Volume 2, Chapter 11: Hearing of Deserters Fleeing, He Angrily Reprimands the Lame Foot

The rapid expansion of the troops was matched by an equally rapid thinning of their ranks.

The distance from Puyang City to Lihu County was more than a hundred *li*. Unable to reach their destination by the end of the day, they had spent the night camping out in the wilderness.

On the morning of the second day, the newly appointed troop commanders, including Ji Bochang, looked at one another in dismay. Desertions had occurred in every single new unit. The worst-hit lost twenty or thirty men, while even the best-fared lost a dozen or so. Altogether, roughly a hundred new recruits had slipped away in the night.

Ashamed, Ji Bochang and the other new commanders came to Li Shandong to confess their failure.

This was the first time Li Shandong had ever encountered the problem of deserters.

Neither under Wang Xuda nor among the men later assigned to him, such as Dong Falü and Yuan Dezhen, had such an issue ever arisen.

When leaving Puyang yesterday, Li Shandong had actually considered this possibility. On the one hand, there was the deep reluctance to leave one's native soil; on the other hand, these new recruits had been gathered through a mixture of cajolery and intimidation. In other words, their morale was far from stable, and he had not yet established much prestige among them. If he led them away from Puyang the very next day after recruitment, would deserters appear?

Though he had anticipated the problem, he had never imagined it would manifest so quickly.

Before he could even devise a concrete solution, a hundred men had vanished into thin air over the course of a single night!

Jiao Yanlang, one of the new troop commanders, was burning with indignation. Stepping forward, he protested, "Er-lang! They took our grain and shared our silver, yet they have no sense of honor! They enlisted just yesterday, and today—goddamn their mothers—they run off! A pack of thieving bastards, what do they take us for? Some kind of soft touch to be pushed around? Er-lang, I reckon they have nowhere else to go and will only flee back to Puyang. Let me take some men and chase after them right now! We'll drag those thieving bastards out of their homes one by one, cut off their heads, and hang them from the city walls as a warning to everyone!"

Yao Agui, another new troop commander, had suffered the heaviest losses, with over twenty men deserting from his unit. He backed Jiao Yanlang's proposal, saying, "Er-lang, I'll go with Thirteen-lang to hunt them down! Goddamn it, they took our benefits and yet dared to desert—we should slaughter the lot of them!"

Li Shandong stood in a daze for a moment before summoning Cheng the Limper and the others who had been on night watch duty. He demanded, "Didn't you see anyone deserting during the night?"

Having grown drowsy by midnight, Cheng the Limper and his men had been half-asleep, with some even nodding off entirely. How could they have had any energy left to spot deserters? Not daring to tell the truth, they answered evasively, "Replying to Er-lang, we didn't see anything."

Judging by their darting eyes, Li Shandong guessed why they "hadn't seen" anything. He stepped forward and made as if to kick Cheng the Limper, scolding, "Damn it, tell me the truth—did you lot fail to keep a proper watch and fall asleep instead?"

"It's a good thing no enemy officers or soldiers ambushed us last night. If they had, a hundred deserters slipping away would be a minor matter, but wouldn't the lives of all thousand of our brothers have been lost because of you?" After dressing down Cheng the Limper and the others, Li Shandong summoned Wang Xuda and the rest to issue a formal order: "In the past, when we operated mostly in the mountains, though I set rules for night watches, they weren't strictly enforced. Starting from today, the military discipline regarding night watch and sentry duty must be strictly upheld. Anyone caught dozing off on watch again will be dealt with according to military law!"

The men answered in unison with a solemn chill.

Jiao Yanlang asked, "Er-lang, what about the deserters?"

After pondering for a moment, Li Shandong replied, "Eldest Brother Xu is currently attacking Lihu, and we need to arrive swiftly to assist him. We don't have the time to hunt down these deserters, but we certainly cannot let them go unpunished either." He glanced up at the new recruits gathering not far away and continued, "If we let this slide, I fear the number of deserters will only grow. Yanlang, what you said makes sense—I expect these deserters have nowhere else to go and will only flee back to Puyang."

"Here is what we'll do. Agui, make a trip back to Puyang and give all the names of these deserters to Zheng Gouzi. Ask Zheng Gouzi to dispatch some men to track them down one by one. As the saying goes, 'When it's going to rain, a mother has to remarry.' If they've changed their minds and are no longer willing to follow us, we'll let them go. But they took grain, money, and cloth from us—and most importantly, weapons! Damn it, those must be returned!"

Yao Agui accepted the order, took a few men, mounted his horses, and galloped back toward Puyang immediately.

Once the new recruits had assembled, Li Shandong walked along the lines to inspect them. Stopping at the front, he placed his hands on his hips and shouted loudly, "You may already know that some new recruits sneaked back to Puyang last night. Let me tell you this: I hold the utmost contempt for those who deserted. What is a true man supposed to value above all else? First and foremost is loyalty! You accepted our money, you accepted our grain, and joining my ranks was your own voluntary choice—you were not coerced by me. And yet, the moment you turned around, you broke your promise and sneaked away like cowards. What kind of behavior is that? I have already sent men back to Puyang, and none of those who fled will be spared!"

The new recruits exchanged murmurs and whispered among themselves.

Li Shandong continued, "I will say only this to you now: if any of you have also changed your minds and no longer wish to follow me, I will not force you. There is only one condition—step forward right now! Face to face, openly and honestly tell me your intentions, and then you may leave whenever you please!" Looking around at the remaining hundreds of recruits, he demanded, "Is there anyone who wants to leave? Step forward now! I'll give you rations for the road back to Puyang!"

Those most eager to desert had already fled the previous night. The ones who remained were not among the most desperate to leave, especially with veteran fighters like Wang Xuda, Dong Falü, and Shi Zhongkui glaring at them menacingly. In the end, not a single person stepped out of the ranks of the remaining hundreds of recruits.

A clever recruit caught the cue and shouted along with Niu Er, "We are true men, and we would never stoop to such petty cowardice!"

A chaotic chorus of similar shouts broke out among the recruits.

Li Shandong raised his hand to press it downward. When the shouting subsided, he chose not to dwell further on the deserters and gave a brief command: "Move out! Resume our march toward Lihu!"

They were no longer far from Lihu—only half a day's journey away.

A single night had exposed two major problems: sentry duty and desertion. The sentry issue had been resolved, but the problem of deserters urgently required a proper and effective solution.

During the half-day march, Li Shandong successively summoned Qin Jingshi, Ji Bochang, Wang Xuda, Chen Jing'er, and Gao Xi to ask for their opinions on "restraining the soldiers and eliminating desertions," particularly consulting Gao Xi on how he used to manage his troops as a former middle-to-high-ranking officer in the military command府.

Combining their advice with his own reflections, Li Shandong had formed a preliminary plan by the time they approached Lihu County in the afternoon on how to prevent a large-scale desertion crisis like the previous night's from ever happening again.

"What is gotten from books is always superficial; to truly understand it, one must practice it firsthand." In terms of practical application, Li Shandong had already accumulated some experience in commanding troops; in terms of theory, he had long since finished reading the military treatise *Master Wei Liao* and could recite it backward. Yet, when applied to reality, command still presented numerous challenges that required him to grope forward and learn step by step.

Yang Fendui and the others, who had previously been sent ahead to Lihu, came galloping back from the direction of Lihu County. Catching sight of Li Shandong, they reported, "Er-lang, Eldest Brother Xu has already taken Lihu."

"Taken it? When was it captured?"

Yang Fendui replied, "It was taken yesterday afternoon."

"Ah, for all our hurrying, we still arrived a step late. Where is Eldest Brother Xu now?"

The reason Xu Shiji had been able to capture Lihu yesterday afternoon was, in truth, somewhat related to Li Shandong.

Hearing that Li Shandong had taken Puyang with a mere three or four hundred men, Xu Shiji had pressed his troops to intensify their assault on Lihu. Personally commanding the frontline, he had successfully conquered Lihu County yesterday afternoon.

Yang Fendui said, "We didn't enter the city. We ran into the patrol scouts of Commandant Nie's unit outside the walls. After learning that Eldest Brother Xu had conquered Lihu, we hurried back to report to Er-lang without seeing Eldest Brother Xu himself. I hear he is currently inside the city."

Thereupon, Li Shandong issued military orders for the troops to quicken their pace.

After marching for another fifteen or twenty minutes, the walls of Lihu County came into view.

Along the way, they successively crossed paths with three or four squads of patrol scouts and outposts dispatched by Nie Heitai and the other units.

Although Lihu County had already been taken by Xu Shiji, as they approached the outskirts, people could see from afar that another battle was still underway some dozen *li* away to the northwest of the county town. The patrol scouts from Nie Heitai's unit who were escorting Li Shandong answered his inquiry, saying, "That is the fortified manor of a powerful local clan surnamed Zhang in Lihu. They refuse to surrender, so Eldest Brother Xu sent two unit commanders to attack them."

A fortified manor was a stronghold, much like the estate of Liu Xuanyi's family in Zuo Cheng—used for production in times of peace and relied upon for self-defense in times of chaos. Naturally, many powerful local clans colluded with the Wagang insurgents in secret, but there were also those who viewed Wagang as bandits, refused to associate with them, and gathered local forces to protect their territory and resist. This powerful clan surnamed Zhang in Lihu belonged to the latter category.

Li Shandong nodded and asked no further questions.

Arriving outside Lihu, he left the main body of troops beneath the city walls and entered the city accompanied by only a few men, including Gao Chounu and Qin Jingshi, to see Xu Shiji.

The official highway outside the city gates was desolate and quiet, with scarce pedestrians.

Upon entering the city, the streets were similarly deserted. Aside from a few of Xu Shiji's thugs wandering about in small groups—some carrying spears, some clutching stolen goods, and others dragging women along while laughing and talking—there were virtually no local gentry or commoners to be seen. At the gates of every neighborhood they passed, thugs stood guard. Splatters of blood were visible from time to time on the streets, the neighborhood gates, and the walls—grim remnants of yesterday's battle.

Xu Shiji was stationed at the county administrative office.

Upon arriving outside the office, they were met by a pile of blood-soaked human heads stacked on the ground, where several thugs were busy tying them onto bamboo poles.