Chapter 556: The Bloodshed at Jingxing

Thirty thousand cavalrymen from Youzhou raced swiftly through the darkness, like wolf packs chasing prey on the grasslands. Figures moved like lightning, yellow dust billowed, and the sound of hooves was thunderous, as if shaking the earth itself.

Within the Tang army, there was a saying: “The Eastern Cavalry and the Western Saber Troops,” referring to the two most formidable forces of the Tang Empire. The Western Saber Troops were the Anxi Saber Troops, while the Eastern Cavalry were the Youzhou Cavalry—the finest cavalry unit among the Fanyang forces.

These two armies were regarded as the best in the land due to their geographical origins. Anxi was home to many white-haired barbarians, most of whom were tall and strong, well-suited for wielding long sabers. Fanyang, on the other hand, was inhabited by numerous northern nomadic tribes who had grown up on horseback and possessed exceptional horsemanship. From among them, the best riders were selected to form the Youzhou Cavalry.

Originally, the Youzhou Cavalry numbered 20,000, but after several years of expansion under An Lushan, their strength had grown to 60,000, with his two fierce generals, Shi Siming and Cai Xide, each commanding 30,000 men.

It was the 30,000 Youzhou Cavalry under Shi Siming’s command that came to Jingxing today. They had set out from Youzhou and rushed hundreds of miles, with Tumen Pass just ten miles ahead.

Shi Siming led the charge at the forefront. In the darkness, he strained to see ahead. By halfway, he already knew that a group of rebels was heading toward Jingxing. He sped up even more, determined to intercept them. In his eyes, those farmers who fled Hebei were nothing but rebels.

His eyes burned with murderous intent. Those who betrayed them deserved death no matter what their reasons. Waving his battle axe, he shouted fiercely, “Speed up! Catch those rebels and kill them without mercy!”

The 30,000 cavalrymen accelerated, rushing like wind and lightning toward Tumen Pass…

Outside Tumen Pass, tens of thousands of immigrants were still flooding in. None of them realized that death was approaching step by step. The Jiang and Mu clans happened to be crowded together. They regarded each other with hostility, but none dared cause trouble again. Yan Zhenqing had already entered the pass to take care of the immigrants ahead, while Yan Gaoqing and the chief clerk Yuan Lüqian were working with the guards to maintain order at the gate.

“Governor Yan! Chief Clerk Yuan!” someone called out urgently. Yan Gaoqing looked up and saw Captain Yu Fang on the city wall, waving at him with a panicked expression.

Yan Gaoqing was very familiar with Captain Yu Fang, who had always worn a carefree smile and spoken in a playful tone. But now, not only was his tone anxious, there was also a look of fear in his eyes, which surprised Yan Gaoqing. He then said to Yuan Lüqian, “Keep watching over the immigrants. I’ll go take a look!”
He urged his horse forward and arrived at the foot of the city wall. Looking up, he said with a smile, “Captain Yu, what’s happened?”
“Governor Yan, Shi Siming’s army is already on its way. They’ll be here soon. You and Secretary Yuan must enter the city quickly, or it will be too late.”
Yu Fang spoke in a low voice, fearing that the surrounding people might hear him. But Yan Gaoqing was shocked. He suddenly turned to look into the distance. At that moment, miles away, a cloud of yellow dust rose, and an aura of violence filled the air. Yu Fang screamed, “They’re here! They’re here!”
His cry couldn’t be suppressed, and many people heard it. The crowd queuing to enter the city turned around and saw countless small dark dots spreading across the moonlit landscape miles away.
Everyone was stunned. After a brief silence, chaos erupted in front of Tumen Pass. People rushed toward the city, shouting, “Run! An Lushan is coming!”
Hysterical screams of fear, pushing, shoving, trampling… the cries of children and the screams of the elderly turned the area in front of the pass into utter chaos. Secretary Yuan Lüqian tried desperately to maintain order, shouting, “Everyone, stay calm! You can give up your belongings—just get inside first!”
His voice was hoarse from shouting, but it had no effect. As the crowd surged forward, his horse was knocked over, and Yuan Lüqian was thrown to the ground. His forehead hit a rock, and blood flowed instantly as he lost consciousness.
Two officials rushed forward to help him and shouted at Yan Gaoqing, “Governor Yan, Secretary Yuan is injured.”
At this moment, Yan Gaoqing was consumed by anger. He couldn’t care about Yuan Lüqian anymore. He said to the two officials, “Quickly carry Secretary Yuan into the city. I’ll go check what’s happening at the back.”
He spurred his horse toward the end of the queue. The two officials had no choice but to carry Yuan Lüqian on their backs and race back into the city. By then, Yu Fang had already opened the city gates wide. Hundreds of soldiers also came out to help the people, clearing away carts and carrying children, supporting the elderly, and speeding up the process of letting people in.
Yan Gaoqing rode at full speed toward the end of the queue. After crossing a low hill, he suddenly reined in his horse and closed his eyes in pain.

Si Siming’s cavalry rushed into the immigrant crowd, cries filling the air and screams echoing everywhere. The immigrants were slaughtered mercilessly—heads rolling to the ground, limbs broken, blood flowing like rivers, corpses scattered everywhere. The people were terrified and stunned; they fled from the main road into the wilderness, trying to escape, but Si Siming’s cavalry spared no one. They pursued and killed them. White-haired elders knelt and begged for their lives, only to have their heads severed with a single stroke. Pregnant women, unable to run fast, were pierced in the back by spears, pinned to the ground along with their unborn children.

Children held in their grandmothers’ arms were also killed in the chaos. A man driving a plow cart was filled with rage; he charged forward desperately but was stabbed to death beside his cart, his eyes wide open in agony.

Si Siming waved his battle axe and laughed maniacally at the sky, “Those who follow me will live; those who rebel will die!”
“Kill them all! Reward those who bring heads!”

The poor people had come west in hopes of a better life, only to be mercilessly slaughtered by An Lushan’s army. The massacre lasted for over half an hour. When Yan Gaoqing fled into Tumen Pass with the last little girl, the city gates finally closed slowly. The Yuzhou cavalry was blocked by the belongings abandoned by the immigrants, preventing them from storming the gates. By then, nearly four thousand families outside Tumen Pass had been wiped out, and more than 25,000 people killed. The area in front of Tumen Pass was reeking of blood, with corpses piled up, turning it into a hellish slaughterhouse.

Tumen Pass was impregnable—Si Siming’s cavalry lacked siege weapons and could not attack. Seeing that he had achieved his goal, he rode his horse to the gates and shouted loudly, “Call Governor Yan out to see me!”

Yan Gaoqing stood on the city wall, staring at Si Siming with fury. Pointing at him, he cursed, “Si Siming, you kill innocents! Heaven will not forgive you! Sooner or later, you’ll die without even a place to bury yourself!”

“Hmph!”

Si Siming snorted heavily and said, “Yan Gaoqing, I’m not here to argue with you. I’m warning you—don’t go too far. From now on, if one more person defects, I’ll kill one; if ten defect, I’ll kill ten. If the whole province flees, I’ll slaughter the entire province!”

He waved his hand and ordered, “Retreat!”

Thirty thousand cavalry turned and left, their hoofbeats like thunder. In moments, they disappeared into the darkness. The night wind blew across the pass, and everyone gazed mournfully at the horrors outside. After what seemed like an eternity, the gates of Tumen Pass opened again. Thousands of people rushed out, crying as they searched for their slain relatives.

Yu Fang slammed a fist hard against the battlements, filled with self-reproach for his incompetence. At that moment, Yan Gaoqing stepped forward and said to him, “The general only has five hundred men—how can they possibly match Shi Siming’s tens of thousands of cavalry? The general has done his best. After all, most of the people have fled inside the walls. The top priority now is to inform General Guo about the massacre at Jingxing. I’m very worried that Shi Siming will march south to kill more people.” Yu Fang nodded and said, “I know. I’ll send a message right away!” He turned and left the city. Yan Gaoqing turned back to look at the bloody massacre in the distance, his eyes filled with determination. He must return to Zhending County immediately to continue organizing the refugees. Shi Siming’s brutal killings only strengthened his resolve to get the people to flee Hebei.

……

The Jingxing massacre spread throughout Hebei within two days. The bloody killings indeed intimidated many timid farmers. Many who had planned to migrate gave up the idea of going west and picked up their hoes again to farm for An Lushan. However, the counties in the south accelerated their efforts to flee. Instead of heading to Hexi, many crossed the Yellow River at Dezhou and headed south through Henan, fleeing to Jianghuai and the south of the Yangtze River.

By then, Guo Ziyi’s hundred-thousand-strong army had fully entered Xiangzhou and advanced toward Weizhou. Cai Xide’s fifty-thousand troops, stationed in Weizhou under the pretext of training, realized it was no longer possible to cross the river to support Xu Shuyi. They sent someone to report to An Lushan, who immediately approved Cai Xide’s plan to abandon support for Xu Shuyi, and the army withdrew to Youzhou.

As Cai Xide’s troops retreated northward, Huazhou lost all support. Li Qing’an’s army began to march on Huazhou, while Li Guangbi and Li Sheng encircled it from the south and southwest, cutting off Xu Shuyi’s possibility of fleeing to Jianghuai with Li Lin. Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Xu Shuyi formally surrendered to Li Qing’an. Thus, the entire Henan region came under the control of An Lushan’s army.

As time passed, the situation across the country gradually became clearer. South of the Huai River, Li Heng’s army retreated to Yiling in Xiazhou, which is today’s Yichang in Hubei, continuing to maintain pressure on Xiangyang. Meanwhile, Li Lin in Yangzhou took an important step: he abandoned Yangzhou, moved the Wu Kingdom’s palace and his hundred-thousand-strong army south of the Yangtze River, and re-established the palace in Changzhou. Both sides in the south temporarily maintained a balance of power.

In the north, after the massacre at Jingxing, An Lushan did not continue to march south to massacre immigrants from other prefectures. On one hand, he had achieved his purpose of deterring them, as the number and scale of immigrants had greatly decreased. On the other hand, he was not yet ready for war—the troops promised by various Xixia and Turkic tribes had not fully arrived. Therefore, he did not want to confront Guo Ziyi formally for now and was instead accelerating his final preparations for war.

Guo Ziyi, following Li Qing’an’s strategic plan, stationed a hundred thousand troops in Xiangzhou and began using force to evacuate the populations of the six provinces of Xiang, Wei, Bo, Ming, Bei, and Wei to Hedong and Henan regions.

At this time, Li Qing’an requested the Imperial Council to appoint Cheng Qianli, Guo Ziyi’s deputy, as the military governor of Wei and deputy commander-in-chief of the northern army, to lead fifty thousand troops to defend Xiangzhou and Weizhou. Meanwhile, Guo Ziyi retreated to Hedong, where, together with Lei Wanchun’s twenty thousand troops, they formed a total of one hundred thousand troops stationed in Hedong. They also began converting tens of thousands of local militias into formal military forces.

Li Guangbi was appointed as the military governor of Henan region and commander-in-chief of the central army, while Li Sheng was appointed as deputy military governor and deputy commander-in-chief of the central army, to lead one hundred thirty thousand troops to defend Henan region.

Li Qing’an returned to Chang’an. By then, the second batch of elite troops from Anxi, totaling eighty thousand men, along with forty thousand cavalry from Hexi, had arrived in Guanzhong under the leadership of Li Siye, deputy military governor of Anxi, and Li Fei Shouyu, deputy military governor of Hexi. Together with the troops from Henan region, Li Qing’an now had a total of four hundred thousand troops at his disposal. Adding Guo Ziyi’s one hundred thirty thousand troops, the imperial army totaled over five hundred thousand, matching An Lushan’s forces.

The two sides continued to stand off, simultaneously accelerating their preparations for war. It was a tense silence filled with hostility, as the clouds of war gradually gathered over the Tang Dynasty.