Chapter 1278: How to Become a Loyal Martyr, Part Four

Giving up Feng County's county seat and Maling Pass is a dangerous gamble!

Because north of the Sanguan Road lies the Great Sanguan Pass, and to its south are Feng County's county seat and Maling Pass. Feng County's county seat sits in a relatively open river valley beside the Dasan River. At its widest point it's a little over one li, not quite two li! Don't think that's small — having a stretch of flat land like this deep in the Qinling Mountains is already quite good. It can store all sorts of odds and ends, and it gives armies traveling north or south a place to rest.

So in the early years of the Joint Governance era, the Shun dynasty began developing Feng County as a strategic strongpoint. At the entrance to the valley where the county seat lies, they built a walled pass. They also built many mountain forts on the great mountains on both sides, sealing off every mountain path and trail.

And Maling Pass is even more critical!

Maling Pass is a three-way junction. The Sanguan Road, which follows the Dasan River south, ends at Maling Pass. South of Maling Pass, the official road forks — one branch goes southeast, the other southwest.

The road running southeast from Maling Pass leads to the Hanzhong Basin. Passing through Feiqiu Pass, Chai Pass, Liuba, Hutou Pass, and Jitou Pass, one enters the Hanzhong Basin. Don't think that because there are many passes along the way the Shun army has enough troops to defend each one tightly. That's because besides the Sanguan Road, there are three other routes over the Qinling into Hanzhong: the Ziwu Road, the Baoxie Road, and the Tangluo Road. All are extremely rugged, but two thousand years of continuous opening up, plus the fact that the Qinling terrain is not all that impassable (the Qinling is not very high, and gentle slopes are everywhere), means mountain paths and trails crisscross the whole region. To seal them all off completely would require committing a huge number of troops. And the Hanzhong Basin is only so big — it simply cannot support enough troops to completely seal the Sanguan Road, the Ziwu Road, the Baoxie Road, the Tangluo Road, and all the surrounding trails! Oh, and west of the Sanguan Road there's also the Qishan Road.

If one wanted to completely seal all five roads into Hanzhong (not even into Shu — just halfway there), the troops required would far exceed those needed to defend the loess terraces on the southern edge of the Guanzhong Plain. Moreover, travel between these five routes into Hanzhong is difficult, so troops cannot shift quickly among the five routes and can only passively split up to hold each mouth. And with so many mouths to hold, the troops needed would be even more than those required for taking the initiative — stationing troops and farming on the loess terraces of the Guanzhong Plain!

This is precisely the main reason why, historically, separatist regimes defending Sichuan could never hold out against enemies coming from the north.

And once Maling Pass falls, the Sanguan Road — one of the five routes into Hanzhong — is completely lost. Southeast of Maling Pass is Hanzhong; southwest is the Jinniu Road, one of the four main routes from Hanzhong and Longnan into Shu. One wouldn't even need to fight through the entire Jinniu Road — just advancing to the Lueyang area would expose the rear of the Qishan Road, and the Shun dynasty's territory in Longnan would be lost along with it!

By then, the Hanzhong–Longnan defense line that the Shun dynasty had painstakingly built over nearly twenty years would collapse entirely!

Without the Hanzhong–Longnan defense line, could Sichuan still be held?

"What? Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun have already taken Feng County and are now attacking Maling Pass? Isn't this going too smoothly?"

The news that Shang Kexi's and Kong Tingxun's forces had captured Feng County reached Wu Sangui's main army at the Great Sanguan Pass on the twenty-fifth day of the first month of the twentieth year of Hongxing of the Great Ming.

At this time, the struggle for the several loess terraces north of the Qinling had just ended — though calling it a struggle is generous; it was really a rearguard action. All those strategic points — the Great Sanguan Pass, Heshangyuan, Chencang Mountain, Wuzhangyuan, Jinya Pass, and Xiegu Pass — over the past seven or eight years had made Wu Sangui grind his teeth in frustration. Any of his officers who could lead troops to seize even one of them would have been guaranteed a count's or viscount's title by Wu Sangui! Yet within two days, all of them had been captured by Wu Sangui's forces.

This was truly a pile of happy tidings!

But he never imagined his good luck wasn't finished! Even Feng County, the key point from Sanguan to the southern mouth, had been easily taken, and Maling Pass seemed about to fall too.

This merit was coming far too easily! At this pace, recovering Sichuan would be accomplished within the twentieth year of Hongxing!

And the Wu family's merits were already enormous — three Dukes in one family was almost enough to alarm the sovereign with their achievements!

"Could this be a trick?" Wu Sangui still kept a wary eye out, not entirely because he feared Li Dingguo was laying a trap for him, but because he felt his own merits were getting a bit too great. He was already a Duke; there was no room above that. What mattered most now was preserving his reputation in his final years!

"What trick could there be?" Wu Yinglin circled Feng County and Maling Mountain on a map with a red brush. "The most Li Dingguo could do is ambush troops on the mountains flanking the Sanguan Road. But the hills on both sides of the Sanguan Road are mostly steep and precipitous, hard to move up or down — they simply can't hide a large force there. Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun's ten-thousand-plus men have already reached Feng County and seized the strategic points. Without thirty to fifty thousand men grinding away slowly, the roving bandits could never retake Feng County."

"How much provisions do Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun have?" Wu Sangui was still uneasy.

"Enough to eat for twenty days. If they slaughter the warhorses too, enough to last a month." Someone beside him answered at once.

"How do they have so much?" Wu Sangui was startled.

"They captured a great deal along the way — all grain, fodder, and baggage abandoned by the roving bandits. This grain and fodder was hard-won; for it to be discarded so casually shows the roving bandits are clearly collapsing like a mountain in defeat!"

"It really does have the look of a rout!" Wu Sangui nodded, thinking to himself: It seems the roving bandits' luck has run out!

Wu Yinglin interjected, "My lord, let us enter the Sanguan Road too! Now is the time to pursue and strike hard. We can't let Shang Kexi and Kong Tingxun take all the credit!"

"Yes! Commander, this age of chaos is nearly over. If we don't hurry to earn merit, we'll have no chance left!"

"Commander, our Hexi and Anxi are bitter, cold, barren lands. From now on, we'll be living off the merits earned in the plains."

Wu Sangui's position as a frontier prince had become a losing venture, and his soldiers and officers weren't making money either! The Wu family had the Zhu Emperor backing them, so they didn't fear losses. But the eighty thousand military households following Wu Sangui were sick of poverty. With Sichuan about to fall, of course they wanted to grab a big haul!

And what they could grab wasn't limited to military merit. Sichuan was a land of abundance to begin with, and the roving bandits had also plundered India, hauling back mountains of gold and silver!

"Commander, even if the roving bandits are laying a trap, we have nothing to fear. At worst they'll set an ambush along the mountain roads, but on the mountain paths flanking the Sanguan Road there's no way to position cannon. As long as we're careful, move in battalion columns, form dense ranks, and advance in armor, even an ambush holds no terror."

Wu Guogui, one of Wu Sangui's trusted men, offered this seemingly sound suggestion. Wu Sangui turned to look at Liu Sheng. Liu Sheng said, "Commander, the troops below are all eager for merit. We must give them the chance. Many of them have followed you and the old commander for three generations — surely we can't let them end up poor?"

Wu Sangui nodded. "You're right. There aren't many chances left to earn merit. It's time to let the brothers eat their fill of meat. Fourth Brother, you lead the troops and go first. I will command the main army in the center. Old Liu, you bring up the rear!"

The "Fourth Brother" Wu Sangui referred to was Wu Guogui. Wu Xiang had three biological sons and two daughters, and many adopted sons. Among them, Wu Guogui and Wu Guoyong had distinguished themselves, so Wu Sangui called them Fourth Brother and Fifth Brother. "Old Liu" was Liu Sheng, who had followed Wu Sangui for over twenty years, going from Little Liu to Old Liu.

"Commander, what about the Imperial Guard's three divisions?" Liu Sheng asked. "They are the Son of Heaven's own troops, and they fight exceptionally well."

"We can send them via the Ziwu Road, the Baoxie Road, and the Tangluo Road to take Hanzhong," Wu Yinglin said. "Each of these three divisions has an Imperial Guard regiment made up of veterans. Those men are the boldest risk-takers, and they dare to fight hard battles on rugged terrain. Even if the roving bandits have set ambushes on the Ziwu Road, Baoxie Road, and Tangluo Road, they won't be able to stop them."

The soldiers of the Imperial Guard had been straining since childhood to win wealth and rank. If they could not earn the chance to enter the Military Academy for advanced training and become officers before their term of service ended (usually between the ages of thirty-five and forty), then the dream they had fought for since childhood would be shattered, and they would have to take a pension and live as ordinary men.

So the older the Imperial Guardsmen, the fiercer they fought. Imperial Guard infantry regiments made up of veterans were usually unstoppable!

"Good, that's settled!" Wu Sangui nodded. "Fortune is found in danger — let them fight for Hanzhong! Once we take Maling Slope, we'll drive straight for the Jinniu Road!"

(End of Chapter)