Liang Jingwu did not look pleased. He grunted. “That was nothing but a trick.”
Ning Chen grinned wide. “Never mind whether it was a trick, General. Nobody on a battlefield cares about that.”
Liang Jingwu looked at him a while, and then all at once he burst out laughing.
“Not strength enough, so you set skill against strength… That’s right. Nobody on a battlefield does care what means you use. The winner is king.”
“This general lost this one.”
Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong looked at each other and broke into wide grins. Ning Chen had actually won.
Ning Chen put fist to palm. “General Liang is too generous. If you hadn’t held your hand, I wouldn’t have lasted many passes.”
Liang Jingwu waved that off. “There’s no need for modesty either. To have hands like that at your age is a rare thing… I knew Old General Chen wouldn’t misjudge a man.”
“Come. We’ll sit inside and talk.”
They went into the main hall, and Liang Jingwu sent Liao Xingwen to see about a meal.
When they were seated Ning Chen asked, “General Liang, you came in just now with the road still on you. Have the Tuoluo been making trouble?”
Liang Jingwu nodded. “A small party of horse. I drove them off.”
Ning Chen’s brow went up. “Do small parties of Tuoluo horse come raiding often?”
Liang Jingwu shook his head. “A month ago the King of the Left Court put ten thousand men in the field, and after I broke them he must be short of soldiers… So lately he sends small parties of horse to harass us.”
“How many times now?”
Liang Jingwu thought a moment. “Three.”
Ning Chen went quiet. Something flickered in his eyes.
Liang Jingwu saw it and asked, “Has General Ning some thought about it?”
Ning Chen said, “The first rouses them, the second flags, the third is spent.”
Liang Jingwu did not follow. “Meaning what?”
Ning Chen turned the talk another way. “Is General Liang certain the King of the Left Court is short of soldiers?”
Liang Jingwu said, smiling, “The Tuoluo Kingdom has no great numbers to begin with. The King of the Left Court holds their southern country and deals with us constantly, and he has fifty thousand men all told.”
“I broke ten thousand of them last time and only a few thousand got away. And by what has reached me, the Tuoluo court drew thirty thousand off him a while back. He has fewer than twenty thousand in hand now.”
Ning Chen asked quickly, “Why would the Tuoluo court take thirty thousand men off the King of the Left Court?”
Liang Jingwu said, “There’s trouble inside the Tuoluo court… And the Tuoluo love war. It isn’t only the Great Xuan they fight.”
“Is the report reliable?”
Liang Jingwu nodded. “Our scouts watched thirty thousand men break camp and march out of the Left Royal Court with their own eyes.”
“General Liang, you say the small Tuoluo parties have struck three times lately… How long between one and the next?”
Liang Jingwu thought about it. “Ten days or so to a half month between them, I’d say.”
Ning Chen said nothing more and sank into thought.
All at once Liang Jingwu struck his own forehead. “Damn.”
It startled Ning Chen. “What is it?”
Liang Jingwu said, “Since you got here, you haven’t gone to call on Supervisor Kong, have you?”
Ning Chen looked lost. “Who is Supervisor Kong?”
Liang Jingwu was startled. “You don’t know?”
Ning Chen shook his head. “Nobody has said a word to me about the man.”
“Kong Yongchun. Lord Kong is the Army Supervisor the court sent down. His authority equals mine, and moving troops or appointing officers has to have his consent.”
Ning Chen looked at Pan Yucheng.
Pan Yucheng said, “I thought you knew.”
Ning Chen shook his head. Nobody had told him such a man existed… He had talked at length with Old General Chen before setting out, and Old General Chen had not mentioned him either.
“Never mind. I’ll go and call on him tomorrow.”
Liang Jingwu said, “No. It has to be now.”
Ning Chen looked at him, not following.
Liang Jingwu said, with an edge to it, “You know how it is. Scholars aren’t like us coarse fighting men. They always have some rotten little habit or other, and they set store by every last piece of ceremony… If you don’t go now he’ll take it that you look down on him.”
Ning Chen had exactly nothing to say to that.
“All right. What does the man like? I’ll buy something and suit it to his taste.”
Liang Jingwu said, “Supervisor Kong is a man of refinement. Fond of wine, fond of poetry, fond of moon and flowers.”
The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. “Fond of moon and flowers? I can hardly send the man a woman.”
“No. What I don’t understand is this. Marching and fighting a war isn’t a spring outing… What does the court send a scholar like that down here for?”
Pan Yucheng explained. “It is the court’s rule and always has been. A military officer leads the army and a civil official supervises it.”
Ning Chen made a small scoffing sound. Put plainly, the court did not trust its generals. It was afraid of a man who held troops and traded on them, so it sent a civil official down to split the authority.
It was understandable enough, at that. A general finds rebellion easier than a clerk does.
“All right. We’ll go and call on this Lord Kong.”
Liang Jingwu called Liao Xingwen and had him take Ning Chen and the others to the Supervisor’s residence.
They came to the Supervisor’s residence.
Ning Chen gave his name and office.
The doorkeeper asked them to wait a little and went in to announce them.
In the Supervisor’s residence, at the edge of the fish pond in the back court.
Kong Yongchun held a small bowl of fish food. He took a pinch of it and scattered it on the water, and the fish came fighting for it in a scatter of spray.
Kong Yongchun was not good-looking. Ugly, to put it plainly. Short and heavy, with a wide, flat face, three-cornered eyes, a flattened nose and a big mouth… A man like that looks like nothing to do with refinement at all.
Just then a steward in fine silks and satins with a goat’s beard came up quickly.
He came to a stop before Kong Yongchun. “Master. General Ning Chen, come from the capital, asks to see you.”
Kong Yongchun’s eyes lit up, and then cooled again quickly. He took up a little more of the food and scattered it, and watched the fish fight for it, and said, low, “Let him wait. Let him cool his heels a while.”
“Master, is that wise? He has come from the capital.”
“What of it? I came from the capital myself… Though I will say this Ning Chen is brimming with talent. I read those poems of his often, and for poetry there is likely not a man alive who stands beside him. A pity. Such a pity… He has offended the man he ought not to have offended.”
Kong Yongchun waved him away. “Go on. Pay him no attention… In two hours I’ll see him.”
“Yes, Master.”
The steward left.
Kong Yongchun looked at the fish and said quietly, “A pity. A boy of that gift, and he is going to die out here on this border… If he had not offended that one, then with what I have of letters myself we would certainly have become the closest of friends.”
“Still, a post is worth more than a friend in the end. There are only so many posts in the Great Xuan, and it took me a long time to get hold of one. I can’t lose it because I admire the boy’s gift. Wouldn’t you say so?”
When the bowl was empty Kong Yongchun fetched another.
Only when the second bowl was empty too did he straighten his robes and make ready to go and see Ning Chen.
Just then the steward came hurrying up.
“Master. General Ning has left, and taken his men with him.”
Kong Yongchun’s face froze all at once. “Left?”
The steward nodded, hesitated, and said, “When he went, he— he also—”
“He also what?”
The steward said quickly, “He also spat toward the house.”
Kong Yongchun’s face went sour. “Vulgar. The little wretch is insufferable.”
“Master, he said a strange thing too.”
“What thing?”
The steward thought about it. “He said the Master is an expert.”
Kong Yongchun asked without thinking, “Meaning what?”
“This servant does not know.”
But both of them knew it was certainly nothing good.
(End of Chapter 156)