Chapter 400: Dividing the Force into Two Routes

Night fell. Scattered scouts ranged along the edges of the battlefield, the torches in their hands mirroring the stars that filled the sky.

The clamor of slaughter still had not ceased even after dark, but the sight of the wagon-fort being besieged on all sides was gone from the field.

State Preceptor Khan and his son Dorji Taiji, on different battlefields at the same moment, had employed the identical turnabout spear tactic.

The moment Liu Chengzong shifted formation to counter-envelop them, State Preceptor Khan, at the risk of having both his wings cut off by He Huchen's and Wei Qian'er's cavalry, ordered the entire army to withdraw two hundred paces eastward in alternating echelon.

This withdrawal was executed with exquisite precision.

When State Preceptor Khan's left wing, right wing, and center drew level, the army deployed into a grand horizontal line three li from north to south and six ranks deep, and those six ranks were further divided into two horizontal blocks three ranks deep each; the rear block first halted and prepared to receive the enemy, and then the front block withdrew by echelon behind them.

During the withdrawal, a series of interlocking salients formed along the battle line.

As the enemy fell back, the Marshal's Headquarters army naturally pressed forward. Since the Marshal's Headquarters soldiers were universally armored and were also a host accustomed to victory, they took the sight of the enemy being driven steadily backward in the clash as nothing out of the ordinary.

So much so that the frontline troops failed to detect it, and Liu Chengzong himself only sensed that the enemy was steadily crumbling.

At first he was pleased to see the enemy retreat — with the enemy falling back and his infantry pursuing, the Lion Cannon battery originally at the front line of the clash was saved, and the heavy cannon battery in the center could also hitch up its pack mules and maneuver.

It was not until they had pushed out nearly a hundred paces that Liu Chengzong abruptly realized… this was a deliberate lure.

His army had been fighting on the western side, where the center could rely on the eastern face of the wagon-fort and hold a relatively broad front with only a small number of soldiers, while the left and right wings to north and south were both clashing with cavalry, and were likewise relatively broad.

But once they fought their way out from the wagon-fort, as the enemy stabilized their line and the contest became a grinding seesaw, more and more soldiers on both wings chose to dismount and fight on foot, shrinking their width; the center likewise moved beyond the wagon-fort, and its width had to shrink as well.

Yet none of the frontline commanders were willing to let their frontage be narrower than the enemy's, lest they be divided and surrounded, so by unspoken consensus they all chose to spread the troops they had on hand as wide as possible to fill the battle line.

The problem lay precisely in the fact that, in this confrontation, he was the side inferior in numbers.

The difference between the two armies was that Liu Chengzong's numerical inferiority was growing steadily worse as the battle progressed. To avoid being surrounded, he was using eight thousand soldiers to hold a battle line of the same width as nearly twenty thousand enemy troops — his horizontal formation was only three ranks deep.

Even once Liu the Lion spotted the problem, he could only cling to the enemy and press forward another two hundred paces.

Because he could not pull back.

Both advance and withdrawal follow set patterns, generally the alternating echelon: "alternating" means interchanging — the left advances first, then the right; the rear advances first, then the front. Withdrawal follows the same principle.

Liu Chengzong's manpower was stretched to the breaking point; he could only divide his force into left and right, and could not separate a front from a rear, so he was unable to use an alternating-echelon retreat.

Standing still was no option either. Although standing still would allow his troops to exploit the long-range advantage of their firearms, it would likewise give the enemy cavalry an opportunity to charge. A thin horizontal line three ranks deep — a dozen or so armored cavalrymen crashing into it in a death-or-glory charge would inevitably tear it open.

This disadvantage — insufficient troops forcing an overextended front — could not be altered. All Liu Chengzong could do was deny the enemy any chance to charge and crush a portion of the enemy force as quickly as possible.

He therefore ordered Huang Shengxiao to take all the light and heavy cannon, circle around the left wing, and work around to the flank of the enemy to the north, using the advantage of the heavy guns to blast the enemy right wing into collapse.

And just as the cannon battery was making its slow move, Liu Chengzong's figure appeared in State Preceptor Khan's telescope.

In truth, Liu Chengzong's position was extremely easy to find. Although the falling night made locating the commander difficult, following the direction of the couriers made it easy to guess the general area, and once one searched that area, one would always see row after row of heavy infantry preparing to don their armor.

Liu Chengzong's line was thin; only in that direction were war chariots and armored soldiers arrayed. Naturally, then, the commander was there.

But State Preceptor Khan did not find the commander. Although he saw Liu Chengzong, he did not believe that was the Han army's commander.

All the armored soldiers wore red cloth-faced iron armor, making rank impossible to distinguish. Everyone else was leading tall, powerful Hequ warhorses and pack mules; only Liu Chengzong had no horse in hand. He stood behind the line looking left and right, and was eating the entire time.

When State Preceptor Khan saw him, he issued an order to the front line to be on guard against an enemy heavy-cavalry charge… That had to be a general preparing to lead a charge into the formation, eating nonstop exactly like a starving ghost reincarnated, terrified there would be no next meal.

State Preceptor Khan had originally intended, the moment he located the Han commander, to send heavy infantry to break open a path for his heavy cavalry and then crush the enemy center and commander with heavy horse — but because Liu the Lion spent a little extra time eating, he held his forces back, waiting for the imagined Han charge.

Only, the Han army simply would not charge.

Türuübaihu grew more and more anxious the longer he waited, not merely because his soldiers were struggling to gain the upper hand in the line-on-line clash, but more importantly because he had to win, and quickly.

The reasons were manifold.

The larger ones included the worry that Marshal's Headquarters reinforcements would arrive and complicate matters; a secondary reason was that the Oirat provisions and baggage were running short.

There was even a most unspoken psychological reason: only after he had dragged Liu Chengzong's battle formation two hundred paces eastward did State Preceptor Khan realize that the corpses of all the mules, horses, and camels killed in the entire battle were wrapped up inside the Han army's rear — and it pained him.

If no victor was decided tonight, all that meat would belong to the Han army.

Regrettably, Liu Chengzong on the opposite side had also spotted State Preceptor Khan, and he too had seen the heavy infantry and cavalry readied at the Khan's side.

At this moment, it was a case of both men seeing the big card clutched in the other's hand, and both were waiting for that card to be played before launching their counter — otherwise they would come out the loser.

Neither man wanted to come out the loser, so both were waiting for the other to move first.

The difference was that Liu Chengzong was in no hurry. He was even willing to wait a while longer — wait until Huang Shengxiao reached the flank, drew attention with cannon fire and bombarded them for a spell, and then launch his assault.

What neither State Preceptor Khan nor Liu Chengzong knew was that, at a spot barely two li southeast of the battlefield, a force of over five hundred men, daring not to raise torches and with their horses' hooves muffled, was quietly moving north.

Travel-worn and dusty, Bee-Tail Needle lay prone on a hilltop gazing west. In the pitch-black night, the two battle lines looked like great serpents coiled around each other… Never in his life had he seen two armies locked in such a shape. He swallowed slowly, his voice unconsciously trembling a little, and turned his head to the figure beside him: "Brother Zhao, are we really charging that formation?"

Zhao Kebian was two years younger than Bee-Tail Needle, but he was long accustomed to being addressed that way. One of his hands made it awkward to lie prone, so he merely crouched to the side, gazing at the outlines of the two tangled armies and slowly letting out a breath.

The situation was roughly what he had anticipated.

Zhao Kebian pointed toward the enemy formation with the arm fitted with a vambrace and spoke with absolute conviction: "It's not dangerous."

Bee-Tail Needle's mouth had gone dry just from watching. He crawled backward down from the sand dune, and only once his body was screened by the dune did he spit, then ground the spittle out with the sole of his boot. "Madman. Even Wang Laohu back in the day never set out a battle formation this huge. How many men do you figure that is?"

Zhao Kebian looked at him, knowing full well his old partner was rattled — you could not charge a formation without an unshakable will to win.

So he did not take up that thread. Instead he sat down against the back slope of the dune, his two eyes reflecting the moon and the starlight that filled the sky, gleaming like a wolf's, and asked out of nowhere: "Do you know Cao Yao, Yang Yao, Wang Wenxiu?"

Bee-Tail Needle shot Zhao Kebian a glance. How could he not know them? Those three were great generals of the Marshal's Headquarters.

Zhao Kebian gave a derisive snort of a laugh. "All of them started out as Company Commanders of a hundred. Who's really that much better than anyone else? I just looked — the enemy has at least five horizontal ranks at the front. Figuring from that, their formation is at least fifteen thousand men."

"That host of ten thousand is being held in place by the Marshal. Our opponent is only those few hundred men in the center. So my plan is to divide our force into two routes."

Bee-Tail Needle's eyes went wide. He wanted very much to believe Zhao Kebian's words, but no matter how he heard them, they sounded like the ravings of a madman. All he could manage was a face full of disbelief: "With just five hundred men, and you still want to divide into two routes?"

"What are you afraid of? We're only hitting those few companies in the center. Kill the State Preceptor, and before the front-line horizontal ranks can even wheel around, we'll already be gone."

Bee-Tail Needle asked, "Then why divide into two routes — one company as a relief force?"

"No relief force needed. I'll take two hundred riders to assassinate the State Preceptor. You take three hundred riders — pick some veterans who know Mongol — and sweep around both sides of the enemy center. Kill the couriers, kill the officers. Anything you see that moves, slaughter it. Once you're done, ride off to the north and south, and as you ride, shout that the Great Khan is dead. Even if they had a hundred thousand men, they'd collapse right here."

As Zhao Kebian spoke, he nodded repeatedly to himself and added, "Even if we don't manage to cut down the State Preceptor, throwing the enemy army into chaos is still a tremendous merit."

In truth, everything Bee-Tail Needle was doing was merely to convince himself. He was already here, and the five-hundred-odd riders under his command were all bold fellows thirsting for merit. He knew there was no turning back now.

"Then I'll go assassinate the State Preceptor. You know Mongol — you go kill the couriers." Bee-Tail Needle felt that charging the formation to assassinate the State Preceptor was still too dangerous, and said to Zhao Kebian, "We'll rendezvous at the Marshal's center."

Zhao Kebian knew what he was thinking. He chuckled softly and made no reply.

He rose, brushed the dust from his clothes, and walked toward his horse. He called a soldier over to help him don his cloth-faced iron armor, fastened the waist guard tight, hung his belt on the right side, and with hand and wrist working together, arduously pulled himself into the saddle.

The not-yet-healed break in his right forearm shot a bone-grinding pain through him whenever he exerted force, twisting his features into a savage grimace as he took the long spear with its hanging square banner from a subordinate soldier. He clamped the spear shaft between his ribs, right upper arm, and right forearm, gritted his teeth, and wound the leg-wrap cloth he carried around it bit by bit, until the banner-spear was fixed tight against the right side of his body.

He looked at Bee-Tail Needle and asked, utterly serious: "Even without my right hand, do you really think those Oirat Tartars could beat me with just one hand?"

Bee-Tail Needle, standing beside the horse, sighed. The expression on his face spoke for itself: "Plenty of men can fight. Surviving doesn't always come down to being able to fight."

Zhao Kebian heard this and let out a scoff. His shoulder dipped slightly, making the banner-spear sway a little, and he said: "Once we've killed the State Preceptor, I'll have the best craftsman in Hehuang make me a wooden hand, and fit it with a three-eyed hand cannon!"

Just then, the sound of even fiercer battle cries suddenly erupted in the distance. The sentry on the sand dune watching the battle lines came scrambling and stumbling down, and reported in frantic haste: "General Zhang, Chief of a Hundred Zhao — the enemy's central heavy cavalry has broken through the line!"

Zhao Kebian spurred his horse forward in a rush. With a single glance, he saw row after row of dark silhouettes, lit by the campfires of the central army, breaking through toward the Marshal's headquarters central force.

With a sudden boom, a flash of light flared and died in the darkness north of the battlefield — a cannon, hidden at the battlefield's edge, had fired.

That single cannon shot was so startlingly abrupt that it stunned Zhao Kebian in the saddle. He frowned and stared northward for a long moment, and saw, after a brief pause, red flashes flickering one after another in the north, and the rolling thunder of cannon fire sweeping in from the horizon in an unbroken chain.

No one knew where the shells were landing. All they knew was that the evenly matched battlefield had, in an instant, fallen into chaos.

"That's the Marshal's cannon!"

Instead of alarm, this brought him wild joy. He reined in his horse and turned his head, shouting: "Good! Here's our chance — the enemy commander's guards are more than half gone... Left Division Tiger Guard, front and rear Hundred-Man Commanders, mount up with me and charge their line! Today we win glory, today we slay the captive king!"

Bee-Tail Needle also raised a clenched fist to steel himself, then ground his teeth and swung into the saddle. He pulled his long spear from the sand and called to those around him: "Brothers of the left, center, and right sections, listen well! Mount up with me and harry the enemy — kill every man you see, leave none alive!"

At the front line of battle, Khoshut heavy infantry in full iron armor formed into columns. Ignoring the arrows and thrusting spears coming at them, they raised shields, brandished short weapons, and crashed into the battle line.

The power the Khoshut had been husbanding for so long was unleashed completely at the front in that moment. The heavy infantry column was like a battering ram, smashing a breach in the formation by brute force, then splitting left and right to roll up the line.

The low notes of Mongol horns, layered with overlapping overtones, circled above the battlefield. Herdsmen-soldiers all along the line took heart at the same moment, each unit redoubling its fierce assault, trying to shatter the Han army line opposite them in a single blow.

In that moment, Liu Chengzong's line was cut in two through the center by the heavy troops, and every unit, under assault from a force twice its size, was on the verge of collapse.

Through the gap torn open by the heavy troops, the thunder of hooves pounded. Heavy cavalry, men and horses both armored, came charging like monsters out of the shadows and slammed directly into the second line of defense.

The second line of defense was a reserve force of one hundred and twenty men, drawn from a single Hundred-Man Commander's unit, formed on the advice of former Lintao Regional Commander Wang Cheng'en by Battalion Commander Han Shipan at the front.

Seeing the fierce heavy cavalry charging toward him, Han Shipan gave the order to fire at once. No one had time to worry about volley-fire drill anymore; for a moment, gunfire erupted in wild disorder.

Then the guards in the front rank, bearing fifteen-foot long spears, formed a horizontal line. The center section braced their spears against the ground to meet the charge, while the left and right wings launched a counter-charge forward, attempting to envelop and slow the enemy.

Riders struck down by musket fire had their horses wheel and flee back, crashing into their own heavy cavalry. But the heavy cavalry advanced in columns of four horses abreast, one pace apart. When the front-rank riders fell, the rear ranks could still burst through the gaps and slam ferociously into Wang Cheng'en's horizontal line.

Long spears snapped. Warhorses were spitted and toppled.

The savage heavy cavalrymen fell like boulders crashing to the ground, tumbling and smashing into soldiers. Then both sides drew short weapons or even grappled bare-handed, wrestling and brawling together.

The flanking guards, who had charged out a dozen paces, had no time to reform. They thrust their long spears at an angle toward the heavy cavalry still charging from behind. Some of these thrusts found their mark, but more spears stabbed empty air, and they could only watch helplessly as the cavalry scattered the horizontal line of musketeers raising their guns, then swept on toward the central army with undiminished momentum.

But that brief delay had its effect.

Liu Chengzong and more of his guards had already mounted up behind the second line of defense. Guard units formed horizontal lines, spears couched, and launched charge after charge against the oncoming Khoshut heavy cavalry.

Across the Marshal's headquarters central position, everywhere was the shriek of snapping spears and the screams of dying warhorses, mingled with the metallic clang of armor colliding.

At that very moment, from the eastern side of the battlefield, a wave of Mongol shouting rose and spread without end. Clusters of horsemen charged wildly left and right behind the battle lines, all of them crying the same words: "The Great Khan is dead! The Great Khan is dead!"

The shouts, rising one after another, made Liu Chengzong, who was gripping his spear and about to lead his men into the slaughter, freeze for a moment — until he saw the entire enemy line, from south to north, erupt in turmoil. Even the Khoshut heavy cavalry that had been charging his line began turning back to break through toward their own side. Only then did he snap back to full awareness.

The tide of battle had reversed in an instant. Liu Chengzong wrenched his horse around and gave the order to his commanders: "Pass my command — beat the drums, advance!"

The drumsticks crashed down with a boom. The great war drum thundered, its echoes rolling, striking like a blow to every man's heart. Two more beats — dong, dong — and this time the soldiers on the front line heard it clearly. The troops holding the line with long spears stepped forward as one and thrust.

The panic-stricken Khoshut herdsmen-soldiers fell back. The Marshal's army advanced another step; they fell back another step — until men, retreating, were spitted from behind, or tripped over their own feet, scrambled up, threw away their weapons, and fled to the rear.

One man swept away ten; ten men swept away a crowd. Under the shock of the State Preceptor Khan's death, whole masses of Khoshut herdsmen-soldiers lost their courage and abandoned the line, fleeing in utter disarray through the night toward the Yellow River.

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Good evening!