Chapter 275: Liaoquan Garrison

Liaoquan Garrison, located specifically in what would later be Jintang County, was a garrison town established by the Tang court in the Hexi Corridor, subordinate to Jiankang Army.

The town's history of fortification was very ancient. In the late Eastern Jin, during the time of the Northern Liang king Juqu Mengxun and the Western Liang king Li Xin, a great battle had erupted between the two sides here.

By this time, although the Central Plains dynasties no longer controlled Hexi, the importance of Liaoquan Garrison had only grown.

When the Ganzhou Uyghurs were weak, this was the key pass town blocking the Guiyi Army and the Long family of Suzhou from attacking Ganzhou.

When the Ganzhou Uyghurs were strong, this was their logistical base for advancing westward, operating, and swallowing up Suzhou.

"Captain, just now several horses burst out of Liaoquan Garrison. They're surely riding to Ganzhou to report the news. We can't catch them now!"

A Murong clan rider galloped over to report. Murong Xinzhang glared hatefully at the distant trail of dust, wanting nothing more than to curse aloud.

From Suzhou to Liaoquan Garrison was a full two hundred forty or fifty li. Murong Xinzhang had brought more than seven hundred riders, traveling day and night, sleeping only three or four double-hours each day, chasing madly for six days and six nights, and had finally caught up with the Ganzhou Uyghurs' Renshu Khagan — but the other side had shrunk back inside Liaoquan Garrison.

At this time, under the management of the Ganzhou Uyghurs, Liaoquan Garrison was fully stocked. The town had more than three hundred semi-standing troops of its own, and with the several hundred riders of the Ganzhou Renshu Khagan who had just fled inside, it suddenly had quite decent defensive capability.

"It's one hundred forty li from Liaoquan Garrison to Ganzhou. Even if the Uyghur relief troops come without stopping their horses, they'll still need several days. Better that we surround this place first and wait for the Army Commissioner's main force to arrive before making a decision!"

Li Cunhui offered his suggestion. After running more than two hundred li in six days, even men of iron could not hold out.

And the cavalry that had burst out of Liaoquan Garrison were surely fresh troops from the garrison town. No matter what, they could not catch them now. The most important thing at present was still to surround the Ganzhou Renshu Khagan.

Murong Xinzhang nodded subconsciously, then suddenly noticed Zhang Liecheng beside him was also nodding. Their eyes met, and both hurriedly looked away, nearly making things awkward.

Thinking of that stepfather he refused to acknowledge, Young Lord Zhang Erlang, and the furious scolding he had received from him, Murong Xinzhang felt rather crestfallen.

He and Zhang Liecheng each still had thirty military canings coming, and Li Cunhui still had twenty canings not yet delivered. At this moment he did not dare act willfully.

"Surround it first! Commander Ma is right behind us. Once he arrives, we'll attack!"

Beneath the walls of Suzhou, the Ganzhou Uyghurs on the verge of destruction fought on with unexpected tenacity. Organized by their Left Grand Yabghu, more than three thousand Ganzhou elite troops held the head of a pontoon bridge and launched a bloody battle against the Guiyi Army.

Zhang Zhao charged three times with armored cavalry, yet could not break these Ganzhou soldiers who were fighting with their backs to the wall. In the end he could only have the armored riders dismount and form square formations with the heavy infantry for a frontal assault.

Under the concentrated fire of the Guiyi Army's powerful bows and crossbows, these Ganzhou soldiers stubbornly held out until the beginning of the si hour the next day — that is, past ten in the morning — before being routed.

After routing these Ganzhou soldiers, Zhang Zhao did not even have time to enter Suzhou before sending Luo Tongda with his own force of over a thousand men to secure Suzhou, and dispatching men to force the surrender of the two counties of Jiuquan and Fulu.

Then he sent envoys to Dunhuang to report the great victory beneath Suzhou's walls, asking his father-in-law Cao Yuanzhong to find a way, no matter what, to draw out a thousand men to stabilize Suzhou.

This bit of family property — even a rat would weep at the sight of it!

After letting Zhang Zhao take away more than a thousand fine young men, drawing two thousand men from the Guiyi Army was already the limit. If they drew any more, spring plowing could not proceed.

Leaving Luo Tongda a thousand men, with seventy or eighty sacrificed and more than six hundred unable to travel due to various injuries, Zhang Zhao hurriedly led the remaining three thousand-plus men in pursuit toward Ganzhou.

But his speed would not be too fast, because he had sent Ma Shacai, Murong Xinzhang, and the others ahead with close to a thousand riders to chase the Ganzhou Renshu Khagan.

They had three horses per man — three or four thousand horses and mules in all. Now on Zhang Zhao's side, they could not even guarantee two horses per man, and much of the time they could only lead the horses on foot.

At Liaoquan Garrison, as soon as Ma Shacai arrived, the Guiyi Army began attacking the garrison town.

Ma Shacai and Murong Xinzhang's three men had about a thousand riders combined — more than the garrison's defenders in number, and holding a tremendous psychological advantage.

Especially the cavalry from the Guiyi Army — the highest military merit these men had ever imagined was capturing the Ganzhou Uyghur Khagan.

Now, seeing heaven-sent merit right before their eyes, every one of them attacked like madmen, heedless of their lives.

Yet in the end, they still lacked siege equipment, and moreover the Ganzhou Renshu Khagan inside the garrison, nearly frightened to death, had turned ruthless.

He offered up over ten thousand mu of fertile land directly controlled by the royal house as reward. Most of the men in the garrison were also the Renshu Khagan's trusted confidants, many even directly from collateral branches of the Yageluo clan.

Thus they fought to the death. Murong Xinzhang braved the rain of arrows and climbed the walls several times, only to be driven back down each time.

Seven days later, Zhang Zhao personally led the three thousand-strong army and finally arrived outside Liaoquan Garrison.

At the same time, the Ganzhou Uyghurs had raised troops from the entire nation. From the dozen or so tribes near Ganzhou city, every male between fifteen and forty-five was conscripted, yielding more than seventeen thousand bowstring-pullers. The other tribes scattered across Ganzhou were also still continuously mobilizing.

Immediately after, with a difference of no more than five double-hours, before Zhang Zhao had even prepared to assault the town, seventeen thousand Uyghur cavalry led by Yageluo Tongli arrived five li east of Liaoquan Garrison.

Zhang Zhao at once sent Hucile with three hundred cavalry to keep watch on the garrison town, then personally led four thousand troops to face off against the seventeen thousand Uyghur cavalry by the Zhangye River.

The Zhangye River is the later Gansu Black River, also called the Weak River in ancient times. It is China's second-largest inland river and Gansu's largest.

It originates from the glaciers of the Qilian Mountains and finally flows into Juyan Lake. The famous Western Xia Black Water City from the Grave Robbers' Chronicles lies downstream on the Zhangye River.

Rivers formed by melting alpine glaciers generally have a very large difference in water volume between the high-water and low-water seasons.

Right now it was in the final stage of the low-water season. The entire Zhangye River was wide and shallow, with much sandy ground along its banks, much of it exposed riverbed from the high-water season.

Such a river naturally could not serve as a barrier between the two armies, so the great forces led by Zhang Zhao and Yageluo Tongli simply did not face off across the river, but formed up facing each other near the Zhangye River.

The terrain here had the Zhangye River on the right and the Heli Mountains on the left. Zhang Zhao was on the west, with the Liaoquan Garrison where the Ganzhou Renshu Khagan was trapped behind him. The army camped on a small hillside of the Heli Mountains, blocking the entry and exit point by which the Ganzhou Uyghur main force could reach Liaoquan Garrison.

The Ganzhou Uyghurs were on the east. They had marched out from Ganzhou (Zhangye) with their great army and had not made camp — these Uyghurs were not much good at making camp either.

A force of nearly twenty thousand men had pitched tents in a scattered, disorderly fashion across the plain between the Heli Mountains and the Zhangye River.

"Ma Shacai, you tell us — after five or six days of fierce attacks, if we send two thousand men to storm Liaoquan Garrison, can we take it within a day?" In Zhang Zhao's main camp, an emergency council of war began.

Zhang Zhao now had two choices. One was to leave a thousand men to hold this mountain pass and personally lead the remaining three thousand in a fierce assault on Liaoquan Garrison.

He would strive to break the garrison within a day and capture the Renshu Khagan, then force the Ganzhou army to the east to withdraw to Ganzhou city or even surrender.

The second choice was to launch a surprise attack on the Ganzhou army opposite before they had established themselves. If they could defeat this Ganzhou force, then this battle — perhaps even the Ganzhou Uyghurs themselves — could be settled once and for all.

But both methods carried danger. To attack Liaoquan Garrison: first, could it be taken within a day? Second, could the defending force hold off a fierce assault by the Ganzhou army?

Although a large portion of this Ganzhou army seemed to Zhang Zhao to have rather ordinary fighting strength, in the end there were seventeen or eighteen thousand of them. Once their morale rose, they would still be terrifying.

And taking the initiative to attack also carried risk. If the slightest accident occurred, he was now effectively caught in the middle, and an unsuccessful attack would immediately bring the danger of being attacked from both sides.

"Liaoquan Garrison's walls are tall but rather thin. The difficulty of taking it within a day is not great.

But this mountain pass is not particularly defensible. Whether it can withstand an attack by seventeen or eighteen thousand Uyghur cavalry — this officer believes the difficulty is very great. If the pass cannot hold back the Uyghur cavalry, then we will be in danger."

Ma Shacai thought for a while and answered. The reason they had not taken it in six days was that they had chased without stopping for six or seven days, men and horses already exhausted, with nothing but dry rations to eat when hungry and no place to sleep — they simply could not bring their full strength to bear.

"Army Commissioner, if you can give me two thousand men, then Yan Jin will hold this pass for you even at the cost of his life. With fewer than two thousand, it would indeed be dangerous!"

Yan Jin chimed in. This pass was quite open, and with no walled town to make use of, fewer than two thousand men truly could not hold it.

For a moment, Zhang Zhao and the officers in the room were all at a loss. No matter which way they looked at it, there was risk.

But a decision had to be made quickly. Zhang Zhao still knew the rule that the most terrifying thing is not making a wrong decision, but making no decision at all.

"Commander, in my view, attacking the garrison city and launching a surprise assault now are both inadvisable!"

Zhang Zhao looked up and saw that the speaker was Pei Yuan. The wound on the lad's head had only just healed, and already he had impatiently hurried back to Zhang Zhao's side.

"Then tell me why it's inadvisable. And tell me what you think should be done instead."

It was a discussion, after all. As long as no one was being deliberately argumentative, Zhang Zhao would allow anything.

"Commander, I heard of Yaoluoge Tongli's name back in Liangzhou. He is the half-brother of the Benevolent Khagan, and he has always held considerable power in Ganzhou.

Today he has raised his entire army and come, yet at the first moment he did not even send an envoy to see you, Commander. His intentions are already plain for all to see!"

"You mean Yaoluoge Tongli may well be harboring other designs?" Zhang Zhao asked. Indeed, he had not yet thought in that direction.

"It is certain!" Pei Yuan said with absolute conviction. "If Yaoluoge Tongli were a great loyal subject, with his sovereign besieged and in dire peril, the most proper thing would not be to think of defeating the enemy, but rather to press with the army while simultaneously sending envoys to negotiate, seeking to rescue his lord by peaceful means.

For example, when Emperor Gaozu of Han was surrounded at Baideng, if any member of the imperial clan had clamored for a decisive battle against the Xiongnu, he would absolutely have harbored disloyal intentions."

Zhang Zhao thought it over. There was indeed some truth in this. Back then, when Chang Kaishen was detained in Xi'an by Young Marshal Zhang, men like He Jingzhi who clamored for a military solution against Zhang and Yang were absolutely harboring ill intentions, while those anxious to rescue Chang Kaishen were single-mindedly seeking intermediaries to arrange a settlement.

"So you think Yaoluoge Tongli may be waiting for us to storm the Liaojiao Garrison by force, and then use the pretext of avenging the Benevolent Khagan to fight a great battle against us?"

"It must be so. The moment we divide our forces, the Ganzhou Uyghur army will begin attacking the mountain pass. By then, even if we capture the Benevolent Khagan, it will be useless.

The Hu people honor the strong. A Khagan captured by a longstanding enemy will see his own authority greatly diminished! As long as they defeat us, even if Yaoluoge Tongli usurps the throne, it will count for nothing!"

"Then what do you say we should do?" Zhang Zhao asked directly. He now felt that he truly lacked a strategist like this under his command—one who could devise plans, understood the local situation, and was also quite shameless.

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