Chapter 673: Hanzhong, in Danger!

In just three days, Ma Zhaoyuan successfully captured the eastern gateway to Sichuan, the most critical natural barrier on the Yangtze for Meng Shu.

Gao Yanchou, Military Governor of the Ningjiang Army at Kuizhou in Meng Shu, took his own life for his country; Administrative Assistant Luo Ji and others surrendered with the golden seal of the Ningjiang Army Military Governor.

That Supervisor Wu Shouqian, who had boasted he would make Gao Yanchou watch him win merit, instead quickly bound himself and begged to surrender soon after the Zhou army entered the city.

Zhao Chongji, Vice Commander of the Ningjiang Army, had his right arm pierced by a divine-arm crossbow; after losing the arm, this young Vice Commander Zhao actually survived.

Of the nearly six thousand yabing guards who followed Gao Yanchou out to battle from the Ningjiang Army, over seven hundred died on the spot, and more than a thousand more were killed in the pursuit and street fighting within the city.

After the battle, a count of prisoners found nearly two thousand still alive with light or heavy wounds, while one or two thousand more had scattered and fled; Ma Zhaoyuan was ordering them hunted down.

The four thousand mountain folk hunters who had come out of the city, however, had suffered almost no losses.

That was because they had only been hired to fight alongside for the sake of a few big coins a day, so the moment the situation looked bad, they ran faster than anyone.

But no matter how fast they were, they could not outrun the Zhou cavalry, and in the end most were caught and brought back. Ma Zhaoyuan actually began selecting garrison troops from among them.

This move proved effective indeed. The mountain folk had feared the Zhou army would behead them, but to their surprise there were benefits instead: they could be allotted good fields on flat land.

One must understand that a place like Kuizhou is basically similar to Yunnan and Guizhou — there is not three li of level ground anywhere. The few good fields that exist are in the Yangtze river valley and along the banks of its tributaries.

In the Central Plains, the standard for good fields would be fertility and convenient irrigation.

But here, the first standard for good fields is simply that they be level. As long as the land is flat, this place does not lack irrigation water and so on; level fields are top-grade fields.

The mountain folk were wild with joy and immediately called their relatives and friends to Kuizhou to take part in the selection. Ma Zhaoyuan was happy to be generous too — these lands belonged to the Ningjiang Army anyway, and he felt not the slightest pain in using them for land equalization.

As for the Ningjiang Army's yabing guards, Administrative Assistant Luo Ji and the others received somewhat decent treatment. The remaining officers and soldiers got no special favor; they were all broken up and assigned to the various armies as auxiliary troops and laborers, while their families were detained in Kuizhou city.

If they could earn merit, perhaps they might still have a future; if not, it would depend on whether fate spared them.

After a day of rest and reorganization in Kuizhou, Ma Zhaoyuan ordered men to collect Gao Yanchou's remains and give him burial.

Then he left Hou Zhang, Left Guard Commander of Jiangling, to hold Kuizhou, and the main army continued upriver, heading straight for Meng Shu's second Military Governor on the Yangtze — the Military Governor of the Wutai Army at Fuzhou.

However, although Ma Zhaoyuan was advancing with startling speed, his actual importance was not all that great.

Because at this time, the entire basin east of what would later be Chongqing, including the city itself, held little standing in Shu — especially economically.

The most important part of Shu was still the circle around Chengdu.

In Tang times, Jiannan West Circuit was centered on Chengdu, and Jiannan East Circuit on Zizhou.

And Zizhou is what later generations call Santai County in Sichuan, next to Chengdu — not, as later people assume, West Circuit at Chengdu and East Circuit at Chongqing.

Of course, more importantly, from Kuizhou to Chengdu is simply too far — nearly five hundred li farther than from Hanzhong to Chengdu — and it is upstream travel, making transport difficult.

Ma Zhaoyuan had only these twenty thousand men, and every place he took required leaving troops to garrison it in order to keep the Yangtze open for navigation.

At this rate, after at most taking the Military Governor of the Wutai Army at Fuzhou and pressing on toward Yuzhou (Chongqing), Ma Zhaoyuan would likely be unable to move any farther.

The decisive fighting would still have to be seen at Hanzhong and the Qishan road.

At Wukou Pass, Erzhu Jing now faced the same predicament as Ma Zhaoyuan.

He had brought eight thousand infantry and cavalry and over ten thousand laborers from Xiangyang Prefecture, advancing all the way up the Han River, and after reaching Wukou Pass he was already five hundred li from his rear base at Ankang Prefecture.

Such a long supply line had to rely entirely on the Han River, and with both boats and laborers insufficient, it was impossible to advance any farther — indeed, Erzhu Jing could not even sustain his present scale.

He could only order that after reinforcing and building up Wukou Pass, most of the laborers be sent home, and then detach four thousand troops to garrison the prefectures and counties along the route, to ease the pressure of grain and fodder consumption.

After this dispersal, Erzhu Jing had only three thousand regular troops and two to three thousand laborers left in his own hands.

Though the soldiers were still fierce, the Wuding Army at Yuanzhou across from him outnumbered the Zhou army considerably. Field battle would be no problem, but assaulting the city would be a stretch.

Thus the two armies settled into a standoff east of Yuanzhou.

On the Baoxie road, at Wuxiu Pass — this was the fifth day of Wuxiu Pass being besieged.

In those five days, the Zhou army, led by its various personal armies, launched more than twenty unceasing fierce assaults up the mountain ridges toward Wuxiu Pass.

Wuxiu Pass did not occupy much ground; after all, the place had little open space for the Shu army to build a pass fortress.

Thus, much like Baidi City, Wuxiu Pass could hold at most six or seven hundred men, and it likewise needed a relief force stationed behind the pass for rotation and reinforcement.

The Zhou army's continuous fierce attacks had greatly exhausted the Shu soldiers on Wuxiu Pass. Even the thousand-odd soldiers brought as reinforcements by Sun Shunchao, Commander of the Inner Guard of the Shannan Circuit young lord, had already been rotated twice.

Wuxiu Pass also had a problem: although it occupied high ground and was easy to defend and hard to attack, because Meng Shu had only begun repairing it within the past year, the fortifications were sturdy enough, but there were few means of killing the enemy — mainly rolling stones and logs, supplemented by bows, crossbows, and long spears.

Seeing this, Luo Yu'er quickly devised a targeted plan. The Zhou army set up many banners and drums below Wuxiu Pass and kept up a din of shouting and drumming day and night.

For the attacking soldiers, they selected men from the Hengshan Tangut and the mountain folk of the Zhongnan Mountains in Guanzhong, who could leap and fly across the mountains.

These soldiers were extremely formidable in combat. Equipped with divine-arm crossbows and small wooden single-shot crossbows, even a feint attack could put tremendous pressure on the Shu troops atop Wuxiu Pass.

The Shu soldiers on the pass, seeing the Zhou attacks so fierce, believed the Zhou army was assaulting with all its might, and their consumption of rolling stones and logs was astonishing.

In particular, Wuxiu Pass was not large, and once the rolling stones and logs were used up, they had to be hauled up from behind the pass — no easy labor.

The Zhou attacks certainly cost heavy casualties, but the Shu defenders were so exhausted they could only groan.

By the fifth day, the Shu soldiers on the pass assigned to haul rolling stones and logs began collectively slacking off, and their attacking power visibly weakened.

The moment had come — now it all depended on Wang Tongxin!

Luo Yu'er gazed at Wuxiu Pass, hoping this old-timer of the Yuan Cong faction could bring him a surprise.

How hard it was to cross Wuguan Mountain, Wang Tongxin now understood deeply.

Because just a few breaths ago, he had watched a brave man who had followed him since his days as Garrison Commander of Wucheng Garrison in Liangzhou fall into a bottomless abyss.

Wang Tongxin, a man full of flaws — gluttonous, lustful, fond of luxury, and unlearned — stood red-eyed beside the ten-thousand-zhang cliff, silent for a long time.

He did have one good point: he truly valued loyalty. As long as you were on good terms with him, he would gladly break his last coin in half to share with you, and when trouble came, he would truly dare to step up.

Half a year ago, over an unfair merit citation for one of his men, he had stubbornly stood punishment duty at the gate of Jinshan Palace for a whole day, forcing Zhang Zhao to come out and deal with it.

In the end, Wang Tongxin was fined half a year's salary as Marquis of Wucheng, and Zhang Zhao found a pretext of corrupting military discipline to give him a harsh ten strokes of the army rod.

But Wang Tongxin ultimately got the matter done, and for that he earned the praise and respect of a great many lower officers and soldiers.

So a man like Wang Tongxin could not serve as Zhang Zhao's personal guard the way Man Xiong and Dunzhu did, but he could lead several hundred men as a surprise force to accomplish great things.

Because the rank-and-file soldiers all trusted this Marquis of Wucheng, who ate, drank, whored, and gambled wildly with them, but would absolutely dare to risk everything to win them benefits.

Two hundred men set out. After a full three and a half days, Wang Tongxin finally led one hundred thirty men over Wuguan Mountain.

Of course, not all the rest had fallen to their deaths; many simply could not continue due to exhaustion or injury.

Don't look down on the small numbers — the Shu troops on Wuxiu Pass aren't many either! These one hundred thirty men are more than enough.

Wang Tongxin crossed the mountain, and after sharing the last bit of food with his men, he immediately lit the large firecracker in his hand.

Boom — the sound shook the countryside for miles!

Sun Shunchao was at that moment urging the Shu troops on the pass to haul up rolling stones and battering logs with all their might.

But he never imagined that with a whistling cry, atop Wuxiu Pass — which should have been a sheer cliff a thousand fathoms high — a Zhou force, their clothes torn to shreds by branches, would descend like soldiers from heaven!

At the same time below the mountain, with a single order from Luo Yu'er, Li Cunhui personally raised a great shield and led several hundred hand-picked warriors in a fierce assault.

One hundred thirty men — even without armor, even with only short hengdao sabers in hand — warriors capable of such a feat were not something the Shu troops could withstand.

Wang Tongxin and his men were like tigers among sheep. Sun Shunchao raised his long spear to resist, but Wang Tongxin let out a great shout and in one flying step was right before Sun Shunchao's eyes.

Looking at this god of slaughter before him, all the past suddenly surfaced in his mind.

It turned out Sun Shunchao had once been captured by the Zhou army. The nephew of Sun Hanshao who had been turned, whom Li Xiaojie had once mentioned to Zhang Zhao, was none other than this Sun Shunchao before him.

It was just that after returning to Shu, Sun Hanshao believed his nephew had not defected despite over a year in captivity, and since he was reasonably brave, he promoted and entrusted him with important duties.

Sun Shunchao had originally intended to become a turncoat, but upon returning he was given important responsibilities, so he quickly extinguished that thought — yet the fear in his heart remained.

The moment he saw that the man before him was Wang Tongxin — the one who had once beaten more than ten men single-handedly in the Shu army's prisoner-of-war camp, one of the Sage Shaoming's four famous fierce hounds —

he was so terrified he could barely breathe, his hands felt weak and limp, and at best he could bring out only three or four tenths of his full ability.

After only a few exchanges, Sun Shunchao was knocked to the ground by Wang Tongxin. Slippery as he was, he simply dropped to his knees on the spot, shouting, "I surrender, I surrender!"

The Shu troops on the pass were already exhausted from hauling rolling stones and battering logs, and now seeing Sun Shunchao himself shouting surrender — what the hell were we still fighting for!

And so the Shu troops, despite superior numbers, superior equipment, and superior stamina, actually laid down their weapons before a Zhou force that looked like a band of beggars.

By the time Li Cunhui led his men charging up to Wuxiu Pass, Wang Tongxin had his foot on Sun Shunchao and swaggeringly ordered the gate opened, letting them straight in.

Xingyuan Prefecture, the Military Governor's headquarters of Shannan Circuit. After Sun Hanshao learned that the situation in Yuanzhou had barely stabilized, he was not much relieved, because the occupation of Wukou Pass remained a constant problem.

Setting aside the immediate threat, as long as the Zhou army held Wukou Pass, if they spent half a year clearing the Ziwu Road, the next battle would not even need to be fought.

So Sun Hanshao still wanted to take advantage of the Zhou army not yet having exited the Baoxie Road to send more troops and strike at the Zhou force at Wukou Pass.

At the very least he had to restore the defenses of Raofeng Pass. In any case, the Shu army had the Han River running through Xingyuan Prefecture at its disposal, coming and going freely.

But Luo Yu'er gave him no such chance. Just as Sun Hanshao was considering moving troops, Wang Tongxin, escorting Sun Shunchao, together with Li Cunhui, tricked open the last pass on the Baoxie Road — Qipan Pass.

The commander of Qipan Pass had not wanted to open the gate, but could not withstand Sun Shunchao applying pressure in his capacity as Sun Hanshao's nephew. By the time the gate was opened and he sensed something wrong, it was already too late.

After Wang Tongxin and Li Cunhui had tricked the gate open, more than ten thousand Zhou troops filed out of the Baoxie Road and began a fierce assault on Baocheng County outside the pass.

Baocheng County was only forty li from Hanzhong, and it was no pass or stronghold but merely a county seat.

Once Baocheng County was taken, it could serve as a base for besieging Hanzhong.

In every dynasty, when attacking Hanzhong from Guanzhong, once the fighting reached Baocheng County, the battle was essentially over — the leading figures holding Hanzhong would begin considering surrender.

Because Hanzhong (Xingyuan Prefecture), like Baocheng County, had no natural defenses and could not possibly resist a large army.

This time, however, things were somewhat different. First, the Zhou state had held Guanzhong for only two or three years and followed an elite-troops strategy, so unlike previous dynasties it did not have the capacity to muster an army of eighty or a hundred thousand out of the Baoxie Road.

Second, the Shu troops in Baocheng County proved extremely tenacious, and the Zhou troops, having come from afar, were quite exhausted and could not immediately take the county — this gave Sun Hanshao time to move his forces.

On the morning of the second day after receiving Baocheng County's warning, Sun Hanshao sent riders at full gallop to Wang Huan and Li Jin in Yuanzhou, ordering them to abandon Yuanzhou City at once and bring seven thousand men back to relieve Xingyuan Prefecture.

At the same time, he emptied the Xingyuan Prefecture treasury to reward the troops, and also recruited fighting men from among the common people of Shannan Circuit, preparing to meet the Zhou army in a decisive battle by the Han River.

The third year of Zhou Shaoming, the eighteenth year of Meng Shu's Guangzheng, 948 CE, the seventh day of the fourth month.

Sun Hanshao brought out all twelve thousand elite troops of Meng Shu's Shannan Circuit at Xingyuan Prefecture plus twenty thousand conscripted braves, and marched north out of Xingyuan Prefecture, intending to relieve Baocheng County and seek a decisive battle with the Zhou army.

Sun Hanshao said to the Shu commanders: "The northern troops have come from afar. In a single month they marched five hundred li south through the Baoxie Road, and were even repulsed at Wuxiu Pass. They must be utterly exhausted, and having taken pass after pass they will be prone to underestimating us.

We outnumber the enemy several times over and have the advantage of fighting on home ground. If ten thousand hearts beat as one, we can surely destroy the northern troops."

After Li Congke of the Later Tang rose in arms at Fengxiang, Sun Hanshao had submitted to Meng Shu in his capacity as Military Governor of Wuding Army in Yuanzhou.

Meng Zhixiang treated him with extreme generosity; the troops under his command were never broken up, and remained under Sun Hanshao's control the entire time.

At the same time, after Meng Chang succeeded to the throne, Sun Hanshao in effect became Meng Chang's political ally.

For he belonged neither to the old-minister faction of Meng Zhixiang such as Zhang Ye and Zhao Tingyin, nor had much connection with the great clans of Shu.

Therefore, although he had once been recalled to Chengdu by Meng Chang and shelved with high honors, once Meng Chang understood Sun Hanshao's usefulness, he was immediately sent back to Hanzhong. Moreover, Meng Chang gave Sun Hanshao additional troops and did not even send an army supervisor — an extreme display of trust.

Sun Hanshao's position in Meng Shu, if examined deeply, could no longer really be called that of a subject.

For without his instigation, Meng Shu could never have obtained Hanzhong. Combined with his long-standing independence, Sun Hanshao was in fact a minor shareholder in the Meng Shu regime.

The Shu troops of Shannan Circuit in Hanzhong were the same: if Sun Hanshao was a shareholder in Meng Shu, they were shareholders in Sun Hanshao.

Therefore, as long as Sun Hanshao was willing to fight, the Shu troops of Shannan Circuit could fight.

On the eighth day of the fourth month, Sun Hanshao led thirty-five thousand men and in a single day reached a point five li southwest of Baocheng County.

But he was still a step too late. Baocheng County had only a few hundred Shu troops, who could not withstand the day-and-night fierce assault of more than ten thousand Zhou elite troops. Before Sun Hanshao arrived, Baocheng County had already fallen.

Sun Hanshao had no choice but to withdraw his troops, but the Zhou army had already spotted Sun Hanshao's main force.

Fortunately, the Zhou army's passage through the Baoxie Road had been so difficult that their warhorses had not yet recovered, and few cavalry could take the field. The Shu army also had a small cavalry escort, and this was what ensured the Shu army's safety.

In the initial skirmishing, the light cavalry of both sides tangled and harried each other continuously. The Shu army barely withdrew to a point six or seven li northwest of Hanzhong City, where its escorting cavalry was scattered by Zhou cavalry reinforcements.

Sun Hanshao could only pitch camp on the spot and prepare to engage the Zhou army.

This place was the main grain-producing area of Xingyuan Prefecture. Thanks to the irrigation advantages of the Han River and the flatness of the Hanzhong plain, all around were first-rate paddy fields.

It was now the spring plowing season, and the paddy fields were all flooded. Sun Hanshao set his main camp around two small hills a few dozen meters high nearby, dividing into an eastern and a western camp, using the wet, slippery paddy mud as a barrier to block the Zhou cavalry's attacks.

Luo Yu'er left five hundred men to hold Baocheng County as a logistics base, and immediately led the main army forward to camp three li from the Shu army's main camp.

After a brief reconnaissance, Luo Yu'er immediately saw through Sun Hanshao's thinking — this was indeed a good place for restricting cavalry movement.

This place was roughly near the later Xingyuan Lake in the area of modern Hanzhong City. The fact that a reservoir lake could be built here in the Republican era shows how low-lying the terrain was and how abundant the water sources were.

Luo Yu'er was no fool either. He would not abandon his cavalry advantage and send heavy infantry slogging through ankle-deep mud to assault the Shu army uphill.

However brave the Zhou troops were, there was no need to force it so recklessly.

In any case, he had already entered Hanzhong. The Baoxie Road was long, but not impossible to supply. I'll just wear you down for a while first.

At the same time, Luo Yu'er kept sending out the cavalry that had already recovered, letting them plunder the stored grain of the farming households in the nearby countryside, and by the way raid the Shu army's grain-collecting detachments.

This was no time for benevolence and righteousness. Ensuring the army's supplies was the first priority. Even if Zhang Zhao himself came, he would have to do the same.

By the second day of the standoff, more and more of the Zhou army's cavalry had recovered their fighting strength. Luo Yu'er even kept dispatching small units to try to assault the prefectural seat of Xingyuan, which put enormous pressure on Sun Hanshao.

The current situation was that the two sides' troop numbers slightly favored the Shu army, but their fighting strength was somewhat inferior.

As a result, Sun Hanshao did not dare move from the area of what later generations would call Xingyuan Lake, because if he left the protection of the favorable terrain, he would very likely be unable to defeat the Zhou army.

So the anxious Sun Hanshao kept sending messengers to Yuanzhou to urge Wang Huan and Li Jin.

Last time, in order to reinforce Wang Huan, Li Jin had taken away most of Xingyuan Prefecture's cavalry and a large number of mule-borne heavy infantry.

Sun Hanshao hoped that Wang Huan, and especially Li Jin, would use their cavalry advantage to hurry back to his aid, then circle around behind the Zhou army and strike it from front and rear together with him.

Whether Xingyuan Prefecture could hold depended entirely on Wang Huan and Li Jin's ability to return with reinforcements.

(End of Chapter)

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