Han Ji

Jia Xu added from the side, "There's one more thing. The third trench is flooded, making it difficult for cavalry to cross. After Zilong infiltrates, first find the upstream sluice gate of the Zhangshui tributary and block it, which will lower the downstream water level. This way, the infantry won't have to swim across when they advance."

Liu Bei nodded and noted down this detail.

That evening, the various camps began preparations. The soldiers cleaned their weapons thoroughly, tightened their bowstrings, and distributed their arrows evenly. The cooks prepared several extra pots of porridge, sprinkling in chopped dried meat. Those who would be charging into battle the next day were given an extra spoonful of meat in their bowls.

Zhang Fei squatted outside his tent, wiping his eighteen-foot spear with an oilcloth. The spear shaft reflected a dim light in the firelight. A personal guard sharpened his knife beside him, the blade and whetstone scraping together with a rhythmic hissing sound.

After wiping his spear, Zhang Fei stuck it into the ground, the butt of the spear sinking half a foot into the soil. He stood up, clapped his hands, and crawled into his tent to sleep.

An hour before dawn, Guan Yu's troops began to move westward. Ten thousand men, each with a short wooden stick in their mouths, their horses wrapped in cloth, their hooves making little sound on the frozen ground; the occasional clatter of armor against the ground carried only a short distance in the cold. They crept westward along a dry irrigation canal, its banks barely waist-high, just enough to conceal their figures.

Zhang Fei led three thousand men to wait about two hundred paces outside Yuan's trench. He was surrounded by swordsmen and shield bearers and engineers carrying ladders. The engineers were civilians transferred from Hanoi, each carrying a long ladder. The ladders were crudely made overnight using locust wood from outside the camp, but they were sturdy.

It was the hour of Mao (5-7 AM). The sky was just beginning to lighten. A pale white tinge appeared on the eastern horizon, and the faint outlines of stars could still be seen on the ground.

Zhang Fei stood up and slammed his spear to the ground. His voice boomed in the cold morning air: "Beat the drums!"

The drums sounded. Dozens of large cowhide drums pounded simultaneously, the sound shaking the ground. Three thousand soldiers shouted in unison, and the swordsmen and shield bearers charged towards the first trench. Engineers followed behind, carrying ladders.

The Yuan army's garrison was awakened by the sound of drums. Someone shouted from the watchtower, and then the horns sounded. The archers behind the moat rose from behind the earthen walls, and their crossbows fired in unison, a volley of arrows flying through the air.

The arrows pierced the shields, thud, thud, thud, like a torrential downpour hitting wooden planks. Some men fell, wounded by the arrows, and their shields were riddled with thorns.

Zhang Fei charged at the forefront. He held up a large shield, which was riddled with arrow studs. He rushed to the edge of the trench, shouted, and the engineers erected a makeshift bridge, which was simply long ladders pieced together and placed across the trench.

As soon as the ladder was set up, Zhang Fei was the first to step onto it and rush across. The ladder wobbled twice under his feet, and as he stepped onto the other side, several chunks of loose soil from the edge of the trench crumbled down. Then the soldiers behind him surged across after him.

They stopped before reaching the second trench. The second trench was wider, and its bottom was lined with sharpened wooden stakes. The defenders' arrows rained down even more heavily, coming from the watchtowers behind the second trench, and the charioteers around Zhang Fei fell one after another.

He ordered his men to line up their shields in front of him, shouting and cursing to attract more arrows and attention.

Shen Pei stood on the arrow tower, his ears ringing from Zhang Fei's shouts. He had indeed pushed his main force towards Zhang Fei's side, and half of the archers on the west flank had been moved over to reinforce the front.

His personal guard reminded him of the west. He glanced at the gentle slope to the west. The arrow tower there was indeed not yet finished, but he felt that Liu Bei would not launch a main attack from that place. The soil on the gentle slope was loose and not easy to breach.

At this moment, Guan Yu's ten thousand men had already stood up from the irrigation canal. Guan Yu held his Green Dragon Crescent Blade in his hand and pointed to the gentle slope to the west. The ten thousand men dispersed into skirmish lines and pressed up the slope.

The soil on the gentle slope was indeed loose; some people slipped, their knees hitting the rocks, but they got up and continued running. The guards on the watchtower noticed, the bugle call changed, and someone shouted, "West! West!" But half of the archers on the west side had been withdrawn, so the density of the arrow rain was far less than that on the front.

The first to charge into Yuan's western flank was Guan Yu's personal guard captain. Carrying a long sword, he smashed through the makeshift wooden fence erected beneath the watchtower. The fence, made of freshly felled pine wood, was not yet fully dry and broke upon impact.

The soldiers behind poured in through the gap and charged into the flank of Yuan's army. The defenders on Yuan's flank were unprepared; many were still looking back at the situation on the west side when their swords were already at their necks.

Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade slashed left and right through the crowd, each strike accompanied by a whooshing sound. He felled a mounted lieutenant and then snapped the large "Yuan" banner on the west side. The flagpole broke with a crack, and the banner fluttered down, only to be trampled into the mud.

As Zhang He passed through the flank camp, he bumped into an old subordinate, Jiang Qi. Jiang Qi was anxiously waving his hand to summon the routed soldiers. Zhang He called out his name from a dozen paces away, his voice carrying through the cacophony of shouts and battle cries.

Jiang Qi froze, lowering his knife. Zhang He rushed forward and pinned him against the earthen wall. After a brief struggle, Zhang He used his knee to pin Jiang Qi's back, tied his hands behind his back, and handed him to his personal guards. In the chaos, Shen Pei's central command began to lose track of its messengers.

Just then, Zhao Yun's cavalry charged in through the gap. Their hooves kicked up a cloud of dust as they pounded the loose earth. Zhao Yun led the charge, his spear tip lowered, resting on his horse's neck. His mission was to infiltrate behind Yuan's army and destroy their central command tent.

But the third ditch was filled with water, its surface shimmering in the morning light. The horse reached the edge of the ditch but refused to dismount. Zhao Yun reined in his horse, circled around, and roared, asking who was familiar with this section of the ditch.

Zhang He ran up from the side and pointed to a loess bank about half a mile to the north, where there was a grove of poplar trees, and beneath the trees was the sluice gate of a branch canal of the Zhang River. Zhao Yun immediately led a dozen or so cavalrymen toward the grove of poplar trees.

The sluice gate was an old wooden gate from the watermill, its panels covered in moss. An old soldier was guarding it. Zhao Yun had his men pin the old soldier to the ground, then jumped down from the stone platform of the sluice gate, inserted an iron spear into the crack of the gate, and pried the panel askew.

The water flowed diverted from the ruptured sluice gate and surged towards the low-lying area to the north. The water in the downstream ditch visibly gathered into shallows, which then turned into muddy ground.

The cavalrymen began to ride across the ditch bottom that was sucked up by silt. Some slipped and some were trampled by the horses' hooves, but hundreds of riders still made it across.

Zhao Yun charged across the trench, leading his cavalry straight towards Yuan's central command tent. Shen Pei was directing the frontal battle when he suddenly heard the sound of horses' hooves behind him.

He turned around and saw a troop of cavalry charging from his side and rear. The leader was a white horse, and the rider was dressed in white robes and silver armor, with the tip of his spear already pointed at him.

Shen Pei's personal guards fought desperately to block his path, but Zhao Yun felled them one by one with his spear. Shen Pei mounted his horse and fled, even losing his helmet in the process. Zhao Yun pursued him for nearly three miles, until they reached a tributary of the Zhang River. Shen Pei jumped into another small boat, and the boatman poled it away from the shore. Zhao Yun's arrows struck the gunwale, embedding three arrows in it. The boat rocked slightly, but continued drifting away.

Yuan's army collapsed completely. Zhang Fei broke through the second trench on the front, Guan Yu crushed the flank on the west, and Zhao Yun ravaged the central army from behind. The defending soldiers were leaderless; some threw down their weapons and fled north, some knelt and surrendered, and some were cut down by the pursuing cavalry. The Cangting camp completely disintegrated after less than two hours of stalemate between the two armies.

Post-battle inventory revealed that Yuan's army suffered nearly 5,000 casualties, with over 7,000 surrendered soldiers gathered together, and the rest scattered in the fields and along the Zhang River. Liu Bei's army also suffered over 2,000 casualties, with Zhang Fei's engineering corps suffering the greatest losses, most of whom were killed by arrows while building a makeshift bridge.

Zhang Fei was shot in the shoulder socket by an arrow. When the physician used the tip of his knife to remove the arrowhead, he was biting on a piece of wood, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, but he didn't cry out.