The various tribal Qiang cavalry had originally joined forces hastily without much fighting spirit. Besides not wanting excessively strong external forces to interfere in Chengzhou, they had gathered mainly because they believed Hou Mo’s claim that by waiting at ease to meet the weary enemy, there would be easy pickings.
With this mentality, the tribal Qiang cavalry might have had no problem fighting a battle with the wind at their backs, but they hadn’t expected that the Liangzhou army coming from afar would be so valiant, with extremely sturdy and sharp weapons and armor. In the time it took to burn two incense sticks, over a hundred of their cavalry had been killed or wounded.
Seeing victory was hopeless, the tribal Qiang cavalry retreated in panic. None of the families were willing to remain at the eastern entrance of Niuwei Gorge to fight the Liangzhou army to the death with their tribal elite.
When Zhang Song and Li Zhigao joined forces, they saw over a thousand enemy cavalry had abandoned over a hundred corpses and were already fleeing into the gorge to the west.
Although the Liangzhou army also had over a hundred casualties, using infantry to strike cavalry while exhausted troops struck fresh ones—this could be called a great victory.
Most soldiers hadn’t expected the Qiang cavalry to be so easily defeated. At this moment they all felt their physical exhaustion and fatigue swept completely away. Many commanders and officers who hadn’t gotten to fight just now crowded around Li Zhigao, requesting one after another to lead units in pursuit of the enemy cavalry.
“Commander, the Luoyang armor is damn hard! Look at these dozens of dents on the armor plates—all from Qiang people shooting strong bows at close range, yet they didn’t even break through one opening. Only the brave Qiang general, wielding spear and lance, forcibly poked through two openings in this armor, but neither penetrated very deep. I just got one opening poked in my thigh…” Zhang Song was exhausted enough. After the momentum passed, his hands and feet couldn’t help but go weak. He sat down with a thump on the dirt embankment road. In front of Li Zhigao, he couldn’t be bothered with etiquette and clanged forcefully on his helmet, calling out excitedly.
The vanguard forces advancing west this time also bore responsibility for opening roads. They traveled without large numbers of military horses carrying supplies, so the soldiers all wore light armor.
The ten-plus sets of full-coverage plate armor sent from Luoyang this time weighed about fifty catties each. Though much heavier than ordinary leather armor, they were still considerably lighter than full-coverage lamellar armor.
Li Zhigao had thought this type of armor would have weaker defensive capability when resisting spear and lance thrusts, but unexpectedly its protective performance was even superior to full-coverage lamellar armor.
At this moment, Li Zhigao couldn’t be bothered listening to Zhang Song chatter on endlessly like presenting treasures. He had Commanders Dong Zehai and He Yan lead twelve hundred soldiers who hadn’t fought just now and had recovered some stamina to continue advancing along the post road toward the gorge entrance. Taking advantage of the enemy cavalry’s panicked retreat and unstable formation, they must seize control of the western entrance of Niuji Post before nightfall.
That was the exit entering the hilly region of the western Qinling foothills. Only by seizing that position first could he avoid worrying about subsequently being blockaded by enemy forces east of Niuwei Gorge, unable to enter Longyou.
The front army soldiers who had just participated in intense combat remained in place to rest and reorganize.
The entire combat operation seemed short in duration—about two incense sticks’ worth of time altogether. But for front army soldiers who had been traveling for days with severely depleted stamina, their physical strength had now been squeezed nearly to the limit.
Medical teams also came forward to bandage wounded soldiers’ injuries. The severely wounded had tents erected on the spot for emergency treatment. The thirty-plus war dead also had to be buried on the spot. Over sixty warhorses that had scattered onto the riverbed were rounded up from the enemy, and over ten wounded enemy soldiers were captured. The spoils of the first battle were fairly substantial.
After interrogating the wounded enemy soldiers, Li Zhigao and Zhang Song learned that just seven days ago, Wusu Dashi had dispatched an envoy from Taiyuan, formally appointing Hou Mo—chieftain of the Hou clan among the various Qiang and Tangut tribes—as Governor of Chengzhou, accepting the command of the newly enfeoffed Prince of Longyou, Wang Xiaoxian.
Only now did Li Zhigao and Zhang Song understand why they hadn’t detected abnormalities in Chengzhou in advance. The scouts they had dispatched had left Chengzhou ten days ago—the Mongol secret envoys might not yet have formally contacted the Hou clan at that time. But they also felt extremely fortunate.
If Hou Mo had accepted the Mongol appointment one or two months earlier and united the Qiang tribes of Chengzhou more tightly, or even brought Wang Xiaoxian’s forces to garrison Chengzhou, their attempt to enter Chengzhou via the dangerous Niuji Post road would definitely not have been this easy.
Precisely because Hou Mo had only accepted the Mongol appointment a few days ago, the Qiang tribes and several major Han families in their hearts hadn’t necessarily recognized this so-called appointment. When four days ago they detected that Liangzhou army forces were advancing west along the ancient road on the northern bank of Xiniu River, Hou Mo invited the tribes within his territory to form an alliance but hastily assembled only about fifteen hundred cavalry from Shanglu City. In haste, he pulled out two-thirds of the forces to rush to Niuwei Gorge for interception, but hadn’t expected to be soundly defeated in the first battle.
This was definitely a devastating blow to the prestige of the newly appointed Governor of Chengzhou.
Just after finishing the interrogation here, Central Army Commander Dong Zehai sent someone to report that they had pursued to the western entrance of Niuwei Gorge. The tribal Qiang cavalry had attempted to concentrate forces for a counterattack, but with disunited hearts among the tribes and each harboring ulterior motives, after fighting at the western entrance for less than one incense stick’s worth of time, with forty to fifty Qiang cavalry killed and dismounted, the rest had scattered in a swarm again.
They had captured seven wounded enemy soldiers and over thirty warhorses at the western entrance of Niuwei Gorge. Their own casualties were less than half the enemy’s.
Xiangbei had long lacked warhorses. With only over ten thousand military horses, when they fled in defeat to Liangzhou, Li Zhigao had only over three thousand military horses left. These had almost all been slaughtered at the beginning of the year to make up for insufficient military provisions. Even fewer warhorses remained.
Even the mounted guards around Li Zhigao only had their mounts after Feng Yi and Lu Ze reached Mianyang and first allocated over fifty warhorses as riding horses.
Unexpectedly, upon first entering Chengzhou, they captured over a hundred fine warhorses. Zhang Song gleefully calculated forming a cavalry battalion so they could gallop across the hills, deserts and grasslands of Longxi, making all the tribes submit.
Li Zhigao had Zhang Song stay behind to lead the seven hundred-plus soldiers who had just fought to camp and rest in place. Under the escort of his guards, he first rushed to the western entrance of Niuwei Gorge to join Dong Zehai, He Yan and the others…
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…
After Feng Yi and Lu Ze learned the news that vanguard forces had engaged the enemy in combat, early the next morning they led two hundred light cavalry forward, first joining Zhang Song. Although Deng Tai led the rear army’s main force which had also set out, since the rear army’s main force consisted entirely of infantry with supply trains and provisions following, speed was slow. They would need at least six to seven more days to arrive.
Feng Yi, Zhang Song, and Lu Ze led over nine hundred soldiers into Niuwei Gorge and rushed to the western entrance.
Li Zhigao hadn’t continued killing toward Shanglu County, only forty li to the northwest. Instead, he had Dong Zehai and He Yan establish a camp on the valley plain at the foot of Moliang Mountain outside the western entrance, with a stream that had nearly dried up after winter flowing across before the valley plain.
“Enemy forces are weak and disunited. They were routed in two battles—completely unable to withstand a single blow. The bandit chief Hou Mo is probably regretting stepping forward to accept the Mongol appointment now. Why doesn’t the Commander strike while the iron is hot and kill toward Shanglu City, then rest and reorganize after seizing Shanglu City?” Zhang Song walked into the command tent with Feng Yi and Lu Ze. Seeing Li Zhigao treating several prisoners as honored guests while inquiring about the situation in Chengzhou, he couldn’t help but ask in puzzlement.
Li Zhigao invited Feng Yi, Lu Ze, and Zhang Song to sit together and talk, explaining why he hadn’t urgently dispatched troops to press toward Shanglu County town:
“The Qiang tribes are disunited. Even Hou Mo, who just received the Mongol appointment as Governor of Chengzhou, doesn’t want his tribal elite to fight us to the death. So in field combat, at the slightest resistance they retreat in rout—there’s nothing surprising about that. But Shanglu City is small yet sturdy, and it’s the fundamental base of the Hou clan. They can’t easily abandon it. We have no siege equipment to use, and in the short term it’s difficult to persuade the Hou clan to surrender. Trying to seize Shanglu City now would be difficult to accomplish quickly.”
Feng Yi nodded, showing understanding for Li Zhigao’s considerations, and asked: “What do you plan to do next?”
Although when departing from Luoyang, Han Qian wanted Feng Yi to avoid interfering with Li Zhigao’s decisions as much as possible, as Supervisor General he couldn’t possibly remain completely uninformed about Li Zhigao’s military strategy.
Li Zhigao replied: “After Hou Mo’s defeat at Niuwei Gorge yesterday, he sent people rushing to Tianshui for reinforcements. Wang Xiaoxian doesn’t have many troops stationed in Tianshui. Even if he comes out in full force, it’s only four thousand cavalry and infantry. We’ll rest for two days, then meet the enemy reinforcements first at Shangliang Gorge. As long as we defeat the enemy reinforcements, I believe the various families in Chengzhou will each make their own choices…”
Chengzhou was sandwiched between the mountain ranges of southwestern Longshan and western Qinling. If Wang Xiaoxian didn’t send reinforcements, that was one thing, but if he sent reinforcements, they must advance south from the western Longshan foothills, then rapidly advance east from the southern Longshan foothills along the ancient Niuji Post road. Shangliang Gorge was their necessary route.
Only if they could ambush the reinforcements coming from Tianshui at Shangliang Gorge and defeat them would they have any possibility of intimidating and subjugating the Qiang tribes of Chengzhou, and any possibility of seizing Shanglu City without fighting.
Feng Yi nodded, but also expressed concern:
“The soldiers have just entered Chengzhou without sufficient rest and will have to fight major battles consecutively. Losses will probably be considerable.”
“Without hard fighting now, it’s difficult to establish a foothold in Longyou. But only by repelling enemy reinforcements can we barely open up the situation,” Li Zhigao said.
“Commander Li’s vanguard main force defends the entrance of Shangliang Gorge. I can lead cavalry to ambush in valleys on the flanks. When the timing is right, I can charge out as surprise troops!” After hearing Li Zhigao explain his military strategy, Lu Ze looked at the terrain map showing peaks and valleys on both sides of Shangliang Gorge with many places that could hide two hundred cavalry, and requested combat duty.
“Good!”
The two hundred cavalry led by Lu Ze and Yang Mu had come from Luoyang with Feng Yi and could be considered Feng Yi’s escort troops. Li Zhigao wouldn’t proactively use these two hundred cavalry for frontal assaults, but he also wouldn’t refuse when Lu Ze volunteered for combat.
After all, the combat effectiveness of these two hundred elite cavalry couldn’t be underestimated at this time.
After discussing specific details of the ambush operation, Li Zhigao dispatched Zhang Song to lead his forces first to Liang Gorge to prepare for battle.
Li Zhigao then ordered all prisoners from the previous two battles brought over. Except for prisoners from Hou clan forces, he and Feng Yi decided to release all the other tribal prisoners, even personally presenting them with a pile of jewels and jade to take back to their tribes as a gesture of winning them over.
Seeing that Li Zhigao wasn’t even worried about news of ambushing enemy reinforcements at Shangliang Gorge leaking in advance, Feng Yi naturally didn’t object. Besides, they had already entered Chengzhou territory. Their every move on the northern bank of Xiniu River couldn’t escape nearby tribes. Now with Zhang Song leading forces to Shangliang Gorge early to make preparations, anyone with the slightest military common sense could figure out their intentions.
Now it just depended on whether these tribes would size up the situation wisely.
Moreover, even if individual tribes were iron-heartedly aligned with the Mongols and determined to leak their plan to ambush enemy reinforcements at Shangliang Gorge to the Tianshui garrison, this would only slow the speed of Tianshui garrison forces advancing south for reinforcement.
This would not only give them more sufficient time to construct defensive works at Shangliang Gorge, but also give them time to wait for subsequent forces to enter Chengzhou.
Their ultimate goal was to subjugate the tribes and Han people of Chengzhou, not to annihilate all the large and small local forces of Chengzhou.
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Hou Mo accepted the Mongol enfeoffment and rewards not only coveting the gold, silver, jewels and jade sent by Mongol envoys, but more so wanting to use Mongol authority to rule Chengzhou, which had been fragmented these years. At this time he was somewhat riding a tiger unable to dismount. But the other tribes, seeing the Liangzhou army’s westward advance like surging floodwaters, were shocked and terrified, and almost unanimously chose to observe.
Three days later, Tianshui garrison commander Yuan Shou personally led three thousand troops to reinforce Chengzhou, arriving at Shangliang Gorge.
At this time, the rear army main force led by Deng Tai was still halfway there, but the Qiang tribes of Chengzhou chose to observe. Even Hou Mo, who had accepted Mongol appointment as Governor of Chengzhou, only led Hou clan tribal troops to tightly guard Shanglu City without dispatching troops to participate in battle.
Li Zhigao personally led forces to dig trenches and build protective walls at the western entrance of Shangliang Gorge to resist enemy attacks.
After two days of fierce assault failed to take Shangliang Gorge, the enemy forces wanted to retreat west to Fangzhong Mountain to rest and reorganize.
Taking advantage of the enemy forces’ growing intention to retreat westward, Lu Ze personally led two hundred elite cavalry to charge out from the narrow valley on the north side where they had ambushed four days earlier, like an incomparably sharp dagger fiercely stabbing into the enemy formation from the flank.
The three thousand troops led by Yuan Shou were all cavalry and infantry. When they reached Shangliang Gorge, they gathered their horses together. Over three thousand soldiers all dismounted to form numerous arrays, taking turns attacking the Liangzhou army defending Shangliang Gorge, completely unaware that ambush troops were hidden in the narrow valley to the north.
Seeing fierce assault was fruitless with considerable casualties among his soldiers, Yuan Shou decided to temporarily withdraw troops and retreat west.
At this time, besides leaving a portion of troops at the western entrance of Shangliang Gorge to block Liangzhou army counterattacks, other soldiers needed to retrieve their military horses before they could rapidly retreat west. The disorder and chaos were evident.
When Lu Ze led his forces charging out, although enemy forces were alerted in advance and organized over two hundred sword-and-shield troops on the flank to intercept, facing powerful crossbows that could penetrate wooden shields at close range and wielded war halberds and long sabers, the two hundred-plus shield troops couldn’t withstand even half a cup of tea’s worth of time before being routed.
Enemy forces became panicked. Small groups of valiant soldiers had no way to intercept Lu Ze and his men. Lu Ze specifically targeted enemy commander Yuan Shou’s command flag, charging and ramming horizontally through the enemy formation’s depth.
At this time, Li Zhigao also led the vanguard main force across the trenches to charge out.
Enemy general Yuan Shou couldn’t hold out long. Seeing the situation was hopeless to salvage, under escort of his guards he fled in panic. The remaining Shu soldiers completely collapsed—either kneeling to surrender or being mercilessly shot, killed, or beheaded by bows, crossbows, spears, and halberds.
By dusk, Li Zhigao had withdrawn his forces back into Shangliang Gorge. They had already killed over a thousand Shu soldiers and captured over nine hundred Shu soldiers. The combined casualties of Liangzhou army and Luoyang cavalry over two days were less than five hundred men.
If the rear army main force wasn’t moving slowly along Xiniu Road, with bulk supplies lagging even further behind, and they lacked sufficient military horses, taking advantage of the enemy’s great rout to kill toward Tianshui, seize most of Qinzhou, and completely blockade Wang Xiaoxian’s forces east of Longshan—this wasn’t unimaginable.
Although from Mianyang and Lueyang it was only three hundred li of road, Xiuji Post was too steep and narrow. The soldiers were utterly exhausted without sufficient rest. With accumulated casualties of nearly six hundred, they temporarily also lacked the combat power to continue pursuing routed enemies and attacking cities and seizing strongholds.
After withdrawing forces back to Shangliang Gorge, Li Zhigao temporarily didn’t urgently deploy forces against the Qiang tribes north of Xiniu River between Shangliang Gorge and Niuwei Gorge, or against Shanglu and Tonghe cities. Instead, he and Feng Yi formally dispatched personal cavalry in the name of Great Liang’s Commissioner for Pacifying Longyou and Supervisor General to rush to the city strongholds of various Qiang tribes and to Shanglu and Tonghe cities, ordering the Hou clan and other Qiang tribes to submit to Great Liang.
Of course, besides letting bygones be bygones, the conditions for accepting the Hou clan and other Qiang tribes were quite generous. Besides requiring farmland to include population for unified grain taxation, they only required that Qiang tribal cavalry accept command of the Office of Commissioner for Pacifying Longyou, and could even be exempted from other taxes.
There was also one point: the Office of Commissioner for Pacifying Longyou would directly establish trading posts in each Han and tribal stronghold. The people under jurisdiction of Chengzhou counties, especially Han people, regardless of status, could directly trade goods with the trading posts. The Qiang tribes must not interfere arbitrarily.
Although Chengzhou in the previous dynasty had been occupied by Tibet for over a hundred years, and Qiang tribal forces that surrendered to Tibet grew powerful in Chengzhou, the southwestern Longxi region including Chengzhou, Wuzhou, and Qinzhou had accepted rule by Central Plains dynasties since Qin and Han due to proximity to the governing centers of Central Plains dynasties. Countless Han military and civilian people had migrated in to settle and multiply.
In terms of population proportion, at this time Han people in the Shanglu valley west of Shangliang Gorge accounted for over seventy percent of the total population and had established a relatively complete agricultural foundation.
During Tibet’s occupation period, Han people had low status and suffered enslavement. When Guanzhong forces during Emperor Zhaozong’s reign of the previous dynasty recovered the southwestern Longxi region, they mainly used Qiang tribes to command these regions. Han people still remained in enslaved status.
Even though Qiang tribes lacked the tradition of annexing farmland, besides forcibly requiring Han people to pay grain taxes to maintain large and small local governments, the Qiang tribes also completely monopolized local commerce and trade.
Currently the western campaign army was taking over local governments, but direct field taxes and poll taxes couldn’t resolve the western campaign army’s grain supply problem. This required further breaking the Qiang tribes’ monopoly on local commerce and trade.
Although subjugating Qiang tribes could assemble a fairly respectable cavalry force in a short time, a cavalry force composed mainly of Qiang cavalry—the larger the scale, the harder it was to control.
Relying solely on the narrow Xiniu Post, the supply materials that could be transported were limited, and transportation costs were extremely high. Without controlling through logistics supply, it was difficult to imagine that assembled Qiang cavalry would have the possibility of being reorganized as Great Liang’s core elite forces.
Although Han Qian didn’t place too many restrictions on Li Zhigao—even after entering Longyou, deciding that appointments of local officials would all be recommended by Li Zhigao—when requiring Li Zhigao to resolve as much as possible the problems of Longyou Han people suffering suppression and enslavement, he especially emphasized that commerce and trade between Xiniu Post and the Longyou region must enable Longyou Han people to directly participate.
In recent years, the fundamental principle of the new system Han Qian had promoted, under conditions of limited space for productivity development, mainly involved squeezing by every means possible the space for intermediate rentier classes to occupy social production benefits through various methods.
The benefits of doing this not only allowed common people at the bottom to catch their breath, but also guaranteed central government annual revenue. In reality, it distributed as much as possible to both ends the benefits occupied by intermediate rentier classes.
When the people have enough grain to fill their stomachs and clothes to cover their bodies, they are content. And military and national affairs are nothing more than money and grain.
No matter who had heaven-bestowed talent and supernatural calculating schemes, if they couldn’t solve this fundamental problem, they couldn’t possibly turn the tide to resolve true major crises. Once this fundamental problem was solved, not to mention Han Qian—with the capabilities of people like Shen Yang and Huang Hua, they could also govern a nation in perfect order.
Within Great Liang territory, Han Qian broke local forces’ monopoly on grain trade and implemented unified purchase and sale policies for key materials like grain. Currently he had successfully suppressed grain prices to six hundred cash per picul.
This not only resolved Great Liang’s internal balanced grain supply problem and resolved bottom-tier poor people’s famine problems, but there was another extremely important point: even if Han Qian decided to leave traditional field taxes collected as grain commodity taxes for prefectures and counties to use themselves, the central government only needed to mobilize less than one-third of cash from the Jianghuai region to purchase sufficient military grain from localities to support war consumption.
Grain prices in Jianghuai had always remained quite high. One quite important reason was that clan and village magnates mainly occupied the vast majority of surplus grain in localities through annexing farmland, subsequently almost completely monopolizing local grain trade.
The enormous profits produced by high grain prices were actually mostly taken by clan and village magnates and other old and new landlords.
Throughout history, to obtain sufficiently cheap, sufficiently abundant and stable grain, central governments collected commodity taxes with grain as the main component from various places and transported them regardless of cost to the central government and military garrison locations. This actually already incurred enormous losses.
Longyou, especially the three prefectures of Cheng, Wu, and Qin in southwestern Longxi, had abundant rainfall. Between the mountains were numerous river valleys and dam lands. After over a thousand years of cultivation, they had a good agricultural foundation. There were also vast pastures supplementing meat sources. Twenty thousand troops obtaining sufficient supplies locally was no problem.
The problem was that the three prefectures’ nine counties had a population under two hundred thousand. Even fully collecting field taxes and poll levies could only collect one hundred thousand piculs of grain, only satisfying less than half the supply needs of twenty thousand troops. How to resolve the remainder through commerce and trade was the first problem the western campaign army had to consider.
The ancient Xiniu Post road was steep and narrow, with stretches mostly consisting of solid rock cliffs. In the short term it was difficult to widen it regardless of cost like the Songnan plank road. Currently they could only transport high value-added commercial goods like tea, porcelain, medicinal materials, cotton cloth, and salt into southwestern Longxi for trade.
If they didn’t enable the lowest-tier Han people who actually cultivated and produced grain to directly participate in trade, continuing to watch as Qiang tribes monopolized trade, enormous profits would inevitably be taken by local tribal forces. The living conditions of bottom-tier Han people wouldn’t receive substantial improvement. The profits the western campaign army obtained from commerce and trade would also be difficult to fill the gap in grain supply.
However, if they could enable Han people to directly participate in trade, on one hand the western campaign army could purchase grain at low prices from commerce and trade, and on the other hand capturing more profits could also purchase more grain as well as meat like cattle and sheep. Truly improving the living conditions of Han people engaged in agriculture locally—only this could truly gain the support of Han people who comprised the majority of the population in the southwestern Longxi region.
As Supervisor General of Longyou, Feng Yi placed no restrictions or constraints on Li Zhigao in other aspects. But even if using all old Liangzhou officials, he insisted on first establishing as many direct trading posts as possible within the Shanglu valley. He especially emphasized enabling Han people to directly bring grain to trade, and absolutely couldn’t for convenience or single-mindedly wanting to win over Qiang tribes continue condoning Qiang tribal monopoly of local trade.
Of course, Hou clan and other Qiang tribes probably couldn’t be especially sensitive to realize the subtleties in this initially. But when Feng Yi emphasized this point to Li Zhigao, Zhang Song, Deng Tai, Dong Zehai, He Yan and others at military council, he was also worried that officials under Li Zhigao lacked sufficiently clear understanding and during execution would take shortcuts or later be bribed by local forces, failing to firmly implement this.
Zhang Song, Deng Tai, Dong Zehai, He Yan and other commanders understood political affairs to some degree. Only after hearing Feng Yi thoroughly explain these principles and the goals behind them at military council were they all shocked, secretly thinking: no wonder these years no one could outmaneuver the ruler. Who the hell could imagine such deep calculations behind this?