Chapter 515: The Lion Is Hungry

In directing a war, the most critical elements are intent, resolve, and orders.

Intent is the result you aim to achieve through military action; resolve is the military means adopted to realize that intent; orders are the concrete military commands — and a superior's resolve becomes the subordinate's intent.

Once the Gansu Protectorate produced the autumn grain budget, maintaining the army's existence became Liu Chengzong's paramount intent — Ningxia, Songshan, Qinzhou, even Gansu itself, all had to stand aside before this matter.

Liu Chengzong was a commander who cherished his soldiers deeply, a cherishing born of a warlord's instinct to preserve his own strength — the army was the extension of his power and authority, so he would never gamble soldiers' lives on a win-or-lose throw.

This military makeup dictated that he never fought hard, head-on decisive battles; even when the enemy camped and dug trenches right before his eyes, his first intent was always to find every possible way to increase the odds of victory, never to charge in recklessly.

For this army, the advantage naturally was a kind of blind worship within the ranks — from generals down to soldiers, the shared understanding of war was: if the Grand Marshal gives the attack order, our odds of winning are very high.

The disadvantage, however, was that at every moment, Liu Chengzong was more inclined to conserve strength than to mount an aggressive assault.

Facts proved that Hong Chengchou still did not understand Liu Chengzong; his original intent in strengthening defenses and clearing the fields was to trap Liu Chengzong west of Liangzhou — for a Ming commander, a shortage of funds and grain was a test of endurance, perfectly normal, just an ordinary tactic to unsettle the troops' morale.

Yet Liu Chengzong's endurance in this regard was a negative number — cutting off his grain was not unsettling his troops' morale, it was digging at his very lifeblood.

The moment there was even a hint of a grain cutoff, the iron chains he had bound around himself snapped open.

For victory, Liu Chengzong could only bear a trifling, negligible cost.

But for survival, he could give everything.

At noon on the nineteenth day of the sixth month of the seventh year of Chongzhen, a dispatch rider from the east carrying a wrapped bundle of letters galloped into Ganzhou City and presented Liu Chengzong's handwritten letter to Protector Cao Yao of the Gansu Protectorate.

The letter's content was that Liu Chengzong was transferring two battalions to his command: Wang Ziyong's Three Tribulations Battalion and Gao Yingdeng's main battalion, which were at that moment moving to Yongchang Garrison.

At the same time, he was dispatching Han Shipan, commander of the Tiger Guard Battalion's Left Thousand-Man Division, to Ganzhou to serve as Gansu's reserve officer corps.

Cao Yao was utterly stunned by the heavy responsibility Liu Chengzong had thrust upon him — he originally already held authority over the military and civilians of Gansu, commanding nearly twenty thousand garrison troops across the various garrisons, and was also assigned Huang Shengxiao's standard artillery battalion, giving him a total force of just over twenty thousand.

With this order from Liu Chengzong reaching Ganzhou City, it meant Cao Yao became the man commanding the most troops in the entire Grand Marshal's headquarters... although the garrison troops' quality was not great, in sheer numbers he had more than the troops Liu Chengzong personally led.

But for Cao Yao, Liu Chengzong was not giving him troops to command for free — at the end of the letter, defensive orders were also issued to the Gansu Protectorate.

"I am resolved to annihilate the enemy entrenched along the Zhuanglang River and forage in Hehuang. I ask my elder brother to deploy defensive lines at Yongchang, Shandan, and Ganzhou in preparation for invading enemies. As for the great affairs of Gansu, I entrust my elder brother to exercise judgment and act as expedient."

Along with the letter delivered into Cao Yao's hands came a long case.

Puzzled, Cao Yao opened the wooden case and saw inside a vermilion bow, black arrows, and a bronze axe — he froze for a moment, then as if something had struck him, his eyes suddenly bulged wide, blood surged to his head, and the old scar on his forehead turned red.

He turned, solemnly composed his face, removed his helmet, lifted his armored skirt, and knelt to kowtow before the messenger: "Please tell the Son of Heaven — if Gansu is lost, your servant will bring his own head to see you!"

The bewildered dispatch rider was so startled he nearly bolted out of the Protectorate office, which had been converted from the Gansu Grand Coordinator's yamen.

Cao Yao understood perfectly — what Liu Chengzong had given him were two of the Nine Bestowments: the vermilion bow and the bronze axe. The vermilion bow authorized punitive expeditions against the unrighteous; the bronze axe authorized execution of the guilty.

For Liu Chengzong to have someone bring these objects and place them in Cao Yao's hands — whatever Liu Chengzong's status was, whether he called himself king or not, none of it mattered: he was the Son of Heaven.

Moreover, since Liu Chengzong had even brought out such things, he clearly had made a judgment about the situation. Cao Yao knew very well that from the moment he received this letter, he probably would not be seeing Liu Chengzong for some time.

Without a doubt, Gansu and these thirty thousand troops had, for the short term, become an idle management game for Liu Chengzong.

Because Liu Chengzong had not only handed over Gansu's two grain-producing regions for him to manage, but had also allocated him precisely the army those grain-producing regions could sustain — a corps that in peacetime could be self-sufficient relying on Gansu's two oases, but in wartime would have to depend on himself.

That tone and that resolve struck Cao Yao as deeply familiar — the lion was hungry.

Soon, as Han Shipan arrived in Ganzhou with twelve hundred Tiger Guard soldiers, Cao Yao unfolded his defensive deployment for Gansu. The first to receive orders was Colonel Wang Ziyong of the Three Tribulations Battalion, commanded to set up the first defensive line at Zhenjing Post Station east of Yongchang Garrison.

Next was Yongchang Garrison's Vice Commander Ge Jin, ordered to lead three thousand old and weak garrison troops redeployed to Ganzhou, while military dependents handled the autumn grain at Yongchang Garrison.

Following closely was Gao Yingdeng's main battalion — Cao Yao ordered them to pull back to Shandan Garrison and set up the second defensive line. Shandan Garrison Commander Zhu Houji likewise led over a thousand garrison troops in retreat to Ganzhou, leaving military dependents to handle the autumn grain.

The final third defensive line was assigned to Huang Shengxiao, stationed outside Ganzhou City, supported by the Tiger Guard Battalion's reserve officers, integrating and training nine thousand old and weak garrison troops from the various garrisons of Ganzhou, Shandan, and Yongchang into a reserve force totaling thirteen thousand.

His orders to Wang Ziyong were to probe eastward for enemy movements, ensure Gao Yingdeng on the second defensive line was informed at the first moment, and delay the enemy upon contact, creating an opportunity for Gao Yingdeng's troops to assemble and maneuver.

Gao Yingdeng's main battalion had the strongest combat power and was Gansu's counterattack centerpiece. If the front encountered a weak enemy, Gao Yingdeng could swiftly annihilate them; even if they met a strong foe, he could hold them off for a while, creating an envelopment opportunity for Huang Shengxiao in the rear.

As for the troops further back in Suzhou, Chijin, and other places, Cao Yao treated them as laborers — sufficient merely to transport supplies to Ganzhou. In this way, their logistics supply line was cut in half, road wastage greatly reduced, and even without the grain planted in Liangzhou, they could be self-sufficient.

On the very same day Cao Yao received Liu Chengzong's letter, dispatch riders also reached the Gulang Defense Battalion, meeting Colonels Feng Rang and Wei Qian'er, who had occupied the fort and were holding the defensive line.

Liu Chengzong's order to them was reconnaissance — dispatch patrol riders to scout all mountain paths within fifty li of Gulang Gorge. Every path that could accommodate horses and marching troops was to be reconnoitered and pressured, with all terrain undulations, springs and villages, heights and obstacles, and marching difficulties mapped and compiled into charts.

Within a few days, Ming forces in every direction across Gansu were terrified.

The first to bear the brunt was Li Hongsi inside Liangzhou City.

After the earlier exhaustion tactics and the loss of men in the ghost-soldier ruse, the Liangzhou garrison no longer hoped to teach Liu Chengzong a lesson with their own strength; they simply abandoned any thought of sallying out to fight, content to rotate guard duty on the walls in peace each day.

Now, with expectations lowered, they instead found life was not so bad. Although Liu Chengzong had cast three terrifyingly large cannons below the city walls, he had not, after all, launched any further bombardments against the ramparts.

They had assumed life could go on like this, at least until the crops outside the city ripened without further change. They never imagined that one day they would wake to find the garrison troops on the walls discovering that the enemy to the west of the city had vanished completely — even the tents had been struck.

The shocked garrison hurriedly reported this news to Li Hongsi and Liu Shaozong. The two men hastily summoned the city's commanders to ascend the walls; everyone stared at one another, none daring to believe Liu Chengzong would withdraw at such a time.

The two defending commanders pondered... was this Liu Chengzong's new idea to lure us out of the city?

The two did not exactly sit waiting for death. After some deliberation, the first countermeasure they settled on was to meet all changes with no change — resolutely forbidding troops from leaving the city, to guard against an ambush by the Grand Marshal's army.

At least inside the city, they were safe.

On that basis, in the second shichen after discovering the Grand Marshal's army had withdrawn, Li Hongsi dispatched patrol riders in all four directions outside the city to probe the Grand Marshal army's movements across the oasis.

"This time outside the city, you must ascertain the enemy's movements with certainty. If they advance, you must know their direction of advance; if they retreat, you must also detect their line of retreat!"

On that very same day, the patrol riders sent out from Liangzhou detected the Grand Marshal's army massing toward Gulang Gorge — or more accurately, it was not that they detected them, but that the main force of the Grand Marshal's army came barreling straight into them.

Zhang Tianlin's defensive position had originally been at the border wall northeast of Liangzhou. He had been assigned there to defend against Ming forces from the Ningxia direction, and he had been quite pleased about it.

After all, for a military boss like him, having capable soldiers in hand and a fight worth fighting before him was enough to be happy — war was opportunity, not to mention defending the Great Wall, which let him play at being the King's army for a while.

Who would have thought that upon reaching his station, he would discover he could not even see the Great Wall. When the wind blew, you could not open your mouth to speak — the moment you did, your mouth filled with sand. Even back when he was a soldier at Yuhe Fort, he had never enjoyed such treatment.

Before his eyes and beneath his feet, there was nothing but sand and more sand. He thought he was standing atop the Great Wall; his men dug sand for days before finally establishing that their position was at the foot of a mountain — and what was more, the foot of the mountain on the western side of the Great Wall.

Zhang Tianlin walked another ten li eastward, scraped away the sand underfoot, and at last saw the Wall's beacon towers. Even the Great Wall, built along the mountain ridge, could not withstand the encroachment of the Tengger Desert.

Crossing Heaven Star was not afraid of the desert, because any Ming force that could cross the desert would certainly be a wagon corps, and then his good friend Liu Guoneng could be put to use. For a chance to let Liu Guoneng soar into the sky, he could dig sand along the Great Wall day after day.

But the wagon corps from the Ningxia direction never came, which left Zhang Tianlin deeply frustrated — idling there, he was practically growing mold.

It was under these circumstances that he suddenly received orders from Liu Chengzong to march his troops south to Gulang Gorge. Zhang Tianlin was so overjoyed he nearly leaped into the air; he immediately struck camp, rolled up his forces, and raced south.

Truly, in all his life — even when the government troops had chased him scurrying all over northern Shaanxi — Zhang Tianlin had never run at such speed. Gulang Gorge also had a Ming wagon corps.

He was desperately eager for battle. His entire battalion numbered fewer than five thousand men, and to move faster, he simply split them into three columns. The vanguard patrol riders detected Ming patrol riders active near Liangzhou City and assumed the Liangzhou garrison had sallied out. The three large columns charged and chased the patrol riders head-on, the pounding hooves nearly stamping onto the patrol soldiers' faces.

Zhang Tianlin chased all the way to the walls of Liangzhou City, only to find that the Ming troops inside hadn't come out — they'd merely sent out a hundred or so scout riders. It made him gnash his teeth in fury. With his beloved big rockets in tow, he wheeled his horse around two li east of the city, raised his whip, and jabbed it at the ramparts again and again.

What a crushing disappointment!

But no matter how disappointed he was, it was useless. With the defenders refusing to leave the city, there wasn't a damn thing he could do — after all, he wasn't so deranged as to cradle a rocket and fire it into the city. He had no choice but to lead his troops south at a gallop, racing all the way toward Gulang Gorge.

Up on the wall, Li Hongsi was rather puzzled by this. He found it hard to grasp what the rebel commander meant by circling below the city several times, but he could fully empathize with Zhang Tianlin's fury and humiliation — he even felt a sense of long-awaited vengeance fulfilled.

Back in Shaanxi, when he'd chased rebel horsemen for days through their dust and still couldn't catch up, he'd sometimes think: If you bastards dared to slow down just a little, I'd trample you to death under my horse's hooves!

That rebel commander down below was probably thinking the same thing: If you dared to come out of the city, I'd trample you to death under my horse's hooves!

Heh, not a chance, you grandpa says!

On the other side, the Ming troops holding Gulang Gorge were experiencing a tremendous shock. After losing the Gulang Guard Thousand-Household Station, and because Feng Rang and Wei Qian'er hadn't pressed their pursuit, Ding Shaoyin was able to re-establish a defensive line north of Black Pine Forest. Chai Shihua and Bai Guang'en were also called back.

By now, Ding Shaoyin had already sensed something was off. Bai Guang'en's escape route had clearly been planned in advance, his objective unmistakably clear. By the time he was stopped, the man had already fled east along Yellow Sheep River all the way to Stone Gorge Pass.

It was a perfectly normal escape route: east from Stone Gorge Pass, skirting the northern foothills of Maomao Mountain, one could reach Yongtai City — a mandatory waypoint for Ningxia border troops being redeployed west.

But Chai Shihua's direction of retreat was very strange. He hadn't fled east with Bai Guang'en; instead, he'd gone south along Gulang Gorge, passed Fork Post Station, and then headed for Zhuanglang Garrison.

If all three battalions had retreated in an orderly fashion, falling back to Zhuanglang Garrison to hold the last position would be understandable. But if you were already running for your life, why run straight into the heart of a pincer attack from both north and south — to defect?

This made one thing clear to Ding Shaoyin: if it really came to a fight, both of them would run faster than the other. But if he had to weigh it, Bai Guang'en was slightly more likely to fight alongside him — at the very least, he wouldn't stab him in the back.

Although Chai Shihua came from a military family, by this point he was clearly no longer of one mind with the court. Bai Guang'en, despite his bandit origins, was for now still loyal to the court.

On the very first day after withdrawing to Black Pine Forest Relay Station, Ding Shaoyin summoned both men together, placed Chai Shihua under house arrest on the spot, then rode alone to the garrison battalion Yang Jiamo had left behind. He called on the soldiers to hold Gulang Gorge with him and, once the tide of battle turned, to fight their way back to Liangzhou City.

Ding Shaoyin was a Liangzhou native, and most of Yang Jiamo's garrison troops were also from Liangzhou. This army accepted Ding Shaoyin's command without the slightest difficulty... You, Vice Commander Ding, had seized power on the battlefield with no fear of death — what did they have to fear?

The men were also brimming with confidence about the task of holding Gulang Gorge. The terrain here made it hard for large formations to deploy, and small-scale skirmishing was the Ming army's strength.

But what happened next in Gulang Gorge was truly terrifying.

Scout riders — scout riders with no tassels or pennants on their helmets — appeared along every mountain path and ridge near Gulang Gorge, emerging from the valley trails at any moment, as if they had the place surrounded. They were everywhere.

In the skirmishes between the two sides' scouts, the Marshal's Army scouts, with their overwhelming numerical advantage, compressed the Ming scout cavalry in the valleys to an area within ten li of Black Pine Forest Relay Station. In the end, the Ming scouts could only secure observation posts on a dozen or so mountain paths.

And in many more places — east, west, south, north — shifting silhouettes telegraphed to the Ming troops that something terrifying was about to ascend the mountains.

Good afternoon!