Chapter 609: When Something Is Out of the Ordinary, There Is Always a Demon Behind It

Li Rong — historically, he would change his name to Li Yun to avoid the taboo on Guo Rong's name.

What is somewhat uncanny is that historically, he and Guo Wei's nephew Li Chongjin were the two men who reacted most violently after Zhao Kuangyin usurped the throne.

Li Rong reacted even more fiercely than Li Chongjin — after Zhao Kuangyin sent envoys, he was the man who still dared to hang up Guo Wei's portrait and weep before it.

But this loyal servant of Guo Wei in history was at this moment surrounded by Guo Wei twenty li east of Hezhang.

Here there was a broad stretch of flat river-valley land, formed by the alluvial deposits of the Zhang River. Guo Wei had originally ordered several hundred Hedong troops to build a number of large stockades at the valley mouth, blocking the key route from the valley mouth to Hezhang.

Yan Jin had dispatched troops to attack several times, but because the terrain was too difficult and there was the risk of Guo Wei's reinforcements from Fuyang, he had never taken it.

But now the Zhang River had changed greatly, and Yan Jin did not dare be careless. Therefore, before Zhang Zhao's main army arrived, he had forcibly scraped together fifteen hundred men from his already thin garrison and given them to Li Rong, ordering him to attack the valley-mouth stockade and probe the enemy's strength.

Li Rong himself was a rare and fierce commander — he rode like the wind, could draw a one-dan-two strong bow, and his accuracy was superb.

This time his troops were sufficient, and he was further spurred on by the news that the Emperor was about to reach Yecheng, so he led his army in a desperate, all-out assault and finally took this important fortress at the valley mouth.

But immediately afterward, Li Rong's heart sank, because the captured fortress was completely clean — to say nothing of grain and fodder, there were not even many intact rooms.

This situation, so far beyond normal, made Li Rong feel that something was wrong. He wanted to withdraw and reconsider, but he could not bear to abandon the fortress he had just taken with such difficulty.

And it was precisely this slight hesitation — after that, even if he wanted to leave, he could no longer leave.

It turned out that after Guo Wei received ten thousand reinforcements from Guo Congyi, he had deliberately mixed Guo Congyi's ten thousand men together with the tens of thousands of civilian laborers transporting grain and fodder, having the laborers put on uniform jackets and a small amount of armor to impersonate the Fuyang garrison.

In secret, he ordered his nephew Li Chongjin to lead five thousand elite troops by a roundabout route to Hezhang, waiting for the Zhou army to take the bait.

Yan Jin, cautious as he was, could not possibly attend to everything.

After Li Rong's thousand-odd men took the valley-mouth fortress, their support was just a little slow. Shi Hongzhao at Hezhang led five thousand garrison troops down along the Zhang River from Hezhang, while Li Chongjin led five thousand elite troops over the ridges and struck from behind, trapping Li Rong's thousand-odd men inside the valley-mouth fortress.

Li Rong paced about the fortress in frantic circles. He looked at Zhang Quan, the Captain of the Wuwei Garrison beside him, and said:

"A true man dies when he must die. But the Hedong bandits have surrounded me on all sides and yet do not attack fiercely — it seems they intend to besiege us and strike at the relief force. If I bring disaster upon the main army, my crime would be great indeed."

Zhang Quan, the Captain of the Wuwei Garrison beside him, came from the Zhangjia tribe, one of the three eastern Shanzhou tribes of Shanzhou, and was among the earliest Shanzhou Tuyuhun to submit to Zhang Zhao.

Zhang Quan was of the same clan as Zhang Xibao, Commandant of the Left Yulin Guard, and both had once been trusted fierce warriors of Murong Xinzhang.

He belonged to the type whose background was so red it glowed purple, so although Li Rong was his superior, he still treated Zhang Quan with great respect.

After hearing Li Rong out, Zhang Quan was not as anxious. His mind was rather simple — he could not even recognize a hundred characters or all the signal flags, which was why he was still only a Captain in command of a hundred men.

"The Hedong bandits have many infantry inside the valley mouth and many mounted scouts outside it. It seems they are guarding against us breaking out, so besieging us to strike at the relief force is all but certain.

But outside the valley mouth the ground is flat as far as the eye can see, and our army has many Hexi cavalry. On what grounds do they intend to fight us in the open field, on ground that favors cavalry?

Why not hold this place firmly and wait for the Chief Commander to send cavalry to break the siege? Then we can ride out with the momentum — how could they stop us? Perhaps we can even rout these several thousand Hedong troops outside."

Li Rong nodded after hearing this. What Zhang Quan said did make sense.

The Hedong army originally had no shortage of cavalry either; since ancient times, the cavalry of Bingzhou had been the finest and sharpest under heaven.

But after Shi Jingtang ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun, and Liu Zhiyuan did not dare accept Wu Luan of the Datong Army and the others when they came south,

part of Bingzhou's elite cavalry followed Wu Luan to Xiazhou and went over to the Zhou state, while another part was recruited by the Khitan.

From then on, the Hedong army could only retain three or four thousand elite cavalry; most of the remaining light-armored and unarmored mounted scouts and horse archers had to be supplied by the Tuyuhun.

These Tuyuhun, though also quite fierce and brave, were far inferior to the Hexi cavalry.

In nearly a year of this standoff, every time the Hedong army took the field, it had to rely first on terrain and second on cautious coordination of infantry and cavalry.

As for wild, reckless battles of this sort, they had only fought a few times at the very beginning, and after suffering two heavy losses, they no longer dared to try it.

But even so, and even with the decision made, both men still felt some unease in their hearts — when something is out of the ordinary, there is always a demon behind it!

Zhang Zhaojun (Ma Shacai) was one of Zhang Zhao's original followers who had risen relatively quickly.

At the very beginning of the westward journey, even among those hundred-odd men, he had been utterly obscure.

When they attacked Yuni City, the brave commanders around Zhang Zhao were Yan Jin, Zhang Zhaozhong, Zhang Zhaojie, Zhang Zhaojiu, Ma Zhaoyuan, and the Fan Quan and Fan Shun brothers — Zhang Zhaojun did not even rank among them.

But by now, among the original-follower faction, apart from being inferior to men like Yan Jin and Yin Zhengqi, Zhang Zhaojun's ability to command troops and his standing had already risen above the Fan Quan and Fan Shun brothers.

His two thousand cavalry were all elite troops from Hexi. Although only half were cavalry of the Left Jinwu Guard and half were swift cavalry made up of the sons and younger brothers of the Left Jinwu Guard, their fighting strength was still formidable.

Because after Li Rong sent word that he had taken the valley-mouth fortress, no further news had come out, Zhang Zhaojun very cautiously divided his cavalry into a vanguard, a main force, and a rear guard.

The vanguard and rear guard were five hundred men each, and the main force in the center was one thousand. Each force was further divided into several small squads responsible for screening and scouting, and the three forces kept one or two li apart to guard against a sudden Hedong attack.

But although the formation was somewhat loose, the marching speed was not slow. Xue Tongyi had just delivered the intelligence to Zhang Zhao when Zhang Zhaojun's two thousand men reached the valley mouth.

Li Chongjin stared open-mouthed at the elite cavalry of the Zhou personal army advancing in the distance, his mouth and tongue going dry.

These Zhou cavalry had come far too fast, and their formation on the march was so orderly that he had no chance at all of ambushing or delaying them.

Bai Zairong beside him was also frowning, watching the Left Jinwu Guard cavalry with their great flying-eagle banners in the distance. He said to Li Chongjin:

"The Hexi bandits have come too fast. The Grand Commandant has made arrangements for a long time — if only two thousand cavalry come, the kill will be too small, and that would be regrettable!

Why not make a show of besieging the point and striking the relief force, to draw more Zhou troops and commanders here?"

Li Chongjin did hesitate for a moment, because these were the Zhou personal army! Never mind two thousand — if two hundred of them died in battle, the Son of Heaven of Zhou would be heartbroken and wiping away tears.

But as soon as Bai Zairong finished speaking, he went straight off with his trusted yabing guards to begin making arrangements.

Although Li Chongjin was the nominal commander, the old veterans below only gave him face because he was the Grand Commandant Guo's nephew and out of respect for the Grand Commandant — they would not actually obey his orders.

Li Chongjin had not made up his mind in the first place, and seeing that Bai Zairong had already gone down, he could only sullenly proceed according to Bai Zairong's proposal.

But whether it was an old campaigner like Bai Zairong or a young commander like Li Chongjin, who could no longer be called a novice, neither could compare with Zhang Zhaojun in experience or in the scenes they had witnessed.

In the fifteen years since he had followed Zhang Zhao far away to Anxi, Zhang Zhaojun had fought the desperate battle of a few hundred men at Yuni City, endured the one-against-ten struggle below Pulu Prefecture, climbed the high plateau to fight the Persians, and by the Jaxartes River had successively defeated the Persian brave Adular and the Karakhanid governor Yusup.

He had also triumphantly entered Bukhara, the famous city of Transoxiana, and had gone to the land of India to bully the weak, tasting the pleasure of a conqueror.

After returning, he had fought mutinous soldiers and Li Congyan, destroyed the Dingnan Army's Li family, taken part in the great battle that killed Yelu Deguang, and chased the Southern Tang army's rear all the way to water his horses in the Yangtze.

One could say that when it came to breadth of experience and richness of seasoning, no one in the Hedong army could compare with Zhang Zhaojun.

Therefore, with a single sweeping glance, he knew exactly what these Hedong troops were trying to do.

And moreover... Zhang Zhaojun reined in his horse on a high knoll and looked toward the valley mouth. The great Zhou-character banner symbolizing the Zhou state still flew over the valley-mouth fortress, and the Hedong troops at the valley mouth did not look as if they were blocking the valley mouth, but rather like a guard of honor welcoming their arrival.

What was even more sinister was the valley mouth itself. Zhang Zhaojun could not shake the feeling that something was hidden there, about to burst forth.

"That dog-fucked Guo Que'er — he wouldn't really be building a dam to block the Zhang River, would he?" Zhang Zhaojun rubbed his chin and muttered to himself.

Though he could not guess what Guo Wei was up to, he could still see the encirclement-and-relief ploy before his eyes, so he would never let Li Chongjin get what he wanted.

"Xue Guizhong, raise my Left Jinwu Guard banner on this hilltop, and raise two black triangular flags as well. Tell Li Rong our army has arrived. The rest of the men will rest in place."

The Left Jinwu Guard banner tells Li Rong that the Left Jinwu Guard has come. The two black triangular flags tell Li Rong that preparations for the relief are complete.

If they run into danger, they will raise a large red flag, and the Left Jinwu Guard will attack with full force to relieve them. Of course, if there is no danger, they should not go raising flags recklessly.

Zhang Zhao did not move, which left Li Chongjin and Bai Zairong awkwardly stuck again. Li Chongjin even turned his head to look back at the Zhou army banners raised over the valley-mouth stockade, and his face darkened.

"Inform Prefect Shi to attack the Zhou troops in the valley-mouth stockade with full force. I do not believe the Zhou troops across from us would dare watch them die without saving them!"

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