Chapter 316: Pillar of Heaven

"Colonel Deng Ye of the Han-Supporting Army, by order of the Pillar-of-Heaven Grand General, cross the river at once!"

Palace Attendant and Assistant General Liu Zhong, left in command of the southern bank, barked orders repeatedly, but Deng Ye, the bandit chief from Xi County, was in no hurry to obey. He watched the battle raging on the opposite shore with a sidelong glance.

The shallows on the northern bank of the Wei River were a stretch of mud, thick with reeds—though not as dense as those at the river mouth. The Wei army's fire arrows had only burned a small patch. Further up, the ground rose in a low, slippery slope of soft mud: that was the main battlefield between the Greenwood men and the Wei army.

The Wei flanking force had gone and returned, coordinating with Diwu Lun's main formation to trap the last of the Chongling troops against the riverbank. Behind them, the great river surged and spray flew. With no other choice, Liu Bosheng could only array his forces with their backs to the water, staking everything on a desperate fight for survival.

But how easy was that? The Wei army fought shrewdly. Geng Yan came from the west, sending picked men to strike the left and right wings of the Chongling troops. Crimson and yellow banners snapped in the wind; war drums rolled and thundered in a weave of sound as the two armies clashed.

Meanwhile, Diwu Lun held firm with his elite troops, his line seamless and tight, giving Liu Bosheng's beheading strike no opening. At the same time, crossbows and bows in the rear fired in volleys, using superior ranged firepower to steadily bleed the Chongling force. The Chongling troops were now like a wild boar fallen into a trap, lunging left and charging right, yet never able to break free of the mire.

The Greenwood men left on the southern bank did not simply stand by and watch. They scrambled to remedy the situation, launching wave after wave of relief attacks using the small boats and skiffs they had pulled back. But each crossing could ferry only a thousand-odd men at a time, and Diwu Lun seemed to possess an inexhaustible reserve force, stopping them squarely every time.

Liu Bosheng's motley army was numerous, but most had been picked up along the way: soldiers wearing only leather armor, hordes of undisciplined bandits and young toughs, peasants clutching sickles and rusted swords and blades handed down from their grandfathers, and even demoralized Xin Dynasty turncoats...

The Wei army's crossbow bolts fell on them like hailstones—hundreds, thousands, in an instant beyond counting. Countless men were struck down, their war cries turning to wails.

If Liu Bosheng's own core troops could still hold their ground, fighting four to one with stubborn resistance, then the Greenwood rabble who crossed over in succession were sheep walking into a tiger's jaws. Outmatched in armor, morale, and discipline, they were slaughtered one-sidedly—it was just like the gourd brothers trying to save grandpa, each one picked off in turn.

Watching that chieftain—who, out of regard for Liu Bosheng's kindness, had resolutely gone to his aid, only to swim back in utter disarray, an arrow stuck in his backside and his followers all lost—Deng Ye understood: if the two or three thousand men under his command crossed over, they would meet the same fate!

So he readily assented: "I'll get my troops organized to cross the river at once!"

When he returned to the formation by the riverbank, his deputy colonel Yu Kuang asked anxiously, "Brother Deng, are we really going?"

Deng Ye rolled his eyes. "Three waves of men have crossed to reinforce them already, and nearly all of them just served as live targets for the Wei army."

"Even General Liu Ji, the Champion Marquis, has been driven back from the east. If the elite Chongling troops are this helpless, what chance do we have? I am the Han-Supporting Colonel—'supporting' means auxiliary. Do they expect me to be the main force?"

"Then..." Yu Kuang seemed to grasp Deng Ye's meaning. With a grim look, he raised his hand and made a throat-slitting gesture!

"The King of Wei also has old ties with us. Now that we see Wei is about to defeat Han, why not turn our blades around and strike?"

Yu Kuang thought this could buy them a bright future, but Deng Ye still shook his head. He gazed toward the northern bank, where Liu Bosheng was locked in bitter combat, and said with feeling, "Though I've thrown in my lot with the Greenwood Han, Gengshi is nothing to us—a stranger. Betraying him would be no problem."

"But Liu Bosheng—I respect him as a true man of stature. He was generous in giving us grain and dividing up the palace halls. Deng Ye may be just a bandit from Xi County, but I have read a few of the sages' books. I know that even thieves have their code, and that kindness should be repaid with kindness. I cannot bear to stab Liu Bosheng in the back."

The main reason, however, was that there were still many Greenwood troops on the southern bank, and they were loyal to Liu Bosheng. If they suddenly switched sides, they might find themselves surrounded and attacked. If they used up all their soldiers, what would they have left to offer when they went over to the King of Wei?

Deng Ye had Yu Kuang help him direct the Xi County troops, shifting them westward. Amid Liu Zhong's furious, sputtering curses, they brazenly defied orders and withdrew from the front of the battlefield.

"We will help neither side!"

The battle raged on through the entire night. By dawn, when the sky paled to the color of a fish's belly, Liu Bosheng could scarcely find a single unwounded Chongling soldier by his side.

They were covered in wounds. Nearly half their number lay dead—and their morale had long since shattered. Some turned and threw themselves into the river, trying to flee. Some went mad outright. Of those who remained, nearly every man was injured. Shields were broken and battered, steel blades snapped, spear shafts splintered in two. After a full night of desperate fighting, they barely had the strength to lift their arms. The Wei army, meanwhile, simply rotated out one wave of weary troops and sent in fresh ones, grinding them down bit by bit.

The Chongling troops could only use their dead as ramparts, laboriously piling up a makeshift "wall of men," yet it could not stop the arrows raining down from above.

The Wei army seemed just one final push from victory. But then—whether because they had run out of arrows or for some other reason—the Wei army's tide-like assault paused. The yellow-turbaned Wei soldiers slowly pulled back. At their feet lay the corpses of Greenwood men who had come wave after wave: Chongling troops, and the motley forces who had crossed the river to reinforce them.

The fighting had been so fierce that even Liu Bosheng had personally taken up his sword and cut down several Wei soldiers who charged up to him. Many of the iron scales on his lamellar armor had been knocked off in the battle; the once-gleaming armor now looked like a sick fish shedding its scales, and it was smeared with thick blood—a ghastly sight.

A broken arrow shaft was deeply embedded in his lower back, where the iron scales had been scraped away, leaving the spot unprotected. Pulling it out was out of the question; he could only bind it tight with his belt to staunch the bleeding. The slightest movement sent pain shooting straight to his skull, and he had to fight with all his will to keep from passing out.

"Grand General!"

A voice called out. He turned. It was Liu Ji, who should have been several li to the east. He was in a wretched state too, covered in wounds from forehead to legs.

Liu Bosheng started, then understood. "Aji, you..."

Liu Ji hung his head in shame. "Grand General, I was defeated."

"The east was a trap. Our two thousand-odd men landed to draw Diwu Lun's main force and win you an opening. But we ran straight into an ambush of crossbowmen and a band of death warriors, and then those several thousand who had hurried east earlier also came back. My force was outnumbered..."

Liu Ji had been driven into the river by Zheng Tong. Several hundred of the Chongling troops who had crossed with him died in battle; those who drowned were beyond counting. Together with those captured, only a pitiful few hundred made it back across the river alive.

But Liu Ji refused to accept it. He actually rallied those few hundred men and crossed the Wei River again, becoming Liu Bosheng's final reinforcement.

Thus, both prongs of the forced river crossing had been thwarted. This battle was, in essence, a failure snatched from the brink of success. And the fact that Diwu Lun had dared to let his flanking force return also proved that the two columns under Deng Chen and Lai Xi had failed to achieve their intended effect.

"Grand General, it is Diwu Lun's cunning, not a fault in the fighting!" Liu Ji said bitterly. He had never fought such a frustrating battle.

This time, Liu Bosheng did not deceive himself. He shook his head. "No—it is precisely a fault in the fighting!"

War is a unified whole. Only after entering Chang'an and suffering a great loss did Liu Bosheng, who had always fought localized campaigns before, slowly come to realize this. His defeat had been sealed the moment he ignored his younger brother Liu Xiu's letter of counsel and stubbornly insisted on entering the Pass. There was nothing here—he had not even gained the hollow name of "paying homage at the High Temple"—yet he had walked straight into a strategic death trap.

Did anyone think that, in the deep stillness of night, he had never been wracked with regret?

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But what use was regret? The relationship between Liu Bosheng and Liu Xuan was such that, from the moment he entered the Pass, he could only advance, never retreat!

One step back, and it was an abyss of ten thousand fathoms. One step back, and all his previous efforts would be wasted. He could only keep calling Diwu Lun across the way a "clay chicken and pottery dog" with contemptuous words, putting on a show of optimism. If the commander himself showed fear in ordinary times, how could the common soldiers have any heart for battle?

But after fighting to this day, he truly could advance no further. Liu Bosheng believed he had exhausted every stratagem, used every last ounce of his strength. Had the opposing army been a Xin Dynasty force, both Lai's and Deng's columns could have pushed forward smoothly, and his own forced crossing and assault could have succeeded. But as it happened, he had slammed straight into a hard rock.

With his last gamble lost, that ten percent chance of victory Cen Peng had spoken of was slipping away, bit by bit.

Now, at this pass, he could only sigh: "If my younger brother Wenshu were here, how could it have come to this?"

"Grand General, retreat!" The reason Liu Ji had crossed the water again was to escort Liu Bosheng back.

"Go where?"

Liu Bosheng had considered a line of retreat before, but each time, he himself had rejected it!

"To Hanzhong!" Liu Ji said. "The King of Hanzhong, Liu Jia, is your clansman, Grand General. From there, we can later move south to plot for Ba and Shu, and reenact the old story of Han Gaozu."

At the mention of Han Gaozu, Liu Bosheng's eyes lit up, but in the end, he still shook his head.

Gongsun Shu, who styled himself "Governor of Yizhou," had already taken the three commanderies of Ba, Shu, and Guanghan, blocking the Jinniu Road. Liu Jia had been unable to subdue him. Entering Hanzhong would only mean facing a situation even more confined than Guanzhong. And besides...

"No matter where I retreat, I will be denounced by Liu Xuan and the Greenwood chieftains." Liu Bosheng gritted his teeth. The things he had been forced to do south of the Wei—drinking poison to quench thirst—each one was an act of "presumptuous usurpation." If he had won, it would not have mattered; he would simply have broken with them. But now that he had lost, he would have to bear the consequences.

"Then go straight through Wu Pass, back to Nanyang, and strike down that whelp Liu Xuan!" Liu Ji's ferocity was roused. He had never taken Liu Xuan seriously. The first to raise troops was Liu Bosheng; the ones who achieved great deeds were the Liu Bosheng brothers. Liu Xuan, that mediocrity, had stumbled into the imperial throne—by what right? They could not beat Diwu Lun, but if they turned around and struck with all their might, could they not defeat Liu Xuan?

"Go in the vanguard, and serve as Diwu Lun's advance force?"

Liu Bosheng still shook his head. A major reason he had resolved to fight north of the Wei was that Wang Chang had sent a letter by a roundabout route through Hongnong, recounting his meeting with Diwu Lun in Henei. This man actually wanted to drive a wedge between the Greenwood Han factions, and he was not content to be a non-royal-surname king under the Northern Han or Western Han. It seemed his ambitions would not stop there.

As Liu Bosheng had said, Liu Ying and Liu Xuan were merely house thieves; Diwu Lun was a national enemy!

And just at that moment, several ships reached the water behind them—mengchong assault ships, great-wing and small-wing warships, several of each. It was quite astonishing: the north actually had war vessels like these?

It turned out that back when Emperor Wu of Han campaigned against the southwestern barbarians and the two Yue states, he had specially ordered the Kunming Pond dug in the Guanzhong region. It served not only as a naval training base but also as a shipyard for building all kinds of military vessels. They could also sail along the canal into the Wei River and the Yellow River.

After more than a hundred years, though little remained, Diwu Lun still had Ren Guang sweep every last one away. Some were dispatched to Fengling Crossing in Hedong; the rest were moored at several crossings upstream. Now they cut across the Wei River — warships rammed and capsized crude little boats, while crossbows on the great-wing ships fired in volleys, driving back the Greenwood soldiers who had fled to the riverbank and tried to swim away.

That damnable Diwu Lun — he clearly had the power to seal off the Wei River, yet he deliberately tricked them into forcing a crossing to their deaths. Now, even retreat was impossible.

From the Wei army's formation opposite them, beneath Diwu Lun's great banner, someone approached carrying a white cloth, loudly calling for Liu Bosheng.

"General Liu, at Wancheng you won, but here, you have lost!"

Liu Bosheng seemed to have thought things through as well. He rose to his feet and shouted back.

"Tell the King of Wei — does he still remember that exchange?"

Liu Bosheng laughed loudly. "The one who besieged Wancheng and trapped Yan Erudite to his death was Liu Yan. The one who attacked Weibei, stubbornly pressing on alone, was also Liu Yan. The King of Wei should hate me alone."

"Liu Yan is willing to trade his own head for the return of the Yin brother and sister, and for the departure of the several thousand soldiers under my command. From now on, they will never again set foot within the Pass. What say you?"

"Grand General!" Liu Ji and the others were horrified and hurried to stop Liu Bosheng, but Liu Bosheng had his own calculations.

In years past, the reason Xiang Yu refused to cross the Wu River was that he had led eight thousand sons of Jiangdong west across the river, yet not a single one returned. Even if the elders of Jiangdong took pity on him, how could he face them?

Liu Bosheng had squandered the sons of Chongling and Nanyang within Guanzhong. Given his temperament, he too had no face to go back! But if his death could buy the "sons of Jiangdong" a safe return home, that would be an acceptable outcome — at least he would win a good posthumous name in his homeland. Was that not what a gallant hero cared about?

Yet the reply from Diwu Lun's side was: "The King of Wei says he has always cherished heroes and is on good terms with Wenshu. Why speak so readily of death? He wants Bosheng alive, not dead!"

Liu Bosheng fell silent for a moment, then erupted in great fury. He had his men shout back: "A warrior may be killed, but not humiliated!"

Liu Bosheng would not surrender. He could not surrender.

"Diwu Lun is fond of sowing discord. He wants to use me as a tool against Liu Xuan."

"Apart from never having served as a minister of the Han, how does his ambition differ from that traitor Wang Mang?"

"Our aspiration is to restore the Han, not to help Diwu Lun destroy it!"

Since that was the case, only one path remained.

Liu Bosheng removed the headscarf his mother had sewn with her own hands and tied it onto a Chongling soldier — one who was a strong swimmer and could risk death to slip through the blockade of warships and battle vessels on the Wei River and cross to the southern bank.

"Tell Liu Zhong, Liu Jia, and even my younger brother Wenshu."

"The Han sacred tripod — rather give it to a family thief than to a foreign-named enemy of the state."

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"Liu Xuan, however mediocre, is still of the Chongling Liu clan. The one he resents and fears is me alone."

"Once I am dead, if Liu Xuan is wise, he will understand that Diwu Lun is the true great enemy to come! He can forgive you all, and even put you to important use!"

If so, the few remaining Chongling soldiers who had barely escaped to the southern bank, the Deng and Yin clans who had relied much on them since the uprising yet to whom they could ultimately give no reward, and even men like Lai Xi whose fates were unknown — they might still have a chance to return to their homeland, to that great banyan tree beneath the blue sky and white waters, rather than die as strangers in a foreign land.

Most importantly, they could still fight beneath the Han banner — whether that banner's master was Liu Xuan, whom he had once despised, or another person Liu Bosheng secretly hoped for in his heart…

With Liu Bosheng's death alone, the unity of the Greenwood Han could be bought. Ha! It was worth it!

Several trusted men, tears in their eyes, assented and memorized these words. Then they leapt into the Wei River as if throwing themselves into its depths. They swam and waded underwater through the corpse-choked river. Some were spotted by Wei soldiers on the boats and shot dead by volleys of crossbows. Others, by luck, reached the opposite bank, crawled ashore with difficulty, and relayed Liu Bosheng's words to the remnants south of the Wei. For a time, the southern bank was filled with the sound of weeping.

The bitter wailing reached his ears. Liu Bosheng raised his head, the hint of tears at the corners of his eyes. How unwilling he was. That dream of restoring the Han — he had wanted to achieve it himself. Now, it could only be entrusted to the hands of others.

Sobs also rose from the rampart of corpses by the Wei River. Liu Ji and the others knew there was no retreat, and that Liu Bosheng's mind was made up. They all knelt around him.

Liu Bosheng helped his trusted men to their feet. "As for you all, I will not force you. Let those who wish to die, die. Those who should surrender, surrender. Cen Junran has received great kindness from me; when he returns to Diwu Lun's army, he will naturally plead for you."

Boom-boom-boom!

From the Wei army opposite, the war drums thundered once more. After the call to surrender had failed, Diwu Lun was about to launch the final general assault!

Yan Erudite's disciple would use an indisputably great victory to avenge his teacher's lingering regret — trapped in Wancheng and driven to suicide!

Liu Ji, willing to block the Wei soldiers for his lord for a few final moments, bore his wounds and stood at the front. Liu Bosheng removed his own armor. In the entire army, hardly a single good sword or blade could be found. At last, his hand touched his paibi.

This short blade, no more than a foot or so in length, was also called a foot-knife.

Xiang Yu took his own life by cutting his throat with a sword. But since the Han, a new fashion had emerged: stabbing oneself with a foot-knife, flaying the face, gouging the eyes, and disemboweling oneself!

The Wei soldiers' footsteps drew nearer. Liu Ji let out a final roar and, with those willing to fight to the death, clashed with them in slaughter. Liu Bosheng turned around, faced Chang'an — the city of his dreams — and also faced the direction of his homeland, Baishui Village in Nanyang. He raised the foot-knife high, aimed at his own chest!

As if in that scene from his youth, when he taught his younger brother to wield blade and weapon — only, this blade would finally stab into his own body. "A paibi is thrust like this."

"To kill!"

…

Like most regions in Guanzhong, the soil by the Wei River was originally yellow — the result of countless years of wind and water carrying and depositing it together.

But now, from the Western Wei Bridge to the Middle Wei Bridge, the yellow-earth plain had quietly changed color. The northern bank was covered in corpses; the flowing blood seeped into the yellow soil, dyeing it a strange orange-red, then was trampled into a mire of mud by countless feet.

The morning sun was like blood, and the Wei River was full of blood-drenched bodies. Great flocks of crows, scenting the air, circled back and forth in the sky above the heads of the dead — a feast prepared for them.

Besides the flocks of crows, there was also thick smoke in the sky. To win victory, Diwu Lun had used every means imaginable. Where the smoke arrows had struck, the reeds had burned to charred black, and the pontoon bridge had burned and collapsed. Glowing embers rose from the curtain of smoke, drifting toward the sky like hundreds of newborn fireflies…

When even Liu Ji, his body bristling with countless arrows, finally fell, and not a single Chongling soldier remained to play the mantis trying to stop a chariot, the Wei army slowly advanced, arriving before those soldiers who knelt in surrender.

Behind them stood Liu Bosheng, propped up by a spear braced at his back, so that even in death he did not fall.

Though they had been enemies for so long, this was the first time Diwu Lun had met this man face to face. His back looked very tall — much taller than his younger brother Liu Xiu.

Mounted on horseback, Diwu Lun rode around to the front. Liu Bosheng had indeed died by his own hand. The paibi was thrust deep into his chest — a fatal wound. His blood had long since drained, yet his eyes still stared wide, fixedly gazing south.

It did not look like the stare of one who died with unresolved grievance. That gaze, unexpectedly, held a hint of gentleness, ill-matching his reputation as a gallant hero. His features did bear some resemblance to Liu Xiu's, especially the fine beard and brows and the square, angular "sun-horn" countenance.

"Before Liu Bosheng died, did he say anything?"

Diwu Lun studied his adversary for a long time before asking the Chongling prisoners who had been escorted to the side. Though Liu Ji had died in battle, and though over a hundred men had taken their own lives alongside Liu Bosheng, there were still those who clung to life. Given the chance to live, who would choose death?

But they had already wept themselves beyond recognition. They kowtowed to the ground and, choking with sobs, spoke Liu Bosheng's final words.

"The Grand General said…"

"I am the eldest son of my house. I can only advance, never retreat."

"I am the pillar of Chongling — feet on the earth, head holding up the sky."

"Hold me up."

"I will die standing!"

…

PS: Tomorrow's update will be at 13:00.