Chapter 545: How Did They Send a Pig to Xuzhou?

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At Xuzhou, atop the south gate, Hu Cile watched the Southern Tang soldiers who had come with the great ships stream endlessly into the city. They seemed boundless, yet Hu Cile still thought them not enough.

He turned to his nephew Hu Tai beside him and asked in a low voice, "Who commands this force? How many of the imperial guards have been mobilized?"

Since pledging himself to the Southern Tang, Hu Tai had grown even stouter, transforming from a once-valiant cavalry officer into an infantry Commander of the Wuning Army. He watched Hu Cile with a pleased expression and answered.

"The commander this time is the Great Tang's famed general Liu Gong Yanzhen. The Sage has appointed Lord Liu as Chief Deployer of the Northern Front, leading the Shenwu, Longwu, Xiongwu, Yaowu, Shenwei, and Weiwei imperial guard armies, plus thirty thousand troops from the various garrisons, northward. Boats and ships link stern to prow, blotting out the sky and sun."

Hu Cile heard this, raised his head to the heavens and sighed long, then looked coldly at Hu Tai. "The memorial I sent to the Sage — did you present it or not?

Others may not know, but do you not know the might of our Hexi iron cavalry? A mere thirty thousand southern imperial troops — what do they have to resist the iron cavalry of the Zhou?"

Under Hu Cile's hard stare, Hu Tai rubbed his hands uneasily. "I heard the eldest young lord say that Liu Yanzhen is a peerless famous general of the Great Tang.

The imperial guards have just put down Wang Min, and they are brave and battle-hardened. Thirty thousand men, plus the crisscrossing river networks and the advantage of boats and naval forces, plus us and Du Chongwei's troops — attacking the Central Plains would not be easy, but holding the north of the Huai would not be hard."

Hu Cile's gaze grew even colder. He was not listening to Hu Tai at all, but pressed on, "The memorial I sent to the Sage — did you present it or not."

Hu Tai heard this and also sighed long. He gritted his teeth and said, "No! How would I dare present it? The previous times Uncle sent memorials saying that ten thousand of the Sage's imperial guards could not match three thousand of the Zhou troops, he already deeply offended the Sage, and Feng Yanji and the rest slandered him all the more.

Had the eldest young lord not interceded, the Sage would long since have punished us. Does Uncle think every ruler under heaven can be as open-minded as the Great King, willing to hear unpleasant counsel?"

Who the Great King in Hu Tai's mouth was, Hu Cile of course knew. At that moment he only felt a stifling oppression in his chest. He wanted to slap Hu Tai, but felt as if all the strength had left his body. After a long, sullen silence, he could only curse bitterly.

"If Erlang were here, he would surely know the peril of this battle!

Since the Great King raised his army, he has won every battle. Yan Jin, Bai Congxin, Ma Yaozi, Ma Shacai — which of them is not more capable than us?

I have long said that to take the lands north of the Huai, the only way is to send forth the entire nation's troops, and to ally with Meng Shu, Nanping, and Liu Zhiyuan of Taiyuan to attack together.

Now they send a windbag like Liu Yanzhen, with no more than thirty or fifty thousand troops, and they rely on a man like Du Chongwei. With this, they still want the lands north of the Huai — I fear they will not even be able to hold the lands south of the Huai."

Hu Cile did have some ability. He had keenly perceived that this was in fact the Southern Tang's only chance to turn things around.

Before Zhang Zhao's great battle with Yelu Deguang, the Southern Tang held only the prefectures of Chu, Si, Hao, and Shou south of the Huai. It is said that to hold the Yangtze one must hold the Huai, but the Huai too is divided into north and south.

Holding only the south of the Huai was in effect just having one more shield, still without strategic initiative, without a spear thrust out to stab the enemy. The shield being battered to pieces was only a matter of time.

Only with the north of the Huai would they have a spear capable of striking out. Now Zhang Zhao held only the line of the Yellow River, with no one around him yet subdued, and there were men like Du Chongwei who had been forced into cooperating with the Southern Tang.

If they could seize this chance to take Songzhou, Bozhou, Yingzhou, Suzhou, and the other prefectures and counties north of the Huai, and strike with the two fists of Songzhou and Xuzhou, only then could they overturn the Southern Tang's congenital disadvantage of only being able to defend the Huai and never advance north.

But this strategic goal would not be easy to achieve, because Hu Cile knew Zhang Zhao's ability all too well.

He felt that only if the Southern Tang committed the entire nation's troops, exploiting the chance that Zhang Zhao's energy was tied down by Meng Shu, Nanping, and Liu Zhiyuan, might it succeed.

His memorial addressed exactly this matter, asking Li Jing not to treat aiding Du Chongwei as a mere military adventure, but to adopt the posture of staking the whole nation's strength on a decisive battle. In the end, this memorial was simply never presented by Hu Tai and Hu Wei.

And the general sent — even if not a tiger general like Liu Renzhan, he should at least have been a fierce hound like Zhu Kuangye, Huangfu Hui, Guo Tingwei, or Li Quanjin! Instead they sent a pig like Liu Yanzhen.

Sent for what? To be killed and eaten by the Zhou army?

As for Hu Cile's deep anxiety, Li Jing, by contrast, felt no danger at all. Communication was slow at this time, and Zhang Zhao was not of Daibei warrior stock, and had never made a name for himself in the Central Plains.

Even now, there were people in the Southern Tang court who believed Zhang Zhao was of Tibetan origin, a remnant of the Tibetans, and so it was widely believed in the Southern Tang that the people of the Central Plains were resisting Zhang Zhou just as they had resisted the Khitan.

Even Meng Shu's crushing defeat in Guanzhong had still not reached the Southern Tang with concrete intelligence by this point. They thought the Shu troops were still fighting the Zhou army around Qinzhou and Fengxiang.

What can be said of Li Jing as a man? He counts as a slightly below-average ruler. He liked hearing pleasant words, loved luxury, and had no shortage of flaws, but he was not excessively muddled or cruel.

In a flourishing great dynasty, he could barely have managed to be an emperor like Emperor Cheng of Han.

But in this chaotic age, making him contend against a strengthened version of Emperor Shizong of Zhou like Zhang Zhao was indeed asking a bit much of him.

On the tenth day of the second month of the first year of Shaoming, just as the Southern Tang army was arriving at Xuzhou, Zhang Zhao was also offering sacrifice to Heaven and swearing the oath of war at the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture.

He appointed Zhang Xichong as Left Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs, Chief Minister, and left him to guard the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture.

Yan Jin was made Defense Commissioner and Chief Deployer of the Northern Front, leading the Hanhai and Xiongwu garrisons and part of the Left Shenwu Army formed from the former Later Jin imperial guards, stationed at Chanzhou by the Yellow River to defend against Liu Zhiyuan.

Then he assigned An Shenqi a battalion from the Fengan garrison, plus more than a thousand men under Wu Xingde, formerly Chief Supervisor of the Fengguo Army of the Later Jin.

An Shenqi was made Military Governor of Ziqing-Pinglu, sent to garrison Qingzhou, and Wu Xingde was made Prefect of Mizhou, to stabilize the eastern part of Henan Circuit — that is, the later Jiaodong Peninsula.

Zhang Zhao then ordered Zhao Cunyi, General of the Left Jinwu Guard, to lead three thousand of the personal army to hold the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture.

He himself mustered the Left and Right Yulin Guards, the Left and Right Longxiang Guards, the Right Jinwu Guard, and the Shenji Battalion, plus five garrisons of the imperial guards including Wuwei and Yingyang, and the Right Shenwu Army — thirty-five thousand troops in all — and marched straight for Songzhou.

Among them, Murong Xinzhang and Hu Guang served as vanguard commander and deputy, leading ten thousand men ahead.

Zhang Zhao himself led twenty thousand as the main army, while the rear army and the civilian laborers accompanying the army were placed under the overall management of Shanzhu'er Luo Shande.

Events proved that Du Chongwei and Yang Yan — that is, Yelu Dilu — and their so-called cutting off of the Bian River was nothing but wasted effort.

Because Songzhou lies in the Yellow River alluvial plain, flat as far as the eye can see, with the only hills near Yongcheng, close to Xuzhou.

Their cutting of the Bian River — where would they get great boulders? It was nothing more than digging a few breaches in the Bian River west of Songzhou, slightly hindering the Zhou army's use of the river to transport grain and supplies.

Yelu Dilu sent over three hundred cavalry, and Du Chongwei also conscripted several hundred Guide Army soldiers to garrison at Xiangyi (Suixian), northwest of Songzhou, intending to obstruct the Zhou army's repair of the Bian River.

Murong Xinzhang sent Gao Huaide, leading Han Tong and other officers, to attack. The Khitans and Guide Army soldiers broke at first contact and quickly fled back into Songzhou city.

Murong Xinzhang seized the chance to camp northeast of Songzhou. Du Chongwei and Yelu Dilu had combined forces of about ten thousand, outnumbering Murong Xinzhang, who needed to find laborers to repair the Bian River, yet they did not dare come out of the city to fight. All they could do was send one plea for help after another to Xuzhou.

In Xuzhou, through a period of observation and contact, Hu Cile had basically determined that Liu Yanzhen was nothing but an unlearned and incompetent second-generation military man.

And what was especially terrifying was this: some second-generation military men know they have no real ability, and their boasting is merely gilding their own faces, but they would never rashly lead a great army on campaign and court death.

But Liu Yanzhen was not like that. Others thought he was fond of boasting, but he himself believed it was not boasting — that he, Liu Yanzhen, truly had ability.

This was what made it so terrifying. Boasting is harmless enough, but when a man boasts until he believes it himself, and treats the lives of tens of thousands of elite troops and a war for the nation as a game, then all is lost.

And if the commander-in-chief is a fool, but has capable men under him to assist, perhaps it could still be salvaged.

But after Hu Cile's contact with them, his heart went cold.

The deputy commanders and chief supervisors of the imperial guards under Liu Yanzhen — men like Wu Yanhui, Zhang Yanhan, and Cheng Shilang — were either windbags or men with only personal valor, utterly ignorant of military strategy.

Only Zhang Quanyue, who held the title of Prefect of Chizhou while leading a detached force of the Xuanzhou Ningguo Army, could be counted as having both courage and strategy, but his ability was only on par with Hu Tai before he grew fat — far from being called a famous general.

Du Chongwei's pleas for help came one after another, and Hu Cile could not possibly suppress them all.

At this time Liu Yanzhen was Chief Deployer of the Northern Front, and even though Hu Cile was the Defender of the Northern Capital, he still had to obey Liu Yanzhen.

The moment Liu Yanzhen saw how urgent Du Chongwei's plea for help was, he immediately summoned Hu Cile to consult him.

This Liu Yanzhen's father, Liu Xin, had originally been a bandit leader north of the Huai, and later followed the Southern Tang's Liezu, Li Bian. The man had some ability, but he was fond of boasting.

In years past, after Emperor Zhuangzong of Tang destroyed the Later Liang and unified the Central Plains, he sent the Remonstrance Grand Master Xue Zhaowen as an envoy to the Min kingdom. Passing through Liu Xin's jurisdiction, Liu Xin asked Xue Zhaowen whether Emperor Zhuangzong had ever heard of his reputation.

Xue Zhaowen thought to himself, what backwater are you from, that you deserve to be known by Li Yazi, whose fame fills the world? So he answered truthfully: no.

In the end, Liu Xin actually declared without a shred of shame: "The Han had Han Xin, the Tang has Liu Xin — both are men of the first rank!"

This fellow Liu Yanzhen perfectly inherited his father Liu Xin's trait of not knowing the height of heaven or the depth of earth.

And while Liu Xin was fond of boasting, he at least had some ability. But Liu Yanzhen — he had no ability whatsoever.

Holding Du Chongwei's letter requesting aid, he narrowed his eyes and, putting on airs, asked Hu Cile.

"Lord Du says the Zhou army has reached the outskirts of Songzhou. Though their force is large, they have been repeatedly humbled by the Khitan cavalry, their morale is low, and the weather has suddenly turned cold. He asks me to send troops, so that attacking from within and without we may surely crush the Zhou army. What does the Defender think?"

Hu Cile laughed coldly. "If the Khitan cavalry could humble the Zhou army's iron horsemen, how is it that even the Khitan ruler Yaogu was struck down by the Zhou army?

Since the weather has turned cold, and even the Zhou's northern troops cannot endure the chill, how are we southern troops supposed to keep out the cold?"

With that single remark, Liu Yanzhen was left speechless. Zhang Quanyue, the Prefect of Chizhou, also stepped forward to advise him.

"Du Chongwei is a fickle, petty man — he must be guarded against. Songzhou is a strong city, and the Zhou army certainly cannot take it in a day or two.

I ask the Chief Commander to send out more scouting troops to gather information before making a decision."

Liu Yanzhen pondered for a moment. Although he very much wanted to throw himself at the enemy now and use his unfathomable abilities to rout the Zhou army in one stroke,

what Hu Cile and Zhang Quanyue said was too reasonable for him to refute, so he could only nod in agreement.

That night, Hu Cile returned home and summoned his old wife and eldest daughter-in-law before him. "Pack your things quickly and take shelter at the estate on Dinggong Mountain."

Hu Cile's old wife, also a Tatar of the tribe, and the eldest daughter-in-law — a Khotanese woman whom his eldest son Hu Wei had divorced — were both shocked.

"The court's great army has only just arrived — has the situation already deteriorated to this extent?"

Hu Cile's face darkened. Only after a long while did he speak. "I once thought that the rulers of the realm, even if not heaven-sent sovereigns like the Great King, would at least be as discerning as the Great Sage Son of Heaven, or at the very least have the ability of Shi Jingtang. I never expected that most would be muddle-headed mediocrities like Shi Chonggui.

A muddle-headed lord employs mediocre generals. That Chief Commander Liu Yanzhen compares himself to Bai Qi and Han Xin, but in truth he has no ability at all.

And the Great King, when he leads troops, loves nothing more than besieging a point to strike the relief force, and luring the enemy in deep. It was so beneath the walls of Suyab, and so by the banks of the Yaxartes. This time, having surrounded Songzhou, he certainly will not be in a hurry to attack — rather, he means to devour these tens of thousands of elite troops of the Tang state.

I fear I shall die without a burial place. But Erlang is at the Great King's side, and he will surely be able to protect you."

His old wife burst into tears at this. Grasping the hands of the daughter-in-law who had already been divorced, she turned on Hu Cile and cursed him furiously.

"In the old days I warned you, but you were bewitched by those vixens and refused to listen, saying it was all for my future wealth and honor.

Don't you know that without the Great King, you and I would be nothing but herding slaves in Anxi? I will not go. I will stay in this city and await the Great King's judgment!"

For the first time, Hu Cile did not find his old wife's cursing irritating. He fell silent again for a long while before finally forcing out a sentence.

"It is too late for regret now — what use is there in saying these things? If you will not go, then we shall leave it to fate!"