Chapter 442: Another Victorious Zilong Arrives?

Qicheng is a very ancient city. The "Ruxiao" chapter of Xunzi records that when King Wu punished Zhou, he breakfasted at Qi.

In the Spring and Autumn period, Qicheng was an exceptionally important strategic crossroads; of the alliance conferences of the feudal lords alone, seven were held at Qicheng.

It was only after the Central Plains were unified and the states no longer warred with one another that Qicheng's advantageous position began steadily to decline.

By the present day, were it not for the great war between the Later Jin and the Khitan, Qicheng would still be a small, obscure town.

The exact location of Qicheng is in what later became Hualong District, Puyang City, Henan.

One thing worth noting, however, is that the Puyang of the later Republic period and the Puyang that now belongs to Chanzhou are not the same place.

The later Puyang lies north of the Yellow River and is in fact this very Qicheng, while the present Puyang lies south of the Yellow River.

The reason Qicheng appears so important in the Jin-Liao war is that behind Qicheng lies the Yellow River.

And on this stretch of the Yellow River there is an extremely important pontoon bridge, a vital means of crossing the Yellow River at this time.

For this pontoon bridge is not one of those flimsy bridges like the one at Majiakou that could be smashed apart by warships.

It is a high-grade pontoon bridge built with iron oxen as its piles and iron chains as its woven bamboo cables.

This kind of bridge consumes great quantities of precious materials such as copper and iron. Historically, when the Tang dynasty built the Yellow River pontoon bridge at Puzhou, it was said to have used eighty percent of the entire year's iron output.

And in the Five Dynasties, after all the wars and chaos, there were only three such iron-chain bridges still usable on the Yellow River.

The Sun Bridge within the territory of the Baoyi Army Military Governor of Shanzhou.

The Mengjin Bridge at Mengjin, north of Luoyang.

And the iron-chain bridge behind Qicheng.

Therefore, after the failed crossing at Majiakou, if Yelu Deguang wanted to utterly crush the Later Jin, he had to seize Qicheng, then cross by the iron-chain bridge behind Qicheng to reach the south bank of the Yellow River.

As for why the Later Jin did not destroy the Qicheng iron-chain bridge and cut off the Khitan's hope of marching south?

Heh! In his heart, Yelu Deguang would have been utterly delighted if the Later Jin did exactly that.

Because if the Later Jin court did that, it would mean they had abandoned the land north of the Yellow River, and Yelu Deguang could immediately turn around and pacify the region.

And the people north of the Yellow River, feeling abandoned by the court, would surely go over to the Khitan.

Then the real trouble would begin. Once the Khitan had consolidated Hebei and Hedong, they could choose any place from Shanzhou to the Yellow River's mouth to build pontoon bridges.

There is no such thing as guarding against thieves for a thousand days; you simply cannot guard against every possibility.

When dynasties through the ages divided the realm along a river, it was always the Yangtze they used.

Because the Yangtze has a greater volume of water and a swifter current, and along its course there are many uninhabited places; limited by transport and supply problems, the places where one can cross are few.

Moreover, the southerners excel at boats and can easily maintain a thousand warships on the Yangtze, making it impossible for a northern regime to cross.

But on the Yellow River, both banks are long-developed cultivated land, the terrain is flat, and manpower and materials can be gathered anywhere to build pontoon bridges; the south bank of the Yellow River has no natural advantage in boats over the north bank.

Thus no dynasty in all the ages has ever been able to hold the Yellow River as a border against an enemy.

At the end of the twelfth month, the weather this year had turned increasingly warm. In the last five or six years, although the Yellow River froze over, it could no longer bear a great army crossing.

Fu Yanqing brought the young men of the Fu family and the four hundred cavalry he could muster; Hu Cile and Hu Guang brought five hundred great Liangzhou horses.

The four commanders Yao Yuanfu, Wang Zhou, Pan Huan, and Xue Huairang also brought personal guards ranging from a dozen or so to thirty or forty each.

All together they scraped together a thousand cavalry, and their equipment was comparatively good.

Fu Yanqing's four hundred riders basically all had armor. Of Hu Cile's five hundred riders, half were iron-armored heavy cavalry and half were light-armored horse archers.

The trusted personal guards of Yao Yuanfu and the other three commanders were also armored; these were the private foundations of their standing, and now they had all been brought out.

This force of a thousand men took nearly two full watches to cross the Yellow River.

This was because heavy snow had begun falling today, and the soldiers guarding the pontoon bridge had received no order from Jing Yanguang. Although they still let them cross, they refused to send out boats and boatmen to help ferry them.

Once they reached the north bank, they immediately felt the tension in the air.

Not far from the head of the iron-chain pontoon bridge, the Jin army had built a fort, which stood watch together with the projecting northeast corner of Qicheng.

This fort and the projecting bastion on Qicheng's east wall were only three or four hundred meters apart, not even half a li.

In this way, the garrison of Qicheng did not need to leave the city; from the bastion alone they could seal off the space between Qicheng and the fort.

Moreover, on the wall there were several long-range ballistae and a windlass crossbow. That windlass crossbow in particular was the prototype of the three-bow bed crossbow of the later two Song dynasties, and its power was immense.

Several times the Khitan tried to cut off Qicheng from the fort and then take the fort, but they never succeeded.

Of course, since no gate could be opened near the bastion, Gao Xingzhou inside Qicheng could not lead a large force out of the city to fully control the ground between Qicheng and the fort.

However, if Gao Xingzhou only wanted to slip away with his son Gao Huaide and a few trusted men, that was possible; it was just that the great army in Qicheng would certainly not be able to leave.

Therefore Fu Yanqing, at the end of the iron-chain bridge, raised his head to the sky and sighed, "Gao Shangzhi is loyal and devoted to the state. I cannot match him!"

His words had barely fallen when the distant sound of war cries and killing shook the heavens.

It turned out that Zhao Yanshou, commanding the Han troops of Yan-Yun and the people of Weizhou who had been seized, was digging trenches, while the troops in Qicheng had come out of the city to harass them.

You read that correctly: the ones digging trenches were not the defending side, but the attacking side.

It turned out that because of the Khitan's crude ability to build siege engines, they too were unable to take Qicheng, that small but sturdy city.

So they could only dig trenches to trap the Qicheng garrison inside the city, then concentrate their full strength on pulling out the fort east of Qicheng before turning back to attack Qicheng, or use several thousand troops to pin down the Qicheng garrison while the main army crossed the river.

Gao Huaide had just turned seventeen this year, at the age when a young man's spirit is bold and soaring.

The Gao family were also hereditary military men of merit, from Zhengding County in Changshan. Ever since Zhang Zhao made Romance of the Three Kingdoms all the rage across the land, Gao Huaide, being a fellow native of Zhao Zilong, was called by people of the time "Little Zilong."

Gao Huaide himself adopted this title, and at this moment he rode a white horse, charging left and thrusting right.

A company of Khitan cavalry, seeing that the Jin troops were about to charge into the camp of the laborers digging trenches, immediately followed Yelu Wuzhi's order and rode out with a hundred horsemen, seeking to strike Gao Huaide obliquely from the east.

Gao Huaide saw them from afar and simply took thirty riders and continued charging toward the Khitan laborer camp, acting as if he had not seen them at all.

The Khitan cavalry commander was overjoyed at the sight, thinking Gao Huaide had lost his head and could no longer see what was happening around him.

But when he had spurred his horse without sparing its strength and charged to within fifty or sixty paces of Gao Huaide,

Gao Huaide suddenly cut an arc, swept around the front of the laborer camp, wheeled his horse to the left, and used his flank to face the Khitan cavalry charging straight at him.

This is what is meant by "the boldness of a man whose skill is great."

Gao Huaide clamped his legs against the horse's flanks, plucked three arrows from his quiver, and his bronze-backed, iron-ribbed bow opened and closed three times as the three arrows shot forth like shooting stars.

This kind of terrifying great bow, with iron strips inlaid along the back of the bow, usually had a draw weight of around one shi three or four dou — no one but a fierce warrior could draw it.

Murong Xinzhang liked to use this kind of bow when killing important targets. With Zhang Zhao's strength, he could only draw it twice without his expression changing.

Yet Gao Huaide drew it three times in succession, then pulled out another arrow and loosed a fourth shot.

With such tremendous force, the arrows struck with immense power. The Khitan cavalry officer had just raised the short bow in his hand when Gao Huaide's arrow hit him.

The thick arrow, like an iron spade, instantly gouged a bloody groove across the left side of the Khitan cavalry officer's chest.

Even the finely crafted oxhide armor could not withstand this terrifying destructive force. The arrow plunged mercilessly into the cavalry officer's left chest, carrying the bits and pieces inside the oxhide armor along with it into the wound and deep into the flesh.

Struck hard in the chest, the cavalry officer let out a wretched scream. A mouthful of blood sprayed from his lips, and then he toppled stiffly from his horse.

It seemed the arrow had not only pierced the armor but the internal organs had also been injured by the immense impact.

As the cavalry officer fell, the three riders following him were all struck by Gao Huaide from over fifty paces away, and without exception they screamed and tumbled from their horses.

Seeing Gao Huaide's divine archery, the Jin cavalrymen around him surged with morale. They loosed arrows in volleys, then charged in with long spears and sabers for close combat.

This Khitan cavalry unit of around a hundred riders was actually sent fleeing in utter disarray by Gao Huaide's thirty riders.

In truth, between the Jin and the Liao at present, there was a peculiar pattern.

When cavalry fought in numbers below five hundred riders, the Khitans were far from being the Jin army's match.

This was because the Jin cavalry mostly came from Hedong and Hebei, and these places had inherited traditions.

Not only were their horsemanship and lance techniques inherited, but their armor and lances were inherited as well.

In medium-scale cavalry battles within five hundred riders, how could the Khitans — who had been struggling out on the frontier and had only risen to prominence in recent decades — be a match for the martial houses of the Central Plains?

Usually, as soon as battle began, they were beaten until they screamed in misery.

But when the number of cavalry in a clash increased, especially when it reached a decisive battle of thousands or even ten thousand riders, the Khitans' nature as a fishing, hunting, and steppe people began to gain the upper hand.

Their overall horsemanship and archery began to overwhelm the Jin cavalry, and they often won victory.

After Gao Huaide and his men defeated the Khitan cavalry, they did not return to the city. Instead, while their horses still had some strength left, they continued charging toward the Khitan laborer camp.

In fact, when Gao Huaide had ridden out of the city, he had clearly felt that the trenches the Khitans were digging had already greatly restricted their movements.

If these trenches were completed, the entire army in Qicheng would be trapped in the city to die — especially the cavalry, which was the last means of survival for him and his father Gao Xingzhou.

Dying with the city and all that was certainly out of the question. In this age, for Gao Xingzhou and his son to have held out until this moment was already the height of loyalty.

In the distance, Yelu Wuzhi was furious. This Gao Huaide was already at the end of his strength, his horses nearly spent, yet he still dared to charge the laborer camp, trying to scatter the men digging the trenches — it was rather like kicking someone while they were down.

"Order the Iron Pigeon Army and the Iron Gyrfalcon Army to each select a company of elite cavalry. Take this boy at all costs!"

Yelu Wuzhi pointed at the approaching Gao Huaide and roared.

The Iron Pigeon Army and the Iron Gyrfalcon Army both belonged to the Khitan Pishi Army's iron cavalry. A cavalry company was about three hundred riders, so this meant six hundred men were taking the field.

It looked like they were determined to win.

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