Chapter 95: Fall Back!

“Break the gate!”

At Zheng Fan’s order, barbarian soldiers immediately stepped forward and began battering the doors.

The Prefectural Yamen’s front gate was not especially sturdy.

At least, compared with the gates of Mianzhou City, it was nothing worth mentioning.

After all, officials came and went while the yamen remained.

Unlike later generations, ancient county magistrates generally did not spend public funds lavishly repairing government offices.

However, someone was clearly bracing the doors from inside.

For a time, the barbarians actually failed to force them open.

Liang Cheng raised one hand.

In a low voice, he ordered:

“Bows.”

The barbarian soldiers around him immediately drew arrows and nocked them.

Mounted archery was practically an innate racial skill for barbarians.

Riding and shooting were abilities they had grown up with.

At Liang Cheng’s command, the nearby barbarian soldiers immediately understood.

They backed their horses away for some distance and raised their bows.

BUZZ!

A volley arced over the wall.

Because of the angle, the arrows were unlikely to hit the people physically bracing the gate.

But screams still erupted from inside the courtyard.

“Oh?

“Quite a crowd in there.”

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Zheng Fan’s mouth.

News that Yan troops had entered the city had already spread through Mianzhou extremely quickly.

For many people, the Prefectural Yamen immediately became the safest place imaginable.

Those seeking refuge and those looking for officials to discuss what should be done had gathered there in large numbers.

After breaching the city gate, Zheng Fan had wasted almost no time.

He had led his cavalry straight here.

In effect, he had trapped all those people inside the yamen.

The arrow volley was not meant to kill the men blocking the doors.

Its true purpose was to shatter their morale through the screams of everyone else.

After all, the people inside the yamen and everyone across Mianzhou City had no idea how many troops Zheng Fan actually possessed.

They still imagined a vast Yan army had already poured into the city.

Strictly speaking, even if Mianzhou’s garrison troops were useless, the private guards of wealthy households and armed escorts from the merchant houses could easily gather more than a thousand able-bodied men between them.

Once Zheng Fan’s true numbers became known, many of those who had initially been frightened out of their wits might regroup and launch a counterattack.

That was exactly why Liang Cheng had said earlier that they could not actually occupy the city.

There was no need to wait for Qian to transfer reinforcements from elsewhere.

Mianzhou City alone had enough manpower to overwhelm them once it recovered from the initial shock.

And that was also why Zheng Fan had led his troops directly to the Prefectural Yamen after entering the city.

Since he could not hold Mianzhou, he at least intended to take home some souvenirs before leaving.

Something to prove that he had come, that he had seen, and that he had conquered.

In short with everyone inside already frightening themselves into believing that “the Great Yan army” had entered the city, and with people in the courtyard now screaming from arrow wounds, the men bracing the doors finally broke.

BANG!

The front gate of the Prefectural Yamen was smashed open.

The barbarian soldiers dismounted and stormed inside.

For a time, ghostly wails and desperate shrieks filled the compound.

A few men still possessed some blood courage.

They grabbed weapons and tried to fight.

But they were quickly cut down by the heavily armored barbarians, who worked together with practiced coordination.

Most people either knelt and surrendered or simply... accepted their fate.

The enemy had already entered the city.

The city itself had fallen.

To most people, continuing to resist inside the yamen was meaningless.

Besides, Qian had enjoyed peace for far too long.

So long that even this generation living in a frontier city had never truly experienced war.

Many of them were probably still struggling to understand what was actually happening.

The situation inside was brought under control very quickly.

Zheng Fan dismounted and walked into the yamen.

Liang Cheng followed behind him.

The courtyard was packed with kneeling prisoners.

Wounded men lay nearby, groaning and crying out.

In front of the barbarians, none of them dared cause trouble.

Only when Zheng Fan entered did a few quick-witted people begin cautiously studying him.

Zheng Fan, however, had no interest in these small fry.

At the earlier Chicken Fort, he had genuinely considered recruiting the garrison.

Green Willow Fortress itself stood along the frontier.

If he could secretly open a route through that Qian fort, it would be like the Railway Guerrillas planting one of their own inside a puppet-army blockhouse.

It would make future crossings far more convenient and allow him to farm military merit at the same time.

But the people inside Mianzhou City were different.

Zheng Fan had no realistic way to establish a stable relationship of mutual benefit with them.

Especially when he intended to run away immediately after finishing his business here.

From breaking the city gate, to entering the city, to reaching the yamen despite a few small disturbances, everything had still gone astonishingly smoothly.

The extent of Qian’s military decay was almost unbelievable.

Zheng Fan even thought that the regret of the first Marquis of Zhenbei who a century earlier had been unable to march on Qian’s capital because the imperial court could not spare reinforcements would have been completely unnecessary today.

If that first Marquis could return from the dead now with the same force he had commanded back then, he could probably accomplish that dream with ease.

A dynasty’s greatest enemy was never some savage, powerful foreign state.

It was... time.

Zheng Fan continued walking deeper into the compound while turning those thoughts over in his mind.

But just as he was about to step into the rear courtyard the calm expression he had maintained all along finally shifted.

He heard singing.

Calling it singing was not entirely accurate.

Most of what was being performed was lyrical verse.

Some voices burned with heroic grief, their hearts full of rage with nowhere to vent it.

Some lamented unrecognized talent and the approaching death of the state.

Some cursed treacherous ministers for ruining the realm.

Others mourned the collapse of the great house and the decline of rivers and mountains.

Zheng Fan was not very familiar with classical tune patterns.

After all, he had started his life in northern Yan.

There was practically no market there for studying poetry and refined verse.

Still, the general meaning sounded somewhat like alternate versions of *Man Jiang Hong* and the line about singing girls who knew nothing of a fallen kingdom.

The themes were more or less the same.

Zheng Fan stopped.

He turned toward Liang Cheng and said:

“I judged them too quickly.

“I didn’t expect Qian’s civil officials to possess some backbone after all.”

At a time like this, singing out one’s convictions instead of kneeling to beg the enemy for life probably meant they had already resolved to die for righteousness.

Perhaps they intended to kill themselves.

Or perhaps they would wait until Zheng Fan entered, curse him to his face, then demand he kill them so they could preserve their pure reputations.

Even among defeated men, that kind of backbone was rare enough to deserve respect.

Liang Cheng was moved as well.

He could not help lowering his gaze toward the broken spearhead still lodged in his abdomen.

Once again, the image of that old man walking alone against the human tide and raising his spear against charging cavalry appeared in his mind.

“Perhaps... if Qian cannot be destroyed in a single war, then maybe...”

“Aiya.”

Zheng Fan sighed as well.

To ease the mood, Liang Cheng said:

“At least this gives us some sense of accomplishment.

“No matter what, it is far better than clearing out another Chicken Fort.”

“Don’t mention that.

“The moment I hear about it, I get irritated.

“Before we return, pass down the order.

“Nobody is allowed to say a word about that incident.

“Otherwise, who knows how the Blind Man, Xue San, and the others will mock us behind our backs.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Come.

“Let us go inside and witness the true backbone of scholars.”

Zheng Fan stepped forward.

The barbarians inside had already brought the situation under control.

But when Zheng Fan entered the hall his eyelid began twitching uncontrollably.

Liang Cheng stopped walking too.

Looking at the scene before him, he suddenly felt the wound in his abdomen hurt even more.

Zheng Fan saw a group of civil officials.

Even under the murderous stares of the barbarians surrounding them, they continued doing whatever they pleased.

They sang loudly.

Some were even naked and performing acts that were decidedly unfit for polite company.

They seemed completely unaware of what was happening around them.

They were still high.

So high they could not come down.

The dancing girls whom they had previously forced into participating in their private “Sea-and-Sky Feast” had not taken the powder.

At first, when fighting noises came from outside, the women had not thought much of it.

But once batch after batch of murderous-looking barbarians rushed inside, they screamed and huddled together in the corners of the hall.

The honored civil officials could no longer find the dancing girls.

But they were still lost in the effects of the drug.

At that point, they could no longer care about such details.

They actually began turning toward one another...

Even the Prefect himself still wearing his official hat was actively trying to lean into the arms of one barbarian soldier.

The barbarian wore an expression of profound despair.

He looked toward Zheng Fan with pleading eyes.

He desperately hoped

Zheng Fan would give the order.

Because he was already struggling to restrain himself from chopping this bag of old bones to death on the spot.

Because of Zheng Fan’s command, the barbarians had been forced into abstinence.

But abstinence did not mean they had become twisted.

And even if they had somehow become twisted they had not twisted badly enough to develop an interest in this shriveled old man.

Zheng Fan drew a deep breath.

Then turned his face toward Liang Cheng beside him.

Liang Cheng slowly closed his eyes.

A faint expression of pain appeared on his face.

His wound hurt.

It hurt so badly that Zheng Fan almost felt embarrassed to blame him again for having a crow’s mouth.

“Fine.

“Looks like I’ll never be rid of the title

‘Model Worker for Spiritual Civilization.’”

“Master... is wise.”

“So tell me— why the hell did we leave home in the middle of the night instead of sleeping peacefully, run all the way into Qian, and attack a city?

“First we helped them crack down on prostitution.

“Now we’re helping them crack down on drugs.

“Did we come here specifically to eliminate the Four Pests?”

Naturally, Zheng Fan had noticed the remaining Five Minerals Powder on the tables.

He knew what the substance was.

Once, he himself had nearly consumed it in order to sense qi and blood.

Then Liang Cheng’s fingernails had replaced the need for the powder.

The effect of Five Minerals Powder was far stronger than many drugs of later generations.

Its side effects were even more terrifying.

The mixture itself contained large amounts of mineral compounds.

Take too much of it, and becoming mentally disabled or paralyzed was hardly unusual.

At the same time, its stimulation of the central nervous system and its hallucinatory effects were extraordinarily powerful.

Just look at what these elegant civil officials were doing now...

Ugh.

Zheng Fan genuinely could not keep watching.

He turned his head away.

Then, turned his entire body around.

In barbarian speech, he ordered:

“Kill them all.

“Cut off their heads.”

“Yes, Master!”

The barbarians inside the hall answered in unison.

They had already been restraining themselves for far too long.

Every man immediately raised his blade and began stabbing.

Barbarian civilization was crude.

Their level of refinement had never been especially high.

But becoming too civilized was not necessarily always a good thing either.

For example, this open display of “Brokeback Mountain” made every barbarian present feel ten thousand kinds of disgust.

Barbarian God above.

This was too damned painful to look at!

Standing beside Zheng Fan, Liang Cheng asked:

“Master.

“What next?”

Zheng Fan turned toward Liang Cheng and rolled his eyes.

Irritated, he said:

“Fall back.

“We’re returning to the station!”

(End of Chapter)