“…”
When Zhao Ting’er returned to Shangyang Garden and saw Han Qian standing alone in the courtyard of the sleeping quarters, with no one attending him on either side, she walked over and asked:
“Have you escorted Lu Qingxia and Yao Xishui back to Luoyang?”
“They’ve been brought back. I saw them at Lingyun Pavilion before dusk. Even facing death, their mouths are as hard as cooked ducks—incredibly stubborn. I was hoping to see them begging for mercy with tears and snot running down their faces, but no such thing. Disappointing.” Han Qian said with a smile.
“Are you truly going to send them to Jinling?” Zhao Ting’er asked. “Send Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan to Jinling if you must, but Yao Xishui is Li Zhigao’s half-sister. She should ultimately be handed over to Li Zhigao for disposal.”
“That was my original plan, but this morning Li Zhigao sent someone with a secret letter praising Feng Xuan’s demeanor as a great general, while claiming that two years ago when he led forces into Chengzhou, an enemy arrow struck his left ankle, leaving a lingering affliction that causes unbearable pain whenever it rains or snows. He wants to resign from his position as Longyou Pacification Commissioner and have Feng Xuan succeed him to command the Longyou army in attacking Fengxiang from the western flank.” Han Qian put his arm around Zhao Ting’er’s shoulders and said, “Though he didn’t say it explicitly in his letter, he wants to trade his fame and fortune for the lives of Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and the others…”
“Ah, I never expected Li Zhigao would remain faithful to Lu Qingxia—though, it’s true that while Lu Qingxia threw the realm into chaos, she ultimately preserved the previous dynasty’s bloodline from extinction, whatever else can be said.” Zhao Ting’er said with considerable surprise and emotion.
In the palace coup that year when they murdered Emperor Yanyou Yang Yuanpu, Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan were the chief culprits. In the Chu court’s view, their crimes were unpardonable.
However, regarding the Great Liang’s attitude toward Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and others, it was somewhat indifferent.
Han Qian’s relationship with Emperor Yanyou Yang Yuanpu had existed in name only from the moment he used marriage discussions as an excuse to escape Fanchang city. Yang Yuanpu’s death was even something Han Qian had helped facilitate from behind the scenes.
Moreover, if Yang Yuanpu had not already died and Han Qian had not succeeded to the position of Great Liang’s sovereign, a peace agreement between Liang and Chu would have been absolutely impossible to negotiate. At that time, the Great Liang would inevitably have faced dangers and difficulties several times more perilous than imagined.
From this perspective, Lu Qingxia’s palace coup and assassination of Emperor Yanyou Yang Yuanpu actually rendered merit rather than fault to the Great Liang.
As for Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan defecting to the Mongols and helping them deal with the Great Liang, or their past opposition to Xuzhou and Tangyi at every turn, they had not been able to achieve any significant effect.
However, at this time the Great Liang still paid tribute to the Chu court. After Zhao Mengji imprisoned Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan and sent them to Luoyang, both emotionally and rationally they should send them to Jinling for trial, which could also ease the increasingly tense relations between Liang and Chu.
Currently, the faction of young hawks favoring war in the Chu court showed signs of rising influence. If they detained Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan in Luoyang without sending them to Jinling, it would instead provide ammunition for criticism, ultimately causing an uproar among Chu court officials and very likely leading the Chu court to quickly harden its attitude toward the Great Liang.
The current problem was that Li Zhigao was determined to protect them, even willing to surrender military authority as the price to preserve the lives of Lu Qingxia and Zhou Yuan. They could not ignore Li Zhigao’s request.
However, agreeing to Li Zhigao’s request and keeping Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and others in Luoyang without handing them over was not simply about having Li Zhigao surrender military authority. Han Qian still wanted to use Li Zhigao to command troops in battle and did not need him to surrender military authority.
Nevertheless, as long as Li Zhigao was willing to cooperate, the Staff Office could better reform and reorganize the Liangzhou army, thereby better resolving the problem that Liangzhou was still effectively semi-independent at present, allowing Liangzhou and its military officials to fully integrate into the Great Liang.
Of course, this matter, combined with Zhao Mengji’s submission, would undoubtedly touch the sensitive nerves of the Shu state.
Zhao Ting’er asked: “What do you plan to do? Have you shown Li Zhigao’s letter to Feng Liao and the others? Or should we first imprison Lu Qingxia and the others and discuss it after recovering Guanzhong?”
“We can only do it this way for now,” Han Qian said. “I’m planning to write a letter to Li Zhigao telling him not to worry too much, to focus on fighting this battle well first, and we’ll discuss other matters after recovering Guanzhong…”
An Jixiang always felt out of place with Luoyang’s atmosphere. After staying at the Duting Courier Station for a few days, he went to the Right Interior Minister’s Office of Personnel to find Feng Liao and obtained a position as Advisor to the Mengzhou Prefecture Commissioner. Before the end of March, he boarded an official ship and rushed back to Mengzhou to assume his post.
Zhao Mengji’s imprisonment of Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and others and secret submission to Luoyang had naturally been noticed by the Mongol army and Eastern Liang army, who had also begun strengthening defenses at Jincheng in the northern section of Taihang Ridge and fortifications on the southern bank of the Yu River. However, at that time, the Mongol army and Eastern Liang army more or less still harbored illusions that Zhao Mengji would turn back, or believed Zhao Mengji merely intended to occupy Mengzhou and preserve his strength.
When Zhao Mengji led the Mengzhou garrison in formally raising new banners and changing allegiance, and escorted Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and the Mongol officials stationed in Mengzhou to Luoyang, the shock to the Mongol army and Eastern Liang army remained enormous.
When An Jixiang’s boat docked at Nanguan River wharf, he could see that within the territories of Bianliang and Wuzhi, the Eastern Liang army was driving tens of thousands of military and civilian people to construct fortifications on the southern bank.
East of Mengzhou lay Huaizhou and Weizhou, which also belonged to the former Henei Commandery, and further east was Weibo, one of the three Heshuo garrisons comprising two prefectures.
The former Henei Commandery and Weibo garrison, located north of the Yu River, south of the Taihang Mountains, and in the southeastern Taihang region, had contiguous terrain. For the Liang army to attack Huaizhou, Weizhou, and Weibo to the east, deploying from Mengzhou would naturally be most convenient.
However, even though An Jixiang was not privy to confidential matters, he understood quite clearly in his heart that having the Mengzhou army—whose morale and fighting spirit had not yet truly solidified—attack the heavily defended Weibo stronghold held by the Eastern Liang army was very unrealistic. The main elite forces of the Liang army had their operational focus this year on Guanzhong.
When he returned to Mengzhou, as the official ship approached Nanguan River wharf, he saw that the great dam the Mongol army had constructed years ago by hauling earth between southeastern Mengzhou and Wuzhi to block the Yu River was now covered with military and civilian workers.
On the side of the dam approaching the southern bank, he saw several hundred armored soldiers had already erected a simple defensive barrier with obstacles like chevaux de frise and caltrops. Behind the barrier, several hundred soldiers clustered with shields and crossbows stood guard, preventing enemy troops from the southern bank from entering the dam.
On the water surface west of the dam, several warships were also moored, jointly forming a blockade of the Eastern Liang army on the southern bank embankment.
On the northern side of the barrier, a huge breach had already been dug. Thousands of able-bodied laborers like an ant colony were continuously transporting excavated earth back to the northern bank.
Currently, the breach had been dug over two zhang deep. Since the Yu River flood season had not yet arrived, the water level of the Yu River was still over one zhang from the bottom of the current breach.
Back then, the Mongol army had forcibly conscripted tens of thousands of laborers to dig earth and pile up the dam to block the Yu River. Every year thereafter, they conscripted laborers for reinforcement, forming this dam that was level with the embankments on both sides, with a top width exceeding twelve zhang.
In a short time, with Mengzhou employing only three to five thousand able-bodied laborers, it would be absolutely impossible to completely dig through the dam. However, after the Yu River flood season arrived, they could still divert a portion of the floodwaters coming from upstream through the breach back into the old channel.
Of course, seeing a newly constructed dredging boat docked at the wharf, An Jixiang thought that once the Yique Water Camp base produced more specialized dredging boats, the speed of breaching the dam might accelerate further.
When An Jixiang returned to Mengzhou, he wanted leisure but could not have it.
In the seventh year of Taihe, the focus of the Great Liang’s military and political efforts was placed on the western flank’s campaign to recover Guanzhong. The eastern flank and northern front mainly focused on building and consolidating existing defense lines.
Even though neighboring Huaizhou had only four to five thousand garrison troops in its various counties combined, Han Qian explicitly required that Mengzhou need not rush to deploy military force against Huaizhou. In the early stage, the main energy should be used on rectifying military and political affairs.
Initially, to enable Shu soldiers to settle down with peace of mind in Mengzhou, Wusu Dashi had forcibly conscripted tens of thousands of unmarried or widowed women from Zelu and other places, driving them to Mengzhou to marry Shu soldiers and bear children. In Mengzhou, Heqing, and other areas, a total of forty thousand military households were registered and compelled to cultivate fields.
Although Mengzhou had forty thousand registered military households, there was a significant difference compared to military households registered by Chu-Shu, Eastern Liang, and the Mongols in Heshuo and Yanyun.
That is, the military households of states like Chu-Shu typically had two or three adult able-bodied men per household. Usually, each household only needed to send out one able-bodied man to fulfill four to six months of military service per year—this was the primary conscript. Other able-bodied men were surplus conscripts who under normal circumstances did not need to serve military duty, only participating in training during agricultural off-seasons.
In other words, even during wartime when the military service of primary conscripts might be indefinitely extended, military households could at least guarantee one to two able-bodied laborers to maintain cultivation.
Mengzhou’s registered military households had only one able-bodied man each, all conscripted into the army. Their children were still very young. Field cultivation was entirely borne by the forcibly abducted and married women. The hardship of their lives could be imagined.
Deaths from exhaustion or starvation numbered over a thousand each year.
Besides being far from their homeland, this was also a major root cause of why the Mengzhou army’s combat effectiveness had always been barely adequate.
What was most urgent now was not surveying fields and implementing a new tax system or taking over local political affairs, but converting all forty thousand military households to civilian households and demobilizing most of the ten thousand garrison troops, maximizing the labor force needed for agriculture and allowing them genuine rest and recuperation.
As a reward for troops who submitted loyally, even those soldiers demobilized this time would be allocated fifteen mu of irrigated and dry fields in one distribution, plus some necessary relief supplies.
For military officers and commanders retiring from active service, the allocated fields would increase to thirty mu. Those with literacy foundations would also be recommended to participate in prefecture and county organized clerical examinations to serve in prefectural, county, or township offices.
Even those who deeply missed their homeland and wished to return to Shu territory to reunite with family—Luoyang was currently sending people to negotiate with Chengdu Prefecture. As long as Shu Lord Wang Yong agreed to receive them, this side would provide travel expenses to help them return home.
Of course, considering the Shu state’s growing wariness toward the Great Liang, even if Shu Lord Wang Yong was willing to accept some Shu soldiers returning home, the quota would likely be quite limited.
An Jixiang guessed that only those prominent clans that still wielded some power after Shu Lord Wang Yong seized the throne would find ways and have means to take back clan members who had been wandering outside for so many years.
Lower-class common people and ordinary soldiers from military households always only had the fate of going with the flow. Perhaps staying in Mengzhou to settle down and establish roots was their best destination.
Mengzhou would ultimately select the valiant and able-bodied to maintain three reorganized infantry combat brigades of recruited soldiers responsible for local defense, with their sequence enrolled in the Xingyang Campaign Army.
Zhao Mengji, as Prefect of Mengzhou Prefecture, Commander, and Deputy Commander of the Xingyang Campaign Army, would remain in Mengzhou, accepting military command from the Xingyang Prefecture Commissioner and Xingyang Campaign Army Commander Han Donghu…
Besides being unmatched in military strategy and schemes, over these years Han Qian had been able to accept the Wen and Li clans, severely punish the former Great Liang general Chen Kun who had slaughtered women and children in the Battle of Xingyang, treat prisoners of war generously—enabling former Great Liang generals to integrate well into the old Tangyi army system and receive important appointments. He also showed great patience in resolving the Liangzhou problem, even boldly using Li Zhigao and Chai Jian as chief commanders for the western flank’s attack on Guanzhong, even using Zhu Yu’s son to lead troops, demonstrating the true breadth of vision and bearing possessed by a great sovereign.
These were precisely the fundamental reasons Zhao Mengji ultimately let down his guard.
An Jixiang was unclear how much alarm and worry Mengzhou’s submission to the Great Liang would cause the Eastern Liang army and Mongol army, but he imagined when news reached Fengxiang, the impact on Wang Xiaoxian and his subordinate generals would certainly not be small.
An Jixiang walked into the Mengzhou Prefecture office and met with Zhao Mengji to discuss his many observations from his trip to Luoyang and audience with Han Qian. He also noticed Gu Mingfu and some other familiar faces, but Zhao Shuo—Zhao Mengji’s eldest legitimate son and former Military Inspector of the personal guard cavalry who protected Zhao Mengji—was nowhere to be seen.
He need not inquire closely. Zhao Shuo, Gu Mingfu, and others must have rushed to rendezvous with either Chai Jian or Li Zhigao to be in position to persuade Wang Xiaoxian and his subordinate officials to surrender…
“Marquis Wei, if you lay down your weapons and surrender at this time, you can still peacefully spend your remaining years. If you wish to go to Jianghuai to reunite with your wife and children, His Majesty will fully facilitate it…”
After capturing Qizhou city, over ten thousand soldiers completely surrounded the inner city. Li Zhigao, wearing battle armor and surrounded by over a hundred escort guards, slowly advanced to two hundred paces from the southern gate of Qizhou’s inner city. Reining in his horse and stopping on the main street, he called out in a resonant voice.
Zhao Mengji’s submission had greatly dissolved the will to resist of Wang Xiaoxian’s forces.
Chai Jian led his son Chai Xun, along with Zhou Tong and Hao Zixia’s three contingents, pressing their forces to the city walls. Wang Fan, Xiang Zhen, Zhao Feixiong, and other commanders defending Fengzhou, Meiwu, and Chencang fortifications successively led their forces to surrender. Li Zhigao, Feng Xuan, and Feng Yi led the Longyou army from Tianshui eastward, capturing Jiequan, Longshan Pass, Fengge, Qianyang, and other fortifications almost without bloodshed.
Only when both armies converged beneath Qizhou city did Wang Xiaoxian lead over ten thousand of his elite troops in refusing to surrender to the death, finally fighting what could be called a proper battle.
However, Wang Yuankui’s forces were besieged in Yongzhou city by Jing Zhen and Kong Xirong leading forty thousand troops. Han Bao led forces to capture Tongzhou in northern Wei, blocking small enemy contingents moving south along the Yu River north of Heyang. Even though Wang Xiaoxian had over ten thousand elite troops still loyal to him, he had already become an isolated army trapped in heavy encirclement.
Chai Jian led forces to rush and rendezvous with Kong Xirong and Jing Zhen to participate in the siege of Yongzhou. Li Zhigao led the Longyou army to combine with the former forces of Zhou Tong and Hao Zixia—totaling thirty thousand infantry and cavalry—pressing beneath Qizhou city.
Wang Xiaoxian would die rather than surrender, and he had some subordinate generals who would stand with him to the end. But where was there any morale left among his Shu soldiers?
Li Zhigao did not play psychological warfare games like leaving one side of the siege open. He did not even wait for heavy siege equipment to be transported from the rear. Instead, he had Zhang Song, Deng Tai, Zhou Tong, and Hao Zixia each lead their own forces to construct crude siege equipment like scaling ladders and siege towers, clustering with crossbows to assault Qizhou from all four sides.
After three days killing over a thousand enemies, the outer city garrison collapsed. Finally, Zhang Song and Deng Tai led over ten thousand troops to surround Wang Xiaoxian and three thousand personal guard troops in the inner city.
Even so, Han Qian still sent an edict to Li Zhigao to give Wang Xiaoxian every opportunity to surrender with his forces.
Facing Li Zhigao’s call to surrender, Wang Xiaoxian’s face twisted in a fierce smile. After waving his hand, a sparse volley of over ten arrows shot toward Li Zhigao.
Zhang Song hurriedly surrounded Li Zhigao with escort cavalry and withdrew. Not expecting Wang Xiaoxian to remain so obstinately unrepentant even at this desperate stage, he said in exasperation: “His Majesty and the Supervisor have shown utmost benevolence and righteousness to Wang Xiaoxian. Order the assault on the city!”
“Assault the city!” Li Zhigao said with a sigh.
To demonstrate his determination to fight to the death, and also to prevent other soldiers from being unwilling to fight to the death or harboring thoughts of opening the city to surrender, Wang Xiaoxian had already ordered the northern, eastern, and western city gates blocked with earth and stones. Only the southern gate where he personally commanded remained—in fact, it was deliberately left wide open to lure the Liang army to charge through the gate tunnel.
Zhang Song, as chief commander of the siege, also concentrated elite troops and siege equipment at the southern gate of the inner city, concentrating the attack on this single route.
When they breached the outer city, they had captured over twenty nest carts. These were now pushed forward to the southern gate of the inner city. Over three hundred heavy crossbowmen stood on the nest carts with crossbows raised, shooting volleys of bolts as dense as locust swarms toward the high walls, forcing the defenders to retreat into the gate tower.
To avoid the obstruction of battlements, Zhang Song even combined several nest carts together to form a platform slightly higher than the city walls. Two spring-arm bed crossbows were mounted and elevated on top to shoot down into the gate tower.
Qizhou inner city’s gate tower was also built of brick and stone. However, when spring-arm bed crossbows shot volleys at close range of two hundred paces, each shot sent brick and stone flying.
A batch of fire oil jars transported in a roundabout route from Hanzhong had not played much role in attacking the outer city. Now without any hesitation, they were thrown onto the city walls using spring-arm scorpion crossbows. In a short time, the city walls near the gate tower were engulfed in a sea of flames.
Taking advantage of the defenders being unable to maintain positions on both sides of the gate tower, over ten siege towers and scaling ladders were raised to the top of the walls. Squads of armored soldiers holding swords and shields swarmed up like tigers and wolves, repelling reinforcements from both flanks and from below the city climbing the ascent passage, establishing defenses on the city walls on both flanks of the gate tower.
Although there were no heavy whirlwind trebuchets to directly demolish the gate tower, hundreds of fire oil jars were thrown onto the gate tower. By noon, the pillars and beams inside the gate tower were finally ignited.
The southern gate tower where Wang Xiaoxian personally commanded with two hundred personal guards quickly became engulfed in a sea of flames…
“Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian died rather than surrender. Defending the southern gate tower of Qizhou’s inner city, he failed to guard against the Liang army climbing the walls and pouring oil to set fires. The Marquis and two hundred personal guards all perished in the sea of flames with no remains left. The remaining forces quickly abandoned resistance…”
Wang Yuankui, enfeoffed by the Mongols as Prince of Yongzhou Commandery, sat in the royal hall with his heir Wang Mao, listening to scouts report on the fall of Qizhou. His face seemed shrouded in a thick layer of gloom, and the atmosphere in the royal hall was so oppressive it felt as if a torrential downpour would descend at any moment.
Since the Mongol army moved south, it had been only ten years at most.
In the first four years, the Mongol army moved south from the Yanyun prefectures, not only capturing the thirty-one prefectures of Hedong, Heshuo, and Guanzhong, but the twenty-four prefectures of Hehuai were also all under the Eastern Liang army’s control. The remnant Liang was left with only Shang, Hua, Luo, Ying, Xu, Chen, Ru, and Cai—eight prefectures and tens of thousands of wounded and disabled soldiers.
Who could have imagined that Zhu Yu would abdicate the position of Great Liang’s sovereign to Han Qian, and that Han Qian would not only defend Heluo but also reverse the situation there in such a short time?
Wang Yuankui understood in his heart how severely the Mongol army had been damaged in the battle at Zhiguan Ridge. He even understood that Zhao Mengji would not necessarily be bound to hang from the same tree with them. But anyone would harbor wishful thinking.
When Han Qian took control of Heluo, with mutual suspicion between sovereign and subjects and enemies on three sides, he had managed to persevere through such dire circumstances. Wang Yuankui thought that even though the Mongol army had suffered heavy losses in the Fen River valley, they still had over a hundred thousand troops available in Taiyuan and southern Jin, and the Eastern Liang army also had over a hundred thousand troops. Adding Guanzhong’s one hundred thousand troops, Wang Yuankui believed Zhao Mengji would not so easily decide to become a thrice-turned traitor.
Even when various signs indicated that Zhao Mengji had already imprisoned Lu Qingxia, Zhou Yuan, and other Mongol officials dispatched to Mengzhou, Wang Yuankui still fantasized the situation would not deteriorate beyond recovery.
Wang Yuankui harbored such illusions fundamentally because he was unwilling to give up his newly bestowed positions of Prince of Yongzhou Commandery and Weinan Military Commissioner, reluctant to abandon the Weinan Plain where clan members had just migrated only two years ago.
He was already sixty-five years old. After half a lifetime of battlefield campaigns, when he assumed the position of Chengde Army Commissioner to command Dingzhou, indulging in wine and women, he no longer possessed his earlier decisiveness in killing. Being persuaded by Wang Jingrong and Xiao Yiqing to submit to the Mongols had its roots here.
In the subsequent military campaigns, sweeping through southern Jin, Taiyuan, Hezhong, and even Guanzhong with devastating force, he had once harbored illusions of conquering the realm on horseback with soaring heroic spirit. But now, learning that Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian had perished in the sea of flames without even a complete corpse, the last trace of that illusion dissipated completely. His heart was filled only with regret at not having earlier cut losses decisively and led forces to withdraw from Yongzhou.
Wang Yuankui supported himself on the long table and stood up wearily. Not daring to face the generals and officials filling the hall, he gestured for his son Wang Mao to follow him toward the rear residence.
Walking into the study in the rear residence, Wang Yuankui gestured for the attending maidservants to withdraw. After closing the doors and windows, he asked his son Wang Mao: “The matter of you sending people to Baqiao—no word has leaked, has it? What did they say at Baqiao?”
During the Spring and Autumn period, Duke Mu of Qin dominated the Western Rong, renaming the Zi River as the Ba River and constructing Ba Bridge. Throughout successive dynasties, it was rebuilt and repaired. The nearly four-hundred-pace-long Ba Bridge with its stone foundations and wooden beams was a crucial transportation hub on the southern bank of the Wei River.
Kong Xirong led forces out of Lantian Pass, proceeding down the Ba River to rendezvous with Jing Zhen at Ba Bridge. At this time, Ba Bridge was where the Liang army’s main camp was located.
Yongzhou city had quite a few Mongol and Guanjiang Tower informants. Among the generals and officials, there were also many whose hearts belonged to the Mongol army, with families still remaining in Taiyuan, Dingzhou, and other places. Not wanting to alert the enemy, Wang Yuankui had his son Wang Mao arrange for trusted subordinates to go to Ba Bridge to negotiate peace with Liang army commander Jing Zhen several days ago. He thought Luoyang should have sent a response by now.
“Everything else is negotiable, but Han Qian demands we unconditionally surrender all our troops and exit the city to accept reorganization…” Wang Mao said in a lowered voice, fearing walls had ears that might leak the news.
“What? Are we in the Wang family not even as good as that wretch Zhao Mengji?” Wang Yuankui asked through gritted teeth, both angry and vexed. After half a lifetime in military service, he understood no other principles—only that the forty thousand Chengde Army troops were his greatest reliance and also his final reliance.
How could he accept Han Qian demanding he unconditionally surrender all his troops?
“The Liang army only has a few thousand troops in Tongzhou north of the Wei River. Their forces in Pingyang and Jiangzhou cannot break free. Father must make an early decision!” Wang Mao said through gritted teeth.
He also absolutely refused to accept recruitment terms requiring surrender of all troops.
At this time, they still controlled the Wei River floating bridge and several fortifications on the northern bank of the Wei River. Withdrawing the entire army to the northern bank of the Wei River presented no problems.
Even though the Liang army possessed a navy controlling the lower Wei River and the Yu River waterway in eastern Yanzhou, he believed that at this time, abandoning Yongzhou with forty to fifty thousand troops crossing to the northern bank of the Wei River, withdrawing along the Jing River valley to the northwest, then holding fast among the hills and ravines of the Loess Plateau, backing against the Mongols’ far-ranging desert wastelands to the north and connecting with the Pingxia Qiang cavalry controlling Yinxia and other prefectures to the west—with their forty to fifty thousand elite troops, they might not be unable to hold Qingzhou, Yuanzhou, and other areas east of Long Mountain…