Over two hours later, the Xiazhou forces pursuing the enemy finally made their slow return.
Hong Chenglüe had managed to slip away after all—the fellow was slicker than a loach—but He Chunhua had brought down another thirty to forty Xunzhou outriders.
Factoring in the casualties sustained during the raid on this camp, Hong Chenglüe had barely two hundred men left at his disposal.
After a night of relentless rushing back and forth, either riding at full tilt or leading men into the fray, He Chunhua no longer hid his fatigue. He asked He Lingchuan, "How are the grain wagons?"
"Thirty-four were burned, but we managed to salvage quite a bit of grain, which is being sorted out now." He Lingchuan hadn't been idle either. "Preliminary estimates put our total losses between last night and tonight at roughly fifteen hundred dan."
The rock wolf Lu Xin had mauled quite a few Xunzhou soldiers as well, at the cost of taking two arrows to the body and a saber slash across his right paw. Lingguang, the medicine ape, was currently bandaging him up.
He Chunhua exhaled a long breath of stale air. "Acceptable." That meant he still had nearly nine thousand dan left—he wouldn't be arriving at the front lines empty-handed.
He then began inquiring about the fighting in the main camp.
Wu Shaoyi had received his pigeon dispatch and prepared for battle ahead of time, which was why Hong Chenglüe hadn't succeeded in pulling off another surprise attack.
Still, with only about four hundred government soldiers left behind against three hundred enemy cavalry, the Xiazhou troops had fought an exceptionally grueling battle. Before the Xunzhou cavalry had even breached the abatis, they had begun unleashing volleys of arrows and hurling fire. Fortunately, Wu Shaoyi had already ordered water drawn to drench the tarpaulins and various equipment, so this wave of fire attacks was largely ineffective.
The essence of raiding a camp lay in the element of surprise; if one failed to catch the defenders unawares, the effectiveness plummeted.
Hong Chenglüe then ordered men to hurl explosives. However, the grain wagons were scattered and concealed, so the gunpowder caused limited destruction.
With neither of his opening assaults succeeding, Hong Chenglüe could tell at a glance that the defenders had been prepared well in advance.
Then Elder Liang had personally stepped in to tangle with Hong Chenglüe. Had he not, and had the man gone on an all-out rampage, the Xiazhou troops would have suffered far greater casualties.
The cost was that Elder Liang had sustained serious injuries to his right shoulder and ribs.
He was adept in arts and sorcery; going toe-to-toe on the battlefield with a military commander like Hong Chenglüe put him at a natural disadvantage.
While Elder Liang's disciples treated his wounds, He Chunhua stood by. Chuanyun Pavilion had put forth tremendous effort to defend the camp tonight, and Governor-General He expressed his gratitude. It had also served as an opportunity to test the mettle of Chuanyun Pavilion's disciples, and He Chunhua was quite satisfied.
As for the soldier who had neglected his sentry duty by deliberately dozing off, military law was carried out that very night, and his head rolled.
At daybreak, Zeng Feixiong returned at the head of his troops.
Seeing the men march into the camp with their chests puffed out and heads held high, He Lingchuan knew they had won.
Sure enough, Zeng Feixiong strode forward with wind beneath his feet to report. His first words were, "My lord, Baili Qing has been executed!" A soldier behind him presented a severed head whose eyes remained wide open in death—it was indeed Baili Qing.
"Good, good!" He Chunhua's spirits lifted, feeling as though most of the pent-up frustration in his chest had finally cleared. "Tell me about the battle at the pit mine."
As it turned out, the Xunzhou men left behind at the abandoned pit mine were all wounded or logistics personnel, with only fifty true defenders. Against such feeble opposition, and with Zeng Feixiong launching a calculated surprise attack against an unsuspecting enemy, the foe had been entirely unable to mount any effective resistance.
By that time, however, Baili Qing had already awakened and directed two of his officers to lead the remnants into the mine tunnels. Inside, it was narrow and dark; so long as men were stationed to guard the rear, the government troops could hardly force their way in.
Their reliance, of course, lay in the fact that the tunnels had an exit leading to the rear mountain.
Yet Jiao Tai had already led men to kill the Xunzhou guards and seize that exit. The moment he spotted Zeng Feixiong's signal from the front mountain, he immediately set fuses and blasted the mountainside, utterly destroying the tunnel exit.
Baili Qing and his men were trapped inside the mine shaft, unable to escape from either end.
Then Jiao Tai ordered fires lit to pump smoke deep into the tunnels.
Choked to tears and gasping for breath, the Xunzhou men had no choice but to emerge from the front entrance with their hands raised in surrender.
Following He Chunhua's orders, Zeng Feixiong confiscated all their weapons and gave the command to execute them—leaving none alive!
The first to be beheaded was Baili Qing.
Disposing of the prisoners' corpses was straightforward: they tossed them back into the tunnels and used the remaining explosives to seal the entrance shut.
Looking at Baili Qing's severed head, He Chunhua chuckled softly. "Hong Chenglüe's generous gift—I accept it."
Zeng Feixiong added, "One of Baili Qing's subordinate officers, a man named Fu Xin, was still hurling vile curses at Hong Chenglüe right before his execution. Seeing that, I let him go, along with a dozen or so soldiers under him. Out of one hundred and thirty-six captives, only sixteen were spared." It was practically just rounding down the remainder.
He Chunhua nodded. "Very good. Let him go back and make life miserable for Hong Chenglüe."
Hadn't Hong Chenglüe wanted to use his hand to dispose of these burdens?
How could he let the man have his way?
Once this officer named Fu returned, burning with resentment, he was bound to oppose Hong Chenglüe at every turn. That was far more useful than simply cutting off his head.
He Lingchuan had a sudden thought and chimed in, "What about Dong Rui?"
Dong Rui couldn't have died so quietly, could he?
"He leaped onto that strange bird of his right away and flew off skimming the ground," Zeng Feixiong admitted with a sheepish look. "Right as we finished our first volley of arrows. With the trees blocking our line of fire, we couldn't bring him down."
He Lingchuan patted him on the shoulder.
Just as expected. Dong Rui's talent for escaping was perpetually maxed out.
Zeng Feixiong retrieved the storage ring and returned it to He Lingchuan. "Many thanks, Eldest Young Master. Having those explosives spared us a great deal of trouble."
After he left, He Lingchuan turned to head back to his tent as well, only to be stopped by his father.
"Chuan'er, where is that comb?"
"Hm?" He didn't understand at first. "Which comb?"
"The comb you took from Hong Chenglüe's house in Bailu Town," He Chunhua said. "Or more accurately, the one his neighbor took."
"Oh, I have it." Hong Chenglüe had been meticulous and emptied out his home before leaving Bailu Town, but man proposes and heaven disposes. The old woman next door had long since swiped a comb from his house, and He Lingchuan had obtained it from her, with strands of hair still wound around it.
Without overthinking it, he pulled out the comb and handed it over.
He Chunhua did not take it. "Can you tell whether the hair belongs to a man or a woman?"
"...I can try." He Lingchuan thought for a moment, then whistled.
A few breaths later, the rock wolf Lu Xin emerged from a dark corner, wagging his stiff tail at him.
He Lingchuan held the comb forward. "Sniff the hair on this and tell me if its owner is a man or a woman."
The rock wolf opened his jaws wide in a yawn. "Twenty jin of beef."
He Lingchuan wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. "Such a simple task as wiggling your nose, and you're demanding that much?" It had only been a few months—how had an honest tundra wolf turned into this?
"You want to do it yourself?"
"Fine, fine," He Lingchuan relented. "Put it on my tab. Once we get back to Dunyu, I'll buy you top-grade beef."
The old woman had sworn she had never used the comb on her own head. Moreover, the hair had a brownish tint, making it unlikely to belong to an old woman.
The rock wolf pressed his damp nose close and sniffed deeply.
His sense of smell was several times keener than that of an ordinary hound, capable of constructing a three-dimensional image in his mind purely from scent molecules.
"A woman, early thirties, poor health, taking medicine year-round." The rock wolf pulled a disgusted face. "Such a stench of herbal medicine, it's nearly drowning my snout."
Only then did He Chunhua gladly take the wooden comb, praising his son, "Well done!"
He Lingchuan asked him, "Father, what do you want this comb for?"
"Just being prepared." He Chunhua shrugged. "Didn't Hong Chenglüe's neighbor say the husband and wife were devoted to each other?"
"Yeah. Hong Chenglüe took painstaking care of his sickly wife, serving her medicinal decoctions every day, and supposedly gave her full-body massages every few days to keep her muscles from atrophying. The old woman said she never once heard them quarrel." Living in shanties like that with paper-thin walls, neighbors could hear practically anything just by leaning against the partition.
"Good, good." He Chunhua nodded. "By the way, how are your injuries?"
"Nothing serious. I'll tend to them now." He Lingchuan turned to leave as well; with a medicine ape on hand, minor wounds like these were easily handled.
He did not know that after he departed, He Chunhua issued orders to receive no visitors and instructed his personal guards to watch the entrance strictly. He Chunhua himself took black cloth to seal every crack in the tent where light might leak through.
What Governor-General He did inside the tent, no one knew.
It wasn't until over an hour later, as the eastern sky faintly brightened with dawn.
The night of soaring blood and slaughter was finally over. He Chunhua stepped out of the tent, facing the rising morning sun, and took a deep breath.
He summoned two men and gave quiet instructions.
Receiving their orders, the two spurred more than thirty riders into a gallop.
Once full daylight broke, He Chunhua issued orders to the main host:
"Break camp! Move out!"
No more resting; the grain convoy had to reach the front lines as quickly as possible.
Having ultimately won the defensive battle last night, the army's morale had risen, and no one objected to setting off immediately. Xinhuang Town was destitute, and regular soldiers were forbidden by military discipline from leaving camp, so staying here was little different from camping out in the wilderness.
He Lingchuan, however, requested temporary leave. Leading a dozen of his subordinates westward, he rode for dozens of li before locating the ground where they had fought so bitterly earlier, and gave Maotao a proper burial.
"When the Ghost Festival comes, no matter where I am, I'll burn paper money and paper effigies for you," He Lingchuan said to the newly erected grave marker. "I'll have an old master craftsman make you a few paper lasses with long legs and slender waists. Guaranteed to be just your type, every last one."
This had been Maotao's wish in life; it could still be fulfilled in death.
The rest of the grain convoy's journey was smooth sailing.
When passing through the perilous mountain passes, He Chunhua sent scouts ahead and kept the entire column on high alert. Yet until everyone had safely passed through, nothing happened.
He Chunhua had already deduced that Hong Chenglüe had suffered too severe a blow to strike again, and after clearing this natural barrier, he finally set his mind at ease.
From here on out, it was all flat plains.
Taking stock of the fighting over the past two days, he and Hong Chenglüe had both scored wins and losses. Yet Hong Chenglüe had started with more than six hundred men and now had barely two hundred left, losing over half his force; all in all, Hong Chenglüe had come out worse.
It was truly last night's mutual raids that had decided the outcome; otherwise, the grain convoy would not have passed through today's treacherous pass so easily.
Marching across the plains was swift. Two days later, the grain convoy finally arrived at the northern front!
General Zhao Pan, tasked with guarding the frontier, had received word and was already waiting by the roadside.
Looking ahead, He Lingchuan saw dense swarms of soldiers; the welcoming ceremony was grand indeed.
Chapter 273