Chapter Sixty: Three Steps

The Heavenly King’s Happy Stick gave the people of Black Dragon Mountain quite a fright.

It also sparked in Cao Yao an immediate fondness for the contraption; after all, a bandit on the run for ten years would naturally be enamored with such a thing. Liu Chengzong originally intended to have the blacksmith make two of them, one for each side of the gate bar, but Liu Chengzu insisted on four—just in case the blast missed its mark. It was a reasonable precaution.

Cao Yao immediately asked the blacksmith to make eight, and then another eight after that. He said they could be kept for future use; with such a device, no fortress gate could stand in his way. He even proposed giving it a temporary name, to be changed later, and when conditions permitted, the design would be improved and christened the Invincible Divine Might Lance.

Liu Chengzong couldn’t help but wonder—what could Cao Yao possibly improve on this thing? Cao Yao explained that it could be modified with a steel wheel firing mechanism; once the craftsmen’s skills improved, they could install the steel wheel from a landmine inside, turning it into a stabbing weapon.

Great minds think alike—Liu Chengzong had had similar thoughts, but he felt it wasn’t practical. “I thought about that too, but it can only be used once; after that, you’re left with a broken stick. How do you fight with that?”

“In battle, brother, you hand this to a big-bellied soldier. If the enemy is some bastard armored head to toe, it’s worth trading one of ours for one of theirs—hell, ten for one is a bargain,” Cao Yao replied, unconcerned with notions of humanity, calculating only the cost. “And it’s cheap. A waist saber costs five coins of silver, a full suit of armor ten taels. For ten taels and five coins, can you kill an elite soldier? But with this, how much does it cost?”

“One jin of pig iron, three jin of gunpowder, fifty large copper coins, a long stick, and if you use it to stab a man, you save half the materials. All told, it’s less than five coins of silver.”

Liu Chengzong replied, “But the steel wheel firing mechanism would be expensive. Without it, you can’t stab anyone with the thing.”

“That’s true,” Cao Yao conceded. It was just a sudden inspiration. Besides, all of this was only possible because Black Dragon Mountain could now serve as their logistical base. Without stable conditions, if they were being hunted across the countryside by government forces, they wouldn’t be able to make anything at all.

And so, the matter was dropped.

Yet this exchange broadened Liu Chengzong’s thinking. He asked, “Brother Cao, you’ve seen the Northern Barbarians. Do they have double-armored heavy infantry?”

“You want to use this on the Northern Barbarians?” Cao Yao laughed, shaking his head. “Unless you get amnesty from the imperial court, how are you going to fight them beyond the border? Besides, their heavy infantry can fight and shoot as well.”

His expression grew complicated. He closed his eyes briefly, lips pressed tight, as if seriously considering the possibility. “Suppose you do get amnesty. The court sends you beyond the border, gives you no rations for the journey, and after three days of eating nothing but grass roots, issues you a three-foot stick that’s supposed to have a steel wheel but only has a paper fuse. When you light it, the Northern Barbarians will cut you down. Hah! I’ve had five hundred brothers die more miserably than that.”

“I won’t chatter with you any longer. I’m off for a drink. Don’t come looking for me—I intend to enjoy some time with your sister-in-law tonight. It’s been delayed for days.” Cao Yao swaggered off, humming a tune, leaving Liu Chengzong with a sense of melancholy.

Liu Chengzong longed to tell him that fighting the Northern Barbarians did not require imperial amnesty. He wanted to say, without amnesty, there were just three steps to take: stay alive, enter the capital, and cross the border.

In the following days, Liu Chengzu and Cao Yao simulated numerous accidents that might occur during an assault on the fortress, and prepared various contingency plans for success, failure, and failure after breaching the gate.

Liu Chengzong did not involve himself in these matters. Most of the time, he simply listened without offering his opinions. Cao Yao had more experience in combat and raiding, while Liu Chengzu had received orthodox military training at Yuhe Fort. They were the experts.

But Liu Chengzong was not idle. While the blacksmiths worked on the thunder lances, he gathered all the artisans, organized them into a craftsmen’s squad, and set aside five cave dwellings and a clearing for their work and rest.

The successful use of the thunder lance to pierce three layers of wooden doors made Liu Chengzong attach greater importance to another set of memories within him, and he came to realize the true significance of productivity.

This importance stemmed from a deep-seated fear within his soul.

He had always considered himself brave and fearless—until last night, when the thunder lance blasted through the doors.

No longer fearing death became meaningless. Steel and gunpowder feared death even less than he did.

Productivity was ruthless. In the hands of a coward, it could make him a hero; in the hands of the wicked, it could sweep aside the righteous; in the hands of the base, it could topple justice itself.

So he organized his laborers, created better tools of production, and drew further upon those other memories to improve productivity.

On the second day of the fifth month, Black Dragon Mountain was unusually quiet.

The young men who usually scrambled all over the mountains seemed to have drunk heavily the night before; even when the sun was high, they hadn’t risen, much to the elders’ astonishment.

It wasn’t until afternoon that people gradually got up. More than forty young men quietly rolled their four-wheeled carts, two-wheeled handcarts, and even wheelbarrows to the mountain’s entrance.

Then Liu Chengzong, accompanied by Gao Xian and other border soldiers, loaded armor, helmets, bedding, ropes, arrows, and provisions onto the carts, mounted their horses lightly, and set out westward.

Not long after, at dusk, a cavalryman waved his arm at the mountain pass. The waiting young men set off under Liu Chengzu’s command.

Liu Chengzu himself would take part in the operation, scouting enemy positions from the cliffs and choosing the right moment to descend by rope and strike directly at the steward of Wang Village.

The cavalry spread out, one stationed at every mile. After the column passed, each man led his horse to follow, until after thirty miles, night had fallen. The column turned into a mountain pass to rest, then reformed as they set out again.

The distance between the relay riders shrank to a hundred paces, and the leader was now not Liu Chengzong, but a color-blind infantryman from the border troops.

The conscripted villagers pushing carts moved up front, lighting a torch at the head of the column. The rest followed, cart to cart, man to man, inching forward.

There was little fear of a night attack at times like these; their greater concern was a cart running into a ditch or someone getting snagged by a tree.

The villagers of Black Dragon Mountain were perhaps among the more well-off in Yan’an Prefecture.

There were certainly wealthier people, but those folk would never appear in the wild at night—much less now.

The border and garrison troops, on the other hand, never ate as well as these villagers; most suffered from severe night blindness.

They trudged onward, resting every ten or twenty miles.

Only when the moonlight grew dim and the night was at its darkest did Liu Chengzong light a torch, mount his horse, and lead the way to the valley where they planned to rest, guiding the group inside.

The valley had once been home to a village, sitting on the lower reaches of the river’s north bank. Now, with its water source gone, it lay in ruins—the perfect place to hide their carts and rest for a day.

Before sleeping, Liu Chengzong went once more to the hills north of Wang Village Fort. In the pitch dark, he dared not climb too high, only gazing at the fort from afar.

As he returned, the sky was just beginning to lighten. Liu Chengzu remained awake and asked, “How was the garrison at Wang Village last night?”

“Pretty lax. One man outside the main gate, two on the gate tower, none visible on the east wall, three sitting motionless on the west wall—probably dozing off.”

Liu Chengzong yawned as his elder brother asked, “Are you confident you can kill the gate guards?”

His brother meant to do it silently.

He shook his head. “It would be difficult. There’s a torch at the gate, a brazier twenty paces away, possibly hidden sentries. The walls are too low—any noise would be heard.”

“But from below the wall, I’m confident I can shoot the men on top. Tomorrow, we’ll first try to trick them into opening the gate. If that fails, I’ll shoot the men on the wall and blast the gate open with the thunder lance.”

Liu Chengzong smiled. “Get some sleep, brother. When we wake, it’ll be the day we accomplish great things—never again will we lack for money or grain.”