Chapter 442: Strike at the Heart!

At the foot of the Helan Mountains, the green plains on either side of the great river were lush with fragrant grasses, lifting the spirits of Young Master Fusu, who had long endured windblown sand in his face.

After Fusu nodded his consent, the Mohist Tang Duo, who knew a fair bit about farming, dismounted to test the soil. He discovered with delight that, unlike the hundreds of li of yellow sand and hard earth they had traveled, the soil here was black loam — formed by the great river's silt deposits over many years, the death and decay of plants, and the enrichment of cattle and sheep dung.

Tang Duo said, "If judged by the standards of the 'Tribute of Yu,' this land would rank at least middle-middle in soil quality. And if we use this great river to dig irrigation channels, it could even reach upper-middle!"

Every school of thought had its own ancient sage it admired, and the one the Mohists revered most was Yu the Great. Thus, although most Mohists were humble artisans, they did not look down on the Agriculturalists. After entering Qin, they gradually merged with the Agriculturalists who had aligned themselves with Lü Buwei, and in doing so absorbed a great deal of their knowledge.

Fusu nodded, then added with a smile, "Wasn't it Master Chunyu who insisted that beyond the frontier there was nothing but useless wasteland? I really should have brought him along to see this."

Chunyu Yue was in no position to answer that question, because although Fusu had been allowed to come here and rendezvous with the main army, he could not bring too many attendants, and so had left Chunyu Yue behind at Huamachi.

In the worldview of the Central Plains people, they truly believed that beyond the Central Plains lay the Four Wastes. Starting from the Four Wastes, the farther out one went, the harsher the environment became, until it reached its extreme at the Four Poles. Such desolate places could only sustain the Man, Yi, Rong, and Di barbarians; civilized people of the Central Plains had no need to set foot there.

Fusu had previously thought the same, and this was one of the reasons he opposed his Imperial Father's military campaigns against the Four Wastes. But the scene before him now had greatly broadened his perspective.

Yet this did not change Fusu's belief that the gains from this war were far outweighed by its costs.

"True, there are indeed large stretches of fine land beneath the Helan Mountains. But to conscript laborers, disrupt the farming season, and leave the interior lands fallow as the price — and then to travel a thousand li to open up the frontier, seeking prosperity this way — is that not driving south when one intends to go north? If the laborers were allowed to rest and farm at home, the new land they cleared and cultivated might well far exceed the value of this territory."

Qin has more than enough land, but not enough people. To kill those you lack while contending for what you have in surplus — this cannot be called wise.

But Fusu could only keep these words bottled up inside and not speak them. The one thing a military supervisor must never do is undermine army morale.

Wearing a gentle smile, and under Fu Zhi's guidance, he headed straight for the riverside military camp. The Beidi and Longxi armies had already converged here and were now encamped together. Li Xin had also brought only his combat troops; the two armies combined numbered around thirty thousand men, and the camp was already quite sizable.

Those Beidi soldiers who recognized Fusu pointed from afar at the supervisor's banner and staff on his war chariot, proudly telling the Longxi soldiers that the Eldest Young Master had come to the front lines. The Longxi army's supervisor was Meng Yi, who was still in the rear overseeing grain transport. Though his rank was not low, compared to the Eldest Young Master, his prestige fell short by more than a little.

According to what Fusu had learned beforehand, the Xiongnu fighting men at Helan Mountain numbered no more than ten thousand in total, utterly incapable of threatening this large army. But starting from twenty li out, he noticed sentries and scouts patrolling back and forth with extreme vigilance. The main camp was also firmly entrenched, with sharp abatis distributed along the key roads — an effective defense against cavalry raids.

When he entered the command tent where the two generals Li Xin and Heifu were discussing military affairs without any obstruction along the way, Fusu felt the heavy atmosphere even more keenly. Every commander and officer wore a grim expression, and the staff officers were arguing heatedly over the map.

"May I ask the two generals, what has happened?"

Heifu nodded toward Li Xin, then took a deep breath and delivered the bad news to Fusu.

"Young Master, on the Helan grasslands there is no trace of a single Xiongnu person or animal. General Li and I sent scouts far and wide to search. Just now, the reconnaissance riders patrolling to the north brought back two messengers riddled with arrows — they were the sons of good families I dispatched four days ago to warn General Feng Jie. They told me that two hundred li away, at White Goat Mountain, over ten thousand men of the Shangjun army are besieged by fifty to sixty thousand Xiongnu cavalry!"

……

"Fifty to sixty thousand cavalry?"

Even though Fusu was not well-versed in military matters, this number shocked a cold sweat out of him, and he could not help blurting out:

"Could the scouts have been mistaken? How could the Xiongnu have fifty to sixty thousand men? Didn't Commandant General tell my Imperial Father before that the entire Xiongnu, excluding the four tribes south of the river bend, numbered no more than seventy to eighty thousand cavalry? That the Xiongnu in the Helan region alone, counting even half-grown boys who can draw a bow, amounted to at most ten thousand cavalry? Shouldn't the Xiongnu main force be at Beijia, fighting Generals Qiang and Meng? How could they concentrate so many men and appear south of the river bend?"

If that were so, had they simply abandoned their Chanyu royal court and Touman City entirely?

Heifu shook his head. "Afterward, yet another rider galloped back. His account was no different from the other two. I trust that my soldiers, all long-trained warrior cavalrymen, would never make a mistake!"

What worried him most now, aside from the allied army being annihilated by the Xiongnu, were those dozens of sons of good families who had stayed behind to draw off the Xiongnu scouts so that the reconnaissance riders could successfully return with the message.

Gan Chong — this young man, whose background was inferior to Qiang Hua's, whose valor was less than Fu Zhi's, and to whom Heifu had never given much attention or expectation — had, through his own fearlessness and refusal to retreat, sent back vital intelligence. Heifu truly hoped he could miraculously survive the pursuit of several hundred Xiongnu and not lose his life here.

At this moment, Li Xin spoke: "The Longxi scouts all report that the Helan grasslands are empty."

He raised his head and looked at Heifu and Fusu. "Since the Xiongnu could abandon Helan, why could they not abandon their royal court? Abandon Beijia, or even the entire river bend!"

Heifu gave a bitter smile. "Exactly. The Hu people and the Central Plains people have different concepts of land. Temporarily abandoning vast stretches of territory — for a Central Plains state this is incomprehensible, but for the Xiongnu, it hardly counts as anything."

The Qin dynasty had never before fought a steppe nomadic state like the Xiongnu. Although they had increased the proportion of cavalry, their operational thinking was still the same set of tactics used to defeat the Six Kingdoms — namely, pressing the enemy with overwhelming momentum.

Moreover, constrained by transportation and logistics, on a battlefront spanning two thousand li, the Qin army could not possibly concentrate everyone in one place. If they did, their own supply lines would collapse before they even fought. Thus, they could only adopt the method of "advancing separately and striking together."

On the surface, the Qin army numbered a full three hundred thousand troops — though half of those were laborers — while the Xiongnu, having lost the Linhu and Xuyan tribes and suffered a defeat at Heifu's hands, had their strength greatly diminished. Fighting against superior numbers, it would be hard for them to win.

But what truly counts as "superior numbers," and what counts as "inferior numbers"?

It is by no means a simple addition of total troop strength. Rather, it depends on the forces each side can commit within a specific time and place. This is what Sunzi's Art of War tirelessly pursues: "I am concentrated while the enemy is divided." In later terms, it is roughly "concentrating superior forces to destroy the enemy one by one."

As the weaker side in troop strength, if the Xiongnu foolishly sought a decisive battle with the Qin main force, their chances of victory were slim. They could only exploit the terrain, fight a mobile war, slip into the gaps between the various Qin columns, concentrate their forces, and first annihilate one of those columns.

At this point, the strategy the Xiongnu had been planning for half a year was about to reveal itself.

"First, using the half-year period when the Qin army halted to stockpile grain, they slowly withdrew their people and livestock. The grasslands are vast anyway, and in summer they can graze anywhere. In this way, they lured our army deep beyond the frontier, stretched out our supply lines, and also completely exposed our own intentions!"

"Then the Xiongnu concentrated their forces. No matter how many routes you come by, I go by only one." Heifu said, "Touman Chanyu must have thought exactly this!"

"Correct. He who understands the use of superior and inferior numbers wins."

Li Xin nodded. "This time, the Xiongnu have seized the initiative to win!"

This was war — plans never kept pace with changes.

Fusu gripped the sword at his waist. Even if they won a complete victory and seized Beijia and the lands south of the river bend, he still did not believe that Qin's gains outweighed its losses — let alone now, with one column facing annihilation first? Those were twenty thousand soldiers! If they perished beyond the frontier, even though Fusu did not bear responsibility for the Shangjun troops, he would still feel as though he had done something wrong.

At that moment, Heifu, who had been staring intently at the map, suddenly burst into loud laughter.

Everyone in the tent was at a loss. Seeing Heifu suddenly delighted, Fusu asked, "Does Commandant General have a plan?"

Heifu nodded and said, "The reason for my delight is that General Feng Jie has found a golden opportunity for Great Qin to annihilate the Xiongnu main force!"

The men looked at one another in bewilderment. Only the veteran general Li Xin caught on. "Exactly. Touman Chanyu may be cunning, but I fear he has miscalculated one thing."

He tapped the location of White Goat Mountain on the map and said, "What he picked is no soft persimmon to squeeze!"

Heifu expressed his agreement. "Exactly. Every one of our Great Qin's four border armies is a crack force tested in the conquest of the Six Kingdoms. Each is a tough bone to chew!"

"But I have heard a saying."

After entering military service, Fusu had read some military texts, though he was still only at the stage of preliminary understanding.

He said, "The ancients said: One chariot matches six cavalry, six cavalry match one infantryman. Chariots and cavalry are the army's martial arms. Ten chariots can defeat a thousand men, a hundred chariots can defeat ten thousand; ten cavalry can defeat a hundred men, a hundred cavalry can rout a thousand — these are the rough ratios."

"Right now, General Feng is on the flat, open terrain of the grasslands, where one infantryman is no match for even one cavalryman — let alone facing sixty thousand Hu riders with just over ten thousand men?"

Li Xin, the Qin dynasty's most skilled commander of cavalry, shook his head. "Young Master, there is another saying in the art of war: If chariots and cavalry are not employed properly in battle, then one cavalryman cannot match even one infantryman."

When chariots and cavalry are used improperly, one cavalryman in combat is not even worth one infantryman. Cavalry are the eyes of the army, used for reconnaissance and vigilance, for pursuing and tracking routed enemies, for cutting enemy supply lines, and for raiding scattered and fleeing foes. Even though the Xiongnu excel at mounted archery, their use of cavalry — lacking high saddles and stirrups — is limited to just this.

They were certainly formidable in mobile warfare on the grasslands, but besieging a solid infantry wagon fort or charging a battle line of powerful bows and crossbows was not their strong suit.

Heifu added, "Especially the Shangjun troops. Last time, the thousand crossbow sharpshooters they lent to Beidi to guard the grain convoy shot several thousand Xiongnu cavalry into a battered retreat. Now, holding favorable terrain, if they anchor themselves against White Goat Mountain and face the enemy with a four-sided martial assault formation, the Xiongnu will absolutely not be able to break through in a short time!"

Heifu raised his hand, his palm encompassing the entire region south of the river bend on the map. "The Xiongnu think they have surrounded the Shangjun army and can withdraw unscathed after annihilating them. Little do they know that beyond them, three Qin armies are massing. Generals Qiang and Meng must have also discovered that the Xiongnu main force is not at Beijia but south of the river bend, and have already dispatched troops to reinforce."

"Now, as long as the Shangjun army holds its ground and pins down the Xiongnu, while our Beidi and Longxi armies rush to their aid and cut off the Xiongnu's path of retreat north to the river bend — leaving them unable to attack and unable to withdraw, trapped between the desert and the great river — once Generals Qiang and Meng's reinforcements arrive…"

Heifu rapped his knuckles on Feng Lingfu's position at White Goat Mountain and said optimistically:

"Then we can coordinate from within and without, and give the Xiongnu a blooming flower right in their center!"

(End of chapter)