In the days following the great battle at Liangshan, Ning Yi’s life was, for the most part, spent traveling and eating. While traveling he sorted through all manner of information; the meals were mostly social obligations, meeting with local magistrates, prefects, and officials in charge of logistics and supply allocation. Amid the busyness, there was hardly a moment’s rest.
Of course, though it’s often said that logistics decide the outcome of a war, Ning Yi’s socializing wasn’t for that purpose.
In the whole process of dealing with Liangshan, the clever scheme that had peeled off and dissolved some fifty thousand people was already, in the eyes of others, an almost inconceivable achievement — but to Ning Yi, the job was only half done. From the very start, he’d never believed his scheme could solve everything in one stroke. In the end, fighting had always been necessary, and when it came to actual combat, he knew his own limits. Although both Commander Fang and the people at Solitary Dragon Ridge were now willing to consult him on the final strategic decisions, when it came to command authority, Ning Yi had ceded it entirely — the government troops belonged to the government troops, Solitary Dragon Ridge belonged to Solitary Dragon Ridge. He merely observed everything with the mindset of a student, occasionally asking questions on points he didn’t understand, but never once questioning their decisions.
Given the results Liangshan had already delivered, if he raised doubts and they chose not to listen, that would be one thing — but if his questioning caused them to waver, that would be the real trouble. If you want to get something done, you must never let the outsider direct the expert.
The matter of the Liangshan campaign — the accounting of merit, military achievements, and the gold and silver gained — had by now been settled. Ning Yi, being one to maintain good relations, had framed the whole affair publicly as a joint effort by the surrounding prefectures and counties together with the Wurui Battalion. During this period, he had to coordinate between all parties, divide up the benefits, and report the matter for commendation to the Right Chancellor, while also making sure the officials of the surrounding prefectures didn’t waver in their commitment — visiting one after another, using the momentum from the destruction of Liangshan and Qin Sizhi’s authority as leverage against the local officials, both enticing them and, in truth, applying pressure as well.
“If I had my way, I really wouldn’t want to keep bringing up the Su family’s blood feud all day long… but for now, there’s no choice, or someone might try to drag their feet.”
Over the following days, Ning Yi traveled back and forth between Yunzhou and Jizhou, meeting one group of people after another. Besides dividing up the spoils and enlisting help for what came next, over drinks he would also, time and again, bring up the matter of the Su family. It seemed like an idle remark, but only those traveling with him — Wang Shanyue, Su Wenyu, and the others — understood that this was, in fact, the fixed centerpiece of nearly every single meal. When Ning Yi met people, he came across as amiable and easygoing on the surface, but whenever the Su family came up, or the children he’d once tutored, his eyes would redden slightly, his gaze would turn cold, and he would sometimes even slam a fist down on the table in front of a room full of officials — only to catch himself and apologize.
The first time this happened, Wang Shanyue had felt a genuine pang of sympathy, and Su Wenyu, being of the Su family himself, thinking of those children and relatives, had nearly wept as well. But after it happened several times, they came to realize that this seemingly offhand remark was, in fact, the very point Ning Yi meant to drive home every single time. He had even, when instructing Solitary Dragon Ridge’s people to go spread word of Liangshan’s collapse, emphasized that he wasn’t simply here on court business — he was here because of a blood feud, and this point had to be stressed above all.
After several days of travel and banquets, it was only when he returned to meet with the more than two thousand men of Solitary Dragon Ridge that Ning Yi would lay out the full situation, in detail, to Luan Tingyu, Zhu Biao, Hu Sanniang, and the others. In his words, this was communication between the political and military levels — only by understanding the strategic direction could those leading troops make better tactical decisions.
After the great battle at Solitary Dragon Ridge, Luan Tingyu and the others hadn’t taken part in the Liangshan campaign itself. But after tending to the villagers and treating the wounded, they’d still gathered over three thousand men and, following Ning Yi’s instructions, trailed after this group in pursuit. Of these three thousand-odd men, the most capable fighters — those with a blood feud against Liangshan — numbered a little over two thousand as the main force, with Hu Sanniang’s contingent from Hu Family Manor making up a somewhat larger share. The remaining thousand or so weren’t logistics personnel prepared for a military campaign, but rather, per Ning Yi’s arrangement, a large group of people tasked with mundane administrative duties — doctors, accountants, and managers — prepared specifically to clean up the mess Song Jiang would leave behind.
At noon that day, Ning Yi had just finished coordinating with the officers of the Wurui Battalion, and finally came to a barren mountain called Yaya Ridge, where the Solitary Dragon Ridge forces, having trailed behind Song Jiang, were temporarily camped, to brief Luan Tingyu and the others fully.
“…I’m no good at fighting battles, but after the Liangshan campaign, Song Jiang and his men really only have two directions to choose from — put simply, it’s really quite simple: either stall, or surrender. As for a third path, leaving Shandong to join up with Tian Hu or Wang Qing, that’s unlikely.”
As the sun set in the west, at the camp pitched atop Yaya Ridge, Ning Yi laid out the many dishes of food he’d brought across the grass — a wild boar was roasting over the campfire, spoils Zhu Biao and the others had gathered along the way, dripping fat and sending up a rich aroma. Luan Tingyu and the others gathered around; whenever a young man came by to look, Ning Yi would greet him too, telling him to grab a bowl of food and cut himself a slice of pork.
“Stalling is easy enough. Here in Shandong, government authority was never particularly strong to begin with — a lot of things are just old routines by now. There’s wild, uninhabited terrain everywhere around here; even though they’ve lost Liangshan, the Wurui Battalion can’t send its entire force of over twenty thousand men chasing them around everywhere. They’ve already gotten what they came for at Liangshan, and now it needs to be divided up — once it’s in hand, few people are willing to give it back up. In terms of logistics, the Wurui Battalion can’t afford to drag this out, and won’t have the will to either. As long as Song Jiang’s men can outlast the Wurui Battalion’s patience, they can set up a new stronghold on some other mountain, and within a few years, rise again.”
“Of course, stalling alone isn’t easy either — that’s why they’re running around, hitting villages and burning houses as they go. They’re not killing many people, because the point is to leave behind resentment. If you’re a county magistrate, there might be some credit to gain from this incident, but once several places under your jurisdiction have been burned to the ground and the people haven’t all died, that resentment might well cost you on this year’s performance review, with no way to make up for it. That’s the tricky part for them.”
Ning Yi paused. “So they’ll burn and loot around Yunzhou for a while, then probably head toward Jizhou next. Once Jizhou sees that Yunzhou’s already run into trouble, Prefect Lu over there might well decide, out of a desire to avoid more headaches, to take it upon himself to grant them amnesty. And accepting their surrender would count as some credit too, big or small — it would spare him a poor mark on his review, and give him more credit than Yunzhou got. It’s quite possible they’ll do exactly that — that’s the path of surrender — and if they really do surrender, it’ll be very hard for us to kill them afterward.”
Luan Tingyu nodded. “So the decisive battle needs to happen near Yunzhou.”
“That’s what I told Commander Fang and the others too, though of course, it’s only a possibility.” Ning Yi nodded. “If Jizhou won’t take them in, Song Jiang and his men can keep causing trouble further north or east instead — Lingzhou, Qingzhou, places like that. But they can’t gauge our side’s capabilities, and the longer they drag this out, the more likely something will go wrong for them, so I think they’ll want to move as quickly as possible. These past few days I’ve been coordinating with all sides — I’m here for revenge, my whole family wiped out, and whoever tries to drag their feet on this matter, they shouldn’t blame me if I lose my temper and wipe out their whole family too. So the local authorities should hold the line for a while yet, for now.”
Ning Yi’s ruthless use of strategy in bringing down Liangshan was, by now, known to people in the surrounding prefectures, and after word spread of the Su family’s massacre and that he’d come seeking revenge, in the eyes of some officials, Ning Yi wasn’t just a formidable and dangerous figure — he’d practically gone mad over this. With his connection to Qin Sizhi besides, even the highest-ranking officials in the two circuits of Shandong would have to weigh the costs carefully before daring to shelter Liangshan’s men. Hearing him talk about all this, Zhu Biao and the others laughed.
“With how much clout Brother Ning has in Shandong right now, who’d dare provoke him at a time like this? I’ve heard that just recently, word’s been spreading in the greenwood about a ‘Heart Demon’ having appeared in western Shandong.”
“Officials, hard to say about them — and a ‘heart demon’ isn’t exactly a good thing either…” Ning Yi laughed and shook his head. “Just planning ahead, that’s all… We can’t afford to drag this out right now, and neither can Liangshan. Their three thousand-odd men, however fierce they might be, are bandits without a stronghold now, on the run constantly, with the government troops refusing to give up and everyone around them out for their blood. Given enough time, they won’t be able to hold out. In any case… fighting still comes down to everyone’s effort — all I can do is drain the water dry all around them. They keep fleeing from place to place, holding onto some kind of hope, and we just keep patching up whatever holes they poke, one by one. As long as they stop feeling any hope, their collapse will only speed up.”
Hu Sanniang, sitting nearby, finally smiled. “Brother Ning means the business with those villages, I take it. These past few days, I’ve heard the managers are doing quite well — quite a few people are willing to come work at Solitary Dragon Ridge now. Dozens have already agreed to move over. If Song Jiang and his men ever find out that what they’ve been doing has all been for nothing, it might just kill them with rage.” At this point, both old man Hu and Hu Cheng of Hu Family Manor had been wounded, and Hu Sanniang, grieving in her heart, wanted nothing more than revenge — only hearing about things that would make Song Jiang suffer could bring her any measure of satisfaction.
While they spoke of these matters here, some twenty li from Yaya Ridge, in a river valley, Song Jiang and his fleeing party were discussing similar topics.
Over these past few days, Song Jiang and his men had cut a swath of destruction through Yunzhou territory, looting and burning more than a dozen villages within five days. They would loot what they could, then burn the houses down before retreating back into the mountain forests. The three thousand men remaining with them now were all elite fighters, crossing mountains and rivers at tremendous speed — once, running into several thousand government troops, they’d still managed to break through.
This was still the earliest stage of their flight, and morale remained strong. Because of the setback they’d suffered at Ning Yi’s hands earlier, Song Jiang and the others were still nursing a grudge, and now, knowing that every village they burned added one more burden onto the government, and being able to inflict misery on helpless people without restraint, the Liangshan men found a certain grim satisfaction in it as well.
“They call it an open scheme — well, this here, this is our open scheme too. However it goes, there’ll be resentment, one way or another. If the government troops press us too hard, that disaster falls right back on the government’s own head. As long as they can’t finish us off, sooner or later there’ll be friction between the two sides. And once there’s friction, we’ll have room to slip through the cracks… it all comes down to how they choose to handle it on their end.”
Under the red glow of the setting sun, the tents were spread out from the river valley toward the mountainside beyond. Wu Yong, Zhu Wu, Song Jiang, and the others watched as the camp gradually settled into order, morale still running high — and yet, as they spoke, there was little of their former arrogance left in their words.
Over these past few days, even as they fled, they’d begun setting strict rules, keeping count of their numbers, temporarily dissolving the old mountain factions, requiring strict discipline among the soldiers, and so on. Under this intense external pressure, these desperate men of the greenwood had begun trying to abide by these rules.
Meanwhile, Wu Yong and the others had begun explaining and promoting to the troops the open scheme they were employing: shifting battlegrounds around the marsh was easy enough, and as long as they kept it up, the government would have no choice but to suffer for it. Song Jiang, for his part, spared no effort in using conciliatory tactics, drawing close to the leaders and soldiers alike. His reputation as “Timely Rain” in the martial world hadn’t come from nowhere — he was genuinely skilled at handling people. He might not have been able to attend to every single one of Liangshan’s sixty thousand men personally, but with only three thousand-odd now, it was easy for people to feel the presence of this great figure of the greenwood among them, and as a result, morale had actually risen somewhat.
Of course, morale like this might hold for half a month, or a month, but it likely couldn’t be sustained indefinitely — Wu Yong, Zhu Wu, and the others all understood this. But they also knew that as long as they could outlast the Wurui Battalion, there would still be a chance for things to turn around. Once this force grew strong again, a well-disciplined Liangshan army would be more than capable of striking back and settling every score.
They could only hold onto this belief.
Scheme against scheme — Wu Yong, Zhu Wu, Song Jiang, and indeed the entire fleeing force of over three thousand men, all believed this strategy would work. What they didn’t know was that in these past few days, whenever they burned down a village, it wasn’t the government’s rescue efforts that arrived first — it was the people of Solitary Dragon Ridge.
They would first rescue the villagers, then distribute enough money and supplies to last several days, and immediately begin their own campaign of persuasion: everyone here had suffered at Liangshan’s hands, so they were all one family now. Your houses have been burned, you have nothing left — no matter, come work at Solitary Dragon Ridge, and there’s money and grain to be had. If there’s still grain waiting to be harvested in your fields, we can lend you money and grain in the meantime at fair interest; once you’ve settled your elderly family members, you can come work at Solitary Dragon Ridge, earn some money, and return later to rebuild your homes — or, if you prefer, you’re welcome to settle at Solitary Dragon Ridge permanently. And the longer you stay, there would be several more benefits to come, and so on and so forth.
The resentment of ordinary people only turns fully toward the government when they’ve truly reached the end of their rope with no one else to turn to. The battle at Solitary Dragon Ridge had cost the Zhu and Hu manors a great deal of manpower, and now, as these villages lost their homes, Solitary Dragon Ridge’s relief teams would follow right behind, at the same time stoking a shared sense of outrage among the people — their blood feud against the Liangshan men would likely last years, perhaps a decade or more, without fading.
The dozen or so villages involved weren’t, in the end, home to all that many people — but in a sense, this approach bore an uncanny resemblance to the capital accumulation of Europe’s later industrial revolution, where farmers, having lost their land, threw themselves into industry. Solitary Dragon Ridge was scooping up the fallout at every turn, taking all the resentment Song Jiang and his men thought they were stirring up and throwing it right back onto them. When, several days later, the once-enthusiastic Liangshan men, busy looting and burning their way across the land, finally sent someone out to check on how much resentment they’d managed to stir up, the report that came back left Wu Yong and Zhu Wu utterly stunned.
That night, having finished briefing everyone at Yaya Ridge, Ning Yi went among the many farmhands who’d come along this time, chatting with them and boosting their spirits. “I’ve said it before — after this battle, you’ll be the strongest fighting force in all of Shandong! Who wants to spar with me? Come on—”
In truth, over these past few days, Luan Tingyu, Zhu Biao, and the others had also been steadily building up the morale of these men. The great victory at Solitary Dragon Ridge, the subsequent collapse of Liangshan, and the hatred burning in their hearts besides, had truly brought the fighting strength of these two-thousand-odd men to a remarkably high level. That evening, after some rowdy fun and laughter, by the time Ning Yi finally found a quiet moment, it was already deep into the night — and only then did the tension that had been building since the fifth of the sixth month, or even earlier, finally begin to ease, if only slightly.
Over a month of sustained high pressure — first the endless calculation and deliberation, then the near-constant, high-intensity coordination where every single thread of information had to be held firmly in hand, leaving him little time to sleep each night. This wasn’t the most grueling working state he’d ever endured, and mentally he still felt a keen, restless hunger — the enemy wasn’t yet truly cornered, and he had no intention of stopping; his entire mental faculties remained locked in a state of relentless offense. But physically, there was no denying the fatigue had set in.
At this stage, the strategic groundwork was finally in place; from here, he likely only needed to fill in the gaps as they appeared, and the matter of handling the enemy’s spies among them was more a tactical concern now — mostly a matter of improvising as things came, no longer requiring the same taut mental focus as before. Ning Yi stood outside his tent, letting the wind blow over him. In truth, this operation still didn’t rank as a true large-scale engagement — it was only because he didn’t yet have a sufficiently professional operational team under him that he’d had to handle everything personally; there had been no other way around it.
“I really do admire everything you’ve managed to do these past few days.” Wang Shanyue walked over from not far away, smiling at him. “I originally thought that once Song Jiang and his men fled, you’d resort to some even more outlandish scheme. But watching things unfold like this, it really does look like… a net being woven.”
“Schemes are just something storytellers use to fool people — comfort for those who want something for nothing and won’t put in the effort.” Ning Yi rolled his shoulders, looking out at the camp in the night. “Everything in this world comes down to doing things step by step. To break the siege at Solitary Dragon Ridge, you defeat the men of Liangshan — that’s it. How do you defeat them? Weaken them from within, and keep striking from without. How do you weaken them from within? Split them apart, break their morale — the methods can vary endlessly, but the principle is actually simple. Just do it one step at a time, and it’s done.”
“It’s the same now. I’ve only let them feel three things: first, that the government will absolutely never accept their surrender; second, that everyone’s out for their blood, and we will hound them without mercy; third, that everything they’re doing is useless. Everything else after that is just what happens on the battlefield.” Ning Yi shook his head. “I’ve never believed in brilliant schemes — there’s no such thing as a brilliant scheme, really, just methods for getting things done properly. Anyone who can actually see something through, step by step, to completion — whatever they used becomes a ‘brilliant scheme’ after the fact. For someone who can’t get the job done, having all the brilliant schemes in the world won’t help them one bit.”
Wang Shanyue had, by now, become one of Ning Yi’s own people. Having said all this, Ning Yi smiled. “Of course, everyone sees things differently — if you’d rather think of it as a brilliant scheme, that’s fine too.”
“I was just curious how you see Solitary Dragon Ridge, that’s all.”
Wang Shanyue, being a man with government ties after all, naturally harbored some concern about Solitary Dragon Ridge. Ning Yi glanced at him, thought for a moment, and chose his words carefully.
“I’m a merchant. Once I’ve settled this score, in the end, it’s business as usual for me. There’s plenty of ground here in Shandong the government doesn’t reach, and with Liangshan gone, whether or not we finish the job cleanly this time, the balance of power around here is going to be reshuffled entirely. Now that we’ve built this connection, I’d like for them to become another Zengtou Market.” Ning Yi looked at Wang Shanyue. “We have a relationship already, and business would go smoothly. I know your father, Elder Wang, ran the family on orthodox Confucian principles — but as you’ve said yourself, the Wang family in the capital might not be doing so well these days. Your family still has a name and connections, and there’s a household of women and children to support and protect. We’ve worked well together — would you like to take a stake in this?”
“I promise I won’t do anything too excessive… I promise there’ll be profit in it. Think it over?”
Ning Yi smiled and raised a hand, his tone carrying a temptation like that of a devil who understood the human heart all too well. Wang Shanyue had originally come to voice his concerns about this ungoverned stretch of land, worried Solitary Dragon Ridge might become another Liangshan — but by now, his thoughts had suddenly turned to chaos. In truth, though his mind was sharp, he’d received an extremely proper, orthodox Confucian education in his youth. Even after being forced to resort to cannibalism to build his own fearsome reputation, deep down, in many places, he still held to the principles of orthodox Confucian thought.
But after the Wang family had come to the capital, holding fast to those orthodox principles hadn’t exactly kept the family thriving. Though the women of the family had taken in several men to marry into the household and prop it up, in truth, aside from the goodwill and reputation the elder Wang Qisong had built up in his lifetime, the Wang family wasn’t really doing all that well. Being the only son left in the family, Wang Shanyue had been driven to this point for good reason.
“Wha— what are you talking about…”
“Ha, it’s a matter of business, after all — we can talk about it later. Don’t worry, I won’t let the family name be disgraced. On my end, the Su name doesn’t carry much weight, but having the Wang family name attached would make things go more smoothly with the authorities once we’re out of Shandong — otherwise I’d have to ask old man Qin to introduce me to someone else.” Ning Yi laughed, then looked off into the distance, his eyes turning cold. “But, well — that’s all a matter for later. Let’s kill off that whole lot first.”
He paused, patted Wang Shanyue on the shoulder, and turned to walk away. Wang Shanyue stood there frowning, watching the direction Ning Yi had gone, wrestling with his thoughts for a good while.
But… right now, I really want to say yes…
He stood there for a while, then finally broke into a smile and patted his own forehead, feeling as though he’d been played — or perhaps stirred up. But in his heart, there really was a burning wish, one that had always simmered, to give his family a better life — and now, it was slowly starting to burn hotter again…