Chapter Eleven: Another Battle with the Young Tyrant of Western Qin

"Woo... woo..."

In the darkest hour before dawn, Qin Ziyong, commander of Battalion C, Ding Brigade, of the Jingyang County Militia stationed at the west city wall, suddenly heard the muffled thunder of horse hooves rolling across the earth. Without hesitation, Qin Ziyong raised the ox horn and sounded the alarm.

Though the Jingyang Militia, clad in armor, might have looked like a formidable force, their true colors were revealed the moment the war horn blared.

Some soldiers were so flustered they couldn’t even pull on their trousers, couldn’t find their shoes or their weapons, stumbling about like headless chickens.

Witnessing this, Chen Ying could only feel a profound sense of helplessness. The Jingyang Militia was nothing more than a band of green recruits, fresh from their plows and only just handed a blade. To expect them to behave like seasoned veterans was a fool’s hope.

When Li Xiuning arrived at the west gate, leading the sturdy, broad-handed women soldiers of the Princess Pingyang’s Household Guard, Chen Ying had barely managed to assemble a hundred men. These hundred, however, were a disorderly mix: five companies from Battalion A, a dozen from Battalion C, the entire formation thrown into chaos. Yet there was no time to reestablish order. Chen Ying led this ragtag group, uniforms askew, toward the west city.

Seeing the Princess’s Household Guard in their immaculate armor, Chen Ying’s embarrassment knew no bounds.

Li Xiuning, noticing his discomfort, said coolly, “Steward Chen, there’s no need to take it to heart.”

As the defenders of Jingyang braced themselves, the Western Qin army outside abandoned their plan for a nighttime assault. They waited with gritted teeth for dawn. When the first light revealed the vast Western Qin host beyond the walls, even Li Xiuning couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath.

A thousand men packed the city, ten thousand filled the fields—Western Qin’s main force stretched without end, numbering at least ten thousand strong.

Li Xiuning’s heart sank. The five hundred reinforcements she’d brought could barely put up a fight; as for Chen Ying’s Jingyang Militia, at best they could wave banners and shout, but would be little help in the actual battle.

To her surprise, Chen Ying, after the initial panic, showed no further sign of distress. Li Xiuning, puzzled, asked, “Steward Chen, do you have any plan to drive off the enemy?”

Chen Ying found the title “Steward” awkward—why did it sound like a eunuch’s post? But he dared not show the slightest disrespect to Li Xiuning.

“There is no plan for repelling the enemy,” Chen Ying replied. “All we have is hot blood still uncooled!”

With much effort over half an hour, the Jingyang Militia finally managed to form up. Chen Ying shouted to his men, “The Western Qin soldiers are here again! The day the city falls will be the day our homes are lost and our families destroyed. You are all men of stature—do you want to be slaughtered like sheep and chickens? Do you want your hard-earned possessions, saved over a lifetime, to be taken by the enemy?”

“No! No!”

“Good! Then grip your weapons and fight! We all carry our heads on our shoulders—who’s afraid of whom? Kill one and you break even; kill two and you’ve made a profit!”

Gradually, the militia cast aside their fear.

“Fight!”

“Slaughter the Western Qin soldiers!”

Witnessing this miraculous transformation, Ma Sanbao was left dumbfounded. “The troops’ morale is usable!”

Li Xiuning smiled faintly. “Did you notice that Chen Ying bears a resemblance to someone?”

“To whom?” Ma Sanbao grinned.

“Erlang!”

“Prince Qin?”

Li Xiuning nodded. “That’s right. In the eleventh year of the former dynasty, Emperor Yang was besieged at Yanmen Pass.”

Ma Sanbao knew the story. That battle had brought Li Shimin to Emperor Yang’s attention. Over two hundred thousand Turkic cavalry surrounded Yanmen Pass; no one dared advance, except Li Shimin and a thousand men, who put on a show of bravado. Princess Yicheng took the opportunity to fabricate a rumor: that enemies were attacking the northern frontier of the Eastern Turks, urging Shibi Khan to withdraw. Shibi Khan, trusting the princess, really did retreat, saving Emperor Yang from disaster.

“Was it simply courage?” Ma Sanbao mused. He suspected that, like Chen Ying, Li Shimin was driven by ambition—for the greater the danger, the greater the merit.

Chen Ying, gazing at Xue Ringuo’s army, furrowed his brow and asked You Ziying, “The traps I told you to dig at the west gate...?”

“Rest assured, Steward,” You Ziying replied. “We followed your orders to the letter—and even laid some extra seasoning for them!”

Delighted, Chen Ying clapped You Ziying on the shoulder. “Well done! Let’s give that little tyrant a lesson he won’t forget!”

He approached Li Xiuning and said, “Your Highness, I wish to—”

Li Xiuning listened in growing astonishment, her view of Chen Ying shifting. She had always thought him a harmless neighbor boy, never imagining he could be so full of cunning stratagems.

Fearing Li Xiuning might refuse, Chen Ying pressed his point: “To show mercy to the enemy is to be cruel to ourselves—”

“Do as you see fit,” Li Xiuning interrupted. “If anything happens, I’ll take responsibility.”

From the Western Qin army came the rolling thunder of war drums. The young tyrant Xue Ringuo’s eyes glittered with murderous intent as he stared at Jingyang.

When Zong Luohou had launched his surprise attack, in truth he hadn’t led twenty-five hundred men, but over three thousand. When Chen Ying captured Zong Luohou and forced the Western Qin army to surrender, many Western Qin soldiers, seeing the tide turn, slipped away unnoticed.

Almost as soon as Li Yuan received word, Xue Ringuo learned of Zong Luohou’s defeat and near-total annihilation. Zong Luohou was Xue Ringuo’s trusted general; his death was like losing an arm. How could Xue Ringuo accept such a loss?

He quickly mustered over twelve thousand troops and marched on Jingyang in a fury.

Xue Ringuo roared, “Attack! Break Jingyang! For three days, do not sheath your blades!”

In truth, the Xue clan of Western Qin was no better than the so-called thirty-six rebel kings and seventy-two warlords at the end of the Sui. Cloaked in the banner of rebellion, they ravaged the land, burning, pillaging, committing every atrocity. Short on supplies, Xue’s orders were for each unit to forage as needed—a thinly veiled license for plunder.

It is said that men die for wealth, birds for food. The moment Xue Ringuo’s command for three days of unsheathed blades was issued, the eyes of his soldiers gleamed with a wolfish hunger.

“Kill!” howled Yao Damu, the Qiang vanguard under Xue Ringuo, brandishing his unicorn-headed bronze spear and leading three thousand Qiang wolf-warriors in a tidal surge toward Jingyang.

At that moment, the west gate of Jingyang creaked open with a grating sound.

A scrawny, sharp-featured militiaman, carrying a white flag, trembled out from the gate.

“Don’t shoot—we surrender!”

Who else could it be but You Ziying?

At the sight, Yao Damu nearly burst with rage. The Western Qin army’s discipline was poor, but they still treated their own with a measure of decency—surrender was not to be punished too severely. Now, with the fat prize almost at hand, it was snatched away. Yao Damu could not have been more frustrated.

“Damn it! Not again!” Xue Ringuo remembered well how Chen Ying had used a feigned surrender to entrap and kill Zong Luohou, and here he was, trying the same trick. Did Chen Ying take him for a fool?

Xue Ringuo bellowed, “Ignore them! Slaughter Jingyang!”

“Kill!” Yao Damu charged at the head of his troops, spear raised.

Seeing the Western Qin charge, You Ziying threw away his white flag and bolted for the gate, shouting, “Close the gate! Close the gate!”

He had barely darted inside when Yao Damu was upon him.

There was no time to close the gate now. But Yao Damu would soon discover that waiting for him inside was not the wealth or women he had imagined—but a massacre without restraint.