Chapter 97: Mobile Corps Commander Lu's Road

They went berserk.

The post-station cavalry swept through like a gale, cutting across the scattered wounded behind the government army's formation and crashing straight into the rear array where the cannons were being transported.

In the darkness, shadowy figures swarmed everywhere; they simply drew their bows and shot, leveled their spears and thrust, until they fell from their horses into close-quarters melee.

From the moment this raid began, neither Cao Yao nor Gao Xian could still control their men.

The government troops had panicked and broken.

In the two units under Mobile Corps Commander Lu and Squad Commander Bao, the large number of wounded had been placed at the rear of the column. While the column kept moving, they could still hold on by sheer will, supporting each other as they walked forward.

The moment they stopped, even with an assault on the pass raging ahead, the men at the back could collapse on the spot or even fall asleep standing up.

Perhaps those still standing were only sleeping; those who had fallen might well have died from blood loss.

No one could tell the difference, and no one had the attention to spare for them.

Between fighting at night and fighting by day, the difference was immense.

Had it been daylight, this unit would have long since begun to crumble, starting with the first deserters slipping away.

Only because it was night did those with thoughts of desertion dare not flee.

When the post-station cavalry burst in from behind the formation, the sleeping soldiers woke screaming, and the stress reactions of war trauma followed.

The stress reaction is not shouting and screaming, nor mistaking a falling object for a bomb — those are only the surface signs.

Deeper inside, it is the unease of being torn from a familiar environment, the subconscious falling out of sync with the outside world.

The vast majority of the wounded soldiers startled awake at the rear of the formation did not believe the chaos came from an enemy raid, but were firmly convinced it was yet another internal feud.

The defenders from Yanshui Pass thought it was the Jingbian Camp government troops retaliating for the bombardment; the Jingbian Camp officers and men thought it was the Yanshui Pass defenders taking revenge for their defeat.

There was also the widespread night blindness caused by a chronic lack of vitamin supplements.

They could not see their squad leader's flag-spear, nor could they see the banner-chief's back-banners.

Squads drifted apart from one another and could never re-form.

Ten-man sections also lost contact as the fighting progressed; men stood back to back, pressed shoulder to shoulder, frantically grabbing any weapon within reach and striking out in every direction.

Jingbian Camp, Yanshui Pass, Lion Camp — the uniforms and armor of all three forces were exactly identical, and in the pitch darkness, friend and foe were indistinguishable.

Government soldiers mixed in among the bandit ranks, and the bandits could not tell them apart; not many of the bandits from the two outposts knew each other.

Bandits mixed in among the government ranks, and the government troops likewise could not tell them apart.

The bandits had two outposts, so they simply had two separate groups. Mobile Corps Commander Lu's troops had been transferred from Jingbian Fort on the Great Wall to suppress the bandits; Squad Commander Bao's men were permanently stationed at Yanshui Pass on the Qin-Jin border. Neither side knew the other at all.

Even those who had infiltrated did not know it themselves; they could only follow along and hack away until they realized something was wrong from the shouting.

But when the next moment, several men who shouted to reveal their identities let out agonized screams, no one dared to shout anymore.

They could only strain their eyes wide, desperately searching for the glint of blades reflecting the distant campfires, then let out meaningless roars and strike back toward any flash of light.

Cao Yao, who was leading the assault, was helpless in the face of this. He rallied a small knot of soldiers by sound and thrust toward the Yanshui Pass direction.

His thinking coincided perfectly with Gao Xian's on the other side.

Either retreat or advance. If this battle were lost, pulling back would let the government troops cut them apart; then they could only advance — break through the enemy formation and reach the foot of the pass, where a sliver of survival still remained.

The soldiers' slaughter-cries, like the howling of ghosts and wailing of wolves, sent a chill into Squad Commander Bao's very core: "General, the rear formation has collapsed!"

Mobile Corps General Lu Cheng could hear the sounds coming from behind the formation. He shut his eyes in anguish and sighed softly: "Squad Commander Bao, go to the front formation and oversee the battle."

Lu Cheng had commanded troops for years and knew exactly what he now faced — his army had finally collapsed.

Night fighting was a double-edged sword.

Darkness deepens a man's fear, and the battlefield is the most terrifying place of all.

Especially when the soldiers' physical strength, mental energy, and willpower had all reached their limits under extreme tension.

Not to mention that many had yet to emerge from the guilt of mistakenly killing their own comrades.

Lu Cheng knew this situation would happen sooner or later; in fact, during the night engagement with the Yanshui Pass troops, they had already broken down many times.

When an individual breaks down mentally, it can trigger the collapse of an army.

But for an army to collapse, it does not necessarily require men to break down mentally.

As soon as organization is lost — soldiers cannot find their officers, officers cannot locate their soldiers — the army has collapsed.

Yet if they find each other afterward and re-form the organization, they can still fight.

Conversely, even if, as now, every man in the rear formation is fighting, but the commander cannot maneuver a single one of them, then for this army, that too is collapse.

In the wilderness at night, collapse comes far too easily. That was precisely why Lu Cheng had been so determined to lead his troops into Yanshui Pass to rest.

After a night's sleep in a safe environment, the stout fellows of his army would be back again.

For a commander, this kind of situation is utterly helpless. Faced with a rout, even the famed generals of antiquity could only abandon the army, withdraw to the rear, and rally and reorganize the troops anew.

The great armies of Wang Mang, Fu Jian, and Geshu Han all collapsed in this very way.

Yet, as fate would have it, Lu Cheng was caught in a pincer attack in the dark of night.

The pass was ahead, the bandits behind; his soldiers did not even have the chance to scatter and flee.

Squad Commander Bao had no time for such reflections: "But General, the rear formation has collapsed! Take your household guards and break through!"

"Military order: go to the front formation and oversee the battle." Lu Cheng turned his head expressionlessly and looked at Squad Commander Bao: "Steady the hearts of the front formation. If the soldiers all perish, what face would you and I have left to cling to life?"

Under normal circumstances, Mobile Corps General Lu Cheng of the Yansui Central Route held a higher rank, but Squad Commander Bao of Yanshui Pass was not his subordinate; there was no chain of command between them.

At a moment like this, however, anyone in Squad Commander Bao's position was more than willing to obey a superior's order.

An army's combat power derives from its organization; the more effective the organization, the higher its combat power.

Squad Commander Bao forcibly suppressed his terror at the collapse of the rear formation, clasped his fists, and answered: "Your subordinate accepts the order!"

Even so, as he walked to the front of the formation, he could not help turning his head to look back.

The slaughter in the rear formation became a backdrop. He saw Lu Cheng take a torch from the hands of the soldiers to his left and right, still watching him expressionlessly.

Or rather, that gaze passed beyond him, toward the battle line, toward the soldiers of the front formation who, amid the campfires, could still retain a sliver of reason.

It was not that Lu Cheng felt no tension or fear; he simply held firm in his belief that he had made no mistake.

From beginning to end, he did not make a single wrong judgment or decision.

If someone out-schemed him by one move and he lost the battle, he accepted that.

But for him, a dignified Mobile Corps General, to surrender to bandits — impossible.

To abandon his soldiers and break out with only his household retainers — even more impossible.

In the panicked central army formation, eight household retainers each raised a great banner. Lu Cheng lifted a torch high and set one ablaze, then stood beneath the burning banner, standing ramrod straight, and made the soldiers to his left and right shout with him.

"Yansui Garrison, Central Route — Mobile Corps General Lu Cheng is here! Government troops, rally to me! Form ranks and resist the bandits!"

The burning banner, in the darkness before dawn, was like a beacon guiding the way.

The united shout of over thirty soldiers resounded across the battlefield, giving the government troops fighting on their own a backbone to rally around, and making the long-silent cannons atop the city wall roar to life once more.

Cannonballs smashed into the earth.

The soldiers who had just gathered scattered again, like clods of dirt torn up by a cannonball.

Only Lu Cheng, amid the screams of soldiers with severed arms, took up the burning banner. His spine still ramrod straight, head high and stride bold, he walked toward the soldiers collapsing and scattering in rout.

"Even I, your general, am not afraid — what are you afraid of? No fear allowed! Form ranks and resist the bandits! Break through with me!

Even if we die in battle, Mobile Corps General Lu Cheng shall be buried alongside you — it will comfort heroic spirits and add luster to their glory!"