Chapter Twenty: The Counterintelligence Scheme

That night, in Liaoyang.

Wang Pu’s eight hundred retainers had set up camp here.

Liaoyang lay a hundred miles south of Shengjing. Decades ago, it had been the garrison city of the Ming Empire’s Liaodong Command, bustling with tens of thousands of Han residents at its height. But with the rise of the Jurchens, the Han of Liaodong were either slaughtered or forced to flee; Liaoyang soon decayed, and after Nurhaci moved his capital to Shengjing, the city was abandoned entirely. Now, it was nothing more than a ruin haunted by wild beasts.

Wang Pu gazed at the crumbling walls, thick with wild grass, and sighed, “More than twenty years ago, Liaoyang was a prosperous city. Such a pity it was destroyed by the Jianzhou Tartars.”

Zhen Youcai’s face took on an unusually sorrowful expression. He murmured, “Yes, after the Tartars broke through the city, tens of thousands of people hanged themselves. Every household’s beams were draped with corpses, even the branches outside the city were burdened with the dead. It was a truly tragic scene. Thinking back, it feels as if it happened only yesterday.”

As he spoke, tears welled up. “My own parents were among those who hanged themselves that day.”

Wang Pu patted Zhen Youcai’s shoulder and said softly, “Youcai, fetch some offerings from the cooks, and take a jug of watered wine to pay your respects to your parents. Who knows when you’ll next return to Liaodong once we go back inside the pass.”

Zhen Youcai wiped his tears and shuffled away.

Wang Pu