Chapter 337. The Great Battle of Hubodagang 8 — The Rout
The army began to flee, each man trying to outrun the others.
At first, it still looked like a withdrawal carried out under orders.
The front rank stepped back.
The spearmen behind turned their shields.
Wagon drivers began turning their horses.
But those small movements soon began pressing against one another.
Some men were forced backward by sheer weight.
Some slipped through gaps in the broken defensive line.
Others, seized by fear, simply turned their horses and ran.
When all those backward steps and desperate struggles came together, a vast current of rout formed across the fields of Hubodagang.
As the emperor's banner moved back, the eyes of the Liao soldiers changed.
Men who only moments earlier had gritted their teeth and held their ground began looking behind them.
They searched for their unit banners.
For their commanders.
For their horses and wagons.
Strength left the hands gripping spears.
Arms holding shields began to sag.
One man planted his spear in the ground and ran.
Another decided even the time needed to sling a shield across his back was too precious and threw it beside the road.
Some found the sword at their waist so cumbersome that they cut the belt and abandoned it sheath and all.
The wagons following the imperial carriage moved all at once.
Wagons carrying tents.
Wagons carrying provisions.
Wagons bearing chests of treasure.
The wagon ahead turned sideways.
The one behind crashed into it.
Horses sprang away in panic.
When a wheel sank deep into the red-earth road, the driver lashed his whip, and the terrified horse reared into the air.
Bundles of silk tore open.
Silver vessels rolled across the dirt.
Long ropes used to bind tents came loose and tangled around the legs of men and horses.
Valuable things were no longer valuable.
Ornaments fallen from the imperial carriage.
Chests wrapped in yellow silk.
Lacquered boxes.
Bundles of weapons.
Saddles and metal fittings.
All of them spilled across the road.
Some men bent down to seize them, only to hear the pounding hooves behind and let go at once.
Had they left them deliberately?
Did they hope the impoverished Jurchens would stop their pursuit to gather the treasure?
Perhaps.
But there was only one thing that mattered now.
Survival.
Silver, silk, horses, and the majesty of the empire itself could no longer come before a man's life.
Men threw away the things they had been ordered to protect and escaped with only their bodies.
The rout did not flow in a single direction.
Imperial guards trying to follow the emperor crowded toward the center.
Tribal troops scattered toward their own banners.
Wagon drivers forced their horses toward any road that appeared open.
One man ran north.
Another headed toward the low hills in the west.
Mounted officers shouted for men to stop and reform.
Their voices vanished into dust and screams.
"Protect His Majesty!"
"Clear the road!"
The two cries erupted together.
They crushed one another.
Behind them came the Iron Pagoda Cavalry.
Horses clad in silver iron plates surged forward like a wave overtaking the receding tide.
Armor over their necks and chests still flashed beneath the dust.
Their spearpoints were gathered low.
Their shields covered the front.
The sound of Jin hooves drew closer behind the fleeing Liao soldiers.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
To the fugitives, it sounded like a war drum beating from inside their own chests.
The Jin pursued relentlessly.
They too carried blood that had yet to be repaid.
Burned villages.
People taken away.
Years of humiliation.
The long memory of bowing beneath Liao banners.
All of it rode in every pounding hoofbeat.
Whenever a fleeing soldier showed his back, a spear followed.
A man who tried to remain mounted was cut across the flank.
A fallen man crawling through the dirt vanished beneath the hooves of those coming behind.
The Jin cavalry rode past provision wagons and treasure chests.
First break the men.
The spoils could be gathered afterward.
The Liao soldiers ran even as they were cut and torn apart.
A man slashed across the side clutched the wound with one hand and kept running.
Another, grazed across the back by a spearpoint, stumbled, rose again, and fled.
Cavalrymen who lost their mounts ran after other horses and tried to seize their reins.
Riderless horses, wild with terror, crashed through the fleeing men.
The road filled with bodies shoving and knocking one another down in the struggle to survive.
When one man fell, the man behind stepped over him and kept going.
There was no time even for guilt.
Tianzuo escaped surrounded by only a small guard.
The imperial carriage, the tents, and much of the imperial equipment had already been left behind.
Only the men closest to him remained around the emperor.
They held their shields and kept their horses aligned, placing Tianzuo in the center.
But fear was visible even in their eyes.
The duty to protect the emperor collided inside them with the pressure of the Jin army closing from behind.
One man kept looking back.
Another grabbed the reins of the emperor's horse and shouted for him to ride faster.
Fugitives blocked the road ahead of the emperor.
More fugitives pressed from behind.
Others crowded in from the sides.
The very soldiers who should have opened a road for him now obstructed it.
Imperial guards shoved men aside with the backs of their swords.
They forced their horses forward and tried to make space.
"Clear the way for His Majesty!"
Startled soldiers split apart, then surged together again.
The emperor's horse barely forced its way through the mass of people churning like muddy water.
Behind them came the shouts of the Jin army.
To the Liao soldiers, those voices sounded like a death sentence drawing closer.
Ahead were men.
Behind were iron-clad horses.
Wagons blocked any attempt to break sideways.
Horses slipped when men tried to climb the low hills.
Some still raised their weapons and tried to fight.
But by then they were alone.
Their units had scattered in panic.
The splendid banners of the empire were bent, shattered, and trampled down.
Severe commands disappeared uselessly into the dust.
One man alone could do nothing.
Few could stand long against the charge of the Iron Pagoda Cavalry.
As the sun began to sink, the line of fugitives stretched farther and farther.
Abandoned spears, broken arrows, torn banners, and shattered wagon wheels continued endlessly along the red roads.
Blood soaked into scattered grain.
Footprints crossed over fodder.
Riderless horses ran across the fields.
The wounded dragged themselves along the roadside by clutching at shrubs.
Men coming from the rear saw the ruin ahead and ran even faster.
Their frantic pace pressed the men behind them harder still.
At first, it had been only a withdrawal.
They had tried to shift position while watching the emperor's banner.
They had tried to form another defensive line.
But small retreats collided.
The collisions created fear.
Fear turned horses around.
And that became a rout.
Even the collapse of a great army took time.
That was why the rout at Hubodagang became so long and so terrible.
Hundreds of thousands of bodies began to shake at once.
That shaking continued far along the roads.
The Jin kept pursuing.
The silver Iron Pagoda Cavalry drove through the dust.
Light cavalry spread to either side and cut off fleeing groups.
Aribo's horsemen blocked side roads.
Dolhapsok's men struck at the rear.
Samyoari's troops crossed places where wagons had tangled and drove ahead again.
The Liao army abandoned more and more as it fled.
Weapons.
Provisions.
Tents.
Clothing.
Armor.
Horses.
Treasure.
And finally, even the majesty of the emperor.
Tianzuo looked back.
Beyond the dust, his army was collapsing.
The countless banners tangled together and fell.
Tents dragged torn across the ground.
An army that had gathered in the emperor's name now scattered for the sake of each man's own life.
Anger rose in him.
Fear crushed it almost immediately.
After fear came emptiness.
He rode faster.
The fields of Hubodagang filled with the sounds of rout.
Hooves.
Breaking wagons.
Human screams.
The shouts of officers.
The roars of the Jin army.
Feet trampling scattered grain.
Banners tearing apart.
Over all of it passed the winter wind.
The wind lifted the red dust.
And within that dust, the great army of Liao collapsed along the road