Chapter 338. The Great Battle of Hubodagang — December 13, Retreating Five Hundred Li to Changchun Circuit
On the thirteenth, Emperor Tianzuo withdrew on a massive scale.
The army that had collapsed at Hubodagang streamed toward Changchun Circuit in a long, broken line.
Only the day before, it had been an army said to number seven hundred thousand beneath the emperor's banner.
But what remained along the road now was not the majesty of a great host, but the evidence of rout.
Broken wagons lay abandoned one after another along the red-earth road.
Carts that had carried tents leaned sideways with missing wheels.
Sacks of grain had burst open, spilling their contents across the frozen ground.
Snapped flagpoles lay buried beside the road, while torn silk banners dragged through the winter wind, gathering dust.
Riderless horses galloped across the fields with their manes flying.
Exhausted soldiers sat beneath low shrubs and stared blankly at the stream of men passing before them.
The imperial carriage had already been left behind.
Chests wrapped in yellow silk, lacquered boxes, bundles of weapons, saddles, and ornaments lay scattered along the road.
Until yesterday, they had formed part of the emperor's majesty.
Today, they were burdens kicked aside by men running for their lives.
Some bent down to seize them, then heard Jin hoofbeats behind and immediately let go.
Tianzuo moved with only a small escort around him.
The imperial guards formed around the emperor and kept their horses close together.
They carried shields and watched every direction, but the exhaustion of a night-long rout had settled deeply into their eyes.
The emperor looked back again and again.
Beyond the dust, his army was scattering.
The banners of the tribal forces disappeared in different directions.
The formations of Han soldiers broke apart among horses and wagons.
Commanders searched for their units.
Soldiers searched for their commanders.
Wagoners searched for their horses.
"Clear the way for His Majesty!"
The shouts of the imperial guards spread along the road.
But the road was already packed with men, horses, and wagons.
Some tried to move aside for the emperor.
Others simply wanted to escape alive.
On one side, men struggled to protect the imperial column.
On another, tribal soldiers ran toward their own banners.
All those movements collided and produced the noise of rout.
The Jin army pursued relentlessly from behind.
Its cavalry raced past abandoned provisions and treasure.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry drove into slower groups as though trampling them underfoot, while light cavalry spread to both sides and cut off fleeing units.
Jin spearpoints flashed behind the Liao soldiers.
Bows were drawn short from horseback.
Liao soldiers ran while clutching wounds.
Dismounted cavalrymen tried to seize the reins of any horse they could reach.
One desire alone drove everyone forward.
To live.
News of the rout traveled faster than the army itself.
Tianzuo has retreated.
The emperor's banner has gone back.
The central army was broken at Hubodagang.
Those words passed along roads, through camps, and among the tribal forces, shaking men's hearts all over again.
Even troops still capable of fighting looked first toward their own banners when they heard.
If the emperor had retreated, for whom were they supposed to remain and fight?
If the center had broken, what good was it for the wings to hold?
Such thoughts showed openly on their faces.
Tianzuo withdrew far toward Changchun Circuit.
This was more than a military movement.
The emperor who had gathered seven hundred thousand men to crush Jin had, in the space of a single day, abandoned his imperial carriage, tents, and provisions along the road and fled.
Liao weapons, provisions, and banners were scattered along that route.
So too was the soldiers' faith.
The road toward Changchun Circuit was long and bitterly cold.
Winter winds lifted the red dust and drove it into the faces of the fugitives.
Some ground their teeth in anger.
Some swallowed tears.
Some walked without speaking.
Relief at having survived, shame at retreating behind the emperor, and fear of having to fight again all mixed within the same breast.
Even the imperial guards held their reins in silence.
Between the Jin shouts still sounding behind them and the endless line ahead that resembled a procession of refugees, they understood that Liao today was no longer the Liao of yesterday.
The momentum of victory had passed to Jin.
At first, it had been the sheer size of the Liao army that weighed upon the battlefield.
Now it was the sound of Jin hoofbeats that weighed upon the road.
The rout from Hubodagang continued all the way toward Changchun Circuit, and along that road Liao soldiers could no longer look at the emperor's banner with the same eyes.
The distance from Hubodagang to Changchun Circuit was nearly five hundred li.
It was not a distance men and horses could properly cover in a single day.
But an army in rout did not measure distance.
They ran to survive.
They ran again to escape the sound of Jin hooves closing from behind.
Horses foamed at the mouth.
Men gripped the reins with cracked lips.
Some threw away their armor.
Some abandoned swords with the scabbards still attached.
Some let go of wounded comrades and ran on.
Along the road remained the marks of broken wagon wheels, torn banners, scattered grain, and bloodstained saddles.
Even ornaments that had once decorated the imperial carriage lay rolling in the roadside dust.
At last, they reached Changchun Circuit.
The survivors stood gasping for breath and looked at one another.
The army that had been called seven hundred thousand only yesterday had become a scattered mass of exhausted men.
The emperor's banner still remained.
But the eyes looking toward it were no longer the same.
Everything felt empty.
They had gathered so many soldiers.
Brought so many tents, wagons, and provisions.
The emperor himself had taken the field.
Yet along the red roads of Hubodagang, all that majesty had been abandoned together with the wagons and tents.
At the end of a five-hundred-li flight for survival, the soldiers of Liao understood that they had carried defeat on their backs all the way there.
The Great Battle of Hubodagang has been called one of the most extraordinary battles in human history.
Emperor Tianzuo had been deeply enthralled by the old myth of "victory in a hundred battles" from the age of Empress Dowager Xiao.
He failed to understand that, after more than a century of peace, rust had gathered on the swords of Liao.
For two hundred years, Liao had ridden across the northern world and dominated an age.
From this battle onward, that strength began to fade.