Chapter 467: Now My Heart Feels at Ease
The moment Bai Mao put forward his suggestion, the military officers were all stunned. "Bloody hell, what a genius!" they thought.
Just moments ago, everyone was scrambling to pin the blame on one of their own. But this Battalion Commander Wang was even more brilliant, pulling off an audacious move that shifted the blame squarely onto Imperial Censor Wu Shen. Now, not a single person present had to take the fall.
This was the true master of blame-shifting.
Lower-tier blame-shifting meant pushing it onto one of your own. Middle-tier was pushing it onto unrelated outsiders. But upper-tier blame-shifting, that was when you pushed it onto your political rivals.
For the military establishment, shifting the blame to the civil officials was the quintessential upper-tier move.
General Du Wenhuan raised a thumb. "Excellent!"
Cao Wenzhao, the Deputy General from Gushan, couldn't help but nod. "Truly excellent!"
Wang Guoliang, the General Soldier of Shanxi, declared, "Battalion Commander Wang, you possess such great talent. To remain merely a battalion commander truly undervalues you."
Wang Cheng'en, the General Soldier of Shaanxi, retorted, "Hey, Wang Guoliang, what do you mean by that? Are you trying to poach my men?"
Wang Cheng'en gave a wry smile. "If he earns another merit, I'll certainly promote him."
The generals were overjoyed. Du Wenhuan immediately drafted a letter, ordering Wu Shen to come and deal with the families of these bandits. He then left two thousand men in Hequ County to manage the families, while the rest of the generals were to set off immediately in pursuit of Wang Jiayin.
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Hexin County, Longmen Ferry.
Shi Jian, along with a hundred garrison soldiers, was stationed on the sandy bank of the ancient ferry.
These hundred garrison soldiers had been assigned to him by Wang Cheng'en. They had no real fighting capability, essentially the weakest of the weak. Moreover, while they were "officially" a hundred, there were actually only about fifty-odd men.
These fifty-odd men had no will to fight and absolutely no desire to pursue the bandits. Being left behind to guard Longmen Ferry was quite a good deal for them, so they were extremely compliant with Shi Jian, terrified that offending him might send them back to the front lines.
After following Shi Jian for a few days, they discovered that their leader was quite amiable, without any airs of an official, always mingling with his subordinates and often telling them stories.
Like now, the fifty-odd garrison soldiers sat by the river, enjoying the breeze, while listening to Shi Jian narrate a story about a soldier who helped the common people, earned their love, and was rewarded with the daughter of a grateful villager in marriage.
The story was utterly fabricated!
If modern people heard it, they'd immediately spot a dozen plot holes. But how could these simple folks from ancient times be familiar with the myriad tricks of modern fake propaganda? Give them a smartphone, and they'd be conned out of everything they owned in minutes.
The fifty-odd soldiers listened, utterly enraptured. Afterward, they shook their heads and sighed. "That's truly wonderful! Honestly, we don't want to be bad people. If we could help others, who wouldn't want to? But we're destitute, with nothing to our names. We want to help, but we can't."
Shi Jian smiled. "Don't worry, you'll soon have the power to help others."
The soldiers looked at each other, perplexed. "???"
"Look at the river!"
Shi Jian pointed. The soldiers turned to look and saw a large cargo ship slowly sailing up the river. On the bow stood a man with outstretched arms, clad in a Daoist robe, its hems fluttering in the river wind, giving him an air of immortal bearing...
Shi Jian was startled by this sight. "Oh my, is that the Heavenly Lord's statue placed on the bow?"
He had given the miniature Heavenly Lord puppet he carried to Bai Mao, so he hadn't been able to contact the Heavenly Lord for several days. Now, suddenly seeing a life-sized statue of the Heavenly Lord positioned like a figurehead on the bow of a ship, he couldn't help but feel a little disoriented.
He quickly dashed to the riverbank. Before the ship even docked, he bowed deeply to the statue. "Greetings, Heavenly Lord."
The statue's eyes suddenly moved. "No need for formalities! I was just standing on the bow, imagining what it would feel like to be on the Titanic. What a pity, though, posing alone isn't enough; it doesn't feel right without someone to accompany me."
Shi Jian was bewildered. "???"
He didn't understand! But it didn't matter. It was normal for mortals not to understand the words of a divine being. It is called... being unable to fathom divine mysteries. After all, not everyone can fathom divine mysteries.
The Titanic Heavenly Lord said, "The grain on the ship, unload it! Rescue the people of Hexin County as quickly as possible."
Shi Jian quickly cupped his fists. "As you command."
He immediately turned to the fifty-odd garrison soldiers and shouted, "Quickly, come and unload the grain! Send one man to Hexin County city to summon the refugees there to help. Tell them they'll be fed and paid three catties of flour every day."
The garrison soldiers paused, then burst into cheers. One soldier loudly asked, "Commander Shi, will we also get paid like the refugees? I... I haven't received my military pay in ages, and my family can't even keep the pot boiling. I want to earn those three catties of flour too."
A group of soldiers beside him chimed in, "We want to earn it too!"
Shi Jian laughed, playfully scolding them, "When the refugees arrive, you'll be maintaining order. How could you unload grain? Don't worry, maintaining order will also earn you wages."
The garrison soldiers were overjoyed.
As they happily scurried away, the Titanic Heavenly Lord spoke again, "Shi Jian, Wang Jiayin's forces have already broken through the official army's encirclement in Hequ County and are currently heading south. They will reach Pingyang Prefecture (modern Linfen County, Shanxi) within a few days."
Shi Jian was startled. "Pingyang Prefecture? Won't that be incredibly close to Hexin County?"
Hexin County was one of Pingyang Prefecture's satellite county towns. Its geographical location was much like a small county next to Xi'an Prefecture. If the bandits attacked Pingyang Prefecture, it didn't take a genius to figure out they would likely come to Hexin again.
Shi Jian anxiously said, "Hexin was recently ransacked by Bu Zhan Ni, its city walls torn down, and its people devastated. If the bandits come again... it would truly be..."
Li Daoxuan sighed lightly. "This will test your abilities. Evacuate them, whether by persuasion, by deception, or even with swords at their throats, get the people of Hexin County city out. It would be best to move them to the vicinity of Longmen Ferry here, and establish wooden stockades, just like at Gudu Ferry on the Yellow River."
Shi Jian suddenly understood. "That way, if the bandits go to Hexin County city, they'll come up empty-handed. And I have official troops here, so building a water fort would be justified and face less resistance than Xing Honglang's group building their fortresses."
Li Daoxuan smiled. *This young man is quite intelligent, that's good. I can entrust the matters here to him.*
He stopped speaking, his eyes ceased moving, and the statue remained in its pose, arms outstretched, catching the wind on the bow, striking a truly majestic pose.
Shi Jian sensed that the Heavenly Lord had returned to the heavens. The statue before him had reverted to a lifeless effigy.
*I gave the miniature Heavenly Lord puppet I carried for protection to Bai Mao,* he thought to himself. *Now I don't even have a Heavenly Lord statue by my side, and my heart feels uneasy.*
*Heavenly Lord, please forgive my presumption.*
Shi Jian jumped onto the ship, hoisted the Heavenly Lord's statue onto his back, carried it ashore, and placed it on a tall rock beside Longmen Ferry...
Once it was set down, he clapped his hands. With the Heavenly Lord's statue by his side, his heart now felt at ease!
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