Battle of Yangren (1)
The Chen army was routing Dong Zhuo's forces at Sishui Pass.
They were driving back Left General Li Jue and Right General Guo Si, the so-called Twin Pillars of Dong Zhuo's army, with overwhelming force. When the Guandong gentry-officials received the victory report, they let out sighs of relief and cheered.
"Truly the matchless, fierce army of the south!"
"The reputation of a hundred victories in a hundred battles is no empty boast! At this rate we can break through Sishui Pass and advance straight to Luoyang!"
Li Jue and Guo Si had committed the foolish, desperate blunder of leading their cavalry out on a sortie. The Xiliang cavalry, hardened on the barren frontier, had barely charged through the gates of Sishui Pass before they were shot down like a hornet's nest.
The air reeked of blood.
The ground near Sishui Pass was littered with Dong Zhuo's corpses.
If the siege engines kept up their fierce assault, even Sishui Pass, prided as an impregnable fortress, would inevitably fall. With its superior archers and crossbowmen, the Chen army was practically the natural enemy of Dong Zhuo's forces, who relied on cavalry as their core strength.
"Won't we be able to claim Dong Zhuo's head within four days?"
"Right now Dong Zhuo must be trembling in terror after hearing of the courage and resolve of us loyal men!"
Dong Zhuo's army was nothing but a mob of blustering rabble. The Sishui Pass frontline collapsing so one-sidedly proved that Dong Zhuo's power and bravery were nothing more than a handful of sand.
The Guandong officials were already acting as if they had won an easy victory.
Arrogant and dissolute.
It was a sight typical of white-faced scholars who knew nothing but empty theory.
Even while the siege was still underway, they had begun imagining what would come after entering Luoyang. They had even fallen to the delusion that the Guandong officials could divide Dong Zhuo's usurped absolute authority fairly among themselves, then leave the young Emperor in place as a puppet.
"Damn it! They're already getting giddy!"
Only one man,
Rear General Yuan Shu, showed open displeasure.
This was a victory he had not wanted.
He had hoped that accursed Crown Prince would suffer a catastrophic defeat.
That young lordling from a clan that had produced the Three Dukes for four generations, a man of viciously arrogant and petty temperament, could not distinguish public duty from private grudge. So even though Crown Prince Liu Seong-hwi was crushing the army of Dong Zhuo, who had massacred the Runan Yuan Clan, Yuan Shu still reacted with envy and jealousy.
"Once Sishui Pass falls, Dong Zhuo's battle line will collapse like a sandcastle hit by a wave. Do you think I'll let him hog all the military glory...! I must be the one to retake Luoyang!"
All fame and popular support would naturally concentrate on the hero who retook Luoyang.
Yuan Shu, bloated with vanity and pretension, was never going to miss this heaven-sent chance.
He mustered the troops of Nanyang Prefecture.
Yuan Shu summoned Ji Ling and Zhang Xun and issued secret orders.
Of course, moving troops without a separate command was a direct violation of military law. But he had no intention of standing by and watching Liu Seong-hwi monopolize all the credit, so he forced through this rash, unilateral action.
"Deputy Alliance Leader!"
While his half-sibling was plotting this reckless move,
a dispatch arrived for Deputy Alliance Leader Yuan Shao.
It was an order brought from the Sishui Pass front.
Yuan Shao broke open the tightly sealed bamboo strip and checked the command Liu Seong-hwi had sent.
"Did His Highness the Alliance Leader send orders to anyone else?"
"To General Who Displays Martial Might, stationed at Yangcheng."
So she's moving Cao Cao's army.
The implication was that she was preparing a general offensive.
'Is she planning to launch the general offensive once the walls and ramparts of Sishui Pass crumble? No..., that can't be it. Launching a general offensive when the enemy's full strength hasn't even been revealed would be the worst plan of all. The Hero of the South, who has fought on countless battlefields, would never make such a call.'
Commander Hua Xiong
The fiercest warrior in Xiliang.
He was also the commander Dong Zhuo trusted most.
The location of the overall commander directing the Sishui Pass front was still unknown. Having heard the scouts' intelligence from the battlefield, Yuan Shao felt her finely honed instinct for danger sending out a sharp warning.
"Zhongjian, ready the troops. I will march out to the front."
"So Liu Seong-hwi has issued a command."
She summoned Chunyu Qiong and ordered the march.
Chunyu Qiong nodded and accepted the order.
"I will join forces with the armies of Chancellor of Jibei Bao Xin and Inspector of Yu Province Kong Zhou and head for Sishui Pass. Then I will relieve Liu Seong-hwi and take command of the front."
"Relieve him...? Then where is Liu Seong-hwi going?"
Yuan Shao did not answer that question.
I'll tell you once we reach the front.
Wearing a meaningful smile, she pressed a slender finger to her lips.
* * *
By now, hit by the siege engines' general assault, the walls of Sishui Pass were tattered like rags. The gate tower, pounded by concentrated catapult fire, looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Just as I'd expected.
Dong Zhuo's army is terrible at siege defense.
They're an armed group that roamed the barren frontier, fighting the Qiang people and the Xiongnu. Order such a freewheeling army to sit tight and defend a fortress, and they couldn't help but look sluggish.
"Why do you think Dong Zhuo's army keeps clinging to a defensive siege battle? Bringing out their whole force for a decisive engagement would give them far better odds."
"They're draining our army's stamina and time."
A beauty with flowing, snow-white hair asked, tapping my cheek with a finger.
I answered, my gaze fixed beyond Sishui Pass.
"Sishui Pass is about to fall now, but... if reinforcements from Dong Zhuo's army arrive from Luoyang, taking the pass will become hard. Shouldn't we just launch a general offensive, tomorrow even?"
"You just said it yourself, Big Sis. A pitched battle where both sides commit their full strength would be far more favorable for Dong Zhuo's army. What they want is a full-scale fight."
A pitched battle.
Mobilize the whole army and decide the matter.
For Dong Zhuo's army, holding Sishui Pass was nothing more than a way to buy time.
If they'd truly intended to defend Sishui Pass, they would have deployed the Imperial Guard from Luoyang. But the force currently manning Sishui Pass was the Xiliang army under Li Jue and Guo Si.
'Pinning the enemy at Sishui Pass while circling around Mount Song to strike their rear. Once Hua Xiong's general offensive begins, Li Jue and Guo Si will bring out every soldier posted at the pass and join him. The plan is to surround our front and rear simultaneously and annihilate the Coalition Army.'
Hua Xiong is known as a bold and fierce general, but also as a simple, mediocre one.
But the gossipers of Luoyang were jumping to conclusions.
The reality was the exact opposite.
The fiercest warrior in Xiliang was a man of outstanding military strategy.
He hadn't studied military methods systematically, but he had instincts honed through desperate fighting on the frontier. Like a wild beast, he probably found the way to win a fight the moment it started, purely by instinct.
"General Who Defeats the Barbarians."
"Preparations are complete, as ordered."
It was a pitch-dark early morning.
When only the faint moonlight of the crescent moon lit the predawn sky.
Led by the armies of Liu Bei and Sun Jian, who had been holding the Sishui Pass front, the large southern force had finished readying its forced march. I nodded at General Who Defeats the Barbarians Sun Jian's reply and waited for Yuan Shao's forces and the gentry-officials to reach the front.
"Sis, is it really okay to leave this to a bunch of rabble? Honestly, it feels sketchy."
"I don't know. We'll just have to trust the Alliance Leader for now."
Governor of Bohai Yuan Shao.
Chancellor of Jibei Bao Xin. Inspector of Yu Province Kong Zhou.
Aside from Yuan Shao, none of them had any experience holding a military command.
They had high reputations as famous scholars of the Pure Stream Faction, but they were complete amateurs who knew nothing of war. The moment battle started, Li Jue and Guo Si would obviously overrun them like helpless children.
What on earth is he thinking?
I really can't follow the reasoning behind this decision.
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu calmly accepted the judgment of Liu Seong-hwi—whom their big sister trusted absolutely—but they still looked like they couldn't quite grasp it.
"My apologies, I'm a little late."
"You arrived in time."
Past the hour of the Tiger (03:00-05:00).
The troops of Governor of Bohai Yuan Shao and the local officials reached the Sishui Pass front.
A great number of siege engines had already been concentrated in front of Sishui Pass. If we moved secretly, using the deep, pitch-black darkness and silence of the early morning, Dong Zhuo's army wouldn't dream that the troops facing them had changed.
"Alliance Leader, will Commander Hua Xiong come to Yangren?"
"He will. If Hua Xiong defies expectations and shows up at Sishui Pass instead, abandon all the siege engines on the front line and withdraw. A direct battle against Dong Zhuo's main force is unwinnable."
"Understood. I pray for your success, Alliance Leader. Mengde..., General Who Displays Martial Might will also arrive soon."
"Mm. I'll pray for your success too, Deputy Alliance Leader."
I nodded at the beautiful woman with the enviable, flowing golden hair, a faint smile on my face.
I raised my hand.
Then the armies of Liu Bei and Sun Jian, in the lead, began their march.
Forming a Long Snake Formation, they plunged into the pre-dawn darkness with perfect discipline. We had taken thorough precautions—covering our weapons in cloth and muzzling the warhorses so that no sound would leak out toward Sishui Pass—so the maneuver could continue smoothly.
* * *
Night ended and morning broke.
When we reached Liang County, where Yangren is located, a thick water fog greeted us.
It was hard to see.
First, I sent out scouts to find out what Dong Zhuo's army was doing.
Some time passed.
As soon as the warm sunlight dispersed the water fog, a wall of cold metal revealed itself. The tens of thousands of troops, armed with cold steel and brandishing sharp blades, were unmistakably the Imperial Guard—the finest elite corps of the Han Dynasty.
"...At last, what we were waiting for has come."
It was as I expected.
They had circled around Mount Song to encircle the Coalition Army from front and rear while it attacked Sishui Pass.
If I hadn't realized this was a diversionary operation by Dong Zhuo's army, we would have been annihilated right there in front of Sishui Pass. Then the Guandong officials waiting in the rear would have fled in panic—some surrendering to Dong Zhuo, others bolting for their posts.
"Beat the drums."
I gave the signal.
A violent drumbeat rang out, thundering across the open field ringed by thick forest.