Chapter 353: The Border Army

Despite the newly surrendered licentiates betraying them and defecting to the enemy, the Marshal's Mansion's surrender appeals east of Hezui still proved remarkably effective.

But because of Liu Chengzong's hesitation, a full day of work receiving the common people was lost.

Watching wave after wave of destitute commoners surge westward, Liu Chengzong grew extremely cautious, for as far as he knew, Hekou could not possibly have this many commoners.

Only after careful questioning did he learn it was Lanzhou's banner troops driving out the poor wretches.

Many had been driven over because they could not pay the bribes; to Liu the Lion, this matter was simply too unimaginable — he thought about it all night and still could not fathom why the enemy would do this.

He could understand Lanzhou driving the commoners who had fled from He-Huang over to Hekou, but driving Lanzhou's own utterly destitute commoners to Hekou as well — that he could not understand, though it shook him profoundly.

Were they afraid these poor commoners would act as inside collaborators when he attacked the city?

Liu Chengzong thought to himself: could it be that my name as the Liberator has already spread from Ü-Tsang to Lanzhou? It shouldn't have!

Such fine things were best kept to one's thoughts, but the reality was that over sixty thousand people had gathered at Hezui — a scale so vast the soldiers could not vet them, and it even clogged the roads, disrupting the relay riders' message-passing.

Whether these people carried smallpox, no one knew; whether there were government army spies among them, no one knew either; whether government troops were even mixed in among them, there was no way to know for certain.

All Liu Chengzong knew was that among the famine refugees were scouts from the Zhenhai Camp sent by his elder brother, reporting back that the Gansu border army had already shifted camp northward, and that the Lanzhou government troops had set off ten li of firecrackers at Hekou and scattered lime and sulfur.

By the time he wanted to devote full effort to receiving the commoners, there was no time left — the Gansu army shifting its defense and the Lanzhou troops setting off firecrackers were both the opening moves of a government army offensive.

This matter, when you think about it, is quite interesting: human imagination has its limits.

The Liu Chengzong in the minds of the Five Garrisons' border commanders was a Liu Chengzong they had fantasized; the Five Garrisons' border commanders and the Shaanxi-Lanzhou officials in Liu Chengzong's mind were also figures he had fantasized.

In fact, the Five Garrisons' border commanders' fantasy was fairly close to reality — after all, they knew Liu the Lion's troops.

But Liu Chengzong's fantasy was not so close to reality, because he could not imagine just how grotesquely a single order could be distorted inside a moribund yamen.

He remained convinced that Lanzhou's driving out of the commoners before dispatching troops must carry a profound intent.

Could it be that the government troops had decided to abandon all decency and intended to use the tide of commoners to scatter his army's formations, so as to avoid a direct pitched battle and rout him outright?

On the Beishan terrace, Liu Chengzong gazed at the distant swarming crowds, sensing the gathering storm; standing at his side, Li Bei's state of mind was complicated.

For several years now, he — a court Regional Commander — had been captured, placed under house arrest, and then had lent his strength to Liu Chengzong, until this very day, when at last he stood on the battlefield opposite the court.

He shook his head, sighed, and watching Liu Chengzong pit his wits against thin air, said: "Marshal, stop pondering. There is no profound intent. If the court had the ability to carry out profound intent, we would never have reached Qinghai. This is simply the result of Prince Su shooting from the hip and the banner troops muddling through."

Liu Chengzong asked in surprise: "You're that certain?"

"Absolutely certain. Every Chief Commander of the Five Garrisons has his own skills — a fool could not sit in that position. Using commoners to charge you — you might not be broken, but the moment blades are drawn and the commoners flee backward, the government troops will certainly be broken."

Li Bei was among the first batch of guest-officer commanders from the Guanning Army selected for Liaodong, and he understood the strengths and weaknesses of main troops versus guest troops very clearly.

Main troops, when they meet defeat, grow more tenacious in will, are sustained by loyalty with lower demands for pay, but are prone to sympathy for their fellow townsmen and carry the risk of mutiny; guest troops cost more, are less tenacious than main troops in defeat, are harder to discipline, but will show no mercy to local rebels.

The government troops now massing at Lanzhou would not have many main troops; they should be mostly guest troops. Li Bei believed that in terms of fighting will, they were far, far inferior to the Marshal's Mansion's army.

But Liu Chengzong still felt the government troops were playing a deep game.

To be safe, he first urgently dispatched men northward to his elder brother, who was attacking Chieftain Lu, to deliver the news that the Gansu army had shifted north.

He urged his elder brother to break the city as quickly as possible and seize the mountain pass strongholds, to prevent the Gansu army from racing to the rescue and to hold the passes so they could not encircle his own forces.

He did not plan to transfer his elder brother's army into the valley; if the smallpox-infected Gansu army came to Chieftain Lu's aid, then his elder brother's and Li Wanqing's four thousand troops all had antibodies against smallpox and were perfectly suited to deal with them.

As for the sixty thousand commoners gathered east of Hekou begging for food, Liu Chengzong would not abandon them either, but with battle imminent and them not yet vetted, nor knowing whether they carried smallpox, he could not let them all pour into his rear.

Therefore he ordered his guard troops to disperse the tribal soldiers and urgently organize the commoners into units, forming over a hundred sentry groups, each leading several hundred people into the southeastern mountain valleys to temporarily avoid the fighting.

Li Tianyu was a tremendous help in this matter; the great southeastern valleys held many lands belonging to the chieftain families, with places in the mountains all bearing names like Qi Family Mountain and Zhao Family Mountain. The commoners were organized into separate columns and spread out southward along the valleys, with the nearest chieftain villages temporarily supplying several days' rations.

The entire withdrawal into the mountains, conducted with all possible speed, was exceptionally chaotic; over thirty thousand people were withdrawn into the mountains in a single day, but the other twenty thousand or so could not be found.

Whether it was those who had earlier fled toward Lanzhou with the wealthy households, or the even greater number of commoners driven out of Lanzhou, people found it very hard to trust Liu Chengzong.

Rather than being led into the southern mountains like prisoners, they preferred to flee northward, or even to hide in the abandoned villages just east of Hekou.

On the morning of the thirteenth day of the third month, Dai Daozi spotted the vast government army entering the valley at the river bend to the east; the Marshal's Mansion's relay riders spread throughout the valley promptly raised their flags, and the news, swiftly passed along by the relay riders, reached Liu Chengzong's ears among the troops stationed at Hezui.

After that, Dai Daozi began issuing orders to the relay soldiers to press the enemy's relay soldiers and engage them in battle.

The relay soldiers needed to engage in battle to delay the enemy relay soldiers' seizure of hilltops and open ground, and to force the main army behind them into unease, compelling them to dispatch more troops to deal with them.

By this means, the relay soldiers could draw closer to the enemy's main force and further ascertain information about the enemy's true strength, troop numbers, morale, encampment and formations, equipment, and logistics.

Liu Chengzong's response to this was to fight while retreating.

However, for Dai Daozi, this kind of skirmish was more like a tactical display of swaggering might.

Outside the Bao'en Temple at the river bend, Dai Daozi, his face full of relaxed mirth, gave the order to his relay soldiers: "They can read our flags. Tease these latecomers a bit, and catch me a live one to bring back — I want to ask whether those bastards of the Qing fief have died out yet."

On the open ground three li away, Ningxia border army relay-soldier centurion Ma Xiang was so tense his palms were sweating.

Ma Xiang actually did not have much experience as a relay soldier; when the Ningxia border army was thrown into suppressing bandits in Yan'an, he was merely a night scout at the Pasha Camp, whose main duty was riding day and night inside and outside the Great Wall, checking where the border wall had been swallowed by yellow sand and reporting to the camp commander — nothing more.

It was entirely thanks to Chief Commander He losing so badly at Yellow Dragon Mountain he lost his trousers, and Ma Xiang taking a few more Mongol heads, that he was drawn into the elite guard battalion and, rushed into the role, had held the relay-soldier centurion post for less than half a year.

Over this half year, he had led his newly recruited relay soldiers in painstakingly studying flag commands and sought instruction on relay-soldier tactics from many quarters, only barely managing to set up the relay-soldier framework.

Everything had been fine, proceeding step by step, until this campaign — Ma Xiang was extremely nervous.

In truth, placing the Ningxia relay soldiers at the front was not a good strategy; the name Liu Chengzong carried far too much killing power against the Ningxia Garrison border army.

But You Shilu, who had come over from Yulin, was the deputy commander, and his elite guard battalion simply did not have the relay-soldier unit structure.

Yang Qi of Guyuan was the Chief Commander, but that lord commander had been constantly busy leading famine bandits to suppress government troops; he had trained seven or eight batches of relay soldiers, but under the torment of deserting border troops, never mind relay soldiers — they had relay horses that could survive three battles.

Only He Huchen had a fully structured relay-soldier unit on hand, so the relay-soldier clash could only fall on their heads.

Watching his relay soldiers gradually retreat, Ma Xiang could not help but furrow his brow, and soon heard a subordinate who had drawn near excitedly say: "Centurion, we saw them waving flags — the order was for the relay riders to withdraw ten li in stages, and they also flagged toward the mountains north of us to report the advance-and-suppress news."

"The northern mountains — are there ambush troops?"

Ma Xiang shook his head as he looked north; the north was indeed all mountains, and for ten or twenty li the mountains were full of ravines. If there were ambush troops there... he gave the order: "Report to Chief Commander He, and dispatch twelve relays to probe the mountains."

Dai Daozi watched his own relay soldiers retreat five li on the battlefield to find concealment, while the enemy relay soldiers quickly detached a force to probe toward the north and south mountain gullies; shaking his head, he revealed a smile: "Tch, they fell for that too? Then there's no need to use the tricks further back. Let them play with the mountain gullies for a while — we're leaving."

As Dai Daozi led the relay soldiers in retreat, the great army of over twenty thousand — composed of troops from the three garrisons of Ningxia, Yulin, and Guyuan, plus Lanzhou banner troops and Taozhou tribal soldiers — slowed its advance; each formation detached small forces to hold the valley mouths, while half the relay soldiers continued forward, intending to screen ten li.

When the relay soldiers had advanced seven li and found the Marshal's Mansion's relay horses pressing closer from the front, they promptly retreated in stages, and during their retreat were attacked by relay soldiers hiding in cottages and haystacks.

Many of Dai Daozi's relay soldiers, to ensure their ambush succeeded, had even had their horses taken away beforehand by their comrades; for a moment, gunshots rang out everywhere — they fired their three-eyed guns, tossed them aside once discharged, then drew bows and shot.

He Huchen had suspected from the start that it was false information, because his relay soldiers could read the opposing flags, and the opposing side could read his flags too; he had rushed to the front for this very reason, only to raise his telescope and witness a heart-wrenching scene.

The outpost soldiers they had painstakingly trained to read signal flags were pressed head-on by the enemy and ambushed from behind — outpost after outpost of troops were wiped out, shot in the back with a musket or struck in the face with an arrow.

But that was not what He Huchen cared about most. The defeat of inexperienced, newly trained outpost soldiers in a clash was within his expectations. He was far more concerned about those outpost soldiers who stood together yet never engaged in combat.

In three years apart, Liu Chengzong's army had undergone many changes compared to before. Just looking at the outpost soldiers' helmets, they had tied helmet plumes to their spear-helmets — this was the most conspicuous difference between the two forces.

He Huchen held the telescope with a grave expression. The longer he looked, the darker his face turned, and his fist clenched tighter and tighter.

Because an area of one li square usually held only one to three solitary outpost soldiers, the battlefield of the outpost clash swept across the entire uninhabited stretch of the river valley in moments. In some places, musket fire erupted everywhere.

But in other places, there was utter silence.

Through the telescope, he saw outpost soldiers spreading their arms and laying down their weapons. He Huchen checked again and again — those men were definitely his own subordinates. They had sur… surrendered?

He Huchen turned his head to look at the boundless military formation stretching away behind him. Not counting Wang Xingshan on the northern route and Wang Cheng'en on the southern route, just the central route alone had an army of twenty-two thousand men behind them.

With such overwhelming strength, a dozen-odd outpost soldiers chose to surrender in their very first clash with the enemy?

Crack!

The wooden casing of the telescope split in He Huchen's grip.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the battlefield, Dai Daozi cheerfully ordered his bodyguards to wave the flags. He led the outpost soldiers, along with those captured and those who had surrendered, to withdraw westward in stages for ten li, and sent a man to deliver a verbal message to Liu Chengzong thirty li away.

"Grand Marshal, the outpost soldiers report back: enemy troop strength is over twenty thousand. Their marching speed has been delayed, morale is relatively low. Thirteen outpost soldiers have been taken in surrender and capture, and are being escorted back now."

Liu Chengzong was arranging defenses at the newly built Hekou Fort. He was very pleased to hear this news. Although the results of a clash between outpost soldiers could hardly be great, it was a victory in the first engagement, which was very helpful for boosting morale.

He gazed toward the mountains on both the north and south sides of the river valley. Through the telescope, he could see people scattered in hiding on the hilltops. This battle in the river valley would, at the fastest possible speed, let all the people of He-Huang know who the true master of He-Huang really was.

After that, more and more outpost soldiers withdrew to the western bank, and before long nearly a hundred had gathered. The width of the river valley ranged from four to eight li, which meant the frontline outpost soldiers had already fallen back twelve or thirteen li — the enemy was drawing closer and closer to him.

Just then, several outpost riders came galloping from east of the river. Their expressions were urgent, and a bad premonition rose in Liu Chengzong's heart.

Sure enough, before long, an outpost soldier dismounted outside the earthen fort, cupped his fists, and said, "Grand Marshal, urgent report."

Once the outpost soldier entered the fort, he reported before Liu Chengzong and Yang Yao: "The surrendered troops are all Ningxia soldiers. They say the court has divided its forces into three routes this time. On the northern route, three thousand Gansu troops are coming to relieve the Lu Tusi. The central route consists of troops from Ningxia, Yulin, Guyuan, Taozhou, and Lanzhou — twenty-three thousand men."

Hearing this, Liu Chengzong closed his eyes in thought. His own troop strength in He-Huang was roughly the same number. The central route posed no obvious disadvantage.

Only, on the northern route, Liu Chengzu was using four thousand troops against the Lu Tusi's four thousand native soldiers, and the siege had already been going on for days. If the three thousand Gansu reinforcements arrived first while Liancheng had not yet fallen, the northern route would likely suffer a setback.

The outpost soldier paused, then cupped his fists again and said: "The southern route is the Lintao army and Hezhou army, a combined force of eleven thousand, aiming to strike directly at Xining and Nianbo."

Liu Chengzong thought to himself, This is bad. He suppressed the unease in his heart, dismissed the outpost soldier, and leaned against the earthen wall, silent for a long time.

"Grand Marshal?"

Yang Yao had just spoken, but before he could say anything more, he heard Liu Chengzong issue orders to his bodyguards: "Urgent message to the southern mountains. Have the bodyguards leading the native soldiers and restraining the commoners probe southward for enemy movements, and send word by flying horse to Binggou and Xining to inform them of the enemy situation. Order Wang Wenxiu, the defender of New City, to dispatch troops and garrison Xining."

Yang Yao breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed Liu Chengzong shared his view — at this moment, the main force should not turn back to relieve them.

Meet the central-route government troops, who had roughly equal numbers, in a head-on clash. If they won, the government troops would naturally be unable to complete the encirclement; but the moment they retreated, the government troops completing the encirclement would be a foregone conclusion.

Liu Chengzong's considerations, however, went further than Yang Yao's. He had to think about multiple armies. This great army of over twenty thousand men he now commanded was no longer the Lion Army of earlier years, which obeyed every order without fail.

This was not a matter of should or shouldn't — they simply could not retreat.

Xie Erhu and Ahai Daiqing's Mongol troops would either scatter and be lost during the retreat or be routed during the retreat — they certainly would not return with the whole army intact.

Without these two flanking cavalry units, the shortcomings of Basang's tribal soldiers — their slow reactions and rigid formations — would be completely exposed. Relying solely on Yang Yao's fewer than four thousand Lion Army cavalry, the situation would become extremely dire.

Liu Chengzong looked at Yang Yao. "I trust Wang Wenxiu. Let us deal with the enemy before us first — Yansui, Guyuan, Ningxia."

As he spoke, a smile surfaced on his face, and the fine hairs on his skin stood on end. "I am a Yansui soldier, you are a Guyuan soldier, and Dai Daozi is a Ningxia soldier. Let us show them… the skill of the border troops!"