Mu Anbang saw Ning Chen and came over at a run.
“General Ning?”
Ning Chen gave him a nod. “Well?”
Mu Anbang wiped the blood off his face. “Better than two thousand of them killed, better than five thousand taken… soft eggs, every one of them. They couldn’t take a blow.”
Ning Chen smiled. “Where are the prisoners?”
Mu Anbang put out a hand and pointed. “There’s a big open piece of ground over that way. They’re all being held there.”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly. “Nicely done.”
“Marshal Mu, leave some men here to clear this up and go on putting the rebels down… by dark tonight every rebel in this city is either killed or under guard. Tomorrow I want Mangzhou quiet.”
Mangzhou had been taken, but that did not mean the danger was over.
The Grand Tutor’s two hundred thousand men were the real test.
So everything had to be put straight before those two hundred thousand arrived.
Mu Anbang nodded. “As you order!”
“Have you seen Yuan Long?”
Mu Anbang shook his head.
Ning Chen made a sound of acknowledgment. “All right, go see to your work.”
With Mu Anbang and Yuan Long leading twenty thousand men, and a musket battalion helping them, those rebels would not be hopping about for long.
The putting down was not something he as commander in chief needed to trouble himself over from here.
Ning Chen took his men and left.
He looked as though he were wandering. In fact he knew exactly where he was going.
When he came out onto a broad street, Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed slightly.
At the head of every street there was a street stone with the name of the street cut into it.
Jing’an Street!
Looking at the three characters on the stone, the corner of Ning Chen’s mouth turned up.
Ning Chen took his men along the street.
Before long he stopped, and looked with narrowed eyes at the plaque over the gate of a large house… the Mei residence!
Ning Chen sniffed the air and asked one of the soldiers with him, “Do you smell that? It seems to me there’s a smell of blood in this house.”
The soldier sniffed and answered honestly, “This subordinate doesn’t smell anything.”
“Come here. Come on.”
The soldier walked over to the horse.
Ning Chen leaned down and cuffed him across the top of the head, and kept cuffing him and swearing at him. “Are you doubting this general’s nose? Say it again. Do you smell it?”
The soldier covered his head and nodded and kept nodding. “I smell it, this small man smells it, there really is a smell of blood.”
Only then did Ning Chen stop, and he nodded, satisfied.
“You smell it and you’re still not knocking?”
The soldier rubbed his head, took to his heels for the gate and rapped the ring against it.
After a while the gate came slowly open.
It was an old servant who opened it, and his face changed the moment he saw Ning Chen and the rest.
“What is your business, sirs?”
Ning Chen rode forward and asked the question he already knew the answer to. “Who owns this house?”
The old servant said in a shaking voice, “My master is not at home.”
“I asked you who your master is.”
The old servant said, trembling all over, “My — my master is the Governor, Lord Zhuo.”
“Zhuo Heguang?”
The old servant said shakily, “Yes!”
Ning Chen made a short sound. “Your master tried to kill this general, and I have already had him butchered.”
“I now suspect there are rebels hidden in this house, and this general is going to search it… have every maid and servant in the place assembled. I want to question them.”
Hearing that Zhuo Heguang had been killed, the old servant went white with fright and nodded in terror. “This — this small man will see to it at once!”
Ning Chen waved a hand.
The old servant turned and ran inside, shaking as he went.
Ning Chen dismounted, handed his horse to a soldier, left a few men on the gate and took the rest in with him.
It was a very large house, four courtyards deep.
Ning Chen looked around him as he walked in.
He turned his head to the soldier beside him. “Now then, I’m going to be in Mangzhou a while and I need somewhere to stay. I like the feel of this house. It suits my noble character.”
“Zhuo Heguang tried to kill me, which is about as bad as a crime gets. You wouldn’t say it was excessive of me to live in his house for a while, would you?”
The soldier whose head had just been cuffed had learned his lesson, and shook his head and kept shaking it. “Not excessive, not at all… General Ning would be within his rights to take this house for his own.”
Ning Chen raised his hand and cuffed him across the top of the head. “What kind of talk is that? What do you mean, take it for his own? This is all stolen property and it goes to the state… if this general likes it, this general pays his own money and buys the house.”
“You’re trying to get this general into trouble. Ning Chen has never taken so much as a needle or a thread from the common people.”
The soldier covered his head. “General Ning’s character is above reproach and this subordinate is in awe of it… but Governor Zhuo isn’t one of the common people.”
Ning Chen stopped, and could not help laughing. “You have a point there… what’s your name?”
“This subordinate is called Zhang Youcai!”
“Zhang Youcai?” Ning Chen said, laughing, “You really do have talent. (TL Note: His given name, Youcai, means “has talent.”) So from today, whenever this general is living here, you are responsible for my safety.”
Zhang Youcai’s whole face lit up. “Yes!”
“Zhang Youcai, take men and search this house for me now. Make sure there are no rebels hidden here.”
“Yes! Rest easy, General, this subordinate promises not to leave out so much as a mouse hole.”
The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. “There’s no need to be that thorough.”
Wonderful. Not so much as a mouse hole… are you trying to dig up my treasure, you son of a bitch?
Zhang Youcai took men off and began searching.
Ning Chen took a few men through to the inner courtyard.
The maids and servants of the house had been assembled.
There were not many of them, ten or so.
Every one of them looked terrified when Ning Chen came in.
Ning Chen ran his eye over them. “Don’t be frightened. What Zhuo Heguang did has nothing to do with you.”
“I’ll ask you this. Are there rebels hidden in this house?”
Ning Chen did not believe Zhuo Heguang — to be exact, he did not believe the Left Chancellor. The old man was a deep schemer, and with his treasure hidden here, how could he not have posted men to guard it?
If a body of rebels were tucked away in some part of this house, or a first-rate fighter like the Poisoner, and they came out at him while he was not looking and finished him, that would be a poor bargain.
He meant to pocket what the Left Chancellor had left, but he had to be sure of his own safety first… money is no use to a man who does not live to spend it.
The old servant who had opened the gate shook his head quickly. “My lord, there is nobody in this house but us. Nobody else.”
Ning Chen fixed a hard look on him. “You’re certain? Think before you answer… lie to this general and I’ll kill your whole family.”
The old servant went down on the floor with a thump and said, shaking, “This — this small man would not dare deceive my lord if he had the courage of heaven itself.”
Ning Chen looked at the old servant, and since he did not have the look of a man lying, breathed a little easier.
Two hours later Zhang Youcai came back with his men.
“General Ning, we’ve searched the house from end to end. There are no rebels here.”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
“Zhang Youcai, send all the servants and maids in the house away… I’ll be handling official business here from now on. I’m giving you fifty men, and you’ll command them. This general’s safety is in your hands.”
Zhang Youcai’s whole face lit up. “Rest easy, General Ning. This subordinate will see the General safe if he dies doing it.”
Ning Chen clapped him on the shoulder, satisfied. “Do it well and I’ll put you in for a reward when we’re back in the capital!”
“Thank you, General Ning!”
Ning Chen left fifty men with Zhang Youcai and took the rest back to the Governor’s residence.
What Ning Chen had not expected was to find Lei An there.
Lei An got up the moment he saw Ning Chen and made his bow.
“When did you get in?”
“Reporting to General Ning, this subordinate has only just arrived.”
There was nothing but respect and admiration in the way Lei An looked at Ning Chen.
He had gotten the grain and fodder together, and then, terrified of missing the moment for the battle, had brought the baggage train up with the siege carts and the scaling ladders, riding under stars and moon and traveling day and night, until better than a dozen horses had been ridden to death. He had only just managed to get there.
And then he had arrived, taken one look, and been struck stupid. Ning Chen had already taken Mangzhou.
(End of Chapter 249)