Chapter 191: One Surge of Courage

Sophora Wood wore no armor, his only weapons a sword and a small leather-faced round shield, but he was fearless. With several dozen howling Qin soldiers at his side, he mustered all his courage in one surge and charged straight into the Chu troops' ragged, ill-formed ranks.

This was not his first time serving as a "line-breaker."

That would have been five years ago, when he was still a bondservant, conscripted to the front for the campaign against Hann. At the start of the battle, he and eighteen other bondservants and condemned criminals were grouped together. The platoon leader told them they were line-breakers — no armor, only short weapons — and that they would stand before the entire army and launch the charge against the enemy line.

"You eighteen men: if you can take five enemy heads, those of you who were sentenced to death will have your death sentences commuted, and those who were bondservants will have your freedom restored. But if any man cowers or hangs back, before the eyes of a thousand men he shall suffer the heavy punishments of face-tattooing and nose-cutting!"

In that battle, only eight of the eighteen survived. They stood among the enemy dead, clutching five heads, bathed in blood. After that, Sophora Wood went from being a bondservant to a free man. For the first time, he could walk the streets without a care, no longer forced to wear a wooden cangue or endure scornful stares.

But that was not enough. His mother was still doing hard labor pounding grain as a wall-builder's wife, and his two younger brothers remained petty bondservants in the county. The laws of Qin decreed that if a man won a rank of merit by taking heads, he could use it to redeem his family. So in the campaigns that followed, Sophora Wood fought with desperate valor, all for the sake of taking heads to trade for his mother's and brothers' freedom.

Tragically, his mother died before she could be freed. The two ranks of merit reverted to Sophora Wood. Before the next year arrived — when he could have applied to exchange rank for a person — he was conscripted once more, this time as a platoon leader, to campaign against Wei.

That was why, in the battle of Waihuang, he fought like a man with no regard for his life, volunteering as a "first-to-ascend" death-soldier.

He won his rank, and thanks to Heifu bandaging his wounds, he survived. But the war dragged on without end. The king had only just finished with Wei and was already making war on Chu. Fortunately, Centurion Heifu looked after his soldiers — not only did he write letters home for them, but when the Qin army suffered its great rout, he kept everyone in intact units as they retreated. That was a rare thing.

After so many battles, Sophora Wood had come to understand something: a commander's true ability is more clearly revealed in defeat than in victory.

Chasing a fleeing foe with the wind at your back is easy; withdrawing with the whole army intact is hard.

Now they were holding out in an isolated city, trapped in a hopeless dead end. Heifu's speech rallying the troops had once more united the frightened Qin soldiers. Every man was holding his breath. Do not block an army heading home — if anyone dared stop them from returning, they would see what Qin troops looked like when they fought with their lives on the line!

We are not drowning dogs — we are a tiger-and-wolf host!

And so, when Heifu called for a man to lead the line-breakers, Sophora Wood and Dongmen Bao both rose at once to volunteer, each vying for the position.

"I was first to ascend the walls at Waihuang and took three enemy heads!" Dongmen Bao boasted of his exploits, the birthmark on his face flushing red.

But Sophora Wood's record immediately overshadowed the younger man.

"Three times I have served as a line-breaker! Once as a first-to-ascend man! Five heads taken in all!" He threw open his lapel and silenced everyone with his scars.

After thinking it over, Heifu decided to give this heavy responsibility to the more experienced Sophora Wood. With his own squad and another platoon of short-weapon bodyguards — a hundred men in all — they would first throw armor down from the city wall to deceive the Chu troops, then march out and form ranks. When the drums sounded, they would launch a fearless charge straight at the Chu line!

"If the whole army is a sword, then the line-breakers are the sword's tip! Only when you have pierced the enemy's armor can the blade follow in!" Heifu told Sophora Wood. The line-breakers were the key to whether this breakout succeeded or failed.

Sophora Wood accepted the order gladly. In his eyes, what the line-breakers had to do was actually the simplest thing. Tactics? No need. It came down to one thing: don't fear death — charge!

And besides, this was probably the least obstructed charge Sophora Wood had ever made as a line-breaker.

The Chu troops were utterly unprepared for battle. No trenches had been dug in front of their line, and their archers were not on alert. The arrows they loosed in haste came scattered and sparse; only a luckless man would run straight into one and be knocked to the ground. After all, they wore no armor — a single hit meant a serious wound.

But very soon the advantage of not wearing heavy armor became clear. The platoon up front charged at great speed and plunged straight into the Chu bowmen, who were still fumbling to draw and nock their arrows.

These bowmen likewise wore no armor. When the line-breakers burst in among them, it was like tigers let loose in a sheepfold. Once the bowmen were engaged at close quarters, they were nothing but slaughter-fodder. Some fled in panic, some drew the short daggers at their waists to resist, some raised their bows in a vain attempt to block the keen swords — and in moments they were cut down like melons and vegetables, a great swath of them toppling…

Sophora Wood's platoon did the same. Swift-footed, they aimed for the Chu spearmen standing beside the bowmen. The Chu soldiers had no time to raise their spears, no time to lift their shields, before they were sent reeling in utter confusion. The front ranks, already far from tight, were instantly thrown into even greater chaos by the impact.

Though armorless, Sophora Wood was utterly without fear. Wielding his long sword, he rampaged in all directions, reaping life after life.

One Chu soldier stupidly rushed straight at Sophora Wood, swinging his dagger-axe to peck at him. Sophora Wood's sword thrust straight into the man's chest, piercing leather armor, muscle, and lung. The man dropped dead on the spot.

But the blade was caught between the ribs of the man's chest and could not be pulled free. Two more Chu soldiers attacked him from the side. Sophora Wood did not panic. He immediately ducked down and snatched up that dagger-axe, parried an enemy spear aside, then wrenched his sword from the corpse. He kicked away a shield that had been thrust at his back and slit the throat of the Chu soldier hiding behind it with a single stroke.

The scene all around was equally chaotic — fighting everywhere. The line-breakers had achieved brilliant results; in a matter of moments, one company of bowmen and one company of dagger-axe men and spearmen had been routed.

It was a pity, though: despite routing two companies first, the line-breakers were, after all, only a hundred men. Their momentum was spent, like a spent crossbow bolt; they could advance no further. Without armor to protect them, they had suffered heavy casualties. The Chu troops were too many. The formations to the left and right were slowly closing in, trying to encircle them — but this instinctive maneuver only threw the Chu formation into even greater disorder.

By now, their mission was complete: to throw the enemy line into chaos so that the comrades behind could fight their way in!

In a lull in the slaughter, Sophora Wood looked back. Close behind the line-breakers, six hundred Qin main-force soldiers, marching in step and trotting forward with long spears, were already within a dozen paces…

…

"They've broken through!"

When he saw that the line-breakers led by Sophora Wood had already routed two Chu hundred-man squads and torn open a gap, Heifu, marching in the center of the formation, slapped his own thigh in excitement!

This time, he was no longer leading from the front as he had when he was a platoon leader, shouting, "My lads, follow me!"

Nor was he staying glued to the commander's side as he had when he was a short-weapon centurion…

Because he was the Qin commander-in-chief of this battle!

With only six or seven hundred men under him, there was none of the complicated command required in large-scale warfare. Communication was basically by shouting. Heifu personally directed two hundred-man companies, while Dongmen Bao, Di Chong, Tu Si, and Man each commanded a hundred. After they marched out of the town and finished forming ranks, they trotted forward to the beat of the drum that Li Xian was pounding on the city wall.

Heifu placed Tu Si and Man on the left and right, with Di Chong bringing up the rear. His own two hundred men marched in the center.

The foremost hundred men were led by Dongmen Bao. All wore thick armor, five men to a file, twenty men to a rank. The front two ranks carried chieftain spears.

The chieftain spear was a shock lance used by infantry. Though its length fell short of the longest "barbarian spear" of two zhang four chi — nearly six meters! — it was still twenty chi, four and a half meters long, and required two men to carry it together to keep it moving quickly.

These chieftain spears had all been found in the town armory. As the "heavy" weapon in the infantry's hands, when twenty chieftain spears were leveled and came forward at speed, the sight was utterly terrifying!

The only things that could stand against long spears were long spears of equal length and great tower shields. The two sides would shove against each other, seeing who could skewer whom first. That was the norm when heavy infantry phalanxes clashed in the warfare of this age.

But the Chu troops had already been thrown into disarray by the line-breakers. One company of spearmen had been routed, and another was blocked off behind and could not be brought to bear. Dou Ran could only hurriedly assign two hundred sword-and-shield men to plug the gap.

The Qin armored soldiers were just over a dozen paces behind the line-breakers. That short distance was covered in an instant. With a great roar from Dongmen Bao, the Qin soldiers raised their chieftain spears and struck forward in a horizontal line, slamming squarely into the Chu sword-and-shield men who were racing sideways to intercept them!

Sharp spearheads slipped through gaps in the shields, piercing the leather armor of one unlucky Chu soldier, driving through his guts, and bursting out his back. The bloodstained spearhead then plunged into the chest of the man behind him…

It was not only the two men holding the spear who put their strength into it; the three men behind each file also kept shoving forward. In this way, relying on the length and impact of the chieftain spears, Dongmen Bao and his men, like a sharp iron awl, soon pierced straight through and routed this two-hundred-man Chu squad…

By now, the chieftain spears were like candied hawthorn skewers, two or three men impaled on each. Some of them were not yet dead and were shrieking horribly. But the Qin soldiers could no longer advance a single step with the long spears. They simply cast them aside, drew the two-chi swords at their waists, and charged forward howling, closing to hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

If the Chu line had originally only had a small hole torn open by the line-breakers, now, under the ferocious shoving of the chieftain spears, a great gaping breach had been smashed. Not to mention that behind Dongmen Bao and his men were several hundred more Qin soldiers, who, under Heifu's command, were pouring through that breach and fighting their way in. For a time, the Chu troops could do nothing but scramble to plug the holes.

Although they had been caught off guard and at least five hundred men had been successively overrun, the Chu army was far from a total rout — their numbers were simply too great. Under Dou Ran's direction, they began to counterattack.

First, men from the left and right kept shifting toward the center, trying to halt the Qin breakthrough. In addition, the sole remaining hundred bowmen had finally been redeployed. The archers nocked arrows to their bowstrings and loosed volley after volley of arrow-rain at the Qin rear formations.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh — arrows hailed down on the Qin soldiers in the rear like hailstones, ten at a time, a hundred at a time. Around Heifu, many of the men holding shields to block arrows for him were struck and fell, their war cries turning to wails. Even the bronze helmet on his head took a hit — a sharp clang that gave Heifu a terrible start.

At the same time, the sound of hoofbeats rose from the flank. The Chu army's thirty chariots, because they had not been readied in advance, were now hopelessly jammed among the infantry and unable to move, useful only as command platforms.

But that hundred-strong cavalry was mobile and flexible. They had already concentrated, riding around from both wings and halting their horses several dozen paces away. The riders dismounted one after another, took out their bows and crossbows, strung them, and began shooting at the Qin soldiers…

Di Chong braved the arrow-rain to come up from the rear and report: "Heifu, the arrows are too many — we can hardly hold them off. Should we send men from the left and right wings to drive them away?"

Heifu said, "Just have Little Tao lead a few dozen crossbow and bow elites to return fire!"

"And what if those riders charge us?"

"Aren't you and the others protecting the left, right, and rear?"

Heifu did not look aside. Cavalry in this age, unless they came in overwhelming numbers or your own side was already routed, were not worth worrying about too much. The arm was still immature, let alone Chu's cavalry. Their horses were small, and the riders' horsemanship was poor. They were generally used as scouts and could not even shoot from a galloping horse; they had to stop, or even dismount to shoot on foot. They could not play a decisive role at all.

As for charging and breaking the enemy line? That was something even the elite cavalry of Qin's Beidi and Shangjun commanderies rarely did — would Chu cavalry dare? Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King of Western Chu who would later bring shock cavalry to its full glory, was still a little toddler who hadn't even learned to ride a horse yet!

Besides, at this very moment, Heifu could no longer spare any attention for his flanks or rear — his eyes could only look straight ahead!

That's right — charge forward recklessly, fight fiercely without pause! This was the tactic Heifu had devised: the commander leaves no room for second thoughts, the soldiers embrace death as their purpose, so they whet their armor and sharpen their blades, unite their breath and strength, and smash through the enemy formation!

Outnumbered as they were, they could not compete with the enemy in numbers or in a drawn-out fight — they had to compete in momentum. With the desperate fury of a cornered army, they would summon their full spirit in one surge; a second surge would weaken, and a third would be spent. If they hesitated, looking over their shoulders, the momentum of the charge would vanish, and their defeat would be certain!

But if they could pierce through the enemy in a single breath, once the formation scattered, these Chu soldiers would basically collapse. Don't expect that, like in a game, a commander could manually rally his scattered troops back together. That was utterly impossible — these Chu soldiers weren't trained to that level. Routed troops lose all courage; once their unit structure is gone, they can't even run fast enough, let alone turn around and counterattack.

"Charge through!"

So Heifu pointed his sword forward. After the enemy line had already been torn open with a massive gaping hole, he led his own two hundred men charging in as well, paying no heed to the arrows raining down from above, ignoring the cavalry scouting and harassing them on both flanks, his eyes fixed solely on the four-horse chariot of Douran, trapped and immobilized by the chaotic Chu formation just twenty paces ahead!

"Just charge straight through like this — give the Chu troops a blooming flower right in their center!"

At the same moment, as if Heaven itself were aiding Heifu, a tremendous roar of battle cries erupted from behind the Chu army's formation!

(End of chapter)