Word that the Empress had been granted death might already have reached Mangzhou.

If the Left Chancellor carried that word to the Grand Tutor, there was no telling what would come of it.

So he had to take the Left Chancellor and get control of Mangzhou before the Grand Tutor could move.

Once Mangzhou was lost, the consequences did not bear thinking of.

He was racing the Grand Tutor for time — and this son of a bitch had let five days go by without even getting the grain and fodder together!

The two women had the whole air of the pleasure houses on them; one look told you what they were.

This son of a bitch. Chasing pleasure inside an army camp.

Ning Chen looked at Lei An. “If the job were yours, how long would you need to get the grain and fodder ready?”

Lei An thought it over. “Reporting to General Ning — one day would be enough!”

Liu Wenying’s expression shifted slightly.

“Isn’t Vice Marshal Lei claiming a little much? This minister has charge of moving the grain and fodder, and even so it takes seven or eight days. You can do it in one… do you take this minister for a good for nothing?”

Ning Chen said sharply, “You shut your mouth!”

Liu Wenying’s face darkened slightly.

Ning Chen said, “Lei An, I’ll ask you again… if the job were yours — grain and fodder, siege carts, scaling ladders — how long would you need?”

Lei An cupped his fists. “Reporting to Ning the Silver Coat, Lingzhou has plenty of grain and fodder. It only needs hauling in.”

“The siege carts and the scaling ladders are all on hand.”

“So to get all of it ready, this officer needs no more than a day!”

Liu Wenying said angrily, “Vice Marshal Lei, don’t claim so much… you are only a vice marshal. This is not yours to do.”

Ning Chen smiled coldly, stood, unhooked the service sword at his waist, crossed to Liu Wenying in a few long strides, swung the sword up and brought it down on his head.

Liu Wenying screamed and pitched forward on his face, his head split and bleeding.

The sight left Mu Anbang and Lei An — and the two women too — frozen where they stood.

Liu Wenying clutched his head and shouted, all noise and nothing behind it: “You… you dare strike me? General Ning, this minister is an officer appointed by the court. Your office may stand above mine, but you cannot beat this minister… this minister will send up a memorial and have you impeached.”

Ning Chen smiled coldly. “I’m afraid you won’t get the chance.”

Ning Chen turned his head to Mu Anbang. “You are the Marshal of an army. He brought women of that trade back into camp and made a party of it, against military law, and you neither saw it nor heard it.”

“Mu Anbang. Do you know your offense?”

Mu Anbang went red in the face. He wanted to say a few words in his own defense, but his tongue was clumsy… and in any case the fault really was his.

“This officer knows his offense. Punish me, General!”

Ning Chen made a cold sound in his nose. “I do not care to punish you right now. I’ll put it on your account.”

Ning Chen walked back and sat down again, square and at his ease.

“Mu Anbang, hear the order!”

Mu Anbang dropped hurriedly to one knee. “This officer is here!”

Ning Chen said, low and hard, “Liu Wenying has held up a military movement and broken military law. Drag the three of them out and behead them in front of the officers and men!”

Mu Anbang’s whole face went blank with shock.

The drink went out of the two women in an instant, and they stared at Ning Chen in terror.

Liu Wenying was struck stupid too. When he came back to himself: “You… this is not according to the rules. This minister is an officer appointed by the court. Even to behead me, you need His Majesty’s own endorsement!”

Ning Chen did not bother to answer him at all.

“Mu Anbang. Did you not hear me clearly?”

Mu Anbang started. “This officer obeys!”

Ning Chen said, low and hard, “Behead these three. Muster twenty thousand men… five thousand cavalry, two thousand shield troops, three thousand archers, ten thousand infantry. Then wait for my order!”

“And pick out two thousand warhorses and turn them over to Commandant Yuan Long.”

Mu Anbang said in his heavy, thick voice, “This officer obeys!”

Ning Chen waved a hand.

Mu Anbang called out past the tent flap. “Some of you, in here.”

Several soldiers came in.

Mu Anbang pointed at Liu Wenying and the two women. “Take them to the parade ground.”

“Yes!”

Liu Wenying shouted in terror, “General Ning, you cannot do this to me… this minister is an officer appointed by the court, General Ning, spare me, General Ning, spare my life…”

The two women had long since gone limp with fright and could not get a word out.

The three of them were dragged away.

Ning Chen drew his eyes back. “Lei An, hear the order.”

“This officer is here!”

Ning Chen said, “Muster five thousand men and take charge of the grain, fodder and baggage… we go on ahead, you follow after.”

“Yes. This officer has his orders!”

Ning Chen waved a hand. “Go and see to it, quickly!”

Lei An rose and left at a fast walk.

Feng Qizheng clicked his tongue twice. “That’s ruthless. I thought you’d let those two women go.”

Ning Chen glanced at him.

“Soldiers are the blade that guards a country. If even the soldiers lose themselves in women and are eaten away by sugarcoated bullets… then that country is not far from its end.”

Pan Yucheng said, “Ning Chen was not wrong to do it. The merciful do not command troops; the honorable do not handle money.”

“When the time comes to strike and be done with it, there is no room for a soft heart.”

Ning Chen waved it off. “Enough of that. Old Feng, go and find Yuan Long, tell him to have everything ready — we move out before dark.”

Feng Qizheng nodded and left at a fast walk.

Pan Yucheng said, “You did it to keep discipline strict, but Liu Wenying was an officer appointed by the court all the same… I think you had better write a memorial back to the capital and ask to be punished.”

Ning Chen nodded slightly.

The Xuan Emperor would understand the beheading of one Liu Wenying, and would not hold it against him.

The court officials were another matter. What he had done was against the rules, whatever else it was.

He did need to write a memorial confessing his fault, if only to stop their mouths.

There were brush and ink on the table.

Ning Chen took up the brush and wrote a memorial.

“Old Pan, take a look at it first and polish it up for me… if there’s nothing wrong with it, send someone to carry it back to the capital.”

Pan Yucheng took it and read, and the skin of his face twitched hard several times.

“Isn’t this laying it on a little thick?”

Ning Chen had set out ten great crimes against Liu Wenying: holding up a military movement, treating military law as a children’s game, treating a human life as so much grass, forcing decent women into the trade, seizing good farmland, selling army grain on the side, holding troops and trading on them, and so on down the list.

Any one of those crimes was enough to have killed Liu Wenying ten times over.

What mattered was that Ning Chen, shameless creature that he was, had cast himself as the injured party — Liu Wenying had obstructed him on purpose, had refused him grain and fodder, had made him kneel to enter the camp, had made him lick his boots, and so on.

And at the end, for His Majesty’s sake, for the sake of the people of Great Xuan, for the sake of the empire itself, he had been left with no choice and had beheaded Liu Wenying… he knew full well how deep his guilt ran, and when he returned to the capital he would carry the thorns on his back and beg for punishment, and so forth. (TL Note: A general who had wronged a colleague went to him stripped to the waist with a bundle of thorn switches on his back, for the other man to beat him with. It is the classical gesture of a total, humiliating apology.)

Had Liu Wenying been standing there to read that memorial, even he would have pitied Ning Chen.

Ning Chen said, “Thick? I haven’t even put in that Liu Wenying held troops and traded on them and meant to rebel.”

The corner of Pan Yucheng’s mouth twitched.

“So I’ll have someone take this memorial back to the capital, then?”

Ning Chen nodded. “If there’s nothing wrong with it, get someone moving with it now!”

About four hours later, Mu Anbang came back.

“General, the twenty thousand are assembled! The two thousand warhorses have been delivered too.”

Ning Chen nodded slightly and asked, “Are the men you’re leaving to hold the camp reliable?”

“Rest easy, General. Entirely reliable — the man is a Commandant under this officer.”

Ning Chen nodded. “Good. You’ll lead the twenty thousand.”

“Liu Wenying ignored military law and you failed in your duty to catch it. If we come home in triumph this time, not only will I not charge you with it, I’ll ask His Majesty to reward you for your service.”

Mu Anbang’s face filled with gratitude. “My thanks, General Ning!”

“Go and get ready. The army marches in a quarter of an hour.”

“Yes!”

Mu Anbang took his orders and went.

Ning Chen walked out of the camp… Yuan Long and the others were ready and waiting.

After a while, Mu Anbang led the twenty thousand out of the camp and joined him.

“Pass the word. Move out!”

At Ning Chen’s word, the army pushed on toward Mangzhou.

(End of Chapter 241)