Chapter 408: Hair Standing on End in Fury

The Xiongnu king ordered to plunder New Qinzhong was the Left Guli King, Wuda Tihou, whose status was second only to the Chanyu and the Left and Right Worthy Kings, ranking fourth among the Xiongnu.

When he set out from the Chanyu's court, which had moved back to the desert south, his father, the Great Chanyu, had laid bare the truth to Wuda Tihou: "The Hu call the worthy 'Tuoqi,' and make the Crown Prince the Left Worthy King. By custom, the position should go to my younger brother, the Right Guli King Zhi Yashi. After I go to meet the Qilian God, he would inherit the Chanyu's throne."

"But he is the only son of the Ninghu Yanzhi! The position of Left Worthy King must never fall into his hands!"

Wuda Tihou understood perfectly. He knew well his father's long-standing grudge against the descendants of Wang Zhaojun. That Ninghu Yanzhi had married into the Xiongnu in the time of his grandfather, Huhanye Chanyu, and bore Huhanye a son — that was Zhi Yashi, the seventh among the brothers.

Later, the Ninghu Yanzhi married Huhanye's eldest son in succession and bore two more daughters. The eldest daughter, Yimo Ju, married into the Xubu clan, a great Xiongnu house. The Xubu family strongly advocated for peace through marriage and even sent envoys to the Xin Dynasty, whereupon Wang Mang detained them and propped them up as the "Submissive Slave Gongyu" to oppose the legitimate royal court.

Though the Xubu clan is now dead, Wang Zhaojun's daughter, the Princess Yimo Ju, still remains in Chang'an. It is said that the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, specially built a mansion for her and her children, treating them with the rites due to a Han-era princess.

The children of the Ninghu Yanzhi inevitably lean close to the Central Plains, often choosing a conciliatory path, even helping China divide the Xiongnu. This runs counter to the Great Chanyu's ambition to restore the Modu domain and rebuild a great empire of all the barbarians.

Thus, the Chanyu intended to change the succession rules, breaking the custom, established fifty years ago, of Huhanye's sons succeeding one another as Chanyu, and cutting off the seventh son Zhi Yashi's hopes entirely!

"The Hu value prestige above all. If we can seize the entire Henan region this time, I will make you the Left Worthy King, and no one will dare object!"

In the ninth month, when the autumn horses were fat, Wuda Tihou, having attended the Xiongnu's traditional Dalin Assembly, led his own five thousand riders south, conscripting another five thousand from various lesser tribes to make up the full number.

At the Hu-Han Shuofang Commandery, they were joined by over ten thousand forcibly conscripted Hu-Han soldiers, making a total of over twenty thousand infantry and cavalry. By mid-ninth month, they had swept into New Qinzhong!

"The Son-in-Law Emperor attacks Xihe to the east, drawing the Wei troops to resist."

This so-called Son-in-Law Emperor was Lu Fang. With Xiongnu support, his main objective was to seize Xihe and the Dai Commandery further east.

The vast lands between the Helan Mountains and the Qilian Mountains, however, were "offered" by Lu Fang to the Xiongnu Chanyu. The attack in the fifth month of summer had been merely a probe; now, the full-scale war had begun!

"Losing my Yanzhi Mountain, my women lost their beauty. Losing my Qilian Mountain, my six beasts could not thrive."

Wuda Tihou recalled this song, always sung among the Xiongnu elders. For the Hu, a people without writing, the stories and ballads told by tribal shamans around the campfire were the only memory of past humiliations.

"I hear the Henan region is where the Wei ruler rose to power."

"It's time Diwu Lun tasted what it's like to lose her!"

……

Homeland. Indeed, in the heart of Zang Nu, Commandant of the Jianzhang Guard, New Qinzhong was half a homeland to him.

Though he had only spent a brief year and a half there with Diwu Lun, it was the first place in his life as a slave where Zang Nu was treated as a human being, not a beast of burden.

He still remembered: their unit was still called the "Diwu Battalion." The night wind rose from the south, the wheat covered the ridges in gold, and the grain and wheat ripened in season. Everyone in New Qinzhong was in the fields, reaping the harvest. Zang Nu and his men, on Diwu Lun's orders, stood guard on the beacon towers, yellow cloths wrapped around their heads, watching for the bandits of Lu Fang who then occupied Qingtong Gorge.

At the end of the harvest, the village elders always came with jugs of wine and pots of broth to reward the Diwu Battalion soldiers. They had never seen soldiers so amiable — compared to the imperial armies of the Xin Dynasty.

Zang Nu had never received so much respect. That autumn, he also found love, catching the eye of a local woman. The frontier girls were bold; if they liked someone, they pursued them boldly. They pledged themselves to each other in the thick wheat fields. Zang Nu only remembered it was a sweltering afternoon, and his back was scratched with streaks of blood by the prickling wheat ears.

Later, Zang Nu crossed the Yellow River with Diwu Lun to strike the Hu. Promoted to a minor officer for his outstanding performance, he married by the Yellow River. It was Major Boyu who paid his betrothal gifts and served as the matchmaker and witness.

Years later, he had moved into the noble residences of the Northern Watchtower Ward. The mistress of his house was still his first wife. She would always chatter on, saying she never imagined that Zang Nu, once a lowly rank-and-file soldier, would become a high official drawing two thousand dan. The whole family was profoundly grateful to the King of Wei. Only occasionally, amid fine clothes and rich food, would she think of the old days and sigh, "I wonder how our hometown is doing?"

When Zang Nu was entrusted with a critical mission in the summer and dispatched here by the King of Wei, the Hu troops had just retreated, and New Qinzhong was a scene of utter devastation.

The wheat field where he and his wife had pledged their love was trampled by the Hu cavalry. His father-in-law's village had been burned to white ash. Many of his relatives by marriage had died, and they did nothing but weep when they saw Zang Nu. Across the great river, where so many soldiers had once held their collective wedding ceremony, was now filled with the stench of barbarians. The lucky among the people of several counties had fled and returned; the unlucky had been carried off to the steppe to become slaves of the Xiongnu.

And Xuan Biao, his former comrade from the Boar-Rush Braves, had stayed behind to cover the retreat of more civilians and had died at Shanghe City. His body had yet to be recovered.

Every time he thought of this, his hair stood on end in fury!

Zang Nu was not good with words. Diwu Lun often called him a closed-mouthed gourd. Though his name contained the word "Nu" — fury — he was not outwardly expressive like his colleague Zheng Tong. Grieved as he was, he silently led the refugees to repair the walls of Fuping County and reinforce the fortified manors around the county seat. By the eighth month of autumn, just as he had done years ago, he took off his shirt and led the way, bending to cut grain in the fields, able to harvest several mu in a single afternoon.

The refugees from several counties on the opposite bank were all conscripted into the militia. The King of Wei had relocated the old, weak, women, and children to Weibei to find food. Now, only men remained in New Qinzhong. Someone joked that after four months, even a mare was starting to look handsome.

"Wouldn't a ewe be even more handsome?" The men could only rely on bawdy jokes to get through the long nights.

Every month, post carts and supply wagons arrived from Guanzhong, bringing not only armor and weapons but also letters from family members.

Over the years, Diwu Lun had praised Zang Nu for his "progress." An advanced student in the officers' literacy night school, he had gone from illiterate to literate, and could even read letters aloud to his wife's relatives.

Letter after letter from home told them their loved ones were safe, that life in Weibei was peaceful, that they need not fear Hu raids, and that on festivals they even had steamed buns to eat.

Some also voiced grievances: "Our ancestors also migrated from Guanzhong. Wouldn't it be better to ask the King of Wei to move us all back, rather than live here in constant fear?"

This attitude was immediately rebuked by Meng Ze, the Commandant of Beidi: "Your fathers' and grandfathers' graves are here, and you would abandon them without a care? Leave them for the Hu barbarians to desecrate?"

Meng Ze then solemnly told the crowd: "If we abandon New Qinzhong, the Hu barbarians will chase us all the way to Weibei and slaughter us there. Are you willing to flee for a time, only to let your families face the threat of the Hu cavalry again?"

"There are no shortage of people in the court who strongly advocate abandoning this land, but the King of Wei remembers the good of New Qinzhong and refuses to forsake it. He has sent many Palace Gentlemen and soldiers here. How can there be a principle where guest soldiers are willing to hold fast, yet the hosts want to abandon their own hearths and ancestral graves?"

These words calmed the refugees somewhat. But the autumn grain had only just been stored when beacon smoke rose from Hunhuai Fort in the north, transmitted along the Great Wall, and finally into view of Fuping County. Zang Nu could not help but clench his fists!

"They came, as expected!"

……

That the Xiongnu would inevitably return after autumn was the consensus of all civil and military officials in the court.

To prove this point and make early preparations, the King of Wei had organized the court scholars to consult Han-era records, searching for the timing of Xiongnu southern incursions.

Speaking of this, one must mention the court's Secretarial Gentleman, Ban Biao. Though this man secretly yearned in his heart for Heaven to restore the Great Han, when it came to the debate between Hua and Yi, Ban Shupi's backside would not sit in the wrong place. He knew the historical texts like the back of his hand, and in a single day, he had selected every instance of Xiongnu border incursions from the records of the former dynasty.

For example, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, in the sixth year of Yuanguang: "In autumn, the Xiongnu repeatedly raided the border, Yuyang suffering the worst." The following year, the first year of Yuanshuo, in autumn, twenty thousand Xiongnu cavalry rode south to attack Liaoyang, Yanmen, and other commanderies, killing the Governor of Liaoxi and carrying off two thousand people. At Yanmen Commandery, they also defeated the Han army, killing over a thousand Han soldiers. In the autumn of the third year of Yuanshuo, "the Xiongnu again entered Yanmen, killing and plundering over a thousand people."

From the reigns of Wen and Jing to Emperor Wu, almost every autumn the Xiongnu would come south to harvest like cutting leeks, especially concentrated in mid-to-late September — extremely punctual!

The Xiongnu's nomadic economy was actually more fragile than agriculture. A single snowstorm or drought could devastate their herds, leaving them unable to recover for years. Raiding agrarian regions thus became an integral part of securing their livelihood, with the primary goal being to seize grain and people. Every autumn, when the grain within the Great Wall was harvested and the Xiongnu horses were fat and bows strong, they would use the Dalin Assembly to gather the various tribes and mass for a southern incursion.

Unlike the probing attack of summer, this invasion was no longer primarily composed of mixed Hu-Han troops. These were genuine Xiongnu riders! Personally commanded by the Left Guli King, they quickly bypassed Hunhuai Fort and surged onto the plains of New Qinzhong!

This time, however, because they had anticipated the Xiongnu's attack timing — constrained by their customs and economy and difficult to change — New Qinzhong was fully prepared. Zang Nu and Meng Ze cooperated, and within a few short days, they had completed a scorched-earth policy. People and grain were all concentrated within the two canal rings — the Qin Canal and the Han Canal — built around the Fuping county seat.

These two canals, like two moats, encircled Fuping County. They had played a crucial role back when Diwu Lun dealt a heavy blow to friendly forces, and now they became the key to this battle.

"Within the Han Canal, there are ten fortified manors, large and small, each garrisoned by one to three thousand men, stocked with three months' worth of grain, mutually supporting one another. All are under the command of Meng Ze, Commandant of Beidi, linked by beacon signals."

Some of these manors were contributed by prominent local families, whose ancestors had lived here since migrating. Now, with their homeland facing life and death, among the wealthy there were cowards who had fled in a stream to Chang'an to take refuge, but there were also heroes and stalwarts who chose to stay and hold fast, opening up their manors for the village folk and their dependents to pour into.

"Within the Qin Canal, there is only Fuping County itself, garrisoned by twenty thousand men."

Besides the residents of Fuping, these twenty thousand were mostly refugees from across the Yellow River. Over the past four months, these part-time farmers, part-time soldiers had all been issued spears and halberds, and many had even been given armor.

Though their training was short and they seemed a bit raw, and though many were participating in battle for the first time, they were border folk after all, with some martial skills. Seeing the large numbers within the city and having officers from Guanzhong to command them, their courage was gradually roused.

"Do not forget, their ancestors were originally sent to New Qinzhong as military colonists."

Zang Nu recalled the words the King of Wei had spoken months ago when setting the strategy. To completely militarize New Qinzhong was to adopt the old strategy of Chao Cuo of the Han dynasty in his "Memorial on Guarding the Frontier and Encouraging Agriculture." The state had garrison troops farm the land to ensure military self-sufficiency. The army would fight when there was an alarm and farm when there was peace, saving on transport corvée while consolidating the frontier territory.

Over several generations, these immigrants had become natives, familiar with the frontier's geography. Then, establishing walled cities and fortified manors at key transportation points "to serve as a central tiger-fall," they enabled the frontier people to watch over and aid one another, and fight side by side, like fathers and sons.

This policy was carried out for a hundred years, until the time of Emperor Xuan of Han, when the Xiongnu problem was thoroughly resolved. Border defenses then gradually slackened; for generations, no warning smoke or beacon fires were seen. The people flourished, and cattle and horses spread across the wilds. After three generations of peace, the people of New Qin had actually forgotten how to fight — a great blessing for their forebears, and a misfortune for those living now.

The Hu-Han troops, just like last time, surrounded one corner of the city with over ten thousand men, while the Xiongnu chieftain watched the battle from the outer perimeter, occasionally ordering a volley. Inside the city, everyone sprang into action — some stood guard on the battlements with crossbows, others busied themselves transporting stones, bricks, and tiles to resist the enemy.

Seeing this scene, Zang Nu could only recall the matter they had racked their brains over back then and never managed to understand.

At that time, when the Boar-Rush Braves entered New Qin, Diwu Lun, after dealing a blow to friendly forces, became the undisputed petty warlord of the region. Yet he demanded that Zang Nu and the others "merge soldiers and civilians into one," and before every meal they had to shout: "Our food and clothing are all taken from the people, therefore we must be soldiers who protect the people, and must not harm the common folk."

Many soldiers at the time did not understand, and Zang Nu was just as baffled. He simply stuck to military orders — anyway, every day before meals, when Diwu Lun spoke these words above, Zang Nu, whether he understood or not, would lead the grunts in clapping like their lives depended on it — they couldn't eat until they'd finished clapping!

Only today did Zang Nu begin to grasp the meaning of Diwu Lun's words.

"To hold New Qin, how can a few thousand soldiers suffice? The enemy is many and we are few; it is hard to hold out against them. This is why the lands south of the Yellow River were lost at the end of Qin."

"We must get the local common people fully involved — let all the people be soldiers, and the situation will become: we are many and the enemy is few!"

The Xiongnu riders flaunting their might outside, and the Hu-Han troops acting as jackals to the tiger, had no idea at all. This time, inside the city and the fortified manors, there were no longer panic-stricken lambs awaiting slaughter. They had once again donned their ancestors' armor and gripped tight their fathers' banners, transforming into a host of warriors fighting to defend their homes and country!

The usually reserved Zang Nu gazed out from the battlements as the twenty thousand Hu and Xiongnu troops all entered the peculiar terrain between the Qin Canal and the Han Canal. A fighting spirit blazed forth in his eyes.

"This time, it's not Fuping County that's surrounded."

This southward incursion had yielded next to nothing. For over a hundred li south from Hunhuai Fortress, not a single person could be seen in the open countryside.

The Han Canal and Qin Canal were only irrigation channels, their depth not even reaching a horse's legs — one could easily wade across. Yet every hamlet and village gate stood empty. The locals, taking their grain with them, had all shrunk back into Fuping County town and the fortified manors.

This greatly vexed Wudadihou. When his subordinates reported back that their plundering had yielded nothing, he flew into a rage out of shame.

"Burn it!"

Before the very eyes of the people of New Qin, burning the homeland where their ancestors had dwelt to ashes — perhaps it might lure out a few who still had hot blood in their veins, to come out and throw their lives away.

But the locals on the walls of the county town and the fortified manors only stood in silence, leaning on their spears, watching helplessly as serpents of fire ran rampant through the villages. Their fury was like a dam holding back floodwaters, waiting for the moment it would burst.

With one ploy having failed, Wudadihou set over ten thousand Hu-Han soldiers to besieging the smallest fortified manor, planning to destroy them one by one.

"Make one fort send out a distress call, and lure the other forts to come to its aid."

Wudadihou reckoned that the soldiers in New Qin numbered no more than ten thousand, and were dispersed in separate garrisons. Holed up in their towns, there was nothing to be done about them — but the moment they came out into open country, facing mounted archery, it would be a one-sided slaughter!

The siege had gone on for only one afternoon when this stratagem took effect. After nightfall, as the besieged fortified manor, one against ten, began burning signal fires whose meaning was unclear, the scouts who had been keeping every movement of the forts under clear observation reported back: someone had come out from the county town to bring relief!

But before Wudadihou could rejoice for long, scouts from every other position also returned one after another to report:

"Within the canal zone, from all nine fortified manors — the larger ones with two thousand, the smaller with over a thousand — they have all sallied forth!"

The roar of battle rose from the county town and from every fortified manor. Forty thousand soldiers and civilians, guided by the beacon fires on the manor watchtowers, either surged toward the bridges over the two canals to cut off the roads, or charged to attack the Xiongnu and Hu-Han forces. These waves of sound at last merged into a single cry:

"You — are surrounded!"