The Battle of the Luo River

To most of the lords, the allied armies of Guan, Yong, Bei, and Song were far from weak. The Three Overseers had all followed the Former King and belonged to powerful branches of the royal clan. The strongest of them, the Marquis of Guan, had nearly ten thousand armored soldiers. With the forces of the marquises of Yong and Bei and the remnants of Yin Shang added to their ranks, their armored troops alone could not be underestimated. Of course, the lords still believed the army sent to quell the rebellion would win, but they expected a difficult fight.

Their analysis was sound, but Ji Zhao had a cheat. A ten-pull using Fortune Points had yielded two Yellow Tier items, one of them guaranteed. Among them, [Borrow the East Wind] was particularly well suited to the approaching battle.

[Yellow Tier · Borrow the East Wind (Had the east wind not favored young Zhou, the Two Qiaos would have been locked in the Bronze Bird Terrace amid the deep spring): summons a gale at a specified time and place, blowing in a specified direction.]

As the saying went, favorable timing, terrain, and unity determined victory. Weather had an enormous influence on the outcome of ancient warfare.

Neither army would yield, and both prepared to settle matters in an open-field battle. Two hundred thousand men faced one another on the northern bank of the Luo River, their camps stretching seemingly without end. That was why both sides had independently chosen the riverbank for their showdown: elsewhere, there would not even have been enough room to deploy so many troops and chariots.

Everyone knew the great battle was imminent, so preparations grew even more feverish. Ji Zhao gathered the lords and soldiers, ascended the platform to worship Heaven, and declared, "Our King tends to the people under Heaven's command. We accept the Son of Heaven's gold, silver, grain, and silk, and assist him in governing the realm.

"The rebels in the east have offended the King and seek to defy the mandate of Heaven. They will surely be punished. If we fail to give our utmost, would Heaven spare us its punishment?

"When that time comes, the consequences will surely be more than we can bear.

"I have already received Heaven's guidance. Heaven will send a gale to aid our army. Victory is certain!"

The rebels also held a Heaven-Worship Ceremony and rallied their troops before battle.

To successive rolls of drums, the rebel vanguard slowly advanced. Armored soldiers in Ji Zhao's army stood ready behind their shields, while he glanced up at the sky from time to time, judging the hour.

When only a few hundred paces remained between the armies, the clear sky abruptly darkened. A gale suddenly rose and swept straight across the land north of the Luo River. It was powerful enough to lift broken trees, and poorly secured tents flew into the air. As for the dust on the ground, it blotted out the sky and sun. Everyone froze at the apocalyptic sight. Stranger still, there was not so much as a breeze south of the Luo River!

Everyone in Ji Zhao's army realized that Heaven truly had sent a gale to help them, and their morale instantly soared to its peak. Even the lords, confronted with such an uncanny phenomenon, believed Heaven was indeed watching over them.

Such a gale was simply beyond human power!

"The gale is here! Beat the drums and rally the men!"

Ji Zhao shouted, waving his sword and laughing. "Heaven has answered my plea! Advance with the wind, all of you, and we will wipe out the rebels in a single battle!"

The west wind blew from behind the King's Army, striking the rebels full in the face. With sand and stones carried on such a fierce gale, their archers could barely open their eyes. Even if they managed to loose their arrows, their shots lost much of their force, to say nothing of their accuracy. For the rebels, it was nothing short of a catastrophe!

Across the battlefield, the Marquis of Guan and the others turned ashen almost at once when they saw this bizarre phenomenon. "How could this happen? Have we truly defied the mandate of Heaven, so that Heaven now seeks our destruction?"

Wu Geng raised his sword and roared, "What mandate of Heaven? The Dark Bird granted Yin Shang six hundred years of rule. I never heard my royal father say that Yin Shang's mandate of Heaven had ended, yet the moment King Wu arrived, we collapsed. That was because human strength had reached its limits, not because we had lost the mandate of Heaven. As long as we win this battle, the mandate of Heaven is ours!"

The Marquis of Guan's chief minister also shouted, "My lord, those two villains from Qi and Luo will certainly seize this chance to attack. Our army is bound to lose. Our only option now is to form defensive ranks and wait for the wind to weaken before deciding what to do!"

"My lord, we must not form defensive ranks! We cannot possibly hold them off. Our most urgent task is to have your elite guards escort you away from here. There are still people back home with whom we can raise another army and fight again."

While the rebels descended into panic, the lords on Ji Zhao's side erupted with excitement. Even Taigong Wang sounded stirred. "To reject what Heaven bestows is to invite disaster. Archers, loose volleys to disrupt their formation. Prepare the chariots to charge their infantry."

The King's Army's archers advanced farther, drew their bows, and shot with the wind at their backs. The auxiliary troops lit great fires, sending clouds of smoke and ash toward the enemy. Now the rebels faced not only sand and stones but a searing heat as well. The wind fed the flames, and billowing smoke made their suffering unbearable.

Under such conditions, how could the rebel army maintain orderly ranks? Panic filled their faces. The slave soldiers and Eastern Yi tribesmen, whose discipline had always been poor, even began throwing down their weapons and fleeing!

At the sight, Wu Geng instantly turned ashen, recalling the Battle of Muye. The Shang army's formidable armored soldiers had not even had a chance to engage the Zhou troops before their own slave soldiers broke their ranks.

The lords led their retainers forward beneath raised banners. The drumbeats in Ji Zhao's King's Army grew ever denser, and volley after volley of arrows inflicted relentless casualties. Such one-sided slaughter dealt a devastating blow to morale.

Viscount Shan Yi, commander of the central army, led his men straight toward the chariot carrying the rebel Marquis of Guan. He could locate people by sound, and with his extraordinary memory, he could still find the rebel even amid such darkness and chaos.

He had originally been a slave who tended King Wu's horses, with the single given name Yi. Born with immense strength and exceptional courage, he could withstand the charge of a fierce horse head-on. Ji Zhao had granted him land in Shan and bestowed the rank of viscount upon him. He had long been eager to repay Ji Zhao's kindness.

Driven by the wind, the armored soldiers advanced at astonishing speed!

The rebel Marquis of Guan and Wu Geng stared in horror at the troops that suddenly appeared. Armored infantry and rumbling chariots filled the battlefield, and urgent drumbeats immediately rang out. Those drums terrified the rebel soldiers even more: their lords were in danger!

But where exactly was the enemy?

Looking around, they saw only their own men falling to the ground. Volley after volley of arrows rained down, and shield-bearing armored soldiers advanced in orderly ranks. Some of the men beside them died, while others fled. Screams and shouts rang out endlessly, and their command structure had already partially collapsed.

Shan Yi led the army through layer after layer of defenses almost in an instant. Infantry could never withstand charging chariots. Flesh and blood were crushed beneath their wheels, leaving the ground awash in blood.

As the war drums beat relentlessly, ox-horn trumpets sounded across the battlefield. Everyone charged toward the source of the sound. Bronze dagger-axes snapped one after another, and sharp swords struck armor only to come away with notched edges.

Shan Yi wielded his dagger-axe one-handed and had already replaced it three times in that brief span. No one could withstand even a single exchange with him.

With danger right before their eyes, the lords accompanying the army immediately retreated with their retainers. Seeing them about to escape, Shan Yi quickened his pace. He knew the cumbersome Grand Banner could not be carried away. If he could not capture or kill the rebel Marquis of Guan, he would cut down the Grand Banner instead.

Thud!

The Grand Banner struck the ground with a tremendous crash. The rebels, already torn between flight and resistance, almost completely lost the will to fight when they saw it fall. In an instant, formations that had still been able to withstand the fleeing slave soldiers disintegrated.

Once an army routed, no one could rally it. Everyone fled east with their backs to the gale. Some even jumped straight into the Luo River, hoping to swim across and survive.

But on a battlefield, turning one's back to the enemy or entering the water only made one a living target. The King's Army's chariots thundered over the rebels, while the rebels' own chariots crushed their comrades without hesitation. Archers pursued them, shooting as they went. Faced with the chariots, more and more rebels leaped into the Luo River. Arrows struck their bodies, and the blood flowing from them almost dyed the river red.

The sky gradually cleared, leaving the chariots of the Marquis of Guan and Wu Geng conspicuous. Without their chariots, they would surely die, yet riding them offered no escape from pursuit. Nearly overwhelmed by despair, they could only drive on in vain, hoping to get out of Ji Zhao's sight.

Crash!

No one had expected one of the Marquis of Guan's horses to lose its footing and send the entire chariot flying. The marquis slammed into the ground. Half his skull caved in, killing him on the spot.

Wu Geng and the others stared in horror at their own horses, which were also panting for breath. The marquises of Yong and Bei hurriedly stopped their chariots and prepared to surrender. Continuing to flee would only mean certain death. Wu Geng alone refused to give up, but his efforts were futile. Their horses could not compare with those Ji Zhao had brought from Haojing. In the end, he too was forced to stop and taken captive.

The battle was won, but there was no time to rest. The eastern regions were densely populated, and bitter battles still lay ahead. Every additional enemy killed or wounded now would help.

Ji Zhao stepped down from his chariot, dragged Wu Geng onto a hastily erected platform, and performed a crude ceremony.

"Yin Shang lost the mandate of Heaven, and the Zhou State took its place. The Former King Fa destroyed Shang, yet he did not allow the sacrifices to the Former King Tang to die out. The King granted you the old lands of Yinxu and let you govern the former subjects of Yin Shang. What an immense favor that was! Yet you openly rebelled and defied Heaven's command. That is precisely why you failed. Today, I will offer your head to Heaven as a warning to those who refuse to obey the mandate of Heaven."

An uproar erupted!

Ji Zhao's announcement that Wu Geng would be executed immediately caught everyone by surprise. They had all assumed Wu Geng would be taken back to Haojing to be presented as a captive.

Before anyone could react, Ji Zhao raised his sword and brought it down, beheading Wu Geng. He shouted, "This campaign is not merely to quell a rebellion. It is an Eastern Campaign! The army will continue east and destroy every state and tribe that sows disorder. When the Eastern Campaign ends, the Son of Heaven will once again enfeoff lords and grant them gold, silver, grain, silk, and slaves!"

"Long live the Son of Heaven!"

"Long live the Zhou State!"

Ji Zhao continued east, while a small party of envoys returned to Haojing City with the leaders of the rebellion. The Marquis of Cheng presided over a grand sacrificial ceremony. The dukes and ministers who remained in Haojing applied themselves to their duties with greater care, not daring to delay the army's provisions in the slightest.