Chapter 587: The Vanished Liaodong Army

Banners and pennants rippled in waves. Relief Commander-in-Chief Zu Kuan stood on the southern bank of the Wei River, gazing at the opposite shore with boundless satisfaction.

Zu Kuan's features did not resemble those of a general who plotted strategies in the command tent, but rather those of a farmer toiling in the fields. His face, darkened by wind and sun, was wrapped in the padded collar of his cotton armor, flushed to an almost purplish hue, yet it radiated an indescribable ease and delight.

He had been born a household servant of Zu Dashou. In this era, parents, wives, and children were generally called family dependents or household members, but a "household man" was not family — he was a slave or menial servant of the house.

In his early years, by following Zu Dashou into battle, Zu Kuan repeatedly distinguished himself in combat, and his official rank rose higher and higher.

In truth, given his status and origins, relying on ferocity in battle and mastery of military tactics, to stake his neck and fight his way to a substantive commission as a Battalion Commander, a Garrison Commander of a mobile corps, or an Assistant Commander of a Guard, was already to be a dragon among men by sheer ability.

Countless men fight and kill their whole lives, living as a Company Commander and dying as a dead Company Commander, never advancing another inch.

But what made Zu Kuan exceptional was that not only was his personal ability outstanding, his old superior also favored him and pulled strings on his behalf, his ancestral graves billowed natural gas, and on top of that, the imperial policy of "Liao men defending Liao soil" — these four forces combined to make him the Ningqian Circuit Regional Commander, garrisoning Ningyuan.

Commonly known as the Ningyuan Regional Commander.

By the time events had developed to this point, even Zu Kuan himself felt that his lifetime's luck must have been used up.

Especially since the jurisdiction of the Ningqian Circuit was a long, narrow corridor with no defensible terrain. The Later Jin army could move troops from Shenyang to Jinzhou in a mere four hundred li — the same distance as from Shanhai Pass to Jinzhou — yet further east lay Huludao, the Xiaoling River, the Daling River, the Liao Marshes, and the Liao River, each step a natural barrier.

Ningqian Regional Commander was an exceedingly dangerous post. Under normal circumstances, Zu Kuan would not have lasted two years in this position before dying in a predictable military clash.

What he never expected was the Wu Bridge Mutiny. The Shandong army that was supposed to come reinforce Liaodong instead became a mortal threat, forcing the court to transfer him, stationed in Liaodong, to lead his troops into the interior to suppress the rebellion.

Ah, how comfortable!

For the Liao army, entering the interior to suppress rebels was practically a vacation.

It was not that war inside the passes did not kill people — war kills wherever you fight — but beyond the passes, they rarely saw friendly reinforcements during a campaign; what they most often saw were Later Jin reinforcements.

After all, the window when the Liao Marshes froze over was only those few months. From the court receiving word, preparing provisions, mustering troops, and marching out of Shanhai Pass... the battle at the front was already over.

Fighting inside the passes was different. They marched their troops here and there, and everywhere they looked they saw their own reinforcements. Even after a failed engagement against Li Jiucheng, during the retreat they could link up with reinforcements Jin Guochen and Zhang Fengjin, then turn back and attack Li Jiucheng. Thus a defeat turned into a victory, and in the end they even besieged Li Jiucheng inside Dengzhou city, trapping him until his death the following year.

Li Jiucheng was then the leader of the Shandong rebels and their Supreme Marshal. With him present, men like Kong Youde could only serve as Deputy Marshals. This was virtually the greatest merit in quelling the Wu Bridge Mutiny, and for it Zu Kuan was promoted to Deputy Commander-in-Chief.

In other words, by this point, Zu Kuan was already among the few dozen highest-ranking military officers in the realm.

And all this in just two short years. Last year Lu Xiangsheng memorialized to transfer Liao troops into the interior to suppress rebels. This year, no sooner had Zu Kuan's vanguard reached Yunyang than Deng Qi died. After fighting only two small bands of roving bandits, each barely a thousand strong, a new court transfer order was delivered into Zu Kuan's hands, commanding him to lead his army into Shaanxi.

At the same time, the post of Relief Commander-in-Chief, originally belonging to Deng Qi, also fell into his lap.

A rank picked up for free.

Placed in anyone's shoes, who could keep their composure and not show an expression of boundless satisfaction?

War drums rumbled. The first to cross the Wei River were the Zhen'gan Battalion troops under Huguang Deputy Commander-in-Chief Yang Zhengfang.

Using a few small boats that Zhang Tianlin had not had time to take away, young Miao soldiers, barefoot and in thin clothes with their hair bound in topknots, scrambled to leap into the shallows before the boats even reached shore. On the bank they formed up on their own, assembling into small squads armed with bird guns, large bamboo crossbows, and short spears, spreading out along the bank to search and stand guard.

It was not that they lacked armor. The Zhen'gan troops from Huguang were a crack force under heaven.

Zhen'gan was a place name — in fact, it was Fenghuang in western Hunan. But in this era, there was only Fenghuang Mountain and the Fenghuang Stockade upon it; there was no Fenghuang city yet.

During the Xuande, Chenghua, and Jiajing reigns, uprisings large and small rose one after another in the Miao frontier. The court discovered that the flashpoints of unrest within the Five Streams region were Zhenxi and Ganziping, and so established the Wuzhai Garrison City near Baojing — the predecessor of Fenghuang city.

Subsequently, twelve stockades and outposts were established, and a seventy-li wall was built for defense. Together with the Zhenxi Battalion, there were thirteen stockades in total, each recruiting four to five hundred soldiers, for a total strength of over six thousand. The Wuzhai Garrison City was renamed Zhen'gan City, and the troops naturally became the Zhen'gan Army.

The Zhen'gan Army had been established from the start to suppress rebellions, so from the Jiajing period onward, every rebellion-suppression campaign across the realm bore the footprints of the Zhen'gan Army.

At this moment, the young Miao soldiers from Zhen'gan crossed the river without wearing armor only so that, if attacked on the opposite bank, they could swim back. Raised among the Five Streams of the Miao frontier, they thought nothing of crossing mountains and fording rivers. They were especially adept at infantry combat. During the suppression of Bobai's rebellion, they even used the Great Wall and wagon forts on the northern frontier to pen in Mongol cavalry and, in foot combat, cut them down in a chaos of tumbling men and horses.

By the time they were crossing the river, Zhang Tianlin's main camp had already withdrawn fifteen li north, seeking a spot to build a fortified camp. Following the line of a canal, they had dug two deep trench lines, leaving only a Company Commander and his scouts on the bank to keep watch.

When Zhang Tianlin had wanted to establish camp, Liu Chengzong's reply had not yet arrived. But after the order came back instructing him to feign a rout and lure the enemy, he still commanded his troops to continue building the camp on the northern bank of the Wei River.

Through the series of campaigns in Hehuang, Qinghai, and Gansu, all the officers of the Marshal's Headquarters, including Liu Chengzong, had gained rich experience in warfare.

Men like Zhang Tianlin, who often led troops on external operations, were no exception. In fact, because he constantly faced the thorny environment of fighting in isolation, his growth far outstripped that of others.

By now, he had distilled a set of field tactics suited to himself. He gave the Company Commander left guarding the bank just one order: see whether the men coming were the Yunyang Army and the Liao troops.

The Company Commander left guarding the bank was named Wang Huaizhong. He had formerly been a Squad Commander in the Gansu Army. During the Battle of Ganzhou, he had been captured by Yingshanhong, a Company Commander under Zhang Tianlin, and made an officer. After the battle, he was given a substantive Company Commander post in the main camp. Although the rank was somewhat lower, his soldiers respected him, and his family dependents were all in the hands of the Marshal's Headquarters, so he had held his nose and accepted this treatment.

Most importantly, Zhang Tianlin treated him well. Although he only held the rank of Company Commander, he commanded a Vanguard Battalion of a Squad Commander's detachment, with the best warhorses, weapons, and armor under his hand. He had even been specially assigned a bodyguard from the Guard Battalion attached to the central army.

Wang Huaizhong had privately calculated that his Vanguard Battalion, calculated by the value of its weapons, provisions, and supplies, was roughly comparable to a Squad Commander's detachment in the old Gansu border army.

At this moment, Wang Huaizhong had his troops spread out along the riverbank. The ten squads of cavalry under his command and the scouts stretched out their battle line like a great elastic net. Whenever the Zhen'gan troops ashore advanced a little, they would withdraw a little, watching this unfamiliar army cross the river from a distance.

The bodyguard beside him watched with growing incomprehension. "Commander, these Miao lads aren't wearing shoes or armor. Let's ride over and trample them to death."

"These are all scouts. Driving your horses to trample them would be easy, but then the main force behind them wouldn't cross the river." Wang Huaizhong glanced at his bodyguard and laughed. "Wouldn't the general's camp to the north have been built for nothing?"

To be honest, the bodyguard Zhang Tianlin had assigned him was ostensibly a household retainer there to serve him and protect his safety, but Wang Huaizhong dared not order him around — he even had to treat him like an ancestor.

All three main camps of the Marshal's Headquarters had Guard Battalions. Wang Huaizhong did not know about the other two camps, but in their camp, half of the guards had been distributed by Zhang Tianlin to officers in the camp who were former surrendered commanders.

Take Zhao Zhirui, the former Suzhou Regional Commander whom Zhang Tianlin had requested to serve as deputy general in the camp before the fighting started. That fellow had ten guards directly stuffed around him. Wang Huaizhong even suspected that if Zhao Zhirui, while taking a shit, inadvertently muttered that the paper was facing the wrong way, he would be hacked into mincemeat by his own guards.

As for the camp Zhang Tianlin was building to the north, Wang Huaizhong knew that camp was not built for them, but for this government army currently crossing the river from the south.

Zhang Tianlin's troops were well-equipped — this was something everyone in the Marshal's Headquarters knew.

They had made a killing in the Gansu campaign. Just by blasting Bai Guang'en twice with rockets, they had captured a great deal of fine equipment. Bai Guang'en's battalion troops had been outfitted with brand-new gear by Hong Chengchou — uniform black-lacquered helmets and copper-studded cotton armor. Wang Huaizhong had seized over a thousand Sky-Soaring Guns that still reeked of fresh oil.

Although after the battle, for plundering the weapons of allied Chahar Camp troops, Liu Chengzong fined him three thousand horses and equipment for fifteen hundred men, such a punishment could not even scratch Zhang Tianlin's vitality.

He had seized far too much plunder in the Gansu campaign. He had picked through, handed over the less desirable items, and in the end kept all the best things for himself.

So Zhang Tianlin was now so fat he oozed grease. With that plus his veteran soldiers and rockets, he feared no army in a stand-up fight — he only feared that his opponent would run too fast.

When Liu Chengzong's orders reached the south this time, Zhang Tianlin had thoroughly grasped Liu Chengzong's intent: annihilate the Ming army coming from the south as thoroughly and quickly as possible, so as to rush to reinforce the north. In other words, this time required a swift victory.

Zhang Tianlin dreaded swift victories most of all. After all, this was not a battle of one camp against one camp; it was clearly a battle of several camps against several camps. He had rocket carts, that great slaughter weapon, true — but the enemy would only stand still and take one bombardment. After that, everyone would scatter and run all across the Guanzhong Plain.

At that point, a swift victory would clearly be impossible.

Yet, Zhang Tianlin had long been eyeing others becoming Brigade Commanders with great envy.

Now, without compromising Liu Chengzong's overall strategy, using his own tactics to achieve a great merit worthy of promotion to Brigade Commander — that was the key point in Zhang Tianlin's tactical considerations.

For this very matter, Zhang Tianlin had specially assembled all officers of Company Commander rank and above for extensive discussions.

And indeed, for Zhang Tianlin's camp, having Zhang Tianlin achieve great merit in this campaign was the shared wish of the entire army.

After all, ever since the great Hehuang battle, the officers and soldiers had already come to a realization: promotions were getting harder and harder. Constrained by the size of the army, many who deserved promotion had not been able to advance.

This was also Liu Chengzong's original intent in establishing the Tiger Guard Camp — to create a designation, use the pretext of training, and stretch out the promotion timeline for meritorious soldiers and officers.

Because for a long time, the carrying capacity of their territory truly could not support more troops. Placing those officers due for promotion into the academy and the Tiger Guard Camp to study and exchange ideas was, in itself, more important than how much skill they actually learned.

But now even the Tiger Guard Camp was no longer sufficient.

Take Zhang Tianlin's camp alone — it earned merit and became a large camp, yet the colonel remained a colonel; the chiliarch earned merit but only got a lateral transfer, becoming a chiliarch with real power in a small camp who was sidelining the airborne colonel. Although his actual authority increased, he did not move up, which left him somewhat uncomfortable at heart.

So this Guanzhong campaign was their opportunity.

It was obvious: after this battle, if they lost they would return to Qinghai, which would free up many positions; if they won they would enter Guanzhong, which would allow massive army expansion. If they wanted Zhang Tianlin to rise to brigade commander, this was the best chance.

And once Zhang Tianlin became brigade commander, if nothing else, he could at least add two more colonels to the Marshal's headquarters, right? Even if all were counted as standard camps, that would still yield six more chiliarchs, twelve squad commanders, and sixty centurions.

At the very least, Wang Huaizhong had decided that among those positions, there ought to be one squad commander slot for him.

The men pooled their ideas, and in the end they actually devised a tactic that seemed to satisfy both sides — one that could unleash the power of the rockets while ensuring the main enemy force would not scatter and flee the moment they saw them.

Their plan was: "Help the Ming army build their encampment, and make the Ming army obediently move in."

A short while later, the main force of the Zhengan Army crossed the river. Miao warrior swordsmen wearing short blades donned iron helmets without neck guards and heavy full iron armor on the bank, yet still went barefoot as they formed battle lines along the river with spears and crossbows. More men began using the limited boats to construct a pontoon bridge over the river.

Immediately after, the Liaodong soldiers under Zu Kuan's command, leading sturdy warhorses, and the Mao soldiers got into a jam and dispute over who would cross the pontoon bridge first. It took a long while before they crossed the Wei River in orderly fashion, one large battalion after another, forming a colossal battle formation of over ten thousand men on the bank.

The three armies from different regions formed battle formations as distinctly separate as the Jing and Wei rivers, putting the Marshal's headquarters soldiers beside Wang Huaizhong on high alert.

Wang Huaizhong no longer retreated. He merely had his dispersed soldiers and scout riders contract toward him while sending word to Zhang Tianlin: half the Ming army had already crossed the river, and the Liaodong cavalry was split into two sections, seemingly intending a two-wing pincer.

Yet in terms of scale, it was puzzling.

Wang Huaizhong mulled it over — his own handful of men hardly seemed worth a Liaodong Army battalion executing a pincer maneuver against him.

Confused as he was, his own safety was paramount. Wang Huaizhong, an officer from Gansu Garrison, had no idea what the Liaodong Army's combat style was like. If they happened to share their grand commandant's fondness for a lion pouncing on a rabbit, they would be finished.

Wang Huaizhong led his troops in a continuous retreat, only to discover that the enemy had not pursued. Not only did they not pursue, but the Liaodong cavalry that had split to the left and right wings had even vanished from sight.

This confusion persisted until they had nearly fallen back to link up with Zhang Tianlin's main force, when they realized the Liaodong Army indeed had not chased them.

Zhang Tianlin was also enormously baffled by this matter. Watching the enemy within visual range vanish before his eyes — this was a situation that had never occurred in past battles.

The news was even relayed directly by scout riders to Liu Chengzong at Mao Mausoleum, and then via the central army's dispatch riders, galloped at full speed to Wang Wenxiu at Fengxiang Prefecture and to the three small Gansu camps beneath Qianzhou's walls. One could say that the entire Marshal's headquarters army on the Guanzhong plain was caught off guard because a single Liaodong Army battalion had vanished from the battlefield.

But very soon, Zhang Tianlin sent word: "Grand Commandant, a false alarm. Your humble subordinate has located that Liaodong Army."

Liu Chengzong stared at the scout report Zhang Tianlin had sent, speechless for a long while, his entire being sinking into a state of doubting life itself.

The scout report said that not long after that Liaodong Army disappeared, scout riders discovered black smoke in the eastern outskirts of Xingping and the western outskirts of Xianyang on the north bank of the Wei River. They immediately went to investigate and ultimately obtained confirmed intelligence: the Liaodong Army had dispersed into the countryside to forage for grain.

In other words, the first thing they did after reaching the battlefield was to loot.