The Men of Youzhou (1)
"Tanshihuai. So you're on the move."
Ha Yu, Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan, was flushed with excitement at the news that his old rival Tanshihuai had left Tanhan Mountain and was driving south.
To be precise, it was Ha Yu alone who had decided they were rivals.
"The man who barred your path in Beidi Commandery will bar it again today — this time in Dai!"
In Ha Yu's mind, Tanshihuai was always that retreating figure: the conqueror who had failed to punch through Beidi, turned back by Ha Yu's desperate defense, riding away in frustration. How bitter he must have been. How his blood must have boiled. How he must have ground his teeth. Ha Yu trembled with a private thrill every time he replayed that day — the day his defense had driven Tanshihuai off.
Three years ago.
After he earned the merit of turning Tanshihuai back, men from the court began to appear, casually asking what post he might like. Ha Yu felt as though he had become another Duan Jiong. The people of Luoyang had wanted to bring Duan Jiong into their fold; now they wanted him the same way.
But Ha Yu chose a higher honor. The Grand Commandant's seat, the Grand General's baton — those held no interest for him. Not yet.
"The Xianbei have tasted defeat in Beidi Commandery. They will not try this approach again. I have prepared Beidi well enough that it can hold even after I step down as Grand Administrator."
What he wanted was a new battlefield.
"Tanshihuai will try to strike the Han from another direction. The Xianbei raid Bingzhou every year, and every year they are driven off. Liangzhou has already been sealed at Beidi. That leaves Youzhou."
Ha Yu had learned in Bingzhou how to use Xiongnu troops to check the Xianbei. He meant to apply the same method in Youzhou.
"Send me to Dai Commandery. I will link with Bingzhou to the west, support Shanggu Commandery to the east, and see that they never dare look toward Juyong Pass. And if you grant me authority over the Wuhuan, I will set them against the Xianbei."
Luoyang gave him the post of Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan. Ha Yu came to Dai Commandery in Youzhou, and even within Dai he planted himself in Goliu County, as far north as the commandery ran, watching the Xianbei stir beyond the frontier around Tanhan Mountain.
Three years passed. At court, talk of a campaign to crush Tanshihuai began to surface. Ha Yu added his voice.
"Give me a year and a half, and I can destroy Tanshihuai and settle the frontier."
Yes. A year and a half — that was the span he named. He did not believe he could break Tanshihuai in a single stroke, which was why he asked for the men and materiel to sustain a campaign of that length.
"This time it cannot be a defensive war. Hide behind walls and you may push the Xianbei back for a season. You will never tear out the root."
He said as much wherever he went, and on the premise of a pitched battle with Tanshihuai he began to build his strategy and his tactics.
Of course Ha Yu had no intention of simply riding out and meeting Tanshihuai head-on beyond the walls. In the three years since he had come to Youzhou, he had poured his energy into finding new commanders who could stand against the Xianbei. That labor bore fruit. Four capable young warriors entered his service at Goliu County.
Gongsun Zan of Lingzhi County in Liaoxi Commandery, twenty-six this year. Han Dang, also of Lingzhi in Liaoxi, twenty-two. Gongsun Du, found farther out on the frontier in Liaodong Commandery, twenty-four. And Xu Rong, likewise of Liaodong, thirty-one. Each man had his own gift.
Gongsun Zan's family was obscure, but he carried himself with dignity and had a sharp mind. Men like that usually grew crooked, trusting talent alone. Yet when Gongsun Zan's former superior was exiled all the way to Rinan Commandery — the southernmost scrap of Jiao Province — he followed without a moment's hesitation. That was the depth of his loyalty.
After the man was pardoned, Gongsun Zan served as Chief Clerk in the Liaodong Dependent State, the stretch of country between Liaoxi and Liaodong. There, with only a few dozen horsemen, he had broken out of a Xianbei encirclement — among other feats that caught Ha Yu's eye. Ha Yu selected him and summoned him to Goliu County.
Gongsun Zan recommended a junior townsman, a man who shot well and rode better. That was Han Dang. Give those two soldiers and they produced results. Put horse archers under them, Ha Yu judged, and they could more than match the Xianbei's own.
Farther out still, in Liaodong — rougher country than Liaoxi — Ha Yu went looking for harder men. This time Xu Rong caught his eye. He gave Xu Rong the infantry, and the man showed a remarkable gift for the crossbows and wagon-works needed to answer the Xianbei.
With that in place, the army still needed someone to keep its books. Xu Rong said one of his junior townsmen had a head for figures. And so Gongsun Du came to Goliu County as well.
Gongsun Zan. Han Dang. Xu Rong. Gongsun Du.
With those four subordinates before him, Ha Yu reviewed the plan.
"Tanshihuai may be nothing more than a northern barbarian, but his ability is not to be taken lightly."
He had judged the man a worthy opponent — one-sided as that judgment was — and so he was careful.
"Each of you is a commander fit to lead an army of his own. But Tanshihuai is concentrating his entire strength here, on Goliu County."
Gongsun Zan offered a thought.
"Then why not concentrate all of Youzhou's forces as well?"
"We cannot strip any more troops from Liaodong, Xuantu, or Lelang. The Inspector says the Mahan, the Ye, and the Okjeo have grown restless of late. Goguryeo is supposed to be kept in check by Buyeo — but the moment Buyeo sees a gap, they'll stir up the frontier themselves."
Gongsun Zan closed his mouth, though his face still said it: better to gamble on that risk and throw everything in at once. But Ha Yu could not do it. Xu Rong and Gongsun Du, both Liaodong men, were already looking at Gongsun Zan with open reproach. And it was not only those two. Ha Yu's command held a good number of officers from Liaodong, Xuantu, even Lelang. He could not leave their homes unguarded. No matter how tight the discipline, when a man's homeland fell into danger the deserters ran out like the tide.
Still, he liked Gongsun Zan's instinct — the hunger to attack.
"If we haven't the numbers, the Xianbei will turn our flanks in a heartbeat. That's why I called in a separate force to hold them."
He meant to wring every drop of use from the title of Colonel Protecting the Wuhuan.
"Qiu Liju, Chanyu of the Wuhuan, King Nanlou, and the rest will cover our flanks."
Chanyu, king — those were either self-claimed titles or courtesy names the Han handed out to keep the tribes content. What mattered to Ha Yu was not the title. It was the use.
"The Wuhuan and the Xianbei both come from the Donghu. But sharing a tongue and a custom has never made the Xianbei treat the Wuhuan as equals. The old Xiongnu used them as subject people. The Xianbei do the same. The Wuhuan are sick of it."
Ha Yu had fought the Xianbei in Beidi with Xiongnu auxiliaries at his side. Wuhuan auxiliaries, he judged, would be no different.
This time Han Dang nodded.
"They're both sons of the Donghu. The Wuhuan should understand Xianbei tactics — and know how to answer them."
Gongsun Zan cocked his head.
"Can we trust them?"
"Better for the Wuhuan to knock one side off the board than to keep getting crushed between the Han and the Xianbei. I've shown them the profit in it. They'll move for profit."
So the order of battle was set. Ha Yu held overall command. Xu Rong and Gongsun Du took the center, with the infantry and the crossbowmen. On the left, Gongsun Zan and Han Dang with the Han cavalry. On the right, the Wuhuan. The Youzhou army marched north in that formation, until, beyond the horizon, the Xianbei came on in a black tide.
Tanshihuai knew well that cavalry did not always hold the advantage over infantry.
Before the Xianbei, the Han had taken their fill of punishment from Xiongnu horsemen. They had spent well over a century devising answers to cavalry, and those answers fell into two kinds. First: raise horse armies that could match the northern riders on their own terms. Second: invent weapons that could answer the northern bow.
From the second came the Han crossbow. For the horsemen of the north, that was the beginning of a thoroughly unpleasant infantry doctrine.
The northern recurve bow was a superb weapon. The problem was how they used it. Both Xiongnu and Xianbei trained their tactics through the hunt, and their way of shooting had hardened into the hunter's stroke — angling the arrow down from above, as if pinning a beast in the grass. Which meant that no matter how far the arrow could actually fly, the rider closed on Han infantry the way he closed on game: far too near. And the Han infantry, waiting for exactly that, would lift their crossbows and put a bolt through a horse's skull or a man's.
They had gone further still — digging trenches and bursting out of the earth, or, when that was impractical, simply vanishing behind their wagons. Those tactics only worked with well-drilled infantry, of course. But once a counter existed, the northern cavalry was no longer invincible. Hit-and-run, the old lure-and-withdraw, no longer worked as cleanly either.
And so Tanshihuai chose to fight this war not on the tactical field, but on the strategic one. The Han way.
Again and again the Xianbei cavalry closed to just beyond crossbow range, then fell back.
"They want us to take the bait?"
Ha Yu muttered it, puzzled. Xu Rong, watching the Xianbei through narrowed eyes, answered.
"They seem to fear the crossbows."
"Then we are in no hurry. Crowd them slowly toward the foothills, where their horses can't run free!"
The infantry under Ha Yu, Xu Rong, and Gongsun Du advanced at a crawl compared to cavalry. But they were pressing the Xianbei horsemen, steadily and without mistake. Behind the Xianbei who had crossed the frontier into Goliu County, the open ground was about to run out. The moment the chain of hills running down from Tanhan Mountain closed on the nape of their necks, that famous mobility would be bound, and they would be surrounded.
As if to match Ha Yu's calculation, Gongsun Zan and Han Dang's cavalry on one side and the Wuhuan horse on the other were driving the quarry in, patient and sure.
That was the moment everything broke.
"...Send riders to Chanyu Qiu Liju and King Nanlou. Tell them not to open the gap between the center and the right—"
Ha Yu never finished the sentence. Xianbei cavalry drove a blade-thin wedge between the center and the right.
"Just as you said, my lord! The enemy's right — the Wuhuan — has opened the gap with their center!"
Gacui, one of Tanshihuai's men, let the admiration show. Tanshihuai's mouth only curved. He did not laugh aloud.
"Ha Yu and the rest of the Han will have held out profit to the Wuhuan and tried to buy them."
But there was something Ha Yu had failed to consider. A man who moves for profit will betray the smaller offer the moment a larger one appears.
Another of his men, Queju, let out a breath of wonder.
"I never thought they'd swallow it — that if they helped us wipe out the Han army, we'd hand them Youzhou!"
Liaoxi for Qiu Liju. Shanggu for Nanlou. Each Wuhuan chieftain had been promised the commandery he already used as his base. Tanshihuai shook his head, the smile still on him.
"Profit alone would have been a fragile thing. You have to show them a certain loss as well."
"Better to watch the Han fall in heaps than to die being used."
Tanshihuai said it, and looked toward the cavalry of his left wing. They were already slamming into the right of the Han center, under the command of his son, Helian.
He placed his hopes on Helian — and at the same time turned his gaze on the Wuhuan, who had opened the gap, drawn back, and now stood staring.
"No hesitation. Finish this quickly. If we take too long to deal with the enemy, the Wuhuan may swing back to the Han."