Chapter 433: Learned My Bro's Operational Maneuvering

Liu Xiu's words lifted everyone's spirits, and Feng Yi immediately requested orders: "Liu Yong's southern campaign this time violates many military taboos."

"The interior of Liang-Han is not yet pacified — the King of Qi, Zhang Bu, is only nominally a vassal and remains in truth an independent feudal lord; in the west, several former Greenwood chieftains submitted only under duress and are disloyal to Liu Yong. The troops under Liu Yong who can actually fight are nothing more than his own Liang core forces and Dong Xian's Donghai troops. To overawe Your Majesty and extort the Huainan lands, he has already committed all his elite forces."

"Liang-Han is also ringed by powerful external enemies. To the north, the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, has marched out of Hebei — I hear he is still locked in bitter battle with Liu Ziyu, but in my estimation, by late spring at the latest, he will have fully seized Youzhou and Jizhou. Once the Wei army crosses the great river southward, it can threaten Yanzhou; if it strikes east from Hulao Pass, it is only a few hundred li from the Liang capital. And to the west, the Red Eyebrows occupy Nanyang and Runan — if they learn of Liu Yong's southern campaign and raid his rear, their blades could reach Liang City within days."

"With such troubles within and enemies without, Liu Yong's prolonged southern campaign is the first taboo. The Liang army is unskilled in water warfare — abandoning saddle and horse to rely on boats and oars, contending with Jiangdong on the water, is the second taboo. Moreover, it is now early spring, the season when epidemics break out most often — driving soldiers from the Central Plains on a distant campaign across rivers and lakes, where they cannot endure the climate and water, is the third taboo. Liu Yong's army violates these several taboos; however numerous, it is bound to be defeated. The moment for Your Majesty to capture Liu Yong is now!"

"We must certainly fight, and we can certainly win — but how to achieve victory, so that Wu suffers the least harm and reaps the greatest gain, requires careful deliberation."

Liu Xiu followed Feng Yi's thread: "In the earlier battle against Li Xian, we were the attackers, so we had to seek a swift decision — that was why we seized Hefei, cutting his north-south communications and forcing Li Xian to fight a decisive battle with us."

"But in this standoff with the Liang army along the Huai River, they are the attackers and we the defenders — there is no need whatsoever to rush a quick resolution."

In other words, Liu Xiu was not going to fight a grand pitched battle this time; he intended to play to his character — tough when needed, yielding when needed — and win through operational maneuvering.

Liu Xiu had lingered in Liang territory for a long time the year before last, even discussing the empire's situation with Liu Yong in Liang Park, and he saw the true measure of this "imperial nephew" of his very clearly.

"Liu Yong as a man is fierce in appearance but faint of heart, fond of scheming yet incapable of decision. He felt he could not afford to provoke either Wei or the Red Eyebrows, so he thought to strike south against me — one who forgets his life at the sight of petty gain. Yet once he reached the banks of the Huai and found his fleet suffering repeated defeats, his great army stranded north of the river unable to cross, he then began to waver — this is what is meant by shrinking from sacrifice when attempting great things."

"Liu Yong must now understand that he cannot afford to drag this out. Once the campaign bogs down, change is bound to erupt in the north — either from within or without. That is why he has sent envoys to threaten us. Even if I refuse, if Liu Yong delays another month or so, he will have to withdraw in disarray."

In this war, Liu Xiu decided to attack both stratagems and troops. The stratagem was to deliberately feign weakness, letting Liu Yong glimpse a sliver of hope and slightly relax his vigilance.

As for attacking troops, it meant dispatching a surprise force to add one more fire to Liu Yong's already fragile rear!

On this point, Feng Yi had a plan: "Liu Yong's two great armies have marched south. Liu Yong himself leads the main force encamped at Xu County west of the Si River, while Dong Xian occupies the Sishui Kingdom east of the Si."

"The soldiers and conscript laborers number around a hundred thousand, consuming a hundred fifty thousand dan of grain each month. The most convenient and labor-saving route is to ship it along the Si River."

Liu Xiu had the map spread out, and everyone located that watercourse flowing from the north into the Huai River. Tracing upstream along the Si, they could find Liu Yong's pivotal granary.

"Xiapi!" Feng Yi's fist slammed down on the spot.

Although Xiapi was only a county, this place controlled Qi and Lu to the north, shielded the Yangtze and Huai to the south, and with its water and land routes, was truly a strategic choke point — all the more so for Liang-Han: for Xiapi was precisely the confluence of the Si and Yi Rivers, where supplies and grain from Liang and Donghai were gathered and stored before being shipped further south.

If anything went wrong at Xiapi, if the Liang army's rear grain stores were burned, Liu Yong would have to rush his army back.

"Exactly. The moment the Liang army withdraws, countless openings will appear."

Liu Xiu nodded, but after stroking his beard and thinking, he broke into a smile — for he had thought of a brilliant plan to send Liu Yong fleeing north in panic without even needing to burn Xiapi.

But Liu Xiu did not reveal it now; he merely asked everyone to recommend a commander capable of leading several thousand cavalry in a raid from northwest of the Huai against the Liang army's rear.

Fu Jun, Ma Cheng, and others all clamored to go, but then Wang Chang put forward a name — a perfect candidate!

"Since it is a long-distance raid, a lone force striking deep, then no one is more suited than Lai Xi!"

After the Red Eyebrows captured Nanyang the previous year, Lai Xi had gone east with Wang Chang and others to submit to Liu Xiu. His troops were mainly Nanyang retainers; the sons of the Lai, Li, Deng, and other great and small powerful families who had come to join numbered over four thousand in total, and were stationed west of the Huai under orders.

As the clouds of war gathered thick over the two Huai regions, Lai Xi racked his brains but could not fathom why Liu Yong absolutely had to march south to strike the King of Wu.

But after thinking it through more deeply, he understood.

"No strength to fight the King of Wei, no guts to fight the Red Eyebrows, and attacking the King of Qi, Zhang Bu, would instantly tear his own ranks apart. Looking left and right, he still figured the King of Wu was a soft persimmon."

"Ridiculous."

Lai Xi was garrisoned at Dangtu City, where he guarded against Liang-Han's "Western Route Army" — the former Greenwood Grand Chieftain Wang Kuang, who hailed from Chen. Wang Kuang had decisively defected to Liang-Han after Greenwood-Han collapsed. Setting out from Chen County, he transported troops and grain southeast along the "Guo River," which flowed into the Huai, and could also very conveniently threaten the western Huai region.

Yet Lai Xi waited at Dangtu for over a month without seeing even a shadow of the enemy. Only after sending scouts north across the river to investigate did he learn the reason.

"At the start of the new year, the Red Eyebrows launched an attack on Chen. Wang Kuang can barely fend them off — how could he still march south to aid the campaign?"

Lai Xi did not know whether this was a false report deliberately released by Wang Kuang. After all, old Wang Kuang had once been a bandit on the same mountain as Wang Chang and Ma Wu, and had served as a minister in the same court as Liu Xiu and the others; he knew well how formidable the King of Wu was, and likely had no wish to sacrifice his own core troops to win Huainan for Liu Yong.

This showed that Liang-Han's degree of fragmentation even surpassed that of Greenwood-Han. Since Wang Kuang had not arrived, Liang-Han's defensive line west of the Huai had a gaping hole.

Upon receiving Liu Xiu's order, Lai Xi, who had long been chafing with impatience, immediately mustered his troops, determined to give Liu Yong a taste of his mettle.

The messenger Ji Zun said with some concern that, because troop numbers were limited, the King of Wu's side could not spare a single soldier; Lai Xi could only lead his own unit, and could not even take all of them.

"Three thousand men at most."

Lai Xi, utterly undaunted, laughed heartily: "Three thousand is plenty! I once rampaged across Weibei with two thousand Chongling troops."

That was Lai Xi's battle that made his name — even though the opponents were the Yueqi Camp.

And Lai Xi's skill at fleeing was also quite something. The King of Wei, Diwu Lun, had sent the General of Chariots and Cavalry, Geng Yan, and even he failed to catch him — could Liu Yong?

His only regret was that the thousand-odd Chongling soldiers who had survived campaigning with him had been detained in Longyou by Wei Ao and could not return with Lai Xi. Had those battle-hardened veterans still been with him, never mind mere Xiapi — Lai Xi would have dared to strike straight to the outskirts of Liang City!

However, just as Lai Xi was about to cross the Huai, Ji Zun handed him the tiger tally along with two sealed letters.

"General Lai, these are letters personally written by His Majesty."

Lai Xi took them and saw that one was inscribed "Open upon crossing the Huai."

The other was inscribed "Open if the attack on Xiapi goes poorly."

As Liu Xiu's relative and childhood friend, Lai Xi knew how meticulous Liu Wenshu's mind was. These two letters were a precaution against him charging too fiercely without employing strategy; he took no offense and accepted them with a smile.

Once he and his three thousand soldiers had crossed to the north bank of the Huai under cover of night and dealt with the few Liang troops stationed there, he opened the first letter by the campfire. On it was written...

"Liu Yong and Dong Xian's great armies are massed east of the Huai, so I cannot send troops to aid you, Junshu. However, Pei north of the Huai is originally contested ground between Liang-Han and the Red Eyebrows. Though the Red Eyebrow main army has marched west, there is no shortage of bandits still roaming the area. Should Junshu need more hands, simply smear your brows red, proclaim yourselves a detached force of the Red Eyebrows, raise your banners, and call out — rally the Red Eyebrow remnants and hungry bandits north of the Huai to strike Xiapi together. Promise that after seizing the granary, the spoils will be shared with all. The starving bandits will surely answer and follow."

It was not about recruiting northern Huai men into the army, but about painting a grand picture — "the grain at Xiapi is piled mountain-high, the Red Eyebrow giant is about to take this place and distribute rice to everyone" — to trick every bandit and refugee gang north of the Huai into also heading north.

"His Majesty's brilliant plan!"

Ma Wu, Liu Xiu's brother-in-law, was accompanying Lai Xi. Seeing this stratagem, he could not help clapping in praise: "This way, if Liang-Han discovers our northern raid and sends troops from the southeast to strike us, the first they encounter will be the various bandit gangs, which will certainly delay them greatly — and our army can advance without worrying about the rear."

Lai Xi, however, frowned for a long while. He was valiant and fearless, but he also possessed a noble scion's pride; he considered himself a man of honor in the realm. Even a sneak attack, in his view, should be an open and aboveboard flanking raid — why should he have to disguise himself as the Red Eyebrow Army, the mortal enemies of the Nanyang powerful families!

But since it was the King of Wu's decree, Lai Xi ultimately steeled himself and complied. Ma Wu, on the other hand, had been a Greenwood bandit himself and was quite adept at raising banners, calling out to bandits, and drawing in outlaws. He had even been sent by Liu Xuan to negotiate peace with Fan Chong and had spent half a month among the Red Eyebrow Army, so he was quite familiar with their organization. He took charge of arranging the matter.

Ma Wu called himself "Giant Ma," claiming to have joined the Red Eyebrows in Runan — he was from Yingchuan, and his accent was similar to Runan's, so he actually managed to fool quite a few northern Huai bandits into trailing them north. But they were soon left far behind.

Lai Xi grudgingly smeared his brows, yet said with pride: "There will be no need to open His Majesty's second brocade letter."

However, after they had gnawed on parched rice as rations for days and reached the Si River at the cost of a thousand stragglers, they looked across at the Liang army massed on the opposite bank. A rough count of the campfires showed at least ten thousand men.

The ruler and ministers of Liang-Han were not utter fools; Liu Xiu knew Xiapi's importance, and they themselves knew it very well too.

Even if Lai Xi were a heaven-sent genius, with a mere two thousand exhausted troops, plus the various bandit gangs that would straggle in later, it was fundamentally impossible to force a crossing of the Si and then break the city and burn the granary.

Lai Xi could only reluctantly pull out Liu Xiu's brocade letter and read it together with Ma Wu.

"If the Liang army's defenses at Xiapi are tight, with no slackness to exploit, better to march northwest, stir up the bandits of Chu and Pei, and raid Pengcheng in the name of the Red Eyebrows!"

"No need to take the city — once word spreads that 'the Red Eyebrows are striking Pengcheng,' the General can turn south and return!"

Pengcheng, the capital of Chu Commandery and the heart of Xu Province, lies barely a hundred li from Xiapi — even at the slowest pace, one can reach it in three days!

At this, Lai Xi fully grasped how Liu Xiu intended to fight this battle!

"The highest art of war is to foil the enemy's plans; the next is to foil his alliances; the next is to attack his army; the lowest is to besiege his cities."

Who told Liang Han to launch a southern campaign when his own internal and external situation was so precarious? That being the case, Liu Xiu need not besiege cities, need not attack armies — merely foiling plans would suffice to send the Liang Han host scrambling back in retreat.

And in the end, he did not neglect foiling alliances either.

"Though we cannot truly forge an alliance with the Red Eyebrows and have them coordinate an attack on Pengcheng, we can forge a false alliance!"

"Thus, to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the acme of skill; to subdue the enemy's troops without fighting is the acme of skill!"

The misgivings in Lai Xi's heart melted away entirely. Though he craved battle, he also knew that everything was for the King of Wu to achieve final victory in this civil war of the Liu clan — if the means were a little dirty, so be it!

At the same time, he felt that the King of Wu's command of troops, his adept use of terrain and stratagem, had truly reached a realm of near-perfection.

If Diwu Lun were to learn of this, he would put it in simple, later-age terms: Liu Xiu can win teamfights all the time, but he just won't fight — he just macro-plays!

Plenty of roving bandits, stirred up along the way by the "Horse Giant's" call, all wanted to come to Xiapi and grab a share of the spoils — let the Xiapi garrison and the Liang Han flanking force chasing from behind go hunt them down. Lai Xi's tiny army, hidden among them, would swing west!

…

Yet what Lai Xi could not have imagined was that, just as he was about to play the false Red Eyebrows and strike Chu territory, an even more dramatic scene was unfolding in the Liang capital, Suiyang.

Liu Yong's two younger brothers, left to guard the city by their elder brother's order, were hastily roused and climbed the city wall one day in late first month — only to see, to the west, which they had thought shielded by Huaiyang and Chenliu and perfectly secure, a vast army had appeared.

It was the real Red Eyebrows!

Tattered cloth for banners, red clay smeared on their brows — countless men gathered on the outskirts of Suiyang, shouting at the top of their lungs the slogan that that mysterious "Old Man Tian" had, on a sudden brainwave, tailor-made for them.

"The Red Talisman, the Republic rises, abolish the imperial system, the Great Peace appears!"

…

PS: "Imperial system" here refers to the ceremonial regalia of the emperor. Records of the Grand Historian, "Account of the Southern Yue": "The Emperor is a worthy Son of Heaven. Henceforth, discard the imperial system — the yellow canopy and the left-side yak-tail banner."