Chapter 54: An Absurd Reason

The forty-eighth year of legitimacy, the first day of the third lunar month.

After twenty days of marching, one hundred thousand Wu Army Soldiers arrived at the border between the two countries.

The next day, the Yannan Pass, the northeast gateway to Southern Zhao, fell that very day.

The Wu Army did not linger; leaving behind a small detachment, the main force continued south on the second day of the third month.

Wherever the great army arrived, the Zhao Army surrendered at the mere sight of them.

In ten days, they captured four cities in succession and expanded their territory by three hundred li.

On the thirteenth of the third month, the Wu Army reached the foot of Koujian Pass, leaving only one hundred and forty li to the Southern Zhao capital, Yunzhou City.

A triumphant victory was within reach!

The fourteenth of the third month. Night.

Five li outside Koujian Pass, the camp of the hundred-thousand-strong army was heavily guarded, with bonfires stretching as far as the eye could see, as bright as the Milky Way.

The eight divisions of the Great Wu Imperial Guards were divided into the Four Symbols and the Four Guardians.

The Four Symbols: Soaring Dragon, Winged Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.

The Four Guardians: Dragon Guard, Spirit Guard, Heaven Guard, and Martial Guard.

The Four Guardians were all Imperial Guards of the capital, stationed year-round at the center of power, and rarely participated in foreign campaigns.

The Four Symbols, however, belonged to the strongest mobile forces of Great Wu.

For this expedition, the central army was composed of the Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, and auxiliary troops, while the left army was composed of the Xiang armies of Sheng and Yong provinces, led by General Huaihua Qin Shou.

The right army was commanded by Prince Huanyang, Gao Shizhen.

In ten days, the Wu Army had won five consecutive victories, and the commander of the southern expedition, Duke of Zhenguo Xia Jiye, specifically bestowed meat to reward the entire army.

Although they were all Wu Army, there were differences in treatment.

For auxiliary troops like the Qiaodao Local Army, there wasn’t even any meat to eat tonight.

Not to mention military merit.

As a personal guard to Commander Lin Dafu of the Qiaodao Local Army, Ding Suian’s closest contact with the battlefield was merely watching from afar.

The hour of the dog (7 PM – 9 PM).

“Young Master Ding, come out with me for a moment.”

Lin Dafu suddenly brought Ding Suian to the neighboring camp of the Vermilion Bird Army.

After announcing themselves, a Soldier led the two to a large tent.

While still three or four zhang away, they could hear the noisy sounds of finger-guessing games and drinking chants from inside the tent.

“Eight horses!” “Five leaders!” “Two breasts, three mouths! Old Liu lost, drink!”

Ding Suian’s first reaction was shock, followed by speechlessness; last month, in Central Heaven, he had just witnessed the ‘fish stalls’ of the civil officials.

Now, he was witnessing the laxity of the military generals.

Although they had been winning consecutive victories, they were still in the middle of a campaign, yet they dared to drink in the camp.

Inside the tent, the plates and cups were in disarray, with three or four empty wine jars tossed haphazardly under the table, and three flushed, red-faced men sat around it.

“Commander Liu, Commander Tu, Merit Officer Wang.”

Lin Dafu smiled like a Maitreya Buddha, bowing and cupping his hands in greeting one by one.

He was fair-skinned and fat, his appearance and temperament not resembling a Soldier at all; at this moment, nodding and bowing, he looked even more like a shrewd and cowardly merchant.

The three men in the tent were respectively the battalion commanders and the campaign merit officer under the Vermilion Bird Army.

In terms of military rank, Lin Dafu was actually a head above the three of them.

The three of them had naturally seen Lin Dafu standing in the tent long ago, but they continued as they pleased. It was not until they finished their finger-guessing game and the penalty drinks that Merit Officer Wang acted as if he had just seen Lin Dafu and greeted him: “Oh, why has Commander Lin come? Come, come, have a drink with us.”

As he said this, he invited Lin Dafu to take a seat, but did not call for his personal guards to bring a stool, bowl, or chopsticks.

Lin Dafu was not angry, and still smiling, said: “No need, no need, I am here to take care of that matter.”

“That matter? What matter?” Merit Officer Wang pretended to be confused.

“Didn’t I settle this with Merit Officer Wang a few days ago?”

“Settle what?”

Lin Dafu felt slightly awkward and had to be more direct: “The matter of reselling severed heads.”

“Oh, so it’s this matter. Did you bring the money?”

“Brought it, brought it, here are five hundred taels of silver notes.”

Lin Dafu took a stack of silver notes from his bosom and presented them with both hands. Merit Officer Wang accepted them carelessly and walked straight to the table, taking out several ‘merit report documents’ that had already been stamped but not yet filled with the names of the awardees.

“Commander Lin, who is the one who earned the merit?”

“Write down Ding Suian.”

Lin Dafu stood on his tiptoes, stretching his neck to watch with his own eyes as Merit Officer Wang wrote Ding Suian’s name on the merit report document, only then did he feel relieved.

So, this was what Lin Hansu meant when she said ‘Lin Dafu will help you buy some military merit.’

A while later, Lin Dafu led Ding Suian out of the tent. They hadn’t gone far when a burst of laughter and ‘whispers’ that weren’t lowered in volume erupted from inside the tent.

“This old man is always good at this kind of bootlicking! If it weren’t for selling his daughter, how could he have climbed above us?”

“It’s truly shameful to be in the same unit as this kind of person.”

“Sigh! What’s there to be ashamed of? The imperial court only rewards five taels for one severed head, and he’s willing to pay ten times the price. This business is worth doing.”

“Heh, don’t say that. Although the old man is cowardly and afraid of death, he is good at making money. Let’s be polite to him in the future so we can follow him and get rich, right?”

“Hahaha, come, drink!”

The flickering bonfires in the distance cast light and shadow on Lin Dafu’s fat Face. Just when Ding Suian thought he was about to fly into a rage, he saw him turn around, spit hard, and curse in a low voice like Ah Q: “Military brutes, vulgar!”

Returning to the Qiaodao Local Army camp, by the time Ding Suian went out to relieve himself and returned to the tent, Lin Dafu was already leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, humming a suggestive tune and tapping his thigh to the beat.

“…” It was as if that humiliation just now hadn’t existed. What a great mindset!

Seeing Ding Suian enter, Lin Dafu stretched and said complacently: “Five hundred taels for ten severed heads, no need to risk your life in the hail of arrows. After returning to the capital, with two promotions in military merit, it’s enough for you to be promoted to Dutou.”

This matter was all thanks to Lin Hansu’s Face. Ding Suian couldn’t help but feel curious. Logically, Lin Dafu, who married his daughter to a paralytic to seek promotion, should be an extremely selfish person who didn’t care much about his daughter.

But earlier, he had painstakingly taught Ding Suian the ways of official bribery and etiquette, and tonight he had disregarded his own Face to buy him military merit.

No matter how one looked at it, he was a father who cared deeply about his daughter’s feelings, even to the point of pandering to her.

On that side, Lin Dafu seemed to have guessed Ding Suian’s thoughts and could not help but sigh heavily, “Every family has its own difficult scriptures to recite! My Lin family originated in Yezhou, Jiangbei, and was once a royal merchant of the previous dynasty. After the new dynasty was established, for old people of the previous dynasty like us, if we didn’t endure humiliation and bear the burden, and make connections, I’m afraid we would have been eaten down to the bone marrow long ago.”

Ding Suian only listened and did not speak.

Seeing this, Lin Dafu sighed again, “To protect the family business, I could only add the properties to the dowries of Consort Su and her two sisters to attach ourselves to the nobility. At the time, I thought that while others might dare to rob me, they certainly wouldn’t dare to target the Princess Consort of Lanyang. I didn’t expect that the dowry would instead bring a fatal disaster upon Consort Su.”

Lin Dafu’s Face was sorrowful, and his voice was full of emotion.

He had taken the initiative to explain so much to Ding Suian, likely wanting to use Young Master Ding’s mouth to relay it to Lin Hansu, in order to resolve the estrangement.

At the emotional point, Lin Dafu even wiped away his tears, “My Consort Su has suffered in the past few years. Anyway, from now on, whatever she wants to do, whatever she wants, I won’t stop her.”

The key is that you couldn’t stop her anyway.

Ding Suian found it inconvenient to express an opinion on the father-daughter matter, so he changed the subject, “Commander Lin, why exactly is this southern expedition happening?”

When the Wu Army fights abroad, although they don’t kill everyone they see, looting along the way is inevitable.

Just like the army reward tonight, the live animals like chickens, pigs, sheep, and cattle were certainly not raised by themselves.

Ding Suian didn’t have any moral cleanliness, but fighting this kind of war was neither exciting nor interesting.

“On the surface, it is naturally because Southern Zhao is harboring confucian renegades.”

Lin Dafu lowered his voice, “In reality, this year is His Majesty’s eightieth birthday. The ministers of the imperial court need a great victory to celebrate for Your Majesty, so they picked on Southern Zhao as a soft persimmon.”

“…” This reason was a bit absurd.