Chapter 689: Zhurong

Diwu Lun's command post stood north of the Dangyang River — a makeshift earthen mound several zhang high. Similar man-made hillocks dotted the rear area. Staff officers with "far-seeing lenses" stood atop them, observing every detail of Liu Xiu's formation and marking it on the battle map.

Of course, Liu Xiu had captured Gai Yan and the Yuyang shock cavalry years before, and had long known that the State of Wei possessed such "military-state sharp instruments." Though he lacked the skill to replicate them, Liu Xiu's rear army burned straw to generate smoke or concealed some of his troops in village lanes and woods, thus blinding Diwu Lun's eyes.

Yet every disposition on the left and right wings could not be hidden at all. The Palace Gentleman Yin Xing, tasked with watching Ma Cheng's fifteen giant elephants, found these elephant soldiers as conspicuous as cranes among chickens — far too conspicuous. Every half-ke he reported to Diwu Lun:

"Your Majesty, over ten war elephants remain motionless behind the Wu army's formation."

"Liu Xiu likely does not intend to commit his elephant troops to the field."

Diwu Lun understood this opponent's temperament well: both bold and timid. He dared to fight a decisive battle against Diwu Lun, yet was meticulous about every detail.

"It must be that during the night raid on Changban, our army's use of the 'Wasp Nest' startled the snake in the grass."

The so-called Wasp Nest was the weapon that had sprayed Liu Long and Feng Yi that night. It did not count as a true firearm — merely a "transitional product" made in passing while Diwu Lun ordered his craftsmen to trial-produce the "target product." Though its actual effect was poor, its debut could indeed give people a fright, better than nothing.

And on the battlefield, there was also a close relative of the Wasp Nest, perfectly suited for use against elephant troops. Regrettably, it seemed now it would not be needed…

But soon, Diwu Lun's judgment was slapped in the face:

"Your Majesty."

"The enemy elephant troops have moved!"

…

The elephant troops attacked from the junction of the Han army's left and center. Even Diwu Lun had to admit that when these colossal creatures appeared on the battlefield, the shock they delivered to both Han and Wei sides far surpassed that of the half-finished firearm, the Wasp Nest, from days before.

The elephants strode forward, their great ears fanning wind like palm-leaf fans, trumpeting loudly, their four legs like pillars. Han soldiers preparing for battle nearby hurried to make way for these huge fellows, terrified of being trampled underfoot.

The fear was justified. Back when Ma Cheng had accompanied Deng Yu south on the Jiaozhou campaign, the Inspector of Jiaozhou had mobilized the Luo people to fight on elephants. Outside Nanhai City, the Han army had been stupefied by these colossal beasts. Horses panicked at the mere sight of elephants, and infantrymen's legs went weak. The Luo people then rode their elephants charging into the formation, slaughtering in all directions. A light flick of a long trunk would coil around a man and fling him to the ground, coughing blood; those colossal elephant hooves crushed men to pulp. Though the actual number killed was not high, the panic was immense. The Luo people seized the moment to press the attack, inflicting a minor defeat on the Han army.

In the end, it was through political inducement that Deng Yu brought the Luo people over to the Han side, thus turning defeat into victory. He valued this troop type highly and once told Ma Cheng: "Diwu Lun holds Hexi, Bingzhou, and Youzhou-Liaodong, so his horses flow in an unending stream. The northern kingdom's cavalry is hard to match, but the southeast also has giant elephants. When His Majesty fights Diwu Lun between the Huai and the Yangtze-Han one day, elephant troops may remedy the deficiency of insufficient cavalry."

Ma Cheng took this to heart. Stationed in Jiaozhou for several years, he had learned from the Luo people in secret and summarized a set of operational methods. The Luo-Yue people, though they tamed wild elephants and could even make them obediently plow fields and till the land, still fought in a very primitive way: the war elephants carried no howdah on their backs, only a single mahout who bound himself to the elephant's back.

After Ma Cheng incorporated the elephant troops into his command, Deng Yu helped him make slight improvements. First, a howdah was placed on the war elephant's back, seating one archer and one long-spearman, with the mahout positioned in front of the elephant. The elephant's more vulnerable parts were covered with oxhide, making them harder to attack. Beside the elephant, 72 Jiaozhou armored soldiers were deployed, with 25 foot soldiers behind the elephant to provide support — precisely the configuration of a single war-chariot "squad" from the Spring and Autumn era.

Thus, a total of fifteen hundred soldiers advanced with the elephant formation, assisting the elephants in trampling the enemy and breaking their lines!

Ma Cheng knew, of course, that the Wei army's formation was orderly and that even Han cavalry could not charge through it. But war elephants were different. In a short sprint, their speed was not much slower than horses. The momentum of their charge could never be stopped by a simple long-spear square. Their immense individual strength allowed elephant troops to crash into the enemy formation like battering rams. With their sweeping tusks slashing and their trunks coiling up enemies, they could easily tear open gaps in the formation, letting the accompanying foot soldiers exploit the breach and expand the gains.

Ma Cheng popped a betel nut mixed with clam ash into his mouth and chewed, red juice spilling from the corner of his lips. Then, spear in hand, he bellowed: "Han shall prevail!"

The elephant troops' entry into battle indeed brought a measure of stimulation to the suppressed Han formation. They echoed the cry, their morale lifted.

The Wei army across the way was not so relaxed. They watched as the fifteen elephant troops, under their mahouts' control, slowly halted, then advanced in a horizontal line — like a swiftly moving high wall, an exceptionally terrifying sight.

Facing these giant beasts with long trunks and tusks, the faces of the Wei army's front-rank soldiers had already turned pale and green. They felt the ground tremble faintly; the small pebbles on the riverbank behind them even began to dance. The spears in their hands grew unsteady…

The light cavalry deployed within the formation fared even worse. Watching the elephant troops draw near, the riders could still hold steady, but their mounts were repeatedly terrified. To horses from beyond the northern frontier, these were ferocious giant beasts they had never seen. Their sheer size and scent made even battle-hardened warhorses tremble and want to flee.

This was precisely the effect Ma Cheng desired: war elephants could cause panic without even making contact with the enemy. Before their charge, even the Wei army would be scattered like chaff before the wind out of sheer terror!

Just as the swaying, head-wobbling elephant troops drew closer and closer to the enemy, about to enter bow and crossbow range, the Wei formation suddenly parted. Ma Cheng assumed they intended to open a channel for the elephants to pass through, avoiding casualties and collapse. But soon, from behind the Wei formation, vehicles resembling "Wugang chariots" were pushed out and arrayed in the front row…

Ma Cheng found this laughable. Such things could block cavalry, but could they stop giant elephants? One swing of an elephant's trunk would hurl a Wugang chariot weighing several jun aside.

Yet when the Wei army engineers removed the baffles from these "war chariots," Ma Cheng's expression turned solemn!

Those "war chariots" were loaded with strange cylindrical objects, stuffed inside with who-knew-what. Over ten chariots aimed at the striding elephants. Wei soldiers stood behind them holding torches. At a drumbeat, the torches were brought to the rear of the chariots…

At first, soundless smoke billowed from the chariots. What happened next made everyone on the battlefield drop their jaws in shock!

Flames suddenly erupted, and with whooshing sounds, one "fire arrow" after another shot swiftly from the box-chariots, streaking across the horizon with the force of thunderbolts!

This sight brought the Luo soldiers advancing alongside the war elephants to a simultaneous halt, dumbstruck. As for those Han soldiers who had the fortune to experience the night raid on Changban camp the night before, they nearly cried out in unison: "Daytime shooting stars?"

Shooting stars or not, for a moment smoke-trailing arrows fell like rain. This volley of fire arrows struck the elephant formation from over two hundred paces away. The lucky ones embedded directly in elephant ears and trunks, drawing blood in streams. The elephants went mad, spinning in place, shaking their bodies, trying to extinguish the flames on themselves. In the process, they threw their mahouts off and trampled them to death.

As for the fire arrows that hit the ground, some also burst with crackling explosions. Though the damage was slight, it was enough to terrify the herd. No longer obeying their mahouts, they regarded the Wei formation — which kept launching fire arrows — as a path of peril. They no longer pressed forward single-mindedly, but scattered in all directions: some veered off toward the riverbank, others turned tail and bolted, charging toward the Han and Luo soldiers following close behind…

In an instant, the Jiaozhou troops fell into chaos, concerned only with fleeing the trampling of maddened elephant feet. Casualties were heavy; who had the mind left to engage the Wei army?

Even if two or three elephants still accelerated toward the Wei soldiers, once they lost the cover of their companions and infantry, they were nothing but prey awaiting slaughter before crossbow engines and long spears. They soon crashed to the ground with thunderous thuds. Wei soldiers, devoid of martial virtue, even scrambled to cut off trunks and ears as trophies.

In just half a ke, the elephant troops that Ma Cheng had regarded as his trump card for victory were defeated by Diwu Lun's "insignificant tricks" and became a laughingstock. The betel nut in General Ma's mouth instantly lost its savor; he could only stare blankly at this scene, unable to accept it for a moment.

The Han army's morale, earlier boosted by the war elephants, plummeted instantly. The Wei army, on the other hand, after their initial shock, erupted in cheers!

"Great Wei has the Fire God Zhurong's aid!"

These words grated harshly on the ears of Han army veterans. The Great Han held the virtue of Fire; the south corresponded to fire. They had fought for years under the Flame Banner, yet time and again were defeated by the enemy's "Zhurong divine fire." Could this be Heaven's will?

Cen Peng, commanding the center army on Diwu Lun's behalf, secretly applauded as well. He had been confident he could contain the elephant formation even without firearms, but the Emperor was too good at hiding things. Just how many more good items did the central army from Guanzhong possess that had not yet been shared with the regional frontier forces?

Cen Peng sent a man to congratulate Diwu Lun and, incidentally, to ask what these "Zhurong chariots" that had won by surprise were called.

Seated steadily in the central army, Diwu Lun laughed heartily: "Go tell the Grand General Who Conquers the South — it is not Zhurong, but firearms! This item is called a Fire Box-Chariot. Alchemist-made gunpowder serves as the fuse, bound to arrows. Several tens of them are packed into a barrel, placed on the chariot, and ignited all at once by a single master fuse, that's all."

Seated steadily in the central army, Diwu Lun laughed heartily: "Of course, it may also be called 'Divine Mechanism Arrow'!"

Though Cen Peng and the Wei officers and soldiers regarded it as a "divine instrument," Diwu Lun in his heart thought little of this item. It was merely a "transitional firearm" similar to the previous night's Wasp Nest. It had only been useful because it happened to counter elephant troops. Once the enemy grew familiar with it, it would be nothing special.

"Like the enemy's elephant troops — outwardly strong but inwardly hollow, not to be relied upon."

Diwu Lun revealed the bottom line to Cen Peng: "Tell the Grand General Who Conquers the South: though the capital army has brought many firearms today, whether smoke-flowers, Wasp Nests, or Fire Box-Chariots, they are all but chicken-slaughtering knives. The only thing capable of butchering an 'ox' is one item alone!"

Butchering Liu? Or an ox? After receiving the report, Cen Peng's gaze drifted to the rear — toward those cumbersome things pulled by ox-carts, always covered with cloth and carefully shielded from water and rain.

Just as Diwu Lun was busy passing word to the various division generals, the Palace Gentleman Yin Xing, observing the Han army through his far-seeing lens, made another urgent report:

"Your Majesty! The enemy center army is advancing!"

…

It could not be denied: first the elephant troops, then the Fire Box-Chariots, the two taking turns on the field had made the soldiers on the battle line start and jump in alarm. Even on the Wei side, unfamiliarity with the Fire Box-Chariots' advance and retreat had thrown their formation into disorder.

It was under these circumstances that the Han army's twenty-thousand-strong center army suddenly advanced. They closed in on Cen Peng's division, which was arrayed with its back to the Dangyang River. Though they took a few volleys from the Fire Box-Chariots, once the visual effect was discounted, the killing power of these things was just so-so. The Han army did not collapse, but pressed straight forward and tangled in melee with the Wei army.

With the enemy making a show of an all-out, go-for-broke assault, Diwu Lun's side accordingly transferred over ten thousand men to assist Cen Peng…

And just as the center erupted in furious combat, under the cover of smoke from burning straw, another Han force had quietly set out from the main camp two ke earlier. It threaded through the sparse woods north of Dangyang County town and rendezvoused with Jia Fu, who had long been waiting there.

"Your Majesty…"

Though Jia Fu had long ago received Liu Xiu's brocade pouch and was under orders to wait here, when the Han Emperor himself appeared before him in full battle armor, Jia Junwen still could not believe his eyes.

During his time in Western Shu, he had grown accustomed to Gongsun Shu's arrogance masking cowardice. A man worth a thousand gold does not sit beneath the eaves; as Emperor, one ought to command from the center, so that even in defeat one could retreat with composure. Yet Liu Xiu intended to personally charge into the fray and fight?

The chaos sown by the elephant vanguard and the all-or-nothing gamble of throwing the entire center army forward — all of it was a deployment Liu Xiu designed solely to draw out Diwu Lun's reserves. He knew perfectly well that, with the odds stacked so heavily against him, only one path to snatch victory from defeat remained.

"General Jia possesses a valor that can stand against ten thousand. Would you be willing to ride as Our vanguard and strike the enemy with a blade of startling sharpness?"

Liu Xiu's manner was as easy as ever as he talked and smiled. His hand swept past the ten-odd li separating the two banks of the Dangyang River, pointing straight at Diwu Lun's main camp, where gaps had begun to appear after the reserves had been fully committed.

At most, ten thousand or so men still guarded the place, with another thousand-odd light cavalry patrolling its perimeter. Even if Diwu Lun had hidden troops lying in ambush, so long as he had the Danyang elite soldiers and Jia Fu, Liu Xiu was confident he could fight at one against two, even one against three!

"We shall personally lead the Danyang troops and strike straight for the enemy's head. The moment Wei Five is forced into retreat, this crisis will be broken!"

Jia Fu stared fixedly at Liu Xiu, utterly overwhelmed by his commanding courage.

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The blood in his chest, long since cooled, began to boil once more. What were Gongsun Shu, what was Diwu Lun — nothing but timid, rat-like cowards. This, this was the heroic and brilliant lord he, Jia Fu, had spent his whole life searching for!

"Your servant is willing to follow in Your Majesty's wake!"

Jia Fu gave his oath. He had been praised by Liu Xiu and Feng Yi as one who could "break the enemy a thousand li away" — then what did that make Liu Xiu?

Jia Junwen raised his head, gazing at Liu Xiu's handsome, fearless brows and beard, and thought to himself: Perhaps he could be called…

"A spirit that swallows ten thousand li!"