Chapter 7: Fierce Battle

"Is everything A-Yue said true?" Inside Lulong Fortress, Gongsun Zhao, still lying in bed, was utterly dumbfounded.

"Exactly so." The young Gongsun Yue, fully armored, bowed with his hand on his saber, his tone neither servile nor overbearing.

"A-Xun took that Han Dang and slipped out of the fortress on his own for a night raid? And he wants me to send troops immediately to support him?" Gongsun Zhao pressed in disbelief.

"Only when fire rises from the enemy camp may cavalry be dispatched to support." Gongsun Yue corrected the other's phrasing. "But for now, please, Uncle, go to the Lulong Tower and take command!"

Gongsun Zhao started to speak, then stopped, but in the end he still asked: "What you said just now — that His Majesty has just come of age and assumed personal rule, and wishes to achieve something in border affairs?"

"Yes." Gongsun Yue held his patience and answered. "That is what my elder brother said."

"Then if this battle yields some gains, I will certainly be promoted?" Gongsun Zhao pressed on.

"But if the relief is not in time and any mishap befalls my elder brother, I fear Uncle will be cast aside by the clan, and then even this Chief Clerk post will not be secure." Gongsun Yue's face darkened as he brought out the threat.

"That is indeed the logic." Gongsun Zhao, who had just been lying in bed, suddenly looked enlightened. With a whoosh he threw off his blanket, and then with another whoosh he stopped. "But how exactly should we support him? Given the current situation, what is to be done?"

"Please, Uncle, go quickly to the Lulong Tower and take command. The moment you see fire rise, immediately dispatch cavalry to support!" Gongsun Yue helplessly repeated his earlier demand.

"I'll do as you say, A-Yue... But where are my trousers?"

"..."

"Where are my trousers?" Mo Huzhen groggily climbed to his feet and slapped the thigh of a subordinate beside him. "Get up, you dog-slave — are you lying on my trousers?"

"Chief," the subordinate opened his eyes blearily. "What are you doing? After all that chaos in the middle of the night, everyone is dead tired."

"There's movement outside." Mo Huzhen said as he pulled on his trousers. "Seems the campfire was too strong, the wind caught it and licked something. From the sound of it, people are already putting it out, but it never hurts to go and look..."

"If people are already putting it out, why should the chief bother?"

"Dog-slave!" Mo Huzhen pulled on his trousers, grabbed the filthy sheepskin robe at his hand, and whipped it across the other's face. "This is a chance to show our face before Lord Kezuique — how can I ignore it? Get up and come look with me!"

The Xianbei soldier had no choice but to force himself up. He merely wrapped a robe around himself, not even bothering with trousers — perhaps his trousers had been snatched away by Mo Huzhen — and in any case, he groggily followed his clan head outside.

Mo Huzhen threw on the grimy leather robe, lifted the tent flap weighed down with a wooden pole against the wind, and without grabbing bow or spear, simply stooped and stepped out. In the next instant, a wave of heat struck his face. Before him, several dozen armored riders, utterly silent, were racing in all directions flinging torches. The sight made this Xianbei chief freeze on the spot.

Was this deliberate arson?

A Han night raid?

Where had these troops come from?

Why were they in the rear camp?!

A string of questions surged into his mind, but before he could think further, Mo Huzhen's attendant also groggily followed his chief out and could not help but yawn. Before his eyes were even open, a powerfully built rider with a thin beard and hawk-like eyes, several dozen paces away, turned his head at the movement, simply raised his bow, and with one arrow the attendant collapsed clutching his throat.

That was not all. Another armored rider spurred his horse over, raising his blade to strike at Mo Huzhen's head.

"Don't kill me!" In desperation, Mo Huzhen grabbed his guard's corpse and hurled it forward, rolled on the ground, and actually shouted out in the Han tongue. "I am a guest of the Anli Trading House, and I know the noble lords of the Gongsun clan of Lingzhi!"

The powerfully built, hawk-eyed rider had already drawn his bow again, but at these words he was momentarily stunned. The arrow in his hand hastily veered off course, grazing Mo Huzhen's face and embedding itself in the wooden frame of the tent behind him, drawing a streak of blood.

In that instant between life and death, Mo Huzhen felt a warmth in his crotch — he had actually pissed himself.

"Mo Huzhen!" Another rider came galloping over. A steel-tipped long lance stopped half a foot from the Xianbei man's face. It was Gongsun Xun, who had recognized him. A thought stirred in his mind, and he swiftly approached. "Do you still recognize me?!"

"I do, I do! The young proprietor of the Anli Trading House, the Assistant Revenue Clerk of the commandery! Have you forgotten, last year you took it upon yourself to sell me a step-shake crown!" Mo Huzhen looked up by the firelight, immediately prostrated himself trembling, and answered frantically in the Han tongue. "I beg you, Young Master, for the sake of our old acquaintance, spare my life! All the plundered wealth, women, and children are with Lord Kezuique in the central army — there is nothing here in the rear camp."

"Do you know where Kezuique's tent is?!" Gongsun Xun barked harshly.

"I know, I know!" Mo Huzhen kowtowed like a pestle pounding garlic.

On the battlefield, everything changes in an instant. By now, the rear camp had already begun to erupt in noise. More and more Xianbei were waking up and coming out to investigate.

Although most were slaughtered the moment they showed their heads by Han Dang and the others, and order in the rear camp had collapsed, the fire had not yet spread to the central army tents. The men over there were already beginning to stir and react.

"Young Lord!" Han Dang shot dead another Xianbei soldier emerging from an unburned tent in the distance, then could not help but turn his head and urge, "Do not waste time — strike into the central army while they are in chaos!"

"Did you hear that?!" Gongsun Xun struck Mo Huzhen's shoulder with the shaft of his long lance and ground his teeth as he barked, "You will run toward Kezuique's tent! As you run, tell everyone that the Grand Administrator of Liaoxi Commandery, Lord Hou, has personally led the troops of Yangyue City to attack! And that I, Gongsun Xun, am the vanguard!"

Mo Huzhen froze for barely an instant, then immediately scrambled and crawled out from under the other's long lance and ran straight for the central army tent.

As he ran, he did not forget to shout in the Xianbei tongue: "The Grand Administrator of Liaoxi has come with a great Han army! The one riding the white horse at their head is the vanguard, Gongsun Xun!"

Gongsun Xun had grown up in Liaoxi and knew a bit of the Xianbei, Wuhuan, and even Goguryeo tongues. So even on the battlefield, he could not help but be stunned — for this night raid he had clearly mounted a black horse; when had he ever ridden that white horse of his family? But there was no time to dwell on such nonsense. A Xianbei man wrapped only in a tattered robe had clearly heard the commotion and came running out of a nearby tent in a panic.

Gongsun Xun raised his hand and struck. The tip of his long lance slashed open half the man's chest. But he did not follow through to finish him. Instead, he twisted his hand and pulled back, using the lance tip to force this wailing, bloodied Xianbei soldier to run in the direction Mo Huzhen had gone.

"Drive the routed soldiers to follow that man! We'll set fires as we go!" Han Dang understood at once and immediately shouted, changing their strategy on the fly. "Don't shoot arrows at their legs! Don't kill those without weapons! A few more men, come with me to drive the horses!"

And so, the thirty-odd riders each took action. Taking advantage of the fire, they successfully drove over a hundred remnant soldiers from the rear camp to break into the central army!

On the Lulong Tower, watching the enemy camp catch fire from the rear, the chaos spreading all the way to the central army's main camp, already boiling over, Gongsun Zhao was dumbstruck. Fortunately, Gongsun Yue was beside him shouting orders on his behalf. Moreover, Lulong Fortress was, after all, a critical border stronghold, and its troops could be considered elite. So after the initial tension, they were swiftly mobilized and set into action.

First, the fortress's cavalry company lit their torches, rode out through the main gate, and headed straight for the enemy's main camp several li away, as if they would engage the enemy in the time it took to draw a breath. Then, the entire fortress lit up with lamps. From east to west, even the Cloud Tower and Plum Tower, hundreds of paces away on either flank, blazed with light. This was a full fortress mobilization — even the soldiers on the Cloud Tower and Plum Tower received orders and all came to reinforce this place.

However, immediately afterward, Gongsun Yue encountered an enormous problem — no one was willing to lead the infantry out of the fortress to provide support!

The reasoning was simple. The enemy's main camp was already in chaos. The cavalry, even at worst, could fight their way through the camp and then head to Liucheng or Yangyue behind the enemy lines — they would never lack a retreat route. But what about the infantry? If the enemy regained their senses and counterattacked, what would become of the infantry beneath the walls?

Open the gates to receive them?

Don't be absurd. This was Lulong Fortress, the strategic throat of Hebei. Even if everyone outside died, they could not risk opening the gates in the face of pursuing troops. Otherwise, with the Hebei plain stretching flat and open, a colossal disaster would ensue.

Of course, the crux of the matter was that after all this turmoil, from the Army Major down to the key officers below, everyone had figured it out — the true superior officer, Gongsun Zhao, had been pushed here by his nephew. This night raid was entirely some people acting on their own authority!

That being the case, if they won, fine. But what if they were defeated? They themselves were all court-appointed officers — why should they gamble their lives on this?

"Over a thousand soldiers in Lulong Fortress, and there are only a mere thirty brave men?!" Gongsun Yue was so frantic his face nearly twisted into a snarl. The turmoil in the distant enemy camp had already reached the central army. Without even thinking, he knew that by now, many Han captives must have seized the chance to flee this way. And his elder brother was still trapped in the enemy camp. What could be done without infantry to support them? "Uncle! You are the Chief Clerk of Youbeiping, and everyone in Lulong Fortress is under your command. Please, quickly appoint a commander!"

The several company commanders and the Army Major all hurriedly turned their heads away. And Gongsun Zhao actually hemmed and hawed, at a complete loss — clearly incompetent and utterly useless to the extreme. As for Gongsun Yue, though furious, he was young in the end and did not know what to do either.

But at that very moment, a minor clerk in a blue robe, who had been following behind Gongsun Zhao for who knows how long, suddenly stepped forward, knelt, and requested to fight: "When the lord is troubled, his servant dies. I, Cheng Pu, a subordinate clerk of the Youbeiping Chief Clerk, though untalented, wish to lead troops out of the fortress to slay the rebels for the state."

For a moment, everyone on the tower looked askance.

"Cheng Pu, styled Demou, was a man of Tuyin in Youbeiping. He first served as a clerk in the province and commandery. He had a fine bearing, was skilled in strategy, and adept in discourse." — Old Book of Yan, Volume 69, Biography 19

(End of Chapter)