Chapter 488: Too Hot to Handle

Liu Chengzong advanced methodically west of Gansu on the momentum of breaking through the pass, taking one of the three oases in barely half a month — his power surging, the whole affair relaxed and pleasant.

But for Hong Chengchou in eastern Gansu, the campaign to retake the Zhuanglang River valley was a nightmare.

Not because the enemy was particularly hard to deal with — Xie Erhu and Basang's Mongol-Tibetan allied force was slightly inferior to the Ming army in every respect, and they were already struggling just to handle Gansu officers like Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin.

For Hong Chengchou, the root of the nightmare was that the Marshal's Army troops on the Zhuanglang River were clearly fragile and could be shattered with one blow, yet someone was always dragging him down and sabotaging him both on and off the battlefield, freezing the front at Gulang Gorge and preventing even an inch of progress.

On the battlefield, officers like Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin all played it safe and steady — mud that wouldn't stick to the wall, not one of them willing to take a risk. The resistance off the battlefield came from Pingliang City — from the Prince of Han.

As early as when this campaign was just taking shape, the Prince of Han's estate had sent someone to see Hong Chengchou, saying that the great Ningxia bandit Golden Cicada was out causing trouble again and demanding that he dispatch troops to guard Pingliang City.

The moment Hong Chengchou heard that nickname Golden Cicada, his damn head started buzzing.

In his heart of hearts, Hong Chengchou had no desire to humor the Prince of Han. You couldn't reason with that sort of creature who had no idea what it meant to serve the nation — and at the moment, was there any bandit greater than Liu Chengzong?

But Hong Chengchou had no choice. No one could bear the blame for a princely fief falling. The precedent of Lanzhou falling and the Prince of Su fleeing was right there before his eyes. That affair had nothing to do with him — it was the Five-Province Supreme Commander Chen Qiyu's responsibility. The Emperor had wanted to throw Chen Qiyu in prison, but after the court officials deliberated and deliberated, there was truly no one who could take his place, so Chen Qiyu was permitted to temporarily bear his guilt… he wasn't even allowed to redeem himself through merit.

By rights, the Prince of Han's fief at Pingliang was none of Hong Chengchou's business either, but the Prince of Han insisted on saying that this generation's scripture-seeker had come out of Ningxia, which dumped the blame squarely onto the Three-Border Supreme Commander Hong Chengchou.

Hong Chengchou was so furious his gums itched, but he could do nothing about the Prince of Han. He assigned Ningxia Assistant Regional Commander Zhang Dechang to lead troops and guard Mount Liupan.

Zhang Dechang also came from a military family. His grandfather was the famous general Zhang Chen, Ningxia Regional Commander during the Wanli reign, whose prestige was as formidable as a tiger's.

Back then, Altan Khan had led his troops intending to borrow a route through the Helan Mountains to attack the Oirats. Zhang Chen refused passage. Altan Khan grew angry and spoke a few harsh words. Who knew Zhang Chen grew even angrier — he dug open the Han and Tang canals overnight and flooded the road, then deployed his troops at Chishui Pass. Altan Khan lost every bit of his temper, and for the next three years at the Ningxia border markets, no one dared raise their voice.

In this generation, the old Zhang family still had the three brothers Zhang Yingchang, Zhang Quanchang, and Zhang Dechang serving as officers. Hong Chengchou felt that transferring Zhang Dechang over was more than adequate. Who knew that the man had barely led his troops huffing and puffing to Mount Liupan before the Prince of Han drove him off with a shameless tantrum.

The Prince of Han's envoy said His Highness didn't want this one — if Cao Bianjiao didn't come, then no matter who came, His Highness would provide no army provisions.

What's more, the envoy even said strange things to Cao Bianjiao, like "have a taste of home" — all the Datong knife-cut noodles and Shanxi aged vinegar you could want, and so on.

This made it very hard for Hong Chengchou not to suspect the Prince of Han's motives.

For one, Pingliang Prefecture had been plundered by bandits and suffered a locust plague the year before. Prefect Jiang Yingchang had no grain in his stores and therefore followed the Prince of Han's estate in everything. If the Prince of Han's estate didn't release grain, Pingliang truly had no grain to feed troops.

For another, Cao Bianjiao had been to Pingliang before. The report he brought back to Hong Chengchou at the time was that Pingliang City had been smashed to pieces, but the newly built princely estate was like a fortress — it had no fear of bandits whatsoever.

Hong Chengchou had no idea what the hell that bastard was really up to. Finally it suddenly struck him — Cao Bianjiao seemed to have mentioned in passing once that the Prince of Han wanted to recruit him as a son-in-law of the estate.

If it were just this muddle-headed Prince of Han talking, Hong Chengchou would have ignored him. But then the Prince of Su, who was taking refuge at the Prince of Han's estate, had apparently been fed some kind of bewitching potion and joined in requesting that Cao Bianjiao be transferred over. Hong Chengchou had no choice.

Truth be told, feeding the Prince of Su a bewitching potion cost the Prince of Han no effort at all. He simply said that all the court's officers these days could neither fight nor be loyal — they were all bastards of the Shi Xiang sort, talking sweetly to your face and then turning around and surrendering.

Cao Bianjiao was good — couldn't be better.

The Prince of Su's fief was, after all, a worthy prince, carrying a different weight from the muddle-headed fool of the Prince of Han's fief.

And so Cao Bianjiao was dispatched to garrison the Prince of Han's fief. Old Master Hong had painfully lost a great general.

The young Prince of Han looked at the strapping, vigorous Cao Bianjiao and grinned from ear to ear, inwardly exclaiming that the great enterprise of breeding was just around the corner.

Setting everything else aside, now that a great war had erupted in Gansu and Qinghai, there were few under heaven who could be happy about it — His Royal Highness the Prince of Han was one of them.

Clearly a year of disaster, with war in the west and plague raging in the east, yet the Prince of Han seemed to have become the happiest man under heaven. At this critical juncture, he had an excuse for everything he did in Pingliang, and he was carrying out the recruitment of worthy men with blazing enthusiasm.

Cao Bianjiao, who could lead troops into battle — he'd gotten him brought over. The Prince of Su, the worthiest of the imperial clan — he'd run over to his place too. The two foreign devils from the Han family of Shanxi who knew how to cast and use cannons and were originally to be sent to Liu Chengzong — he'd kept them as well. He'd even written letters backwards trying to fool the Three Han of Hedong into coming over to teach him Taiji Quan.

To the Prince of Han, war in the west? Let them fight — whoever wins, neither side will harm him. Plague in the east? Let it rage — this little prince has Great King Liu's Book of Famine Relief and Plague Quelling. Who's afraid of whom!

But for Hong Chengchou, if he had to rank the people he detested, Liu Chengzong could only rank third. The Prince of Han was second.

Right now, the person he detested most in his heart was Chen Qiyu.

Because the greatest obstacle to retaking the Zhuanglang River came precisely from Chen Qiyu. From Hong Chengchou's perspective, with the great army massed east of Lanzhou and the Zhuanglang River tying down the Marshal's Headquarters' forces, they should have retaken Lanzhou long ago.

Even if you couldn't say retake Lanzhou, you should at least have attacked Lanzhou, you worthless trash?

Yet for two whole months, on the Lanzhou front, storming the city had been utterly calm and tranquil, while garrison duty was utter chaos — to this day, not a single brick had fallen from Lanzhou's city wall.

Chen Qiyu had his own bitter difficulties.

A large band of roving bandits had come running over from Qinzhou and, right under the garrison's noses, plundered Gongchang Prefecture, breaching the two counties of Ningyuan and Fuyang, and then threw Gongchang Prefecture and the two military-civilian commands of Minzhou and Taozhou into utter turmoil.

The roving bandits had grown into a real force. Those who knew the government's main army was here and still dared come running from Qinzhou were the elite among the great bandits. Their formations were no longer as chaotic as before, and they no longer deployed troops swarming over the hills and plains, but instead advanced in battle-camp columns in unison, making it easy for the government troops to know the names and designations of each unit.

Setting aside those scattered stragglers, just counting the ones Chen Qiyu knew of, there were over twenty camps of bandits marauding through the Hanzhong and Qinzhou region.

If eight camps were arrayed, it was Gao Yingxiang's Eight Camps of the Dashing King. If five battle formations were arrayed, it was either the Dashing General's Five Camps — a joint encampment of five chieftains including Li Zicheng — or the Left Army's Five Camps, a joint encampment of five chieftains including He Jin.

If there were two camp formations that looked as though they'd been isolated by everyone else, no need to even think — those were the troops of the Eight Great Kings, Zhang Xianzhong.

And the government's garrison troops in Gongchang Prefecture were all Shaanxi officers: Grand Coordinator Lian Guoshi's Provincial Standard Camp Regional Commander Zhang Yingchang, Assistant Regional Commander He Renlong, as well as Assistant Regional Commander Yang Yanchang and Commander Ren Quan'er dispatched by Chen Qiyu. Yet these several officers, who ought to have been as close as could be, showed an extremely severe tendency toward infighting.

Strange to say, ever since they'd been garrisoned in Gongchang Prefecture, the three armies had cooperated with seamless intimacy in the matter of wreaking havoc on the locality.

He Renlong's troops didn't rob poor households, because they would dress as roving bandits at night to raid wealthy gentry. Zhang Yingchang's troops didn't rob wealthy gentry, but they would set up checkpoints in broad daylight to levy contributions and demand grain.

The military discipline of Yan'an War God Yang Yanchang's troops was comparatively better. First, they didn't rob poor households; second, they didn't plunder wealthy gentry; third, regardless of day or night, they intercepted He Renlong's fake bandits at dawn and charged Zhang Yingchang's checkpoint squads at dusk — in short… with brimming enthusiasm, they persisted in confiscating their colleagues' illicit gains.

Once the roving bandits ran into Gongchang Prefecture, the three armies' behavior became even more hopeless. Each harbored sinister designs. The moment a single band of roving bandits appeared in Gongchang Prefecture, it would draw all three armies into ceaselessly pounding their friendly forces.

Zhang Yingchang was furious: I went to enormous effort to find the roving bandits and rout them, and you bastards stole the spoils?

He Renlong was also furious: I went to enormous effort to sell your defense maps to General Li the Dashing for some cash, and just as they were fucking delivered, you bastards intercepted them?

Yang Yanchang was even more furious: King Gao the Dashing knows how to care for his brothers and sent me a bit of money and grain to spend, and you bastards all crowd in this close for what?

As for Ren Quan'er, Old Master Ren wasn't angry. Working for the superiors — a little extra hardship was only to be expected.

On one hand, he reported to Chen Qiyu, saying he truly couldn't restrain the righteous and incorruptible Assistant Regional Commander Yang. On the other hand, he wrote thank-you letters to King Gao the Dashing and General Li the Dashing. Finally, he even wrapped a little red envelope of money for He Renlong's household troop commander He Yong — covering every base.

Chen Qiyu and Lian Guoshi exerted the strength of nursing infants, yet still couldn't make them stop their infighting, let alone attack Lanzhou City.

Seeing that joining hands with vermin like Chen Qiyu couldn't accomplish a damn thing, Hong Chengchou felt that in this war, the one the court had to rely on was still himself. Relying on others was hopeless.

And he possessed the ability to break the deadlock.

The method was simple: unleash Cao Wenzhao and Bai Guang'en.

The troops Cao Wenzhao and Bai Guang'en led — truth be told, they weren't worth mentioning. In terms of soldier quality, they were six of one and half a dozen of the other compared to the Mongol-Tibetan allied force under Xie Erhu and Basang.

Cao Wenzhao had a few veterans under him, but the majority were men recruited in Gansu and Ningxia, including some Mongol auxiliaries who had submitted after the great chaos south of the Gobi.

Bai Guang'en went without saying. The troops he'd led before had indeed been crack soldiers, but that batch of elites had been hit by Zhang Tianlin's rockets in a dimensionality-reducing strike — holding brand-new Sky-Supporting Arquebuses, they were wiped out before they could even use them, and only the terrified, routed survivors fled back.

Hong Chengchou assigned him the Tusi Lu Yunchang, who had lost Liancheng, as his deputy, and recruited troops from the various tribes of the Maya Mountains to rebuild the army.

The Ming army on the Zhuanglang River wasn't failing to advance for lack of good soldiers. On the contrary, the Ming troops in the Zhuanglang River valley were all good soldiers. Yang Jiamo had even committed his own provincial standard camp — that army couldn't possibly be bad.

Hong Chengchou believed that on the current battlefield, the commanders were looking forward and backward, too timid to fight. He wanted Bai Guang'en and Cao Wenzhao to solve this problem.

The specific method of solving it didn't need to be spelled out by him. As long as these two were dispatched to the battlefield, the problem would resolve itself — these two were veteran grinders.

Their approach to warfare was different from hereditary military officers like Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin. For Ding Shaoyin, the Commander of Liangzhou Guard, he knew almost every soldier, knew every soldier's parents. If a soldier died, he would have to go back and give an accounting to their families. The troops Chai Shihua commanded were Yang Jiamo's elite personal guards; any loss of soldiers would likewise require an accounting to Yang Jiamo.

Cao Wenzhao and Bai Guang'en were different. These two only needed to answer to their superiors, not to their subordinates. They just fought.

As soon as the two battalions moved south from Gulang Gorge, they were detected by Basangbu's Western Barbarian hunters in the mountains, but sometimes good reconnaissance is useless — information does not run faster than an army.

The hunters had just reached Zhuanglang Guard City when Basang dispatched Buchi to lead troops out of the city to set an ambush. But the ambush troops had barely gone seven or eight li from the city before their formation was scattered by a charge from the Maya Mountain barbarian cavalry personally led by Bai Guang'en.

The battle proceeded so quickly that Basang had no time to come out of the city and reinforce them before they were surrounded and annihilated.

The decisive battle for control of the Zhuanglang River had erupted.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth day of the third month, after receiving Basang's plea for help, Xie Erhu led four thousand Mongol cavalry to the west bank of the river at Zhuanglang Guard City. By the fading twilight, he saw a Ming army encampment under construction on the east bank.

The encampment had only just begun construction. Timber and military tents were piled everywhere. The trench was not yet dug, the chevaux-de-frise had not been deployed, the Great General Cannons had not been placed in their preset artillery positions, and many soldiers were scattered about, hauling earth and stone.

First, Xie Erhu had come to avenge Buchi.

Second, this was unquestionably a perfect opportunity for a raid.

Third, he believed this encampment belonged to Bai Guang'en, whom Basang had mentioned in his letter requesting aid.

He knew of Bai Guang'en. Although the Marshal's Office generals had long since ceased to view themselves as roving bandits, that did not stop them from looking down on Bai Guang'en, who had betrayed his friends for glory, and using him as a negative example to educate their officers.

With these three factors combined, Xie Erhu and Ahaidaiqing conferred briefly and settled on a battle plan: use speed to crush slowness. A thousand riders would split into three columns and charge simultaneously, enveloping the three thousand Ming troops before their camp was complete and crushing them within.

But this was not Bai Guang'en's camp. Bai Guang'en had been scared off.

Bai Guang'en's annihilation of Buchi's thousand-man brigade had not relied on military quality. Both sides were barbarian soldiers. Under the centralization of the Great Ming, the marginalized tribes of Maya Mountain were loosely organized and barely possessed military force.

The Marshal's barbarian soldiers on the other side were in a completely different state. To some extent, Liu Chengzong had lifted the entire Kangning Prefecture out of the feudal slave era, yet had uniquely left the Western Barbarian Camp as a remnant still stuck in the age of slavery.

Unlike the barbarian people who had stayed in their homeland, they had not actually enjoyed the happiness of being free men for very long. A brief dozen or so days of freedom was not worth mentioning. Many had not even figured out the concept of private property before being conscripted into the army, crossing snowy mountains and the Yellow River to appear on the He-Huang battlefield.

They did not know what freedom was, but they were very clear that Liu Chengzong had given them some things — things that should never have belonged to slaves who could take nothing with them but their shadows and leave nothing behind but their footprints.

For instance, a set of clothes that were not luxurious but clean and warm, a solidly made suit of chainmail, a killing-worthy saber, a plain firelock, and a meal of tsampa sufficient for half a month's past rations. In short, Liu Chengzong had given them, beyond their pay, everything a soldier ought to have.

Bai Guang'en had used three thousand to attack one thousand, a sudden strike, surrounding and annihilating them. He had won easily.

In his view, these barbarian soldiers were nothing special except for their stubborn resistance. He had seen plenty of stubborn resistance — how many peasant soldiers would rather die than be captured by government troops? What use was it? Surround them, kill half, and the rest would be basically exhausted. It was a victory of five hundred enemies killed and over four hundred captured.

But what happened after the victory was beyond his expectations. His own troops had suffered just over two hundred killed in battle, yet after the battle, over fifty were killed or wounded by the captives. As soon as these captives recovered a little strength, they would snatch blades if they could, and if they could not seize a weapon, they would catch a man off guard and headbutt him, bite him — in short, they were determined to kill.

Bai Guang'en's soldiers were also barbarians. They said to kill all the captives, but Lu Yunchang was unwilling. Commander Lu rather wanted to recruit these barbarian soldiers, which turned the captives into a hot potato. Bai Guang'en felt a chill whenever he saw the captives in camp, so he simply dumped them on his allies, made the excuse that he had too many wounded, and withdrew to the rear.

Therefore, the military formation Xie Erhu wanted to crash into was not Bai Guang'en's, nor Lu Yunchang's, nor Ding Shaoyin's or Chai Shihua's.

It was Cao Wenzhao's — Cao Wenzhao, who was never afraid of captives being a hot potato.

Good evening!