The Battle of Daeheung Mountain
Even that night, Jeong Won-ji was happy. The man who had fallen from a proud military officer of Beiping all the way down to a slave in some wealthy household had risen once more through his own power to become the leader of the Yellow Turbans in Youzhou. Of course, getting chased out of the army had been his own damn fault, and climbing from slave to boss of the Youzhou Yellow Turbans had only been possible after he murdered the master and mistress who had fed him so well and used their stolen wealth to buy his position. Still, the fact that he now stood at the top of a massive organization remained unchanged. So, as always, Jeong Won-ji carried himself with absolute arrogance. If you’ve got a problem with it, you should’ve fought harder!
His ambition, having skyrocketed after his meteoric rise as a major warlord in Youzhou, grew without limit. Beiping, Yuyang, and Yan State had already fallen into his hands, and now even Zhuo Commandery was nearly within his grasp. He even had the suppression army sent from Luoyang dancing in the palm of his hand. Wait… maybe I really am strong?
Swollen with pride, Jeong Won-ji strutted about as if he were already the ruler of Youzhou, unleashing his delusions without the slightest restraint. Once he took Zhuo County, he would deal with those annoying central army bastards hovering nearby. If he pulled the troops currently sieging the county and combined them with the ones blocking the road, how could the enemy possibly hold out? The central army coming to suppress him? So what. He was Jeong Won-ji. Whether they were the Emperor’s own golden guards or some fancy bastards from Luoyang, why would he be afraid of them? As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a single person in Youzhou who could beat him right now. He didn’t know how things were in their own territories, but this was Youzhou. They only had a measly six thousand troops. How could they possibly defeat a force more than five times larger?
If they sent thirty thousand and still couldn’t push through? Then he would simply send the reserves and the troops from the main camp. Those six thousand would scatter in panic. Sure, his boys weren’t properly trained, but… hadn’t they done well enough so far? In the end, the enemy would be crushed by numbers and surrender just like all the others.
Come to think of it, both commanders of this suppression force were women, weren’t they? The scout he’d sent reported that both were quite beautiful. Since they came from Luoyang, they must come from excellent families. Perfect. When he captured them, he wouldn’t kill them immediately. He would generously give them the chance to become his concubines. Would they dare refuse the mercy of Jeong Won-ji, the man who would soon be acknowledged by Zhang Jue as Inspector of Yan Province? Of course not. Wave a blade in front of those tied-up bitches and they would piss themselves, begging to live even if it meant becoming foot-washers instead of concubines.
Wait a second—Inspector? No, perhaps he would become Duke of Yan. Or, if luck was with him, King of Yan! He had conquered all of Yan Province by himself. Would they really only grant him some pathetic inspector title? They would have to make him king. And once he became King of Yan and found the right moment to stab that bastard Zhang Jue in the back and finish him off? Wouldn’t that make him Emperor?
If he became Emperor, those women would become his imperial consorts. It was all profit and no loss.
“Hehehehe.”
Already picturing himself as Emperor, gathering every beauty in the land from Luoyang and indulging in endless debauchery, Jeong Won-ji drifted off to sleep. Or at least, he tried to.
“Boss! Boss!!! Wake up right now! We’ve got a huge problem!!”
If only it weren’t for the shouting of the Yellow Turban unit leader who served as his right-hand man, Deng Wu, barging in late at night.
“You little shit! How many times have I told you to call me General?!”
“Aigoo! That’s not important right now!!! The suppression army has poured onto the road leading to Yan State!!!!”
“What?! No… We left two thousand men in Yan State. What the hell were they doing that they didn’t send even a single message before it got this bad?!”
“I don’t know! But who cares about that right now?! One of the reserve soldiers came running in a panic. He was about to take a piss when he saw a massive dust cloud rising in the distance, so he went to check it out.”
“And? And then what?!”
“When he got there, he saw tons of the flags you taught the men to use last time—the ones that distinguish unit sizes. He said there were loads of those flags!”
Having once been a soldier of Han, Jeong Won-ji already knew how the army used flags to identify units. In the chaos of battle, not knowing where your own unit was positioned wasted soldiers, so Han officers made their men memorize their unit’s flag so they could regroup quickly. One flag per hundred men for a company commander. One flag per thousand for a Colonel. One flag per ten thousand for a General. The size and shape of the company commander’s flag, Colonel’s flag, and General’s flag were distinct enough to recognize at a glance, allowing soldiers to find their unit even in the middle of a melee.
Of course, the enemy could also estimate troop numbers by counting flags, just as Jeong Won-ji was doing now. But the enormous advantage of preventing confusion among their own men far outweighed that minor drawback.
At any rate, Jeong Won-ji mentally patted himself on the back for having at least given the flag lesson, then asked Deng Wu,
“So how many did the suppression force have, exactly?”
“They said ten thousand!”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense! How could ten thousand men march all the way here without the guys in Yan State sending even one message?! Did that soldier see it clearly? Was he drunk?”
“No! He looked completely sober! He said they weren’t even using torches and the dust was so thick he couldn’t count the actual soldiers, but they were holding the flags high while running, so he could only count the flags.”
Marching at night without torches was obviously meant to launch a surprise attack from the direction of Yan State… but they had kicked up enough dust to be visible from far away? And they had charged forward with their flags held high for all to see? Jeong Won-ji’s mind grew tangled.
However—
“General! What do we do?! We need to give the reserve troops some kind of orders right now!”
When the frightened Deng Wu pressed him after the unexpected surprise attack, Jeong Won-ji gave up on thinking too deeply and issued commands.
“You idiot! If even you start panicking, the already scared men will shake even worse, so shut up and stay calm!”
“That’s why we need to make them do something right now!!! If we just sit here, they’re all going to desert!”
Deng Wu had a point. These were men who had never received proper training and only trusted in their numbers. If he didn’t seize control of the situation immediately, some would definitely start slipping away.
“Hmm… Deng Wu! Take the four thousand from the main camp and the reserves and block their path! They may have ten thousand, but we outnumber them by four thousand. Just hold your position without doing anything stupid and they won’t dare attack recklessly.”
“But General, that would leave only a thousand in the main camp. Will that be all right? Wouldn’t it be better to pull the men guarding the other road or the ones surrounding Zhuo County?”
“If we do that, the enemy currently facing them might notice and try something. It’s safer to take the main camp troops who aren’t doing anything. Stop arguing and get moving!”
Startled by the roar, Deng Wu bolted out. A short while later he took the sleeping soldiers from the main camp and left to issue orders to the reserves. As Deng Wu had said, the main camp became noticeably emptier. But they had already plundered most of the villages in Zhuo Commandery, killing the young men or forcibly conscripting them. What was there to worry about? Only a handful of tiny villages remained. The idea that they could gather enough people from there to attack the main camp was laughable.
The night grew deeper and darker, to the point where walking without torches had become nearly impossible. Deng Wu led four thousand from the main camp and ten thousand reserves—fourteen thousand soldiers in total—racing to block the road leading to Yan State. Fortunately they arrived before the enemy and were able to seize an advantageous position. Holding a sloped uphill like this would make the enemy hesitate to attack. Besides, they had more troops. Only then could Deng Wu breathe easy.
He had no idea when Yan State had fallen back into enemy hands, but he had left soldiers in Yuyang and Beiping as well. Even if, by some misfortune, those places had been taken too, Jizhou lay just below them. If they were attacked from three directions at once, there was no way the fanatical Zhang Jue would refuse to send reinforcements. If they held out here for a few days, the troops who had gone to capture Zhuo County would finish their work and join them. That would bring their numbers close to thirty thousand. What did they have to fear then? As always, the enemy would be overwhelmed by numbers and retreat.
The thick dust cloud visible even in the dark night drew closer. Although they held the defensive position with superior numbers and higher ground, the enemy were elites dispatched from Luoyang. No matter how advantageous the situation, letting their guard down even slightly could lead to immediate defeat. Having finished mentally preparing himself, Deng Wu faced the arriving ten thousand elite soldiers—
“…?”
There were no elite soldiers from Luoyang. Instead, a ragged bunch covered head to toe in straw and dust, looking as if they had swept the floor with their bodies, approached while carrying a ridiculous number of flags. Their total number looked to be around two hundred at most. Only about twenty of them were even on horseback.
“Wow~ I half doubted it, but they really did drag a whole crowd here.”
“Right? All that running over the mountains in the dark was worth it!”
The enemy laughed and casually turned to leave. While Deng Wu stared at them in blank confusion, one of his men suddenly shouted in alarm.
“Lord Deng Wu!! Fire—there’s fire over there!!!”
When he looked in the direction the soldier was pointing, he saw that the main camp where Jeong Won-ji was stationed had burst into flames.