Gao Pei was drowning in a sea of regret. It wasn't because he had finally realized the siege engines were clever fakes made of painted wood and dreams; it was the bone-deep realization that he should never have agreed to Zhang Fei's "single blade" parley in the first place.
But Baishui Pass had already changed hands. The keys were gone, the gates were open, and wallowing in self-pity wouldn't change the reality of the banners flying above.
"General Zhang, I ask that you put me in irons," Gao Pei said, his voice hollow.
Zhang Fei looked at the defeated commander, whose face was the color of cold ash. It wasn't hard to guess the man's thoughts. He simply couldn't stomach the idea of being a "surrendered official" while walking free.
"If that is what you wish, so be it," Zhang Fei replied, his respect for the man quietly growing.
A stubborn man was, after all, a man of character. "Fan Jiang! Find a clean room, settle General Gao inside, and see to it he is well-fed and properly cared for. No chains, unless he tries to jump off the wall."
Once the prisoner had been escorted away, Zhang Fei assumed his role as temporary custodian of the pass.
He turned to Huo Jun. "You are in charge of the defense. Every crenel, every bolt, every gate. It is yours."
"Me?" Huo Jun's eyes widened with genuine shock. "Then what about you, General Zhang?"
Zhang Fei stepped onto the battlements and looked east toward the horizon, his silhouette imposing against the rising sun. "Zhang Lu is likely on his way. I need to prepare a proper greeting for my Big Brother's guests."
A bowl of thin congealed rice bubbled over a small brazier, the steam curling into the chill morning air.
Once it reached the right consistency, a servant ladled it into a bowl and carried it up the wall to Pang Xi, the Prefect of Baxi.
Yang Huai had arrived with the Baishui Army exactly as expected, and Pang Xi had immediately developed a stress-induced ulcer.
Taking the city would be no easy feat. The friction between Pang Xi and Liu Zhang was a drama decades in the making, and Langzhong had been fortified precisely to serve as a second line of defense should Baishui Pass ever fall.
The defenses were solid, and the Baishui Army, for all its elite reputation, was a garrison force at heart.
They were masters of holding passes, but when it came to active siege warfare, they were fumbling in the dark.
However, Yang Huai was no amateur. He was heralded as a Famous General of Shu, and he operated at a level far above the incompetent fops usually sent from Chengdu. This was why Pang Xi was sweating.
When Zhao Zuo heard of Pang Xi's anxieties, he let out a sharp, mocking laugh, the kind that only someone who had seen the true world could produce.
"He relies on a natural mountain pass and dares to call himself a famous general? General Pang, it seems you haven't seen a true hero of the realm in far too long."
Pang Xi bristled, but as he tried to argue, the searingly hot porridge hit the ulcer in his mouth, twisting his expression into a pained and deeply comical grimace.
Zhao Zuo shook his head, too lazy to explain further. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Pang Xi, looking out at the tactical nightmare beyond the walls.
Langzhong was a tough nut to crack, surrounded by water on three sides and guarded by mountains to the north.
The Baishui Army had marched from the north, but they had chosen to pitch camp on the southern plain, cut off from the city by the West Han River.
It was a rare stretch of flat ground, some thirty li wide, perfect for a force of ten thousand men to dig in and wait. From the battlements, the horizon was nothing but a sea of Baishui banners.
When Pang Xi spotted yet another squad hauling ladders toward the walls, what little remained of his appetite vanished entirely. " What the hell, when is the Imperial Uncle getting here?" he snapped. He shoved his bowl aside and stormed down the stairs, already shouting at the defense crews before his feet even touched the ground.
Zhao Zuo stayed on the wall, his eyes fixed on the enemy camp. Can the Imperial Uncle truly break this siege? Even he was no longer certain.
"Can Zilong truly break the siege of Langzhong?" Liu Bei asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
Pang Tong sat nearby, his fingers tracing invisible lines of force across a map.
Without looking up, he replied, "The Baishui Army is already divided, and Yide is moving on the pass. The stronghold itself is no longer a concern.
Even if it does not fall at once, the moment Zhang Lu shifts his troops, the pass will be caught in a pincer. It is a mathematical certainty."
This part of the plan had been rehearsed a dozen times already. "The Baishui troops camped beneath the walls of Langzhong will rush to reinforce the pass the instant they hear it is under threat,"
Liu Bei murmured, completing the thought. "Zilong only needs to find the right moment to strike them while they are in motion."
Pang Tong had set a single clear goal after igniting the civil strife in Yizhou. Marching on Chengdu directly was a high-risk gamble.
Better to declaw the 'Sick Tiger' Liu Zhang first, and the most dangerous of those claws were the Baishui Army and the pass they held.
Yang Huai and Gao Pei were not powerful aristocrats. Everything they had, they owed to Liu Zhang's personal favor.
Baishui Pass was the door between Hanzhong and Yizhou. Control the door, and the tiger inside could be dealt with at leisure.
What Pang Tong had not predicted was Zhang Fei taking the pass through a 'social invitation'. The messengers were already racing toward Jiangzhou with the news.
As for Zhao Yun, he lacked Pang Tong's flair for grand schemes, and his tactical style was famously steady.
But he possessed one advantage that outweighed everything else. He was a master of cavalry. After his scouts returned with their reports, a single realization settled in his mind. It would be a sin to waste a plain this flat on anything but a charge.
"Zhang Yi, take the four thousand infantry and advance at a steady pace,"
Zhao Yun commanded. "Zhang Zhuo, tell the riders to switch to their stirrups. Carry bows and crossbows. We are going to trample their lines."
"Trample their lines!" Zhang Zhuo echoed, his heart leaping into his throat with excitement. He raced off to assemble the riders.
When the campaign into Yizhou began, Zhao Yun had not brought his personal cavalry.
The terrain was a nightmare of mountains and narrow paths, utterly unsuited for horsemen.
But once they had settled in Jiangzhou and begun planning for the plains around Chengdu, Zhao Yun had summoned his three hundred elite personal guards from Jingzhou.
At last, the stage was set.
"General, is this not too risky?" Zhang Yi asked, his eyes betraying his worry at the lopsided numbers.
Zhao Yun smiled, a calm and radiant expression settling over his features.
"Yizhou has been isolated for too long. They do not understand battle formations, and they certainly do not understand cavalry.
Rest easy, Bogong. Just watch the flank."
The riders assembled in a silence more terrifying than any war cry. Three hundred men moved as one, steering their mounts through the shallow valleys of the West Han River where the ground lay firm.
After ten li of trekking through the riverbed, the land opened up before them. The plain stretched before them like a banquet table.
Zhao Yun raised a hand. Three hundred horses halted as one. In the heavy silence, the riders checked their gear and shifted from a travel column into a wide crescent, the Reclining Moon formation.
Zhao Yun lowered his hand and pointed forward. He nudged his horse lightly, and the formation began to roll.
By now, the lookouts in the Baishui camp had spotted the sudden apparition of horsemen. They began to scream, their voices cracking as they tried to warn the vanguard still busy assaulting the city walls.
Zhao Yun paid them no mind. Once an army passes five thousand men, the front and the rear become two separate creatures. Communication, confirmation, command, all of it turns to chaos in the heat of battle.
A seasoned commander with veteran officers can shorten that delay, but Zhao Yun did not believe a garrison force that had spent its whole life hiding behind the stone walls of a pass possessed that kind of discipline.
If the Baishui Army were truly the Famous Force the people of Shu claimed them to be, why had they never reclaimed Hanzhong from Zhang Lu? Was it because they did not wish to? Or because they could not?
The greatest weakness of the Yizhou army was their complete lack of experience against cavalry. Yizhou bred only pack horses. They had never faced the warhorses of the north.
Zhao Yun did not strike the center. He led his riders in a screaming arc across the flank of the Baishui camp.
"Reinforcements!" Pang Xi shouted from the city wall, his face drenched in sweat. But his joy curdled to ash a heartbeat later. "Why are there so few of them?"
Zhao Zuo did not answer. He was young, and his eyes were sharp. He watched the sunlight shatter against the silver armor of the leading rider.
Three hundred against ten thousand.?
Baik, bang. Ini revisinya dengan nama pasukan dalam pinyin:
---
Then he saw the miracle.
The cavalry moved with the speed of a mountain gale, like a flight of arrows skimming low across the earth. As they tore past the edge of the camp, a whole row of Baishui soldiers simply vanished, cut down in a blur of motion too fast for the eye to follow.
Zhao Yun felt nothing but the rhythm of the charge. He modulated the pace, accelerating and slowing, keeping the enemy staggering and off balance. They ripped through the gaps between the vanguard and the rear, then wheeled around in a vast and terrifying loop.
His 'Baima Yicong' Army had their feet locked into metal stirrups, freeing them to steer their horses with thigh and hip alone. Their hands were left to do the work of death.
At a distance, they rained arrows down with clinical precision. Up close, they leaned low in their saddles, their long blades extending like the wings of hunting birds, reaping a harvest of blood.
Zhao Zuo watched, breathless, as the Baishui rear guard dissolved into chaos.
They had no answer for this.
The panic spread like sickness, rolling toward the front lines.
The logic of a fleeing soldier was simple enough. A river lay between them and the city, and the bridges were right there. Get across the water, and the horses cannot follow.
"Governor Pang, Langzhong is safe!"
Zhao Zuo turned to see Pang Xi, who had somehow replaced his panicked expression with one of calm, statesmanlike confidence. "The northern cavalry is truly ferocious!" the Prefect remarked.
Zhao Zuo rolled his eyes inwardly. This man had survived the rebellion of Zhao Wei. He certainly knew how to pivot with the wind.
He looked back at the field and noted two things.
First, the mountain pass where the silver rider had emerged was now disgorging a steady stream of infantry, soldiers forming up in perfect, disciplined squares on the flat ground.
Second, the Baishui commander in the center was having none of the retreat. He was hacking down his own fleeing men, his banner waving frantically as he fought to steady the center.
Zhao Zuo felt he could read the flow of battle now. The reinforcements would hold the line, the Langzhong garrison would sally out to strike the flank, and victory was assured.
Zhao Yun, however, had a different plan.
He saw the enemy commander's banner moving toward the chaos.
He saw a man shouting orders, trying to weld the broken pieces back together.
The window was closing. Zhao Yun roared, "Zhang Zhuo! Cover the flank!"
"Break their lines, General!" Zhang Zhuo shouted back.
The crescent formation collapsed inward, sharpening into the Point of the Arrow, a wedge of pure and unstoppable momentum aimed straight at the enemy's heart.
Zhao Zuo's jaw dropped. The wedge struck the enemy center like a falling star.
The lightning speed of the earlier charge gave way to something far more brutal, a grinding, crushing power.
Zhao Zuo flinched as several riders were dragged from their saddles, horse and man vanishing beneath a forest of spears.
And then, the tip of the wedge split open.
The silver-clad rider burst through, spurring his horse into a final, desperate gallop and closing the distance to the Baishui commander in a heartbeat.
His spear shot forward like a silver dragon plunging into the sea, aimed directly at Yang Huai's throat.
Yang Huai felt his soul leave his body. He poured every ounce of his strength into a frantic upward parry, his heavy blade catching the spear and forcing it past his cheek. A near miss.
Huh, Is that all? A surge of triumph leaped in Yang Huai's chest. Then something struck him as wrong. Why had the rider let go of the spear?
Zhao Yun's mind was clear. The thrust had been a feint. Even as Yang Huai committed to the parry, Zhao Yun's left hand was already closing around the hilt of the sword at his saddle.
He drew the blade in a reverse grip, a flash of snow-white steel slicing through the air.
The triumph on Yang Huai's face froze there. A fountain of red erupted from his neck, spraying Zhao Yun and his horse in a fine crimson mist.
Zhao Yun glanced down at his blood-spattered sleeves. A fleeting sense of aesthetic disappointment passed through him.
I really should have ridden the white horse today, he thought. It would have looked much better.