Chapter 403: Three Urgent Matters When Facing Battle and Crossing Blades

Time entered late April. The busy farming season had ended, and the northland entered the slack farming period for conscription and training in formations and archery.

To prepare for military operations the following year, the Northland Commandant's office had been extremely busy lately. Heifu frequently summoned the County Commandants, Commandant Clerks, and Pastoral Officials to gather together, holding meetings to assign tasks, and from time to time some golden phrases would emerge during the sessions.

For example, this one.

"When facing battle and crossing blades, there are three urgent matters: first, gaining the terrain; second, troops being well-trained; third, equipment being sharp and effective!"

As soon as the Commandant spoke these words, the scribes in charge of recording the meeting immediately copied them down onto jute paper.

Heifu told the officials to digest this statement thoroughly, while he himself picked up his cup and drank a mouthful of the wolfberry and chrysanthemum water his wife had brewed for him. Only after a long while did he slowly continue:

"The art of war says: men often die from what they cannot do, and are defeated by what they are not adept at. Therefore, in the method of using troops, teaching warfare comes first."

What is meant by "troops being well-trained" is to increase the training of soldiers, making them understand gongs, drums, banners, and flags, and become proficient in combat skills, so that when they go onto the battlefield they will not panic and be at a loss.

Northland Commandery is a border commandery, so it has a standing force of commandery troops and county soldiers, but they are not many. The commandery seat at Yiqu City has one thousand; the two border passes of Xiao Pass and Wushi Fort each have five hundred; the remaining six counties each also have five hundred. The total number is no more than five thousand.

At most half of these commandery troops and county soldiers can be drawn off during wartime, so the main force in war is not them, but the temporarily conscripted garrison soldiers. Northland Commandery has over thirty thousand households and a population of less than two hundred thousand, far inferior to Heifu's home of South Commandery, and half are Rong and Di peoples. Fortunately, the local customs are fierce and martial, and the common people are relatively enthusiastic about joining the army. One able-bodied man from every three households means drawing over ten thousand men is not a problem.

Besides the commandery troops and garrison soldiers, there are also cavalry auxiliaries from the Rong tribes of Dayuan, Wushi, Chaona, and Yiqu, who can muster three thousand men.

Calculated this way, the maximum troop strength Northland Commandery can mobilize is fifteen thousand men.

Judging by the orders the First Emperor of Qin issued to Longxi and Shang commanderies, war could break out as early as next year. Heifu must seize the time to train them.

"The lands beyond the frontier, with earthen hills and mounds stretching in continuous chains, and broad plains and open fields — this is terrain for chariots and cavalry, where ten infantrymen are not equal to one."

Heifu had already set the tone for this war. Whether a great victory could be achieved, chariots and cavalry would be the decisive factor, so he decided to increase the numbers of Northland Commandery's chariot and cavalry arms, especially the cavalry.

The three thousand Rong cavalry mustered by the various Rong tribes were temporarily conscripted and would be led into battle by their tribal chieftains; they did not need to be trained by the Commandant, and Heifu did not want to rely too heavily on them. He planned to take three hundred young men of good family from the northland, skilled in riding and archery, as a core, and train a cavalry force composed purely of Qin people, equipped with high saddles and stirrups, at the pastures of Yuzhi, Yiqu, and Jingyang. Troops are valued for quality, not quantity — one thousand would suffice!

Heifu's plan was: over half a year, have Gongsun Bailu, the County Commandant of Yuzhi, train the three hundred young men of good family, teaching them cavalry tactics and familiarizing them with high saddles and stirrups. When autumn arrived, further conscript several hundred able-bodied young men from the commandery who could ride and shoot, having each of the young men of good family teach two others, and by the summer of the following year they could form an army…

As for the training of other skilled archers, armored soldiers, and foot soldiers, Heifu decided to personally take charge.

After finishing "troops being well-trained," Heifu again emphasized "equipment being sharp and effective."

"If blades are not sharp, what difference is there from bare fists? If armor is not hard and tight, what difference is there from plain cloth and stripped clothing? If crossbows cannot shoot far, what difference is there from short weapons? If one shoots but cannot hit, and hits but cannot penetrate, what difference is there from having no arrows and no arrowheads? Thus the art of war says: if equipment is not sharp, you are handing your soldiers to the enemy!"

Heifu had made spring inspection tours of the counties and carefully examined the armories of each county. Overall, he was relatively satisfied. Northland Commandery's position was important, and Xianyang had not been stingy in sending weapons and feathered arrows here, but these weapons were mostly bronze, with relatively few iron ones.

While the six states east of the mountains had already developed relatively mature iron weapon forging, Qin still persisted in using bronze because it could be mass-produced. Although it had reached the pinnacle of bronze weapon manufacturing, there was one problem: Northland Commandery lacked copper and tin!

This meant that Northland Commandery's weapons could only rely on the Xianyang Armory and the iron mines of Qi County. Although they were not far, once war broke out and battle lines stretched for a thousand li, the front lines having no arsenal to promptly resupply weapons and arrowheads might become a hidden danger.

While touring the counties, Heifu discovered that at a place called "Yiju," located at the confluence of the Ni River and the Jing River in Niyang County, there was an iron mine. There were also some small local workshops that could forge iron farming tools. Upon investigation, the scale of that iron mine was not small; if mined on a large scale, it could produce tens of thousands of jin of good iron each year!

Therefore, after consulting with the Commandery Governor, Heifu submitted a request to the First Emperor: establish an Iron Office in Northland Commandery, relocate iron smiths from east of the passes to the northland, open mines and smelt iron, and produce iron weapons locally to make up for the shortage of weapons on the front lines…

Incidentally, with an iron workshop in Northland Commandery, it would also be convenient for Heifu to ask the craftsmen to tinker with some small inventions for him that could shine brilliantly in the war against the Xiongnu.

However, afterward Heifu felt that all this was merely taking precautions, even somewhat gilding the lily, because he had heard from Wushi Luo that the Xiongnu's metallurgy industry was far more backward than the Central Plains, and not just by a little…

On the steppe, as early as the Shang and Zhou periods, there were many remnants of bronze civilizations. The Xiongnu also smelted bronze; bronze knives, bronze swords, bronze arrowheads, bronze axes, bronze horse bits, and other weapons and horse gear were very common.

However, relative to their needs, the quantity was truly rather scarce. The Xiongnu's copper and iron, a small portion self-produced, mostly came from imports from the Central Plains and the distant Altai Mountains region, and were quite costly. In the Xiongnu heartland, sometimes a small bronze knife could be traded for a cow, and some ordinary Xiongnu herders had no choice but to use stone for blades and bone for arrowheads.

Therefore, in terms of armor and weaponry, this was the Xiongnu's weakness and the Central States' strength.

Since transporting copper and iron beyond the frontier could yield enormous wealth, during the chaotic wars among the seven capped states of the Central Plains, the copper and iron of Qin, Yan, and Zhao all flowed out of the border passes in no small amounts. But as Qin destroyed Yan and Dai, the copper and iron the Xiongnu obtained from the Central Plains rapidly dwindled!

After Heifu arrived in Northland Commandery, he further intensified the crackdown on smuggling.

"Not even a single needle is permitted to flow beyond the passes!"

At the end of this meeting, Heifu gave a death order to the Bandit Bureau Head: the garrison soldiers on the Long Wall, upon discovering anyone attempting to cross the border to smuggle, could kill them without reporting!

As if that were not enough, Heifu added one more clause: "All smuggled contraband goods and valuables seized, the border soldiers may take entirely for themselves!"

The Bandit Bureau Head was stunned, his teeth chattering slightly. This Commandant was truly ruthless!

This way, the border soldiers would be overjoyed to shoot dead any smuggling merchant who dared cross the border and seize their goods and valuables. Until the war began, no one would dare openly approach the Long Wall, and the Wushi would become the only merchants qualified to go beyond the passes to trade.

This harsh decree would certainly cause the border merchants to cry out in bitterness, but Heifu had no time to pity them. Border merchants could be used by Qin, but they could also be used by the Xiongnu. If these smugglers, for the sake of profit, sold intelligence on the interior, that would also be a troublesome matter.

Not every merchant could be as patriotic as Xian Gao.

By the time the pot of wolfberry and chrysanthemum tea at Heifu's side was finished, this meeting was also considered over. The two matters of "troops being well-trained" and "equipment being sharp and effective" he had already assigned people to handle, but the top-ranked "gaining the terrain," Heifu did not mention.

This matter, Heifu had entrusted to Chen Ping and the Wushi trading party to survey. They had gone beyond the frontier at the end of last month, and now over a month had passed. They should have already penetrated deep into the Xiongnu's Henan territory, though he did not know where they were now.

…

Chen Ping's party was still staying at the Xiongnu encampment and pasture at the foot of the Helan Mountains. Chen Ping was not worried about their intentions being exposed; after all, the Wushi trading party came every year, and the Chanyu Touman had even invited Wushi Yan to Touman City, so there was no fear that Modu would not let them pass.

What interested him was that before the trading party set out, Wushi Yan had been invited by Modu to his great tent. It was said that only the two of them were inside the tent — a scene where outsiders were excluded was generally used for secret talks…

The two commandery soldiers assigned by Heifu to stay by Chen Ping's side and protect him were somewhat secretly worried.

"Could Wushi Yan betray us?"

Chen Ping was not afraid at all and laughed: "If the Wushi did not even understand which side is more profitable to do business with, they would not have the wealth they possess today. However…"

He thought with malice: "Over the past ten years, among the goods the Wushi brought out of the passes, I'm afraid there were also copper, iron, and other prohibited items mixed in…"

This was something Chen Ping had pried out of Wushi Yan's mouth yesterday. Wushi Yan firmly maintained that this had been reported to the Privy Treasury, and that occasionally bringing some copper and iron items to the Xiongnu was to win their trust and also facilitated trade and the scouting of enemy conditions.

This journey beyond the frontier was no exception. With the permission of the Commandery Governor and Commandant, the Wushi had brought Modu one hundred small bronze knives. However, the Xiongnu people still thought this was too little, not even enough to distribute to one tribe.

Therefore, Chen Ping guessed that this time Modu had invited Wushi Yan for a secret talk to discuss whether the Wushi could transport another batch of copper and iron implements to the Xiongnu in the latter half of the year…

In the afternoon, Wushi Yan returned, his mouth full of the smell of fermented mare's milk. After entering the camp tent, he did not speak. Only when the party set out and reached the halfway point, with no Xiongnu eyes and ears around, did he call Chen Ping over and say to him:

"What Prince Modu sought me out to discuss was indeed about smuggling copper, iron, and metal implements out of the frontier!"

Chen Ping smiled; his guess had been correct. Unexpectedly, Wushi Yan continued: "But this time is different from usual. What Modu desires is not just ready-made copper and iron implements. He actually asked me whether I could bring some craftsmen who can mine, smelt iron, and cast implements from the Central Plains to the Xiongnu! He will certainly purchase them with a heavy price!"

Chen Ping's smile froze. He turned his head to look at the Xiongnu splinter tribe's camp stretching continuously at the foot of the Helan Mountains and could not help but be astonished.

"Given time, could Modu become a hero of the steppe? At only eighteen or nineteen years of age, he can actually grasp the principle that teaching a man to fish is better than giving him a fish!?"

(End of chapter)