47. Sun Wu Has Beheaded the Maidens of the Wu Palace (Sponsored by Rhein尼斯)

Probably seeing how Zhang Xun handled the matter, the local gentry of the commandery also successively sent their households' surplus pages and servants over to Ma Yong. Counting the four or five hundred from Zhang Xun's estate, the hundred-odd sent by Li Xiang, and the seven or eight hundred from the local gentry, all added together, Ma Yong surprisingly found himself with a force of two thousand men.

As for the quality of these men, however...

It was truly abysmal, genuinely and thoroughly unpresentable.

What had seemed like a wonderful idea in theory now filled Zhang Xun with regret. Setting aside the wailing and weeping old women back at home, the military camp itself was enough to make one curse vehemently.

First of all, and most obviously, their habits were deplorable. Serving as menial attendants in wealthy, influential households, while they might have groveled before their own masters, outside they always considered themselves superior beings. Even the tenant farmers of the old Zhang family had to bow and speak deferentially when encountering servants coming out of that household.

Not to mention the pages of other families, several of Zhang's own pages actually believed they were a cut above Ma Yong, remarking that Ma Yong was nothing more than a retainer to their household's second young mistress. To call him a family general sounded polite, but crudely speaking, wasn't he just a "domestic servant" kept by the Zhao family?

They were all mere creatures who emptied spittoons; what right did they have to put on airs? As for Ma Yong's military orders, they didn't merely engage in passive resistance—they outright ignored them. And not only did they ignore them, but they also cursed back. As for wanting to slip away in the middle of the night or instigating others to flee the camp gates, that was a daily occurrence.

Later on, when the servants and pages from other families were delivered, this crowd became even bolder, skipping morning drill entirely.

Secondly, they were accustomed to shirking work and taking shortcuts. This was hardly surprising; although they served in grand and prestigious estates, with so many servants about, they could easily avoid heavy or crude labor. As long as they dodged quickly enough, the burden would ultimately fall upon those who kept their heads down and worked diligently.

In a sense, this had fostered in them the temperaments of spoiled young masters and misses—averse to hard work and heavy lifting, and possessing scarcely any physical strength. They were arguably inferior even to the three or four hundred robust tenant farmers sent earlier.

The final point, which likewise deserved special mention, was their gluttony and fondness for fine food and drink. Ordinary rural folk would hesitate to waste a single grain of rice, picking it up off the ground to eat if it fell. In the grand and wealthy estates, however, it was a case of "meat and wine go to waste behind vermilion gates while frozen bodies lie by the road."

Although what they ate was merely the leftovers of their masters or the ordinary fare prepared in the kitchens, compared to the living hell of starvation outside, these were already delicacies.

Once inside the camp, however, rice soaked in salted water, amaranth stalks, radish greens, fermented bean curd, and stinking salted fish—none of these could they swallow.

They were simply lazy, greedy, and spoiled!

It was over, completely over. Zhang Xun's mind was now filled with regret—profound regret. These could hardly be called an army; they were purely a band of ruffians and scoundrels.

***

Ma Yong, however, did not view the matter this way. He only asked Zhang Xun one question: Were these two thousand-odd men entirely under his command? Regardless of how he drilled them, would Zhang Xun raise no objections?

Certainly not! Zhang Xun had sent them into the military not merely to lighten the burden on his household, but also in the hope of having a security force of his own.

The Han Chinese magnates who thrived under the Yuan Dynasty were either the northern Han military elite or those in the south who surrendered early on, subsequently helping the Mongols rule the southern regions, maintain local order, and collect taxes.

If one failed to fit into either category, the only fate left was to be consumed.

With Zhang Xun's promise secured, Ma Yong smiled and merely requested that Zhang Xun persuade the gentry of Changzhou to contribute some grain and silver to feed these "young masters."

That was a trivial matter, and Zhang Xun readily agreed. He immediately went to summon the commandery's gentry, with the old Zhang family taking the lead in making contributions. Since Zhang Xun pledged five hundred guan, the others were obliged to raise eight hundred guan—such was the power of leadership. As long as Zhang Xun paid up, they had no choice but to do the same, otherwise they would find it impossible to survive in this part of Changzhou.

As soon as Zhang Xun left, Ma Yong had the camp gates barred, beat the drum to gather the troops, and proceeded with roll call and drill.

Naturally, quite a few troublemakers and lazybones failed to show up. Relying on the status of whose household they served, they disdained to risk their lives for Ma Yong, who was himself merely a servant.

Ma Yong was not angered in the least. Standing calmly before the gathered soldiers, he remarked that while serving in the old Zhao family, he had once heard Zhao Huai recite a poem:

*Sun Wu has already beheaded the palace women of Wu,*
*Beauties' heads rest upon the glassy terrace.*

They could not understand it; how could common pages at the bottom understand such refined poetry? No matter, failing to understand was hardly a major issue. Once the three rolls of the drum ceased, anyone absent from the roll call was to be seized immediately.

In any case, Ma Yong had more than twenty personal guards and over two hundred brave and capable elite soldiers, which was quite sufficient to overawe the entire camp.

The guards and elite soldiers, having received their orders, immediately rushed into the barracks and dragged more than thirty pages and servants who refused to attend the drill and roll call out to the front platform. Without wasting words, once the men were lined up, Ma Yong ordered their execution.

To sacrifice to the banners!

Thirty-odd heads were thus impaled upon the walls at the entrance of the military camp. As for the blood-drenched torsos, they were all dragged to the base of the wall and left unburied, just tossed aside, reeking of fresh blood and iron.

***

To those who answered the roll call and arrived, each was rewarded with five hundred coins and a bolt of silk.

Call the roll again!

A mere ten minutes later, an astonishing transformation came over the entire camp. Thousands of servants trembled as they shouted their responses, the ranks and horses neat and orderly. Aside from the calling of names and the replies, the only sound was the cawing of crows drawn by the scent of blood.

The new round of roll call proceeded very rapidly. The two thousand men of the entire camp were divided into six command units, five of which were composed of "weak soldiers" bearing long shields and spears. The remaining unit, under Ma Yong's personal command, consisted of heavy crossbowmen.

The junior officers of the weak soldiers were drawn from the robust tenant farmers who had spent the past month listening to orders, absorbing basic military knowledge, and being thoroughly sobered up by Ma Yong's heavy clubs and horsewhips. The unit commanders were filled by Ma Yong's personal guards, forming the initial organization.

There was no demand whatsoever for brilliance or perfection: ten men to a rank, fifty men stacked into formation. Nothing else needed to be practiced; they simply had to hold their ground.

No requirements were made other than holding their ground.

Even if a torrential downpour fell like threads, they were not to move; even if thunder rolled and the earth shook, they were not to move; even under the scorching glare of the sun, they were not to move. A military order meant absolute immobility. Anyone who held their formation yet moved without orders would be severely punished as mutineers.

The first offense brought twenty blows with a heavy staff; the second offense involved piercing the ear with an iron arrow and parading before the whole army; the third offense? There would be no third offense—any further violation meant decapitation.

When Zhang Xun returned with grain and money, watching Ma Yong distribute them to the soldiers, he felt a vague sense of unease. Glancing up at the camp gates, he saw more than forty heads looking utterly terrifying, some with crows perched upon them, tearing at specific parts of the dead men's faces with their beaks—a truly sickening sight.

This, this, this...

Having never experienced warfare, with all his impressions of war derived solely from books, Zhang Xun felt a shiver run from his heels to the top of his skull. An inexplicable dread washed over his entire body in a matter of moments. Though his consciousness repeatedly told him to pretend not to see, to remain calm and composed, the message flashing through his brain was singular: *I am terrified; close your eyes, just close your eyes!*