Chapter 530: Meng Chang: Don't Come Over Here!

Contrary to the common impression that Shu troops are weak in battle, the Shu army's fighting strength is actually quite decent.

It is just that the Shu army's combat characteristics are a bit lopsided.

First of all, the essence of Shu lies in the Chengdu Plain within the basin.

Ever since Li Bing and his son built the Dujiangyan irrigation system, this region has had complete waterworks and a thousand li of fertile fields.

As long as the government does not exploit the people too harshly, even commoners can live quite well, which is why it is called the Land of Abundance.

But for the Shu army, the Chengdu Plain is not so comfortable.

Because this area is very suited to cavalry warfare, yet although Shu does not lack pack horses, it has few warhorses.

Therefore Shu also has little tradition of mounted archery, and fighting a cavalry battle there is simply hopeless.

This has led to an extremely awkward situation: whenever troops from the Central Plains reach the Chengdu Plain, all of Shu immediately loses the ability to resist, and can only watch the enemy's iron cavalry come and go without restraint.

So historically, Shu's defense against outside enemies has generally relied on two things.

The first is using Hanzhong as a meat shield, trying as much as possible to make the decisive battle happen in the Hanzhong area.

Although the Hanzhong Plain is also a plain, compared to Shu proper it is narrower, with more hills and a great many passes and fortresses.

The Shu army can make full use of the hilly stockades, forts, and passes to offset the cavalry advantage of Central Plains armies.

The second reliance is that when Hanzhong cannot be held, they let the enemy in, then use the natural defenses of places like Jiange and Langzhong to block the enemy in the area of what later generations call Guangyuan and Bazhong.

This region has high mountains and dense forests, crisscrossing river valleys, and enormous elevation differences; cavalry arriving here cannot deploy at all and is extremely vulnerable to ambush.

By the same logic, on the Yangtze they rely on Kuizhou, that is, Baidi City in Fengjie, Chongqing, the "most majestic pass under heaven," to block the mouth of the Yangtze and use the surrounding high mountains to stop enemy troops.

And in the face of such operational requirements, there is very little room in the Shu army for cavalry as an arm; generally they are equipped only with a small number of elite horsemen, and most Shu troops can only be mountain infantry.

Thus the Shu army is strong in mountain warfare, but on the plains it is basically reduced to passive beatings.

As for equipment, the Shu army has one enormous advantage, and that is that Shu has a great deal of bamboo.

In later ages this stuff has lost eighty percent of its economic and strategic value, but in this era, bamboo counts as fast-growing timber and has enormous strategic value.

First, it can be made into all kinds of transport tools, boxes, and bags. Never underestimate this advantage; the secret of the Shu army's formidable ability to move grain and supplies has always lain right here.

Second, the Shu army excels at making bows and crossbows from bamboo and wood, especially bamboo crossbows. Although their killing power and range fall somewhat short of orthodox crossbow bolts, you simply cannot beat the sheer quantity!

The power may be small, but it can still shoot down birds and beasts. It is no good against targets in full iron armor, but against lightly armored and unarmored targets it is still very threatening.

Moreover, precisely because the power is somewhat lower, the rate of fire is actually faster, and crossbow bolts made of bamboo and wood are cheap and plentiful, making it easy to form dense firepower.

Two months ago, the Shu army's commander-in-chief Zhang Qianzhao personally led elite troops on a raid toward Chang'an, only to be defeated by Liu Zaisheng leading four thousand swift cavalry.

Just as the vanguard was about to collapse, the Shu army's rear force arrived, and in an instant ten thousand crossbows fired as one and stabilized the situation.

Liu Zaisheng's four thousand swift cavalry wore only light armor, and as a result many men and horses were wounded by arrows; they charged several times but could not break the Shu army's great bamboo-crossbow formation, and only then were forced to withdraw.

Otherwise Zhang Qianzhao would never have gotten away with losing just over a thousand men and withdrawing completely.

And this Zhang Qianzhao is actually not a man of Shu at all, but a man of Liaozhou.

However, this Liaozhou has nothing to do with Liaodong or Liaoxi; it is in the area of what later generations call Zuoquan County in Shanxi.

In his youth, Zhang Qianzhao served under Li Keyong and Li Cunxu, father and son, as a commander of charging cavalry. He was fierce and brave, with martial strength, and especially skilled in bow and horse, and he was on extremely good terms with the Later Tang's Mingzong, Li Siyuan.

During the Mingzong period, he was promoted to Commander of the Imperial Escort Guard, which shows how great the favor was.

Later, when the last emperor Li Congke wept his way to the throne atop the walls of Fengxiang, Zhang Qianzhao, grateful for Li Siyuan's great kindness but powerless to stop it, angrily defected to Meng Zhixiang of Later Shu.

As a commander-in-chief who had followed Li Keyong and was himself a cavalry general skilled in bow and horse, he of course knew how formidable the elite cavalry of Hedong and Daibei were.

And toward the Yongliang iron cavalry that had defeated him outside Xiangji Temple last time, Zhang Qianzhao had an even clearer understanding.

This cavalry far surpasses the cavalry of the Central Plains today, and in ferocity it is no less than the iron cavalry of the Prince of Jin back in the day.

And in his ten years under Meng Shu, although Zhang Qianzhao tried every means to train two thousand iron cavalry for Meng Zhixiang and his son, they simply cannot compare with the Yongliang iron cavalry around Chang'an.

Zhang Qianzhao also knew what the Yongliang cavalry that kept patrolling around the Shu army was waiting for: they were waiting for the real iron cavalry to arrive.

Because the Shu army's great bamboo-crossbow formation cannot deal with fully armored iron cavalry or heavy infantry wearing two or more layers of iron armor.

Once those armored troops all arrive, they will attack immediately.

Zhang Qianzhao also knew what he himself was waiting for: he was waiting for the result of the great war between Yong and Liao in the Central Plains.

This is also the reason he dared to send troops out even though this wretched Ziwu Valley was a place from which he might not be able to retreat.

As a brave general who in former years followed Zhuangzong Li Cunxu and inflicted a great defeat on the Khitan beneath the walls of Dingzhou, he had sufficient understanding of the growth of Khitan military power in recent years.

In his eyes, after the decline of the Daibei elite cavalry, the cavalry of the world would have to honor the Khitan as supreme, and the Yong army would basically get no advantage against Khitan iron cavalry either.

Hmm! That judgment was actually quite accurate, except that unfortunately for him, he ran into Zhang Zhao.

If the Yongliang iron cavalry of this time and space had not appeared out of nowhere, Khitan cavalry would indeed have counted as the first-tier cavalry at the height of its power.

And it was precisely based on this judgment that Zhang Qianzhao, brimming with confidence, drove straight for Chang'an.

Then his nine-thousand-man vanguard was ambushed outside Xiangji Temple by Liu Zaisheng's four thousand cavalry and nearly wiped out to the last man.

Had the thirteen thousand men of the rear force not arrived and shot Liu Zaisheng back, he would have nearly gone down sliding.

Now, faced with this Ziwu Valley from which he could not retreat, Zhang Qianzhao could only have the Shu army build forts and stockades along the route from Ziwu Valley to Fengxiang Prefecture, maintaining contact with Fengxiang Prefecture for self-defense while waiting for the result of the great war in the Central Plains.

If Liao won a great victory, then Zhang Qianzhao was prepared to directly buy off Liu Zaisheng.

In Zhang Qianzhao's view, Cao Yuanzhong, the Chang'an garrison commander and father-in-law of the King of Yong, might be hard to buy off, but a military man like Liu Zaisheng, given the conduct of yabing guards and yabing officers in this age, would not be hard to buy.

To this end, he had already obtained an edict from Meng Chang, and would use the posts of Acting Grand Guardian, Military Governor of Jinchang Army, and Chang'an Garrison Commander, enfeoff him as Duke of Qin, and grant three thousand mu of fine farmland in Shu, five thousand bolts of brocade, and five beautiful palace women as the price to win Liu Zaisheng over.

If the Khitan were defeated, uh! Then what was there to wait for?

Zhang Qianzhao was already prepared: if Yong won the great war between Yong and Liao, he would immediately lead his army in a breakout toward Fengxiang Prefecture, and then together with Sun Hanshao, who held Fengxiang Prefecture, take the Xiegu River route, the Baoxie Road, and retreat back into Shu.

After all, back when Zhang Zhao had tacitly allowed Shu to widen and clear the Baoxie Road in order to swindle Meng Chang out of three hundred thousand shi of grain, Zhang Qianzhao could now use it precisely to run away.

What Zhang Qianzhao did not expect was that the outcome of the decisive battle between Yong and Liao, and the news that Zhang Zhao had ascended as Son of Heaven of Zhou and was preparing to proclaim himself emperor, had long since reached Chang'an; it was just that the Chang'an garrison commander Cao Yuanzhong had sealed off the news.

This good father-in-law of the Zhang Son of Heaven was not outstanding in ability, but that too is only relative.

How could a man who, historically, could keep things afloat for thirty years under the conditions of the Guiyi Army without any major problems possibly be mediocre?

Cao Yuanzhong accurately calculated what news Zhang Qianzhao was waiting for, so he simply sealed off the news completely and kept the Shu army pinned near Ziwu Valley.

What he was waiting for was precisely this fifteen-thousand-strong relief force led by Feng Hui, the Escort Guard Commissioner of the Imperial Procession.

At this time, the Shu kingdom was pressing right up against the Zhou kingdom's rear, and its strength was by no means weak, with a very strong capacity for mobilization.

If they were not dealt a painful blow, how could Zhang Zhao ever feel secure when he later fought the Khitan, Liu Zhiyuan, and Wu-Tang?

So what Cao Yuanzhong sought was to strike the Shu army hard. This was also Zhang Zhao's demand: not to take a single inch of Shu territory, but to make certain Meng Chang was frightened out of his wits.

Because Zhang Zhao knew that Meng Chang was a second-generation heir of privilege with very little resilience. Once his confidence was shattered, he would quickly sink into wine and women, strolling through the Brocade Official City treating the rear palace like a brothel.

Then Zhang Zhao could turn his mind at ease to dealing with the other true strong enemies.

At the end of the twelfth month, Zhang Zhao's family, having set out from Liangzhou, arrived in the Qian County area north of Chang'an under the escort of the fifteen-thousand-strong army commanded by Feng Hui.

Of the fifteen thousand men Feng Hui brought this time, more than ten thousand were elite cavalry of sworn followers conscripted from the various peoples, along with a small number of militia archers.

Among the remaining several thousand were the twelve hundred men of the Silver Lance Effective Guard under Feng Hui's command, and one thousand rotating palace guards who had originally protected the Yongxun Palace and Yongshou Palace in Liangzhou.

These twenty-two hundred men were all elite troops, six in ten of them armored in iron.

The moment they arrived, the forces under Cao Yuanzhong's command immediately became abundant, swelling from over nine thousand to twenty-four thousand, with more than four thousand elite armored soldiers — more than enough to deal with the Shu army.

At this time, the Shu army was still building a stockade fort every one or two li along the Ziwu Valley, using this clumsy method to ensure the main army's movements went unhindered.

Zhang Qianzhao had also released the two thousand cavalry he had painstakingly trained, using them to provide a degree of screening.

And Sun Hanshao of Fengxiang Prefecture also led troops toward Mei County to support Zhang Qianzhao.

If the Qin army was known for enduring bitter combat, then the Shu army's greatest strength was enduring bitter hardship — and they were outstandingly good at enduring.

If their marching and encampment conditions were imposed on Zhang Zhao's side, the troops under his command would probably have collapsed long ago and preferred to go out and fight to the death.

But the Shu army not only held on, they kept ceaselessly building stockade forts, working away almost like emotionless machines.

As soon as Feng Hui arrived, Cao Yuanzhong handed military authority over to Feng Hui and Liu Zaisheng.

That was just how he was. Unless Zhang Zhao explicitly ordered him to take command, he would absolutely never touch military authority if he could avoid it.

Because he had no need to touch it. Even if the Cao family did nothing at all now, they were still the most exalted noble house in the Great Zhou.

One had only to consider that of the four most favored women in Zhang Zhao's rear palace, three were of the Cao family's Yan generation.

What Cao Yuanzhong was considering now was not how to increase his power, but how to reduce it.

Otherwise, if some future descendant with an unclear head were cultivated, the Cao family would be in danger. The heights are cold indeed!

At the end of the twelfth month, Feng Hui, commanding the army between Niushou Mountain in Hu County, southwest of Chang'an, and the Black River at Zhouzhi, discovered the Shu army still ceaselessly engaged in earthworks.

Feng Hui first had men spread false reports that the Khitan had won a great victory over the Yong kingdom and had trapped Yong King Zhang Zhao in Shanzhou, and that all the Yong troops in Guanzhong were to march out of the passes to break the siege — all to lure Zhang Qianzhao into abandoning his stockade forts and attacking on his own initiative.

But a man like Zhang Qianzhao, a former elite of the Crow Army who had fought under Li Keyong, was not so easily fooled!

In previous months it had been hard to receive even a scrap of news, and now suddenly such clear reports appeared on a large scale, reports so favorable to the Shu army — what did that mean?

It meant this was surely false news!

Zhang Qianzhao was scared out of his wits, and he could almost be certain that in the great battle between Yong and Liao, the Khitan must have lost.

He would never dare attack on his own initiative. Instead, he placed a blocking detachment on Niushou Mountain, then led his main force across the Black River and westward, and sent messengers ordering Sun Hanshao to hold Mei County tightly and not to rashly come forward.

Seeing that Zhang Qianzhao would not take the bait, Feng Hui divided his forces with Liu Zaisheng and advanced.

Liu Zaisheng led four thousand light cavalry around Niushou Mountain to harry Zhang Qianzhao's main force, which had already crossed the Black River.

Feng Hui himself personally commanded fifteen thousand infantry and cavalry in besieging the six thousand Shu troops on Niushou Mountain.

However, Feng Hui, who had just returned to the Central Plains and was eager to win merit because he had missed the great battle of Luoyang between Yong and Liao, immediately ran into a snag.

These six thousand Shu troops were the Zhaowu Army of Meng Shu — elite Shu soldiers — and their commander, Gao Yanchou, the Zhaowu Cavalry and Infantry Commander of Meng Shu, was also quite capable.

On Niushou Mountain, the Shu troops cut timber into chevaux-de-frise and planted bamboo palisades as wooden barricades, holding the high ground and greeting the Zhou troops with crossbows and stones.

The Zhou troops wore heavy armor and found the uphill assault exhausting, while the Shu troops were themselves skilled at mountain warfare, leaping through the heights as if flying and attacking the Zhou troops from every direction.

Feng Hui fought three engagements without success and realized his calculations had been wrong.

He stopped pressing the attack and immediately ordered his deputy Wu Jixing to take three thousand cavalry and keep watch on the Shu troops on Niushou Mountain, while he led the main force to link up with Liu Zaisheng.

Three days later, Feng Hui personally led ten thousand infantry and cavalry to the northeast of Zhouzhi county town, on the west bank of the Black River, and caught up with the Shu army as it sought to retreat toward Fengxiang Prefecture.

Although Zhouzhi County had more mountains than plains, Liu Zaisheng had blocked Zhang Qianzhao's route into the southern Qinling ridge ahead of time, forcing Zhang Qianzhao to risk passing through the Wei River plain to the north to reach Fengxiang Prefecture — and as a result he was caught squarely by Feng Hui.

Feng Hui and Liu Zaisheng closed in from north and south, and Zhang Qianzhao could only have his Shu army, composed mostly of infantry, form ranks on the plain to meet the cavalry assault.

Once the fighting moved to the plains, where they excelled, the Zhou troops immediately performed to their proper standard.

Feng Hui first tried a probing charge, but the Shu army's formation was strict and orderly, with crossbows in abundance, and showed no opening.

Feng Hui immediately ordered his elite cavalry to form roving patrols, operating in units of several dozen riders, cutting off the Shu army's routes to water and constantly harassing and intimidating them so that the formed-up Shu troops could not rest.

Zhang Qianzhao also wanted to let his soldiers rest in rotation, but whenever the Shu army tried to rotate, Feng Hui ordered the heavy infantry, led by the Silver Lance Effective Guard, to advance in linked formations, forcing Zhang Qianzhao to have his soldiers don their armor again.

After this was repeated several times, the entire Shu army, from top to bottom, was utterly exhausted.

This feeling of whether to fight or not being entirely in someone else's hands not only drained them physically, but also took an enormous toll on their spirits.

Dragged on into the second day, the Shu army could hold out no longer, and despite being infantry, they actually advanced of their own accord to seek battle.

Feng Hui narrowed his eyes and, chuckling like an old hunter, said to Liu Zaisheng, who had come over.

"Young lord ambassador, the Shu army can still hold formation, and their advance and retreat still show discipline. We must not fight yet. We should let them stew a while longer."

Liu Zaisheng of course also knew deeply where the weakness of this nearly all-infantry Shu army lay. He raised his hand and pointed toward the direction of Zhang Qianzhao's central army banner.

"It is exactly as Lord Feng says. The Shu troops are tenacious, and we must indeed let them stew longer. The only thing to worry about is Zhang Qianzhao's two thousand cavalry.

Though they cannot compare to our Great Zhou iron cavalry, we must still guard against them screening the main army, or even suddenly charging out."

Feng Hui laughed heartily and said to Liu Zaisheng, "The young lord ambassador is judging others by himself. Two thousand cavalry means nothing in our Great Zhou; they are often used for dirty and exhausting work.

But in Meng Shu, cavalrymen are men above men. Getting them to cover infantry is nearly impossible.

And a man like Zhang Qianzhao knows well the dangers of the battlefield. By now he is probably already plotting how to escape.

Those two thousand cavalry are his capital for saving his own life. He will never use them at a time like this."

Liu Zaisheng was stunned for a long moment. In his mind, he had never once considered that a commander would hold back his elite cavalry to use for running away.

Not quite knowing what to say, he shook his head, and in accordance with Feng Hui's orders, led his troops away to avoid battle.

Among the Shu army, the moment Zhang Qianzhao saw the Zhou army begin to withdraw, he knew serious trouble was coming.

He was up against a seasoned veteran of the battlefield; the other side had simply been waiting for his army to reach the point where it could no longer hold.

Sure enough, by the third day, the twenty-three or twenty-four thousand Shu soldiers had stood in full armor with spears in the open field for three days of punishment duty. Exhausted and parched, their physical and psychological burdens had essentially reached the limit, and they could no longer advance in formation as strictly required by their commander.

Feng Hui therefore immediately notified Liu Zaisheng to strike, and the Zhou army launched a fierce assault on the Shu army from both north and south.

Heavy infantry such as the Silver Spear Xiaojie Command came from the front, while cavalry threaded through both flanks.

Feng Hui's eighteen-year-old son Feng Jiye led from the front, at the head of three hundred armored soldiers as they crashed into the great Shu formation.

The Shu army's bamboo crossbows could not penetrate the Zhou army's lamellar armor and padded cotton armor, and the small number of Fuyuan crossbows and the like could not inflict mass casualties.

The two sides had not even been engaged for a full two-hour period before the more than twenty thousand Shu troops were directly shattered by a Zhou army only half their number.

Zhang Qianzhao also did exactly as Feng Hui had predicted: he did not lead his cavalry in a counterattack or cover the infantry. Instead, before the infantry collapsed, he personally led his cavalry in a breakout and fled.

Liu Zaisheng naturally would not let him escape. Together with Feng Hui's son Feng Jiye, he assembled six thousand cavalry and pursued relentlessly.

Zhang Qianzhao fled with his head down, and by the time he reached Wuzhang Plain in Mei County, he had only a little over six hundred riders left.

But at this moment, Sun Hanshao, who had raised a great army from Fengxiang Prefecture and come to the rescue, also personally arrived with nine thousand elite troops.

Sun Hanshao was likewise of Daibei military-merit stock. His father, Li Cunjin, had been one of Li Keyong's Thirteen Grand Guardians in former days.

It was only after the death of Emperor Zhuangzong, Li Cunxu, that he reverted to his original surname at the hint of Emperor Mingzong, Li Siyuan.

Sun Hanshao had grown up in the army from childhood and had spent decades in the saddle. In Meng Shu, when at court he controlled the imperial guard, and when in the field he controlled military provinces. His ten thousand Shu troops were in fact the imperial guards allocated by Meng Chang.

After these ten thousand Shu troops entered Fengxiang Prefecture, their orders were strict and they committed no offense against the people. They were an army that at this time could rarely be called benevolent and righteous.

Liu Zaisheng looked from afar: below Wuzhang Plain, banners and pennons fluttered, gongs and drums sounded in waves, and the Shu army advanced and retreated with discipline, arrayed with its back against the tableland. He knew at once that a charge would not break them.

Moreover, they had pursued madly for eighty or ninety li, and men and horses were already exhausted. Forcing an attack would very likely cost them dearly, so they simply had the entire army rest and wait for Feng Hui's reinforcements.

Sun Hanshao likewise saw that the Zhou army's iron cavalry had many tall, large horses and grim, killing-steel armor, and did not dare rashly lead his troops forward.

After the two sides had faced off for half a day, the Shu army withdrew under cover of night from Wuzhang Plain back to the Baoxie Road and returned to Shu.

Seeing the Shu army retreat, Liu Zaisheng left two hundred riders to watch the Baoxie Road and prevent the Shu army from returning, then led his troops with Feng Jiye to recover the prefectures and counties of Fengxiang Prefecture, large and small, clearing out the scattered Shu remnants in Fengxiang Prefecture who had not had time to withdraw.

After this was done, Liu Zaisheng held Fengxiang Prefecture himself and ordered Feng Jiye to lead three thousand riders northwest to Qinzhou to support Yin Yaozi.

Yin Yaozi himself was the foremost general in the Zhou realm famed for skill in defense.

From the time Zhang Zhao had gone west to Khotan, Yin Yaozi had continuously borne the heavy responsibility of guarding a region.

And Qinzhou had also undergone more than six years of governance by Yan Jin, and had been run so tightly that not even wind could leak through.

Before Meng Shu's An Siqian arrived before Qinzhou with fifteen thousand troops under his command, Liu Zaisheng had long since pulled his forces back, and the common people had also been relocated.

An Siqian ran into walls everywhere. He besieged Qinzhou on and off for two months and gained nothing, and had long since been unable to hold on.

Therefore, the moment Feng Jiye's three thousand cavalry arrived, An Siqian thought the main Zhou army had come, and began retreating in panicked disorder.

As a result, Yin Yaozi, who had been bottled up in the city for months, immediately sent out the Xiongwu Garrison cavalry in pursuit. Caught between the two forces, An Siqian's troops — inferior to Sun Hanshao's in both soldier quality and commander ability — threw away armor and weapons, and corpses lay strewn for several li. Barely over a thousand men escaped back to Shu by small paths over the mountains, and even An Siqian himself was captured alive by Feng Jiye.

At the same time An Siqian's entire force was annihilated, Feng Hui's mopping-up campaign also basically came to an end.

Of the twenty-four thousand elite Shu troops led by Zhang Qianzhao, more than three thousand were killed in battle, over ten thousand were captured, and apart from the several hundred cavalry who escaped with Zhang Qianzhao, the force was almost entirely wiped out.

The next day, Feng Hui sent men bearing Zhang Qianzhao's great banner and gate flags to the foot of Niushou Mountain to summon the Shu troops on the mountain to surrender.

Gao Yanchu, the Zhaowu Army infantry and cavalry commander, had originally intended to kill himself, but was dissuaded by his attendants. After Feng Hui promised not to kill a single man, the six thousand Shu troops came down the mountain and surrendered.

From this point on, of the three armies Meng Chang had ordered to attack Guanzhong — a total of more than fifty-six thousand troops sent out — apart from Sun Hanshao, who had taken Fengxiang Prefecture and withdrawn intact, the other two routes were essentially annihilated. More than forty thousand soldiers were lost, and Shu's elite troops were almost entirely spent.

When Meng Chang in Jinguan City heard this news, it was as if a basin of cold water had been poured over him from head to foot in midwinter.

On one hand he conscripted troops on a massive scale throughout the entire Shu kingdom, and on the other he transferred the forces in eastern Sichuan to the Hanzhong and Lizhou (Guangyuan) area. All his soaring ambitions dissolved into smoke in an instant.

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