Chapter 439: Treading Deep into the Land of War-Horses

"My lord."

"We pay our respects, my lord!"

When Fusu, the Army Supervisor and imperial son, entered the Granary Fortress, the civilian laborers pushing grain carts all knelt and kowtowed at the sight of him. Unlike the fear they felt under the Qin officials' whips, the people's reverence for this benevolent, scholar-loving lord came truly from the heart.

After all, the whole journey, it was always the Qin officials playing the villain, and the lord playing the hero.

"Quickly, rise."

Fusu bade them dispense with the formalities, but inside the Granary Fortress, upon hearing of the lord's personal arrival, more and more people knelt in prostration. To avoid causing a blockage, Fusu had no choice but to leave the streets and climb the city wall instead, walking along the rampart passage.

This small town he was in had been newly built over the past half-year by the Qin troops stationed here. It stored weapons, arrows, and armor shipped from Beidi Commandery, along with tens of thousands of shi of grain packed to the brim.

Hence the name "Granary Fortress." Unlike the crude Flower Horse Pond military fort half a li away, the Granary Fortress, though not tall, had thick walls and was heavily guarded.

Every morning, a steady stream of civilian laborers escorted grain carts laden with millet and baked flatbread through the fortress's south gate, exiting empty through the east gate. After switching out men and horses, they would immediately turn back south the next day.

Fusu's daily task was to inspect the Granary Fortress while keeping an eye on the ledgers tracking the daily grain in and out.

Circumstances forced this. As Army Supervisor, Fusu could not constantly run to the front lines; his main duty was overseeing supplies. Even if a general had mutinous intentions, once the grain supply was cut off, even a host of thousands upon thousands would all turn to starving corpses.

Heifu also knew this young lord was a novice, prone to boundless compassion, and feared he might stir up some unforeseen trouble. Fortunately, with the Beidi Granary Overseer and Chief Clerk sent by the Commandery Governor to assist, and Colonel Zhao Ben as an aide—half advising, half guiding—no major mishaps had occurred so far.

After a month of contact, Fusu was gradually getting familiar with this work. The rest of what he needed to do was simple: if the grain shipped in equaled the grain consumed, he could breathe easy. The moment the intake fell short of the outflow, he had to start worrying and immediately reprimand the southern grain convoys to quicken their pace!

Indeed, the first thing that changed after Fusu arrived at the frontier was learning that, while loving the civilian laborers as his own children, he also had to properly employ them, command them, and govern them!

There was no other way. Although Beidi Commandery had mobilized thirty thousand troops this time, in reality, only ten thousand charioteers, infantry, and cavalry had been taken by Heifu to rendezvous with Li Xin and attack Helan together. Another five thousand soldiers were divided into three groups: one thousand garrisoned Divine Spring Fort, building crude ramparts and storehouses there; two thousand garrisoned Flower Horse Pond and the Granary Fortress; and another two thousand were separately tasked with protecting the civilian laborers transporting grain to and fro.

And the fifteen thousand civilian laborers were also split in two: ten thousand transported grain back and forth from Beidi to Flower Horse Pond, while five thousand hauled grain from Flower Horse Pond to Divine Spring Mountain and brought back the wounded and sick soldiers...

The Beidi Granary Overseer had calculated the accounts for Fusu: not counting livestock feed, the thirty thousand troops and laborers beyond the frontier, factoring in losses along the way, consumed forty thousand shi of grain a month!

"Therefore, forty thousand shi must be shipped from Beidi to Flower Horse Pond each month just to keep the great army from starving and wasting away."

This long-distance transport route did not begin at Xiao Pass. First, at least six thousand Beidi corvée laborers had to move grain from the commandery granaries to Xiao Pass. That grain, in turn, had been shipped from the Interior Lands to Beidi and stockpiled over the past half-year—the very reason Qin had delayed its military campaign until now. The Granary Overseer estimated that if the war lasted more than three months, additional grain shipments from the Interior Lands northward would be necessary, requiring over ten thousand more civilian laborers to transport grain from Xianyang Granary, Qi Granary, and Yunyang Granary.

The grain transported to Beidi was dry, easily storable cereal, which had to be processed into flour and rice before it could go beyond the frontier. What did this entail? In Beidi Commandery, ever since Heifu took office, although water-powered mills and grinders had been promoted, and animal-powered grinders and pestles had also appeared, the main workforce was still human. Four thousand convict laborers, men and women, had to work day and night without rest, using foot-operated pestles to hull rice and stone mills to grind flour, just to meet the monthly quota of rice and flour for the frontier.

Tracing it back even further to the source, on the Guanzhong Plain, at least twenty thousand people were responsible for producing this grain.

After the Granary Overseer finished his calculations, Fusu could not help but be astonished. So, for ten thousand men to fight a thousand li away, seventy thousand people were needed to supply them!

"When raising a host of one hundred thousand and campaigning a thousand li away, the expenses of the common people and the provisions of the state amount to a thousand pieces of gold daily. Within and without, there is turmoil; the people are exhausted on the roads and seventy thousand households cannot attend to their work..."

Fusu truly understood these words now. Sunzi was indeed a master who had grasped the essence of war. War utterly drains national strength and the people's resources. Thus, even if a state is large, belligerence inevitably leads to peril!

If one does not fight, that is one thing, but once war begins, one must commit fully. With such complex production and transport, a single mistake in any link could affect the life or death of tens of thousands of soldiers!

Fusu no longer dared, as he had on the journey here, to let the civilian laborers delay their schedules out of pity.

The Qin army's supply situation was so difficult, and the Xiongnu knew this well. That was why they had adopted a scorched-earth policy, moving all their herders and flocks away—an easy task for the Xiongnu...

However, this Xiongnu plan was likely to fail. As far as Fusu knew, the Beidi Commandery Commandant had made considerable preparations for this. Accompanying the ten-thousand-strong army westward, besides half a month's worth of baked flatbread and parched rice, were over a thousand Rong tribesmen and ten thousand Flower Horse Pond sheep. They would graze leisurely on Divine Spring Mountain, and if the army's grain ran short, sheep could be slaughtered for supply at any time—a method learned from the Xiongnu themselves.

The only hidden danger was that after the main army advanced west, Divine Spring, Flower Horse Pond, and the grain convoys along the route would be raided by the Xiongnu. But Fusu was not too worried.

He had already received word from Shang Commandery: Shang had also mobilized its troops, dividing them into two routes. General Qiang Hui led the main force north, intending first to subdue the Loufan tribe, then cross the river to occupy the old city of Jiuyuan and rendezvous with Meng Tian at the Chanyu's Royal Court for a decisive battle with the Chanyu's main force.

Meanwhile, Shang Commandery Commandant Feng Jie, leading twenty thousand infantry and cavalry and guided by the Forest Hu people, advanced west deep into the Henan lands to attack the White Sheep tribe, which was allied with the Xiongnu. This route would both screen the Beidi army's long supply line and prevent the Helan Mountain Xiongnu from retreating north, trapping them in a three-pronged assault!

The Xiongnu perhaps had not yet realized they had already fallen into a vast encirclement net!

With the decisive battle drawing ever closer, although Fusu opposed rashly opening hostilities at the border, he also wanted to visit the front lines and truly experience, firsthand, what war was really like.

He had to know: this war that his Imperial Father pursued so tirelessly, that the Legalists constantly agitated for, that the Mohists vehemently opposed, that the Confucian scholars were noncommittal about, that the military generals were so passionate for, that the Qin people rejoiced to hear of, that the civilian laborers paled at the mention of, and that the benevolent sighed over in despair—what kind of scene was it, really?

No sooner said than done. Fusu had a messenger deliver a letter to the front-line commanders, Heifu and Li Xin.

"The Army Supervisor not only oversees grain but also oversees military affairs. If the Qin Prince appears on the front lines, treading deep into the land of war-horses, the soldiers will surely be heartened. When the three generals combine to strike Helan and contend with the Xiongnu, Fusu hopes to observe the battle from nearby!"

At the same time, a thousand li away in Yunzhong, a long, narrow stone wall wound through the peaks and hills of the Yinshan Mountains' southern foothills, stretching for several hundred li...

This was the Zhao Long Wall, built during the time of King Wuling of Zhao. It began at Dai, followed the Yinshan range west, and ended at Gaoque. After the Battle of Changping, when Zhao's national power greatly declined, it was abandoned. The Xiongnu came howling down from the Yinshan northern foothills; they tore down the city of Jiuyuan and began steadily carting away the bricks and stones of the Zhao Long Wall to reinforce their sheep pens and felt tents. Near the Zhao Long Wall, they established Touman City and set up the Chanyu's Royal Court.

But now, after several decades, the banners of the Central Plains once again fluttered atop a long-abandoned beacon tower—only the character was not "Zhao," but "Qin"!

General Meng Tian looked proudly at the rekindled beacon tower. He admired and respected Li Mu, and now, he would do what Li Mu had wanted to do but could not: sweep through the Chanyu's Royal Court! Exterminate the Xiongnu for His Majesty!

According to reports from messengers, General Qiang Hui of Shang Commandery had already smoothly passed through the Loufan people's territory, crossed the great river, and reached the old city of Jiuyuan.

Meng Tian's army had marched west from Wuquan Fortress in Yunzhong Commandery for several hundred li, restoring the Zhao Long Wall along the way, but had encountered no Xiongnu resistance. They had smoothly reached this point; a hundred li directly south lay the Chanyu's Royal Court...

The next step was for the two Qin armies, north and south, to tread through the Royal Court, dangle bait at the tiger's mouth, boldly challenge the mighty Hu, behead Touman, and annihilate the Xiongnu!

According to scouts, Touman City still teemed with large numbers of Xiongnu. The cautious Meng Tian ordered Commandant Wang Li to lead several thousand chariots and cavalry closer to reconnoiter. But Meng Tian had not expected Wang Li to return the report in person.

"General Meng!"

When Wang Li had set out, he was brimming with high spirits, determined to earn great merit and prove that his claim, "Give me a hundred thousand troops and I shall rampage through the Xiongnu lands," was no empty boast. But upon returning, his expression was solemn.

"I sent men to scout up close, only to discover that the so-called Xiongnu main force was nothing but ordinary herders. At the sight of our vanguard approaching, they scattered like birds and beasts. We captured a few and interrogated them; all said the Chanyu had long since departed days ago. I led men into Touman City, only to find it completely empty—all grain and people had been moved away. We then went to the Dai Forest to its south, to the great tent of the Chanyu's Royal Court, and saw not a single person or animal there either!"

"General Meng, the Chanyu's Royal Court is empty. The Xiongnu main force has vanished without a trace!"

(End of Chapter)