Chapter 175: Stout Thighs

The Boar-Rush Braves reached Shangdang in mid-June. They had marched over two thousand li from New Qinzhong. At least three hundred men had fallen out along the way, from sickness or exhaustion — a proportion that was already very low.

Wan Xiu sent them on to Changling's Diwu Quarter. With Diwu Lun there, the place had become the Boar-Rush Braves' "home."

Counting those who had died on the road, when they mustered near Shangdang commandery seat barely over a thousand remained. Throughout the march, Wan Xiu had been extremely strict about discipline. He could not match the standard Diwu Lun had set when leading troops, where even trampling a green sprout cost a lock of hair, but if anyone bullied or plundered the common people, Wan Xiu punished them severely. Within Shangdang's borders, he executed ten soldiers for breaking discipline in one go.

This greatly astonished Bao Yong, the Shangdang Merit Evaluator. This army truly was not quite the same as ordinary imperial troops.

At the start of the seventh month, after resting and recovering their strength and replenishing shoes and grain, they marched out of Shangdang's Hu Pass and headed east along the Fukou defile.

The Fukou defile was the vital route linking Bing Province to Hebei. It began at Hu Pass in the west and ended at Wushi County below Fu Mountain in the east, winding over three hundred li from west to east. Since ancient times it had been a strategic choke point. In the Spring and Autumn period, Duke Huan of Qi had led the feudal lords here to threaten Jin; during the Warring States, Qin and Zhao seesawed back and forth over Shangdang. In the Battle of Changping, the Fukou road was the lifeline for the supposedly four hundred fifty thousand Zhao troops.

Winding up and down around the foot of the cliffs, the soldiers from the great plains grumbled that the road was rough and hard going. But Feng Qin, the Reporting Clerk whom Diwu Lun had sent to guide them, said, "Colonel, this road has the gentlest terrain of all the Taihang defiles, the easiest to travel."

It was essentially a fault zone through the Taihang Mountains, linking a string of county seats and small basins. One could cross the main range of the Taihang almost without feeling any great shift in the landscape.

Though it was early autumn, the gorge was still cool and fresh. Dark pines stood emerald on the cliff faces, the Fu River rushed east in torrents, and the air was a little cooler than outside. As they marched on, the road narrowed again. The ridges on either bank towered high, like a great gateway, and in the middle stood a small pass — this was the border between Shangdang and Weicheng.

Reaching this point meant they had covered half the long, narrow Fukou defile. They were drawing closer and closer to his good brother Ma Yuan.

This place was nowhere near the "one man at the pass, ten thousand cannot break through" level of Shangdang's Hu Pass. It was a small outpost manned by a few dozen men, its walls no more than a zhang high. Wan Xiu sent someone with Diwu Lun's documents and tally to call for the gate. The defenders shut it and refused them entry, stalling with the excuse that they had to consult the County Magistrate.

How could Wan Xiu wait for their reinforcements to arrive? He immediately launched a frontal assault. After spending half a day taking it, the view ahead suddenly opened wide, and She County's seat lay right before their eyes.

What Wan Xiu did not know was that when Diwu Lun first learned that She County, within his own jurisdiction, had the old name "Sha County," he nearly burst out laughing like a pig and repeatedly confirmed it with others.

"This 'Sha County' — is it truly an old name, and not a new one changed by His Majesty the Emperor?"

In the end it was confirmed that there had been a "Marquisate of Sha" there in the Spring and Autumn period, so in the early Han the county had been established with that name. The place still had the powerful Sha clan to this day. It really had nothing to do with Wang Mang, and only then did Diwu Lun breathe easy.

At word that an army had arrived, She County braced as if facing a great foe. From the Sha clan to the officials and commoners, the whole town was terrified.

At first they thought it was bandits from the Taihang mountains. When they saw the banners were bright and distinct and realized it was government troops, the county folk grew even more afraid. "Bandits want grain — the imperial army wants lives!"

The Seventh Biao sent men to call at the gate for a long time. Even when they displayed Diwu Lun's tally, She County still refused to comply. He came to request battle: "Colonel, let's storm it!"

On this long expedition, the Seventh Biao had been reluctant at heart at first, but after reaching She County his drive returned. He even told his subordinates, "We are the sect leader's old troops, while the Wei soldiers are new recruits. In this fight we must show our mettle. Otherwise, as strangers quartered at Ye, we will surely be looked down on by the locals."

The Seventh Biao nursed his own little calculations. He reckoned Diwu Lun must have recruited a great many subordinates. His own rank, which had once counted for something in the army, might well have slipped back. Shouldn't he put on a show?

Wan Xiu, however, had no such competitive urge. He had heard from Feng Qin that the commander of the other force was Ma Yuan — what was there to compete over? Wan Xiu's main goal was to keep his soldiers alive. He knew every veteran was precious and formed the foundation for Diwu Lun to build more armies. Every man who fell along the road pained Wan Xiu deeply.

In his heart, he possessed "benevolence."

So Wan Xiu said, "Inside She County, only a minority are rebels and traitors. Most people are simply afraid. Fear makes people deaf to all reason. If we take it by force, the former subordinates of the Wuan Li clan and their in-law magnates will stir them up, and the whole town will help defend it."

They had not brought many siege engines. A prolonged stalemate would be to their disadvantage. Yet they could not bypass She County and head straight east either — the county seat lay squarely across the only road, beside the Zhang River.

At this moment, Feng Qin, the man of few words whom Diwu Lun had ordered to guide them, stepped forward.

"Colonel, your words are sound. Let me enter the town, reason with them, and persuade the She Magistrate and the magnates."

The Seventh Biao eyed the tight-lipped fellow sidelong. "Clerk Feng, who barely speaks a word even normally, wants to play the persuader?"

Feng Qin said, "No need for talk. I only need to go in and state my identity."

He was not trying to emulate Geng Yan's hostage-taking of a county magistrate. It was simply that only a magnate could talk to magnates. The Fanyang Feng clan was a prominent name in Weicheng. By the unwritten rules of the powerful families, no one inside would dare harm him — doing so would mean a blood feud for generations.

"She County is far from Wuan. The Li clan's grip on this county is not so strong. They mainly rely on the Fu Mountain bandits to cut the Fukou road and sever She County's link to the commandery seat, forcing She County to submit."

"As long as I make clear the Grand Governor's love for the people and that the interests of She County's magnates will not be touched, this town can be taken without a fight."

But things went far less smoothly than Feng Qin had claimed. After he hauled himself up the rope thrown down to him and climbed the wall, there was no sign of activity for a long time. The Seventh Biao grew so impatient he again demanded to attack.

Wan Xiu, however, was in no hurry. As night was about to fall, he had men slip back west under cover of darkness, then light torches and march east to the walls of She County, merging into the encampment at one corner of the siege.

This was repeated several times. Throughout the first half of the night, the magnates of She County saw wave after wave of "imperial troops" arriving from the Fukou defile with torches blazing. The cooking fires in the camp grew more and more numerous, the noise louder and louder. A rough count put them at no fewer than three thousand men!

Watching the other side constantly reinforce, the pressure on the tiny county seat redoubled. How could they possibly hold out?

At the same time, people fleeing from Wushi County arrived saying that Wushi had already been seized by Grand Governor Diwu's troops.

With enemies at both front and rear, Feng Qin was at last able to reach an agreement with the officials and magnates inside the town. By daybreak, the powerful Sha clan had directly tied up the County Magistrate and delivered him outside the walls, claiming that this man alone had taken bribes and women from the Wuan Li clan and was the one who had stubbornly resisted!

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Sure enough, the scapegoat was still the rotating official.

Wan Xiu did not expose their charade. He merely had Feng Qin serve as acting magistrate and assigned him two hundred men to garrison the county office. At the same time, he stated that he was an outsider unfamiliar with the road ahead and "requested" that the Sha clan and other magnates send their legitimate sons to the army to guide the way.

Feng Qin rather admired this colonel's style. Though Wan Xiu came from a knight-errant background, he placed great emphasis on the chivalric spirit. He was the sort who liked to "win people over by virtue" — just as he had abandoned the assassination of Diwu Lun years ago. Force was always the last option he took.

With a few hostages secured and the troops rested and fed, Wan Xiu immediately led his men on, continuing east along the Fukou road.

The road was now much easier than the first half. The column quickened its pace. The next day they reached the Ming River, which surged out of the Taihang Mountains. Here the Fukou defile branched off a spur heading north, toward the Li clan's old lair at Wuan.

At this moment, scouts reported that an army had appeared on the opposite bank.

Scouts from both sides warily approached across the river. Though the Qin dialect and Wei speech were as mutually incomprehensible as a chicken talking to a duck, at a single glance they spotted the yellow scarves on each other's heads — their own men, no mistake!

A short while later, the two armies met on either bank of the Ming. The river was clear and shallow. Wan Xiu spurred his horse across, and from the opposite side two horses came to meet him — one horse beneath, and one horse atop it as well. It was Ma Yuan!

"Wenyuan, you look well!" Wan Xiu clasped his fists, deeply stirred.

"Junyou, what took you so long! I've been waiting for days, thinking I'd have to bring men to She County to help you." Ma Yuan roared with laughter.

The two armies joined forces. Diwu Lun's "right-hand men," his two stout thighs, had finally come together again.

In mid-July, just as Wan Xiu and Ma Yuan were linking up, a hundred li to the north inside the Li clan's fortified manor at Wuan County, the former Bandit Catcher Li Neng was also receiving the shocking news that Wushi and She County had fallen one after the other within days.

"Diwu Lun has ambushed me!"

Li Neng truly had not expected it. After all, ever since summer began, Diwu Lun had been proclaiming throughout the commandery that he would send troops to guard against Chi Zhaoping attacking the imperial temple at Yuancheng again, and that he would dispatch soldiers to assist the General of Renewal and the Grand Preceptor in their campaign against the Red Eyebrows.

This had put the Li clan at ease. With the realm in turmoil, Diwu Lun could not spare the strength to deal with them. What was more, behind their own family stood the main line in Handan, the true "Zhao Commandery Li," as their backer. They were also linked by marriage to one of Hebei's two great magnates, Liu Lin, Prince of Zhao. Pull one hair and the whole body moves — surely Diwu Lun lacked the nerve to strike.

Yet they had never imagined the attack would come so swiftly and with such precision, that even from the west an army had struck She County. Could it really be that Diwu Lun had requested imperial troops from the court?

If losing the Huangze bandits last time had been like severing Li Neng's left arm, then the fall of Wushi and She County this time was like hacking off his family's two thighs. Only Wuan remained, a single arm struggling to hold on.

A counterattack was impossible. Although Wuan was a large county with a big city, relying on a thousand iron-works slaves and a thousand clan troops, plus press-ganged county soldiers, he could scrape together at most three thousand men — only enough for self-defense.

"As things stand, we can only fight to the death."

Li Neng did not hesitate. He immediately dispatched clansmen to rush to Handan, a hundred li to the east. "Report to Liu Lin, Prince of Zhao."

"Diwu Lun is about to move against the Zhao Lius. The calamity of Handan begins here at Wuan!"

……

Fifty li north of Ye lies Liangqi County, precisely where Diwu Lun led his troops to garrison. Though Liangqi Magistrate Yan Yang was morally questionable — it was said he slept with his sister-in-law — his competence was not lacking, and he was a close friend of Feng Qin. The annual report truthfully recorded this, and when Diwu Lun toured the county, Yan Yang also entered his service, giving Diwu Lun control of Yecheng's northern gateway.

Looking at the map, Liangqi County is even closer to Handan: forty li north — less than twenty kilometers by later reckoning — lies Handan, the famous city of Hebei.

Thus, between Handan and Wei Commandery, apart from two rivers and the remnants of Zhao's Southern Long Wall, there is no defensible terrain. Cavalry and chariots could be at the city walls within half a day.

But Diwu Lun had neither troops to spare nor any possibility of launching an undeclared war against a neighboring commandery. Instead, he had to worry in turn that the Handan Zhao-Liu, who were on good terms with the Li clan of Wu'an, might send their hundreds of chariots and cavalry and two to three thousand retainers south to "besiege Wei to rescue Zhao."

The Zhao-Liu were not like the Li clan of Wu'an. Their senior and junior branches, even if broken-boned, were still connected by sinew, and they held sway over the allegiance of more than twenty counties across Hebei. Once pushed to the breaking point and driven to revolt, that would truly span provinces and commanderies, and be hard to contain.

This was also why Diwu Lun had delayed taking action, waiting until the court's army of over a hundred thousand reached the Guandong region.

The world could not possibly understand the General of Renewal as Feng Yan did; most still thought the outcome between the imperial army and the Red Eyebrows was uncertain. Diwu Lun could only seize this window — before that paper tiger was exposed, while the Hebei magnates dared not act rashly — to eliminate the Li clan of Wu'an.

So when Diwu Lun received word that Wushi and She County had both fallen, that Ma Yuan and Wan Xiu had joined forces and were closing in on Wu'an, he laughed and said: "Worthy of being my right-hand men — their attack and stratagems were well executed. But now, whether we can take Wu'an in one battle comes down to diplomacy!"

The Zhao-Liu had to be stabilized, kept from making any rash moves. If more enemies were drawn in, first, they would support Wu'an, thwarting Diwu Lun's goal of unifying Wei Commandery. Second, if word reached the Liang region and made the General of Renewal and the Grand Preceptor decide to ignore the Red Eyebrows and come to Hebei first, passing through Wei territory — over a hundred thousand violent thugs and disorderly troops — that would truly be inviting the wolf into the house, a catastrophe of utter destruction.

Diwu Lun had considered sending the sharp-tongued Huang Chang, but on second thought, the magnates were arrogant. Sending that dwarf over might well be taken as an insult.

So, with apologies to Huang Chang, he chose instead the newly returned from Shangdang, handsome-featured and "well-spoken" Chief Clerk Feng Yan.

He was an aide to the General of Renewal, and Handan likely did not know of his "death." This identity would make the Zhao-Liu believe that Diwu Lun truly had the court's imperial army behind him, and they would not dare act rashly.

"Jingtong need only inform the Grand Governor of Huanting (Zhao Commandery) of this matter. The Zhao prince Liu Lin behind him and the Li clan of Zhao Commandery will naturally hear of it."

Diwu Lun saw Feng Yan off as he departed north from Liangqi County. Feng Yan, just as when he had gone to hook up with Bao Yong last time, swore a solemn oath: "Yan shall not disgrace this mission!"

But the moment the wheels began to turn, Feng Yan, that dog-headed advisor, having tasted the sweetness of it in Shangdang last time, was once again making his own plans in his heart!

"Diwu Lun, the Zhao-Liu, Bao Yong."

"Wei Commandery, Zhao Commandery, Shangdang."

Two boats were hardly enough — with his talents, he needed to straddle three boats at once to feel truly alive!

Feng Yan brimmed with inexplicable confidence: "With my strength alone, maneuvering freely among these three sides, the chance to make them join hands in the future to oppose Xin and restore Han has arrived!"

……

PS: Second chapter at 13:00.

(Third chapter at 18:00.)