Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 506 Investigation
"Captain Ding, Captain Ding!" Halfway through dinner, the night watchman surnamed Yan suddenly came down from the tree. He was still chewing when he came down. "There are three columns of smoke rising near us."

"You're practically spitting food all over my face. Is there any need to be so anxious?" Hearing this, Ding Xiu perked up instantly. However, on the surface, he maintained a calm and composed demeanor. "Swallow it before you speak."

"Hmm." Ye Bushou quickly swallowed the bread, then opened the water bag and moistened his throat with the last bit of water in it.

"Tell me, where are they?" Ding Xiu walked forward calmly, and Li Xian, Ding Baiying, Su Laojiu, Cui Laoliu and other four people also gathered around.

Yan Yebushou pointed to the tree he had climbed. "There are columns of smoke directly north of that tree, northeast by north, and northwest by west. There seem to be quite a few inhabited areas further away, but they're too far away for me to see clearly."

"It doesn't matter how far it is," Ding Xiu waved his hand. "We just need to pick a suitable one among these three and kill them."

"Which one is the closest?" Su Laojiu came up and asked.

He really didn't want to continue walking north. After crossing the Great Wall, every step Su Laojiu took made him feel more and more anxious. The slightest movement would startle him.

"The closest column of smoke is to the northeast, by the north. It's only about two or three miles away. But the smoke is dense there. At a glance, there are at least ten or twenty columns, which must be a large settlement." Ye Bushou looked at Ding Xiu and shook his head slightly. "At least that's the case for the six of us. I think we'd better not go that way."

Before Ding Xiu could respond, Su Laojiu asked, "Who's the youngest?"

"The smallest settlement should be the one in the north direction. There are only three or four smoke columns there. And it's not very far away. It's only about three or four miles away from us." Ye Bushu said.

"Let's go there! It's better to put the money in pocket." Su Laojiu turned and looked at Ding Xiu.

"Hey!" Ding Xiu snorted. "Su Laojiu, you bastard, are you itching for a slap?"

"What, what happened?" Su Laojiu shrank his neck back.

"You've already said what you want to say, why are you still asking me?" Ding Xiu stared.

"Everyone's listening, so whoever asks the same question is different?" Su Laojiu was puzzled. He thought Ding Xiu would still ask the same questions.

"Bullshit!" Ding Xiu scolded. "If it doesn't matter who asks, then you might as well be the team leader. You unruly thing! Why don't you go to the main tent and talk to the general?"

"Well, then you say it." Su Laojiu smiled embarrassedly.

"You've already said everything, what else can I say?" Ding Xiu tilted his head and licked his teeth.

"This..." Ding Xiu looked like a wild beast staring at its prey, and Su Laojiu couldn't help but take a step back.

"Can you please stop talking nonsense?" Ding Baiying frowned. "You may not be a high-ranking official, but you're so arrogant. Let's get this done quickly."

Ding Xiu turned his head suddenly and gave Ding Baiying an even more ferocious expression than before. But Ding Baiying was not frightened at all and just rolled her eyes at him.

"Tsk." Ding Xiu retracted his gaze and looked at Ye Bu Shou. "Old Yan, where's the one to the northwest?"

"The one to the northwest is the farthest, and it should be more than five miles away from us. But it shouldn't be that far. If we walk faster, we will definitely get there before dark." Ye Bushou said.

"What about the scale?" Ding Xiu nodded.

"Somewhere in between." Ye Bu Shou thought for a moment. "Probably six or seven columns of smoke."

"Okay! Let's go find trouble with them." Ding Xiu made a decision.

"You don't have to be angry with me," Su Laojiu said. "The one in the north is a sure thing. Three or four plumes of smoke can only feed twenty people at most. If there are six or seven, the number of people will double. We'd better play it safe."

"I'm going to make your mother mad. This wild boar's nest in the middle is small, but it's sandwiched between two settlements, especially with a larger wild boar's nest next to it. If there's any noise, both sides will quickly gather around to support us. By then, you'll be attacked from both sides and you won't be able to escape. But if it's the settlement to the northwest, even if we accidentally make a noise, the first people to come will only be those from the settlement to the north." Although Ding Xiu was a vicious person, he didn't force everyone to obey his orders.

Of course, Ding Xiu couldn't suppress them even if he wanted to. These people weren't particularly loyal to the Emperor, let alone him, the first-time leader. To put it bluntly, what they were doing was a life-or-death business. If they couldn't explain it clearly, the subordinates wouldn't obey.

"There are six of us. Taking on a dozen people might be manageable, using the strategy of attacking the unprepared. But if there are more than thirty, it won't just be a case of two fists against four hands," Ding Baiying said cautiously. "If we're surrounded by enemies that outnumber us several times, even without waiting for reinforcements from either side, the people in the settlement will surround and kill us. Captain Ding, you need to think this through."

"First, don't get caught up in your preconceptions," Ding Xiu said, pointing at Su Laojiu. "Just because he said three or four plumes of smoke could feed twenty or so people doesn't mean three plumes equal twenty or thirty people. Second, as I've said before, the bandits are raiding Liaoning and Shenyang en masse, leaving their rearguards unguarded. Even if there are more than thirty people, they'll likely be primarily women. Even if the barbarians are barbaric, they can't all be wannabe generals like you. Finally, once we get there, we don't necessarily have to attack. We'll definitely observe for a while. If there are too many wild boars, we can just leave."

"Okay, I agree to go and take a look first." Ding Baiying frowned slightly, but still nodded.

"She agreed. What do you think?" The first person Ding Xiu looked at was Li Xian.

Li Xian always followed Ding Xiu's lead, so naturally he would not object.

Ding Xiu turned around and looked at Ye Bushou, whose surname was Yan.

"I obey your command." Ye Bushu also nodded.

"Cui Laoliu, what about you?" Seeing that Cui Laoliu didn't say anything, Ding Xiu simply called out his name and asked.

"The food in the bag can only last for four days at most. We can't waste any more time." Cui Laoliu said.

"That means I agree." Ding Xiu finally looked at Su Laojiu. "Now that you've said that, what else can I say?" Su Laojiu made up his mind, "Let's go!"

"Very good." Ding Xiu nodded with satisfaction. He walked over to the grain bag, picked up a Guangbing and handed it to the night waiter named Yan. "Eat one, and I'll have another one."

"Thank you, Captain Ding." Ye Bushou took the mooncake and smiled at Ding Xiu.

"Everyone, grab your weapons." Ding Xiu looked around at everyone, "Let's go cut heads and make a fortune!"

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Yan Yebushou's judgment was accurate. Before nightfall, a group of six arrived near the camp under his guidance.

"Stop!" Ye Bushou raised his hand and stopped the team with a very light shout.

The entire team squatted on the spot and each found a tree to use as cover.

Ding Xiu looked around to make sure there was nothing unusual around him, then he walked over to Ye Bu Shou and asked quietly, "What's wrong?"

"Look," Ye Bushou leaned over and pointed at the footprints on the ground. "This series of footprints was obviously left recently. We have reached their activity area."

"Patrol?" Ding Xiu asked.

"Not like it." Ye Bushou shook his head. "The footprints are far apart, like they were running. They don't patrol like that."

"What do you think it looks like?" Ding Xiu asked again.

"It's hard to say," Ye Bushou shook his head. "Just looking at these prints doesn't reveal much. It could be hunting, it could be escaping, or it could just be rushing back to dinner. In short, to determine the cause of these footprints, further observation is needed."

Ding Xiu thought Ye Bushou might have been joking, but when he turned his head, he still saw Ye Bushou's solemn, tense face. "No need to observe. Go scout and see if there's anything you can do. We'll be waiting here. If you're discovered, signal and run."

"Understood." Ye Bushou was responsible for this. Nodding, he followed the footsteps and went to investigate.

After Ye Bushou left, Ding Xiu turned around, wanting to remind the remaining four to remain vigilant. However, seeing that everyone had already grabbed their bows and arrows, he remained silent. Instead, he walked to a large tree and climbed up the trunk as he had done before.

Although Ding Xiu is not as capable as Ye Bushu, compared with others, Ding Xiu, an old Liaomin who came from a hunter family, is also considered a very good scout.

The headhunting teams hid themselves and remained alert, making no more noise. In the valley and woods at dusk, the only sounds left were the sounds of birds flying, animals running, and wind blowing through leaves.

During the heart-wrenchingly long wait, Li Xian's thoughts drifted back to the day Tieling City fell. Massacres, rapes, screams, and wild laughter; the entire city resembled a burning, crimson hell.

Perhaps in order to avenge his previous humiliation, or perhaps to politically comply with the so-called "Seven Great Hates", Nurhaci ordered a large-scale massacre of the Li clan after he captured Tieling.

However, this bloody massacre did not harm the eldest branch of the Li family, the lineage of Li Chengliang. This was because Ningyuan Earl Li Chengliang had moved his family to the capital long before. Furthermore, when Li Rubai was dismissed and returned to the capital, many of the wealthy sons of the family also fled west to the capital to avoid disaster.

In the end, only Li Xian, a distant relative with relatively little information, was left behind in Tieling to be slaughtered by Nurhaci's brutal soldiers. If he had not been away from home at the time and had not promptly concealed his identity, Li Xian would not even have had the opportunity to be rewarded to the Jurchen soldiers as a common trophy.

Later, Li Xian learned that on the day Tieling was captured, Ningyuanbo's third son, Li Ruzhen, a distant cousin much older than him, was in Shenyang. When the enemy attacked the city, Li Ruzhen commanded a large army but did not intervene to provide assistance.

Li Xian's mind sank once again into the excruciating pain. Gradually, all that remained in his ears were agonizing auditory hallucinations and the throbbing of his heart. Not only did he miss the subtle rustle of leaves in the wind, but even the distant cry of an eagle. Li Xian remained in this trance until Ye Bushou, the man surnamed Yan, reappeared in his field of vision. Only then did he snap back to his senses.

"What's going on?" Ding Xiu quickly came down from the tree.

"Huh!" Ye Bushou let out a long, foul breath. After swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Ye Bushou lowered his voice and said to the people who had gathered around him, "This camp is built on a slope near the stream. All the trees within thirty steps have been cut down. But I still found a tall tree on another slope that overlooked the camp and could see clearly what was going on inside." Ye Bushou's mouth was really dry, and he paused mid-sentence to lick his lips.

Ding Xiu untied the water bag from his waist and handed it to Ye Bushou, then dug out an unobstructed space on the ground. "Just draw a simple picture on the ground."

Ye Bu Shou drank all the water in the water bag in one breath. Ding Xiu didn't care. While collecting the water bag, he also handed over a dry branch he had picked up.

"If we are here, the slave camp must be here," Ye Bushu took the branch, first poked a point on the open ground, then made another point northwest of the first point, and drew two arcs with gaps with the second point as the center.

"This camp has a thatched mud house and twelve tents. The twelve tents are distributed around the mud house and surrounded by wooden barriers. Although this camp doesn't have a rammed earth fence, their wooden fence is quite tight, so it shouldn't be possible to get in. The camp has two entrances, one by the river and the other directly opposite the river entrance." Ye Bushou drew two parallel arcs not far from the western gap to represent the river. "The river entrance is open, while the opposite entrance is blocked by two large wooden chevaux de frise." As he spoke, Ye Bushou drew two straight lines in the eastern gap to represent the blockade.

"How many people are inside?" Ding Xiu asked.

"I'd guess there were 20 to 30 people, maybe even more. But just as you speculated before, there weren't many men in the camp," Ye Bushou replied as he recalled. "I observed from that tree for about a quarter of an hour. Besides the guards, I only saw three or four men walking around, and none of them were strong and muscular."

"What's the specific situation of the guard?" Ding Xiu nodded slightly, completely certain of his judgment. The strong laborers in this camp were summoned by the slave chief to plunder the west.

"There are two lightly armored guards at the open entrance by the river, and another guard behind the entrance blocked by barricades. There are no patrols in the entire camp. They are all very relaxed, especially the two guards guarding the open entrance. They were chatting the whole time I was observing them."

"Is there a watchtower?" Ding Xiu asked.

"There's no watchtower, otherwise I wouldn't dare to climb the tree." Ye Bushou couldn't help but make a judgment: "Captain Ding, everyone! This is a big fish, I think we can give it a try."

(End of this chapter)