Ning Liheng.
A twig scraped across the ground, tracing out these three characters. Zhu Wu sat on the steps before the altar, watching the slanted afternoon sunlight spill in, dust motes dancing in the air.
“Ning Liheng… Ning Liheng… has anyone heard this name before…”
What came from his mouth was not really a question, but after a moment, someone answered anyway: “Never heard it. But what matters now is what we do next.”
The one speaking was Zhang Shun, who had just walked in from outside. At this moment, besides Zhu Wu, Zhang Shun, Yan Qing, Lü Fang, Sun Xin and a few other chieftains, there were also several dozen Liangshan bandits gathered near this ruined temple in the mountains, wounded to varying degrees.
To Ning Yi, these “nameless” men might not be granted much in the way of human rights, but as some of the most elite bandits of Liangshan, over this stretch of slaughter and flight, they had genuinely proven their worth. These men had been chosen precisely because they had experience in the martial world—laying false trails and covering their tracks the whole way. Only now had they truly gotten around to treating their wounds and catching their breath. But after this blow, everyone in and around the ruined temple wore an air of utter despondency.
As Zhu Wu and Zhang Shun spoke, Yan Qing, bandaged and bloodshot-eyed, had also come in from outside. Zhu Wu was saying, “Rest a while, then we move on. What else can we do?”
“Move on? With things having turned out like this, how can we just leave! We don’t even know how many of our brothers were captured. Where could we possibly go now!”
The one speaking was the lightly wounded “Little Warlord” Lü Fang, who braced himself up with his halberd and rose to his feet. Zhu Wu glanced at him. “If we don’t leave, then what?”
“Never mind those already gone—but the brothers who fell into that villain’s hands, we can’t just abandon them like this!”
“But we can’t keep this many people here either…”
“I saw Brother Shi Yong surrounded by a dozen-odd men in the chaos of battle—he’s probably already dead…” Sun Xin cut in, somewhat dejectedly.
“The Squire was only captured. I won’t leave. I have to go back for him.” Yan Qing stood by the door as he spoke. He was well-liked on Liangshan, and though the ranking of seats hadn’t been formally settled yet, Lu Junyi’s position as second-in-command was all but certain. Zhang Shun looked at him. “Leave? How would we leave? Over two hundred of us gathered for this, and now barely forty-odd go back? And we just let Second Brother Lu and the others stay captured? When we get back to the mountain, what will people say… we have to save them…”
“This isn’t Daming Prefecture. We’re too far from Liangshan, and everything we do falls right into that man’s calculations…”
“Are the Ruan brothers nearby? How far?”
“No good—call them over and they’ll just walk into the trap too. They’re only three or five days from Kaifeng as it is…”
“Then what can we do, Brother Zhu?”
“…I can’t leave. I can only stay behind and wait for a chance to rescue them. But the wounded brothers should head back first, whatever the mountain decides…” Zhu Wu struggled with himself for a long while before finally committing to this. “There are fewer of us this way, easier to act together. But that Ning Liheng… Brother Yan, you were on the boats these past few days—did you learn anything?”
“The top talent of Jiangning—you all saw him too, about twenty years old. I only crossed paths with him once; I know nothing about him. If you all hadn’t mentioned it afterward, I wouldn’t even have known about the bad blood between him and Brother Xi…” Yan Qing’s face was dark, his tone stiff as he finished. He drew a breath and continued, “But Brother Zhu is right—their morale is high right now, and if we all stay here, we’ll just get swept up together. I won’t leave, but I think… the rest of you should go on ahead. That Ning Liheng is no simple matter. Let’s not all get caught in one net.”
With that he turned to go, but Lü Fang spoke up from the other side. “You’re joking. What’s so complicated about him? We just got outwitted once—win and lose, that’s the way of war. The fellow’s barely past twenty. Are we really afraid of him? I, Lü Fang, am not leaving. Given the chance, I’ll cut him down myself.”
Zhang Shun said, “They’re traveling up the waterway. If we can delay them, I’ll find a way to sink their boats.”
“Think it through carefully. Going now would only walk us straight into an ambush.” Zhu Wu frowned, head lowered in thought.
Zhang Shun looked at him. “Brother Zhu, of all of us, you’re the best at scheming. I’m no good at that—I only know how to charge in recklessly. This time we’ve suffered a setback, but if you have a plan, we brothers will trust you, as always.”
When he finished, the others nodded as well. This setback, it seemed, had come down to a single link in the chain going wrong. If they were to scheme their way out, the one they could trust in the end was still Zhu Wu. Zhu Wu lowered his head, thought for a moment, and finally nodded.
“I understand. I’ve thought it over—that Ning Liheng seems formidable, but in truth he’s simply someone who plans far ahead more thoroughly than most. When Brother Yan was on the boat, this Ning Liheng only struck once his name was announced—which shows he’d merely been suspicious of Brother Yan beforehand, not that he’d planned everything down to the last detail. Otherwise he would have struck without a word, and Brother Yan wouldn’t have been able to dodge it… Perhaps I’m overthinking this. Well then—let’s first settle how the brothers will make their way back to Liangshan, and then… we’ll turn back and see if there’s a chance to rescue the others.”
As he spoke, he rose to his feet. By now the daylight was filtering in through the gaps in the trees at the temple gate. Yan Qing walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you.” Zhu Wu nodded back. The others began their preparations—wiping down weapons, tightening bandages, or closing their eyes to rest. A single sleepless night was nothing much to these men, but the half-night of slaughter followed by the flight that came after had left everyone thoroughly exhausted.
Meanwhile, even as Zhu Wu turned over in his mind the possibilities for a rescue, he had already begun drafting letters to send to Liangshan, and to certain brothers along the way.
This affair, perhaps, could not be called entirely without a turning point—but it would not be easily resolved either. To him, it was an utter, thorough failure. Of course, if he could find a sliver of life within so hopeless a situation, he still held out hope of turning the tables.
On Liangshan, he was not among the faction favoring amnesty. In many ways, everything that had happened could be traced back to that fact.
Ever since Chieftain Song had ascended the mountain, the prevailing trend at Liangshan had always leaned toward seeking amnesty. This was Chieftain Song’s wish, and most understood that if amnesty could be secured, it would naturally be a good thing—after all, spending one’s whole life as a mountain bandit held little future. For a long stretch of time, this had seemed the only way out. Those not in favor of amnesty had no clear vision for the future among themselves, nor much common ground with one another. It was only after Fang La took Hangzhou that things began to change.
For men like Zhu Wu, seasoned in the ways of the greenwood, throwing their lot in with the court was never something to feel stirred up about—it was simply the only option available when there was no other choice. But as the situation in the north and south began to shift dramatically, everyone finally glimpsed a ray of hope. Now the Wu Dynasty was struggling to suppress Fang La in the south while facing repeated defeats in its campaigns against Liao in the north—there was no attention left to spare for a mere Liangshan Marsh, and Tian Hu and Wang Qing were reaping the benefit of that as well. Under these circumstances, if they truly raised the banner of rebellion and shouted the old cry that no one is born a king or a general, it was not without hope of success.
Of the more than forty thousand men on Liangshan, most, in the end, were still short-sighted underlings. For them, having become bandits, what mattered first was simply the future prospects of being a bandit. Chieftain Song’s wish for amnesty could not be spoken openly. Once the idea of rebellion began to take clear shape, the whole of Liangshan could no longer simply sit idle. This dispatch of men down the mountain was meant to make Liangshan’s banner truly resound.
The group split into several routes—among them, breaking into prisons in places like Jiangning to rescue Fang La’s captured followers, and reaching out to Fang La’s scattered forces, now dispersed after the fall of Hangzhou. The ultimate goal was to absorb Fang La’s routed troops once he was finally defeated, and even to tell other figures of the greenwood that Liangshan had a brighter future—after all, though Fang La’s men had lost, it was Liangshan who had saved them. As for Zhu Wu’s own route, in the end, the chosen way to make a name for themselves had been to rob the Birthday Convoy.
For a long time now, Song Jiang, Wu Yong, and the others had been unwilling to break completely with the imperial house—even in sending out this group of men, they still harbored the thought that “once Liangshan grows stronger, it can raise the price of its own amnesty.” By directly seizing the Birthday Convoy, Zhu Wu meant that once word of their success spread, the pro-amnesty faction would have no choice but to swallow the bitter pill in silence and accept it with a smile. It was, in a sense, a brilliant scheme to cut the ground from beneath their feet—only in the end, it had fallen short at the final step.
But regardless, though Zhu Wu had kept insisting that this was not Daming Prefecture, with Lu Junyi captured, Liangshan would surely have to send out its forces this time. If he could find a way to settle things before the main force arrived, he might yet find a way through—after all, having fought his way out from among several thousand men was already no small feat.
This matter would surely be difficult, but at this point, he could only take it one step at a time.
As for that Ning Liheng—though they had crossed paths only this once, Zhu Wu still held some confidence in his heart that he could turn the tide back around.
Having thought the whole matter through in this way, and having finished writing his letters, Yan Qing and the others prepared to head back to scout the docks. Zhu Wu arranged for those remaining near the small temple to withdraw quickly to a new location, then set out together with Yan Qing and Zhang Shun to double back. All three were skilled fighters, and the chance of being surrounded on a mere scouting trip was, in the end, not great.
At that same moment, in the fading light near dusk, Ning Yi and Wenren Buer walked along the ship’s deck. “Has the word gone out?”
Wenren Buer nodded, glancing at the scene along the dock. “All spread. By now, everyone around here—even the fellow selling tea eggs—knows the Liangshan bandits have been captured, and that tomorrow they’ll have their legs broken and be hung on the mast to bake to death in the sun.”
Ning Yi looked far off toward a tea-egg stall in the distance. “So cruel—won’t that stir up some resentment?”
Wenren Buer laughed. “Not a chance. Everyone’s delighted, worked up into a frenzy. By tomorrow morning, people will probably come from ten villages around just to watch the spectacle… Still, Liheng, are you sure this will work?”
“I don’t know either,” Ning Yi said, still gazing out at the scene beyond the dock, his eyes tracking further and further into the distance. “But in theory, since they made a mistake and got their second-in-command captured, these men can’t go back—they can only stay here and follow along, until that second-in-command is rescued or confirmed dead. So…”
He paused briefly, then glanced at Wenren Buer, smiling in a way that suggested he wasn’t entirely certain himself. “So—no matter which bandit den you’re talking about… I think that’s just how it should work, right?”