Section 79: Pacifying Mount Ping'an

In the eyes of the crowd, the magistrate’s speech was open and upright, solemn and resolute, proof enough that he had truly set his mind on wiping out the bandits.

The county commandant and the county clerk also stepped forward with their advice, each declaring that since the young hero Li Dong was here, and since he had once defeated Zhishilang, then with him leading picked troops into battle, capturing the bandits in one stroke would be no difficult matter at all.

But Li Dong saw things differently. As the magistrate spoke, his gaze shifted and flickered; his smile touched only the skin, never the flesh beneath. Forced by the situation before him, the man had no choice but to make a show of himself, as though to prove he had nothing whatsoever to do with the bandits of Peace Mountain. In truth, his belly was full of malice. Even now he was racking his brains over how best to tip the bandits off, curry favor with the Xu clan’s leader, and pocket another handsome reward of silver.

Let him play the obedient one if he wished. Li Dong would simply seize the advantage, borrow the enemy’s own strength, sweep Peace Mountain clean, and capture both men and loot with evidence piled as high as a mountain.

Let him go on pretending. Once the bandits were crushed, the mud would settle, the truth would rise clear, and the fox’s tail would finally show. Then he would see how much longer the man could keep up the act.

Even so, Li Dong knew he absolutely could not arrest the magistrate on the spot.

However vile the man might be, he was still lord of the county. If he were seized now, East E would lose its pillar, and disorder would spread all too easily through every official process. The magistrate had to be steadied first.

With this in mind, Li Dong began sparring with the magistrate in false cordiality and said with a jaunty smile, “So it seems your honor and I have arrived at the same thought. The Xu clan bandits cannot caper for many more days. If they are willing to surrender, some mercy may still be shown.”

A flicker of hope appeared on the magistrate’s face. “If they surrender,” he asked, “can his life be spared?”

“Spared?” Li Dong said. “Far more than that. The bandits of Peace Mountain can be reorganized into prefectural troops, with him still leading them himself. To trade the life of a brigand for rank and honor—what reason would he have to refuse?”

He deliberately raised the stakes as high as possible, hoping to ease the magistrate’s vigilance and reduce the resistance to exterminating the bandits.

“Then there is no need for the prefectural troops to go and suppress them?” the magistrate asked.

Li Dong replied, “And what if he ignores our advice and insists on remaining a bandit? Hearts are hidden behind bellies; no man can fully know another. Better to array troops before him and force him to yield. It is always safest to keep a reserve in hand.”

The magistrate’s face showed deep difficulty. Yet with the assembled officials and military wardens still standing before the hall, he could not make his anxiety too plain. He could only secretly think of some other method. Under no circumstances could the Xu clan bandits fall into Li Dong’s hands. If that happened, once men and stolen goods were seized together, the evidence would be as hard as iron, and no amount of argument would avail him.

Li Dong and the magistrate matched wits and stratagems, thrust for thrust, feint for feint. In only a few moments several rounds had already passed, and the magistrate had not won the slightest advantage from Li Dong.

In the end, he could only wave his hand and order the county commandant and Li Dong to lead the troops.

As soon as Li Dong departed, the magistrate immediately summoned one of his trusted military wardens and secretly gave him careful instructions. Disguised as an ordinary prefectural soldier, with two quivers of sharp arrows hanging at his side, the man slipped into the force being assembled by Li Dong and the commandant.

When the two thousand prefectural soldiers had been gathered, Li Dong unexpectedly ordered that some of them should each carry a section of green bamboo.

The soldiers burst into grumbling. They were going to war, yet instead of preparing more bows, arrows, and keen weapons, they were being made to carry these useless lengths of bamboo. How could such an army possibly win? Some of them dragged their feet and were reluctant to obey.

Even the county commandant was baffled. In marching out to fight, what possible use could such things have? When he asked Li Dong for an explanation, Li Dong only smiled and refused to answer, saying with calm confidence, “The finest part comes later. Watch closely.”

Since he could get nothing more out of him, the commandant asked no further questions and instead barked out the order that the troops were to do exactly as Li Dong required. Once the commandant had spoken, they dared not refuse and could only go make ready.

The commandant himself hung two quivers of arrows on his body and strode out of East E City with the prefectural troops.

Peace Mountain was steep and perilous. Two peaks faced one another to left and right, while between them ran a narrow road a little over two zhang wide, only broad enough for a few horses to pass abreast. Hold that passage, and one man could bar ten thousand. Relying on this natural stronghold, the bandits had won battle after battle and so grown ever more arrogant.

Unfortunately for them, they had now met Li Dong, a youth with more schemes than hairs upon his head.

By the time Li Dong and the commandant reached the foot of Peace Mountain, the sky stood on the edge of darkness. Looking ahead, all within the mountain was dim and black, like some gigantic beast with bloody jaws flung wide, waiting to swallow the prefectural troops whole.

Li Dong reined in his horse and said to the commandant, “This place is easy to defend and hard to attack. Though we outnumber the bandits two to one, we still cannot risk forcing our way through here.”

By rights, the commandant should have been the chief officer in this campaign. But Li Dong held the command token of the deputy prefect and was also a favored man before the Son of Heaven, so the commandant had chosen the next best thing and obeyed his directions in all matters.

Hearing this, he asked, “Then shall we pitch camp here and attack tomorrow?”

“No need to wait until tomorrow. We can capture them all tonight,” Li Dong said. “Take five hundred men and proceed in single file through the pass. When you reach the stockade, challenge them and hurl abuse. Fight them for a short while, then pretend you cannot withstand them and retreat the way you came.”

He instructed the commandant that this battle must end in defeat and defeat alone. The purpose was to lure the serpent from its hole and draw the bandits onto level ground.

“When you come back, turn right here. Remember it well—right, not straight ahead. Leave the rest to me.”

Confidence shone from him as he gave the order.

The commandant dared not promise victory in a battle that had to be won. But drawing out the Xu clan bandits, and doing so by losing on purpose, would be easy enough. Delighted, he led his men away, and before long they vanished into the mountain ravine.

The moment they had gone, Li Dong ordered the soldiers carrying bamboo to drive the poles into the level ground and twist them left and right, boring a dense field of round holes in the earth.

The stretch of terrain was several dozen zhang long and wide, just enough to block the mouth of the dangerous ravine completely.

Then Li Dong concealed the soldiers in the thick woods on either side and waited for the commandant to draw the bandits out.

After about half an hour, there suddenly came from within the mountain the mingled uproar of men shouting and horses screaming, a clamor that seemed to shake the sky, until even the small stones on both sides of the ravine came rattling down.

Li Dong knew at once that the bandits had taken the bait. They were surely riding hard in pursuit of the commandant’s five hundred men.

He hurriedly ordered the soldiers to make every final preparation.

Once the mounted bandits reached the trap they had dug, their horses would step into those bamboo-made holes; their hooves would certainly snap, or else they would collapse to the ground in misery and never rise again.

While the enemy was still at a distance, they were to shoot first with bows. Once the killing was nearly complete, only then were they to charge out. Under no circumstances were they to rush forward at first sight of the bandits. The men in the rear would still be mounted and swift as the wind, and they could easily escape. If they fled into the mountain depths, dense and tangled, they would be hard to find again.

Sure enough, in no more than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a force of prefectural soldiers in yellow uniforms came darting out of the ravine. They seemed not to have suffered heavy losses; there were still close to five hundred of them.

The instant they emerged from the ravine, the soldiers turned right and disappeared into the depths of the forest.

The bandits came charging after them, only to find that the prefectural troops had suddenly vanished.

The man at their head was tall and powerfully built, with heavy whiskers and a full beard bristling stiffly from cheek to cheek. One glance was enough to tell he was fierce and unyielding by nature.

At once he hauled in his horse, pacing to and fro while ordering men to scout both sides and see whether the prefectural troops had laid an ambush here.

Li Dong was sharply alarmed. The bandits had stopped instead of pressing forward. If they did not plunge into the prepared trap, then all this labor would have been wasted and everything accomplished so far would come to nothing.

The moment was fleeting. If they wheeled their horses and bolted back now, drawing them out again later would surely cost immense effort.

What was to be done?