Chapter 575: Standing Atop the First Peak of Wu Mountain

Guo Tingwei soon realized that his strategy of abandoning the outer city and defending only the inner city was also a failure.

Because after the Zhou army occupied the outer city, not only did they refrain from rape and pillage, they even distributed porridge and food. To the elderly over sixty and children under six, they also gave cloth and sugar.

What was even more infuriating was that all this grain, cloth, and sugar had been taken from Chuzhou's official granaries.

At the thought of this, Guo Tingwei ground his teeth in hatred. He was not foolish enough to leave supplies for the Zhou army, and had specifically assigned men to burn these supplies.

But those were mountains of cloth and silk, salt, sugar, tea, and grain. With the Chinese character of thrift, even setting fire to them—even merely giving the order—required tremendous courage.

As a result, after a moment's hesitation, the Zhou army's mounted scouts arrived. Such great warehouses could not all be placed inside the city; they were basically all outside the city at points convenient for water and land transport.

The Zhou sovereign gave the few petty clerks and soldiers guarding the warehouses several dozen bolts of cloth each, and bought them off. Far from setting fires, not only did they refuse to burn anything, they even helped the Zhou army take inventory.

With these benevolent acts, the people of Chuzhou immediately ceased opposing the Zhou army. Some even had relatives inside the inner city and went straight to the foot of the walls, calling on their kin not to resist, and even came out to surrender.

Guo Tingwei's vicious scheme had not the slightest effect; instead it made the people of Chuzhou begin to distrust him. What little official reputation he had from his tenure as Prefect of Chuzhou was utterly ruined in an instant.

And once the hearts of the Chuzhou people had been settled, Zhang Zhao immediately began the assault on the city. Although the inner city of Chuzhou was sturdy, it was too small, no more than two or three li east to west.

The great army first raised siege towers and used strong bows and heavy crossbows to suppress the wall tops.

The Zhou army had many men, and many crossbowmen as well, and soon shot the Southern Tang troops until they could not raise their heads.

Once they had been shot into not daring to leave the cover of the battlements and their large shields, the second tactic—swarming assault on the walls—began.

Zhang Zhao abandoned the northeast and south faces and attacked the west face fiercely, striking the defenders until they cried out in misery.

And even with Guo Tingwei pressed to this point, he did not dare withdraw the defenses from the other three sides.

Because he knew that the moment he pulled the defenses from the northeast and south faces, the picked warriors the Zhou state had prepared would certainly seize the opening and come up.

But Guo Tingwei did not know the full picture, because Zhang Zhao had not used his full strength. Had he truly used full strength, he would have attacked all four sides at once, assaulting continuously for days and nights without letting the defenders rest, and the city might well have fallen.

The reason Zhang Zhao was not attacking with full force now was that he was fishing—to see whether he could lure Shouzhou's Qinghuai Army or Luzhou's Baoxin Army over. Besieging a point to strike the relief force had always been Sage Zhang's favorite.

Sure enough, on the fourth day, the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army arrived, flying the great banner of the Qinghuai Army's Military Governor Liu, roughly ten thousand men in all.

It seemed they had set out long before, because Shouzhou was by no means close to Chuzhou—a full three hundred fifty li or so.

Only, the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army had arrived, but the Luzhou Baoxin Army, nearly a hundred li closer than they, had not.

Moreover, the Qinghuai Army's arrival was as good as no arrival at all. They marched to General Ridge, some fifty li north of Chuzhou, and then stopped, pitching camp directly at the foot of the mountain.

A mosquito, however small, is still meat. If the mountain will not come to me, I will go to the mountain.

Zhang Zhao immediately ordered Murong Xinzhang and Gao Huaide to lead ten thousand cavalry to attack.

The Southern Tang troops at General Ridge had never imagined that the Zhou state's iron cavalry would come straight for them, and so quickly. With no preparation at all, ten thousand men were routed.

But the terrain around General Ridge was complex, and most of the Southern Tang troops fled into the mountains.

Murong Xinzhang captured a great quantity of clothing, armor, banners, and drums, and only then learned that the force that had come was not the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army, but the Haozhou Dingyuan Army.

And according to a captured Chief Supervisor of the Haozhou Dingyuan Army, it was Liu Renzhan, Military Governor of the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army, who had ordered them to fly the Qinghuai Army's banners.

Zhang Zhao immediately summoned all his officers to deliberate, and the conclusion they reached was that the only chance for Liu Renzhan, Military Governor of the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army, was to personally lead his troops south to Luzhou, then combine the forces of the Qinghuai Army and the Baoxin Army, and lead warships out from Chao Lake, following the Ruxu River (the Yuxi River) into the Yangtze, and then intercept the Zhou army's river crossing.

However, Li Jinquan, who deeply understood the workings of the Southern Tang court, and Zhang Yanqing, Prefect of Chuzhou, disagreed with this view.

That old fellow Li Jinquan was a northerner to begin with, and had never opposed Zhang Zhao, so after being captured he quickly switched allegiance.

Besides, his flight south in former years had been out of necessity; he had never intended to serve the Southern Tang.

What sort of man was he? He was a muddle-headed fool who fought bravely in his youth and was cunning in petty ways, but had no great wisdom, and made a complete mess of governing any territory.

If Zhang Zhao were to promote Dhondup and set him up as a military governor holding a region, he would be roughly like Li Jinquan—except that Dhondup's fighting strength was a bit higher than Li Jinquan's.

But although Zhang Zhao scorned him for lacking great wisdom, he was still very knowledgeable about the Southern Tang court. The old fellow chuckled and said to Zhang Zhao:

"The Sage is imagining the Southern Wu state to be the Great Zhou. This Liu Renzhan may have long-standing renown, but he cannot simply integrate the Luzhou Baoxin Army as he pleases!

He is not the ruler of Southern Wu. Why should the Baoxin Army, high and low, obey him and come out of Chao Lake to fight a great battle with us?

Besides, if Southern Wu had that kind of capacity for action, how could the Sage's great army have broken through the Eastern Capital so easily, and even reached Chuzhou?"

Eh! That did seem to make sense. Zhang Zhao nodded abruptly. If the Southern Tang's mobilization and capacity for action could reach the level he had imagined, could he, Zhang Zhao, still have beaten the Southern Tang like a suckling pig so easily?

At this thought, Sage Zhang's expression changed, and he shouted to Zhang Liecheng: "Put that Chief Supervisor of the Haozhou Dingyuan Army to severe torture. This man certainly did not tell the truth."

Zhang Liecheng went down at once and personally loosened the bones of this Chief Supervisor, and thus the true situation came out.

It turned out that Liu Renzhan had long ago sent a memorial to Jiangning, requesting to combine the Baoxin Army, the Dingyuan Army, and others, and come out of Chao Lake to resist the Zhou army.

But he had no backing in the Southern Tang court, and no one spoke for him.

In addition, the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army was originally a great garrison, with a troop quota of over twenty thousand. If the Haozhou Dingyuan Army and the Luzhou Baoxin Army were added, plus the Chao Lake fleet, it would immediately be a force of fifty thousand.

This Liu Renzhan had long-standing prestige, and if he held fifty thousand troops in his hand, what if he defected to Zhang Zhao or developed some small ideas of his own? That would be trouble. Therefore Li Jing simply did not dare grant him such power.

Liu Renzhan had no choice. When the Haozhou Dingyuan Army moved south to reinforce according to military orders, he could only slip his trusted men into the Dingyuan Army to mislead Zhang Zhao.

He himself led his troops a hundred li behind the Dingyuan Army, advancing slowly. If Zhang Zhao truly was besieging a point to strike the relief force, he would hold his troops still; if the numbers were not great, he would come to lift the siege of Chuzhou.

As for commanding the Baoxin Army out of Chao Lake, that was merely what he wanted—and led—Zhang Zhao to believe. It was never anything more than a phantom.

"The old thief is so cunning—detestable!" Murong Xinzhang cursed, his face clouded with gloom.

If he had searched another twenty or thirty li, he would certainly have discovered the Qinghuai Army, and then he could have wiped them all out at once. How fine that would have been!

A ruthless man! This was also Zhang Zhao's assessment of Liu Renzhan—full of schemes, and yet so cautious. When it came to defending a city, he was absolutely a master. No wonder in history he had ground Guo Rong down so badly.

"In that case, we cannot wait any longer. Speed is the essence of war. Take Hezhou immediately, and cross the river!" Zhang Zhao waved his hand and issued the order.

Although Liu Renzhan had not accomplished what he wanted, he was indeed a threat.

If Li Jing, in desperation, granted Liu Renzhan full authority, with the Qinghuai Army plus the Baoxin Army plus the Chao Lake fleet, Zhang Zhao would truly feel somewhat uneasy.

That day, Zhang Zhao ordered the banners, clothing, and armor of the Shouzhou Qinghuai Army and the Haozhou Dingyuan Army to be thrown beneath the inner city walls of Chuzhou. The defenders inside, believing the Qinghuai Army and Dingyuan Army had been utterly annihilated, immediately lost heart.

The Zhou army's elite troops came out in full force and assaulted the west face fiercely. Guo Tingwei could not hold, and could only draw men from the other three sides.

Zhang Zhao immediately ordered Man Xiong, Dhondup, Wang Tongxin, and Qiong Re Duojin, wearing three layers of armor, to lead the Hanshan Unit as the first-wave assault troops, attacking the northeast and south faces respectively.

The Southern Tang defenders could no longer hold. Man Xiong was the first to mount the wall top, and the morale of all Chuzhou, high and low, collapsed.

Guo Tingwei and his cousin Guo Tingzan, along with six hundred others, were captured. The Registrar Li Yanzou committed suicide for his country.

Zhang Zhao left Ma Shacai with three thousand troops to hold Chuzhou, while the main force of over thirty thousand marched without pause straight for Hezhou.

Before setting out, Zhang Zhao had released the detained Chuzhou messengers, so now they could carry the intelligence to Jiangning.

Two days later, the army reached the north of Hezhou. Zhang Zhao made camp at the foot of Jilong Mountain, intending to take Hezhou city first, then cross the river.

Hezhou is the later Anhui Ma'anshan He County, directly opposite the Ma'anshan urban district, and Caishi Jetty lies just outside Ma'anshan city.

Having come to Hezhou and Caishi Jetty, Sage Zhang rode up Jilong Mountain to survey the terrain, and immediately thought of Zhao Liang and Wanyan Gou — those two blood brothers born of different fathers and different mothers.

Those two curs were truly a match for each other, like Yu and Liang of old!

The elder brother Zhao Gou, called Wanyan Gou and also known as Ninth Sister, was cowardly beyond all measure. Never mind men or women — no human being was ever so dog-cowardly and shameless as he.

And the younger brother Wanyan Liang was a heavyweight too — wild beyond all bounds yet utterly incapable of managing his subordinates, practically a miniature Gao Yang.

At this thought, I, Sage Zhang, felt poetry surge forth, and I opened my mouth to recite: "Ten thousand li of books and chariots, all unified..."

Uh! No sooner had the words left his mouth than Zhang Zhao shut up at once. Ptui, ptui, ptui! Far too inauspicious.

But while he considered it inauspicious, those around him thought otherwise. Li Fang's eyes gleamed, and the Qionglin Academy scholars who served as Zhang Zhao's senior secretaries all chimed in with praise.

"We have long heard that the Sage excels at poetry, with the manner of the High Tang. Today we are fortunate — this should be carved in stone and recorded!"

This... Seeing everyone around him so enthusiastic, and with the poem truly on his lips, Zhang Zhao could not hold it in. He pondered for a moment.

"Ten thousand li of books and chariots, all unified — how could Jiangnan have a separate fief? I raise a million troops on West Lake, and rein my horse atop the first peak of Wu Mountain!"

"Excellent! A fine poem!" The flattery of the civil and military officials thundered forth. Even Dunzhu, a fellow who could not recognize a single character, bellowed "Fine poem!" Zhang Zhao gave him a speechless glance, but Dunzhu showed not the slightest embarrassment.

Still, it had to be said — whatever else one might say of Wanyan Liang, he truly had great skill in poetry. This piece, "Reining My Horse Atop the First Peak of Wu Mountain," genuinely possessed the grandeur of all under heaven as one family, with none above me.

The poem had just left his lips, the praise had not yet faded, when a messenger came up the mountain bearing good news.

It turned out Li Cunhui, leading three thousand cavalry as the vanguard, had no sooner reached Hezhou than he found all four gates wide open. Before the main army even arrived, the Southern Tang Prefect of Hezhou and his officials had long since abandoned the city and fled — even the common folk had mostly run off.

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