Chapter 63: A Beginning and an End

The next morning.

At Shili Pavilion, after fighting fiercely all through the night and finally stabilizing his front lines, Gongsun Zan immediately prepared to break through.

He had already received word that Commandery Administrator Liu’s fortified manor was under siege.

With few warhorses left in his army, Gongsun Zan used his armored guards to clear the way, leading his loyal retainers and hundreds of elite soldiers in a desperate charge eastward.

The Taihang bandits still threw themselves into the encirclement to block him, but Gongsun Zan ignored the casualties among his foot soldiers. Leading his elite armored troops to carve a path, he forcibly shattered the encirclement and pressed east to rescue the Administrator’s manor.

He left his banners and ceremonial standards behind at Shili Pavilion, along with more than a thousand foot soldiers.

Those foot soldiers had, in truth, already been abandoned.

The bandits had converged and attacked primarily to target Gongsun Zan’s banners, and the majority of them were still besieging Shili Pavilion.

Stripped of armored guards, elite retainers, and other seasoned veterans, those foot soldiers would soon surrender and join the bandits. They were recruits levied in Beixin City and former refugees from Zhongshan; they had no intention of fighting the Taihang bandits to the bitter end.

Gongsun Zan had no other choice left. It was not that he lacked the means to deal with the Taihang bandits surrounding him, but rather that he lacked the time.

In this era, the Great Han had not yet collapsed, and the imperial court was still functioning normally.

Zhuo County had been captured by bandits, and as the county magistrate who had lost the city and failed to recover it, his crime was capital.

Only Liu Kuan and Liu Wei, scions of the Hongnong imperial clan, could save his life—most likely by stripping him of his official post and reducing him to a commoner, which was already the best possible outcome.

However, if disaster struck the Administrator’s private residence as well, he would have no choice but to change his name, conceal his identity, and live as a fugitive for the rest of his days.

He could not even return home. The crime of losing a city and abandoning territory was entirely different from murder or banditry; such a matter could not be concealed. If he fled back to his family, his own clan would arrest him and hand him over to the authorities.

Gongsun Zan was merely a son of a concubine within his family. Should he fall from grace and lose his power, the Gongsun clan of Liaoxi had no reason to protect him, lest it implicate the other young members of the clan and ruin their official careers.

Right now, Gongsun Zan had no choice but to save Administrator Liu Wei’s life.

Otherwise, he would have to become a bandit himself.

***

At noon, when Gongsun Zan’s army arrived outside Liu Wei’s fortified manor, the outer defenses had already been breached, and the guard posts on both flanks were surrounded.

A massive horde of bandits had begun battering the gates with ramming logs.

A ramming log was simply a massive tree trunk. Such objects were not merely used for defense during sieges to crush attackers; giant timbers served many purposes, such as battering gates or propping up city gates from the inside.

By slightly sharpening the tip of a giant timber, nailing it to several flatbed carts, and pushing it forward to strike a gate, one had a youth-edition battering ram.

This kind of small, makeshift battering ram was useless against a major city. Once a major city sealed its gates with wood and stone, it was extremely difficult to breach them through sheer impact; as long as the city walls had even a small garrison, throwing stones from above would suffice to stop the attack.

A fortified manor, however, could not withstand it.

When speaking of fortified manors, many people mistakenly believe they are like fortified castles, allowing everyone to take refuge within sturdy strongholds for defense...

In reality, that was not the case. A fortified manor could not hold that many people.

The true essence of a fortified manor was that it served as a warehouse—a place to store wealth and grain. While it was indeed sturdily built, it could not compare to a true city.

When the great noble families of this era relied on fortified manors to defend themselves, they did not depend on the defensive capabilities of the manor itself, but rather on the supply capacity of its storehouses.

Some wealthy families possessed immense manpower. The Lu family, for instance, could organize thousands of able-bodied men from among their household retainers, private soldiers, servants, and tenant farmers.

Defending a fortified manor actually meant gathering all the household’s manpower to deploy in a perimeter defense around the manor, relying on the grain stored within to force the bandits to retreat through sheer numbers.

Yet Liu Wei did not have that many people.

Liu Wei was an official who had come from afar; his clan was rooted in Hongnong, while the able-bodied men available to him in Zhuo County consisted solely of a few hundred private soldiers and retainers, along with several hundred servants.

Therefore, he had gathered all the county officials, clerks, and corvée laborers from Zhuo County into his own manor just to make up the numbers.

To the east of Liu Wei’s manor flowed the Fan River (the Yongding River), which was standard for fortified manors of this era, serving as a precaution against fires breaking out in the storehouses.

His private soldiers and retainers had established a guard post on both the west and south sides of the manor, forming a pincer formation with the manor itself—which was still somewhat professional.

The county clerks and corvée laborers guarded the temporary wooden walls erected on the outer perimeter, serving as a connecting link.

Liu Wei himself commanded the servants to guard the interior of the manor, and he had a complete array of weapons and bows and arrows.

To the north was a side gate, and the terrain outside sloped downward, making this direction difficult to attack—it served as the escape route for the manor.

The layout was actually quite reasonable. The only problem was that Liu Wei simply did not have enough men.

After the two guard posts were surrounded, the wooden walls guarded by the corvée laborers were easily smashed by the makeshift battering ram, forcing them to retreat outside the manor.

With the pincer formation broken, its connecting links vanished, rendering it useless. Moreover, the guard posts had too few men to break through the encirclement and reinforce the manor.

Furthermore, Liu Wei truly did not know how to fight. After the corvée laborers were driven back, he ordered them to form lines outside the manor for defense, while his household retainers and servants defended the walls inside.

This was a catastrophic decision...

Had he ordered the household retainers and servants to form lines outside, and the county clerks and corvée laborers to defend the interior of the fortress, they might have been able to hold out a while longer.

The county clerks and corvée laborers had no stomach for forming battle lines in the open field. Seeing the boundless sea of bandits closing in around them without any walls to rely on, very few were willing to die in battle for an official from afar. Thus, they scattered in a panic and fled.

The minor officials and county runners were all locals; familiar with the terrain, they ran exceptionally fast.

The Taihang bandits had a clear objective and made no effort to intercept those who were fleeing; they resolutely tightened their siege around the manor.

In a state of frantic panic, Liu Wei ordered all his household retainers and servants onto the perimeter walls of the manor.

Yet this was another blunder—deploying too many men on the manor walls stripped the fortress of its proper defensive capabilities.

The walls of a fortified manor were not city walls; they were not wide. Although people could stand on them, it was exceedingly difficult to deploy defensive provisions there.

Moreover, this was not a bastion fort, and the angles of fire were limited.

With only people and no heavy objects like stones, relying solely on bows and spears could not stop the battering rams.

***

The bandit soldiers pushing the carts raised shields for defense. Although those so-called shields were merely door panels and wooden hurdles, they were at least sufficient to block arrows.

Stopping a battering ram required obstacles, such as trenches, stones, thorny brambles, a moat... or manpower.

Yet at this moment, there were few obstacles outside the manor, and the bandits had numerous flatbed carts.

Flatbed carts were indispensable equipment in virtually any combat environment and had an extremely wide range of uses, especially in flat terrain like Zhuo County. Having carts or lacking them made a world of difference.

Emerging from the mountains, what the Taihang bandits lacked most of all were such items.

Yet a commandery seat like Zhuo County possessed an abundance of flatbed carts. Not only did every household own them, but the official storehouses also kept nearly a thousand of them on a regular basis.

Consequently, the Taihang bandits now possessed numerous methods of attack.

Building battering rams, pushing burning materials to set fire to the gates, erecting flatbed carts as shields while digging into the earth to undermine the walls...

After running through these routines, the manor already had several breaches.

Gongsun Zan led his elite troops in a furious charge into the battle array, wielding his double-bladed spear to slaughter countless bandits, and ultimately managed to reach the foot of the manor just as the bandits were about to pour into it in large numbers.

His armored guards hacked down the bandits who were currently undermining the walls at the various breaches. Without waiting for the gates inside to be opened, they scrambled through the breaches directly into the manor, clearing out the bandits within.

Then, using the corpses of the dead bandits, they plugged the breaches anew and stationed the armored guards to defend them, finally buying a brief moment of breathing room.

Even so, at most within an hour, this manor would still be breached.

At this moment, including the loyal retainers, only three hundred elite soldiers remained within the manor, and all their warhorses were gone.

Along the way, Gongsun Zan had paid no heed to the casualties among his subordinates. To save time, all wounded soldiers had simply been abandoned by him.

Yet the Taihang bandits surrounding them outside numbered in the several thousands.

"Gongsun Bogui! Quickly... quickly... quickly smash the bandits! Smash the bandits!"

Administrator Liu Wei had wet his pants. Seeing Gongsun Zan now, he hurriedly seized upon him as a straw to cling to for dear life.

"Clang..."

Gongsun Zan said nothing; he merely tossed his blood-drenched double-bladed spear down before Liu Wei.

That double-bladed spear had long since grown blunt, and a mass of flesh and viscera, resembling intestines, still hung from the crossguard.

Terrified out of his wits, Liu Wei fell backward onto his backside, scrambling away with his heels. The liquid leaking from his trousers left a foul-smelling trail across the ground.

From yesterday noon until now, Gongsun Zan had fought bitterly for an entire day and night. At this moment, his eyes were bloodshot, his entire body was bathed in blood, and he was utterly exhausted—it was difficult for him to fight any longer.

Those three hundred armored soldiers were likewise exhausted to the limit.

Smash them?

With what could they smash them?

Seeing the urine stain on the ground, Gongsun Zan frowned, turned his head, and instructed his subordinates, "Men... go open the money storehouse! Let everyone take as much money as they please, and prepare to break through!"

"What? Open the money storehouse?"

Clawing and scrambling, Liu Wei climbed to his feet, shrieking, "You cannot!"

"Let the servants take money and flee for their lives, and the Taihang bandits will rush to seize the wealth, allowing the Administrator to break through in the ensuing chaos... Saving your life is paramount."

The bloodshot veins in Gongsun Zan’s eyes concealed the deep contempt in his expression. Suppressing his anger, he lowered his voice to whisper an explanation in Liu Wei’s ear before turning around to direct his soldiers in carrying out the task.

"Th-That is my money... My money!"

Seeing that the servants had already headed toward the money storehouse, Liu Wei muttered frantically, making as if to lunge forward.

Gongsun Zan grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back, and with a few swift tugs ripped Liu Wei’s official hat and robes to shreds. "Go change into a servant’s garments, or you will simply die here!"

Liu Wei spun around in a circle twice before managing to regain his wits. Weeping, he stumbled into a room to change his attire.

Gongsun Zan likewise removed his helmet and armor, changed into the rough clothing of a menial laborer, and stepped back outside the hall.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Taihang bandits besieging Shili Pavilion had not yet arrived, if they seized the moment to break through, they should be able to escape with Liu Wei.

As for the others...

Let fate decide.

"I thank you gentlemen for following me all this way. At present, we no longer have the strength to fight... Take whatever wealth you please from within the manor! Scatter and flee for your lives!"

Gongsun Zan issued his final command to his retainers, opened the side gate of the manor, and hurled a torch into the granary.

The moment the gate opened, the Taihang bandits outside surged inward.

Gongsun Zan’s subordinates rushed forward, hacking down the first few Taihang bandits who entered, and then surged outward in a body.

Liu Wei’s concubines and the majority of his servants flooded out right behind them.

However, a few servants remained behind in the money storehouse, stuffing their persons with coin—these were the exceptionally greedy ones. Seeing the mountains of copper coins piled high in the treasury, they had evidently forgotten all about preserving their lives...

"Move!"

Gongsun Zan dragged Liu Wei along, blending in with the fleeing servants.

On the northern slope, the surrounding force was relatively sparse, and stepping out of the manor meant running down a slope. Many people ran quite rapidly, tumbling and crawling.

The Taihang bandits had been maintaining the siege; seeing the manor gates suddenly open, some began trying to intercept them while others seized the chance to rush inside the manor.

Upon discovering that everyone running out was bulging with weight, the Taihang bandits began in a disorderly scramble to pursue and rob them of their wealth on the hillside.

The flames within the manor grew fiercer, and many Taihang bandits hurriedly rushed inside to fight the fire, lest the granary be lost.

The scene instantly descended into utter chaos, and the encirclement of the Taihang bandits fell into disarray.

Gongsun Zan dragged Liu Wei along in a furious dash. As they ran, Liu Wei suddenly tripped and crashed to the ground, tumbling over several times while scattering the loose items on his person in all directions.

"Oh!"

Weeping aloud, Liu Wei scrambled to pick up his belongings and shove them back into his bosom.

Those were all valuables such as gold and jade ornaments.

Noticing this nearby, a Taihang bandit lunged forward, hacking a blade toward Liu Wei’s hand in an attempt to snatch the gold.

"Ah..."

Liu Wei took a slash to the arm and collapsed to the side.

Gongsun Zan hauled Liu Wei violently to his feet, scooped up all the trinkets from Liu Wei’s bosom, and flung them scattering among the surrounding Taihang bandits.

Faced with this windfall, many Taihang bandits scrambled to snatch the gold rather than pausing to slaughter the two "servants," genuinely allowing the pair to break free.

This made it much faster for Gongsun Zan to drag Liu Wei along...

Carrying nothing at all was indeed faster than running while laden with heavy strings of copper coins.

The loyal retainers, armored guards, and remaining servants all fell far behind.

The Taihang bandits had come from Beixin City and Fanyang to the south, there were bandits to the west in Zhuo County, and the Fan River blocked their way to the east, leaving Gongsun Zan with no choice but to drag Liu Wei northward in a desperate flight.

By evening, Gongsun Zan came to a halt.

Liu Wei had collapsed unconscious.

Advanced in years and having suffered a sword slash to boot, Liu Wei had been dragged along at a dead run by Gongsun Zan for half a day; it was nothing short of a miracle that the old man had not dropped dead on the spot.

With no bandits around them for the moment, Gongsun Zan raised his head to survey his surroundings and caught sight of beacon smoke rising to the northwest.

He remembered that thirty miles north of Zhuo County stood a beacon tower.

It was the very place where he had first entered Zhuo County.

With bandits swarming everywhere, a beacon tower would naturally have to send up warning signals.

The presence of beacon smoke meant that there were soldiers stationed at the tower, and they were not bandits—bandits would certainly have extinguished the beacon fire.

Gathering his resolve, Gongsun Zan dragged the unconscious Liu Wei toward the beacon tower.

***

There were indeed soldiers stationed at the beacon tower.

Liu Bei was waiting there with a small troop of cavalry.

At this moment, it was also the fifth day Liu Bei had promised Zhang Baiqi.

Because Liu Bei was still maintaining the appearance of having died, he had first led Zhang Fei and his troops into Zhuo County to secure the garrison, while he himself went to light the beacon fire.

Seeing the beacon smoke from within the city, Zhang Baiqi had withdrawn his underworld soldiers through the northern gate.

Liu Bei remained stationed at the beacon tower specifically to rendezvous with Zhang Baiqi.

Gongsun Zan’s luck had seemingly been entirely exhausted by this night of desperate flight.

Dressed in servant’s attire, he was virtually unrecognizable to others.

Only Liu Bei could recognize him.

Yet Gongsun Zan had deliberately headed straight for the beacon tower where Liu Bei was stationed.

This was not a matter of Liu Bei calculating every move... In truth, Liu Bei could only deduce that Gongsun Zan might attempt a breakout to the north.

Thus, waiting for Zhang Baiqi at the beacon tower, Liu Bei had originally intended to take Zhang Baiqi and the underworld soldiers to scour the area in pursuit.

He had not expected, however, that before Zhang Baiqi arrived, Gongsun Zan would show up first.

This was perhaps simply the decree of fate.

Gongsun Zan’s vision was blurring with exhaustion. He saw Liu Bei standing by the beacon tower, but he dared not believe his eyes.

Or rather...

He thought he was seeing a ghost.

"Xuande?!"

Gongsun Zan’s voice trembled, and his hands trembled as well. "You... you aren't dead? How can you not be dead?!"

"I died, but then I lived again."

Having crossed over a second time, Liu Bei was naturally someone who had already died and returned to life. Drawing his sword, he walked toward Gongsun Zan: "Brother Bogui, I will see you off on your final journey."

A single stroke severed the throat.

He gave Gongsun Zan no further opportunity to speak.

This beacon tower seemed destined to share a bond with Gongsun Zan.

When he arrived, Liu Bei had met him at this very spot.

When he departed, Liu Bei saw him off here as well.

It could be considered a fitting end to a beginning.