After Zhong Liang rode off into the distance, the seasoned veteran Huang Songpu showed no signs of discouragement. The loss of a supply camp, insignificant to the overall situation, did not trouble him. The Southern Dynasty’s vast resources could still endure such attrition. As long as the central army and the left-wing cavalry successfully intercepted a portion of the Longxiang Army and managed to eliminate even less than half—perhaps just five or six thousand riders—it would count as a minor victory for their side. A true minor victory, not the kind of “small loss as a small win” that Taiping Ling had once dismissed!
To ensure they could catch up with the Longxiang Army, which was wreaking havoc in the supply camp, as quickly as possible, Huang Songpu and the elite cavalry of the Southern Dynasty’s Longguan Second Division split up and circled northward. The Longxiang Army could not flee indefinitely northward; they would inevitably have to turn south toward Qingcang. If the Longxiang Army, mounted as they were, dared to retreat through the densely packed enemy camps to evade pursuit, it would be nothing short of suicide. They would be trapped like turtles in a jar by the numerically superior Southern Dynasty border forces. Once Wanyan Yinjiang’s elite cavalry crushed Kou Jianghuai’s reinforcements, victory would be all but assured. This camp would become the grave of over twenty thousand Longxiang soldiers!
Huang Songpu believed that Li Mofan, the deputy general of the Longxiang Army, was not foolish enough to make such a blunder.
In fact, the movements of the Longxiang Army within the enemy camp unfolded exactly as Huang Songpu had anticipated.
The three converging cavalry units of the Longxiang light riders cut through the Northern Barbarians’ supply camp like a hot knife through butter, slaughtering men and horses alike and burning provisions wherever they found them. After exiting the camp from the north, they did not split into two groups but maintained formation, advancing southward along the left flank of the Northern Barbarians’ main camp.
There, they encountered the numerically superior Longguan Yi Division cavalry, numbering over thirty-eight thousand riders.
Meanwhile, Huang Songpu’s own elite cavalry, still sixteen thousand strong, took a slightly longer detour before charging forward from the rear.
Further south, the infantry of the Northern Barbarians’ western front began to emerge from their camps and form battle lines, steadily shifting to the right to block the path of the Northern Liang cavalry, even if they managed to break through.
Further south still, over twenty thousand elite Jia Division cavalry from the Southern Dynasty’s noble houses faced off against Kou Jianghuai’s ten thousand low-tier Northern Liang riders.
Under these circumstances, for the main force of the Longxiang Army to breach three defensive lines while evading pursuit by Huang Songpu’s elite cavalry would undoubtedly come at a devastating cost!
As Wanyan Yinjiang spurred his horse forward, he was brimming with confidence, already envisioning himself striding into the Western Capital’s imperial court, where the emperor sat upon the dragon throne, holding the heads of Northern Liang’s Xu Longxiang and Kou Jianghuai in each hand. He would become the first border general in the dynasty’s history to earn a princely title through military merit!
The middle-aged magnate of the Southern Dynasty could not help but laugh heartily, shouting, “Northern Liang’s Yellow Savage, Kou Jianghuai! Where are your heads?!”
※※※
The banners of Linyao and Fengxiang towns in Liuzhou nearly changed hands from Northern Liang’s Xu to Northern Barbarians’ Murong.
Originally, Ma Liuke, who held the dual roles of deputy general of Liuzhou and commander of Fengxiang’s garrison, was a local power broker who had reluctantly aligned himself with Qingliang Mountain under pressure. However, his loyalty wavered, and he maintained secret ties with the Spider Web. Eventually, the previous year, Deputy General Wang Lingbao of the Longxiang Army led a punitive expedition against him. Ma Liuke’s elite cavalry was nearly annihilated, and he himself vanished without a trace, his body never found. Cai Anshan, the governor of Linyao Military Town, was far more compliant. With Cao Wei’s cavalry passing through Linyao twice and Xie Xichui replacing Ma Liuke in overseeing the two towns’ military affairs, Cai Anshan completely withdrew from public life, shutting his doors to visitors.
Under these circumstances, Xie Xichui, the newly appointed deputy general of Liuzhou, was supposed to lead twenty thousand monk-soldiers from Mount Lantuo to reinforce Qingcang City. However, halfway between Fengxiang and Linyao, he suddenly divided his forces, personally leading half back to Fengxiang while entrusting the remaining ten thousand to the Six-Bead Bodhisattva, stationing them in Linyao. The female Bodhisattva from Mount Lantuo was not without objections. After all, the decision to send twenty thousand monk-soldiers to reinforce Qingcang had been jointly approved by Qingliang Mountain and the Protectorate. Without direct orders from the young prince or Chu Lushan, the original plan could not be altered! Now that Mount Lantuo and she herself were irrevocably tied to the Xu family, how could she dare to complicate matters? If the battle were delayed, Xie Xichui, a newcomer to Northern Liang, could at most atone with his death, but she would drag countless believers in the Western Regions into ruin. Thus, she had a heated argument with the young deputy general. She could not fathom the purpose of wasting twenty thousand monk-soldiers in two towns far from the main battlefield at Qingcang. Was this some kind of opportunistic waiting game, common in the unjust wars of the past? Did Xie Xichui truly believe these twenty thousand monk-soldiers were his personal troops, to be hoarded for personal gain?
At the time, Xie Xichui calmly explained to her that the battlefield was ever-changing. Linyao and Fengxiang, linking the Western Regions and Northern Liang, might seem like insignificant additions, but under certain circumstances, they could become a critical breach for Northern Barbarian surprise attacks. Not only could they serve as a choke point to cut off Yu Luandao’s Youzhou cavalry and Cao Wei’s riders from retreating, but they could also allow the numerically superior Southern Dynasty border forces to comfortably use the two towns as a base to launch broad offensives against the isolated Qingcang City. Originally, the two towns were not pivotal to the Liuzhou campaign, but the current favorable situation for Liuzhou had unexpectedly highlighted their latent strategic importance, allowing Northern Liang strategist Li Yishan’s original plans to bear fruit.
Though deeply versed in Buddhist teachings, the female Bodhisattva knew little of military affairs, especially when faced with Xie Xichui, a young master of strategy who had shone brightly on the Guangling battlefield. She conceded that she could not persuade him, but she dared not stake the safety of the entire Western Regions’ Buddhist community on the young man’s judgment. Faced with Xie Xichui’s unwavering stance, she proposed a compromise: they would both lead the twenty thousand monk-soldiers to Linyao while dispatching a hidden senior monk with Vajra powers to rush to the Liuzhou governor’s residence in Qingcang as a scout to report the situation. Her reasoning was that even if Qingliang Mountain and the Protectorate could not respond in time, as long as the governor’s office approved, she would agree to Xie Xichui’s division of forces.
But Xie Xichui bluntly told her that neither Governor Yang Guangdou nor even Chen Xiliang in Qingcang would dare to make such a decision without authorization, and there might not be enough time regardless.
Thus, the two reached an impasse.
The deadlock was broken when a majestic gyrfalcon pierced the clouds and landed on Xie Xichui’s arm.
With the Liuzhou campaign already underway and the Liangzhou campaign about to begin, this gyrfalcon, personally raised by Chu Lushan and accompanying the young prince all these years, had chosen Xie Xichui—young and far from both battlefields—as its sole point of contact!
At that moment, she felt a complex mix of emotions and was left speechless.
Xie Xichui solemnly told her, “The merits and faults of this matter rest on me alone!”
The young man added, “The Prince of Northern Liang also firmly believes that I, Xie Xichui, Deputy General of Liuzhou, can shoulder this responsibility alone!”
Only then did she tacitly accept his troop deployment. Twenty thousand burly, fearless monk-soldiers from Mount Lantuo were divided and stationed in Fengxiang and Linyao.
Now, standing atop Linyao’s walls in her white kasaya, her black hair flowing freely, the female Bodhisattva watched as over ten thousand elite Northern Barbarian infantry, escorted by several thousand cavalry, advanced to attack the town. She breathed a sigh of relief.
They had gambled correctly.
The Northern Barbarians had indeed intended to launch a surprise attack on the two towns!
Even as a military layperson, she knew the weakened garrisons of the two towns, depleted by repeated troop transfers, could never hold on their own. She had some general knowledge of the elite forces on both sides—for example, the Great Snow Dragon Cavalry and White Horse Scouts outside Liangzhou, Yan Wenluan’s infantry in Youzhou, and the Longxiang Army in Liuzhou. She had also heard of the Southern Dynasty’s Dong Zhuo’s infantry, said to rival Youzhou’s, his Crow Railings, the annihilated Qiang cavalry in Liuzhou, and the disbanded Rouran Iron Cavalry, among others.
Beyond these, she was also familiar with some other troops, including the “standout” infantry of the Southern Dynasty’s border forces—the Step Striders. It was common knowledge that the grassland cavalry had plagued the Central Plains for nearly eight hundred years, but no one had ever heard of grassland troops skilled in siege warfare. They had either bypassed formidable passes and towering cities or sought out the Central Plains’ border armies for open-field battles, annihilating them to render the border towns strategically irrelevant. But the Northern Barbarians were different now. Aside from Dong Zhuo’s predominantly infantry private army, the Southern Dynasty’s border forces had stationed a special type of troop in several military towns—the Step Striders. Unlike ordinary infantry, their treatment rivaled that of the Central Plains’ historical heavy infantry, earning them the Northern Barbarian empress’s regard as true “hundred-gold warriors.” Li Yishan had once described them thus: “The Southern Dynasty’s Step Striders are the brainchild of the Southern Court’s Prince Huang Songpu. They excel at scaling heights and traversing distances, moving swiftly through valleys and ravines. Their siege capabilities are on par with the Central Plains’ finest.”
She exhaled softly, her gaze turning icy as she casually hurled an armored corpse over the city walls.
It was Cai Anshan, the governor of Linyao, who had been waiting for an opportunity to act!
The Northern Barbarians had come prepared, having long since persuaded Cai Anshan to secretly defect and collaborate from within. How could Linyao possibly hold?
Before entering the city, Xie Xichui had told her to keep a close eye on Cai Anshan. At the slightest sign of treachery, it was better to kill him by mistake than not to kill him at all!
Without sparing a glance for the corpse that had crashed heavily to the ground, she murmured, “I used to think the phrase ‘commanding troops like a god’ in military texts was just historians’ hyperbole. Now I see how narrow-minded I was.”
Not only had the young man foreseen the Northern Barbarians’ designs on the two towns, but through the gyrfalcon, he had also ordered Cao Wei’s cavalry to abandon their original mission of supporting Yu Luandao’s Youzhou cavalry in the Southern Dynasty’s heartland and instead return at full speed to annihilate all Northern Barbarian border troops infiltrating Liuzhou!
Such boldness and decisiveness sent shivers down her spine, even as an ally.
If the worst came to pass, one was simply one.
But the deputy general of Liuzhou had the uncanny ability to turn that “one” back on the Northern Barbarians in full.
She did not believe this was mere luck.
In martial arts, there were once-in-a-generation prodigies.
In warfare, there were also once-in-a-generation heroes.
※※※
On the walls of Fengxiang, the northernmost of the Western Regions’ three towns, Xie Xichui stood clad in armor, his hand resting on his Liang blade, his expression cold.
Even in such attire, the scholarly young man still exuded the air of a literatus.
In a voice so low only he could hear, he whispered, “Kou Jianghuai, you once said that one day, you would fight a cavalry battle as if you were using cavalry to bully infantry!”
In later generations of the Liyang Dynasty, it was said that since the Dafeng era, among those who could be called scholar-generals, Ye Baikui, the “Armor of the Spring and Autumn,” stood supreme. After Ye Baikui, it was Chen Zhubao.
After Chen Zhubao, Xie Xichui was the foremost scholar-general!
Each of the three had their own brilliance, with no clear ranking.
Perhaps because Xie Xichui was the only one still alive at the time and held a high position in the court, this posthumous assessment was not entirely uncontested.
Even so, Xie Xichui’s towering status in the eyes of later military strategists was beyond dispute.
In his twilight years, Xie Xichui privately joked to close friends, “In terms of unorthodox tactics, I am far inferior to Kou Jianghuai.”
Xie Xichui, Kou Jianghuai.
The Twin Jewels of Great Chu!
Now, they were the Twin Jewels of Northern Liang.
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