Chapter 421: Barbarian Lads at Ten Can Ride a Horse

The fresh Tan mutton was boiled until fully cooked in the cauldron, but Sha Niu Pan couldn't wait any longer. He speared it out directly with his sword, pulled out the bronze paring knife he carried, and began slicing it into pieces.

"You wretch, you just killed someone with that sword and haven't even wiped off the bloodstains—how can you use it to skewer meat? Aren't you disgusted?"

Hu Luohuai beside him was so furious he was squawking, but Sha Niu Pan seemed to be deliberately provoking him. With outrageous arrogance, he raised his sword, stuck out a bright red tongue, and licked the remaining Xiongnu blood off the blade, laughing as he said:

"Since when did the Hu Luo clan become as fastidious as little maidens? It's just barbarian blood, no different from sheep's blood. I was being kind letting you have a taste, and you're actually unhappy about it."

"Enough, enough."

Fu Zhi grabbed Hu Luohuai, who was about to spring to his feet, and placated him: "Just now, when we went to patrol and encountered Xiongnu outriders, if Sha Niu Pan hadn't intercepted them, those few Xiongnu would likely have escaped. We're brothers in arms—don't let a trifle spoil our fellowship..."

"Who's brothers with him?" Hu Luohuai and Sha Niu Pan said in unison.

Fu Zhi shook his head helplessly and stopped bothering with their bickering. He helped himself, taking the mutton Sha Niu Pan had sliced and tucking it into the pot helmet cake softened in the broth.

The piping hot fragrance of wheat elevated the aroma of the meat to its peak, while the greasiness of the fatty lamb was absorbed and neutralized by the pot helmet cake—fragrant, flaky, and soft, immensely satisfying to eat. Hu Luohuai and Sha Niu Pan forgot their old grudges and wolfed it down ravenously.

Watching the eating manners of these two Rong centurions, then glancing back at the campfires that had burned through the night behind them, Fu Zhi tightened the armor on his body and savored everything that had happened today, feeling as though it were all a dream.

Hu Luohuai was the eldest son of the Hu Luo clan of the Da Yuan Rong, and Sha Niu Pan, the eldest grandson of the Sha Niu clan, came from a family that had a generations-long feud with his. Last year, the two tribes had even fought a battle, and many people died. Fortunately, the Commandant of Beidi Commandery stopped them and made them use "tug-of-war," that novel method, to decide ownership of grazing lands and water sources.

And this year, the five divisions of the Da Yuan Rong had no time for internal strife at all. A thousand of their able-bodied young men were all conscripted as Rong cavalry, riding beyond the frontier with Commandant Hei Fu. Even those hundred men who had been arrested for "unauthorized combat" were organized into a death squad, galloping at the vanguard, carrying five days' rations, pressing forward ahead of the main army.

Sure enough, after reaching the Flower Horse Pool, they discovered that the Xiongnu, combining those ahead and behind, likely had two thousand riders—a numerical advantage. The vanguard commander Yiqu White Wolf was not so foolish as to fight one against two, so he led over a thousand riders to encamp by the salt pool, standing off against the Xiongnu twenty li away.

Between them lay the city of the Xuyan Rong, who had been longing day and night for the Qin army to arrive. It was now brightly lit, on guard against a Xiongnu night raid.

The Xiongnu, not knowing the Qin army's exact numbers either, prowled cautiously outside, neither daring to attack the city rashly nor able to bypass it and strike the Qin army at the risk of being caught between two fronts. The two sides thus fell into a stalemate.

Although the main forces faced off against each other, both sides sent out outriders without pause: the Qin army constantly dispatched scouts to establish contact with Flower Horse Pool City, putting on the appearance of coordinating an internal-external pincer, while the Xiongnu sought to send riders southward to probe whether the Qin army had follow-up forces.

In this process, the two sides clashed more than a few times, each suffering casualties. Fu Zhi, as the commander of a hundred riders from good families, also took part in the fighting. For the first time, he observed up close how the Xiongnu fought.

In Fu Zhi's eyes, the Xiongnu were far more savage than any Rong tribe in Beidi Commandery. They were naturally ugly and grotesque, with short, thick limbs, stout torsos, large heads, and bow legs. The lines of their entire bodies looked as though a clumsy craftsman had hacked them out of an old tree root with an axe.

Judging from a Xiongnu scouting outpost that their three hundred riders had stormed and destroyed, the Xiongnu ate half-cooked beast flesh, and their soup was made from grass roots dug out of the ground or fermented sour mare's milk, boiled with water directly in leather bags.

They wore rough sheepskin jackets or marmot-skin robes. Those captured clothes stank unbearably—probably put on and never washed or changed again until they were utterly tattered.

What shocked Fu Zhi was that he had thought his own riding skill was already quite excellent. Even though the Commandant had forbidden them from using stirrups or high saddles on this expedition beyond the frontier, he still believed he was second to none among the Rong people of Beidi.

It was only after clashing with the Xiongnu that he understood what a true people of the horseback really was.

Those Xiongnu cavalrymen they engaged seemed as if they had grown onto their horses. Without needing stirrups, they could perform all manner of highly difficult maneuvers—shooting a bow at full gallop, or suddenly twisting around to loose an arrow behind them, all in one fluid motion. The Xiongnu they hunted and killed, just a dozen or so men, had toyed with over a hundred men, leading them in circles. Only after a long pursuit, relying on the Rong riders to outflank them, were they finally slain!

And the Xiongnu's tactics also left Fu Zhi in awe. He had assumed these barbarians knew nothing of military strategy, possessing only brute ferocity and innate mounted archery. The result opened his eyes wide: when clashing, the Xiongnu outriders rarely formed neat ranks. Sometimes they scattered, sometimes they converged, coming and going like the wind. Often, before their own side was even aware, they had already charged right before their eyes, loosed a volley of arrows, and swiftly departed.

"'Swift as the wind, invasive as fire...'" Fu Zhi silently recited this phrase. Of the four things the Commandant required of the good-family sons, the Xiongnu were born already possessing two.

These people seemed to know innately how cavalry should be employed. At a distance, they shot arrows with astonishing speed and accuracy. If they closed in, they would use stone daggers or bronze swords to fight in close combat, utterly fearless and fiercely brave. They would also suddenly fling out rope lassos, binding Qin men to the ground, leaving them unable to move.

After a day of contact, Fu Zhi had come to understand that their side had encountered a very fearsome enemy. Without relying on high saddles and stirrups, the good-family sons could hardly contend with them on horseback.

The Xiongnu's only weakness was their extremely poor weapons and equipment.

Fu Zhi glanced at the three-chi-long iron sword at his side. It was one of the batch forged by the Guandong artisans sent to Beidi Commandery by the Privy Treasury. In his good friend Gan Chong's hometown, Yiju Village of Niyang County, there was a sizeable iron mine. For months, thick smoke had billowed there. Over a thousand iron-office convicts mined ore and smelted iron, the molten iron pouring into iron weapons common in Guandong but relatively scarce in Guanxi. The first group to be equipped with them was the good-family sons.

As for the Xiongnu, never mind iron, even bronze was extremely scarce. Ordinary Xiongnu riders mostly used wooden weapons. Even their most crucial arrowheads were made of bone and stone. Though sharpened to a keen edge, let alone thick armor—they couldn't even pierce the rock-hard pot helmet cake Fu Zhi carried on his back...

"So this thing really can serve as a shield." Fu Zhi decided that when his two comrades, Qiang Hua and Gan Chong, arrived, he would share this good news with them.

"Woo!"

Just as he was pondering, suddenly, a urgent horn blast sounded from two li outside the camp—only to abruptly cut off, as if something had violently severed its sound!

But killing a single sentry rider was not enough. Like a relay, the southwestern side of the camp erupted with continuous, unending horn blasts.

"Ah-wooo-wooo-wooo!"

The three men, who had been feasting heartily, immediately became alert. Fu Zhi rose, stamped out the campfire with a few kicks, then cupped his hands toward Sha Niu Pan and Hu Luohuai, who had shared the meal. Gripping his sword, he strode toward the good-family sons' encampment, put the bronze whistle into his mouth, and blew with all his might.

"Xiongnu night raid! Good-family sons! Muster!"

Three days later, the vanguard commander Yiqu White Wolf reported to the Commandant of Beidi, who had arrived two days earlier than expected:

"I venture to report to the Commandant: these past few days the weather has been clear, and one can see at night. Every night, the Xiongnu have attempted to send men to launch surprise attacks. But each time, they were promptly discovered by the sentry riders this subordinate arranged, who sounded horns to raise the alarm. The Xiongnu did not press recklessly; after probing and finding our army prepared, and seeing that we had set up chevaux-de-frise against cavalry on the perimeter, they swiftly withdrew."

Hei Fu nodded. Both Gongsun and Yiqu men had some real ability. Gongsun White Deer was skilled in both letters and arms, with strategies in mind, and could be trusted to hold his own. And Yiqu White Wolf was indeed a cavalry commander who had once fought against the chariots and riders of Zhao and Chu; his command of troops was highly seasoned. With a thousand riders facing twice their number of Xiongnu, he had bluffed and blustered, stalling them for a full three days until Hei Fu himself arrived with four thousand infantry.

Although the Xiongnu also continuously received reinforcements from the Helan grasslands, their command was not unified—each group came according to its tribe, scattered and sparse. Now they only had a little over three thousand riders. Seeing the Qin army arrive in another vast, dark mass, each tribe likely harbored thoughts of letting others go first. Hesitant and wavering, they did not dare attack again.

In his early years, Hei Fu had learned a tactic from Wang Jian called "bullying by force of numbers." After reaching Flower Horse Pool, relying on his superior numbers, he did not hesitate at all. He immediately had over five thousand infantry and cavalry coordinate and slowly advance, pushing the position right up beneath Flower Horse Pool City, joining forces with the Lord of Xuyan and Wu Zhiyan inside the city.

"This way, adding the Rong infantry and cavalry inside the city who can fight, we already have a force of eight thousand. If we wait another six or seven days for County Magistrate Gongsun to arrive with the baggage train, our numbers will approach ten thousand!"

Qiang Hua had been serving as Hei Fu's personal guard these past few days, but he had long been itching for battle, eager to fight on the front lines. After reaching Flower Horse Pool and hearing Fu Zhi recount the recent clashes with the Xiongnu, he was even more unable to restrain himself. The moment the camp was pitched, he began clamoring:

"Excellent! This way, we can have a decisive battle with the Xiongnu!"

"A decisive battle?"

Hei Fu was just discussing the upcoming operational strategy with Yiqu White Wolf. Hearing this, he shook his head helplessly and pointed at Qiang Hua: "As expected—even having left the frontier and been blown by the wind and sand, in essence, you're still tender grass from inside the pass."

"He is young, after all."

Yiqu White Wolf nodded with a smile. This made Qiang Hua's face flush red. He bowed and said: "If this subordinate has spoken wrongly, I beg the Commandant and Commander to instruct me!"

The request for instruction was feigned; his unwillingness to concede was genuine.

Hei Fu closed the map and asked him: "Tell me, then—what is the key to this campaign?"

"To defeat the Xiongnu, of course!" Qiang Hua said, as if it were obvious.

"How to defeat them?"

"On the battlefield, of course!"

In Qiang Hua's imagination, the two sides should deploy their formations and have a grand, thunderous showdown—chariots charging, cavalry clashing head-on—and in the end, their own side would win a great victory, annihilating the Xiongnu in one fell swoop...

Hei Fu, however, said: "The Xiongnu, like us, are also arriving in several waves of reinforcements—basically a few hundred more each day. By the time our army has set up a fortified camp with the city at our back and waited for the baggage train, the Xiongnu will likely have reached five thousand men. I've heard from Chen Ping and Wu Zhiyan that this is also the total number of riders Helan can field."

Using ten thousand men against five thousand seemed to hold every advantage, but the Xiongnu commander was no fool who would obligingly deploy for battle outnumbered. These people were not idiots; they were cunning hunters of the grasslands, who, through countless hunts and struggles against nature, had forged a unique set of tactics.

As Chen Ping put it: "They advance when advantageous, retreat when disadvantageous, and feel no shame in fleeing."

In the parlance of later ages, it was: "Fight if you can win, run if you can't." They were nothing like the Chu nobility, who would commit suicide out of shame for retreating or fleeing—such a thing did not exist for them.

The Xiongnu's mobility far surpassed that of the Qin army, and their scout riders were spread across the countryside in all directions. The moment the Qin army made a move, they could immediately pull back. Once the Qin infantry and cavalry became separated and their battle line stretched thin, the Xiongnu could then seize the chance to wheel around and strike — at that point, the advantage would actually lie with the Xiongnu.

So the initiative in this battle did not rest in Heifu's hands.

At least, that was the case on the tactical level...

To win this battle, they would have to rely on strategy.

Heifu rose and stepped outside the tent. They had set out at the end of the ninth month, and now it was already the first ten days of the tenth month. By the Zhuanxu calendar, another year had turned; it was now the beginning of the twenty-ninth year of the First Emperor of Qin...

The weather beyond the frontier was also growing colder by the day.

In the bleak north wind, Heifu said slowly, "I have heard a saying: 'On the barbarian steppe, snow flies by the eighth month.' Though it is not quite so exaggerated, by the eleventh month at the latest, the first snow will come drifting down."

"The Xiongnu may endure bitter cold and hunger, but they are not forged of iron. Within a radius of five hundred li, the Huama Pool is the only place with a dense population, the sole location that can provide winter supplies for over ten thousand infantry and cavalry. This means that within a single month, if the Xiongnu cannot seize this place, they will have no choice but to retreat two hundred li to Divine Spring Mountain, or three hundred li to the banks of the Great River to pass the winter."

After pointing out the most critical aspect of this war, Heifu turned his head and said, "When that time comes, whoever controls the Huama Pool and occupies the Huama Pool settlement will be the victor of this war!"

"Now, the Xuyan Rong have submitted to Qin. Our army is encamped with its back to the city, the inner and outer forces forming a pincer-like mutual defense. We lack neither water nor provisions."

Heifu smiled. "So the ones who should be anxious and seeking battle are certainly not us, but the Xiongnu!"

(End of chapter)