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.
Those three, together with Zhang Xing, were the four men who truly held decision-making power, in both name and practice, over the two commanderies left in the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's keeping on the western front. Once they had assembled, Zhang Xing immediately shared the intelligence he had gathered, then offered his proposal.
"So, Third Brother, you mean we should swallow up Ma Hu first?" Xu Shiying frowned slightly.
"Yes." Zhang Xing nodded solemnly. "What do the three of you think?"
"That happens to coincide with a certain great general's thinking." Wei Xuanding stroked his beard and smiled.
The Exorcising the Dragon Gang's chief was referring to Meng Shangong, who, after gaining four counties in his uprising, had impatiently begun calling himself the Great General of Song Righteousness 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... And Meng Shangong had long since proposed concentrating superior forces to swallow up Ma Hu, only to be voted down by Zhang Xing, Xu Shiying, and the others.
That proposal had been a blind move made without any clear knowledge of the movements of Han Yingong's main government army. Daoist Wei brought it up now merely to mock him.
"If we'd actually done as he wanted, we might have blundered into success." Zhang Xing did not mind this at all. "Luck is part of warfare too... If we really reach a desperate situation, we'll have to do something similar."
"Even