“Go to hell!”
Cao Ba gripped his horse lance under his left armpit, his tiger eyes as large as copper bells watching as the sharp blade pierced into an enemy general’s left abdomen. However, this enemy general was also extremely fierce—even dying, he desperately clutched the lance blade, preventing Cao Ba from withdrawing his horse lance from his belly.
A long spear struck like a venomous dragon as another enemy cavalryman charged from the side on horseback, thrusting his spear straight at Cao Ba’s left chest.
Unable to withdraw his horse lance, Cao Ba nevertheless refused to abandon it and flee. He drew his waist saber and slashed diagonally upward with lightning speed. In that split second, he deflected the spear blade stabbing like a venomous snake by striking its tail end, causing the blade to veer off. His body rose slightly in the saddle as his long saber changed direction, slashing toward the spear-wielding enemy general’s hands.
That enemy general was also extremely skilled. Holding his spear before him, he used the shaft’s tail to drive the spear tip in a circular arc, not only using the spear shaft to press Cao Ba’s supremely fierce blade downward by several inches, but his sharp spear blade also scraped across Cao Ba’s right shoulder armor in a streak of red sparks.
Apart from finding full-coverage helmets too stifling and abandoning their use, Cao Ba’s entire body—including feet, shins, shoulders, arms, and hands—was enclosed in armor. Great Liang’s cold-forged sturdy armor had frighteningly strong defensive capabilities; only blunt weapons like hammers and maces or thrusting with spear and lance points could penetrate it.
With his superior martial skills and tremendous strength, though the enemy general’s spear technique was remarkable, he couldn’t find an opportunity for a frontal thrust against Cao Ba.
In the blink of an eye, Cao Ba and that enemy general exchanged several blows with saber and spear. He still suffered from his waist saber being too short, and with one hand still gripping the tail of his horse lance, his dodging was impeded. Twice the enemy general’s long spear struck his body, but fortunately without causing any damage.
At this moment, the enemy general who had been pierced through the belly by the horse lance finally couldn’t hold on and fell from his horse, his hands releasing their grip.
The other enemy general dared not tangle with Cao Ba now that he had recovered his horse lance. Seeing his comrade already dead, he spurred his horse northward in flight.
Though the two earlier spear strikes had caused no damage, Cao Ba felt stifled. Having finally recovered his horse lance and wanting to fight heartily once more, how could he let that enemy general escape?
The waist saber was still too short, only good for close-quarters defense. For mounted combat, one needed horse lances, long spears, or great halberds to fight satisfyingly.
Cao Ba roared loudly and had just spurred his horse in pursuit for a dozen paces when his warhorse suddenly halted, nearly throwing him off.
That enemy general, seeing an opportunity, took advantage of Cao Ba’s unstable position to thrust his long spear viciously and accurately at Cao Ba’s face. Fortunately, two escort cavalrymen arrived in time from behind. One of them hurled his war spear directly at the enemy general’s chest, forcing him to dodge, while also causing the enemy general’s spear blade to miss Cao Ba’s face by a hair’s breadth.
Seeing Cao Ba stabilize his position, the enemy general dared not continue fighting and fled.
Only then did Cao Ba discover that while he still had strength to kill enemies, his warhorse—unarmored and having taken more than a dozen arrows during his charging into the thick of battle—finally couldn’t hold on. Its hooves went soft as it knelt and collapsed to the ground.
“Bring me a horse!”
Cao Ba bellowed.
“…” The two escort cavalrymen instead spurred their horses to block in front of Cao Ba, while another person chased up from behind, dismounted, and held Cao Ba tightly, lamenting, “Master, you kill too eagerly! We brothers have finally accumulated enough military merit, thinking we could win pretty wives to warm our beds. If you were cut down from your horse by an enemy general, even if we brothers didn’t have to forfeit our lives, our hard-earned battle merits would turn to nothing…”
“You useless fools are just jealous that I kill more enemies than you!” Cao Ba laughed heartily.
“Fine, whatever Master says goes. Anyway, preserving your dog life is how we can answer to Commander Wen and His Majesty.” The three men said with grinning faces, in any case blocking Cao Ba from having another chance to single-handedly pursue fleeing enemies, waiting together for cavalry from behind to catch up and join them.
“Do you know how many head-taking merits I gained today?” Cao Ba’s entire body was soaked in sweat. Now that he rested, he felt utterly exhausted. Seeing no enemy soldiers daring to surround and attack, he sat on a mountain rock holding his horse lance and asked.
“The entire army long ago stopped counting merit by severed heads. Generals, commanders, and military officers of all ranks calculate military merit based on the degree of completion of established combat objectives. Master, your wild killing spree caused the formations of the troops behind to become too scattered. Forget merit calculation—you just wait for Commander Wen to scold you for underestimating the enemy and advancing rashly.” One escort cavalryman said with a bitter smile.
“The enemy army is in complete rout, and pursuing them from behind—how is that underestimating the enemy and advancing rashly? In any case, today I killed to my heart’s content.” Cao Ba said dismissively.
After resting his strength, over two hundred cavalrymen gathered around. Cao Ba didn’t simply pursue pleasure recklessly. He divided the assembled cavalry into two teams to intercept subsequent fleeing soldiers along a shallow stream.
He himself, surrounded by over a dozen escort cavalrymen, climbed a mountaintop. Seeing that thousands upon thousands of fleeing soldiers were still escaping northward on horseback, he felt quite regretful, but for now truly had no capability to continue pursuit.
Half an hour later, Li Xiu also led a cavalry unit charging from the direction of the Meihe Ancient Road pass to join Cao Ba, strengthening the interception along the line.
“You’ve killed quite enjoyably! Being surrounded and attacked for a whole day and night by over ten thousand enemy soldiers from front and rear, you actually held out! How many enemy soldiers did you kill?” Cao Ba asked Li Xiu bluntly.
“Shen Peng led his troops to capture Meiling Fort first. Su Lie’s forces suffered too severely—the officers and men were all exhausted from killing—and had no strength to count how many enemy soldiers they killed.” Li Xiu stood with hands at his sides on the ridge crest, watching more Great Liang troops threading through the fleeing soldiers in organized units, while over twenty warships were also intercepting those enemy soldiers trying to swim across the Fen River to the west. He exhaled lightly with emotion—this battle had finally entered its final stage at this moment.
At dusk, Wen Bo personally arrived at the northern part of Yicheng County surrounded by over a thousand cavalry and infantry, joining the remnant forces of Cao Ba, Li Xiu, and others before entering Xiangling City on the east bank of the Fen River.
At this point, aside from enemy generals like Wusu Dashi, Xiao Yiqing, and Xiao Siqing leading fewer than twenty-four or twenty-five thousand remnant soldiers in panicked flight northward along the Fen River’s east bank toward Hongdong and Huo County, the northward escape route for the other Mongol army stragglers was completely cut off.
Afterward, Shen Peng, together with Wen Yuan’s reinforcing forces, captured Qinshui City at the southern foot of the Taiyue Mountains. Meanwhile, Han Bao, Zhu Zhen, Lin Sheng, and other units moved west to seize Anyi, Linyi, Puban, Wanrong, and other places west of Jiang County.
With the Mongol forces completely fleeing into Huo County, Wen Bo then dispatched troops to take control of Fushan, Hongdong, Linfen, and other localities. Only then did the Zhiguan Pass campaign truly enter its final phase, with subsequent efforts mainly focused on mopping up remnant enemies, pacifying local areas, and reorganizing military forces.
Han Qian was also held back by various generals and ministers, waiting until the initial mopping up and pacification efforts in the Fen River valley had been thoroughly implemented before personally arriving at Xiangling at the end of October.
The Mongol army’s morale had completely collapsed in the end. The fleeing soldiers had no will to fight. Wusu Dashi, Xiao Yiqing, and others, worried about being entangled by the main Liang forces and unable to escape, fled northward without stopping their horses until they halted within Huo County territory.
This allowed the Liang forces to capture cities like Xiangling, Fushan, Linfen, and Hongdong almost without bloodshed.
During the thirty to forty years of conflict between Liang and Jin, this small city of Xiangling, built adjacent to the Fen River, had been extremely fortunate to avoid the devastation of war, and this time was no different—it remained intact.
Stone-paved streets bore traces of time’s polishing, and the buildings along the streets were quite orderly. Over ten thousand troops under review let out deafening shouts and cheers.
Han Qian rode slowly alongside Zhao Ting’er, surrounded by numerous generals and officials heading toward the county office. He too was immersed in the immense joy brought by this hard-won great victory that thoroughly changed the balance of power between enemy and ally.
Preliminary results had been tallied. This battle captured nearly seventy thousand enemy soldiers, killed over thirty thousand, and counting the earlier annihilation of Tian Weiye’s Luzhou elite troops, altogether beheaded or captured nearly two thousand enemy generals of centurion rank and above. The Zhiguan Pass great victory could be said to fundamentally shake the Mongol army’s rule over the northern lands.
This would inevitably accelerate Great Liang’s elite forces in recovering Guanzhong, pacifying Hedong and Heshuo, and even recovering Hehuai.
The only thing that left Han Qian slightly less than fully satisfied was that to ensure his safety and prevent Mongol assassins possibly lurking in the city, before he personally arrived at Xiangling, Wen Bo had preemptively expelled the twenty thousand residents from the city.
The troops lined up on both sides of the streets to welcome him upon entering the city were purely jubilant Great Liang officers and men. This prevented him from directly observing the attitudes of the people of Jin and Pu toward the Zhiguan Pass great victory.
Of course, this was already of no great importance.
Han Qian didn’t want to excessively disturb the people. He decided to end the inspection at Xiangling without continuing northward, nor did he intend to personally travel to the northern part of Hongdong County to inspect the strategic terrain there, constricted by the Taiyue and Lüliang Mountains.
Naturally, he still couldn’t help feeling somewhat regretful inwardly, thinking that in subsequent warfare, he would likely have few more opportunities to personally arrive at the front lines.
Of course, though this battle achieved an extremely critical victory, Great Liang forces’ casualties were not a small number. According to preliminary statistics, various combat losses had already exceeded fifty thousand men.
In such chaotic battle situations, they mainly had to rely on officers and men fighting bravely with their blood. Elite war equipment couldn’t be deployed to the depth of the battlefield, and the Mongol tribal elite cavalry had extremely strong capabilities in open-terrain field battles. How could the Liang army’s casualties be few?
“In a few more days, the Hehuai region will be frozen over, and the weather is becoming increasingly cold, unfavorable for troops to fight—while going east from Xiangling leads to the important towns of Ze and Lu, and north to Taiyuan, all are fortified cities and strongholds that would be extremely difficult for ten thousand troops to capture. In recent years, the Mongols have migrated over three hundred thousand tribespeople to these two places. Though they suffered great defeat and fled back, seemingly without many remnant soldiers, if they conscript all the able-bodied men of their tribes in Taiyuan, Zezhou, and Luzhou into military units, they could still raise seventy to eighty thousand soldiers. In the short term, we shouldn’t engage in intense warfare in these two directions.”
In the narrow county office hall of Xiangling City, aside from escort generals and ministers like Feng Liao, Gu Qian, Gao Shao, and Wang Zhe, dozens of participating generals and officials including Wen Bo and those below him—Feng Xuan, Li Xiu, Su Lie, Feng Zhang, He Liufeng, Zhu Zhen, Cao Ba, Zhao Ci—all sat in three rows behind long tables, participating in deliberations.
Han Qian and Zhao Ting’er sat behind the long tables, discussing with the various generals and ministers the subsequent defensive arrangements in these two directions and other military and administrative affairs.
“Next, we must concentrate our strength on recovering Guanzhong. In the directions of Xiangling and Qinshui, we will focus primarily on constructing fortifications for defense. While absorbing captured soldiers, we will also actively dispatch small military units to infiltrate the Lüliang Mountains, Taiyue Mountains, and the southern foot of the Taihang Mountains. When we can control broader mountainous regions, even if a few fortified cities in the Taiyuan Basin, Shangdang Basin still remain in Mongol hands, they actually pose little threat…”
“The Staff Office suggests establishing a new Taiyue Campaign Army in the southern foot of the Taiyue Mountains, headquartered in Qinshui, responsible for defense against enemies in Ze and Lu. I also find this extremely necessary—Li Xiu, this time I must trouble you to serve as Commander of this Taiyue Campaign Army. Su Lie will serve as Deputy Commander and remain in Qinshui with Chen Yuanchen to assist you in jointly handling military infiltration and defense against Ze and Lu Prefectures…”
Commanders were given the additional rank of Regional Military Commissioner, equivalent to overall commander of a military route.
Of course, this was also Li Xiu’s well-deserved honor and status for the Li clan in this generation.
Li Xiu had gained fame in his youth. After retreating with his father Li Yu to Hongzhou, his return to public life came during the Jinling rebellion. He could be said to have rendered distinguished service for the Xinchang Marquis Manor and the Wanhong Tower faction. Unexpectedly, the outcome was his elder brother Li Changfeng’s violent death, with the Li clan remnants only escaping disaster under Han Qian’s protection, ultimately being exiled to settle in Xiacai.
From the early Xiacai defensive battle, subsequently leading troops to respond at Dancheng, organizing troops in Shangluo with Kong Xirong and defending Mengjin, as well as training cavalry to participate in western Henan’s defense, Li Xiu had rendered considerable merit.
However, Great Liang had many excellent generals at the Brigade Commander level. Officers like Su Lie, Feng Zhang, He Liufeng, Lu Ze, Lin Zongjing, Lin Jiang, Lin Sheng, Dong Tai, Tan Xiuqun, Xiao Dahu, Dou Rong, Wei Xu were all “veteran generals” who had followed Han Qian for over ten years. Which of them didn’t have illustrious military achievements?
While generals like Shen Peng, Zhao Ci, Xue Chuan, Cao Ba, and Wen Yuan hadn’t followed Han Qian long, they were either former Liang army generals or had joined by following Wen Bo in leading the Luoshan garrison troops—all had long since made their names.
However, when Han Qian now promoted Li Xiu to overall commander of a military route, everyone was completely convinced.
Decisively abandoning the absolutely safe interior route to fight for one or two days’ time, risking leading cavalry through enemy territory like Biangliang and Mengzhou—not everyone could make such a decision.
When Shen Peng and Li Xiu were both in Changge, he advocated taking the interior route. It was Li Xiu who strongly advocated otherwise, causing Shen Peng to take the route through Mengzhou with him. After reaching Yuanqu, Li Xiu again decisively proposed leading troops to directly insert into the Meihe Ancient Road for interception.
All this demonstrated that Li Xiu possessed judgment and decisiveness surpassing ordinary generals.
If not for him and Shen Peng leading troops to arrive in time, and after joining Su Lie promptly inserting into the Meihe Ancient Road, Great Liang in this battle would have not only intercepted at least thirty thousand fewer fleeing soldiers but also controlled in one step the crucial strategic position from the southern foot of the Taiyue Mountains into Ze and Lu.
This was extremely important for the subsequent enemy-ally situation and the development of warfare.
Shen Peng and Su Lie both rendered distinguished service in this battle, but when Han Qian promoted Li Xiu to serve as overall commander of the Taiyue Campaign Army, they were also completely convinced.
Li Xiu and Su Lie stepped forward from the long tables to receive their orders with thanks.
“Jinzhou will henceforth be changed to Pingyang Prefecture. Feng Liao advocates including seven counties—Linfen, Xiangling, Hongdong, Xiangning, Yuecheng, and Fushan. In the Zhiguan Pass great victory, Wen Bo, you rendered the greatest merit in this battle and rightly should receive the rank of Staff Adviser, concurrently serving as Pingyang Prefecture Commissioner and Pingyang Campaign Army Commander. Besides Feng Zhang serving as your Deputy Commander, Xue Chuan and Lin Sheng will also lead their troops to remain in Pingyang. Your subsequent focus should be on building many fortified settlements based on the strategic terrain north of Hongdong County, blocking the route for Taiyuan enemy troops to move south, resolving the rear concerns for recovering Guanzhong…” Han Qian said to Wen Bo.
“Were it not for Noble Consort’s strategy, this battle could never have achieved victory so smoothly. Wen Bo is ashamed to receive the primary credit.” Wen Bo said.
Military generals mainly were accustomed to utilizing ready-made results and lacked sufficient interest in understanding the development of the new learning system.
Like how Han Qian habitually employed ingenious strategies from early years, only now did Wen Bo more deeply understand what profound foundations lay behind these numerous ingenious strategies.
The more deeply he understood, the more Wen Bo’s thoughts became peaceful, finding it difficult to harbor any arrogant pride.
He deeply knew that this battle’s great victory depended more on the Staff Office’s meticulous planning, on Luoyang’s orderly and sufficient material supply, on excellent weapons and war equipment, on the entire army’s vigorous morale and combat capability. He personally could only be said to be a qualified executor.
Now Han Qian was giving him three infantry battle brigades and corresponding reserve brigades, wanting him to construct defensive lines in the northern part of Hongdong County. But as long as he had Luoyang’s continuous material support and sufficient excellent war equipment available, Wen Bo had absolute confidence in blocking the Taiyuan enemies upstream of the Fen River, preventing them from interfering with subsequent warfare to recover Guanzhong.
“I have two delicate wives who can each match a hundred thousand elite troops.” Han Qian took Zhao Ting’er’s hand and laughed heartily.
Besides establishing the Taiyue Campaign Army, Pingyang Campaign Army, and Pingyang Prefecture, Feng Liao, Gu Qian, and others also proposed separating Yicheng, Quwo, Jiang County, Yuanqu, Yicheng, and Wenxi counties to newly establish Jiang Prefecture.
Additionally, they would designate counties in the lower Fen River including Puban, Linyi, Anyi, Wanrong, Gaoliang, and Jishan as Hejin Prefecture, but Hejin Prefecture’s defensive affairs would be incorporated into the Huatong Prefecture Campaign Army system, subject to unified control and command by Jing Zhen.
Currently, Han Bao and Wen Yuan’s two units were stationed in cities like Puban, watching over Pujin Crossing and enemy forces in Tongzhou west of the river.
Additionally, Han Qian would leave six battered reserve brigades to rest and garrison along the Fen River, strengthening the defensive capabilities of the entire middle and lower Fen River valley. Other troops would gradually withdraw to Luoyang to rest, guarding against renewed warfare in western Henan, Huatong, Shangluo, and other places, while also preparing for next year’s campaign to recover Guanzhong…
Han Qian didn’t remain long in Xiangling. He returned to Luoyang with Zhao Ting’er in early November, surrounded by numerous attendant generals and ministers. Feng Liao remained behind, representing the Right Interior Ministry in handling subsequent matters.
South of Huo County, west of Qinshui, east of Pujin—the middle and lower Fen River valley was the most essential part of the entire former Hedong Commandery. Twenty-five counties possessed over ten million mu of arable land with registered households totaling over one million five hundred thousand people.
Additionally, within Anyi County territory was the Hedong Salt Pool, which at its peak produced over a million shi of pool salt annually.
To prepare for this battle, the Mongol army had stockpiled five to six hundred thousand shi of grain and other materials in cities like Jiang County and Quwo—all became war spoils. They also captured over eighty thousand large livestock of various types, including superior warhorses. The Mongols also had twenty thousand migrated tribespeople settled in Jinzhou (Pingyang Prefecture) territory, all taken as prisoners of war.
The twenty-five counties were divided into the three prefectures of Pingyang, Jiang, and Hejin. Besides Wen Bo serving as Pingyang Prefecture Commissioner concurrently leading both military and civil administration, military, administrative, criminal, judicial, and supervisory officials for the two prefectures’ twenty-five counties needed to be quickly appointed to take charge of local affairs.
The Zhiguan Pass campaign lasted nearly a year from start to finish, but for the vast majority of that time, warfare occurred in the deep gorges and great valleys south of Jiang County and the Yuanqu Basin. The time Great Liang forces spent exiting the northern slope passes of the Wangwu Mountains to fight in the Fen River valley was very brief.
The warfare’s destruction of local agricultural production was very limited. Feng Liao remained to ensure that the over one million five hundred thousand Jin people could integrate into Great Liang’s administration as quickly as possible, ensuring that spring plowing and autumn harvest on the over ten million mu of arable land wouldn’t be delayed.
This was also the best opportunity to comprehensively implement various new systems throughout the Fen River valley. They needed to establish township offices as thoroughly as possible to control the countryside, taking advantage of local power structures being in a state of dissolution to completely suppress them, not giving them any chance to emerge.
Another crucial matter was organizing salt pool production.
Currently, Xuzhou’s well salt production in Wuchuan was thirty thousand shi annually, but this was already far insufficient for Great Liang’s civilian and military use. From the second year of Taihe onward, Great Liang annually imported over six hundred thousand shi of salt through Chu and the Huaidong Salt Fields, with the amount increasing yearly.
Including subsequent salt consumption statistics for the Fen River valley and Guanzhong regions, Great Liang territory annually required at least one million two hundred thousand shi. If mainly imported from the Huaidong Salt Fields, it would cost at least two million silver yuan annually.
Quickly organizing salt workers in Anyi to restore Hedong pool salt production—each month could save Great Liang one to two hundred thousand silver yuan in salt purchasing expenses.
Before returning to Luoyang, Han Qian had already determined the restoration production method for Hedong pool salt. The First Savings Bureau of Great Liang along with the Luoyang and Donghu local savings bureaus would provide funding to recruit salt workers in Anyi to establish salt industry commercial associations for production.
After the Tax Administration Office levied appropriate special taxes on each shi of pool salt produced by the salt industry commercial associations, salt merchants would then resell it to various prefectures and counties.
This would save the central administration from expending vast human and material resources to organize pool salt production and distribution, avoiding the central organization becoming excessively large and cumbersome.