CH 117

t/n: sometimes city means fortress, it’s just that “city” is the word used in the original text

The sound of hooves thundered as three hundred horses galloped neatly in formation. Xiongnu cavalry were well-trained, not to mention that these were elite troops belonging to the royal family. Like a roiling storm, trailing clouds of gray dust in their wake, they went with all speed towards the distant city. 

Only two days after setting out from Lu City, the troops arrived at Taihang Fortress. From here, one could guard the entire Taihang Pass, and thus control a corridor connecting Si and Bing Provinces. What’s more, the city was far from impenetrable. Approached from Si Province, it towered over the passage; one man blocking the pass could rebuff ten thousand. But from Bing Province, it was only a small, stubby little city, meaning, it wouldn’t be difficult to conquer. 

But once they actually attacked the city, it became clear to their leader, Thousand Horse-master Liu Meng, that this pass was nothing like he’d imagined.

When Xiongnu cavalry attacked cities, especially small ones like these, a common tactic they used was to have mounted archers provide cover for the foot soldiers. Unleashing rains of arrows upon the city defenders, leaving them incapable of dealing with the attackers at their walls, while using their superior mobility to avoid their retaliatory fire, they held the absolute advantage. With a troop of soldiers as powerful as his, Liu Meng was confident that he could pry open the city doors with a few volleys of arrows.

Who could’ve thought that this oft-used strategy of theirs would be utterly ineffective! The city walls, which weren’t very tall in and of themselves, had been raised with battlements, making it difficult for arrows flying from below the walls to hit the city defenders. What’s worse, about a hundred paces from the city walls, five shallow trenches laid across their path, one after the other, each around only a foot deep, and five steps apart. Foot soldiers could cross them easily, of course, but to cavalry, they were pitfalls that could snap their horses’ legs.   

They could neither advance without abandon nor retreat with ease. They’d already lost six horses when they first came upon these trenches. Taihang Fortress was built on rough, mountainous terrain to begin with, and the defensive measures they encountered only left the cavalry with even less space to maneuver 

After brief consideration, Liu Meng ordered the soldiers to shoot en masse from beyond the trenches. Then, to their shock, a ballista fired from within the watchtower!

The watchtower was strangely built, sticking out oddly from the wall. Liu Meng had thought it was a sloppily thrown together lookout platform. No one would’ve guessed that it had not one, but four great yellow crossbows! Four bolts shot out of the ballistae with terrifying accuracy, nearly striking his own mount.  

In a panic, Liu Meng hurriedly retreated his troops five hundred paces out. At this distance, it was impossible for their cavalry’s arrows to reach the top of the wall; were they to get off their horses and attack the city on foot without any cover fire? 

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There was no way they could conquer it unless they were willing to use at least a thousand men in a headlong assault without any regard for cost. And presently, he simply didn’t have the capital to go about wasting manpower.

Liu Meng turned his horse around and ordered, “Head for Gaodu!”

If tiny Taihang Fortress could change so much, then Gaodu City, the acropolis of Taihang Pass, had to be scouted out as well. Since it was getting closer to the autumn harvest, if they could round up some farmers and drive them towards the city walls to use as cover, there was a chance they could take the city gates. Taihang Fortress and Gaodu were two sides of the same thing; would Taihang Fortress really watch Gaodu come under attack without sending a single man or horse? The moment they poked their head out, they could instantly turn about-face and seize the pass! 

But what greeted him when he arrived at Gaodu was an even stranger sight than Taihang Fortress. Great swathes of farmland teemed with unharvested grain, but they hadn’t found a single farmer within five kilometers. At some time, all the nearby commoners had been moved into Gaodu City. With walls like these, taller and thicker than they’d used to be, trying to conquer it with a mere three hundred cavalry was simply absurd.

“Someone has detected our whereabouts! Which way is the Liang Estate? Were there any signs of soldiers coming in or out?” Of course Liu Meng was able to figure out the source of the problem. But they hadn’t seen so much as a single smoke signal along the way, and they’d ridden here at full speed; how had the news gotten to Gaodu City?

“Negative!” The reconnoitrer reported, “The Liang Estate’s gates have been shut this entire time; it’s as if they’re in a lockdown. Even two of its neighboring villages are closed up.”

Being one of Liu Xuan’s capable subordinates, Liu Meng knew full well just how apprehensive the chancellor felt towards the Liang Estate’s bodhisattva, which was why he’d rushed to seize Taihang Fortress and its neighboring cities after he was whisked away to the commandery capital. Did this look like an ordinary city? It was clearly a city fortified under wartime conditions. Capturing it was out of the question now. All they could do was establish a heavy military presence around the passes and surround Sima Teng’s armies when he tried to return to Bing Province. But that wasn’t something a mere Thousand Horse-master like him could decide. 

“Report to the chancellor immediately: we’ll need reinforcements to capture the two passes,” Liu Meng ordered crisply. Then he gave the city behind him another glance and sneered. He didn’t believe that he wouldn’t be able to capture the city when he came back with a force of five thousand!

“Everyone else, we must hasten back to the commandery city.” With everything he’d witnessed, Liu Meng decided, he’d kill that Liang boy, no matter how much Yan Ji protested! Aside from that bodhisattva, there was no one else who bring such drastic change to Gaodu. The chancellor had been right, he was a mortal threat!

At his order, the cavalry went back the way they’d come. And, nearly apace with the speed of their horses, news traveled back to the Liang Estate.

“The Xiongnu retreated?” The haste with which the Xiongnu had left was far beyond Duan Qin’s expectations. Originally, he’d been planning to stall the cavalry that’d ridden from the commandery city for as long as possible. But to his surprise, they’d only left a few corpses at Taihang Fortress before decisively deciding to call it a day. 

That was a full three hundred people! His lord would be in trouble if he hadn’t taken the commandery city yet.

However, they were a fast-moving cavalry, and he didn’t have the military force to stop them even if he wanted to. Without hesitation, Duan Qin ordered, “Send word to the sentry posts on the mountain; inform the lord as quickly as possible that the Xiongnu cavalry has turned back.”

The sentry posts on the mountain were one of the Liang Estate’s secret weapons. There were sentry posts on every mountain in sight that, at any sign of danger, would put a signal mark on a tree in front of their door. Thus, hopping from sentry to sentry, news traveled easily and less conspicuously than smoke signals. It was awfully convenient in the kind of mountainous regions around the Liang Estate.

That was how he’d been able to notify Magistrate Gao to bring the refugee villagers around Gaodu into the city and tell Taihang Fortress to prepare themselves more than half a day in advance. Now, he would use the same method to let his lord receive the news one day ahead of time. 

He hoped his lord recovered the passes swiftly, so that when the cavalry came, he could eradicate them!

※

The sky was slowly darkening. More than halfway through the eighth month, there should’ve been a gibbous moon hanging in the sky. But the clouds were many that night, blocking out the moon and stars, turning everything pitch-black. 

Torches flickered atop the wall, lighting the guard soldiers’ vague figures. This was the first fortification of Bai Pass, the hardiest one, too. Here, a hundred guards could hold against a force ten times their number. Despite the insurmountable advantage of their newly occupied city, the elite Xiongnu soldiers were still on high alert. There were soldiers constantly patrolling the walls, safeguarding the city they’d gone to such lengths to conquer. 

Of course, they didn’t spot any enemies. 

The mountainous wilds were silent as if every living thing had fallen into slumber, save for the occasional skittering of small rodents. Standing guard from one a.m. to three a.m. as the moon crept westward, even those elite Xiongnu soldiers couldn’t help feeling sleepy. Right then, dozens of shadows, blending into the night, threaded through the dense forest, heading straight for the wall.

That was no easy task. Even the elite Xiongnu soldiers weren’t able to see anything after dark; they had a condition known as “night blindness.” That was why people lit bonfires in their camps and tightened security at night, to prevent the night-blind soldiers from getting worked up into a panic. In the same vein, it was because of night blindness that there were very few cases of successful night attacks. Aside from the true best of the best, who would dare lead a bunch of half-blind men charging into enemy camps?

Nonetheless, these people glided effortlessly through the black of night, almost as if they were able to see. Soon, they came to the base of the wall. A pair of blueish eyes, gleaming ever so slightly, looked up through the darkness. Those eyes, icy, keen, and utterly emotionless, looked like they belonged to a wolf prowling the wastes. But they were a reassuring sight to those around him, who fell into place like wolves following the leader of their pack. 

Without needing instructions, they went into action. Spread out across the wall, four burly soldiers crouched down, and immediately thereafter, others climbed onto their shoulders. The moment they found their footing, more were climbing up already. The human ladder easily reached the top of the wall, which was only around six meters tall.

Yi Yan clung to the parapets with his left hand and clutched a crossbow in the other. With an exertion of strength in his arm, he leapt onto the wall! This was simply too unimaginable to the soldiers on the wall, who received a crossbow bolt through the neck before they could get their wits about them. Simultaneously, three identical bolts flew forth; another three people were on the floor! 

Only then was the first scream of alarm made. Yi Yan ignored it, throwing out a hooked ladder with the swing of his hand. When the hooks caught onto the parapets, the soldiers beneath began ascending. In just the span of a breath, the number of people who’d scaled the wall increased twofold. First crossbows, then sabers, these vicious wolves easily tore through all the elite Xiongnu within the city! 

The whole city was being brought to boil. There were constantly wakened soldiers charging up the wall, trying to slay the enemy, but as they controlled the high ground, and had ambushed them in the night, the defenders were no match for Yi Yan and his troops. Fifteen minutes later, the city had changed hands! 

“Commander, all the Xiongnu soldiers have been killed,” a subordinate reported quietly.

“Good. Pick twenty men and keep going. We must take the other city before the break of dawn!” Yi Yan commanded, coldly flicking the blood off his blade.

Like a pack of wolves that knew no weariness, they bounded for their next target: a city still sleeping unawares!