Chapter 83: The Ruthless Qin Army

The field was strewn with bodies.

Wei Wuxi counted roughly four or five hundred at a glance, old men and children among them.

“Did they butcher an entire village?” he thought grimly.

The corpses lay everywhere, and because they had been dead for some time, putrefaction had already drawn clouds of flies, their constant droning filling the air.

At that moment, Wang Xiu, who had been following behind, hurried up. The instant he saw the scene before him, his eyes widened as well.

Though the Zhou order had long since fallen, the rites it left behind were still preserved by the states.

Such an inhuman massacre was utterly intolerable to the world and would surely be despised by all under heaven.

“Young master, who could have done this?” Wang Xiu asked, and Zheng Dali, standing nearby, also looked indignant.

The answer was obvious enough. Judging by the state of decay, the dead had been lying here for several days already.

Of all those who could have done it several days ago, Wei Wuxi could think of no one besides the panicked and fleeing Qin troops.

“These damned Qin dogs!” Wei Wuxi cursed.

This had happened on land occupied by the State of Wei; once word spread, the blame would certainly fall on Wei.

And if Wei had to bear it, Wei Wuxi himself could not escape either, for he was the one stationed at Ironwood Town.

“The Qin are so savage; heaven will surely strike them down,” Wang Xiu said bitterly. He had killed plenty of men himself, but that had been on the battlefield, where only one side could live.

“This young master will make them pay,” Wei Wuxi said darkly.

Turning to the soldiers, he ordered, “In this weather, if we let the bodies rot, an epidemic may break out. Go and gather firewood at once, then burn them all.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Wei soldiers answered in unison, then rode off in all directions.

Looking at the bodies before him, Wei Wuxi silently bowed his head in his heart, offering them a moment of mourning.

This counts as a good deed, I suppose, giving them proper rest in the earth, he thought. After all, cremation is also a kind of grand funeral.

But not long after, a cavalryman returned, driving before him several ragged hillfolk.

“Knelt down!”

As they were brought before Wei Wuxi, the soldiers shouted at them.

“What is going on?” Wei Wuxi asked.

“Reporting to the young master: these people were hiding nearby, acting suspiciously, so we brought them back,” the rider replied.

Wei Wuxi turned his gaze to the mountain folk kneeling before him and asked in a low voice, “Who are you people? What were you doing over there?”

Terrified out of their wits by the display, the hillfolk had no courage to answer. Their lips trembled, and not a single word came out.

“If you still won’t speak, I’ll cut you down!” Zheng Dali barked from the side, growing anxious just watching them.

The threat worked. The man kneeling at the front trembled as he lifted his head and stammered, “W-we are from… from Upper Brook Village. We came here… to gather up… the village… corpses.”

“You mean these dead are all from your village?” Wei Wuxi asked, bending down.

“Yes,” the hillman replied.

“How did they die?” Wei Wuxi asked, then softened his tone. “Tell me carefully. Don’t be afraid. We are here to help you.”

Only then did the men seem to steady themselves somewhat, though they still could not stop stammering.

What they roughly meant was this: six days earlier, an army had marched into Upper Brook Village and demanded that the villagers hand over all their grain.

Naturally, the villagers refused. They even injured the soldiers sent to collect it, and that had kicked over a hornet’s nest.

At the time, that general flew into a rage and simply gave his soldiers free rein to plunder. He also had all the villagers killed. The few men now standing before Wei Wuxi were those who had luckily slipped from the butcher’s hand.

That general was, of course, Zhai Quan, and the troops that had burned, killed, and looted were the Qin army. From this incident alone, one could infer that the Qin were desperately short of provisions.

Otherwise they would never have been driven to such madness. What could they possibly seize from a single village? It was summer, after all; few households would have much grain stored away.

This also meant that other villages would surely be attacked as well. Otherwise the Qin soldiers would have difficulty satisfying their needs. With more than a thousand mouths to feed, they also had to remain battle-ready at all times.

“Do you know where the Qin dogs went?” Wei Wuxi asked the survivors.

They all shook their heads. How could they dare follow after them? That would be courting death.

The fact that they had only come now to collect the remains said enough about their courage.

Wei Wuxi shook his head in disappointment. Failing to learn the Qin’s trail directly was a real pity.

“Then farther north, are there still villages?” Wei Wuxi asked, pointing toward the mountains.

“Yes… there are still… several villages inside,” the hillman stammered.

Hope kindled again in Wei Wuxi’s heart. The Qin had most likely moved along the line of villages, and the direction of their search became clear at last.

His mood improved somewhat. At least he no longer had to wander around blindly.

Seeing how pitiable these survivors were, Wei Wuxi told Zheng Dali, “Leave them some food. Take it as a reward for them.”

It was rare for Wei Wuxi to show such mercy, and Zheng Dali acknowledged the order and went off.

Then Wei Wuxi said to the men before him, “We are the army of Wei. We have come to protect you, to help you fight those Qin troops, who are nothing but wolves and jackals.”

“You need not be afraid. We will avenge you.”

Only after he finished speaking did the mountain folk repeatedly kowtow, babbling in a jumble of words. They seemed to be thanking Wei Wuxi, though they were too excited to speak coherently.

After leaving that stretch of open land, Wei Wuxi led his men back to the main body of the force, then took a company of soldiers and pressed deeper into the mountains.

Their target was the next village that had been plundered, so that they might gradually close in on the Qin.

As expected, every seven or eight li they traveled brought them to another village.

Just as Wei Wuxi had anticipated, most of these villages had already been robbed by the Qin, though some had been sensible enough to comply and were spared massacre.

Step by step, the most remote mountain village under Ironwood Town finally came into view.

This was the last stop. If he could not obtain useful information here, the trail would be cut off.

Like the villages they had encountered before, this one had been stripped bare, robbed clean by the Qin.

But they had been lucky; they had not suffered a large-scale slaughter. Still, surviving the hunger that would follow over the next few months would not be easy.

Along the way, at every village they reached, Wei Wuxi proclaimed that he was acting in accordance with heaven’s will, that he had come to avenge the villagers and right the wrongs done to them, and he began to build up the image of a savior.

With time and repetition, he was certain these people would spread his deeds far and wide, and his name could slowly be restored.

From this final village, Wei Wuxi again gathered the people and asked about the Qin’s whereabouts.

“Do you know where that band of thieves fled to?” he asked.

The villagers, cowed by the blades and spears before them, could hardly say anything at all. They merely trembled all over.

Wei Wuxi did not want to waste any more time. He said directly, “We are here to avenge you. There is no need to be afraid. Tell us where those thieves went.”

He had thought he would have to comfort them for a while longer, but once they heard the word revenge, one of the villagers plucked up the courage to answer.

“Reporting to the general, the Qin are in Cloud-Blocking Gorge, deep in the mountains.”

Wei Wuxi dismounted and walked up to him. “Is that true?”

The man trembled as he replied, “This humble commoner would not dare utter a single false word.”

“Good!”

Wei Wuxi clapped his hands and laughed aloud.

At last, after all this searching, they had found the Qin army’s trail.

“You will lead us there first thing tomorrow morning. If we find the Qin dogs, this young master will not be stingy with rewards.”

The villager hurriedly bowed again and again, thanking Wei Wuxi profusely.

As for why they did not set out to wipe out the bandits today, the reason was simple: they had already traveled a great distance, and by now the light was failing, too little for battle to begin.

Wei Wuxi felt it would be better to rest, then strike the Qin army with full force in one decisive blow.