Chapter 207: Red, White, Yellow

A snowfall two days ago had blanketed both banks of the great river in white. The frozen Yellow River rose with it, flooding vast stretches of the bottomlands, which swiftly froze into a world of white.

Sky, earth, and river merged into a single monotonous hue, their boundaries blurring beyond recognition.

Only when countless bobbing heads appeared did the world gain a touch of color — ten thousand black-haired heads, each forehead bearing a smear of blood-red eyebrow, arriving in an endless stream at the river's edge.

In Diwu Lun's hopes, he very much wished for a warm winter this year; after all, many locals had assured him with conviction that over the past decade, the great river had frozen solid only twice.

In the Red Eyebrows' hopes, however, the colder the better — let the great river freeze over for a thousand li, sealed tight and solid, so they could cross at ease from countless points.

But this damned heaven seemed to be playing a joke on both sides, landing precisely on the midpoint between their hopes.

The weather was neither as warm as Diwu Lun had hoped, nor as cold as the Red Eyebrows yearned for. The great river froze only in broken stretches; some sections showed not even a trace of drifting ice. Within several hundred li, there were perhaps only seven or eight places where the ice was thick enough to bear men and horses.

Cangting, across from Dongwuyang County, was one such place. Cheng Touzilu led his men to the riverbank with great fanfare, afraid the opposite shore might miss them.

"We ten thousand men are a decoy force deployed by Commander Chi."

After a year of fighting the General of Renewal and the Grand Preceptor, the Red Eyebrows' military competence had improved considerably. No longer flailing wildly like street brawlers, they now employed a few stratagems. Chi Zhaoping wanted Cheng Touzilu to draw the main Wei force here, so she could cross at ease elsewhere.

Cheng Touzilu pointed at the opposite bank and said, "We can't just probe without advancing. Tomorrow we must cross the river and fight a round, to hook the Wei troops."

Since it wasn't a real battle anyway, everyone felt quite relaxed. They agreed to muster after sunrise and went back to sleep — Cheng Touzilu took a few thousand men and stayed at Cangting, occupying the Precinct Chief's house, while the remaining soldiers crammed into the dwellings of seven or eight nearby hamlets, only gathering together during the day.

There was no helping it — outside was far too cold. The thin tents captured from the Gengshi army could not withstand the biting wind at all. Given a house to stay in, who would risk freezing off ears and fingers outside?

As it turned out, the next day, just as the sky barely began to lighten, the bell at Cangting meant to warn of thieves was rung thunderously by the thieves themselves — the enemy was attacking!

How was that possible? Where would an enemy come from?

Cheng Touzilu jolted awake with a start. He had slept in his clothes. Grabbing his sword and rushing out the door, he saw his men in utter chaos. The attackers came from atop the frozen river — it was the Wei troops who had been facing them across the bank. Before Cheng Touzilu could cross the river, they had struck first and come knocking!

These Wei soldiers all wore fluffy dog-fur hats on their heads and warm felt boots on their feet. Numbering no more than two thousand, their formation was tight and orderly, clustered beneath a banner bearing the character "Ma." They were utterly unlike the Red Eyebrows, who, though far more numerous, each fought for himself.

The fatal flaw of Cheng Touzilu's ten thousand men being scattered in separate camps was laid bare. Before the Red Eyebrows from the various hamlets could come to his aid, he could only hastily direct his men to resist using the advantage of the high bank. He figured that with twice the enemy's numbers, he could at least hold out for half a shichen.

In the end, not even a quarter of an hour passed before the unformed Red Eyebrows were driven from the frozen mudflats up onto the bank. The Wei troops not only had superior armor and weapons, but their morale was utterly different from that of the Gengshi army at the Battle of Chengchang. Seeing that reinforcements from the various routes were long overdue, Cheng Touzilu could not hold and was forced to abandon several hundred corpses and retreat in disarray.

By the time the sun rose high and he had gathered the reinforcements from the hamlets and returned to Cangting, he found the place already burned clean by a fire. Now the Red Eyebrow Army had no place even to spend the night.

A headcount revealed over a thousand men lost. Meanwhile, the enemy soldiers were still on the ice in the middle of the river, brazenly taunting them. The Red Eyebrows' morale, in contrast, had plummeted. The river-crossing plan had to be abandoned, and they were forced to withdraw a dozen li, terrified of another attack from the opposite bank.

Cheng Touzilu, no matter how he racked his brain, could not fathom it: "Aren't they on the defensive with few troops? How dare they take the initiative to attack!"

Ma Yuan, who had led the refugee soldiers in the surprise river crossing, had an entirely different train of thought.

"Whether they are a decoy force or not — rather than debate and guess in camp, cross the river and hit them, and you'll know the truth!"

The conclusion was that the bandits at Cangting were very few in number. After capturing prisoners and interrogating them, they learned it was a unit under someone called "Cheng Touzilu" — definitely not Chi Zhaoping's main force.

Ma Yuan stood in the middle of the frozen great river and looked north. White ice piled densely in the river channel, stretching all the way east — a scene both magnificent and desolate.

Yet he had no heart to admire the view, nor did he rejoice at this minor victory. Instead, he furrowed his brow.

"We bet wrong on where the bandits' main force would cross. It seems that over on Boyu's side, there is danger!"

……

A hundred li north of Cangting, across from Liaocheng.

The tens of thousands Chi Zhaoping had gathered were a motley mix: Yanzhou outlaws who had joined for a mouthful of food in Hebei, and Qingzhou disaster victims who had believed Chi Zhaoping's claim that "if we break Yuancheng and burn the imperial temple, the great river will return to its original course."

Now, mingled together for a single goal, they had all been uniformly packaged with one outer layer: Red Eyebrows.

Back when Fan Chong had his followers smear red clay on their brows to distinguish themselves in battle against the government troops, it had been a practical measure. But now, daubing the eyebrows had become a highly ritualistic affair among the various Red Eyebrow bands.

On the eve of crossing the river, Chi Zhaoping led the various commanders in making offerings to the gods worshipped by the people of Qing and Yan — the River Earl, the Illustrious King of Chengyang, Chiyou, and other deities. Then she had over a hundred wretched-looking people escorted forward. These were the corrupt officials, ruthless powerful families, and their dependents and children whom the Red Eyebrows had captured in various counties. The reason they had been kept alive rather than killed was for another great purpose.

"You who grew rich by cruelty deserve to die!"

Amid the inflamed crowd, Chi Zhaoping summarily pronounced the death sentence on these people, then had them shoved into a house, forced to the ground, and killed like chickens.

Their throats were slit, and the hundred-odd bodies were hung upside down from the roof beams to drain their blood, like some ghastly blood sacrifice. The blood dripped drop by drop into buckets, still steaming hot in the dead of winter. Then the crowd, following their commanders, filed inside one after another. Chi Zhaoping and the masked shamans she had organized dipped their index and middle fingers into the blood and smeared it on their eyebrows.

Fresh blood was daubed on foreheads, connecting the two brows into a single line. The masked shamans chanted incantations, proclaiming that under the protection of the Illustrious King of Chengyang and Chiyou, the Red Eyebrows would not die from arrows, nor perish from blades. When crossing the river, every man must fight bravely and charge at the fore.

"What if it accidentally rubs off?"

"Cut open your hand with a blade and replenish it with your own blood. If you do so, the power will still hold."

Many believed it as truth. Only a few clever ones muttered, "They said the same thing last time we attacked Dong'e, but those fated to die still died."

It was the end of the twelfth month, and the weather outside was bitterly cold. Walking through the countryside, the blood lines on their foreheads quickly froze, red ice crystals condensing on their brows. The Red Eyebrow Army was wrapped in nearly every garment they had looted along the way, with the elite troops layering cold, stiff armor on top. Some had lost fingers to frostbite in the harsh winter, yet they still clutched their spear shafts tightly and kept close to the column as it moved.

According to the Red Eyebrows' rules, anyone who strayed from the group would be abandoned. Only by staying in the swarm could one get a share of food and survive after the battle.

This ten-li stretch of the Yellow River had frozen solid. The ice blocks and floes that had once surged were now utterly motionless. But the ice surface was anything but smooth — it was jagged and uneven, sharp as blades in places. Some men, lacking hard-soled shoes, had their feet cut after only a few steps. Unable to advance or retreat, they could only sit on the ground and hope a kindhearted comrade would carry them across.

The Red Eyebrow Army could hear the sound of the Yellow River's water flowing beneath the ice. Where too many men walked, the ice would groan and tremble, terrifying everyone into lying flat on the ice, not daring to move a muscle.

Advancing at this crawling pace, the Red Eyebrow Army had little formation even on solid ground, and crossing the frozen river was even worse — scattered and chaotic, less orderly than a migrating flock of sheep.

Troops like these feared nothing more than being struck mid-crossing. That was why Chi Zhaoping had to pick the weather for battle. Snow had fallen two days ago, and today a thin fog had risen. The world around was a sheet of white; they could not even see the opposite bank. By the same token, the enemy's beacon towers were nearly useless.

Though Diwu Lun could not predict the future, he was fond of dispatching scouts and spies. Coupled with Ma Yuan's urgent warning the previous night, he too knew that the Red Eyebrows' main force was massing at Chiping. But from discovering the enemy's movements to pulling troops over from other possible crossing points would take time.

Whether the Red Eyebrow horde could be delayed depended entirely on the local militia ordered to guard the river defenses at Liaocheng.

The Liaocheng County Commandant, Lu Zhongping, had seen his home destroyed and his wife abducted when the Five Towers bandits invaded, which made him bitterly hate the outlaws. He actively campaigned for Diwu Lun, mustering two thousand men from Liaocheng and other places as militia. Patrolling the riverbank daily, they were the first to reach the battlefield and block the Red Eyebrows' vanguard.

The militiamen's equipment was crude, little better than the Red Eyebrows'. They wore a motley assortment of clothes and held simple wooden spears.

Though Lu Zhongkang was a Confucian scholar, he did not fear death. Standing at the front, he rallied the men: "A hundred years ago, when the great river burst its banks, Emperor Wu of Han came in person to oversee the repairs. Tens of thousands of men nearly cut down every tree in Liaocheng to weave baskets and build dikes, and at last they plugged the breach."

A hundred years had passed, and Liaocheng's vegetation had recovered. But in the past few days, many trees had been felled again, whittled into spear shafts and fitted with over two thousand sharp spearheads shipped from the Wuan ironworks, then distributed to every militiaman. They could not be allowed to truly chop wood for weapons.

Today, like their ancestors, they would rely on their homeland's timber to block the Red Eyebrow torrent surging across the ice!

The militia fought much like the Red Eyebrows — without any discipline. The men clutched their wooden spears and clustered around Lu Zhongkang on the bank, thrusting at the Red Eyebrows struggling across. The two sides pecked at each other like bumbling chicks, trading blows back and forth.

Meanwhile, several nearby powerful-family armed bands, with the beacon towers obscured by fog and unable to light signal fires, relied on locals riding donkeys and horses to spread the word. They too hurriedly mustered and rushed over, following Diwu Lun's subordinate officials. Better armed and armored, some joined the bitter fight on the bank with blades and shields, while others took up elevated positions in groups and loosed arrows at the Red Eyebrows. On the vast white river ice, blossoms of red blood bloomed one after another.

But the small dike built by the locals with wooden spears, bows, and their own bodies could not, in the end, hold back the endless Red Eyebrow torrent. The enemy numbered in the tens of thousands, crossing in several columns. Though the few thousand militiamen and powerful-family fighters had killed or wounded several hundred bandits, they were gradually overwhelmed, pushed back from the bank onto the shore. As their numbers steadily dwindled, thoughts of retreat began to stir.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

When the crisp sound of the gong signaling withdrawal rang out, the men felt as if they had been granted a great reprieve and fell back one after another. Only Lu Zhongkang was deeply unwilling. Today he had exchanged his Confucian robes for military attire, personally wielding his sword to slay bandits, and was spattered with blood and gore. Seeing the river defenses lost, he was ready to charge into the enemy ranks and die, but the militiamen desperately dragged him back.

Gazing at the river in unwilling despair, Lu Zhongkang lamented, "Thanks to Lord Diwu, we had barely enjoyed a month of peace. The common folk had just returned to their huts and repaired their doors. Next year's seeds had been distributed by the authorities. Everything could have begun anew. Must we now suffer the bandits' ravages again? What crime have the people committed? What crime has Liaocheng committed?"

Fortunately, the Red Eyebrows were too busy securing their foothold on the riverbank to pursue closely, and the powerful clans' armed forces and the militia withdrew intact. By now the sun had risen high, the thin mist was gradually dispersing, and after the gongs fell silent, the rumbling war drums sounded once more!

Thanks to the delaying action of Lu Zhongkang and the others, just as the main Red Eyebrows force crossed the frozen river and set foot on the north bank, Diwu Lun arrived with his troops!

To the east, tens of thousands of Red Eyebrows stretched in dense ranks, a slash of red across every forehead, beneath it eye sockets sunken deep from the torments of hunger, their gazes red too — intent only on sweeping across the fertile lands north of the river, devouring everything edible in their path.

In the center lay white: the previous day's snow had not yet melted, trampled into strings of footprints by the retreating militia, now an empty battlefield.

And streaming in from the west — a striking yellow!

Following the old tradition of the Fifth Battalion, in the absence of Ma Yuan's contingent, over three thousand regular soldiers, yellow cloth bound around their foreheads, advanced in orderly ranks.

Flanking the formation on both sides were several thousand of the powerful clans' armed men and militia irregulars conscripted from various places on short notice. They had followed suit — some supplied by estates, some bought in marketplaces, some woven and dyed by themselves — all with yellow cloth tied across their foreheads. Once Lu Zhongkang and the others merged in, this motley force numbered over ten thousand.

Though their banners, armor, weapons, and clothing were a jumble, and their ranks uneven, that single slash of yellow alone was strikingly uniform!

Even Diwu Lun himself had tied a strip of yellow cloth onto his iron helmet, lined with fur inside, and he personally mounted the drum wagon to beat out the rhythm of the counterattack!

Though the enemy outnumbered his own side four or five to one, and his father-in-law was still galloping on the road, Diwu Lun felt no fear now.

"This battle is the united will of all defending their homeland, defending the Yellow River."

"And it is my Yellow Turban Army, in a great battle against the Red Eyebrows!"

……

PS: Tomorrow's update at 13:00.