Tonight the sky was unsettled, with the moon appearing and disappearing behind scattered clouds. In the distant wilderness, a blurry grayish-white shadow first appeared as a line, then rapidly expanded into a mass.
“Light up!” Li Yuangui stood to give orders. “Light the torches! More of them!”
“Huh?” Yang Xinzhi asked in surprise. “Why light torches? Weren’t we setting up an ambush?”
“Ambush your ghostly head!” Li Yuangui cursed, despairing at his guard’s pig-headed thinking.
If they could simply ambush and kill all the enemies, that would be far simpler. Though the escapees outnumbered their squad four or five times, most were women, children, and the infirm, and in their horse-stealing night escape, they not only lacked weapons but probably didn’t even have complete saddles and stirrups. Twenty-some strong men with terrain advantage and ample weapons could massacre this group of weak folks as easily as cutting vegetables.
The trouble was, they didn’t want to kill people—they wanted to capture them. Alive.
Over a dozen torches lit up before and behind them, their bright flames sweeping small circles in the night sky, sealing off the mountain pass that led from Chengji territory to the high plateau’s nomadic lands. The herd of horses galloping rapidly toward them showed clear signs of panic and disturbance, with the few riders leading the way urgently reining in their mounts, their whinnies piercing the vast night sky.
Li Yuangui quietly instructed Yang Xinzhi and had him take deep breaths. When most of the prisoner horse herd had reached the mountain pass, the tall, strong guard shouted with full force in a thunderous voice:
“Audacious rebels, dismount and surrender immediately! The mighty Tang army has laid down a heaven-and-earth net—you have nowhere to escape! Dismount! Sit down! Hands-on—”
Before the final “head” could be shouted, several feathered arrows whistled through the air. Fortunately, Li Yuangui was prepared—several small servants including A-Chen who had been standing ready rushed forward with infantry tower shields, protecting Li Yuangui, Yang Xinzhi, and others. With several thunks, two or three long arrows embedded themselves in the wooden shields.
“Release!” Li Yuangui also shouted. His archers behind didn’t hold back, returning fire. They had the high ground advantage and had rested, their range and accuracy far superior to the fleeing prisoners below. One volley of arrows sent the slope into chaos with human shouts, horse whinnies, and crying.
Li Yuangui nudged Yang Xinzhi, who reluctantly stood up from behind the tower shield, gathered his breath, and continued shouting: “Audacious rebels—”
He shouted three to five times, but there was no response from below. Some Tuyuhun people shot arrows back, while more reined in their horses and turned back, seemingly intending to retreat and find another way out.
Kong Sumi, crouching behind two youths, finally couldn’t hold back and tugged at Li Yuangui’s armor:
“Fourteenth Lord, save your breath and stop shouting. Those Tuyuhun people don’t understand Han Chinese…”
“…Why didn’t you say so earlier!” Li Yuangui nearly coughed blood. “Teach him! Teach him to shout in their language!”
Kong Sumi shifted over to teach Yang Xinzhi the phrases in the Tuyuhun language one by one. But the moment had passed—now the mountain pass was in complete chaos, and no matter how loud Yang Xinzhi shouted, no one would calmly listen to what he was saying.
Among the Tuyuhun prisoners were about twenty men fully equipped with saddles and reins, carrying bows, sabers, and weapons. Li Yuangui guessed these might be the support personnel Sangsai had brought. After the initial panic passed, they quickly formed into battle formations, shooting arrows while seeking cover, resisting the Tang forces ambushed at the mountain pass. In the white moonlight, the rest of the men and women could be seen fleeing on horseback in all directions, the situation completely out of control.
This wasn’t good.
Li Yuangui tapped his helmet in thought. His main targets were the Tuyuhun Queen and her children, along with her brother Tianzhuwang. If these people could be captured and sent to Chang’an, it wouldn’t matter much if other prisoners scattered. But how could he capture these royal nobles?
He couldn’t even recognize them, and with only twenty-some riders at hand, commanding them to charge into the enemy force of over a hundred to search and inquire would be quite risky.
Previously Li Yuangui hadn’t worried much about the vast numerical difference, knowing darkness would conceal his true fighting strength, and that the Tuyuhun prisoners were like frightened birds, imagining more Tang forces lying in ambush in the valley and not daring to charge through. The battlefield had developed according to his expectations, except… he simply couldn’t complete the task he had set for himself.
During this hesitation, the fleeing riders outside the mountain pass scattered in increasing disorder, making it even harder to find people if he didn’t act soon. Li Yuangui gritted his teeth, stood up, and shouted: “Mount up! Charge down! First, eliminate those archers! Find the Tuyuhun Queen! And Tianzhuwang! Heavy rewards for finding them!”
A loud “tsk” came from behind—Kong Sumi’s voice, though the old Hu merchant’s meaning was unclear. Li Yuangui had no time to deal with him, mounting his horse along with Yang Xinzhi, A-Chen, and others, charging into the battlefield beyond the mountain pass to begin eliminating the enemy archers one by one.
About a dozen of them wore armor and weren’t too afraid of surprise arrows, charging at the front. By the time they had killed most of the resistant Tuyuhun fighters and began pursuing the scattered fugitives, Li Yuangui didn’t hold much hope. This vast territory was crisscrossed with ravines, with many hiding places, and in the night, who knew where the Tuyuhun Queen and her children had fled to…
Just as Li Yuangui was worrying, a long horn blast suddenly echoed through the valley.
The horn seemed to come from the east. All the Tang riders turned to look east, realizing that the undulating mountain ridges on the eastern horizon already showed the whitish color of dawn. Below the sky, scattered torch flames were sweeping across the hills and plains.
The horn signal was familiar—it was the command signal commonly used by Tang forces, which Li Yuangui had often heard when accompanying his father and brothers reviewing troops, conducting military exercises, and hunting. Overjoyed, he initially wanted to lead his men to meet them, but on second thought, he only sent A-Chen with one light cavalryman to report the news, while he continued pursuing prisoners in the wilderness.
Dawn quickly drove away the night. The reinforcing cavalry extinguished their torches, and the shapes of men and horses became clear in the morning glow. Li Yuangui galloped up a small ridge, looking around to estimate that this reinforcement division had five to six hundred men, now divided into four or five teams searching and encircling the plains according to the terrain, their movements and deployment appearing orderly and methodical.
“Who’s leading them?” he asked A-Chen, who had just galloped back to his side. Panting heavily, the servant replied: “Zhang… Zhang Shigui… mobilized local… garrisons nearby…”
This answer wasn’t surprising. With the Tuyuhun prisoners escaping, naturally, Zhang Shigui, responsible for escorting them back to the capital, would be the most desperate. However, Li Yuangui’s evaluation of the general’s military talent jumped eighteen levels at once—being able to mobilize so many troops in such a short time, and commanding garrison forces that normally guarded separate areas and probably had no joint training to coordinate so smoothly, truly worthy of a veteran commander who had fought alongside the current Emperor since the end of Sui’s chaos.
Far superior to his own amateur “interception” attempt.
“Kong—” A thought suddenly struck him, and he turned to consult Kong Sumi, only to find the old Hu merchant wasn’t behind him. Looking around, the seven or eight merchant Hu men were also gone.
“Fourteenth Lord looking for Guardian Kong?” Yang Xinzhi came up, his big mouth twisting between a cry and a smile. “They left us long ago… Look, they’re over there!”
Following his club-like pointing finger, Li Yuangui saw Kong Sumi and his Hu men gathering riderless horses on the battlefield, already having a string of about twenty horses tied together with thick rope behind them. A-Chen also muttered beside him: “While everyone else is charging after prisoners, asking about the Queen’s whereabouts, they’re just going after the riderless horses…”
Li Yuangui stared at the merchants in frustration for a moment but had no energy to deal with them, leading his men down the slope to continue hunting fugitives. But if he thought Kong Sumi had brought his people to participate in this prisoner interception just to freely acquire some horses, he was still thinking too kindly of that old fox.
The search continued for two days, successfully finding the Tuyuhun Queen and others, but her six-year-old son had died from being trampled after falling from his horse during the escape, and her brother Tianzhuwang had died from arrow wounds. Of the original hundred-some prisoners, only forty to fifty remained after this incident. “At least we won’t worry about them escaping again on the road”—Zhang Shigui made a self-deprecating joke with a gloomy face.
As for those tribute horses, after much argument, Kong Sumi handed over ten injured and limping ones, insisting their merchant group only found these on the battlefield… Li Yuangui learned indirectly that the government horse managers previously had a deal to exchange weak horses for strong ones with Hu merchants. Kong Sumi had wanted to take on this business but lost it to the locally more powerful An family merchants. The two sides were at odds, and Kong Sumi took advantage of this chaos, intending to sow discord between the government and Guardian An.
Li Yuangui couldn’t be bothered to investigate more detailed particulars. Horses weren’t Kong Sumi’s main profit this time. Back at the Qin Prefecture guest house after two days, the old Hu merchant quietly led Li Yuangui to an encampment outside the city, saying “This matter can’t be hidden from you, Fourteenth Lord anyway,” then lifted a tent flap and gestured for Li Yuangui to enter.
A thin youth sat on the carpet inside the tent. When people entered, he raised his head, meeting Li Yuangui’s eyes—both froze in place.
Sangsai, son of the Tuyuhun Tianzhuwang, was indeed in Qin Prefecture.
[Author’s Note: “Several men raised infantry tower shields, rushing forward to protect Yang Xinzhi, Li Yuangui, and others”: I should have previously criticized how in historical dramas, regardless of troop type, they all wave around small round shields (which work fine for cavalry). In medieval times, infantry, especially heavily armored infantry, mostly used rectangular vertical shields that were very tall, could be planted on the ground, and sometimes had pointed tops with some offensive capability.]