Liu Cheng's work was not as simple as cleaning up.
There was a fundamental conflict in this work: the bodies had to be gathered and buried quickly, yet many of them were tied to assessments of military merit at the lowest level... As Huan Wen's favorite and a newly appointed Protector-General, Liu Cheng claimed he wanted to avoid the great headache of military merit, but still took on a considerable share of adjudicating claims among the rank and file.
Fortunately, he quickly shook off his earlier self-conscious mood and recovered much of his form, so the work suffered no delays.
Adjudicating military merit, especially among the rank and file, was actually very simple.
Where there was evidence, examine it; where there was none, consult witnesses. If the whole affair remained a fog, that was easy too: appeal to their better feelings first and have everyone share the dumplings equally. If they still refused to accept it, find a way to make them drop the dispute... Which meant putting pressure on both sides.
Whoever insisted on claiming all the credit would be transferred to the Left Branch of the Ba River as a scout, to cross the marshes and reconnoiter the opposite bank.
Did they dare go? Whoever dared could have the credit!
If neither dared, they shared it.
It looked thoroughly unreasonable, but the army really could not give them that sort of fairness and impartiality... The bodies needed burying immediately, or there would be a plague. The troops would soon be marching. Who had time to play Conan here?
Settling military merit swiftly and decisively was, in a sense, the greatest fairness available to the rank and file.
As for the Di's thirty thousand troops, Liu Cheng formed his own conjecture as soon as the news emerged, and sent