Chapter 449: A Blossom at the Heart

In the sixth month of the first year of Wude (AD 25), an army trudged through the deep mountains of the Qinling range, winding and twisting around the peaks. Within a hundred paces, they would circle cliffs and crags in countless bends; sometimes after two days of detours, they found they had merely climbed from the foot of a mountain to its slope.

This could hardly be called a road — it was more a bird's path.

The hardest stretches were where the plank roads hung in midair. Looking up, one saw the lofty peaks where the six dragons turn back the sun; gazing down, one beheld rushing rivers crashing against their banks in swirling reverse. A hundred zhang above the ground, men and horses had to advance on wooden plank roads, the weight pressing down with creaks and groans. A gust of wind, and someone would lose their footing and plummet!

And if a sudden downpour struck, landslides and mudslides were common; the plank-road bridges were always washed away by floods, and repairs would consume days and days.

This army had set out over ten days ago, but a journey planned for ten days had already stretched to half a month. Of the five thousand men who started, the greater part had scattered: those who got lost, those bitten by snakes and insects, those who fell ill and dropped behind — beyond counting.

After this exhausting trek, the local woodcutters serving as guides finally said they were about to reach the valley mouth. But when the soldiers, overjoyed, arrived at the narrow pass called Blackwater Gorge, an army of several thousand that had long lain in ambush was waiting for them.

They plunged headlong into a sack the enemy had long since laid. In an instant, arrows and stones rained down from above, while from the front, foot soldiers wielding short weapons and rattan shields charged out with fierce battle cries. After half a shichen of bitter fighting, the invaders, utterly worn out, were annihilated to the last man!

The general leading them also took his own blade and cut his throat! Before dying, he wept bitterly: "Our stratagem has failed — I have failed Your Majesty's great expectations!"

His head, along with his banner, was sent to the defending commander. Unfurled, the banner revealed a single enormous character: "Cheng."

The man who had orchestrated this ambush at Blackwater Gorge was none other than Cen Peng, General Who Conquers the South of Wei. He laughed and said: "Just as His Majesty foresaw — the Shu army really did come through the Ziwu Valley."

When Diwu Lun campaigned in Longyou, the great rear had been entrusted to Cen Peng. His defense zone stretched from Lantian and Ziwu all the way to Shangyu and Wu Pass, with his primary surveillance target being the Shu army in Hanzhong.

Early that summer, Gongsun Shu had even sent envoys to present a strange beast, a xiongmao, as tribute. Yet now he could not resist sending troops to try his luck. Cen Peng, with a clean and decisive total annihilation, made the Shu army abandon any wishful hopes of exploiting the situation.

Cen Peng ordered over a hundred prisoners brought forward, preparing to release them to carry back the news. The reason he wanted to release so many was that he feared the return journey would be so harsh that not one in ten of these men would make it back.

"Go back and tell Gongsun Ziyang this."

"It is impolite not to reciprocate. Since he has dared to tear up our treaty and invade Wei territory, I, Cen Peng, as General Who Conquers the South, must naturally lead the tens of thousands under my command southward via the Ziwu, Tangluo, and other routes to strike Hanzhong and demand an accounting!"

After the Shu soldiers were released, they fled south in panic. Cen Peng hoped Gongsun Shu would believe his bluff and concentrate his forces in Hanzhong for defense — it was the rainy season, and he would never march unprepared to the other end of the Ziwu Valley to let the Shu army wait at ease for his exhausted troops.

Cen Peng then summoned messengers and ordered them to hurry to Chencang to inform Diwu Lun of this matter.

"Report to His Majesty: Gongsun Shu has aided Long against Wei. Since he has sent troops to invade the Ziwu Valley, it is extremely likely that Shu forces have also entered Longxi!"

Meanwhile, on the western side of the Qinling Mountains, the Wei River narrows that Wan Xiu was traversing proved even more difficult than the Ziwu Valley.

The Ziwu road had at least been repaired once with court funds during Wang Mang's time, but the Wei River narrows remained in their primeval state — a veritable nightmare for an army on the march. After leaving the last village west of Chencang, the five thousand men Wan Xiu led had only themselves to rely on.

To the north, the Long Mountains pressed hard against the Qinling range, as if desperate to fuse completely with it, forming an interlocking, jagged pattern: you within me, I within you. The Wei River squeezed through the crevice between these two great mountain systems, charging left and dashing right through the valleys, its current extremely violent.

Wan Xiu had men try to tow boats upstream, but it was utterly impossible — the drop was too great, the gorges deep, the waves fierce.

The guide simply told him: "General, it is said that when Emperor Wu of Han built his palaces, he ordered Longyou to fell great timbers. Every year from the ninth month to the twelfth month, they released the logs into the Wei. They say they sent one or two thousand great trees downstream in succession, but by the time Guanzhong received the timber, it had all been battered useless against the rocky shoals."

Indeed, if merely floating logs was like this, let alone boats — and that was in winter, when the current was gentler. Now it was summer, with the waters at their height. Wan Xiu ordered the army to stick to the mountain paths as much as possible and keep well away from the river, for otherwise, if a flash flood swept through, with a bit of luck, it could wipe out the entire army.

Over several days, they marched a hundred li of mountain roads, rarely glimpsing a human figure. Occasionally they saw hamlets built on the mountainsides; the mountains all around were scarred with gullies, clawed out by the rain like a cat's scratches. The rushing water had washed away all fertility, and the land was barren to the naked eye.

"All people who fled into the mountains to escape the harsh governance of Han and Xin."

Wan Xiu's vanguard killed several tigers and leopards every day and even encountered a bear — truly, harsh governance is fiercer than tigers.

Climbing along the river's northern bank, a slope that looked pathless from afar revealed a small trail, but it was entirely through brambles. Wan Xiu recalled Diwu Lun's words to him: "Hew through brambles and thorns." He refused the soldiers' offer of a sedan chair and walked near the front, swinging his own blade to clear a path for the troops, his head drenched in sweat without even noticing.

With the general doing this, how could the soldiers lag behind? They quickened their pace. Fortunately, at Diwu Lun's insistence, most had bound their legs with thick puttees. Those soldiers who had been lazy now found their legs stinging with pain, crisscrossed with bloody scratches; some brambles were poisonous, causing unbearable itching and pain, and some men even died from it.

The whole journey was through high mountains and deep valleys. The vanguard troops had it hardest: opening roads when they met a mountain, building bridges when they crossed water. Where no path at all could be found, they sent men with experience in cave-harvesting bees to climb up on ropes, chisel holes into the cliff face, and insert stone bars and wooden planks. Stone slabs laid over the bars became sky-ladders and plank roads. Nearly every li of progress cost a man's life.

Sometimes they encountered a slope so steep no road could be built. As the soldiers hesitated, Wan Xiu stepped forward, wrapped himself in a felt cloak and a mat, and simply hurled himself sideways, rolling straight down the mountain!

"General!"

The soldiers cried out in shock, then followed his example. When they had tumbled and scrambled to the bottom, they saw Wan Xiu grimacing in pain — it turned out that on the way down, his body had struck a hard rock, and his back was already bleeding.

Wan Xiu only said it was nothing serious. After the army doctor treated it with herbal medicine, he paid it no more mind. As for the soldiers, though their faces were bruised and swollen, they had at least crossed one more mountain ridge.

On such a perilous route, transporting fodder and grain was out of the question; they relied entirely on the dry rations they carried. Fortunately, Wan Xiu had prepared for this campaign for a long time. Besides parched flour, he had even brought dried meat and vegetables that had been blanched in boiling water and then air-dried. Occasionally, when the soldiers hunted wild game, though the meat was a bit rank, it was a rare delight on this bitter march.

Casualties were heavier than in an ordinary battle. Men often collapsed mid-stride and never rose again, or were found to have stopped breathing when morning came. Snakes, insects, wounds, and illness — many were fatal. And those who fell behind were even more numerous. In just a few days, their numbers had plummeted from five thousand to three thousand. Morale sank lower and lower, and murmurs of doubt grew louder and louder.

It was fortunate that many of the company officers had followed Wan Xiu since the days of the Boar-Rush Braves and were able to suppress the discontent.

After surmounting who knew how many hardships, hope at last appeared before their eyes!

This route was perilous, true, but the straight-line distance to Longyou was very short — at the very least, half that of the Long Pass road. The Wei River seemed less turbulent now, and the mountain terrain gradually began to ease. On the tenth day, just as their dry rations were nearly exhausted, a small town suddenly appeared before the Wei army!

This small walled town was called Mianzhu Circuit. Unlike Cen Peng's defense of the Ziwu Valley, Longyou had never imagined that an enemy could cross these mountain ridges and appear here as if dropped from the heavens. The Wei army took the small town without expending too much effort.

"Mianzhu Circuit."

Wan Xiu confirmed the location on his map and smiled: "This is a good omen."

As a "Confucian knight-errant," he possessed a certain degree of cultural refinement and had done his homework thoroughly before setting out.

"Do you all know of Duke Mu of Qin? One of the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period. In those days, Longyou still had many small Rong states. In the thirty-seventh year of Duke Mu, the Qin army marched against the Western Rong, surrounded Mianzhu, and captured the King of Mianzhu alive. After that, Duke Mu pressed his victory westward and conquered over twenty Rong and Di states, expanding his territory by a thousand li, and thus became hegemon over the Western Rong!"

"Now, as we march west, taking Mianzhu first — we too shall follow the example of Duke Mu of Qin!"

After eating their first hot meal in what felt like forever and sleeping soundly under eaves, the Wei army's morale recovered somewhat. But Wan Xiu found it hard to sleep. He knew very well that those who had escaped from Mianzhu Circuit would carry the news that their force had broken into Longyou and report it to Tianshui and Longxi!

Wan Xiu climbed the small town's wall at night and gazed south. There stood a lone peak jutting abruptly from the wilderness, its shape like a haystack — Maiji Mountain. Yet no matter how Wan Xiu looked at it, it seemed a savage beast.

And to the west, a day's march away, lay Shanggui City. By all logic, this was the place Wan Xiu should attack, but as far as he knew, the Yang clan of Longyou in Shanggui was quite wealthy and powerful, with many retainers, and it was not certain they could take it. Furthermore, if Longyou sought aid from Gongsun Shu and the Shu army marched north, Shanggui was an unavoidable route. Even if he captured it, he would face a siege and be unable to achieve his goal of forcing Wei Ao to pull back his troops.

Finally, Wan Xiu turned his head and looked north. According to the elders of this town, two days' journey to the north lay a place called Lueyang Circuit.

Where Rong and Di dwell, it is called a circuit. Lueyang, like Mianzhu, was a place where Hua and Rong lived intermixed — but its strategic position was far more important than that of remote, frontier Mianzhu.

A year ago, when the other generals were fighting tooth and nail for the chance to follow the King of Wei to Hebei and earn merit, Wan Xiu had been in Right Fufeng, quietly studying the opponents to the west. He had acquired quite a few maps, guides, and the like, and was rather knowledgeable about the Long region.

"Lueyang is the junction where the Long Pass road, the Xiao Pass road, and many other routes converge."

This was precisely the "heart and spleen of Longyou" that Wan Xiu had spoken of when he volunteered for this campaign before Diwu Lun!

Wan Xiu's gaze fixed solely on this place. "If we can take Lueyang, it will surely alarm all of Longyou. Wei Ao, currently at Long Slope, will certainly pull his army back to the rescue, and the powerful clans of Longyou will be deeply shaken."

But with their mere three-thousand-odd exhausted troops, could they take Lueyang Circuit — a town small yet stoutly defended?

Faced with his hesitant officers, Wan Xiu this time resorted to goading.

"On the eve of the great battle at Zhouyuan the year before last, Geng Boye also took a mere two thousand men, crossed the mountain plateaus in the snow, and launched a surprise attack on Qian County, forcing Longyou to withdraw from Guanzhong. From that moment on, young Geng's name spread across the realm."

"Most of you are veterans who have followed His Majesty since the days of the Boar-Rush Braves, but because my own achievements have been unremarkable, you have not been promoted this past year. Now is the season for men to win glory! The people of Mianzhu Circuit say that nearly every household has had to send its men to the front lines. The great army of Longyou is massed at Long Mountain — their rear is actually empty. If we can strike it, success is certain!"

The inspiration for Wan Xiu's expedition this time did indeed come from Geng Yan, but he did not know that Geng Yan himself had originally been inspired by Lai Xi.

This tactic uses one's own force as bait — attacking or holding a strategic area to lure enemy troops into moving toward it, thereby drawing their forces away so that friendly units can break through obstacles and finally coordinate with the bait force to counter-encircle the enemy.

This, ah, is what we call "the flower blooming at the center"!

The officers acknowledged, though in their hearts they were far from confident. They merely said to one another: "We've come this far, we've already taken the risk — we might as well follow the General in one more bold push."

"Exactly! I'd rather fight the enemy than go back to that narrow Wei River defile and feed the snakes and bugs!"

After the officers withdrew, Wan Xiu continued working by the commandery's single oil lamp, comparing two maps from the Tianlu Pavilion in Chang'an: one was a Former Han map, where Lueyang was simply called Lueyang.

The other was a Xin dynasty map — because of that name-changing maniac Wang Mang, the commandery and county names had almost all been altered. Tianshui, for instance, was called "Tianrong Commandery," and as for Lueyang Circuit, since Wang Mang loved changing counties and circuits into "communes," it was therefore called...

"Jieting Commune!"