Chapter 441: No Fear, No Retreat

The Dousi River is a Xiongnu name meaning "river like oil." Of course there is no oil in this river; it is so described because, besides its sluggish current, the sandy gravel of the lands it flows through all turn into fertile silt. Within its basin the water and grasses are lush and abundant, making it excellent grazing ground.

Yet compared with the vast Helan Mountain grasslands two hundred li to the south, it seemed unremarkable, so the Xiongnu passed it by and left the whole river to the White Sheep tribe, for the sheep-slave Xiongnu to live their herding life.

Further east from the White Sheep tribe, where the grasslands gradually change into forest, lies the boundary between the White Sheep and the Forest Hu — drawn by the master of both tribes, the Xiongnu Chanyu: the sheep slaves herd sheep, the forest slaves hunt; neither shall trespass against the other.

The two tribes also trade from time to time: the White Sheep people drive their cattle and sheep to exchange for the Forest Hu's game and bow-making materials. Both sides keep cautiously to the boundary and do not cross it lightly.

But this summer, the Forest Hu broke the oaths of generations. Led by Forest Hu hunters clad in thick furs, a group of Central Plains men in black armor entered the White Sheep tribe's territory and built tall earthen watchtowers there. The White Sheep lord is detained at the Xiongnu Chanyu's side; his son sent men to demand why the Forest Hu had broken their oath, but received in reply a haughtily worded summons to surrender.

"Those who submit to Qin shall prosper; those who oppose Qin shall perish!"

The summons to surrender was signed "Shang Commandant Jie"!

Among the four tribes of the lands south of the river, the White Sheep are the closest to the Xiongnu Chanyu. White Sheep women often become the Chanyu's consorts, and the Xiongnu Chanyu also marries his daughters into the White Sheep. Even setting that aside, they had to consider the hostage held at the Chanyu's side.

While the White Sheep lord's son still hesitated, the other side could not wait. As tree after tree in the forest was felled, the Qin army's main force arrived at the White Sheep tribe.

In the half-month that followed, the entire Dousi River basin was filled with the sounds of slaughter and the color of blood. The White Sheep people died in swathes; beneath the feet of the slowly advancing Qin armored formations, the ground was all bloody mud and shattered bone, submerging the yellow earth.

When the dust settled, the White Sheep tribe had been destroyed. Those who resisted were all killed; the rest fled and scattered in every direction. The innocent flocks of sheep stood blankly at the foot of the hills, gazing at the blood-soaked grasslands after the slaughter.

General Feng Jie came to the land after the battle and listened with satisfaction as his subordinates reported the number of captured livestock — more than ten thousand head.

"General, what shall be done with the captured barbarians?"

"Keep enough hands to herd the flocks. The rest, expel—"

He thought for a moment, then changed his mind: "Kill them all!"

It was not that Feng Jie was bloodthirsty by nature. He had brought twenty thousand troops this time, campaigning four hundred li from Shang Commandery, and they consumed enormous quantities of grain every day.

Although since the year before last, the First Emperor had been transporting grain to the borders, moving great stores of provisions to the frontier in advance, and had ordered Zhang Han to open the Direct Road — and this year had also opened the Forest Hu Road — the supply convoys in the rear were struggling through the newly carved narrow roads to bring up provisions, but distant water cannot quench a nearby thirst.

Many of the Shang Commandery soldiers are of White Di stock, and like the Qiang of Longxi and the Rong of Beidi, they belong to peoples who are half-farmers, half-herders; drinking kumis and eating meat is commonplace. Continually annihilating the barbarian tribes ahead, seizing their food and livestock, feeding the army on the enemy, sustaining the campaign by war itself — that was the best way to maintain the great army's fighting strength.

But destroying the White Sheep tribe was not enough. In this war, Feng Jie wanted to achieve even greater merit!

Feng Jie, at just over thirty years of age, was already a frontier grandee with a rank of two thousand dan — a rare thing in Qin — and was also charged with the defense of Shang Commandery, showing the Emperor's trust in the Feng clan. The Feng clan had thus become the third great clan of Qin, after the Wang and the Meng, with a hand in both military and civil affairs; the Imperial Secretary Feng Quji was moreover a strong contender for the chancellorship.

Such a flourishing clan should have been a good thing, but in Feng Jie's heart, for over ten years he had lived stifled and frustrated, always overshadowed by someone, his achievements unremarkable, his renown muted.

As Feng Quji's son, Feng Jie was early selected to serve as a guard in the Xianyang Palace, but the fierce and sharp Li Xin, and Meng Tian, scion of generations of veteran generals — the brilliance of these two completely eclipsed Feng Jie. In those years as a palace guard, he seemed mediocre and undistinguished; the First Emperor's impression of him remained "Feng Quji's son," and nothing more.

After being sent out as a colonel, among the younger generation of commanders, Li Xin and Meng Tian both received opportunities to act independently and won merit for it. Li Xin marched from Taiyuan and Yunzhong to strike Zhao, and with a thousand horsemen chased the King of Yan and Crown Prince Dan to Liaoxi, his name stirring the realm. Meng Tian, too, relying on his father's and grandfather's achievements, rose step by step. Feng Jie alone served as an officer under his uncle Feng Wuze; although he gained spoils in every battle, they were all minor achievements not worth mentioning. After Yan was destroyed, the First Emperor publicly praised Li Xin in the great hall, while the rest seemed dim and lusterless.

The Feng clan's creed of "down-to-earth steadiness" finally had its day of vindication. In the first campaign against Chu, the arrogant Li Xin and Meng Tian capsized; the Emperor was greatly disappointed in them. Feng Jie, on the other hand, relying on slowly accumulated merit and seniority, advanced steadily and solidly, returning to the court and once more entering the Emperor's sight.

In this campaign against the Xiongnu, the First Emperor appointed four generals as the four commandery commandants. While Feng Jie sighed with emotion that he had at last returned to the same starting line as Li Xin and Meng Tian, he felt some disdain for Heifu, that "opportunistic climber" of lowly origin.

It was the pride of a hereditary military house — courteous, yet keeping others at a thousand-li distance.

But since taking up his post, Feng Jie had not had an easy time either. The Governor of Shang Commandery, Qiang Hui, relying on his status as a veteran general, often meddled in military affairs and encroached upon the commandant's authority. Feng Jie dared to be angry but not to speak out. In the end, the two tacitly split Shang Commandery's military affairs in two; what Feng Jie managed was basically just the military affairs of the southern Gaonu region, mustering troops and conducting pre-battle training.

That Li Xin and Meng Tian outperformed him he could accept — he greatly admired their ability, and attributed it to Longxi and Yunzhong being places that allowed one to give full play to one's talents. But what truly irked Feng Jie was that he was also overshadowed by Heifu, that "southern barbarian from the borderlands" of lowly birth.

The strategy of westward expansion was Heifu's initiative; the woolen clothing was his proposal; the Pacify-the-Frontier Shrine was something he concocted. Feng Jie and the others were merely carrying out the First Emperor's orders, which felt a bit like trailing in someone else's wake.

Not only did Heifu take the lead in rhetoric, he was also a man who could accomplish real things. Just when Feng Jie was feeling smug about winning over the Forest Hu, Beidi Commandery had already sent spies to thoroughly scout the Xiongnu, and incidentally sowed discord between the Xiongnu Chanyu and his son. The chaos in the lands south of the river allowed the Qin army to easily take Huamachi and the Forest Hu last year — all of it became Beidi Commandery's achievement!

Now, with the four commanderies advancing by four separate routes, anyone who toiled in vain, or even lost his way and suffered defeat, would inevitably face embarrassment. Feng Jie knew that if he remained subordinated to Qiang Hui, he would not gain any notable merit at all, so he put forward a bold proposal:

Shang Commandery would dispatch a flanking force, pass through the Forest Hu territory, and launch a surprise attack on the White Sheep tribe, seizing their livestock and stores for its own use. In this way, the lands south of the river could be split in two, cutting off north-south communication among the Xiongnu and severing the retreat route northward for the Xiongnu forces at Helan Mountain. After linking up with Longxi and Beidi, they could then advance north and strike at the Qin army's final military objective in this war: the Ordos Loop!

To Feng Jie's delight, his request won the First Emperor's praise, and he at last obtained the chance to lead a force on his own, no longer serving as Qiang Hui's shadow, or anyone else's!

He had now conquered the White Sheep, taken nearly a thousand heads, and captured tens of thousands of livestock — roughly matching Beidi Commandery's results from the previous year.

Next, he had to seize the initiative in the military operations against Helan!

"The Xiongnu Helan army, hearing of the White Sheep's defeat and knowing that both Shang Commandery and Beidi are advancing on Helan, will fear encirclement and will surely lead their tribesmen in a distant flight."

There are two routes from the Helan grasslands to the Ordos Loop: one lies at the southern foothills of the Helan Mountains, the other along the great river. Seizing the southern route before the Xiongnu flee is Li Xin's task; Feng Jie need only control the river route.

One could say that to catch the Helan Xiongnu like a turtle in a jar, the Shang Commandery troops are the jar's lid.

If the lid is not placed in time, this great turtle will crawl right out of the pot…

And so, after destroying the White Sheep tribe and letting his troops rest, Feng Jie made a decision:

"Three thousand chariots and cavalry will go ahead; the infantry will rest for one day, then march at a measured pace!"

Feng Jie placed high hopes on them, but in the end those hopes were dashed.

Three days later, at the lower reaches of the Dousi River, Feng Jie's vanguard encountered a hundred or so chariots and cavalry fleeing in ragged disarray, every man exhausted and terrified. They said that while crossing the great river, they had been suddenly ambushed by over ten thousand Xiongnu horsemen; six or seven out of every ten had died, and the rest had scattered in defeat in every direction…

"Over ten thousand Xiongnu horsemen!"

Feng Jie felt a surge of foreboding. All the Xiongnu fighting men in the entire Helan region put together did not amount to that number! Where had these Xiongnu come from?

The riddle was soon solved. As the Qin army cautiously set up camp on the spot at White Sheep Mountain, Xiongnu warriors, fifty to sixty thousand strong, wearing felt caps and gripping curved bows, came howling in and surrounded them!

Wulan the Eagle-shooter, blind in one eye, planted the eagle banner that represented the Chanyu's royal court deep into the ground three li beyond the Qin army's camp gate!

Gazing at the Xiongnu riders galloping and issuing challenges, Feng Jie's face gradually turned pale.

…

"We must return at once and report this immediately to Commandant Wei!"

At the cost of over a dozen lives, Gan Chong's party — sons of good families sent by Heifu to deliver a message to Feng Jie — had barely managed to get their scouts within ten li and make out what was happening over there.

On the late-summer grasslands, the morning mist, like clouds brushing low over the earth, was torn into thin, diaphanous shreds, sliding slowly over the gold-glimmering Dousi River. Below White Sheep Mountain, thousands of white felt tents dotted the verdant grassland, like new-grown mushrooms on green velvet after a fine rain…

The scout who had escaped by the skin of his teeth reported that each felt tent housed ten Xiongnu, tens of thousands in total. Their horses had nearly grazed the riverside grass bare; riding them at full gallop was like thunder rumbling at the edge of the earth, and shooting their curved bows could unleash a rain of deadly sharpness.

The Xiongnu that Heifu and Li Xin had searched for so long on the Helan Mountain grasslands — they were all here!

They had already completely surrounded Feng Jie's infantry on White Sheep Mountain, a hillock barely a hundred chi high. The Xiongnu kept launching charges and volleys; relying on the sparse trees, Feng Jie's infantry were struggling to hold off the Xiongnu siege.

Even from over ten li away, Gan Chong felt he could sense the rumbling roar of tens of thousands of Xiongnu light cavalry charging…

And the wailing of horns — that came from close by. Though they had concealed themselves in a hollow among the hills, they had still been spotted by a Xiongnu patrol riding through.

Gan Chong knew that very soon, Xiongnu scouts hearing the horns from every direction would converge on the sound and wipe them out.

"Someone must go back at once!"

He repeated these words, immediately picked ten of his best riders, and ordered them to race south at all costs!

After the ten riders swiftly departed southward, Gan Chong himself stayed behind. He looked at the remaining several dozen men — their eyes were either dim with despair or filled with fear. Everyone knew they were already deep in peril.

Gan Chong's gaze was resolute and unyielding. He was one of the three most outstanding sons of good families, yet his renown fell short of Qiang Hua and Fu Zhi.

He had never found a chance to make his own light shine.

Until now — before their very eyes, over ten thousand Qin comrades-in-arms had fallen into a trap.

He drew his sword and spoke in a rapid, urgent tone: "We are all sons of good families of the northern lands, chosen by the Commandant. General Wei personally composed the oath for us — do you still remember it?"

"Open the frontier, pacify the border — live and die upon this ground."

Someone quietly recited it. The Commandant had held them in special regard — this was a point of pride for the Sons of Good Families Corps, now expanded to a thousand men. It was also the destiny of the Qin families who had migrated to the northern lands. No matter where their ancestral homes had been, whether Yong or Xianyang, they had already sunk deep roots on the frontier.

"Loyal to duty, without fear, without retreat!" The rest shouted the second half in unison. This, too, was the creed of the sons of good families, hereditary military landholders for generations! If they feared the Hu and the Rong, they would never have come to the borderlands, never have joined the army. If they fell back, the Hu horses would soon be grazing right outside their hometowns!

"Just so — without fear, without retreat!"

Gan Chong said: "All of you, mount up! Split into several squads and ride west and east. This time, the aim is not to slay the enemy and take heads. So long as we spare nothing, draw the Xiongnu's attention. Whatever method you use, you must hold them long enough for at least one of those ten mounted messengers to race back to Helan Mountain and tell the Commandant what has happened here!"

With those words, he was the first to swing up onto his horse and raise his sword.

"My comrades, this mission is either life or death. If we are so unfortunate as to fall beneath the Hu cavalry, then our shrouds shall be horsehide, and we shall meet again in the cemetery of the loyal!"

PS: Depending on how things go — if I'm back early tonight, there'll be another chapter. If I'm back late, then nope.

(End of Chapter)