Chapter 57: Dawn (I)

The north bank of the Tali River was packed with the battered soldiers of the Anxi army. Their faces bore an expression of indifference—neither sorrow nor joy—and such indifference was sometimes far more terrifying than grief or fear.

Gao Xianzhi, the governor of Anxi, stared at the thousands of corpses floating in the Tali River, his brows tightly furrowed. Counting carefully, it was already the seventh day since the clash with the main forces of the Arabs. Seven days, and they still hadn’t been able to decide a winner! The endless back-and-forth battles had caused immense suffering to both sides—repeated attacks, probing maneuvers, and withdrawals.

Even brave generals like Abu Muslim dared not launch a final assault until the last moment. Gao Xianzhi sneered. With four to five times more troops at their disposal, the Arabs still deployed them so cautiously. No wonder they could advance step by step, sweeping across the river with unstoppable force.

Yet such a way of leading troops lacked any sense of masculinity. Even if victory seemed likely, it would be despised by others!

Gao Xianzhi clenched his fists slightly. Those damned Arabs were truly cunning—they were waiting for him to run out of food, for the morale of the Anxi army to waver!

Sigh! If only he hadn’t rushed to capture Tali City, he wouldn’t have buried most of their military provisions in the valley camp! Now, not only had they failed to take Tali City, but they were also trapped by hundreds of thousands of Arab cavalry, unable to withdraw!

“Xiu Shi, how many more days of rations do we have?”
Gao Xianzhi shook his head and asked in a deep voice. What worried him most now wasn’t the number of Arab troops but their own rations. Although he had ordered the quartermaster to cut each soldier’s daily rations in half fifteen days ago, after careful calculation, there was likely very little left by now. Running out of food would be even worse than facing hundreds of thousands of enemy cavalry.

“General Gao, if we conserve our rations, we might last another three days,” Duan Xiu Shi replied after hesitating for a moment before telling the truth.

“Three days!” Gao Xianzhi took a deep breath, his eyebrows lifting slightly. “Is that really all?”

“If we eat sparingly, with a mix of solid and liquid food, we can last three days. But if we only have solid food, we might barely make it two days.”

Duan Xiu Shi sighed. “General Gao, the Arabs are trying to starve us to death! Though our forces have been weakened, we’re not yet at a point where we can’t fight. Why not take the initiative and seek a decisive battle against them?”

He could no longer tolerate this indecisive, probing stalemate. Rather than dying under the Arabs’ tactics, it was better to fight to the death!

“How’s things with Li Siye?”
Gao Xianzhi didn’t give Duan Xiushi an immediate reply. Instead, he changed the subject to talk about Li Siye’s Mo Dao Army.
“He? He’s doing pretty well. After all, among the entire army, only his 2,500 Mo Dao soldiers get to fight three times a day.”
Duan Xiushi shrugged and continued, “Two hours ago, the two right-wing cavalry units of the Arabs tried to invade our central army to support their spear troops advancing from the front. Those reckless guys were cut into pieces, along with their horses, as soon as they came into contact with Siye’s soldiers!”
Speaking of this, Duan Xiushi finally vented his anger. “A total of 2,000 light cavalrymen were lost—three or four hundred of them—yet they didn’t even manage to see our central army’s flag!”
“What do you think—if Siye were to coordinate with the cavalry on the left and right to launch a full-scale attack, would that work?”
Gao Xianzhi suddenly asked, staring at the dense army camps a mile away.
“Commander Gao! Absolutely not!”
Duan Xiushi was shocked and quickly tried to dissuade him. “Although the Mo Dao Army is extremely powerful, it’s not good at advancing. If it’s for defensive purposes, it can certainly defeat the Arab cavalry, but if it’s to support a frontal attack, there’s no chance of victory!”
Before battle, it was taboo to speak of defeat or other discouraging words. But seeing Gao Xianzhi on the verge of making a foolish mistake, Duan Xiushi didn’t care about such rules and kept urging him to desist. Each soldier in the Mo Dao Army wore armor weighing over 40 jin, and their heavy Mo Dao swords weighed at least another 40 jin. Forcing these soldiers to carry such heavy loads to confront the Arabs wasn’t bravery—it was suicide!
“You mean we can only defend?”
Gao Xianzhi clearly looked displeased, his expression darkening instantly. Although the Tang army’s armor and weapons were slightly better than those of the Arabs, they weren’t overwhelmingly superior. If they didn’t use the Mo Dao Army’s strength to strike decisively now, there was no immediate way to defeat the enemy.
“It’s not that we can only defend, but we definitely can’t attack like this!”
Duan Xiushi shook his head and pointed west. “Commander Gao, look. The Arab left wing is mostly made up of allied tribes. Leaving aside whether they’re truly united and willing to fight for the Arabs, just by looking at their weapons, we know they’re not a threat.”

What he said was indeed true. These Hu tribes had temporarily conscripted many able-bodied men within their lands to meet the number of soldiers demanded by the Arabs. Although they had enough soldiers, weapons and armor couldn’t be prepared in such a short time. So, despite the allied forces of the Hu tribes claiming to number a hundred thousand, less than one-third of them were equipped with leather armor and long knives; the rest were mostly able-bodied men armed with wooden sticks and kitchen knives. Even among this so-called elite third, their weapons and armor were nowhere near comparable to those of the Tang army in Anxi.

“Are you trying to have me use the strategy of Tian Ji in horse racing?”

Gao Xianzhi began to doubt. What Duan Xiushi said made sense. Although the allied forces of the Hu tribes were originally assembled by Abu Muslim to weaken the Tang army in Anxi, Abu Muslim wouldn’t care much even if many of them were lost. Yet these troops were indeed the weakest link in the Arab army. If they could create a gap here and drive the routed troops toward the Arab center, it might yield unexpected results.

“But we don’t have that many ‘horses’!”

Unlike Tian Ji, even if they used their best cavalry to attack the weakest left wing of the Arabs, the remaining inferior horses wouldn’t be able to withstand a full-scale assault from the Arabs. In other words, their troop strength was far inferior to that of the Arabs. If they couldn’t concentrate their forces to attack the enemy’s center, they would eventually be isolated and worn down one by one by the Arabs.

“How can we know unless we try?”

Duan Xiushi refused to give up and pleaded earnestly, “Commander Gao, you can keep the men with halberds in the center to support the cavalry. This way, even if Abu Muslim figures out our plan and sends heavy cavalry to attack our center, the men with halberds can hold off for a while. As long as we can drive the allied forces of the Hu tribes forward in a rolling wave, even if Abu Muslim were reborn as a god, he wouldn’t be able to turn the tide!”

Hearing this, Gao Xianzhi was truly tempted. Duan Xiushi was right. When one’s forces were far outnumbered by the enemy, it was often necessary to take a risky approach by attacking their weakest point. Once the enemy’s formation was disrupted, they could use the routed troops to charge at the enemy’s central formation—a chaos beyond human control.

“Just… can Siye really hold out that long?”

“He has to hold out. We only have this one chance, Commander Gao!”

Duan Xiushi paused and added, “Besides, we still have your personal guard and supply troops that haven’t been deployed. They can be sent into battle as a surprise force to support Siye at a critical moment!”

“Let me think more about it!”

Gao Xianzhi crossed his arms and paced back and forth. “What if the Arab right-wing formation attacks the rear of our center?”

Gao Xianzhi raised his eyebrows and brought up the thing he had been most worried about throughout. The Arabs’ right wing consisted of spearmen and light cavalry. Although their combat strength was not as great as that of the heavy armored cavalry in the central army, they were still considered elite troops among the Khorasan forces. If he sent his main forces to attack the Arabs’ left wing while Siye tried to hold off the heavy armored cavalry at the front, then who would deal with the Khorasan light cavalry and spear formations?

After all, even a skillful cook can’t cook without ingredients!

“General Gao, we can’t overthink things! If this drags on any longer, even without the Arabs invading, our men will probably run away on their own!”

Not wanting to discourage Gao Xianzhi too much, Duan Xiushi sighed and said, “After all, the Göktürks are also all cavalry. We can let them hold off the Arab cavalry first, just to buy time for our main forces!”

Over the past few days, members of the military police had already caught soldiers who tried to desert at night. Although Duan Xiushi felt reluctant, he ordered that they be beheaded outside the camp gates and their heads hung on bamboo poles as a warning to others.

Why would our men desert? Isn’t it because they heard that there’s not enough food? Right now, we have two days’ rations per day, and in a few days it will be one day of dry rations and one day of porridge. By then, it’s likely not just desertion—it might even lead to mutiny!

“If I were to let you lead this main cavalry force, what are your chances of success?”

Gao Xianzhi took a deep breath and asked in a solemn voice.

“As long as Siye can hold out for two hours, I only need two hours to crush the Arabs’ left wing! I vow by military law that if I fail to complete this task, I am willing to accept any punishment from General Gao!”

Duan Xiushi knelt down and clasped his fists before Gao Xianzhi, saying, “General Gao, just watch the colored flag raised in my cavalry army. If it’s red, then mobilize the Göktürk and Buhainah cavalry to launch a fierce attack on the Arabs’ main forces. Once their central army collapses, we’ll win this battle!”

“Good. Then I’ll appoint you as the General Who Conquers Enemies, commanding ten thousand elite cavalry to attack their left wing!”

Gao Xianzhi also felt filled with enthusiasm. He patted Duan Xiushi’s shoulder and said, “I’ll wait for good news from you in the central army. Once the red flag is raised, I’ll send all my troops to follow you and strike at the enemy’s core!”