Chapter 341: Luring the Snake Out of Its Hole

Below the walls of Xingping County, the Fengxiang Army did come out and fight a battle with the Guiyi Army, but to be honest, they were worse than He Chuan's rebels.

At least those rebels had the lure of sacking Chang'an; every man was thinking of the mountains of gold and silver and the beautiful young ladies inside Chang'an, so they still had some fight in them.

But the Fengxiang Army had no such spirit. They had no grudge against the Hexi army, and fighting to the death would gain them little, so they simply would not fight desperately.

More than four thousand men came out of the city and formed ranks, but once they saw that the Guiyi Army could step out neat ranks in time with the drums, and that there were more than four thousand suits of iron armor facing them,

these Fengxiang troops immediately refused to go on. Every man below the walls began clamoring.

They sized up the Hexi Guiyi Army's fighting strength, then demanded that Li Congzhao hand out rewards.

Big rewards!

At the very least, enough that they felt it was not a losing bargain to go clash with such a strong army.

Li Congzhao's teeth ached as he listened. These dogs really dared to open their mouths! A full thirty thousand strings of cash!

Of course he could not give it. If just one battle required thirty thousand strings in rewards, then his Li family might as well stop being Princes of Qi and Military Governors. Two battles and they would be bankrupt; better to go to Kaifeng or Luoyang and live as a rich old man.

Then, after the Guiyi Army finished forming up and even had the camel whirlwind catapults ready, the two sides finally finished negotiating. Li Congzhao would give five thousand strings.

That works too!

The yabing guards and yabing officers below thought it over for a moment. Give five thousand strings, then the soldiers will fight a five-thousand-string battle! How much is too much? Even a mosquito is meat!

Fortunately, this has not yet reached the era of my Great Song. In the Great Song era, verbal promises of reward alone would not do; the soldiers would only fight once they saw ready cash.

But by the time these soldiers had steeled themselves to fight a five-thousand-string battle and came forward, the situation suddenly changed.

Before the crossbow exchange even began, the Guiyi Army across from them hauled out several dozen whirlwind catapults.

A barrage of stones smashed down, and in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, over a hundred Fengxiang troops were written off.

Next, cavalry slipped around to both flanks; after harassing them, they dismounted and shot as heavy-armored infantry, deliberately striking wherever the Fengxiang Army was slow to redeploy.

The Fengxiang Army, which had only steeled itself for a five-thousand-string battle, lost its spirit in an instant.

Fortunately, they were formed up below the city walls, so turning and fleeing was still possible.

And so this muddled battle lasted only a quarter of an hour. The four thousand-odd Fengxiang troops left behind over a hundred corpses and slunk back into the city.

Zhang Zhao rode his golden second-generation Ferghana horse, wearing the golden helmet and golden armor he had not used in a long time, matched with the vajra face mask on his face. He looked thoroughly awe-inspiring.

"I, Minister of Works Zhang, have planted myself outside the moat to squeeze a soft persimmon." He pointed his long lance at Li Congzhao on the city wall.

"Li Congzhao, our two armies have no past grudges. Today's fight is only because you two brothers have acted dishonorably.

Come down and fight me for twenty rounds. If you can best the long lance in my hand, I will withdraw at once and spare our young men their lives!"

It must be said, this move of Zhang Zhao's fit the temperament of warriors of this age perfectly.

When these war-crazed men fought, they still observed a bit of basic decency at times. In a fight with little profit at stake, purely a grudge between two commanders, trial by combat was their favorite way to settle it.

So the moment Zhang Zhao finished speaking, whether the Guiyi Army outside the city or the Fengxiang Army inside it, all roared with delight. As long as they were not the ones going down to throw their lives away, a show like this was free entertainment.

But Li Congzhao up on the city wall was in an awkward spot!

His father Li Maozhen had been quite fierce, but by their generation, although they had learned some martial arts, they were second-generation men of power! They simply did not have the willpower to train in martial arts.

Martial training is bitter work: train through the dog days of summer and the depths of winter. How could it compare to staying at home, pretending to study while actually fighting cocks and walking dogs, and finding a few pretty maidservants to drink wine with?

So Li Congzhao and his brothers were all praised as refined and composed, with a good capacity for wine, good conduct when drunk, and great skill at having fun.

One could say they were standard young lords of powerful families. Martial training was only going with the flow, a display of valor. Bragging in ordinary times was fine, but actually dueling a fierce man like Zhang Zhao? Ha!

Li Congzhao's cheek twitched. Just looking at Zhang Zhao's build and equipment, and considering that his adopted son was a match for ten thousand, he did not seem easy to deal with at all.

A trusted aide beside him quickly said, "In ancient times, the Hegemon-King of Western Chu invited the Emperor Gaozu of Han to fight, and Gaozu sent out a skilled archer from Loufan instead. The same can be done now!"

Li Congzhao was overjoyed at once, but when he looked around, he waited half the day and not a single man volunteered.

Did they think everyone was stupid? Five thousand strings, and they wanted the soldiers to go down and duel a fierce man like Minister of Works Zhang?

Li Congzhao had no choice but to cover his face and retreat from the wall. The Fengxiang troops around him wilted one by one when they saw this. Seven thousand men held the city tightly and let Zhang Zhao curse outside as he pleased.

This was exactly the effect Zhang Zhao wanted: to make them afraid to come out of the city.

Since the siege had begun in the late shen hour of the afternoon (around four o'clock), after cursing for a while, the sky was about to darken.

Both sides called a halt and did not take it too seriously, because seven thousand men held the city with no shortage of food or water, and the Guiyi Army had only ten thousand or so men, so they would not be foolish enough to attack the city.

But on the second day, Zhang Zhao again came in his golden helmet and golden armor with his face mask to issue a challenge, which made the Fengxiang troops on the wall rather uncomfortable.

Yesterday you challenged, and Li Congzhao did not dare answer, so he had already shown cowardice and conceded. Today you come again; that is a bit unprincipled.

Moreover, the Guiyi Army had actually begun building field fortifications outside the city and constructing siege equipment. They meant to fight to the bitter end!

On the third day, Zhang Zhao was still below the walls issuing challenges, except that the Guiyi Army's fortifications were being built very slowly. Although figures could be seen moving about, there was little progress.

The Fengxiang troops inside the city had grown numb. While despising Zhang Zhao for lacking martial virtue, they discussed which officer could go out and win decisively if he came again tomorrow.

But on the fourth day, the golden-armored challenger outside the city was gone, and the Guiyi Army's slow-moving fortifications were empty of figures too. Li Congzhao started in alarm and quickly asked his trusted aide,

"Has the messenger who took the military report to Wugong returned?"

The aide was stunned for a moment, and his face went white. "Three full days, and not a word."

"Send men out of the city at once to investigate. These Hexi men have made fools of us. They must have gone to attack my elder brother. The messenger has likely been killed, and my brother is unprepared. I fear disaster!"

Before long, the cavalry sent out to scout returned, and a battalion commander personally carried a suit of golden armor.

Li Congzhao went over to look. It was not golden armor at all, but a suit of leather armor painted with gold lacquer. In the fortifications outside the city, there was no longer a single person.

Li Congzhao cried out, "Just as I thought! The golden-armored man was a fake. The Hexi army has been gone for three days. In three days, no defeated troops have come back, and there is no news from Wugong County either. It must be in imminent danger. We must hurry back!"

The Fengxiang Army officers all around thought it over and found it more and more likely, and one after another demanded to rush back.

Although four days earlier they had fought the Guiyi Army somewhat half-heartedly, that was because they felt the battle should not have been fought at all.

But now it was different. Wugong County was their main base. Fifty li to the west was the territory of the Fengxiang Military Governor, and a hundred and fifty li was where Fengxiang Prefecture lay.

If the Hexi men ambushed the army at Wugong County and then plunged straight into Fengxiang to burn, kill, and plunder, their losses would be enormous. The officers were all Fengxiang men, so naturally they could not sit by and do nothing.

So without Li Congzhao having to urge them, of the seven thousand men in Xingping County, five thousand were swiftly mobilized. With several hundred cavalry clearing the way, the five thousand men rushed toward Wugong County in frantic haste.

Huangshan Palace. This place was on a plateau slope about twenty li from Xingping County, a Daoist holy site built during the reign of Emperor Hui of the Western Han. In terms of terrain, it was one of the higher areas after leaving Xingping County.

Zhang Zhao observed Xingping's every move from here, and only after a plume of dust rose west of Xingping County and rolled westward did he order the Guiyi Army soldiers to make ready.

Only a fool would go attack Wugong County. Li Congyan had thirteen thousand troops garrisoned at Wugong, while Zhang Zhao, even counting captured cannon fodder, had fewer than ten thousand. A surprise attack had some chance of success, but the odds of failure were greater.

Lying in wait here to strike Li Congzhao — wasn't that far better than attacking Wugong County?

"My lord, Li Congzhao's cavalry is actually not bad. With just a few hundred men, their search range can cover two or three li."

Murong Xinzhang came over, his face full of excitement, though he actually held a fairly high opinion of the Fengxiang Army's cavalry.

"It's just that these fellows are a bit slippery. They generally won't put in the effort to fight to the death. Your plan of surrounding three sides and leaving one open is right — give them a way out, and these fellows won't fight like cornered beasts."

"Haha! Of course! No one, understands, these fellows, better than I do!"

Zhang Zhao struck a few hand gestures that Murong Xinzhang couldn't understand and laughed. The character of Five Dynasties military men had been inherited and carried forward by the Song and Ming dynasties, so of course he understood it.

"These men think that searching two or three li makes them safe. They never imagined that every one of our men has two horses or more, and the horses' hooves are protected by horseshoes.

With so many Ferghana horses and folded-ear horses among us, not just two or three li — even five or six li isn't safe."

Zhebu Jiashi, also at Zhang Zhao's side, laughed as well, and was utterly full of admiration for Zhang Zhao.

The greatest wear on a warhorse is to its hooves. At this time, a qualified warhorse, after just two or three years, could no longer be used as a battle mount, because the hooves were worn down so badly that it simply could not continue high-speed, load-bearing gallops.

But the horseshoes Zhang Zhao had "invented" perfectly solved this problem, greatly extending the service life of warhorses, and also allowing a warhorse's speed to be brought to its fullest during a charge.

"Zhebu Jiashi, take six hundred riders around to the rear and cut off their retreat. Remember not to seal it completely — leave a gap open.

The rest of you follow me and strike straight at the enemy vanguard. We must land a stunning first blow to daze them, and force them to flee in disarray back through the gap we leave."

Li Congzhao rode on a dappled gray horse. Not far ahead was Mawei Slope, where more than a hundred Fengxiang Army soldiers stood guard.

On an ordinary day, Li Congzhao would certainly have gone to pay his respects and enjoy the scenery, but now he could no longer summon the interest.

Before leaving the city, he had worried that his elder brother Li Congyan would be ambushed. But once out of the city, he began to worry in his heart: had he fallen for a trick? Could it be that he himself was the target?

Still, watching the cavalry shuttling back and forth around him, he felt a measure of reassurance. If there was danger, these cavalrymen would surely sound the alarm in advance.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!" He had just been thinking that the cavalry would give warning when Li Congzhao immediately heard the alarm — this was the warning sounded by the scouting cavalry with the brass gongs they carried.

It was quick! In only a few dozen breaths, the sound of the gongs stopped, and screams began to rise. Li Congzhao, dizzy and reeling, was hurriedly helped down from his horse by his personal guards.

—————— Side note ——————

Any monthly tickets? Toss a couple my way!

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