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In the distance, beacon fires raged without end, yet within the main command tent atop the mountain, all remained silent.
Gongsun Yin strode quickly inside, his voice betraying barely contained excitement. “You ordered the soldiers at the foot of the mountain to scrape bark and dig up roots, creating the illusion that our provisions on the mountain have run out, the rebel band truly took the bait! Believing we’ve been without food for days, they’ve begun slaughtering pigs and roasting sheep in great display, trying to unsettle our troops!”
Xie Zheng’s wounds were far from light; his complexion was still pale. A loose outer robe hung upon him as he leaned against the head of the bed. Through the folds of fabric, the white bandages around his shoulder could be faintly seen. Between his slender fingers, he held a map of the mountainous terrain.
His refined brows and eyes carried a trace of languor as he lifted his gaze and asked, “Was the letter delivered to the reinforcements at the foot of the mountain?”
Gongsun Yin replied, “It was sent by the gyrfalcon yesterday.”
Xie Zheng cast aside the map in his hand. “Make some noise, stall the rebel forces so that the reinforcements below can burn their supplies.”
He seemed to mean to rise, but as soon as he moved, sharp pain lanced through his chest wound. His fine brows furrowed with frost. “How is Sui Yuanqing these days?” he asked.
Gongsun Yin said, “He’s been exposed to wind and rain, surviving on a bowl of thin porridge a day. Yesterday he seemed to have developed a fever. I saw he wouldn’t die from it, so I didn’t send the military physician.”
Cold wind blew ceaselessly against the tent curtains. Pale daylight slanted in, falling across Xie Zheng’s face. He gave a cold tug at the corner of his lips. “Drag Sui Yuanqing to the front lines. The rebels roast meat—then roast him too.”
Gongsun Yin instantly understood his meaning and shook his head with a faint smile. “If that fire roasts Sui Yuanqing, I fear it will burn straight to the heart of Prince Changxin. With bait like him, the rebels will surely take the hook.”
This was a stratagem of “luring the tiger from the mountain”—to mislead the rebels into thinking they were short on rations, draw them forth with promises of surrender, then use Sui Yuanqing as a bargaining weight to tie down most of the enemy’s forces. Meanwhile, the reinforcements from Yan and Ji Prefectures waiting below could seize the chance to strike deep and set the rebels’ granaries aflame.
Once the rebels too lost their provisions, no matter how many troops they had stationed above or below, after a day or two of attrition, the balance of attack and defense would inevitably shift.
Gongsun Yin left the main tent and was about to escort Sui Yuanqing to the front when a personal guard suddenly came running up, face ashen. “Master Gongsun, terrible news! Miss Fan went to raid the enemy camp in the back mountain!”
Gongsun Yin’s face changed sharply. He glanced back toward the command tent—far enough that Xie Zheng likely hadn’t heard—then barked, “Wasn’t she supposed to be out hunting? How did she end up at the enemy camp?”
The guard replied, “On our way back from the hunt, we heard the alarm horns sounding at the mountain foot. Once Miss Fan heard the rear mountain was lightly guarded, she rushed straight over to attack.”
Gongsun Yin paced a few steps back and forth before quickly deciding on a countermeasure. “The Marquis is still gravely injured—this must not reach his ears for now. Take a hundred light cavalry and pursue at once. You must keep that young lady safe.”
The guard dared not delay and left immediately to rally men.
Gongsun Yin could only mutter to himself in headache, “At such a critical juncture, let nothing go amiss…”
· ─ ·✶· ─ ·
Rear mountain.
Fan Changyu and the last remaining personal guard, along with eight junior soldiers, lay prone upon a mound concealed by shrubs, each wearing a crude cap woven from branches and vines.
Fan Changyu had been watching the winding goat trail leading down toward the mountain foot for some time and finally couldn’t hold back her confusion. “There are no sentries here?” she asked.
The guard replied, “They’re all hidden in the forest.”
Fan Changyu made an acknowledging sound. She was just wondering whether they needed permission from the sentries at this mountain pass before proceeding to the enemy camp when a patrol of friendly troops appeared along the winding path. Their uniforms bore fresh bloodstains; they looked around warily as they walked, bows drawn with arrows nocked—something about them seemed off.
Fan Changyu stared at the mountain path for a long while but still couldn’t tell where they had come from. She whispered to the guard beside her, “Shift change?”
The guard seemed suspicious as well. He cupped his hands around his mouth and let out several sharp bird calls. In an instant, a storm of arrows whistled through the air like locusts, piercing into the bushes where they hid.
The guard’s face changed drastically. He tried to pull Fan Changyu into cover, but she moved faster—rolling on the ground, she dodged behind a large tree.
Some of the junior soldiers, panic-stricken, tried to rise and run—only to become living targets, shot through by arrows.
Fan Changyu watched the very same men who had hunted beside her not long ago collapse to the ground one after another, streams of blood gushing from their bodies, their eyes wide open even in death. Her lips pressed into a tight line; a heaviness welled in her chest as her sharp, leopard-like gaze fixed on the archers.
Even if she were slow-witted, she could tell something was wrong with these men.
The blood-stained uniforms on them were, eight or nine times out of ten, stripped from the corpses of Yanzhou soldiers.
After that volley of chaotic arrows, the group advanced with blades drawn, seemingly to confirm whether their targets were dead.
The personal guard crouched behind a tree opposite Fan Changyu made a silent gesture with his mouth—when the chance came, she should flee. Fan Changyu merely pressed her lips together and gave no reply.
When the rebels disguised as Yanzhou troops were only a few steps away, the guard suddenly let out a shout and charged. The surviving young soldiers, hands trembling around their knife hilts, also cried out to steel their nerves and rushed forward.
Fan Changyu saw that one of them was barely more than a half-grown boy. As he was about to charge out, she grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back. The youth kicked and struggled, shouting, “You’re a girl, run for your life! A son of Yanzhou will drag at least one enemy down with him, even in death!”
Fan Changyu cast him a glance. “You,” she said, “go report.”
Judging her distance, she flung him away with all her strength—the boy was hurled far down the slope.
A few rebels spotted her and advanced with blades raised. Seeing this, Fan Changyu drew both her bloodletting knife and bone-chopping knife. The two blades clashed together with a harsh metallic scrape. She didn’t retreat in the slightest; instead, gripping a knife in each hand, she charged straight toward the rebels.
The personal guard was highly skilled. After forcing back the rebels besieging him, he turned out of worry for Fan Changyu—and saw her cut one man down with a single stroke. Though she avoided the vital points, the rebel she struck didn’t rise again.
Alone, she wielded two butcher’s knives, spinning through the throng like a small whirlwind. What had begun as the rebels hunting them down was now turning into her chasing the rebels in return.
The guard stared in stunned disbelief, a rueful admiration welling in his heart. The woman their lord fancied truly was no ordinary girl.
The youth Fan Changyu had thrown clear also stood dumbstruck. When he came back to his senses, he scrambled to his feet and dashed off to deliver the message: the rebels had prepared two plans, creating a noisy diversion at the front while secretly launching a sneak attack from the rear mountain!
Before long, he encountered another messenger rushing back. The boy, seeing him bringing reinforcements, nearly wept with joy and pointed behind him. “Quick! The rebels disguised as our own have climbed the mountain!”
Remembering Gongsun Yin’s orders, the soldier immediately led a hundred light cavalry to aid them.
With reinforcements arriving, the rebels posing as Yanzhou troops were soon subdued.
A scout investigated every stronghold on the rear mountain and returned with a heavy shake of his head. “Our men—all shot dead by that volley.”
The guard who had fought beside Fan Changyu was furious. He seized the rebel captain who’d been captured alive and struck him twice, left and right.
The man spat a mouthful of bloody foam and laughed wildly. “The brothers who climbed the mountain, at least we dragged plenty down with us. Worth it!”
The guard smashed his fist into the man’s nose once more.
After a round of interrogation, they quickly learned how the rebels had made their way up the mountain.
They had donned the Yanzhou uniforms stripped from Yan soldiers fallen on the battlefield and pretended to be the relief force lingering at the mountain foot, lulling the mountain garrison into lowering their guard—then slaughtered them with a volley of arrows once they drew near.
Their purpose in climbing the mountain this time was to take advantage of the commotion at the front and rescue Sui Yuanqing.
Both personal guards proposed taking these rebels back to the camp to hand them over to the strategist and the Marquis of Wu’an for judgment.
Fan Changyu glanced down at the smoke rising from the mountain foot and said, “If they’ve all gone up the mountain, there should be no one left down below, right?”
The guard who had gone to fetch reinforcements, afraid she hadn’t given up yet, hurried, “Miss Fan, the rebel force is numerous and the deployments at the foot of the mountain are complex—it’s not advisable—”
“Wait a moment.”
Fan Changyu cut him off suddenly, seized a bound junior soldier, and walked off.
She flung the soldier behind a tree and pointed toward the foot of the mountain. “How many men do you still have down there? Where are they hiding?”
The captive spat arrogance, “I am not one of those cowards who clings to life—”
Before he finished, a brutal fist smashed into his nasal bone.
The junior soldier screamed; two streams of blood quickly flowed under his nostrils.
With a fierce expression, Fan Changyu pressed on, “Will you speak or not?”
“There are only a thousand men left at that pass, hiding at the foot to await reinforcement.”
Fan Changyu dragged him back. The other captured soldiers only heard the sound of someone being beaten and not the exact questions; seeing the man returned with his face smeared in blood, they all felt uneasy.
Fan Changyu hauled another captured boy over and asked the same questions.
This method she had once heard from Captain Wang: when interrogating prisoners at the county yamen, to prevent them from coordinating stories they were questioned separately, making it easy to tell truth from lies.
After questioning three or four, and receiving the same answers, she told the two personal guards, “Only a thousand men remain at the foot of the mountain; they’re all garrisoned at the base.”
The two guards exchanged glances. One said, “Miss Fan, wait a moment—allow me to go back and fetch more troops.”
After that guard returned to fetch reinforcements, Fan Changyu and the guard who had fought beside her led about a hundred or so light cavalry—troops Xie Zheng himself had trained—down the mountain to secretly observe the movements of the thousand rebels stationed below.
The mountain trails were steep; the cavalry dismounted, but those who qualify as cavalry are, by nature, far more physically hardy than infantry—one could take on two men easily. That was why the guards felt safe letting Fan Changyu descend.
They had planned to wait for the other guard to bring more men before acting, but a magnificent horse came galloping from afar. The scout on its back seemed to have said something to the rebel petty leader, and the thousand rebels guarding the mountain foot suddenly turned and followed the scout away.
Fan Changyu asked, “Why did they leave?”
The guard could not tell the reason, only, “Perhaps something happened on the front mountain.”
Fan Changyu understood the tactic of drawing men away; she said at once, “Then we must find a way to hold these people, otherwise what if the front mountain can’t hold?”
The guard hesitated a moment, but Fan Changyu had already set her aim and ran straight toward the rebel encampment lodged at that pass.
The guard, afraid Fan Changyu might get herself into trouble, had no choice but to follow her, and the rest of the soldiers rushed after them like a swarm.
Fan Changyu burst into the rebels’ camp tents, not searching for spoils but rummaging everywhere—for salt.
When she finally found the store of food and salt the rebels had hoarded, she shouldered two sacks of salt and ran.
Seeing this, the other soldiers followed suit, grabbing what provisions they could.
The rebels, who had only just left, turned back when they saw the Yanzhou troops from the mountain raiding their supplies and hurried to encircle Fan Changyu’s group.
This was only a small rebel outpost, and the stores were limited; even with over a hundred men, not everyone managed to fill a sack.
The guard, who had fought beside Xie Zheng for years, saw the rebels turning back and immediately ordered everyone to run. He also set the empty tents ablaze.
Fearing that Fan Changyu would struggle to run while carrying two sacks of salt, he took one from her to carry himself.
Fan Changyu, looking for all the world like a bandit raiding downhill, found her hands freed and, remembering that Changning and Yan Zheng had no blankets to sleep under at night, tore down two cloaks hanging inside the tents and ran with them too.
Passing by the place where the rebels had been cooking, she spotted a whole roast lamb still turning over the fire—bait meant to tempt the Yanzhou army on the mountain. Draping the cloaks over the salt sacks, she freed her hands again and snatched up the spit bearing the lamb.
The returning rebels saw her—one hand gripping a sack of salt, the other holding a whole roasted lamb—and running as fast as lightning. For a moment, they were completely dumbstruck.
The petty rebel leader on horseback drew his bow to shoot her.
But a scout riding up shouted, “General! The Yanzhou and Jizhou forces below are going to burn the granary, you must not lose the opportunity!”
The petty leader cursed, “The Yan dogs on the mountain have come down to rob my rations! They’re burning my main camp, can’t you see?”
He loosed the arrow, but the range was too far; warned by the guard’s cry of “Careful!”, Fan Changyu swung the salt sack onto her shoulder as a shield and successfully blocked the shot.
The furious rebels were just about to overtake the fleeing group laden with supplies when the guard who had gone for reinforcements returned, leading the Yanzhou troops from the mountain.
With a rain of arrows, the mountain troops forced the rebels to halt beyond range. In the end, the thousand troops of Chongzhou could only rage helplessly as Fan Changyu and her men carried the salt and grain back up the mountain.
Panting, Fan Changyu reached halfway up the slope and then noticed thick smoke rising in the distance.
She caught her breath and asked, “The rebels are setting fire to that mountain?”
The guard, seeing where the smoke rose from, burst into joy. He dropped his sack of salt onto the ground, collapsed, and laughed aloud. “There’s been rain for days, the mountain grasses are soaked through. The rebels can’t burn the mountain. It’s our men, they’ve burned the rebels’ granary!”
Fan Changyu’s reckless raid for provisions had, by accident, delayed the thousand men below, unwittingly helping the friendly forces who went to burn the enemy supplies.
The guard looked at her with newfound admiration. “Miss Fan, you’ve earned yourself a great merit this time!”
· ─ ·✶· ─ ·
But paper can’t contain fire forever. When Gongsun Yin suddenly deployed a large force toward the rear mountain, Xie Zheng grew alert. “Something happened in the rear?”
Gongsun Yin’s expression stiffened. “Some rebels disguised themselves as our men and slipped up the mountain, but all have been captured. The troops I sent were only to reinforce the defense.”
Xie Zheng narrowed his eyes. “She hasn’t returned from her hunt yet?”
Gongsun Yin knew he could hide it no longer. With a sigh, he admitted, “Miss Fan is at the rear mountain.”
Xie Zheng’s gaze turned cold. “Reckless! Knowing how dangerous it is there, how could you let her remain?”
He struggled to rise, but Gongsun Yin hurried forward to press him down. “I’ve already sent Xie Qi and Xiao Wu after her, along with a hundred light cavalry—they’ll bring Miss Fan back soon…”
Xie Zheng’s face was set in stern lines as he was about to brush Gongsun Yin’s hand away, when a personal guard suddenly burst into the tent in a flurry of movement, barely able to contain his excitement. “My lord! Miss Fan has returned!”
Xie Zheng’s expression eased slightly, and Gongsun Yin also breathed a sigh of relief.
A moment later, both men fell into sudden silence when they saw Fan Changyu stride into the tent—one arm cradling a crimson velvet cloak, the other carrying a whole roasted lamb.
