Chapter 90: Heavily Armored Infantry

“Chief, are we really going to stage an uprising?”

In a den of bandits sat a circle of people. Some were repulsively ugly and sly-looking. Some were fat and flabby. Some had lascivious eyes. Anybody could see it a mile off that all of them were evil-doers.

“There’s no hurry. Let them go first. After those fatheads take action, we wait to see how things go and then decide whether we should fight or pay the money,” answered the gang-leader.

“Ha ha… You’re such a wise leader, Chief.”

However, there was a theft in the vault of the stronghold. All silver ingots in it were stolen.

“What happened?!”

“Who stole our money?”

…

“Humph. Now you have no choice. I’d like to see whether you’ll fight or not,” Yao Yi mumbled. “Retreat.”

“Yes.”

At midnight, Yao Yi and his men returned. “Marshal, the operation is a big success.”

On hearing this, Yuwen Tong who was reading a letter raised his head and looked at Yao Yi. “Did you hide it?”

“I did.”

“Remember to inform them to transport it back to the north-west.”

“Yes, Marshal.”

After this, Yuwen Tong resumed reading the letter.

‘Whose letter is that?’ Yao Yi wondered.

“It’s from Yue Qi,” someone standing beside him told Yao Yi in a muted voice.

‘I see.’ After dithering for a while, Yao Yi walked over and asked, “Marshal, is the letter from Yue Qi? Did he confirm that Li Chong has been in contact with the Sixth Prince?”

“I haven’t read that part yet,” answered Yuwen Tong in a bland voice.

‘Haven’t read that part?’ A thought suddenly occurred to Yao Yi and with that he realized what Yuwen Tong was reading. ‘Marshal must be trying to find out whether anyone from Yuwen family has ever bullied Ling family.’

After a while, Yuwen Tong put the letter down, softly tapped his fingers on the table and said, “Yue Qi said in the letter that nobody from Yuwen family had ever come to Tanyang before, that my family had been actively doing matchmaking for me over the past year and nearly got me betrothed. They had long ago forgotten my engagement to Ling family.”

“I think it’s probably not forgotten yet. Second Master is… Well, though he is unreliable, he always holds Ling family in contempt, so it’s very unlikely that he has ever specially sent someone here to make life difficult for Ling family.”

But given Ling Zhang’s previous attitudes, Yuwen Tong was indeed skeptical. Ling Zhang wouldn’t have held that weird attitude towards him if nothing had happened.

“Since the truth about it is beyond investigation, leave it aside for the moment. This matter will be made clear sooner or later. As regards Li Chong, Yue Qi confirmed that he had indeed been in covert contact with the Sixth Prince’s men all along. Yue Qi has already found a witness and is keeping him under control. It won’t be long before he gets physical evidence like correspondence, paperwork, etc. We have to do our job faster in Tangyang in case the situation in the capital city changes.”

“Yes.”

The next morning, Zhang Chong got up early waiting for those bandits, whom, he believed, must have been scared shitless, to flock to his encampment and hand the money to him on a silver platter. He waited the whole morning but only three gangs delivered the money to him on time. People of all other gangs were nowhere to be seen.

The expression on Zhang Chong’s face went colder and colder. Added to this the scar, he appeared as terrifying as a ferocious ghost. All his subordinates were so nervous that they were involuntarily trying to make their breathing shallow.

“How dare they! They’re nothing but a bunch of bandits who stupidly think that they’re powerful enough now and no longer need me. I’ll teach them a lesson and show them who’s the boss. Give the order to fall in! Today we’ll stamp those bastards’ dens into oblivion!”

“Yes, Commander!”

Zhang Chong mustered a 5,000-strong army and left the Prefecture Encampment, heading straight for the nearest stronghold of bandits.

“They ca–came to blows!” A lot of residents flooded into Tanyang through the city gate like refugees, panic on their faces.

“Who came to blows?” asked a soldier of the garrison.

“The Prefecture Guards and those bandits are fighting. There are so many of them!”

“What? Where are they fighting?”

“Near the Lee Mountain. Several bandit gangs living near that mountain went there and are having a fierce fight with the Prefecture Guards. Some people said that soldiers of the Prefecture Guards were lured onto the Xiaojing Mountain at first where there were a lot of traps, that they suffered heavy casualties. Afterwards, we saw a large number of soldiers charge out of the Prefecture Encampment!”

“And then? What happened next?”

“We have no clue. All those who lived near the battlefield failed to flee in time and got killed. We didn’t dare to stay nearby and fled here.”

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“How come such a major battle broke out so abruptly? Hurry! Report this to Lord Tao!”

A soldier immediately rushed to the Prefecture Yamen and informed Tao Feng. Ling Zhaowen happened to be present as well. He was taken aback on hearing this news.

“All bandit gangs on nearby mountains joined the fight? The Prefecture Guards suffered heavy casualties?” Ling Zhaowen was manifestly amazed. He exchanged glances with Tao Feng, both of them feeling that this had happened in suspicious circumstances. They both knew very well about the relationship between those bandits and the Prefecture Guards. All previous bandit-suppressing efforts of the Prefecture Guards were mere formalities, but this time they not only fought the bandits in public but also suffered heavy casualties?

This was so strange and went far beyond expectation of Ling Zhaowen and Tao Feng.

“Lord Tao, what do you think we should do? Do we go there to take a look or–”

Tao Feng raised his hand and softly gestured Ling Zhaowen to calm down. “The real situation is still unclear, so there is no need for us to get involved in this, but we can’t just stand by and watch either. I’ll send a couple of men there to check. Let’s wait for further information.”

As regards whether the Prefecture Guards would be wiped out by those bandits, it had never crossed the mind of Ling Zhaowen or Tao Feng. In their opinion, the Prefecture Guards had been building up strength and storing up energy for so many years. Their soldiers were well-trained and their horses were strong. Those bandits would, without doubt, suffer a heavy defeat.

“Your Lordship, should we also send some men to find out which gangs participated in this armed rebellion and which ones didn’t?”

“You’re right. This is yet another issue to be figured out.”

Tao Feng immediately sent some men to investigate into it.

“Let’s go through the motions and make ourselves seen on the Southern Gate Tower.”

“After you, Lord Tao.”

When news of the battle reached the Prefecture Yamen, Ling Zhang had known about it for some time. Since Yuwen Tong’s bodyguards sent back intelligence reports at regular intervals, he was among the first few persons to be informed of the battle in Tanyang.

“How did you manage to do this?” asked Ling Zhang as he couldn’t wait to know exactly how Yuwen Tong managed to do it. Remarkably, he had half a dozen bandit gangs stage an armed rebellion against Zhang Chong, and one of them was pretty large – with at least one thousand gang members. Bandits who joined this battle numbered two even three thousand. They were definitely a force to be reckoned with.

They hid themselves on the mountain, and they were also far more familiar with the terrain than the Prefecture Guards. More importantly, they were capable of laying all kinds of traps for their enemies, which were very hard to guard against.

“They lost their money, so they naturally staged an uprising.”

‘They lost their money?’ Ling Zhang did a double take. “You stole all money of those bandit gangs?”

Yuwen Tong said with a smile, “More or less. All their money was filthy lucre. Since the money was snatched from civilians, naturally it should be used on civilians.” The money would be used to purchase provisions for the north-west army, the duty of which was to protect the territory and people of the Great Yue.

As for the Prefecture Guards, since they had been building up strength and storing up energy for such a long time, it was high time that they showed their strength and made themselves worthy of the money that had been spent on them, given that they had been serving some treacherous official as his tool all along.

On hearing Yuwen Tong’s confirmation, Ling Zhang felt that what he had done was incredible. ‘Yuwen Tong’s subordinates are so versatile. They actually managed to steal all the money in those bandits’ dens?! If only I also had a group of all-round subordinates like his. It’s a pity that these skills cannot be mastered in a short time. I should have them learn the formation first,’ thought Ling Zhang.

“If these bandits are eliminated, the total number of bandits near Tanyang will be reduced by forty percent. The gang in the Grand Mang Mountain and a couple of other gangs on separate mountains will be the only ones left.”

Yuwen Tong nodded. “That’s right. We’ll have to get rid of these bandits sooner or later. Using Zhang Chong to eliminate some of them will save us a lot of trouble.”

Instead of fighting the Prefecture Guards head-on, those several thousand bandits in the Lee Mountain chose to hide themselves in the mountain taking advantage of various kinds of traps to fight the enemies. Though Zhang Chong was an experienced commander, he had no effective tactics to finish the battle quickly. His army suffered heavy casualties shortly after the fight began and he had to dispatch reinforcements from the Prefecture Encampment.

“Commander, these goddamn bandits on the mountain are as cunning as monkeys. Our men are very prone to be caught in their traps!”

Face dark with rage, Zhang Chong clenched his teeth and ordered, “Dispatch the Third Team here!”

“Commander, they are kept in reserve for-”

“If we don’t finish this battle quickly, we’ll lose control of all other bandit gangs. Understand? Now cut the shit and dispatch them here!”

“Yes, Commander!”

The Third Team that Zhang Chong mentioned was a team of soldiers armed to the teeth. Their eyes behind their helmets were cold and the air about them was entirely different from that about other soldiers. When they stamped forward step by step, people nearby could even feel the ground quake. Though slow, they were totally unafraid of the traps laid by bandits and walked straight into them.

“Impossible. Who are those people?”

“Why can’t we pierce their armor?”

“Shit! Our traps are useless now!”

Bandits on the mountain panicked and began to retreat uphill.

Finally, with these heavily armored soldiers as the vanguard, Zhang Chong’s men no longer had to worry about miscellaneous weird traps. Slowly, they began to advance higher onto the mountain.

“Those are… Go and inform the Marshal of the weird armor that those soldiers are wearing!”

“Yes!”

Distantly, someone saw those heavily armored soldiers and immediately sent a message back to Tanyang.

On receiving the message, Yuwen Tong briefly knitted his eyebrows. “I never expected that Zhang Chong had a team of this kind.”

“What kind?” Ling Zhang was confused.

“An infantry unit wearing armor made of special material, armed to the teeth, proof against spear thrusts and saber cuts. They move slowly but are perfect human shields. Traps laid by those bandits could barely cause them any harm. With this team at Zhang Chong’s command, those bandits wouldn’t be able to last long in this battle.”

Ling Zhang slightly frowned. “Is it very difficult to train a team like this?”

“Certainly. The expense of keeping such a team is equivalent to that of supporting the whole Prefecture Encampment. No matter how much money the Imperial Court allocated to Zhang Chong, by no means could Zhang Chong have built a team like this with that allocation. Someone must have been covertly funding him, and that person’s purpose is not to eliminate bandits,” Yuwen Tong explained to Ling Zhang, seeming to be in a pretty good mood.

“You’re not angry?” Ling Zhang asked him.

“Why should I? With the involvement of this team, those bandits will soon be eradicated, which will lower the casualties of the Prefecture Guards. In terms of the interests of our country, given that I’m the Grand Marshal of the North West Army of the Great Yue, I naturally hope there will be as less casualties as possible. In terms of my personal interests, since Zhang Chong has dispatched heavily armored soldiers, once someone reports this to the emperor, he will be convicted of yet another felony.”

Ling Zhang understood. This was favorable for them in terms of interests of both the country and themselves.