Devour Them Piece by Piece
Xun Tianzhang had confirmed it that day: the wind sweeping over the Longmu River blew fierce. Torrential rain would soon come pouring down. Back in his camp, he gave orders at once for the local gazetteer of Longyang City — the chronicle recording the region's terrain, people, and affairs — to be brought to him.
Longyang City lay close beside the Longmu River, where frequent rains set in from the latter part of the sixth month — the very season when the river swelled.
Xun Tianzhang pressed his finger to the pages of the gazetteer. The ground around Longyang City was low-lying. If trenches were dug to drown the city before the river could rise, the cost in soldiers' lives could be kept to a minimum.
He raised his head and looked out of the command tent. Dark clouds were boiling on the distant horizon, and a sharp gleam lit his eyes. There was no time to lose — the decision had to be made now.
"Summon the two generals!"
Xun Tianzhang gave his orders to the Liang commanders: that very night they were to lead their soldiers to the Longmu River and see the trenches finished within a single day, whatever the price.
With his instructions given, fatigue came flooding in, and Xun Tianzhang sank down at the table. There he sat with his eyes closed, calling up again and again his meetings with Liu Hong, the Jin marshal, and with Bai Jingyan.
Whether Bai Jingyan would truly launch a raid tonight, he could not know — but he had to be ready for any eventuality.
He left only five thousand men in the main camp and ordered everyone else — all but those following the two generals out to dig the trenches — to lie in ambush beyond the camp. If Bai Jingyan truly came, he meant to see that she never left again. That task he entrusted to his own son.
Zhao Sheng, having just received the order to ambush outside the camp, entered the marshal's tent. He was anxious that the Jin army might cut off their grain convoys.
Xun Tianzhang answered with a light laugh.
"That is exactly what I want. Send men to guard every route the grain can travel. If the Jin army really scatters its forces to lie in wait at each and every one of them, it will only play into our hands. Our Liang troops outnumber the Jin many times over — all we need do is devour them piece by piece!"
Zhao Sheng bowed his head.
"Marshal, I will send men to keep watch at once."
Xun Tianzhang stationed soldiers along the grain routes and had them dig trenches there as well. Only after the order for the ambush beyond the camp had gone out did his strength finally drain away; bracing both hands against the table, he coughed as if his throat would tear open.
He pressed the handkerchief lying on the table to his mouth. A thick, coppery reek of blood rose from within. When he drew it away, it was stained crimson.
Xun Tianzhang hastily wiped the blood from his lips, then clenched the handkerchief tight in his fist.
Early that evening, Fu Yahei, the Jin garrison commander, reached Longyang City at the head of reinforcements from the Anping main camp and stationed his army outside the walls.
The moment the reinforcements arrived, Liu Hong's confidence surged, and he summoned every general at once to work out how the Liang army might be broken.
Liu Hong was a man who saw himself with clear eyes. He knew full well that he lacked the mastery to control a war from start to finish — but in return, he was quick to take counsel from others.
A spy sent into the Liang camp came hurrying back with his report: Liang soldiers had been moving out of their camp.
"In which direction did they go?"
Bai Jingyan felt as though her heart had leapt into her throat.
"Toward Huoshen Mountain, it seems!" the spy replied.
Her heart hammered hard against her ribs.
"Did you confirm who leads the men, and how large their force is?"
"I could not learn who commands them, but their numbers appear to be around twenty thousand."
Bai Jingyan turned to look at Liu Hong.
"It seems Xun Tianzhang has learned that Generals Lin Gangluo and Wang Xiping went to Huoshen Mountain to rescue our men. Marshal, put soldiers under my command. I will set out at once to reinforce Huoshen Mountain!"
Liu Hong clenched his jaw and held his silence for a long moment before he spoke.
"General Fu Yahei will lead the men there. Commandery Princess, remain in camp. You must stay with me and help devise how we shall drive off the Liang army!"
It was not that he kept Bai Jingyan behind merely to hold her back. As a child of the Bai family, she knew the waging of war well — and young as she was, Liu Hong relied on her a great deal.
Bai Jingyan closed her fist tight, then raised her clasped hands in salute to General Fu Yahei.
"Then I leave everything in your hands, General!"
General Fu Yahei had long been garrisoned on the frontier against the Rong tribes, and his experience of war ran deep. That was why Bai Jingyan believed he could bring Jinchi out alive.
"Commandery Princess, have no fear."
The instant he took his orders, Fu Yahei led his soldiers racing off toward Huoshen Mountain.
"Commandery Princess, a little while ago at the Longmu River—"
Liu Hong pressed anxiously. Bai Jingyan's heart was still racing, but she gathered her wits with effort and stepped up to the sand table, laying out before Liu Hong and the generals the possibility that the Liang army might drown Longyang City in floodwater.
"Xun Tianzhang will know full well that the Longmu River's flood season is about to begin. And as it happens, Longyang City sits on low ground — he will try to sink the city and slaughter our army to the last man. Marshal, give the order: the Jin army must help the people bring in the wheat quickly, and then send them out of the city."
"Harvest the wheat in advance and evacuate the people? And what if the Liang army has no thought of flooding Longyang City at all?" one of the Jin generals asked.
"Moreover, had the Liang army made any move, our spies would have warned us beforehand. Might the Commandery Princess be worrying overmuch, and squandering our strength for nothing?"
Bai Jingyan had no wish to argue with him and answered with firm resolve.
"Whether my judgment is sound or not, we can settle it easily enough — send men to the Longmu River this evening to see for ourselves."
"If the Liang marshal truly means to drown Longyang City, then we have no choice but to send the people out?"
Liu Hong stared at the sand table, wrestling with the problem for a long while before his gaze swung back to Bai Jingyan. "Rather than wearing ourselves out harvesting wheat, what if we laid a trap at the Longmu River ahead of time and pinned down the Liang soldiers sent to dig the trenches?"
It was not that Bai Jingyan had not weighed that course herself. She looked at Liu Hong as she answered.
"It is not impossible — but only if we annihilate the Liang troops that gather at the Longmu River, down to the last man. If even a handful of survivors flee back to camp, they will open the war against us in earnest, and the initiative will pass out of our hands. Better to harvest the wheat in advance and send the people out. As for the trenches — let them dig all they please. There is, after all, a way to turn the very trenches they dig into a trap for their own backs."
"But to use that stratagem, you would have to make the Liang army enter the city. What if they refuse to set foot inside?"
A general frowned and pressed on, plainly unable to accept Bai Jingyan's strategy. "If the Liang army does not come into the city, everything dissolves into nothing! Not long ago, when they attacked Chunmo City and Fuwen City, they did nothing but plunder — they never once garrisoned there! If this time, too, they simply sink Longyang City beneath the flood, then Jin alone will bear the loss!"
"Commandery Princess, have you some particular stratagem in mind?"
Liu Hong trusted Bai Jingyan immensely. He did not believe for a moment that she would put forward such a plan with no countermeasure in hand.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
"Let a rumor slip. Spread word that before Chunmo City and Fuwen City came under siege, the rare treasures kept there were carried off to Longyang City. And let it be said that the mansion of Xiao Rongyan — the wealthiest merchant under heaven — stands within Longyang City, its hidden chamber packed with countless treasures. It is the nature of men's hearts to waver easily before wealth. Even in the Liang army there will surely be some general aching to storm the city and be first to stuff its riches into his own pockets.
"Then, Marshal, order our men to destroy every route over which Liang grain is hauled — spare only the road nearest Longyang City."
Bai Jingyan pointed to the handful of routes across the sand table along which grain could be moved.
"To see his grain through safely, Xun Tianzhang will mass especially heavy forces on that road — both to keep the Jin army from burning it, and to swallow whole any Jin troops that move out to lay traps!"
Pointing to where the Liang army was now encamped on the sand table, she drove on without pause. Her eyes were resolute yet calm, and brimming with confidence.
"Send the whole of Jin's main force to raid the Liang camp. We must make the Liang army see that the marshal and every general of Jin marches in that column. Once they are deluded into believing our entire main force is assaulting their camp, they will recall most of the troops escorting the grain! At that point, we fall back as though their assault is driving us under, luring them once more into Longyang City. Of course, we must look as if we are abandoning the city, unable to withstand their attack.
"Once they are inside the walls, do you imagine those curs will leave the treasures untouched? Whether Longyang City sinks or not rests solely on Xun Tianzhang's command! While the Liang army is turning the city inside out, send General Lin Gangluo around the Longmu River to open the trench mouths — and let the flood swallow the city!"
Bai Jingyan had read the military dispatches in meticulous detail. When they had attacked Chunmo City and Fuwen City, Xun Tianzhang had given his soldiers three days to plunder the cities at will. There would be ample time, then, to drown the Liang army.
Listening to Bai Jingyan's assured words, Liu Hong felt his chest burn hot. He brought his hand down hard on the edge of the sand table as he answered.
"Excellent!"
"I had no idea the Commandery Princess could devise so meticulous a strategy. You have my deepest respect."
The general who had doubted her plan only moments before raised his fist in salute toward Bai Jingyan.
Clad in silver armor, Bai Jingyan gave a placid nod. Not a trace of triumph showed on her, and her voice was calm.
"Marshal, send men to the Longmu River at once and have them stand ready. Once darkness falls, the Liang army will move."
Bai Jingyan had thought through every strategy Xun Tianzhang could conceivably hit upon at this stage of the war, leaving out none. And after turning one variable after another over in her mind, again and again, she had worked out the only way to defeat the Liang army while keeping Jin's losses to the barest minimum.
If Longyang City were drowned, it would have to be rebuilt, consuming vast stores of labor and supplies. But in Bai Jingyan's eyes, nothing outweighed human lives.
So long as the people survived, raising a city anew was no great task.
When two nations clashed in war, for Jin's soldiers to be maimed and slain by the thousand — that, and that alone, was the true loss.
The Southern Border war was the textbook example. Because of King Xin, hundreds of thousands of Jin soldiers had perished, and Jin had been left grievously wounded. And it was precisely that calamity that emboldened Liang now to attack Jin without a shred of fear.
Liu Hong sent word to the relief column marching from Dadu toward Longyang City, ordering it to press ahead with all haste.
Only then, once the Liang army lay drowned, could they join forces and drive the last remnants of Liang from Jin soil for good.