Ning Chen and the others never saw Kong Yongchun, and went straight back to the general’s residence.

“God damn… What does this Kong Yongchun mean by it? Left us cooling our heels the better part of two hours with a bellyful of the northwest wind. You go on in. I’m going to the privy.”

Feng Qizheng was cursing away.

Chen Chong gave a dirty grin. “What, didn’t drink your fill of the northwest wind? Have to go and eat some too?”

“Get lost… I drank that much cold wind and my belly’s not right.”

“Better hurry along, then. There might be something hot waiting.”

“If my belly weren’t bad I’d give you a beating, you little shit.”

Feng Qizheng swore once more and ran off with a hand on his stomach.

Ning Chen’s temper was not much better. Is there something wrong with this Kong Yongchun’s head? What is he putting on airs for?

“Christ… Degenerates always make a performance of it.”

Pan Yucheng glanced at him. “Kong Yongchun is the Left Chancellor’s man.”

Ning Chen was startled. “How do you know that?”

“Have you forgotten what the Inspectorate is for?”

Only then did it come to Ning Chen. The Inspectorate’s business was watching every official in the realm. There was nothing strange in his knowing.

He could not help smiling coldly. “No wonder the little shit left us cooling our heels two hours on purpose.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner? If I’d known he was the Left Chancellor’s man I wouldn’t have gone at all.”

Pan Yucheng said, “You didn’t ask sooner.”

Ning Chen had nothing to say to that. “Old Pan. There are things you should tell me whether I ask or not.”

“All right. I’ll bear it in mind next time.”

Ning Chen laughed all at once. “As obedient as that? Old Pan, have you forgotten you’re my superior?”

“I haven’t forgotten. I’m keeping an account of it all for you… I’ll take my time settling with you when we get home.”

Ning Chen: “……”

There’s a dark streak in this one.

Talking as they went, they came to the inner court and found Liang Jingwu.

“Back so soon?”

It surprised Liang Jingwu.

Ning Chen smiled bitterly. “We never saw the man at all. The little shit left us cooling our heels two hours.”

It brought Liang Jingwu up short, and he asked, curious, “What happened?”

Ning Chen shrugged. “Who can say? Maybe Lord Kong has his monthlies this week.”

Liang Jingwu looked lost. He had not understood a word of it.

“General Ning, why not go again tomorrow… Moving troops and appointing officers needs Supervisor Kong’s consent, after all. If it comes to a deadlock between you it will hurt everything we do later.”

Ning Chen shook his head. “We’ll see about it later.”

Before he came, the Xuan Emperor had told him the men on the border keep outsiders out.

He had not expected that the one shutting him out would not be Liang Jingwu at all, but some worthless civil official.

Liang Jingwu nodded. “Come. The food has been ready this long while. We’ll talk over it.”

Ning Chen did not drink at the meal.

Liang Jingwu said, smiling, “It’s bitter cold. Won’t General Ning have one cup?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “Not today. I want to go outside the pass and have a look in a while.”

Liang Jingwu thought about it. “The road is bad by night. Go tomorrow instead.”

Ning Chen did not press it. He nodded.

That night they put up at the general’s residence.

The next day.

Liao Xingwen led them, and the party rode out through the pass.

As commander in chief, Liang Jingwu could not go outside the pass lightly.

They rode hard the whole way.

Two hours later Ning Chen saw broad stretches of farmland and rows of houses.

“Deputy General Liao. Are there troops stationed anywhere near here?”

Liao Xingwen shook his head. “The army can’t leave the town lightly. Beilin Pass is the most important line the Great Xuan has, and the army has to hold it.”

Ning Chen’s brows drew together. “So there is nobody at all protecting these people?”

Liao Xingwen smiled bitterly. “There’s no help for it… They won’t come inside the walls, and the town couldn’t hold that many of them anyway.”

“This good land was broken by their fathers and their fathers’ fathers. It’s what they live on… They won’t give up the land or their homes.”

“But we have a good many scouts posted. The moment the Tuoluo show themselves we send men out as fast as it can be done.”

Ning Chen said, “It took us two hours to ride here from the town… By the time word reaches the town, and it goes up through every level for approval, and the army breaks camp and gets here, that’s four or six hours at the least. The Tuoluo will have finished looting and be long out of sight.”

Liao Xingwen smiled bitterly and nodded.

He pointed at an empty stretch of ground in the distance. “That used to be farmhouses too, one after another… Then the Tuoluo came through and stripped it, and burned every stick of it on their way out.”

Ning Chen narrowed his eyes. “Come on. Let’s look around.”

Ning Chen and the others rode about until the sun went down before they turned back to the town.

When they were back Ning Chen did not stop for food. He shut himself in a room, took up paper and brush, and set to writing and drawing.

Afterward he went to find Liang Jingwu.

“This is… clothing?”

Liang Jingwu looked at the drawing in his hand and asked it, curious.

The thing on the paper looked a good deal like clothes and yet did not. He had never seen a cut like it in his life.

Ning Chen nodded. “I want a thousand suits of it. They have to be white.”

What Ning Chen had drawn was camouflage clothing, only he wanted it white.

He had been outside the pass that day. The snow ran white to the horizon, and white hides a man better in snow.

Liang Jingwu said in surprise, “As many as that? Is this for the thousand picked troops you brought with you?”

“It is. I must trouble General Liang to find men to make a thousand suits. The hoods have to be white too, and as thick as they can be made… They have to keep out the cold in snow.”

It brought Liang Jingwu up short. “You mean to lay an ambush in the snow?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “No. Only to keep clear of the Tuoluo’s spies and scouts.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’ll tell you later… And I must trouble General Liang to keep this quiet.”

Liang Jingwu nodded, but he put his own view all the same. “General Ning, the clothes are easy enough to make… But a thing like that will turn no blade and no spear at all.”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “I understand that.”

“How soon do you want them?”

Ning Chen thought a moment. “Three days.”

Liang Jingwu’s brows drew together. “Three days will be hard.”

“Do what you can… By my reckoning there’ll be a great battle inside ten days, and forty thousand men at the least will be down on us.”

It struck Liang Jingwu like a blow.

“General Ning, where has this come from?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “I worked it out myself.”

Liang Jingwu: “???”

Ning Chen went on. “I saw Old General Chen before I came. He told me the Tuoluo have burned and killed and looted in other years, but never as often as this one.”

“I went outside the pass today. The snow has covered the grassland. The Left Royal Court’s warhorses have no fodder and their men have no food, and the winter must be going hard with them.”

“The Tuoluo raiding for supplies as often as they have lately is proof enough of it… So far it’s all been small stuff. But to get through this winter they will have to pull a big one.”

“You told me yesterday that small parties of Tuoluo horse have been harassing you constantly… My guess is that something large is coming next.”

Liang Jingwu understood him at once.

“You mean these raids were all to dull us?”

Ning Chen nodded. “That’s what I meant. The first rouses them, the second flags, the third is spent… They send small parties of horse, and it is small stuff every time, and that puts it into our men’s heads that the enemy is nothing much, and their guard comes down.”

A slight change went over Liang Jingwu’s face. “That’s true. Because they are small parties, they run every time they see us without ever coming to blows… So when word reached me today I did not think twice about it. I took five hundred men and went.”

Ning Chen went on. “Next time it will be a small party again, and the scouts will report it as they always do… By the time they see the main force and report that, the general may already be outside the pass.”

“If General Liang has only five hundred with him, this time they may well come to blows… and their whole object will be to hold you there. What will be waiting for you is an army coming down on you, and by the time you see it, it will be too late to run.”

“If General Liang were taken, the consequences do not bear thinking of… I’m afraid it would not be only the people outside the pass. The whole of Beilin Pass would fall.”

Liang Jingwu went white in the face.

He looked at Ning Chen. “Why do you say forty thousand at the least? The Left Royal Court has fewer than twenty thousand men in hand as it is.”

Ning Chen said, low, “The scouts saw thirty thousand men marched away from the Left Royal Court. But did they really go? It may have been nothing but a blind to confuse us… All of this is only guesswork, of course. But of one thing I am certain. Something large is coming.”

(End of Chapter 157)