Chapter 671: My Two Emperors Are Invincible!

At the same time Erzhu Jing launched his attack, Ma Zhaoyuan, Commander-in-Chief of the Shu-Pacification Field Headquarters, was in Jiangling Prefecture.

Xiangyang Prefecture and Jiangling Prefecture were fairly close to each other, which made it easier to coordinate the timing of the attacks.

Therefore, on the seventh day of the third month, after the Shu-Pacification deputy general Erzhu Jing had mustered eight thousand infantry and cavalry and advanced upstream, Ma Zhaoyuan immediately ordered the Shu-Pacification Field Headquarters army to begin moving out as well.

Ma Zhaoyuan personally took command at Zigui, appointing Water Route Commander Du Lun Chixin as Shu-Pacification Marching Adjutant, and assembled more than four hundred warships to advance upstream from Zigui.

The stretch of the Yangtze from Zigui upstream to Baidi City in Fengjie, Kui Prefecture of Meng Shu, is the famous Three Gorges of the Yangtze.

In later times, before the Three Gorges Dam impounded its waters, the Three Gorges were majestic, strange, perilous, and beautiful — a superb tourist destination.

After impoundment, the water depth rose by more than one hundred seventy meters, and even Baidi City, once a natural stronghold, became an isolated island in the river; the current slowed, making navigation easier.

But at this time, "majestic, strange, perilous, and beautiful" represented not beautiful scenery but a harsh environment. Nor, of course, did it possess the navigability the Three Gorges would have after later impoundment.

From Zigui upstream, the current was swift, and the river was full of reefs and whirlpools formed by reversing currents; relying on a ship's own oars and sails alone, it was simply impossible to move against the current.

This nearly four-hundred-li stretch of Yangtze waterway had to be accomplished almost entirely by trackers.

The work of a tracker was not the romantic picture of "little sister sits at the bow, big brother walks on the shore."

In the Three Gorges section especially, not only was the current swift, but there was little footing on either bank; Three Gorges trackers often had to plant both feet in the water to haul the boats.

Coarse hemp ropes could easily strip the flesh from a man's shoulders and cut terrifying gashes into the palms of his hands.

At the same time, since the river water made it impossible to see one's footing, it was common for trackers' feet to be cut to ribbons by sharp stones in the river while hauling.

Without a body covered in calluses, a man had no business being a tracker at all.

Therefore, after learning of the Zhou army's movements, Meng Shu's Kui Prefecture Ningjiang Army Military Governor Gao Yanchou, Deputy Military Governor Zhao Chongji, and Ningjiang Army Supervisor (Army Overseer) Wu Shouqian were not alarmed.

Not to mention that they had already laid out a stone-catapult formation at the mouth of Qutang Gorge, and Baidi City, with its commanding height, could be called a natural stronghold.

The Yangtze waterway alone would be very difficult for the Zhou army to come up, and the reason lay with the trackers.

Human beings are extremely complicated creatures. Trackers lived year-round on the edge of life and death; though their lives were desperately hard, they were by no means a group of honest, simple folk — at least their leaders would not be.

Before the Zhou army had even arrived, the trackers on both banks of the Three Gorges had fled into the deep mountains with their families. Not only could the Zhou army not catch them, but even if they did, even with a knife at their throats, the trackers would not exert their full strength.

The reason was simple: these trackers were so impoverished that only when a boat came could they eat a full meal. If they hauled with all their might and exhausted their strength, then once the Zhou army left they would not be able to haul the next boat — which basically meant death.

Compared with being killed for not hauling hard, it was merely the difference between dying sooner and dying later.

The Zhou army could offer rich rewards, but those rewards had to be earned with one's life, and most of these men were subjects of Shu — whether they trusted the Zhou army's credibility was itself unknown.

Sure enough, before long, Shu army scouts risked their lives to send back word that the Zhou army had reached Badong County in the former Guizhou and could advance no farther.

The trackers they had brought from Jiangling simply could not adapt to the harsh river conditions here; after hauling only a few dozen li, the trackers fell ill in large numbers.

Upon receiving this report, Gao Yanchou, whose heart had been pounding ceaselessly, finally felt considerably more at ease.

He had seen the ferocity of the Zhou army; it was not something the Ningjiang Army's soldiers could resist at all. More than a year spent as a captive in the Zhou state had also given him a clear understanding of the gap between Zhou and Shu.

Compared with Gao Yanchou's caution, Ningjiang Army Supervisor Wu Shouqian was greatly reassured. In this situation, even if the Zhou army reached Kui Prefecture, they would likely be utterly exhausted in body and spirit, and could not possibly withstand the stone-catapult bombardment from both banks at Baidi City.

It cannot be said that Gao Yanchou's and Wu Shouqian's assessments were wrong; in most circumstances it would indeed be so. But Ma Zhaoyuan, Ma Yaozi, had thought of this problem long ago.

Sage Zhang had specially transferred him from Xuzhou, not because he had nothing better to do, but because he valued Ma Zhaoyuan's combination of rough exterior and fine attention to detail.

Long before the main army set out, Ma Zhaoyuan had obtained from Zhang Zhao command authority over the Brocade Guard personal troops in the two provinces of Hubei and Hunan, and the Brocade Guard had also sent a Commandant to assist Ma Zhaoyuan.

These trackers, most of whom were subjects of Shu, were extremely clannish and indeed did not easily trust outsiders, but they trusted one kind of person: the traveling merchants who made their living specifically off them.

These traveling merchants had been trained by the Hexi Chamber of Commerce specifically to assist the Brocade Guard, and had been moving through the vast Wu Mountains for a year already.

They brought the trackers and mountain folk the salt, tea, cloth, sugar, and prepared medicines the locals needed; some of the merchants could also treat minor ailments in people and treat illnesses in large livestock.

More importantly, they dealt fairly, and at times would even agree to extend credit, and so they enjoyed tremendous trust among the trackers and mountain folk of the Wu Mountains.

Through their efforts, Ma Zhaoyuan smoothly invited the leaders of these mountain folk and trackers to Zigui County.

The stalled fleet the Shu army scouts saw was actually a smokescreen released by Ma Zhaoyuan; the real situation was that Ma Zhaoyuan had personally gone to Badong County to meet with these leaders.

And after seeking instructions from Zhang Zhao, Ma Zhaoyuan was extremely generous, offering these mountain folk and tracker leaders one hundred slots in the Imperial Guard navy, as well as three hundred slots in the garrison army with land allotments.

He also promised that other mountain folk and trackers willing to move to Kui Prefecture and other places to live could also be settled.

It might seem like not much, but in reality these mountain folk and trackers together numbered only three or four thousand able-bodied men; releasing four hundred positions now meant that one in ten of them would see their lives utterly transformed from this point on.

With trusted traveling merchants vouching for them, twenty-two mountain folk and tracker leaders immediately dropped to one knee and swore loyalty to the Great Zhou.

And Ma Zhaoyuan, while having these twenty-two men send their families as hostages, pretended to fly into a rage because the boats could not advance, punishing a batch of officers and clerks in order to lull the Shu army scouts.

He had feared that Wu Shouqian would send several waves of scouts to investigate, but in fact Ma Zhaoyuan had worried too much; Wu Shouqian sent only two waves in total.

These two waves had long since believed they had obtained detailed intelligence and rushed back to claim the reward for their reports.

And Wu Shouqian did not send more scouts to Badong County — that would require crossing the Wu Mountains and the Daba Mountains! The water route also meant taking the extremely perilous Three Gorges channel; a small boat going downstream with the current would find it very difficult to return.

This meant that very few in the Shu army were willing to take on this task at all, and even those who were sent out mostly just went through the motions.

Thus on the sixteenth day of the third month, when the Shu-Pacification Field Headquarters main army set out again before dawn, Gao Yanchou and Wu Shouqian in Kui Prefecture had no idea at all.

On the nineteenth day of the third month, the Shu-Pacification main army advanced upstream along the river and was about to reach the mouth of Wu Gorge. This was already Shu territory, and the Shu army had established two major military stockades here: Wushan and Sanhui.

Of these, the Wushan stockade was farther east, near the present-day county seat of Wushan County in Chongqing. The Sanhui stockade was in present-day Dachang Town, Wushan County. The first stockade the Shu-Pacification main army encountered was Wushan Stockade.

This stockade stood at the mouth of Wu Gorge, one of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze, and was divided into a southern and a northern stockade. Two layers of wooden palisades were set across the river, and both banks had large crossbows such as the Fuyuan crossbow providing fire support.

The southern stockade had three hundred soldiers and twenty small boats, each boat carrying five crossbowmen, two sword-and-shield men, three boarding fighters, and four boatmen.

The northern stockade had seven hundred soldiers and more than thirty large and small boats, likewise equipped with crossbowmen.

It could be said that such a disposition, while it could not completely block the Shu-Pacification navy, could certainly repulse its vanguard and hold out for three to five days, waiting for the Ningjiang Army navy from Kui Prefecture to come south as reinforcement.

But Ma Zhaoyuan did not give them that chance. After winning over the Wushan mountain folk and trackers, Ma Zhaoyuan ordered the brothers Lin Renzhao and Lin Renhan to take three hundred elite soldiers, guided by local mountain folk, and launch a fierce assault on the northern stockade under the pre-dawn darkness.

The Shu troops in the northern stockade never imagined the Shu-Pacification main army would appear at this time. Without even their armor on, and with most of their weapons not at hand, they were trapped inside the stockade.

Lin Renzhao, wearing only a suit of interlocked ring armor and with both thighs bare, charged first into the Shu troops, hacking and killing; his soldiers, inspired by him, all fought with desperate courage.

The battle lasted no more than a quarter hour. Before the Shu troops in the southern stockade could even react, more than sixty of the seven hundred northern stockade troops had been killed, and the rest, panic-stricken, threw themselves to the ground and begged for mercy.

Afterward, Lin Renzhao personally piloted a small boat across the river, carrying the armor and severed head of the Wushan Stockade Shu army Captain.

The southern stockade Shu troops had their spirit broken, and seeing the Zhou army's hundreds of warships, oars and sails covering the river as they advanced upstream, surrendered with perfect smoothness.

This Wushan Stockade should have been the eyes and ears of the Kui Prefecture Ningjiang Army; even if it could not hold out for three to five days, it should at least have served as a warning. But in fact it held for only two quarters of an hour before falling.

After taking the Wushan Army Stockade, Ma Zhaoyuan immediately followed the plan, ordering Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin each to lead three hundred elite troops, first launching a fierce assault on Sanhui Stockade under the guidance of local mountain folk.

Sanhui Stockade existed as a supplement to the Wushan Army Stockade; its purpose was to help stabilize the defensive line when the Wushan Army Stockade could not hold and the main army from Kuizhou had not yet arrived.

Compared to the Wushan Army Stockade soldiers, who could still collect tolls and taxes from passing merchants, they were even more lax in training. When the five hundred stockade troops were raided in the early morning, they immediately fell into chaos.

Not many were killed outright; those who jumped into the river in panic and later drowned from hypothermia and exhaustion numbered at least over a hundred.

After Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin took Sanhui Stockade, they did not linger long. The subsequent control of the scattered stockade troops was left to Du Lun Chixin to handle.

The two followed the guides from the Brocade Guard, abandoned most of their baggage, kept only armor and weapons, and marched north.

Yunpan Ridge to the north was the key point connecting the Wushan Army Stockade and Baidi City.

What was rather amusing was that of the Yunpan Ridge stockade troops the Shu army had stationed there, a full thirty percent had once been taken prisoner by the Zhou army in Guanzhong.

Many of them had been taken as trusted men by Gao Yanchou, the Military Governor of the Kuizhou Ningjiang Army, who shared their experience, and were placed at Yunpan Ridge.

With such a critical position held by such men, the result was predictable.

After Guo Rong reached the foot of Yunpan Ridge, fearing he would alert the enemy, he took only thirty brave men forward. With the help of insiders, they made it all the way into the stockade before the Shu army realized something was wrong.

But it was already too late. Guo Rong began fighting on the stockade, while the Zhou troops below, led by Zhao Kuangyin, surged upward with war cries, and the insiders within the stockade also began raising a commotion.

The three hundred-odd Shu troops had no idea what was happening before they were swept along by the crowd in panic and driven out of the stockade. Most of them subsequently died under the Zhou army's pursuit, and a small number were captured.

Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin rested for a quarter of an hour, then ordered the soldiers to raise the Shu army banners from the stockade, had the lead men put on Shu army clothing, and under cover of night hurried from Yunpan Ridge toward Baidi City.

They had already been fighting at high intensity for two consecutive days, but not one of them felt tired. All along the way, the Shu army's combat effectiveness had been so low that it completely exceeded everyone's expectations.

Many soldiers who had followed Zhang Zhao on the campaign against the Southern Tang said that the combat effectiveness of the Shu troops at the Wushan, Sanhui, and Yunpan Ridge stockades was far below that of the Southern Tang, though the natural defenses were several times more formidable.

Thus they could advance as if they knew no fatigue; a cowardly enemy was merit there for the taking.

And when Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin left Yunpan Ridge, word of the Wushan Army Stockade's fall finally arrived.

Gao Yanchou was greatly alarmed and immediately ordered Zhao Chongji, eldest son of Zhao Tingyin and Vice Commissioner of the Kuizhou Ningjiang Army, to lead fifteen hundred men to defend the natural stronghold of Baidi City and the stone catapult positions.

He himself, together with the Army Supervisor Wu Shouqian, led six thousand troops to hold Kuizhou City west of Baidi City, the two supporting each other.

It must be said that the Shu army's dispositions around Baidi City were extremely well arranged. After Ma Zhaoyuan arrived with the fleet, he immediately ordered Du Lun Chixin to send eighty large and small warships as a vanguard in a probing attack.

But before the warships could even reach Baidi City, they were blocked by the river barricades the Shu army had erected. The stone catapults on Baidi City and on White Salt Mountain across the river also suddenly opened fire, and rocks the size of basins rained down. Du Lun Chixin hastily ordered the vanguard fleet to withdraw.

Wu Shouqian had often heard Gao Yanchou speak of how fierce and invincible the Zhou army was, and he had felt considerable apprehension. Now, seeing the Zhou vanguard retreat in 'disastrous' disarray, he burst into loud laughter, convinced that with such natural defenses, the Zhou army was nothing to fear.

But the moment of humiliation soon arrived. The terrain of Baidi City, it turned out, resembled the head of a giant turtle craning out to drink water—a 'peninsula' extending from the shore into the river.

It was perilous indeed, but its area was not large; at most it could hold five or six hundred troops.

Yet as such an important natural stronghold, bearing the heavy responsibility of blockading the Yangtze, five hundred troops sometimes seemed insufficient.

Therefore a military camp needed to be built on the western side at the rear of Baidi City as a supplement.

This camp was a water stockade standing by the riverbank, convenient for reinforcing Baidi City from both water and land.

But precisely because of the natural stronghold of Baidi City, the Shu army habitually assumed that danger could only come from the river. Moreover, with the Zhou army arriving in force and the various units of the Ningjiang Army being shifted about frequently, information had become somewhat confused.

So when Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin arrived with seven hundred men flying Shu army banners, the Shu commander at the Baidi City water stockade assumed they were reinforcements sent by Gao Yanchou and let them into the stockade without checking.

Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin repeated their old trick. Once inside the stockade, they began slashing and killing. They had come prepared, and their numbers matched the Shu troops in the stockade. The Shu troops could not hold, and the stockade was quickly broken.

Guo Rong personally cut down the Shu commander and led his troops in a fierce assault on the western side of Baidi City. In an instant, the situation was reversed.

Baidi City's strength lay in river defense; its land defenses offered little advantage. Zhao Chongji, Vice Commissioner of the Ningjiang Army stationed at Baidi City, could only hurriedly light signal fires to call for help.

In Kuizhou City, Gao Yanchou stood on the Yidou Gate at the southern wall, utterly despondent, muttering to himself, "They've come! They've finally come!"

This man, one of the three great Military Governors of Meng Shu, seemed to have been dealt such a blow by his time as a captive that he had become as fearful of the Zhou as of a tiger.

Army Supervisor Wu Shouqian was furious. "How can a commander fear the enemy so? If Baidi City falls, Kuizhou will not hold either. I beg the Military Governor to send troops to the rescue."

Gao Yanchou, berated by Wu Shouqian, immediately came back to his senses, so ashamed he wished the ground would swallow him. However, he did not agree to relieve Baidi City right away.

"The northern troops have come from afar, so something must have gone wrong at Yunpan Ridge. But Yunpan Ridge is several dozen li from here. This Zhou force has come at a run; their advantage lies in a quick fight. Better to wait until their edge has dulled, then go to reinforce."

Wu Shouqian had just witnessed the Zhou fleet being repelled and had also seen Gao Yanchou's lapse moments before; his confidence was at its peak.

"And if it does not go as the Military Governor expects, and the Zhou troops take Baidi City—what then?"

Gao Yanchou had by now recovered some of his composure. He shook his head. "The Zhou troops number only a few hundred, and Baidi City has several hundred of Zhao Chongji's elite troops. How could the Zhou army take it so easily?"

Wu Shouqian was convinced that Gao Yanchou feared the enemy, and he would no longer trust Gao Yanchou's judgment. He roared.

"If the Military Governor dares not go, then watch me win merit!"

As Army Supervisor, Wu Shouqian had two thousand men under his direct command. Seeing that the Zhou troops numbered only a few hundred, he reckoned they would not be hard to defeat, so he disregarded Gao Yanchou's words and directly mobilized his own troops, marching out of Yidou Gate to relieve Baidi City.

When Guo Rong saw that only a little over two thousand Shu troops had come out of Kuizhou City, he was overjoyed.

His attack on Baidi City just now had been only a feint; his real purpose was to draw out the Kuizhou City garrison. That only a little over two thousand had come was exactly what he wanted.

Guo Rong then placed Zhao Kuangyin on the left and Shi Yanchao on the right, while he himself led a hundred personal followers in the center, armored and armed, drawn up in strict formation.

Wu Shouqian thought he should quickly destroy this Zhou force. Reckoning it was only seven or eight li away, he simply ordered his men to march in full armor.

As a result, when they arrived panting and before they could even begin forming ranks, Guo Rong, Zhao Kuangyin, and Shi Yanchao came at them with three arrows loosed simultaneously.

The Zhou troops were all elite armored soldiers, and their combat effectiveness was simply not something Wu Shouqian's two thousand could compare with. Even while running, they could still skillfully draw their bows.

With Guo Rong's roar, the six hundred personal troops drawn from the Left Dragon Valiant Guard and the Right Leopard Strategy Guard first loosed two volleys in an arc with their long-tipped bows, then switched to short bows for a volley of direct fire, then dropped their bows and charged forward with a roar.

At this moment the Shu army was still in a single-file marching column, with only two or three hundred men at the front. In the space of a dozen breaths, they were struck by at least five hundred bows loosing three volleys, and the front ranks were shattered on the spot.

The soldiers in the middle had not yet understood what was happening when they saw the vanguard retreating in wailing collapse, and for a moment morale wavered throughout the ranks.

Wu Shouqian, mounted on horseback, was still trying to steady the formation when the Zhou troops came sprinting in with heavy swords and bone maces, and in one blow shattered the center, which had still been holding.

Amid the chaos, Shi Yanchao drew his bow and loosed an arrow at the highly conspicuous Wu Shouqian on horseback. The arrow struck Wu Shouqian square in the chest.

Although Wu Shouqian wore a suit of lamellar armor, Shi Yanchao was using a strong bow of one dan and two dou. The tremendous impact immediately made Wu Shouqian's vision go black, and he toppled straight off his horse.

At once the Shu army erupted in panic; even the rear collapsed. The two thousand men had essentially never even closed ranks before being shattered.

In an instant, defeat spread like a landslide. Several of Wu Shouqian's trusted men desperately held him up and, mingling with the routed troops, retreated toward Kuizhou City.

Guo Rong immediately ordered Shi Yanchao to lead two hundred men in pursuit, while he himself turned back with Zhao Kuangyin to fight again.

It turned out that Zhao Chongji in Baidi City, seeing reinforcements arrive, had also mustered three hundred elite troops from the city, intending to come and strike the Zhou army from both sides.

But before they even arrived, Wu Shouqian had already been defeated. Zhao Chongji panicked and hurriedly ordered his soldiers to retreat back into Baidi City.

Unfortunately, with military orders changing repeatedly in such a short time, and the soldiers and officers seeing how quickly and disastrously Wu Shouqian had been defeated, their panic only deepened.

Zhao Kuangyin had just seized Wu Shouqian's mount. The moment he was in the saddle, that feeling of riding free across Hexi came back to him.

He spurred his horse to the very front, the divine-arm crossbow bestowed by Zhang Zhao in his hand, and with a roar from horseback, loosed an arrow from a hundred and fifty paces out.

Zhao Chongji felt a tremendous force strike his right shoulder. He whipped his head around to look and saw, amid torn flesh and skin, a bloody hole still spurting blood. Then the searing pain hit, and Zhao Chongji let out a shriek, the world spinning as he toppled from his horse.

The three hundred Shu soldiers were terrified out of their wits. Someone wailed, "We're beaten!" and hundreds threw down their weapons, stripped off their armor, and fled in every direction across the fields.

Guo Rong and Zhao Kuangyin pressed the attack and took Baidi City in an instant.

Most of the stone catapults the Shu army had placed along the river were at Baidi City or nearby. Once Baidi City fell, the fleet met no further resistance and advanced straight to the walls of Kuizhou.

Now it was the Zhou army's turn to show its might!

(End of chapter)

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