Chapter 387: The Camel War God Has Arrived

By the Sanggan River, near Loufan Pass — this was the road one had to take from the Eastern Capital to Yunzhou.

Chai Rong rubbed his hands together, a little excited. He knew it was not really appropriate for someone of his status to appear here, but he simply could not suppress his inner excitement, and a small touch of vanity.

A miserable beast of burden who, at six or seven, had seen his father gamble away the family fortune and been forced to seek refuge with his aunt, and by eleven or twelve had been driven to travel the length and breadth of the land selling tea.

To suddenly win the regard of a figure of princely rank like Zhang Zhao — anyone would be overwhelmed with gratitude and unable to contain himself.

Moreover, Chai Rong was a young man of great ambition and foresight; otherwise he would not have kept up his practice of riding and archery even while following the caravan selling tea.

Later generations have a verdict on Chai Rong: that he was versed in the arts of Huang-Lao. Ha! With Chai Rong's fiery temper, playing at Huang-Lao arts in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms?

In fact, this was because when Chai Rong was with the caravan, he had no other books to read. He seized every chance he could to learn to read, and the Huang-Lao texts were about the only books he could find.

This was a young man with breadth of vision, who knew hardship, had ambition, and was willing to study bitterly.

He clearly sensed Zhang Zhao's regard for his talents, and understood in his heart that only by following Zhang Zhao could he possibly realize his ambitions.

But his adoptive father and uncle by marriage, Guo Wei, had just become a trusted confidant of Grand Tutor Liu of Hedong. If he followed Zhang Zhao, it would inevitably affect Guo Wei.

On one side was the kindness of his aunt, who was also his adoptive mother, and his adoptive father; on the other, his own meteoric rise. It was truly hard to choose.

Just as Chai Rong's mind was in turmoil, more than ten couriers with red triangular flags on their backs and over twenty Khitan riders in leather robes, escorting a man in blue robes who looked like a palace eunuch, came out of Loufan Pass and galloped swiftly toward Yunzhou.

"So Military Governor Zhe was right after all. How can this Child Emperor be so shameless?" Li Cunhui cursed through gritted teeth in a low voice.

Murong Xinzhang looked somewhat embarrassed, because he was Shi Jingtang's brother-in-law — he had married Shi Jingtang's youngest sister-in-law, the former Tang Princess Yongle. Every time someone cursed Shi Jingtang, his face burned a little. It really was too damn shameful.

Zhe Deyi saw Murong Xinzhang's embarrassment. He first expressed sympathy inwardly, then pointed at the fast-moving mounted column and said:

"Commandant Murong, take thirty men ahead and intercept them. Chai Dalang, strike from the left. Cunhui, strike from the right. I will hold the rear. Do not let a single one escape!"

This was the idea of that old fox Zhe Congyuan. The Khitan ruler Yelu Deguang had arrived outside Yunzhou in the ninth month, spent ten-odd days first taking Yingzhou, and only then gone to Yunzhou to lure Sha Yanxun out of the city and detain him.

After that, the soldiers and civilians of Yunzhou elected Administrative Assistant Wu Luan of Yunzhou as their leader, and firmly refused to let the Khitans enter the city.

Yelu Deguang flew into a rage and attacked fiercely for seven days without success, then began trying to lure the city's soldiers and civilians into surrendering. The soldiers and civilians were unmoved.

Yelu Deguang could only fall back on Zhang Zhao's usual trick, and bellowed: "Where is my son Jingtang?"

He then dispatched envoys straight to Yedu to interrogate and rebuke Shi Jingtang, demanding that he hand over Yunzhou.

At this moment An Zhongrong was still holding out at Zhenzhou, and An Congjin's stronghold of Xiangzhou had not yet been taken either. The Child Emperor could only kneel once again.

He had wanted to send a high minister to Yunzhou, but no one was willing to go.

So Shi Jingtang could only send a palace eunuch to accompany the Khitans to Yunzhou, ordering Wu Luan, the Yunzhou military judge, to abandon Yunzhou and hand over tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians to the Khitans with both hands.

Zhe Congyuan, grown crafty with age, had predicted Yelu Deguang's prediction. He had Zhe Deyi and three others lead two hundred elite cavalry to lie in ambush by the Sanggan River outside Loufan Pass, and directly cut down Shi Jingtang's envoy.

Amid drifting snowflakes, thirty elite riders with muffled hooves suddenly charged out. Murong Xinzhang flew out on his horse, and his longbow in his hand thrummed three times in succession. Three Khitan riders in leather robes instantly toppled to the ground.

The Khitan rider in the lead was highly experienced. The moment he saw men blocking the front, he never even thought of fleeing back toward Loufan Pass.

Because there was surely an ambush behind. Charging straight ahead and scattering the men blocking the front — there might still be hope.

Unfortunately for him, he ran into Murong Xinzhang. The thirty elite riders around him had all been selected from the Murong clan and the three Tuyuhun tribes of Shandong, the lowest among them being cavalry fire-leaders of the Guiyi Army — the elite of the elite.

Before the twenty Khitan riders could reach Murong Xinzhang, a shower of arrows cut down seven or eight of them. Immediately after, dozens of men charged out from both the left and right. The two in the lead each wielded a cavalry lance, matchlessly brave, and one charge completely scattered the Khitans.

The dozen or so Later Jin cavalry saw that things were going badly, turned around, and fled back with the eunuch — only to run straight into Zhe Deyi behind them. Unsurprisingly, a round of arrows finished them off.

Two hundred elite cavalry ambushing forty or fifty men — there was absolutely no way any of them were getting away.

By the time the soldiers at Loufan Pass saw that something was wrong and came out, apart from the corpses on the ground, even the armor and clothing had been stripped clean.

"So it really was an order for Administrative Assistant Wu to hand over Yunzhou. How can the majestic Son of Heaven be so utterly shameless!"

Now even Murong Xinzhang cursed. In Shi Jingtang's edict, Wu Luan and the Yunzhou officers and soldiers were ordered to hand Yunzhou over to the Khitans, and to withdraw with only the officers and soldiers, abandoning the common people.

Outside Yunzhou, Yelu Deguang was still waiting anxiously. This gentleman was tall and big, with a thoroughly honest-looking face, appearing to be exactly the sort of harmless, kindly elder.

But in truth he was not. Yelu Deguang had inherited the scheming of his father Yelu Abaoji and the ruthlessness of his mother, the wrist-severing Empress Dowager Shulu Ping. His honest appearance was merely a disguise.

This fellow was very good at packaging himself; otherwise he could not have led his mother Shulu Ping around by the nose and seized the position of his elder brother Yelu Bei.

However, Yelu Deguang did have a tiny, tiny little flaw: his craft at fighting wars was truly not very good.

Had the Khitans not been in a rising period, and had Shi Jingtang not brainlessly handed over the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun, with Yelu Deguang's skill level — big appetite, little ability — he could at most have maintained something the size of the Bohai kingdom.

How to put it — this fellow was an enlarged version of Zhao the Second.

The two were equally skilled at internal governance and political balancing, and equally ambitious beyond their abilities.

Both had a mysterious confidence in their own military ability, and both likewise planted flaws in the very roots of the Khitan and Northern Song states.

Moreover, both men were also skilled at "drag racing!"

Zhao the Second's donkey-cart drift at Gaoliang River — not only did he outrun his own officers and men, he also made the Liao's far-ranging scouts ride their horses to foaming mouths without catching up.

He ran so fast that his officers and men all thought Zhao the Second had died in battle, thereby earning him the fine reputation of the Cart God of Gaoliang River.

Yelu Deguang was no slouch either. After the Khitan army was defeated by the Jin army at Yangcheng's Baituanwei Village, Yelu Deguang likewise had men drive a horse cart for his escape.

Later, finding it too slow, he personally mounted a camel and fled over a thousand li in one run, not stopping until he was deep in the grasslands.

The Jin army's pursuing cavalry never even saw his camel's rear end, and from this he too earned the title of Camel War God.

Moreover, both of their temple names were Taizong, and both were the second sons of their families — they can be called the floor-level figures among Taizongs of all dynasties, known as the Two Shames of Taizong.

In short, to say Yelu Deguang was an enlarged version of Zhao the Second is actually still somewhat overrating him.

If Zhao the Second is counted as one hundred points, Yelu Deguang is only about one hundred and ten.

The extra ten points come from the fact that Yelu Deguang's historical opponents were simpletons like Shi Chonggui and "heavyweights" like Du Chongwei and Li Shouzhen, while Zhao the Second's opponent was Empress Dowager Chengtian, Xiao Chuo.

Yelu Deguang only appears slightly better than Zhao the Second entirely because his opponents made him look good.

For example, in this attempt to swallow Yunzhou, the resistance of Yunzhou's soldiers and civilians was not originally very strong.

After all, Shi Jingtang had already ceded Yunzhou two years earlier. If Yelu Deguang had offered titles and promises, and further promised not to relocate the people or plunder, he very likely could have taken it.

But he insisted on displaying the majesty of "the great army has arrived, and all surrender at the sight of it," and as a result he succeeded in frightening Yunzhou's soldiers and civilians, who dared not open the gates and shut them against him.

Well, since that was the case, sending someone to explain the situation and properly reassure them would also have been acceptable. That was what Yelu Deguang thought, so he summoned Sha Yanxun, Military Governor of the Datong Army of Yunzhou, to come out of the city for an audience.

After Sha Yanxun arrived, Yelu Deguang's baffling move came again. He felt that, in his capacity as the majestic Father Emperor of the Central Plains, taking Yunzhou with only kind words would be a bit humiliating, so he forced Sha Yanxun to go and call for the city gates to be opened.

Only then did Sha Yanxun feel truly insulted, and he refused to the death. When the soldiers and civilians in the city learned of this, they deeply felt that this Yelu Deguang was unreliable, and since they had no desire to become Khitans in the first place, they elected Administrative Assistant Wu Luan as their leader. Soldiers and civilians were of one mind, and absolutely would not open the gates.

Yelu Deguang grew even more furious and ordered the great army to assault the city.

Sigh! Did he not see what standard his Khitans were at when it came to siege warfare?

Historically, they besieged the Ganzhou Uyghurs for seven or eight months and still could not take it — and now they were going to attack a strong fortress like Datong in Yunzhou? What was he thinking?

So they fought for seven days straight, suffering several hundred casualties, and had not even filled in the moat outside Yunzhou's walls. The dumbfounded Yelu Deguang only now came to his senses and began sending men to offer benefits and coax them.

But it was too late. By now no one dared open the gates.

To be honest, if not for the shameless Shi Jingtang cooperating with him, with Yelu Deguang's level of ability, even if the Khitan tribes were five times larger, let us see whether he could take the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun.

After intercepting and killing the Later Jin envoys, Zhe Deyi and his three companions leisurely made their way back to the area near the Eastern Surrendered City in Shengzhou, about four hundred li from Yunzhou — that is, southeast of what would later be Hohhot.

Here, the Guiyi Army's two thousand iron cavalry and the Zhe family's two thousand iron cavalry drilled and practiced coordination with each other.

And after they arrived, Tujue, Tuyuhun, Sogdian, and other peoples in the vicinity who had been oppressed by the Khitans came one after another to join them.

Although these tribes did not dare to directly follow them with troops, they helped Zhe Deyi and the others gather intelligence on the Khitans and led them in ambushing small Khitan detachments that came out to raid for forage.

Cutting off contact between the several thousand Khitan tribes encamped on the former Tiande Army territory in Fengzhou and Yunzhou — that they still dared to do.

After ten agonizing days of waiting, the Khitan troops at Loufan Pass finally reported the news that the envoys had been intercepted and killed to Yelu Deguang.

Instantly, this Khitan ruler felt a surge of wicked fire rush from his rear straight to the top of his skull.

(Furious!)

This was the freezing, snowy eleventh month! Fifty thousand Khitan troops had waited outside the city for more than twenty days. The Later Jin envoys had finally made it to Loufan Pass, only a little over a hundred li away, and then they were all intercepted and killed. Was there no law left in the world?

"Summon the Zhihou young lord Xiao Tiannu. Order him to take three hundred far-ranging scout cavalry and search three hundred li in every direction. He must find out who dares to oppose our Great Khitan!"

The enraged Yelu Deguang roared to find the ones who had killed the envoys. In truth, at this moment, what should most have been advised was for Yelu Deguang to withdraw his troops for the time being and come back once the ice and snow had melted.

But at this moment no one dared say so. First, Yelu Deguang was at the height of his fury. Second, this year's winter was not especially cold, the snow was not heavy, and their provisions were still ample. Third, if the wind and snow grew worse, they could still take shelter in Yingzhou City — there was plenty of time.

"Your Majesty, the tribes near the Tiande Army have not sent anyone for more than ten days. I have been wondering whether these villains who killed the envoys came from the west?"

As a veteran general of two reigns, Yelu Pode, the Left Pishi Xiangwen, thought for a moment and then spoke. He had clearly sensed something unusual.

"Draw three thousand troops from the Left Pishi Fengsheng Army and probe westward. If you encounter the enemy, do not fight recklessly — report back at once!"

Yelu Deguang had by now begun to calm down. But after thinking it over again and again, he truly could not think of any power in the west that would dare to tug the whiskers of his Great Khitan.

"Your Majesty, now that the Southern Court's envoy has been killed, Wu Luan will certainly not obey orders. It would be better to send elite cavalry south from Youzhou to obtain the Southern Court Son of Heaven's edict."

The Prince of Yan and Military Governor of Youzhou, Zhao Yanshou, also spoke up from the side.

Although Yelu Deguang did not care for Zhao Yanshou's father, Zhao Dejun, he still placed great trust in Zhao Yanshou, and upon hearing this he nodded.

"Then I ask the Prince of Yan to dispatch fast riders south at once. This time go by way of Youzhou, and be sure to deliver my son's edict to Yunzhou!"

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