Once he understood, Zhang Xing ordered Xu Shiying's elder sister detained in a side room of the County Office and waited for the outcome with an easy conscience, leaving Xu Dalang to deal with his brother-in-law himself.
For all its twists and turns, the matter was actually simple: Great Dragonhead Zhang was hardly going to pardon Wang Hong or that Righteous Army belonging to the Eastern An Wang Clan... Exchanging grain for lives was perfectly acceptable; the reasoning held, and Zhang Xing was not inflexible. He could even amend his military orders and openly permit grain payments in atonement.
But that would have to wait, at the very least, until the second stage of the advance was over-until after Wang Hong.
Changing the military orders now, especially with a close relative of Xu Shiying involved, would undoubtedly become a textbook case of changing the rules for a particular person. Many would resent it, the authority of military orders issued by Zhang Xing would be greatly weakened, his own prestige would suffer severely, and everyone under heaven would think the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's supposed rules were a sham, that they were jackals from the same hill as the other rebel armies.
In short, they would look nothing like people capable of great things.
Thus, Zhang Xing was never going to grant this appeal.
Then why had Xu Shiying, the cleverest of all the great leaders, still sent his elder sister to Ying County to plead?
At first glance, it seemed he had seen precisely this and tricked his sister into coming to Great Dragonhead Zhang, borrowing another man's blade to kill... Great Dragonhead Zhang would play the villain, while Xu Dalang shone on both sides, looking heroic to those above and below him, inside and outside the gang.
If that