Chapter 622: A Man Out of the Ordinary

Before the county seat of Jize, more than sixty camel-mounted whirlwind catapults were drawn up in a row, whistling as they hurled stones larger than a man's fist into the great stockade.

From time to time, the Hedong troops inside the stockade let out piercing screams, but most of the time, all was silence.

Li Fang, with a group of staff officers from the Wangyi Division, was writing and sketching, while the craftsmen of the Divine Machine Battalion were calculating all manner of data; they were treating the bombardment of the Hedong army's great stockade as a live-fire exercise.

Li Congyi, Duke of Jinyang Commandery, also stood beside Li Fang. This youngest son of Emperor Mingzong Li Siyuan did, in fact, have some talent in these matters.

Once his terror had settled and he was certain that Zhang Zhao truly meant him no harm and did not regard him as a threat in the slightest, he immediately wanted to come out and do something as well.

So he had entered the Heavenly Works Academy to study, and now he had come along with the Divine Machine Battalion to broaden his horizons.

Li Congyi gazed at the distant county seat of Jize, and a wave of dread kept rising in his heart, as though something that could take his life were hidden within.

And no wonder! Historically, it was precisely at this time that Liu Zhiyuan entered the Eastern Capital, Kaifeng Prefecture, and then, without the slightest mercy, put the ill-fated Li Congyi and his mother, Hua Jianxiu, to death.

Princess Yong'an, on the other hand, escaped that calamity because she had married Zhao Yanshou — though historically, Zhao Yanshou was also quickly done in by Emperor Shizong of Liao, so the fate of the beautiful Princess Yong'an was, in the end, truly hard to predict.

Zhang Zhao also rode up to the front line and asked Li Congyi with a smile, "Has my son gained anything?"

Li Congyi hurriedly bowed and replied, "In reply, my lord: although this stockade is built mostly of timber, the camel whirlwind catapults still find it very difficult to inflict major damage upon it.

Your son has been thinking: at present, our Great Zhou has many types of catapults, yet there is no unified standard. If we could establish specifications and adjust the range of force, making them graded by stone weight just as bows and crossbows are, using different catapults for different occasions, only then could we put each to its best use."

"A fine idea! You may pursue research in this direction. If you have any questions, come to me."

Zhang Zhao smiled and offered a few words of encouragement, though the greatest problem with catapults was that the Zhang Zhou of this moment simply could not afford to use them.

In truth, throughout the entire Five Dynasties, catapults were scarcely used at all; compared with the Great Tang era, they could be said to have vanished entirely.

The reason was that the people's strength was utterly exhausted and they could no longer bear the cost. Even the two great campaigns Zhang Zhao had launched — had he not extorted a sum from the Southern Tang, and had he not seized the wealth of the local tyrants in the Central Plains, and had it not been for the support of Hexi and Guanzhong — even Zhang Zhao would have found them almost impossible to sustain.

"Boom!" A tremendous crash rang out, and Zhang Zhao immediately left Li Congyi behind and spurred his horse toward the source of the sound.

He saw that a great arrow tower the Hedong army had built on the right had just been brought down by the Zhou troops, and several hundred Hedong soldiers were screaming wretchedly amid the swirling dust.

In yesterday's battle, Shi Hongzhao, the foremost fierce general of the Hedong army, had fallen in combat, and the Hedong army's total losses had reached a horrifying four thousand and more.

Apart from a small number taken prisoner, the rest had all died outright in battle or succumbed to their wounds on the field; the wounded numbered over ten thousand.

Had Bai Zairong not reacted quickly to adjust the line, the entire army would have come close to total collapse.

Yet the Hedong army was in dire straits now. The heaviest blow was that the more than four thousand Tuyuhun light cavalry, who had been tangling with the Zhou cavalry outside the battlefield all along, had fled under the leadership of Bai Zongyi, the Tuyuhun king of this generation.

This dealt the Hedong army a severe blow: without the Tuyuhun light cavalry, they had no one to cover them even if they fled.

Zhang Zhao, however, was quite uneasy, fearing that these Tuyuhun light cavalry would ravage the common people along their route, so he dispatched Zhao Kuangyin with five hundred riders to pursue them all the way, to keep them from plundering anywhere.

And after the Tuyuhun light cavalry fled, the entire Hedong army could only shrink back into the county seat of Jize and the three strongpoints outside the city. The Zhou army had begun attacking them separately from the early hours of this morning.

Liu Zhiyuan was unwilling to accept this, and sent Murong Yanchao out of the city with five thousand troops to relieve them. The result was another defeat, with over a thousand men lost, and the Hedong army thereafter completely lost the courage to fight outside the city.

Now that one arrow tower outside the city had collapsed, only two of the three strongpoints remained, and this quickly set off a chain reaction.

The Hedong troops in the left arrow tower, seeing the catastrophe after the right arrow tower collapsed, immediately abandoned their defense.

A small number tried to fight their way back into the county seat of Jize, and were then cut down by the Zhou cavalry that had broken through; the majority opened the stockade gates, knelt, and surrendered.

The great stockade at the very front, however, still kept its gates tightly shut. Though it had been battered full of holes, the Hedong troops inside, under the leadership of the valiant generals Liu Ci and Li Tao, were still resisting. Zhang Zhao had sent men to assault it twice, and both times they had been driven out.

This brings up another peculiarity of the Five Dynasties: when two armies clashed, as long as the commanding officer did not surrender, the men below him very rarely surrendered on their own initiative.

This was not because they were particularly devoted to loyalty and righteousness. If such fellows had been so scrupulous about loyalty and righteousness, the Five Dynasties would not have been so chaotic. The reason they did not surrender was simple: it came down to money and property.

This was no longer the era of the Great Tang, with its eighty or ninety million people and no shortage of coin, grain, wealth, or goods.

By now, after two hundred years of warfare, the means of livelihood and the registered population had declined to a terrifying degree.

In all the realm, reckoning by Zhang Zhou's unification of the Central Plains, Guanzhong, Hedong, Hebei, Hexi, Longyou, and Shuofang, the population was at most only around eleven million.

Beyond that, the Southern Tang had roughly eight million, Qian Yue close to three million, Meng Shu over two million, Nanping over seven hundred thousand, Ma Chu six hundred thousand, Southern Han around one million, and the Qingyuan Army of Zhangzhou around four hundred thousand.

The total population was only twenty-six or twenty-seven million. As the primary battleground, the Central Plains — after removing Hexi, Longyou, and Shuofang — had only around eight million.

With so few people, yet no small number of military men, even squeezing the common people to the utmost yielded little profit per head — to say nothing of the fact that officers, nobles, and men of merit at every level took a large share first.

Therefore, in the Five Dynasties period, if a military man surrendered, it did not mean he could keep his original position; he might not even keep his life.

When the Later Tang entered Bianliang, the imperial guards of the Later Liang did not fare well. Likewise, in the successive upheavals of the Later Tang and Later Jin, at the level of the military men, each change basically meant a great reshuffling of who enjoyed the means of production.

The present situation was much the same. Zhang Zhao was unwilling to offer the Hedong military men a high price; what he hoped for was that they would surrender unconditionally of their own accord, after which he would select some elite troops, while the great majority would have to return to their villages and take up farming.

The benefits of Hedong, of course, were to be devoured by Zhang Zhou's meritorious officials, generals, and soldiers.

And for the military men of Hedong, from top to bottom, they were still pinning their hopes on Liu Zhiyuan — or at the very least, on Zhang Zhao coming to win them over with favorable terms.

Otherwise, in such chaotic times, once they lost their identity as military men, never mind whether there was land to farm — even if there was, they were not the sort to work the soil.

Returning home with a body full of wounds and ailments left by war basically meant choosing between dying poor and dying a violent death.

And within the county seat of Jize, the situation was even more perilous. With the fall of the two arrow towers, only one great stockade remained outside Jize, and its capture was merely a matter of time.

By now, even the road from Jize to Xingzhou was covered with Zhang Zhao's scouting riders. If they waited any longer, even their line of retreat would be completely sealed off.

Liu Zhiyuan's face was flushed; his wind-cold seemed much improved, but his spirit and energy looked wrong no matter how one regarded them.

He glanced around and found that, apart from Liu Ci, Li Tao, and the others trapped in the great stockade, all the remaining officers were here.

Though there were still more than ten thousand men in the city, and the provisions were still ample enough to last at least twenty days, there was certainly no way to obtain any further supplies.

After twenty days, they would surely run out of grain; moreover, with morale now wavering, the city simply could not be held.

Murong Yanchao glanced around, saw that all present were the core of the Hedong military men, and so stepped forward and spoke directly.

"Great King, the only plan now is to find a way back to Hedong. Grand Marshal Guo still has ten thousand men in She County, and Guo Congyi, Bai Wenke, and the others still have over a thousand each. If we hold Jingxing Pass and Junji Pass, Hedong is a land of mountains and rivers within and without; it will not be so easy for the Zhou army to enter Taiyuan."

Liu Zhiyuan understood Murong Yanchao's meaning: if they were defeated and captured here at Jize, they would lose all their capital.

If they could escape back to Hedong, rely on Hedong's natural defenses, and fight the Zhou army in a grinding, ruinous war, they could certainly fight until the Zhou army could no longer bear it. Then, when it came to negotiating terms, things would be much easier.

Seeing that Liu Zhiyuan was still hesitating, Bai Zairong did not stand on ceremony. In yesterday's battle, Liu Zhiyuan's own troops had suffered grievous losses; of the ten thousand Hedong yabing guards, fewer than two thousand remained whole and intact.

In this era where strength determined everything, what Great King, what Military Governor — all of it was empty. What mattered was how many able-bodied fighting men one had under one's command.

"Great King, I too support Commander Murong's opinion. Even if the Great King will not consider himself, he should consider the officers and men of Hedong, high and low, as well as the Left Guard Senior General."

Liu Zhiyuan was instantly furious enough that his nose went crooked. What did he mean, "not consider himself"? I am considering myself right now, all right?

Yet though Bai Zairong's words were blunt, they had truly struck Liu Zhiyuan's weak point.

That meant Li Sanniang, far away in Taiyuan, and her two sons, Liu Chengxun and Liu Chengyou — especially Li Sanniang. Liu Zhiyuan was deeply devoted to her, and his eldest son Liu Chengxun was handsome in bearing and gentle in nature, and had won Liu Zhiyuan's great affection. It was impossible that he would not consider them.

If he, Liu Zhiyuan, fell at Jize County, then Hedong would surely descend into chaos, and someone would certainly use his family as a stepping-stone.

Enough! Enough!

Liu Zhiyuan gave a long sigh. "Slaughter the pigs and sheep, and let the soup-cakes be unlimited. Tell the brave warriors below that Jize County still holds three months' worth of grain, and let them defend with easy minds. The Zhou state's Central Plains are broken, and the Zhou army must haul supplies a thousand li — hunger alone will drive them off."

After saying all this, Liu Zhiyuan's expression turned cold. "Each general is to go down and gather the elite troops, and secretly collect all the warhorses.

Before the fifth watch tomorrow, first order the city garrison to sally out and rescue Liu Ci and the other generals at the great stockade, and then break out with the light cavalry.

But this requires leaving one general behind to cover the rear. Which of you is willing to stay?"

Ruthless! This was to build up confidence, then send the men in the city to their deaths to buy time for their own breakout. But the choice of who would stay behind to cover the rear was a difficult one.

Yet their gazes, without prior agreement, all turned toward Wang Yin at the side.

Because Wang Yin was not a man of Hedong, nor one of Liu Zhiyuan's trusted confidants. He was from Weizhou, and had only gone to Taiyuan to seek refuge with Liu Zhiyuan after the Khitan broke Weizhou. He was the most suitable candidate to leave behind.

Liu Zhiyuan immediately rose from his seat, took Wang Yin's hand, and said: "I truly know your sincere devotion, but the situation leaves no choice. If you can delay them for two quarters of an hour, then do as you see fit."

This meant he had to hold for half an hour, after which Wang Yin could do whatever he wanted.

Wang Yin was silent for a moment as well. Most of his own loyal troops had already been wiped out by the Zhang River, and in his heart he had no desire to go to Hedong either, so he readily agreed.

In Daibei, at the Central Surrendered City — near what later generations would call Baotou — Zhe Deyi, the Pingzhang of Zhang Zhou's Shuofang Province, finally met his younger brother Zhe Deyuan, whom he had not seen in a long time.

This time Zhe Deyi had been ordered, together with Shuofang Province Defense Commissioner Yao Yuanfu, to lead ten thousand soldiers and more than six thousand households of civilians and herders — thirty thousand people in all — to migrate to this place.

The Khitan, Tujue, Tuyuhun, and other tribes originally here had been caught off guard and all taken by Zhe Deyi — about ten thousand people in total, now basically all detained and awaiting distribution.

"What a magnificent land!" Zhe Deyuan exclaimed involuntarily, looking at the lush greenery and rich pastures all around.

"Before, when the Sage said the Yellow River brings a hundred harms and enriches only the loop, I did not understand. Now, seeing this place, I know those words were true."

Zhe Deyi looked at the map Zhe Deyuan had brought, pointed at the Yellow River bending here, and said, "The term 'river loop' is indeed quite apt."

Then this young man, one of Zhang Zhou's fastest-rising regional commanders, looked at Zhe Deyuan.

"I have drawn up a plan to migrate commoners to fill the river loop, rebuild the Western, Central, and Eastern Surrendered Cities, and restore the Tian De Army and Zhen Wu Army at Fengzhou. Take a look and add any suggestions. When you return to the capital, present it to His Majesty."

Zhe Deyuan took it and looked it over, and at once frowned. "Elder Brother wants to move one hundred fifty thousand people from Ningxia and Hedong here, and also restore the ancient names of Jiuyuan and Yunzhong — is that not too great a move?

Moreover, the populations of Ningxia and Hedong are not abundant, and Hedong is not yet pacified. To suddenly move people would surely provoke resentment or even rebellion."

Zhe Deyi smiled faintly. "Erlang, you mean to say that if the Zhe family proposes moving the people of Ningxia and Hedong, and the Zhe family leads the migration, then it will surely draw the hatred of both regions and add enemies to the Zhe family, is that right?"

Zhe Deyuan looked at his elder brother strangely. "If Elder Brother already knows this, why still do it? It brings the Zhe family little benefit — all toil and trouble with no gratitude."

Zhe Deyi gently patted his younger brother's shoulder. "Does Erlang know how long it has been since I last wrote to Father?"

Zhe Deyuan did not understand what his elder brother meant, and tilted his head in puzzlement.

Seeing this, Zhe Deyi said plainly: "Since I entered Lingwu, I have written to Father three times in total, and in two years I returned home only once, for New Year's Day."

Zhe Deyuan understood. He looked at his elder brother in shock. "And those three letters and that one trip home were all first made known to the Sage and approved by the Sage. Elder Brother, why go to such lengths? The Sage is not a suspicious lord!"

"I certainly know the Sage is no suspicious lord — on the contrary, he is a magnanimous sovereign of the realm. But precisely because of that, we as subjects must be all the more cautious and circumspect.

We of the Zhe family are three men, father and sons. Father dominates Fugu, Elder Brother holds a vast border territory, and Younger Brother is the Emperor's adopted son in the capital, married into the imperial clan. To hold high office without the slightest merit — one must understand how precious this favor is.

The Sage has entrusted the entire northern frontier to my father and me. The responsibility is heavy, so of course we must avoid any suspicion."

"No wonder! No wonder Second Brother Murong has lately been deliberately drawing close to me, and even asked me to bring you gifts. So he wants to send the Tuyuhun people of Hedong to the river loop region!" Zhe Deyuan suddenly understood.

Zhe Deyi laughed three times and patted his younger brother's shoulder again. "Only now you realize! I hear that after this war ends, the Sage intends to promote the Duke of Qinghai Commandery to full duke. With such cautious virtue, he rightly deserves the Sage's favor and trust.

His family is the last bloodline of the Tuyuhun Murong royal house, and he is even willing to give up the hundred thousand-plus followers he has gained.

He holds high office and enjoys heaven-sent favor, like sailing a boat amid towering waves and storms. To be so steady — he is no ordinary man!"

Zhe Deyuan understood. His elder brother Zhe Deyi also wanted to be a man like his sworn elder brother Murong Xinzhang.

The Zhe family had risen from the tiny territory of Fugu, without any great merit, yet in a short time had received such favor from the sovereign and been entrusted with the northern border defenses. They truly ought to be as cautious as his elder brother.

"I suppose Elder Brother will certainly not go to Yunzhou to see Father either. Then I will not delay further — Father is still waiting for reinforcements!"

Zhe Deyuan had come from his father Zhe Congyuan to see his elder brother precisely to request reinforcements, because the Khitan in Yunzhou had turned desperate, and the great army had besieged and fiercely assaulted the city for more than ten days without gaining an inch.

On the first day of the sixth month, just as Zhang Zhao was turning his army back to pursue Liu Zhiyuan, Zhe Deyuan and Yao Yuanfu together led two thousand Lingwu Garrison imperial troops and more than three thousand local Tangut cavalry and arrived at Yunzhou.

By this time at Yunzhou, the outer city had long since fallen, but over a thousand Khitan, dragging along several hundred Han able-bodied men, were holding out in the inner city.

And the reason for their stubborn defense was simple: before Zhe Congyuan led Yang Hongxin, Wu Luan, and other generals with twenty thousand troops to attack Yunzhou,

the Khitan Prince Wei, Yelu Talie, who garrisoned Yunzhou, in order to guard against an uprising by the Han people of the city, had directly slaughtered several thousand of the city's Han, and seized all their grain and fodder to hold out.

So the Khitan in the city had already burned all bridges — they had no way out, and naturally would fight to the death.

After Zhe Congyuan arrived, with the help of the Han people of Yunzhou he quickly took the outer city, but the inner city had high walls and thick ramparts, and a small defensive perimeter.

Yelu Talie had ample grain and water in the city, while the soldiers of Fugu Garrison and Datong Garrison lacked siege equipment, so in the short term they truly could not take it.

And just after Yao Yuanfu arrived with fresh troops, Yang Jiye also arrived with five hundred cavalry.

He also brought the imperial great banner and armor of the Khitan Emperor Yelu Ruan, along with fifteen senior officers of Yelu Ruan's own palace camp, the Yeluhan Ordo.

As soon as these people arrived, Zhe Congyuan's courage immediately swelled. In truth, these past days he had not committed many men to attacking Yunzhou,

because he had to be constantly on guard against Khitan cavalry suddenly raiding him from some direction. Now that worry was finally gone.

In an instant, the three armies roared with joy, and cries of "Long live!" went on without end. Zhe Congyuan laughed until tears came, and looking at Yang Jiye he said:

"It has been ten years since the Shi clan ceded Yan-Yun, stripping the Middle Kingdom of its shield. We of Fu and Lin prefectures have suffered deeply from it. Today, one may truly say the great vengeance is repaid!"

Afterward, Zhe Congyuan withdrew all the troops guarding against the Khitan. After the three armies slaughtered pigs and sheep and feasted beneath the walls of Yunzhou, the Zhou army, now strengthened to thirty thousand men, began a fierce assault on the inner city.

And before the assault, Yang Jiye deliberately paraded Yelu Ruan's great banner beneath the walls, while the captured prisoners one by one announced their identities, weeping that the Emperor had already died.

The Khitan on the walls were greatly terrified at this, and Yelu Talie wept bitterly, tears streaming down his face.

The only courage that had sustained their stubborn defense was the knowledge that Zhe Congyuan had few men, and the hope that Khitan from the direction of Youzhou could come to lift the siege. Now that even the Emperor was gone, what was left to fight for?

On the third day of fighting, the residents of Yunzhou, who bore deep hatred for the Khitan, together with the Datong Garrison imperial troops, were the first to seize the area near the east gate of the inner city.

The Khitan Prince Wei, Yelu Talie, seeing the cause was lost, burned himself to death in the inner city government office. The Zhou army poured into the city and captured more than seven hundred Khitan within.

Originally Zhe Congyuan had wanted to keep a few alive for Zhang Zhao to present as captives, but the Han folk of Yunzhou and the Datong Army had suffered under the Khitan for too long. Any Khitan in the city who was dragged out was beaten to death on the spot.

And so, amid the jubilant cheers of tens of thousands, Yunzhou, lost for ten years, returned once more to the embrace of a Central Plains dynasty.

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