Yuan Shaobo walked quietly to the paper-less window lattice and secretly peered into the quiet chamber. The princess still lay sleeping soundly in the coffin.
According to proper etiquette, this was quite disrespectful. But his current worries far exceeded concerns about protocol. People who had experienced imprisonment and torture often suffered mental disorders. Furthermore, he was more worried that this precious royal daughter might seek death rather than endure continuous setbacks and humiliation. The princess was Prince Shao’s spiritual pillar and indispensable heir to his grand cause—she must be safely escorted back no matter the cost.
Yu Ninghua also glanced into the room, sighed quietly, and beckoned Yuan Shaobo. The two withdrew from under the eaves.
Yuan Shaobo sighed: “It’s a pity the Great Prince forbade revealing his physical condition, otherwise…”
“Even if revealed, the princess might not listen to advice. You haven’t lived with her day and night, so you don’t know her temperament. The princess’s nature is far more stubborn than the Great Prince’s. To put it nicely, she has an indomitable will; to put it harshly, she’s like a stubborn donkey who won’t give up until she achieves her goal.
As a child, she raised a lynx, treasuring it and keeping it by her side constantly. Later during a hunt, the lynx accidentally took a stray arrow and died. She held the corpse refusing to let go, still eating and sleeping with it until the thing began to stink. Finally, the Great Prince had to sneak it away from her bed in the middle of the night while she slept deeply, burying it to end the matter.”
Yuan Shaobo frowned deeply: “I heard the Great Prince mention this incident. Should we…”
Madam Yu shook her head and sighed: “My point is, we’re not the Great Prince and can’t make this decision for her. We can only wait until the seven days of mourning are over to see.”
Yuan Shaobo remembered another matter and said: “Speaking of stubborn donkeys, Changsun Ming told me that for the past two days, a peculiar-looking wild donkey has been wandering around the camp area. When it sees people approaching with bows and arrows, it runs away, appearing and disappearing mysteriously—no one can catch it.”
Madam Yu was startled upon hearing this and said: “I once heard Huo Qi say that to travel inconspicuously, the princess rode a donkey all along the way.”
The two exchanged glances, both stirring with the same thought.
When Bao Zhu awoke and ate some food without tasting it, Madam Yu took the opportunity to inform her of this matter. Bao Zhu jumped up immediately and urgently sought out Yuan Shaobo and Lü Qiao, asking whether they had discovered any donkey carcass at Fenglong Temple.
After their prison break, they had thoroughly searched and taken away all supplies and provisions, carefully inventorying everything. Among the stored meat in the temple was one dead horse, but no donkey.
Without another word, Bao Zhu ran out of the Daoist temple.
When their group was attacked by Wang Chengwu’s subordinates, because the enemy cavalry wore heavy armor, she could only turn to shooting horses instead. She estimated that at least ten horses had died from this. If the Fenglong Temple jailers had divided up the horse carcasses, to further crush her will and force her to surrender treasures, it would make sense for them to pretend it was donkey meat while cooking it in front of her.
“Duke Lushan! Duke Lushan!” Bao Zhu ran frantically while shouting her mount’s name.
Before long, a Guanzhong donkey with white eye circles, white muzzle, and white belly cautiously poked its head out from the mountain forest.
It had long since lost its saddle and bridle, its mane disheveled, looking no different from a wild animal. Hearing Bao Zhu’s call and confirming it was truly its master, only then did it gallop to her side on all four hooves, nuzzling its furry head into her embrace.
Yuan Shaobo and the others chased after Bao Zhu all the way out of the Daoist temple, only to see the princess holding the donkey’s head and crying her heart out, as if she wanted to vent all the anger and frustration accumulated during this period.
“Good child, when you heard me shout ‘Run!’ at that time, you obediently listened and ran away, didn’t you?”
Duke Lushan made no sound, only nuzzling and acting cute persistently.
Bao Zhu cried even louder, cursing Wei Xun while sobbing: “Even a donkey knows to run away! How could you be so stupid, standing there stupidly motionless? Zhou Qingyang was right—you’re not even as good as a donkey!!!”
Yuan Shaobo saw her crying torrentially with a hoarse voice and wanted to comfort her with a few words, but Bao Zhu wiped away her tears with her sleeve, turned around sharply, and said: “Since it came back alive, we don’t need to rack our brains seeking aid forces everywhere anymore.”
Yuan Shaobo and the others were all stunned, then saw Bao Zhu confidently stroking the donkey’s head and declaring loudly:
“Duke Lushan is worth a thousand men!”
She immediately issued orders, commanding her elite subordinates to act separately.
Yu Ninghua rushed to the city to find a wealthy merchant named Ma Zaiyuan, informing him that the “donkey-riding lady” wished to secretly purchase a batch of mares on credit, preferably mature mares with foals.
Lü Qiao led people in disguise to lurk around the pasture, investigating the patrol routes of the sentries as well as the locations of the cavalry camp, armory, and granary.
Yuan Shaobo led the prisoner soldiers to the agreed location to set up an ambush.
Bao Zhu rode her donkey back and forth between the pasture and Jingxing Mountain, familiarizing herself thoroughly with every grove, every field ridge, and river bridge until she could navigate them blindfolded.
Everything was ready; they only lacked a perfectly timed western wind to assist them.
After just a day and a half, as if heaven-sent, the wind direction she hoped for arrived.
Bao Zhu had people ride the mares at a distance on the western side of the pasture, walking back and forth. The sounds of mares calling to their foals and the scent of their excrement drifted leisurely toward the pasture on the western wind.
As the saying goes: “When love is unseen, one scratches their head in hesitation.”
Bao Zhu understood clearly: warhorses were mainly stallions, and despite being battle-tested and well-trained, they still couldn’t resist the temptation of the opposite sex. Thousands of warhorses in the pasture began growing restless, but hindered by fence barriers, they couldn’t gallop to their heart’s desired destination. The lead horses in the herd, leveraging their dominant positions, squeezed to the edge of the western fence.
These subtle scents that only horses could perceive were difficult for human senses to detect. Though the Khitan horse herders noticed the herd’s agitation, they couldn’t see any mares. During daylight, these minor anomalies didn’t arouse anyone’s vigilance.
Night fell, and all was quiet.
As soon as the hour of zi arrived, earth-shaking explosive booms suddenly erupted from the eastern side of the pasture. The sounds burst forth from four different locations in sequence, like earth tremors and thunder, instantly tearing through the silent night.
Horses are animals extremely sensitive to sounds, let alone such unprecedented, earth-shattering strange booms. They all reared up on their front hooves in fright, neighing incessantly. Fear and agitation spread rapidly. Out of instinct, the frightened herd frantically fled westward away from the eastern source of the loud sounds, crashing and trampling until they broke through the western wooden fence in moments.
The lead horses, having been lured by the mares during daylight and already gathered on the western side of the pasture, now hearing the loud sounds, unhesitatingly broke through the fence to escape. Horses have always had the habit of following their leaders—seeing the lead horses galloping westward, they followed like a tide. In an instant, five to six thousand warhorses roared away like surging waves.
These four thunderous sounds came from four firecrackers used for dispelling plague.
While searching through Yang Xingjian’s farewell poem, Bao Zhu had unexpectedly discovered these items in his bundle.
Yang Fangxie’s death from epidemic disease was Yang Xingjian’s unresolvable heartache. That day, witnessing Qingyang Daoist’s miraculous methods in suppressing the Zhongqiu County plague, he was greatly impressed and begged Zhou Qingyang to sell him several firecrackers, thinking to use them to drive away epidemic vapors when encountering such diseases in the future.
Zhou Qingyang initially refused to give firecrackers to outsiders, but after inquiry learned that this man surnamed Yang made this request because his beloved daughter had died from plague. With a physician’s benevolent heart, she ultimately made an exception and gave him four. She repeatedly emphasized to Yang Xingjian that she had adjusted the gunpowder formula—these firecrackers made loud thunder but had little destructive power, designed specifically for dispelling plague. If one wanted to use them to harm people, at most they might blow off fingers.
What Bao Zhu needed for this assault was precisely this deafening sound.
People in Hebei had little knowledge of gunpowder, and Hebei horses had never experienced such frightening sounds. In the deep of night, these terrifying booms one after another threw both men and horses into chaos. The horse herders and cavalry from nearby camps were awakened by the firecrackers, smelling the pungent sulfur scent in the air. For a moment they were completely at a loss, panic-stricken, not knowing what strange phenomenon had occurred between heaven and earth.
At this very moment, Bao Zhu waited quietly on the route the horse herd would take to escape.
Logically, after leaving their pen, the horse herd should have scattered in all directions. But Bao Zhu was well-versed in horse nature—she had cleverly used mare scent during the day to control the lead horses’ positions, then at night used firecrackers to startle the horses. This way, the herd fled toward her predetermined direction.
Five to six thousand frightened warhorses galloping simultaneously created momentum like mountains calling and seas roaring. The ground trembled violently. Even in the deep night, one could see that surging flood-like mass of black shadows charging straight ahead, about to rush before her eyes. No one in the world could stop this tremendous force—the slightest mistake would result in being trampled to pulp by iron hooves.
The personal guards following Bao Zhu felt instinctive terror upon seeing this. Those who couldn’t keep their composure couldn’t help but call out loudly: “Princess, that’s enough! Let’s go quickly!”
“Not close enough yet.”
Bao Zhu sat steadily on her donkey, facing the surging frightened horses head-on, waiting for the most suitable distance.
From the day they departed Cuiwei Temple, she had discovered that though Duke Lushan looked ugly and strange, it possessed unique advantages picked from among thousands. It wasn’t afraid of loud sounds—whether human voices roaring or gunpowder explosions, it could remain calm and composed, responding steadily. Moreover, being a female donkey, it naturally wouldn’t be disturbed by opposite-sex scents either.
Facing the frightened horses surging like an avalanche, the personal guards’ mounts had long since panicked beyond control, but Duke Lushan remained as steady as a mountain, completely unmoved.
Three hundred paces, two hundred paces, one hundred paces.
The earth trembled under iron hooves. As the horse herd drew nearer, the personal guards’ mounts neighed and fled despite their masters’ cursing and scolding. Bao Zhu, sitting on her donkey, calmly took out a fire starter and lit a torch.
In the darkness, this single spark of light immediately caught the lead horses’ attention.
“Come on, come quickly! Come to mama!” Bao Zhu shouted commands loudly in Khitan language. Her clear, crisp voice drifted toward the horse herd on the western wind.
These warhorses were usually tended by Khitan horse herders and were most familiar with commands in this language. In the terrifying dark night, the firelight and familiar language were like a beacon lamp, giving direction to the confused frightened horses. The lead horses first galloped toward Bao Zhu, with the herd following closely behind.
“Go!!!”
Bao Zhu turned direction, holding reins in one hand and raising the torch high with the other. Duke Lushan led the way with one rider, while thousands of warhorses followed this spark of fire, racing like lightning toward the gloomy Taihang Mountains.
The night guards at Jingxing Pass were drowsily standing watch in the cold night when they suddenly heard faint rumbling of horse hooves in the distance. They looked at each other in confusion, wondering why cavalry was moving in the deep of night.
Soon, the sound of galloping horses grew closer and closer. Someone outside the pass shouted hoarsely in Chengde local accent: “The Military Governor marches forth! Open the gates quickly!”
The guards lit torches and looked through the flickering firelight—the approaching riders indeed wore Chengde military saddle and bridle equipment. Not daring to neglect their duty, the guards quickly opened half the gate, preparing to examine seals and troop movement orders. Who would have expected several arrows to come whistling through the wind—the guards who came out were all shot down. Before this half-gate could be closed again, a group of fully armed soldiers took the opportunity to force their way in.
Using equipment seized from Fenglong Mountain, Yuan Shaobo had the prisoner soldiers disguise themselves and use local accent to get the gate opened. Immediately following was bloody battle and slaughter—they seized Jingxing Pass with lightning speed.
Bao Zhu rode her donkey, leading the mighty horse herd charging toward the pass. When crossing Min River, she casually threw her torch into the river, and the light immediately disappeared into the dark waters. Guards waiting by the wooden bridge saw the princess had crossed the river and immediately took sharp axes to hack at the bridge furiously.
Once the firelight was extinguished, the horse herd lost their guide and immediately scattered in panic in all directions. Some ran blindly into the Min River bed, others galloped wildly toward mountain ravines, and still others ran toward deeper mountain areas. Thus, Chengde’s most important strategic resources scattered like birds and beasts, disappearing into the vast Taihang Mountains.
The soldiers in the cavalry camp finally calmed down, only to discover all their warhorses had fled in fright, realizing they had suffered a night raid on their camp. A few hastily mounted the remaining horses in pursuit, while the rest could only helplessly chase on foot, stretching the battle line into a long column.
The bridge across Min River was destroyed. Though it was currently the dry season with shallow water that horses could cross with their long legs, people on foot faced difficulties.
Bao Zhu led thirty guards skilled in archery, quickly rushing up to the high platform at the pass entrance. Together they toppled that grim and cruel mound of severed heads, then defended from this advantageous high position. When their group had passed Jingxing Pass earlier, she had noticed this high platform and thought it very suitable for stationing archers to control the entire pass.
Yuan Shaobo ran to the beacon tower at Jingxing Pass’s highest point and lit the warning fire. Instantly, rolling flames and thick smoke like an angry dragon shot straight into the sky.
Wang Chengwu, residing in Zhengding’s administrative seat, was sleeping soundly in the middle of the night when suddenly awakened by battle reports. First he heard that the eastern pasture had been raided and all warhorses lost—this immediately enraged him. Then someone else reported that Jingxing Pass had lit beacon fires and seemed to have been attacked as well.
The borders showed no signs of trouble, yet suddenly beacon fires blazed throughout his territory. Wang Chengwu was extremely anxious. He immediately summoned his commanders and mustered troops at midnight for campaign. The forces stationed around Zhengding departed one after another like a tide.
He paced restlessly back and forth in his room, his mind unsettled. Ever since seven days ago when he sent people to attack that “donkey-riding lady” from the martial world, everything seemed to spiral out of control like a runaway horse. Did he, Wang Chengwu, lack the heavenly mandate to “overthrow the Great Tang”?
Several armored warrior figures appeared at the doorway. Regional Military Commissioner Liang Shiji, who had just received orders to march, had somehow returned to the commander’s residence.
Wang Chengwu roared angrily: “What are you doing back here? Didn’t I order you to lead troops to rendezvous with the cavalry camp?”
Liang Shiji smiled without speaking and slowly drew the saber at his waist.
One arrow, another arrow, then another. Bao Zhu continuously drew her bow and shot rapidly, each arrow finding its mark, each hit bringing down its target. As a crucial strategic pass contested by military forces, Jingxing Pass stored extremely rich military equipment, including thousands of armor-piercing arrows alone, enough to supply the front lines endlessly.
The natural barrier was easy to defend and hard to attack. Combined with the sudden night assault, many cavalry rushed about in panic without time to don their armor, picked off one by one by archers hidden in the dark night. Infantry who struggled to cross the river were bottlenecked at the pass entrance, launching assault after assault but never able to retake the pass. The master archer on the high platform used the advantageous terrain to suppress charging soldiers until they couldn’t raise their heads.
From early chou hour to late yin hour, after two continuous hours of fierce battle, Bao Zhu shot nearly a thousand arrows. Her skin split and fingers cracked, blood flowing to her elbows. The dead lay in layers stacked at the pass entrance, corpses floated throughout Min River, and accumulated grievances filled the mountains and rivers. Seeing this tragic scene, enemy forces were terrorized, their morale extremely low.
The beacon fire lit at Jingxing Pass was not only visible from Zhengding but could also be seen clearly by the neighboring Zhaoyi region to the south.
Zhaoyi Military Governor Lu Xuanfu had previously received reports from border commander Han Jun, who said scouts brought news that internal chaos would appear within Chengde territory. Lu Xuanfu ordered Han Jun to stand ready in battle formation, waiting for the right moment to act. Seeing the beacon fire at Jingxing Pass from afar, Han Jun mobilized all his border troops, attacking into Chengde with three thousand light cavalry.
At this time, Chengde’s interior was already in complete chaos. Regional Military Commissioner Liang Shiji took advantage of the empty administrative center to overthrow his superior, assassinating his commander Wang Chengwu and exterminating his entire clan.
Meanwhile, the Chengde cavalry that Wang Chengwu had always been proud of had lost their warhorses, like eagles with broken wings fallen to the ground. Cavalry and infantry equipment were completely different—with horses to carry them, cavalry could use ten-foot spears and wear heavy armor weighing forty catties in battle. However, marching on foot, this equipment became far too cumbersome. Soldiers couldn’t run more than a few steps before becoming exhausted as if bearing mountains on their backs.
Having lost their mounted advantage and with no Military Governor to lead them, Chengde forces instantly suffered morale collapse. They threw away helmets and armor, fleeing in all directions. Han Jun led light cavalry to take advantage and harvest them. He knew deeply that the opportunity to completely eliminate Chengde cavalry came once in a hundred chances and couldn’t let a single one escape. He pursued all the way, killing until corpses lay everywhere, with defeated soldiers’ bodies stretching for dozens of li.
In one night, the Wang family that had occupied Chengde for three generations was completely uprooted, and five thousand elite cavalry were annihilated.
Author’s Note: Bao Zhu and her donkey’s skill points have been repeatedly mentioned and demonstrated since the beginning of the main text. “The Beautiful Horse Stratagem” is a famous animal warfare tactic with successful application cases in both the Warring States period and Tang Dynasty. The fierce battle lasting four hours with “shooting over a thousand arrows without missing, fingers cracked, blood flowing to elbows” references the battle achievements of Song Dynasty master archer Wang Shunchen. These skills were established early on—since humans in history could accomplish this, it doesn’t count as particularly supernatural.