Chapter 450: With the River at His Back

When the drumbeats summoning the troops to assemble and meet the foe sounded, Fusu was just putting on his striking bronze helmet. It bore exquisite taotie patterns, its ringed chinstrap plain and unadorned, fastened with dark green cords, and atop it rose two pale-gray brown-eared pheasant plumes.

The young lord, whose face was as fair as polished jade, gained an extra measure of martial valor once he was clad in his armor.

Yet an attendant beside him said, "Commandant Wei said that the battle line is perilous and the Xiongnu have many eagle-shooters who can loose a bow and wound a man from a hundred paces. He asks that my lord remove the pheasant plumes when donning his helmet..."

Fusu shook his head. "A warrior wears the brown-eared pheasant crown to symbolize his courage. If one removes the plumes, does he not become a defeated, cowardly barnyard fowl?"

As army supervisor, Fusu was not required to take part in command, still less to charge into the ranks and slay the enemy, yet he himself believed he had a duty to advance and retreat together with the officers and soldiers.

A crown and a banner are emblems that let the common soldiers see them with a single turn of the head. Fusu had heard that at the Battle of Yanling, when Duke Cheng of Zheng fled for his life, he ordered his charioteer to stow the ruler's banner from the rear of the chariot. He did escape, but such conduct earned only contempt.

Fusu would not do such a thing. Even when Heifu had earlier proposed that, since the outcome of this battle was unknown, he cross the river westward and withdraw far from the field, Fusu had flatly refused!

He said, "In the Spring and Autumn period, whether it was a state ruler, a high minister, a noble scion, or a grand officer, all donned armor alongside the common soldiers, fought bitterly with the foe, and took pride in doing so. The ancient rites that honored martial valor have long been abandoned in the six other states. Qin is different. A member of the royal house whose military merit is not recognized cannot be entered into the clan registry. Even a prince or a king's grandson must go to the battlefield in person, take heads, and earn rank. Now I enjoy the privileges of a prince and carry out the duties of army supervisor. I ought to share weal and woe with the general and his soldiers. How could I shun danger and hide from it?"

These words of Fusu's earned him a second look from the officers and men, and they treated him with even greater respect.

He arrived at Heifu's command post, a makeshift tower wagon roughly three zhang high, from which one could see past the dense battle formations and make out the distant situation. To the left and right were a few watchtowers responsible for observing the enemy's movements, and beneath the watchtowers over a hundred mounted messengers waited on horseback. Once battle commenced, they would be Heifu's voice and tongue, relaying his orders.

Below the low hill was a grand formation of over a hundred men with gongs and drums, specially tasked with beating out different drum signals to transmit commands that had to be executed at once.

At Heifu's invitation, Fusu ascended the command observation tower and stood at his side, one hand resting on his sword as he gazed into the distance...

He saw a sandstorm taking shape ten li away, growing larger and larger, swallowing the entire stretch of horizon within sight.

"That is the storm stirred up by the Xiongnu."

Heifu pointed at the ever-nearing enemy. "I have campaigned for several years. I have matched wits and courage against the Wei heavy infantry, witnessed the collapse of Daliang's walls, crossed the entire breadth of Chu, and beheld a decisive battle of nearly a million troops. But only beyond the frontier can one see such a sight — forty thousand horsemen galloping forth together!"

Indeed. Fusu nodded. Vast and mighty, boundless and shoreless, its momentum like a surging ocean — that was the dust thrown up by forty thousand Xiongnu cavalry advancing. Even with the strength of a Qin that had unified all under heaven, the cavalry of the border commanderies combined numbered no more than thirty or forty thousand.

When the Xiongnu drew within five li and the constantly shifting mass of horses became faintly discernible, Fusu's hand, gripping the railing of the tower wagon, felt a tremor too...

The Xiongnu advanced no further. Nobles and chieftains constantly galloped about issuing orders, telling their tribal followers to reorder ranks and rest. The Xiongnu warriors were switching to fresh mounts and checking the bows and arrows they carried — a brief halt only to prepare for the wild, hurtling charge to come!

Fusu shifted his gaze from the Xiongnu host and looked toward his own side's camp.

The chariots and cavalry had all been taken away by Li Xin. The twenty-five thousand men at Heifu's side were all infantry. They were positioned south of the Dousitu River, in the region where it converged with the great Yellow River, with water on both left and right, and only a stretch of open ground about five li wide ahead of them, flat and unobstructed.

"To array one's forces with a river at one's back — is that not a grave taboo of military operations?"

Though Fusu was no expert in military affairs, he had heard that saying before. A battle formation needed room to advance and withdraw. If surging waters lay right behind, then even if one wished to pull back and contract, there was nowhere left to retreat, and the soldiers would collapse of their own accord.

"When you cannot be defeated, defend; when you can defeat the enemy, attack. When your strength is insufficient, defend; when it is more than enough, attack."

Heifu said that he had deliberately chosen to array the army with the river at its back, because at the outset, the Qin army was few and the Xiongnu many. They would inevitably have to adopt a defensive posture first. The Qin troops were unhurried while the Xiongnu were impatient, so the enemy would certainly be the first to launch an assault.

What the Xiongnu excelled at most was using the mobility and flexibility of their cavalry to outflank, wheel around, and strike in sudden loops — maneuvers that required a relatively large operational space. If they were prevented from crossing the rivers and could only attack from the front, the pressure of the defense would be far less.

"Furthermore, we must also hold the river-crossing point for General Li Xin's cavalry."

Indeed, behind the battle lines of over twenty thousand Qin troops, artisans and conscripted laborers were working in frantic haste, building a pontoon bridge.

Heifu had not rigidly copied the historical battles he had heard of. Though this was likewise a fight with the river at his back, its purpose was vastly different.

Fusu's gaze once again turned forward. Of the twenty-five thousand Qin troops, roughly fifteen thousand were Longxi soldiers and roughly ten thousand were Beidi soldiers. Heifu treated them all equally, assigning them to the left and right flanks respectively.

The battle line was five li long. In general, every four platoons were arrayed in front and behind, together defending a half-li stretch. Crossbows and bows were in front, with dagger-axes, spears, swords, and shields close behind. Another five thousand men were positioned in the rear, ready to rush to any crisis at a moment's notice.

Because the Xiongnu had come so swiftly, the Qin army had no time to erect a fortified camp or stockade, nor were there hills or woods to rely on. They could only use the limited wagons at hand to set up a Four-Wu Assault Formation. Laborers continuously pushed and hauled the "Wu Gang Chariots" — which Heifu himself considered his trump card for this battle — into key positions.

These chariots were something Heifu had obtained from the Xianyang Armory. It was unclear whether Sun Bin or Wu Qi had invented them. Each chariot was two zhang long and one zhang four wide, covered with oxhide, with sharp long spears bound to its outer sides and large shields placed on the inside to block incoming arrows — a superb weapon for fighting a defensive counterattack.

The Wu Gang Chariot had originally been used by the people of Qi to deal with Yan's cavalry. Several Wu Gang Chariots could be linked together to form a sturdy fortress, and the design had gradually spread to other states. After Qin destroyed Yan and Zhao, the chariots saw little further use and were left gathering dust in the armory.

Last year, when Heifu returned to Yunyang and Xianyang for war councils, he made a trip to the armory and only then discovered these fine things. He immediately had Beidi Commandery begin copying them, and in half a year, eight hundred were built. On the march they were pulled by oxen and horses; in battle they could be set in place as cover, or pushed forward by several men, advancing even as they fought.

Though there were only eight hundred of them, combined with abatis, caltrops, and supply wagons, they ringed the ten-li defensive line, protecting the infantry within and making their own formation's footing as steady as a boulder.

It was just that Fusu had not yet had a chance to witness their effect, and he could not help feeling some worry.

He had no time to dwell on it, for on the Xiongnu side there was movement again. First, beneath Touman Chanyu's eagle banner, a warrior of massive build puffed out his cheeks and blew a great horn.

Woooooo — it emitted a low, resounding wail. A second horn followed hard upon it, as drawn-out and piercing as the first.

Then ten, then a hundred, until every Xiongnu squad leader who carried a horn began to blow, like wolves howling at the moon. A thousand horns answered the Chanyu at once, answering their alpha wolf, mingled with the sound of many nomad reed pipes and an ever-swelling roar...

At White Sheep Mountain, the Xiongnu had forced the Shang Commandery troops to withdraw entirely into the wooded hills. But in that case, the Xiongnu too had to dismount to attack and could gain no advantage at all. Here, on this flat and open ground, by contrast, this newly arrived Qin army was waiting for them to trample it to pieces!

"They've come at last."

Atop the tall tower wagon, Heifu raised his right hand and waved a command flag. As if manipulated by his own hand, soldiers on the two flag wagons beside him likewise raised Heifu's great command banner, passing the signal to the flag wagons and drum wagons to the left and right.

From right to left, upon seeing the central army's signal, several divisional command flags were hoisted in succession. And at the same time, answering the Xiongnu's unbroken horns, from the Qin ranks — which had long been silent, the soldiers all sitting cross-legged on the ground — came wave upon wave of drumbeats...

The slow, heavy drumming seemed to pound directly upon the heart. In Fusu's eyes, along the five-li-wide battle line before him, the Qin soldiers of every unit rose from sitting to standing, gripping their long dagger-axes and spears, exactly like trees shooting up from the ground on the wilderness beyond the frontier. They stood pressed tightly together, united in resolve, ready to withstand this sandstorm that was rumbling toward them...

The messengers beneath the tower wagon blew their bronze whistles and galloped off. They had to go at once and inform every unit, to tell every man who would take part in the fierce battle the very words of Commandant Wei!

The words that Heifu had the messengers relay to every unit made Fusu's scalp tingle, and all his worry and nervousness vanished in an instant!

"All of you, fight with all your might! Let the Xiongnu know — it is easy to shake a mountain, but hard to shake the Qin army!"

(End of chapter)