Cai Jing’s brush swept across the fine calligraphy paper. Not smoothly. Not calmly. The edges of his flourishes wobbled intolerably. The ink spat at the ends of his strokes, the finest spray of black misting in between the characters.
Unacceptable. It was all unacceptable.
An entire regiment, destroyed, and nobody could yet tell him why. Incompetence. Sheer incompetence.
Whoever these villains were, they brought horror to the Empire beyond all consideration. Willing to cross any boundary, blacken anyone with the most vicious, violent acts of barbarism—up to and including himself. Likely they would even enact their blasphemy against the Emperor, given the chance. These bandits were supported, too, by the manpower to swallow nearly a thousand trained Guardsmen so thoroughly that no one could find Cai Jing even a crumb of information.
This entire investigation had been incompetence and chaos from the beginning. Either Cai Jing was surrounded by fools, or these bandits were more cunning than any in the Empire’s finest—neither something he’d prefer to believe. He was keenly conscious that it was only a few pearls of purest chance that had led them to the wine merchant. Likewise, it had taken scraping the countryside with hundreds of interviews with travelers to find one who remembered the blue-faced commander on the stretch of road adjacent to where the men had woken—and only the traveler’s lucky recall of a criminal tattoo had identified Commander Yang’s companion as the former arms instructor Lin Chong.
Who had apparently, somehow, become party to people who could send a full regiment into a deadly trap.
Still, the longer this went on, the more Cai Jing knew. The more he discovered about those who would defy him.
The constable in front of him fortunately seemed to have a speck of intelligence. Cai Jing continued his strokes, ordering his hand to relax, forcing his brush toward steadiness, and throttling every shard of fury into listening to the constable’s report from elsewhere in the region—a report the Guardsman seemed to think bore some relevancy here. A sliver of capability from his military would be a welcome shock.
“Continue, Constable.”
“Everywhere we ask, we have learned this group has been quickly gaining notoriety across the countryside.” The man kept himself in a low bow as he spoke, as if he feared Cai Jing’s reaction. Rightly so. “Peasants and magistrates equally quail at their name. Very few landowners have dared to mount any offensive against them, and those that have, have failed.”
“You have told me nothing. What makes you think these Liangshan bandits are the ones I seek? The mountains are rife with highwaymen. They are a scourge.”
“Because, Grand Chancellor, the Liangshan bandits are … it is said … Chancellor, I report only what I hear. But the outlaws you have said you are seeking … the Liangshan bandits are said to be made up mostly of females.”
Steady. Steady on the brush. Compress any rage to perfect sharpness. Rage means nothing if one cannot strike.
Lin Chong, and the monk Lu Junyi had sent after her. Commander Yang Zhi …
Even so, Cai Jing had assumed their costumes to be mostly a ruse. It seemed not.
He felt righteously justified in ignoring the whispers of the Imperial Court, those that wondered if the Grand Chancellor had discarded all reason in his quest to dismantle the countryside in the search for such petty thieves. No, he’d been right to pursue this. A conspiracy with this reputation—this gross entitlement—was worth rooting out from their lands if he had to bloody his own fingernails to rip these women from their arrogant perch.
“Speak further,” he ordered. “What else is known of these Liangshan bandits?”
“They gained their name because their base is at Mount Liang, at the edge of the marshlands,” the constable continued. “Their headquarters are rumored to be—ah—impregnable, although I am sure that is not true with your own resources, Grand Chancellor. We heard tell that the famous poet Song Jiang is another of their number, after she fled punishment as a murderer—she may even be their leader.”
“And what connection have they to this village of Dongxi?”
“We think we have discovered that as well. Dongxi had a somewhat famed village chief, whose name has also turned up in connection to Liangshan. We think this Chief Chao Gai is one of their number.”
“Chao Gai.”
“Yes, Chancellor. Chao as for the dawn, and Gai as written in the Hundred Family Surnames.”
Clever lad. He’d seen what Cai Jing was inking.
A list. One to be accompanied by drawings, as soon as an illustrator and sufficient descriptions for the rest could be acquired. Cai Jing added two more lines to the end:
Former Arms Instructor Lin Chong, Traitor to the Imperial Guard
Former Commander Yang Zhi, Traitor to the Imperial Guard
The Monk Lu Da of Qingliang Monastery
Wine Merchant Bai Sheng (captured and executed)
The Murderous Poet Song Jiang, the Empire’s Dark Daughter
Chief Chao Gai of Dongxi Village
These Names Are Wanted for High Crimes Against the Empire, Along With All Who Call Themselves the Bandits of Liangshan Marsh.