Chapter 41: Everyone Pursues Their Own Livelihood (Part IX)

That day, under pressure from the Jurchen nobility, Wanyan Aguda ultimately ordered the main army to continue its march south. Three days later, upon reaching Qingyuan Prefecture—namely Zhaozhou, where the famous Zhaozhou Bridge stood—news reached the grand encampment that Emperor Huizong had abdicated in favor of Crown Prince Qinzong.

Aguda tapped his fingers against the military map spread across the table, his gaze lingering on the characters "Bianliang" for a long time. The Jurchen generals inside the tent, having traveled this far with great difficulty, grew impatient upon seeing the commander-in-chief hesitate once again. Wanyan Shemu slammed his treasured saber heavily onto the ground. "What is the Second Prince hesitating for? Huizong’s abdication is a stroke of luck; the new sovereign’s foundation is still unsteady. If we do not attack now, when else?"

A chorus of agreement instantly erupted within the tent, and the cries to "march south" threatened to lift the very roof.

Aguda’s brows were tightly knitted. It was not that he lacked the will to fight, but the news of Qinzong’s succession felt like a thorn planted in his heart. Would this new emperor, thrust into crisis, prove more formidable than that book-and-painting-obsessed father of his?

As he pondered, he waved a hand and commanded, "Summon Wanyan Yaoshi."

When the tent flap was lifted, Guo Yaoshi stepped inside enveloped in the bitter chill of the outside, the lavish robe bestowed upon him dusted with snow.

Upon seeing Zongwang, he offered a Jurchen bow, his peripheral vision catching the hostile glares of the generals. These Jurchen aristocrats had never deigned to look at him with respect, yet at this moment, their greed could no longer be concealed, shining like fameless wolves gazing upon sheep.

"You have been to Bianliang and you have met Qinzong," Aguda asked straight to the point. "Now that he has ascended the throne, will the Southern Court be prepared?"

Guo Yaoshi felt a sudden tightening in his chest, knowing that a blade was concealed within those words.

To claim the Song dynasty was prepared would be to cast doubt upon his previous intelligence; to claim they were completely unprepared would mean that should any setback occur, he would be the first person pushed out to take the blame.

Steeling his composure, he replied, "The Crown Prince worries needlessly. When Yaoshi was in the Southern Court, I once followed Huizong into the imperial palace. That palace city is woven from brocade and embroidered with silk, and even the paving bricks are inlaid with precious stones. But the garrison troops guarding the city? They are mostly idle ruffians whose arrows cannot even pierce leather armor.

"Though Qinzong is a new ruler, Yaoshi saw no hint of heroic courage upon his face. When I offered him a toast, he declined repeatedly. Such a man would surely lose the use of his legs at the sight of the Great Jin’s iron cavalry."

He stepped forward two paces, pointing a finger at the Yellow River on the map. "Yaoshi dares to wager his head that the northern bank of the Yellow River is currently empty! The officials of the Southern Court are still busy offering gifts to the new emperor; the soldiers guarding the river are utterly fragile. With the Yellow River bound by thin ice in the twelfth lunar month, a single charge by our cavalry will shatter it across!"

"The wealth of Bianliang is more than a hundred times that of Yanshan Prefecture! The jewels Huizong hoarded in the Xuanhe Treasury are piled higher than the artificial mountains of Jinyue; the beauties of the inner palace are more delicate than the snow lotuses of the northern steppes. The gold and silver in the mansions of those ministers are enough to feed and clothe our entire army for ten years!"

The breathing of the Jurchen generals inside the tent grew three parts heavier. Some instinctively touched their bellies, and one by one, their expressions toward Guo Yaoshi softened considerably.

Guo Yaoshi took note of this, his outward demeanor becoming even more earnest. "Yaoshi knows the Prince fears for our rear flank, but cities like Zhongshan and Zhending are mere hollow shells. Their soldiers lack even the courage to ride out in pursuit! We need only dispatch a small contingent of cavalry to keep them pinned down while the main force presses forward day and night. Within ten days, we can be encamped beneath the walls of Bianliang. When that time comes, we can either force Qinzong to cede territory and pay tribute, or simply charge straight in and plunder every last treasure. The choice rests entirely in the Second Prince's hands."

These words acted like a ladle of boiling oil, crackling and popping against the lingering hesitation in Aguda's heart. A man like Guo Yaoshi might not be trustworthy, but he understood the soft underbelly of the Southern Court better than anyone.

"Is every word you speak true?" Aguda raised his eyes, his gaze sharp as a blade.

Guo Yaoshi dropped sharply to one knee, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "If your servant utters a single falsehood, I am yours to dispose of! I spent three years in the Southern Court and know their bottom line all too well. The civil officials love money, the military generals treasure their lives, and the new emperor Qinzong is timid, soft-spoken, and utterly incapable of action! If the Prince trusts me, you must seize this momentum and charge forward. Once they regain their footing, you will never find such a golden opportunity again!"

The gazes within the tent blazed with fervor, desire swelling as they stared fixedly at the Second Prince, practically radiating the sentiment that if he refused again, they would find someone else to serve as commander.

Aguda abruptly slammed his hand onto the desk. "Very well! We shall do as you say!"

As Guo Yaoshi lowered his head to offer his thanks, the corner of his eye caught the smug satisfaction on the faces of Wanyan Shemu and the others, as well as the trace of lingering doubt that still clouded the depths of Aguda's eyes.

He knew that once this step was taken, there would be no turning back. Yet if the Jurchens were to retreat northward now, he, Guo Yaoshi, would truly become a laughingstock. To fail to conquer a single city across Hebei and end up the only one who surrendered—what kind of fate was that? Besides, he still had old scores to settle with Liu Yanqing and Wang Anzhong.

"Pass down the order."

"At first light tomorrow, strike camp and ride straight for the Yellow River!"

As Guo Yaoshi withdrew alongside the other generals, he heard the cheers of the Jurchen commanders echoing behind him. Hidden within those raucous laughs were the cries of the Bianliang populace, soon to be swallowed by the flames of war. He wrapped his left-lapel robe tighter around himself, burying his face in the wind and snow.

...

When Li Xiao regained consciousness, the medicinal poultice wrapped around his arm was soaked through with ointment. A pungent, fishy odor, mingled with the scent of gunpowder drifting in from the window, pricked at his nostrils.

He tried to twitch his fingers, but the tendons in his arm felt as though they had been forcibly snapped, a pain so sharp it drew a harsh gasp from his lungs. Only then did he recall how, four days ago while pursuing and slaying the Jurchens, he had acted like a bloodshot-eyed mad bull, thrusting his long spear with reckless fury.

Where had such vicious ferocity come from? He could not fathom it.

"Which nerve in my head possibly misfired?"

At the time, he had only felt a surge of boiling blood rushing straight to his brain, his head swimming with heat until his eyes blurred. Under that feverish frenzy, he had done something completely devoid of reason—much like getting wildly drunk, when liquor gives a man false courage.

...

With a loud bang, the door was kicked open by a heavy boot, letting a gust of cold wind mixed with powdery snow pour into the room. Lu the Mad Tiger swaggered in, ice crystals still clinging to his full beard, his voice booming louder than the wind outside. "What the hell do you bastards know?! Do you know who we men are? Every single one of us is the reincarnation of the Hegemon of Western Chu!"

A crowd of men followed closely behind him, bursting into hearty laughter.

Unfazed, Lu the Mad Tiger strode boldly to the center of the room, puffed out his chest, and forced his shoulders broad, imitating the martial generals from theatrical plays. Raising his voice into a gravelly roar, he declaimed, "From the time I raised my army until now, it has been eight years! I have fought over seventy battles; those I opposed were shattered, those I struck submitted!"

Warming up to his performance, he clenched a fist and struck it against his open palm. "Did you see that? That is true spirit! Back then, when the Hegemon was surrounded by three hundred thousand Han troops with only twenty-eight horsemen left in his hand, he still dared to charge and kill, slaying enemy generals and seizing their banners! Our hundred-odd brothers possess that exact same peerless valor as we rode straight into the Jurchen encampment!"

He began to chant once more, "Today I am resolved to die! I shall fight fiercely for you all, win three consecutive victories, break the siege, slay their generals, and sever their banners!"

"Well? How do we men compare to Xiang Yu? Would he dare to storm a Han army encampment? We men dared! If you gave us an army of a hundred thousand, is there any realm under heaven we could not conquer? To be beaten down like this otherwise would be a disgrace to true heroes!"

The laughter behind him grew even louder. "Brother Lu, you'd better tell us first: who was it yesterday running for his life from the Jurchen cavalry, dropping his helmet and clinging to his horse's neck just to escape back into the city?"

"Exactly! He just learned those lines from a play today and tried to use them. Anyone who didn't know better would think you'd actually spent a few days studying books!"

Hahaha! The men roared with laughter.

"I was merely letting them off easy!" Lu the Mad Tiger stiffened his neck, stubbornly defending himself. "Old Lu was drawing the enemy in deep to create an opening for everyone else! Besides, if he was the Hegemon of Western Chu, then I am the Hegemon of Hedong, and the fellow lying on that bed over there is the Hegemon of Shuzhou!"

Only then did he catch sight of Li Xiao, whose eyes were wide open on the bed. Lu’s eyes lit up instantly. He dashed over to the bedside in a few strides, breathing heavy fumes of alcohol as he crowed, "Well, speak of the Hegemon and the Hegemon wakes! Brother Li, you're finally awake!"

He reached out as if to yank off Li Xiao's quilt, a mischievous grin plastered across his face. "Quick, let your brother have a look—are your arms and legs still nimble? You were throwing yourself around so wildly the other day, I hope you didn't jar your precious lower parts; that would be a catastrophe, hahaha!"

Li Xiao could hardly endure such a bearded, boorish brute and the awkwardness he brought, so he feigned a light kick with his foot. "Scram! Is that 'precious part' something your mortal eyes are ever blessed to behold?"

"Hoh, you can still joke around, so I suppose you're fine."

Lu the Mad Tiger chuckled as he retracted his hand, yet remained leaning in close, teasing, "Seriously, I never realized Brother Li was the premier hardman of the Great Song, a man among men! Truly extraordinary! Old Lu watched it all clearly from right behind you. To follow you in a charge like that means this life was not lived in vain—it was exhilarating!"

"Who knows, perhaps future local gazetteers will record Old Lu's name, and storytelling stages will add a chapter for me!"

"Whether you have any backbone is hardly for a clumsy-footed ruffian like you to say. I'm begging you, please shut your mouth!" Li Xiao cut him off, his skin prickling with goosebumps.

"Indeed. If those honeyed words came from a delicate beauty in the pleasure houses, it would warm the soul; coming from you, it nearly makes me vomit up the meal I swallowed this morning. Disgusting! Revolting! Bah!" Behind them, Yuan Zhenhai put on an expression of utter disgust, lowering his head and dry-heaving.

"Piss off! Old Lu thinks you've just gone mad wanting a woman, unable to taste meat or sleep with anyone!"

The rest of the crowd roared with laughter.

Li Xiao realized that since he could still lie here, listening to their bantering laughter and feeling the genuine ache in his arm, life had to go on.

"Move, move, move! Once we've filled our bellies, we'll have to provide storytellers with more conversational fodder, lest people forget Old Lu in the future!"

This was a three-courtyard estate. The bluestone pathway was covered with half a foot of undisturbed snow, marked only by a few uneven sets of footprints left hastily behind as the owners fled in panic.

The tree against the western wall had long shed its leaves, its branches hung with icicles that resembled rows of inverted daggers. Piles of broken porcelain fragments lay at the base of the trunk, presumably smashed when the occupants fled in a rush. The vermilion double doors of the main house were half-open, the copper ring-knockers frozen solid, cold and slick to the touch.

"Tsk tsk, an estate like this—in ordinary times, it would take the likes of us ten years of soldiering just to afford it," someone among the crowd muttered, looking around with the wide-eyed wonder of a country bumpkin entering the city.

"You're dreaming! Ten years to earn a courtyard like this? I'd say a hundred years wouldn't be enough!"

"Look at those window lattices—what are they carved with? Phoenixes? Good lord, if the Jurchens break in here, they're bound to chop this fine wood up for firewood."

Having all originated as low-ranking infantrymen, none of them had ever had the chance to set foot in such a place, making everything appear wondrous.

"Stop looking. This family ran faster than rabbits, taking every ounce of gold and silver with them and leaving only junk for us to use as quarters." Lu the Mad Tiger ruthlessly snuffed out their fantasies, though several men still refused to believe it—after all, wealthy families like this always buried their wealth, waiting for others to unearth it.

The front hall, however, remained relatively orderly.

An eight-immortals table was draped with a faded red silk cloth, upon which sat coarse pottery bowls and a basin of mutton stewed until tender, its layer of oil congealing into golden hoops resembling amber. Beside it lay half a plate of spiced beef, full of sinew and clearly salvaged from someone's pantry crock.

Coarse-flour steamed buns were piled high in a bamboo basket, accompanied by two unsealed jars of cheap wine that gave off a sharp, pungent odor.

"Prefect Zhang is quite generous," a scar-faced man grinned broadly. Introducing himself as Ma Xiaowu, he stuffed a bun into his mouth, his speech muffled. "Yesterday on the ramparts, I saw the food delivered to the officials barely included an extra dish of pickled vegetables. Our provisions here rival those of a general!"

As soon as Li Xiao sat down, Lu the Mad Tiger scooped up a wine jar and poured half a bowl of murky, sediment-laden liquor into the coarse pottery bowl before him.

"Drink some, it gets the blood moving and breaks up stasis." Lu gulped down a large mouthful first, his Adam's apple bobbing as he roared, "Refreshing! To hell with the heavens, when there's wine to drink, why the hell worry about so much?!"

Li Xiao tried to use his right hand to reach for his chopsticks, but the moment he raised his arm halfway, a sharp pain wrung a hiss from his teeth.

The tall, thin fellow with quick reflexes shoved a chopsticks pair into Li Xiao's left hand and scooped him a ladle of mutton soup. "Take it easy, it takes a hundred days to heal damaged bones and tendons. Truly, if you hadn't turned your horse around and skewered that Jurchen dog the other day, this life of mine would have been forfeit in the Jurchen camp."

"Bollocks!" Ma Xiaowu chewed the beef indistinctly. "If I hadn't dragged you out from beneath the horse's hooves, you'd already be dung left behind by wild mountain wolves! Who knows which tree you'd be nourishing by now!"

He winked and leaned closer. "But brother, that vicious look in your eye when you hacked down that Jurchen dog the other days—were you picturing some fine beauty waiting for you at home? We all thought you had a sweetheart hiding in the city."

The entire table burst into laughter, and Zhou Tie, the tall, thin man, laughed the loudest. "I wager he was! How else could he summon such strength? Whenever I see the female dependents of those high officials—so fair-skinned, with such delicate arms and legs, looking all tender and fragile—if I truly had one of them waiting for me in the city, I'd say forget the enemy camp; even a mountain of knives and a sea of fire, old Zhou would dare to charge through!"

"Damn it!" Li Xiao cursed with a laugh as he tossed a bone at him, which Zhou Tie caught out of the air. "The women back in my home village could all put those delicate misses to shame! They can carry a hoe, feed the pigs, and warm your feet at night!"

"Oh ho ho! That is something else!" Sun Stone, whose face wore an expression of mischievous intent, perked up. "Big Brother, tell us, what kind of hair ornaments do the women from your parts wear? Are they stuck with pearl flowers just like in the paintings?"

Their mental image of the region stemmed from a layering of various impressions.

Shuchuan brocade was a luxury item pursued by elites everywhere, and seeing such exquisite brocade naturally led people to associate it with the dexterity of its weavers, gradually forming the impression that "Shu women are skilled artisans." Furthermore, tales of Chengdu women selling Shu tea and wine, retold by traveling merchants, served as proof of their diligence and capability.

Moreover, because the Shu region was humid and lacked windblown dust, women there possessed fairer skin, prompting Bianjing literati to jest, "Shu women are like snow, Wu women like the moon." Thus their reputation spread far and wide.

"Pearl flowers, my foot!" Li Xiao took a sip of the wine, the fiery liquid burning his throat and effectively dulling the ache in his arm. "The women of Shuzhou wear azaleas in their hair, red as fire. When my neighbor got married years back, that bride..."

"Hush, hush!" Lu the Mad Tiger waved his hand dismissively, putting on a mock stern face. "Keep talking like that and the brothers won't be able to sleep tonight!"

He stuffed a bone into his mouth, letting his own imagination wander. "Seriously, once we chase these Jurchen dogs away, I'm heading back home, marrying a woman who knows how to make oat noodles, and having three kids—one to herd cattle, one to farm, and another..."

"And another just like you, full of nonsense!" Zhou Tie snatched the line, sending the table into peals of laughter.

In the midst of their merrymaking, a deafening explosion echoed from outside the courtyard, rattling dust down from the ceiling beams. The pottery bowls on the table vibrated, nearly toppling over.

The enemy trebuchets had resumed pounding the city walls, immediately followed by the battle cries of the garrison troops and the piercing whistles of arrows tearing through the air.

The men paused for a moment before bursting into laughter once more, louder than before. "Those thousand-damned bastards won't even let a man eat in peace!" Zhou Tie grabbed a wine jar to refill his bowl, unbothered as wine splashed across his tunic. "Once we finish eating, let's head up to the ramparts and hurl a few boulders down so they can taste some too!"

"Count me in!" Sun Stone swallowed the last piece of meat and wiped his greasy mouth. "Yesterday I saw that siege tower—made of wood, massive thing—ramming straight against the city gates!"

"Truth be told," Ma Xiaowu took a sip of wine and coughed from the burn, "we charged far too fiercely the other day; thinking about it now still gives me cold sweats. That was the main Jurchen encampment—if we'd been trapped inside, ten lives wouldn't have been enough to fill the gap."

"Fear a load of bollocks!" Lu the Mad Tiger thumped his chest hard. "We all crawled back from the gates of hell; our lives stopped belonging to us long ago! If those Jurchen dogs dare enter the city, we'll fight them to the death! At worst, twenty years from now we'll be strapping lads again, drinking and bragging just the same!"

"Brother Lu is right, we've all died once already. What has a barefoot man to fear from someone wearing shoes?"

Li Xiao looked at the men surrounding him—all survivors who had charged the Jurchen camp together. Zhou Tie's leg was still swollen from being struck by a mace, and a dark-faced fellow who had remained quiet throughout was missing a piece of his ear.

Lu the Mad Tiger raised his bowl. "Bottoms up on this bowl! As long as we draw breath, we won't let those Jurchen dogs look down on us!"

Nine coarse pottery bowls collided with a sharp *clank*, spilling wine across the faded red silk.