Chapter 418: Guerrilla Warfare

Li Zhong, the self-proclaimed "Chancellor" of Liu Ziyu, was forced into rebellion. Wolf smoke rose from all sides within Xindu city. The Tongma Army, suddenly beset by enemies both within and without, split their forces to assault Xindu's east gate, only to be beaten back by the commandery troops and the armed retainers of the powerful families.

And after their vanguard also fared poorly in battle against Ma Yuan's forces, the Tongma finally remembered the skills they had honed as roving bandits — their speed in flight, at least, left Ma Yuan sighing in amazement.

Compared to the days or even months it took to muster a host of tens of thousands, in a mere half shichen the Tongma abandoned several thousand corpses and their entire encampment, broke the whole into scattered remnants, and split into several columns retreating west and north. They had come surging in like a dark, swelling tide; they left with the swift, rushing ebb.

Embroidered Uniform Commandant Zhang Yu, who had slipped into the city to coordinate with the internal traitors, emerged to request orders: "The Tongma within the city have been purged. The great clans are all willing to send their retainers to follow the General of the Agile Cavalry in pursuit. Commandant of State Ma, shall we pursue?"

"And then when the Tongma counterattack, those fellows will abandon our army and flee first?" Ma Yuan did not trust the great clans inside the city either. He ordered the vanguard to pursue no more than a few dozen li, and be done with it. This casual attitude — had one not known he was the King of Wei's father-in-law — might have been mistaken for passive, slack warfare, a desire to fatten the bandits and magnify his own importance!

Ma Yuan, however, had his own reasons. Over the past half year, he had fought more than ten skirmishes against the Tongma and the Chengtou Zilu, and had thoroughly grasped the temperament and tricks of these roving bandits.

"In pitched battle, the Tongma lose nine fights out of ten. But if the colonels under my command grow overconfident and pursue, then nine pursuits out of ten end in defeat."

How could guest troops ever outrun locals like the Tongma? Though Hebei is a great plain, it also holds many forests and grassy marshes. The Tongma, knowing every path, would slip inside. Once the Wei army pursued too hotly and its vanguard and rear became disjointed, it was easy for the lurking Tongma to turn and take a vicious bite — impossible to guard against.

Furthermore, Ma Yuan's own forces were insufficient; he could only achieve a "repulse." To annihilate tens of thousands of enemies in one stroke? Fine — let the King of Wei send another few tens of thousands of men.

Thus, when fighting the Tongma, impatience was absolutely forbidden.

"What's more, how could I dare turn my back to a man like Li Zhong?"

Ma Yuan gazed at Xindu city, from which the Han banners had just been struck, and issued orders to his subordinates: "Secure Xindu. Seize every city gate. Disarm the officials and partisans under Li Zhong's command!"

This man's switch of allegiance had been forced by Ma Yuan's open stratagem, a capitulation born of necessity. If he regretted it in a few days, he might well defect back to Liu Ziyu's camp.

Li Zhong, to his credit, knew his place. By the time Ma Yuan rode his horse into the city, Li Zhong had already tactfully come to meet him, stripped to the waist and bound with rope. Only, the sheep in the city had all been driven out to feast the Tongma chieftains, so Li Zhong could only clutch an empty straw rope. He walked before Ma Yuan, knelt on one knee, and bowed: "Li Zhong was unwise, failing to rise early in response to the King of Wei, bringing the calamity of blades upon this humble city. This is Zhong's crime. Now I submit to whatever punishment the General decrees."

Ma Yuan dismounted, helped him up, and said: "Lord Li rose in revolt right on the battlefield. You bear no crime, only merit — why act thus? However, the bestowal of rewards upon Lord Li is for the King of Wei to decide. His Majesty has long admired your name. I hope Zhongdu will not delay, but go swiftly to Julu city to pay his respects."

Ma Yuan knew that Li Zhong's change of banners had been reluctant, and that the man was not necessarily convinced in his heart. He had to be kept far from the front lines and military power.

As for Pi Tong, Ma Yuan offered great encouragement. Although Pi Tong had been nothing but a tool for Diwu Lun and Ma Yuan the entire time, without his spadework of persuasion, Li Zhong might not have surrendered.

"The King of Wei has an edict: appoint Pi Wei Commandery as Governor concurrently of both Julu and Xindu Commanderies!"

To hold two governorships at once, as a newly joined minister, was indeed a mark of great trust. It meant that bowl of pufferfish meat Pi Tong ate had not been in vain, and this trip into the city to persuade — which nearly got him killed by Ma Yuan's scheme — had not been a wasted journey.

After seeing Li Zhong off, Pi Tong swiftly stepped into his role, requesting orders for the next phase of the campaign.

Ma Yuan said: "First, consolidate Xindu city. Wei Commandery, you must summon the powerful clans of this commandery to help me retake the counties and fortified manors one by one, and push toward the Julu area."

Pi Tong nodded: "It is only a pity that the Tongma lost only two or three thousand men in this battle, the majority scattering and fleeing. They will surely flee to Changcheng County, several dozen li to the west. The Marquis of Changcheng, Liu Zhi, is utterly devoted to Liu Ziyu. I fear it will be even harder to assault than Xindu — a bitter fight ahead."

"After this engagement, once the Tongma's eastern army has scattered, it will be good enough if they can reassemble even half their previous strength at Changcheng County."

Ma Yuan, however, was full of confidence for the coming war: "Bandits gain their momentum from movement. When the Tongma were still roving bandits, they could lose many times; even if their chieftain was killed, they could rise again."

The Tongma's strength lay in their skill at mobile warfare — they simply would not fight you in a pitched formation battle, leaving every regime exhausted from chasing them. Even Ma Yuan could do nothing about them.

"Now the Tongma have an emperor, their chieftains have become feudal lords, and having gained territory, they have become sedentary bandits. They have lost the momentum of movement, yet cannot win the support of the local people. They are like trees without roots. The Tongma can less and less afford to lose. Bandits lose their momentum when they stand still!"

Ever since the Yellow River burst its banks during the Shijianguo years of Wang Mang's reign, downstream from Huzi in Dong Commandery, the river had become a seasonally shifting watercourse, like a great earthen-yellow python writhing its colossal body across the North China Plain, turning the zone of its sway into a flood region.

In Pingyuan Commandery, at the heart of this flood region, there was another force famed for mobile warfare: the Qing-Yan Red Eyebrows. They were a detached branch left behind when the main Red Eyebrow army relocated. After the extraordinary woman Chi Zhaoping was driven by Diwu Lun to leap into the Yellow River, the Yan man "Chengtou Zilu" became their leader.

Chengtou Zilu's real name was Yuan Zeng. He was an old adversary of Ma Yuan's. This time, he had accepted the title of Prince of Jibei from Liu Ziyu and, as it happened, brought his brothers to Hebei to forage for grain. The Tongma Army sent an envoy, hoping he could rendezvous with them at Xindu by mid-eleventh month for a decisive battle.

Chengtou Zilu, however, deemed it unwise to seek a decisive battle with Ma Yuan. While advancing, he sent men back to deliberate. When the messenger returned, he reported that the Tongma had already suffered a great defeat, and Ma Yuan had seized Xindu!

Chengtou Zilu immediately ordered his subordinates to halt their advance, cursing: "Fools."

"The Tongma Army must have been feudal lords for too long, and forgotten the advantages of being roving bandits. To actually fight a pitched formation battle with Ma Yuan — isn't that like casting aside a long, sharp blade to brawl barehanded?"

During the time Ma Yuan had garrisoned Wei Commandery and Qinghe, Chengtou Zilu had fought him plenty. But he could never beat the man; a county he had taken through bitter toil would be returned to its original state the moment Ma Yuan made a move.

Since he could not win a head-on fight, he had to resort to harassment and surprise raids. If he wanted the Wei army to be helpless against him, he might as well get moving.

Chengtou Zilu decided to use his own strengths to strike at Wei's weaknesses. He dispersed his forces, forming them into squads of two to three thousand men, exploiting the terrain along the Yellow River — dense with marshes and forests — to appear and vanish like ghosts, specifically targeting Ma Yuan's deep rear and cutting his supply lines!

"During the Chu-Han Contention, Peng Yue harassed Chu on behalf of Han."

"I, Chengtou Zilu, have no other skill. Now I too shall learn from my fellow townsman, Prince Peng, and harass Wei on behalf of Han!"

Diwu Lun, in Julu, received the news of victory from Xindu in mid-eleventh month. But delivered alongside it was dire tidings: Chengtou Zilu had led his masses into Qinghe Commandery, destroying the Wei army's protected supply roads, causing a severe crisis in grain transport.

After briefly listening to Zhang Yu's report, Diwu Lun said: "Chengtou Zilu's method of warfare is indeed very similar to Peng Yue's during the Chu-Han Contention."

"At that time, Liu Bang was defeated between Xingyang and Chenggao. Yet Xiang Yu was never able to concentrate his forces westward, mainly because Peng Yue was raiding his rear — harassing Xiang Yu for a full two years."

Peng Yue, of bandit origin, employed highly flexible tactics. He never made the gain or loss of a single city or patch of ground his objective, but instead coordinated with Liu Bang to implement a strategy of exhausting the enemy. The moment Xiang Yu let down his guard, Peng Yue would seize dozens of cities in his rear and send the plundered grain to Liu Bang — feeding himself at the enemy's expense, so to speak...

No wonder people of that time judged that Peng Yue's merit was second only to Han Xin's: "Without Prince Peng, the Xiang clan would not have fallen!"

The Qing-Yan Red Eyebrows, too, mostly hailed from the Yellow River flood zone near Juye, and were likewise of impoverished origin. Logically, they should have had the chance to be absorbed into Diwu Lun's ranks back then. It was only a pity that their leader Chi Zhaoping had died in Wei Commandery. Chengtou Zilu still nursed his hatred; the envoys Geng Chun and the King of Wei sent time and again, he simply threw into the river to drown!

Since Chengtou Zilu was obstinately set on his course and could not be negotiated with, the only option was to fight. Diwu Lun would not show the slightest mercy to an enemy just because they came from impoverished stock!

But the problem was that Chengtou Zilu's troops moved like ghosts along the river in Qinghe and Xindu, their whereabouts erratic and unpredictable. You never knew when or where they would appear. If you mustered a large army to hunt and exterminate them, they would not fight you head-on, but slip into the mountain marshes and forests. If you pursued too deep, you would be ambushed — the gains not worth the losses.

Yet if you treated them as mere mosquitoes and ignored them, they would buzz and flit about, an unbearable nuisance, then abruptly stab you viciously and suck a mouthful of blood.

There is a saying in Hebei: the tenth month brings the "trough-hiding waters," the eleventh and twelfth the "frozen-crushed waters." This year was even colder than the last. After entering the eleventh month of the Xia calendar, the waterways gradually froze, making transport difficult, yet the rivers were not completely solid, so the sledges Diwu Lun had used during the Longyou campaign were useless. Grain carts had to travel by land.

Compared to the water routes, the danger of ambush on land increased immeasurably. Ma Yuan had to divert a large number of troops for protection, so much so that after taking Xindu, General Ma dared not rashly continue his advance into northern Julu, giving the Tongma a chance to regroup.

Chengtou Zilu, by his own efforts alone, had managed to bog down the speed of the Wei army's eastern forces, preventing them from expanding the victory at Xindu. Diwu Lun's grand eastern flanking plan was thus stalled.

Diwu Lun could not help but praise Chengtou Zilu: "The form of roving troops: now stirring, now still; avoiding the solid, striking the hollow; eyeing the weak, harassing the strong; forming ranks, racing across the land; severing and encircling the four paths."

"This is the correct way to wage roving warfare."

Diwu Lun knew the essence of guerrilla warfare too: enemy advances, we retreat; enemy camps, we harass; enemy tires, we attack; enemy retreats, we pursue — he could recite it backwards. The vexing point now was: when the enemy employed guerrilla tactics, how should one respond?

"We cannot simply ignore it." Diwu Lun was clear: if Qinghe Commandery was left unattended, Chengtou Zilu could head north to disrupt Ma Yuan's rear, or even head west and strike all the way into Zhao territory, coordinating with the main Tongma force to assault Julu.

"But it is also not worth expending too many troops and manpower."

After pondering, Diwu Lun said: "Dispatch a few thousand militia from Wei Commandery. Have Pi Tong lead the retainers of the powerful clans from Qinghe and Xindu Commanderies to strengthen the walls and clear the fields, holding fast within the fortified manors, giving Chengtou Zilu no opening to exploit. Let the eastern army halt at Xindu for now; there is no need to push too deep westward. Tell Wenyuan to find a way to take Hejian Commandery first."

Since the eastern advance was sluggish, and the center was temporarily on the defensive, a breakthrough had to come from another direction.

"Jingsun on the western route should have some results by now!"