Late Tang Dynasty: Descendants of the Imperial Clan

His officers were baffled by his reaction, and one of them asked:

"General, the letter was only recently sent out, why bring it back?"

Song Wentong ignored him and ordered his men to chase after him.

After the messenger left to carry out his orders, he paused, turned around, and his expression was indescribably complex. He glanced at everyone in the hall, noticing the confusion in their eyes, and after a moment of contemplation, he slowly spoke:

"Gentlemen, do you know why I ordered my troops to seize Wugong County overnight?"

The commander clasped his hands and said:

"The general wants to take advantage of the allied forces' great victory to recover lost territory for the court and make military achievements so that we can gain a foothold in western Beijing."

"good."

Song Wentong nodded.

"I originally thought that since Prime Minister Zheng, with his high position, has been appointed as a military governor and has also recently taken on the post of commander-in-chief of the four regional armies, although he has some arrogant and fierce generals in Fengxiang and Longyou, most of them are local bullies and may not be of one mind with him. He is new to the area and what he lacks most is capable people. Therefore, I thought that by leveraging my achievements in capturing cities and taking enemy prisoners, I could be a little reserved in my letter and make Prime Minister Zheng think that I, Song Wentong, am a capable person, so that he would take the initiative to recruit me. In this way, when I submit to him, I will not be living under someone else's roof, but rather waiting for a good price to buy my services. He will gain talent, and I will gain power, which is a win-win situation."

At this point, his tone shifted, becoming more somber:

"But you just heard it too. Under Prime Minister Zheng's command is a fierce general who can lead a hundred cavalrymen to charge into enemy lines and slay Shang Rang amidst ten thousand troops. Such skill is unmatched, not only by you and me, but also by anyone else in the entire world. With such a figure by Prime Minister Zheng's side, what are my meager achievements of capturing a city and taking prisoners?"

The officers on either side, upon hearing this, finally understood, but some still remained unconvinced and said:

"General, why belittle yourself? Our eight hundred men conquered Wugong and captured several times more prisoners than we did. This achievement is not bad at all."

"It's not bad."

Song Wentong shook his head.

"But the problem lies with that letter of mine. You haven't seen the wording in it. In order to wait for a better price, my tone was somewhat arrogant, and I wasn't particularly respectful to Minister Zheng. If Minister Zheng had no one else to rely on, he would at most think I was arrogant and conceited after reading my letter. But now that he has such a fierce general under his command, what will he think if my letter is sent to him again? He will think that I, Song Wentong, am arrogant, conceited, and don't know my own limitations. That would not be waiting for a better price, but cutting off my own path."

After his analysis, the generals finally understood and their expressions changed.

The hall fell silent for a moment, and the officers looked at each other, all somewhat hesitant.

One person said cautiously:

"General, the letter has been retrieved, but what should we do next? Should we rewrite it and send it again?"

Song Wentong paced back and forth in the hall a few steps, then suddenly stopped, turned around, and his gaze became serious:

"There is only one way: I will personally go and pay my respects to Minister Zheng."

Upon hearing this, all the generals were taken aback.

Song Wentong continued:

"Since we can't wait for a higher offer, we might as well lower our stance. I will personally go to Mei County to offer the city and prisoners to Minister Zheng in person, to show my willingness to serve him. Once Minister Zheng sees my sincerity, he will naturally not care about those empty formalities. Only then will our future truly be secured."

After hearing these heartfelt words, everyone realized how deep Song Wentong's plans were; he was actually betting his entire fortune on serving Zheng Tian.

After a moment of silence, they all clasped their hands in greeting and said:

"I am willing to go with the commander."

Song Wentong nodded, a slight smile finally appearing on his lips, but he remained quite cautious.

"No, tomorrow I will lead my soldiers to escort the captured officers and generals to present them to the authorities. You must guard the city carefully and not act rashly."

Upon hearing his instructions, the officers and soldiers had no objections and readily agreed.

Song Wentong nodded and said no more. Looking at the darkening sky outside the building, he was already planning what to say and do when he saw Zheng Tian.

-----------------

As dusk fell, there was hardly any smoke rising from chimneys in Mei County.

Li Cenji rode his horse behind Zheng Tian's carriage, slowly passing through the long street that led directly from the west gate to the county government office.

The street surface was made of rammed earth, and after several days of sunny weather, fine yellow dust would be kicked up when a horse's hoof stepped on it.

Yellow sand drifted down, landing on the crooked doors by the roadside, on the strings of dried vegetables drying under the eaves, and on the hair of the people huddled in the corners, too afraid to look up.

It was the perfect time to light a fire and cook.

In peaceful times, the aroma of millet porridge would have filled this street long ago.

The firelight from the stoves in every household would cast a warm yellow glow on the window paper, children would chase and play with rough earthenware bowls at the alley entrance, and women would shout to call their husbands home for dinner.

At this moment, five or six out of ten households on both sides of the long street had their doors closed, with tattered peach wood charms pasted on the door panels, their color faded to white.

Although some houses had their doors open, there was hardly anyone in sight. Only a few wisps of very thin smoke timidly rose from the low rooftops, as if even lighting a fire to cook was a fear of bringing disaster.

At the east end of the street, there was a shop with one side of its door smashed, leaning crookedly against the door frame, revealing the dark interior.

A few fragments of coarse pottery lay scattered at the entrance. It was an overturned bowl, with half a dried-out black flatbread stuck to the bottom, crawling with ants. Fortunately, the people weren't completely starving yet, otherwise the ants wouldn't have gotten to eat such a moldy flatbread.

A broken bamboo basket lay overturned beside it, the dried dates inside rolled all over the ground, trampled to a pulp, mixed with the mud, leaving only a few dark red fragments.

If you walk further ahead, you'll reach the entrance of an alley.

A row of clothes hung out to dry in the alley; they were coarse linen and short brown garments, patched upon patched, swaying weakly in the evening breeze.

Underneath the clothes sat a boy, about seven or eight years old, shirtless, with ankles as thin as two withered sticks.

He was holding an even smaller baby in his arms, and he was using his finger to dip into the water leaking from the earthenware pot and feeding it to the baby little by little.

The child, sucking on his finger, neither cried nor fussed, stared with his big, dark eyes at the group of people passing by the alley entrance. There was no curiosity in his eyes, only a timid fear.

This is what Li Cenji saw.

Something suddenly tugged at his heart.

He had seen that child's eyes in photographs from later generations, in the lenses of war correspondents, amidst the ruins of cities ravaged by artillery fire.

But now, that gaze is right in front of him.

Visible and close at hand.

When the boy saw him looking over, he instinctively hugged the child in his arms tighter, lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, like a frightened cat, but he didn't even dare to run away, for fear of attracting more attention.

Li Cenji quickly looked away.

He dared not look any longer, fearing that if he looked any longer, the child's eyes would be filled with even more fear.

Across the alley, an old man wrapped in tattered burlap squatted on his doorstep.

A new piece of white paper was pasted on the door behind him.

The white paper was cut into neat squares, with rice paste glued to the door panel at the four corners. A few words were written crookedly on it, the ink stains blurred by the ink.

Li Cenji couldn't recognize what was written, but he could tell what it was: a funeral banner.

Poor families who couldn't afford white cloth and banners could only cut white paper and paste it on their doors as a way to summon the souls of the deceased.

His gaze swept to the side, and his heart sank.

On this street, there are more than just one or two doors with white paper pasted on them.

Every three or five households, there is a door covered with white paper, as if it was recently pasted, and the paper still shows traces of damp paste.

The white paper was blindingly white in the twilight.

"Many people have died here."

He said in a low voice.

Wang Lu rode beside him without answering.

The old soldier Ma had somehow acquired a flatbread in his hand, and he was slowly breaking it apart, stuffing pieces into his mouth one by one.

His gaze swept over the doors covered with white paper, then over the faces huddled in the corners, and finally landed on Zheng Tian's carriage ahead, without saying a word.

Li Cenji glanced at the houses further away.

One of the earthen walls had collapsed halfway, with rafters sticking out from the collapse. There were some charred beams piled up at the collapse site, the scorch marks were old, probably burned when the city was in chaos.

An old man squatted under the earthen wall, with a broken iron pot in front of him, its bottom facing up on the ground.

He was holding a stone in his hand, tapping the bottom of the pot repeatedly, whether he was trying to flatten it or just had nothing else to do, it was unclear.

He knocked twice, then looked up and met Li Cenji's gaze.

The old man's eyes were very calm, as calm as a stagnant pool.

He looked at Li Cenji for a moment, without flinching or showing anger. He simply lowered his head again after seeing Li Cenji pass by and continued banging on the bottom of his pot.

Clang, clang, clang.

The voice was monotonous and hoarse, echoing through the empty street, like something tapping against Li Cenji's heart.

The soldiers, clad in armor and with swords at their waists, rode their horses on the street, causing the mud walls of the thatched huts along the roadside to crumble and crumble.

The further into the city you go, the more people there are.

When the people saw this group of armed men approaching from afar, they scattered to the side of the road like sparrows being driven away, heads down and shoulders hunched, not daring to even look up.

Several teenagers hid behind a broken wooden cart at the alley entrance, peering over the shaft. They were pulled back by an adult, followed by a low scolding and a few slaps.

Li Cenji initially thought these people were simply afraid of soldiers:

In this world, the common people are like sheep seeing wolves when they see soldiers in armor; it is normal for them to avoid them.

But after riding his horse for half the length of the street, he realized something was wrong.

These people seemed to have not only fear in their eyes, but also hatred.

The original owner was a martial artist, and Li Cenji inherited everything from him, making him particularly sensitive to such hostile gazes.

He simply turned his face and looked in the direction from which the gaze was directed.

In the shadows at the alley entrance, behind a half-open door and through the cracks in a dilapidated window, a pair of eyes were watching them.

Li Cenji did not avoid their gaze and met their eyes.

When those people saw him looking at them, they all lowered their heads and hurriedly turned away, as if afraid of being recognized.

But Li Cenji couldn't mistake the hostility in those eyes.

That wasn't directed at him personally. In their eyes, he might not have been anything special; he was just a general riding a tall horse, no different from the other hundreds of other mounted generals.

That hostility was directed at the entire group.

Li Cenji remained silent for a moment, then spurred his horse closer to Wang Lu and lowered his voice:

"Wang Bingma Shi"

Wang Lu was squinting as he surveyed the street corners on both sides when he heard this, so he turned his head to the side.

This right wing military commander was in his fifties and had served in the army for over thirty years. His square face was etched with the marks of time, and his beard was half white.

He was a man of few words, and although he had more seniority in the army than Li Changyan, he had never stood out.

"What does Jingzhi have to say?"

Wang Lu's voice was not loud, and he was speaking in a low voice.

Li Cenji gestured towards the few houses with white sails hanging on the side of the street and whispered:

"These people have probably suffered not only from the rebels."

He paused, then said,

"The rebels looted, and the people hated them. But when the Tang army recaptured the city, the people should have lined the streets to welcome them. But look at their eyes, they hate us too."

Li Cenji had already made a guess, which is why he said that; all he wanted was Wang Lu's confirmation.

Wang Lu followed his gaze and glanced at the side of the street.

Beneath those white sails, one could vaguely see simple memorial tablets inside the doors, the incense and candles long since burned out, leaving only a few broken pieces.

He didn't answer immediately, but instead turned his gaze back to Zheng Tian's carriage in front of him, remaining silent for a long while.

"Li Duxiao".

Wang Lu finally spoke, his voice so low that only the two of them could hear it.

"I've served in the army for over thirty years and have seen more than you. And some things in the army become commonplace after a while. If the commander-in-chief isn't strict, an army can do anything on the first night after entering a city. I wasn't there when Commander Tang entered the city the other day, so I can't speak ill of him. But I've seen this a lot in the army over the years: before attacking a city, the generals promise not to sheathe their swords for three days, and the soldiers naturally fight bravely. After the city is captured, everyone loots, and then the generals come out to enforce discipline, killing a few who have gone too far as a warning to others and to win over the people."

He stopped there and didn't say anything more.

Li Cenji, however, had already understood.

Mei County, a small town that had fallen into disrepair over the years, should not be worth Tang Hongfu promising to plunder. That leaves only one possibility:

Tang Hongfu did not enforce military discipline when he entered the city.

It's unclear whether he was negligent or tacitly approved of the matter to boost morale.

Li Cenji suddenly recalled Zheng Tian's evaluation of Tang Hongfu in the central command tent that day:

"He's just getting old and has been a devout Buddhist for a long time, which is why he seems to have the composure to remain calm even if Mount Tai collapses in front of him. In reality, his vigor is not what it used to be, and his mind is not as sharp as it used to be."

Li Cenji was still unaware of this veteran's military skills, but his leniency in managing his subordinates and lax military discipline were probably even worse than his military prowess.

The people of Mei County had been waiting for days, finally seeing the Tang army recapture the city, only to be met with a pack of wolves disguised as government troops.

Li Cenji tightened his grip on the reins slightly, but said nothing.

He was merely a cavalry commander, while Tang Hongfu was the former military governor of Shuofang, whose seniority, rank, and military strength far surpassed his.

He was even less inclined to comment at this time. He was there to attend a banquet, and Tang Hongfu was the host. If he said something inappropriate at this juncture, he would only cause trouble for Zheng Tian.