Chapter 191: Central Line Withdraws

Under Dengzhou's walls, at the moment Xue Shusi received the news of the eastern front's collapse, the bowl of porridge in his hand fell to the ground.

No one laughed at his loss of composure. All the officers in the tent had risen to their feet, staring at the battlefield report as if it were a venomous snake crawling ashore from the Huaihe. Eighty thousand troops, two months—crushed all the way from below Suzhou to Qixian. Guo Zhuo was arrested, Lingbi lost, Hongxian lost, Sizhou lost—Sizhou, the first banner of the northern expedition, now a rag beneath the Jin cavalry's hooves.

Xue Shusi bent down, picked up the report, read it again, his finger pausing on the eight characters: "Western Front, Wu Xi holds position." He raised his head, glanced at the officers in the tent; all read the same meaning in his eyes.

"Wu Xi will betray us." Xue Shusi spoke those four words softly, as if speaking them aloud might make them true.

Deputy Commander Zhao Chun slammed his fist onto the table: "We've fought two months at Dengzhou, lost three thousand men, made not an inch of progress. The east has collapsed, Wu Xi on the west won't move—how are we supposed to fight this war?"

No one could answer him.

Outside the tent, a commotion arose. Xue Shusi pulled back the curtain and stepped out, seeing soldiers huddled together, whispering, their faces filled with dread. Someone had spread the news of the eastern front's collapse; panic was spreading faster than any military order. An old soldier squatted by the camp gate, sharpening his blade. He paused mid-sharpening, looked up at his squad leader, and asked: "Squad leader, I heard Sizhou is gone too? That wasn't ours to take before? How did we lose it so fast?"

The squad leader opened his mouth but said nothing.

Xue Shusi withdrew his gaze and said two words to Zhao Chun: "Withdraw."

The order to retreat was issued that very night. The central army of fifty thousand had wasted two months beneath Dengzhou's walls, not even chipping off a few bricks from the walls—now they were to slip away under cover of darkness, burning every hard-won siege engine they'd hauled here. The soldiers carried out the orders in silence, no complaints, no fiery speeches—complaints and speeches required confidence, and confidence had evaporated the moment the central army received news from both eastern and western fronts.

Firelight lit up half the sky. Ladders, battering rams, trebuchets—these siege engines hauled a thousand li from Xiangyang—cracked and exploded in the flames like firecrackers at a funeral. Xue Shusi stood amid the firelight, gazing north at Dengzhou's walls. The Jin sentries on the ramparts had clearly noticed the disturbance and were shouting and running—but they did not sortie to pursue—not because they didn't want to, but because they were waiting too.

"They know about Wu Xi," Zhao Chun said, stepping beside him, voice low. "The Jin don't hurry to attack us now. They're waiting for Wu Xi to openly rebel, waiting for us to collapse on our own."

Xue Shusi said nothing. He mounted his horse, took one last look at Dengzhou. Two months ago, when he led his troops out of Xiangyang, he dreamed of reclaiming Tang and Deng, pressing straight toward Bianjing. Now he thought of only one thing: bringing these men home alive.

The retreat route from Tangzhou to Xiangyang was not long, but every step was heart-stopping.

On the afternoon of the second day, Jin cavalry caught up. Their commander, Wanyan Gang, was a fierce man in his early thirties, commanding only three thousand horsemen, yet he pursued with savage tenacity. He never engaged the main Song force head-on; instead, like a wolf pack, he hung at the tail of the retreating column, waiting for an opening to strike and tear off a chunk of flesh. Stragglers, scattered supply units, wounded lagging behind—his cavalry moved like wind, killed, and vanished without lingering.

On the third evening, as the retreating column crossed an unnamed stream, Wanyan Gang launched his largest ambush yet.

The soldiers were wading across the river, the line stretched long and scattered. Suddenly, Jin cavalry burst from the trees behind and to the side, hooves shattering the last sliver of sunset on the water's surface. The rear ranks of Song soldiers were caught utterly off guard, instantly scattered. Screams and hoofbeats merged; the stream turned color in the twilight.

Xue Shusi, in the front ranks, heard the cries of battle behind him and yanked his reins hard. He turned back—dust choked the sky, fleeing soldiers surged toward him like a tide. His bodyguards seized his bridle and shouted: "General! Don't go back! Going back is death!"

Xue Shusi shook off his bodyguards, drew his sword, and charged backward against the flood of men. He gathered stragglers along the way, beheaded three deserters, and barely managed to form a defensive line on the southern bank of the stream. Zhao Chun arrived with a squad of archers and archers, raining arrows across the river, halting the Jin pursuit.

But the cost was horrific.

After the battle, the rear guard of two thousand had fewer than eight hundred survivors who crossed the river. Commander Zhang Yu, in charge of the rearguard, was killed; his body was taken by the Jin, and his fate remained unknown. More than half the supplies were lost; most of the civilian porters fled; the few who remained cowered behind carts, trembling, refusing to move forward.

Xue Shusi stood on the high ground south of the stream, watching soldiers drag the corpses of their comrades from the water. The bodies were bloated and pale, their wounds long drained of blood, the submerged parts gnawed by fish. Some men identified their fellow villagers—those who found their dead clutched them and wept; those who didn't walked the riverbank, calling out names until their throats went hoarse, still refusing to stop.

"It's the third day," Zhao Chun said, stepping beside him, a bloody scratch across his cheek from a stray arrow. "We've only made it halfway. At this pace, we'll need at least three more days to reach Xiangyang."

Xue Shusi watched the last glimmer of light vanish from the river, voice hoarse: "Three days."

"The Jin cavalry will come again tomorrow. Wanyan Gang doesn't aim to annihilate us—he hasn't the numbers. He's just biting at us, biting until we break apart on our own."

"Let him chase," Xue Shusi said, sheathing his sword—the scabbard caked in mud and blood. "Order: boil water at fourth watch tomorrow, march at fifth watch. Rear guard units rotate every hour. Leave the stragglers—our pursuers run faster than the deserters; they know it themselves."

What he did not say aloud: he must walk this road. The eastern front collapsed, the western front will betray—if the central army disintegrates here, Xiangyang's gates stand wide open. The Jin need not attack; they need only stand beneath the walls and shout, "Your army is all dead," and the city's defenders will open the gates themselves.

Seven days later, atop Xiangyang's walls.

The defenders first saw dust rising on the horizon, then a crooked Song banner. The flag was riddled with arrow holes and burn marks, its pole broken halfway, held together by strips of cloth. Beneath it rode Xue Shusi—his horse had died a day earlier; now he rode a mule borrowed from the supply train.

The moment the city gate opened, Xue Shusi nearly tumbled off the mule. His legs were raw and bloody from the saddle; his hands, stiff from days of gripping his sword, could no longer straighten. The Prefect of Xiangyang rushed out to greet him, saw Xue Shusi's condition, and choked on the words he meant to speak.

Xue Shusi slid off the mule, stood firm, and turned to look at the army he had brought back. Fifty thousand had left Xiangyang; fewer than thirty-five thousand returned. They had lost Tangzhou, hundreds of carts of grain, over two thousand corpses—those bodies now lay somewhere in the Nanyang Basin, being devoured by wild dogs.

He pushed away the soldiers trying to support him, stepped one by one through the city gate. As he passed through the tunnel, darkness swallowed him. He stood in the dark for a moment, then walked on, into Xiangyang's silent sea of people.

That night, Xue Shusi wrote a memorial to Lin'an from within the Xiangyang prefecture office. He wrote for a long time, tore up several drafts. The final version sent out contained only a few brief lines:

"Your servant Shusi and others led the central army back, lost over fourteen thousand men, lost Tangzhou. Jin cavalry pursued for six days; our soldiers fought hard and escaped. Now we hold Xiangyang, awaiting orders."

He did not write of Wu Xi. But he left the words "Western Front" blank—a conspicuous void. He believed Han Tuozhou would understand.

After sending the memorial, Xue Shusi climbed alone to Xiangyang's watchtower. The northern horizon was swallowed by night; nothing could be seen. But if he could look north again, what would he see? Wu Xi, ready to betray? Jin forces regrouping? Or that beast from farther north, patiently waiting for all of them to bleed dry?

He did not know. He knew only this: the central army had returned. But the northern expedition was dead.