Xiahou Zuo called out loudly to his officers, “From this day forward, Tang Pidi holds authority as Commander of the Banner. Where he stands, I stand. What he says, I say. I will say this only once. Those who fail to remember it will be dealt with by military law.”

“Yes, sir!”

His men responded at once. Whether they were willing or not, Xiahou Zuo’s military order was to be obeyed — an order was an order.

Tang Pidi turned to Li Chi and said, “From today I’ll be living on the city wall. You look after the carriage depot. The Cui Family’s people will certainly come to probe us there. Unless it becomes necessary, they won’t be quick to stir up trouble again — and we should behave the same way.”

Li Chi nodded. “Understood.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “I’ll have men set up a military tent for you at the base of the wall. Take that for your quarters.”

Tang Pidi looked at Xiahou Zuo and said in an even tone, “You’ll be living on the city wall as well.”

Xiahou Zuo blinked. “That’s—”

Tang Pidi shook the command banner in his hand, his expression exactly that of a man prepared to enforce the order, and Xiahou Zuo promptly smiled and said, “Whatever you say. You say live on the city wall, then we live on the city wall.”

Tang Pidi said, “The enemy is at the gates. Let the soldiers see that you are here. What is military morale? The general’s presence is military morale.”

“Right!”

Xiahou Zuo nodded vigorously.

The city garrison numbered roughly over twenty thousand. Tang Pidi recommended dividing the force into four rotations — two held in reserve and two on active duty, cycling every five days, after which the active rotations stood down and the reserve rotations took the walls.

At the same time, he ordered a strict watch on who passed through the city gates. Anyone coming from the direction of Yanzhou or Qingzhou was to be detained first and questioned second.

He also called on the civilian volunteers to dig pit traps in front of the walls. The Qingzhou forces were predominantly infantry, but when they charged the walls, having all those pits scattered in their path would break up their formations and slow the advance.

“Over there,” Tang Pidi said, “dig the pits deep. Leave a clear passage every ten zhang with no pits in it, wide enough for the enemy to charge through. Reposition the mounted crossbows along the wall to target those open passages.”

Xiahou Zuo laughed. “Quite devious.”

Tang Pidi also smiled. “When defending a city, killing the enemy is the foremost priority. The more they lose, the more their morale suffers. When the dead pile up enough to fill them with dread, they will hesitate when they charge.”

Xiahou Zuo made an affirming sound and turned back to Liu Ge, who — without waiting to be told — simply nodded. “I’ll go and arrange it.”

Xiahou Zuo burst out laughing.

In the space of half a day, Tang Pidi had made his arrangements. It was not only Xiahou Zuo — who had already known what Tang Pidi was capable of — but even Liu Ge who was now filled with unreserved admiration. They say heroes emerge from the young, but what this young man possessed went well beyond what heroes are usually made of.

Xiahou Zuo asked Tang Pidi, “Why are all your preparations oriented toward the direction the Qingzhou forces are coming from? You’ve only made perfunctory arrangements for the wall facing Yanzhou.”

Tang Pidi smiled. “Because the Yanzhou forces are nothing to worry about.”

Xiahou Zuo said, “But the Yanzhou forces are better fighters.”

Tang Pidi smiled without answering.

—

Six days later, a scout came racing back from the southeast to report that the banners of the Qingzhou forces had been sighted from a distance. Their numbers could not be estimated — the marching column stretched beyond sight — and they were already approaching the Hutuo River.

By the reckoning of the days, they would be at the walls of Jizhou at the latest in another seven or eight days.

The Qingzhou forces’ intention was to drive straight for Jizhou and bypass every town and city along the way. Military Governor Cui Yanlai clearly understood that those smaller fortifications were not worth taking — once Jizhou fell and the change of authority was declared, those towns would bend with the wind on their own. Going city by city was nothing but a waste of time and men.

Once they entered the territory of Jizhou, rain had fallen for two days in a row, and the mud-soaked roads had slowed the march.

When they finally reached the eastern bank of the Hutuo River, they found not a single boat — every vessel had been moved to the western shore. From the bank they could see the wooden boats lying overturned in rows on the far side.

Military Governor Cui Yanlai sat his horse and frowned slightly at the river channel, which stretched some three li and more across.

Cui Yanlai was approaching fifty years of age, but years of martial cultivation and careful health habits had left his face looking closer to a man in his late thirties. He had sat in the position of Military Governor of Qingzhou for nearly a decade now. The Cui Family had spent enormous resources to place him in that position of regional power, all for the purpose of claiming Jizhou and Qingzhou.

Ten years ago, the signs of Dachu’s inevitable decline had already been plain to see. The Cui Family, possessed of vision and resolve, had begun laying their groundwork early.

They had kept a deliberately low profile in Jizhou, and had even gone out of their way not to place their people in any official government positions. Over all these years, not a single member of the Cui Family had held so much as a rank within the Jizhou military — and this was precisely what had allowed Prince Yu and Military Governor Zeng Ling to drop their guard entirely where the Cui Family was concerned.

And the Cui Family had maintained the most cooperative of attitudes: money when asked for money, grain when asked for grain. Whatever Prince Yu required, the Cui Family would see to it immediately, without the slightest hesitation or prevarication.

Now, with ten years of carefully laid plans about to bear fruit, Cui Yanlai could not entirely suppress the excitement rising in his heart.

If the Cui Family could seize Jizhou, holding two provinces in their grasp, they could ally with the steppe tribes to the north, rest their backs against the sea to the east, advance to take Yuzhou and push south, or hold the northern frontier ten thousand li long if they retreated. To raise a family into a nation was well within reach — and if unifying all under heaven proved beyond their grasp, partitioning the realm along the river was still achievable.

Cui Yanlai was silent for a moment, then gave the order: “Command the auxiliary troops to begin construction of pontoon bridges. Twenty bridges, completed within three days. Any auxiliary officer who fails to deliver will come to me carrying his own head.”

His subordinates immediately responded and rode off with the command tokens.

A military order is as immovable as a mountain. The auxiliary troops began felling trees along the bank. First, men swam into the river and drove wooden stakes into the riverbed. Then the stakes were connected together and planked over with boards.

With over ten thousand men moving in concert, the work proceeded at remarkable speed.

On the western bank, concealed within the treeline, General Liu Ge had already been lying in wait for a full day and night, his forces hidden and ready for the Qingzhou army to cross.

“General,” his personal guard commander said in a voice that carried a faint tremor of dread, glancing at Liu Ge. “The enemy’s strength is enormous. It looks to be no fewer than several tens of thousands strong. We only have four thousand men—”

The guard commander hesitated, then said, “That young man surnamed Tang — he’s only a boy, yet the general is following his orders to come here and set an ambush. Is this not simply sending the general to his death on purpose?”

Liu Ge turned his head to look at the man and said, “Say another word, and I’ll throw you into the Hutuo River myself. Disturbing morale on the eve of battle is a punishable offense.”

The guard commander promptly fell silent.

Liu Ge pressed himself against the rise of ground and peered out at the far bank. The Qingzhou auxiliary troops were numerous, and the construction of the pontoon bridges was advancing fast. By the look of it, all twenty bridges would reach this bank well before three days were up.

Liu Ge gave a low-voiced order: “No one moves without my command. Eat and drink where you stand. If you need to relieve yourself, do it where you stand. Anyone who disobeys will be executed.”

“Yes, sir!”

Those around him immediately acknowledged in hushed tones, and one by one the order was passed quietly along the line.

—

Two days passed. Just past noon on the third day, the pontoon bridges constructed by the Qingzhou forces had nearly reached the eastern bank.

Across the river, Military Governor Cui Yanlai gave a satisfied nod. The pace had been acceptable.

“Lin Yitai.”

Cui Yanlai said, “You will serve as general of the vanguard. Take your division across the river.”

General Lin Yitai immediately bowed. “I will carry out the order!”

The vanguard, numbering tens of thousands, began massing on the western bank in preparation for the crossing. The moment the lead bridges touched the eastern bank, a series of signal whistles rang out from the far shore — the signal that the bridges were complete.

“Cross the river!”

Lin Yitai gave the command.

Tens of thousands of troops began crossing in orderly fashion, and the auxiliary soldiers who had not yet pulled back jumped into the river, steadying themselves against the pontoons as they made their way to shore, clearing the path for the main force.

Before long, a considerable number had already reached the eastern bank. They spread out quickly toward the treeline to scout ahead.

General Liu Ge bowed his head and checked the crossbow in his hands, then waited a moment longer. When the vanguard of the Qingzhou forces drew close to the edge of the forest, Liu Ge raised his crossbow and loosed the first bolt.

The first bolt was a signal arrow.

A piercing shriek tore through the air, and the archers concealed within the forest cast off their camouflage, loosing volley upon volley of arrows in successive waves.

The Qingzhou forces who had just crossed were caught completely off guard, and a great number were cut down in the rain of arrows. As they raised the cry to form up and fight back, the fishing boats that had been lying overturned along the riverbank all flipped over at once, and the Jizhou soldiers hidden beneath them began their slaughter.

They worked their repeating crossbows in frenzied bursts, and the Qingzhou troops scattered in disarray around them — still unable to fully form ranks — went down in swarms.

In only a short span of time, some thousand of the Qingzhou forces who had just crossed were already dead.

The Jizhou soldiers at the riverbank began directing their arrows out onto the pontoon bridges. The bridges were narrow and packed with men shoulder to shoulder, with nowhere to retreat and nowhere to hide. Volley after volley went out, and they fell in layers.

The Jizhou forces concealed in the forest charged out under Liu Ge’s command, hurling clay jars they had prepared in advance onto the pontoon bridges. The jars were filled with fire oil.

Where the oil spread, fire was set. All twenty pontoon bridges broke out in flame, and as the oil ran out onto the river’s surface, fire burned on the water itself.

Liu Ge kept issuing orders. The blaze on the bridges drove back the Qingzhou reinforcements and denied them any possibility of pushing across.

In this way, those Qingzhou forces already on the eastern bank found themselves entirely cut off. Already heavily reduced by the first onslaught, the survivors had no time to form any coherent formation before they were driven apart and shattered.

Liu Ge raised his blade and drove forward. The Jizhou forces surged with a fighting spirit they had carried from the first blow — soldiers who had all felt the clutch of fear a moment before now howled like wolves as they swept across the field.

They swung and cut without pause, butchering every Qingzhou soldier trapped on the bank, and in less than half an hour the Qingzhou forces had lost more than three thousand men.

When the killing was done and the bridges were burning, Liu Ge immediately ordered the horn sounded to withdraw.

The several thousand Jizhou troops broke into a run back the way they had come. They had won, and now they were running — there was something both thrilling and exhilarating about it. And at the same moment, it was impossible for those soldiers not to feel a deep admiration for that young man surnamed Tang.

Before setting out, Tang Pidi had told them that this battle could kill several thousand of the enemy and break their fighting spirit. At the time, not a single one of them had believed him — the enemy had several hundred thousand men and they had only a few thousand. It had seemed like nothing more than smashing an egg against a stone.

After the victory, Liu Ge laughed out loud and waved his arm. “Move out!”

The several thousand Jizhou troops poured back into the forest. They had no intention of fighting another round — past the forest was the main road, and their mounts were waiting. Not all of those mounts were warhorses; Jizhou city simply did not have four thousand warhorses to spare.

Most of them were draft horses, and some were even mules. Whatever could be ridden and run was good enough. The Jizhou soldiers mounted up — some on horses, some on mules, some with two men to a horse, some with two men to a mule. There was even a mule that refused to cooperate and had to be bodily hoisted and carried off, four men bearing the splayed-out animal at a dead run down the main road, kicking up a thick plume of dust.

They were gone. And the Qingzhou forces, for their part, were very nearly beside themselves with rage — especially Military Governor Cui Yanlai. This could only be counted a minor defeat by any measure, but it was the opening engagement. The enemy had struck, won, and run, and with the great army unable to cross, there was no way to give chase.

A few thousand men lost, and the morale of the Qingzhou forces had collapsed in an instant.

By the time they rebuilt the bridges and crossed over, those few thousand Jizhou troops had vanished without a trace.

—