Chapter 585: Right and Wrong, Truth and Falsehood, Are Hard to Argue Conclusively

"In high antiquity, King Wu Ding of the Shang dynasty attacked and destroyed the Great Peng clan — but let us set that aside for now."

In the cold, quiet hall of the Liang Garden at Suiyang, Diwu Lun traced the map, everything clear at a glance.

Pengcheng cannot be called completely flat — to the north lie the Yi, Meng, and Tai Mountains' foothills, and to the west stands Mount Mangdang — yet these hills are nothing compared to the perilous passes of Xiao, Han, and the Three Gorges. Add to that the confluence of the Si and Yi rivers, and the canal that Fuchai dug to link the Yangtze and Huai, and Pengcheng, like Xiangyang, became a place that draws south and north together.

"By the Spring and Autumn period, Jin and Chu contended for hegemony over the Central Plains. One of their battles was the Battle of Pengcheng: the Chu army, exploiting internal strife in Jin, attacked Song. Duke Dao of Jin assembled the forces of the feudal lords and hastened to Pengcheng. The Chu army fled under cover of night, and Jin's hegemony flourished. Men of the time said: 'To achieve hegemony and secure strength, it begins at Pengcheng.'"

"In the Warring States period, King Wei of Qi and Chu fought over the Si River region. The armies of Qi and Chu clashed at Xuzhou. Qi lost first and then prevailed. From that time on, Chu's power could not cross north of Pengcheng for decades. Qi and Wei mutually recognized each other as kings at Xuzhou, and both long stood among the Seven Great Powers."

"From this we can see that Pengcheng was already the focal point of the feudal lords' struggle for supremacy in ages past."

Diwu Lun turned and looked at his assembled ministers. "But the present situation resembles neither the Spring and Autumn period nor the Warring States."

He singled out General of the Eastern Campaign Zhang Zong. "Gentlemen, tell me: what time and what battle does it resemble?"

Zhang Zong answered without hesitation: "It resembles the struggle between Chu and Han. In former days, Xiang Yu returned home in brocade and established his capital at Pengcheng, then busied himself fighting Tian of Qi. He never expected that Liu Bang would return to the Guanzhong heartland, sweep away the Three Qin, and then press eastward with such resolve that all the feudal lords abandoned Chu and sided with Han. The Han army and the lords, claiming a combined force of five hundred sixty thousand, seized Pengcheng in a single stroke while Xiang Yu was away."

"When Xiang Yu heard of it, he led thirty thousand crack troops back to Pengcheng. He struck the Han army at dawn, and by midday had utterly routed it. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered or drowned in the Sui River. Liu Bang barely escaped with his life…"

That was a classic victory of the few over the many. Zhang Zong was just warming to his tale when he suddenly noticed that Chancellor of the Right Dou Rong, seated diagonally opposite, had been stroking his beard the whole time. Dou Rong had always placed extreme importance on decorum and would never make so many small gestures in the sovereign's presence. Zhang Zong suddenly understood and thought to himself, "The Battle of Pengcheng was a victory for the southeast and a defeat for the northwest — an ill omen."

So he immediately shifted tack. "However, what truly resembles today is actually the Second Battle of Pengcheng. At that time, Liu Bang tore up the Treaty of the Hong Canal and pursued Xiang Yu. The Han general Guan Ying advanced south from Qi, captured Pengcheng, and joined the various armies to encircle Xiang Yu north of the Huai — which then led to the Siege of Gaixia."

Telling a tale of Han victory and Chu defeat posed no real problem, because within the State of Wei's official documents, Liu Xiu's "Eastern Han" was consistently referred to only as "Wu," flatly refusing to acknowledge Liu Xiu as the legitimate successor of the Han dynasty. Sooner or later, they would probably draft a "Proclamation to Pacify Wu."

Diwu Lun nodded and looked toward Dou Rong. Dou, the Duke of Zhou, rose and bowed. "In my humble opinion, it more closely resembles the Rebellion of the Seven States."

Dou Rong spoke with eloquence. "At that time, the Han army was attacking Linzi, while the main force of the Wu-Chu coalition was held up for months at Suiyang, unable to advance west. Zhou Yafu held his fortifications firmly, refusing to give battle, but secretly took the opportunity to send light troops south to seize the mouth where the Si River enters the Huai, cutting off the Wu-Chu coalition's supply route. The soldiers grew hungry. Several attempts to provoke battle failed. Their assaults were defeated, and they collapsed in a great rout. Zhou Yafu led his army in pursuit, took the Chu capital of Pengcheng, and thus pacified the seven states."

Well now — with that example, the two sides, north and south, were no longer evenly matched regimes but rather "rebels." Zhang Zong instantly learned something new.

"In all these cases, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, are hard to argue conclusively…"

Diwu Lun summed up his ministers' words. "But no historian fails to notice that it was precisely on this ancient battlefield that the rise and fall, the flourishing and decline, of so many dynasties and hegemons were decided!"

…

Liu Xiu, who had been moving east almost simultaneously with Diwu Lun, had already reached Hefei County in Jiujiang Commandery.

The storm clouds of war had drifted from Jing-Xiang and Qing Province to north of the Huai. With the north reporting one emergency after another, Liu Xiu could not even spare the time to return to his capital. He summoned his generals and ministers at Hefei to discuss countermeasures.

"For Diwu Lun to mobilize on such a massive scale, it cannot be for the sake of seizing Qufu in Lu. He has only one objective: it must be Xuzhou — Pengcheng!"

Liu Xiu, too, was staring at the map. Pengcheng — whether in the history of the Great Han or for Liu Xiu personally — was all too familiar, all too important. Since the Qin dynasty, in both wars that unified the realm, a major battle had to be fought at Xuzhou. There was simply no way around it.

Xuzhou had seen slaughter that left the land barren for a thousand li; it had seen slaughter that left scarcely a human trace. Yet the land here is fertile and the transport links convenient. Once peace comes, people from all directions hear of it and flock here, and before long the population swells again. Round and round it goes, generation after generation — and then it is swept into the next great calamity. Liu Xiu had lived through that, and it was there that he defeated his powerful foe the Red Eyebrow Army and laid the foundation for proclaiming himself Emperor.

So Liu Xiu knew very well: although Pengcheng is hard to defend and easy to attack, never, in any age, has a defender ever held it!

And it was not only the terrain that was unreliable — in terms of hard strength, the Han army was at an absolute disadvantage.

Wang Ba, the Inspector of Yang Province for Han, reported with considerable worry: "Diwu Lun's forces are massed in the Liang region. If Geng Boyang of Qing Province smashes Zhang Bu at Langya and moves south, their claim of two hundred thousand men may not be an empty boast…"

After boldly doubling the estimated size of Diwu Lun's army, they were, by contrast, quite precise about their own troop strength.

The Hefei-Huainan region was a training ground for troops, but the ten thousand-odd soldiers so painstakingly trained there had all been taken by Deng Yu to Jing-Xiang and virtually thrown away in a single wave.

Although Liu Xiu had conscripted troops once more from Jiangdong, they were now divided into three parts: ten thousand men guarding the strategic Huai-Si river junction, ten thousand garrisoned at Shouchun, and the Danyang troops Liu Xiu had on hand — fewer than thirty thousand in total. Many of these units could not be moved, for who knew whether the Wei army might suddenly break through somewhere along the thousand-li defense line of the Huai River.

"And north of the Huai, under Major Lai's command, even counting every last man, there are only thirty thousand troops."

In other words, facing Diwu Lun's "overwhelming military pressure," Liu Xiu had at most fifty thousand soldiers he could use.

The disadvantage was so glaring, and with the fresh defeat in Jing-Xiang, a general mood of war-weariness and fear of battle had spread through the realm — even among the generals and officials who had followed Liu Xiu since Kunyang.

They all looked at their Emperor, their gazes earnest. The question that no one dared to voice openly had, through their words and between the lines, already been pushed before Liu Xiu, leaving him no way to avoid it.

"Should we abandon Pengcheng? Fall back and defend south of the Huai?"

…

"In my humble opinion, Liu Xiu will certainly abandon Pengcheng."

On the other side, Zhang Zong had already reached his assessment of this campaign. "The only things Pengcheng can rely on are the Langya and Donghai hills to the north, but Zhang Bu is about to be destroyed. Once the Youzhou shock cavalry drives straight in, the outskirts of Xuzhou will have no defensible terrain. Moreover, Feng Yi and Deng Yu have just been defeated in Jing-Xiang, and the western army cannot be recalled. Even if Liu Xiu exhausts the strength of his entire realm, he can only scrape together fifty or sixty thousand men from Jiangdong and the Huai region."

As for timing and popular support, they need hardly be discussed. Even in terms of terrain — in history, of the five great battles fought at Pengcheng between north and south, the south won only once. Is that not proof enough?

In an unfavorable situation, staking all his cards and gambling on the outcome of a single city — Zhang Zong believed that the always rational and cautious Liu Xiu would not take such a risk.

"Last year, when State Commandant Ma launched troops against Pei County, Liu Xiu decisively abandoned his ancestral land and fell back to Xuzhou. I expect he will do the same today. His best course is to use the Si River to relocate troops and civilians to Huainan before our army reaches Pengcheng, and then rely on the natural barrier of the Huai River to hold out. The south is crisscrossed with waterways, and northern troops cannot adapt to the climate and terrain. That way, he might hold on for a few more years."

In Zhang Zong's eyes, this would most likely be a victory won without fighting — subduing the enemy's troops without a battle.

But Dou Rong did not see it that way. He countered, "Gentlemen, you have never faced Liu Xiu directly in battle, which is why you underestimate him so."

"Back then, outside the pass at Kunyang, I too thought that with several hundred thousand new troops pressing on the city, the Greenwood rebels had absolutely no chance of victory, and that after Liu Xiu fled, he would roam and hide and never return."

Dou Rong's smile turned bitter. But who could have imagined that the scoundrel Liu Xiu would dare, just as the new army was pulling back in disorder, to find three thousand men to save his life and charge an army of three hundred thousand — and win it all in a single gamble!

Zhang Zong remained unimpressed. "How can the mighty celestial troops of Great Wei be compared to the rabble of clay and tile that made up the new army?"

Dou Rong smiled. "Even so, we must still guard against Liu Xiu fighting like a cornered beast — suddenly rousing himself and contending with us with all his might for Pengcheng."

"What I want is precisely for Liu Xiu to refuse to lie low — to stake everything on a decisive battle!"

Diwu Lun laughed heartily, cutting short the two men's debate. With the victories in Jing-Xiang and Qing Province, the State of Wei had already gained a complete strategic advantage. In total troop strength, equipment, armor, and even training, they had surpassed the enemy. Now was the time to force Liu Xiu into a decisive battle!

That was why Diwu Lun had ordered all forces to advance on Pengcheng in Xuzhou, as if concentrating light a hundredfold, a thousandfold, onto a single point, making it white-hot, making it smoke!

He already had a clear battle plan. "If Liu Xiu dares to try to relieve Pengcheng, our army can follow Zhou Yafu's example. I will personally besiege the outskirts of Pengcheng, while the General of the Eastern Campaign uses light troops to cut off the Huai-Si junction. When that happens, not only will Lai Junshu be trapped inside the city, but the Wu reinforcements coming from Huainan will also run out of supplies and be annihilated by our infantry and cavalry!"

If it truly came to that, even if Liu Xiu himself escaped, once the main Jiangdong force was destroyed, the contest between Diwu Lun and Liu Xiu — the struggle between the transmigrator and the "Child of the Plane" — would end early, at Xuzhou.

Diwu Lun could almost see it: the rolling Si River stained red with blood, the walls of Pengcheng scorched hot by the flames of war.

"I am not afraid of the burning!"

…

"Your Majesty, to fight at Pengcheng we would likely be no match. It would be better to fall back and defend south of the Huai."

Liu Xiu's pre-battle council had reached an impasse. Wang Ba, the Governor of Yang Province, looked left and right. Seeing that no one dared to speak, he gritted his teeth. This good minister, whom Liu Xiu had praised as "sturdy grass that stands firm in a fierce wind," finally stepped forward as the first to stick out his neck.

Wang Ba carefully laid out the advantages of abandoning the Huai's north bank and defending the south: it would allow their already insufficient forces to contract; grain from Jiangdong and Huainan would not need to be shipped north along the fragile Si River waterway; and, most importantly, it would prevent the main force from being annihilated by the Wei army, which would topple the southeastern regime in a single stroke…

Liu Xiu kept his head lowered and did not answer. He did not understand — when discussing fighting north of the Huai, why did everyone only talk about Xiang Yu trapped at Gaixia, about Wu and Chu's seven states defeated at the Huai-Si junction? It was as if this Xuzhou battlefield was certain to spell disaster for a southern army.

Had they forgotten that last year, it was precisely on the outskirts of Pengcheng that Liu Xiu personally led tens of thousands of brave soldiers from Jiangdong and Huainan against the Red Eyebrow rebels and won a total victory? And that wherever the Han army and Han officials went, the "common people" welcomed them with all sincerity? Truly, they had enjoyed every advantage of the time — that realm of surging vitality, of all things striving forth, was still right before his eyes!

In just a single year, has Xu Province changed so utterly that it has become the burial ground of the Han army?

At root, this comes down to the great defeat at Jing-Xiang, which has infected many within the Eastern Han with "Fifth-phobia" — if even Feng Yi could not win, how much confidence can the rest of them have?

Since that brief moment of joy when he proclaimed himself Emperor, Liu Xiu had not smiled from the heart for a very long time. After the Jing-Xiang defeat, a troubled look became his constant companion. Even when he feigned ease before his ministers, the knot in his heart twisted tighter and tighter. He could almost see Diwu Lun pressing closer step by step.

And all he could do was retreat inch by inch — voluntarily abandoning the ancestral lands of Feng and Pei, choosing not to save the King of Qi, Zhang Bu. He had lost his grip on the contested Jing-Xiang, and holding a single Sui County was a gain not worth the loss, utterly unable to withstand Cen Peng's coming offensives...

If now even Huaibei is lost, what will he have left?

Is this so-called "Huai River–Sui County" defense line truly secure?

Liu Xiu spun around abruptly. Behind him was a wall, and nothing else besides — yet Liu Xiu stared at it for a long, long time, making the assembled ministers cease their arguments and look at one another in bewilderment.

Only after a long while did Liu Xiu point behind him and say to them, his heart still gripped by dread: "Do you all know what I see behind me?"

"I see the mighty Great River rolling on — the river that Xiang Yu, halting his horse at Wujiang Pavilion to lament, refused to cross."

He raised his voice so that every man could hear his hoarse cry and understand this petty court's predicament: "I see a yawning abyss — one misstep back, and we plunge into it!"

"Is it Xu Province and Pengcheng that I am abandoning?"

"What I am abandoning is the will to contend with Diwu Lun for supremacy! The hope of restoring the Great Han! Your titles and enfeoffed lands!"

After roundly rebuking his ministers, Liu Xiu made his decision. Drawing his sword, he hacked a corner off the table with one fierce stroke:

"Pengcheng — I shall surely relieve it. Huaibei — I shall surely fight for it. He who dares obstruct this shall be as this wood!"

For a moment, the assembled ministers were awed into silence, then all prostrated themselves and kowtowed, declaring their readiness to follow the Emperor in defending Huaibei to the death!

Liu Xiu observed that some frowned with worry — mostly the civil officials — while the military officers showed delight, some even with hot tears brimming in their eyes.

Just as expected.

Liu Xiu knew full well that if he abandoned Huaibei without a fight, the people's hearts and the army's morale would plummet further into the abyss. The Jing-Xiang defeat could still be blamed on employing the wrong men, but retreating without battle would be outright surrender and capitulation. The powerful clans of Jiangdong and Huainan were all watching!

Harsh as Diwu Lun was toward the powerful clans, he had not yet reached the Red Eyebrows' level of extermination. They could at any time voluntarily "rise in revolt" and switch to a new master, while those loyal and upright men under Liu Xiu, whose purpose was to help him restore the House of Han, would be sorely disillusioned and their hearts would turn away.

His stance, therefore, had to be resolute — to let his ministers and soldiers know that the Emperor had not forgotten his original purpose, that he would lead them all in continuing the struggle for the realm against Diwu Lun. This will that bound their hearts together must not be allowed to dissipate!

This did not mean, however, that Liu Xiu must foolishly step straight into Diwu Lun's trap. His tactics had to be flexible. Defending Pengcheng was not about fighting to the last man, but about buying time, buying space, and striving for the future!

"Pengcheng must be defended — but not defended to the death!"