The Tiger Killers: Part Two of The Marshes of Mount Liang by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong by Nai'an Shi

Author:Nai'an Shi [Shi, Nai'an]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
Published: 2019-12-03T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

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On the Qingzhou road, the Tamer fights a battle; Thunderclap comes to the field of desolation!

So there was General Huang Xin, the Tamer, on horseback, sword in hand, and Governor Liu riding beside him, dressed in armour and bearing a trident, together with an escort of one hundred and fifty or so seasoned troops armed with tasselled spears or staves, and short swords stuck in their belts. A double roll of the drums, a clash of cymbals, and they were off on their mission to deliver Song Jiang and Colonel Hua to Qingzhou.

They had not travelled much over ten miles from Windy Fort when they were confronted by a forest. They had reached a defile through the mountains, and the guards pointing ahead said: “There are lookouts among the trees,” and refused to go on.

“Why have you stopped?” the Tamer asked, looking down from his horse.

“There’s men concealed in the forest there, watching,” he was told.

“Pay no attention to them, just keep going,” the Tamer ordered.

But as they were about to enter the forest, dong! dong! — twenty or thirty big gongs sounded all together. The troops began to panic, they were on the point of fleeing.

“Stop!” the Tamer ordered. “I want you to spread out!” To Governor Liu he shouted: “Guard the prison carts!”

Liu was too terrified to make an answer. “Heaven help us, heaven preserve us!” was all he could get out, together with mumbled promises to pay for a thousand copies of the classics and endow three hundred temples, if only heaven would spare him. Terror had turned him part green and part yellow, like a ripe melon. The Tamer, however, was a real soldier, by no means devoid of courage. He spurred his horse forward to investigate: hundreds of enemy troops were pouring out of the forest on all sides, each one tall and strong, all with fierce expressions and blazing eyes, their heads bound with red cloths, all wearing padded robes, with swords in their belts and long spears in their hands. In no time at all they had surrounded the convoy. Three heroes now leapt out of the forest. One wore black, one green and one red. Each had a head scarf emblazoned with a gold swastika and carried sword and halberd. There they stood, blocking the way. The one in the middle was Yan Shun, the Dandy; Short-Arse Wang was in the lead; and bringing up the rear was Whitey Zheng Tianshou.

They now cried in unison: “Travellers must halt here and pay the toll of three thousand ounces of gold, before they are allowed to proceed.”

“You villains!” the Tamer shouted down at them. “This is intolerable! Can’t you see the Tamer of Three Mountains is here?”

All three glared at him. “Oh that’s who you are, is it?” they said. “But you still have to pay the toll, otherwise you’re not allowed to pass.”

“I bear the Emperor’s commission and I am travelling with a prisoner, what’s this nonsense about a toll?”

“Who cares

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