Chapter 453: There Are Still Masters!

In the spring of the 12th year of Tianbao, while Fang Chongyong led the Yinqiang Xiaojie Army together with a detachment of the Hedong forces, they repelled Cai Xide and drove him back to the old passes of Jingxing and Tumeng.

The banks of the Yellow River were also ablaze with war.

Stationed in Xiangzhou City (Yecheng), Huangfu Weiming ordered his troops to split into two routes to attack Henan.

The first vanguard, a detachment led by Grand General Li Huaixian with ten thousand infantry and cavalry, set out from Ji County to assault He'nai. As a surprise force, they bypassed the three cities of Heyang, intending to attack Luoyang from the flank.

Of course, Huangfu Weiming's move also aimed to lure the imperial troops back to defend Luoyang.

Only by drawing the imperial forces west of Hulao Pass could the vast region of Henan be left empty, allowing the Hebei army to besiege cities and seize territory!

It must be said that Huangfu Weiming's thinking and deployment regarding the battle situation were very thorough.

At first, Li Huaixian's vanguard progressed extremely smoothly, almost without effort, even capturing places such as Kexiuwu, Wuzhi, and Wen County.

Further west lay the three cities of Heyang!

The imperial troops seemed to be intentionally pulling back; the resistance Li Huaixian met in those places was negligible, causing little loss of soldiers or horses.

However, just as Li Huaixian was preparing to attack the three cities of Heyang, an unexpected event occurred.

His original intention was to, after taking North Central City, cross the river via a floating bridge and attack Luoyang from the west. But obviously the imperial troops could not do nothing and watch Li Huaixian assault North Central City.

The imperial side had an unidentified unit without a banner, about two thousand strong. One night they suddenly, under cover of darkness, forcefully crossed the Yellow River from He Yin County on the southern bank. Upon reaching the northern bank, they cleanly recaptured the county towns of Xiuwu, Wuzhi, and Wen County that Li Huaixian had taken!

These county towns were already extremely close to each other and had just been seized by the Hebei rebels, leaving the populace unsettled. Moreover, Li Huaixian did not expect the imperial troops to cross the Yellow River to fight, so he left few troops to guard them.

This caused the three county towns to be taken in a single night!

The Henan forces were depleted, while over a hundred thousand Hebei border troops lay in wait; who would dare cross the Yellow River to fight the Hebei rebels?

Li Huaixian's laxity was not solely due to complacency; he also had a clear understanding of the situation.

Yet what shocked him was: after this imperial unit captured the three locations, they erected Tang army banners over the county towns, prompting the local magistrates to organize civilians to don military uniforms and stand on the walls, mistaking them for troops.

Then the army did not leave any garrison; instead, with lightning speed, they moved northwest, exploiting the emptiness behind Li Huaixian's assault on Heyang's three cities, and launched a fierce attack on Ji County.

This was the supply depot of Li Huaixian's forces, where provisions had just been transferred from Beizhou, intended for his assault on He'nai.

After this imperial unit seized the poorly defended Ji County, they seized the opportunity to set a great fire, burning all the provisions; the thick smoke could be seen clearly more than ten li away.

Having burned the supplies, they turned back to the southern bank of the Yellow River and vanished without a trace.

Unaware that his rear was cut off, Li Huaixian still followed his original plan, forcefully attacking North Central City, located among the three Heyang cities in Mengzhou on the northern bank of the Yellow River.

The defending commander Lu Jiong, who was appointed as the "Heyang Three Cities Military Governor" by Li Chang, the crown prince in Luoyang who styled himself "Grand Marshal of All Armies under Heaven".

Facing Li Huaixian's fierce assault, he resolutely defended the city, refusing to retreat. Several times Li Huaixian's vanguard managed to scale the walls, but Lu Jiong's organized reserve forces forced them back down.

North Central City was already small in area with towering walls, making climbing difficult. Moreover, it could receive continual reinforcements via a floating bridge over the Yellow River from the direction of Luoyang on the southern bank.

Li Huaixian, for a while, could only stare at the city and sigh.

Unfortunately, after two days of relentless assault without breaching the city, Li Huaixian finally learned that his rear was cut off; all the newly captured towns were retaken by the imperial troops, leaving his forces like startled birds, anxious and unable to concentrate their strength for the siege.

Moreover, regarding whether to continue attacking North Central City, Li Huaixian was full of doubts and unwilling to simply retreat back to Yecheng.

He could not advance, yet did not wish to retreat; Li Huaixian was at a loss for what to do.

This isolated force deep in enemy territory, with unclear enemy situation and a cut rear, faced the genuine dilemma of whether to continue assaulting the hard-to-take stronghold—a decision any commander must ponder carefully.

One day later, Li Huaixian heard from scouts that the provisions stockpiled at Ji County had been burned by the imperial troops!

Now Li Huaixian was like a camel collapsed by the final straw, utterly unmotivated to fight, and terrified, he led his troops in a night retreat, intending to return the same way to Xiangzhou for regrouping.

As Li Huaixian led his men near Wuzhi County, preparing to cross the Qin River, the crossing party was attacked mid‑river by imperial troops coming from the direction of He Yin County.

Because they were mid‑crossing, the sudden attack left no time to prepare; Li Huaixian's forces suffered heavy casualties! In barely the time a incense stick burns, they were shattered by the enemy.

In panic, Li Huaixian fled back to Xiangzhou with his remnants, looking disheveled. This vanguard had scarcely achieved any notable victories, and his troops were inexplicably decimated.

Li Huaixian hadn't even figured out which Tang unit was attacking him; he only knew the force wore black uniforms and black banners, had no unit designation, and differed from ordinary Tang army attire.

The second column dispatched by Huangfu Weiming, led by Grand General Li Guiren, formed the main force attacking Henan.

According to the plan, he was to lead his troops across the river from Huitai (Bai Ma), advancing to the northern bank of the Grand Canal to cut off its transport.

If progress went smoothly, they would capture Kaifeng and completely seal off canal transport, preventing a single grain of rice from reaching Guanzhong!

However, Li Guiren's troops were larger, his preparation time longer, and his departure later than Li Huaixian's.

As a result, when his forces had just reached Liyang and were about to cross the river, Huangfu Weiming urgently ordered them to halt and turn back to Xiangzhou.

It turned out that an imperial unit had moved north along Hebei's Yongji Canal, entered the vicinity of Yuan City in Weizhou, and set fire to the temporary grain depot piled at the outer ferry crossing, burning all the supplies!

Those provisions were meant to be shipped via the canal to supply Li Guiren's army.

With the food gone, there was no point in fighting—let's retreat first!

After being hit with two rounds of old‑style punches, Huangfu Weiming, whose battlefield senses were keen, sensed that something was amiss!

Don't be fooled by the seemingly few imperial troops; each strike was lethal, hitting the most vulnerable spots!

Indeed, there are still masters!

Huangfu Weiming inwardly mused. This was unexpected yet understandable; in a vast Tang empire, how could one not find a few capable warriors?

"Everyone, speak up—what exactly is happening?"

Inside the ticket office atop Xiangzhou City's walls, Huangfu Weiming looked at several of his generals and asked, his brows furrowed.

Since the uprising from Youzhou, every place he passed surrendered without resistance; how had he ever been humiliated like this?

This wave of imperial troops' offensive was like grabbing Huangfu Weiming by the ear, slapping him while lecturing, "With your skill, you dare to show off?"

It made him feel ashamed.

"Even the junior officer feels baffled, as if enemies are everywhere yet their origins are never seen—appearing and disappearing like ghosts."

Li Huaixian sighed helplessly.

Huangfu Weiming flared up at those words.

He suppressed his anger and patiently explained:

"The unit that attacked mid‑crossing originated from He Yin County, just a short distance on the southern bank of the Yellow River. Leaving He Yin County, they would launch an interception the moment you were half across, not even needing a single hour."

Sending out a few scouts would easily reveal your crossing movements, and then beating you with a club would be a given.

And the force that successively captured Xiuwu, Wuzhi, and Wen County was also very likely to have set out from Heyin County!

After marching that entire route, they had no need whatsoever to care where you were — they only needed to know that you had led troops into Henei!

Because they knew that Ji County in the opposite direction was bound to be undefended — it was simply a matter of passing through to burn Ji County's provisions, how simple a thing!"

Huangfu Weiming could not hold back any longer and began reconstructing the battle for Li Huaixian himself.

He nearly called the man a fool outright, but thinking of his own grand enterprise, he ultimately held his tongue.

After hearing this explanation, all the generals fell silent and thought it over carefully, then suddenly understood — it really did seem to be exactly as Huangfu Weiming had said!

It was just that one could figure it out in hindsight, but in the heat of battle at the time, who could have imagined that the seemingly complex military situation was in fact just that simple?

The government troops had simply avoided Li Huaixian's vanguard, let him grind himself against the tall walls of Beizhong City, then cut off his retreat and burned his granaries! And when Li Huaixian was frightened into a panic and retreated toward Xiangzhou, they struck him mid-crossing!

A devastating combination of blows — the moves flowed seamlessly, without the slightest gap, leaving one powerless to parry.

Huangfu Weiming even wanted to give a thumbs-up in admiration to that mysterious general on the other side.

Truly damn impressive — even if Huangfu Weiming himself had personally stepped onto the field, he could not have taken that barrage of blows.

"The Tang's elite soldiers are all at the border garrisons, and the bulk of the imperial guard is in Hedong — whose forces could these possibly be?"

Li Guiren asked in puzzlement.

Although Li Huaixian's troops had been in the middle of crossing the river at the time, for anyone to seize the advantage of "striking mid-crossing," they would still need to have some genuinely formidable strength, wouldn't they?

If it were a unit of merely average fighting capacity, even with a famous general commanding it, even if they seized the perfect opportunity and launched a surprise attack amid the chaos against Li Huaixian's Hebei elite, the final result could only have been getting killed in return.

To forge iron, one still had to be hard oneself!

"What does General Li think?"

Huangfu Weiming asked in a low voice, his eyes fixed on Li Huaixian.

"Commander, this force was not large — two thousand at most. But truly... to my shame, I could not withstand even a single blow. Those soldiers on the other side were like wolves and tigers! They fought as if they had no regard for their lives!

I hadn't even figured out what was happening before our own ranks fell into chaos. Soldiers who had lost their unit cohesion scattered everywhere along the Qin River, hacked down by those enemy troops clad in black.

That was how it ended."

Speaking of the encounter at the time, Li Guiren still had fear in his heart. The cavalry had made it back, but all the infantry under his command had been left on the north bank of the Qin River — many corpses floated on the Qin River, the water stained red across a vast stretch, a truly terrifying sight.

The crucial point was that this battle had been lost for no discernible reason. If they encountered a similar situation next time, they would very likely lose again!

"That is strange. Such a powerful army could not possibly be some unknown force."

Huangfu Weiming rested his chin on his hand, his face full of puzzlement.

The strongest among the border armies were only a few: the Chishui Army of Hexi, the Tianshan Army of Beiting, the Jinglue Army of Shuofang — and the strongest among the imperial guard was naturally the Yinqiang Xiaojie Army.

But Huangfu Weiming could confirm that none of these armies were currently operating on either bank of the Yellow River.

"Could it be him?"

Huangfu Weiming suddenly thought of someone — and this person happened to be in Luoyang right now!

"Commander, who is it?"

Seeing Huangfu Weiming's expression change drastically, Li Guiren asked in puzzlement.

"Fang Youde."

Huangfu Weiming spat out these three syllables.

Hearing this name, Li Huaixian and Li Guiren — the two of them — immediately fell silent.

As generals of the Hebei border army, how could they not know who Fang Youde was?

"Even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. Even if it were Fang Youde, without strong soldiers in his hands, how could he stir up the winds and clouds?"

Huangfu Weiming sighed, a strong sense of unwillingness in his heart.

He still had not figured out exactly what had happened, but he did not intend to investigate further.

Although it remained unclear who had defeated Li Huaixian, the deployment of the Tang army on the south bank of the Yellow River was by now generally understood.

Heyin County! This was the government troops' vital point! The fulcrum of the Yellow River defense line!

This was the single most critical node of the canal transport, bar none.

Supplies from the Huai region and Jiangnan were all transshipped through here to Chang'an. And the Luoyang section of the canal had already been formally abandoned — granaries were now built at Mengjin, and goods were then transshipped to Luoyang. In other words, Luoyang's economic standing had in fact been continuously declining since the late Kaiyuan era.

Huangfu Weiming had already gathered clear intelligence: the government troops were encamped at Heyin County, using it as a strategic fulcrum and a provisions depot, with the canal as their defense line, stationing troops at Heyin, Kaifeng, Suiyang, and other key points.

Originally, he had been calculating on a "flanking assault" — circling around from the east of Heyin County to cross the Yellow River, taking Kaifeng and Suiyang first, then wrapping up a great encirclement to sweep up the Tang forces across several prefectures between the Yellow River and the Grand Canal in one fell swoop!

After gaining complete control of the canal, they would then advance west to Luoyang! Thus ensuring that nothing could go wrong.

Huangfu Weiming had not expected the government troops to be so formidable — they even dared to maneuver freely and wage war within Hebei territory — so he would no longer play tricks with them.

"Concentrate all our forces and advance together. After sweeping the north bank of the Yellow River, we will lay siege to Heyin County.

Once Heyin County is taken, we will advance steadily and capture the cities along the canal one by one!

For every position we take, we will station troops there — we will not give Fang Youde a single opening to exploit!"

Huangfu Weiming said, pointing at the detailed map of Henan Circuit drawn on the wall.

"Commander, our forces may not be sufficient — we still need to transfer troops from Changshan!"

Li Guiren clasped his fists in salute to Huangfu Weiming.

"If our forces are insufficient, then we transfer troops, and transship provisions from Beizhou.

You will still divide into two routes and capture every city north of the Yellow River, apart from the Three Cities of Heyang.

This commander will transfer Hebei officials to administer the cities — we will not use local officials.

For every position we take, we will station troops there, advancing steadily!

Do not fear the time it takes — we must simply ensure that every single city will not be retaken by Fang Youde leading troops. That is enough.

Let me see what tricks he can still pull!"

Huangfu Weiming slapped the map on the wall forcefully and said, his voice carrying a roar.

……

At the city wall of River Yin County, Fang Youde, dressed all in black, had one hand resting on the hilt of his sword and the other hand on his waist, gazing at the opposite bank of the Yellow River.

His brows were tightly knit, as if he had heavy things on his mind.

Just then, Lieutenant Li Jiaqing hurried up onto the city wall, then clasped his fists and bowed to Fang Youde, saying: "Jiedushi, since the last time we defeated Li Huai'an's unit so they dare not raise their heads, the enemy side has become proficient. They advance in unison to attack the city; after taking it, they station guards and do not rush forward, being as steady as a turtle, leaving us no chance to find an opening."

Have all the provisions inside the city been completely transported out?

Fang Youde looked toward Li Jiaqing and asked.

Reporting to Jiedushi, basically everything has been emptied out; most of the provisions have been transported to Northern Sui.

Li Jiaqing clasped his fists and bowed, saying.

Tonight we will set fire to the ferry crossing outside River Yin County city, as well as those empty granaries, leaving not a single stick for Huangfu Weiming.

Fang Youde dropped those harsh words, then leisurely walked down the city wall.

Eh? Jiedushi, aren't we supposed to have a decisive battle with Huangfu Weiming at River Yin County?

Li Jiaqing stood there dazed for a while; after Fang Youde walked away, he then caught up and asked in a low voice.

Burning the ferry and granaries of River Yin County will also cut off Chang'an's grain supply!

The rebel supply line in Hebei is still too short; we need to lengthen it a bit.

Fighting here at River Yin County is just piling up corpses; we can't gain much time.

What we lack most right now is time.

Fang Youde patiently explained to Li Jiaqing.

(End of chapter)