Chapter 278: Heads Sundered from Bodies, Yet the Heart Never Yields

When the southern line collapsed, Xiang Yan had the chance to pull back his troops and escape—at the very least, he could have left the battlefield with the ten thousand noble retinue soldiers around him.

But Xiang Yan made an all-or-nothing decision: he threw his entire rear guard of over ten thousand men forward in one rush, hurling them as fresh troops against the forty thousand elite soldiers from Qin's Guanzhong who had already held firm for a full two-hour watch!

The hard-pressed troops of the Xiang clan, Jiangdong, and Huainan, reinforced by fresh strength and seeing their commander's great banner thrust straight forward, surged in morale for a moment, roaring Chu songs as they launched a counterattack.

The Qin Guanzhong troops, exhausted after prolonged fighting, were struck by this fresh wave and actually gave the appearance of being unable to hold, falling back step by step.

Xiang Yan's elation, however, did not last long. He soon realized this was yet another of Wang Jian's stratagems. Wang Jian had the Qin troops withdraw to their original positions and then dig in once more.

Wang Jian did this to lure the Chu army forward, so that the three detachments from the north, south, and rear could converge and complete the encirclement...

The southern line was the first to collapse. Hei Fu and the others, newly arrived, had planted a forest of banners on the hilltops, playing a pivotal role—they utterly destroyed the morale of the southern Chu troops. Now, the Qu clan's forces had been completely routed, and over ten thousand Qin soldiers were beginning to sweep around in a flanking maneuver.

On the northern line, Zhao Hua, already at a numerical disadvantage, struggled bitterly against the Qin general Qiang Hui and was also defeated, his soldiers scattering in all directions. Zhao Hua strove to rally his troops and attempt a counterattack, but it was futile—Qiang Hui's banner, too, now pointed toward the center.

And their sole line of retreat had been severed by the Qin chariot and cavalry forces that had already wiped out the Chu war chariots, working in concert with that thousand-strong Qin reinforcement unit. Under the cover of chariots and cavalry, these thousand high-morale soldiers were fiercely assaulting Xiang Yan's rear guard...

By this point, the outer Chu soldiers had all been pierced through. Only thirty to forty thousand men in the center remained, formed into a circular formation clustered around Xiang Yan's banner, enduring the Qin army's encircling assault.

Though the outcome was all but decided, Xiang Yan still observed the battlefield without blinking, issuing orders from time to time to adjust the formations, or shifting more men to wherever a collapse threatened, trying to reverse the defeat. Dozens of orderlies galloped to every corner of the battlefield, faithfully relaying the Supreme Pillar of State's commands.

But the collapse could not be reversed. Though the Chu troops fought in formation, under the Qin soldiers' onslaught small formations crumbled one after another. The position facing north caved in deeply, triggering an avalanche-like chain reaction—Chu positions fell one by one, and the scales of victory had tipped decisively toward Wang Jian.

Xiang Yan watched as the Xiang clan soldiers fighting bitterly ahead were skewered row after row by the charging Qin spear-wielding shock troops roaring down the gentle slope, yet even in death they refused to let go of their weapons.

He looked to the right: three thousand heavy crossbowmen had seized a commanding position, bracing their crossbows with hands and feet from the high ground, loosing volley after volley into the dense Chu formations. The bolts fell like rain; with each concentrated volley, great swaths of Chu troops toppled, suffering horrific casualties.

He looked to the left: the Qin chariot and cavalry forces had also poured out in full strength, charging the Chu troops along the low ground. Heavy war chariot after heavy war chariot hurtled past, flanked by hundreds of mounted escorts, sunlight glittering on spear points. The several thousand soldiers of the left formation were utterly scattered under their impact, like pottery shards struck by an iron hammer...

And the rear was already ablaze. The fifteen hundred Southern Commandery soldiers newly thrown into the battle were few in number, but the ferocity of their assault was terrifying.

They seemed to treat the Chu troops, whose morale had utterly collapsed, as opponents on a ball field, and Xiang Yan's banner as the ball they were fighting over. Dongmen Bao led five hundred men like a knife thrust into soft flesh, routing over a thousand Chu soldiers. Around Hei Fu, the units of Gong Ao, Xiao Tao, and Li Xian fought in coordinated support, driving the three thousand Chu troops of the rear guard back step by step...

Time slipped by, quarter-hour by quarter-hour. The battlefield was everywhere strewn with corpses, wounded men, and soldiers locked in bloody combat with spears and swords; the earth was soaked through with blood. Of the tens of thousands of encircled Chu troops, the dead were dead, the routed routed—fewer than ten thousand remained. Where the fighting had been a full li from Xiang Yan earlier, now the Qin troops had thrust forward to within a few hundred paces, close enough that several stray arrows had landed right before his chariot...

Xiang Yan's banner still ceaselessly signaled commands, but the Chu soldiers on the perimeter, assailed by enemies many times their number, could no longer execute them. They could only fight on instinct—or flee on instinct.

"I have lost."

The day had reached its end. As the setting sun hung low in the west, Xiang Yan saw that his troops were dwindling away and could no longer carry out any of his orders. The old general, who had stood in his chariot the entire day and exhausted every last ounce of his spirit, let his hand fall limply.

He was utterly despondent, for this was not only the failure of a half-year-long campaign, but the end of Chu's national destiny.

In a few more moments, the Qin troops would finish mopping up the last resisting Chu soldiers and fight their way to him. When that happened, everything would be over.

At this thought, Xiang Yan drew his sword!

"Supreme Pillar of State!"

The chariot guard standing beside him was his clansman Xiang Sheng, a powerfully built warrior of keen reflexes and high martial skill. He had been struggling with his shield to block the stray arrows that were flying ever closer and thicker. Seeing this, he was horrified and fell to his knees: "Supreme Pillar of State, Xiang Sheng begs to escort you in breaking through!"

Night was about to fall, the sky growing dark. The Qin encirclement was not yet tight—many Chu soldiers had been slipping out through the gaps all along. Though over a thousand Qin roving cavalry were still hunting them down outside, if Xiang Yan took his thousand guards, abandoned his great banner, and struck for the gaps, there might yet be a sliver of hope...

"And what if I break through? Half a year of stalemate has exhausted Chu's national strength. Now, with this great defeat, a hundred thousand Chu soldiers are dead, wounded, or scattered. The tide is lost."

Xiang Yan stroked the sword that had accompanied him for decades and smiled bitterly. "In my youth, I believed Chu's repeated defeats at Qin's hands were merely a matter of losing on the battlefield. If not for the great defeats at Lantian, Chuisha, and Yanying, perhaps we would still rule five thousand li of territory, hold a million halberds, and whether the Horizontal Alliance made Qin emperor or the Vertical Alliance made Chu king..."

"So I studied the art of war assiduously, hoping to become a famed general, to reverse the decline on the battlefield, revive the great Chu, and avenge the grievances of a hundred generations..."

"In the dozen-plus years after the Battle of Changping, I served Lord Chunshen, campaigning east and west for him, swallowing Lu in a single gulp, seizing all the eastern lands, and earning no small measure of battle honors. Afterward, when we opened up Jiangdong, I also did my utmost. In those years, Chu truly showed signs of revival."

"Who could have foreseen that Chu's fortunes would then turn so ill-starred? First Li Yuan murdered Lord Chunshen and usurped power, then the princelings fought among themselves, brothers slaughtering each other, while the various clans and county governors cared only for their own interests, endless strife ensuing. A few years ago, I joined hands with the Zhao, Jing, and Qu houses to kill Li Yuan and set the present king on the throne. The court had barely stabilized when the Qin grand army was already upon us..."

The last time, Xiang Yan had strained every sinew and routed Li Xin, but this second time, he could not work a miracle. Wang Jian had simply ground him down with sheer numbers and national power.

"Only now do I understand: this was not the fault of battle, but truly a case of the state's decline being too far gone to reverse!"

Pitting a zhu weight against a yi weight—his defeat was not the least bit unjust.

Yet because it was not the fault of battle, his defeat also left him unwilling.

Now, nothing more needed to be said. By Chu's tradition, a general who loses an army must answer for it himself, even if the King of Chu does not punish him!

"On the day the army marches forth, there is the honor of death, not the disgrace of life. Xiang Yan was incompetent and brought suffering upon the three armies. How could I cling to a wretched existence, or be captured by Wang Jian and humiliated before the Qin people?"

Xiang Yan's resolve to die was set. Xiang Sheng and the personal guards knew they could not stop him. They could only kneel on one knee in the muddy ground and sob.

Holding the sword crosswise to his throat, Xiang Yan sighed with emotion:

"Three hundred years ago, when the Wu army invaded Chu, Zichang ignored the counsel of the Left Marshal Shen Yin Rong and was routed by the Wu army at Boju. Afterward, Shen Yin Rong turned his army back and fought desperately to stop the Wu forces from entering Ying, defeating them several times. But his strength was insufficient, and in the end, he was wounded and defeated."

"Before he died, he told his sworn retainers: 'In my youth, I once went to Wu and served under Helü; therefore I am ashamed to be taken prisoner by them, nor will I let the men of Wu take my head.' And so his retainers cut his throat and wrapped his body, hiding his corpse and concealing his head."

"Xiang Sheng." He looked at his clansman.

"Here!" Xiang Sheng, a man of eight chi, was now weeping, his face covered in tears.

"You have always been renowned for courage, a fine steed of the Xiang clan, a man who can be entrusted with a grave task. After I die, you must sever my head—do not let Wang Jian have it. Xiang Yan does not wish to see that old acquaintance! Then find a way, under cover of night, to leave the battlefield and return to Xiaxiang. Deliver my head to my sons and my grandsons!"

"And tell them this!"

Xiang Yan fixed his gaze on Xiang Sheng, his beard and hair bristling, his eyes wide, and spoke his final words:

"Xiang Yan may be dead, but so long as a single breath remains in the descendants of the Xiang clan, they must live and die together with Chu!"

"Xiang Sheng understands! We shall be with Chu to the very end!"

Xiang Sheng wept aloud. Together with the surrounding guards, they knocked their heads to the ground toward Xiang Yan, bidding farewell to their clan lord, to the Supreme Pillar of State of Chu!

The Chu army had scattered and melted away. The Qin soldiers were already swarming within a hundred paces, torches lit, locked in fierce combat with Xiang Yan's personal guard—they would be upon him in an instant.

Xiang Yan hesitated no longer. Gripping his sword in both hands, he drew it across his throat. A spray of hot blood burst forth, staining his grizzled beard crimson. The towering Supreme Pillar of State crashed down heavily upon the chariot carriage!

"Grasping long swords, clasping Qin bows, heads sundered from bodies, yet the heart never yields..."

As blood gushed from his throat, amid convulsions, scenes of the past flashed before him one by one, settling at last on the days of his youth, listening to the "National Lament," grieving for the affairs of the kingdom.

"A pity... in the end, I could only follow in the steps of Shen Yin Rong and Master Qu, but could never become a Shen Baoxu who turned back the tide!"

Xiang Yan's life breath was extinguished. Only his eyes remained wide open, glaring, refusing to close!

The charioteer silently arranged Xiang Yan's corpse, then drew a dagger from his bosom and plunged it into his own heart!

Of the surrounding guards, no fewer than ten took their own lives to see Xiang Yan off!

Only Xiang Sheng and a few others, entrusted with Xiang Yan's command, could only grit their teeth, hold back their tears, and with trembling hands raise their swords high and strike down, severing that aged head!

"Truly brave, and moreover martial; steadfast to the end, never to be dishonored."

"The body may die, yet the spirit lives on as a god; the soul is steadfast, a hero among ghosts!"

Having finished singing "The Nation's Fallen" in a low voice, under the cover of several of the Xiang clan's personal guards, Xiang Sheng discarded all his armor, smeared his face beyond recognition, wrapped Xiang Yan's head in his clothes, bent low, and, riding the deepening night, fled outward with a stream of Chu soldiers routed by the Qin troops!

Just as Xiang Sheng was fleeing outward, the Qin army's four divisions — east, south, west, and north — launched their final assault on Xiang Yan's chariot almost simultaneously!

Charging at the forefront from the south was none other than the unit led by Heifu!

……

"Xiang Yan is dead!"

"Xiang Yan is dead!"

Corpses lay strewn across the battlefield, blood flowed like rivers, and as the Qin army finished off the last of the stubbornly resisting Chu soldiers and discovered Xiang Yan's body, which there had been no time to dispose of, this fierce battle, which had lasted an entire day, was finally declared over.

But immediately after, the soldiers who had charged furthest ahead began shoving and jostling one another over the suspected body of Xiang Yan. These troops, their eyes bloodshot from slaughter, erupted into a brawl, and under the lure of merit and rank, they even raised their blades against their own comrades!

"Lixian, get Gong Ao and Dongmen Bao back here, now!"

Heifu, too, had some bloodstains on him — splashed on during the charge — but he himself was uninjured.

Because the moment he had chosen to lead his men into the fray was exceptionally well-timed, out of fifteen hundred men, casualties numbered no more than a hundred, and the wounded had all been dragged to the rear for the medics and emergency healers to treat.

Heifu, however, had no time to celebrate the victory. He immediately sent men to call back the two who had charged furthest ahead, for he had already seen Wang Jian's command banner moving in this direction, and wherever it passed, Qin soldiers hurriedly parted to make way.

Coming along with it were a great many military judges, their faces grim as iron!

Qin military law was strict: private brawling over heads was a capital offense! Back in Waihuang, Gong Ao had nearly been executed for this very crime — how could he still not have learned his lesson? This was the sort of affair one must, at all costs, avoid getting entangled in.

Fortunately, under Heifu's restraint, they did not get drawn into the chaotic scramble of those several hundred men and quickly extracted themselves.

After returning, panting heavily, Gong Ao burst out cursing: "Those Hedong soldiers are like a pack of wild dogs! We were clearly the first to reach Xiang Yan's chariot, yet they shoved us aside. If Lixian hadn't held me back, I would have taught those bastards a lesson!"

"The military law officers will use axes and halberds to teach those men a lesson they'll remember."

Heifu, however, was not much concerned. He laughed and said: "We struck the rear of Xiang Yan's army hard, routing three thousand of them, and during our inward assault we broke through several small formations in succession. Ji Ying is also leading men behind us, severing heads. Even if we didn't get Xiang Yan's corpse, none of you will lack for merit!"

Just at that moment, Dongmen Bao also returned with a few soldiers, carrying something in their hands.

Unlike Gong Ao's fury, he was visibly excited even from a distance and shouted: "Commander, though we didn't manage to seize Xiang Yan's head or dismembered limbs, we did capture his command banner! How great a deed does that count for?"

PS: Second chapter in the evening.

Regarding the death of Xiang Yan and the sequence of Qin's destruction of the Chu capital and the great battle south of Qi, the Records of the Grand Historian contains two different accounts.

In the twenty-third year, the King of Qin again summoned Wang Jian, compelling him to rise, and sent him to attack Jing. He took the lands from Chen south to Pingyu and captured the King of Jing. The King of Qin traveled to Yingchen. The Jing general Xiang Yan installed Lord Changping as King of Jing and rebelled against Qin south of the Huai River. In the twenty-fourth year, Wang Jian and Meng Wu attacked Jing, shattered the Jing army, Lord Changping died, and Xiang Yan thereupon committed suicide.

— Annals of the First Emperor of Qin

In the fourth year, the Qin general Wang Jian defeated our army at Qi and killed the general Xiang Yan. In the fifth year, the Qin generals Wang Jian and Meng Wu thereupon destroyed the Chu state and captured the King of Chu, Fuchu... — Hereditary House of Chu

Jing repeatedly challenged them to battle, but Qin would not come out, so they withdrew eastward. Jian then raised his troops and pursued them, ordering his elite soldiers to strike, and dealt a great defeat to the Jing army. Reaching south of Qi, they killed their general Xiang Yan, and the Jing army thereupon fled in defeat. Qin then pressed its victory to pacify and secure the cities and towns of the Jing territory. Over a year later, they captured the King of Jing, Fuchu, and finally pacified the Jing lands, organizing them into commanderies and counties. They then campaigned south against the lords of the Hundred Yue. And Wang Jian's son, Wang Ben, together with Li Xin, conquered and secured the lands of Yan and Qi. — Biography of Wang Jian

According to the Grand Historian's habit, when there are two versions of an event, he lists them separately in different biographies, allowing later generations to judge for themselves — a responsible approach that preserves disputed theories.

Therefore, after analysis, the sequence in which Wang Jian led his army to first destroy the main Chu force, Xiang Yan committed suicide, and then they later took Shouchun and captured the King of Chu is logically coherent. As for the enthronement of Lord Changping south of the Huai River, it may have been done by members of the Xiang clan borrowing Xiang Yan's name — a similar affair was carried out by Chen Sheng over a decade later.

(End of Chapter)