Marching to War
When my talk with Guo Jia was done, I went at once to my mother's quarters.
The moment I stepped through the door she caught my hands, her face crumpling as if the tears might spill at any instant.
"Shang'er, please don't go. Those vicious Heishan Bandits are demons in human skin—that's what I've heard. How can you walk into a death trap like that?"
I closed my hands warmly around her trembling ones and set myself to easing her fear.
"Mother, don't trouble yourself so. Your son will be leading the seven thousand elite Jizhou troops Father has given me. The bands that crawl out in the lean spring of the third month number a few hundred at most, a thousand at the outside. There is nothing to fear. And would I be mad enough to stand at that bloody front and swing a blade myself? I'll keep to the safest place in the rear, strapped into solid armor, and do nothing but command. Set your heart at ease. I'll come back unhurt, and with merit to show for it."
"Truly…? You won't be some rough general hacking about with a sword. You'll only be an Acting Sima, commanding from a safe rear."
Only after she had heard my assurances repeated did Mother let out a long sigh of relief, as if a breath trapped in her chest had finally found its way free.
"Mother."
"What is it? Is there something urgent you need of me?"
"If you have wealth to spare, please loosen a little of it for your son. I will repay you in time."
"I set aside a fair sum for your own use. Have you spent it all already?"
She asked in a rush, eyes gone round with surprise, and I answered with a quiet smile.
"I mean to put sharp spears in the hands of the officers and men who march with me against the Heishan Bandits of Zhaojun, and to clothe them in solid armor."
"Must you empty even your private purse just to dress common soldiers?"
"The Heishan lot are nothing but mountain bandits hiding in the deep ranges. Their arms will be poor and thin, I'm certain of it. If our government troops come on from afar with keen spears and flashing armor, pouring out an overwhelming presence, they'll shrink to the bone with fear before the blades ever meet. Then your son's life, commanding from the rear, becomes ten times safer—a hundred times. And the chance that our army wins a great merit while shedding less blood rises sharply."
"Very well! If it makes you safer, then take it! Of course I'll give it!"
Won over by that sweet, solid logic—that the spending was bound directly to my safety—Mother agreed at once, without a shred of hesitation.
The fortune she had gathered in private was already considerable, but the Liu clan's wealth ranked among the greatest even in Jizhou. I had secured a reliable purse. The clan had originally been based in Runan Commandery, but when Father took office as Inspector of Jizhou they liquidated their property and moved to Wei Commandery. Rumor had it that land prices across the commandery, Ye County included, had surged at the time.
The reason I was determined to strip out so vast a private fortune and arm the troops so solidly was a cold, clear memory from my previous life. In the history of Wu there had been a famed general named He Qi. He won brilliant merit subduing the Shanyue, who fought mainly in rugged mountain country, and one of his secrets was overwhelming weapons and armor. When he advanced with troops decked in armor stout enough to stop arrows and spears, with keen blades and banners besides, the savage Shanyue often broke in spirit before the fight even began. The Danyang troops, later counted among the finest soldiers of the Three Kingdoms, had their roots in those fierce Shanyue—and measured against that, He Qi's tactic of psychological pressure was terrifyingly efficient.
I resolved that if I tested it in this Heishan campaign and the effect proved certain, I would boldly borrow that cunning psychological warfare from then on.
"Before you see to the other soldiers, arm the personal guard that protects your life most solidly of all. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mother. I'll remember."
Only after I had listened a good while longer to her endless worry and tender admonitions could I return to my own quarters.
Without delay I summoned the three fierce generals—Wen Chong, Zhao Du, and Zhao Yun.
"Return to camp at once and sort the men. Select first the junior officers who will see real combat, the veterans hardened by war, and the young, sturdy soldiers. I mean to fit them with solid armor and issue sharp spears and blades to them before anyone else. I'll mobilize my private funds and the clan's wealth to secure as much materiel as possible, so set aside any worry about money. The day we march is nearly upon us and time is desperately short. Move as quickly as you can."
Supplying all seven thousand was realistically impossible, so I fixed the priority strictly on combat efficiency. In an age of chaos, the hardy officers and men who would serve as my hands and feet across long campaigns had to be protected first. The same principle of survival applied to Zhao Du's heavy crossbowmen, who carried the army's ranged fire.
When a real melee broke out, the troop type most painfully exposed to the enemy's blades was the archers and the heavy crossbowmen. Infantry could hide behind shields and endure. Cavalry could be held in reserve and charge only at the decisive moment when the battle turned, guarding their own lives that way. But archers and crossbowmen, in the instant they loaded and loosed, were left defenseless against a sudden assault or a volley of arrows.
I made the true purpose of this strengthening plain to the three generals.
"The Heishan Bandits holed up in the Taihang Mountains are many in number and little else. Most of them haven't a decent piece of armor on their backs, and the weapons in their hands are mostly crude bamboo spears—wretched beyond measure. The real reason they treat the common people so cruelly may, paradoxically, be the fear they keep hidden deep in their own bare chests. If our army arms the vital parts of the body and polishes that armor until it throws off a vast silver wave under the sun, those bandits will be terrified to the marrow and their spirit shattered before they ever cross blades with us. So hurry. Get the armor and gear onto them, and strictly order the soldiers to oil and polish their equipment whenever they have a spare moment, so it always gleams."
"By your command!"
Wen Chong, Zhao Du, and Zhao Yun answered in booming voices, and all three broke into bright smiles. For generals and soldiers who had rolled through countless blood-stinking battlefields, craving sturdy armor and keen weapons to keep them alive was an instinct as deep as a beast's. They had simply lacked the enormous funds to replace the arms of a host of tens of thousands, one man at a time. Now their lord was offering to empty his private purse and support them without reserve. It was only natural that their morale pierced the sky.
One regret remained. Departure was so close that I could not secure, in time, the perfect quantity of equipment I had pictured. Swallowing the disappointment, I ordered the supply to proceed according to the cold priorities I had already set, and I drove the forges hard so that even old weapons might be replaced with new ones as far as possible. I paid the blacksmiths of Ye City and the nearby counties in advance, with firm instructions that materiel was to be sent to the front the moment it was produced, even while we marched. I pressed the merchants to buy as quickly as they could as well. Time was short, but I did everything in my power to secure the equipment.
Why didn't I think of this sooner?
The self-reproach came, but I shook my head at once. The order to march had come down, and because of it I had Mother's full support, and the Liu clan's. Without a crisis this urgent, that would have been impossible. I cast the regret aside and swore to win brilliant merit in this campaign.
On the first day of the third month I set out from Ye City, the heart of Jizhou, at the head of the seven thousand elite Jizhou troops under Wen Chong, Zhao Yun, and Zhao Du, marching for Handan, the seat of Zhaojun. By my own standard the supply was not perfect. Even so, on the faces of the officers and men—new armor flashing in the sunlight, keen spears in their hands—hot morale burned as if it might pierce the heavens.
Handan, seat of the Grand Administrator of Zhaojun.
When I arrived with the seven thousand Jizhou troops, Zhang Cheng, Grand Administrator of Zhaojun, came out beyond the walls in person, officials in his train, to receive me. In the past, when Dong Zhuo had committed the tyranny of deposing the emperor without principle, Zhang Cheng had been unable to swallow his rage and had tried to raise an army alone and march on Luoyang. Father's dissuasion had brought it to nothing, but in the one matter of a nature as straight as bamboo that could not endure injustice, all the realm knew him for a loyal man.
"I am Yuan Shang, Acting Sima, charged with the grave task of suppressing the Heishan Bandits of Zhaojun."
I offered the greeting with due respect from horseback. Zhang Cheng returned the courtesy, then ran his eyes over the keenly armed Jizhou troops flashing silver in the sun and could not hide his admiration. It was only a portion of them, but it was enough to draw his praise.
"Indeed… As befits the elite host the Inspector boasts of, their bearing is truly formidable. I would tell you to rest after so long a road and dress your ranks, but the lean spring is so unsettled that we have no leisure to delay. Come inside at once, Sima Yuan."
He led me and the generals courteously to the administrative seat within the city, and ordered his officials to guide the Jizhou troops to a broad encampment and serve them warm food in plenty.
Inside, a vast and meticulous map of the Heishan Bandits, filling one entire wall, greeted us. The places they had appeared in recent years, the dates, and the rough numbers of their raids were marked across it in dense detail. Chin propped on my hand, I swept the map with cold eyes. At the same time Guo Jia's warning—to doubt everything I saw—and Guo Tu's sinister smile, as of a man who had already dug a trap for me, flickered through my mind.
If I take the map's records at face value, this is nothing more than bands of a few hundred starving bandits creeping down in scattered groups, stealing grain like rats and running off. Even at their largest, they mustered two thousand at most. With these overwhelming seven thousand elite troops in my hand, I could sweep them away with my eyes closed. And yet… what is this vile unease stabbing at one corner of my chest?
A glance around showed me that Zhang Cheng, who had been through every kind of hardship, and the three generals Wen Chong, Zhao Yun, and Zhao Du were likewise examining the records without any great worry.
"Grand Administrator Zhang. In the old records, has a far larger band ever appeared?"
Zhang Cheng searched his memory a moment, then nodded.
"Hmm… It was before I took office, but once, when the remnants of the Yellow Turbans swept Jizhou, a huge host did come down. I simply wasn't certain it should be classed with the present Heishan bands, so I did not record it on this map."
"Looking at the map, the frequency of appearances around Yiyang County is overwhelmingly high."
"Your eye is exact, Sima. Several streams that rise deep in those rugged Taihang Mountains join to form a great river, the South Yi, and that current runs straight through the heart of Yiyang County. The bandits who lurk in the layered mountains live in the upper valleys, then come down along the South Yi, so Yiyang has naturally become their chief raiding ground. Within Zhaojun the South Yi is the widest and richest in flow, because more than ten valley tributaries join it."
"Then we should march on Yiyang County without delay."
"A sound judgment. Garrison Yiyang, watch for the bands that appear in Handan County to the south and Xiangguo County to the north, and strike as you maneuver. That will be enough to hold this lean spring."
"Understood. If you will hand over the materials on Zhaojun's terrain, I'll depart for Yiyang County at first light tomorrow."
Outwardly I agreed smoothly with Zhang Cheng's reasonable view. Inwardly I was honing my blade toward an entirely different place. I had no intention of splitting the seven thousand elite troops given to me. I meant to pour them, fiercely and entire, into Yiyang County alone. If Guo Tu had resolved to break my momentum in the most pitiful fashion, he would surely drive an unprecedentedly large number of Heishan Bandits down during this lean spring. Then, rather than Handan County or Xiangguo County, where a great host would find it hard to mass, this Yiyang—where deep, vicious valleys spread like a spider's web along the South Yi—would become the most perfect and brutal main battlefield. Of that I was certain.
How on earth did he persuade the Heishan Bandits?
The next day I marched the seven thousand Jizhou troops on Yiyang County, riding beside Zhao Du and speaking with him at length. Since leaving Ye City I had been talking as much as I could with the experienced officer.
"Army Sima Zhao. I have a feeling this suppression will see a great battle around Yiyang."
"You suspect a band larger than the map records will come down? There has not been a single outbreak on that scale in recent lean springs."
"That it has not happened in the past is no law that it will not happen tomorrow. No such law exists on a battlefield. Only by assuming the enemy's scale at its worst, and preparing for it, can we save the lives of the Jizhou troops."
"……In that case."
Zhao Du, seasoned by every hardship, stroked his beard and offered a veteran's counsel.
"When we reach Yiyang, I'll identify the key heights from which the whole county can be seen at a glance, and have scouts with sharp eyes and quick feet occupy them, to watch every movement in the valleys. That way, when the bandits come down the ravines, we can at least grasp their rough scale beforehand."
"An excellent judgment, Army Sima Zhao. But that scouting must be pushed in strict secrecy, unknown to the enemy. If they move as I expect, they too will try to seize the open vantage points first, to hold the advantage of the field."
"I'll bear it in mind, Sima Yuan!"
A private puzzlement stirred in Zhao Du at my prediction, but he acknowledged the order with loyal obedience. Then, without warning, a terrible nightmare from six years before flashed through his mind. It had been an ordinary lean spring then as well, and yet a great Heishan host had poured black out of the Taihang Mountains, turned the whole of nearby Changshan Commandery into a wasteland, and carried out a horrific massacre. The colonel who went out to suppress them fell into their trap and was beheaded in misery, and Jizhou's losses were truly dreadful. He had thought it possible only because Changshan was far larger than Zhaojun—but there was no law saying such a thing could not happen in Zhaojun too.
Please… Sima Yuan's ominous prediction must miss its mark. That hell must never be repeated.
Zhao Du shuddered, shook his head bitterly, and fell back along the column to select his scouts.
Yiyang County. To carry out my order, Zhao Du picked soldiers with the eyes of hawks and began combing the rugged peaks from which all of Yiyang could be surveyed. These were men who had ridden across wide, open plains. They were not so extraordinary as if they used a spyglass, but it was true they could see much farther than an ordinary man.
That evening Zhao Du came to the command tent with a gravely set face.
"Sima Yuan. There's an ill omen near the summit of Qingxue Peak, rising tall in the distance. It's so high and far that exact identification is difficult, but a group of at least a dozen or more has coiled itself on that hard ground. Of that I'm certain."
Qingxue Peak. When I had scanned the map, it was the key strongpoint of extreme tactical weight—the place from which the spiderweb valleys and plains of Yiyang could be overlooked most perfectly. This was no simple appearance of a bandit band.
"If they've seized that vital point, our strength has been laid bare. We have to take that height."
"But Sima Yuan, if we strike rashly and the enemy's main body notices and goes to ground—or runs wild without order—it could become an even worse headache."
"Of course I don't mean draw blades this instant. When their main body begins to come down from the mountains in earnest, we send in a special assault party in secret and seize Qingxue Peak in a single stroke. Judging by the ground, a high-ranking general coordinating this great Heishan host will be on that summit, directing the whole board. If we smash their command by surprise and paralyze it, the Heishan Bandits, uncontrolled, will fall into extreme confusion, and suppressing them will be far easier. Army Sima Zhao, don't take your eyes off Qingxue Peak for the time being. If anything unusual appears, report to me at once."
"By your command!"
Impressed by the tactical instinct of it, Zhao Du acknowledged at once and withdrew.
I stepped quietly outside, looked up at Qingxue Peak rising in the distance, and called in secret to Li Hui, who kept to my side like a shadow.
"Hui."
"Yes, Sima Yuan."
"What do you say. Taking that height… will you see to it yourself?"
"If Sima Yuan commands it, I'll take Qingxue Peak even if it costs my life."
He answered with an unwavering, loyal gaze. I set a hand on his solid shoulder and lowered my voice.
"Climb the honest mountain path and you'll be caught in their watch, without fail. Plot at least two secret routes, and use one of them thoroughly as bait to draw their eyes. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes, Sima Yuan. Deceive the enemy, and break them with a surprise attack."
"Exactly. And the most important thing: the officer who looks like the commander—take him alive. Question him, and good information may come of it. The small fry besides him, you may slaughter without regret."
"By your command."
"Prepare at once. I'll select the swiftest elite soldiers for you to lead."
Li Hui offered a loyal military salute and withdrew.
I lifted my chin and glared at Qingxue Peak, and at the main valleys gaping like a serpent's maw. Dark ravines branched in every direction, spreading bleak exits toward Yiyang as if to swallow me whole, and the sight was chilling enough.
I quietly clenched both fists, and swore that no matter what difficulty came, I would never retreat.