Chapter 502: Penetration

The art of war says: those who race a hundred li for gain will trip up their own general; those who race fifty li for gain will see only half their army arrive. Zhang Zong had covered eighty li in a single day and night — only half his troops had reached him, the other half strung out behind, still being rounded up.

So when this General of Tiger Might learned that the Red Eyebrows had mobilized at least eight ten-thousand-man battalions to envelop him, his first reaction was to give the order: "Withdraw."

Gai Yan, who had been waiting idly for days, grew frantic: "I may be a rough man, but I have heard that whenever one does battle with the enemy, one must select brave commanders and crack troops, form them up and send them forth as the vanguard. This both swells our army's fighting spirit and crushes the enemy's prestige. The vanguard is to the three armies what the point is to a treasured sword. I have long heard that the General of Tiger Might has a tiger's gall and has broken enemy lines time and again. To pull back the moment you reach the field — will that not deal a heavy blow to our army's morale?"

Zhang Zong found it laughable that Gai Yan was trying to goad him with words. He was a brave commander, true, but he also used his head and judged the situation. He replied: "The vanguard's purpose is not only to strengthen our resolve and humble the enemy's pride — it must also scout the route for the main army, seize key terrain, ascertain the enemy's disposition, and, if possible, maneuver them a little."

"I know full well that Commandant Ma has been holding out alone on open ground these past days, fighting bitterly in a perilous position. His Majesty is frantic with worry and has ordered me to act with bold resolve, to press forward through the night regardless of cost, break the rebels' encirclement, and rescue our comrades from danger…"

"But if we are too hasty, we will instead fall right into the Red Eyebrows' trap."

Zhang Zong understood perfectly why His Majesty the Emperor had sent him racing a hundred li: although troops after a forced march have no fighting strength at all, he only needed to show his face. The Sanhe troops were like a three-edged arrowhead — Diwu Lun had nocked it on the string, the Emperor had drawn the bow from afar, aiming at Fan Chong's back, so that the Red Eyebrow Army could not throw its full weight against Ma Yuan.

Seeing that Gai Yan was about to argue further, Zhang Zong added: "The Wuzi says: he who commands many seeks easy ground; he who commands few seeks narrow defiles. The Red Eyebrows are many and suited to deploying on flat terrain; we are few, and if we are to withstand their fierce assault, we need a narrow, defensible position."

Yet on this great plain between the Yellow River and the Ji, finding a defensible position was truly no easy matter. Gazing left and right, there was not a single hillock, not a single stream that the Wei army could use as a holdfast.

Under these circumstances, facing an enemy ten times their number, avoiding their sharp edge was naturally the sensible choice.

But Gai Yan did not see it that way. In his view, the Red Eyebrows were nothing but scattered stragglers. With three thousand shock cavalry in hand, all he needed was a single infantry unit to coordinate with, a few rounds of charges, and the Red Eyebrow rebels would collapse in rout — with the Yuyang shock cavalry on your side, you could lead a dog and still win!

Yet this "tiger general" before him was worse than a dog!

Suppressing his discontent, Gai Yan asked: "How far does the General intend to withdraw?"

Zhang Zong replied: "If the Red Eyebrows do not pursue deeply, we fall back three li."

This was Diwu Lun's order to him: the Sanhe troops were to cling to the Red Eyebrow Army like sticky candy, leaving them unable to advance or retreat.

"If the Red Eyebrows pursue relentlessly, I will retreat a full thirty li, to lure the enemy northward."

Zhang Zong continued: "In war, troops scattered lose strength; troops massed gain it — this is a constant principle of the military. When the enemy attacks us with numbers, we should unite our forces to strike them. It is more urgent to fall back a little and link up with the reinforcements coming up behind. By then, the Wei army will be concentrated and the Red Eyebrows divided."

Diwu Lun, in making this deployment, had clearly also recognized this superb "blossom at the center" posture and wanted Ma Yuan to draw in the Red Eyebrows' main strength. Meanwhile, the Ji Province troops, the Sanhe troops, the Yuyang shock cavalry, the Guanzhong troops — every sort of central army regular and irregular — were all converging and racing toward the battlefield.

Zhang Zong's reasoning was sound, and he could invoke the Emperor to overrule him. Gai Yan knew he could not force the issue and could only take his leave in frustration.

But Zhang Zong had no intention of letting him go: "My troops are exhausted from the long march, and the Red Eyebrows are bearing down fiercely. I hope Juqing will cover my unit with his shock cavalry. If the rebels press too deep, you and I can turn and strike them hard!"

Gai Yan agreed, but as he rode back he cursed under his breath: "I thought Zhang Zong was a man of daring — who knew he would be so spiritless. He was once a subordinate of General Wenyuan too, yet he too watches him die and does nothing."

How could the Red Eyebrows possibly pursue deeply? They only wanted to push Zhang Zong back so they could keep besieging Ma Yuan. Diwu Lun's idea was fine, but when exactly would his main force arrive? Tonight or tomorrow? And after arriving, they would still need half a day's rest before they could engage the Red Eyebrows, wouldn't they? If within these short two days the Red Eyebrows overran Ma Yuan's wagon fort, Gai Yan would carry the regret to his grave — he could not shake the feeling that Ma Yuan's encirclement was connected to his own failure to thoroughly scout the Red Eyebrows' movements.

Zhang Zong laid out strategy and military doctrine to Gai Yan, but the men of Yan did not care for such cold, cold-blooded calm. Their blood ran hot, stirring to elegy and lament, enough to make the icy Yi River boil!

The battle at Aocang was still before his eyes, Ma Yuan's heroic bearing vivid — and as a subordinate, how could he watch his commander trapped and turn away without a care?

With this thought, Gai Yan reined in his horse and said to himself: "Since neither the Emperor nor Zhang Zong will save him, then I shall help General Wenyuan break out of this tight encirclement!"

…

"General of Tiger Might, we marched a full day and night. When we got here we didn't even have the strength to pitch camp — we just lay on the grass wanting to sleep. The moment we shut our eyes, we were roused and told to march back. What's this about? Is it really the General's order?"

The Sanhe troops were a mixed lot — some were old veterans who had fought for years, others were the private forces of powerful families from Henei and Luoyang. Now they were all grumbling and refusing to move.

Diwu Lun had specifically sent Zhang Zong to lead them because he valued Zhang Zhujun's harsh, law-and-order style and his willingness to kill.

Faced with these complaints, Zhang Zong did not answer. He first had the ringleaders hauled out and, on the charge of defying orders and raising a public clamor, had their heads struck off on the spot…

His subordinates did not need to ask "why" — just as Zhang Zong, when he received Diwu Lun's commands, carried them out strictly, without so much useless talk.

The yawning soldiers were jolted awake at once. Since they had come with light kit anyway, they hastily rolled up their straw mats onto their backs, shouldered their halberds and spears, turned direction, and began retreating north, muttering under their breath that the officers were inhuman, making the common soldiers run back and forth for nothing.

But Zhang Zong did not feel his trip had been in vain: "By coming here, I have fitted a nose ring on the Red Eyebrow Army."

Now it remained to be seen whether he could lead the Red Eyebrow Army by the nose and achieve the goal of maneuvering the enemy.

Yet the calm, unhurried pulling of the enemy that Zhang Zong had envisioned went badly awry because of one link in the chain, turning into a headlong retreat.

Scouts shuttled back and forth between the Sanhe troops and the Youzhou cavalry, relaying messages: "General, General Gai has ordered the Yuyang shock cavalry to assemble."

"The Yuyang shock cavalry is deployed between our unit and the Red Eyebrows. When the Red Eyebrows draw near, they scatter in a rush; when the Red Eyebrows pull back, they regroup and challenge them again."

"Excellent! With the Yuyang shock cavalry aiding us, the Red Eyebrows cannot close in. The moment they pursue too eagerly and their battalions lose cohesion, or they hesitate and start to pull back — that will be our moment to counterattack!"

Zhang Zong nodded. It seemed this rough frontiersman Gai Yan from Yuyang, dull-witted though he was, truly had a knack for fighting and leading troops, and was not entirely incapable of listening to reason.

But a moment later, the scout's expression turned panicked.

"General Gai has sent this humble one to relay a message: he asks the General of Tiger Might to continue drawing the Red Eyebrows' main force in pursuit, but begs forgiveness — Gai Yan cannot follow alongside."

Zhang Zong was stunned: "What is Gai Juqing going to do?"

"Lieutenant General Gai says: if the commanding general is lost, his lieutenants and colonels bear the guilt. He dares not abandon Commandant Ma and wishes only to live or die together with him!"

"Damn it!" Zhang Zong was instantly frantic. He hurriedly drove his chariot against the flow of the Sanhe troops retreating three stages, racing all the way to the army's tail. He climbed onto a war chariot, stood on tiptoe, and peered back, but could not see clearly.

The crows in the sky, however, saw it all with perfect clarity: out on the plain, several Red Eyebrow ten-thousand-man formations were pushing northward in disorder, like a giant net spread to catch Zhang Zong the fish.

And Gai Yan's Yuyang shock cavalry, like a school of small fish now gathering, now scattering — just as they were about to be swallowed by the Red Eyebrows, they miraculously slipped through several li west of the Red Eyebrow host and shot straight southward!

…

This was, without a doubt, an audacious penetration thrust.

Gai Yan had, as promised, delayed the Red Eyebrow Army for half a shichen on Zhang Zong's behalf. Only, at the moment he should have pulled back, he instead gave the order for a forced march south!

Relying on their mobility, the Yuyang shock cavalry charged through just before two Red Eyebrow ten-thousand-man battalions could close in. Gai Yan brought up the rear; as he galloped past, the Red Eyebrow troops on both sides were so close he could make out their eyebrows and eyes — all of them stunned and dumbfounded…

Surprise was exactly what Gai Yan wanted!

Gai Yan had the Yuyang shock cavalry form a marching column. If they encountered the enemy ahead, they were to raise the alarm at once. On this great plain, farmland, roads, and wasteland all lay open for them to gallop across.

One, two… he counted all the way to eight. The Red Eyebrows' operational unit was the ten-thousand-man battalion. The five battalions that had been advancing on Zhang Zong were left behind by the cavalry. Had Gai Yan wished, he could have smashed any two of them with ease — but there were too many Red Eyebrows; they could never be killed to the last. And their warhorses' and riders' strength was finite. One misstep, one entanglement, and they would never break free again.

From his observations over the past days, the Red Eyebrows had committed their entire main force. Fan Chong was likely among these eight ten-thousand-man battalions too. Lured out by Zhang Zong, they had thrown caution to the wind — even if they now hurriedly turned around and raced back, it was already too late!

For cavalry, running at full speed, a distance of twenty li was a matter of a few ke. As the horses streamed sweat and panted for breath, the Yuyang shock cavalry closed in on the ground between the two mounds where Ma Yuan was encircled.

In the brief time it took to rest the horses and re-form the ranks, Gai Yan made a rough headcount. At least several hundred riders had fallen behind, some even trapped within the Red Eyebrow encirclement.

"Brothers!"

Gai Yan turned and shouted: "The Yuyang shock cavalry came south to fight by the Emperor's command, but our reputation is poor. The Inspector has no love for us, the Chancellor no regard. In Ji Province and at Yecheng, the Ji people looked on us as bandits."

"Among all the commanders of the Central Plains, the only one who has treated the Yuyang shock cavalry fairly is Commandant Ma!"

"General Wu Ziyan had a grudge against Commandant Ma. I thought we would be mistreated and pushed aside, but Commandant Ma treated us like his own children. When times were hard in Chenliu, he often set out wine and slaughtered oxen to feast the troops. He even said that one of our riders was worth five foot soldiers and must be well treated — even when the infantry were eating parched grain, our pay and horse fodder were never shorted."

"The army judge Dong Xuan has long looked at us with displeasure, always trying every means to rein in the Yuyang shock cavalry. It was Commandant Ma who shielded us time and again, saying the Yuyang soldiers are wolves — if you tame away our wild ambition, how can we tear into a strong foe?"

That was for the public good. On a personal level, Ma Yuan's heroic spirit at Aocang had won Gai Yan's heartfelt admiration. With their temperaments so well matched, Gai Yan's only regret was that his own status was too low to call Ma Yuan a brother…

By the time Gai Yan finished speaking, this man of eight chi and nine cun had tears in his eyes. "The General has indulged us like infants. Now that he is trapped, it is as though a father or elder brother has fallen into trouble — how can we sit by and watch?"

"Gai Yan is willing to go help the Commandant break through! Who else will come along?"

The orderlies and the spring wind whistling across the open plain carried Gai Yan's voice through the ranks of the Yuyang shock cavalry. These horsemen were borderland scoundrels, half-soldier and half-bandit, yet they cherished a bold man's elegy, repaying kindness with gratitude. Ma Yuan's birth was noble, but his temperament suited them even better than Wu Han's…

In that moment, every man of the Yuyang shock cavalry glared with wide-open eyes. Not quite to the dramatic extreme of hair bristling beneath caps, but the ring-pommel blades they raised high left no doubt as to their resolve!

"We will follow the General into the deepest ravine!"

Unlike the Longyou shock cavalry, the Yuyang shock cavalry were actually more skilled at mounted archery, often calling their riders "bowstringers." But today, Gai Yan did not intend to delay. He directly ordered the Yuyang shock cavalry to deploy in assault formation, then spurred their horses forward, closing in on the Red Eyebrow Army's disorderly encampment.

The Red Eyebrows' four ten-thousand-man camps had Ma Yuan's force tightly encircled, but after their allied troops had been "drawn away" by Zhang Zong, the formations of those left behind looked truly thin! Not even as dense as the woods beside their encampment.

The Yuyang shock cavalry prowling near the battlefield was no secret at all. The Red Eyebrow Army had spent no small effort guarding against them. It was only a pity that the Red Eyebrows had mostly fought in the Central Plains, and their experience of battle against formed cavalry units was far too scant.

The trenches were not dug wide enough — the shock cavalry could leap them with ease. The abatis were not set densely enough — a few extra steps around and they were past. Wagon barricades? Nonexistent. How could one expect the Red Eyebrows, who could not even secure their own linked camps, to flexibly employ all manner of formations? In Gai Yan's eyes, that lot mostly won through chaos — but shock cavalry were the very bane of a disordered army! Even if the Red Eyebrows held the advantage in numbers, so long as he broke through one side, Ma Yuan could seize the moment to fight his way out.

It was not only the Red Eyebrow Army, scrambling to meet the attack, who spotted them — Ma Yuan's force, trapped between the two hills, saw them too. Very soon, a thick plume of smoke rose slowly from the hilltop.

"Commandant Ma is raising a beacon." Gai Yan, just about to give the order to attack, halted his movement abruptly.

His family lived in Yaoyang County beyond the Yuyang border fortifications. Passing in and out of the frontier, the beacon-fire codes were the most commonplace thing — Gai Yan was certainly no stranger to them.

Since Han times, beacon-fire signals had comprised five types: the beacon-basket, the banner, the smoke, the torch-fire, and the fuel-stack. The beacon-basket was a cage-like object woven of grass or a wooden frame covered with cloth. The banner was a cloth flag. The smoke was a column rising from a tall smoke-stove chimney — these three were used by day. The torch-fire was used at night, raising a burning bundle of reeds. The fuel-stack was a great pile of straw, used both day and night: by day it was burned for its dense smoke, by night for its raging blaze.

Not only could these convey the state of battle, they could also tell the neighboring beacon stations the number of barbarian invaders — up to ten thousand men could be indicated.

And Diwu Lun, having indeed spent time on the frontier, had now adapted this whole system with flexible ingenuity, combining the signals into more complex "smoke-speech and flag-speech," compiling them into a booklet for routine troop signaling. After all, on the battlefield, intelligence was everything!

Only, Ma Yuan had been trapped in haste, and some of his baggage carts had been seized, so the signals were not sent in full — but the general meaning could still be conveyed.

Gai Yan's eyesight was keen. He fixed his gaze on the signals atop the small hill. "The smoke is black — they've added water to the fuel-stack and deliberately broken the fire, making the smoke column now part, now join. That is 'parting-and-joining smoke.'"

This kind of "parting-and-joining smoke" meant "Danger — do not approach," the same meaning as sounding the gongs to retreat!

"They are warning us!"

Gai Yan at once shifted his gaze to the great stretch of woods near the Red Eyebrow encampment. A flock of crows, just having fed, circled above it. Even when a few chanced to land, they immediately startled back into the air!

…

At that same moment, Ma Yuan was also gazing down from the hilltop. From Gai Yan's position, the disposition within could not be seen clearly — but he could see it.

What was packed densely together in those woods were not monkeys, but Red Eyebrows!

"What a man, this Giant Fan."

Ma Yuan clicked his tongue in wonder. This Fan Chong had made seven or eight thousand Red Eyebrows do the work of ten thousand — since their marching columns were so chaotic it was hard to count their numbers anyway, he had successfully misled Gai Yan.

In secret, he had also pulled twenty thousand men into the woods to guard against a Wei cavalry raid. The moment the cavalry charged in, they could emerge from the woods and cut off their retreat. Fan Chong meant to devise a trap to annihilate the Yuyang shock cavalry, the force that could decide the battle's outcome, in one fell swoop!

"Fortunately, Juqing has seen my beacon-fire. Fan Chong's scheme has come to nothing."

Having thought through the situation, Ma Yuan was content to remain inside the encirclement. The Red Eyebrows had trapped him, but he was also pinning down the Red Eyebrows. He need only wait for His Majesty the Emperor to arrive on the battlefield with the main force, and everything would…

Just then, someone beside him cried out in alarm: "General, have the Yuyang shock cavalry gone blind? Why are they still charging?"

Ma Yuan started. He cast his gaze out again, and saw that Gai Yan, who had clearly understood his signal, was nonetheless disregarding everything and leading the Yuyang shock cavalry in launching a charge against the Red Eyebrow Army!

Over ten thousand hooves began to quicken their stride. The tactical movements of the Yuyang shock cavalry were not as standardized as those of the newly formed Bing Province cavalry, but they were still among the finest inheritors of Han-dynasty horsemanship. More than two thousand riders, some with bows drawn and arrows nocked, some with spears leveled or blades raised, aimed for the weakest eastern side and came charging.

The pounding of hooves that shook the earth was like the booming beat of the zhu, striking up the stirring yu-mode melody from the banks of the Yi River two hundred years ago!

"The wind sighs, the Yi's waters run cold — the bold man, once gone, never returns!"