Chapter 519

"You, elder brother, dwell north of the frontier, raised among forests and trees. Your ancestors received the Great Dynasty's grace, and only then came to understand ruler and subject, father and son, and ceased to be wild men.

When the Great Dynasty declined, within fifty years you annexed Balhae, subdued the Jurchens, gathered the tribes of the northern and southern deserts, took the title of Emperor, and were fortunate enough to gain the land of Yan-Yun.

The Xiongnu and Turks of old never had such might. Why then is your greed insatiable? Do you take us, your younger brothers, for the muddled, cruel, and tyrannical Sima clan of the Jin house, that you dare drive iron hooves south to invade?

The common folk are easy to abuse, but Heaven above is not so easily forgiven! Since the sixth year of Tianfu, for four years now, the clash of arms has resounded across both banks of the Yellow River, and beacon fires have burned inside and outside the Great Wall. For a thousand li no cock crows, and white bones lie exposed in the wilds.

The Liao soldiers' cruelty far surpasses the Yan bandits of old. Elder brother, how will you repay the sin of these million folk left to rot in the wilderness?

Now you are trapped in a place of death. Why not cast aside your weapons and surrender early? If you can repent and turn back, perhaps you may keep your life and drink again from the waters of the Liao River."

"Arrogant! Insolent barbarian bandit, you dare regard my Great Khitan as savage Yi! Sooner or later I will have you and Shi Chonggui drink the Liao River's waters together at Huanglong Prefecture!"

This was the letter of challenge Zhang Zhao had shot into the city, and Guang-ge was nearly dead with rage.

Especially that line about being raised among forests and trees — it made Yelu Deguang absolutely furious. Who the hell was raised among forests and trees?

Yelu Wuzhi, who these days had become the innermost confidant of Yelu Deguang's confidants because of arranging the retreat, walked over slowly and said:

"The Zhang bandit is merely glib of tongue. Your Majesty need not take it to heart. Your servant has already won the support of all officers above the rank of junior general in the left and right Pishi Army. We can set out northward at any time."

Yelu Deguang sat down in silence. The desperate urge to flee this predicament, and the lingering fantasies and unwillingness to accept defeat, kept battering his mind.

After a long while, Guang-ge slowly shook his head and said: "It is not yet time. If we leave now, with the army's morale collapsing, how could we escape the Zhang bandit's iron cavalry in pursuit?

And if we flee in panic before any sign of defeat has shown, even if we return north, it will be hard to command obedience."

Yelu Wuzhi nodded in agreement, but in his heart he knew that the reasons Yelu Deguang gave were nothing but excuses.

The real reason was that after Guang-ge regained his confidence, he had begun to harbor fantasies again. To put it bluntly, he would not shed tears until he saw the coffin.

But Yelu Wuzhi was not prepared to remonstrate further. The Great Liao still had more than seventy thousand men around Yanshi, with ample provisions.

There were also more than ten forts and pass-cities on Mount Mang. Defeating the Zhang bandit was nearly impossible, but they still had the standing to hold out for several months.

On the first day of the tenth month, seeing that the Yongliang Army's trebuchets were about to be set up, Yelu Deguang could finally sit still no longer.

The Khitans had always had more cavalry than infantry. Being cooped up in the city had already made the officers and men grumble considerably, and if they had to sit there being pelted with stones as well, trouble could well break out.

So, after Zhang Zhao issued his letter of challenge, Yelu Deguang swiftly made his dispositions.

The gates of Yanshi swung open, and ten thousand Khitan cavalry, plus twenty thousand Xi and Balhae infantry, came out of the city.

Twenty thousand Khitan cavalry also advanced from the Mount Mang area they still controlled, out onto the great plain before Yanshi.

In addition, eight thousand Han soldiers under Khitan officers' control also appeared on the battlefield.

Yelu Deguang rode in his Son of Heaven's six-horse carriage, under a yellow silk canopy, at the very center of the army. The left and right Pishi Army formed the center, the Shushan and Xi troops the left wing, and the tribal troops, Balhae infantry, and surrendered Jin soldiers the right wing.

He was coming to fight Zhang Zhao in an open, honorable battle!

Zhang Zhao, of course, welcomed Guang-ge's "considerate" gesture.

In truth, Yanshi was not an easy city to take, backed against Mount Mang with stout walls.

The Yongliang Army had spent more than a month breaking through the Yinluo River, Yanshi's natural barrier, but then, only days later, the heavens opened with heavy rain. The water diverted by their dug channels was utterly negligible compared to the mountain torrents.

Zhang Zhao had originally feared the Khitans would come out of the city and contest the strongpoints along the Yinluo River with him.

Because at that time, to escape the heavy rain and flash floods, the Yongliang Army had been forced to pull half its men back to the Jinyong City line to rest and refit, and the front line had to begin rotating duty.

But for some unknown reason, apart from daily skirmishing by small bands of cavalry, the Khitans never sent a large force out of the city.

So once the weather cleared, Zhang Zhao hurriedly shot a letter of challenge into the city. To his surprise, the Khitans responded immediately — which delighted Zhang Zhao no end.

The distance from the Yinluo River to Yanshi was about six or seven li. For the Central Plains as a whole, Yanshi was an extremely rare place of many hills and ridges.

The overall terrain was high in the north and south and low in the middle. Only this alluvial plain by the Yinluo River was the flattest ground, making it a very suitable place to fight an open, honorable battle.

After clearing out the Khitan forts along the Yinluo River line, the Yongliang Army repaired these forts, which had been damaged by gunpowder, and turned them back into camps for their own defense and rest.

Fighting an open battle in a place this small left essentially no room for schemes, ambushes, feints, or the like.

While the main armies were still slowly moving into battle positions, the light cavalry of both the Yongliang and Liao sides had already been dogfighting for nearly a full watch between Mount Mang and the Yinluo River.

However, this time Zhang Zhao did not let the Loyal Followers' elite riders take the lead. What he sent out were the mounted skirmishers of the various garrisons.

The training and equipment of the Loyal Followers' elite riders were still somewhat lacking. For screening such a small area, there was no need to make them the main force and add to their casualties for nothing.

The formations of both sides were much the same: each formed small square formations, and the small squares were then combined into large squares. This was the basic formation recorded in the military manuals — the Eight Trigrams Formation.

The so-called Eight Trigrams Formation was actually not at all some mosquito-coil arrangement of troops, nor was it the sort of mystical-sounding "esoteric arts of the Eight Gates" or "Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Formation" and the like.

This thing was, in fact, simply a formation that used the Eight Trigrams directions as names, to make it easier for the commander to grasp how many troops were where, and thereby maneuver the army.

What it sought was not the shape of the Eight Trigrams, but using the Eight Trigrams to mark directions for ease of command.

To put it in plain terms, we could compare it to the later clock-face method of marking directions: the Qian trigram is the twelve o'clock direction, the Kun trigram is the six o'clock direction, and so on.

The advantage of this is that when orderlies relay commands, they will not go around passing on some absurd nonsense.

For example, if the commander orders a battalion in the northeast to move out, a nervous orderly might mishear it as a battalion in the east and north moving out.

But with the Eight Trigrams marking directions, he could hardly mishear the Qian trigram as the Kun trigram.

Moreover, the combinations of the Eight Trigrams are many, and the directions they mark are far more precise and detailed than east, south, west, and north.

At the same time, on the drums, specific drumbeats could be assigned specific meanings for each trigram, making it easier to convey orders clearly.

The length of the drumbeats could also let frontline officers make advance adjustments, so that when the orderly arrived and both sides verified, the change could be made at once.

Thus, both the Yongliang and Liao sides had arrayed outside Yanshi a great formation that sounded quite mystical but was in fact not mystical at all — it merely required the commander to have a strong sense of direction and passable mathematics.

In this regard, Zhang Zhao, with his later systematic training, left Yelu Deguang several streets behind.

Guang-ge still needed the officers and guards around him to help manage these tens of thousands of troops. Great King Zhang managed it with one brush, one sheet of paper, and a few orderlies — an efficiency several times greater than Guang-ge's.

"Send in the Savage Bear! Give those northern caitiffs opposite us a proper greeting first." With the formation set, Zhang Zhao prepared to give the Khitans something lively to start with.

Hearing Zhang Zhao's words, the attendant officer beside him waved a small flag, and a great drum standing beside the commander was immediately beaten.

At the sound of the drum, an orderly below the hill dashed out at once. Immediately after, the great drums positioned around each unit also began to beat — two long, two short, marking the direction where the Savage Bear was stationed.

In the orderly's mind was imprinted a directional chart of the Eight Trigrams Formation. This was the most basic requirement.

On Zhang Zhao's side, orderlies had a small examination every three days and a major one every seven. If they misremembered any formation direction, they would be beaten, and in serious cases demoted.

The Savage Bear had begun donning his armor the moment he heard the drums — one layer of ring-mail, one layer of cloth-faced iron armor.

He also strapped a heart-protecting mirror the size of a wok lid over his chest, and the helmet, neck guard, and face mask on his head were all complete, not a single piece missing.

Only after all this did the clumsy bear take up a modao glaive glaive glaive, sling a Divine Arm crossbow on his back, hang a quiver at his waist, and stride forward like a demon god descended to earth, carrying an enormous banner on his shoulder.

Behind him, a handpicked auxiliary soldier carried an extremely long spear, with a dried head impaled on the tip — no longer possible to tell whether it had been shaven in the Khitan manner.

The Savage Bear walked to the midpoint between the two armies, planted the great banner firmly in the ground, then took the spear with the head from the auxiliary soldier, and under the gaze of all the Khitans, removed the head, threw it to the ground, and made a gesture over it with his right foot.

"You northern slaves across the way — do you recognize this banner? And this head — it is the head of the bandit thief Xiao Shilu. Liao ruler Yaogu, your uncle's head is here. Do you dare come and take it?"

The Savage Bear's voice was tremendously loud, and as he shouted, the soldiers of both the Yong and Liao sides heard it clearly.

On the Yong army's side, there was naturally a chorus of laughter, as curses, mockery, and sarcastic jeers all came at once.

On the Liao army's side, once the Savage Bear had dragged the banner over, they all recognized it — it was the great standard of the State Uncle and Army Supervisor Xiao Shilu.

Although Xiao Shilu had fallen out of Yelu Deguang's favor in recent years, he was still the younger brother of Empress Dowager Shulu Ping, who had cut off her own wrist, and Yelu Deguang's own maternal uncle. At once, every Khitan felt a stinging shame on their faces.

When the Savage Bear called Yelu Deguang by the name Yaogu and trampled Xiao Shilu's head underfoot, the Khitans' fury erupted like a volcano.

"Your Majesty, your general begs leave to shoot this wretch dead!" The first who could no longer hold back was the eagle-shooter beside Yelu Deguang.

Yelu Deguang, his face dark, waved a hand, and the eagle-shooter immediately leaped out from the ranks.

He rode to a point one hundred fifty paces from the Savage Bear, dismounted, took out the long-tipped bow in his hand, then ran forward again to a hundred ten paces before stopping.

At this distance, it was somewhat beyond the effective range of an ordinary bow, but the eagle-shooter was very confident. He was certain that with the treasured bow in his hand and his archery skill, he could shoot this mighty southern barbarian dead.

'Whiz!' 'Twang!'

The eagle-shooter drew a deep breath, then suddenly exhaled with a shout, and the arrow left the string like a swimming dragon, flying unerringly toward the Savage Bear.

The Savage Bear also drew a deep breath. He did not even change his posture, only straightened his back slightly.

This cunning giant bear had deliberately hunched over just now, because he suspected the eagle-shooter was very likely aiming at his head, and that the man probably had the skill for such a shot.

Sure enough, his gamble paid off. At the very instant the eagle-shooter's right hand left the bowstring, the Savage Bear stood up straight, and the arrow struck with a thud directly against the oversized heart-protecting mirror on his chest.

The Savage Bear felt a tightness in his chest as a tremendous pushing force came through, as if someone had punched him in the chest. It was somewhat uncomfortable, but he could still bear it.

The eagle-shooter showed a cold sneer and roared from afar, "Southern barbarian, is that the limit of your tricks?"

With that, he suddenly loosed two more arrows in rapid succession!

It must be known that what the eagle-shooter held was no mere bow of a few dou in draw weight, but a strong bow of over one dan, capable of firing two arrows in the blink of an eye.

Hmm! That's about seventy percent of my own skill, Great King Zhang.

The Savage Bear truly had not expected the eagle-shooter to follow with a double shot. Caught off guard, a sharp pain burst through his chest, so intense he nearly groaned aloud.

But that was all it amounted to. The cloth-faced iron armor made of refined steel smelted in the Liangzhou blast furnaces, with a layer of mail underneath, meant that no matter what bow was used, an arrow from over a hundred paces could not possibly pierce it completely.

The Savage Bear grinned, and even provocatively beckoned to the eagle-shooter.

"Northern slave? Is that the limit of your tricks?"

The eagle-shooter felt his face flush hot. He turned bright red, quietly nocked an arrow with his left hand, and suddenly charged forward.

He had also realized that the Savage Bear was very likely wearing precious armor. But no matter how precious the armor, if it could not be pierced at a hundred ten paces, how would you withstand it at eighty?

Fueled by towering rage, the eagle-shooter moved like a startled hare and a swooping falcon, covering the distance to eighty or ninety paces in a few bounds.

He was just about to draw his bow when he suddenly noticed that the giant bear of a man across from him had pulled out from behind his back something that looked like a bow but was not quite a bow.

'Damn! I'm done for now!'

That was the last thought that flashed through the eagle-shooter's mind. He had been careless.

By common sense, a man wearing three layers of armor would not normally carry a bow, because drawing a bow in heavy armor is extremely strenuous.

Moreover, the eagle-shooter was confident that with his skill, he could shoot his opponent dead before the other man could draw.

But after all his calculations, he had never imagined the other side would be carrying a crossbow!

Click! The mechanism of the Divine Arm crossbow sounded, and the bolt loosed by the two-dan-one-dou powerful crossbow instantly pierced through the eagle-shooter's chest and abdomen.

The tremendous impact even made the eagle-shooter sway several times like a withered leaf in the wind.

As blood sprayed out, the eagle-shooter's lung had already been pierced through with a massive bloody hole.

He struggled desperately to breathe, trying to complete the motion of drawing his bow, but what had once been the easiest thing in the world for him was now impossible to finish.

After a few more struggles, the eagle-shooter slumped to the ground.

The Savage Bear grinned. "At a hundred paces your granddaddy couldn't hit you. You came up to eighty yourself."

"Watch me take your dog's life!" Just as the eagle-shooter fell and the entire Khitan army fell silent.

A fierce general in black lamellar armor, wearing a pointed helmet with a nose guard clearly not of Central Plains style, roared curses and rode out from the ranks.

This was a fierce general with golden hair and blue eyes, of Yellow-Head Uyghur or Yellow-Head Shiwei blood. He rode a yellow charger, held a long iron lance in his hand, and charged straight at the Savage Bear.

In a duel, infantry against cavalry is almost completely one-sided, so just as this yellow-haired fierce general galloped out, Chen Tingxiao, who was closest to the Savage Bear, also spurred his horse forward.

The yellow-haired fierce general also saw Chen Tingxiao and immediately charged toward him. The two riders closed in on each other.

Suddenly, Chen Tingxiao veered his horse aside. The lance is a weapon with an extremely long blade — most later illustrations of cavalry lances are actually of this weapon.

Compared to the cavalry lance, the lance is better suited for thrusting. Chen Tingxiao would have been a fool to trade thrusts with him.

Just as he veered his horse aside, this little sneaky thief pulled from his waist a meteor hammer with a spiked head, leaned his body slightly to one side, and sent the meteor hammer whistling and spinning toward the yellow-haired fierce general.

The yellow-haired fierce general had also been on guard against dirty tricks. Almost at the same moment Chen Tingxiao threw the meteor hammer, he too pulled out with his left hand something like a hand-axe and hurled it at Chen Tingxiao.

But he had not expected that what Chen Tingxiao threw was this kind of thing!

The meteor hammer is truly difficult to master, and even more so on horseback. Few men have that skill, because the bitter training it requires would be better spent refining one's lance technique.

And so, by sheer rotten luck, the yellow-haired fierce general ran into a freak like Chen Tingxiao.

At once, two cries of pain rang out. Chen Tingxiao was struck on the back of the head by the hand-axe. With a clang, he saw stars and nearly fell from his horse.

But the yellow-haired fierce general had it far worse. That huge meteor hammer struck him squarely in the face.

The Savage Bear heard only a sickening sound of metal crushing flesh. Blood sprayed from the yellow-haired fierce general's face as he let out a miserable howl, swayed twice, and tumbled from his horse.

In an instant, the Khitans had lost both an eagle-shooter and a mounted fierce general. The soldiers and officers all felt deeply humiliated. Yelu Wuzhi and the other Khitan generals exchanged glances, wanting to stop this from going any further.

For they could see that Zhang Zhao's Hanshan Unit was indeed a terrifying opponent — many experts, excellent equipment — and their own side probably could not match them.

But before they could put that into action, a roar like mountains collapsing and seas surging erupted from the Khitan side of the battlefield. They were shouting one man's name.

"Yanmu! Yanmu!"

"Yanmu! Yanmu!"

Every Khitan soldier was striking his weapon, sending up a heaven-shaking, earth-moving cry.

Amid the overwhelming expectation, a giant of a man appeared — nearly the same bulk as Barbarian Bear, wrapped in lamellar armor like some primordial beast!

The giant was not called Yanmu; rather, his grandfather was named Yelu Yanmu.

This man was the elder uncle of Yelu Deguang's grandfather and the grandfather of Yelu Wuzhi. He was enormously tall and strong, able to tear apart a cured stag hide with his bare hands, and his voice boomed like a great bell, audible from several li away.

Since Yelu Yanmu, such giants had appeared in nearly every generation of his descendants, and they were the symbol of valor among the Khitan people.

The burly man who emerged amid the crowd was none other than Yelu Wuzhi's half-brother by a different mother, Yelu Chong.

By instinct alone, Barbarian Bear realized that the man facing him would be a terrifying opponent, his equal in strength. He tossed his divine-arm crossbow to the auxiliary soldier behind him, hefted his customary long-handled axe, and slowly walked forward.

Yelu Chong had no other weapon either — just an iron mace in his hand. The two strongmen, each nearly one meter ninety and weighing over two hundred jin, slowly closed the distance under the silent, breath-held gaze of the crowd.

Then, with two explosive shouts, both men suddenly surged with power and charged hard at each other. For a moment, it seemed the very earth trembled.

In a duel between such warriors, there was little room for schemes and tricks — and they disdained to use any.

This was a contest of pure strength.

Nor were there any fancy moves, because those were useless. With their builds, wearing two layers of iron armor, there was no space for small assassination weapons to work. Only iron hammers and great axes would do.

Amid the clang of metal on metal, the two traded blow for blow — one a hammer, the other an axe. After several exchanges, Yelu Chong's hammer struck Barbarian Bear on the head.

Blood immediately streamed down from Barbarian Bear's helmet, staining even his eyebrows and eyelashes crimson.

Then it was Barbarian Bear's turn. With all his strength, seizing the moment before Yelu Chong could swing his hammer a second time, he brought his long-handled axe crashing down hard onto Yelu Deguang's shoulder.

The sound of a shoulder blade snapping rang out. Yelu Chong, already battered by countless heavy blows, could not hold on. He let out a miserable cry, and the mace in his hand clattered to the ground.

Barbarian Bear did not stop. He immediately swung his axe again, smashing it onto Yelu Chong's helmet.

Just like Barbarian Bear, blood immediately flowed from inside Yelu Chong's helmet, and the front of the helmet was even caved in.

"Fourth Brother!" Yelu Wuzhi howled in anguish.

Three duels, three defeats. The Khitan soldiers looked at one another, faces drained of color.

Barbarian Bear did not finish him off. Instead, he walked back, chopped down the banner pole of Xiao Shilu's great standard standing in the ground with one axe blow, then stomped Xiao Shilu's severed head to pulp with a single kick.

"Kill them all! Leave not one alive!"

Yelu Deguang stood upon his Son of Heaven's six-horse carriage, already so enraged he had lost all reason.

"Vanguard, advance! Attack according to the established plan!"

Zhang Zhao quietly wiped the cold sweat from his face. He too had feared Barbarian Bear would die in battle! That would have been a heavy blow to him, and to the Yongliang Army as well.

"One, two, three, four, five!" In the rising and falling shouts, every squad leader of the Yongliang Army was beating the small drum before him while counting, following the great war drum that advanced with the army.

Each time the count reached four fives, the army would halt and re-form ranks.

The vanguard of the Yongliang Army was uniformly composed of Tabai crossbowmen in green leather armor and white foot-wraps!

Compared to the Yongliang Army's elite crossbowmen, the Khitan Xi and Bohai archers were somewhat outclassed.

Yelu Deguang had no idea — like everyone else, he assumed that what Zhang Zhao was most proud of was the Yongliang iron cavalry.

But in truth, the Tabai crossbowmen under Zhang Zhao's command were equally elite, because the first cheat Great King Zhang had activated was the divine-arm crossbow.

Back in the Western Regions, without the hundred-plus divine-arm crossbows and the great number of horn crossbows built with the entire strength of Khotan, Zhang Zhao might well have been killed by Satuq at the Battle of Polu Prefecture.

The Khitans had few crossbows, and this became their unsolvable weakness. On the battlefield, the Yongliang Army's rumbling drums suddenly changed to rapid, staccato beats.

In an instant, ten thousand arrows flew as one!

Not only did the Tabai crossbowmen in the infantry formations loose their bolts — among the light cavalry clashing on both flanks, the mounted archers also began firing their horn crossbows in dense volleys at the Khitan cavalry.

The Khitan cavalry, suddenly struck by crossbow fire, immediately spread far apart. Yelu Deguang had learned his lesson from the last time at Gaosong, and was on guard against being shattered by a knee-to-knee charge of the Yongliang iron cavalry.

But in fact, most of those currently fighting the Khitan cavalry were lightly armored mounted archers.

Their training focused on small-unit splitting, driving off the enemy, and close-quarters melee.

As a result, the moment the Khitan cavalry scattered, they were immediately swarmed by large numbers of mounted archers and cut down, men and horses toppling.

Meanwhile, on the front, after enduring brutal volleys of crossbow bolts, the Khitan archers finally came within effective bow range. Arrows flew thick in both directions, and casualties began to soar.

Once the battle reached white-hot intensity, Zhang Zhao immediately ordered the long-waiting elite cavalry to don armor and take the field, constantly probing for weaknesses in the Khitan infantry to strike.

The Khitan tactics were much the same — they too chose to send out iron cavalry to assault the enemy infantry squares.

Zhang Zhao, commanding from the hillock, was not the least bit flustered, because he could see that the exchange ratio was in his favor.

Nearly every Khitan infantry square on the battlefield was showing signs of wavering to varying degrees.

Especially after enduring heavy crossbow fire, their combat effectiveness and will to fight had already dropped sharply.

However, the Khitans still had sixty or seventy thousand troops — more than the Yongliang Army — and the Khitan ruler Yelu Deguang was right there on the battlefield, so they would not collapse so easily.

So Zhang Zhao's gaze turned to another place.

There, an army that was slacking off — conspicuously, the surrendered Jin troops. Perhaps this was the Yongliang Army's breakthrough point.

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