Resolve
Bai Jingyan entered with Nuo Ping and Du Sanbao and offered her respects to Liu Hong.
Nuo Ping set the bamboo slip bearing the contents of the interrogation on the table before Liu Hong, while Du Sanbao performed a formal salute with cupped fists.
"Marshal, I received orders today and left the city to burn Liang's grain stores. On the way back, I captured two Liang soldiers and interrogated each of them separately. Liang's General Gu has set out for Huoshen Mountain with ten thousand men. By all appearances, he means to capture the Gaoyi County Princess."
Nuo Ping continued in his turn.
"While infiltrating the city today, I learned the location of Liang's granaries from one of the Zhao family soldiers who had slipped inside. I also obtained intelligence that the Gaoyi County Princess is currently being held on Huoshen Mountain."
Bai Jingyan bowed with cupped fists toward Liu Hong.
"Marshal, I beg you to grant me five thousand troops. I will go to Huoshen Mountain this very moment and bring her back."
Liu Hong nodded. Rescuing her was the urgent matter.
The very reason Bai Jingyan had rushed to Longyang City in such haste must have been the Gaoyi County Princess herself.
"But the reinforcements have not yet arrived. If you march five thousand men out of the city and the Liang main force attacks in the meantime..."
Liu Hong had his own share of worries.
"At dawn tomorrow, Marshal, take the head of the Zhao family soldier who infiltrated Longyang City and carry it yourself to the Liang camp. Then, in the Marshal's name, deliver a formal proclamation to Xun Tianzhang, the commander of the Liang armies. Xun Tianzhang has not yet been able to confirm whether our reinforcements have arrived. If you go to him in person, the suspicious old man will assume that Jin's reinforcements have already arrived and will not dare engage rashly! He will certainly never be the one to strike first and attack the city!"
Bai Jingyan had already sorted out her thoughts on the journey here.
Given the timing, it was impossible for Jin's reinforcements to have arrived. But Liu Hong's arrival was exquisitely timely. If she could hold the front first and the newly appointed Marshal of the Jin armies personally issued a declaration of war, Xun Tianzhang would hesitate for quite some time.
And while Xun Tianzhang hesitated, Bai Jingyan could rescue Bai Jinchi.
Liu Hong nodded, then lifted his head and looked at Bai Jingyan as though he meant to say something. After a long pause, he pressed one hand down on the bamboo slip and spoke.
"When you go to the Liang camp to declare war, my lady, you must ride with me. My body is not what it was. It takes someone who bested a fierce Liang general in a mere three exchanges to show the enemy our army's might!"
As for the rescue at Huoshen Mountain, he would entrust it to the two generals Lin Gangluo and Wang Xiping. He would give them ten thousand men! Both generals had long been stationed in the north, so they knew the terrain there far better than she did.
This was as much concession as Liu Hong could possibly make. By this arrangement, he could send men to rescue Bai Jinchi while still keeping Bai Jingyan at his side as the Emperor had instructed.
Bai Jingyan pressed her lips inward and looked quietly at Liu Hong.
His lips were so pale they had begun to crack, as though they might split at any moment.
"I know full well how desperately you wish to save your sister this instant. But you've hardly spared your own body, have you? You rode here day and night without rest. Even I can barely endure it — how much worse must it be for you, a woman! The Gaoyi County Princess is the granddaughter of the King of Zhenguo. She is a meritorious hero of the Southern Border campaign! She will be brought back, I swear it. But you should get some rest, my lady. That is an order from your Marshal!"
Liu Hong worried for her with genuine sincerity. Bai Jingyan and Bai Jinchi were both blood of the King of Zhenguo. If it was within his power, Liu Hong had no wish to watch another member of the Bai family lose their life.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
Liu Hong immediately gave word for his subordinate generals to be summoned. Bai Jingyan turned and issued her own instructions to Nuo Ping.
"Pingsu, you'll need to go with General Lin Gangluo. It will make finding Jinchi that much easier."
"Yes, my lady!"
Nuo Ping bowed with cupped fists.
"Do not worry, my lady! Even if this body of mine shatters to pieces, I will bring the Gaoyi County Princess home safe and sound!"
Du Sanbao's eyes were burning hot.
Once Nuo Ping and Du Sanbao had departed, Liu Hong let out a long breath, and his manner of speech softened somewhat.
"I hear you haven't rested since you arrived at Longyang City. We've located the Gaoyi County Princess, and we've secured the men to go after her. Get some sleep now."
Bai Jingyan gazed out at the brightening sky beyond the Marshal's tent, then turned her eyes to Liu Hong, kneeling beneath the wavering candlelight, and asked in a level voice.
"General Liu, before you were appointed Marshal and set out on this campaign, did His Majesty instruct you to keep me here?"
Liu Hong's hands clenched into fists as his face darkened, and he shot the question back.
"My lady, do you doubt me now? Or do you doubt His Majesty?"
"How could I possibly presume to doubt either of you."
Bai Jingyan's expression did not change in the slightest.
"His Majesty has always kept the Bai family on such a tight rein that I could not help but wonder. I have not forgotten General Liu's kindness — how you came to the Bai Manor in person to see our family's souls off at its gates. I wish to treat you as an elder of my own house, General.
Let me speak frankly to you. The loyalty and righteousness of the Bai family is famed throughout the realm. The people along Jin's borders are the very ones my grandfather, my father, and generation after generation of Bais have staked their lives to protect! That is why no Bai will ever commit treason! Least of all would we line our own pockets while the nation hangs in peril."
Bai Jingyan's eyes shone clear and bright.
"Because the Bai family... will be loyal to the people of Jin alone, and will protect the people of Jin until our bodies break."
She looked at Liu Hong with an earnest gaze.
"That is also why the Emperor's faith in our family has wavered. In the Southern Border war, His Majesty granted the gold and coin tallies to King Xin — and drove my grandfather, my father, my uncles, and my siblings to their deaths!
In this war with Liang... I do not wish to see that same tragedy unfold a second time. General Liu, the Jin soldiers and generals, and we of the Bai family — the reason every one of us is here is one and the same, is it not? To protect the nation, and to protect its people."
At Bai Jingyan's sudden confession of her heart, Liu Hong's heart thundered. He clenched his fists.
He wanted to ask — if the day ever came when the people could no longer live in peace, would the Bai family overturn the imperial house of the Im clan for the people's sake?
But he could not ask. And even without asking, he thought he already knew her answer. If he asked and heard it spoken aloud, he would have no choice but to report it to the Emperor as a loyal subject, and the Bai family would be plunged into danger. It was far better neither to ask nor to know.
A family that held loyalty and righteousness and great ambition as the Bais did was a rare thing indeed.
Bai Jingyan's honesty had, if anything, shown Liu Hong exactly what he ought to do. Her words were right. The reason they had all come here was to protect the nation and its people.
Better to worry about how to defeat the enemy and shield the people right now than to brood over whether Bai Jingyan might one day lead the Bai family into rebellion should the people of Jin fall into suffering.
Besides, Liu Hong did not consider the current Emperor or Crown Prince to be sagacious rulers — but neither, he believed, were they men who would ever drive the people of Jin into misery.
There was no need to agonize over calamities that had not yet come to pass. Whether the Bai family showed its loyalty to the people of Jin or to the Emperor, in the end only the manner of speaking differed — the loyalty itself was to Jin either way.
Liu Hong nodded.
"I understand your heart, my lady. But speak no such words to anyone else. I know your loyalty and the Bai family's, but if such talk ever reached His Majesty's ears, it would trouble his heart."
"Thank you for the warning."
Bai Jingyan bowed her head and continued with careful courtesy.
"Between the Liang camp and Huoshen Mountain there is a road they must pass. Allow me to lead troops around it by a different route. If the Liang army on Huoshen Mountain returns to camp to call for reinforcements, I can lie in ambush there and strike."
Liu Hong shared her concern. If no one lay in ambush at that place, the Liang forces on Huoshen Mountain would return to camp and summon aid. If Xun Tianzhang led his main force to attack the mountain, then not only the Gaoyi County Princess, but the ten thousand soldiers under Lin Gangluo and Wang Xiping would never return.
"There is no need for you to go yourself! I will send men — do not worry!"
Liu Hong looked at Bai Jingyan and went on, gently.
"So go, and rest for just one shichen. In one shichen, you and I must go together to find Liang's commander, Xun Tianzhang."
Bai Jingyan nodded and withdrew.
Watching her retreating figure, Liu Hong let out a sigh. Bai Weiting, King of Zhenguo; Bai Qishan, Duke of Zhenguo; and now Bai Jingyan, the Zhenguo Commandery Princess — in the end, they had all been simply too honest, and that honesty had roused the Emperor's suspicion.
When Bai Jingyan stepped out of Liu Hong's tent, the world outside had grown bright.
The reason she had spoken so openly to Liu Hong was that he had once, following her maternal uncle Dong Qing'e, come in person to the Bai Manor to send off the family's souls. She believed there remained in him the loyalty and uprightness of a true soldier.
That her grandfather Bai Weiting had been an upright and loyal man was known to every soul in the court. If even Zhen Xiangzhi, who had never once set foot across the court's threshold, knew it — how could Liu Hong not?
No one was ignorant of the Bai family's honesty. In that case, it was far better to state openly and in advance that the Bais would never commit treason.
She would make clear that the Bai family's loyalty was for the people, not for the sovereign of a single dynasty, and on that understanding she and Liu Hong would join hearts and drive back the Liang army. So long as he did not regard her with suspicion, that would be enough. Only then would the people be spared suffering from discord between the Marshal and the general.
And the fact that he had warned her never to repeat her words to anyone else — that made it certain her words had moved him.
* * *
Sima Ping stood outside the south gate of Dadu holding a fine horse. Luggage and a sword hung from either side of its saddle. He arched an eyebrow as he looked Lu Yuanfeng up and down.
Lu Yuanfeng was dressed in the coarse hemp clothes of an ordinary commoner and worn cloth shoes, his hair bound up with cloth in place of a jade crown. On his back he carried a bundle patched in a dozen places, and there was not the slightest trace of that polished, aristocratic elegance about him.
Lu Yuanfeng glanced over his own getup, and when he saw Sima Ping in his fine silks, he had the distinct feeling he'd been played for a fool by his own brother.
"Weren't we supposed to hide our identities and join the army? Look at this outfit! I hear that in a military house like ours, even the servants wear clothes common folk can't usually get their hands on! If you're going to hide your identity, you have to change everything — this horse, that luggage, and the clothes you're wearing right now!"
Lu Yuanfeng lectured Sima Ping in an imitation of his elder brother Ye- — no, of his elder brother Lu Yuanjing's manner of speaking. And yet, even as he said it, his heart was not in it at all.
Sima Ping pressed his lips inward. He had expected some effort at disguise, but he hadn't imagined Lu Yuanfeng would go this far. He led the fine horse over to Lu Yuanfeng and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Yuanfeng. Tell me honestly. Your brother played you, didn't he?"
"Nobody played me!"
Lu Yuanfeng bristled.
"Even if we're enlisting under hidden identities, there's no need to dress like this starting from Dadu itself! Just change once we get there. And besides — you're really going to walk all the way to the Southern Border on two legs, without even riding? At that rate it'll take... what, ten years?"
Lu Yuanfeng flinched. The man had a point.
Sima Ping let out a sigh.
"How did a man as brilliant as your grandfather end up with a grandson this dim?"
Lu Yuanfeng chewed it over for a while, then seemed to realize something was off and spoke again.
"The more I think about it... my brother wasn't sending me to the Southern Border at all. He meant to send me to the Northern Border!"
Lu Yuanfeng suddenly lifted his head and fixed Sima Ping with a serious look.
"When I left the house this morning, my brother told me the court was recruiting soldiers to send north. He said the situation on the Northern Border was urgent. 'Circumstances make the hero,' he said — that it was a fine chance to earn merit. And he said the Bai sister was in the north, too! And then what did he give me? No horse. No silver. Just a name — Wang San! Isn't that just ordering me to volunteer for the northern recruitment myself?"
Sima Ping frowned, sensing something was off.
The reason Lu Yuanfeng wanted to go to the Southern Border and join the Bai family army was to follow Bai Jingyan. And Lu Yuanjing had told him that Bai Jingyan was currently in the north. His brother's intent could not have been clearer.