Chapter 273: Tug of War

The banks of the Gaiqu River along the border between Baili and Nangqian presented a strange strategic posture.

Donyo Dorje's frontline forces had been encircled and annihilated, their frontline supplies utterly exhausted. Reinforcements rushing from various regions had assembled at the former site of Longda Garrison, deploying a defensive line along the western bank of the Jinsha River at Kangzhu and Qamdo, yet still they held back from retaliating with troops.

Liu Chengzong's army, riding a wave of crushing victories, likewise halted its advance, sending only small parties of reconnaissance cavalry across the riverbank to probe the terrain.

Prayer flags snapped and rustled in the wind; hawks and vultures circled the valleys. On both sides, fully armed heavy-armored warriors occupied peak after peak along the vast, towering snow mountains and the rushing river gorges, confronting one another while suspended in an eerie peace.

Because the highland barley was ripe.

Donyo Dorje's troops were busy harvesting grain to supply the front lines, while Liu Chengzong's troops were busy gathering intelligence... they needed to know where the grain was.

From the Jinsha River to the Zhaqu, from the Dêgê domain to Qamdo, along a defense line stretching four hundred li, the Baili army had garrisoned over ten thousand troops at more than a dozen easily defensible mountain passes.

By comparison, the Lion Army had no defense line. They concentrated their troops at Danba and along the banks of the Jinsha River, attempting to find a breach in the enemy's deployment and win the war in a simpler way. But so far, the Lion Army's officers remained at a loss.

Until Li Bei, who had accompanied the army on campaign, could no longer sit still.

He had seen it clearly: the Lion Army's commanders had clashed repeatedly with the finest armies under heaven and emerged victorious. These veterans who had crawled out from piles of corpses possessed extraordinary talent for directing combat on the battlefield and were all experts at killing.

But when it came to war itself, they were a bunch of laymen.

Li Bei had originally intended to say nothing at all. He was a surrendered general, and many officers in the army looked at him with disfavor.

On the other hand, he also could not fathom the strategic intent of men like Liu Chengzong, Cao Yao, and Zhang Tianlin.

It was only after hearing it discussed many times that he finally understood — these men's strategy was to fight inch by inch across every piece of land controlled by the Baili King.

This army's cohesion was extremely strong, though each commander had different preferences at the tactical level.

Cao Yao advocated using cannons and heavy muskets to destroy every fort and stockade. Wang Wenxiu advocated massing elite troops to lure the enemy into a decisive battle. Zhang Tianlin advocated maneuvering cavalry units to penetrate the rear and raid the supply routes.

In general, the objective was the same: to utterly destroy the Baili King's defense line.

As the generals argued fiercely for their own proposals, Li Bei, seated at the back, said, "Commander, go around."

Liu Chengzong had been quietly listening to the commanders' debates. Each approach had its merits and each had its flaws; the authority to choose which tactic to adopt rested in his hands.

Suddenly hearing Li Bei's words, he did not react at first. "Hm? What did General Li say?"

"I said, we can go around."

Zhang Tianlin was at a disadvantage in the debate, mainly because his official rank was low. Cao Yao and Wang Wenxiu were both battalion commanders. The infantry and artillery battalion commanders said nothing, all deferring to their respective battalion commanders.

Only Yang Yao, the cavalry battalion commander, had remained behind to guard Haibei. As the representative of the mounted troops' officers, he had to fight for a chance for the cavalry battalion brothers to see action.

Suddenly hearing Li Bei speak, he glared and said, "General Li, the cavalry already probed those passes together with the reconnaissance riders. Those mountain passes are easy to defend and hard to attack — there's no good place to go around. And if you do go around, there are more forts and stockades behind them. You can't just go around."

"Keep going around, and in the end we'll just find ourselves deep in an encirclement!"

Li Bei shook his head, paying no attention to Zhang Tianlin at all. They were not thinking on the same level, which made him lose the desire to express himself again.

Strangely enough, the more this happened, the more disgusted he grew with the imperial court.

If these deserting old bandits hadn't been able to eat their fill, if the government troops hadn't gone hungry, how could government troops like them possibly have lost!

But Liu Chengzong was very eager. This was the first time Li Bei had spoken up during an officers' discussion. He said, "General Zhang, hold on. Let General Li finish what he has to say... General Li, tell us your thoughts. I want to hear them."

For a long time, a mindset of looking down on traditional officers, civil officials, and even culture itself had existed within the Lion Army.

Their senior generals were, without exception, veterans who had risen from the lowest ranks. The highest-ranking among them were Yang Yao, who had started as a cavalry squad leader, and Wang Wenxiu, who had started as an infantry squad leader.

Cao Yao, who served as a senior general, had been no more than a platoon commander in origin; Liu Chengzu, who had become a Commandant, had likewise been only a platoon commander.

As for the many more battalion commanders, the vast majority had held no military rank in the past, yet under Liu Chengzong's leadership they had defeated one Regional Commander and Brigade Commander after another.

To them, traditional officers were nothing special — all useless men holding posts and stuffing their faces with wine and food.

'You say he knows so much, that he's strong and formidable — then how come he lost?'

To them, the military officers of the Great Ming were all far too conservative.

In any dynasty, the military's thinking is the most conservative. For instance, adopting a new weapon proceeds extremely slowly. From the Jiajing era when the birdgun was introduced, up to the present, the Nine Border Garrisons still used three-eyed guns.

Much like Liu Chengzong himself still did not trust birdguns even now.

Because the battlefield is a place of life and death, with no opportunity for trial and error. People trust the weapons they know, the tactics they know, the systems they know.

But the Lion Army's commanders were different. They had spent so long in situations of certain death that they had to use whatever they got their hands on. To state the obvious, everyone alive now had not died.

People believed in their own wisdom and strength, and benefited from it, further deepening this conviction.

Liu Chengzong stood caught between these two kinds of people. He was different from the others. For others, squad leader was the end of their career. Had it been twenty or thirty years earlier, without the drought, without the national decline, platoon commander or squad leader would have been only his starting point.

He trusted these new-school officers who had been forced by desperation to become a force of progress, and he likewise believed that traditional officers must have their own strengths.

Li Bei pressed his lips together, his expression grave as Liu Chengzong studied him for a long while. Finally, he let out a sigh and explained to the assembly: "Going around the defense line is not for the sake of going around the defense line."

"We are unfamiliar with the terrain. They hold the mountain passes, positions hard to attack. Behind their defense line there are forts, and behind those forts there are still more forts. The Lion Army excels at marching and firearms, and is comprehensively stronger than the enemy, but the enemy holds the advantage of terrain."

"Can our provisions and fodder be resupplied? How much ammunition and how many horses do we have? How many soldiers' lives can we spend to press forward step by step?"

Li Bei paused. Cao Yao was just opening his mouth to argue when Liu Chengzong, seated at the head, shot him a glare. Cao Yao turned his head aside and waited for Li Bei to finish.

Even without listening, Liu Chengzong knew what Cao Yao wanted to say — nothing more than plundering noble estates, that they could always get grain.

Li Bei swept his gaze around the commanders in the hall and let out a heavy sigh. "Anyone can win a battle when provisions and fodder are plentiful. Can our commanders still win after running out of ammunition and food?"

Cao Yao and the others were all stunned by the question.

After thinking it over, Cao Yao realized Li Bei was right. Ever since rising up with Liu Chengzong, he had almost never fought a battle where ammunition and food were exhausted — even hunger was a very distant memory.

Wang Wenxiu sat to the side, head lowered, picking at his nails. He had fought such battles. Both he and Yang Yao had — they'd been beaten so badly by government troops they couldn't tell north from south, otherwise they wouldn't have had to seek refuge with Liu Chengzong.

Zhang Tianlin was silenced by the question. Ever since leaving the army, his days had been fairly free and easy. Though before taking over Prince Qin's estate he had inevitably gone hungry one day and full the next, when he was hungry he wasn't fighting government troops.

Luo Rucai simply exchanged a glance with Old Jackal Li, and the two men covered their mouths, barely managing to keep from laughing out loud.

Who the hell needs to fight when they're out of ammunition and food? Luo Caocao's unit had spent an entire winter encamped with no provisions, fighting against themselves — they were the real ruthless ones.

The commanders were first angered into laughter, then sank into deep thought, and finally, one by one, turned their eyes to Liu Chengzong.

The reason none of them ever ran out of ammunition or food all lay with Liu Chengzong.

Li Bei shook his head. Asking this question made him feel rather ashamed.

Never in his life had he imagined he would ask a group of commanders from bandit origins whether they could fight after running out of ammunition and food.

At first hearing, this situation seemed like the patent of roving bandits. In truth, government troops were always fighting bravely under conditions of exhausted ammunition and food — and then losing the war.

But when it came down to it, Li Bei still wasn't convinced in his heart — though he might not even have realized it himself. It wasn't just for his own sake; he was unconvinced on behalf of Cao Wenzhao and the others too.

More than anything, it was resentment toward the imperial court.

"We have no shortage of gunpowder, but not enough to blast through one fort after another. We have no shortage of soldiers and warhorses, but not enough to bear the attrition of besieging strongholds again and again."

Liu Chengzong, seated at the head, nodded slowly. That night when he couldn't sleep soundly, Fan Sanlang, who was on night watch in the hall, had been mixing gunpowder.

The musketeers on night watch used up gunpowder every night — they loaded their pieces at night and fired them off the next morning. So the guards had already grown reluctant to waste granulated powder on night duty; they were all using the raw gunpowder ingredients they'd found in Nangqian to mix their own.

But that small amount of raw material was enough for daily use at best. Once battle broke out, there would be no way to resupply.

The same problem applied to provisions, which was why Liu Chengzong was in no hurry to attack. He wanted to create favorable conditions for Baili's nobles to harvest their grain.

He spoke up: "Then what General Li said — 'going around is not for the sake of going around' — what does that mean?"

"Commander, our troops are more elite than theirs. Our officers are more united than their nobles. That is why every one of the Commander's orders can be carried out so well."

Li Bei praised the Lion Army's officers, then continued: "Right now, the defensive line before us is tightly guarded. Their army is made up of individual nobles and conscripted soldiers — each with their own territory, their own subordinates, their own agendas."

As he spoke, Li Bei hit his stride. He rose, circled around to the side, and, after signaling to Liu Chengzong and receiving permission, picked up the wooden pointer. He tapped the area behind the defensive line on the map and said, "To make these men hold their forts and maintain the line, there must be fortified camps supporting them from the rear. The pond cavalry should go and locate these camps."

"If I'm right, the rear camps should be able to transport grain, arrows, gunpowder, and supplies to the surrounding area. We are deep in enemy territory, and this place was once the front line where Baili and Nangqian faced off. The enemy has a major advantage moving provisions here."

Li Bei drew a line along the banks of the Jinsha River with his hand. "If we maneuver properly, bypass the line, and strike the Dêgê area, their army will be forced to move. Then this supply route here becomes useless, and their conditions for transporting provisions become similar to ours. That's the first point."

"Second, swiftly bypassing the line will throw the enemy into panic. If the Baili King is not at the front, his army will fall apart into scattered dalpon units. Even if Dönyö Dorje is personally at the front, with proper maneuvering, each noble's advance will be fast or slow. If they leave no gap, we'll tear one open."

The assembled officers were all listening with rapt attention. Cao Yao asked, "Then what about Nangqian? We're just abandoning it?"

"The war in Nangqian has been going on since last year. The nobles within two hundred li to the southeast have been uprooted, and the local provisions have been collected — it's already become barren land. Even if they seized the chance to attack Nangqian, what use would it be?"

Li Bei looked utterly baffled. "The Lion Army excels at marching and field battles. How could we tie our own hands guarding a stretch of barren land?"

One sentence woke the dreamer. Liu Chengzong and the others suddenly saw the light — they had been trapped by this land. Before, they'd wanted territory and had none; now they valued territory too much, so whenever they took a piece of ground, they felt they had to hold it.

"I understand now!" Liu Chengzong clapped his hands in delight. "Just like back in northern Shaanxi — leave them chasing our dust. Hit the ones who come first, then hit the ones who come later, and finally go hit the ones who never come at all."

With Li Bei's help, the Lion Army's pond cavalry now had a direction for their reconnaissance.

The pond riders were not undercover spies. This unit had been established for the Southern Desert Mongols, and they hardly needed to conceal their movements — they were specifically meant to screen the battlefield. So sending them to gather intelligence was practically open reconnaissance.

Squad after squad of pond riders crossed snowy mountains and river valleys right under the enemy's nose. Each pond was only five men. Once inside enemy-controlled territory, this was exactly their job. If they ran into the enemy, they neither panicked nor engaged.

If the enemy was numerous, they withdrew in sequence in different directions. If the enemy was few, they skirmished from horseback. Even the best-equipped Dokham cavalry feared their three-eyed guns.

That said, both sides were basically transparent in terms of troop strength and positions. Liu Chengzong's zone of control in southeastern Nangqian was even more transparent to the Baili army — they had no way to tell whether a herder tending sheep or a hunter out hunting belonged to Baili or Nangqian.

A border four hundred li long was simply impossible to defend.

In fact, both sides were almost deliberately letting the other see them. The Baili army hoped to make the opponent back down in the face of difficulty; Liu Chengzong hoped to make a show of force and get the opponent to surrender.

The pond riders brought back intelligence far faster than Liu Chengzong had imagined.

Dönyö Dorje's army was deployed in three defensive lines, forming an inverted triangle.

Conscripted slave soldiers were at the very front, holding each mountain pass alongside a small number of elite troops. They were building stockades at the passes, and some pond riders had seen columns of commoners on the road, carrying hides and woolen blankets to the stockades under the tax-labor obligation.

It looked as though the Baili King was already preparing the mountain passes for winter defense.

The pond riders advanced against the flow of commoners performing their tax-labor duty, pushing thirty to fifty li into the rear. Based on what they saw and heard, noble manors and estates were marked one by one on the map, forming a second defensive line.

Eight noble manors and estates occupied key communication routes — unavoidable stops for transporting provisions. Each was built like a small fortress, all garrisoned with large numbers of elite soldiers.

The minor nobles also stayed there, feasting and reveling night after night, while assigning labor duties to the commoners to deliver supplies to the front.

Further south lay the Baili King's final strongpoint at the front. As for what this strongpoint was, Liu Chengzong could never have dreamed it.

The final strongpoint of Dönyö Dorje's defensive line turned out to be the Central Plains dynasty's relay stations on the route into Tibet.

From the Dêgê territory to Chamdo, four relay towns — built during the Yuan dynasty and rebuilt in the early Ming — served as the Baili King Dönyö Dorje's rear supply route. He relied on these relay towns to move supplies to the front, supplemented by the various noble estates, forming a vast supply network to sustain the standoff.

Looking at the key points marked on the map, Liu Chengzong broke into a smile. Relay stations — perfect.

Attacking relay stations — that was what he knew best.