Chapter 336. The Great Battle of Hubodagang 7 — The Liao Army Begins to Waver
The Liao army endured.
And endured again.
Its numbers were simply too great.
More than two hundred thousand troops were concentrated around the emperor alone, with the imperial guards and palace cavalry forming the core.
The front ranks raised their shields and thrust out their spears.
The left and right wings moved to support the center.
Tribal forces gathered beneath their own banners and held their positions.
But once the Jin army drove deep into the central formation, the entire battlefield slowly began to twist out of shape.
At first, the front ranks were pushed back.
Soldiers behind their shields retreated one step at a time, while the ranks behind them stopped without even being able to see clearly what was happening ahead.
Wagons blocked the roads.
Startled horses sprang sideways.
Spearmen could see little beyond the shoulders of the men before them except dust.
Wagon drivers tightened their grip on the reins and searched for any path by which they might escape.
The tribal commanders looked back toward their own banners.
The men gathered beneath them all wore the same expression.
Anger and fear.
Grief and resignation.
All tangled together.
They had been taught to die for the emperor.
But when death truly came close enough to stand before their horses, their hearts searched first for a road to life.
If I take that road, I can live.
If I go around behind that ridge, I can escape this blood-soaked battlefield.
If I survive just this once, I can return home and live as a man again before my parents, my wife, and my children.
No one spoke those thoughts aloud.
Their eyes had already said enough.
The soldier crouched behind his shield.
The officer holding a spear from horseback.
The common soldier clinging to a wagon.
All of them carried the same thought.
A battlefield demanded courage.
At the same time, it dragged the deepest fear out of every man.
That fear settled low like dust and began spreading through the Liao ranks.
Then the emperor's banner moved again.
The red banner shifted backward through the dust.
The standard-bearer turned his horse, and the imperial guards crowded around him in layer after layer.
The movement looked small.
On a battlefield, it was the greatest signal of all.
Every Liao soldier looked toward it.
The men in the center saw it.
The tribal forces on the left saw it.
Even the men struggling with wagons in the rear saw it.
The emperor is there.
The imperial guard protects him there.
As long as that banner stands, we can hold.
That belief had sustained the Liao army until now.
The banner was command.
It was resolve.
It was the final hill against which frightened men could brace themselves.
Countless soldiers looked toward it and forced down their fear.
The others are still holding, so I will hold.
The emperor is still there, so the battle continues.
Then the banner moved backward.
The emperor is retreating.
The center is being pushed back.
Even the imperial guard is changing position.
Before anyone shouted, their eyes began to waver.
When their eyes wavered, strength left their arms.
When strength left their arms, shields began to droop.
As the shields lowered, gaps opened in the front line.
One soldier stepped backward.
The man beside him followed.
The ranks behind began turning before they even understood why the men ahead were retreating.
A horse forced its way beside a wagon.
One wheel sank crookedly into the frozen road.
The wagon behind crashed into it.
Grain sacks burst.
Fodder spilled across the ground.
A soldier guarding the provisions grabbed for one of the sacks, then abandoned it and seized a rein instead, searching for a horse on which to flee.
The first cries erupted from the rear of the Liao army.
Someone shouted the name of his tribe.
Another called for his mother.
Commanders screamed for the lines to reform.
The soldiers answered by raising an even greater cloud of dust.
Orders reached men from behind.
Their horses had already turned.
The wagons were already tangled.
The emperor's banner had already moved back.
Furious officers drew swords and cut down men trying to flee.
The sight of blood only made those behind scatter faster.
Someone shouted,
"Protect His Majesty!"
Another screamed,
"Clear the road!"
The two cries collided in the same place.
Imperial guards trying to gather around the emperor pushed against the rear ranks desperate to escape alive.
Men blocked men.
Horses crashed into horses.
Wagons jammed the roads.
At that moment, the enormous size of the Liao army ceased to be strength.
It became a burden.
The Jin saw the change.
Aguda's order had been clear.
Do not look at the wagons and tents.
Do not reach for provisions or treasure.
Break the center.
Shake the emperor's banner.
So the Jin cavalry rode straight over the goods scattered across the roads.
Silver vessels and bundles of silk, weapons and tent stakes flew beneath their hooves.
The cavalry passed everything by and cut straight through the Liao center.
Tianzuo's carriage was forced farther back.
The imperial guards tried to form layer after layer around the emperor, but they struggled to find space between the fleeing troops pressing from behind and the Jin cavalry driving in from the front.
The banner tilted again.
When the Liao soldiers saw it lean, the final cord inside them snapped.
The angry fell silent.
The grieving swallowed their tears.
Even those who had intended to endure to the end turned their horses.
Each man's own life became his command.
That was how the rout spread.
One man's backward step became the movement of a group.
The movement of a group became the retreat of a unit.
Retreat became confusion.
Confusion became fear again.
The vast Liao army was crushed beneath its own size.
Orders lost their way before reaching distant units.
Banners disappeared behind dust and obscured one another's signals.
Commanders searched for their troops.
Soldiers searched for their commanders.
Wagoners searched only for their horses.
Broken wagons remained along the red roads of Hubodagang.
Snapped banners lay buried in dust.
Abandoned armor was trampled beneath hooves.
Grain sacks burst and spilled across the frozen ground.
Riderless horses ran across the fields with their manes flying.
The Jin cavalry rode through it all.
The Liao defeat did not end at a single point.
It stretched along the roads.
One banner driven backward became disorder across dozens of li.
That disorder became a rout extending over a hundred li.
Aguda watched from horseback.
He had broken the center of Liao.
He had shaken the emperor's banner.
And with it, he had broken the hearts of the men who had endured because they trusted that banner.
Numbers were strength in war.
But once the center that moved those numbers collapsed, a great army could become nothing more than weight pressing against itself.
That day at Hubodagang, Liao soldiers still filled the fields.
But the moment the emperor's banner moved backward, the army lost the strength to hold.
The imperial guards withdrew around the emperor.
The left and right wings began searching for their own roads to survival.
The rear became trapped among wagons and horses.
The Jin continued driving into the confusion.
At that moment, the battle of Hubodagang was decided