Chapter 603: Hold Fast and Defend

The black-canopied boat carrying Gai Yan drifted farther and farther away, crossing the broad Huai River toward Huaiyin, while Liu Xiu stood on the bank watching for a long time before sighing with emotion: "Diwu Lun truly has many tiger generals under his command."

What he did not know was that most of Diwu Lun's subordinates, including Gai Yan, should originally have belonged to him — even though his corner had been nearly hollowed out, Liu Xiu's civil and military officials from Nanyang and Yingchuan were still quite remarkable, men like Feng Yi who could fight Cen Peng to a standstill.

But one can never have too many talented commanders, and with Diwu Lun's great army pressing down on the border, the Han army's veteran generals had died one after another in battle — amid his grief, Liu Xiu could not help but sigh: "Where shall I find fierce warriors to guard the four corners of the land?"

Especially generals skilled in using cavalry!

After taking Donghai Commandery the previous year, Liu Xiu had scavenged quite a few good things from the commandery arsenal — hundreds of thousands of weapons, chariots, and equipment stockpiled by the Han and Xin dynasties, more than enough to arm a hundred thousand troops.

This made Liu Xiu sigh with deep feeling: "A mere commandery arsenal holds so many weapons — one can see how mighty the Former Han was. Who could have expected calamity to spring from within the walls, and the realm to be usurped by treacherous villains."

Fortunately, they had fallen into the hands of the Liu family. Relying on these old stockpiles, the Han army armed itself to the teeth in one breath, which was why they could now go toe-to-toe with the Wei army north of the Huai.

Among these were two thousand and eighty sets of saddles and saddle blankets, eight hundred and twenty-five mounting stirrups, and over nine hundred warhorse head-armors — yet these horse equipments, especially the horse armor, were of no use to the Han cavalry. The southern horses were too short and small; draped in heavy armor, they could not run at all and would only serve as living targets for the Wei army's crossbows.

Northerners ride horses, southerners steer boats — some troop types truly are regional specialties, but Liu Xiu refused to believe in such fatalism.

"Xiang Yu was a southerner, his followers mostly sons of Jiangdong and elders of Huainan, much like Us. Yet Xiang Yu excelled in using chariots and cavalry, once routing the High Emperor's several hundred thousand with thirty thousand elite riders and war chariots. This shows that with a capable cavalry commander, southerners are no inferior to northerners!"

It was precisely for this reason that Liu Xiu had conceived the desire to recruit Gai Yan. He had learned that this man was not one of Diwu Lun's trusted confidants, and that factional and clique struggles within the Wei army were no less intense than in the Han army.

Who could have expected Gai Yan to refuse so decisively? Watching the distant silhouette of his boat, Liu Xiu sighed: "If We had another hundred thousand men and two more provinces, matching Diwu Lun in strength, Gai Yan might well have agreed."

If Gai Yan were truly the great Wei loyalist he claimed to be, how could he eat and sleep so well after being captured? This was the desire to stay alive at work.

But as the ancients said, do not enter a state in peril, do not dwell in a state in chaos — no one would throw in their lot with a tottering remnant Han without good reason.

Since he could not obtain Gai Yan for now, he would make full use of him to the very end!

Liu Xiu entrusted another mission to Deng Yu: "Zhonghua, take Gai Yan with you. Under the pretext of letting him travel the south and ponder returning to Han, make a thorough tour of Huainan and Jiangdong."

Deng Yu immediately grasped Liu Xiu's intent: "Your Majesty wishes to let the prominent families, officials, and common people of the rear know that the Han army has won a great victory and even captured a Wei general alive?"

Liu Xiu nodded: "Exactly. Exaggerate the enemy casualties tenfold — say we routed tens of thousands and killed or captured over ten thousand. You must puff up Gai Yan's reputation considerably, making people think he ranks alongside the great Wei generals like Geng, Ma, Cen, Jing, Wan, and Wu."

He knew very well that war was fought not only with armies but also with hearts and minds. Diwu Lun's hundred-thousand-strong army bearing down on Huaibei had put crushing pressure on this small southeastern court — not only were the officers and soldiers in the army uneasy, but all sorts of thoughts were stirring in the rear. Quite a few people were probably already pondering when would be the right time to "sincerely surrender," weren't they?

Liu Xiu knew the defeat at Ximatai could not be concealed, so he made a grand display of holding funeral rites for Liu Zhi and enfeoffing him as a king, granting him the highest posthumous honors to steady the hearts of his trusted loyalists.

And for those who "side with whoever wins," he had to rely on Gai Yan, this enormous trophy of war, to make them see that the Wei army was by no means invincible, and that Liu Xiu had already won a great victory!

The rear needed the inspiration of victory — even a watered-down victory.

But Liu Xiu would not deceive himself into thinking that two minor victories at Xiaxiang and Xu County could turn the overall tide.

Before Deng Yu departed south, Liu Xiu asked him: "What does Zhonghua think of the current situation? Does Han still have a chance at victory?"

"Does the 'victory' Your Majesty speaks of mean holding off Diwu Lun's fierce assault and preserving the Han altars south of the Huai and in Jiangdong without loss? Or holding Pengcheng and retaking Huaibei?"

Deng Yu said: "If it is the former, then Great Han has already won!"

Liu Xiu, however, shook his head with dissatisfaction: "If We were content with only that, why would We have matched wits and courage with Diwu Lun? We could simply have withdrawn everyone from Huaibei to Huainan, and would not have painfully lost Liu Zhi, nor trapped Lord Lai in Pengcheng."

Deng Yu had no choice but to speak frankly: "Even if what Your Majesty seeks is the latter, it is already more than half won. Diwu Lun assembled over a hundred thousand troops but failed to sweep through Huaibei in one surge. He stalled before Pengcheng for half a month, hoping to lure Your Majesty into striking Lingbi, but did not succeed, and instead lost several thousand men at Xiaxiang. Still failing to learn his lesson, he further dispatched Gai Yan on a lone deep thrust, seeking to decide the outcome with a surprise raid on the Huaisi confluence, and lost another great general. This is the second surge faltering. Diwu Lun can no longer send forces south to cross the line of Xiapi and the Sui River."

Liu Xiu was not so optimistic: "But the Han army, rushing back and forth along the Si River repeatedly, is also utterly exhausted and can no longer advance north to relieve Pengcheng."

Indeed, neither side had fought as smoothly as expected. The battle situation was deadlocked, just like this weather that had frozen the ground hard.

"Dragging this out benefits Han."

Deng Yu pointed at the biting wind outside and said: "With the cold this severe, if Diwu Lun cannot take Pengcheng within a month, his great army will inevitably suffer heavy attrition. When his troops grow old and weary, and the three armies long for home, Your Majesty can lead rested forces to strike Wei — a great victory will surely follow!"

Liu Xiu found this analysis quite convincing. He clenched both fists, turned, and gazed north, filled with an intense longing for a heaven-shaking reversal, a great comeback!

"A little over a month — as long as Pengcheng holds out a little over a month more, Diwu Lun's troops will be old and exhausted, and his heaven-sent doom will arrive!"

Though they clung to fantasies about Pengcheng's steadfast defense, Liu Xiu and Deng Yu, after all, did not know the true situation in that city. Their predictions were far too optimistic. Just days after Gai Yan's capture, Pengcheng was already on the brink of collapse.

What Liu Xiu could absolutely never have imagined was that the will of Pengcheng's defenders was not shattered by the howling projectiles of the Wei army's trebuchets, but was on the verge of crumbling under the shouts of a group of Liu-surnamed captives!

It had to be said that the efficiency of the Wei army's engineers and accompanying craftsmen was indeed high. In just half a month, they had built over ten observation towers outside the four walls of Pengcheng, with a new narrow wooden tower taller than the city walls springing up almost every day.

The observation towers were not only used by Wei army scouts with telescopes to observe the situation inside the city and which section of wall was most weakly defended, but could also launch propaganda offensives against the enemy.

"Elder brothers, fathers, and brothers of Pengcheng!"

That day, just as the trebuchet bombardment had ceased, someone on the observation tower again raised a simple megaphone made of rolled copper sheeting and began shouting into the city.

The speech was in the local Western Chu dialect, probably not much different from the accent in which the Hegemon-King Xiang Yu had sung "My strength plucked up the hills, my might shadowed the world" several centuries ago. He first announced his native place and name — it turned out he was the man who, in the Battle of Ximatai, had been the first to draw his blade against the defending commander Liu Zhi. He lived in such-and-such village, such-and-such hamlet, in such-and-such county, and most importantly: his surname was Liu, and he was a kinsman of the Former Han imperial clan.

"I too am a descendant of Prince Yuan of Chu. Even we Liu clan members know that Han's virtue is long exhausted, cut off long ago by Wang Mang. Liu Xiu's rekindling of the Yan Han is nothing but a final flicker before death — like all the other Han regimes under heaven, sooner or later it too will perish!"

Some of his propaganda, heard by the common men of Xu Province enduring the bitter cold and bitter fighting atop the city walls, was indeed very alluring:

"Rumors in the city say the Wei army is brutal and will slaughter Pengcheng, especially killing every last member of the Liu clan without exception — this is nonsense! Are we not still alive and well? The Wei Emperor treats captives extremely well. Every day we get hot soup and hulled grain to eat. I grew thin from hunger atop Ximatai, and now I've gained it all back!"

"Great Han is nothing but the private property of the Liu surname. We, who bear the Liu name ourselves, no longer help them — you are of other surnames, what has the Han house ever done for you? Why suffer, throwing away your lives to preserve the Liu clan's altars, only to end up exchanging your children to eat and breaking their bones for fuel? Is it worth it?"

These words, of course, were drafted by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and read out in turn by those who had surrendered at Ximatai, yet they struck precisely at the hearts of the defending common soldiers: "Indeed, why should we sacrifice our lives for the Liu clan's realm? Let it not be that in the end, we of other surnames die in bitter battle, while the various Lius rely on surrender to enjoy wealth and rank."

The hearts of Pengcheng's defenders began to waver violently. Although no surrender or mutiny had yet occurred, it was already affecting the battle: when the Wei army launched another assault, the defending soldiers no longer fought with desperate resolve, but desperately shrank back, each thinking of their own families. In any case, the Wei Emperor had promised that after the city fell, as long as they did not resist stubbornly, all would be pardoned and spared execution, and afterward each could return to their former livelihoods.

They understood nothing of great principles of dynasty and state. Those truly loyal unto death to Han had already risen up and died out during Wang Mang's time. Those who remained were but blades of grass bending with the wind in chaotic times.

With the majority not giving their all, the few elite diehards under Lai Xi were stretched thin defending the city, suffering heavy casualties. As even they gradually faltered, Pengcheng's defenses became riddled with gaps.

"It cannot be held."

On the twentieth day of the siege of Pengcheng, Lai Xi, who had stood atop the wall like a flagpole, leading his troops to repel Wei assault after assault, finally uttered these words in helplessness.

Lai Xi had gone days without sleep or rest. His face was slashed with several gashes from stray arrows, and the web of his hand, split open from gripping his blade in combat through the bitter winter, now trembled with pain even when holding a saber.

The common soldiers were in even worse shape than he was. In particular, Lai Xi's three thousand "Grand Marshal's Personal Guard" had lost nearly half their number — crushed by flying stones, shot dead by rain-like arrows, stabbed to death by Wei soldiers clambering up the walls in close combat. There were even those who, standing sentry in the great cold, had hugged their spears through the night, and when their comrades came to relieve them the next morning and gave them a push, simply toppled over — discovered to have been dead for hours...

And the attitude of the elders and common people within the city grew ever more inscrutable. Before the battle began, the Elders had sworn with one voice: "Pengcheng has received the profound grace of successive Great Han Sons of Heaven and Princes of Chu for two hundred years — now is the time to repay Han's kindness."

But once the Wei army arrived beneath the walls, and they beheld the boundless host beyond the city, the endless, tightly arrayed layers of fortified camps, the atmosphere in Pengcheng changed — all were filled with fear.

After Ximatai was taken and Liu Zhi died in battle, everyone in Pengcheng felt even more imperiled.

And when the Han army's Liu-surnamed captives began shouting from the observation towers, it became even more explosive — the people of Pengcheng were both glad and anxious.

"Glad that the Wei army has promised not to massacre the city or kill captives; anxious that this general's stubborn defense to the death will drag down their own lives and families."

Lai Xi said: "In recent days, even within the camp, local officers have been colluding in secret and soldiers exchanging furtive glances on the roads. In a few more days, if His Majesty's relief force still does not arrive, I fear there will be disaster within the city — mutiny and total collapse!"

This was no ordinary mutiny that could be suppressed by force — soldiers and civilians alike were intent on surrender. Relying solely on Lai Xi and his trusted followers, there was simply no way to hold them back. If the Wei army seized the moment to attack while the city was in chaos, taking it would be effortless.

"Pengcheng is like fruit on a branch, battered by wind and rain — in the end, it is tottering on the verge of falling."

After Lai Xi stated this cold fact, the several officers he had summoned looked at one another, their faces all showing alarm. If this were truly the case, caught between enemies outside and within, would they not be doomed to certain death?

With things having come to this, what was to be done? Relief troops were long overdue.

At this point someone proposed: "Ten days ago, a large number of Wei troops withdrew from outside the city. Though fifty or sixty thousand still remain, their defensive cordon has loosened considerably — a breakout might stand a chance!"

But Lai Xi immediately rejected the proposal: "His Majesty deemed me capable of distinguishing right from wrong and perceiving rise and fall, and therefore granted me the post of Grand Marshal, ordering me to defend Pengcheng with the pledge that the siege would surely be lifted after spring. This is the trust between sovereign and subject. If Lai Xi abandons the city and fails to hold it merely because of a minor difficulty, he would be betraying loyalty and trust!"

Lai Xi was a man of good faith, his words and deeds never at odds. He was also shaken by Liu Zhi's death in battle at the Opera Horse Terrace. At the same time, he knew that his stubborn defense of Pengcheng was the key to Liu Xiu turning the tide of the war. How could he break his word for that slim chance of breaking out and saving his own life?

Having made his resolve clear, Lai Xi said to his trusted followers:

"I have heard that Longyou abounds in venomous snakes. When a man of courage there is bitten on the hand, if he can immediately sever the wrist, he may prevent the venom from spreading."

"Diwu Lun is much like a venomous snake, and the wishful hope of surrender is the deadly poison about to spread through Pengcheng's whole body!"

"At this juncture, there is only one course."

Lai Xi drew the ring-pommel saber at his waist. Though the web of his bandaged hand still trembled faintly, his voice did not waver in the slightest — it was filled instead with utter resolve.

"Cut away every encumbering hand and foot tainted by the deadly poison!"

"Take reliable soldiers, along with those common people truly loyal to the Great Han, abandon the outer walls entirely, and follow me in a death-stand defense of the inner city!"