Watching Guo Liang and Zhang Qian’s figures disappear into the night, Han Qian’s brows furrowed slightly.
Although Guo Liang, Zhang Qian, and the others had no connections with the Marquis Xinchang’s mansion or Wanhong House and were closer to Shen Yang, they also had no ties whatsoever to Anning Palace.
As long as they remained officers of the Dragon Sparrow Army, they wouldn’t actively align themselves with Anning Palace or actively leak information to them.
However, after Anning Palace and the Crown Prince’s faction paid sufficient attention to this side, whether Guo Liang, Zhang Qian, and others whose power had been usurped could be secretly gathered in or bought over was hard to say.
Guo Liang had originally been the Dragon Sparrow Army’s sole remaining Colonel. After the Third Prince took over the Dragon Sparrow Army, Guo Liang was rapidly marginalized, and the few hundred elite troops remaining under his command were also divided up by Li Zhigao and the others. He definitely harbored resentment, but this didn’t mean that if the Third Prince Yang Yuanpu stepped forward, it couldn’t be resolved.
Han Qian thought this should be work the Third Prince Yang Yuanpu needed to do next. However, at this moment he had no mind to think more about these matters. He mounted his horse and had Zhao Ting’er and Yao Xishui return to the estate first, while simultaneously notifying Lin Haizheng and Zhao Wuji to recall all the scouts.
Since Zhao Mingting had directly pulled Guo Rong over to intrude into the camp, it meant Zhao Mingting probably wouldn’t have his secret agents risk crossing unfamiliar mountain ridges to deliver themselves as easy prey.
The west gate marked the western boundary of the garrison prefecture. Initially it had just been a simple wooden stockade wall as demarcation. Over the past half year they’d dug a moat that diverted stream water and mountain floods into Chishan Lake, creating a true boundary with Longhua Port.
The ditch was about one zhang wide with a wooden bridge spanning it that could be raised at night to isolate inside from outside.
Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting hadn’t yet arrived, but a junior officer was standing on the opposite bank of the boundary ditch, holding up Guo Rong’s waist token high and shouting for them to lower the drawbridge.
“This person doesn’t look like someone from Director Guo’s entourage,” Han Qian said, climbing the gate tower. Hearing the creaking sounds beneath his feet, he worried whether this gate tower, originally supervised in construction and defense by Guo Liang, might collapse if a strong wind blew. By the elevated lantern light, he looked at the three riders reining in their horses on the opposite bank—none were from Guo Rong’s entourage.
In the late years of the previous dynasty, military commissioners controlling real power in various regions had openly begun using eunuchs within their mansions.
Emperor Tianyou rose from humble origins and only took control of Huainan military and political affairs twenty-five years ago. The first batch of eunuchs used in the Huainan Military Commissioner’s mansion were all old retainers brought over from the former Guangling Military Commissioner’s mansion by Empress Dowager Xu of Anning Palace. Only afterward did they gradually use some new people.
This destined the Palace Attendants Bureau within the Imperial City to be divided into two factions. The faction of Anning Palace, including Guo Rong, all had deeper seniority.
Even without considering Anning Palace’s influence, during Great Chu’s foundation-building process, this faction of eunuchs from Anning Palace had also rendered great meritorious service. No matter how many misgivings Emperor Tianyou harbored in his heart, he had no way to purge them while these old retainers like Guo Rong remained conscientious and diligent.
Although Guo Rong had a bestowed residence outside the Imperial City, apart from a few aged old eunuchs with nowhere else to go and whose energy had declined, who attended to his daily needs at the residence, the people he normally used at his side were all young eunuchs in blue robes who belonged to the Palace Attendants Bureau and followed together to serve at the Marquis Linjiang’s mansion. If he needed to travel outside the city on official business, he would also transfer several guards from the Guard Battalion to accompany him.
The three riders demanding entry while holding Guo Rong’s waist token, wearing black armor, were naturally all guards from Zhao Mingting’s entourage.
Of course, Li Zhigao couldn’t fail to see something so simple. He also knew Han Qian saying this was telling him to assert dominance and show those three arrogant fellows a thing or two.
Li Zhigao gave a signal to the guards beside him, then ordered the drawbridge lowered. A subordinate officer behind him led several men across the bridge, dragged the three men on the opposite bank off their horses, pressed them directly into the mud and bound them, then brought back the Supervising Commissioner Guo Rong’s waist token to present to Li Zhigao.
“These days there are too many petty thieves. We’ll inconvenience these three for now while I send someone to take this waist token to Director Guo to verify its authenticity first,” Li Zhigao said coldly, his stern gaze sweeping over the three men below the tower who had gotten bloody noses and swollen eyes during the binding process.
“This place is cramped—take them to Matang Village first,” Han Qian inserted another timely remark.
Li Zhigao was somewhat puzzled, but seeing Zhou Yuan look confused for a moment before showing sudden understanding, he didn’t know what devilish scheme Han Qian had thought up to torment people. He had his subordinates follow Han Qian’s suggestion and escort these three men to be detained at Matang Village first.
Previously, Li Zhigao’s work focus had mainly been staying beside the Third Prince, responsible for instructing the Third Prince while taking control of the Guard Battalion, which had merged Dragon Sparrow Army veterans and increased its complement to five hundred men.
Only three days ago, after transferring Chai Jian to serve as Deputy Commander of the Guard Battalion, responsible for security matters around the Third Prince Yang Yuanpu, did Li Zhigao free up his hands to shift his focus back to the Dragon Sparrow Army’s reorganization work. Therefore, Li Zhigao’s familiarity with the garrison prefecture’s situation was still far inferior to Han Qian and Zhou Yuan’s.
After half a year of establishment and organization, Taowu Settlement’s garrison prefecture still had nearly two thousand people with severe epidemic diseases, currently mainly concentrated in two garrison villages near the east and west gates.
This had been Han Qian’s initial suggestion to Shen Yang. The stated reason was that concentrating severe epidemic patients made management more convenient, and the several large seepage wells built for centralized processing of human and animal waste were also built on both sides of the garrison.
Of course, Han Qian had another hidden motive—concentrating the severely diseased with hideous faces and pitiful appearances on the two flanks also deterred outside prying into the garrison prefecture.
Matang Village housed nearly a thousand people, all severe epidemic patients. Quite a number were on their last breath. Even now, two or three died every day. Escorting these three men there would really let them experience the fierce atmosphere of Taowu Settlement’s epidemic.
The guards beside Li Zhigao had entered and exited the garrison prefecture many times and were clear about Taowu Settlement’s current condition. They’d long known that schistosomiasis didn’t transmit between humans and animals—walking into Matang Village had nothing to fear. But whether these three would be afraid, Han Qian didn’t know.
Hearing Han Qian and Zhou Yuan explain the reason, even Li Zhigao couldn’t help laughing heartily.
Traveling by horse at night was inconvenient, and with Chai Jian stalling ahead, Han Qian accompanied Li Zhigao and Zhou Yuan in waiting at the west gate for most of an hour before Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting, surrounded by over a hundred men and horses, arrived at the boundary ditch opposite the west gate.
By this time, Han Qian, Li Zhigao, Zhou Yuan, and the others had all donned armor, wearing over it a layer of waterproof oiled cloth cloaks brushed with tung oil and secured firmly with waist belts. Their mouths and noses were covered with gauze dust masks, and they wore gloves made of tree sap—looking like crudely made simple hazmat suits, ugly and strange, still emanating a strong pungent smell of lacquer oil.
“Why did Director Guo rush to Taowu Settlement so late?” Li Zhigao brought Han Qian and Zhou Yuan out through the gate to greet them, then put on a stern face to reprimand the subordinate officer behind him. “Those three men holding the waist token earlier were indeed sent by Director Guo. You reckless fools, talking about spies and insisting on detaining them! Quickly go release them and properly apologize to them.”
After accompanying the Third Prince escorting his bride into the palace, Guo Rong had served carefully in the palace all day and was already quite exhausted. Just after leaving the palace he was forcibly dragged out of the city by Zhao Mingting. He harbored some resentment and truly didn’t know what flaws Zhao Mingting had spotted at Taowu Settlement’s garrison prefecture.
Rushing to the garrison gate and seeing Li Zhigao, Han Qian, and the others dressed so bizarrely, Guo Rong felt even more chilled to the bone. Even though Zhao Mingting’s three subordinates had already suffered some hardship, he didn’t want to seek any justice for them.
“Today in the palace, His Majesty asked about the garrison prefecture’s situation. Only then did I realize that although the Dragon Sparrow Army has been newly organized for nearly half a year, I haven’t set foot in the garrison once. Although His Majesty didn’t censure me, I cannot escape the crime of negligence. In my anxiety, I invited Director Zhao to come together, thinking that if the garrison had any assignments, we could help offer suggestions together,” Guo Rong said in a bland tone after steadying his nerves.
“Then please, Director Guo and Director Zhao, come to the office to talk,” Li Zhigao said, signaling his subordinates to bring out over a hundred oiled cloth robes for Guo Rong and his party to change into.
These oiled cloth long robes were made by brushing cotton cloth with tung oil, mainly used for pollution prevention when collecting and processing human and animal waste.
What Han Qian, Li Zhigao, and the others wore were naturally all brand new. What they gave Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting to wear were also new robes, but the young eunuchs in blue robes under Zhao Mingting and Guo Rong, as well as the Bureau of Military Geography scouts—sorry to them—obviously got old robes stained with considerable filth, still emanating waves of foul stench.
Seeing these people forcibly suppress their nausea as they changed clothes, carefully avoiding contact with the filth on the outside, Zhao Mingting’s expression looked rather ugly. But Li Zhigao claimed the specially made epidemic prevention suits were limited, and he didn’t want to have all his subordinates wait outside the gate, so he could only suppress his anger and say nothing.
Following Han Qian’s plan, Li Zhigao also had people bring specially made horse muzzles to put on all horses entering the garrison, repeatedly instructing: “Absolutely don’t let the horses break free. Once they nibble grass leaves in the garrison, they must be slaughtered, burned, and buried on the spot.”
People could strictly obey orders to abstain from eating snails and crabs, but livestock couldn’t.
To isolate and control disease sources, the large and medium livestock that had to be used inside the garrison would normally be strictly fitted with muzzles to prevent foraging in the wild, and also fitted with dung bags to facilitate collecting livestock waste for centralized processing.
These implements were all ready-made, so when Han Qian and the others did these things, it didn’t look at all like they were maliciously tormenting Guo Rong and Zhao Mingting.
Finally, they deliberately used two layers of tung oil cloth to wrap all the horses’ hooves. The preparatory work was done earnestly and meticulously down to the finest detail—over half an hour passed.
By now those three messenger riders had long been released. Li Zhigao earnestly stepped forward to apologize, but they were pale-faced and said not a word.
Although they were all iron-blooded valiant soldiers from the battlefield, being locked in a village with over a thousand severe epidemic patients on their last breath definitely didn’t feel good afterward. The other Bureau of Military Geography scouts, seeing their appearance, didn’t need to ask in detail to guess what scenes they’d witnessed. At this moment they all consciously kept their distance.
After Wang Wenqian’s reminder, Zhao Mingting had only become suspicious about Taowu Settlement’s situation, but in such a short time he hadn’t confirmed anything at all. Tonight he’d also brazenly dragged Guo Rong along.
To say he wasn’t worried at all about epidemic transmission—who would believe it?
At least he didn’t dare let those three message-bearing scouts who’d been detained approach him directly. Instead, he asked a few questions from a distance. He was obviously guarding against Li Zhigao’s side playing some underhanded trick.
Li Zhigao asked whether they should go look at the garrison villages below or first go to the military prefecture office to understand the basic situation.
Guo Rong spoke before Zhao Mingting, directly deciding to go to the military prefecture office first, thinking that the office handling administrative affairs shouldn’t have too serious problems.
The military prefecture office’s situation naturally wasn’t too serious—it was just that four newly dead corpses from these past two days were still laid out in the mortuary. All those on night duty had been switched to soldiers infected with the disease but not particularly severely. Then several buckets of human and animal waste had been splashed around the courtyard front and back, with a faint foul stench permeating the air.
“Thanks to Director Shen Yang’s tireless efforts and mercy toward the epidemic refugees, the military prefecture currently has seven thousand two hundred ninety-three enlisted garrison troops. These are the rosters compiled by the Military Affairs Bureau—just that among these garrison troops, three to five die of illness daily. The mortuary outside still has four corpses. Would Director Guo like to go take a look?” Li Zhigao had people move the thick twenty-five volumes of rosters organized by garrison village before Guo Rong for his inspection.
Zhao Mingting’s sharp eyes swept back and forth inside and outside the courtyard. However, these sick soldiers in the courtyard had indeed been trained for four or five months and had each come to the military prefecture office area two or three times for duty rotation. Watching their behavior, there wasn’t much difference from ordinary soldiers—just that their faces still showed very obvious signs of illness and their bodies appeared thin and weak.
Zhao Mingting suspected Li Zhigao was executing a stratagem of deception, but Guo Rong accompanying them into the garrison was already his limit. He absolutely didn’t want to stumble through the garrison villages below in the middle of the night. Without Guo Rong this Supervising Commissioner leading the way, what excuse did Zhao Mingting have before Li Zhigao to send his people out to gather intelligence?
Moreover, the garrison villages executed lockdown at night. Guo Rong hadn’t shown his face for half a year—all the dirty and exhausting work had been done by Li Zhigao, Zhou Yuan, and the others. At this moment he had no reason to order Li Zhigao out of the blue to open a garrison village for his inspection!