Chapter 687: Meteor Shower

"Diwu Lun and the Wei cavalry will be on the northern slope of Changban; the southern slope camp and ramparts will still be garrisoned by the puppet Wei Inspector of Jingzhou, Yin Shi, and others."

"The Grand General Who Conquers the West will lead twenty thousand Jingzhou troops against the southern slope, drawing the Wei army into turmoil and leaving their northern slope exposed."

"The General Who Supports Han (Liu Long) will then lead ten thousand Huainan troops around to the northern slope to strike Diwu Lun. Even if we cannot break his army and capture their leader, if we can break into the camp and cripple their warhorses, that will be enough to seal victory."

Liu Xiu's plan was quite risky, gambling that Diwu Lun's forces had not yet all arrived. That night, he and Wang Chang's and Jia Fu's divisions continued besieging Cen Peng, while Feng Yi and Liu Long carried out the plan as ordered.

The Huainan troops moved out with Liu Long. This was not the first time Liu Long had commanded this unit. The Shanyue were not only in Danyang and Kuaiji — the Huainan mountains held plenty as well. Back then, Pang Meng had been tasked with pacifying the Shanyue east of the Yangtze, while the Huainan Shanyue were exterminated by Liu Long, though the results were not as rich as in the south. Because of this connection, several lieutenant generals and colonels from Huainan were familiar with Liu Long, but Liu Long always felt that their smiles and assenting replies carried a hint of resentment.

Perhaps word of what had happened at the main tent that evening had spread: Diwu Lun had specifically sent an envoy to pass on his regards to Liu Long.

"They probably fear I might become a second Pang Meng?"

Bitterness welled up in Liu Long's heart, but he said nothing. He simply led his soldiers with utmost diligence, moving north for over ten li and lying low among untended fields and abandoned village lanes. The Wei army had a great many cavalry; by day their scouts ranged fifty li out, leaving no gap to exploit. Only at night, when horses' eyes were even worse than men's, did those roving scouts have to light torches, greatly shrinking their search range — and only then was there a chance for a night raid.

Liu Long had to wait for Feng Yi's side to strike first. Time stretched unbearably long. The southern mosquitoes and flies bit maddeningly, and no one came to speak with him. For a while, Liu Long's mind drifted through many old memories.

The civil and military officials of the Eastern Han court all distrusted Liu Long. They believed that as an old friend of Diwu Lun and a good friend of Diba Jiao, he could have perfectly well chosen to join Wei and enjoy wealth and rank. But only Liu Long knew that ever since his birth, he had been bound inseparably to the Han altars.

Liu Long's family was the Anzhong Marquisate of the Former Han. When Wang Mang plotted to usurp the Han, the Marquis of Anzhong was the first to raise troops — only to be crushed by a single commandery commandant. After the uprising failed, the entire Anzhong Liu clan was executed. Liu Long, not yet seven years old, was spared from death. He was later taken in by distant relatives and changed his name, which was how he managed to slip into the Imperial Academy. The pain of his family's annihilation had never faded from Liu Long's heart; along with a deep hatred for the new Xin dynasty, he worked tirelessly for the cause of restoring the Han.

That was why, back then, when he could clearly have gone to join Diwu Lun, Liu Long hesitated for a moment and instead helped Wei Ao enthrone the Child Ying.

But he never regretted handing Hexi over to Diba Jiao for nothing. The rise and fall of one family and one surname was a private matter; the divide between Hua and barbarian was a public one — he could tell them apart clearly.

Even less did he regret traveling a thousand li to join Liu Xiu. Though the generals and ministers of the southeast all saw him as an outsider, as long as His Majesty the Emperor still treated him as a servant of the state altars, letting Liu Long fight beneath the blazing Han banner, letting him face his ancestors and father after death — that was enough!

Just then, the firelight on the southern slope of Changban suddenly flared bright, followed by deafening battle cries. Feng Yi had struck!

As a veteran general, Liu Long did not rush. He continued lying low for another quarter-hour before ordering every unit to rise. Without lighting torches, they crept slowly toward the northern slope of Changban.

Though the moon was bright and the stars sparse, soldiers still kept tripping over tree stumps and field ridges. Fortunately, the ceaseless chirping of insects on a summer night somewhat masked the footsteps, coughs, and pained yelps.

When the northern slope camp ramparts loomed ahead, bristling with torches and with patrolling Wei soldiers faintly visible, Liu Long signaled everyone to halt. Only after the follow-up troops had arrived did he order his handpicked death-defying warriors, carrying wooden ladders, to creep forward with hunched backs!

But before they could even reach the outer trench, someone stepped on a wooden caltrop, cried out in pain, and alerted the Wei camp.

wWW ⊕тTkan ⊕C ○

There was no time to stay hidden. At Liu Long's shouted command, the soldiers behind hoisted their ladders and charged. Just as several hundred Han soldiers leaped over the trench and surged before the camp wall, something no one expected happened.

With a sharp whistle, a bright speck shot out from the Wei camp, arcing above the Han soldiers' heads. With a piercing crack, it burst open violently!

Like a bloom of brocade unfurling in the night sky, bright above their heads — for a moment sparks flew and scattered, star-points cascading like a waterfall...

Liu Long stared, transfixed. How to describe it? Yes — it was exactly like the iron-flower ceremony at the ironworks before they opened the furnace! The difference was that the smiths flung molten, red-hot iron, but this thing flew out of nowhere and burst on its own, and he caught a faint, acrid scorched smell.

Though dazzling and brilliant, the firework vanished in a flash, leaving only the pitch-black night. The Han soldiers, startled by the blast and the firework, thought their eyes had played tricks on them...

Then two more "fireworks" shot out and burst above their heads again. Though the light was faint, it was enough for the Wei soldiers on the camp wall to clearly see the dark mass of Han soldiers below, their distribution laid bare at a glance. The Wei ramparts' drums rumbled thunderously. What flew out next were no longer harmless fireworks that merely dazzled — they were the sharp bolts of bows and crossbows!

"Quick, scale the wall! First to ascend!"

Liu Long ordered his soldiers to surge forward. But just as the Han soldiers, knives clenched in their teeth, began climbing, they glimpsed these Wei central army troops — who had just followed Diwu Lun from Guanzhong — setting up barrel-like objects on the camp wall. They lit fuses with torches, then aimed the dark, wide muzzles down at the densely packed Han soldiers below...

What happened next, Liu Long would never forget for the rest of his life.

The ramparts suddenly erupted with fierce bursts of flame, far surpassing the little fireworks from before. Streak after streak of light shot violently from those tube-like objects, buzzing and rustling like a swarm of bees, pouring down in a torrent onto the heads of the Han troops jammed against the wall. The ground filled with wails and agonized screams.

It was not only those nearby who suffered — the soldiers farther back did not escape either. One after another, "fire arrows" crossed over a hundred paces, landing right at Liu Long's feet. Some even exploded violently upon hitting the ground! Though their killing power was not great, they sent the Han army into terrified chaos. The Huainan soldiers, who had never witnessed such a spectacle, fled with their heads in their hands, and morale instantly collapsed...

Liu Long stared dumbfounded at the Wei army's new weapon. The fire arrows flying wildly across the sky were so dense; with every burst of smoke and flame, dozens shot forth. The firelight nearly dyed the entire battlefield red, as if a shower of...

"A meteor shower!"

The night raid that Liu Xiu had pinned such high hopes on ultimately failed on the verge of success. After Liu Long's side hastily withdrew, the report he and his lieutenant general gave Liu Xiu was hard to believe.

To cover up his own failed assault, the lieutenant general wildly exaggerated the weapon: "The Wei army used fire arrows to shoot back at our wooden ladders. A single volley fired a hundred arrows, all aflame. The ladders caught fire, and the men on them were all burned to death. They also shot at the Han soldiers below the wall — men and horses struck by it were instantly mangled."

Liu Long's account was somewhat closer to the truth. He only said: "This object seems to be launched by igniting fire. It can reach two hundred paces. Those hit, man or horse, all fell."

But thinking back on it afterward, those actually struck by the thing were fewer than one in ten. They had been driven back more by the firelight, the smell, and the explosive cracks.

When Feng Yi withdrew from attacking the southern slope of Changban, his report was far more detailed. Feng Yi was still stationed on the right flank and only sent a man to urgently report to Liu Xiu: "The enemy placed barrels atop the camp wall. Inside each barrel were several dozen fire arrows. When the main fuse was lit, all the arrows shot out at once, with the force of a thunderclap. Our soldiers dared not face its edge, and so all retreated in defeat."

Not only that, Feng Yi also presented a collected "fire arrow." It was an utterly unremarkable arrow, with a tube-like object tied to its front end. Feeling it, it was probably wrapped in paper — already a common item in the north. The tail had a fuse with burn marks, but it had not burst like the others; it was a dud...

After cutting the object open with a small knife, a grayish-black powder poured out. The color was like charcoal, the smell pungent, like saltpeter and sulfur.

The Han ruler and his ministers looked at each other, utterly baffled as to what this substance was. Liu Xiu, bold as he was, tried setting a flame to it and found that it burned violently. The "iron flowers" Liu Long had seen earlier, and those "fire arrows" that could streak two hundred paces with blazing light — could they all rely on this substance?

After a long silence, Liu Long ventured a guess: "I have heard that after Diwu Lun defeated the Xiongnu and pacified the Western Qiang, he recruited many fangshi from Yan and Qi in the north to concoct elixirs in the Zhongnan Mountains. Rumbling sounds often came from the mountains. Now it seems what they were making must have been this..."

At this, Liu Xiu grew even more distraught. He too liked recruiting fangshi, gathering them together for grand conferences — but all they did were activities like prophecy and apocrypha, proving that the Liu Han restoration was mandated by Heaven. Why had they never tinkered out a similar weapon vital to the state and army?

Before Liu Xiu's frustration could end, a man came rushing from the left army to report: "Your Majesty, Cen Peng's division, seeing fireworks suddenly burst in the sky over Changban, has regrouped and is fighting again, breaking out northward! The Grand General Who Sweeps the Field cannot hold them back and urgently requests Your Majesty's reinforcements!"

Liu Xiu pondered for a moment, then said: "Things have come to this. Cen Peng will be hard to annihilate. If we insist on besieging him, our forces are only seventy thousand — we could easily be caught between him and Diwu Lun. No need to block them. Order Wang Chang and Jia Fu's divisions to fight while retreating, with Feng Yi's right division providing cover."

The failure of tonight's camp raid meant Liu Xiu had lost a chance to defeat Diwu Lun and Cen Peng at Changban. Such an opportunity would not come again.

He glanced once more at the "fire arrow." Liu Xiu was not exactly frightened by these flashy things, but the soldiers who had been fighting continuously needed rest and a full meal to prepare for the cruelest decisive battle to come.

"The three armies shall cross the Dangyang River and withdraw to Dangyang County town to regroup!"

Liu Xiu had left himself more than one line of retreat.

The fleet at Jingling was his rear line on the water, while Dangyang County town was his rear line on land — a hundred and fifty li south to Jiangling.

The man defending Dangyang County town was "General Who Displays Valor" Ma Cheng. As one of the earliest Yingchuan men to follow the dragon, Ma Cheng had not stood out in his early years. Several years ago, as a deputy general, he had followed Deng Yu in pacifying Jiaozhou, even going as far south as Jiaozhi Commandery.

It was in that sweltering, remote land that Ma Cheng picked up the locals' habit of chewing betel nut. Now, ordered to bring several thousand Jiaozhou troops north as reinforcements, Ma Cheng's mouth was still stuffed with it at all times. When he smiled at people, he revealed pale red teeth — all from the betel nut juice and clamshell lime.

"The juice inside is clear as water and sweet as honey. The Luo people of Jiaozhou call it the 'Miasma-Cleansing Pill' — it can ward off miasma." Ma Cheng had once described the deliciousness of betel nut to Liu Xiu in this way, but Liu Xiu and his ministers tasted only bitterness and could not develop a liking for it.

Apart from betel nut, Ma Cheng had also introduced an entirely new troop type to the Han army while incorporating the Luo people: elephant soldiers.

There were fifteen elephants in Dangyang County. These colossal beasts and their several dozen riders all came from Jiaozhou — though elephants were also plentiful in Jiangdong and southern Jingzhou, only the Jiaozhou people had the skill to tame them for human use. Ma Cheng hoped these elephant soldiers could produce miraculous results on the Jiang-Han battlefield.

Yet elephant soldiers were cumbersome after all, and the barefoot Jiaozhou Luo soldiers were helpless against cavalry sweeping past. After Jingling was burned, Geng Bozhao's cavalry raided Huarong, then turned west, appearing between Dangyang and Jiangling. Ma Cheng was powerless to stop them.

"I am guilty!" For this, when Liu Xiu withdrew to Dangyang County, Ma Cheng stopped chewing his betel nut and shamefully begged the Emperor's forgiveness, yet still forcefully petitioned: "I wish to go south and clear the route, so that Your Majesty may safely withdraw to Jiangling."

"Do not think of retreating without a fight again," Liu Xiu shook his head. An army on the march was at its most vulnerable. If they were harassed by young Geng on the way south and then caught from behind by Diwu Lun, the consequences would be catastrophic.

So Liu Xiu did not intend to flee outright; instead he chose to regroup and prepare for battle in Dangyang County — he would rather face the enemy with his chest than take a blade from behind.

As Cen Peng broke free and joined forces with Diwu Lun, the troops from Lankou Village also arrived one after another. On the third day after Liu Xiu's southward withdrawal, even Wan Xiu reached Changban with the thirty-thousand-strong rear army — and presented Fu Jun's severed head…

Diwu Lun did not wait for the remaining forces still in Nanyang, Xiangyang, and elsewhere to arrive. Instead he took the initiative to push south twenty li, seizing the Han army's old ramparts and facing off against Liu Xiu across the Dangyang River.

That night, Diwu Lun again sent Dou Gu across the shallow river to see Liu Xiu, reiterating the challenge to battle from that day — and even reproaching Liu Xiu for "lacking martial honor, launching a sneak attack."

"The day before yesterday we agreed on a decisive battle, yet after nightfall troops came to raid the camp, only to be defeated by the Rapid Tiger Guard. However, I know Wenshu's character — this must have been a subordinate acting rashly, and has nothing to do with you. I am a man of my word: once a challenge is issued, it weighs as heavy as the Nine Tripods! I still hope for an early engagement."

This struck Liu Xiu as rather strange — it did not seem like the Diwu Lun he knew.

Liu Xiu did a quick reckoning: Cen Peng's division had suffered too heavily and needed to rest and reorganize, so it could not take part in battle for now. Under Diwu Lun's command there were at most a hundred thousand troops — still no absolute advantage over the Han army.

"In the past, Diwu Lun would have found a way to tie Us down without actually fighting, waiting until his so-called 'eight-hundred-thousand-strong army' had all arrived before calmly closing the encirclement."

What had made Diwu Lun abandon a sure-win strategy and rashly push forward instead?

Even Feng Yi sensed something amiss, and said simply: "Either Diwu Boyu is absolutely certain of victory, or he has grown far too arrogant and reckless."

"We would rather Diwu Lun be relying on the keenness of his armor and weapons, his fire-arrow techniques, the excellence of his cavalry — and therefore underestimating the Han army."

Look at it how they would, their side had no apparent chance of winning. Liu Xiu suddenly laughed. He was reminded, as if in a daze, of his elder brother Liu Bosheng. Back then north of the Wei River, Bosheng had been just like today — knowing full well the odds were against him, yet with no way to retreat, he could only fight, couldn't he?

In the past, Liu Xiu had secretly blamed his brother in his heart: Why must you be so stubborn, insisting on fighting Diwu Lun to the death in Guanzhong? Whether withdrawing to Hanzhong to aim for Ba-Shu, or pushing east to seize Heluo, either would have been better than charging headlong to your doom!

But today, Liu Xiu finally understood.

Because, against an enemy like Diwu Lun, to retreat is only to suffer defeat after defeat!

It was time, too, to bring this to an end.

Before long, Diwu Lun, encamped on the north side of Dangyang Bridge, received Liu Xiu's reply. It was very simple — just five words:

"You want a fight? Then fight!"

…

PS: Two updates a day starting tomorrow.