Chapter Eighty-Nine: Such an Army

The two thousand Xiongnu horsemen who had come from the south were led by Yixue'er herself. Just then, she had learned from her scouts that Qin Cheng's main force lay directly ahead, and the eyes that had already burned with anger now seemed to blaze all the more fiercely, as though kindled by a stack of dry timber.

Thinking of how, over the past days, she had exhausted every scheme and spared no effort to set a trap for the Shanggu cavalry, a plan so carefully laid that even Li Guang would have been hard pressed not to fall into it, she felt all the more furious that Qin Cheng had ruined everything. How could she not hate him? More than that, this was her first campaign at the head of an army, and also her first battle after "returning from study" in the Han realm. Its importance needed no explanation. Yet Qin Cheng had thrown everything into utter chaos, and that would do her future no good whatsoever. Her loathing for Qin Cheng was, truly, as vast as the sea.

As Yixue'er urged her two thousand riders forward at greater speed, Qin Cheng also led his own two thousand horsemen southward to meet them.

Knowing that escape was impossible once he had been discovered, Qin Cheng never intended to flee.

When Yixue'er finally sighted the Han troops to the north, she also saw something that made her even angrier: the Han cavalry had actually changed direction, no longer charging south but turning east instead.

Trying to run? Yixue'er gave a cold laugh and shouted, "After them! Don't let them get away!"

At her command, the two thousand Xiongnu riders behind her let out their wolfish howls and, brandishing their long blades, formed a classic elongated pursuit line, biting after the Han army's rear like wolves on the hunt.

It had to be said that when the Xiongnu charged in this fashion, their momentum was undeniable. Their howling alone, if heard at night, could be frightening indeed. This was battle wisdom the Xiongnu had learned through long years of living and fighting alongside wolves.

The northern steppe had always been a land of wolves.

For nomads like the Xiongnu, when they were not battling the Han army, their greatest enemy was the steppe wolf. The wolves were everywhere, and in their conduct there was something almost human, especially when they raided Xiongnu pastures and seized cattle and sheep; their actions carried a distinctly military quality.

The wolves robbed the Xiongnu, and the Xiongnu robbed the Han. The Xiongnu had learned their methods from the wolves, and now the Han had learned the Xiongnu's methods as well. When the Xiongnu used wolf tactics against the Han, they had always found it easy to reap great results; and when the Han used Xiongnu tactics against the Xiongnu, as in Qin Cheng's thousand-mile strike, the harvest was no less impressive.

Such was the amusing truth of the relationship between man and nature.

The Han cavalry, which had been charging south, suddenly veered left, like a long dragon whipping its head around in a grand turn. The sight was, admittedly, rather imposing.

Yet because such a maneuver required time, and because the two sides had been moving directly toward each other, by the time the two thousand Han riders completed the wide turn, the Xiongnu were already closing hard behind them.

When Qin Cheng chose his route back, he had deliberately avoided the central road and angled the column leftward. This was done to prevent any chance of being surrounded. It had nothing to do with divine foresight, only absolute caution—or, to put it plainly, suspicion.

Qin Cheng remembered a classic line once spoken by some great traitor in later generations: in this world, it was suspicion that saved a man's life!

"Keep biting at their heels! Don't let them escape!" Yixue'er saw that only two or three hundred paces separated her from the Han rear, and the gloom that had clouded her face gradually flushed with excitement. Perhaps it was the thrill of pursuit, perhaps the belief that victory was within reach and the Han cavalry had nowhere left to run.

To wipe away her shame would happen now.

Yixue'er could almost picture it: once she destroyed the Han cavalry under Qin Cheng's command, then turning back to Shanggu to swallow Li Guang would be as easy as lifting a hand. And after the Flying General Li Guang was eaten by her, would not the few frontier commanderies of the Han lie at her mercy? Once she could range freely across those borderlands, would marching south into the Central Plains not merely depend on her mood?

What a beautiful prospect.

If Qin Cheng had known what was running through Yixue'er's mind, he would surely have sighed: so women two thousand years ago were just as fond of fantasy, and by heaven, their imaginations were still so extravagant!

In any case, the Han riders had rested half a night and a whole morning, and now naturally had the energy to face this sudden turn of events. In fact, they even had the advantage of fresh troops awaiting the enemy, whereas the Xiongnu horsemen had just raced hundreds of miles as though their lives depended on it.

"General, if we go farther, I truly won't know the terrain or the route anymore!" Shan Jia rode with Qin Cheng and the army as they moved east, his face tightening as he spoke.

On this northern march into the desert, he had served as guide. Now, confronted with ground that even he did not know, he had to state the limits of his ability in advance.

Qin Cheng smiled faintly, with a hint of mystery. "You won't need to know the direction much longer."

Shan Jia was taken aback.

At that moment Qin Qingzhi called out, "General, the Xiongnu are already within a hundred paces."

Qin Cheng turned and glanced at the Xiongnu cavalry close behind them. For no reason at all, his mind conjured an image of himself being chased by a pack of wild dogs. He was momentarily stunned, then gave a helpless laugh to himself. How could such an idea have come to him?

"Blow the horn. Tell Liu Mu and Le Yi to slow down a little more!" Qin Cheng said. "Since they've chased us so hard, we shouldn't let them even catch our scent."

Qin Qingzhi instantly understood and flashed a wicked smile, with a touch of Qin Cheng's own flavor. "Understood! Sound the horn!"

At once, Yixue'er was puzzled to discover that after a long, drawn-out horn note rang through the Han formation ahead, the Han cavalry had not increased the gap between them, but had actually allowed the distance to shrink further.

Though she did not understand it, she had no time to think. Since the gap had narrowed, it was a perfect opportunity to shoot them down with arrows.

"Archers!" Qin Cheng suddenly roared from the rear of the Han formation.

The five hundred cavalrymen at the back of the formation immediately responded. They drew arrows, loosened their reins, turned in their saddles, and pointed their arrowheads straight back at the Xiongnu riders. Their movements were astonishingly neat.

Only those truly skilled in both bow and horse could do this.

Even Qin Cheng knew he could not have performed such a difficult maneuver well. After all, he had been a cavalryman for only a little more than four months, and once he had become one, he had scarcely had time to train in riding or archery. He had ridden and shot before, of course, but when faced with something so demanding, all he could do was honestly cry out to the soldiers who calmly drew their bows and nocked their arrows: well played!

Qin Cheng himself could not do it, and by rights a light cavalryman who had only been formed four months earlier should not have been able to do it either. But the situation now was not as it should have been.

The reason was simple: the five hundred cavalrymen at the rear of the Han formation were all veteran horsemen, the very drillmasters of the original five hundred cavalry.

At this moment they had been detached from their own units and positioned by Qin Cheng at the rear of the formation to exchange arrows with the Xiongnu!

It could be said that for this great battle Qin Cheng had used every possible means. Only he could have imagined such a disruption of the unit structure.

The five hundred cavalry drillmasters had been chosen from the elite old cavalry camp, and their combat strength was beyond question. Only they could shoulder the task of blocking the Xiongnu riders.

In truth, not all five hundred cavalry drillmasters were placed at the rear. Fifty of them had been stationed at the very front of the formation by Qin Cheng, leading the column forward. The vacant positions left by those fifty were, naturally, filled by Qin Cheng's personal guards.

Was this tactic not savage?

"Loose!" Qin Cheng shouted at the same moment the five hundred riders turned.

Yixue'er had just ordered her men to unleash a volley when she saw a large number of Han soldiers ahead suddenly turn around, and then a storm of arrows flew toward them through the air. The arrowheads, like countless locusts surging in unison, came with a shrill, insect-like whistling that was strangely unnerving. It made Yixue'er feel a chill run through her. At once she cried out, "Loose arrows!"

Two rains of arrows, from two different directions, met head-on and slammed into the opposing formations.

When you see a storm of iron arrows, among the hundreds and thousands of shafts, one of them is aimed directly at you, flying from a hundred paces away; you can see its path with perfect clarity, hear the rush of the arrowstorm in your ears, and even foresee the next instant when that iron point will strike your body—no, your chest—followed by a dull thud as it drives itself into your breast, pierces your heart, and protrudes from your back. In that moment you can clearly imagine the sensation of the iron shaft entering your flesh, and the miserable sight of yourself tumbling from the saddle, only to be trampled into pulp by the hooves of the riders behind you. Yet at that very instant, you cannot dodge it, because though it is visible, its speed is beyond anything you can outrun. So you can only watch helplessly as it flies into your body and reenacts, in full, the scene you had already seen in your mind.

Just thinking of such a feeling is enough to drive one mad.

And now the Xiongnu riders faced precisely this situation.

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

Shrill, piercing screams broke out one after another, accompanied by the frightened whinnies of horses. The final cries of two different living species tangled together, creating a strangely cruel kind of musical beauty.

The first exchange of volleys already caused considerable losses.

And the Xiongnu formation suffered far more than the Han.

That was because the Xiongnu were charging into the Han iron arrows, while the Han were fleeing away from the Xiongnu shafts. The Xiongnu's forward rush both shortened the distance between themselves and the iron arrows and increased their impact, whereas for the Han the opposite was true. As a result, many of the Xiongnu arrows never even reached the Han riders, instead burying themselves in the grass behind the horses' tails; and even when the Han arrows were struck, many of them were stripped of most of their power.

Thus the casualty gap grew enormous.

To run and fight at the same time—that favorite Xiongnu tactic, one that had always served them so well—had finally made them taste its bitterness for themselves today.

Yixue'er looked back and saw so many riders being shot from their horses that her heart ached, and tears nearly fell. Then she saw that hardly any Han riders had been knocked down, and she was so enraged she almost wanted to curse aloud.

Yixue'er and her men could do nothing to the Han riders running ahead of them, but when she saw some of the Han cavalry within the formation being shot down, she, like the other Xiongnu riders, wanted nothing more than to tear them to pieces.

The Han cavalrymen who had been shot from their horses became the objects of the Xiongnu riders' fury.

But would they simply surrender and let the Xiongnu enjoy themselves?

"Kill!"

A Xiongnu centurion saw a Han rider directly ahead of him struck in the horse's leg by an arrow. The horse lurched and fell, throwing its rider to the ground. Delighted, the centurion swung his long blade and charged at the Han rider.

He could already imagine the blade sweeping across the neck of the Han soldier just as he rose, severing his head and sending it flying.

Yet the Han rider, though clearly badly wounded, suddenly lowered his body and drew out his own long blade.

When the centurion's strike missed and he saw the Han rider's blade come free, he instantly felt that something was wrong. And indeed, as the rider ducked low in one motion, the blade slashed hard and clean through the front leg of the centurion's horse.

When the centurion tumbled from the saddle, his whole body went cold, for he could already foresee his fate: in the surging cavalry formation, a foot soldier had nowhere to hide. Even if he fell among his own ranks, he would still be trampled into meat paste.

The centurion looked toward the man who had brought him to this fate, only to see the Han rider thrust his long blade into the belly of a galloping horse, while at the same instant he himself was struck across the back by a slash from one of his own side's riders!

Seeing this, the centurion laughed.

But in the next moment, his smile froze, because the Han rider, though already taking a blade to the back, merely staggered once and then steadied himself. He drew a dagger from his waist and hurled it straight at the centurion. The distance was too close; there was no time to evade, and the dagger plunged into his chest.

After throwing the dagger, the Han rider coughed up a mouthful of blood. Refusing to fall, he roared hoarsely, blood and teeth showing in his mouth, then threw his body sideways into the foreleg of a Xiongnu horse!

The horse was checked, lurched to one side, and its rider was thrown down as well. By then, the Han cavalryman's chest had caved inward by a large depression, surely the result of that savage collision. The rider lay on the ground, and immediately behind the Xiongnu horseman whose charge had just carried past him came another rider, whose horse had already lifted its leg high and was about to trample him.

The Han rider, still clinging to life, glanced back toward his own formation and happened to see Qin Cheng also looking back. Their eyes met at once.

Seeing Qin Cheng's grief-stricken expression, the rider actually bared his teeth in a grin and, in a voice only he could hear, shouted at Qin Cheng, at the margrave cavalry commander who had turned what they had once only dared to say in bitter joking among themselves into reality:

"General... go!"

To have followed the General into the desert, to have stormed the Xiongnu's own lair in this lifetime—that had been worth it!

The light in the rider's eyes faded. Just as his gaze was about to close upon the sky, he caught a final glimpse from the corner of his eye of the horse that was about to trample him being struck in the head by an arrow and toppling sideways.

He closed his eyes, a faint smile lingering at the corner of his mouth.

Around him, similar acts were unfolding among the Han riders who had fallen behind and the Xiongnu horsemen pressing in on them.

Would they obediently surrender and let the Xiongnu have their way?

The answer was clearly no.

...

A commander thinks far ahead; a common soldier fights to the death. An army like this—how could it possibly not win?