Liu Cheng dreamed of fighting a battle like the one below the hill: simple, direct, efficient, with his side enjoying the plainest, most unadorned advantages in strategy and tactics alike, then winning an utterly indisputable victory.
Even the enemy was being remarkably cooperative.
Clearly at a considerable disadvantage, clearly stripped of any room for tactical maneuver, they still fought back fiercely with hot-blooded courage, plunging this seemingly foregone battle into close combat so intense it could be called white-hot from the very outset.
Small units never stopped charging toward Huan Wen's canopy.
And some Imperial Army troops did indeed break and retreat, forcing Huan Wen to send out the Military Police and enforce military discipline on the spot.
Still, localized wavering along such a broad battlefront was inconsequential in itself. The dangerous fighting that might truly affect the outcome actually took place at the southern end of the narrow passage held by Shen Jin's forces-just as the fighting on the low ridge's slopes visibly lost some of its momentum, everyone watching from above clearly saw the Qiang suddenly commit their entire central army, or rather their final reserve, some three or four thousand men, in an attempt to break through Shen Jin.
Huan Wen did not immediately send reinforcements. He watched for a while before turning to ask, "Is that the Shen Jin you praised over and over in your victory dispatch? Your wife's uncle from a punished family?"
"Yes," Liu Cheng answered with a nod.
"Can he hold?" Huan Wen asked, looking down imperiously.
"I don't know." As ever, Liu Cheng refused to follow the expected script. "He should, in principle... but what if the commanding officer gets killed by a stray arrow right at the start?"
Huan Wen smiled, waved a hand, and called Dai Shi over, ordering