Chapter 442: No Match

Liu Chengzong believed that marching from Jiayu Pass into Gansu carried powerful symbolic meaning — it was the first step in traversing the entire Ten Thousand Li Wall, a road that would ultimately end at Shanhai Pass.

And on the other side of the Qilian Mountains, amid the firecrackers of the sixth year of Chongzhen's year-end, the Three Border Supreme Commander Hong Chengchou, encamped at Liangzhou, could not sleep. He rose, sat beside his desk, lit an oil candle, and with furrowed brow unfolded the letter on his desk, reading it carefully.

This letter had been submitted by Ding Shaoyin, the hereditary Assistant Commander of Liangzhou Garrison.

Ever since Hong Chengchou had entered Gansu, Gansu's four defense sectors had shifted to a wartime footing. Aside from military necessities, all civilian letter-sending was prohibited, and a unit had been specially selected from the Ningxia army to set up checkpoints everywhere, intercept letters and interrogate travelers.

Both Gansu's own troops and the guest troops from Ningxia had strong objections to this order — for one, they did not believe intelligence could reach Xining via letters.

And secondly, while everyone could understand guarding against intelligence leaks as a precaution, this order was far too callous.

The year's end was approaching. Those garrisoning the frontier away from home wrote letters to report their safety; parents at home missing their sons sent letters to the military forts. In a place like Gansu, which family didn't have a soldier?

But Hong Chengchou did not care about the human feelings of those little people, because he himself had once been a peddler selling dried bean curd — a genuine little person — and therefore knew very well that the human feelings of little people were not worth a single copper coin.

Only by accomplishing deeds and achieving success could one change one's fortunes.

But to accomplish deeds and achieve success, he had to avoid conflict between the main and guest troops. Therefore, although he did not trust the local main troops, Hong Chengchou still assigned the Ningxia soldiers to carry out the task, while letting Gansu-born officers handle the administration.

The person administering this matter was Ding Shaoyin of Liangzhou Garrison.

Like the other hereditary military households of Gansu, the Ding clan had been stationed at Liangzhou for over two hundred years. The Ding clan's ancestral home was Yangzhou. Their founding ancestor, Ding Zihua, had been a Myriad-Household Commander at Huzhou under Zhang Shicheng. After Huzhou fell, he surrendered to Xu Da, was given the post of Chief Flag, and followed him in campaigns across the land.

Throughout the twelfth month, despite the ban on letters, soldiers inevitably smuggled some through. The letters intercepted by the Ningxia border troops at the checkpoints numbered no less than a hundred, if not eighty.

However, since Gansu officers were in charge, some human feeling ultimately came into play. Normally, after letters were examined and found to contain no issues, the Ningxia border troops would help deliver them.

Only the two letters now laid out on Hong Chengchou's desk were exceptions.

These two letters had perfectly normal content — they were family letters that garrison soldiers had entrusted others to send to their parents and wives, and the contents were nothing out of the ordinary.

The reason Ding Shaoyin had passed them up was that problems had arisen during the sending process. Both letters were to be delivered to Black Castle, but when the Ningxia border troops delivering them arrived at Black Castle, they discovered the recipients' families were fake — no such households existed at all.

And when they traced things back to Yongchang Fort, they found the senders' names were also fake. A check of the entire garrison at the fort revealed no such senders existed.

After six days of investigation, Ding Shaoyin discovered that the two letter-senders had originally been garrison troops at Yongchang Fort and Fengle Pu Fortress. After their letters were intercepted, they had deserted.

Ding Shaoyin reasoned that merely sending a family letter, once intercepted, would only result in the officers at the fort assigning extra labor duties — not much punishment at all, and certainly not enough to warrant desertion. There had to be something fishy inside.

But he could not see anything fishy in the letters, which was why, out of caution, he had sent the two letters to Hong Chengchou.

Hong Chengchou also could not see anything wrong with the two letters. But in the middle of the night, a thought flashed through his mind: what if these two letters were read together?

Holding the oil candle, Hong Chengchou frowned deeply and examined the letters repeatedly, finally discovering a trace of a clue. The first letter mentioned Muyangchuan River East Fort, warhorses, and a debt of two hundred and sixty wen; the second letter mentioned River East Fort, armor, and two hundred and forty-four days of frontier garrison duty.

Having noted down these numbers, Hong Chengchou was overjoyed. That very night, he ordered men to ride at full speed to Muyangchuan River East Fort and River East Fort, to ask the fort commanders whether the numbers of warhorses and armor in the forts matched these two figures.

He waited an entire night. Only the next day, after all the officers under his command had come to the government office to pay their New Year respects and left, did the soldiers sent to the two places return to Liangzhou — bringing back disappointing news.

Muyangchuan River East Fort had three hundred and twenty warhorses, and River East Fort had four hundred and forty sets of armor. Neither matched the two letters.

Hong Chengchou did not give up. He believed that since someone had fled, these two letters must be problematic. He sent men to closely observe the garrisons of five fortresses: Muyangchuan East and West Forts, as well as River East Fort, Yongchang Fort, and Fengle Pu Fortress.

That someone in Gansu was colluding with the bandits was a certainty, and it had to be a high-ranking officer colluding with the bandits, because the intelligence in the two letters was incomplete — clearly not the entirety of the secret correspondence. Ordinary soldiers could not possibly know the intelligence of several military forts.

Behind this, it had to be an officer of Assistant Commander rank or higher colluding with the bandits.

This order had just been issued when the Liangzhou Garrison government office received an urgent report: Zhuanglang Garrison had fallen.

Hong Chengchou furrowed his brow and asked, "How could a strong city like Zhuanglang Garrison fall in an instant?"

Ding Shaoyin lowered his head and cupped his fists. "Reporting to the Supreme Commander, last autumn, bandits from the Marshal's Manor entered the Zhuanglang River valley to seize grain. Many of the Banner troops scattered in the chaos and fled into the Wushao Mountains to become bandits."

"According to the surviving soldiers who returned from the north, on New Year's Eve, the deserters returned to the garrison city carrying valuables and set off firecrackers in great numbers outside the city. The acting garrison commander, Ba Hongyuan, initially thought nothing of it. By the time the barbarian cavalry under the Liu bandit's command had galloped to the city gate, it was too late to close it. Three thousand barbarian horsemen charged and rampaged inside and outside the garrison city, and the city thus fell."

Hong Chengchou asked, "What of Ba Hongyuan?"

Ding Shaoyin lowered his head. "Commander Ba defended his residence to the death. When the city fell, he would rather die than surrender. In the early morning of the first day of the first month, he set a fire, immolating himself and his entire household perished."

Another hereditary military family was gone.

The ancestors of the Ba surname could be traced back to Timur, a barbarian cavalryman under the command of Cao Duke Li Wenzhong during the Hongwu era. Through battle merits, he rose to Chief Flag. The second generation was named Badu'er, who rose to Senior Chiliarch, and later generations thereafter took Ba as their surname.

Hong Chengchou closed his eyes in agony, his fist clenching within the wide sleeve of his official robe, and pounded it against the armrest of his chair.

In his heart, he cursed: those colluding with the bandits who deserve to die do not die, yet Ba Hongyuan, so utterly loyal to the court and undeserving of death, has died instead.

From Ding Shaoyin's report alone, he already realized the situation was not as simple as he had imagined. Although Liu Chengzong had fled to Qinghai, his old skills from his days as a roving bandit had clearly not been lost — he could still remotely control the mountain bandits of the Wushao Mountains.

Clearly, wherever there were deserters, there was an environment for Liu Chengzong to display his talents to the fullest.

For such a thing to happen on New Year's Eve and the first day of the new year was truly sickening... who paid New Year's visits like this?

"Send word to Lanzhou. Commander Ding, go muster the troops. Send a few more officers to go see the situation. If the Liu bandit attacks Lanzhou, then retake the city. If he does not move troops against Lanzhou, let him occupy this city for now."

That said, Hong Chengchou was not the least bit discouraged in his heart, nor did he take the loss of Zhuanglang Garrison City seriously. He merely encouraged Ding Shaoyin: "General Ding, this war has only just begun. The time to achieve merit and establish your career has arrived."

Whether merit was achieved or a career established was not important to Hong Chengchou. What was important was sending the garrison officers who might be colluding with the bandits to the front lines, so they could not cause trouble inside Gansu. If war broke out within Gansu's interior and these people coordinated from within, that would be truly terrifying.

Watching Ding Shaoyin's retreating figure after he saluted and turned to leave, Hong Chengchou's fist hidden in his official robe slowly loosened. He patted the armrest of his chair, deciding in his heart that Gansu's critical defenses must all be handed over to Cao Wenzhao and Bai Guang'en.

These people could not be relied upon.

And three hundred li from Liangzhou, atop the walls of Zhuanglang Garrison City, Xie Erhu stood on the barbican of the north gate, patting a large iron cannon, immensely pleased with himself.

His gaze followed the Zhuanglang River valley northward, looking to the very limit of his sight, and he said, "Let's continue the attack northward. A so-called strong city like Zhuanglang is nothing special — we can easily take the Gulang Gorge as well!"

Standing beside him was Jing Xiaoliu, who had been promoted to Squad Commander less than half a year ago. Hearing this, he cupped his fists and said, "Brigade Commander Xie, this city was tricked into our hands through internal collusion. Further north, we won't have nearly as many people."

In truth, in capturing Zhuanglang Garrison, the Mongol cavalry under Xie Erhu's command had basically exerted no effort, and Jing Xiaoliu had not exerted much either.

Chengyun had contacted the deserters in the Wushao Mountains, preparing gifts for them to return to the garrison city and present to the officers, expressing a desire to return home for a while. Taking advantage of the New Year firecrackers, they masked the hoofbeats of Xie Erhu's cavalry, and the firelight also pointed the way for them in the darkness. They galloped straight in and seized the garrison city.

Apart from those officers and their household retainers who had deeply received the state's grace for generations, the Banner troops scattered around the garrison city could not assemble and were utterly unable to form combat effectiveness. Amid the shouting of Jing Xiaoliu's local militia, they mostly remained on the sidelines, which was what allowed them to take the city so easily.

As for the claim that this city was tricked away, Xie Erhu acknowledged it from the bottom of his heart. He turned his head, still shaken, to look into the city. This small city, five li in circumference, had been built specifically to defend against cavalry.

Inside Zhuanglang Garrison City, there were nine streets and eighteen alleys. Apart from West Main Street and South Main Street, the planning of all the other streets and alleys consisted of crooked gates and slanted paths. If one entered the city from the north gate, warhorses simply could not build up speed inside the city.

Let alone cavalry rampaging through the streets — even on the east-west thoroughfare of West Main Street, right in the middle, in front of the Commandant's residence, there was a large pond, long east-to-west and short north-to-south, for raising fish.

North Street was normally unused by pedestrians, only sixty paces long in total. The area connecting its east and west sides to the city's northeast corner was entirely farmland — paddy fields, at that. Blocking the road there was far too easy. South Main Street was spacious enough, but from south to north, it was lined with memorial archways the entire way.

Memorial archways, normally unassuming, became useful things when battle loomed.

When they approached the city, they startled the Cross-Heart Beacon Tower to the south. As the wolf-smoke rose from the tower, on South Main Street, Banner troops were already carrying gunpowder and charging beneath the archways. Fortunately, they had entered the city quickly; otherwise, once those stone corbel archways were blasted down, each would become a barricade.

If every city to the north was like this, Xie Erhu felt he might not be able to capture any more cities. He asked Jing Xiaoliu, "Do you think they will come to attack the city?"

"I don't know."

Jing Xiaoliu grinned. "The Grand Marshal said it — we're the throwing stones."

Liu Chengzong's deployment on the eastern front was simple: Xie Erhu as vanguard, leading the Garrison Herders Camp to raid the Zhuanglang River; Li Wanqing as rear army, holding the East Pass to defend against the Lanzhou direction; and in support, Basang leading tribal soldiers to garrison Liancheng.

Xie Erhu could push forward, and if he couldn't win, fall back. Failing to take a city didn't matter, and losing one didn't either... In fact, Liu Chengzong would be quite happy to see him lose a city — only the odds of that were slim.

Because of the Qilian Mountains and the Wushaoling Ridge, Shaanxi and Gansu are naturally split into two blocks, and the river valley between Lanzhou and the Gulang Gorge makes the strategic situation nearly identical for both north and south.

It's a natural buffer zone. Whoever masses heavy troops in the valley bears the greater risk, because both sides can send light troops down from the highlands to the north and south to cut the other's supply lines, turning the army in the valley into an isolated force.

So Liu Chengzong judged that even if Xie Erhu seized the Zhuanglang Garrison, he wouldn't face a heavy-force siege anytime soon.

If he really did face a heavy-force siege, then at worst they'd just fall back to Hehuang. Even in the worst-case scenario, Liu the Lion could accept losing Hehuang and retreating to Xining.

After all, his arsenal, the Hundred Works Bureau, the salted fish workshop, the horse farms, and the granaries were all west of Xining. Temporarily losing Hehuang wouldn't cost him a shred of real strength — only prestige.

But if the government army wanted to take the Zhuanglang River or even the Huang River, unless all of Shaanxi's troops were piled onto the Yellow River front, the entire Gansu army would have to come pushing down.

Taking Gansu would be enough to shake the realm.

Yet at this very moment, Liu the Lion was indeed racking his brains over Hong Chengchou.

Because he'd discovered that the secret letter sent to him from Gansu by the Three Tribulations Society's Little Sixteen Dharma Master... didn't match up.

Because of the Three Tribulations Society, Liu Chengzong had believed Gansu wouldn't be a complete blind spot for him.

Using the Three Tribulations followers as a main fighting force was like asking a clever wife to cook without rice, but as auxiliaries, Liu Chengzong had thought Wang Ziyong could get the Marshal's Headquarters a map of Gansu's troop dispositions.

Little Sixteen was indeed working on that, only the Three Tribulations followers under them were all fringe figures — they simply couldn't get their hands on intelligence that high-level.

But they arrived at the same result by a different road: they sent over every single procurement record for grain, oil, fodder, clothing, bedding, and armor from every fort, castle, and watchtower in Gansu for the summer and winter of the sixth year of the Chongzhen reign.

In a way, Liu Chengzong thought this was even more potent than a troop disposition map, because a map could be falsified, but what men ate and horses chewed couldn't lie.

Each of their letters contained six pieces of data: the recipient address, an address mentioned in the letter, the names of two types of supplies, and the quantities of two other types of supplies, expressed respectively as exact figures and as percentages.

But the six data points in each letter were completely unrelated. You had to gather six letters, then arrange the recipient addresses from east to west according to the Gansu map, only then could you simultaneously obtain intelligence data on eighteen military forts.

The headquarters guards gathered in the west building and didn't sleep for a full day and night, yet in the end they still couldn't deduce a complete result. They could only report helplessly to Liu Chengzong: "Grand Marshal, we're short two letters."

"You're certain it's two missing?" Liu Chengzong frowned and asked. "How big is the impact?"

"Two letters are missing for Liangzhou and Yongchang Garrisons. There are thirty-seven forts in that area, and forty-eight ledger entries across twenty-four of those forts don't match up. We can't calculate the approximate troop numbers."

Liu the Lion, who'd thought he had the whole map revealed, watched a fog of war drift across his mind and blanket eastern Gansu.

"So that means Songsan, Liangzhou, and Yongchang — we know nothing about any of them."

Liu Chengzong looked at the map hanging on the wall, then at the table where each fort on the map had been tagged with various supplies and estimated troop numbers. Even with the east a complete blank, Hong Chengchou's deployment was laid almost completely bare.

Just as he'd guessed, the Gansu army was massing heavy troops in the Shandan and Ganzhou area. The projected garrisons at the various forts ranged from full strength at minimum to double at most, and in some key areas, more than double.

The confirmed troop strength alone was already between forty and fifty thousand.

This was a pocket formation centered on the Qilian Mountains. In that case, the situation at Yongchang Garrison, which formed the edge of the pocket, could be guessed with near certainty.

There were a lot of troops. Sitting in the cities, it didn't matter, but once they moved, the consumption would be enormous.

So he couldn't let Hong Chengchou's army just squat there. Liu Chengzong wanted to make them move a little: "Tell Ahai Daiqing to lead the Khalkha Camp, escort the army provisions into Zhuanglang, then advance east of the river and go take a look at Songsan."

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Good evening!