Zhang Xing returned to Jiyin with his prisoners and wasted no time. He simply threw Li Qingchen and his two subordinates into prison, then immediately sent men to summon Xu Shiying, Wei Xuanding, and Niu Da.
Together with Zhang Xing, these three were the four men who truly held decision-making power, in both name and reality, in the two commanderies left under the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's control on the western front. Once the four had assembled, Zhang Xing immediately shared the intelligence he had gathered, then put forward his proposal.
"So, Third Brother, you mean we should swallow Ma Hu first?" Xu Shiying frowned slightly.
"Yes." Zhang Xing nodded solemnly. "What do you three think?"
"That happens to coincide with a certain great general's thinking." Wei Xuanding stroked his beard and smiled.
The chief of the Exorcising the Dragon Gang was referring to Meng Shangong, who, after seizing four counties in the uprising, had impatiently begun calling himself the Great General of Song's Righteous Cause within his own ranks... Song was an ancient kingdom founded around Liang Commandery during the chaotic era before Lord White Emperor, encompassing at least a small half of the Central Plains. His ambitions spoke for themselves... Meng Shangong had proposed concentrating superior forces to swallow Ma Hu long ago, but Zhang Xing, Xu Shiying, and the others had rejected it.
That proposal had been a blind move made without knowing the movements of Han Yingong's main government army. Daoist Wei was only bringing it up now to mock him.
"If we'd really followed his idea, we might have blundered into success." Zhang Xing was unbothered by this. "Luck is part of warfare too... If we really reach a desperate situation, we'll have to do something similar ourselves."
"Even so, I still oppose it." Daoist