Chapter 564: I Hold the Upper Position

Outside of Jiangling, the second-largest city in Nan Commandery is not Xiangyang, but Yicheng.

In ancient times, Yicheng had another illustrious name: Yan Ying. It served as the secondary capital of the Chu state for several hundred years and was a strategic stronghold on the middle Han River, with high walls and deep moats. When the Qin general Bai Qi attacked Chu, he was blocked here, so he dug a canal and diverted water to flood Yan. The water poured from the city's west into its east, forming a deep pool, and it is said that tens of thousands of people drowned inside the city...

Though repeatedly devastated by war, Yicheng still maintained a certain prosperity. The one guarding the city was the Chancellor of the King of Chuli, named Zhao Jing.

"For our small state to receive the aid of the Great Han's celestial troops is a blessing for Chu."

When Feng Yi led his army to Yicheng in mid-second month, Zhao Jing immediately came out of the city to welcome him in person, his manner deeply respectful. He even showed Feng Yi the Blazing Han banners embroidered by the city's people — Feng Yi suspected that what the city's people had originally intended to raise were probably the Five-Colored Banners. Whether the ones coming were Han or Wei did not matter; what mattered most was protecting their own interests.

The alliance was fragile. Feng Yi was unable to enter Yicheng and only received a portion of grain and fodder support. Fortunately, the vanguard advancing north had already reached south of Xiangyang, and Deng Chen returned in person to report to General Feng what he had seen and heard near Xiangyang.

"Cen Peng has divided his forces in two: half are at Fan City north of the Han River, and half are at Longzhong on Mount Atou, south of the Han River and west of Xiangyang."

Though Deng Chen was not deeply versed in military matters, even he could see that Cen Peng had played a terrible hand, and he could barely keep from grinning: "Right now, the pontoon bridge has been cut, and the Wei troops at Fan City are pinned down by Deng Feng at Deng County, unable to move. The Wei troops on Mount Atou have some provisions, but they can only rely on village stockades and makeshift forest camps for defense — they have no way out."

"The King of Chuli says he still has over ten thousand troops in Xiangyang. Once they link up with us, we can combine our strength and first annihilate the Wei troops on Mount Atou. Then Jing and Xiang will be secure, and afterward we can even push north, join forces with Deng Fengxian, and counterattack Nanyang!"

Deng Chen had already thought it through: if his nephew could truly find his way back from his errors and board the Great Han's ship at the final moment, he would no longer hold a grudge over being made a prisoner and nearly killed.

"Mount Atou, Longzhong?"

Feng Yi, however, was in no hurry to celebrate. He opened his map again, found the location, stroked the sparse whiskers on his chin, and smiled.

"The spot Cen Peng has chosen — his intent runs very deep."

Deng Chen was puzzled: "Wasn't it just a hasty move forced by the sudden mutiny, leaving them no choice but to station at Mount Atou?"

Feng Yi shook his head, picked up a small stone from the ground, and placed it on the map east of Xiangyang: "These are the mountains east of Xiangyang, called Mount Xian. Legend says it is where Fuxi was buried after his death. Its peaks and cliffs plunge straight into the surging Han River, dominating one flank — it is Xiangyang's eastern bulwark. The mountain is small, but extremely steep."

He then picked up a larger stone and set it southwest of Xiangyang: "Southwest of Xiangyang stretches an unbroken chain of mountains, connecting directly to the vast Jing Mountains, a region barely touched by man. And the easternmost edge of this range is Mount Atou!"

"Thus, Xiangyang is flanked by mountains on east and west, faces the Han River to the north, and has only one opening to the south. Doesn't this terrain resemble an upside-down sack?"

Deng Chen had personally traveled through that region, and it was exactly so: "That is why Xiangyang is easy to defend and hard to attack, and why His Majesty sees it as a place that north and south must contest."

Feng Yi said: "Right now, the Wei army's detached force is at Longzhong, on the northern foothills of Mount Atou. If we want to destroy them, we cannot cross the mountains; we must first reach Xiangyang and then launch our attack. That is equivalent to crawling right into this great sack formed by mountains, city, and river."

"So what if we go in?" Deng Chen felt the opportunity was simply too rare: "The pontoon bridge is destroyed, the Wei army lacks boats — can Cen Peng fly over to reinforce them? Even if they try a forced crossing from Fan City, with Deng Fengxian behind them and the Han-Chu allied army in front, they would be utterly defeated."

Feng Yi laughed: "That is precisely the ingenuity of the trap Cen Peng has laid."

"It makes one look and feel compelled to stoop down and pick up a victory that seems within easy reach — never realizing they have already fallen for his cunning scheme!"

He twisted the tip of his whiskers between his fingers, applying slight pressure. This was a habitual gesture of Feng Yi's; when deep in thought, he would always give himself a little pain, which aided his thinking. The cost was that many whiskers had been plucked out, leaving the hair under his chin ever sparser.

"In my view, the reason Cen Peng placed his pieces this way, besides luring us into the trap, is also to make Qin Feng concentrate his heavy troops at Xiangyang."

Feng Yi's gaze fell on the map, on a small city east of the Han River: Liqiu.

Yes, this godforsaken place, originally a small village subordinate to Xiangyang, was actually Qin Feng's capital!

It was laughable, really. After Qin Feng took Nan Commandery, he showed no interest in the top cities of Jiangling and Yicheng, insisting on making his hometown the capital.

Of course, Feng Yi knew the reason for Qin Feng's predicament: Qin Feng came from a minor clerk's background, not from the local magnate class. Though from the same commandery, he was somewhat afraid of being controlled by the powerful families of Jiangling and Yicheng, so he refused to abandon the place where he first raised his troops, wanting to rely on the scholars of his home region. To put it nicely, he was attached to home; to put it bluntly, he was a "house-guarding cur." Even if he wanted to emulate Xiang Yu returning home in brocade, he should at least have placed his lair in easily defensible Xiangyang — this shows how shallow his vision and judgment were.

Now, Qin Feng's main force had shifted to Xiangyang, but his capital lay far outside the defensive perimeter.

"If we march straight into this sack of Xiangyang, and Cen Peng crosses a Han River tributary from Fan City, strikes Liqiu, then crosses the Han west from Liqiu to reach our rear and seal the sack's opening — wouldn't the roles of attacker and defender be reversed?"

Although this route passed through marshes and forests, Feng Yi's impression of Cen Peng was that this man wielded his troops like a gale and driving rain, delighting in the interplay of feint and strike — one absolutely had to guard against his surprise maneuvers!

And so, Feng Yi did not adopt the plan urged by Ma Wu and Deng Chen — to rush into Xiangyang and coordinate with the Chu army to annihilate the Wei detached force. Instead, he took an extremely conservative course of action:

He assigned Deng Chen to remain in Yicheng with over a thousand men to guard the boats, using it as the Han army's supply base. If the situation turned unfavorable, the hundred-plus boats, once emptied of grain, could at least evacuate the greater part of the Han army.

Feng Yi himself moved only a hundred li north, stationing his troops in a county south of Mount Atou, hovering just outside the edge of the sack.

In the memorial he wrote to Liu Xiu, Feng Yi explained it thus: "Cen Peng's use of troops is treacherous; one must not rashly thrust in. I, Yi, shall hold and stalemate Cen Peng for several tens of days. When the Wei troops on Mount Atou run out of grain, they will surely be in great desperation. Either the southern force will cross north and retreat in panic, or the northern force will cross south to rescue them — either way, we can respond with composure. This is a ten-thousand-fold certain plan."

In late second month of the third year of Wude, when Cen Peng, stationed at Fan City and day and night hoping Feng Yi would crawl into the "sack," heard that this Grand General Who Guards the West of the Great Han had instead kept hovering outside, sending only Ma Wu to probe at Xiangyang, he could not help but laugh and curse:

"Feng Gongsun's way of using troops — he's learned a few superficial tricks from the Great Wei's Son of Heaven."

This was high praise. Feng Yi was the complete opposite of Cen Peng, who liked to accumulate strength and decide victory or defeat with a single fierce blow. Feng Yi leaned more toward Diwu Lun's approach, summed up in one word: steady!

Steady, cautious, deliberate planning, and only fighting after the strategy is set — this was Cen Peng's understanding of his opponent. According to reports from the Wei army's ubiquitous spies, the Han army's vanguard, General Ma Wu, marched too fast and with too sharp an edge, yet his ranks were full of disorder and disarray — a single ambush could scatter them.

Feng Yi, in contrast, brought over ten thousand troops north, yet left almost no gap to exploit. On the march, his army maintained orderly ranks without clamor. After reaching south of Mount Atou, he deliberately had his soldiers make a great din, solely so the noise would carry to the mountain's north. Though they could not cross the mountain to attack the Wei detached force at Longzhong, within a day or two, the sound alone was enough to unsettle their minds, making the soldiers who did not know the truth believe the Han main force had arrived and they were surrounded.

Fortunately, that unit was built around veterans Cen Peng had led since Guanzhong; otherwise, their morale might well have collapsed already.

It was also heard that Feng Yi placed great importance on logistics — his fleet still followed the army and was stationed at Yicheng. This was the posture of someone ready to turn the boats around at any moment if things looked bad. Whatever happened to fighting for Xiangyang?

It had to be said: these measures of Feng Yi's had completely foiled Cen Peng's original strategy. The plan to surprise Liqiu, cross the Han, and seal the sack shut could no longer be used. If he went now, he would run headlong into Feng Yi striking him mid-crossing...

"Cleverly done."

Cen Peng, however, was not anxious. After securing Fan City and capturing Shandu County upstream on the Han River, many things had become simpler. Reinforcements, for instance, and provisions — both could now arrive in a steady stream via secure waterways...

"Then let us grant Feng Gongsun his wish and keep dragging this out, another ten or twenty days."

"But in the end, he will still be the one to suffer."

"Because in this battle —"

Cen Peng raised his head confidently, gazing into the azure sky at a gray eagle chasing a bird of prey.

"I hold the upper position."

"He holds the lower!"

Night rain swells the Jing River; spring clouds deepen over Ying's trees.

This poem from a later age perfectly captures the Jianghan Plain in the third month. As torrential rains poured down, the world, once tender green, grew ever more lush and dense. On the high mountains, wolfberry and chinaberry vied in growth; in the low-lying riverside wetlands, raindrops fell upon the leaves of bracken and vetch.

When the rain stopped, the hundred streams poured into the Han River, and its surging, ceaseless current now tightly enveloped Jing and Xiang, growing broader and mightier by several degrees. The waves had surged to the east of Xiangyang, beneath the towering Mount Xian, making it resemble even more a colossal ship. Here, blocked by the mountain's mass, the Han River bent in a great curve, flowing slowly southward.

Amid the churning waves, sturgeon and paddlefish swam in schools.

And this rain also thoroughly drenched Feng Yi awake!

All these days, he had felt there was something he had overlooked, but only now, watching the vast, swelling momentum of the rivers and Han after the waters rose, did Feng Yi's face suddenly drain of color.

"This is bad."

"This time, I'm downstream!"

……

From the end of the first month, ever since Cen Peng entered Fancheng, the Wei army had consistently acted as though it lacked boats and oars — they needed locals to help build the pontoon bridge, and boats had to be requisitioned on the spot. But the King of Chuli, keeping a wary eye, had already moved all his vessels downstream.

After the pontoon bridge was burned down by Chu suicide troops, Cen Peng also appeared helpless, and the repairs proceeded so slowly that everyone — from Deng Feng and the King of Chuli, Qin Feng, to Feng Yi, the only man in this campaign who could trade a few moves with Cen Peng — overlooked the threat from the water. Although the Wei army might have had boats in Nanyang, those tributaries were too narrow, making it very difficult to transport them directly by water into the Han River…

No one expected that when the heavy rains came in early March, the Han River and all its tributaries would swell with astonishing speed, entering the navigable season well before summer arrived!

What you fear most is sure to come. One boat after another arrived right on schedule — some from the Danyang region upstream on the Han, passing through Shandu and other counties, docking unhindered at the Fancheng wharves; others setting out from the Nanyang heartland, relying on the natural terrain where a hundred streams feed into the Han, smoothly joining up with their comrades…

The boats delivered not only grain that was nearly exhausted, but also reinforcements and civilian laborers.

And one after another, the small inland-wing ships built in Wancheng — the only warships capable of fighting on the Han River.

Dozens of vessels lay moored at the Fancheng wharves, now half-submerged after the waters rose. As the drumbeats sounded, they all cast off from the docks and sailed into the river current. Aboard them, apart from a few trusted colonels personally dispatched by Cen Peng, the Embroidered Uniform Commandant Zhang Yu stood before the yellow sail as it was slowly hoisted. Cupping his hands toward Cen Peng, who had come to see them off, he spoke with wholehearted admiration:

"This game of weiqi — though the opening seemed full of bad moves — in the end, it is the General who has won!"

Cen Peng, however, still refused to underestimate his foe: "Until the final moment, I dare not claim victory."

He and Feng Yi were well-matched opponents, each countering the other's moves. Since the old trick no longer worked, he had switched to a new strategy. This waterborne surprise force would follow the Han River south, moving faster than a galloping horse, to strike the Han army's supply depot at Yicheng: since Feng Yi refused to walk into the sack, then he would stretch the sack wider and force him inside!

The only question was — how would Feng Yi respond?

Zhang Yu nodded: "The hidden piece in Yicheng, the Chu bandits' Chancellor Zhao Jing — the one who accepted gold and the Great Wei seal and ribbon — has been planted for a long time, just waiting to be activated! Let Zhang Yu go south, bring this piece into play, and win the General a 'flying checkmate' by cutting off Feng Yi's line of retreat!"