Chapter 373: Time and Fate

Zhao Yanzhi was a big, rough-hewn fellow; his family had been blacksmiths for generations.

In ancient times, blacksmiths, hunters, butchers, and miners were all said to have hidden attributes.

Hunters and butchers had a steady source of protein, so their bodies were generally sturdier than ordinary men's.

Blacksmiths and miners, on the other hand, had specialized skills — hammering a man's skull and hammering iron or ore did not seem all that different.

And the fact that Zhao Yanzhi could rise from a blacksmith's son to the number-two man in the Chengde Army was not due to his skill at hammering heads alone.

Apart from a perhaps hereditary fondness for glittering gold and silver ornaments, this big, rough Zhao Yanzhi had a very fine-grained mind.

A man with such subtlety beneath a coarse exterior was commonly teased as having a pig's face but a clear heart.

As a local man, Zhao Yanzhi quickly sensed the grumbling among the rank and file, and he soon found Du Ying.

The two knew each other — they were, after all, fellow villagers. Though Du Ying was only a minor clerk, he was a clerk in An Zhongrong's headquarters.

"What is Du Erlang up to? Spreading prophetic rumors in the army is a beheading offense!" Zhao Yanzhi said with a threatening look.

Du Ying feigned terror, suddenly prostrated himself on the ground, and kowtowed repeatedly to Zhao Yanzhi.

"What wrong have we fellow villagers done? Must we march three hundred li just to be slaughtered? When Military Governor An raised his army, it was those Daibei men fighting among themselves. Why should our local folk throw away their lives?

Now the court's great army is marching north, several times our number, and the officers and men are uneasy. Lord Zhao, you are a great man of Zhenzhou — please, save us!"

Du Ying was laying out the arithmetic for Zhao Yanzhi. Although Zhao Yanzhi had not read many books, he still understood perfectly well that the court had sixty thousand troops while they had only a little over twenty thousand — who was more and who was less was clear enough to him.

What was more, Zhao Yanzhi also knew that after Du Ying's meddling, morale had fallen, and when battle came, the officers and men might not fight with their lives.

"But the army has already been raised, and the great battle is upon us!"

Zhao Yanzhi pondered for a moment and found the matter rather thorny. But since the court had already sent troops to suppress the rebellion, what was the use of saying all this?

Du Ying glanced around several times, then steeled himself. "As long as Lord Zhao is willing to find a way out for us people of Zhenzhou, I will risk my life to go meet the court's Grand Commandant Du!"

In fact, before An Zhongrong had even raised his army, Shi Jingtang had secretly sent men to contact those around An Zhongrong.

Even a minor clerk like Du Ying had been cultivated by the court's envoys, so Du Ying really could reach the court's people.

A gleam flashed in Zhao Yanzhi's eyes, then vanished. He then joyfully grasped Du Ying's hands.

"If you can save the tens of thousands of our Zhenzhou sons, Secretary young lord, you will be the benefactor of us all."

"You are a great minister, yet you have an aged mother at home. In your rage you do not think of calamity, abandoning your lord and your kin. I gained the realm through the Khitan, and you gained wealth and rank through me. I dare not forget virtue — yet you have forgotten it. Why?

Now I serve them with the whole realm, yet you would resist them with a single province. Is that not difficult indeed? You would do well to think this over carefully, lest you come to regret it!"

An Zhongrong in the army camp was now beside himself with rage — not because he knew of Du Ying's doings, but because he had received Shi Jingtang's final edict urging him to stand down his troops and admit his guilt.

Such edicts were nothing unusual. Ever since An Shenqi had sheltered the Daibei peoples, frequently robbed Khitan merchants heading south, and insulted and beaten Khitan envoys,

Shi Jingtang had sent An Zhongrong no shortage of such admonishing edicts. What infuriated An Zhongrong was the logic revealed in this particular edict.

"I gained the realm through the Khitan, and you gained wealth and rank through me. I dare not forget virtue — yet you have forgotten it."

The meaning of this sentence was: I, Shi Jingtang, gained the realm with the Khitan's help, and you gained wealth and rank because of me.

Look at me — look at me. I received the Khitan's help, and even after becoming Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, I still have not forgotten the Khitan's kindness, and I still acknowledge Yelu Deguang as my father.

How filial that is!

Can you, An Zhongrong, not learn from me? Can you not learn to be a filial man who knows gratitude?

The greatest logic-twisters of all time could do no better! Shi Jingtang had brazenly dressed up his shameless servitude to the Khitan as filial gratitude.

An Zhongrong, who had raised troops to reclaim Yan-Yun and drive the Khitan north, had instead become an ungrateful, disloyal rebel.

"This is the eternal shame of us all!" An Zhongrong roared, his face dark with fury.

Though this man was a rash warrior whose methods were crude, one thing was beyond doubt: his pride in being a Tang man, his contempt for Shi Jingtang's shameless betrayal of the realm, and his determination to check the Khitan's mad expansion.

"How can such a man without a shred of shame be our Son of Heaven? Pass the order to the whole army: march straight on Yedu, kill Du Chongwei first, then kill Shi Jingtang!"

Zongcheng, near Wei County in Hebei, lay between Zhenzhou and Yedu.

An Zhongrong's twenty-five thousand troops marching south and Du Chongwei's sixty thousand troops marching north met five li outside the city.

Both sides were primarily infantry. Du Chongwei had only one or two thousand cavalry, and An Zhongrong had only a few hundred Tuyuhun cavalry.

So the scouting was not particularly good. Yet although the encounter was sudden, An Zhongrong had no thought of pulling back to hold a defensive position, and Du Chongwei did not retreat into Zongcheng either.

For by the code of warriors in those days, if you could fight in the open field, you never defended a city.

To defend a city without at least a fivefold disparity in forces — would that not make the soldiers look incompetent, afraid to fight to the death?

At once, An Zhongrong deployed a defensive crescent formation. Though the Chengde Army was outnumbered, it had many armored men and many strong bows and heavy crossbows, so he set a crescent formation and waited for Du Chongwei to attack.

Du Chongwei had little reason to hesitate either. You've set a crescent formation, and I have more men, so I'll just go up and attack.

The Huguo Army and Husheng Army, the main force of the imperial guard, had most of their officers and half their soldiers drawn from the Hedong Army. They worked together with practiced coordination and were veterans of many battles.

They hardly needed Du Chongwei to direct them. The officers above and below received their orders and charged in with howling battle cries.

An Zhongrong might be lacking in other respects, but he truly had some skill in battle, and the thousand-odd yabing guards under his command were exceptionally fierce.

The imperial guard concentrated twenty thousand men in a fierce assault on the six thousand men of the Chengde Army's center. The two sides fought three successive engagements, and the imperial guard, outnumbering the Chengde Army more than three to one, was actually beaten back again and again.

At this point, seeing that the Huguo Army and Husheng Army in the center could not break the Chengde Army's center, the other imperial guard units simply slacked off.

The soldiers at the front seemed to be fighting fiercely, but they never actually closed for hand-to-hand combat. They fought on and off for two hours, wearing heavy armor without closing in, and in the end hardly anyone had even died.

Du Chongwei saw the sun climbing high and understood exactly what his men were up to. The two armies had met too suddenly, and he had not had time to promise rewards and titles before sending the soldiers in.

Besides, the day was too hot. The soldiers did not want to fight under the blazing sun, and after toiling for several hours, surely it was time to hand out some rewards?

But they were in open country with no shade. If the great army moved and the formation fell into disorder, and the Tuyuhun armored cavalry opposite seized the chance to charge, things could get ugly.

So Du Chongwei personally stepped forward and first handed out benefits to the officers above the rank of Captain — houses in the Eastern Capital, beauties from the Daning Palace; win the battle and all of it would be theirs.

The common soldiers below were given silver, cash, and cloth directly. After half an hour of noisy clamor, the imperial guard erupted in cheers, and morale rose again.

At the same time, An Zhongrong was also painting a rosy picture for the Chengde Army, promising that once the imperial guard was defeated, the rich men and commoners of Yedu would be made to pay dearly for their lives, and every man would gain several dozen strings of cash.

Half an hour later, both sides' morale was soaring. Archers loosed arrows like rain, and heavy-armored soldiers thrust spears like dragons. This time Du Chongwei mustered thirty thousand men to assault An Zhongrong's center, and the ferocity of the fighting shot up at once.

The soldiers on both sides stood in ranks, stabbing at each other in heavy armor, while the archers and crossbowmen shot until their arms swelled, not daring to stop.

An Zhongrong's adopted son led several hundred Tuyuhun armored cavalry in repeated counter-charges against the spot where Du Chongwei's central-army banner stood, and Du Chongwei likewise sent his yabing guards forward to resist to the death.

An hour of bloody battle — and this was bloody battle in the truest sense. Both sides fought with savage fury, and soldiers wearing two layers of heavy armor lay strewn across the ground in whole swathes.

In the end, still unable to break the imperial guards in the Chengde Army's central force, they clamored and fell back again.

This was fatal!

The imperial guards had withdrawn without the gong being sounded. Though they still looked numerous, they were clearly somewhat cowed by the Chengde Army, and many men began glancing back toward Du Chongwei's command banner.

At this moment, if a single man had raised his arm and shouted, the old historical drama would have repeated itself: the army sent to suppress the rebellion would merge with the rebels, turn around and march on the capital to enthrone a new emperor, and then let the new emperor empty the state treasury in rewards.

Li Siyuan and Li Congke had both won the realm this way. Strictly speaking, Shi Jingtang had won it this way too.

As a seasoned old soldier, Du Chongwei understood instantly. He looked around at the yabing guards still loyal to him, mounted his horse, and prepared to flee.

If these soldiers really did merge with the rebels, the first man they would kill was him!

But to his immense regret, at this most desperate moment, the central-army Commander Wang Chongyin suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Du Chongwei, who was about to mount his horse.

"If you flee now, my lord, there will be no place left for you anywhere under heaven!

The art of war forbids retreat. The governor's finest troops are all in the central army. Give me picked men to strike their left and right wings, and I, Chongyin, will charge the Chengde Army's center with the Khitan cavalry — they will surely be thrown into chaos!"

At this moment, Du Chongwei held in reserve a force of elite cavalry composed entirely of Khitan men, called the Khitan Zhi — and this was also the escort Du Chongwei had intended to use for his escape.

Wang Chongyin had keenly spotted An Zhongrong's weakness: the Chengde Army was strong in the center, while both its left and right wings were merely going through the motions.

If Du Chongwei could fight once more, continuing to press the Chengde Army's center with elite troops,

while Wang Chongyin led the Khitan Zhi against the half-hearted Chengde units on the left and right wings, then as long as An Zhongrong's formation was thrown into disorder, the Chengde Army would be finished.

Du Chongwei, held back by Wang Chongyin and left with no choice, could only step forward and raise his eyes to look. Only then did he see that the Chengde Army's weakness truly lay in its left and right wings.

Overjoyed at once, he scattered rewards on a lavish scale, then personally led his yabing guards out against the center and steadied the situation, while Wang Chongyin led the Khitan Zhi in a swift strike at the Chengde Army's left and right wings.

Matters unfolded exactly as Wang Chongyin had analyzed. Once Du Chongwei personally led his yabing guards to pin down the Chengde Army's center, Wang Chongyin quickly broke through the Chengde Army's left and right wings with the Khitan Zhi.

The left and right wings collapsed in an instant. The wailing and shrieking immediately and profoundly affected the Chengde Army's center.

Just as An Zhongrong was about to make adjustments, a sudden commotion broke out on the left of the central army. Looking down from high ground, An Zhongrong saw Zhao Yanzhi, the Chengde Army's second-in-command and young lord Commander of the yabing troops, suddenly leading several thousand men away from the main formation.

The man rode out alone on horseback and shouted toward Du Chongwei on the opposite side.

"Is that Grand Commandant Du before me? We never wished to rebel! We were coerced by An Zhongrong. How could Zhending have any aura of kingship about it? We are willing to aid the Grand Commandant!"

This Zhao Yanzhi's saddle and bells were all decorated with gold and silver, and his mingguang armor was polished to an extraordinary shine. The moment he appeared he was dazzlingly conspicuous, drawing everyone's attention to him.

He belonged to the Chengde Army's local strongman faction, and all the officers knew him. Now that he had actually defected in front of the battle lines, the whole army was thrown into an uproar.

The Chengde Army, already battered by the fleeing troops from its own left and right wings, held quiet for a few breaths — then collapsed with a roar.

An Zhongrong let out a miserable cry and was immediately swept up by the Tuyuhun cavalry around him, who began fleeing to the rear.

"That man is covered in gold and silver! He must be a rebel general! Take his head and claim the reward!"

Zhao Yanzhi believed he had already established a connection with Du Chongwei, so he had confidently and boldly ridden out from the army to talk.

He never imagined that his blindingly flashy equipment would immediately stir the covetous hearts of the imperial soldiers.

And as it happened, at that very moment the Chengde Army was collapsing in rout. The imperial officers and men around him, eyeing Zhao Yanzhi's armor and gold-and-silver ornaments with greed, let out a howl — no one knows who — and instantly more than ten soldiers surged forward, dragged Zhao Yanzhi from his horse, killed him with one stroke, and divided up his armor.

In an instant, the several thousand Chengde troops who were the only unit still intact saw Zhao Yanzhi killed, and at once they too were swept up by the cries of "defeated, defeated" in their native accents all around them, scattering in panic.

Du Chongwei's eyes flashed with murderous light. Today had very nearly scared the piss out of him, and without a thought for whether anyone was trying to surrender, he led tens of thousands of imperial troops in indiscriminate slaughter.

The Chengde Army had been half-hearted from the start, and now, with defeat like a collapsing mountain, who knew how many of them would live to return to Zhending.

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