Chapter 611: How About We Fight the Khitan First?

The only reason Zhang Zhao had come to Yecheng in person, after already deciding to send He Fujin to assist Yan Jin in defending the city, was one thing.

That was that he had suddenly realized he had committed a major military taboo.

Zhang Zhao was currently sojourning in Xiangzhou, only fifty or sixty li from Yecheng to the north, which in effect had created two command systems for the Zhou army, with many overlapping areas.

For example, he had sent Huang Yingda to reinforce Zhang Zhaojun — that was a decision Zhang Zhao had made, but Yan Jin did not know about it.

If Huang Yingda arrived and Zhang Zhaojun had already been ordered by Yan Jin to retreat, then they would have sabotaged themselves.

So Zhang Zhao decided to come to Yecheng in person, to unify the command system first before making further plans, and he also needed to hear Yan Jin's opinion.

In late fourth month, Zhang Zhao personally led one thousand Hanshan Capital horse-and-foot soldiers to the Yecheng front, escorted by his six trusted claws: Zhang Zhaojiu (Dunzhu), Zhang Zhaojie (Qiongre Duojin), Zhang Zhaozhong (Manxiong), Fan Shun, Wang Tongxin, and Zhang Cheng.

At this time, of Zhang Zhou's more than eighty thousand main-force troops, forty thousand were in Xiangzhou and south of it, controlled separately by Fan Quan, who had hurried back from Xuzhou, Feng Hui, and Shanzhu'er Luo Shande.

Thirty thousand were at the Yecheng front, and more than ten thousand were deployed in the area from Weizhou to Bozhou.

The reason for this division was entirely a matter of logistics and supply capacity.

From the triple disasters of flood, drought, and locusts four years earlier, through the later Jin–Liao war and Yelu Deguang's entry into the Eastern Capital, the entire land of Hebei had been depopulated.

The three prefectures of Xiang, Wei, and Bo had only twenty thousand registered households, a little over a hundred thousand people, and simply could not supply a large army.

All grain, fodder, and baggage had to be shipped from Henan. If Zhang Zhao had brought the entire army to one place, along with the hundred thousand-plus civilian laborers for transport, logistics alone would have been catastrophic.

So Zhang Zhao at first had no choice but to place his command tent in Xiangzhou, with the various armies echeloned back toward the Yellow River, in order to reduce the logistical pressure.

In truth, warfare in ancient times was, to a very great extent, constrained by logistics.

In many ancient campaigns, what looked like a fierce concentrated strike by a great army ended up as dispersed converging attacks — a helpless choice forced by logistics and terrain.

Zhang Zhao arrived at Yecheng in secret, and as soon as he arrived he summoned all officers of the rank of Chief Supervisor and above to begin a council of war.

It was then that he also discovered that sending Huang Yingda to support Zhang Zhaojun (Ma Shacai) had already set off an undesirable chain reaction.

Seeing Yan Jin's somewhat hesitant expression, Zhang Zhao waved his hand with a chuckle.

"Say what you want to say. I am no immortal; naturally I cannot foresee everything. Just tell me what will happen if Huang Yingda goes to reinforce."

Zhang Zhao's smile greatly encouraged Yan Jin. His heart relaxed, he stepped forward, pointed at the map, and said:

"Once Huang Yingda's fifteen hundred Uyghur sworn followers arrive, the Duke of Zhangye will have thirty-five hundred cavalry under him. Add the fifteen hundred men of Li Rong's surrounded force, and that makes five thousand in all.

Of these five thousand, the Sage's Hexi elite cavalry alone number over three thousand. If I were Guo Wei, I would certainly have released the Zhang River by now.

The Sage can never abandon these three thousand men. Once they are trapped, we will have to go relieve them, and Liu Zhiyuan can then lead the Hedong army's elite to attack Beizhou first."

Zhang Zhao nodded. His most elite Hexi core force consisted of five guards of the personal army and seven garrisons of the imperial army — no more than thirty-six thousand men in all.

Never mind three thousand men trapped; even if three hundred were trapped, he would still have to find a way to rescue them.

"How big can the Zhang River be? Could Zhang Zhaojun and Huang Yingda run into trouble?" Zhang Zhao put away his smile and asked Yan Jin.

Yan Jin shook his head. "No. Beyond the valley mouth the ground is flat and the river channel is wide. Even if Guo Wei dams the Zhang River, at most he can create a flooded area of a dozen or so li in circumference, and the water depth cannot exceed the knee.

Besides, the Duke of Zhangye is Your Majesty's brave general, always versed in warfare. He will surely camp on high ground and can never be swept away by the Zhang River."

Zhang Zhao quietly let out a breath of relief and paced lightly for two turns. "According to the front-line battle reports, Guo Wei has only a bit over thirty thousand men in the Fuyang area. Could he not guess that my main army may already have arrived? How dare he spread out his formation and offer battle in the open field?"

"This subject believes Guo Wei is not unaware that our main army has arrived. Rather, he thinks that after the great flood spreads, the ground will be soft and warhorses will not be able to move fast — that is the first advantage our army loses.

Second, our army has many armored soldiers. After the flooding, not only will warhorses have difficulty moving, the burden on the armored soldiers will also grow heavier. Guo Wei's force is mostly light and medium armor, so in movement they actually hold the advantage.

Moreover, once the roads are cut off by water, transporting grain and fodder will certainly be quite inconvenient, and the troops we send to break the siege certainly cannot be too many.

As long as Guo Wei has men hold Fuyang to the death and sends out twenty thousand-plus to the valley mouth, he can contend with us."

Zhao Yanjin had clearly studied the matter, and so he spoke at length to Zhang Zhao with confidence.

"His mother! This Guo Que'er thinks he's the greatest under heaven! The dog-bastard — I'll beat his brains out of his skull!"

Wang Tongxin beside Zhang Zhao flared up at once. Looked at this way, Guo Wei really was being somewhat presumptuous.

He wanted to use the Zhang River to give them a taste of their own medicine — strip the Zhou army of its mobility advantage and gain mobility for himself, using thirty thousand men to bog down seventy or eighty thousand Zhou troops on both banks of the Zhang River.

As soon as Wang Tongxin started cursing, all the generals in the room joined in with furious oaths. Murong Yanzhao stepped forward and said to Zhang Zhao:

"Sage, it seems the Hedong army thinks our Great Zhou heavenly troops rely on nothing but sharp cavalry. This subject begs to be the vanguard, to go into battle in light armor and smash Guo Que'er, and let the Hedong rebels see that our army's infantry fighting is also the finest under heaven."

Zhang Zhao also gave a cold smile. The sharpness of the Hexi cavalry had indeed given the world a fixed impression — that the Zhou army had won the realm largely by relying on cavalry.

But in reality, Zhang Zhao had risen precisely by relying on infantry. The original Hanshan Capital had been almost entirely infantry.

At that time, apart from Bai Congxin and Ma Shacai, Zhang Zhao had hardly any cavalry talent under him.

The Hanshan Capital's cavalry only began to take shape slowly after his aunt's elder brother Li Ruotai came over to him, and after Cao Yuanxing gifted him the several hundred Yue cavalry of Hu Cile and Hu Guang, father and son.

Its true rise to strength had to wait until Zhang Zhao received Li Shengtian's gift, and after he took in large numbers of Basmyl, Oghuz, Uyghur, and other cavalry, and after returning to Liangzhou took in the Six Valleys tribes of Liangzhou and the three tribes east of Shanzhou.

"Good! Then let us go meet this Guo Que'er and let him learn how formidable your infantry fighting is."

After the initial plan was discussed, the officers below the rank of Commander filed out one after another. Those who remained were the true trusted generals, with whom Zhang Zhao would discuss the specific details and how many troops could be committed.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao had noticed earlier that Murong Xinzhang looked as though he had something to say, and he wanted to hear his opinion too.

Sure enough, as soon as everyone had sat down and Zhang Zhao had ordered food and drink, Murong Xinzhang spoke.

"Sage, your son believes there is no need for us to commit the entire army to contend with Guo Que'er, because the Duke of Zhangye and the others who are surrounded this time are not without the ability to fight back.

Even if the entire Hedong army at Fuyang came out, they could fight their way out of the encirclement — to say nothing of the fact that we can also support them. If our whole army goes to fight this kind of messy battle, that is exactly what Guo Wei most hopes to see."

Zhang Zhao was silent for a short while after hearing this. He too felt that he had indeed gotten a bit carried away just now, provoked by Guo Wei's contempt for his troops' infantry fighting ability.

"Then where does my son think we should commit our main force?" Zhang Zhao took Murong Xinzhang by the hand and walked back to the map, and the trusted generals gathered around as well.

Murong Xinzhang's hand drew a circle over Shenzhou, Yingzhou, and other places north of Beizhou.

"Liu Zhiyuan's Hedong army, even if he exhausts everything, can conscript only around sixty thousand men. Of those, Guo Wei at Fuyang holds at least thirty thousand.

Although over this past year Guo Wei has gathered many Hebei bandits and scattered former yabing guards of the various Hebei military provinces at Fuyang, the Hedong troops among them still number at least fifteen to twenty thousand.

Therefore the Hedong army in Liu Zhiyuan's hands is at most forty to forty-five thousand.

And the Fu Chief Minister's family has long been established in the Wei, Bo, and Bei area. Although they suffered considerable losses when the Khitan came south, they can still scrape together four to six thousand troops, and inside Beizhou city several thousand able-bodied men can also be mobilized.

With only forty thousand-plus men, Liu Zhiyuan cannot take Beizhou in a short time, nor can he force its surrender.

Therefore your son believes that the Khitan troops already assembled and drilling at Youzhou will also come to Beizhou to join up with Liu Zhiyuan."

Only the Khitan could bring forty to fifty thousand men; once the two sides had gathered close to a hundred thousand troops, only then would they have any chance of taking Beizhou in a short time.

In fact, they would not even need to take it. Although Chief Minister Fu is loyal to the court, the Fu family is a great clan. Since the time of Emperor Wu of the Later Tang, they have been a house of military merit, with deep and tangled roots. Even Chief Minister Fu cannot possibly control every part of it.

Your son even suspects that among the defenders of Xiangzhou, there are already men who made contact with Liu Zhiyuan long ago."

Yan Jin, Zhang Zhaojie, Fan Shun, and the others exchanged glances. These were words that only Murong Xinzhang could say.

Everyone could see with their own eyes how favored Fu Yanqing's eldest daughter, Fu Ying'er, had become after entering the palace.

What Murong Xinzhang meant was this: do not assume that just because Fu Yanqing sent his daughter into the palace, Fu Yanqing and his clan are one hundred percent loyal to Zhang Zhao.

Once the pressure from Liu Zhiyuan grew too great, the Fu family could very well drag Fu Yanqing along with them and go over to Liu Zhiyuan.

Zhang Zhao's heart gave a thump. Such a possibility... one could not say it was great, but neither could one say it did not exist.

Moreover, the basis for all his judgments right now still rested on the impression Fu Yanqing had left on him in history.

But that impression, because Fu Yanqing had three daughters who became empresses, was very likely embellished and shaded by subtle wording in the historical records.

Presumably, after Zhao the Great seized the throne from Fu Yanqing's grandson Guo Zongxun in history, he must have given enormous benefits in return — not to mention that Zhao the Great's younger brother, the Car God, was also Fu Yanqing's son-in-law.

Song culture flourished, and the art of subtle wording in history reached perfection. For example, when Ouyang Xiu compiled the New History of the Five Dynasties, he directly destroyed all earlier records that did not suit his taste and then wrote his own single version. Even the story of Zhu Wen's daughters-in-law taking turns serving him in bed may well differ from the actual circumstances.

One must be on guard!

At that thought, Zhang Zhao drew a deep breath and asked Murong Xinzhang again.

"So you think we should march north to Beizhou and rescue Fu Yanqing?"

Murong Xinzhang slowly shook his head and raised his voice. "Rather than relieve Beizhou directly, why not cut straight through Jizhou to the vicinity of the Hutuo River and launch a surprise attack on the Khitan army?

Last time, you killed them until their hearts and gall were shattered. If we strike them suddenly with iron cavalry as they march south, their whole army will surely collapse in rout.

Once the Khitan are slaughtered, what are Liu Zhiyuan's few tens of thousands of Hedong infantry worth?"

A blazing light shone in Murong Xinzhang's eyes. This kind of unorthodox tactic was exactly what he loved most.

Bai Congxin stepped forward as well and said with clasped hands to Zhang Zhao, "The Duke of Qinghai speaks reason. Once we have cut away the Khitan, Liu Zhiyuan's most important outside support, and then turn back to strike the Hedong army besieging Beizhou, would it not be as easy as turning over one's hand?

Rather than pinning our hopes on Chief Minister Fu holding Beizhou, we should act ourselves!"

Hm! Truly, no faction within the party means endless strange things. Bai Congxin was only a step short of saying outright that the ones Sage Zhang could trust most were still the Hexi army.

It seemed that Fu Yanqing, Gao Xingzhou, and the others — especially the entry of Fu Ying'er and Gao E'niang into the palace — had put a certain pressure on the Hexi military-merit faction.

Hm! Not bad at all. This proved that Zhang Zhao's move of taking Fu and Gao's two daughters as consorts had been the right play.

He, Zhang Zhao, could rely mainly on the Hexi faction, but he could not rely entirely on the Hexi faction.

But for now — Zhang Zhao decided to approve Murong Xinzhang's battle plan, because the plan was highly workable!

Strike down the Khitan cavalry still trembling with lingering fear, and Liu Zhiyuan would be finished.

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