The Heishan Bandits
At the summit of sheer Qingxue Peak, Sun Qing—infamous even among the Heishan bandits for his ruthlessness—studied the Jizhou troops deployed around Yiyang, and his greedy eyes narrowed to slits.
"Well, now. Looks like we've snagged ourselves some troublesome bastards. Damu. What do you make of it?"
He shot a glance at the man beside him. The fellow's eyes were unusually large and quick, so his comrades had taken to calling him Big Eyes, and the nickname had hardened into a name of its own: Li Damu. Frail but clever, he made no effort to hide his unease.
"They say this is Acting Sima Yuan Shang's first time in the field, and yet the spirit pouring off that camp is ferocious. I have a bad feeling we've caught the wrong prey. And look at that gleaming armor and those weapons. If the lads in our stronghold take one look at Jizhou troops armed that solidly and lose their nerve, they'll crumble like sand before we ever get a proper clash of blades."
"Nothing to be afraid of. We've packed men into every ravine. Thirty thousand of them. Thirty thousand. Even if you count the other side generously, they don't have eight thousand. With a gap like that, we could win even if Yuan Shao himself showed up."
At that arrogant reply, Li Damu bit his lip and thought a moment, then ventured a careful objection.
"On a battlefield, spirit matters more than headcount. Their weapons are keen, and above all—that armor, precious beyond belief! At a glance, more than a third of the Jizhou troops are wrapped tight in new plate. No matter how I turn it over, this punitive force is no easy mark. I think we've walked into a very ugly situation. Listen, Chief Sun."
"If you've got something to say, stop hemming and hawing and say it straight."
"What if... the man who hired us out of Jizhou has played us for fools? What if he deliberately made them sound weak, just to deceive us and smash us in a single stroke? For all we know, that bastard is one of Yuan Shang's own hands."
"Nonsense!"
Sun Qing cut the suspicion off at a stroke.
"I've still got the secret letter that cunning snake wrote in his own hand, right here against my chest. The day we go down and that letter falls into the Inspector of Jizhou's grasp is the day his head comes off too. So stop talking rubbish."
Sun Qing's face twisted as he growled, and Li Damu shut his mouth like a mute who had swallowed honey.
"We stick to the plan. Hit them from three sides at once and finish it. Heavily armed Jizhou troops are a nuisance, I'll grant you, but they said this is Yuan Shang's first battle. It won't be that hard. Thirty thousand men driving in hard from every direction, raising a wind of blood—he'll shake apart from sheer terror. That's how a first time always goes. That's how you learn to fight."
"Didn't they say we absolutely must not kill Yuan Shang?"
"I know! Leave him his life, scare him enough that he pisses himself, and we're done. We swallowed a fortune in gold, so we'd better deliver value for it if we don't want trouble afterward. I swear, you live long enough and you see every kind of madman. Bowing and scraping, begging us to trample the son of the lord he serves. Well, thanks to him we came into a windfall we wouldn't have touched in a lifetime. Kahahaha!"
Sun Qing could not hold back the greedy laugh that burst out of him.
When the lean weeks of spring came, they would have had to come down onto the plains anyway, to fill empty bellies with plunder. And along with the raiding had come a secret commission: bring a great host, and plant a terror in Yuan Shang that reached the marrow of his bones. In return, Sun Qing's hands had received a vast sum in gold and silk, and rare treasures he could scarcely have hoped to see in ordinary times. For a man swollen with greed and ambition, there had been no reason at all to refuse so sweet a request. Muster extra men while he was out raiding, drive the Jizhou troops, seize goods and grain, and slip swiftly back to the mountain stronghold. Whatever nauseating struggle for power might be rotting inside the Inspectorate of Jizhou was none of a Heishan bandit's concern.
"Chief. Wouldn't it be wiser to pull our feet out of this now?"
Li Damu pleaded again, his face gone pale as a sheet.
"Hah. This little whelp. I still can't fathom how you've stayed alive all this time on a courage no bigger than a soy-sauce dish."
"This time the feeling is truly bad. The only reason my head is still on my shoulders in this vicious age is that I've trusted this ghost of an instinct."
"So? Now that you've gorged yourself on the gold, you want to turn tail and run?"
"I want to go back to the stronghold. Right now."
"Don't get cocky. Not unless you want my blade through your guts where you stand."
Killing intent rolled off Sun Qing as he seized the hilt at his waist and snarled, and the timid Li Damu, thoroughly cowed, dropped those great eyes of his.
"A-all right. I'll keep my mouth shut."
Avoiding Sun Qing's gaze, he muttered inwardly.
At this rate... I really may not die of old age today.
With a gaze both deeply gloomy and uneasy, Li Damu looked down at the Jizhou encampment beneath his feet. Thirty thousand Heishan bandits, gathered in breathless silence through the steep ravines, would pour onto the plain like a swarm of ants the instant Sun Qing's merciless order to charge fell, and greedily smother the Jizhou troops from three sides. Then they need only plunder the lands of Yiyang County and go home. He prayed with all his heart that this time, too, his ominous instinct would prove wrong, and that their side would win. And if they lost? The slaughter that would follow was too dreadful even to imagine. Li Damu shook his blanched head roughly from side to side.
I was standing on the gate tower of Yiyang, looking out over Qingxue Peak and the ravines of the Taihang Mountains, when Zhao Du came running up, breath ragged.
"Sima Yuan! At last we've pinpointed where those Heishan rat-bastards are hiding."
"Military Sima Zhao, you never disappoint me. Where exactly have they coiled themselves?"
As if determined not to miss his chance for merit, Zhao Du's eyes blazed, and he pointed beyond the wall.
"Do you see that greatest ravine dead ahead, gaping wide, and the two valleys cut at a slant to either side of it? The bandits are packed thick into the dark clefts of those very gorges. The ravines are so deep and rough that an exact count is difficult, but judging by experience, there are well over twenty thousand of them."
He continued the reconnaissance report without a hair out of place.
"If they move, the intent is vicious: to burst from all three ravines at once and surround this Yiyang County on three sides."
"And once they've drawn the net tight, what do you think they'll do?"
"They'll try to end it by sheer overwhelming numbers and brutal force. Heishan bandits know nothing of fine, meticulous schemes. Trampling by strength, like starving beasts—that is their only way. Last summer and autumn, whenever they poured out in force, they clung to that same tactic. I couldn't say whether to call it ignorance or consistency."
"Thank you. Thanks to your invaluable intelligence, Military Sima Zhao, a sound plan for breaking the Heishan bandits has come to me."
I set a hand on Zhao Du's shoulder and offered him my sincere gratitude. This was why a seasoned general who had survived countless battlefields deserved to be prized. At least within the peculiar theater of a campaign against the Heishan bandits, his eye was a clear cut above mine, or even that of the fierce generals Wen Chong and Zhao Yun. At praise offered in earnest, Zhao Du bowed his head, moved and grave.
"They'll be watching us from Qingxue Peak, working out how to bring us down. When should we strike?"
"Send a special assault party the moment the moonlight is veiled by cloud. Tonight. This subordinate has quietly secured village elders who know the rough ground hereabouts as well as the palm of their hand. I promised them certain reward, and volunteers to guide us are falling over one another. But... whom will you send into that death ground?"
"I mean to send Li Hui. He is the loyal officer who guards me most closely. His character is as steady as rock, and his resolve is bold. I can trust him with this mission."
"Then I will turn over a force of swift elites to him at once, and pass on without stint every practical lesson he needs for climbing mountains in the dark."
"Your solid support puts my mind at ease, Military Sima Zhao. I leave it in your hands. When we win this battle, I will not forget your merit."
"I offer my loyalty!"
Zhao Du snapped off a crisp military salute, voice flushed with fervor. I encouraged the dependable man to the full.
After he withdrew on his vow of loyalty, I stood alone on the gate tower and stared coldly at the three ravines where the enemy hid, and at Qingxue Peak. In my mind I shaped the plan for dealing with the Heishan bandits.
Infantry will raise a great defensive formation and hold the wave of Heishan bandits as they surge in. When their strength begins to fail, a storm of bolts from the heavy crossbowmen will hammer one of the three faces and shatter that line to ruin. Then the cavalry I've held in reserve goes in like a wedge, ravages the enemy's heart, and widens the victory with fury. They'll come driving hard from three directions, so if I turn one force into a wasteland, the other two will flounder in fear and confusion. That is the moment to counterattack with everything and trample them all into collapse.
Having refined the tactic, I lifted my gaze again to the summit of Qingxue Peak.
Li Hui has to do his part up there, and do it perfectly. In raw strength and experience, sending Wen Chong would be the surest and the safest—but Wen Chong must hold the infantry and meet the Heishan main body head-on. I can hardly spare him for a mere strike against a mountaintop. There will certainly be one of their senior commanders up on that steep peak, the man coordinating the whole board. If I take him alive, put him to the question, and make him talk... if I can only secure, beyond doubt, the filthy thread that ties him to Guo Tu, the man who drove me into this death ground...
I quietly clenched both fists until they were hard as stone. Somehow, on this chance, I wanted Guo Tu's breath cut off completely. If clear proof that he had secretly colluded with the enemy only came into my hand, I could destroy him in a single stroke and finish him. Cast down the man who served as eldest brother Yuan Tan's brain, and the road before me would open wide and smooth.
In the memories of my past life, Guo Tu was not content to sow discord between my eldest brother and me until we fell into civil war. In the end he sold all of Jizhou to Cao Cao—a venomous thing lower than a beast. His filthy scheming tore Jizhou from us without mercy and gave it to Cao Cao, and both my brother and I died wretchedly. A maggot like that deserves no shred of mercy. His head should come off without hesitation. Only then can our Inspectorate of Jizhou stand firm and stable.
I set my heart on it, hard as iron. Whatever it took, I would win this battle, and on the momentum of that victory I would deal with Guo Tu as well.
When a night black as pitch settled over the mountains, Li Hui quietly took three hundred elite soldiers and advanced with a village elder who knew the lay of Qingxue Peak at their head. Of the three rough paths that climbed toward the summit, he first sent a hundred men up the easiest, flattest road. He himself chose the steepest and most vicious track, and took to the mountain with two hundred elites, fifty skilled heavy crossbowmen among them.
The hundred on the gentle path were bait, meant to draw the enemy. He ordered them to stay concealed as long as they could, then fight and pull the enemy's attention onto themselves. While they clung to the enemy's main strength and held, his own force would strike the heart and cut its breath—and in a single instant seize the initiative of the battle.
They climbed with hamai clenched between their teeth, wooden gags to kill even the smallest sound, and sweat poured down their backs like rain. Fortunately the elder in the lead felt out the ground with uncanny skill even in the thick dark, and found the way with practiced ease.
How long they climbed in that suffocating silence, none could have said. Then pale moonlight slipped through a gap in the heavy clouds, and the savage shape of the mountain faintly showed itself. Judging the height around them, they had reached roughly seven-tenths of the climb. The summit was within reach, and a taut tension gathered of itself through the soldiers' bodies. Li Hui did not stop. He urged them on.
At last, as they neared nine-tenths of the ascent, torches began to jerk and sway near the summit, and a racket burst out. A moment later, from lower down the path on the far side, the clash of blades ripped through the dark.
They've taken the bait.
Li Hui's eyes flashed cold. He signaled his men and pressed onto the summit without hesitation, breathing smothered to nothing.
On the open crest, a dozen or so Heishan soldiers who had not gone with the main body were watching the surroundings in disorder. At one chill gesture from Li Hui, fifty heavy crossbowmen flattened in the dark took their places as one and carefully set their bolts. The crossbows drew taut. A short order to fire fell. In the lethal rain poured out by veterans whose eyes were used to darkness, the dozen bandits standing unguarded never even managed a proper scream. Helpless, they folded into meat.
"Leave the commanders. Kill the rest!"
Li Hui gave the order without wavering, drew his blade, and led a hundred and fifty men in a brutal overrun of the enemy position on the summit. In a flash he had the crest completely in hand. Then he ordered the crossbowmen to shift to the path on the far side and sweep, from behind, the Heishan bandits who were striking his own men.
He cut the throats of the bandits still twitching and bleeding on the ground, without a moment's hesitation, then shouted coldly toward the commander's tent that stood tall above the rest.
"Stop hiding like rats and come out! Unless you want to burn to death with this tent."
"S-spare us!"
"Out! Now!"
At Li Hui's thunderous roar the tent's thick curtain shivered and drew aside. Ashen-faced, Li Damu and two other men crawled out in misery, both hands thrust high.
"Are you the chief?"
Li Hui leveled a sword point still dripping blood, and Li Damu, the color of death, shook his head.
"N-no! Chief Sun Qing went down himself a little while ago, saying he'd trample the enemies coming up the path, and he took the men with him!"
"Then what are you?"
"Li Damu! I attend Chief Sun at his side."
Inwardly, Li Hui cursed.
Damn it all.
Yuan Shang had given him a strict order: officers of command rank were to be taken alive and brought back. And the supreme chief, of all men, had bitten the bait of his own accord and charged out into the killing ground. Sun Qing, chieftain of the Heishan bandits, must not be allowed to die a dog's death to an arrow in the melee in the dark. Li Hui hastily sent a messenger toward the path with orders to take him alive. Hoping the order would not come too late, he looked down with eyes gone cold on the trembling Li Damu.
"Answer what I ask without a lie, and I'll leave you your life. But if that tongue of yours tries to deceive me by so much as a single character... I'll peel your hide on the spot and make you regret, to the bone, that you're still alive."
"I-I'll tell you everything! I'll answer whatever you ask!"
Crushed beneath Li Hui's killing intent, the frail Li Damu bent until his head touched the dirt. Calmly, and without mercy, Li Hui drew out of him the secret matters Yuan Shang had ordered him to learn, and Li Damu, desperate to live, spilled everything he knew in a rush.
"You say he's carrying a secret letter from the man he colluded with?"
"Y-yes! Chief Sun boasted of it with his own mouth! It's so important a letter, he must have hidden it deep in his clothes."
"No chance he kept it in a drawer, or some secret strongbox?"
"Every practical affair of the stronghold passes through these hands. I'll stake my neck on it—that secret letter is on Chief Sun's person!"
"Come with me."
Li Hui seized Li Damu roughly by the scruff and made straight for the path that stank of blood, his men with him. Thanks to the crossbowmen hitting the rear, the small, hideous melee on the path already seemed to have ended in a one-sided slaughter by the Jizhou troops. He worried that Sun Qing might be dead, and the letter ruined.
"Have you found Sun Qing?"
"Here, as ordered!"
Two crossbowmen dragged Sun Qing over, bound tight with rope, and flung him roughly at Li Hui's feet. Without ceremony Li Hui grabbed the prone man by the collar, searched his clothes, and found the secret letter. In the light of the flames he carefully unfolded the paper and ran through its contents. His teeth clenched.
Guo Tu, you traitorous rat. You're finished. You dare eat the Yuan clan's crimson stipend and betray the Yuan?
Killing intent he could not master poured off him. He folded the letter with care, wrapped it in several layers of clean undyed cloth, and thrust it deep into the innermost fold of his own clothes. Then he seized the gasping Sun Qing by the hair, hauled him upright, told the crossbowmen to hold him from either side, and began to beat him with his fists—hard enough that it seemed the man might die of it.
Thud. Thud. Crack.
"Gyaaaah! P-please! Stop!"
"You want to live?"
"S-spare me... khak!"
"Then from this moment, Sun Qing, you follow my orders. If you try even one piece of nonsense, or so much as a clever little trick... I'll peel your hide and salt it."
Li Hui flung him to the ground like an insect, then gave his order to the elites drawn up in the dark.
"Hear me! Except for Sun Qing and Li Damu, cut the throats of every last one of them. Treat the wounded, and tally the casualties."
"As you command!"
Desperate pleas for life and mournful screams were cut short, cold, in the darkness. Li Hui turned his back on that blood-stinking pandemonium and, leading Sun Qing and Li Damu—both frightened out of their wits—climbed once more to the summit of Qingxue Peak. Now he would use the two of them to collapse the Heishan bandits' chain of command completely, and pour everything into Yuan Shang's overwhelming victory on the field.
When the bloody work of clearing the summit was done, Li Hui shot a single crimson fire-arrow high into the night sky. It was the signal of victory: Qingxue Peak, the very heart with which the Heishan bandits had meant to bind Yuan Shang, was now wholly in their hands.