Chapter 610: Six Flowers

The north bank of the Wei River.

Just as Yang Guodong's cavalry routed the Yunnan troops with their feigned retreat, company after company of elite Ningxia border troops were also crossing the Wei River at the same moment.

The commander was Cao Wenyao.

Barely a double-hour earlier, Cao Dingjiao, who had been patrolling the camp, was shot dead by Li Rujue. Cao Wenzhao flew into a towering rage at the news and immediately ordered all four battalions to strike camp and launch a night assault on Baoji City.

Cao Wenyao, with tears in his eyes, remonstrated unto death, yet even that could not dissuade Cao Wenzhao in his fury. Fortunately, a letter arrived from Zuo Liangyu suggesting that Cao Wenzhao attack the Marshal's army on the north bank instead — this at last gave Cao Wenzhao's rage a direction to vent.

In truth, everyone knew that once the fury of a kinsman's death in battle ignites, no person and no thing can quench it.

After all, no matter the price paid, Cao Dingjiao's life, taken in a surprise killing, could never be restored — thus all such rage was nothing but impotent fury.

Every wrong has its debtor, every grievance its author.

Cao Wenzhao was not absolutely set on attacking Baoji City.

Because regarding his nephew Cao Dingjiao's death, the only thing he knew was that the killer's name was Li Rujue.

Apart from a whistling arrow carved with "Yan'an Li Rujue," he knew nothing at all.

Cao Dingjiao's personal attendants said that Li Rujue was subordinate to Colonel Luo Dai of Zuo Liangyu's Reinforcement Army.

For a time, Cao Wenzhao also believed that Li Rujue was one of Luo Dai's subordinate officers — he simply imagined a tale of a bandit-suppression officer defecting and turning traitor on the battlefield.

Cao Wenzhao thinking this was not absurd. What was truly absurd was that the matter of "officers defecting and turning traitor on the battlefield" was so common in this era that he found it perfectly normal for such a thing to happen.

But Zuo Liangyu's letter had clearly cleared Luo Dai of suspicion — Luo Dai, too, had been shot dead by this Li Rujue using underhanded means.

All Cao Wenzhao needed was a direction in which to vent his fury.

As for whether that direction was east or north, it did not matter.

Most importantly, for Cao Wenzhao, this entire campaign was a passive battle he had been forced into — no moment was a good moment.

On the basis that every moment was a bad moment, every single moment was the best moment. Launching the campaign at this moment was certainly better than launching it the next.

Striking tonight was better than striking tomorrow.

Because his army had already been tormented beyond endurance and worn ragged by Yang Chengzu's camp-burning and Li Rujue's night raid; their condition after daybreak could only be worse.

The over two thousand crack cavalry under Cao Wenyao's command were men picked from nineteen large companies across the four Ningxia battalions — all of them were shock troops.

Shock troops are an old tradition in the military, appearing at the latest in the Han dynasty and continuing ever since; later they were called dagger squads.

In the Ming dynasty, a battalion had five or six divisions — the first division was the shock division; each division had four or five hundred-man bureaus — the first bureau was the shock bureau; each bureau had two platoons — the first platoon was the shock platoon.

At the same time, some commanders would select their finest troops to serve as household retainers, also calling them shock troops.

Cao Wenzhao's plan was to use the shock cavalry as the vanguard, cross the Wei River, and search for Liu Chengzong's encampment; meanwhile, he himself would ready the remaining army on the south bank of the Wei. Once the shock troops located the camp on the north bank, they would pounce and tear open a breach, and the main force would immediately cross the river and follow up.

But Cao Wenyao... took the wrong route.

He went along the west bank of the Qian River on the Wei's north shore — that is, the tableland outside the mountain forest where they had camped during the day. Liu Chengzong was on the east bank.

Cao Wenyao reasoned this way: the camp to the west had been burned, so there must be traces of the Marshal's army here; perhaps Liu Chengzong was right over there.

Naturally, he found nothing.

Just as he was leading his crack troops in scouring the tableland for traces of Liu Chengzong, on the battlefield to the southeast, Zhang Xianzhong and Shi Xiang had already achieved enormous results with their forces.

First, Yang Guodong used the feigned retreat to smash through two battalions of Yunnan troops. The banner troops under Zhang Yunqi and Li Zude did not suffer major chaos either; instead, the Yunnan troops facing them, their morale shaken by the rout behind them, soon broke and fled as well.

As one side declined and the other rose, several thousand Yunnan troops collapsed into a disorderly rout, fleeing westward under the cover of night.

Even Long Zaitian could not steady the army and hastily withdrew westward with two thousand Yunnan cavalry, escorting the four war elephants.

Long Zaitian did not want to retreat and was unwilling in his heart, but the situation left him no choice but to retreat — after all, the four elephant lords were right here.

When one's own army formed ranks to face the enemy, the four war elephants were the soldiers' guardian deities, divine weapons that crushed the opposing army.

But when one's own side was routed, and at night when people could not see clearly, the four war elephants became an invincible meat grinder — they showed no mercy trampling their own men either.

One could not really blame the elephants for this; after all, in such a situation, even humans could not control themselves — demanding that elephants control themselves was clearly asking too much of an elephant.

Fortunately, Ai Wannian's Yansui army reached the battlefield in time.

The infantry battalions of Yansui Garrison steadied the collapsing momentum, and their cavalry companies advanced further to check Yang Guodong's assault — like a boulder amid raging waves, they gave Long Zaitian a chance to regroup his army.

Facing the sufficiently elite Yansui Garrison troops, Yang Guodong attempted two forceful charges against their position. Seeing that he could not shake them, he ordered his cavalry to gradually pull back. While reorganizing his ranks and forming a new battle line in the rear, he dispatched two squads of cavalry to support Zhang Yunqi and Li Zude, who were locked in chaotic fighting behind him.

In truth, he was very angry. If the banner troops of Zhang's and Li's battalions had seized the momentum of the Yunnan troops' rout just now and smashed the enemy before them in one stroke, then with the combined strength of three battalions, even if three thousand Yansui Garrison troops reached the battlefield, they could only have been swept away before they could firmly establish their position.

But regrettably, those two fellows... Yang Guodong did not even know what to say. Whether it was slow reactions or poor ability, in short, he had nearly punched through the enemy army, yet those two battalions were still there staring at their original opponents.

As Long Zaitian and Ai Wannian stabilized the battle line and used the retreat to readjust the entire army's defensive orientation, both armies gradually disengaged, gathered their wounded and routed soldiers, and arrayed themselves facing each other from a distance, one to the east and one to the west.

Seeing the situation stabilize, Yang Guodong galloped to the central command and clasped his fist to Shi Xiang: "Brigade Commander, let us fight another round. We at least crippled one of their battalions just now. Even if they have reinforcements, our forces still hold the numerical advantage."

Shi Xiang's eyes widened in delighted surprise: "General Yang, you can execute the feigned retreat once more?"

Yang Guodong had been feeling very displeased, but hearing Shi Xiang's words — as if the feigned retreat were some extraordinary talent — his mood immediately smoothed considerably. He lifted his chin and said, "Brigade Commander, do not speak of once more — even ten more times, the stout lads of my unit can do it!"

These words of his were truly no boast.

Yang Guodong had many border-army deserters under his command; their individual quality and organizational discipline were relatively strong. Yet when they first turned outlaw, they were still chased and beaten everywhere by government troops.

Because on one hand they lacked heavy firepower, and on the other, as they fought on the move, their existing weapons wore down and warhorses died, their combat strength slowly declined.

To avoid being routed, during his mobile warfare, he made the same choice as Li Zicheng — drilling only the feigned retreat.

He drilled this not to rout the enemy, but to avoid being routed himself.

In essence, it was through prolonged training in the feigned retreat within the army to forge a shared understanding: this is not a rout, but preparation for the feigned retreat.

This tactic was actually just the very ordinary feigned defeat of ancient times; it was only in the Ming dynasty, because battlefield weaponry had changed, that this tactic gained greater operational feasibility.

Because the age of firearms had arrived. Slow-moving cannons that took a long time to deploy made it possible for the feigned retreat to evade artillery fire and pull the enemy's infantry and artillery out of sync.

The feigned retreat was Yang Guodong's specialty.

"Excellent. When the battle is won, I shall personally go before the Grand Marshal to commend General Yang's merits. But as for a second assault, do not be hasty for now."

Shi Xiang calmed the battle-eager Yang Guodong and said with full confidence, "At this moment, the enemy is more impatient. This Shi believes there will certainly be another battle tonight. General, for now, let your stout lads rest a while. Let the wounded withdraw and get bandaged up. Simply await the enemy's attack."

Yang Guodong, hearing this, looked slightly puzzled: "Is the Brigade Commander so certain?"

Zhang Xianzhong, meanwhile, stood to one side, digging in his ear with his pinky in disgust. He flicked the earwax away, tugged at his green headscarf, and scratched his head, his expression thoroughly contemptuous, thinking to himself: Shi Xiang, that bastard...

"The enemy will definitely attack again tonight — that was my judgment, and you fucking took it and used it to put on a big show."

Shi Xiang had a kind of enigmatic composure.

Although Zhang Xianzhong hadn't told him at the time why he judged the Ming army would attack again at night, he wasn't flustered. He simply looked at Yang Guodong with steady eyes and said, "Grand Commandant Zhang's judgment is the same."

What a shameless scoundrel!

Zhang Xianzhong shot a glance at Shi Xiang, only to see her expression shift in an instant — the unfathomable look transformed into an ingratiating smile. He exhaled softly in exasperation, shook his head, and said to Yang Guodong, "The enemy is in the light, the Grand Commander is in the dark. The Ming army dare not drag this out."

Shi Xiang immediately added, "The Grand Commandant is absolutely right!"

Yang Guodong felt as if he'd swallowed a reassurance pill. He cupped his hands to the two of them and said, "I have been enlightened. I shall return to lead my troops, rest a while, then later expose a weakness to lure the enemy into attacking."

In truth, the most anxious person at this moment was Luo Rucai inside Baoji city.

Luo Rucai was also quite busy. He went out the north gate to help Li Rujue clean up Luo Dai's troops, withdrew his forces back into the city, and then busied himself settling over two hundred muddle-headed Ming soldiers who had fled out with Li Rujue, assigning them to various brigades for custody and guard.

Then the fighting on the east side of the city grew fierce again. He once more mustered his troops and gathered them at the city gate, standing atop the wall himself, waiting only for the right moment to fire the signal cannon and charge out.

In the end, just as he watched Yang Guodong rout the enemy, he stood on the east gate tower clutching a torch nearly pressed to the cannon's touchhole — and the two armies stopped fighting.

"Keep fighting, don't stop!"

How to put it — Luo Rucai was quite busy moving troops around inside the city.

From the very start, he had never planned to go out the east side to strike Zuo Liangyu; he still wanted to raid the Ningxia army on the west side.

One reason was that the Ningxia army was also on the move, their four battalions spreading out like a line toward the south bank of the Wei River. Luo Rucai intended to launch another night raid on them.

Once the east side collapses, we mix in with the routed troops and charge toward the west — guaranteed to make them fall for it again!

Who says the same trick can't fool someone twice?

It's precisely the exact same trick that fools someone twice.

Because a swindler wouldn't be this stupid — only an ally would be this stupid, so it's eighty percent likely to be real.

The other reason was that Zuo Liangyu's defenses were consistently tight, making a raid difficult to succeed.

So tonight, Luo Rucai had no intention of doing anything else — first, he'd scare the Ningxia army out of their wits.

As a result, the moment the offensive on the east side halted, he nearly died of rage.

However, because both sides had ceased hostilities, the Baoji plateau enjoyed a rare moment of quiet that night.

And beneath this silent, still night sky, Cao Wenyao led two thousand elite cavalry, thoroughly scouring the west bank of the Qian River without finding any trace of Liu Chengzong. Only then did he resolve to cross the Qian River and search the east bank for Liu Chengzong's main force.

Cao Wenyao spared no effort, because he was certain of victory in his heart.

He judged that if Liu Chengzong's army was truly on the east bank of the Qian River, then his line of advance would perfectly bypass the heavily defended front of Liu Chengzong's main camp, allowing him to launch an attack from the flank, or even the rear.

With this thought in mind, Cao Wenyao traveled as far north as possible along the way, searching toward the southeast, and soon found the road Liu Chengzong had taken south with his army.

Several roads half a li wide running north to south — the wild grass along them had been trampled flat and the yellow earth packed hard. You didn't even need to look; a marching soldier stepping onto them in the wilderness could immediately feel the difference underfoot.

They followed this road south, and before going far, they spotted Liu Chengzong's camp.

It was far too conspicuous. A li from the camp, soldiers had set up bonfires every fifty paces. A scattering of bonfire formations covered an area of seven or eight li in circumference. The flickering firelight, while not illuminating the wilderness as bright as day, was more than enough to prevent troops from sneaking past.

The magnificent sight made Cao Wenyao stare blankly. He drew a sharp breath and murmured, "Just how big is this camp?"

The vanguard officers beside him could give no answer — none of them had ever seen a camp this large.

They gazed at the patch of darkness encircled by the bonfires, like startled rabbits staring into the gaping maw of a giant beast. But the difference was, in their eyes, besides fear, there was even more excitement and intense fighting spirit.

This day, to slay the general and seize the banner, to charge through and overturn such an enormous camp... no, this is no camp — this is a Khan's court. Liu Chengzong must be right here.

To cut down the Khan in battle and eliminate a grave internal threat for the Heavenly Dynasty — tonight is the night!

Cao Wenyao turned and assigned two centurions, saying, "Report back to Commander Cao — we've found Liu Chengzong!"

The two centurions clasped fists in acknowledgment, led their horses away at a gallop, made a wide loop, and retraced their original route to deliver the news of locating Liu Chengzong's main force to Cao Wenzhao on the south bank of the Wei River.

Using this time, Cao Wenyao assembled the seventeen vanguard centurions under his command. They prowled three or four li around the camp's perimeter, scouting the terrain and searching for ditches and low hills, then promptly devised a sound battle plan.

"Three directions. Split into six squads. Press in two waves."

Inside the camp, it was pitch black. Cao Wenyao judged that the Marshal's troops were all asleep. It seemed Liu Chengzong's plan was for his main force to conserve strength and attack the exhausted Ming army at dawn.

Had it not been for tonight's night raid, the army they had deployed on the south bank of the Wei River would likely have faced disaster come morning.

But since they had come, the situation was vastly different — the chances of a successful night raid were high.

Even so, Cao Wenyao worried that the camp's interior defenses might be tightly arrayed. If a concentrated assault happened to crash into an earthen wall, all their efforts would be wasted.

Therefore, he still decided to split his troops into two waves and six squads, committing them to three directions: "Two squads to assault, two to support, two in reserve. If the assault goes poorly, whichever of the three fronts gains an advantage, the support and reserve will all attack that front together."

"Have the fire-arrows and flying-rocket cannons all prepared, distributed across the three fronts. Advance together at the sound of the cannon. Launch the fire-arrows to mark the direction for the southern force."

With everything ready, the cavalry under Cao Wenyao split into three large companies, led their horses at a swift march, and moved from the perimeter toward the three sides of the Marshal's main camp, preparing for the general assault.

Moments later, the signal flying-rocket cannon exploded on the north side of the camp. Immediately, several fire-arrows shot into the night sky from the north, east, and west sides of the camp, trailing shrill whistles. Thousands of elite cavalry simultaneously launched their assault from the camp's perimeter.

The thunderous hoofbeats crossed several hundred paces in an instant. The Marshal's night-watch soldiers inside the camp sounded their horns, and in a moment, the camp fell into chaos.

The panicked shouts of officers at every level merged into a cacophony. Only a handful of night-watch soldiers managed to don armor and take the field; most didn't even have time to fully wake before grabbing blades and spears to join the defensive battle.

But this bit of defense was a mere drop in the bucket. They didn't even outnumber the cavalry who had already leaped their horses and raised blades to charge into the camp. After holding out for only a brief moment, they had no choice but to rely on the war chariots scattered haphazardly throughout the camp as cover, retreating into them to evade the trampling hooves, only to be surrounded and shot at with arrows as the enemy circled them.

Cao Wenyao on horseback was nearly mad with joy. He had never imagined that Liu Chengzong's main headquarters camp hadn't even dug trenches, with only a few war chariots serving as makeshift fortifications. He hurriedly ordered his household retainers to relay the command: "Quick, tell the support and reserve on the east and west — the enemy forces on my side are thin, easy to break through!"

But before his retainers could run far, messenger cavalry from both the east and west sides came galloping over.

"General, the western defenses are thin — the enemy has been pressed into their wagon barricade by us!"

"General, the eastern defenses are thin — the enemy is fleeing westward, we can settle this in one battle!"

Cao Wenyao was baffled. All three fronts held the advantage?

Could Liu Chengzong have set up an empty camp?

Just then, cavalry who had charged toward the south came fleeing for their lives as if they'd seen a ghost. Still dozens of paces from Cao Wenyao, they shouted, "General, inside — there's another large camp inside! Cavalry in formation is charging out — armored ones!"

Cao Wenyao was instantly terrified, his hair and beard standing on end. He stared wide-eyed toward the south, hearing only the thunder of hoofbeats growing closer and closer in the darkness, making him unable to resist ordering his household retainers to sound the bugle and call for a retreat.

"Fuck — a small camp enclosing a large camp. This is Li Jing's Six-Flower Formation. Withdraw! Withdraw now!"