Taiheiki

Chapter 153 Attacked
"Naturally, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Prefect!" Upon hearing this, Yuan Tian understood. Before the establishment of the provincial governorship in 188 AD, the Eastern Han Dynasty had always implemented a three-tiered administrative system: central government, commanderies/kingdoms, and counties. The so-called province was merely a supervisory unit, not an administrative unit, and the provincial governor was just a supervisory official and a temporary military commander. Although Wei Cong had militarily conquered most of Jiaozhou, his official position was still only a miscellaneous military officer. Unless he raised the banner of rebellion, he had neither the power to interfere in the internal administration of the commanderies nor the power to appoint new prefects.

So Wei Cong played a very cunning trick. Under the pretext of cracking down on thieves and maintaining public order, he sent an official as a pursuit envoy to each prefecture. Each pursuit envoy was assigned a certain number of soldiers according to the population of each prefecture. These pursuit envoys were directly under the command of Wei Cong himself. In addition to apprehending thieves, they also had the task of disposing of and managing the "property of criminals".

The so-called "property of criminals" referred to the powerful landlords who had initially rebelled against Wei Cong. Depending on the size of their military presence, Wei Cong punished them with varying degrees of severity, including confiscation of their land and disbandment of their retainers. In addition, Wei Cong used this opportunity to confiscate large amounts of state-owned land, mineral resources, forests, and government-owned servants from the three prefectures of Cangwu, Yulin, and Nanhai. These properties became the economic foundation supporting Wei Cong's new regime. These properties would be distributed among the civil and military officials willing to pledge allegiance to Wei Cong as their reward.

In this way, a dual parallel political system of prefects and pursuit commissioners was formed in the five commanderies of Jiaozhou under Wei Cong's jurisdiction. The former was still part of the Han Empire, while the latter was theoretically an agency dispatched by Wei Cong's headquarters. Although their power was still limited to the confiscated property, it was clear that as long as Wei Cong could gain a foothold in Jiaozhou, they would gradually replace the prefects and become the real commanders of the commanderies.

"So you understand now!" Guo Kui laughed. "Our lord is quite cunning! He seems quiet and unassuming, but he gets nothing short of doing what needs to be done!"

"But won't the governors of the various prefectures object to what Your Majesty is doing?"

"Nanhai County is right under the captain's hooves, and the governor of Cangwu County is still a prisoner. Not many people from Hepu and Zhuya Counties participated back then, so naturally not many of their properties were confiscated. Naturally, they won't have any conflict with the sent pursuers. If anything happens, it will only be in Yulin County. It all depends on whether their governor has the guts!"

"Having just suffered such a crushing defeat, they probably won't dare to do it, at least for the time being!"

"That settles it!" Guo Kui sighed. "I just hope that when we come back, all the seats haven't been taken by someone else!"

Just as Yuan Tian was about to say a few words of comfort to Guo Kui, a sudden shout interrupted their conversation. Yuan Tian walked to the bow of the ship, where several logs drifted by from a distance—among them was a pale, bloated corpse. The sailors used grappling hooks to pull the corpse closer; it was a woman, completely naked.

"Damn it!" Guo Kui cursed under his breath. "It seems things have gotten worse these past few months. Pass down the order: everyone get their weapons ready!"

As the morning mist dissipated, they saw many simple thatched huts along the riverbank, perched on the water and supported by long poles, resembling white storks. These huts were usually common along the local riverbanks, where many refugees escaping taxes and forced labor lived, making a living by living on the water. But now there was no sign of anyone living there, only ominous birds circling overhead or making strange noises from the trees on the bank.

The Gan River and its numerous tributaries provided convenient transportation for the local residents. A few months ago, when Guo Kui and his companions followed Wei Cong upstream, they frequently saw all sorts of boats on the river: fishing boats, large flat-bottomed boats, and the tiny, melon-shaped boats used by small merchants. But the war took everything away. They could see villages on the banks, but no villagers. On a sandbar by the river, Yuan Tian saw a fishing boat that had been mostly burned. The only sign of human life Yuan Tian saw all morning was a young boy watering his cattle by the river. When the boy saw the boat Yuan Tian was on, he ran away as fast as he could.

"Uncle Du, there are sails! And more than one!" someone at the bow exclaimed.

"Damn it, there's no way there are any decent boats on the river at this time!" Guo Kui cursed. "Can someone go check the top of the mast and see what kind of boat it is!"

Before anyone could give the order, Yuan Tian quickly climbed up the mast, looked around for a moment, and then slid down: "There are nine boats, all rowboats. Judging from the captains, there are at least nine oars on each side. They are most likely the pirates' boats!"

"Damn it!" Guo Kui cursed. They had three boats, all sturdy and good, and the people on board were all well-equipped and skilled warriors. But the enemy had an overwhelming numerical advantage. More importantly, this was enemy territory. Every one of their men who died was one less, while the enemy would only grow stronger.

"Raise all the sails and row hard!" Yuan Tian shouted the order, then said to Guo Kui, "Brother Guo, as far as I know, the captain seems to have some connections with the leader of the Moth Bandits. If possible, it would be best to cover it up!"

"Has connections with the leader of the Moth Bandits?" Guo Kui was stunned. "Is that so? How come I didn't know?"

Yuan Tian didn't care about anything else at this point: "Don't you remember? When we were smelting iron in Yuhan County, didn't we sell a large batch of knives and sickles?"

"Is that so? But what does it have to do with the moth thieves?"

"The one who bought these knives and sickles is the leader of the Moth Bandits!" Yuan Tian exclaimed urgently. "She even visited the camp with the captain before; she's a very beautiful female Taoist priest!"

"A female Taoist priest?" A thought flashed through Guo Kui's mind: "Wait a minute, is there a leopard with that female Taoist priest?"

"I don't know about that!"

"If that's the case, then that's right!" Guo Kui slapped his thigh. "We should be able to survive this time!"

Despite the best efforts of Yuan Tian's boats, they still couldn't match the speed of the fast-oared boats. After all, they had a lot of cargo on board. The long oars of the fast-oared boats pounded the water wildly, creating a milky white splash. From this distance, Yuan Tian could clearly see that the deck was full of people, their bodies gleaming with metal, and there were also crossbowmen—damn it, he had never hated archers so much.

When the two sides were only about seventy paces apart, Guo Kui cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with all his might, "We are the men of Wei Cong, the Commandant of the Expeditionary Army, and you are the troops of Lu Jijiu?"

"I don't care who you are!" shouted the man from the opposite boat. "Throw your weapons and oars into the water, and I'll spare your lives!"

"Our Commandant Wei and your Chief Lu were old acquaintances, and he helped you a lot!" Guo Kui shouted. "We are friends, not enemies, so it's best not to fight each other!" The other side ignored Guo Kui's attempt to establish a friendship and urged him to row harder. At this point, the distance between the two sides had been reduced to only about sixty paces: "Throw your oars and weapons into the water, and I'll spare your lives!"

"Get everyone ready for battle!" Yuan Tian said in a low voice. "Either they don't believe you, or they simply don't care!"

"Let me try one last time!" Guo Kui lowered his voice, standing at the stern, using all his strength: "Don't do anything foolish. If our captain finds out you dared to do this, he'll definitely not let you off the hook—"

Yuan Tian gave him a sudden shove, catching Guo Kui off guard. Guo Kui fell to the ground, and an arrow landed where he had just been standing, embedding itself in the deck.

"These bastards! If I had known this would happen, I would have—" Guo Kui's eyes were red with anger. Yuan Tian picked up a shield and threw it at the other man: "Save your energy for fighting! Fight to the death, and there's still a chance of survival!"

"No, the captain has a secret letter for me to deliver!" Guo Kui calmed down at this moment. He quickly ran into the cabin and came out with a small wooden box in his hand. He stuffed the box into Yuan Tian's hand: "The captain gave me this. Take this with you, go ashore and escape, and go to Yuhan County to find Yang Zheng and the others."

"How can that be!" Yuan Tian exclaimed urgently, "It's better if I stay and you run away!"

“You’re almost twenty years younger than me, and your martial arts skills and physical strength are far superior. Your chances of escaping alone are much greater than mine!” Guo Kui patted his companion on the shoulder: “Survive, escape, and tell Captain Wei everything that happened here. Don’t let us die here in vain!”

"I—" For a moment, Yuan Tian felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to say something, but couldn't. A volley of arrows fell, most of them landing in the water, with only a few landing on the deck. The men quickly drew their bows and returned fire.

"Stop talking nonsense! You're acting like a woman!" Guo Kui slapped Yuan Tian on the shoulder. "My eldest son died of illness a couple of years ago, and I have a younger son in Chaisang. If you're grateful to me, use it all on him!"

"Brother Guo, rest assured, as long as I survive, I will treat him as my own son!" Yuan Tian bowed deeply to Guo Kui, then, carrying the wooden box, rushed to the bow of the boat, boarded the small sampan, and rowed vigorously toward the shore.

As Yuan Tian's small sampan drew closer to the shore, Guo Kui let out a long breath, drew his steel sword, and shouted to the crowd, "Commander Yuan has already escaped! Don't worry about us dying here and no one knowing. Commander Wei will take care of our affairs. We have no worries, so let's fight these scoundrels to our hearts' content! Killing one is enough, killing two is a bonus!" With that, he pounced on the enemy who had just boarded their deck.

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The sky was as black as the sampan that carried him away, and the incessant drizzle drowned his footprints and blurred his face.

As soon as Yuan Tian reached the shore, he ran northeast, away from the river, following a barely discernible path of cart tracks through the desolate wilderness. He entered a thicket of bushes filled with streams, and soon the dense trees surrounded him. The sounds of fighting echoed from the river in the distance, and he could hear his own heavy breathing. Yuan Tian frequently looked back to make sure no one was chasing him.

"I hope these guys won't catch up," Yuan Tian thought to himself. But he knew it was just wishful thinking. It wouldn't be long before the band of river pirates discovered that the enemy on these ships was well-equipped, and there was a large amount of valuable cargo in the hold, while he was the only one who had escaped. Unless the bandits were fools, they would realize that they had let a crucial person go. Whether to silence him or to retrieve the important person (or cargo) that had escaped, the bandits would send men ashore to hunt him down.

If they captured them, everything would be over! Yuan Tian knew that if he were in their shoes, the best course of action would be to kill everyone, tie their bodies to stones, throw them into the river, and sink the boats. In this chaotic era of war, even if Wei Cong had great abilities, he couldn't possibly figure out how his small delegation had disappeared.

Each time Yuan Tian looked back, he felt the barking of hunting dogs behind him, but nothing ever happened. He walked two hundred steps in a stream before finally reaching the shore. Once, while serving Wei Cong on a hunt, Wei Cong had proudly told everyone around him that hunting dogs track their prey by scent, so the best way to escape their pursuit was to wade through water for a distance, as the flowing water would carry away the scent. Hopefully, he was right.

The rain stopped and started again, stopped and started again, but thankfully the cloak was enough to shield him from the wind and rain. It was pitch black under the trees; the ground was soft, cracked, and riddled with half-buried roots and hidden stones. Yuan Tian had to slow his pace; heavy branches, carrying damp leaves, whipped his face again and again. He couldn't help but recall his last escape, which didn't seem as difficult as this one.

Exhausted, Yuan Tian finally stopped, finding himself on the edge of an abandoned village. He found a relatively well-preserved house to take shelter from the rain, gathered some dry wood to make a fire for warmth, and dried his clothes. After eating some dry rations, he finally drifted off to sleep.

The next day, when Yuan Tian woke up, the rain had stopped, but the sky remained overcast. As the sky slowly brightened, the sun was nowhere to be seen, and the surroundings changed from pitch black to a gray hue. The mulberry trees in the backyard took on a lifeless, dark green. He drew some water from the well, ate some dry rations, and pulled out a map from his pocket, trying to determine his current location. He studied it for a long time but couldn't make a clue. Finally, he could only determine that he was on the east bank of the Gan River, about a day's journey from Nanchang County. If he headed northeast and everything went smoothly, he should arrive at Yuhan County in seven or eight days.

"This is the only way!" Yuan Tian carefully wrapped and tied the wooden box that Guo Kui had given him, then walked in the direction he had chosen. Before him lay a vast wilderness, with not a trace of human habitation.

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Hepu Prefecture, Xuwen County.

Wei Cong stood on the deck, his eyes fixed intently on the coastline ahead. Behind him, Xinliao Island had shrunk to a long line, while Hainan Island was rising from the sea ahead. Although it was only April, the scorching sun overhead still beat down on everyone. In just two or three days, everyone on the ship had their exposed skin tanned dark, looking just like the dark-skinned slaves brought by Southeast Asian merchants.

The fleet left Panyu Port four days ago. After passing through the Pearl River Estuary and entering the South China Sea, it traveled westward along the winding coastline. After passing Shangchuan Island and Xiachuan Island, it rode the strong southwest winds, rounded the eastern side of the Leizhou Peninsula, and entered the Leizhou Strait. Two thousand years later, this will be the southernmost point of mainland China, with hot weather, long hours of sunshine, and strong sea winds.

(End of this chapter)