Chapter 132: Recruiting Soldiers

Along the official road, columns of convicts being escorted south could be seen everywhere.

Zheng Fan rode on horseback, with Siniang and A’Ming beside him.

The Marquis of Jingnan truly did regard Zheng Fan as one of his own.

He had even entrusted the aftermath of his family’s extermination to Zheng Fan.

It had taken Zheng Fan quite some time to wrap everything up.

Siniang and A’Ming had accompanied Zheng Fan into the capital this time.

But because Zheng Fan had traveled in the Marquis of Jingnan’s carriage, the two of them had followed from far behind.

Only after Zheng Fan had lived through those incomparably thrilling twelve hours in the Yan capital did he summon A’Ming and Siniang to help him collect corpses at the Tian estate.

Zheng Fan had not personally participated in the purge of the aristocratic clans.

But after only ten days or half a month, merely looking at convoy after convoy of convicts on the official road was enough to understand roughly how large this cleansing had been.

Most of those being escorted were young or middle-aged men.

Even the somewhat older ones could still be sent to the front as laborers.

The Yan Emperor intended to sweep away Great Yan’s aristocratic clans, but he had not slaughtered every last member.

Naturally, the greatest clans at the very top had to be physically erased without hesitation.

But there were simply too many aristocratic families across Great Yan.

These convicts, forcibly branded as “criminals,” were now marching south toward Yinlang Commandery under the Yan Emperor’s will.

There would be the first line of the State of Yan’s coming war against Qian.

War certainly consumed enormous amounts of supplies, money, provisions, and fodder.

But the most direct thing war consumed was human life.

Zheng Fan did not know whether Qin Shi Huang’s mass levies of convicts and laborers had looked like this.

But now that he was seeing such scenes with his own eyes, he was still shaken by what appeared along the official road.

The army had begun swinging its blade in accordance with the sovereign’s will.

And all of Yan had begun, under the Emperor’s command, the most brutal and direct form of total war mobilization.

The vast tracts of farmland owned by the aristocratic clans were naturally confiscated by the state.

The enormous hidden population that had belonged not to the state, but privately to the clans, was re-registered by the Imperial Court.

Most would continue farming the same land they had always farmed.

Only their master had changed from an aristocratic clan to the state.

In ancient times, centralization had always been a tug-of-war between the central court and the local powers over two things: land and people.

In the historical process Zheng Fan was familiar with, nearly every ancient dynasty that had created a period of true brilliance had undergone centralization beforehand.

Only then could it concentrate enough strength to accomplish great things.

But whenever Zheng Fan passed one of those convict columns, he could clearly feel the hostility radiating from them.

These men had once been sons of lofty aristocratic houses.

Now they had become prisoners.

For centuries, Great Yan’s political system had been based on joint rule between the Ji imperial clan and the aristocratic houses.

Strictly speaking these aristocratic sons had also been masters of the state.

In truth, the balance between imperial power and the aristocratic houses had never before been broken.

Imperial power had even weakened further because the previous Emperor had only gained the throne with support from the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate, and because that same Emperor had spent his reign indulging in luxury.

The aristocratic clans had never relaxed their vigilance against the expansion of imperial authority.

Yet all the vigilance in the world all the plotting and calculations had still lost to two words: naïve trust.

The Yan Emperor naïvely believed the childhood friend who had once fought him over chicken legs would not rebel after gaining command of an enormous army.

So he accepted everything the Marquis of Zhenbei offered him.

The Marquis of Zhenbei naïvely believed the Yan Emperor was not testing him.

So he handed the three hundred thousand Zhenbei troops to his Emperor and personally became the plow, willingly taking the infamy upon himself as he tore through aristocratic houses that had existed on Yan soil for centuries.

The Marquis of Jingnan naïvely joined those two men.

He did not hesitate to first exterminate his own clan, proving that he had severed himself from the past.

Imperial suspicion.

The boundary between sovereign and minister.

Those things seemed not to exist at all between the three of them.

Three naïve men had joined hands and forcibly overturned all of Great Yan.

Three ruthless heroes born in one generation and all three stood together.

That day, when Zhenbei and Jingnan cavalry rolled forward behind the Yan Emperor every official and every aristocratic clan had felt their heart drop at the same time.

They understood.

Great Yan’s sky had changed.

It was as though in a single night their wealth, their status, their dignity everything had been stripped away.

The Yan Emperor sent them to the southern frontier.

They would have to take up weapons and fight to atone for the “crimes” suddenly placed upon their heads and fight to reclaim the “freedom” they had once possessed, only to lose overnight.

In Zheng Fan’s eyes they strongly resembled the barbarian soldiers under his own command.

Those barbarian troops had come from convict tribes.

Their relatives were controlled by larger tribes, while they themselves became expendable cannon fodder whenever those tribes went to war.

These aristocratic-clan convicts were much the same.

Their families were being held in their home regions or in the capital.

They had to earn military merit in exchange for freedom.

From chick to sparrow to eagle.

Then suddenly back into chicks again.

And now they had to struggle once more simply to become sparrows.

“An enormous undertaking,” A’Ming remarked.

Zheng Fan looked at A’Ming and nodded.

A’Ming might be a vampire, but he was not especially old.

At least not absurdly old.

He could not compare with Liang Cheng.

Zheng Fan understood even more clearly that Great Yan had now been brought to a boil by three dreamers.

It was equivalent to going all-in with everything.

If the coming war against Qian failed to produce enormous gains if external expansion did not achieve tremendous success then the boiling water might very well scald Yan itself.

This was a gamble.

Those three men were gambling with the fortune of the entire state.

At last, the three of them stopped.

Nanwang City had arrived.

……

After the Jingnan Army withdrew from Nanwang City, Xu Wenzu had finally experienced what it truly felt like to be Commander-in-Chief.

But he had barely breathed in that fresh air of freedom when news from the capital arrived and frightened him so badly he collapsed to the floor.

Good lord.

More than three hundred jin of fat simply piled onto the ground.

The attendants around him had nearly exhausted themselves dragging him upright.

Then came the military orders of the Marquis of Jingnan, returning with the murderous aura of a man who had exterminated his own entire clan.

The aristocratic houses of Yinlang Commandery were trampled beneath Jingnan cavalry.

Fortunately a purge had already happened once before under the pretext of investigating the assassination at the Commander-in-Chief’s residence.

And Yinlang Commandery itself had been a battlefield during Qian’s northern expeditions a century ago.

So its aristocratic clans had never flourished as richly as those elsewhere in Yan.

The second reckoning therefore did not take much time.

After that the Imperial Court began pouring supplies toward Yinlang Commandery.

Toward the Jingnan Army.

Toward Nanwang City.

The terrifying wealth accumulated by aristocratic houses across centuries was confiscated by the Imperial Court then immediately redirected by the Yan Emperor toward the “war zone.”

This was a war for Great Yan’s national fortune.

After entering Nanwang City, Zheng Fan went directly to the Commander-in-Chief’s residence.

Once the servants reported his arrival, Xu Wenzu immediately came to the reception hall.

Zheng Fan was drinking tea.

The instant he saw Xu Wenzu—

“Pfft…”

Tea leaked directly from the corner of his mouth.

“Brother Zheng?

“Brother Zheng?”

Zheng Fan lifted a hand, signaling that he was fine.

There were no napkins here, so he had no choice but to wipe his mouth with his sleeve.

Xu Wenzu’s current appearance had simply caught him completely off guard.

It was obvious the man was exhausted.

Yet rather than losing weight, he had become even puffier.

Especially with both eye bags sagging heavily downward the effect was almost cartoonish.

As for Xu Wenzu calling him “Brother Zheng,” Zheng Fan did not feel especially alarmed.

Even the Sixth Prince no longer called himself “this Prince” in front of him.

Xu Wenzu dropping “this official” was perfectly normal.

Garrison Commander Zheng even found it somewhat amusing.

He had spent all this time borrowing the Marquis of Zhenbei’s tiger skin.

Yet in the end the coat he actually put on belonged to the Marquis of Jingnan.

Still after all the scrambling and chaos, Zheng Fan had finally made something of himself.

At least he no longer needed to bow and scrape as frequently as before.

“Brother Zheng.

“Come.”

Xu Wenzu personally led Zheng Fan into his study.

Zheng Fan had visited it once before.

The courtyard outside was crowded with people moving back and forth.

Everyone was busy.

The cold emptiness from last time was gone.

Once they entered the study, Xu Wenzu shut the door.

Then walked to the grand armchair and simply collapsed into it.

Zheng Fan had once heard the saying:

“Women are made of water.”

Now he witnessed proof that if a man became fat enough, he too could be made of water.

The moment Xu Wenzu collapsed into the chair, wave after wave of flesh rolled from his belly toward his chin.

It took a very long time to settle.

“Brother Zheng… this official has worked himself thin…”

“Yes.”

Zheng Fan did understand.

Work that consumed enormous energy, especially long nights without rest, could easily leave the body bloated and weak.

“Aiya.

“I’ve been an official for half my life.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been this exhausted.”

“My Lord works tirelessly for the state.

“It truly has not been easy.”

“Enough empty words.

“Your elder brother only gets a moment to breathe because I can sit here talking to you.

“You have no idea how many government orders leave my headquarters every single day.

“Motherfucker!”

Vast quantities of supplies.

Vast numbers of convicts.

Wave after wave of people and material were being sent into Yinlang Commandery.

Every piece of it required Xu Wenzu, Commander-in-Chief of Nanwang City, to manage and coordinate.

Nobody knew whether the court feared someone might obstruct him or for some other reason but the vacant post of Prefect of Nanwang City had still not been filled.

Yet judging from what Zheng Fan had seen while entering the city although Nanwang City looked swollen with activity, everything remained orderly.

That alone proved Xu Wenzu’s ability.

Perhaps the court had transferred him here precisely because it valued his skill at handling large volumes of complicated work.

Fatty Xu truly had not disappointed those expectations.

Perhaps life was simply like this.

Zheng Fan still remembered that back in Tiger Head City, Xu Wenzu had once discussed with him how he should surrender the city if the Zhenbei Army rebelled.

Back then, most of Xu Wenzu’s energy had been spent on political struggle and choosing factions.

To put it simply he had looked more like a bureaucrat than an official.

Now although exhausted his spirit remained surprisingly good.

Not needing to spend every day scheming against people being able to put your head down and focus entirely on doing the work was also a kind of enjoyment.

“I already know what happened in the capital.

“Heh.

“Hahahahahaha…”

Xu Wenzu burst out laughing.

The two men had once sat below and tried to figure out the Marquis of Zhenbei’s intentions.

Neither had imagined their Marquis and the Yan Emperor were actually wearing the same pair of trousers.

It was the most fantastical outcome.

And at the same time the best possible outcome.

Great Yan would not have to endure terrifying internal attrition and civil war.

Instead it could mobilize all its strength for the largest, most expensive foreign campaign the state had launched in a century.

“My Lord.

“This subordinate just returned from the capital.

“I haven’t even gone back to Willow Fort yet.

“I came here to see you first.”

Xu Wenzu pointed at Zheng Fan.

Naturally, he had already guessed Zheng Fan’s intention.

“Don’t worry.

“I kept something for you.

“You and I— we are truly our own people.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

He did not understand exactly how he had become one of Xu Wenzu’s “own people” after turning into one of the Marquis of Jingnan’s hounds.

But when a superior took the initiative to build a relationship with you only an idiot would destroy the atmosphere.

“The Huo Clan of Huwei Commandery.

“They may be a century-old aristocratic house, but their clan has always valued martial training.

“Every Huo son knows how to fight.

“Your elder brother did not split them up.

“I didn’t assign them anywhere.

“I kept them here specifically for you.”

The convicts sent south were naturally not all intended to become laborers.

In truth, they were closer to reserve soldiers.

Or manpower used to reinforce local forces.

The Jingnan Army possessed its own fifty-thousand-man Rear Camp reserve.

And with an elite force like the Jingnan Army, blind expansion would only reduce combat effectiveness.

So the Jingnan Army had absorbed very few convicts.

Instead the forts, garrisons, and local troops of Yinlang Commandery had been ordered to take them in.

Local security forces were usually used as cannon fodder anyway.

Whether gold could be smelted from them well.

Melt them down and see.

And if one thought about the matter more darkly had the Imperial Court not sent aristocratic-clan convicts to fight precisely because it wanted to consume them?

If they did not die and remained within Yan they would become a hidden danger.

“The Huo Clan.

“How many?”

“A little over seven hundred.”

Traditionally, clan convicts like these would almost certainly be scattered before assignment.

Even ordinary refugees from one region were often deliberately broken apart when resettled.

Much less an entire clan.

But scattering them or keeping them together both had advantages and disadvantages.

If you could not suppress them then leaving the group intact might let them resist you as a whole.

At worst, they might even abandon their relatives held in the rear and defect to an enemy state.

But if you could suppress and tame them seven hundred clan sons bearing one surname were extremely unlikely to collapse and flee once thrown into battle.

Their cohesion would be greater.

“Good.

“I want them.

“As for armor, weapons, provisions…”

“Don’t worry!”

Xu Wenzu raised a hand toward Zheng Fan, signaling for him to pull him upright.

At the same time, he said, “If the people below want to call me biased, let them.

“Your elder brother is fat.

“My skin is thick.

“Heh heh.”

Truthfully—

Willow Fort did not lack grain, weapons, armor, or horses.

But with things like these the more, the better.

“Many thanks, My Lord.”

“Aiya.

“Don’t be distant.

“Absolutely don’t be distant.

“I’ve placed my bet on you.

“You had better make me proud.

“The war is about to begin.

“Truthfully— when the time comes, your elder brother here may have to put on armor and go into battle too!”

“…”

Zheng Fan.

Inside Zheng Fan’s head appeared an image of Fatty Xu mounted on a warhorse and charging.

Then, everyone else charging alongside him would hide behind Xu Wenzu to avoid arrows.

Or perhaps during a siege defense they could use Xu Wenzu as a sandbag and throw him behind the city gate to stop enemy troops from ramming it open.

Naturally, such scenes would almost certainly never happen.

If Great Yan’s army was ever reduced to the point where even Fatty Xu had to personally charge then the state would already be standing at the edge of destruction.

Xu Wenzu would certainly go to the battlefield.

He was Commander-in-Chief.

He could not possibly avoid leading troops.

But what he was doing now through his relationship with Zheng Fan was building his own trusted faction.

If Xu Wenzu knew that Shatuo Queshi, the man who had once smashed his carriage, was currently lying inside Willow Fort then he probably…

“This subordinate will not disappoint My Lord’s expectations!”

The man had given him this much face and this many benefits.

Zheng Fan truly did not mind offering a loud, sincere salute in return.

……

After leaving the Commander-in-Chief’s residence, Zheng Fan followed one of Xu Wenzu’s trusted Lieutenant Commanders to a military drill field inside the city.

The grounds were packed with people.

A large number of convicts were being held there.

Some wore wooden cangues.

But most were physically unrestrained.

They were simply confined within designated sections.

Armored soldiers with bows and crossbows guarded the perimeter.

Inside military officers and clerks moved constantly between the groups.

A’Ming, following behind Zheng Fan, quietly said, “It really does look like a livestock market.”

“Yes.”

Zheng Fan nodded in agreement.

“Master.

“If this war goes badly— then Yan is going to have enormous problems.”

“Mm.”

Zheng Fan could feel it too.

Before, he had admired the grand courage of the Yan Emperor and the two Marquises.

Only now did he truly understand the volcanic pressure hidden beneath that grandeur.

Perhaps before—

Yan had possessed only one Zheng Fan.

Now the Yan Emperor had personally manufactured countless Zheng Fans.

If the war against Qian went wrong and if anything happened to even one of those three men then all these people carrying the fires of revenge in their hearts…

One had to remember the majority of elite people in this world still carried aristocratic-clan labels.

If things truly went wrong—

Yan could easily fall into another era resembling the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

“Lord Zheng.

“The Huo Clan is this way.”

The Lieutenant Commander assigned by Xu Wenzu led Zheng Fan toward one of the fenced sections.

Behind the fence sat a crowd of people.

One could clearly see an internal order among them.

At that moment, a man in the crowd stood and walked forward on his own.

His gaze fell first on the Lieutenant Commander.

Then finally on Zheng Fan.

In an extremely arrogant tone, he called, “Well then.

“Which lord plans to buy us back?”

“Insolence!”

The Lieutenant Commander immediately rebuked him.

Zheng Fan, however, did not have time to grow angry at the man’s attitude.

First he believed that no matter how tightly united or unruly a group might be, once he brought them back and handed them to Liang Cheng and the Blind Man for reform, there should be no serious problem.

Second his attention had already been drawn toward the neighboring enclosure.

Just as he had noticed this man at first glance during former Commander-in-Chief Xiao Dahai’s funeral he noticed him again now.

The man leaned there as though lost in thought.

Zheng Fan temporarily ignored the Huo Clan troublemaker.

He walked toward the neighboring fence and tapped it lightly.

“Brother Zuo?”

The moment the man heard the address his body trembled.

Then he turned toward Zheng Fan.

Both hands immediately seized the bars.

He shouted excitedly, “Brother Zheng— no, no!

“Lord Zheng!

“Lord Zheng!

“Please show mercy!

“Please!

“Take me!

“Take me!”

(End of Chapter)