Chapter 1286: Wu Sangui, Hold On!

The twentieth year of Hongxing of the Great Ming, the third day of the second month.

The morning wind blew cold over the battlements of Lüeyang; the city that had blazed with fighting only days before now gave off a chill.

On the low first tier of the wall, a scattering of defenders had been posted, and a banner of the Three Armies' Commander and a flag embroidered with the words "Duke of Liang, Wu" fluttered in the wind above the walls of Lüeyang.

This Lüeyang was not the old city, but a new one built by the Shun regime with tens of thousands of corvée laborers over several months. It stood at the angle where the Jialing River met Rhinoceros Horn Point, backed against Elephant Mountain, facing a long, narrow peninsula. It was no bastion fort, but a mountain city built along the southern slope of Elephant Mountain. The walls were low, yet they rose in four stacked tiers, the highest tier climbing halfway up Elephant Mountain.

How critical this fortress's position was need hardly be said; the fact that Wu Sangui's general's banner and the Commander's banner still flew high above the walls told it all. Kong Tingxun, that long-legged general, had fled back on the morning of the second day of the second month with a few hundred defeated soldiers! By the afternoon of the second, that night, and the morning of the third, more than three thousand more had straggled back in, all of them stripped of armor and weapons, utterly bedraggled.

From the mouths of these returning fugitives, Wu Sangui learned that Shang Kexi and his son Shang Zhixin had both died as loyal martyrs, and that the Shun had arrayed at least sixty thousand troops in the Hanzhong basin, among them at least a thousand elite cavalry mounted on folded-ear horses.

With so many roving-bandit crack troops positioned in the Hanzhong basin, Wu Guogui, advancing by way of Maling Pass, was most likely in for a beating as well!

Moreover, over the past few days Wu Sangui had sent out small detachments to probe Yangping Pass, and found the garrison there numerous and quite elite!

Yet Wu Sangui was still loath to abandon Lüeyang.

Because Lüeyang was too vital. So long as Lüeyang held, the Sanguan Road and the Qishan Road remained firmly in Ming hands, and reinforcements, baggage, grain, and cannon could flow up continuously from the Guanzhong plain. And the roving bandits' hold on Hanzhong, the Jinniu Road, and the Yinping Road would remain under constant Ming pressure, leaving them in an extremely passive strategic position.

And for Li Dingguo, the gain or loss of Lüeyang was equally critical — comparable even to the gain or loss of the Hanzhong basin.

Because Lüeyang was the junction of the Sanguan Road, the Jinniu Road, and the Qishan Road. If it could not be retaken, not only would the Sanguan Road remain firmly in Ming hands, but the Qishan Road would also fall to the Ming — and Li Dingguo had no intention of giving up the Qishan Road! He had stationed heavy forces at Qiuchi Mountain, Cheng County, Jiezhou, Linjiang Pass, Wen County, Yinping Fort, and elsewhere. If the Ming attacked only from Qishan, those garrisons could hold out for a long time.

But if the Ming struck from both Lüeyang and Qishan at once, the Shun troops on the Qishan Road, caught between two fronts, could not hold. Once the Qishan Road fell, not only would the Yinping Road come under Ming threat, but even Songpan Guard might well run into trouble!

Thus the gain or loss of Lüeyang would directly determine the success or failure of this Ming campaign into Sichuan!

Having already resolved to defend Lüeyang, Wu Sangui began from the early morning of the third day of the second month to reckon with several aides in the central command hall inside Lüeyang, calculating how many days the supplies on hand would allow his troops and the accompanying loyalist refugees to hold out in Lüeyang. Lüeyang's terrain was formidable, and the city walls were solid enough; it could indeed be defended. The problem was that the grain stores were not quite sufficient. When the roving bandits withdrew they had not left a single grain of rice behind, and the marching rations Wu Sangui's army carried were nearly exhausted. Had it not been for the "loyalist refugees" of the Lüeyang and Feng County area bringing grain with them when they joined the army, Wu Sangui would probably have had no rice to sustain a defense at all.

"Commander, it's not quite enough!" Liu Maoxia had already worked the abacus and said to Wu Sangui with a bitter face, "Right now there are more than eight thousand soldiers inside Lüeyang, and the loyalist refugees and refugees flooding in from all directions number over fifty-four thousand, plus a great many mules and horses."

"Don't count the mules and horses," Wu Sangui waved a hand. "We can barely look after the people. Slaughter the livestock and use them for army rations! How many more days can we hold out then?"

"Without slaughtering the livestock, fifteen days at most!" Liu Maoxia said. "Even if we slaughter them and ration carefully, twenty days at the very most."

Wu Sangui's other trusted aide, Guo Zhuangtu, said: "Commander, if you want to hold out a few more days, then we must—"

He did not finish, but Wu Sangui understood his meaning — to hold out a few more days they would have to drive people out! Drive all the commoners out of the city; with fewer mouths, the grain would be enough.

This fellow's arithmetic was still excellent!

But Wu Sangui was somewhat embarrassed to say it aloud, because most of the little grain inside Lüeyang had been provided by the loyalist refugees who had come to join him. Old Wu had been a warlord for most of his life, and this was the first time he had ever been so warmly welcomed by the masses! And now he was supposed to turn his back on them?

"Commander," Guo Zhuangtu understood his master's mind, and so devised a plan, "we can move the commoners to Feng County. The grain coming up from Guanzhong should arrive at Feng County today."

Wu Sangui glanced at Liu Maoxia, who hastily shook his head and said: "Feng County is more than two hundred li from here. If the commoners go on foot, it will take at least ten days. What will they eat for those ten days? Are we to let them leave the city carrying ten days' marching rations?"

That, of course, would not do!

Liu Maoxia went on: "If Regional Commander Wu is also defeated, the roving bandits will very likely sweep around Maling Pass. Then these forty or fifty thousand people will all fall into Li Dingguo's hands! Most of them are able-bodied men. If Li Dingguo gets them, he will surely drive them to assault the walls!"

"Rather than let them be used by the roving bandits, better to enroll them all into the government army. Give them fifteen days of rough training, then send them out of the city to fight the rebels to the death!"

Wu Sangui frowned, and while he hesitated, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded outside the hall. Then Wu Sangui's personal-guard officer came in, saluted, and said: "Commander, a large force of roving bandits is coming up the Jialing River against the current. Your subordinate could see them from the wall!"

"What?"

Wu Sangui drew a sharp breath, rose abruptly, and strode out of the hall. This hall stood on the top tier of Lüeyang, and outside it was the wall built along the mountain. The wall faced the Jialing River directly, and the view was good — one could see the river's surface more than ten li away. Beyond that, nothing could be seen, blocked by the great mountains on either bank of the Jialing.

Raising his telescope, Wu Sangui clearly saw that on the narrow watercourse of the Jialing, two parallel columns of boats had appeared at some point. There was no telling how long the fleet was; he could see only its head, not its tail at all. Every boat was being hauled slowly along by trackers, and the decks were packed with "blue-coated men," some of whom were straining at the oars.

"It seems Li Dingguo had long prepared to strike at Lüeyang." Wu Sangui's brows knitted tightly.

The fighting at Mian County had ended only days ago! And already the roving bandits counterattacking Lüeyang had arrived! This showed that Li Dingguo had from the very start made ready to counterstrike at Lüeyang after the decisive battle in Hanzhong!

Guo Zhuangtu and Liu Maoxia had followed Wu Sangui out of the hall, and both took telescopes from Wu Sangui's personal guards and saw the Shun fleet on the river.

"Commander," Guo Zhuangtu said, "the roving bandits are powerful. There may well be their spies among the commoners in the city. You must not show the softness of a woman!"

Liu Maoxia retorted: "There are at least twenty-some thousand able-bodied men in the city. How many spies can there be? Now is exactly the time to break up the crowd, assign them into the ranks, and have veteran soldiers supervise and control them as they fight the rebels with all their strength!"

"The Sichuan men may not be willing to fight the rebels to the death!" Guo Zhuangtu shook his head.

"The Sichuan people have long suffered under the rebels. If the Commander will grant them military-household land, why would they not be willing to serve the nation unto death?"

"What authority does the Commander have to grant Sichuan men land?" Guo Zhuangtu still did not quite trust the masses.

Liu Maoxia said: "The Commander has discretionary authority, and the situation is urgent — what is there to stop him? And military-household land is not given for nothing; it must be bought with men's lives!"

While the two were debating, Kong Tingxun came hurrying over again, and he brought dire news! A large force of roving bandits from the direction of Hanzhong (Chen Yongfu's division) had already reached Flying Fox Ridge. They could cut the route between Lüeyang and Maling Pass at any moment.

Wu Sangui gritted his teeth and said: "Very well then, I'll trust these Sichuan men this once. Xuanchu, go tell Wang Youwen to pick out a hundred or so loyalist-refugee leaders whose words carry weight. This commander has something to say to them!"

(End of Chapter)