Chapter 466: The Heaven-Chosen Land: Yangcheng and Baituanwei Village

Xiao Shilu's retreat was far more panicked than the Jin army had imagined.

And the sight of him in such a state frightened Yelu Pode as well. Yelu Pode, who had been preparing to cross the river and probe an attack on Yedu, assumed the main Jin force had arrived and hurriedly withdrew north as well.

For a time, the Khitan forces north of the Zhang River were thrown into panic and confusion. In the prefectures of Zhao, Xing, and Ming along the way that the Khitan army had failed to capture, the people and the small garrisons seized the chance to sally forth from their cities.

Everyone joined in beating the drowning dog. The grain, fodder, and baggage the Khitans had spent more than two months seizing was mostly abandoned, and they fled in utter disarray.

Meanwhile, Zhang Cong'en, who had received word of yet another great victory at Xiangzhou (Anyang), sent a rider at full gallop to report to Du Chongwei.

At this, even the timid Du Chongwei began to look down on the Khitans. The Jin army had twice used detached forces to deal the Khitans heavy defeats, which showed that the fighting power of the so-called Khitan iron cavalry was only so much after all!

And so Du Chongwei, who had been holed up in Xiangzhou and unwilling to move north, immediately struck camp with the entire army and crossed the Anyang River at great speed, reaching the banks of the Zhang River.

After that, the various Jin armies combined their forces and advanced north in a single body, retaking lost territory.

In the middle of the twelfth month, the Jin army concentrated at Dingzhou, numbering forty thousand in all, with banners waving and morale soaring.

As for the Later Jin's fierce generals, apart from Gao Xingzhou, An Shenqi, Fu Yanqing, Huangfu Yu, Murong Yanchao, Hu Cile, Yao Yuanfu, Wang Zhou, and the rest were all present. For a time, famed generals were like clouds and fierce warriors like rain.

With so many fierce men gathered together, trouble was certain to follow. Not stirring up some trouble would be unworthy of the name of the Five Dynasties yabing guards.

On the twentieth day of the twelfth month, Hu Cile's Liangzhou light cavalry crossed the Pu River — the Puyang River in later times, in Shunping District, Baoding — and drew near to Mancheng in Yizhou, that is, the Mancheng area of Hebei.

Yizhou had been handed over to the Khitans by Shi Jingtang seven years earlier and was one of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun. This was also the first time since the founding of the Later Jin that a large army had entered the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun.

The Liangzhou cavalry that had advanced to the vicinity of Mancheng learned through reconnaissance that the Khitan Left Pishi Xiangwen Yelu Pode's force was resting and reorganizing at Mancheng.

At the same time, Xiao Shilu's force, which had fled north in disarray, was resting and reorganizing some forty li away at Qingyuan County in Mozhou — that is, the Qingyuan County area of Baoding.

The assembled generals, who were gathered in revelry at the Military Governor's headquarters in Dingzhou, were overjoyed at this news. Yao Yuanfu was the first to leap up and speak.

"The Khitans plundered the prefectures of Ding, Heng, Zhao, Xing, and Ming. All the gold, silver, brocade, and silk they seized is in these two places. If we can take these two cities, would it not all become our wealth?"

Yao Yuanfu was not actually very greedy. On the contrary, this man possessed both wisdom and valor, a heroic temperament, and far-reaching ambitions.

The reason he came forward to say these things was that he had long since pledged himself to Zhang Zhao.

Winning over Yao Yuanfu could be said to be the greatest achievement Zhang Liecheng had attained in the Central Plains.

Even Hu Cile did not know that Yao Yuanfu had in fact already defected, and had even sent his second son Yao Chongyu to Liangzhou.

The more far-sighted and ambitious a person was, the more easily they were drawn to Zhang Zhao and the Liang state.

The reason was none other than this: Shi Chonggui truly had no bearing of a sovereign, and those controlling the court and military power were men like Sang Weihan, Du Chongwei, and Feng Yu.

Anyone with any discernment at all had begun to look down on the Later Jin court.

Moreover, in the great battle at Qicheng, Yao Yuanfu had routed more than a thousand Khitan troops with only two hundred cavalry, and was originally to be enfeoffed as a Military Governor, yet Shi Chonggui went back on his word the moment it left his mouth.

In order to reserve that Military Governor post for a favorite by his side, he gave Yao Yuanfu only a Prefect post, and a nominal one at that. Apart from sounding pleasant, it carried essentially no practical meaning.

How could a lord like that be worthy of men like Yao Yuanfu pledging their lives to him?

When the assembled men heard what Yao Yuanfu said, their eyes immediately lit up. What did soldiers fight and risk their lives for? Was it not wealth and goods? If they could smash these two Khitan forces, would gold and silver be in short supply?

Hearing this, Pan Huan, who had always been greedy, also jumped up and said, "I too have heard that the Khitan ruler, in preparation for his southern invasion of our Great Jin, stockpiled vast quantities of grain, fodder, and baggage in Yizhou and Mozhou. This is a gift from Heaven!"

The moment Du Chongwei heard there was money to be had, his eyes truly gleamed. Moreover, the image of the Khitans as invincible in his eyes had been thoroughly overturned by these two battles.

However, he knew that it would not do for only men like him, Yao Yuanfu, and Pan Huan to say they should go. They still needed men like An Shenqi, Fu Yanqing, and Huangfu Yu to nod in agreement.

"Commander of the Expedition, I too advise going. These Khitans rely on their fast horses and come south to plunder time and again. If we do not hurt them badly once, they will come every year from now on. Better to hurt them badly this time."

Fu Yanqing's reasoning was sound. If the hidden cost of the Khitans' southern incursions was not raised, it would be disastrous if it became an established practice.

An Shenqi thought for a while and also felt they should fight. Was there any reason the soldiers of Great Jin should only be able to shrink back and take a beating?

This time the prefectures of Ding, Heng, Zhao, and the rest had already been trampled beyond recognition. If they did not teach the Khitans a lesson, and they came once every year, the attrition alone would bleed the Jin state to death.

"Please give the order, Commander of the Expedition! Our army's prestige is at its height. Retaking Yan-Yun is unrealistic, but dealing the Khitans a painful blow is still within our power."

Once even An Shenqi agreed, Du Chongwei was overjoyed. It had been a long time since such unanimity between high and low had appeared in the Jin army.

"All generals return to camp and restrain your troops. We march in three days. We will take Qingyuan, and there, using the Khitans' supplies, we will celebrate a bountiful New Year!"

As it turned out, Du Chongwei was far more reliable when it came to raising flags than the Five-Star Emperor.

At the end of the twelfth month, the Jin army combined its forces and first attacked Mancheng in Yizhou.

Although Mancheng had intact city defenses, its walls were not high. The Jin army swiftly filled in the moat, used Lügong carts to carry crossbowmen to suppress the battlements, used battering rams below to hammer the gates, and even dispatched a "demolition team" to undermine the wall foundations under the cover of observation towers.

After only five days of fighting, Yelu Pode could no longer hold out. He could only lead more than ten thousand cavalry in a panicked flight north under cover of the predawn darkness.

The Jin army smoothly captured the first city of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun.

Immediately after, Du Chongwei personally went to the front line. The morale of the entire army soared like a rainbow, and they broke through to the walls of Qingyuan in one thrust.

By this time the Khitans had already renamed Qingyuan County as Taizhou, and the prefectural seat had been moved to the vicinity of later Baoding.

Xiao Shilu had already lost troops and officers when Zhang Zhao sent Murong Xinzhang and Zhe Deyuan to strike him by the Hun River, and then had been given a thorough thrashing by the Jin army. He had long since lost his former arrogance — and besides, the Jin army's siege capability was not something the Khitans could match.

Although the county seat of Qingyuan was far taller and larger than Mancheng, Xiao Shilu was nowhere near as composed as Yelu Pode.

After much deliberation, he held out for only three days. Before the Jin army could complete its encirclement, he too led his troops in a breakout one morning.

The Jin army took two cities in seven days, and morale soared like a rainbow. Du Chongwei remained at Qingyuan with the main force to rest and reorganize, while sending An Shenqi to continue the pursuit.

On the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth month, An Shenqi led his troops to Suicheng and once more dealt Xiao Shilu's force a crushing defeat. Xiao Shilu abandoned all his baggage and fled in disgrace to the steppe.

Suicheng lay northwest of the later Xushui county seat. After An Shenqi captured Suicheng, his vanguard reached the banks of the Yi River, only two hundred li from Youzhou.

However, the Jin army's offensive stopped there.

First, the New Year was approaching, and the army had been charging forward for two months and needed rest and reorganization. Second, what the Jin army had gained in these three battles was simply too abundant.

At Qingyuan alone, they captured one hundred and ten thousand shi of grain that Yelu Deguang had prepared for the southern invasion, gold, silver, brocade, and silk plundered by the Khitan army worth more than two hundred thousand strings of cash, as well as large quantities of weapons and armor.

In addition, the residents of Qingyuan, Mancheng, and other places, to avoid being plundered, also offered up large amounts of money and grain.

More importantly, with so many eyes upon him, Du Chongwei found it difficult to skim too heavily.

Our Marquis of Pestilence still had a sense of proportion. When it came to fleecing the common people and merchants, he would of course fleece them ruthlessly, but when it came to the soldiers, he knew what mattered.

Mistreat the soldiers who hold the sword hilts, and it could cost you your life.

With such rich spoils and the higher-ups not daring to skim too much, the forty thousand Jin troops were quartered in three places, their purses stuffed full and their mouths greasy with good eating.

Even a soldier of the lowest rank received a string of cash, to say nothing of the officers.

For a moment, everyone was thoroughly satisfied, and the soldiers and officers naturally lost all will to fight.

In the end, though the Jin army was fierce and brave, and its commanders An Shenqi, Fu Yanqing, Huangfu Yu and the rest could be counted as both valiant and shrewd, that still could not conceal the fact that they were merely the brutal yabing guards of the late Tang and Five Dynasties.

If Zhang Zhao were here, perhaps he could have used the capture of Youzhou, titles and high office to spur them on, or moved the army to the Yi River line to set up defenses.

But Du Chongwei, An Shenqi and the others did not have that ability.

And so the Jin army, which had looked like three forces advancing together with soaring momentum, could no longer fight once every man had gained great benefits.

In the Liao state, Central Capital Circuit, Bei'an Prefecture, Xinghua City — near what in later ages would be Chengde in Hebei.

Yelu Deguang was so furious that he did not even attend the New Year's Day celebrations. He had stationed his troops here, waiting for good news from the vanguard, planning to march south after New Year's Day and destroy the Later Jin.

What came instead was a defeat that made his eyes fill with blood. The vanguard army of sixty thousand had fled all the way from the banks of the Zhang River in Xiangzhou back to Youzhou, losing more than ten thousand men.

Now, far from swallowing the Jin state, he, Yelu Deguang, had lost three cities.

This was intolerable! The face of the Great Liao Emperor burned with shame. Amid his raging howls, Xiao Shilu was thrown into prison to await punishment, and Yelu Pode was stripped of one directly-held tribe and five hundred fine horses, and ordered to remain with the army to atone through service.

After the fury passed came the question of how to handle the current situation.

This time the fighting was within his own territory, and though it was humiliating, Yelu Deguang was far more confident.

He abandoned his previous strategy of recruiting large numbers of Xi, Han and Bohai men, and instead concentrated the various Khitan tribes, selecting eighty thousand elite troops, and assembled them at Hubeikou — what in later ages would be the Gubeikou Great Wall.

He waited only for New Year's Day to pass and the ice and snow to lessen slightly, and then he would immediately march south for a decisive battle with the Jin army.

Du Chongwei was living very comfortably in Qingyuan. He rarely got to experience this conqueror's thrill, and this kind of battle, beating down a foreign people, was deeply intoxicating.

And at this time, the various peoples who had suffered under Khitan oppression also came one after another bringing grain and fodder to reward the army.

They thought the Later Jin army had come north to recover Yan-Yun, and some even thought the court had finally produced a wise ruler, and had remembered them, the people who had been ceded away.

And the greatest service these people of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun performed was to scout out the Khitan army's movements for the Later Jin forces.

But when a traveling merchant who worked the grasslands excitedly reported to Du Chongwei that the Khitan Emperor Yelu Deguang was assembling an army of eighty thousand at Hubeikou, Du Chongwei's face changed on the spot.

The name Yelu Deguang was, for Du Chongwei, far more than simply a Khitan emperor.

As Shi Jingtang's brother-in-law, he had not been spared back when Shi Jingtang was being pressured by Li Congke.

Du Chongwei had lived in constant fear day and night alongside Shi Jingtang, and when Zhang Jingda's troops reached the walls of Jinyang, he was so terrified he nearly killed himself.

At his most desperate moment, Yelu Deguang's Khitan cavalry descended like heavenly soldiers and drove back the Tang army.

At that time Du Chongwei had wanted to kneel and lick Yelu Deguang's shoes. That feeling of surviving a disaster, of finally having the boulder lifted from his heart — no one who has not experienced it can imagine it.

Later, in Tuanbo Valley, Yelu Deguang invested Shi Jingtang as Son of Heaven of the Jin state. That scene flashed through Du Chongwei's mind more than once.

It was as if he himself had been the one invested as Son of Heaven that year.

So toward Yelu Deguang, who was in fact his savior, Du Chongwei developed a strange sense of closeness and an urge to grovel before him.

Now, hearing that his "idol" was leading eighty thousand troops to attack him, Du Chongwei's first feeling was fear. He wanted to flee at once.

And when he revealed this idea, he unexpectedly received unanimous support from the entire Jin army, high and low.

Because by this point, the soldiers and officers who had acquired great quantities of loot all wanted to get their spoils home as quickly as possible.

An Shenqi, Fu Yanqing and the others wanted to fight, but they also understood that the soldiers had lost all desire for battle, and there was simply no way to keep fighting.

In the year 944, when the Jin ruler Shi Chonggui heard of the Jin army's great victory, and that it had even fought its way into Yizhou and Mozhou, he was overjoyed.

He immediately changed the era name from Tianfu to Kaiyun, declaring this year the first year of Kaiyun.

One could say that the two era names Tianfu and Kaiyun truly did not do justice to the cultural level of the father-son pair Shi Jingtang and Shi Chonggui.

One, Tianfu, meant that his position was fortune bestowed by Heaven — that is, by Yelu Deguang. The other meant they had beaten the Khitan and opened up good luck.

It was... it was also quite plain and straightforward.

In the first year of Kaiyun, on the sixteenth day of the first month, just after the Lantern Festival, Du Chongwei urgently ordered An Shenqi at Suicheng to withdraw south with his army.

An Shenqi did not hesitate either; since the troops' hearts were set on returning, he immediately led his army south.

At the same time, Huangfu Yu, stationed at Mancheng, also received Du Chongwei's order and began to close in on Qingyuan.

Du Chongwei planned to gather the Jin army and then head southwest directly to Wangdu in Dingzhou, and then organize a defense in the Dingzhou–Shenzhou area.

Although the Jin army made the decision to withdraw very quickly after receiving the order, because every soldier and officer was laden with loot, their movement was not fast at all — one might even say it was somewhat sluggish.

An Shenqi's force withdrew south from Suicheng to Qingyuan, a distance of only sixty li, yet it took a full three days.

And after An Shenqi reached Qingyuan, something even more absurd happened.

Du Chongwei's force, which had long been preparing to withdraw, still had not completed its withdrawal preparations.

The troops remained encamped at Qingyuan for some time, and it was not until the twenty-sixth of the first month — the tenth day after the decision to withdraw south — that they finally pulled out of Qingyuan County.

What they did not know, however, was that just as the people of Yan-Yun reported the Khitan army's movements to them, there were naturally also people reporting their own movements to Yelu Deguang.

As early as when An Shenqi's force began withdrawing from Suicheng, the eighty thousand Khitan troops at Hubeikou had already set out.

On the twenty-seventh of the first month, the sluggish Jin army had just reached Baituanwei Village in Yangcheng, about twenty li southwest of Qingyuan, when Hucile, who was screening the main army, discovered in alarm that the Khitan army had already closed to within less than twenty li of the Jin forces.

Du Chongwei broke out in a cold sweat. Fortunately, Hucile was from the Liang state and was accustomed to posting his scouts more than ten li out; otherwise they would have been taken by surprise by the Liao army.

The one stroke of luck amid misfortune was that night was falling, and with Hucile's force outside blocking the Khitan vanguard light cavalry from approaching, the Khitan army would not dare to charge in directly today.

Du Chongwei hurriedly ordered An Shenqi to supervise the troops in bringing out the abatis and planting them in the ground to form a camp. At this moment of life and death, the Jin army also erupted with tremendous energy.

Baituanwei Village sat on relatively high ground and had more than ten civilian houses that could serve as a screen. The Jin army brought out all their abatis, buried them in the earth, and wrapped them around with ropes to block the Khitan cavalry's charges. In a single night they built a simple field camp.

The next morning, the Jin troops, exhausted from most of the night's labor, were still asleep when the vanguard led by Zhao Yanshou and Yelu Anduan arrived.

They did not come to attack the completed field camp, but instead struck Xue Huairang's force on the perimeter.

Du Chongwei had sent Xue Huairang out of the village, originally intending to take advantage of the Khitan troops not yet having arrived to set up a separate camp at another spot beside Baituanwei Village.

Instead they were caught head-on by the charging Khitan cavalry. Xue Huairang's force of two thousand lost nearly half its men and fled back in disarray.

This now became somewhat troublesome, because the reason Baituanwei Village had few people was that the village was far from a water source.

The place where Xue Huairang had gone to camp was beside a small stream. Du Chongwei had wanted to split the army into two camps to secure the water supply.

Now that Xue Huairang had been routed, the Jin army had lost control of the water source in an instant.

Sure enough, after routing Xue Huairang's force, Yelu Anduan immediately ordered Zhao Yanshou to lead troops to seize the streamside and camp there.

This Yelu Anduan was indeed worthy of being Yelu Abaoji's youngest son — he had followed his father and elder brothers on campaign since childhood, and he had immediately seized the Jin army's vital point.

At the third quarter of the hour of Si, Yelu Deguang arrived in command of seventy thousand Khitan main-force troops.

By this time the Jin army had finished making camp at Baituanwei Village. Relying on the small hill of Baituanwei Village, they had laid out abatis on all four sides.

At every road junction there were crossbowmen on guard, and at the same time they had concealed a total of eight thousand cavalry inside the village.

Yelu Deguang personally went to the front line to observe the formation. Suddenly he pointed at a mountain pass to the southwest and burst into loud laughter.

"Who is the Jin army's commander? He seems a man of no ability — he has not even guarded the road of survival to the southeast."

It was indeed a road of survival. Although Baituanwei Village lay on the North China Plain, there were still some small hills here, and the only open road was this one to the southeast. If the Jin army wanted to retreat, this was the only way they could go.

If they could hold this hill, first, they could preserve a route of escape — at least some of the officers and cavalry could get away.

Second, it could draw the Khitan army into attacking, forming a pincer with Baituanwei Village, each supporting the other.

Yelu Deguang of course knew who the Jin army's commander was. He said this only to show off how foolish the other side was.

Yelu Anduan, with a good eye for the moment, chimed in: "It must be the Jin imperial kinsman Du Chongwei."

"Truly a man of no ability!" Yelu Deguang's face showed contempt, and the Khitan officers and soldiers around him all laughed in agreement, as if victory were already decided.

But this really could not be blamed on Du Chongwei. The Jin army had arrived at Baituanwei Village yesterday when it was already nearly dark, and had been busy planting abatis and setting up camp — where would they have found the time to scout the surrounding terrain!

"The whole army will encircle them, attack together from the west, and wipe out these Han to feast upon them!"

Uh! Raising a flag seems to be a common human failing. Yelu Deguang, swelling with pride, seemed about to annihilate the Later Jin army at once — but in fact, the course of the battle went like this.

Yelu Deguang raised his flag.

The Khitan army attacked.

The Khitan army typed GG.

The Jin army counterattacked and surged out.

The Khitan army fought desperately before they managed to drive them back.

This battle went on intermittently from the end of the hour of Si (eleven in the morning) to the end of the hour of Shen (five in the afternoon).

The Khitan army launched a total of eleven attacks, and every one was driven back out by the Jin army.

Among them, after the Khitan cavalry dismounted, although they also wore iron armor, they were not much stronger than the Jin troops.

The Jin army sealed the road junctions, first inflicting casualties with bows and crossbows, then letting the Khitans into the village, using the narrow passageways to limit the Khitans' numerical advantage, and finally driving the Khitans out.

And often, after the Khitans were driven out, the Jin army would use the cavalry hidden in the village to counterattack, each time throwing the front of Yelu Deguang's formation into turmoil.

The Liao army also tried charging with fully armored cavalry, but faced with the Jin army's great numbers of abatis and crossbow bolts, the fully armored cavalry were not very effective either.

Seeing this situation, it was Yelu Wuzhi who was the steadier one. He hurried over and said to Yelu Deguang:

"The Jin army has entered a death ground. These are not weak soldiers. Fighting with the resolve of the doomed, they will be very hard to take by storm.

My scouts have captured villagers and learned that there are no wells in Baituanwei Village. Now that we have encircled them on all sides, why not simply besiege the Jin army, and wait until they can no longer bear their thirst and come out seeking death on their own."

Yelu Deguang found this reasonable, so the Khitan army halted its attacks and began making camp around Baituanwei Village, preparing for a long siege.

They imitated the Jin army, planting abatis thickly around their own camp and at the road junctions to block charges by the Jin cavalry.

Now it was the Jin army's turn to grow alarmed. After steadying their formation, the Jin army also realized they had fallen into a death ground.

After some discussion, it was decided that An Shenqi would personally command more than ten thousand infantry and cavalry to go and seize the exit to the southeast, then set up camp at the foot of the hill.

If Baituanwei Village could not be held, at least it would provide an escape route for the mounted officers and cavalry.

But the Jin army had overestimated themselves. An Shenqi's ten thousand infantry and cavalry had barely left Baituanwei Village when the Khitans mustered more than twenty thousand iron cavalry to intercept them.

An Shenqi could only command his troops to form up outside Baituanwei Village and resist, but in the end they were outnumbered, and finally, with the support of Huangfu Yu and Yao Yuanfu, he retreated back in disarray.

In this battle, An Shenqi lost more than three thousand men, and the cavalry under his command in particular suffered grievous losses. The Jin army had been dealt a heavy blow, and no longer dared speak of leaving the village to fight.

The war had now entered a grinding stage. Inside Baituanwei Village, the Jin army bore the pressure of total annihilation, their hearts tormented beyond endurance.

Outside, the Khitan troops endured the lashing of wind and snow. Even Yelu Deguang was shivering from the cold, let alone the officers and soldiers below him.

This was a contest of patience — except that time stood on the Khitans' side.

On the fifth day of the second month, the Khitan army had been besieging Baituanwei Village for eight days.

And what was extremely unfavorable for the Jin army was that it had not snowed for three days.

Originally the Jin army had relied on heavy snowfall from the sky to barely obtain water, but now, with no snow for three days, the Jin army's drinking water had run into extreme difficulty.

Baituanwei Village was not large, yet the Jin army numbered close to forty thousand men, plus more than ten thousand mules and horses.

The drinking water needed by so many men and animals was enormous.

Desperate with thirst, the Jin army dug downward on one side, collecting muddy water to quench their thirst, while on the other they slaughtered horses and mules to drink their blood.

But the blood of mules and horses was rank and foul, hard to drink, and every animal killed was one fewer — nor could it possibly supply the whole army. Before their eyes, they were walking toward a dead end.

What lay before the Jin army seemed to be only one road: a desperate fight to the death.

But everyone had seen what happened last time when An Shenqi led troops out to give battle. The Khitans had gathered all their elite forces and come, and in open-field battle, the Jin army could gain no advantage at all.

What was to be done?

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