Chapter 674: The Final Battle for Hanzhong

Jiao Jixun had finally waited for his chance.

Although he had made it through the Wenchuan Road without incident, he had not expected several hundred Shu troops to be guarding the valley mouth.

Jiao Jixun sent trusted men out to scout, and found that Sun Hanshao had run the prefectures and counties of the Shannan Circuit like an iron barrel.

The populace was organized under the township-tithing system with collective punishment, key crossroads were all guarded by able-bodied men and county troops, and moving about without alerting the Meng Shu authorities was simply impossible.

And at this moment, with no word yet from Yuanzhou or the Baoxie Road, Jiao Jixun's idea of stirring up the entire Hanzhong basin of the Shannan Circuit with eight hundred men was still far too fanciful.

So for these past days, Jiao Jixun could only send out small squads disguised as bandits to plunder here and there, doing his best to keep his soldiers fed, and he held on stubbornly for three days — until he was nearly at the point of collapse, when the turning point finally came.

The Shu troops at the valley mouth simply marched off one morning, and they left in great haste and with utter thoroughness — not a single man remained, and what was more, they left behind a considerable quantity of supplies.

Jiao Jixun led his men charging into the camp the Shu troops had abandoned in their rush, scavenged some food, and then ordered his eldest son Jiao Shouzhong to take a dozen or so men and seize the local militia leaders for interrogation.

Only then did he learn that Luo Yu'er's main army had emerged from the Baoxie Valley, and that Erzhu Jing at Ankang Prefecture had already taken Wukou Pass.

Sun Hanshao, Military Governor of the Meng Shu Shannan Circuit, had no choice but to hurriedly pull troops from every quarter back to Xingyuan Prefecture to block the main army on the Baoxie Road.

Jiao Jixun was overjoyed — this meant he had plunged straight into Sun Hanshao's very chest and belly! The chance he had waited so bitterly for had finally arrived.

And so, while the cavalry Luo Yu'er had sent out had barely begun to harass the rear of the Hanzhong basin, Jiao Jixun's few hundred men were already raising havoc in the heavens.

Because Sun Hanshao had no idea that Jiao Jixun would dare take eight hundred men through the Wenchuan Road, he had drawn off nearly all the troops east of Xingyuan Prefecture (Hanzhong), and the local militia left in the countryside could not possibly withstand Jiao Jixun's attacks.

In just a few short days, Jiao Jixun and his men seized scores of towns, villages, and ferry crossings, and at one point even nearly broke into Chenggu County, the key strongpoint between Xingyuan Prefecture and Yuanzhou.

Li Rong had met with the same fate as Jiao Jixun. The Tangluo Road had long fallen into disrepair, and Li Rong's three thousand men had marched with extreme hardship, until in the end they had to abandon most of their baggage train just to barely make it out of the valley.

And after emerging from the valley it was the same story, because the mouth of the Tangluo Road was near Yuanzhou. Li Rong did not dare reveal his true strength, and could only send two or three hundred men out of the valley to operate, making the Wuding Army of Meng Shu's Yuanzhou think his numbers were small.

After all, on this march of several hundred li his men were exhausted, and most of their provisions, baggage, and armor had been lost. If they were really caught by an enemy waiting at ease and struck hard, it would be very dangerous, so they could only wait for the main army to arrive and watch for an opening.

From this one can see that Wei Yan's famous Wuzhang Valley stratagem of old was indeed not very reliable.

Given the present gap between Zhou and Shu, as long as the Meng Shu army had not been frightened off, Zhou troops emerging from a valley mouth still had to proceed with caution.

The turning point likewise came from Sun Hanshao summoning Wang Huan, Military Governor of the Yuanzhou Wuding Army, and Li Jin, Commander of the Shannan Circuit young lord's cavalry-infantry force, to turn back and reinforce him.

Wang Huan was pressed by Sun Hanshao until he had no choice, so he left a few hundred soldiers behind as a decoy force to intimidate Erzhu Jing, who was several dozen li away, and keep him from daring to pursue, while he himself took the Wuding Army's main force west.

But all of this was seen with perfect clarity by Li Rong, up in the mountains north of Yuanzhou. Although Li Rong did not know that the main army had already emerged from the Baoxie Road — he did not even know that Erzhu Jing was only sixty-odd li from him —

Li Rong did know that some tremendous upheaval must have occurred for the Meng Shu Wuding Army of Yuanzhou to withdraw in such haste.

So Li Rong waited until Wang Huan and Li Jin had led their troops away for half a watch, then immediately burst out of the Tangluo Road and began a furious assault on Yuanzhou.

The Wuding Army troops left to hold the city had been guarding all along against Erzhu Jing to the east, thinking the mountains to the north held only a few hundred Zhou troops — they never expected there to be several thousand.

Li Rong had been bottled up in the Tangluo Road for six or seven days, and the fury burning in his soldiers' hearts was fierce indeed. They also knew this was the best chance they would get, and at once attacked with reckless abandon. The Wuding Army could not even get the gates of Yuanzhou shut before they were driven into the city.

Only after taking Yuanzhou did Li Rong learn that the main army had already emerged from the Baoxie Road, and that Erzhu Jing's Feng'an Garrison was sixty li to the east.

At that, this warlord from Taiyuan turned ruthless, and on the spot had all three hundred-odd captured yabing guards of the Wuding Army buried alive.

After that he left only a hundred men to hold Yuanzhou's east gate, sent ten men over the mountains to notify Erzhu Jing, and led the rest in pursuit of the Wuding Army's main body heading for Xingyuan Prefecture, gnawing on flatbread as they marched.

Almost at the same time, after Jiao Jixun had seized a dozen or more ferry crossings and towns, he too realized at once that the Wuding Army from Yuanzhou was very likely coming back to reinforce, so he hurriedly led his eight hundred brave men, hoping to take Chenggu County and block them.

Unfortunately he arrived a step too late. Before Jiao Jixun could take Chenggu County, he saw dust rising in the distance — the reinforcing Wuding Army from Xingyuan Prefecture and part of the Shannan Circuit yabing guards had already arrived.

So Jiao Jixun hastily withdrew to the north of Chenggu County, where there stood a wooden bridge built in the Former Han, the Wangxian Bridge.

The Xu River rises in the Qinling Mountains and flows around the north of Chenggu County. The most convenient crossing over the Xu River was at the Wangxian Bridge, and the Wuding Army reinforcing Xingyuan Prefecture would have to pass this way.

Wang Huan and Li Jin had been racing along at full speed, and never expected the Wangxian Bridge to be held.

At first Wang Huan thought it was troops Sun Hanshao had sent to meet them, but when they drew near and looked, the army opposite wore the Zhou army's typical blue cotton armor, flew the silver-edged, gold-tasseled Three Stars banner, and stood in a great crossbow formation, arrayed and waiting.

These men at the Wangxian Bridge were not merely Zhou troops — they were the personal army among the Zhou troops.

The two men stared in astonishment for a long while. Then Li Jin, Commander of the Shannan Circuit young lord's cavalry-infantry force, suddenly pointed at the mountains to the north and said in a low voice, "These northern soldiers must have come by the Wenchuan Road."

Wang Huan, Military Governor of the Yuanzhou Wuding Army, looked shocked. For eight hundred men in full armor to complete the Wenchuan Road was nothing short of a miracle — in any case, among the seven thousand men of his Wuding Army, he could not have found eight hundred such men.

"No help for it — we fight! If there are northern soldiers on the Wenchuan Road, then Xingyuan Prefecture must be in even greater danger. We have to get there fast."

Li Jin said this while having his attendants help him into his iron armor, looking at Wang Huan.

"I will lead my own troops as the vanguard. I ask the Military Governor to hold the line for me!"

Li Jin was confident, but Wang Huan was not so optimistic. The northern troops at Wukou Pass, who had come from Ankang Prefecture, were said to be only the Zhou army's weaker imperial guards, and even they had been so hard to fight.

These Zhou personal troops, all in cotton armor, with the strength to have crossed the Wenchuan Road — even if they were only eight hundred, they would not be easy to chew through.

But since Li Jin was willing to take the lead, he had no objection at all.

The name Wangxian Bridge sounded airy and immortal, but in fact it was a flat bridge with great stones for its base and wooden planks for its deck. The deck was not wide, allowing six or seven men abreast.

The Xu River was likewise not very broad — at most a little over a hundred paces of water.

Li Jin was in a hurry to get back, so he simply committed fifteen hundred men in one go.

Armored soldiers in heavy armor attacked across the bridge deck, while crossbowmen with bamboo armor strapped over their chests waded into the water to shoot.

A cavalry force of over three hundred men, meanwhile, probed steadily upstream, searching for a narrow stretch of river that could be forded.

Jiao Jixun had long since made his preparations. In this kind of head-on clash in a narrow passage, there would be little in the way of surprises — it came down to who could fight better.

He ordered his eldest son Jiao Shouzhong to hold the bridgehead with two hundred armored soldiers, divided another hundred brave men to form defensive formations facing north and east, and sent out a dozen or more roving scouts to watch for those several hundred cavalry crossing the water to strike by surprise.

From the very first clash, the battle veered straight toward the most savage course. The families of the Shannan Circuit yabing guards under Li Jin were all in Xingyuan Prefecture, and they feared that if the Zhou army broke through Xingyuan Prefecture their families would suffer, so they fought with extraordinary ferocity.

Jiao Jixun had marched two hundred li over the nearly roadless Wenchuan Road precisely to win great merit and wash away the shame of the Right Shenwei Guard.

And there was no greater merit than holding back an enemy ten times his strength and guaranteeing the main army's capture of Xingyuan Prefecture, so he too would never retreat.

The battle raged from the beginning of the si hour in the morning until past noon. The Shannan Circuit yabing guards launched seven massed assaults in all, but could never break through the Zhou army's blocking line at the Wangxian Bridgehead.

The archers exchanging fire from the water came off far worse — they were no match for these fierce bowmen of the Zhou army, and the quality of their crossbows could not compare at all.

And the three hundred cavalry that had gone upstream to circle around still had not appeared.

Past noon, the famished Shannan Circuit yabing guards could fight no longer, and so it fell to Wang Huan's Wuding Army to take over.

The Wuding Army did not feel the same keen pain as the Shannan Circuit yabing guards. Instead, they were still worried that their own nest, Yuanzhou, might be raided by the Zhou troops coming up from Ankang Prefecture — they would have been only too glad not to go relieve Xingyuan Prefecture at all.

So the Wuding Army never fought with much spirit. Li Jin saw it and fretted inwardly, but could only use Sun Hanshao's name to pressure Wang Huan.

Just then, the cavalry that had taken the detour finally appeared. Although they were held up by the hundred men Jiao Jixun had assigned to block them, they still left Jiao Jixun's force caught between two fronts.

Li Jin again asked Wang Huan to pull back the Wuding Army, which was still in disarray, and then pick elite troops to attack together with his Shannan Circuit yabing guards.

Wang Huan could see the position was about to fall, and he also feared punishment from Sun Hanshao, so he agreed.

Jiao Jixun knew this was the final critical moment. He personally led fifty men to help beat back the Shu cavalry, then turned to his eldest son Jiao Shouzhong and the soldiers and said:

"Today we have entered Xingyuan Prefecture and killed many men of Shu. The enmity is already set.

Moreover, the Great Zhou has only warriors who die in battle, never cowards who kneel and cling to life. If we die in battle, the Sage will raise and care for our parents, wives, and children. I ask you all to fight to the death beside me!"

The remaining seven hundred or so men were in soaring spirits. Whether out of reverence for Zhang Zhao, or the court's care for their families, or their own honor, these men had never once considered kneeling.

Both sides attacked with reckless abandon. At the fiercest point of the fighting, Jiao Jixun's eldest son Jiao Shouzhong had his helmet smashed open by a Shu soldier's mace, and with blood streaming down his face he kept fighting.

Wangxian Bridge was only so wide. No matter how many men the Shu army committed at once, they could never drive these Zhou soldiers, who had not even eaten breakfast, off the bridge.

The three hundred cavalry who had crossed the river could do nothing but circle around the Zhou troops; they could find no opening to break in.

Li Jin wanted to commit even more, but then he heard warhorses thundering behind him. A Wuding Army captain who had been covering the rear galloped up to Wang Huan, his face covered in blood, and burst into loud weeping the moment he saw him.

"The northern troops hid a large force in the Tangluo Road. As soon as we left, they came out of the valley mouth and attacked fiercely. Yuanzhou... Yuanzhou has already fallen to them."

The Wuding Army erupted in uproar, and the Shannan Circuit yabing guards looked at one another in dismay. Wang Huan felt the sky spin and the earth reel.

His parents, wife, children, and several dozen clan members were all inside Yuanzhou city, and most of the families of his four thousand Wuding Army soldiers were also in Yuanzhou city or the towns nearby.

Wang Huan immediately wanted to lead his men back to Yuanzhou, but before he could move, dust rose in the distance — Li Rong had arrived in pursuit with the Zhaoyi garrison.

Wang Huan and Li Jin had no choice but to retreat into Chenggu County.

Moreover, because Li Rong had come extremely fast, the window left to the Shu army was very short, and Jiao Jixun was also clinging to them relentlessly, so the Shu army had no way to withdraw at leisure. Along the way, nearly all the baggage they had brought from Yuanzhou was lost, and most of the civilian laborers ran off.

When Li Rong and Jiao Jixun met, they were truly overwhelmed with emotion. No wonder Shi Jingtang, back when he held Xingyuan Prefecture, had been unwilling to go destroy Meng Zhixiang.

It was not that he did not want to — he could not.

The hardships the two men had endured on this journey could not be fully told even in ten days, but now, at last, they could see the dawn of victory.

Meanwhile, Wang Huan and Li Jin, who had fled in disarray into Chenggu County, suddenly felt they had been tricked again.

Because the troops Li Rong had brought in pursuit numbered only a little over two thousand. Even adding Jiao Jixun's seven hundred or so, the total was barely over three thousand, while they themselves had a full eight thousand or more.

So after some discussion, the two of them actually raised their banners again and marched out, wanting to fight Li Rong and Jiao Jixun in open battle.

As for this request from the Shu army, Jiao and Li were overjoyed — it was practically a gift package delivered to their door!

So the two sides drew up their formations west of Chenggu County for a great battle. More than six thousand Shu troops attacked the Zhou army of fewer than three thousand, and they fought four engagements in formation. After half a shichen of battle, the Shu army abandoned six or seven hundred corpses and fled back into the city in panic.

Now they were completely convinced: if they could not win, they could not win. Eight thousand men besieged in the city by three thousand — they accepted it.

Two days later, Erzhu Jing, having received Li Rong's message, finally arrived with two thousand men of the Feng'an garrison of the imperial army, bringing the Zhou force to more than five thousand.

As a great general of the East-Returning faction, Erzhu Jing's status and prestige were both above Jiao Jixun's and Li Rong's. The moment he arrived, the Zhou troops, which had been split into two groups, were immediately forged into a single whole.

While ordering the main army to begin attacking the small Chenggu County, Erzhu Jing also selected low-ranking officers from each unit who could recognize a few characters and sent some of them out to control the roads and fords in the surrounding area.

On the twentieth day of the fourth month, the Shu troops — eight thousand men crammed into the cramped Chenggu County — could hold out no longer. Li Jin, anxious to return to his army, led two thousand men out the west gate and broke out toward Xingyuan Prefecture.

Erzhu Jing immediately ordered Jiao Jixun to intercept them, and in the end he caught up with Li Jin's two thousand men by the Xu River.

Jiao Jixun shot the fleeing Shu troops with concentrated crossbow fire. The Shu troops, having lost most of their baggage when they had earlier retreated into Chenggu County, had few men wearing armor.

Under the concentrated fire, the Shu troops turned and charged twice, but both times were beaten back. In the end they could only throw themselves into the Xu River without regard for their lives, and fewer than one in ten survived.

Li Jin, Commander of the Mounted and Foot Troops and young lord of the Shannan Circuit Military Governor's household, was also shot dead in the chaos of battle.

And the Military Governor of the Yuanzhou Wuding Army, whose home base had been cut off, opened the city gates after noon and surrendered to Erzhu Jing, under the persuasion of the envoy Erzhu Jing had sent.

The reinforcements Sun Hanshao had been waiting for were completely annihilated.

On the twenty-second day of the fourth month, Erzhu Jing, having finished incorporating the Shu Yuanzhou Wuding Army, personally led the main army west and arrived outside the city of Xingyuan Prefecture.

Because the main force was blocked five or six li northwest of Xingyuan Prefecture, the city itself was empty of troops. Before Erzhu Jing even began his assault, the scholars, commoners, gentry, and merchants of Xingyuan Prefecture came wailing out the gates and scattered in all directions — a scene of doomsday.

When Sun Hanshao received the news, in despair he could only abandon his favorable position and pull the entire army back toward Xingyuan Prefecture.

During the march, Luo Yu'er dispatched Li Cunhui with two thousand cavalry of the Right Yulin Guard to strike first at the retreating Shu army. The Shu troops were already in panic and now caught between two fronts; after only about a quarter of an hour of battle, the entire force of more than thirty thousand collapsed.

Under the protection of his trusted followers, Sun Hanshao fled in panic with more than two hundred cavalry toward the Micang Road south of Xingyuan Prefecture.

His great army of thirty thousand, following the Yuanzhou Wuding Army, was completely annihilated.

The entire Hanzhong region, where Xingyuan Prefecture lay, fell into the hands of the Zhou army.

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