Chapter 550: Battle of Cangting

Entering Yanmen Commandery there was no Yuan army blocking Bai Lang; he rode straight to Guangwu City before finally seeing the Yuan troops cowering inside. When they saw the white banner bearing the character "Bai," they lost heart, opened the gates and fled. Bai Lang captured Guangwu without a fight and, in less than ten days, took all of Yanmen, his forces pointing at Shangdang and Taiyuan. At about the same time, CaoCao, heeding the words of the defector Xu You, personally led troops to attack Wuchao.

Yuan Shao's army saw its supplies burned, several senior generals died in succession, and Yuan Shao, in panic, forced Gao Lan and Zhang He to surrender to CaoCao; the four pillars of Hebei were completely lost. A few days later CaoCao launched a full‑scale attack; Yuan Shao could not hold his camp and suffered a crushing defeat, escaping with only eight hundred cavalry, while the Yuan army lost over eighty thousand men. Yuan Shao, in disgrace, gathered his shattered forces and retreated to Ji Province, while Gao Gan also came from Bingzhou with more than eighty thousand troops to surrender to his uncle.

Yuan Shao asked why Gao Gan abandoned Bingzhou; Gao Gan bluntly said he truly dared not face Bai Lang's sharp spear, which made Shao both furious and sorrowful, yet he never beheaded his own nephew. It turned out that Bai Lang pressed toward Jinyang; although Jinyang was heavily garrisoned, no one dared to leave the city to meet him. Bai Lang roared like a ferocious tiger, and soldiers on the walls were so frightened they died of panic. Seeing the situation go awry, Gao Gan led his main force out of the city that night toward Shangdang.

At that moment a scout reported, "The Bingzhou Administrator Gao Gan has led Bingzhou troops to flee Jinyang." Some of Bai Lang's aides urged him, "General, you should pursue at night, capture and behead Gao Gan, and crush the Bingzhou army now!" Bai Lang laughed, "They're just cowardly mice; let him escape tonight. You all enter the city under cover of darkness and secure the four directions; at dawn I will personally go after Gao Gan." With that, Bai Lang went to bed without worry and slept soundly through the night.

At daybreak, after finishing his breakfast and donning his armor, Bai Lang led a thousand cavalry to skirt around Jinyang and follow the trail. Gao Gan was no incompetent; when he withdrew his ten‑thousand‑strong Bingzhou force he established a series of camps, with the vanguard setting up successive encampments that sheltered the centre and rear units. Though the retreat was not swift, it at least denied Bai Lang a chance to charge through. Gao Gan erected dozens of small forts to shield his main stronghold, moving by night and camping at dawn. Those small forts were the very targets Bai Lang was sent to assault; each was equipped with strong bows and heavy crossbows, firing desperately outward to block Bai Lang.

Bai Lang personally led dozens of cavalry to assault each small fort, breaking through the gates and slashing the defenders inside. Gao Gan ordered the remaining forts to refrain from any rescue except for arrow fire, using cold‑blooded sacrifice to sap Bai Lang's strength. In these chaotic times, many ordinary soldiers have already reached a burst of qi; the Bingzhou army, after years of fighting the Hu, though rarely victorious, still has many hulking warriors—some nearly a zhang tall with waistbands of ten chi. When such men burst, they possess roughly seventy points of combat power, and if dozens of them grapple fiercely, Bai Lang cannot cut them down that quickly.

Each time Bai Lang broke a fort he had to replace the accompanying rider; although Bai Lang himself was the bravest of the three armies, he could not take a fort alone, and his cavalry grew tired, wounded, or killed, so a new man was needed after each fort. After taking several forts, Bai Lang not only had to change men but also swap horses, and sometimes even weapons… The Yunshui spear, though called a divine weapon, still wore down its blade when cutting armored foes.

Fortunately Bai Lang had prepared several long spears and long‑handed swords for swapping; the long‑handed sword was called a Zhe Tie Dao, its blade straight—unsuitable for stabbing but extremely sharp for cleaving. A Bingzhou general accompanied him to maintain his weapons. The Bingzhou troops' morale was abysmal; they lost comrade after comrade, yet after losing fewer than ten thousand they fled into Changzi City, rested briefly, then escaped to Gaodu City, and finally withdrew entirely from Shangdang Commandery. By then the Battle of Guandu had ended, and Yuan Shao, having reorganized his defeated army, stationed at Cangting.

Originally Yuan Shao fled back to Ji Province, but after reorganizing his troops he again marched out to Cangting to resist CaoCao. At this time Yuan Tan, Yuan Xi, Yuan Shang and the other sons of Yuan Shao, together with Gao Gan, arrived each leading the troops from their respective provinces.

Bai Lang seized all of Bingzhou, thus becoming the true Governor of Bingzhou, and CaoCao promptly sent him an official seal, though there was no further promotion. CaoCao, as the lord of Xiongcai, openly stated that the imperial edict did not actually name Bai Lang, yet he clearly had designs in mind, and his jealousy and fear had already arisen. "The fierce tiger has sprouted a pair of wings," CaoCao sighed.

At this moment CaoCao advanced into Cangting to engage Yuan Shao in a great battle. CaoCao's troops were well‑fed, their horses spirited, and morale high, whereas Yuan Shao had previously lost a hundred thousand elite soldiers, his men lacked fighting spirit, and his subordinates no longer included great generals like the four pillars of Hebei; even his strategists had been greatly diminished. When the two armies faced each other, Yuan Shao's sons, except for the mediocre Yuan Xi, included Yuan Tan, the rightful heir as eldest son, but Yuan Shao favored his younger son Yuan Shang, causing friction between the two brothers and scattering the loyalty of the provincial troops each commanded.

Yuan Shang, eager to display his valor, rode straight into battle to challenge. CaoCao pointed to his generals and asked, "Who is this?" An informed officer replied, "He is Yuan Shao's third son, Yuan Shang." Before the reply finished, a general thrust his spear forward. CaoCao looked and saw it was Shi Huan, a subordinate of Xu Huang. The two cavalry met, but not three; Shang turned his horse and fled diagonally. Shi Huan chased, Yuan Shang drew his bow, turned his back and shot, striking Shi Huan's left eye; Shang fell from his horse and died. After a chaotic melee, both sides sounded their war drums and withdrew.

A few days later ChengYu presented a plan of ten ambushes, urging CaoCao to retreat his forces to the river; ten hidden units would lure Yuan Shao to pursue onto the river. "Our army has no retreat, we must fight to the death; we can defeat Shao," he said. On that day the battle unfolded exactly as ChengYu predicted: the ten ambush units emerged together and shattered the Yuan family's main army. However, they had not anticipated the Bingzhou troops under Gao Gan… Gao Gan fought Bai Lang; though he could not match Bai Lang's bravery and lost over twenty thousand men, the ordeal honed him and allowed him to display his own abilities.

Gao Gan did not realize that he now actually commanded the Bingzhou army; previously he was merely a pampered son, but under the current circumstances he calmly redeployed his troops to defend first. He ruthlessly ordered the heavy crossbows to fire indiscriminately at anyone daring to strike his formation, then the Bingzhou cavalry charged. At this point Yuan Shao shouted, "If we do not fight to the death, we will be captured!" The troops from Qingzhou and Ji Province were forced to counterattack, and this brutal clash unexpectedly ended with CaoCao's crushing defeat.

The ten ambushes on ten routes each lacked sufficient strength, and under the Bingzhou cavalry's counterattack they were successively smashed. CaoCao rode his famed steed Jueying away first; he left the Tiger‑Leopard Cavalry to launch a counter‑strike, which ultimately dragged away almost all the senior generals. Yet CaoCao's troops suffered over seventy thousand deaths, sending the spoils of the Guandu battle back again… Nevertheless Yuan Shao also weighed his options, leaving Gao Gan to guard Cangting as an outer defense for Ji Province, while he took his three sons back to Ji Province to recuperate.

After a great defeat CaoCao could only return, because Xun Yan wrote that LiuBei was not honest. Though CaoCao had lost tens of thousands of elite troops, his core remained strong, and he immediately prepared to march his army to confront LiuBei. "Yuan Benchu is gravely ill; if he passes away, his two sons will cause chaos. I just didn't expect this Gao Gan…" CaoCao shook his head and sighed, after several probes realizing that Gao Gan's defense was not airtight; Gao Gan was merely ruthless, so he would never be lured by CaoCao into a trap…