The Northern Expedition
Meanwhile, Feng Hai — ordered to reinforce Wan with five thousand elite troops — was pressing hard on the march.
This is the perfect chance to win glory. Just wait, you Shu rebels. Feng Hai is coming.
Until now he had always been overshadowed by Wei’s more celebrated generals, and so he had almost never been given command of a force of his own. That only made him all the more elated at the prospect of earning merit.
To stay out of enemy sight he had to take the mountain paths, yet his steps were light.
It was while they were threading a densely wooded trail that it happened.
“Our Shu army has been waiting to take your heads!”
“You Cao dogs! Lay down your weapons and surrender at once! Do so and we will spare your lives!”
A band of soldiers burst from the roadside, roaring their challenges.
“General Feng Hai! Ambush!”
“What nonsense! Who said anything about surrendering!”
“Open fire! Kill every last Cao dog!”
The unexpected ambushers poured arrows into them, and several men in the van went down. Feng Hai, however, did not flinch.
“Hold steady and answer them! We’ll make these scum the first sacrifice of this war! All units — charge!”
He drew his blade and bellowed with such valor that the momentarily rattled soldiers recovered their wits and hurled themselves at the Shu ambushers.
“Ambush or not, there can’t be many of them. Round them all up and claim the credit!”
For a time the quiet mountain rang with the clash of spear and sword and the screams of the wounded. But the Wei troops, contrary to expectation, counterattacked with such calm ferocity that dismay began to show on the faces of the Shu men.
“It’s no good. The surprise attack has failed. All units, fall back!”
“Cowards! After them, every one of you!”
The Shu soldiers sheathed their blades and began to withdraw; Feng Hai pursued them with dogged tenacity.
“General Feng Hai! I fear the enemy may have a trap waiting. Shouldn’t we leave those men be and make for Wan to join our own forces?”
“What are you talking about? You want me to let a chance at glory slip away right under my nose?”
His adjutant spoke frankly, and Feng Hai brushed the counsel aside without a second thought.
If they reached Wan, he would have to place himself under Cao Hong’s command and forfeit any chance of independent action — that was how Feng Hai saw it.
Ambition isn’t always a vice. What’s so wrong with wanting to win merit? Being able to charge forward with this kind of spirit…
That was still how he thought of it then. He had, after all, kept his men’s morale up and handled the opening of the fight well enough.
“Pursue them! Wipe those dogs out and rewards will follow! Do not let a single one escape!”
Spirits high, the Wei army chased the fleeing Shu troops.
At first he thought a short pursuit would be enough. Destroy the enemy in front of him, then head straight for Wan.
But the Shu soldiers fled far better than he had expected.
“Gou Fu! What’s the enemy doing?”
“They’re sticking to us like burrs! The plan seems to be working!”
“Doesn’t it seem to be working a little too well?!”
“Aren’t you getting all the mountain-climbing you wanted?”
“This is not mountain-climbing!”
“…Never mind that and just show us the way. Where do we go next? The fate of our unit is in your hands, Adviser Ma!”
“That way! Over there! Everyone, run that way!”
Gou Fu and Ma Su, leading a small force of light infantry, were drawing the enemy after them and buying time exactly as Jin Cheong had planned. Ma Su, who knew the local terrain well, guided the route while Gou Fu kept the soldiers in order as they fled.
Under Ma Su’s direction the Shu troops shook off the pursuing Wei army and ran on.
In truth, even Jin Cheong herself — the one who had devised the plan — had been only half convinced it would work.
If the lure failed, they were to fall back at once to Jin Cheong’s main force. The main army would then either avoid a direct clash with the Wei troops and withdraw for a time, or else crush the reinforcements first, piece by piece. But things were going better than expected, which was, if anything, unnerving.
Still, Ma Su had mapped out the escape routes in advance, so the flight itself was proceeding smoothly.
Moreover, they had selected only soldiers from Yizhou who were accustomed to mountain travel, and so almost no one fell behind; the whole force kept together.
They were also lightly equipped — light armor only, weapons pared to the bare minimum.
The enemy, by contrast, was charging after them still burdened with heavy armor and full gear, and so their pace was relatively slow. They were chasing with murderous determination, that much was clear — but still.
“This way! Around that boulder, then straight ahead!”
For a long while the mountains rang with the echoes of pursuer and pursued.
“Damn it. These slippery bastards. Where the hell are we? And where have they gone now?”
“We’ve come too deep, General Feng Hai. We must turn back. If we’re not careful, the reinforcement will arrive too late.”
Despite his adjutant’s pleas, Feng Hai had chased the fleeing enemy so far that he lost them entirely — and lost the road as well.
Not a single enemy soldier was in sight. All that met the eye were sheer cliffs and trees.
And from the forced pursuit, every man was gasping for breath.
Damn. I was too hungry for glory.
As things stood, both the march to Wan and the destruction of the enemy had come to nothing.
“Enough. Hear me, all of you. Call off the pursuit. We advance on Wan.”
Feng Hai returned to his proper duty, late though it was — but by that point he should already have realized that even the advance on Wan had become difficult.
“The enemy has walked into the trap! All units, open fire! Turn them into porcupines!”
At the voice from the cliff above, every head snapped around at once. What met their eyes was a rain of five hundred arrows streaking down upon them.
Blinded by ambition though he had been, Feng Hai saw with perfect clarity the despair those five hundred shafts carried with them.
With no time to dodge and nowhere to take cover, the Wei army took the arrow storm full on.
“Aaagh!”
“Urgh!”
Soldiers with arrows buried in their bodies toppled, spraying blood.
“Keep shooting!”
What Feng Hai did not know was that the force on the cliff was Liu Min’s Strong Crossbow unit, joined belatedly by Zhao Lou’s detached force.
The Strong Crossbows, far more powerful than ordinary bows, tore through the Wei ranks without mercy. Some bolts punched clean through two men at once.
“Re—retreat! Fall back to Jiangxia for now!”
He barked the order in desperation, but on that narrow mountain path his troops tangled with one another and could not withdraw properly, becoming nothing more than targets.
Far from winning glory, Feng Hai took a bitter mauling and barely managed to flee all the way to Jiangxia.
“General Zhang. Word just came in. Ma Su and Gou Fu are drawing off the reinforcements coming from Jiangxia. If the plan continues to go well, Jiangxia’s relief force will not arrive when the enemy wants it to.”
“Good. Sounds like they’re handling it well.”
“Yes. The enemy seems to have taken the bait cleanly. I’ll keep sending scouts.”
A messenger who had been hidden a short distance from where Ma Su and Gou Fu lay in ambush came racing up, breathless, with the report.
I had posted only a small force in the mountains — small enough that the enemy at Wan would not notice: Liu Min’s Strong Crossbow unit and a portion of the light infantry under Gou Fu — and I had also brought Zhao Lou’s detached force, already operating independently, into the fold.
If the ambush had gone as planned, Jiangxia’s reinforcements would not be able to reach us here anytime soon.
“From what we got out of the captured courier, the enemy will be expecting those reinforcements any moment now.”
“Yes, they will.”
With the threat to our flank and rear removed, what lay before us was the enemy force to our front.
Zhu Ling’s troops had joined them as well, but in terms of strength we were more than capable of fighting.
And Liu Feng’s unit was scheduled to join us in secret.
“Then we’d better shatter that expectation for them. What do you say, General Jin? A fight or two should put the enemy on edge, don’t you think?”
Zhang Fei floated the suggestion casually. He was clearly itching for a battle.
“Hmm. A fight wouldn’t hurt. Let’s set the next operation in motion, then move out at once.”
“Good. I’ll have the units ready in the meantime.”
Zhang Fei and I set about the final preparations for a proper clash.
“General Zhang. General Jin. Safe travels. I am certain the two of you will bring back a great victory.”
“Thank you, Lord Fei Yi. Xinye is in your hands.”
“Have no concern.”
Judging that the plans we had laid were progressing well and that the moment was ripe, Zhang Fei and I led our forces out of Xinye. Fei Yi, charged with the city’s defense, came as far as the gates to see us off.
Behind us followed our subordinate officers — Wu Ban, Wang Ping, Yu Eun, and the rest.
Marching north, we soon found ourselves face to face with the Wei army that had come out to meet us.
“General Zhang. There they are, waiting for us.”
“Yes. I expected we’d meet them right about here.”
I formed the troops into battle order and checked the enemy banners one by one.
Cao Hong, Zhang Liao, Cao Xiu, Zhu Ling, Zhang Ji, and more.
“General Zhang. It seems the enemy has brought nearly their full strength.”
“Good. Just what I wanted.”
Zhang Fei swept the field once with his eyes, then issued his orders without delay.
“All right. Sound the drums. Advance! No wasting time — smash them at once!”
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The drums of advance rolled across the field, announcing that the Northern Expedition had truly begun.
The war was on.