Chapter 934 - 776: Pirates Besiege the City

Old Ears watched the four people in the distance whispering among themselves: Chen Yu, Chen Xu, Jin Zhu, Heavenly Horse.

These few are all well-known figures in the Imperial Capital; how could Old Ears possibly not recognize them?

Yet he never would have thought it: he’d just said that Zheng Jiye’s shit luck had to run out one day, that it was impossible for him to catch another Seeking Dao Realm Official—and then the man went and caught three in one go.

Old Ears turned his head to look at Chen Ji, smacking his lips. "Is this really still Jingjiang County? With this many Seeking Dao Realm Officials, if you told me this was Shangjing I’d believe you. If I’d known Zheng Jiye could drag them here, you hacking down those damned bamboo was all for nothing. What pirates could possibly withstand you lot fighting like this?"

Chen Ji said calmly, "The Matsubara Clan has seven or eight thousand men and horses. A few Seeking Dao Realm cultivators alone aren’t enough."

"Where’d you get seven or eight thousand from?" Old Ears snorted. "The pirates are scattered all along the coast. Jingjiang County isn’t some fabulously rich geomantic treasure. The pirates would have to be mad to concentrate all their forces here."

Listening to the two, Yuan Xing only felt completely lost. "What are you two talking about? Who exactly did Zheng Jiye catch? He can’t have caught more Seeking Dao Realm Officials, can he?"

Chen Ji lowered his voice and instructed, "It’s fine. You all go eat."

Once Yuan Xing and the others went off to queue for food, Old Ears looked toward Chen Yu and Chen Xu in the distance, and suddenly said with malicious glee, "If you hadn’t been so pigheaded back then, the Chen family’s estate would be yours now. Sitting on such a vast family property, with a Seeking Dao Realm Grand Official at your side, you wouldn’t even need to lift a finger to do any fighting and killing. Don’t you regret it?"

Chen Ji gently shook his head. "Nothing to regret. The one following by my side now is no worse than Chen Xu."

Old Ears sneered. "You mean Yuan Xing? Then you really don’t know Taishan when you see it. What kind of mediocrity do you think serves as the personal Death Soldier beside a family’s cabinet minister? This Chen Xu has been at Chen Luchi’s side from early on, in charge of the Chen family’s Death Soldiers, helping the Chen family draw all the Lu State Executives under their banner. The people of Lu State gave him the nickname ’True Monarch Shouyi’. How could that wastrel Yuan Xing compare to him?"

Chen Ji kept his gaze straight ahead. "I’m not talking about Yuan Xing."

Old Ears was startled. "Not that one in front of you?"

Before Old Ears could react, Chen Ji had already lifted his foot and walked toward Jin Zhu.

...

...

On the other side, Jin Zhu and the others were whispering together.

Chen Yu squatted under the eaves and asked in a low voice, "Those two wearing masks—Which one is the foster father the Anti-Japanese Army hid in the shadows?"

Jin Zhu thought for a moment. "Should be the one riding the shaggy donkey; that one looks a bit older..."

He hadn’t finished when Chen Yu heard Yuan Xing call Chen Ji "foster father." "It’s actually that one?"

Jin Zhu narrowed his eyes, pondering. "For a man to show himself only in a mask, there are only two situations. One is that he’s too ugly to meet people; the other is that he’s too famous and doesn’t want to be recognized. So this ’foster father’ is someone who’s afraid of being recognized in Ning Dynasty territory—he’s not from the Jing Dynasty."

Chen Yu shuffled over a couple of steps to Jin Zhu’s side in his squat. "But if this ’foster father’ is one of us Ning Dynasty people, how would Yuan Xing be willing to become his foster son?"

Jin Zhu thought about it. "Ah Xing being Yuan Xing is still just our baseless guesswork, not solid fact... But I’ve seen stranger things than that. Yuan Xing taking a Ning Dynasty man as foster father isn’t impossible."

Chen Yu asked curiously, "Stranger? What kind of thing?"

Jin Zhu didn’t answer; he only stared from afar at Chen Ji, afraid to miss any detail. "Wearing a straw coat under a blazing sun—what’s he trying to hide?"

Suddenly his eyes widened. "Wait. How do I feel this person isn’t that old? Look at his back and waist—straight as a rod, not the least bit stooped. And he has no neck wrinkles at all—at most twenty-four!"

Chen Yu grew puzzled as well. "This is strange. Just now I clearly saw Ah Xing call him foster father—how could he only be in his twenties?"

Jin Zhu mused, "Either he’s a prodigy like Hu Junyan, whose talent is so extraordinary even the ordinary Seeking Dao Realm cultivators have to look up to him; or he’s someone of such high rank and heavy authority that even Seeking Dao Realm Officials have to bow and scrape to him... Meeting those two conditions, in both the Ning and Jing Dynasties, there are only a few people."

Chen Yu reminded him, "Stop talking, he’s coming over."

The four saw Chen Ji stride over and stop in front of them. The tiger-head exorcist mask’s blue face and fanged maw lowered to gaze at them, its expression murderous and severe.

Chen Yu reacted fastest. He rose, smiling, and cupped his hands. "Sir, we heard of the Anti-Japanese Army’s righteous campaign and have come specially to join you."

Chen Ji was silent for a moment, then rasped, "Where have you all come from?"

Jin Zhu smiled as he explained, "We were originally Common Households under the Central Army Commander’s Mansion. Disgusted by the lax military preparations and filthy intrigue over there, we came to the Anti-Japanese Army to offer ourselves to the nation."

Chen Ji gave an "oh," and said carelessly, "Common Households from the Central Army Commander’s Mansion? You look to me more like supervisors from the Eunuch Party sent by the court."

Jin Zhu declared righteously, "How could that be? We are mortal enemies of the Eunuch Party!"

But just then, urgent drumbeats sounded from the city walls. This was the signal drum for an enemy attack—the pirates had come.

In the next instant, Chen Ji no longer had the leisure to tease Jin Zhu. He turned around and ran up toward the gate tower. Yuan Xing and the others didn’t say a word, tossed down their rice bowls, and followed right behind Chen Ji.

When they reached the highest point of the city gate, they gazed far out toward the Yangtze River. On the river, whose surface glimmered with golden light in the evening, dozens of Japan’s Anzai tower ships had their sails fully stretched, speeding in from where water met sky.

On the tower ships, the Matsubara Clan’s red-bottom golden sun flags blotted out the sky.

Standing on the gate tower, Yuan Xing began to quietly count: "Forty-nine ships, fifty ships, fifty-one ships..."

Before he could finish, Jiang Chai said with certainty, "Sixty-nine ships. If each ship carries sixty pirates, then what’s come this time is over half of the Matsubara Clan’s entire strength—at least four thousand men."

Yuan Xing was puzzled. "Does Jingjiang County have some treasure? What are they doing bringing so many people here? Could it be that among the pirates we killed last time, there were direct blood relatives of the Matsubara Clan? The old bastard’s come for revenge?"

Jiang Chai mused, "Impossible. Since when have pirates cared about such things? There must be something more important driving them here..."

Yuan Xing thought for a moment. "Should we take the initiative and hit them with a surprise attack? Wreck the docks first and worry about the rest later."

Jiang Chai held his breath, pondering for quite a while. "It’s useless."

The Matsubara Clan’s tower ships did not rush to approach the mudflats. Instead, they lowered one small boat after another and rowed them toward the docks. Only after several hundred pirates had fully seized the docks did the large tower ships come alongside.

Dense crowds of pirates disembarked from the ships. Jiang Chai swept his gaze over them and suddenly sensed something wrong. "More than four thousand. The pirates have also driven along sturdy men they’ve seized elsewhere—there must be over six thousand... maybe even more."

At this moment, several Anzai tower ships sent out a force of more than two hundred cavalry, led eastward by a Japanese Chief clad in do-maru armor.

Yuan Xing asked in confusion, "Pirates even have cavalry? I’ve never heard of that. What can just over two hundred cavalry do?"

Watching the distant figure of that cavalry unit ride away, Jiang Chai was also puzzled. "What are they going east for?"

Right after that, four Japanese Chiefs clad in do-maru armor each led their troops out along four separate routes to encircle Jingjiang County. There was another force that was particularly strange: they were actually driving the captured Ning Dynasty sturdy men ahead of them, shouldering hoes and shovels as they moved toward the east of Jingjiang County.

Following the direction in which the pirates were advancing, Jiang Chai looked eastward and saw a small river. This little river flowed from east to west, passing straight through Jingjiang County’s eastern and western Water Gates.

His expression changed. "They’re going to dig up the river and divert it, cutting off Jingjiang County’s water supply. These pirates are here to besiege the city. That cavalry force that headed east just now is going to plunder the people and grain, fighting a war by living off the land. No, not just that—they also mean to intercept and kill the men we sent to Jinling to report the situation."

Yuan Xing’s eyes widened. "Those grandsons want to besiege us?"

Jiang Chai clasped his fists toward Chen Ji. "Foster father, may I be the one to issue the orders?"

Chen Ji nodded. "Good."

Jiang Chai immediately turned to Yuan Xi and instructed, "If someone cuts off the water outside the city, then someone will cut off the well water inside it. There are definitely pirate spies in the county town, waiting for a chance to poison the wells. The people now trust you as their bright, upright magistrate, so go and gather the people of Jingjiang County. Have the men form groups of three to guard every well. The rest must block up all the drainage culverts in the city so the pirates have no chance to sneak in; then gather all the women, go door to door collecting grain, and from today on, let my Anti-Japanese Army handle unified allocation..."

Jiang Chai rattled off seven separate tasks in one breath, then barked at Yuan Xi, "Repeat the order!"

Yuan Xi calmly recited, "Gather the people, men in groups of three to guard the wells..."

Once Yuan Xi had accurately repeated every clause of the General Order, Jiang Chai swept his hand. "Go. For each task completed, send someone to report immediately. Do not make mistakes."

"All right!" Yuan Xi accepted the order and left.

Jiang Chai then instructed Zhou Chang, "Once Ah Xi has gathered everyone, have the baojia mutual-responsibility units identify one another and be sure to drag out all the spies; take the Anti-Japanese Army and surround the King Family of Jingjiang. Make them bring out the Wang Family’s grain stores—if they don’t hand them over, then confiscate the Wang Family outright..."

"All right!" Zhou Chang also accepted the order and left.

One military order after another was issued by Jiang Chai atop the gate tower, and the whole of Jingjiang County instantly shifted into wartime. Those receiving orders didn’t need to think much—just follow them.

After Jiang Chai caught his breath and closed his eyes to search for omissions in his mind, Yuan Xing asked in puzzlement, "Do we really need to be this tense? Jingjiang County isn’t that far from the Central Army Commander’s Mansion. Even allowing time to gather grain and weapons and to march, they could reach Jingjiang County within ten days. How long can the pirates besiege us?"

Jiang Chai said in a deep voice, "Without some big shot from the Ning Dynasty giving them a guarantee, how would the Matsubara Clan dare to stake everything on one throw? The Central Army Commander’s Mansion won’t come, and even if it does, it’ll be after the city has already fallen. Don’t you dare take this lightly."

Yuan Xing looked into the distance and suddenly said, "You really take me for a fool? All of you mock me, saying I only got to be Right Martial Guard Commander thanks to Yuan Xiang, and every time you bring up how I was cannon fodder under Chongli Pass. Have any of you ever thought about how Yuan Cheng, who’s been at odds with Yuan Xiang for years, would treat me?"

Jiang Chai was taken aback. "We never did ask you—where did Yuan Cheng send you that year?"

Yuan Xing said calmly, "Back then I was only Vice Commander of the Right Martial Guard. My Right Martial Guard was sent by Yuan Cheng to attack Maomen Pass. After we took it, we held the pass under the Imperial Three Camps for a full forty-seven days. The Commander died in battle, and more than half the infantry were killed or wounded. After the war, I personally went to every house to console the families—we didn’t go home for months."

Jiang Chai muttered, "How come you never mentioned it?"

"So many men dead—humiliating enough as it is, what’s there to brag about?" Yuan Xing gave a feral grin. "If I hadn’t led troops to block Maomen Pass back then, half of our Jing Dynasty army wouldn’t have been able to withdraw from the Chongli Pass front. The thing I’m best at in this life is siege defense. If they dare come besiege my city, then let them come and try."