Chapter 645: Fierce Generals as Numerous as Clouds—Enough to Form a Founding Court

The Li River, the town of Xiaodukou. To the west of this town lie the Wuling Mountains; to the east stretches the broad, flat Dongting Lake plain.

Above Xiaodukou, the Li River's channel is narrow and hard to ford. After passing Xiaodukou, because the river enters the Dongting Lake plain, its surface begins to widen and the current slows.

This small town's geographical position somewhat resembles Jiangling's position on the Yangtze, except that because the Li River is not as important as the Yangtze, it remains obscure and unremarked.

After Zhang Zhaojun (Ma Shacai) led twenty thousand infantry and cavalry to Xiaodukou, he had been locked in a standoff with Zhu Jinzhong's thirty-five thousand Chu troops.

At this moment, the Chu army still held a slight advantage in terrain. After all, they were locals, and Ma Chu had made certain defensive preparations along the Li River, especially at Xiaodukou.

There was a small naval force on the Li River, and it was this very naval force that blocked the Zhou army's crossing.

These days Zhang Zhaojun had been trying every way to build pontoon bridges across the Li River, but no matter where he chose, the Chu army's Li River naval force always discovered it, and the result, of course, was watching helplessly as the bridges were destroyed.

When Zhu Jinzhong was first sent by Ma Xi'e to block Zhang Zhaojun, he was actually very worried.

A man's reputation precedes him like a tree's shadow. An army of the Zhou state that could slay two generations of Khitan rulers in battle and defeat Liu Zhiyuan—how could his own tens of thousands of rabble possibly compare?

The Chu state had always survived in Hunan for two reasons: first, the Nanping buffer, and second, the Central Plains being too chaotic to look south.

Zhu Jinzhong had even prepared himself so that if he could not hold, he would take his trusted elite troops and the barbarian soldiers of the Xiang and Zhou families and flee into the Wuling Mountains.

But now, looking across, the enemy looked resplendent in armor, yet after more than ten days of standoff they could not even set up a pontoon bridge properly and had hardly any boats, so he was greatly relieved.

In fact, because before he came he had revealed to his trusted subordinates his intention to flee into the Wuling Mountains if he could not win, Zhu Jinzhong now felt rather embarrassed.

So, to cover up this embarrassment, Zhu Jinzhong quickly shifted from his initial inferiority complex to overconfidence.

He often said the Zhou infantry and cavalry merely relied on shiny armor and were in fact all show and no substance, and he even boasted that he would drown the entire Zhou army in the Li River.

Was Zhang Zhaojun really so easily defeated? Of course not!

The Yuan Cong faction meant to Zhang Zhao what the Pei County fellows meant to Liu Bang, or the Huaishang brothers meant to Zhu Yuanzhang.

They had followed Zhang Zhao on campaigns east and west, north and south, from nothing to where they were now. If they had no real skill, they would have died long ago in some desolate wilderness.

The reason Zhang Zhaojun kept building pontoon bridges everywhere was only to confuse the Chu army and make them lower their guard.

The reason Zhang Zhaojun had not asked Zhang Zhao for a large number of boatmen in the first place was that he had long since figured out how to cross the Li River.

Upstream on the Li River, although the water was swift, the river channel was relatively narrow because the mountains on both banks were high and the forests dense.

It was impossible for the whole army to cross there, and large amounts of baggage could not be transported across either, but a small number of elite troops would be no problem.

Zhang Zhaojun personally went to the chosen spot to survey it, while Zhao Kuangyin had just climbed out of the water. He had swum back and forth once to feel the current.

Now he was preparing to take iron nails and hemp rope across to the opposite bank to string up a rope line, which would provide some help to the soldiers swimming across.

If you ask me, our Zhao the Elder is truly loved by all and highly capable.

He originally did not know how to swim, but seeing that the court was going to campaign south and badly lacked men skilled in water, he immediately began practicing swimming. In two months, he could already compete with the elite water ghosts of Jiangling in the Flying Tiger Garrison.

At the same time, although he was about to become a garrison commander, he was not the least bit arrogant and could set aside his status. When it came time to lead from the front, he would immediately rush to the front line.

For example, this time, crossing a swift river with unfamiliar underwater conditions was something Zhao Kuangyin volunteered to do together with several water elites.

Zhang Zhaojun naturally was very fond of such a dedicated and brave general. As soon as Zhao Kuangyin came out of the water, Zhang Zhaojun personally handed him dry clothes and a sweat towel.

"Well? Zhao Dalang, how many men do you think we can swim across to the other bank in a single day?"

Zhao Kuangyin first respectfully accepted the sweat towel, and while drying himself off he answered: "The undercurrents are fierce. If we want to cross safely, the speed certainly cannot be fast. In a single day, crossing five or six hundred men would be good enough.

And warhorses are definitely out of the question; they cannot cross. As for armor, this officer has an idea."

That was Zhao Kuangyin for you: ask one question, and he could analyze it thoroughly and even offer suggestions.

Zhang Zhaojun was extremely satisfied and casually tossed Zhao Kuangyin a leather pouch.

Zhao Kuangyin was delighted. He took the leather pouch and gulped down a mouthful. Sure enough, it was the sweet, potent essence of the Five Liangs.

This distilled liquor that Zhang Zhao had concocted had now become popular on a small scale, and it was distributed only for military use.

Strong liquor—ordinary people truly did not like it, but among heavy laborers and these blade-wielding killers, it was the finest of brews.

Especially in the army: on the march there was no time to keep stopping to relieve yourself, and drinking a bellyful of water was simply impractical, so strong liquor became a good companion.

When camping in the wild, cold and damp, one could take a sip; before battle when one could not sleep, a sip; in places without clean drinking water, it could also serve as a supplement to water.

Of course, the army could not possibly leave alcohol unrestricted. If soldiers were allowed to drink freely, who knew what trouble would break out.

So they had brought quite a lot of the stuff, but it was always held by the army's supreme commander. Even someone like Zhao Kuangyin, a Chief Military Inspector, would be guilty of a major offense if he drank without permission.

After just one sip, Zhao Kuangyin felt as if a line of fire was going down his throat, and his body naturally began to warm slightly, the cold damp feeling suddenly receding a great deal.

Although he wanted another sip, Zhao Kuangyin controlled himself with tremendous willpower. He took the small leather pouch and tossed it to the soldiers beside him who had gone into the water with him.

"One sip each, no more! This is a palace-quality fine wine bestowed by the Duke of Zhangye. Everyone must get a taste."

The soldiers immediately erupted in thunderous flattery, shouting one after another, "Thanks to the Duke for his reward! Thanks to Chief Military Inspector Zhao!"

Zhang Zhaojun thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He was beginning to understand why Zhang Zhao refused to take Zhao Kuangyin as an adopted son.

This fellow was skilled in both letters and arms, fearless of death in battle—that went without saying—and damn it all, he was also extremely good at winning people over.

For example, right now, although the soldiers were shouting thanks to the Duke for his reward, in truth they all knew that without Zhao Kuangyin they would never get to drink this wine, so the one they were really thanking was Zhao Kuangyin.

If this fellow became the Emperor's adopted son and then rose through the ranks, and finally, after their own generation grew old, took the position of Chief Commander of the Palace Guard Army—

then... after the Sage passed away, this imperial adopted elder brother would probably be a man whose single word carried the weight of nine cauldrons at court.

Zhang Zhaojun did not know why he suddenly thought of all this; it completely derailed his train of thought, and only after he came back to himself did he find it somewhat amusing.

Although Zhao Kuangyin now had boundless prospects, he was still only a Chief Military Inspector. Even if he succeeded Luo Shande as garrison commander of Zhangwu, above him there were still Murong Xinzhang, Li Cunhui, Zhao Yanjin, Zhang Cheng, Guo Rong, and others. It would not be his turn for a long time.

"Just now you said the armor could be transported across. How would that be done?" Zhang Zhaojun asked in a low voice.

Zhao Kuangyin had seen his superior officer spacing out and had not interrupted. Now that Zhang Zhaojun asked, he immediately pulled on the rope in his hand and said:

"Reporting to the Duke, we can string more ropes across the river, then tie the armor to the ropes, and use another rope tied to the armor to have men on the opposite bank haul it across."

Zhang Zhaojun thought about it. Indeed, this was far more reliable than what he had originally envisioned.

The two were discussing the details when an urgent messenger arrived from the rear: Guo Rong, Left Chief Military Inspector and Commandant of the Left Leopard-Tao Guard of the personal army, and Right Chief Military Inspector Bai Tinghui had arrived.

Zhang Zhaojun was overjoyed at the news. Back in the day, his relationship with Guo Rong had been quite good, and he greatly admired this young general of the new generation.

He laughed twice and said to Zhao Kuangyin, "Go and welcome Commandant Guo for me. Now that they have arrived, Guo Que'er must be close behind. Let us prepare to cross the river!"

Zhao Kuangyin hurriedly dressed. Toward this Commandant Guo, whom he had never met, Zhao Kuangyin always felt a strange sense of familiarity.

On the eighth day of the tenth month, Guo Rong and Bai Tinghui, son of Bai Wenke, arrived with fifteen hundred soldiers of the Left Leopard Guard personal army, and Zhang Zhaojun at once began selecting brave officers for the river crossing.

The Li River ran swift, and Zhang Zhaojun had few boats for crossing, so sending elite troops across was a very dangerous undertaking.

Because once they crossed, there would be no way back; if they could not break through the Chu army's main camp, they would be in grave danger.

Zhang Zhaojun knew this well, and so he personally selected the great majority of the finest troops in this punitive expedition.

With Left Leopard Guard General and Left Chief Supervisor Guo Rong as commander, assisted by Left Dragon Guard Left and Right Chief Supervisors Zhao Kuangyin and Wang Shenqi, Right Feathered Forest Guard Chief Supervisor Murong Yanzhao, and Han Mountain Capital Chief Supervisors Pan Mei, Hou Renbao, Lin Renzhao, Lin Renhan, Yao Kechou, and other fierce officers and crack soldiers, seven hundred men in all.

They planned to cross the Li River from the mountain forests upstream by means of river-crossing ropes, then strike hard at the Ma Chu army camp; once the Ma Chu army fell into disorder, Zhang Zhaojun would immediately lead the whole army across the river and launch a general assault.

In the Ma Chu camp, Zhu Jinzhong was not entirely without defenses against Zhang Zhaojun seizing a crossing upstream; on the contrary, he had specially assigned a battalion of three thousand men to patrol the riverbank and prevent the Zhou army from forcing a crossing.

It was just that the Ma Chu army had few mules and horses, and the few they had were basically all monopolized by officers of every rank, the Man tribal chieftains, and their personal guards.

The three-thousand-man battalion Zhu Jinzhong sent out had no more than a hundred mules and horses in all, to say nothing of forming cavalry or using them for transport; even their baggage and supplies had to be carried by the soldiers themselves.

The Li River was no small river; upstream from Little Ferry Town it stretched for at least several hundred li.

Without mules or horses, and since the men sent out were not Zhu Jinzhong's trusted troops, they would hardly exert themselves to the death.

So patrolling on foot alone, if they managed twenty li a day, that was already considered very diligent.

Still, even at the worst, persisting at twenty li a day could actually achieve a certain effect.

Because according to Zhu Jinzhong's requirements, these three thousand men were to set up military stockades along the way, forming two lines of defense.

Moreover, they were still seventy or eighty li from the main camp; if Zhou troops really did swim across and come raiding, by the time they broke through these two defense lines, the main camp would already have gotten word, and then it would simply be a matter of holding the front while dispatching troops to encircle and wipe them out.

The banks of the Li River all belonged to Langzhou's territory, and Zhu Jinzhong had large numbers of Langzhou Man under his command; the Zhou troops were all northerners and could not possibly escape these local mountain Man who knew the terrain so well.

The design was sound, but unfortunately Zhu Jinzhong was up against an all-star lineup: Guo Rong, Zhao Kuangyin, Wang Shenqi, Pan Mei, Murong Yanzhao, Lin Renzhao — together they could form a full set of founding generals for a dynasty.

After Guo Rong and the others assessed the situation, they immediately made their choice: Guo Rong sent Pan Mei and Wang Shenqi, each leading ten men, to pose as scouts who had accidentally been spotted by the Chu troops.

Wang Shenqi and Pan Mei were both only twenty-one or twenty-two, and their common trait was that they were good-looking, not at all like the ferocious, murderous-looking killers common in the ranks.

The moment the two showed themselves, their fresh young faces at once sent the mountain-patrolling Chu troops into great excitement.

And besides looking like raw novices, the two were also dressed in silk and satin, with gold and jade ornaments hanging at their waists — this perfectly matched the Chu army's current impression of the Zhou troops across the river as rich young lordlings.

A Chu captain, seeing this, howled with excitement; he thought he had caught Zhou scouts who had swum across, and immediately led his hundred-plus men in pursuit.

Then they were done for: several hundred fierce men were still lying in ambush in the ravine, and in an instant more than twenty of the Chu troops were killed, with all the rest taken captive.

Guo Rong at once selected a hundred elite troops, then had them change into the Chu troops' ragged armor and black clothing.

The captain still wanted to put on a show of heroic defiance and refused to guide the Zhou troops, whereupon Guo Rong's temper flared; he killed more than twenty Chu captives in a row, and the captain was scared out of his wits and obediently began leading the way for the Zhou troops.

That night, Guo Rong personally led a hundred elite troops, and with the cooperation of the Chu captives, slipped directly into the Chu army's outer camp of three thousand men and smoothly captured the Chu battalion commander.

And by the same method, he "persuaded" this commander to cooperate with the Zhou army's operations.

Little Ferry Town was just as its name suggested — a small ferry town, barely enclosed in a few stretches of earthen wall, with some places nothing more than wooden palisades.

The town was about one li from the ferry crossing, and several military stockades had been built at the crossing, looking somewhat more complete in their defenses than the town.

The Chu army was mainly composed of two Chu yabing armies, the Wu'an and the Wuping.

The Wu'an Army had originally been the main force of Chu; the Ma Chu heartland was precisely the territory of the Wu'an Military Governor of Tanzhou.

The Wuping Army had been established as a military province after Ma Chu pacified Langzhou (Changde); these two armies, together with the Jingbian Army of Guizhou, had originally constituted the entirety of Ma Chu's military strength.

But in Ma Yin's later years, these three armies all began to turn into semi-independent military provinces, so Ma Yin hastily established the Juesheng, Qiangnu, and Yinqiang capitals as palace armies under the direct control of the Ma Chu royal house.

However, after Ma Xi'e entered Tanzhou, these capitals were basically broken up; Ma Xi'e seemed to harbor no small hatred toward Ma Yin and Ma Xifan.

After entering Tanzhou, apart from the tombs of Ma Yin and Ma Xifan, he basically burned to the ground every trace of the father and son — including the resplendent Ma Chu royal palace and its associated Tian Ce Prefecture, Guanzheng, Qinzheng, and other towers and halls.

If Ma Xi'e cared nothing for the towers and halls, then he hated these palace army capitals even more.

Thus in no more than three or four months, Ma Xi'e restored the Wu'an Army's establishment and abolished the Juesheng, Qiangnu, and other capitals.

But this decision was the hidden danger now facing Zhu Jinzhong, because while the Juesheng, Qiangnu, and other capitals could be abolished, the men could not all be wiped out.

These men went from being lofty palace troops to Wu'an Army yabing guards, and then Ma Xi'e placed the Langzhou Wuping Army above the Tanzhou Wu'an Army, which left the Wu'an Army yabing guards and yabing officers with an immense sense of loss and extreme resentment.

Therefore Zhu Jinzhong would rather use Langzhou Man troops to guard the more critical crossings and carry out the searches upriver than dare to use these seven thousand-plus men of the Wu'an Army.

As the sky darkened, Zhu Jinzhong felt a slight unease; although the Zhou army across the river was still, as ever, desperately and furtively building pontoon bridges and boats everywhere, and still, as ever, having them destroyed by the Chu troops.

Even Zhu Jinzhong himself thought the Zhou army's fighting strength was nothing impressive, yet he could not help feeling — was this not a little too utterly useless?

More importantly, the battalion sent out to patrol the river had not sent a messenger back with word for a whole day.

Zhu Jinzhong was just about to try to scrape together a squad of cavalry to go investigate when a guard outside suddenly came in to report.

It was said that the General Who Follows Heaven had ordered a batch of gold, silver, and silk escorted from Tanzhou as a reward for Zhu Jinzhong.

"General Who Follows Heaven" was the self-styled title of that fool Ma Xi'e; because Zhang Zhao had not agreed, he did not dare call himself King of Chu, so he came up with this bizarre title, like something out of the Yellow Turban Army or Huang Chao's rebel forces.

Zhu Jinzhong had just been thinking of going to check on the river patrol battalion, but the moment he heard the reward had arrived — possibly a reward for his merit in bottling up the Zhou army north of the Li River — he was overjoyed and forgot everything else.

He simply shouted for his trusted guards to change him into his court robes; he wanted to receive the reward first, and let everyone see it, and have a fine moment of glory.

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