Conspiracy
"Call the army physician! A physician, now!"
Li Zhijie spoke through clenched teeth, his voice icy as he addressed Liu Chentuo.
"Gather up the bodies of the Jin soldiers and bring them with us to Youhua City. I intend to ask Bai Jingyan exactly why the Bai family's Haoying Battalion drove a blade into this prince after our talks concluded and our alliance was sworn."
He had never mentioned at the talks that he had been secretly sheltering men of the Bai family, and he was resolved to take that fact to his grave. So then — Bai Jingyan had not come to Chuishanguan to rescue anyone. If not that, then what had she done there? She had come to assassinate him, the Prince of Yan of Xiliang!
The two nations had finished their talks. Their alliance had been sealed. And immediately afterward, the Bai family's Haoying Battalion had launched a sneak attack on Chuishanguan in an attempt to murder the Prince of Yan — what would the Crown Prince of Jin think when he learned of it?
The trust between Jin's ruler and its ministers was already shaken badly enough to totter. The Jin imperial house employed the Bai family even as it bristled with wariness toward them, watching their every move.
Once the Crown Prince learned the truth, he would surely conclude that Bai Jingyan had deliberately provoked a war between the two nations out of fear — fear that he would demand the return of her military command, that she would lose her grip on the army.
Even if the Crown Prince of Jin did not move against Bai Jingyan today, a thorn would have been planted deep in the imperial house's side. In front of the Crown Prince's very eyes, the Bai family army had tried to assassinate a prince of Xiliang — a prince already bound to Jin by solemn treaty!
And if that suspicion took root successfully, then later, when the Bai family army had grown even stronger, he could make the Jin court believe that Bai Jingyan was bound to do the very thing they feared most.
Bai Jingyan was a woman of extraordinary cunning. Li Zhijie had no intention of giving her a single breath to recover. He had to move now — take the bodies, still warm, and go straight to Youhua City to demand answers from the Crown Prince of Jin.
Yes, let's see how this plays out… Whether Great Jin truly follows Bai Jingyan's word — whether ministers give their full loyalty, and whether the sovereign holds not a whisper of doubt!
Bai Jingyan ordered the remaining attendants of the Dong household to return to Xiaoyang Prefecture under Shen Qingzhu's escort, then led the Haoying Battalion back to Youhua City herself.
On the road, she gave the battalion's soldiers detailed instructions. Upon reaching Youhua City, they were to spread word that it was she who had secretly sent Bai Jinchi and Shen Liangyu to Chuishanguan — that the two of them had noticed people dressed in Jin attire coming and going from an inn inside the city, grown suspicious, and gone in to investigate.
They had been discovered, and fighting broke out. The men in Jin dress had brazenly set the inn ablaze, and as the Xiliang garrison soldiers guarding Chuishanguan came swarming toward the scene, battle had erupted between them and the Xiliang troops. By sheer fortune, the people Bai Jingyan had brought along had arrived in time to rescue them. That was the only story they could tell the world.
As for the Dong household attendants, Bai Qingyun, Xiao Ruohai, and Shen Qingzhu — not a single word was to be breathed about any of them.
This time, her party had had no chance to tidy the scene, and so the bodies of the Dong attendants and the Haoying Battalion soldiers could not be recovered. Very well then — she would simply mix truth and lie in equal measure in her report to the Crown Prince. The Dong household attendants would be called men of Xiliang's Li Zhijie. Only that way could she be ready for the moment Li Zhijie came carrying the corpses of the Dong attendants and the Haoying soldiers.
By the time dawn broke, a soldier keeping watch over the camp at Youhua City saw Bai Jingyan returning with wounded Haoying soldiers in tow and started violently, shouting for the gates to be opened at once.
Xiao Ruogang, who had shielded Bai Jinchi and taken a blade in the back, was white as a sheet. He had managed the ride back through sheer will, and the moment his warhorse reached the camp, he could endure no more and tumbled from the saddle.
"Quickly! Fetch the army physician! Hurry!"
The soldiers of the great Jin army bellowed at the top of their lungs.
"Xiao Ruogang!"
Bai Jingyan dismounted and gave the order to carry him to the army physician's tent.
She clenched her teeth at the sight of his blood-soaked back, then turned to Bai Jinchi and the Haoying soldiers.
"Go and see to your wounds first. I'm going to call on His Highness the Crown Prince."
Bai Jinchi nodded. Worried about Xiao Ruogang, she followed the others at once.
Shen Liangyu, wounded though he was, stepped forward.
"My injuries are not urgent, so I will accompany Xiao Baishu to see His Highness. The groom will reach Chuishanguan before us — I can give His Highness a fuller account of what happened there."
Bai Jingyan hesitated a moment, then nodded, and with Shen Liangyu at her side she walked toward the Crown Prince's tent.
The Crown Prince had already fallen asleep. When Zhan Yu saw Bai Jingyan returning with blood on her armor and the wounded Shen Liangyu of the Haoying Battalion limping behind her, he hurried out to meet them.
"General Bai, what in the—"
"There's urgent business that requires an audience with His Highness! Something's happened at Chuishanguan!"
Bai Jingyan said, saluting with cupped fists.
Zhan Yu startled, then rushed inside and woke the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince rose, rubbing the haze from his eyes. But the moment he heard that Bai Jingyan and Shen Liangyu had returned with bloodstained armor — and that trouble had broken out at Chuishanguan — his mind snapped wide awake.
Throwing an outer robe over his shoulders, he ordered the lamps lit and bade Bai Jingyan and Shen Liangyu enter.
The two came in from the biting cold wind, and the sight of their blood-soaked armor made the Crown Prince's heart lurch.
"Your Highness! There has been an incident at Chuishanguan!"
Bai Jingyan dropped to one knee as she spoke.
"Zhan Yu, help General Bai up at once! And summon General Zhang Danyue and the other generals as well!"
The Crown Prince knew little of war. But there had been trouble at Chuishanguan, so surely the generals should be called in to hear it together. After a moment's thought, he added one more instruction.
"Have Advisor Fang come too — and Lin Shijie and Zhen Xiangzhi as well!"
Those three were the Crown Prince's own strategists.
Before the affair unfolded, Bai Jingyan meant to plant her account in their minds first. Gathering people here was no disadvantage to her, so she did nothing to dissuade him.
Soon the generals, Zhang Danyue among them, arrived in short order, and they heard Shen Liangyu's account of the incident at Chuishanguan.
"Today, on Xiao Baishu's orders, I led twenty men with the Fourth Young Miss to scout conditions inside Chuishanguan. There we discovered people wearing Jin attire — men trained in the martial arts — coming and going from an inn within the city walls. The Fourth Young Miss and I found this suspicious, so we led our men in a covert infiltration, intending to discover exactly who they were.
But… the moment we entered, we were detected. Those men were formidable fighters with keen instincts for danger. We had intended to take some of them alive for questioning, but the group set fire to the inn itself — deliberately drawing the garrison soldiers of Chuishanguan down upon us!
The Xiliang defenders of Chuishanguan then joined with those masters in Jin dress to kill us. Of the more than twenty men who went with us, half are dead or wounded, and the Fourth Young Miss and I nearly lost our lives inside those walls! Had Your Highness not dispatched Xiao Baishu to our aid at once, we would never have returned!"
The claim that the Crown Prince had sent Bai Jingyan to the rescue was masterfully sly. It made every general present assume that the Haoying Battalion's mission to Chuishanguan, too, had been carried out on the Crown Prince's direct orders.
Watching the blood seep through Shen Liangyu's clothing, drop by drop, Bai Jingyan spoke.
"General Shen, you should see to those wounds first. I'll relate the rest to His Highness and the generals myself."
"Go on, then."
The Crown Prince said, nodding to Shen Liangyu.
Only then did Shen Liangyu salute with cupped fists and withdraw from the Crown Prince's tent.
Bai Jingyan turned to face the Crown Prince.
"During the talks, the Prince of Yan of Xiliang, Li Zhijie, made one excuse after another — he even spouted nonsense claiming Your Highness had dragged a maidservant into the negotiation tent. It was all a ploy to delay the talks! And inside the city walls of Chuishanguan, masters dressed in Jin attire and the Xiliang garrison were together slaughtering our Haoying Battalion men who had gone to scout them out! Something is most certainly afoot!"
Zhang Danyue recalled how Li Zhijie had repeatedly invented excuses to postpone the dates of the negotiation, and then cast his mind back to the events inside Chuishanguan. In an instant, something seemed to click into place.
"Damn it all! Those Xiliang dogs need another beating! If they want to keep fighting this war, then what do we have to be afraid of! Damn them!"
Jian Zeping growled, spitting curses as he bristled.
"Xiliang's internal affairs are in turmoil even now. If they truly intended to prolong the war, there was no need for them to come to the talks at all!"
Bai Jingyan put on a look of troubled deliberation.
"What worries me is whether Xiliang has some other scheme hidden up its sleeve. Though for the life of me, I cannot fathom why they would station masters in Jin attire inside Chuishanguan."
Advisor Fang, seated nearby, stroked his beard as he spoke up.
"If they wore Jin attire, then plainly they are connected to Jin!"
Zhang Danyue clenched his jaw.
"And what would Xiliang want with such men?"
Bai Jingyan shook her head.
"General Shen and his men meant to take some of them alive, but the Xiliang garrison arrived too quickly — there was no chance. We came away knowing nothing."
"Surely they weren't planning to assassinate His Highness?"
Shi Panshan interjected at once, his brows shooting up.
"They wouldn't dare."
The Crown Prince's head was swimming.
Zhen Xiangzhi was every bit as baffled. Xiliang was in the throes of internal upheaval — the talks should have been the more advantageous choice for them. So why would they manufacture a disaster like this?
"If we cannot fathom their intent, what would you say to attacking them of our own initiative?"
Zhen Xiangzhi spoke slowly, weighing each word.
At his words, Bai Jingyan nodded, then saluted the Crown Prince with cupped fists.
"Then what would Your Highness say to sending men to recover the bodies of our Haoying Battalion soldiers? We can watch how Xiliang reacts."
"Absolutely not!"
Advisor Fang's stroking hand stopped dead, and he turned hastily to the Crown Prince.
"However you look at it, Chuishanguan still belongs to Xiliang. For Jin to send men scouting there was improper conduct to begin with — and even if we could not hide it, how could we possibly go and demand the bodies back? It would amount to confessing to Xiliang that we were the ones who scouted Chuishanguan. Your Highness, this demands the gravest deliberation!"
Zhen Xiangzhi frowned at the sight of Advisor Fang contriving to voice the opposite opinion every time he opened his mouth. He had no wish to argue further. Whenever Advisor Fang spoke against him, the Crown Prince invariably took Advisor Fang's side — saying more would accomplish nothing.
Bai Jingyan glanced sideways at Advisor Fang playing the seasoned elder, then answered with her head bowed.
"I understand Advisor Fang's concern. Your Highness did instruct us to return without being discovered — and through our own incompetence, we failed to live up to your expectations."
Seeing Bai Jingyan kneel on one knee, overwhelmed with self-reproach, the Crown Prince had Zhan Yu help her up and spoke slowly.
"General Bai, there is no need to blame yourself. That Li Zhijie fished up one excuse after another in the tent — slandering me with nonsense about maidservants, and on top of that scheming to push back the dates of the talks by any means. If our own Jin men were scouting Chuishanguan, it is because we too had to proceed with the utmost care. More than that — had we not gone and looked, how would we ever have learned that the skilled fighters in Jin attire and the Xiliang garrison at Chuishanguan were working hand in hand!"
Rising with Zhan Yu's support, Bai Jingyan turned to Advisor Fang and spoke with the utmost courtesy.
"Advisor Fang, might you have a better plan in mind?"
When Bai Jingyan showed him such deference, Advisor Fang swelled inwardly with pride and straightened his back all the further. Then, stroking his beard as though lost in deep thought, he turned his head toward the Crown Prince.
"Might I suggest we hold quietly in reserve and watch their movements? We must not relax our vigilance, and we should fortify our protection of Your Highness's safety all the more. And as for the Prince of Yan of Xiliang — let us simply wait and see what he is truly after."
The Crown Prince deliberated for a moment, then nodded.