Chapter 864: Central Plains and Northern Liang

A vanguard of over fifty elite cavalry, well-equipped and mounted on strong horses, galloped swiftly north. This cavalry unit was equipped with the finest standard sabers currently used by the Liyang imperial court. Their elite status was further evident from the dense, white fletching visible from their quivers; every arrow for their horse bows was fletched with stiff, dense eagle feathers. Military strategists universally acknowledged that eagle fletching provided arrows with superior wind resistance, making them more accurate. To compensate for the reduced range that comes with this, such bows demanded greater physical strength from the archer; only the most robust soldiers could draw a powerful bow fletched with eagle feathers. Among the major Liyang border cavalry forces most proficient in archery and horsemanship today, Beiliang favored heavy crossbows and light bows, while Liangliao and Jibei used a mix of bows and crossbows. The Jibei cavalry, renowned for producing excellent archers, used significantly more bows than crossbows. This rapidly advancing northern scout cavalry unit was trained in the Jibei border army style; half of their troopers originated from beyond the Jibei frontier. Grand General Yang Shenxing, who had been a de facto ruler in Jizhou for over a decade, always prioritized infantry. This led to a large exodus of cavalry skilled in archery, who, through connections and influence, left their homes to seek minor official or military positions in the central plains.

The leader of this scout unit was a robust warrior from the north, originally from Jibei. He had been a youth when he left the border with his father, and by now, he was well accustomed to the customs and ways of Qingzhou. Since his father had retired as a captain in the Qingzhou army, he had never lacked fine wine, delicacies, or beautiful women over the years. However, unlike native Qingzhou soldiers, he had a father who constantly kept a watchful eye on him, a man who harbored an enduring longing for the smoke of battlefields. Consequently, he had developed considerable skill in horsemanship and martial arts. The last time the Qingzhou cavalry went to war, they suffered heavy casualties aiding Prince Zhao Ying of Huainan. He, however, had escaped that fate because his father was gravely ill, and he, as the sole heir, had to stay by his side. For this current expedition beyond the border, the commanding general, a close friend who treated his father like a brother, held him in high regard. Thus, the general specifically tasked him with gathering a group of military elites skilled in horsemanship and archery. Last night, the general had summoned him to the main tent, strictly instructing him that his vanguard of genuine scouts should not stray too far from the main army. If they encountered Beiliang cavalry scouts, they were not to engage in prolonged combat but to ensure a safe retreat. Towards the end of their conversation, the general even implied that he would be allowed to lead his troops away after the main forces clashed. While he was grateful for this, as he eagerly sought to rise to the rank of full general, he also felt a sense of dissatisfaction. Advancement for local military officers was inherently difficult, often following a rigid progression. Especially after reaching the rank of captain, it became a competition of family background. Given his family's circumstances, without extraordinary achievements, he could, at best, hope to become a captain with some military authority in Qingzhou, like his father, after a decade or two of steady effort. Only tangible military achievements, those that reached the desks of high-ranking officials in the Ministry of War, could break through these limitations and rules. He didn't care whether the military merit came from the heads of northern barbarians or Beiliang barbarians.

The heavy snow had long melted, and the early spring fields were lush green. Along the roadside, clusters of nameless wildflowers, nestled together, had already unfurled delicate yellow buds, swaying gracefully in the gentle spring breeze. The landscape appeared soft and peaceful as far as the eye could see. It looked nothing like a battlefield. Horse hooves pounded the soft ground, like a man gently stroking his lover's tender skin, or a courtesan in a brothel tapping a red ivory board. In another month or so, when the rapeseed flowers bloomed, stretching in vast rows, their brilliant yellow would fill the horizon.

According to previous intelligence reports, their main army would advance for another day and a half before officially entering the dangerous zone patrolled by Beiliang scouts. By then, their Qingzhou army could link up with the capital's elite forces led by Vice Minister Xu of the Ministry of War. Furthermore, General Yuan's ten thousand Jibei border cavalry would act as a mobile main force to pin down the Beiliang army. In any case, as long as they arrived on time to their designated position and coordinated defensive efforts with Vice Minister Xu, the Qingzhou army, cobbled together with fewer than five hundred cavalry, was unlikely to become the primary target of the Beiliang cavalry during this period. Instead, it was more probable that the twenty thousand Shu soldiers, commanded by a young figure, would bear the brunt of the Beiliang cavalry's assault.

However, at this pleasant moment, when the warm breeze was intoxicating, the vanguard commander, who was at the front, suddenly tensed his body. He spoke in a deep voice, "Enemy contact! Northwest, six hundred paces!" Alerted by the commander, the cavalry finally noticed a few indistinct, stationary black dots at the edge of their vision, which one might easily overlook with a casual glance. The commander's pupils dilated, a mix of tension and excitement in his eyes. Unlike his father, a veteran of countless battles on the Jibei border, he had earned the nickname "Tiger Emerging from the Forest" on the military's sparring grounds, thanks to his exceptional martial prowess, to the point where even his father was no longer his match. However, his father often reminded him that battlefield combat was nothing like the back-and-forth sparring of everyday military drills, nor the friendly exchanges among martial artists. Often, life and death hung by a single thread. He had not taken this to heart initially. Yet, for this expedition, his father had insisted he don armor and carry his saber, and, for the first time, his father himself had put on the old chainmail armor he had smuggled out of the Jibei army years ago. In a father-son duel on their home training ground, his father, whom he had mistakenly thought was a toothless "old" tiger, had, in the blink of an eye, taken a saber cut to the shoulder while simultaneously holding his own blade to his son's neck, capable of severing his head with just a slight increase in pressure. Only at that moment did he truly understand what his father meant by "exchanging injury for death." Later, as he bandaged his father's wound, his father earnestly told him that old border soldiers of humble origins like himself had survived to this day by only one thing: luck. His father added that countless aristocratic youths in the army, confident in their flashy techniques, ended up dismembered in their very first engagement.

The lieutenant of this scout unit quickly caught up, his voice trembling slightly. "Commander Jiang," he asked, "what do we do? Fight or not?" The commander exhaled, narrowing his eyes. "Honestly," he said, "the higher-ups don't want us to start a fight on our own. Even if we wipe out those four or five Beiliang barbarians, it might not be well-received." The Qingzhou scouts, maintaining a steady pace, neither initiated a charge nor halted their advance without the commander's orders, thus gradually closing the distance with the small group of Beiliang scouts. Perhaps infected by the commander's composure, the initially extremely nervous lieutenant began to calm down. Although they were facing the Liangzhou light crossbow cavalry, renowned as the best scouts of their era, their own unit comprised a full fifty-one cavalry scouts, almost all of whom were top-tier elites of the Qingzhou army. Previously, this lieutenant had complained a bit that, as scouts, they had been strictly ordered by their superiors to conduct reconnaissance "in grand formation" with an entire vanguard unit, which seemed unbefitting. However, on one hand, the Beiliang cavalry, as the hypothetical enemy, had to guard against several major armies. On the other hand, this was not the barbarians' territory after all, so it was believed that the Beiliang light crossbow cavalry would not dare to penetrate too deeply into the interior. Therefore, since they couldn't truly fulfill their primary scouting duties anyway, it didn't matter whether they maximized the effectiveness of their scout unit. Now, it seemed their superiors' excessive caution, though accidental, had turned out to be their good fortune. Four or five enemy heads, when distributed, would still amount to considerable merit, especially since their opponents were the Beiliang Iron Cavalry, who had boasted of being invincible for twenty years. He was confident that no matter how stingy the superiors were, they should at least promote the three of them—the commander, himself, and the other lieutenant—by one or two ranks.

So, the lieutenant, with a grimace, gazed at the few horses three hundred and fifty paces away, wondering why they remained motionless. Were they stunned into idiocy? Nevertheless, the enemy was gradually becoming clearer. After confirming that there were only five enemy riders and no other enemy units concealed nearby, the lieutenant couldn't help but grin. "Commander Jiang," he said, "a total of five Beiliang barbarian heads. Although it's not enough to fill our teeth, even a mosquito's leg is meat. Three for you, and one each for Old He and me will be enough!" The commander shook his head. "This is just a good start; there will surely be greater military achievements ahead. I don't need this much for now, and I'm still young. But you, Old Song, and Old He are different. If you don't earn enough military merit on this northern expedition, you'll have to retire from your pitiful lieutenant positions. Even if you don't complain, I'd speak up for your injustice. So, this time, you two each get one, no escaping it, and the remaining three will be divided among the brothers." The lieutenant, nearing forty, cupped his hands and said, "Old Song won't be sentimental; I'll certainly remember this!" The two scout units were approximately three hundred paces apart. They met on a narrow path. However, just as the Qingzhou scout commander ordered his men to draw their bows, the five Beiliang scouts surprisingly began to turn their horses and retreat, unhurriedly and with practiced ease. Lieutenant Old He was the most volatile-tempered among the Qingzhou scouts. Had it not been for numerous incidents caused by drinking and insubordination, he would have long since attained the official rank of captain, which would signify his transition from a mere clerk to a true officer of rank. Otherwise, no matter how valiant and skilled in battle one was, those civilian officials in Qingzhou's bureaucracy would never look upon them with respect. Therefore, in this engagement, Old He was even more envious than Commander Jiang and his contemporary, Old Song, wishing his warhorse had four more legs. Though no longer young, Old He was still robust, his arm strength astonishing. His bow was a rare three-hundred-jin strongbow in the Qingzhou army. For ordinary archers, firing twenty consecutive arrows on the battlefield was the double limit for both their arms and the longbow. But Old He's exceptional arm strength and his high-quality great bow, crafted by an old Shu master, could easily sustain him for thirty consecutive shots with strength to spare. The proactive retreat of the Beiliang light crossbow cavalry greatly emboldened the Qingzhou scouts. Old He spurred his horse, roaring, "Kill the enemy!" The five Beiliang scouts showed no signs of panic or haste, yet no matter how the Qingzhou scouts urged their warhorses forward, the distance between the two sides consistently remained around one hundred and fifty paces, well beyond the effective range of horse bows. It was unclear who among the Qingzhou scouts first shouted "Kill the barbarians," but soon, cries of "Kill the Beiliang barbarians" echoed through the cavalry. The five Liangzhou light crossbow cavalry almost simultaneously turned their heads. Commander Jiang felt an inexplicable unease. The next sight quickly caused the commander, who had grown up with horsemanship and archery on the frontier, both worry and relief. His worry was that battle was imminent; his relief was that one enemy rider, already at a significant numerical disadvantage, accelerated away, leaving only four riders to impede their pursuit.

The four Liangzhou light crossbow cavalry began to turn their horses around. It was an established fact that horse bows had a shorter range than foot bows. The Qingzhou army was not entirely without light crossbows, but they were few in number. For over a decade, with peace and prosperity in the central plains, the Qing Party, renowned for its factionalism throughout the court, controlled the military and civil affairs of Jing'an Dao. With figures like Wen Taiyi speaking in court, Jing'an Dao, especially Qingzhou and Xiangfan City, had generally enjoyed comfortable times, remaining impervious to external influences. The people of Qingzhou mostly lived in self-imposed tranquility and enjoyment. Over time, in Qingzhou, where there had been no wars and where naval strength was more relied upon, the military's already scarce supply of good crossbows gradually became exclusive playthings for the sons of officials. To the Qingzhou cavalry who had encountered light crossbows, those weapons were certainly not bad—they were valuable items—but they were too rare, troublesome to maintain, and in terms of range alone, even slightly inferior to horse bows. Then, as the Qingzhou scouts drew their bows at a distance of about a hundred paces, they were astonished to find that the four enemy riders raised their arms and crossbows almost simultaneously! In fact, at this distance, an arrow fired immediately from a horse bow would be quite inaccurate. To penetrate armor and wound an enemy was even harder, and unless it struck a vital spot on the enemy's face, its effectiveness would be minimal. Therefore, the military regulation for the Qingzhou cavalry was always to begin firing their bows at around seventy paces. Lieutenant Old He, possessing the greatest physical strength among the scouts, was the first powerful figure to loose an arrow. At eighty-five paces, Old He, drawing his bow like a full moon, launched an arrow that whistled rapidly through the air in an unnaturally straight line, fully demonstrating the formidable strength of this scout lieutenant. The Liangzhou light crossbow cavalryman instinctively bent down and turned his shoulder, and the eagle-fletched arrow, which would have pierced his chest, grazed his iron armor. The supremely confident Old He felt a jolt in his heart. At eighty paces, the four Beiliang riders not only raised their arms and crossbows but had already begun to shoot down enemy cavalry. With a dull thud, a Qingzhou scout who was drawing his bow and preparing to shoot suddenly fell backward, a crossbow bolt embedded in his forehead, piercing his skull. A young scout, who had hastily loosed a weak arrow due to excessive nervousness, saw a sudden grain-sized black dot appear before his eyes, and the next moment, his throat was pierced. He dropped his horse bow, clutched his neck with both hands, and fell from his saddle. Commander Jiang tilted his head slightly, and a Beiliang arrow scraped a bloodied furrow across his cheek. Yet, this outstanding Qingzhou cavalryman's hands did not tremble in the slightest, and with a thud, his arrow flew. Even though a distant Beiliang barbarian rider had adopted an evasive posture, his entire shoulder was still pierced by the arrow, which embedded itself deep into his flesh and bone. Qingzhou Lieutenant Old Song not only evaded the crossbow bolt but also shot his first feathered arrow with extreme precision. However, the Beiliang cavalryman facing him just managed to dodge it by bending low over his horse's back. Whether it was the Liangzhou light crossbow cavalryman with the arrow in his shoulder, or the one bending to dodge, or the two who had already killed, as the three Qingzhou scout leaders loosed their second arrows, and as other Qingzhou cavalrymen were still nocking arrows and drawing bows, the Beiliang riders had already unleashed powerful crossbow bolts. None of the four Beiliang riders continued to target Commander Jiang and his two lieutenants. Consequently, four more Qingzhou cavalrymen quickly fell from their horses, all with fatal wounds to their faces and throats. However, most of the Qingzhou scouts, already in a state of panic, not only lost their accuracy but also faced Beiliang barbarians who were evidently exceptionally skilled at evasion. As a result, apart from the divine archer Old He, who scored a hit and shot a Liangzhou scout from his horse, even Commander Jiang's and Lieutenant Old Song's two arrows failed to kill an enemy. Commander Jiang's arrow was exquisite. He had not deliberately aimed for a fatal shot, or even to hit the rider at all, but instead chose to aim directly for the warhorse's head. However, the Beiliang barbarian, who appeared to be a corporal, displayed astonishing horsemanship. With just a slight tug on the reins, the Liangzhou warhorse, in perfect sync with its rider, turned its head, causing the arrow to merely rip a large chunk of flesh from the corporal's thigh, leaving his combat effectiveness undiminished for the short term. Commander Jiang no longer cared about being terrified by the enemy cavalry's combat prowess. He roared, "Hold steady! If you can't hit the rider, shoot the horse!" He knew that once they closed to forty paces, it would inevitably be their most powerful, and indeed their last, volley of arrows. Not only the three Beiliang riders still on horseback, but also the trooper who had fallen from his horse and rolled to dissipate the momentum, followed his three comrades. He fired his third crossbow bolt from a single-knee kneeling position. Lieutenant Old He, eyes bloodshot, his arm muscles bulging, powerfully drew his bow and roared, "Die, barbarians!" But then a scene unfolded that left all Qingzhou scouts feeling awkward and suffocated. Aside from the wounded Beiliang barbarian who had fallen from his horse, the other three crossbow-wielding riders, after firing their bolts, saw their warhorses instinctively and subtly alter their charge routes without any command from their riders. This seemingly negligible difference, a mere hair's breadth, marked the line between life and death. This scene taught Commander Jiang two things: what it meant to be a border veteran, and what it meant to ride a great Liangzhou horse.

All Qingzhou scouts who had lowered their horse bows had no time for further thought. Instinctively, they simultaneously shouted "Charge!", drew their sabers, and spurred their horses into a furious gallop. The Liangzhou scouts, who had one more volley of arrows than the Qingzhou horse bows, also silently drew their sabers and continued their charge. Three riders against forty-one. The vastly outnumbered sides, one roaring with all its might, the other eerily silent, collided head-on. Commander Jiang and Lieutenant Old Song, effectively fighting together, failed to completely stop the Beiliang corporal. It wasn't that the light crossbow corporal's martial skill surpassed theirs; in fact, in a one-on-one fight, either the Qingzhou commander or lieutenant would have had a greater chance of winning, especially in dismounted combat, where Commander Jiang would have been even more certain of victory. However, just as they expected both sides' horses to reach their maximum speed, the Liangzhou warhorse suddenly accelerated again, displaying an enormous burst of power that was both terrifying and unfamiliar to the Qingzhou cavalry. It was this burst of power that allowed the Beiliang corporal to dodge two saber blows, receiving only a gash on his back from the Qingzhou lieutenant. He then continued to cut through the Qingzhou cavalry's formation, extending his arm decisively for a saber swing, sending a Qingzhou trooper's head flying high. The "two forces" brushed past each other. Among the three riders, only the corporal broke through the formation. Alone, with his horse, he slowed down, silently and solitarily turning his horse to prepare for the next charge. The two riders who charged the formation had each killed three enemy cavalrymen before falling in battle. Even the wounded Beiliang soldier who had fallen from his horse earliest, before his death, fought against cavalry on foot. He killed one rider with an arrow, impaled another with his saber, and was then violently struck in the chest by a Qingzhou warhorse, collapsing into a pool of blood. Commander Jiang, almost grinding his teeth, turned to look at the sole remaining Beiliang cavalryman, then glanced at the dying trooper a dozen paces ahead of his own cavalry unit. "The Beiliang barbarians exchanged three riders for fifteen of my men! A full fifteen riders!" The exasperated Qingzhou commander re-drew his bow, aiming his arrow at the wounded Beiliang soldier lying in the pool of blood. It was only a dozen paces away. He shot an arrow into the trooper's head. On the ground, only the eagle fletching quivered. For the Central Plains regarding Beiliang, there was more than just the curses of scholars.