Chapter 688: Who the Hell Could Hold Against That?!

The battlefield lay on open ground north of the county seat and south of the Dangyang River, stretching over twenty li — once fine fields and handsome homesteads, now a desolate ghost ruin, where the land was no longer furrowed by iron plowshares but by iron hooves and blades.

The Dangyang River was rather shallow, reaching only a man's thigh at its deepest; the Wei army had further dammed the upper stream with earth-filled sacks, drying the water to calf height. Liu Xiu lost the chance to strike mid-crossing and could only press close to the river to form his lines, cramping the Wei army's deployment space.

Before battle, Liu Xiu gave instructions to his trusted general Feng Yi: "Even though the Wei army has blocked the Dangyang, the mudflats on the left and center of the field are quite boggy, with marsh and paddy — death ground for cavalry. Therefore the Wei cavalry must circle around from the right to strike us. Gongsun, you hold my right wing, squarely facing the enemy horsemen's edge! Do you have the confidence?"

Feng Yi did not hesitate: "The twenty thousand men under my command are all Jing-Chu stalwarts and peerless swordsmen — strong enough to strangle tigers, deadly with the bow. Should the enemy cavalry dare to sweep our lines, I will surely send them reeling in defeat."

Feng Yi was not being arrogant. Since Han times, Jing-Chu stalwarts had indeed been a sharp weapon for infantry to overcome cavalry.

The most famous example was Li Ling. In Emperor Wu of Han's later years, Li Ling led five thousand soldiers recruited from the Jing-Chu region, trekked ten thousand li across the desert, and penetrated deep into the Xiongnu heartland, where they met the Chanyu's main force. Li Ling and his five thousand infantry held off Xiongnu cavalry ten times their number, fighting even as they retreated. Though they ultimately lost, the casualties they inflicted were comparable. Had there been reinforcements and had their arrows not run out, they might well have worked a miracle and fought their way back to the frontier forts.

Now Feng Yi had as many as twenty thousand Jing-Chu soldiers in hand, while the Wei cavalry numbered eight or nine thousand at most. Feng Yi was confident he could shield Liu Xiu's flank, and even hoped to push back and create an opening…

As the right-wing deputy, Liu Long had lived many years in Longyou and Liangzhou and had clashed with Wei cavalry before. He advised Feng Yi: "Grand General, the Wei horsemen mostly have horseshoes — wooden caltrops will likely be useless. Better to set out plenty of chevaux-de-frise and abatis instead."

Feng Yi took the good advice and fully absorbed the experience of the Former Han, imitating the tactic Grand General Wei Qing used at the Battle of the Northern Desert — circling wagons into a fortified camp to rout the Xiongnu. He formed a ring-shaped position facing east with armored war wagons, making every preparation.

As the sun climbed high, the Wei army crossed the Dangyang River and entered the designated battlefield. Their numbers surged like a vast flood, banners blotted out the sun, spears and halberds were a moving forest, drums and horns shook the heavens — whoever saw and heard it could not help but quail.

The Jingzhou troops were the calmest. They had clashed with the Wei army too many times, had been commanded by Feng Yi for years, and their families mostly held land in southern Jing — they prospered or fell with the Great Han and were resolved to defend home and country. Feng Yi directed them as nimbly as using his own arms.

Just as Liu Xiu had foreseen, after the Wei army formed up, shifting "shadows" began to appear and disappear. That was the Wei cavalry, steadily moving laterally to the right, seeking the right spot to charge!

Watching the Wei horsemen cross the Dangyang River in a continuous stream on the extreme right and begin closing on the Jingzhou troops' position under cover of over ten thousand infantry, Feng Yi ordered his front squares to engage the Wei foot soldiers while adjusting the direction of his armored war wagons:

"Front ranks, take up halberds and shields! Rear ranks, take up bows and crossbows! Loose at the drum's beat, cease at the gong's sound!"

Whether at the Battle of Xiangyang or the battle of Yingcheng, the cavalry under Cen Peng had never given Feng Yi too much trouble. On the Huaibei front, Gai Yan and the Yuyang shock cavalry had even been routed once, so among the Han generals, no one thought Wei cavalry were invincible.

But carving a notch on the boat to find the sword is bound to cost you. Today, truly facing the Wei cavalry head-on, Feng Yi realized with a shock just what kind of "monsters" were bearing down on him!

Looking out across the field, the first impression of the Wei cavalry was: "both man and horse fully armored."

Although full horse armor had appeared very early, first, forging it cost a fortune, and second, ordinary horses could hardly bear the weight. So in Han times, only the court's elite cavalry units — the Yue Cavalry, the Hu Cavalry, the Changshui — were so equipped. After the realm fell into chaos at the end of Wang Mang's Xin dynasty, regional warlord forces gradually formed some fully armored cavalry units. The most famous were the Longyou "Sons of Good Families" riders — powerful clan youths who brought their own provisions, retainers, and armor. But even in the Longyou army, there were only three or four hundred such armored riders, and they were mostly wiped out when the Wei clan fought Diwu Lun at Zhouyuan.

Yet the armored riders advancing today with clipped steps were no mere copy of the Longyou "Sons of Good Families" riders — they were vastly enhanced!

The thousand riders in the front ranks belonged to the "Western Liang Iron Cavalry" sent by Ma Yuan. Also hailing from Longyou and Hexi, these riders seemed encased in iron barrels, even wearing iron face-masks, gripping long cavalry lances, with iron maces hanging at their sides.

And their warhorses' protection far surpassed earlier generations. Besides chest-plates and other pieces, they had added face-guards — woven from armor scales into a whole, with eye-holes cut so that only the horses' ears, eyes, and nostrils showed, glinting with shimmering reflections under the bright sun.

Banners and armor of one color, uniform and precise — even the pace of the horses' legs was nearly identical. The Western Liang Iron Cavalry was like a moving mountain of iron; just their slow advance pressed an immense dread upon the foe!

But the first to act were not these iron cans, but the light cavalry prowling on their flanks. Their horses were unarmored, the riders wearing only leather armor and small caps. Using their nimbleness and speed, they ceaselessly harassed the Jingzhou troops' salients and gaps — now few, now many, now massed, now scattered, now appearing, now vanishing, coming like a fall from heaven, going like a thunderclap. This was precisely the "Crow Troops Scattered Stars Formation" that the Bingzhou cavalry had mastered.

They were probing the Jingzhou troops' crossbow distribution. Once they mapped out where the crossbow density was thinner, word was relayed to the heavy cavalry half a li back, who had halted to rest their mounts. With a series of shrill bronze whistles, the Western Liang Iron Cavalry at last began to move!

The iron mountain no longer pressed forward slowly — it began to accelerate, and accelerate again! Its sharp wedge was like a blade of a sword, aimed at the Jingzhou troops' weakest point!

Under Feng Yi's arrangements, the Han troops had advanced with armored war wagons to seize favorable ground. Three ranks of long spears already slanted toward the sky — yet they could not cover every inch of ground seamlessly.

The enemy drew nearer and nearer. Countless round iron helmets bobbed and surged, merging with the differently colored armored steeds beneath them into a torrent. Iron hooves trampled the mud of the Dangyang River with a rumbling roar, as if about to split the very earth of Jiang-Han!

The Jingzhou troops, who had not flinched even before Cen Peng's giant catapults, now turned ashen-faced one and all. The iron torrent rolled closer; the crossbow bolts loosed like raindrops could not stop the enemy, only occasionally knocking one or two riders from their saddles — and those were merely stunned by arrows striking their heads. In these five years, as iron-smelting techniques improved, the north's iron output had multiplied several times over. The Western Liang Iron Cavalry could actually afford for each man to wear two layers of iron armor, which ordinary bows and crossbows could not penetrate.

Seeing that the crossbow arrays could not halt the foe, it came down to flesh and bone. The Han soldiers bellowed with all their might to steel their own courage — but these brave shouts were drowned out the next moment by the ghastly sounds of lance against flesh, spear against armor, and by screams and the shrieks of horses.

Long spears snapped against horse armor; the violent impact sent men and horses tumbling. One Jingzhou soldier was lofted high on a cavalry lance; more were knocked to the ground in the crush, trampled under iron hooves, reduced to bloody mud…

With just one charge from the Wei cavalry, a gap suddenly tore open in Feng Yi's right-wing formation!

Who the hell could hold against that?!

…

The battle had only just begun, yet it was already so heart-stopping. Even Liu Xiu, directing from afar, felt a chill of horror. In just five short years, Diwu Lun had forged the Wei cavalry into something so terrifying. Both Liu Xiu and Feng Yi understood — they had underestimated the Wei cavalry. This army was simply not to be spoken of in the same breath as the Xiongnu riders or the Longyou cavalry.

The Wei heavy cavalry's tactics were actually quite old-fashioned and simple: nothing more than light cavalry sweeping the lines to harass, then observing the enemy's reaction. If there was wavering, the heavy cavalry found their target.

And if the first wave failed to break through, the front squadron would quickly withdraw laterally from the battle line. But before the Han troops could catch their breath, the next squadron would charge in again… Over and over, there always came a moment when they broke into the formation. At that point, heedless of numbers, they drove straight in, and the various heavy cavalry squadrons prowling around would respond from all directions, crashing in together at once!

Even if the iron riders became trapped deep within the Han lines — even if a horse's leg broke and it tumbled into the enemy formation — a knight in full heavy armor could still wreak terrible havoc. They would discard their lances and switch to ring-pommel sabers and iron maces, flailing wildly. Ordinary halberds, spears, and swords could hardly breach the defense of two layers of heavy armor; it often took more than ten men to subdue one.

шшш ▪тt kán ▪co

As a result, the Han formation grew even more chaotic. With the Wei infantry on the right wing also seizing the moment to advance and outflank, it was only a matter of time before Feng Yi's right wing — thought to be the most secure — collapsed…

And at this very moment, battle had also been joined on the left wing. The Grand General Who Sweeps the Field, Wang Chang, held the position with twenty thousand Greenwood veterans. The opponent he faced squarely was Wan Xiu.

Wan Xiu had spent years recuperating from a waist injury. Now back on the battlefield, having broken Lankou Hamlet in half a day and taken Fu Jun's head — seizing the initiative and riding high on momentum — he had been given command of one wing today. Through his far-seeing lens, he saw that beyond the Han banners opposite him was Wang Chang's general's standard, and could only sigh at meeting an old adversary.

Back when Liu Bosheng entered Guanzhong, Wang Chang had held Heluo to coordinate with him. Though Wan Xiu had been on the Weibei front, the Tongban sector had been commanded by his old partner Jing Dan.

"Wang Chang is a defeated general under Jing Sunqing — does he think he can get the better of me?"

He also saw that the troops under Wang Chang were mostly remnants of the Greenwood forces that Liu Xiu had gathered and reorganized. They still used the same old formations, their attire a motley mix — no improvement from their days under Liu Bosheng's banner years ago.

By contrast, the new Guanzhong army that Wan Xiu commanded was a wholly new-model force. Back then, Diwu Lun had keenly felt the grinding difficulty of the Huaibei war and realized that "old-style armies" were hardly fit for great use. So he had spent five years reforming everything from training to recruitment sources, abandoning the old method of largely recruiting refugees and the Wei Boar-Rush Braves, and instead handpicking only the sons of property-owning households in Guanzhong, organizing them into personal retinues based on their home villages.

Officers were mostly appointed from among literate Palace Gentlemen. Their uniforms were uniform and neat; every man wore a conical rain-hat against the sun. Infantry formed the main body, supported by cavalry, engineers, and other arms. After recruitment, they had to undergo full-time training for over a year — from foot drills to battle formations to crossbow marksmanship, all had to be mastered. Once trained, they were organized into divisions and brigades, serving three years with a ration and pay. After three years, they retired as reservists, still subject to call-up if the state had need. But these soldiers, who had served four years, were not only proficient with blade and formation — they could be mobilized to the front as formed units, with no need to grab conscripts at the last moment to make up numbers.

The two armies clashed on the left side of the battlefield. This area was a muddy river flat and dried-up paddy — favorable for defense, unfavorable for attack. Yet the Wei troops still advanced, tramping through mud and water, braving the Han army's crossbow fire. The Greenwood veterans prided themselves on having seen many battles, but against these Guanzhong new recruits who had just tasted blood at Lankou Hamlet, they could not gain the upper hand. Instead, their line was being pushed back inch by inch…

A newborn calf fears no tiger — much less when the opponent is just an old cat. Who the hell could hold against that?!

…

This scene was clearly visible to the central army. Liu Xiu's brow furrowed deeply, and General Who Spreads Martial Might, Ma Cheng, waiting on standby nearby, was even more anxious. Seeing both wings at a disadvantage, with the scales of victory tipping bit by bit toward Wei, Ma Cheng came before the Emperor's drum-chariot and petitioned Liu Xiu:

"Your Majesty, we can wait no longer! Let me take the Jiaozhou elephant troops and charge the enemy lines!"

Those fifteen elephants were what Ma Cheng regarded as his trump card. In Jiaozhou, when the Han troops first faced these colossal beasts, they had been terrified nearly to the point of rout, only slowly figuring out the trick and turning the tables.

To Ma Cheng's knowledge, these giant beasts had never appeared on a Central Plains battlefield. If they could be driven charging at the Wei lines, they might produce a miraculous effect!

But Liu Xiu shook his head. "Using elephants in war existed in antiquity. The Shang people rode elephants to oppress the Eastern Yi. The Duke of Zhou then drove them out with his army, all the way to Jiangnan."

"And at the great battle of Kunyang, Wang Mang ordered his generals to drive out all the fierce beasts from the Shanglin Park — tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and the like — to bolster their awe. Though they did not ride the elephants into battle, what was the result?"

Ma Cheng, however, argued that these could not be conflated. "Those were merely beasts driven ahead as a vanguard, no different from Tian Dan's fire-ox formation. But war elephants are steered by men, just like riding horses — point east and they go east, point west and they go west. Brave as the Wei cavalry are, they are no match for the giant elephants' ferocity; sharp as their armor is, it can hardly pierce elephant barding. Let me go, and I will surely sweep all before me!"

Because it was difficult to form large-scale cavalry in the south, Liu Xiu had indeed previously entertained the idea of replacing horses with elephants — using elephant troops to charge formations might be even more effective than cavalry. So he had adopted a "let's give it a try" mindset and had Ma Cheng bring the war elephants north.

But now, a deeper misgiving had arisen in his heart.

Liu Xiu said, "Elephants are wild beasts and fear fire. And Diwu Lun has already used 'fire-arrows' before, which are quite strange. If the war elephants charge ahead and are instead struck by fire-arrows, turning and stampeding through our own lines in panic, would that not be trampling our own feet?"

Ma Cheng had also heard of the "fire-arrows" encountered during the night raid on Changban, but he thought it was just Liu Long and the others exaggerating — nothing more than ordinary smoke-arrows with a few alchemist's tricks thrown in. Did they think the Han army had never seen anything?

He then declared shamelessly: "Your Majesty, these fifteen war elephants were captured and trained by the Luo people since they were calves. They have lived with fire day and night — even waving a torch before their eyes will not frighten them. What is more, Wei's equipment is cumbersome, mostly usable only in defense or siege. This is a field battle — how can they set it up in haste? We must not give up eating for fear of choking!"

Ma Cheng gradually swayed Liu Xiu. At this point, neither flank could be relied upon; if he did not want to accept defeat, he had to break through from another position!

After a moment of deliberation, Liu Xiu relented: "The elephant troops may be deployed."

Before Ma Cheng could erupt in wild joy, Liu Xiu added: "But they cannot serve as the main assault. They can only be used as a feint, to throw Wei's formations into disarray."

Liu Xiu tightened his grip on his sword, his gaze turning to the north bank of the Dangyang River. The Five Virtues Banner, standing steady at the central army, marked Diwu Lun's position. In over ten years, this was the closest Liu Xiu had ever come to his lifelong nemesis!

He made his decision. Turning back, Liu Xiu's eyes blazed as he looked toward the elite troops concealed in the village lanes and smoke — as if he could already see the hope of turning defeat into victory.

"To win this battle, we must still rely on the Danyang soldiers!"