Taiheiki

Chapter 187 Complete Victory
"How is that possible? There are fortifications there! How could the Han army have crossed so easily?" An Heng asked in surprise.

"Have you forgotten?" the old priest sneered. "Didn't you allow some people to plunder grain from the Han Chinese villages along the way?"

"That's true, but I did tell them to leave some troops behind to continue guarding their territory!"

The old priest wore a strange expression, as if looking at a hopeless fool: "By Indra, why do you think they will obediently do as you say? Just because you are the king? That's ridiculous!"

An Heng swayed. The old priest's words hit him like a heavy hammer, and a huge fear gripped him. He suddenly roared, "Guards! Guards! Come with me into battle!"

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Wei Cong crossed the enemy's fortifications together with the spearmen.

To facilitate passage, the Han soldiers had already demolished a section of the rampart about five or six meters wide, filling the trench with rubble and earth to create a path wide enough for infantry and cavalry to cross. Wei Cong rode on horseback, with Yuan Shao riding alongside him. Meng Gaogong followed closely with more than ten guards. Spearmen marched in rows of four, followed by archers. Each soldier and horse had wooden pegs in their mouths. Apart from the rapid footsteps, there was only deathly silence.

After crossing the ramparts, the army marched for about a mile. Wei Cong saw a fortified camp, or rather, an encampment, not far ahead, as there were no obstacles except for a thin fence. The officers deployed their archers in a horizontal line. One officer used a wooden staff to draw a shallow trench in front of each archer's feet, then poured in fish oil and lit it. Instantly, a fiery trench appeared in front of the archer's feet. The archer nocked an arrow, lit the arrow wrapped in oil-soaked linen, drew the bowstring taut, and released it. Countless sparks shot into the sky, piercing the heavens, before falling into the camp before them, eliciting screams of agony.

After firing three volleys of fire arrows, the archers spread out to the sides, making room for the spearmen who had already formed a horizontal line behind them. As the rhythmic drumbeats sounded, the spearmen began to move forward in time with the rhythm. As they got closer, the drumbeats became faster and faster, and the spearmen's pace quickened as well. Finally, they laid down their spears, shouted in unison, and charged into the enemy camp.

"This is my first time on the battlefield!" Yuan Shao said in a low voice, his tone slightly tipsy as if he had just had a drink. Wei Cong glanced at him and asked, "How does it feel?"

"Very good!" Yuan Shao stretched out his right hand, as if to grasp the battlefield that was filled with the sounds of battle, but then he turned his hand over and sighed, "Compared to this place, Luoyang is simply too small!"

"Is that so?" Wei Cong laughed. "But in Luoyang, you can be the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, one of the Three Dukes, the Commandant of the Capital Region, and the Commander of the Imperial Guards. Here, I'm at most the Governor of Jiaozhou!"

"Stop joking!" Yuan Shao glanced at Wei Cong with displeasure. "You don't take the Three Dukes and such seriously at all. Don't think I didn't see that!"

Wei Cong glanced at Yuan Shao with some surprise. He smiled, his handsome face possessing a unique charm in the firelight: "Actually, it's nothing. If I stayed in a place like Jiaozhou for too long, I wouldn't even take Luoyang seriously! After all, survival here depends on oneself, not on the majesty of the Han emperor!"

"You'd better not say that in Luoyang!" Wei Cong whispered.

"Actually, you don't need to worry too much!" Yuan Shao laughed. "There are plenty of scholars who speak even more exaggeratedly than you. You must have heard this saying, right? 'The one who will replace the Han is Dangtu Gao!'"

Wei Cong's face immediately darkened. He had certainly heard of this prophecy. The most famous prophecy in the four hundred years of the Han Dynasty was undoubtedly the one from the *Spring and Autumn Annals*: "The one who will replace the Han is Dangtu Gao." Thanks to the flourishing of Confucianism during the Han Dynasty, the study of prophecies and apocryphal texts was extremely popular, captivating everyone from the emperor to the common people, who believed it wholeheartedly. Emperor Wu of Han had also lamented, "The Han Dynasty will face six or seven calamities, and the law dictates a second mandate. Which member of the imperial family will fulfill this destiny? The one who will replace the Han Dynasty after six or seven is Dangtu Gao!"

Later interpretations suggested that six + seven + four + ten + two equals twenty-nine, therefore the Han Dynasty had twenty-nine emperors and lasted four hundred and twenty years (the "calamity of six and seven"). However, the meaning of the prophecy, "The one who will replace the Han is Tu Gao!" remains uncertain. Emperor Guangwu of Han used this prophecy to refute Gongsun Shu, pointing out that Gongsun Shu was not the chosen one, but rather he himself was. Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao's brother, later used his own courtesy name to prove that he was indeed the "Tu Gao" who would replace the Han. In Wei Cong's view, this prophecy had long become a powerful weapon for ambitious individuals to undermine the sanctity of the Han rulers. If loyalty was not absolute, then it was absolutely disloyal; every single one of these Han Dynasty scholars was a traitor.

"So Brother Wei, there's no need to worry too much!" Yuan Shao laughed. "Compared to the discussions of my fellow party members and friends at our gatherings, you are simply an upright gentleman. In any case, as long as you can wipe out the Moth Rebels, the court will certainly not be stingy with the reward of a marquisate!"

"A reward of being enfeoffed as a marquis?" Wei Cong smiled but said nothing. The highest reward Yuan Shao mentioned was only a county marquis. With Wei Cong's achievements and connections, he could only have three to five thousand households, which meant that he could enjoy the taxes of three to five thousand farming households for generations. This was certainly enough for a family to rise to the top and climb into the ranks of the Han Dynasty's top ruling class.

The problem is that Wei Cong's wealth far exceeded the imagination of most Han Dynasty scholar-officials. Crassus, one of the wealthiest men in ancient Rome, famously said: "A man who cannot maintain an army with his own wealth is not a rich man." Wei Cong himself was a vivid embodiment of this statement. His current army was largely maintained by his personal wealth (the salt fields in Xuwen were Wei Cong's personal property). Furthermore, the initial investment in the construction of Panyu's city and docks, the fishing fleet, the handicraft workshops under construction in the city, the shipyard, and the mines, smelting workshops, various metal workshops, and inland waterway fleets in Shaoguan also came from Wei Cong's private coffers.

He certainly didn't care about the taxes from those few thousand households. As long as he won this battle, and if he wanted, he could earn the equivalent of a county magistrate's tax revenue for over a hundred years just from the slave trade alone. The handicraft workshops in Panyu, the vast tracts of land in the Pearl River Delta waiting to be cultivated, and the mines in Shaoguan all needed a massive influx of fresh labor. Not to mention the bribes and reparations he could extort from the small chiefdoms scattered throughout the Mekong Delta after the victory. Wei Cong didn't believe that the Cham invasion had nothing to do with these chiefdoms; otherwise, how could the King of Lin-yi have mustered a hundred war elephants?
woo woo woo woo!

A deep, powerful elephant's cry interrupted Wei Cong's thoughts. He could even feel the beast's anger and despair; an invisible wave swept through his body, making even his bones feel weak. Wei Cong glanced at Yuan Shao in surprise and found that the other's face had also turned deathly pale.

"Is this what an elephant is? It's truly terrifying!" Yuan Shao murmured.

With a series of booming sounds, the Zhan people's greatest and final trump card finally appeared. Wei Cong saw twelve or fifteen war elephants lined up in a horizontal row, moving towards him to the beat of the drums. Faced with this moving mountain of flesh, the Wei army spearmen who had already stormed into the enemy camp began to retreat, moving towards Wei Cong, though they still maintained their formation. Groups of Zhan people hurriedly fled the battlefield, some even running directly into the elephants' path and being trampled underfoot.

"Should we send the cavalry?" Yuan Tian asked from the side. "Are we just sending them to their deaths?" Wei Cong rolled his eyes at his subordinate. "The warhorses are afraid of the smell of war elephants; they'll run away from a distance! Have the cavalry spread out, flank them, and prepare to attack the infantry behind the war elephants!"

"Then, what about the infantry?"

"As usual, fire a volley of crossbow bolts, then thrust with spears. These elephants are only human, and they didn't have time to put on armor in the rush, so there's nothing to be afraid of!"

At Wei Cong's command, the crossbowmen rushed forward, using the spinning wheels to fully draw their crossbows and aim at the approaching enemy war elephants. The ground beneath their feet trembled. The archers were the first to fire, pulling their bowstrings back to their ears and releasing them. Twelve long arrows pierced the air, flying towards their targets. Then came the crossbowmen; with the mournful cries of the war elephants, these unfortunate beasts fell one by one.

"See that!" Wei Cong shouted to the soldiers, "These giant beasts look terrifying, but they are made of flesh and blood. Bows and crossbows can kill them, and spears can certainly harm them. There's nothing to be afraid of. As long as we kill the riders on their backs, they will be ours!"

Encouraged by Wei Cong, the infantrymen raised their drums and charged forward, surrounding the few remaining war elephants. They easily killed the riders on them and, together with the cavalry, easily routed the wavering infantrymen behind the elephant herd.

"It's over," Yuan Shao thought. The Cham people had collapsed. The infantrymen abandoned their weapons and fled, only a few remaining elephants still held on, like maneed islands in a surging sea of ​​blood. The Cham king was nowhere to be found. Flames leaped from one tent to another, and some nearby trees also caught fire. Amidst the raging flames, the banner atop Wei Cong's head was the most conspicuous. It was his banner, one side embroidered with "Wei, Governor of Jiaozhou," and the other with "Wei, Protector of the Baiyue."

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"Who do you think will win?" Listening intently to the shouts of battle from the shore, a Zhan captain cautiously asked.
"I don't know!" Bafaki suppressed his excitement and shook his head. "We'll know for sure after dawn!"

“If the Han people win—and I mean if!” the Cham captain asked cautiously, “would you be willing to take us into exile?”

“Exile?” Baffa frowned, turning his gaze to the uneasy Jama captain. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean!”

“Look!” The Cham captain pointed to the firelight on the shore. “Our king has put all his strength into this place. If we lose here, everything will be over, and the capital will certainly not be able to be defended! If we don’t want to become slaves of the Han people, the only way is to escape to a new place. A famous merchant like you must know a place where we can go into exile, right?”

"This—" Baffa was stunned: "Isn't it too early to think about these things now? After all, it's not even dawn yet, and the outcome is still uncertain! If your king wins, wouldn't you not have to flee?"

"Excuse my bluntness!" The captain shook his head. "Look, the fire is in our camp, and there are so many elephants crying out in distress. This is not a good sign. In my opinion, we're very likely to lose this time. We'd better prepare as soon as possible!"

Baffa pondered for a moment, then nodded: "Perhaps you are right. Alright, have all the ships ready. Once dawn breaks and the outcome is determined, we will return to the capital!"

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"Give me a drink, and a drink for Benchu ​​too! Bring me some food as well!" Wei Cong jumped off his horse. He felt his legs were as heavy as lead. For the entire fourteen hours, he hadn't rested, changing horses three times, constantly urging his troops to fight, seize the enemy's supplies, break up their formation, cut off their retreat, pursue them, and force them to lay down their weapons and surrender their war elephants and horses. It wasn't until around 11:00 AM the next day that he temporarily handed over command of the army to Wen Sheng and returned to the temporary camp to eat and rest.

Yuan Shao accepted the cup without hesitation, drank it down, then grabbed a fried egg and a slice of cured meat, stuffed them into his mouth and chewed them heartily. Having also followed Wei Cong for over ten hours, he no longer cared about the image of a scion of a noble family.

"Another cup!" Wei Cong shoveled the food down his throat with lemonade mixed with honey, then handed the cup to a servant beside him. Behind him, more than ten servants were setting up tents, beds, and map racks. Once he had filled his stomach, he felt a wave of urgency wash over him, his eyes drooping. Wei Cong yawned, "I'm going in to sleep for a while. Wake me up before dark!"

As soon as Wei Cong entered the tent, snoring began to fill the air. However, he was soon woken up and found that the sky outside was still bright. His face turned grim: "What's going on? I remember telling you to wake me up before dark!"

"It was Commandant Wen who sent a message!" the attendant hurriedly explained. "It seems they've captured the King of Linyi!"

"What?" Wei Cong's sleepiness vanished instantly. He sat up in bed, wiped his face, and said, "Quick, get me a basin of water and wipe myself down!" "Here you go!"

Wei Cong wiped his face clean, straightened his armor, and was about to leave the tent when he heard a snoring sound beside him. Turning around, he saw Yuan Shao sleeping soundly with his legs spread wide, snoring loudly. He couldn't help but laugh. This guy must be exhausted. Oh well, let him continue sleeping. Anyway, the King of Linyi has been captured. He can check on him when he wakes up.

(End of this chapter)