Yang Qin led his forces rushing back to Yangtan water settlement. Seeing the remaining charred walls and ruins, over forty corpses laid out cold on the blackened grain-drying yard, while his wife Zhou Rong was nowhere to be found—abducted along with their two children by the bandits—at this moment he wanted to cry but had no tears.
“Huo, huo, huo!”
Yang Qin roared in fury as he drew his sword and hacked wildly at a charred beam, venting the regret and hatred in his heart. He chopped until wood chips flew everywhere, and a fine iron hundred-forged blade was hacked beyond recognition.
“Chief Steward, come look—isn’t this the eldest sister-in-law’s handwriting?” A robust man ran over, beckoning Yang Qin to follow him.
The main residence had walls built with blue bricks and a roof covered with small tiles. Combined with the relatively open courtyard, aside from the storerooms, rear kitchen, and back shed where firewood and miscellaneous items were stored being completely burned down, the central and front courtyards couldn’t sustain a large fire. The damage wasn’t severe, and they remained largely intact.
The characters Zhou Rong left were hidden in an extremely inconspicuous corner of the front courtyard—three characters scratched out with fingernails on the blue brick, with half a broken fingernail fragment at the base of the wall.
However, when the others saw these three characters, they suspected the raiders had deliberately left them. But his wife Zhou Rong had only learned to read and write after marrying him, and her habit of writing horizontal and vertical strokes separately was something Yang Qin would absolutely not mistake.
“That dog bandit Ji Kun—if I don’t hack him into ten thousand pieces, I, Yang Qin, am unworthy of living in this world!” Yang Qin’s heart and lungs were about to explode with rage as he pointed to heaven and earth, swearing curses.
At this moment, someone came over saying they had seen which direction the two robbed oar-canopy boats had gone.
Yang Qin forcefully suppressed the hatred in his heart. He figured Ji Kun hadn’t brought many people with him this time—he had only just approached them about cooperating to assassinate Xuzhou Prefect Han Daoxun. He thought that as long as he caught Ji Kun’s trail, there should still be a chance to rescue his wife and daughter.
However, he also worried that Ji Kun, hiding in the shadows, might strike them with a counterattack. This time he left most of his forces at the ruined settlement, taking only thirty-some subordinates aboard one oar-sail boat to search eastward along the lake shore.
Toward evening, Yang Qin and his group found the two abandoned oar-canopy boats in the reed marsh. Just as they were about to find a place to go ashore and continue tracking their opponents’ trail, they saw flames rising again in the direction of Yangtan water settlement.
Yang Qin had his men raise the sails to withdraw. From seven or eight li away, he saw over thirty war-oar boats surrounding Yangtan water settlement. In the firelight, hundreds and thousands of troops were raising their swords and shields high, wading ashore.
Apart from the Jiangzhou water garrison, no other force near Poyang Lake possessed so many war-oar boats.
Seeing this scene, Yang Qin’s vision grew faintly dark, and he nearly fainted. He had originally thought Ji Kun wouldn’t dare expose their conspiracy and tracks in plotting to assassinate Xuzhou Prefect Han Daoxun, and therefore wouldn’t dare alarm the local authorities. How could he have imagined that the ruthlessness of Ji Kun and his people far exceeded his imagination?
“…” The veins on Yang Qin’s forehead bulged. He clenched his back teeth, emitting a low growl like a wild beast, desperately wanting to lead his men and fly back to the water settlement on wings to hack the attacking provincial troops into utter defeat. But beyond his fury, the last shred of remaining reason told him that the settlement’s defenses were already in chaos and couldn’t hold out for much longer. If he led the last remaining twenty-some men back, it would only be sending them to their deaths.
After waiting through the night, he watched the thirty-some war-oar boats depart from Yangtan water settlement in the morning light, flowing downstream back to the water garrison harbor southeast of Jiangzhou City. Only then did Yang Qin lead two men to wade stealthily back to the settlement.
At this moment, Yangtan water settlement was truly a field of corpses.
Besides the small force of two hundred bandit soldiers Yang Qin had left behind, every man, woman, elderly person and child in the settlement had been slaughtered without exception. Their heads had all been severed to claim merit, leaving only six or seven hundred headless corpses scattered everywhere in disarray.
At this moment, Yang Qin truly and completely fainted from anguish. His two subordinates, filled with grief and rage, dragged him away and quietly departed from the thoroughly abandoned water settlement…
…
…
“That man surnamed Ji is truly a ruthless master!”
Han Qian sat at the bow, watching the rippling waves of Poyang Lake under the setting sun, seemingly like countless gold and silver in the lake. He spoke with considerable feeling.
Han Qian had thought that by pinning the previous night’s raid on the Department of Operations and luring Yang Qin and Ji Kun into fighting each other like dogs, they could severely damage the Department of Operations’ deployment in the Jiang-E region. But he never expected that not only did Ji Kun immediately guess that the previous night’s raid on Yangtan water settlement was their doing, he also decisively and directly mobilized the Jiangzhou water garrison forces to completely annihilate the water bandit force at Yangtan water settlement.
However, after the Jiangzhou water garrison forces completely annihilated Yangtan water settlement, Han Qian figured the water bandit forces of Poyang Lake would be thoroughly intimidated. Ji Kun also shouldn’t have the ability in the short term to borrow Poyang Lake’s water bandit forces to make things difficult for them. By evening, Han Qian directly led everyone aboard boats to cross Hukou and meet with his father on the western shore.
During Han Daoxun’s two-day stay in Jiangzhou, he hadn’t hidden away in Jiangzhou City. Instead, he led everyone to lodge in a fishing town outside Jiangzhou City.
Doing this was also to create the appearance that they might leave Jiangzhou at any time, forcing Ji Kun to hastily pressure the water bandits to act prematurely and expose more flaws.
Outside the city there was no courier station, so Han Daoxun found the local headman and borrowed a courtyard compound for everyone to stay in.
Han Qian led everyone ashore and walked into the courtyard borrowed from the local headman. He saw his father standing before the corridor with his face taut and tense. Walking over, he asked: “What matter has made Father unhappy?”
Han Daoxun sighed bitterly. Fan Xicheng explained from the side: “Jiangzhou Prefect Zhou Ang and garrison military commander Zhong Yanhu invited the master this afternoon to inspect the military merits from suppressing bandits. The master saw that the Jiangzhou water garrison forces had suspicions of killing innocent people to falsely claim merit. He got into an argument on the spot with Lord Zhou and Lord Zhong, and they parted on bad terms. He’s been sulking ever since returning.”
“They clearly killed innocent people to falsely claim merit, slaughtering the entire settlement, even brazenly using the heads of the old, weak, women and children to make up numbers. If provincial troops don’t know restraint and act even more brutally than bandits, the Poyang Lake bandits will only grow more numerous with each suppression campaign and will never be eradicated!” Seeing Fan Xicheng still hedging and not speaking plainly, Han Daoxun said angrily.
At this moment, Han Daoxun saw Lin Zongjing and others escorting Yang Qin’s wife, children and young daughter into the courtyard. His expression rather displeased, he asked Han Qian: “Who are these people?”
“The wife, children and young daughter of bandit chief Yang Qin, captured when we broke into the bandit settlement last night,” Han Qian said very honestly, seeing his father was at the peak of his fury and not wanting to court any bad luck. “I was just planning to bind them up and hand them over to the Jiangzhou authorities for disposal. But hearing Master Fan say this, it seems directly handing them over to the Jiangzhou authorities for disposal isn’t very appropriate either.”
Han Daoxun didn’t believe Han Qian had gone through such trouble to capture these three people just to hand them over to the Jiangzhou prefectural office for disposal. He waved his hand, about to tell Han Qian to just release them. But then he reconsidered and asked: “Will Zhao Mingting’s people be watching us nearby?”
“We gave them over a day to catch their breath. Ji Kun should have mobilized quite a few scouts. If we directly release these three people now, they’ll only fall into Zhao Mingting’s people’s hands.” Han Qian said with a chuckle. Having worked so hard to capture them, he naturally wasn’t willing to just release them like this.
“Bring that woman over to me. I have questions for her,” Han Daoxun said with a light sigh. “Give those two children to Qing Yun and Auntie Zhou to look after.”
Seeing Han Laoshan’s wife run over to untie the two children’s ropes and take them away, Han Qian couldn’t help but warn: “These two little brats will bite! Watch them carefully and don’t let them near knives or scissors!”
Han Qian signaled Guo Nu’er to untie the ropes on Yang Qin’s wife. He also heard Fan Xicheng briefly describe the situation of the provincial water garrison troops’ suppression campaign against Yangtan water settlement last night. Only then did he learn that over six hundred people—men, women, elderly and children—of Yangtan water settlement had all been slaughtered by the Jiangzhou garrison military commander leading his forces.
In the provinces, besides the prefectural and county local forces, some prefectures and counties in strategically important locations or bordering enemy forces would also have elite Southern Quarter Imperial Guard troops deployed by Jinling.
The generals responsible for commanding the elite Southern Quarter Imperial Guard troops in the provinces usually also held the position of provincial garrison military commander.
Zhong Yanhu was originally a commander under the great demon king Sun Ru, who had dried human flesh for military rations. After being captured, he pledged allegiance to the Huainan Army. Earlier this year, he had accumulated enough merit to be promoted to Southern Quarter Cavalry and Infantry Vice Commander and Jiangzhou Garrison Military Commander.
The Southern Quarter Imperial Guard had one battalion of naval forces and one battalion of cavalry and infantry stationed in Jiangzhou, all under Zhong Yanhu’s command.
Even if Han Qian wasn’t familiar with Jiangzhou’s circumstances, he had heard of this man’s reputation for brutality.
Han Qian then heard Fan Xicheng say that Yang Qin and thirty-some others had fortunately not been in the settlement at the time and managed to escape. At this moment, Jiangzhou Prefect Zhou Ang and Jiangzhou Garrison Military Commander Zhong Yanhu had already ordered all counties to dispatch troops for a territory-wide manhunt. He couldn’t help but have his eyes light up.
Han Qian pulled over a chair and sat beside his father Han Daoxun. Listening to his father question Yang Qin’s wife about the popular sentiment around Poyang Lake, he interjected: “You must know by now the fate of Yangtan water settlement. In the past, when Ji Kun wanted to assassinate my father, aside from a few trusted confidants, he couldn’t possibly mobilize Department of Operations’ covert agents and scouts on a large scale, so he had no choice but to contact Yang Qin. However, now as long as Ji Kun has an official document from Jiangzhou authorizing assistance in apprehending major bandits, he can openly mobilize large numbers of elite covert agents and scouts into Jiangzhou. Of course, Ji Kun still doesn’t dare directly use Department of Operations scouts to assassinate court officials. But whether your husband can escape this calamity is hard to say.”
Zhou Rong could be considered a composed woman with the bearing of a great family. These years after marrying Yang Qin, she had assisted her husband and taught her children, managing affairs within the settlement. In the eyes of the bandit soldiers, she was also an inner mistress not to be slighted. But no matter how strong her inner fortitude, she couldn’t calmly face the strange and disastrous turns of these past two days.
“As the saying goes, a cunning rabbit has three burrows. I see Yangtan water settlement hoarded so much grain and fodder—I believe Yang Qin should still have hiding places outside,” Han Qian’s eyes fixed on Yang Qin’s wife Zhou Rong. “If you don’t want to delay time and ultimately sit and watch your husband fall into Ji Kun’s hands and become military merit for their promotions and ennoblement, you might as well help us invite your husband over so everyone can sit down, have some tea and chat.”
Zhou Rong didn’t know what was trustworthy about people who had ruthlessly killed over forty people in the water settlement the previous night and set fire to destroy it.
Seeing Yang Qin’s wife remain silent, Han Qian smiled: “Your silence is fine too. We’ll stay in Jiangzhou at most one more day. We can’t very well take a major bandit’s wife and children west with us for no reason. When the time comes, we’ll just have to hand you over to the Jiangzhou prefectural office. Perhaps Yang Qin has such vast supernatural powers he can rescue you from Jiangzhou’s great prison!”
Zhou Rong’s face turned deathly pale. She removed a silver bracelet from her wrist and said: “My husband may go to Meiwu Wharf east of the Jiangzhou water garrison to gather information. If you truly want to see my husband, you can take this bracelet to Meiwu Wharf and wait…”
“Your family’s informants stationed at Meiwu Wharf have most likely already been eliminated by Department of Operations people, which is why you had no awareness at all when Jiangzhou water garrison annihilated you. Or else the informants there have already been bought off by Department of Operations people. If Yang Qin really goes there to gather information, even immortals couldn’t save him. My people can’t just be sent to their deaths. Give me another location.” Han Qian said.
“My maternal uncle is a blind fortune-telling scholar who sits in his study in Jiangzhou City. No outsiders know about him…”
“Good. Write a letter and I’ll have someone deliver it. Whether he comes for tea depends on his own will. My people won’t be sitting there waiting with your bracelet.” Han Qian said, having Zhao Ting’er bring over writing brush and ink.