Chapter 417: Friendly Forces

A pincer attack sounds simple in theory, but executing it is far from easy.

If our army and an allied force are a thousand li apart, with scouts and courier riders having to circle around the enemy in between just to communicate, the rendezvous time can usually only be pinned down to "the first ten days of a certain month." Because neither side is highly organized and the daily marching distance is an unknown, no one can be sure exactly which day they'll arrive. They can only set a vague time window and each do their best. As a result, it often happens that one force arrives only to find the allies' corpses already stinking, and can do nothing but bury them.

But for brother units that frequently coordinate, they might be able to agree on "battle on a certain day" and actually pull it off. One side might arrive in the morning, while the allies might drag in slowly, only reaching the battlefield by dusk.

As for pinning it down to "battle at a certain hour of a certain day," that would take heaven-sent troops of later ages, with shockingly strong execution.

The joint operation between Tongma and Chengtou Zilu was still stuck at that first stage. There were simply too many random incidents that could happen on the road: a bridge collapses, a road gives way, no boats can be found to cross a river, a skirmish with enemy scouts or detached troops, passing some fortified manor and trying to seize grain but failing to take it after a long assault, soldiers too exhausted and wanting to sleep more, refusing to march on — and you can't do a thing about them. If you crack down too hard, they mutiny and desert on the spot.

Getting both sides in sync was truly too difficult. It would be somewhat simpler if one side stayed put, so the Tongma army encamped in the outskirts of Xindu — this was not waiting to die, but dictated by logistics, making it convenient to get grain from Xindu's city granaries. At the same time, they kept Ma Yuan pinned down in a standoff, waiting for Chengtou Zilu to draw near before liaising to plan the next move.

But Ma Yuan, about to be caught in the pincer, was not going to wait for them to leisurely coordinate their joint attack.

"The way to break a two-sided pincer is to smash one prong first!"

Ma Yuan's command style seemed outwardly casual, but was actually loose on the outside and tight within — his scouts were sent out very far. He discovered that, as an old opponent of the Wei army, the Chengtou Zilu side was very slippery. Exploiting the advantages of roving bandits, they split their forces and advanced by separate routes, showing no interest in a major pitched battle. Instead, they were feeling their way toward Qinghe, deep in Ma Yuan's rear. From the look of it, they intended to cut his supply lines first.

Roving bandits are like loaches — once that kind of pacification campaign starts, it never ends. Ma Yuan made a snap decision: he left behind the ten-thousand-strong armed forces of local strongmen who had flocked to him over the past months to slowly play with Chengtou Zilu, while he himself took the main force, over ten thousand troops from Wei Commandery and Henei, and reached Xindu!

After Tongma became the "Royal Army of the Great Han," its strength had expanded, transforming from roving bandits to entrenched bandits. The Xindu garrison, plus the Tongma army and Liu Zhi's armed forces from Changcheng — the three armies combined numbered roughly forty thousand.

The Hebei plain was a sweeping, unobstructed expanse. Liu Zhi could very clearly see the Wei army's formation on the horizon. As their banners appeared, the distant sound of the Wei army's signature waist drums began to beat: Boom-boom, boom-boom-boom!

And there were the lead waist-drummers, their bright red drum cloths strikingly conspicuous, beating out the rhythm as if dancing. The soldiers behind them had already donned their armor. After a brief rest, they advanced following the drummers' steps. Every few dozen paces, they halted to dress ranks once, maintaining the order of their formation.

By all rights, after an entire night of forced marching, the Wei army should have been utterly exhausted, yet they still looked to be in good spirits.

"To march thirty li by night without tiring or falling into disorder — a strong army indeed."

Liu Zhi felt a surge of envy. He turned to look back at Tongma — just leaving camp for battle, they already looked slightly ragged. The truth was, they were more skilled at roving and maneuvering; formal deployment in battle lines was something they were not quite used to. Ma Yuan had seen through this, which was precisely why he took the initiative to attack.

Judging by the Wei army's speed, battle would be joined in half a shichen. This fight was unavoidable. The Tongma Grand Commander Sun Deng had also steadied his nerves after the initial panic and sent someone to invite Liu Zhi over to discuss how to fight this battle.

"What about sallying forth and fighting among the village hamlets?" Sun Deng saw that his own side had the numbers, and also felt that Ma Yuan taking the initiative to come knocking made him lose face. He wanted the whole army to advance and decide the fight in the large stretch of village hamlets between the two armies. The narrow village lanes would be like street fighting, which favored Tongma.

Liu Zhi saw it differently and strongly urged otherwise: "Better not to attack proactively. Deploy a grand formation, with our backs to the encampment and the city walls for defense. Let Ma Yuan push forward, making the Wei army march several more li and grow more fatigued. Once they attack several times without success, their morale will plummet. At that moment, Li Zhong inside Xindu will lead several thousand men out the north gate to circle behind and strike their flank — then this battle can be won."

Sun Deng ultimately agreed to Liu Zhi's suggestion, but he designated Liu Zhi's own Changcheng clan troops as the vanguard, to be the first to engage Ma Yuan's army.

When Liu Zhi returned to his own formation and his clansmen heard this arrangement, they were immediately quite resentful: "Tongma is deliberately trying to bleed us dry!"

Xindu, Changcheng, and Tongma — though all under the banner of Liu Ziyu, they were not under each other's command. They were just a patchwork army.

But for the sake of the Han dynasty's altars of state, for the greater good, Liu Zhi swallowed this indignity: "Our clan troops have the sharpest armor and weapons. It is understandable that the King of Julu would use us as the core force."

Amid the low grumbling of his clansmen, the two-thousand-strong Changcheng force, the most orderly in formation, shifted to the center. Their armor and weapons were produced on their own estates, and their armor-wearing rate reached an astonishing thirty percent, nearly on par with the Wei army — a stark contrast to the Tongma "elite" beside them, whose armor rate was under ten percent.

But then, the Wei army's drumbeats stopped. After the sea of yellow turbans blanketing the hills reached the large cluster of village hamlets east of the city, they stayed there. Tongma's scouts and skirmishers were driven out, and Ma Yuan made the hamlets his command post.

A quarter-hour passed. The Wei army formed up around the hamlets and did not advance another half-step. Having risen in a rush, Tongma had not eaten, and the soldiers grew hungry and irritable after standing for so long. Sun Deng's patience was also slowly ebbing away. He sent someone again to summon Liu Zhi: "Is the enemy resting?"

Liu Zhi voiced his guess: "Perhaps they are waiting for the sunlight."

The Tongma main camp had its back to the city, facing west to east. Ma Yuan had chosen to attack from the east early in the morning, exploiting the advantage of the sun. When battle was joined, the few archers Tongma did have would have to shoot into the glare.

Sun Deng was skeptical. A short while later, he saw smoke and fire rising within the Wei army's camp. He assumed it was cooking smoke, but as it rose steadily upward in the windless morning, Liu Zhi's brow furrowed deeply: "Wolf smoke hanging high for no apparent reason — could Ma Yuan be signaling and communicating with someone?"

He requested that Sun Deng send scouts farther out to the west, north, and south, to guard against Ma Yuan sending troops on a flanking detour to give them a "two-sided pincer" of their own.

Yet for several dozen li in every direction, there was only Ma Yuan's single army. Just as Liu Zhi was in the grip of doubt, his clansmen suddenly shouted.

"Smoke! Smoke is rising inside the city too!"

"What!"

Liu Zhi was horrified. He turned to look and saw three columns of smoke also climbing high within Xindu. The worst possibility immediately sprang to mind.

"Could Li Zhong have betrayed the Han?"

And Ma Yuan's scout cavalry rode even more brazenly close, to within one li north of the city, shouting toward the city walls: "Ma Yuan has arrived! We hope Li Zhongdu will honor the agreement and sortie, to join us in a pincer attack on Tongma!"

"This is bad — we've been tricked!"

Li Zhong had donned his armor early and led the commandery troops up onto the city walls. Pi Tong's lengthy discourse had failed to sway him; Li Zhong still intended to fulfill his duty as "Chancellor" and see if he could help Tongma repel Ma Yuan.

But when smoke rose inside the city in response to Ma Yuan, Li Zhong realized that things were not so simple.

"Who set off that smoke!"

Greatly alarmed, he immediately ordered a thorough investigation, and got word back that it was the work of Ma Chong and other prominent city families.

"The Ma clan has allied with over a dozen powerful families, leading more than a thousand men inside the city, wearing yellow turbans and staging a revolt!"

The Ma family was the strongest local power in Xindu after the Pi clan, said to also be descendants of Lord Mafu — only they were descended from Zhao Kuo. After Tongma ran rampant through Hebei, they had moved their entire clan into the city for refuge, and Li Zhong had taken them in. Several brothers of the family served as clerks in the commandery office, and Li Zhong had trusted them quite a bit. Who would have thought they had been turned by Ma Yuan!

And with Ma Yuan's men shouting that loud call north of the city, in everyone's ears, Li Zhong now had mud down his crotch — he could not explain this away.

A wave of turmoil swept through the Tongma forces outside the city. Soon, several thousand troops detached from the encampment and rushed toward Xindu, presumably coming to take control of the city.

Even Li Zhong's trusted followers looked at their lord with shock and delight, thinking to themselves: "We thought Lord Li had brought us up onto the walls to strike the 'Wei rebels' — who knew it would be the 'Tongma rebels' instead! That one-word difference is truly brilliant!"

Li Zhong, shamed into fury, immediately had Pi Tong brought before him and rebuked him: "I thought you, Wei Commandery, were merely a spy posing as a persuader. I never imagined you were an agent sent to die. You spoke so insistently of Ma Yuan's honor and heroism — who would have thought he would resort to such despicable tricks. Must you truly force me to boil you alive?"

Pi Tong also did not know whether to laugh or cry. He now understood why Ma Yuan had chosen this exact moment to march, precisely when Pi Tong had entered Xindu to persuade. Before setting out, Pi Tong had even mentioned to Ma Yuan that the Xindu magnate Ma Chong was also a descendant of Lord Mafu, and perhaps they could bond over clan ties and bring him over to the Wei army's side as an internal ally.

Ma Yuan had feigned scant interest at the time. Who would have thought that he had no need for Pi Tong to make introductions — they had already been in cahoots long ago!

Pi Tong also recalled that, upon entering Xindu, the young attendant who had accompanied him had vanished without a trace after slipping into the city. He did not know that this man was none other than the Embroidered Uniform Commandant Zhang Yu, dispatched by Diwu Lun to assist Ma Yuan, and who had long since infiltrated Xindu.

Gold-cake offensives, promises of official rank and titles, fellow magnate commanders reconnecting and currying favor — kinship or not, class divides. People like Li Zhong, who remained unmoved, were, after all, a minority.

After Zhang Yu made contact with the collaborators inside the city, he waited until Ma Yuan lit the wolf smoke, then struck simultaneously, setting fires everywhere to sow chaos. The Tongma army urgently dispatched several thousand men charging through the east gate, surging toward the inner city. Some of Li Zhong's subordinates, unclear on the situation, had already begun fighting Tongma. Xindu was thrown into utter chaos...

Pi Tong thought to himself: "So this is what 'gouging out the eyes' meant. Now Tongma is a fish that has lost its eyes, floundering blindly in murky water, unable to tell whether Xindu is foe or friend!"

Matters having reached this point, even if Pi Tong truly was clueless and had been used as a mere tool by Ma Yuan, Li Zhong would not believe his protestations of innocence. He could only be forced onto the tiger's back: "All is fair in war. Victory makes the king, defeat makes the bandit. Now that it has come to this, what do you intend, Zhongdu? To surrender and be captured, to have your clan exterminated by the Tongma chieftains?"

At this moment, even if Li Zhong ordered his commandery troops to lay down their arms and offer no resistance, the order could not instantly reach every corner of the city. Chaos in Xindu was now inevitable. And after this incident, the Tongma army outside the city was also thrown into panic and confusion. No matter which side he chose, the "disorder the enemy" effect Ma Yuan wanted had already been achieved!

Li Zhong looked toward the Wei army scouts north of the city, incessantly shouting for him to render aid as a "friendly force," then looked at the Tongma soldiers coming to arrest and behead him. He could only raise his face to the sky and sigh deeply: "So fickle and inconstant — I have failed the Sixing Emperor. In times to come, the world will call me Li the Disloyal!"

He gritted his teeth and gave the order: "Go quickly to the east gate and block the rebels."

"Which rebels?" This time, his subordinates had to ask clearly.

"The Tongma rebels!"

……

With just one column of wolf smoke, Ma Yuan had thrown Xindu into chaos and sent the Copper Horses into a panic. Before the battle even began, he had already seized the advantage in morale and psychology — his subordinates all thought it divine.

General Ma stood atop the roof of a house in the village hamlet, watching the scene from afar, and said with a smile: "Li Zhong cannot be talked into surrender, only forced into it. This vicious stratagem from the King of Wei's brocade pouch is truly exquisite — as expected of the man who best understands how to make use of his allies in all the world."

Of course, the blame for using Pi Tong as the scapegoat would still be pinned on Ma Yuan. Ma Wenyuan did not care in the slightest.

By contrast, Liu Ziyu, for all his audacity and his genuine skill at deception and trickery, understood nothing of warfare. He actually cobbled together the Copper Horses, Changcheng, and Xindu — three factions that did not trust one another — to fight as one. Diwu Lun needed only a touch of estrangement to sow suspicion among all three armies.

"Beat the drums again — advance on the city!"

The Xindu diversion was a mere trifle; he needed no coordination from allies. Years of experience had taught Ma Yuan that sometimes, the more allies you had, the greater the chance of failure — better to fight alone and rely on yourself.

"Ma Yuan's one army can deliver the effectiveness of two!"

……

PS: Second chapter at 23:00.