Chapter 677: Queen's Gambit Declined

Since proclaiming himself emperor to restore the Han, Liu Xiu had rarely tasted victory: the battle for Jingzhou and Xiangyang cost him over ten thousand troops and his brother-in-law Ma Cheng; the Huaibei campaign lost him a thousand li of territory, and the deaths of his beloved generals Lai Xi and Liu Zhi left him stricken with grief.

Liu Xiu had also agonized in self-reflection, determined to reform the army and government. After several years of effort, it seemed to have finally borne some fruit. On this northern campaign, Liu Xiu annihilated over ten thousand men from the Wei army's rear division and left wing in a single battle, avenging the recent death of Yao Qi in combat.

When Liu Xiu joined forces with Feng Yi and Jia Fu and continued advancing north, reports of victory also came in rapid succession from the Han River. The Strong Crossbow General, Fu Jun, sent a skiff back to report: "Following Your Majesty's strategy, we have heavily mauled the Wei troops and seized Lan Kou Ju!"

Fu Jun had once been a mere Precinct Chief in Yingchuan, a man of little learning, but the minor clerk who delivered the message gave a detailed oral account of how the battle had unfolded.

"General Fu led us aboard the fleet, sailing upriver into the Han. The Wei army spotted us and shadowed our northward advance with several hundred cavalry, harassing us constantly to slow our speed. Whenever a vessel was damaged and ran aground, the Wei troops would strike to kill and wound."

"When we were a day's distance from Lan Kou Ju, General Fu ordered the vanguard to land and force a crossing. First, five hundred heavily armored Danyang troops and a hundred war chariots were offloaded, and soon after, another two thousand men were sent ashore in succession."

"The Wei army had also arrived. Seeing us deploy with our backs to the water, our flanks anchored on the river, they all roared with laughter. General Fu followed the tactics Your Majesty had drawn up: first, we shot at them with weak bows and small arrows. The Wei troops grew even more contemptuous, then launched a cavalry charge against our formation, attacking from three sides at once. But the riverbank was wet and slippery, ill-suited for a cavalry charge. General Fu ordered the men to switch to heavy crossbows and fire fiercely. The Wei cavalry fell back, mauled."

"In the afternoon, several thousand Wei infantry advanced again, returning fire with great yellow crossbows and the like. But our towering warships at our backs also carried great yellow crossbows, and we traded shots with them. The fierce battle raged all day, and the Wei troops, unable to break our formation, withdrew. Later, they abandoned Lan Kou Ju, burning their provisions and fodder. General Fu then seized their camp ramparts... Only then did the reinforcements Cen Peng had dispatched belatedly arrive. Seeing the small town's banners had changed, they probed with a few attacks and then left."

Watching the plans laid out in the command tent come to fruition step by step, the Han officers were all elated. Only the Grand General Who Conquers the West, Feng Yi, frowned slightly upon hearing this and pressed the messenger: "The Wei army withdrew in haste after faring poorly in the field. Did they not hold their camp and defend Lan Kou Ju?"

The reporting clerk was taken aback. "Perhaps they saw our great ships, so sturdy and formidable, and retreated out of fear?"

"That doesn't add up," Feng Yi said. "When Cen Peng attacked Ying County and Jiangling, he built a kind of giant catapult, several zhang high, capable of hurling hundred-jin stones. A single shot could smash a house. No matter how tall and sturdy a ship is, it's still made of wood — how could it withstand such catapults? If Cen Peng had set up just two or three of them at Lan Kou Ju, he could have nearly cut off our fleet's route north. Why would he retreat without a fight?"

Liu Xiu caught the implication in Feng Yi's words. "Gongsun, are you suspecting... that this Wei maneuver is a feigned retreat?"

Feng Yi acknowledged. "Cen Peng is cunning. We must guard against it."

Just then, someone beside them spoke up: "Isn't General Feng overestimating Cen Peng and the Wei army?"

It was Wang Chang, who had accompanied Liu Xiu on the northern campaign. Though Wang Chang was also from Yingchuan, he belonged to a different faction than Feng Yi. His seniority was immense — he had once been a Greenwood chieftain and had supported Liu Bosheng as Son of Heaven, a wish that unfortunately went unfulfilled. Later, the Gengshi regime still enfeoffed him as a vassal king, and he led troops to fight a bitter battle against the Wei general Jing Dan at Tong Slope. After returning in defeat, he was stripped of his military authority...

Later, Wang Chang and Ma Cheng together brought their old troops to Huainan and joined Liu Xiu. After Ma Cheng died in battle at Xiangyang, Wang Chang became the leader of the "Greenwood faction" within the Eastern Han court. Liu Xiu appointed him Grand General Who Sweeps the Wilderness. Among the military officers, his rank was second only to Feng Yi. Though he had suffered repeated defeats at the hands of the Wei army, he never conceded.

In Wang Chang's view, Feng Yi had grown ever more cautious in battle, even timid. Pinned down and pummeled by Cen Peng at Jiangling, he had not dared to counterattack. Now that Liu Xiu's reinforcements had arrived and the situation was clearly excellent, Feng Yi was hesitating again, actually suspecting a Wei feigned rout — the very thing that had allowed their vanguard to win.

He found many reasons: perhaps Cen Peng had taken all his craftsmen to Jiangling; perhaps the troops left to cover the retreat at Lan Kou Ju were merely raw garrison recruits who, suddenly seeing the Han army penetrate deep, simply collapsed in the first engagement — not an impossibility.

Finally, Wang Chang posed Feng Yi a barbed question: "If the Wei defeat at Lan Kou Ju was deliberate, then what do you call the battle at the Nanzhang River? Was that also Cen Peng's scheme? To abandon over ten thousand men without a care — that is no feigned rout; that is a real defeat!"

That was not necessarily so. For the Eastern Han, ten thousand men was nearly a tenth of their entire strength — of course they could not be abandoned. But for Diwu Lun, with his vast population and formidable power, it was a mere drop in the ocean...

But Feng Yi had no solid proof either, so he fell silent. Liu Xiu, however, glanced at Jia Fu, who had been listening in, and smiled. "What does General Jia think?"

Jia Fu had cleaned his wounds just the day before — twelve of them in all! Yet he had come to the audience in full armor as if nothing were wrong. Now, hearing Liu Xiu's question, he paid no heed to what Feng Yi or Wang Chang might think and said bluntly: "Even if it is a feigned rout, at this point, can Your Majesty still retreat?"

Liu Xiu sighed inwardly. Jia Fu had hit the nail on the head.

"Qu Yuan said: 'Long and winding is the road ahead; I shall search high and low.' The road to restoring the Han stretches on without end, and this northern campaign is the first step toward reviving the House of Han and returning to the old capital!"

Liu Xiu rose and said: "Since losing Huaibei, I have slept on brushwood and tasted gall for years, and only now have I managed to step across the Great River once more and take the first stride into northern Jingzhou. If I grow suspicious because the Wei army is collapsing too quickly and halt my advance, by the time Diwu Lun's reinforcements arrive, I will struggle even to hold a foothold at Jiangling. This one retreat, I fear, would send us skulking south of the river to cling to survival, and from then on, I could only gaze at the river and sigh in vain!"

So Liu Xiu could only advance! He had to strive to annihilate Cen Peng's main force. Even if taking Xiangyang and pushing back to his old home of Nanyang was hopeless, he could at least ensure that for years to come, he could hold the Wei army at the Jiang-Han line, buying time to swallow Ba-Shu in the west and achieve a north-south partition.

The generals understood Liu Xiu's unwavering will to fight and dared not object further. They turned their gaze to the map. With the Han army's capture of Lan Kou Ju, Cen Peng's line of retreat was cut. Now, only one option remained...

"Push north with full force, break through the barrier at Lan Kou Ju, and return to Xiangyang!"

"What did the Grand General say?"

At that same moment, at Changban Slope in Dangyang, where the Wei army's provisions were stockpiled, Yin Shi, the Inspector of Jingzhou who had been left to guard this place, stared at the just-returned Cen Peng, his face full of disbelief.

"I said, losing Lan Kou Ju is no matter."

Cen Peng's face showed none of the dejection of a routed fugitive, only a touch of regret — for the soldiers of the rear division who had been encircled and destroyed by the Han army.

That, admittedly, had been an unexpected development. Jia Fu had fought too fiercely, and Liu Xiu had come too fast, leaving over ten thousand men who should have been able to withdraw caught in the rear. And Cen Peng, for the sake of the larger strategy, could not turn back to save them, forced to watch helplessly as they were lost.

But Lan Kou Ju was different. That had been a piece of theater arranged by Cen Peng from the start: deliberately leaving a force neither too large nor too small, then sending men to feign a rescue, but dawdling on the road so they could not keep pace with the Han army.

The combination of these two events made his "rout" look all the more genuine.

Cen Peng therefore decided to turn the enemy's ploy to his own advantage and gave the order: "The three armies are to halt their northward advance. We will encamp here at Dangyang and prepare to meet the enemy."

"Grand General!" Yin Shi, still baffled, was now the one most worried about a Wei defeat — this former surrender from the Gengshi regime. He urgently protested: "Changban may be rugged, but it is not enough to stop Liu Xiu. And though the grain stored here is plentiful, it will only last a month or so. Rather than wait here idly, would it not be better to push north swiftly, break through Lan Kou Ju, and return to the defenses of Xiangyang? That is the truly safe course."

Cen Peng gave a cold laugh. "Liu Xiu and Feng Yi are right on our heels, just hoping that our hearts will be consumed by the urge to return home and that we will rush north in haste. Then the Wu army can chase down a fleeing foe and spare themselves a bloody battle..."

"Of course, with our army's strength, breaking through Fu Jun's defensive line and fighting our way out of the encirclement would not be difficult. But if we did that, the two armies would disengage. Liu Xiu would surely fall back to defend Jiangling. With his fleet anchored at Yunmeng, he could cross south at any moment. Then wouldn't those ten thousand soldiers lost at the Nanzhang River have died in vain?"

Yin Shi's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Grand General, could it be..."

Cen Peng laughed heartily. "Liu Xiu used Feng Yi as bait, dangling him at Jiangling to hook me, hoping to annihilate me in one stroke."

"And I am merely the bait His Majesty placed upon the golden hook. The one he means to catch is none other than Liu Xiu, who could not resist coming to campaign in Jiang-Han in person!"

In the middle of the fifth month of the tenth year of Wude, before the ruins of Wang Mang's fief in Xindu County, Nanyang Commandery.

Diwu Lun gazed at the charred, blackened remains of the abandoned city and could not help but sigh with emotion. "Liu Bosheng truly was the reincarnation of Xiang Yu. That fire of his — it burned everything so thoroughly clean."

He recalled when he had come to Xindu on Wang Mang's orders to escort the Wang family's sons and daughters back to the capital — that was over ten years ago. By ill chance, he had also just missed Liu Xiu then, passing him by without a reunion.

Since that time, Diwu Lun had not come so far south for many years. During the Battle of Xiangyang, he had only overseen the campaign from Wancheng, unable to tour the old lands in person.

Now, the ruined city of Xindu had become a vast military encampment, its ramparts stern and forbidding, with scouts and courier riders coming and going ceaselessly, bringing their emperor the latest news every hour:

"The Rear General (Wan Xiu) has led fifty thousand troops from Guanzhong out of Wu Pass, down through Danyang, and will reach the upper Han River within days. Five thousand Bingzhou cavalry dispatched by the Grand General Who Guards the North (Wu Han) accompany them."

"Apart from the two cities of Shangyong and Fangling, the Grand General of the Agile Cavalry (Ma Yuan) has taken all of Hanzhong. Upon hearing His Majesty's edict, he has swiftly dispatched three thousand Liangzhou great horses eastward and will rendezvous with the Guanzhong army."

"The Left Chancellor (Geng Chun) remains in defense of Yecheng. The Inspector of Jizhou (Pi Tong), concurrently serving as General Who Protects the Army, is escorting fifty thousand Jizhou troops south, passing through Yingchuan and entering Kunyang Pass. The Inspector of Youzhou (Kou Xun) has dispatched the Assistant General Wang Liang, leading seven thousand Youzhou shock cavalry to accompany the Ji troops."

"The Right Chancellor (Dou Rong), leading fifty thousand troops from Yu and Yan provinces, has reached Luyang Pass."

All three armies had entered Nanyang. Of course, the most critical was the thirty-thousand-strong Huaibei force under the Grand General of Chariots and Cavalry, Geng Bozhao. They were taking a different route — a route Liu Xiu would never have imagined...

Diwu Lun looked at the river outside Xindu. Nanyang was a remarkable place — neither south nor north, with a well-developed network of waterways. Yet all its streams ultimately converged near Xiangyang, flowing into the Han River.

These Wei troops from various provinces and commanderies were the same. They would rendezvous with Diwu Lun beneath the walls of Xiangyang on the first day of the sixth month — a full month earlier than Liu Xiu and his ministers had predicted the Wei reinforcements would reach Jingzhou and Xiangyang in the seventh month!

This was no miscalculation, but a plan Diwu Lun had long been brewing: using Jiangling, that inevitably contested ground, to force Liu Xiu northward, so that the decisive battle would come ahead of schedule!

Diwu Lun cast another glance at the ruins of old Wang Mang's fief manor, then turned back toward the army camp, instructing the accompanying Master of Writing, Du Du: "Once the army's spearhead reaches Xiangyang, Liu Xiu will be able to detect our movements. There will be no need for secrecy then. Issue that southern campaign proclamation you have drafted at that time."

"Acknowledged." Du Du asked only one final question: "Your Majesty, since ancient times, when raising armies, it has been common to inflate troop numbers to overawe the enemy. Now that our dynasty's two hundred thousand fierce tigers are massing in Jingzhou and Xiangyang, an unstoppable force — is this still necessary?"

Diwu Lun said: "Of course it is."

This manifesto was not written for Liu Xiu to read, but to intimidate the powerful clans and local magnates of Huainan and Jiangdong, to spur them to switch sides… when you're trying to scare people, naturally the bigger the number, the better.

Du Du bowed his head and acknowledged the order: "May I ask Your Majesty, what number should we claim? Five hundred thousand?"

As Diwu Lun's imperial ghostwriter, Du Du knew that Diwu Lun had a particular fondness — whenever he encountered a number, he always liked to make it a five.

But this time was different. Diwu Lun seemed to have thought of something amusing; he gazed southward and let out a hearty laugh:

"Just say… 'Now I have marshaled a host of eight hundred thousand, land and water, and together with Wenshu, shall hold a hunt at Yunmeng!'"