“Gongsun Zan!”
Faced with Gongsun Zan’s attempt to seize the initiative, Liu Yu replied with righteous conviction, “Now that my army stands before your walls, if you leave the city, surrender, and plead your case before the imperial envoy, this old man will spare your life!
Otherwise, once the fighting begins, you will regret it for the rest of your days!”
“You old bastard!”
Gongsun Zan shouted angrily.
“My head is right here on my shoulders! If you have the ability, come and take it!
As for expecting me to leave the city, surrender, and confess my crimes— what crime have I committed?”
“You’re the one who gives grain to the barbarians! You’re the one unworthy of being a Han Chinese, and even more unworthy of being a member of the imperial Liu clan! If you had given that grain to me instead, I’d have beaten those so-called barbarians into complete submission long ago!”
“You Province suffers because officials like you would rather hand grain to the barbarians than to your own general!”
“That’s why the people along the frontier suffer again and again! You’re the true criminal of You Province!”
“If I don’t collect grain, how am I supposed to protect the people? How am I supposed to campaign against the barbarians…?!”
As he continued speaking, even Gongsun Zan himself began to believe his own arguments.
Combined with his naturally booming voice, he left the soldiers standing atop the city walls completely captivated.
Among them, a young officer clad in armor, with refined features, a tall, upright bearing, and a silver spear in hand, slightly furrowed his brows and fell into deep thought.
“Gongsun Zan, you’re talking utter nonsense!”
Liu Yu’s face flushed crimson with anger.
“You Province is home to countless barbarian tribes. Not all of them are marauders! I govern through benevolence. By civilizing them, I can bring lasting peace to the frontier without sending troops!”
“It is precisely because of butchers like you— who ruin everything they touch— that the tribes beyond the passes can never live peacefully alongside the Great Han!”
Liu Yu openly admitted that he had provided grain to the frontier tribes.
But his original intention had always been to improve relations between the two sides, reduce warfare along the border, and even settle those tribes within Han territory, educate them, and gradually win their loyalty.
“Old fool Liu Yu, that’s complete bullshit!”
Gongsun Zan sneered.
“You don’t understand the barbarians at all! They don’t farm. They live by herding livestock. Every winter they run short of food. That’s why they raid the frontier and turn to banditry. If they don’t raid, they starve to death!”
“How much grain can you possibly give them? How many years can you keep feeding them?”
“There are countless tribes beyond the frontier. You can’t kill them all— but can you really afford to feed them all?”
“Why should the grain grown by the sons of Hanbe handed over by a pedantic fool like you
to feed the barbarians?”
“As long as the barbarians survive, they’ll return to raid our borders again.”
“And you, Liu Yu, are the sinner of the Central Plains— the traitor of the Great Han!”
After saying those words, Gongsun Zan felt immensely satisfied.
He had wanted to curse Liu Yu for years.
Unfortunately, he had never before had such an opportunity.
Nor had they ever completely torn away all pretense as they had today.
His methods for dealing with the frontier tribes had been learned from Duan Jiong.
If they could be killed, they should all be killed.
Otherwise, the only people who would continue to suffer would be the common people of the Han.
“Gongsun Zan!”
Liu Yu completely lost his composure.
“You’re nothing but a crude warrior! What could you possibly know about governing a state and bringing peace to the people?!”
“Old fool Liu Yu, I’m no mere brute!”
Gongsun Zan raised his clasped hands toward the heavens.
“I studied under the great Confucian scholar Lu Zhi. I won’t claim to be unmatched in both civil and military affairs, but I certainly possess both literary and martial ability. How could a sour old pedant like you possibly understand what I’m capable of?”
“Fine! Fine! Fine!”
Liu Yu was reaching the limits of his patience.
“You’re silver-tongued and glib. I refuse to argue with you any longer. Right and wrong shall be judged by His Majesty himself. Now answer me— will you surrender, or will you not?”
“Listen well, old fool Liu Yu!”
Gongsun Zan shouted.
“I, Gongsun Zan, would rather die than surrender!”
Liu Yu let out a cold snort.
“I only hope that when you’re bound in chains, you’ll still be able to speak with such stubborn arrogance.”
With that, escorted by his officers and guards, Liu Yu turned around and departed, his elderly face dark with anger.
He couldn’t understand where exactly he had lost the argument.
Clearly, it was Gongsun Zan who had pursued reckless wars.
Clearly, it was Gongsun Zan who had allowed his troops to plunder the people.
Yet somehow, as the argument went on, he found himself unable to win the debate.
As far as Liu Yu was concerned, the only explanation was that Gongsun Zan was an exceptionally skilled debater— not that he himself had done anything wrong.
He still firmly believed that he had committed no mistake.
Returning to his battle lines, Liu Yu ordered, “Xianyu Fu! Qi Zhou!”
“Gongsun Zan remains stubbornly defiant. After you return to your commands, order the assault on the city immediately. Remember this well: our purpose is solely to capture Gongsun Zan. No innocent person is to be harmed!”
“Uh…”
Xianyu Fu stared in astonishment.
“My lord… I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
Qi Zhou’s expression stiffened.
“If we’re forbidden from attacking anyone else, how are we supposed to break through the city’s defenses and capture Gongsun Zan?”
“We have one hundred thousand troops.”
A trace of displeasure appeared on Liu Yu’s face.
“How many soldiers does Gongsun Zan have? How could we possibly fail to take the city?”
“If any of you harm innocent people, this old man will punish you severely afterward!”
“……”
Those words left even Duan Xun, a man with little understanding of military affairs, wearing a rather strange expression.
“We obey your command.”
Seeing that their lord would not be persuaded, the two generals could only respond with pained expressions and clasped their fists in acknowledgment.
…………….
Half an hour later, the war drums began to thunder.
Liu Yu’s army commenced its assault on the city.
The small fortress was barely two zhang (about 6–7 meters / 20–23 feet) high, so there was no need for large siege engines.
Furthermore, in accordance with Liu Yu’s orders, the army did not even use bows and arrows.
Instead, the soldiers simply carried crude scaling ladders and advanced toward the city.
“What are they doing?”
Standing ready atop the walls, Gongsun Zan watched countless enemy soldiers surge toward his position, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
“Loose arrows!”
Gongsun Zan showed no intention of holding back.
As casualties began to mount among Liu Yu’s troops, the soldiers who had been charging at the front remembered their commanders’ orders.
Their advance gradually slowed.
As time passed, wherever Gongsun Zan walked along the city wall, the majority of the soldiers below would shuffle after him like a gang of aimless street loafers.
And so, his little fortress miraculously held.
“Are they treating a siege as some kind of joke?”
Looking at Liu Yu’s army below— utterly devoid of fighting spirit, doing nothing but staring at him— Gongsun Zan felt both angry and disappointed.
He even felt that everything he had learned about warfare was being insulted.
“As expected of Governor Liu…”
Although a siege should have been a deadly serious and fiercely contested battle, the absurd spectacle was so ridiculous that Gongsun Fan could barely suppress his laughter.
“Ziyu.”
Gongsun Zan looked toward Liu Yu’s distant central command, then glanced back at the utterly disorganized troops below.
Grinding his teeth, he said, “I’ll remain here and keep their attention fixed on me. Immediately select three hundred elite cavalrymen and have them assembled behind the city gate. In a moment, I’ll lead a surprise charge against Liu Yu himself and make him pay for underestimating me!”
“Brother, isn’t that too risky?”
Gongsun Fan hesitated.
“Go!”
Gongsun Zan shot him a fierce glare.
“Liu Yu commands one hundred thousand troops. Even if he knows nothing about warfare, if this drags on for a few more hours, mere numbers alone will wear us down.”
“When that happens, we’ll have no choice but to surrender.”
“But if we seize this opportunity, lead an elite force out of the city, and carve a path straight toward Liu Yu’s headquarters, their entire army will fall into chaos.”
“If we can capture Liu Yu alive, then You Province will be mine!”
“Surely you don’t think those rabble down there can stop my cavalry?”
His famed White Horse Volunteers had been mauled by Yuan Shao—not annihilated.
He still retained several hundred of them.
And those who remained were the very elite among the elite.
To Gongsun Zan, the troops outside were nothing more than chickens and dogs waiting to be slaughtered.
“This subordinate obeys!”
Gongsun Fan looked over the enemy forces below, took a deep breath, and respectfully cupped his fists before departing.
“Lord Bo’an…”
Watching the tiny city continue to withstand the assault, Duan Xun couldn’t help growing doubtful.
Turning to Liu Yu, he asked nervously, “Is this battle… really a guaranteed win?”
— The end of the Chapter–
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