Chapter Five: The Little People Really Have Talent

  After Wang Pu made his decision known, Xiao Qi, Da Hu Zi and Dao Hen Lian were shocked at first, but after the shock, the three quickly made a decision.

  Scarface's eyes gleamed with ferocity as he spoke in a harsh tone, "Since the general has made up his mind, there's nothing more to say. Even if Jian Nu's lair is a dragon's den or a tiger's lair, I, Scarface, will still go and take my chances. After all, the lives of my entire family are in your hands, General. For you, I'd willingly climb a mountain of knives or jump into a cauldron of boiling oil without batting an eyelid!"

  The big-bearded man clenched his iron fist and said fiercely: "Right, General, wherever you go, we'll follow!"

  Xiao Qi's blood was boiling with excitement, and he said: "Well said! If we're going to die, let's all die together. We won't be lonely on the road to the Yellow Springs!"

  Three people expressed their determination to Wang Pu. They were so loyal to Wang Pu, half because of gratitude and half because of their own interests.

  As long as Wang Pu doesn't die, the Wang family won't fall, they can continue to live a good life with fine clothes and food, their families can also follow them to eat well and drink well. If Wang Pu dies, the Wang family's power in Datong will melt away, as the Wang family's generals, they will lose their backing, and will become homeless and destitute, from then on becoming vagrants.

  The other thousand or so households of the Dings were about the same; their interests were all tied to Wang Pu's life and death, honor and shame.

  "Alright." Wang Pu nodded and said to Xiao Qi, "Xiao Qi, gather all the brothers together, I have something to tell them."

  Xiao Qi took orders and left.

  After the three loud gongs, the well-trained family guards quickly gathered and lined up in a neat military formation on the grassy riverbank, each holding their war horses. Wang Pu rode his horse slowly from the front of the array, and all the family guards' eyes followed him as he moved slowly. The current Wang Pu made these family guards feel somewhat unfamiliar, they even dared not to believe that the young man in front of them with a sharp gaze and an aura of murder was the Young Master Wang Pu they were familiar with.

  "Brothers, I won't waste words. This time we've gathered here for one thing only: we can no longer return to Songshan. The tens of thousands of Jianzhou slaves have surrounded the entire Songshan camp, and going back would be a dead end! Now there's only one road ahead of us that we can take - to head east into Liaodong, straight to Shengjing, and destroy the Jianzhou slaves' lair! Then we'll detour through Korea and return by sea to Dengzhou. This is our only way out!"

  Thousands of households are silent as swallows and sparrows, only the occasional neighing of war horses can be heard in the rustling wind and dust.

  "This time, our lone army's deep penetration into Liaodong will surely be a desperate fight to the death. We will be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Jin soldiers, with no reinforcements, no food or fodder, no rear guard, and not even any hope! Many of us, possibly all, will die in battle in Liaodong, and it's likely that our corpses won't even make it back to our hometowns."

  The air began to suffocate with a heavy, desperate atmosphere, and every household member's eyes revealed a hopeless expression. Humans fear death, no one wants to die. Wang Pu wanted exactly this effect. The Bible says that if you want to destroy something, you must first drive it mad. But Wang Pu's creed was: if you want to drive someone mad, you must first make them desperate. Only the madness that erupts from desperation is true madness, a beastly madness.

  This journey to Liaodong is fraught with danger, constantly facing the threat of annihilation. If we don't thoroughly mobilize the beastly nature of these family members and turn them into a group of inhuman wild beasts, it's fundamentally impossible to complete this perilous expedition!

  "But I'm telling you, there are two ways to die. One is like a coward, beheaded by the Jurchen slaves in desperation. The other is like a man, even if he dies, he must take down several Jurchen slaves with him, sleep with their women first, burn all their grain, destroy their cities, and make these Tungusic savages become penniless!"

  "Right, let's sleep with Jian Nu's woman first!"

  "Burn all of Jian Nu's grain!"

  "Kill all the slave owners!"

  "Send these Tungus devils back to their grandma's place!"

  The desperate household slaves, incited by Wang Pu, began to go wild, one by one with eyes wide open and red, roaring like beasts.

  Wang Pu urged his horse eastward, raised his right arm and swung it forward fiercely, shouting: "If you're a man, follow me!"

  This last sentence was like a spark thrown into a pile of dry firewood, and in an instant it ignited the most primitive beastly nature at the bottom of this group of family members. One by one they jumped on their horses and followed Wang Pu's back, sweeping towards the east. The east, a wheel of sunrise slowly rose above the horizon, and the entire western Liaoning land was like being stained with blood, all red.

  When Wang Pu led his troops of over a thousand men and horses to rush to Shengjing, Huang Taiji was waiting in the great camp for news of victory from all directions.

  Emperor Taizong of the Qing dynasty would never have imagined that a cavalry force of over 1,000 men led by General Wang Pu of Datong was already on its way to Shengjing!

  It was unthinkable for Huang Taiji, let alone others. Since Nurhaci's rebellion, the Later Jin army and the Ming army had fought hundreds of battles, with the Ming army rarely winning. Except for the Battle of Sarhu, which was launched by the Ming army, all other battles were initiated by the Later Jin army. In such a large environment, who would have thought that the Ming army would attack Shengjing?

  ■■■

  In the 14th year of Chongzhen (1641), the Great Ming Empire suffered a severe drought, and Liaodong was also scorched with thousands of miles of barren land, and the rivers were cut off. Therefore, Wang Pu led more than a thousand households to smoothly cross the Daling River and Liao River.

  At this time, Liaodong was no longer the prosperous scene of General Li Chengliang's defense of Liaodong decades ago due to the bloody massacres by Nurhaci and his son Hong Taiji. Guangning, Haizhou, Gaizhou, Fuzhou, Jinzhou and other guards had become barren lands, with no human habitation within a thousand miles. Wang Pu led his army from the Daling River all the way to the Liao River, and incredibly, they didn't encounter a single village with people living in it!

  It wasn't until they had crossed the Liao River and gone thirty miles inland that they saw smoke from cooking fires for the first time.

  At this time, the Manchu people had moved out of the barren and cold Changbai Mountains and settled in the Liaohe Plain centered on Shengjing. Tens of thousands of Han people who were kidnapped from the Central Plains were fenced in large and small gardens and enslaved as livestock. Later, when the Qing army entered the pass, tens of thousands of banner people moved to Beijing to enjoy wealth and power. The lucky Han people who survived also followed them into Beijing and became the bondservants of the banner people's households. Later, Wu Sangui rebelled, and the descendants of these bondservants still made military achievements under the leadership of Zhou Peigong.

  Xiao Qi, who was scouting ahead, saw wisps of smoke rising in the distance and hastily rode back to report this discovery to Wang Pu.

  "Is there smoke?" The big-bearded man's eyes flashed with a hint of murder, and he sneered, "That must be Jian Nu's village. Looks like we won't have to sleep outdoors tonight, heh heh."

  Scarface also sneered: "No need to just eat dry rations with cold water, heh heh."

  Xiao Qi asked Wang Pu: "General, are we going to destroy this village now?"

  "There's no hurry." Wang Pu looked up at the sky and said in a low voice, "Let's wait until night falls and all the Jin slaves return to the village before making our move, so as not to let any of them escape and reveal our army's whereabouts."

  "Right, General, you're absolutely right."

  The big-bearded and scar-faced men nodded one after another.

  Xiao Qi also seized the opportunity to flatter: "Indeed a general, your thoughts are more thorough than ours."

  "Big Whiskers, Scarface, let the brothers take a tight rest and don't run around everywhere to avoid being discovered. Little Seven, you bring two clever brothers to go ahead and scout out the situation, it's best if we can catch a live mouth to ask about the situation. Now we've already deeply entered the Liaodong hinterland, all around us are Jian Nu people, everything must be done with caution."

  The three of them responded in unison and each went their separate ways with their orders.

  When the sky was about to darken, Little Qi returned. This guy didn't disappoint and brought back a live captive. The captive had a short and stout build, an ugly appearance, with two dog-like whiskers on his upper lip, looking like a clown. Little Qi grabbed the captive's small braid on his forehead and pulled him in front of Wang Pu, threatening: "General, do you want to light incense or flay human skin?"

  "Stop, stop!" The guy was so scared that he almost peed his pants. He immediately kowtowed and begged, "Master Jiang, don't kill me, please don't! I'm not a Jian slave, I'm also a Han person."

  Wang Pu said in a low voice: "Are you also Han Chinese?"

  That guy hastily said: "Right right right, I'm really a Han person, an authentic Han person."

  "What makes you think we should believe you?"

  "That guy hastily said: 'General, if I weren't a Han person, how could I speak such fluent Chinese?'"

  "That's not necessarily true," said Wang Pu. "Some slaves can also speak fluent Chinese."

  "This is going to be tough." That guy called Ku Lian Tian said, "But I'm really a Han person, even if I borrow the courage of heaven and earth, I wouldn't dare cheat you, sir."

  "Alright, I'll believe you for now." Wang Pu said in a low voice, "Now General is asking you questions, answer one by one. If you dare to deceive General, humph, General will peel off your skin and stuff it into mugwort grass to make a human skin lantern."

  "No, no, no." The guy shook his head repeatedly, "I'm definitely telling the truth, I'm definitely telling the truth."

  "What's your name?"

  "The little man is really talented."

  P.S: New book season, especially needs everyone's recommendation and support.