A son who doesn't resemble his father? Love you, old man, see you at Xuanwu Gate!

Chapter 134 Chi You
Gaoque Pass.

It is the northwestern gap in the Yinshan Mountains.

The end point of the Great Wall built by King Wuling of Zhao.

It was also a bridgehead for the Han Dynasty's several attacks on the right wing and royal court of the Xiongnu.

A crucial battleground in the Han-Xiongnu War.

Yinshan, called "Dalankala" in the Xiongnu language, means "seventy black mountain peaks" in the Han language. As the name suggests, it is a large mountain range.

To the south of the Yinshan Mountains lies the Hetao Plain, known as "the most fertile of the nine bends of the Yellow River." Irrigated by the Yellow River, it is divided into three "sets": the "front set," the "back set," and the "western set," a vast fertile plain suitable for both agriculture and animal husbandry.

To the north of the Yin Mountains lies the Xiongnu Plateau, where rainfall is scarce and no trees grow.

From a very early time, this place has been a key point of contention. Back then, Qin Shi Huang once sent General Meng Tian with an army of 300,000 to drive the Xiongnu out of the Hetao region and relocated 30,000 households of criminals to this border area, establishing the Yunzhong and Jiuyuan prefectures. However, due to the chaos at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Hetao region was taken back by the Xiongnu.

After the outbreak of the Han-Xiongnu War, this place was targeted by Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty. In the autumn of the first year of Yuanshuo, after a probing attack, in the spring of the second year of Yuanshuo, Wei Qing led an army of 50,000 from Yunzhong. Using a flanking maneuver, he bypassed the nearby Loufan tribe and marched westward to the rear of the Xiongnu, cutting off the connection between the Xiongnu Baiyang King and Loufan King stationed in the Hetao Plain and the Chanyu's royal court.

After "making dumplings", Wei Qing led his army south at lightning speed, forming an encirclement of the Baiyang King and the Loufan King, and launched a massacre while the two tribes were caught off guard.

The two kings of Baiyang and Loufan never expected that so many Han troops would suddenly appear in the Hetao Plain, which had been invincible for decades. Without time to think, they led their confidants to break through the encirclement.

The Han army pursued the fleeing kings of Baiyang and Loufan relentlessly northward, and Wei Qing chased them all the way to Gaoque before withdrawing his troops, thus reclaiming the land of Henan in one fell swoop.

"In that battle, my uncle made outstanding contributions, beheading more than 2,000 people, capturing more than 3,000 people, and seizing more than a million head of cattle and sheep. It can be said that my uncle confiscated all the wealth that Baiyang and Loufan had accumulated over the years."

Huo Qubing, full of confidence and charisma, recounted the stories that had unfolded beneath his feet to the young men around him.

Young Huo Guang revealed a wise look in his eyes, "Brother, why was it that on the vast grassland, Uncle was able to surround the two major Xiongnu tribes, Baiyang and Loufan?"
Why was my uncle able to win battles in the past Han-Xiongnu wars?

"Seasons and military system."

Huo Qubing looked at his half-brother with a gentle gaze. On the way to the expedition, he briefly left the army and went to Hanoi. Under the arrangement of the governor of Hanoi, he met his father Huo Zhongru at the post station. As expected, he still did not find the feeling of family affection. He only bought a lot of land, houses and servants for his father.

Before parting, his father brought Huo Guang to him and begged him to take him to Chang'an to take care of him. Huo Qubing found it hard to describe his feelings at the time, but he still agreed.

After inquiring about Huo Guang's thoughts, he simply enlisted the man in the army and kept him by his side, with the aim of gaining military merits.

Huo Qubing knew what it was like to be a relative of the emperor in Chang'an. Without military achievements to back you up, those high-ranking officials, marquises, and members of the imperial family wouldn't even give you a second glance.

After a brief encounter, Huo Qubing discovered that his younger brother was very adaptable and had an even stronger learning ability. If it weren't for his lack of skill, he could have become a capable general in the future.

At this stage, the only way forward is to try and follow in my uncle's footsteps.

“Early spring is the most vulnerable time for the Xiongnu people, because every spring, cattle and sheep on the grasslands give birth to calves and lambs. The grassland people become extremely busy with lambing and dividing the herds. Moreover, after a winter of exhaustion, all the livestock are very weak. Cattle and sheep are thin, horses are weak, people are busy, and their settlements are fixed. My uncle’s major battles against the Xiongnu were basically all in the spring,” Huo Qubing recounted.

All livestock are vulnerable during lambing season. When a large army arrives, fleeing to avoid the army will cause countless female animals to miscarry and livestock to die. This is the weakness of grassland tribes.

It may seem unethical, but what is poison to one is honey to another. War is not a matter of morality.

In addition, the horses on the grasslands are not like the horses of the Han Dynasty, which can eat their fill of beans and night grass in winter, ensuring that the warhorses do not lose weight in spring and have strength. Grassland horses do not have this treatment. After winter, they are the standard thin horses with long hair, slow speed and weak endurance.

Therefore, spring is the time when the Central Plains horses overtake the grassland horses. With one being strong and the other weak, Wei Qing greatly increased the possibility of winning the war against the Xiongnu.

"What about the military system?"

"My uncle is a genius."

Huo Qubing pointed to the stirrups of his warhorse and said, "Before they were in use, a person on horseback could not exert any strength in their waist, hips and legs. This meant that not only could a person not wield a weapon, but they also had to free up one hand to hold the reins, and the other hand could only use short weapons."

"Brother, the Xiongnu still don't have stirrups?" Huo Guang immediately noticed the problem.

Throughout the long cavalry war, the equipment of the Xiongnu cavalry was always inferior to that of the Central Plains cavalry, so why were the Xiongnu cavalry able to win repeatedly?
"Because the Xiongnu people all have the skill of riding and archery." Huo Qubing explained: "The Xiongnu children can ride sheep and shoot birds and rats with bows. When they grow up, they shoot foxes and rabbits for food. The soldiers are strong enough to wield bows and are all armored cavalry."

People on the grasslands are born and raised alongside horses. Hunting wolves requires riding and shooting, hunting requires riding and shooting, and fighting people requires riding and shooting even more. If you don't master it, you'll starve to death.

Horse archery is a skill taught from childhood. No matter how rigorous the training was in the Han Dynasty, it only lasted a few years. How could it compare to the life-or-death skills of the Han people?

Therefore, the Han army did not possess the skill of riding a horse, seeing a target, and being able to free their hands to draw a bow and shoot an arrow while on a bumpy horse.

But this was before the invention of the stirrup.

Today, anyone could do the same as Huo Qubing's 30,000 elite cavalry.

"Before we had stirrups, my uncle changed our army's mounted archery tactics to a charge attack. The cavalry no longer needed to draw their bows and shoot arrows. Instead, they held the reins in one hand, tucked their spears and halberds under their arm with the other, and gripped the shaft of their spears. Under the protection of their armor, they charged into the rain of arrows from the Xiongnu, risking their lives." Huo Qubing's calm voice revealed the brutality of the Han-Xiongnu wars of the past years.

Since my archery skills are far inferior to yours, I'll choose to give up. Anyway, the distance is only one arrow's length, and with armor protection, I can just charge.

There's no need to brandish weapons; they're just fixed killing machines—kill by a graze, die by a touch.

The "Charge Cavalry" tactic was not very useful in the Central Plains. Cavalry and organized infantry would be suicidal if they used it. However, as cavalry, they could exchange their courage for skill advantages and forcefully narrow the gap between them.

"Then why do our elite cavalry sometimes suffer vastly different casualties when they meet the Xiongnu's elite cavalry?" Huo Guang thought of a certain Han general who often fought to the death and escaped alone.

Even if they couldn't win, they should have inflicted equal or considerable casualties on the elite Xiongnu cavalry. However, in that general's record, the number of Han soldiers who died was always greater than that of the Xiongnu.

Huo Qubing paused for a moment, "Not all Han generals were willing to use my uncle's cavalry tactics. There were always confident generals who believed that their army's cavalry archery skills were superior to the Xiongnu's."

Even the best tactics are useless if they are not practiced and used. Huo Qubing did not name names, but many generals surnamed Li were indeed very confident in their family's archery skills.

Huo Guang was pale and thin-lipped. His cheeks twitched a couple of times, and his lips moved slightly, but he didn't utter a word of his assessment of the general surnamed Li.

"Does my elder brother's subordinate also seem very confident in his archery skills?" Huo Guang thought of Huo Qubing's account of the Battle of Dingxiang North, in which he twice achieved the greatest merit in the entire army.

In that great battle, the eldest brother commanded troops for the first time, with only eight hundred men, and "excessively killed and captured enemy leaders."

The loss was only three hundred light cavalry, but they beheaded and captured two thousand twenty-eight people, including high-ranking officials of the Xiongnu such as the prime minister and the head of the household. They also killed Ji Ruohouchan, the grandfather of the Xiongnu Chanyu Yizhixie, and captured the Chanyu's uncle Luogubi.

Clearly, Huo Qubing was not one of the users of his uncle Wei Qing's cavalry tactics.

Why was Huo Qubing able to win two championships in one battle while the general surnamed Li was struggling to survive, even though both were using mounted archery?

"Those men were handpicked by me from the entire army. A general must have a clear understanding of his own strength, the strength of his subordinates, and the combined strength of the two," Huo Qubing warned.

Who were his soldiers, and who were the soldiers of the general surnamed Li? Can they be compared side by side?

Huo Guang nodded in agreement, then asked, "Brother, what is Chang'an like?"

As their brotherhood deepened, Huo Guang finally asked about the place he had always longed for, the place that all the subjects of the Han Dynasty yearned for.

"It's no different from any other city, just with more people and a bit more prosperity, but that's about it," Huo Qubing thought for a moment and said.

On the night of Chang'an, he captured the city and Weiyang Palace, but found nothing new or interesting.

"And what about the imperial court?"

"A place where a bunch of people spout benevolence and morality but are actually thieves and prostitutes."

"What about Your Majesty?"

"A lustful and suspicious emperor."

"Where is the Lord?"

Huo Guang, still in high spirits, asked the question.

No one dared to speak of the conflict between the father and son of the Heavenly Family, but that didn't mean it wasn't circulating in private. Because people believed more in calamities and prophecies, the most widely spread belief in the world was that it was the will of Heaven.

It is said that before the birth of the Crown Prince, the celestial phenomenon of the banner of Chi You appeared, and from then on, the Han army was constantly waging wars everywhere, suffering countless deaths and injuries. The life and death of the Crown Prince would forever be associated with war.

"Since the Three Dynasties, there have been no sage rulers in China who can rival or even surpass Emperor Xiaowen."

Huo Qubing thought of Liu Ju and praised him to the fullest extent. A smile unconsciously appeared on his face as he spoke to Huo Guang.

"Will the Emperor really rebel? Will he kill His Majesty?" Huo Guang couldn't help but ask curiously.

Huo Qubing's smile vanished instantly, and his eyes sharpened. "Who said that? And where did you hear it?"

"Brother, the news has spread far and wide. When I was in the county, everyone was talking about it," Huo Guang said in a trembling voice.

"Pingyang County? The Marquis of Pingyang's residence? The Princess of Pingyang's residence?"

Huo Qubing's killing intent surged. Gazing in the direction they had come from, he said sternly, "This is courting death!"

(End of this chapter)