leaked out, his situation would become extremely dangerous.
Feng Liao still hoped they could resolve matters here quickly and then return to Xuzhou.
“How could it be that easy?” Han Qian shook his head and laughed. “Yang Yuanyan is stubborn and arrogant, not one to easily yield. He plotted for Jinling and was thwarted by my hand. Even if he has the heart to cooperate, he’ll find it hard to swallow this grievance—we still need to prepare for both contingencies. While I was away these few days, how has your reconnaissance of the surrounding refugee forces gone? Can you confirm whether Huaidong has also infiltrated these refugee forces?”
“The distribution of refugee forces and some basic intelligence aren’t difficult to scout, but refugee forces are all relatively closed off. To infiltrate them and determine clearly whether they’re controlled by any particular faction—we can’t accomplish that yet,” Feng Liao said.
Shiliang County originally had a population of less than twenty thousand, but since the outbreak of war, large numbers of refugees fleeing from Chaozhou and western Chuzhou had caused the population sheltering here to surge dramatically.
Dozens of refugee forces, large and small—to say the Anning Palace rebels and Huaidong hadn’t infiltrated them, Han Qian absolutely wouldn’t believe it. There was even strong possibility that Liang Kingdom spies had infiltrated and were operating among them.
The Imperial Guards were also concerned about this point, which was why they dared not rashly mobilize forces from eastern Chuzhou to advance toward the southern shore of Hongze Lake.
Of course, the key issue was the degree of infiltration by various factions. Due to the vigilance and closed nature of refugees in this chaotic territory, they couldn’t conduct detailed investigations in the short term—just as they had gathered at White Hoof Ridge to settle, others couldn’t easily infiltrate to determine their background either.
“Prepare for both contingencies? You don’t mean Huaidong will send troops across Fanliang Lake to attack us?” Feng Yi asked puzzled.
“At this moment, Yang Yuanyan fears arousing suspicion from Jinling even more, and fears giving Jinling grounds to strip his military authority. Huaidong forces won’t kill their way over in large numbers, but using refugee forces they secretly control to test our depth—Yang Yuanyan would be quite happy to do that,” Han Qian said. “Only after we frustrate Yang Yuanyan’s aggressive spirit will it be possible to truly make him consider the benefits of cooperating with us.”
“If they’re truly frustrated again, who knows if some people in Huaidong might worry that cooperating with us would be raising a tiger to invite disaster,” Guo Rong said with slightly furrowed brows. “Previously, Prince Xin occupied such a huge advantage yet still suffered losses at your hands. Those in Huaidong who fear you deep down are certainly not few!”
“Without giving Huaidong more options, to quench their thirst, even if a cup of poisoned wine is placed before them, they’ll have to drink it down.” Han Qian wasn’t worried that Huaidong’s wariness of him would affect anything. He said disdainfully, but they still needed to first deal with potential attacks and harassment that could come at any time from fellow refugee forces.
When Han Qian had secretly left Xuzhou this time, he had originally planned to use Xue Ruogu’s hand to reveal the truth behind the Shang Wensheng assassination case, to divide the court officials’ attitudes toward Xuzhou, and further ease the tense situation in Guangde Prefecture.
That was why he had brought Guo Rong, who better understood the Jiangdong aristocratic families’ situation. But who would have thought that circumstances couldn’t keep pace with changes—now he had to first consider the problem of relocating the former Left Guangde Army subordinates out of Guangde Prefecture to settle across the river. Guo Rong, Feng Yi, and the others had followed him running east and west, suffering countless hardships, yet couldn’t be of much help.
What Han Qian now needed were military command personnel who could assist the former Left Guangde Army subordinates in establishing themselves on the western shore of Fanliang Lake. This wasn’t the specialty of Guo Rong, Feng Yi, or even Feng Liao.
Those skilled in this area—Dou Rong remained at Xuanjiao Ridge’s Ding Family Gully, so only Kong Xirong, He Liufeng, and Xi Ren were at Han Qian’s side.
After He Liufeng led the rear guard forces to White Hoof Ridge for the rendezvous, Han Qian again assembled everyone to further understand the composition of personnel who had entered White Hoof Ridge earlier and the terrain of White Hoof Ridge and surrounding lake marshes, researching how to deal with attacks and harassment that could erupt at any moment.
The former Left Guangde Army subordinates had entered White Hoof Ridge in two waves—difficult to hide from Huaidong’s informants. This also meant they were in the open while enemies were in the shadows.
Also, because they had crossed the river from the south as refugees fleeing famine, those refugee forces secretly controlled by the Anning Palace rebels might mistakenly take them for advance Imperial Guard forces and attack them.
The situation they currently faced at White Hoof Ridge couldn’t be taken lightly in the slightest.
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Considering there would be many variables in the early stage, even though they needed to bring some women and children as cover, among the six hundred people who initially migrated to White Hoof Ridge, able-bodied men or youths over twelve or thirteen predominated. Among them, three hundred were veteran soldiers who had been enlisted in the Chishan Army or Left Guangde Army and participated in battles at Meizhu Creek or the attack on Langxi City. The other two hundred-plus able-bodied women and youths could also be used as internal guard personnel.
Organizing women’s battalions and youth battalions had been a tradition since the founding of the Chishan Army.
Kong Xirong commanded the elite guards responsible for Han Qian’s personal security, and with Xi Ren and He Liufeng in charge, elite scouts who scouted enemy intelligence along the way totaled one hundred twenty people.
However, Kong Xirong and He Liufeng had previously mainly protected Han Qian as he infiltrated Yangzhou to meet with Wang Wenqian. Xuzhou’s elite forces hadn’t participated in the early construction of the White Hoof Ridge camp.
When Han Qian returned at this time, he saw that under Feng Liao, Guo Rong, Feng Yi, and others’ assistance, the White Hoof Ridge camp had mainly been built in a mountain hollow on the eastern lakeside. They had utilized abandoned ancestral halls and village houses to construct barracks that could shelter everyone from wind and rain, but defensive facilities were essentially nonexistent.
This didn’t mean Feng Liao and Guo Rong weren’t skilled at construction.
In fact, although Feng Liao, Guo Rong, and Feng Yi weren’t as proficient in construction matters as Ji Xiyao, Chen Jitang, and others, having been influenced by what they heard and saw in Xuzhou over the years and receiving the nurturing of new learning, their purely theoretical derivations weren’t much inferior to Ji, Chen, and the others. In construction practice, they far exceeded the so-called master craftsmen and engineers of this era.
They mainly thought that after Han Qian returned, they would immediately withdraw to Xuzhou first. To avoid alerting the enemy while hiding at White Hoof Ridge, they deliberately hadn’t built defensive measures, wanting to present the appearance of refugees fleeing famine to avoid attracting the attention of various factions.
Considering this place could be attacked at any time, Han Qian also made up his mind—they’d discuss other matters after the Chishan Association could establish a firm foothold at White Hoof Ridge. The construction philosophy for the White Hoof Ridge camp immediately underwent new adjustments.
Fortunately, the Imperial Guards stationed at Shiliang County’s southern flank weren’t currently very strict in inspecting checkpoints along the route. Lin Sheng and the others were thus able to transport over a batch of relatively sufficient supplies, iron tools, and weapons and armor.
Although White Hoof Ridge was only forty to fifty meters high, with terrain that couldn’t be called treacherous—one face toward the lake, three faces all flat terrain—it couldn’t be called easy to defend and hard to attack. But this depended on what intensity and what level of combat was involved.
Considering that whether Huaidong or Anning Palace, in this area south of Hongze Lake and west of Fanliang Lake, the elite military forces they could directly control were extremely limited—at most they could gather a batch of untrained rabble with incomplete weapons and armor to attack—White Hoof Ridge’s terrain had considerable value for study and utilization.
White Hoof Ridge’s terrain sloped lower on the west side, difficult to climb. The mountain body extended north and south on both sides, forming an arc facing the eastern lake marshes. The Chishan Association members’ current camp was located in a mountain hollow on White Hoof Ridge’s eastern slope facing the lake marshes. There had previously been an abandoned fishing hamlet here, with five or six broken fishing boats stranded in the reed marshes.
The mountain was densely forested, and the lake shore’s reeds were even more abundant.
Besides the northern and southern openings that could be used to attack the camp, from the west there was a mountain gully with flat terrain, convenient for climbing. Even without a sneak attack, enemies could relatively easily mount a frontal assault from the west to reach the mountain ridge.
After studying it, this terrain was most suitable for setting traps. Han Qian had people use bamboo and wood as framework, weaving reed mats, then using pine and fir wood to make supporting frames. Several reed mats stacked together made reed mat platform beds.
At the top of the gully or on the sides of precipitous cliff slopes with extremely dangerous terrain, they positioned these reed mat platform beds—one side resting on the ground, the other side tied with ropes to tree stumps, suspended in the air. They piled broken stones on top, concealed with miscellaneous grasses, waiting for enemies to fall into the trap…