Chapter 428: Like Morning Dew

The King of Wei took Li Zhong's words to heart. Prepared for a do-or-die battle with Liu Ziyu, he had already devised the so-called "backup plan" — referred to the generals as "Plan B," with a whole string of "Plan C, Plan D" behind it.

But the battle that dawned on the first day of the first month still unfolded far beyond the executors' expectations.

"General Zhao, His Majesty orders the Third Division to hold the enemy here for two ke, until the rear main force arrives fully armored."

Zhao Pang was a Thief-Catching Clerk recruited by Ma Yuan when Diwu Lun was in Wei Commandery. He later followed the King of Wei west and stayed in Hedong with over a hundred men. Last year, when the Wei army launched the Hedong campaign, he earned merit and was promoted to Commandant of Hedong, doing solid work catching bandits and suppressing outlaws, once completing the expulsion of the Green Calf Bandits from the territory.

This year, Diwu Lun marched east. Because the army had many Wei Commandery troops and the opponent was roving bandits, and considering Zhao Pang had experience in security warfare, he brought him along as Assistant General, commanding a division and placed under Geng Chun's command.

But Zhao Pang was passable as a Commandant; leading troops in real battle was a stretch. During the standoff with the Copper Horses, he was nearly raided by the bandits several times. In Geng Chun's army, it was common knowledge that the Third Division was the worst.

The order Zhang Yu delivered left Zhao Pang feeling wronged. He thought to himself, "I may not match the other assistant generals, but does the King of Wei think I can only hold out for two ke?"

The outcome proved the King of Wei did know his men. The Third Division, thrown into battle in haste, nearly failed to last even two ke!

Though Zhao Pang summoned every ounce of effort to prove himself, when over twenty thousand Copper Horses surged forth, he was terrified.

The Copper Horses poured out of Xiaquyang City as if injected with rooster blood, charging forward with reckless abandon. Morale blazed so high they hardly resembled an army on the verge of collapse.

"Skilled archers and crossbowmen, ready!"

Zhao Pang hurriedly ordered the front ranks to hastily form up. The halberdiers and spearmen crouched and set their long spears, while the crossbowmen arrayed in three ranks at the front to loose volleys.

After each volley, piercing howls rose from the dense black mass of the Copper Horse army opposite. Torches dropped, extinguished, yet the Copper Horses still brandished blades and long spears, shouting: "Sun and moon shine, the Great Han rises!"

The tall, dark-faced "King of Xindu," Liu Zhi, personally led the charge, spearheading a band of Copper Horse soldiers straight at the Wei formation. The moon shone upon these frenzied brutes, upon their halberds, spears, and banners: the blazing Han flags!

A volley of crossbow bolts swept over. The great banner charging at the very front fell, then was raised again, then fell again, then was raised once more!

On the great plain, there was no terrain to serve as a barrier. The firepower of the crossbows was nowhere near enough to stop the enemy's approach — the casualties inflicted were not even heavy. Twenty thousand Copper Horses ultimately crashed into the Wei formation with fearless momentum, and the two sides tangled in chaotic melee under the night sky!

When the battle devolved into a brawl, the Copper Horse soldiers actually gained a slight edge. Zhao Pang immediately panicked. Most of his men were new recruits freshly conscripted from Wei territory in the autumn. Their loyalty was not in question, but their training days were short, still stuck at the rudimentary stage of "standing well," their tactics rigid. In this encounter battle, the nimble, mobile Copper Horses had them utterly disoriented.

It was only because Zhang Yu had drummed it into his ear — that the Third Division only needed to hold for two ke before withdrawing — that Zhao Pang did not commit all his reserves. In the end, he could only sullenly obey orders, sound the gongs to pull back the troops, fighting as they retreated. Casualties numbered perhaps over a thousand.

"The Wei army is beaten! The Wei army is beaten!"

As the Third Division slowly withdrew westward, the Copper Horse army erupted in thunderous cheers. Liu Zhi wiped the blood from his forehead and looked back at their divinely possessed Emperor. Liu Ziyu had also personally taken the field, protected in the rear by Zhang Wen of the Five Towers bandits, who was "possessed by Fan Kuai," watching this scene unfold.

But Liu Ziyu had no interest in a motley division. By now the sky was fully bright, and his gaze was locked dead on the King of Wei's personal guard division, several li to the south, flying the five-colored banner.

Letting the breakout force draw away the Wei main force and cavalry, while the Copper Horse elite sallied forth in full strength to intercept Diwu Lun — this was Liu Ziyu's only chance.

Interception meant a sudden ambush, catching the opponent off guard, forcing them into battle before they could form ranks or don armor. This was the only way Liu Zhi had found, after months of bitter fighting against the Wei army, that the Copper Horses could win. Once the two sides faced off in formal battle lines, the Copper Horses were certain to lose.

Only through chaotic brawling, mobile warfare, and encounter battles could they crush a strong foe!

What he feared most was Diwu Lun being slippery — seeing the situation turn bad and immediately retreating back into Songzi City. If the Copper Horses could not catch him and he slipped inside the walls, they could only gaze at the city and sigh.

Who would have thought that Diwu Lun would waste the two ke of time the Third Division had bought him — not only not retreating, but advancing half a li and deploying his battle lines. From the look of it, he wanted a king-versus-king showdown with Liu Ziyu too!

"Heaven has a spirit."

Liu Ziyu spread his arms, thanking the heavens above. Just as in the past, luck had once again fallen upon his head!

Perhaps he truly was the son of Heaven's Mandate!

…

"I hate gamblers."

In the Wei army's main formation, after confirming Liu Ziyu was truly on the opposite side, Diwu Lun shook his head vigorously.

Back then, Liu Bosheng gambled on a decisive battle at the Wei River because he could only advance, never retreat, and had to settle victory or defeat in a single fight — that was somewhat forgivable.

But Liu Ziyu was more detestable. This fellow was a repeat cheat at the gambling table!

"Deceiving Liu Lin, co-opting the Copper Horses, entering Xindu, allying with Zhending — time and again, the reason you could win was partly your boldness in promising benefits and exploiting people's hearts, but even more so because your luck was simply too good."

Having tasted the sweetness, he could not stop, leading to today's gambling-style gamble. He had actually tricked the Wei main force into leaving — Diwu Lun was angered to the point of laughter.

"Today, I will make you understand."

"What it means that the longer you gamble, the more certain your loss!"

…

Liu Ziyu, after all, did not truly understand warfare. Scanning the field, apart from that eye-catching five-colored banner, he utterly failed to see what was different about Diwu Lun's personal guard division.

It was Zhang Wen, the Five Towers chieftain whom Liu Ziyu had enfeoffed as "King of Qinghe," who spoke up from the side: "At the start of the month, when I was ordered to cross Dalu Marsh and raid Julu City, the Copper Horses originally excelled at marshland warfare — that should have been our home ground. But in scattered skirmishes, we were driven back into the icy water by the Wei army!"

He pointed at the Wei troops beneath the distant five-colored banner and said, "What they used then was a formation similar to today's two-wing array!"

The Wei army's past operations were known for rigidity — they always deployed a single large formation, standing firm and that was it.

But this type of formation proved ineffective against the supremely nimble Copper Horses. Last night, Geng Chun, chasing the enemy, had chased himself from "army commander" all the way down to "brigade commander" — that was proof enough.

Considering that even if Liu Ziyu were destroyed, the roving bandits could not be completely mopped up, and Hebei would likely sink into a protracted security war — and moreover, they would eventually have to face the "Red Eyebrow Republic" that Diwu Lun was quite concerned about. The Red Eyebrow Army used similar tactics; dense square formations could no longer meet the needs of this kind of battlefield.

During those months when Diwu Lun was serving as the chief transport officer at Julu, he had his personal guard division begin training in a new formation. Zhang Wen had the misfortune of tasting it in its first battle and ran back to Xiaquyang utterly disgraced, which also confirmed for the King of Wei that this formation was indeed effective against roving bandits.

Thus tonight, after the friendly "Third Division" had bought enough time, the Wei army at the front still deployed the same rigid wagon-fortress grand formation, composed of two brigades that had distinguished themselves last year — no, today is the first day of the first month, so it should be the winter of the year before last — in the Battle of Zhouyuan. If they could withstand the cavalry charges of the Longyou good families' sons, could they not block the Copper Horses, who actually had no horses?

On the left and right wings, however, were small, dispersed arrays, overlapping front to rear.

The arrays were organized by squads. Each had one Sergeant, bearing a halberd tied with a red tassel — the ji halberd had a conspicuous red tassel, serving both as a command flag and, in a pinch, for thrusting.

Two saber-and-shield men, carrying shields and ring-pommel sabers; four spearmen, carrying eight-chi spears; and two more men, holding nothing but mao bamboo from the Qi Garden in Henei, merely sharpened at the tip, the branches not even fully trimmed. Finally, there was the Corporal, carrying a crossbow and a dagger-axe.

These small formations were organized by platoons and battalions. The deployed horizontal front was not wide, but the depth was considerable. Each battalion, platoon, and squad undertook different combat tasks.

From a distance, however, the formation looked loose and unsteady. Each column was separated by over ten paces. If the Copper Horses charged all at once, this formation simply could not stop them!

Liu Zhi, ordered to lead the vanguard in attacking the Wei army, thought exactly this. The weapons were a motley, unseemly jumble. Compared to the tight square formation in the center, it seemed utterly fragile.

But when the real fighting began, it was different. Liu Zhi sent men to tie down the central square formation and dispatched several thousand to assault the Wei army's seemingly weak right wing. The Copper Horses first encountered the saber-and-shield men's shields. But if they tried to overwhelm with numbers, two large mao bamboo poles from behind would sweep at them. The things looked crudely improvised, yet there was no dodging them. A Copper Horse soldier without armor struck by one would certainly lose a layer of skin.

The mao bamboo was rather cumbersome, but behind it were four spearmen. Once a charging Copper Horse was swept to the ground, the four long-spearmen would leap forward, stabbing and wounding the enemy with their long spears. Finally, the Sergeant and Corporal worked in tandem, responsible for protecting the squad's rear.

If facing just one such small formation alone, it might be manageable. But what the Copper Horses crashed into was a whole composed of over a hundred similar small formations. Once the Copper Horses bunched together and swarmed forward, trying to use human lives to force open a bloody path, the Wei troops could close ranks in sequence, forming an impenetrable horizontal line.

And if the Copper Horses scattered into chaotic skirmishing, the Wei troops could also disperse and fight independently — far more flexible than in the past!

"This was probably designed by King Diwu Lun specifically for the Copper Horses. As expected of a disciple of the world's great master of military arts, Yan Erudite! His strengths are not only in strategic planning, but also in tactical disposition and technique!"

Liu Zhi now understood why Zhang Wen's raid on Julu had ended in failure. And this was on the open plain — if they encountered such a foe in the marshes, it would be even more troublesome.

What was even more fatal was that after engaging the Wei army, Liu Zhi discovered that beneath Diwu Lun's five-colored banner, there was actually still a unit of cavalry!

These were the cavalry troops the King of Wei had transferred from Bing Province. In the tenth month, Geng Yan had repelled a joint incursion of Xiongnu and Hu-Han forces, and the frontier had been quiet for a few days. Since Jing Dan had no use for cavalry in the Taihang Mountains anyway, Diwu Lun transferred an entire battalion of five hundred Bing Province riders to serve directly under his command.

Now they halted their horses behind the formation, ready to reinforce a frontal assault as the situation demanded, or to sweep around the enemy's flank or rear, enveloping and striking them from both sides.

This formation was easy to maneuver, combined long and short arms, and served both offense and defense — its only drawback was the high training requirement. The key lay in the overall coordination of formation changes, with absolute obedience to orders. Diwu Lun could not even roll it out army-wide; the combat units had no time to drill this. He could only have his own personal guard division train for several months and test the blade on a small scale.

Still, this was its first use in a large-scale battle. At times the gaps between formations were too wide, letting the Tongma break through, and the cavalry battalion could not block them in time — several hundred men, shouting battle cries, actually charged all the way to the King of Wei's main standard!

"I am possessed by the valiant generals who founded the Han! Blades cannot cut me, arrows cannot pierce me — charge with me!"

The Tongma warrior howling these words as he charged was shot through the chest by a crossbow bolt. He crashed to his knees and died. Those around him snapped awake at once: Liu Ziyu's Son of Heaven sword blessing could not truly make them invulnerable to blade or bolt.

Even those who reached close quarters under the crossbow fire found only deeper despair, for although Diwu Lun was intent on drilling his formations, he had taken perfectly sound measures to protect himself. Around his five-colored banners, a full brigade of personal guards had formed a defensive ring, every man helmed and armored, gleaming and resplendent, gripping horse-chopping blades as they waited at ease, arrayed in strict readiness, standing immovable amid the surging tide.

Unlike the Tongma, who had been hastily granted amnesty, the King of Wei had spent years building his power in Wei territory. The Wuan iron mines had steadily produced large quantities of armor and weapons, and with the capture of Handan, yet another great iron mine had fallen into his hands — logistics and armaments flowed in an unbroken stream. Though he could not arm every unit to the teeth, pouring heavy funds into forging the personal guard brigade into an ironclad army of lamellar armor was no problem at all.

The Tongma who reached the front lines, by contrast, wore a motley assortment of Yan and Zhao armor, but their faces were either sickly pale or utterly exhausted — a world apart from these handpicked elite guards.

A charge like that was no different from eggs dashing themselves against a rock. As the Wei army's formations closed tight, they were swiftly wiped out, not a single survivor emerging.

After three ke of battle, several thousand Tongma were already badly weakened — Diwu Lun had used the Third Division to exhaust the strength of the Tongma vanguard. Even though Liu Ziyu committed his reserves, repeated charges yielded nothing and instead brought heavy losses. As the sun climbed higher, Tongma morale began to crumble; men started falling back without orders. Gradually, the entire battle line was pushed forward by the Wei army.

Diwu Lun's five-colored banners signaled, the war drums beat, and the Third Division — which had earlier "fled in defeat" to the west — though it had lost a fair number of scattered soldiers in the feigned rout, now turned back under the command of the simmering Zhao Pang, several thousand strong, ready to strike Liu Ziyu from front and rear alongside the King of Wei!

Only now, with the morning sun a pole's length high, did Diwu Lun finally loosen his tight grip on his sword hilt — this very sword had been a gift from Huan Tan. Diwu Lun sometimes thought of that old friend, wondering whether he was dead or alive.

Fortunately, his schemes had not been in vain. The winter spent encamped at Julu had not been wasted on idle drilling; the elite of the personal guard division had not let him down.

That being so, Diwu Lun would not need to resort to "Plan C" — fleeing back to Songzi City in an unfavorable situation and sitting tight to await relief.

Now Diwu Lun could boldly repeat to those around him the words he had spoken before the battle began: "Whether Wang Lang is jade or clay tile — even if sandwiched with 'bronze' — when he meets my iron army, he will be smashed to pieces!"

As the Wei army closed in from two sides, the Tongma snapped awake from their fevered dawn charges and began a frantic, routed flight. Even Liu Ziyu's twin-dragon banners had no choice but to turn resentfully around.

After several shichen of bitter fighting, all of his own contingents were on their way back. Even if the Tongma could break through to Xiaquyang once more, their defeat was already sealed.

"Liu Ziyu."

Diwu Lun shook his head and sighed. "The reason I call you a false emperor, and deem you no hero — far inferior to Liu Xiu — is not because your bloodline or your identity is counterfeit."

"It is because these hundreds of thousands of followers you gathered by deceit and trickery are counterfeit too!"

Without solid bonds of interest, without governance or organization, they were nothing but a rabble. The notion of making the Tongma fight alongside the King of Zhending was a joke. Relying solely on the character "Han" — which Liu Ziyu himself could not even write properly — was utterly insufficient to unite their hearts.

Deception may fool people for a time, but it can never work forever. A pyramid scheme may shout its slogans loudly, but under the iron fist, its fate is to disintegrate and scatter.

Like the morning dew congealed upon this wilderness — when the sun rises, it will evaporate bit by bit, and in the end vanish without a trace!

Diwu Lun now had the standing to say these words to Liu Ziyu.

"In the face of absolute strength, all schemes and intrigues are utterly futile!"

…

PS: This chapter makes up for yesterday. The next chapter will be at 18:00.