Chapter 36: The Wind from the North
"Baizhan. Xiuran. Dexin. Xiaoxing. Zijun."
I called the courtesy names of the men who followed me, one by one. Each of them answered in his own way, and yet every face was the same—eyes blazing, jaws set, resolve written plain.
"The end of this battle is here."
Of the three thousand soldiers who followed me, one in ten was gone, and the empty places showed. Some had dropped out wounded, but in an age when hygiene and medicine lagged this far behind, how many of the hurt would truly come through whole? They would have been cut down and left rolling in the mountains, at that.
In war, the only morality is a swift end. This single fight would bring the curtain down on the Battle of Dangqu.
"I won't make a long speech. Don't die. Let's win."
The thought that this was the last of it is what drives a man to fight with everything he has. Survive this battle, and that is enough. Distinguish yourself here, and the reward grows with it. With that in their heads, the soldiers would thrash like the damned to stay alive.
All I could give them was to stand farther forward than anyone, and be the first to break the enemy.
"I see them."
Ma Dai, keenest-eyed of us all, had found the enemy.
"How many?"
"I would put them at ten thousand."
"Ten thousand..."
Stretches of the column still lay hidden from even Ma Dai's sight, so I had to reckon on more than ten thousand. Zhang He would have detached part of his army for scouting and the rearguard.
"So he really does mean to pull out."
I couldn't speak for how it had gone in the original history, but this time the ground had shifted under Zhang He. We had seized the Dangqu region ahead of him, and with my hand in things, our pool of talent had become entirely too good.
Even so, given his advantage in numbers, attack and retreat would both have been choices to agonize over. Zhang He, it seemed, had chosen the latter.
"Just as planned."
That was exactly what we had been angling for.
Zhang He was, without question, a great general. The ferocious record the histories give him had been a calamity for Shu, and Liu Bei, who knew his worth, had grieved that even after taking Xiahou Yuan he ought to have taken Zhang He as well.
But Zhang He wore shackles that ability alone could not break. His origins. The brand of a surrendered general had remained a constraint he could never slip.
Zhang He cannot act on his own. This time, too, he was as good as operating under Xiahou Yuan. His end would be the same story: failing, at the last, to overcome the limit he was born with, and dying in the course of a reckless operation under Sima Yi.
Zhang He cannot launch a reckless attack alone.
Even if he wanted to stake everything on a single throw, that cold reason of his would calculate the aftermath as well, and choose the safer road.
Unlike me, who knew him from the records, my father had never so much as met the man—and yet from hearsay and these last few days of fighting alone, he had read him through. A great general indeed.
"Pick up the pace."
In this operation, my unit and I were to check the enemy vanguard. To bar the road of a retreating van. Classic, and yet there was nothing finer: we were to be the anvil in a hammer-and-anvil.
Zhang Fei, the finest hammer beneath heaven, was already preparing to drive the blow home and cut the enemy through at the waist. However superb Zhang He's command, he would not be able to handle a split army as one living body.
Zhang He's men marched at a considerable speed even through the mountains. His hand with soldiers was plainly out of the ordinary.
Even so, a mountain march will never outrun us.
We had lightened our arms and, looking only to this one battle, set supply aside. A march devoted to nothing but speed was no comparison with Cao Cao's troops.
They were leaving with their military stores in tow, trusting, no doubt, the officers left on reconnaissance and at the rear.
Complacent.
Zhang He would have accounted for that, of course. He would have read our weakness and laid a plan to use it, so that he might withdraw in safety.
We, for our part, had planned on the faith that he would withdraw. Better for him if he had driven into the weakness we had deliberately shown. Then he might have taken our empty heights, the contest would have become strength against strength, and on the back of his numbers he might well have won.
But in the end Zhang He chose the safest road. He must have judged there was no need to force the issue. Cao Cao had never meant to occupy Yi Province in the first place. If he only retreated intact, it would not be set down against him.
Did Zhang He know that putting survival first would be the very thing to hobble him?
An irony. A tale fit for a Greek tragedy.
There was no judgment of the gods to drive the last wedge into that tragedy. There was, however, my father's eighteen-foot serpent spear, to cleave the enemy in two.
"It has begun."
Father's shock attack, the first to cut across the center of the enemy line, announced the opening of the battle. The peerless warrior at the head of the elite—a match for ten thousand men—had a force that kept seizing the eye. We, though, still had our own work to do.
I had already initiated. Now it was time to scramble their aggro.
I raised my spear. The five deputy generals at my side drew their weapons, each his own. Those weapons were batons of command. One after another the soldiers reset their arms and dressed their ranks, and the stamp of their feet rolled out like a symphony.
"I will hold the front for you. Forward!"
The shout pierced the peaks. We advanced with the echo at our backs.
The Cao army, which had been answering with composure even after being run through at the waist, saw us appear to their front and turned their heads at once.
I could see a soldier's face. A mouth fallen open in shock. The wavering pupils spoke for everything Cao Cao's men must have been feeling.
Puhwak! The spray of blood that opened the fight dazzled my eyes. Discipline already broken by Father's surprise attack. Never having thought we would come from this side, and so never properly dressed, the Cao army took the wedge I led and had it driven straight into them.
Cut, thrust, lash, deflect, shove. Everywhere at once. Wang Ping and Ju Fu, posted as if to guard both my flanks, were solid as stone. I left the command to Ma Zhong, while Ma Dai and Liu Yin became the left and right wings and drew a net around Cao Cao's troops.
Narrow beside a plain, yes—but still ground where tens of thousands could march. Some tried to break through however they might, and came to nothing.
Front, rear, and the middle. Struck from three directions at once, the Cao army could no longer think.
The balance broke. The fight with Zhang He, which had stood dead even, collapsed completely in a single engagement. In the instant the scales tipped toward us, a body of cavalry burst out through Ma Dai's left wing, which had not yet fully closed.
Zhang He?
I had never seen the man, but the armor and the dress were a commander's. I gave the order at once.
"Wang Ping! Hold the line as it stands. Ju Fu, with me!"
They were cavalry. Poor ground for horses, but still faster than men on foot. The only chance to catch them was now, before they were fully clear of our formation.
"Ma Zhong! Stop the horsemen!"
Almost in the same breath as my shout across the field, Ma Zhong was already moving. He had prepared before I even gave the order. The moment he saw their cavalry, he must have commanded it himself.
They hauled the ropes we had brought taut and snagged the horses' legs. My cry had given the riders a moment to brace, but knowing was not the same as being able to stop it.
The instant one horse went down, the rest was a chain collision. Amid the beasts' mournful cries, the riders sprawled—and walked themselves into our encirclement.
But they were Cao Cao's elites. Even through the shock of the fall they were up at once, finding their stance.
The enemy officer I had thought might be Zhang He was too young to be him. Zhang He was of my father's generation. A youthful face has its limits. I closed on the man as I spoke.
"So you aren't Zhang He."
"Hahaha. Count it luck. Had it been General Pingdi and not this Dai Ling, your head would already have left your shoulders."
"No thought of surrender, I take it."
"No officer who follows His Lordship is coward enough to surrender!"
I turned from Dai Ling's bellow and set the field in order first.
"Ma Zhong, finish this. Ju Fu, with me—we'll clear them."
"Understood."
Ma Zhong and Ju Fu were not far apart in command, but in martial strength Ma Zhong could not match Ju Fu. Now, with the enemy showing they meant to fight to the death, Ju Fu was the one who would do more.
"This subordinate will take the enemy officer. General, pursue Zhang He."
I shook my head at Ju Fu's words.
"He'll already be gone. Without cavalry, we won't catch him."
I spun my spear lightly and closed on Dai Ling.
"Your loyalty does you credit. Is there a way you'd like your funeral kept?"
"Insolent!"
With the shout, Dai Ling lunged.
Perhaps from the fall, his steps were somehow unnatural. His momentum, though, was not behind in the least. Worthy, indeed, of a general of Cao Cao's army.
I watched the sword driving in on me to the very end. Its line drew itself. As if this were augmented reality, I could see with perfect clarity how Dai Ling's cut would come.
Clang!
The contest is decided in the seeing.
To see the enemy's attack. To see the enemy's defense. To see his strength, and his weakness. This is called kan—the seeing. And to break what one has seen is pa. Together, they are kanpa: to perceive a thing, and to shatter it.
Unless one has reached the height of landing a blow the foe knows is coming and still cannot stop, the fork between life and death takes its direction here.
My spear turned his sword as cleanly as a line in a painting and twisted the path of the blade. The angle of a thrust that had been driving straight warped, and Dai Ling's balance collapsed.
My spear sank into his heart.
Thuk. Blood spread. Up the shaft, I could almost feel the heartbeat stop. I shook off the revulsion I have never grown used to, and drew the spear free.
With the jet of blood bursting from a gap in the armor, Dai Ling's knees folded.
"Khuhk..."
In the instant his body collapsed amid the gush of blood, Ju Fu and the soldiers crashed in and tore down what remained of the Cao army's resistance.
"A great victory!"
Was it over on that side as well? Ma Dai came running to me, shouting in high delight. The clash of blades across the field had already ceased.
The battle was at an end.