Chapter 095: A Love Triangle

Dun Wu was a scout, the finest young master among the Wei clan’s warrior infantry. The forty men who followed him were all carefully chosen for their courage and intelligence alike. They were not only skilled at close combat in the chaos of battle, but also possessed several of the special abilities that only scouts could claim.

For instance, climbing ropes.

Though there were only a hundred and forty of them, they still arranged themselves in tactical waves. Wang Hui personally led thirty men as the vanguard. Hanging upside down from the ropes, one hand gripping the line and the other holding a hand crossbow, they slid down at speed. Before they landed, the remaining one hundred and ten men, forming the second and third waves, covered them with arrows, striking at preselected targets with precision and clearing the way ahead.

A hundred and more archers, drilled every day until they could hit seven or eight times out of ten, unleashing their fire together, were no less formidable than three hundred bowmen loosing in mass.

An abrupt storm of arrows rained down with deadly accuracy on the place where the first wave was about to land. More than twenty Wei soldiers did not even understand what had happened before they were struck in vital spots and lost their lives in confusion. They fell almost at once, leaving the soldiers beside them no time to react. On the battlefield, which had been orderly only moments before, a terrible gap suddenly opened.

Then the thirty men of the first assault wave descended from the sky along the ropes and landed squarely in that gap. Just before they hit the ground, they turned with practiced ease and quickly handed all the ropes over to Wang Hui. Wang Hui gathered the ropes in his hands, ran a circle around the wheel of the raised barrier gate, and tied every line fast to it.

He cinched the knots with swift precision, drew his battle saber, and roared, “Form ranks!”

The thirty Wei clan warrior-infantrymen answered with a thunderous cry and quickly formed a circular formation. It was not large, only about five paces across, but it had inner and outer rings, loose yet impenetrable, shielding one another. At its center stood the wheel that controlled the raised gate. Faced with the Wei troops still struggling to understand what had happened, they did not charge recklessly into the enemy. Instead, they held the formation firmly.

This position was the landing point for the second wave. By securing it, they laid a solid foundation for the safe descent of their comrades behind them. Their task was not to kill as many enemies as possible, but to make sure this point remained secure.

In the blink of an eye, as soon as the first wave had landed, the seventy men of the second wave ceased firing. One by one they seized the ropes and slid down at full speed, joining the circular formation and gradually expanding it step by step. Meanwhile, the forty men of the third wave remained on the cliff edge. Under Dun Wu’s command, they continued concentrated arrow fire.

Their target was the Wei general.

That general was not the first to notice figures above his head; the roof of the tower covered him, making it hard to see. But he was the first to react. The instant he saw the soldiers beside the wheel fall in unison, he realized the danger and immediately ordered his personal guard to counterattack, hoping to retake control of the wheel. He even drew his own battle saber and tried to rush forward. But the moment he poked his head out from the battlements, more than a dozen arrows came screaming in. Several of the guards in front of him fell at once. If not for the timely grasp of the guard commander behind him, he might have been shot down immediately, even with his fine armor on.

Watching the tiles explode and shatter as arrows struck them and rattled across the roof, the Wei general’s face turned pale. Through the roof overhead, pierced full of holes by the arrows, he saw shafts whistling past one after another, their trembling fletching tearing silver streams through the sky, just as his heart was being torn at that moment.

With the second wave safely on the ground, there were now nearly a hundred Wei clan warrior-infantrymen on the barrier wall. Their bizarre descent and overwhelming killing power dealt the Wei troops a crushing blow. Panic erupted on the wall. Some began to flee; others charged toward Wang Hui and the rest, hoping to kill them and seize back control of the situation. Yet on the narrow wall, their numerical advantage could not be brought into play at all, while the smaller formations of the Wei clan’s elite warriors advanced like boiling water poured over snow, driving them back step by step. Worse still, another group of archers remained above, trained specifically on the officers, harrying them so badly that they could not spare a thought for command.

The Wei troops on the wall fell into disorder, and the pressure on the Wu army eased dramatically. More and more men surged up onto the wall and joined the fray. As soon as the gate was raised, still more Wu soldiers poured in.

Anqiao Fort had fallen.

Pan Zhang, with his personal guard, fought his way up to the wall in a single rush. Seeing corpses strewn across the battlements and the Wei clan warrior-infantrymen calmly wiping blood from their sabers with their boot soles while tidying the battlefield, Pan Zhang was deeply shaken. He had already seen their majestic descent from the cliff below, but at the time he had only thought it spectacular to the point of looking almost gaudy. Dropping from the sky seemed imposing enough, but in truth it made them into living target boards. If the enemy had reacted even slightly faster and countered with arrows or spear formations, they would have suffered heavy losses. Only now, seeing the heaps of Wei soldiers’ bodies on the wall, did he truly understand just how fearsome these men were.

From the moment they appeared to the moment the battle ended, it had taken no more than the time it takes to eat a meal, and yet they had killed several times their own number. Was this warfare, or chopping firewood?

Of course, he did not know that among the Wei clan, their saber technique was nicknamed the Firewood-Cutting Saber.

Killing men was like chopping firewood.

Compared with the sheer ferocity of these Wei clan warriors, Pan Zhang was even more astonished by Wei Ba’s audacity. This young man had ignored Fangling’s peril, marched a hundred li through the night for a surprise assault, and had already shown exceptional cunning. Now he had pushed his advantage to the limit, devising a tactical arrangement beyond the imagination of ordinary men and taking Anqiao Fort in a very short time. Such ability was not something merely comparable to other young men; even veteran commanders who had spent years in the army might not possess such courage or insight.

He was an opponent worth watching. Pan Zhang studied the silent Wei clan warriors on the wall and quietly grew wary.

Wei Ba walked down the slope. He too could have descended by rope, but as a proper staff officer of the Chancellor’s residence, he could hardly climb down like an ordinary soldier, monkey-like. For the sake of appearances, he had no choice but to take the mountain path down, though it cost him a little time. By the time he reached the wall, Pan Zhang had already found the wounded Wei general and said to Wei Ba with some regret, “This head belongs to you.”

Wei Ba knew that in war, military merit was counted not only by victory and defeat but also by the number of enemy heads taken. A general’s head, especially, was valuable. From the envy in Pan Zhang’s eyes, one could tell that this one head would probably earn him a promotion of at least a rank, perhaps even two.

Wei Ba had been in this age for more than half a year and had grown used to the fact that war meant death, but he still had not acquired the habit of killing a living man and carrying off his head to claim credit. He glanced at the Wei general, whose face was covered in blood, and waved a hand. “Take him down and have a healer treat his wounds.”

Pan Zhang looked at Wei Ba in surprise. “You mean to take him alive?”

Wei Ba smiled. “He is not getting away. Lord Pan, your men are truly brave. I watched from above with my heart in my throat. If I had not acted, all the credit would have been snatched away.”

The corner of Pan Zhang’s mouth twitched. He wanted to laugh, but did not quite manage it. He rolled his eyes. “Which son of Wei Yan are you?”

“I am the second son. I have an elder brother as well. He is currently with Commander Zhuge. If Lord Pan makes good speed, you should be able to see him beneath the walls of Fangling.”

At that, Pan Zhang had no mind to continue chatting with Wei Ba. He did not even intend to divide the spoils. After a brief greeting, he led his men through the fort and hurried toward Fangling.

Wei Ba let out a breath. Whether Pan Zhang managed to arrive in time or not, his own mission was complete. Discounting the wounded, Pan Zhang still had nearly four thousand men. From here to Fangling was only a day’s march. If Meng Da were fortunate enough, he ought to see Pan Zhang’s reinforcements and hold out a little longer. If his luck was poor and he died before Pan Zhang arrived, that would have nothing to do with Wei Ba.

Still, Wei Ba hoped Meng Da would hold out a bit longer. Not only would that serve Zhuge Liang’s strategic purpose, it would also ensure that Sima Yi and Pan Zhang could fight one another to the finish. He had always felt that Pan Zhang’s entry into the Hanzhong region was dangerous. Though this veteran general of long standing commanded few men, he could not be ignored; in the future, he might well become a formidable enemy.

That was precisely why Wei Ba had deliberately said that Zhuge Qiao and the others were nearly here, luring Pan Zhang away to Fangling as quickly as possible, while he himself stayed behind at Anqiao Fort to tidy the battlefield. The small quantity of spoils was certainly valuable, but the darker purpose was the real one: to kill by borrowing another’s blade, to sit on a hill and watch the tigers fight.

The reason the struggle among the three kingdoms was more complicated than a war between two states was precisely because these triangular relations, neither fully enemy nor fully ally, sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly, were far more intricate than any simple two-sided contest. The measure of how to handle such relations required a very high degree of skill.

With Pan Zhang gone, Wei Ba calmly set about clearing the battlefield. This battle had yielded rich rewards. Because the Wu army had attacked first, the Wei troops had never imagined that an enemy would strike from behind, let alone that men would descend from the cliffs overhead like heavenly soldiers. The fighting had ended quickly, so casualties were not high. Nearly a thousand Wei soldiers had been killed, about a third of them by Wang Hui and the others. Some five hundred or so were seriously wounded, and the remaining more than thirteen hundred had not even had the chance to fight before the battle was over.

Wei Ba’s losses were likewise small. Of the hundred warrior-infantrymen who had followed Wang Hui, only a dozen or so were wounded, and none were killed. The greatest losses had been suffered by Zhou Yu’s men: more than a hundred wounded and over thirty dead. Zhang Xi’s losses were lighter, with total casualties numbering just over fifty. On the whole, it was a resounding victory. Whether Zhou Yu, Zhang Xi, or the common soldiers, all of them beamed with delight at the piles of spoils stacked like little mountains. Only the Wei clan warrior-infantrymen remained calm; they had no interest in the armor and weapons. After the Wei clan smiths had been upgraded and replaced with better equipment, these once valuable arms and armor had become junk in their eyes, beneath their notice.

Wei Ba, however, was short of money, so he still kept a portion for himself. Most of the rest was divided between Zhou Yu and Zhang Xi, with a small remainder set aside as official spoils to be turned in. Zhou Yu and Zhang Xi were very pleased, and the looks they gave Wei Ba grew increasingly warm.