Chapter 612: Good Nephew, Your Uncle Is Coming

As it turned out, Yan Jin had still somewhat underestimated the power of the Zhang River, but he had also guessed one thing correctly: Huang Yingda's arrival would cause Guo Wei to release the blocked-up Zhang River waters.

That very night, when Huang Yingda reached the valley mouth, before they had even found a place to pitch camp, Guo Wei led his trusted personal guards and slipped across from Fuyang to the valley mouth under cover of darkness.

At a single command, the Zhang River waters that had been held back for more than two months burst forth, surging down the entire valley!

The Zhang River first rushed to the vicinity of the stockade where Li Rong was stationed. The torrential current directly swept away every structure that had stood at the valley mouth, leaving only the three stockades built on the highest ground.

And once it passed the valley mouth, where the riverbed beyond opened wide, the flood spread across the entire plain outside the valley mouth with overwhelming force.

The vast, rolling waters in an instant threw the camp of Huang Yingda's troops, pitched on low ground, into utter chaos.

Yan Jin's estimate that the water would at most reach the knees was inaccurate; in many places it had risen to the hips, though the force of the current was indeed not very strong.

Therefore Huang Yingda's men and horses did not suffer heavy losses, but because it was nighttime, they could only attend to the people. A great quantity of baggage and provisions was left soaking in the water.

Even Huang Yingda's own command tent was flooded. Fortunately, he was calm enough that, despite being struck suddenly by the flood, he still risked raising a torch at his command tent and had soldiers shout loudly to give the water-panicked troops a direction to head toward.

The whole army shouted and gathered toward the command tent. When dawn came and they looked, good heavens — of the fifteen hundred Uyghur sworn followers, only seven or eight hundred had assembled in the vicinity.

The rest were scattered everywhere, many of them so cold their faces were deathly pale and their whole bodies shivering.

However, the effect of the Zhang River pouring down had probably also exceeded Guo Wei's expectations.

Because the five thousand men Guo Wei had placed at the valley mouth under Li Chongjin, although they had withdrawn in advance, were still caught by the Zhang River's waters and thrown into some disorder.

And according to Guo Wei's original design, Shi Hongzhao's five thousand elite troops and the several thousand men under Wang Jingchong left to hold Hezhang should have ridden sheepskin rafts downstream at the same time to attack Zhang Zhaojun's force, but they too were unable to move out because the Zhang River was more turbulent than expected.

Li Rong, on the highest point and untouched by the flood, watched the vast waters in the distance and grew frantic. Zhang Quan beside him was far more composed.

Zhang Quan ordered those with sharp eyes to climb to the highest point and observe. When he saw that the flood had only struck Huang Yingda and had not reached Zhang Zhaojun's force, he immediately set his mind at ease. He turned to Li Rong and said:

"Troop Commander, with floodwaters spreading everywhere now, even if the Duke of Zhangye comes to the rescue, it will not be soon. We have only one day of grain left. I intend to fight to the death. What does the Troop Commander think?"

As he spoke, the Wuwei Garrison imperial troops under Zhang Quan quietly moved to separate Li Rong from the yabing guards of the Yicheng Army.

The Yicheng Army yabing guards sensed something was wrong. They had long resented these Hexi men, whose treatment was several times better than theirs, so they quickly came over as well.

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder. Li Rong glared at Zhang Quan, his expression shifting twice, and finally spoke through gritted teeth.

"Zhang Quan! Do you think I am the sort who sells out his master for gain? If I were, I would never have risked my life to counterattack the Khitan at Yanshi City.

I am a Troop Commander of an army, personally received and comforted by the Sage. Do you think I know less of loyalty than a mere Captain like you?"

When Zhang Quan heard Li Rong speak thus, his expression softened. He waved for the Wuwei Garrison imperial troops behind him to disperse, and clasped his hands toward Li Rong.

"I was once a herding slave on the high mountains of Shanzhou, saved by the Great Merciful Dharma King. Even if I die in battle today, my soul can go to the Ninth Heaven of Ultimate Bliss and enjoy immortal blessings for all eternity, so I am certainly resolved to fight to the death.

If the Troop Commander is willing to join me, and if we are fortunate enough not to die, then in the days to come, through blade and flame, you need only call on me. If you feel I have been disrespectful today, when we return to the Eastern Capital, the garrison inspectors may deal with me by military law.

But if the Troop Commander is unwilling to fight to the death, then kill me and go surrender to the Hedong rebels!"

Li Rong drew his horsewhip and cracked it across Zhang Quan's body. "You dog-brained peasant! When we get back, I will make you kowtow and apologize. But today, I will show you the loyalty and courage of my entire Yicheng Army."

Zhang Quan took the lash without anger — on the contrary, he was pleased. He had only feared that Li Rong might harbor thoughts of surrender, which would make even his own death in battle inglorious.

"So long as we kill the Hedong rebels and do not ruin the Sage's great undertaking, what does kowtowing and apologizing matter?

Then I ask the Troop Commander to charge the Hedong rebels' position with me. Even if we die in battle, we will still be heroes!"

Li Rong looked at Zhang Quan, whose eyes seemed to flash with fire, and suddenly threw aside the horsewhip in his hand. A solemn respect rose in him. He knew what this Captain of the Wuwei Garrison from Hexi intended to do.

By the Zhou army's long-standing rules, no matter how great the difficulty, one must never abandon one's comrades. But now, with floodwaters spreading everywhere, who knew what price would have to be paid to rescue these fifteen hundred men.

But if they took the initiative and died in battle, then there would be no need for rescue! He wanted to use death to free the great army outside the valley mouth from its predicament.

"I have long heard that Hexi is rich in loyal ministers and righteous men. Now I see it is true!" Li Rong said, clasping his hands. "But charging down now would be no different from throwing our lives away.

Captain, look — the Hedong rebels below the mountain are preparing sheepskin rafts. They surely mean to go downstream.

Let us wait until one or two thousand of them have gone, then charge down, kill all the Hedong rebels left below the mountain, seize the remaining sheepskin rafts, and also go downstream to join the Duke of Zhangye. In this way, not only would we be blameless, we would even earn merit."

Zhang Quan nodded, but then immediately shook his head. "I have heard that the commander of the Hedong rebels below the mountain is Shi Hongzhao, Commander of the Wujie Army of the Northern Capital Prefecture. He runs his army with strict discipline and is extraordinarily brave. He will certainly be on guard. Why would he calmly allow us to attack the few with the many?

Better to charge down now while they are unprepared. Perhaps then we would still have a fighting chance."

Li Rong chuckled at this, then pointed at his own nose and said, "I am a man of Taiyuan in Hedong!

The Prince of Beiping of Hedong and I share the bond of being from the same region. If at this moment I can bind several Hexi officers and soldiers and take them to Shi Hongzhao, saying I wish to surrender, he will surely believe it."

Zhang Quan looked at Li Rong for a long while, then finally let his hands fall and threw the hengdao saber at his waist to the ground. "Then I ask the Troop Commander to bind me and take me to this Shi Hongzhao."

Li Rong hurriedly picked up Zhang Quan's hengdao saber, took his hand, and said: "How could I really bind the Captain and take him there? But I need five brave men to put on officers' armor. Who is willing to go?"

No sooner had he spoken than dozens of Wuwei Garrison brave men behind Zhang Quan all stepped forward, not one of them hesitating in the slightest, and vied to shout: "Please bind us, Troop Commander, and take us to the Hedong rebels' camp."

Li Rong was moved, and gave a long sigh. "With brave men such as these, this realm will sooner or later belong to our Great Zhou."

They selected the brave men and changed them into officers' clothes. Li Rong sent men carrying white cloth to see Shi Hongzhao, and after Zhang Quan had gone some distance away, he looked at his nephew Li Shousi beside him and said: "Do you know now why I did not go over to the Prince of Beiping?"

Li Shousi nodded heavily. "Setting aside that the Prince of Beiping is already old, just looking at these hundred-odd soldiers of the Wuwei Garrison — under the Prince of Beiping's command, there can be very few brave men like these, who rush forward eagerly even knowing they are going to their deaths.

The realm rightly belongs to the Sage. We should follow him and win great wealth and honor."

At the two stockades below the mountain, Shi Hongzhao, who had Li Rong surrounded, was also having a headache.

He had five thousand men. According to Guo Wei's instructions, he was to send out at least four thousand to go downstream and strike the flood-soaked Hexi troops.

But unfortunately, when he had broken these two stockades a few days earlier, the Zhou army Troop Commander Li Rong on the hillside had been very alert. Although Shi Hongzhao had taken the two stockades, Li Rong's forces had not been damaged.

Now there were still fifteen hundred men on the mountain. If he took four thousand away, the remaining one thousand might not be able to defeat the Hexi troops.

While he was in the middle of this headache, loud cheers erupted outside. Shi Hongzhao, his face cold, pushed aside the tent flap and walked out.

This man ran his army with extreme strictness, and treated everyone the same, from the lowest soldier up to high officers like Commanders. Whoever dared violate his military orders was beaten to death on the spot.

The former Deputy Troop Commander of the Wujie Army had been beaten to death by Shi Hongzhao's own hand with a short club for disobeying orders. Therefore, such loud cheering from the Wujie Army was absolutely not normal.

Just as Shi Hongzhao stepped out, he saw his younger brother Shi Wen coming up to him, overjoyed.

Shi Wen knew his elder brother's temper, and before Shi Hongzhao could demand an explanation, he quickly said: "The Hexi rebel Troop Commander Li Rong on the mountain has had several Hexi imperial officers and soldiers bound and sent down the mountain to surrender."

Shi Hongzhao raised an eyebrow, not at all surprised, because Li Rong's choice was exactly in line with the choices a military man of this era would make.

In Chinese culture, especially in the imperial era, the two most important virtues were loyalty and filial piety.

The emphasis on filial piety can be traced back to high antiquity. Emperor Shun's accepting the small rod and fleeing the great rod was an embodiment of filial piety. By the Han dynasty, when the realm was governed by filial piety, it was exalted to the utmost.

As for the virtue of loyalty, it was actually during the Northern Song period that its status was finally secured.

Before this, loyalty was indeed a virtue that was promoted, but it had not yet reached the point it would after the Song, where loyalty and filial piety could not both be satisfied, and one could only serve one's lord and not one's parents.

Not to mention that in this era, for the military men of the Five Dynasties to switch allegiance was an everyday affair.

Still, Shi Hongzhao remained very cautious, because in his heart he actually knew that Liu Zhiyuan's chances of winning—even with the Khitan added in—were not all that high.

Under such circumstances, there should be quite a few Hedong troops defecting to the Hexi soldiers. But for Hexi soldiers to come over to Hedong, there could not be many.

Yet after he saw the trapped Hexi soldiers and the envoy sent by Li Rong, Shi Hongzhao believed it a few parts in his heart.

Because these several Hexi officers and soldiers not only wore the cloth-faced iron armor commonly worn by low-ranking Hexi officers, they had also been beaten especially badly.

Several had been beaten into bloody figures, and even the lightly injured had swollen faces and bodies covered in dust, clearly having gone through a fierce internal fight.

"I am Li Shousi. I greet Commander Shi. Our Troop Commander has already bound the Hexi soldiers in the army and wishes to come over. I beg the Commander to take us in."

Shi Hongzhao kept a stern face and snorted coldly. He looked at this short, stocky man called Li Shousi and shouted, "Since you come to submit, why does Li Rong not come down himself, and instead sends a nobody like you?"

Li Shousi stiffened his neck. "The Commander's words are most unreasonable. The price has not even been settled—how could a great general strip his armor and surrender? I am the Troop Commander Li's own nephew. How can you call me a nobody?"

That was the flavor! Extremely familiar. The Five Dynasties military man's air of asking what one was worth rushed straight into Shi Hongzhao's nostrils at once.

He knew that even if the Hexi soldiers were putting on an act, they could rarely act out such a manner.

Because they had not spent decades mixing in the Central Plains, and that Shao Ming Son of Heaven was a bit too particular about loyalty and righteousness, so that in the eyes of the realm's military men of this time, the Hexi officers and soldiers all seemed a bit stubborn and foolishly obstinate.

But merely binding and seizing a few Hexi officers and soldiers could not make a ruthless man like Shi Hongzhao, who had climbed from the very bottom to his present position, believe it.

"What is Commander Shi still hesitating about? You may as well speak plainly.

Our Troop Commander is in fact a man of Taiyuan, and shares the bond of a fellow townsman with the Prince of Beiping.

And the Son of Heaven of the Zhou only values Hexi soldiers and slights the Central Plains military men. He had already promised the Troop Commander the post of Military Governor of the Yicheng Army, but because he wanted to strip the Military Governors of their power, he has never made good on it.

Therefore our entire Yicheng Army, high and low, has long wished to follow the Prince of Beiping to glory and riches."

Damn, it all made perfect sense! Shi Hongzhao could not help but believe it.

The Shao Ming Son of Heaven came from Hexi, so it stood to reason that he valued Hexi soldiers and slighted the Central Plains military men, and the Shao Ming Son of Heaven's open and public move to strip the Military Governors of their authority was also known to all the world.

"Find a few Taiyuan locals. If they match up, I will believe you. If not, you can wait to be chopped into mincemeat!"

Shi Hongzhao spoke through gritted teeth, but Li Shousi was not the least bit flustered, because they really were men of Taiyuan.

Li Rong had originally been a personal attendant of Li Congrong, Prince of Qin and second son of Emperor Mingzong Li Siyuan. When Li Congrong rebelled, Li Rong had drawn his bow and shot dead several dozen men, only fleeing after he saw the cause was truly hopeless.

In fact, from this alone one could see that Li Rong could not possibly defect to Liu Zhiyuan, because the generosity with which Zhang Zhao treated the children of Li Siyuan was known to everyone in the lands south of the Yellow River.

His fine eldest son Murong Xinzhang was Li Siyuan's son-in-law, and Li Siyuan's fifteenth daughter, Princess Yongle, could enter the palace at any time and was called a good daughter-in-law by Zhang Zhao.

Li Siyuan's only blood descendant, Li Congyi, was Zhang Zhao's adopted son and was often at his side, and Zhang Zhao's adopted eldest daughter had married Li Siyuan's own maternal grandson, Zhao Kuangzan.

Ugh! Truly messy enough.

But messy as it was, the bond by which Zhang Zhao drew in the military men of Daibei and Hedong lay precisely in these somewhat tangled relationships.

So when Shi Hongzhao summoned several Taiyuan officers and soldiers, Li Shousi not only answered fluently on everything from the local dialect to the affairs of Taiyuan, but several of the captains among them even recognized who Li Shousi was.

After all, although Li Rong had not risen to become a general of a region, he had served in the Later Tang as an Inner Palace Attendant and as Commander of the Crane-Control Guard.

Once both sides reported their native places and service records, it was instead Shi Hongzhao, a man of Xingze in Zhengzhou, who could not compare with Li Shousi's pure and proper roots.

With all doubt now gone, Shi Hongzhao rewarded Li Shousi with two bolts of brocade and told him to carry the brocade up the mountain to report to Li Rong. Li Rong then immediately threw down more than a hundred weapons and suits of armor from the mountain as a show of sincerity.

Shi Hongzhao grew even more at ease. Seeing that the speed of the Zhang River's current had already begun to slow, he ordered his younger brother Shi Wen to remain with fifteen hundred men to guard the stockade, while he himself led the remaining thirty-five hundred men down along the Zhang River to attack the Hexi soldiers trapped in the shallows.

Shi Hongzhao also instructed Shi Wen only to hold the stockade tightly, not to open the camp gates, and to maintain a certain wariness toward Li Rong.

Li Rong, however, was even more clever. He had several dozen officers and soldiers bound hand and foot and made to kneel on the hillside, once again as a show of sincerity.

Seeing Li Rong first send hostages, then throw down weapons and armor, and finally bind Hexi soldiers for him to see, Shi Wen had long since lost his vigilance and only felt that his elder brother worried too much.

It was only the fourth month, and the weather was still very cold. Huang Yingda's thousand-odd Uyghur sworn followers had soaked in the water all night and were already beginning to lose their strength.

And the hillock where Zhang Zhaojun had made camp had limited ground; it was impossible to bring everyone ashore. Even just to resist an attack by the Hedong army, men were needed to form ranks in the water.

It was precisely this point that Guo Wei had seen when he released the water in the middle of the night. In his estimation, Huang Yingda's fifteen hundred men, washed by the water all night, would be at the very limit of endurance by dawn and simply could not form ranks in the water.

Therefore he only needed to kill off this thousand-odd men, and he could easily trap Zhang Zhaojun, then force the Zhou army to wade through the water to break the siege.

But when Guo Wei personally led Bai Zairong, Shi Hongzhao, Li Chongjin, Wang Jingchong, and other generals with ten thousand picked fierce troops wading through the water to attack, he saw the situation and could not help but heave a long sigh.

It turned out that across from him, those standing in the water were not Huang Yingda's Uyghur sworn followers, but Zhang Zhaojun's thousand-odd Left Jinwu Guard.

These men, whom Guo Wei had imagined to be the extremely arrogant personal troops of the Zhou, had not only refused to shrink back, but had instead yielded the dry ground to Huang Yingda's unit, while they themselves stood in the water in formation, and had lit the little firewood they had, taken out medicine for treating chills, and were brewing medicine for the Uyghur sworn followers.

Zhang Zhaojun looked at the great banners of the Hedong army in the distance, so furious that fire seemed to rise from the top of his head. This was the first time he had ever suffered such a great loss.

This fierce general of the founding-followers faction personally took up a hard bow and stood in the water, roaring in fury, "The Hedong thieves think that because our warhorses cannot move, they can easily defeat us in foot combat.

Hah! A summer insect cannot be told of ice. Let them see the strength of us heroes of Hexi."

The soldiers of the Left Jinwu Guard roared in assent, their morale soaring.

On the high ground, Huang Yingda, who was recovering, listened to the sounds outside and shouted with extraordinary calm to his subordinates who were drinking medicine.

"It was originally we who came to support the Left Jinwu Guard, yet now we have instead dragged them down. This is our shame!

Today we have suffered this great shame, and only blood can wash it clean. This is I, Huang Yingda, failing you. After you have rested, I will fight to the death first, and meet you all again in the Yellow Springs."

The thousand-odd Uyghur sworn followers were all so ashamed their faces flushed red. They, the Ganzhou Uyghurs, had originally been the mortal enemies of the Han folk of the Guiyi Army, and these two battalions of Uyghur sworn followers had in fact all been preserved only because Zhang Zhao had insisted on keeping them, at the risk of being called womanishly merciful.

Now, having achieved not the slightest merit and having dragged down their allies, every one of them wished they could charge out and fight at once to wipe away their former shame.

At the stockade on the mountain, Li Rong again sent Li Shousi down to inform Shi Wen that Li Rong wished to come in person with several dozen Hexi prisoners to pay a visit, and was also willing to give Shi Wen ten suits of cloth-faced iron armor as a greeting gift. Surely Shi Wen would not refuse.

As soon as Li Shousi set off, Li Rong summoned all officers of company commander rank and above in the army.

"Four of every five Hedong thieves have gone. We are many and the enemy few. Though they have the strength of a stockade, it is in truth not enough to defend. This is a heaven-sent opportunity!

If we can take it in one assault, seize their boats and hide rafts, and go downriver to strike the Hedong thieves in the rear, the merit will be enormous.

Whether our Yicheng Army can become the Yicheng Garrison, or even the Yicheng Guard—whether we can bring fortune to our descendants—all depends on this one blow!

I, Li Rong, take only heroes and brave men. The timid and cowardly may remain here!"

Hearing this, all the officers of the Yicheng Army gathered close around Li Rong and answered in low voices, "We are willing to follow the Troop Commander and gamble for ten thousand generations of wealth and honor!"

And in Yecheng, although Zhang Zhao did not know that Guo Wei had already released the Zhang River and left Huang Yingda in a miserable state, he had already swiftly adopted Murong Xinzhang's suggestion.

At first light, Zhang Zhao immediately gave the order: Yan Jin was to take fifteen thousand horse and foot westward to the mouth of Hezhang Valley, drive off Guo Wei's army, and rescue Zhang Zhaojun, Huang Yingda, and the others.

Zhang Zhao even left his own trusted Hanshan Capital fierce general Zhang Zhaozhong, Zhang Zhaojiu, and seven hundred armored infantry of the Hanshan Capital to Yan Jin.

Moreover, Zhang Zhao had Yan Jin display his full imperial regalia — including the yellow silk canopy, the great banner, the Three Stars banner, and the rest — to make Guo Wei think he was personally leading the main army to break the siege. Yecheng was temporarily garrisoned by He Fujin.

As for the army still in Xiangzhou, Zhang Zhao ordered Feng Hui and Luo Shande to lead the twenty thousand rear troops immediately into Yecheng. The Fenjin Capital was also to remain there, and once Guo Wei withdrew to Fuyang, they were to blow up Fuyang city at once.

He then ordered Fan Quan to take ten thousand horse and foot, along with one hundred fifty whirlwind catapults from the Divine Machine Battalion, out of Weizhou along the Yongji Canal toward Beizhou, to serve as a decoy force and give the appearance of reinforcing Fu Yanqing.

After these arrangements, Zhang Zhao personally drew seventeen thousand men from the Left and Right Yulin Guard, the Left and Right Longxiang Guard, the Right Jinwu Guard, the Right Qianniu Guard, and the best mounted archers of the imperial army, plus six thousand elite sworn followers — twenty-three thousand in all.

Leading Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, Bai Congxin, Zhang Zhaojie, Fan Shun, Wang Tongxin, Zhang Cheng, Zhao Yanjin, Zhao Kuangyin, Murong Yanzhao, Wang Shenqi, Wang Quanbin, Feng Jiye, He Jiyun, Hou Renbao, Zhang Xibao, and others — twenty-one generals in all — the finest troops went forth.

With the Emperor himself taking the field, he would race ahead of Liu Zhiyuan's siege of Beizhou, slip through the battlefield, and go first to give his dear nephew and brother-in-law Yelu Ruan a little surprise.

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