Lu Zhishen vs. Huyan Zhuo

1. A Letter at the Monastery Gate

The letter from Peach Blossom Mountain arrived at Twin Dragons Mountain with dust ground into its folds. Its bearer knelt in the hall of the former Baozhu Monastery. Qingzhou troops, he said, had reached the foot of the mountain. Zhou Tong had ridden out with his spear, but within six or seven exchanges he could no longer hold Huyan Zhuo off and had retreated behind the stockade. The soldiers remained below. Li Zhong had written for help and sent the letter through the night.

At Zhou Tong’s name, Lu Zhishen laughed. Years before, at Peach Blossom Village, he had found the man calling himself the Little Conqueror in a bridal chamber and beaten him out of it. Now Zhou was asking him for rescue.

“He still remembers me, does he?” Lu asked.

The messenger kept his head down. “Chief Zhou said that if you hold the old affair against him, we have nowhere else to turn.”

Lu laid the letter on the table. “I remember. We’ll save him all the same.”

Yang Zhi took up the letter. Huyan Zhuo had first been sent against Liangshan. When his chain-linked cavalry formation was broken, he went to Qingzhou, where Prefect Murong lent him troops to clear Peach Blossom Mountain. Twin Dragons Mountain and White Tiger Mountain were to follow. If Peach Blossom fell, the government army would have a road to their own gate.

“We cannot wait for him to reach us,” Yang said.

Lu was already rising for his iron staff. “Then let’s go.”

He set out with Yang Zhi and Wu Song, leaving Cao Zheng and the others to hold Twin Dragons Mountain. A few dozen horsemen raised dust ahead of the foot soldiers as they made straight for Peach Blossom Mountain.

2. Twin Whips and an Iron Staff

When Li Zhong heard that help was coming, he led men down to meet it. Huyan Zhuo intercepted him. The two iron whips opened and closed before Huyan’s horse, and after more than ten exchanges Li could no longer stand his ground. He beat aside a stroke and turned uphill. Huyan pursued, but pebbles suddenly came rolling down from halfway up the slope. Zhou Tong was loosing them from above. Huyan checked his horse and withdrew to the foot of the mountain. He had barely reached his own line when a soldier pointed to a cloud of dust in the distance: the men from Twin Dragons Mountain had arrived.

Huyan looked up. At their head rode a broad, heavyset monk on a white horse, an iron monk’s staff across his hands. Neither of Peach Blossom Mountain’s chiefs had been able to stop Huyan. This monk seemed scarcely to notice the ranked government troops as he rode to the front.

“A general driven off by Liangshan,” the monk called, “and you’ve come here to frighten whom?”

The words struck home. After the ruin of his chain-linked cavalry, Huyan had taken the Qingzhou command to regain what he had lost and restore his standing as a soldier before the prefect. He raised his twin whips and urged his horse forward. “I’ll take you first, monk!”

The white horse met him. Lu swung with both hands, bringing the heavy head of his staff down from above. Huyan caught it across his raised right whip. The whip was driven toward his saddle, the shock ran through his shoulders, and the blue-maned horse beneath him dipped its head. Before he could press in under the long weapon, the staff swept back across his chest. Huyan bent low as the horses passed and struck at Lu’s near side with his left whip. Lu hauled the staff in to guard himself; the iron head flashed past its outer edge.

As the horses separated, Lu glanced back at Huyan’s left hand and bared his teeth. “Another one. Come on, then!”

Huyan wheeled and charged again. He could still feel the weight of that first blow in his arm. This time he did not lift both whips against the descending staff. One forced Lu to raise it; the other came in from beside the white horse. Lu leaned back and let it pass, losing half a horse’s length. He swung to pursue, saw the second whip waiting close in, and stopped the staff dead. That sudden check alarmed Huyan more than the blow itself. The monk could halt so much iron at will while riding at speed.

Lu ceased aiming every stroke at the man’s face. As the white horse turned, he sent the butt of the staff past its neck toward Huyan’s shoulder. Huyan snapped up his right whip to close the way and veered outward. The staff scraped across his armor before Lu drew it back. Had Lu chased that one opening, the other whip would have struck him. He laid the staff across his saddle. His shouts were as loud as before, but his eyes stayed on both of Huyan’s hands.

At first each army’s cheers drowned out the other’s. Soon only the drums kept pace with the hooves. When Lu’s staff missed, Huyan drove in; when the whips began to close around him, the white horse carried the staff beyond their reach. Again and again the watching soldiers thought one rider had left himself open, only to see that he had kept a stroke in reserve. Huyan had taken the monk for another mountain outlaw. Now he found himself silently admiring him: what rare skill this man possessed. Lu, too, no longer treated the twin whips as two iron bars to be battered aside. More than once he could have followed the forward whip with a heavy blow, but the rear one waited for him to commit his body. He drew back and sought a new line for his horse.

They crossed weapons for forty or fifty exchanges. Dust hid the horses’ feet, while the blows of staff and whips still rang out before the lines. Neither man could drive the other from the saddle. Then the recall gongs sounded from both armies. Lu checked his white horse, and Huyan lowered his whips. They looked at one another through the unsettled dust before returning to their troops to rest.

3. Another Challenge

Huyan dismounted and drank a little water, his gaze still on the field. Peach Blossom Mountain had looked ready to fall. Instead, one monk had held him for dozens of exchanges. To withdraw now would leave his borrowed Qingzhou army idle before the mountain. To ride out again meant learning how many more men Twin Dragons Mountain had who could fight like that.

He handed back the cup and mounted.

“Monk! Come out!” he called across the field. “We haven’t settled it yet.”

Lu reached for his staff, but Yang Zhi had already brought his horse beside him. “Rest a while, brother. Let me take this one.”

Lu looked at him and loosened his reins. “Those two whips keep a stroke in hand when you close with him. Watch for it.”

Yang nodded and rode out with his blade. Lu stayed with their line and watched the horses meet. Yang’s blade gave him less reach than the long staff; he had to come closer to make an attack count. Huyan kept one whip high and the other low before his horse, unwilling to give away the opening that had nearly cost him against the monk. They fought for more than forty exchanges without a decision. Finding no easy way through, Yang offered a false opening and turned back to his own line. Huyan checked his horse and did not follow.

Lu came forward, looking first for a wound. Yang shook his head. Huyan, he said, still guarded himself well. Lu glanced toward the government line. “He knows how to use those whips.”

The ground before the mountain was more than a place for a few champions to test themselves. The reinforcements had just arrived; Peach Blossom’s men still had to join them. The government troops had won no victory, but their formation held. Lu and Yang decided to withdraw twenty li, make camp, and return the next day. Huyan took his own army back as well. Before both forces, neither monk nor general had overcome the other. Peach Blossom Mountain had not fallen.

4. The Road to Qingzhou

An urgent order came from Qingzhou that night. Men from White Tiger Mountain were approaching the city, and Prefect Murong wanted Huyan back to defend it. Huyan led his troops away from Peach Blossom Mountain before dawn. When Lu, Yang, and Wu Song returned the next day, the government camp stood empty.

Li Zhong and Zhou Tong came down to meet them. Lu said nothing about the beating at Peach Blossom Village. He asked where Huyan had gone. Scouts soon brought word that the fighting would continue at Qingzhou, a city the three mountain forces could not take alone. Later, Huyan captured Kong Ming and Kong Liang came to ask their help. Lu urged the mountains to join their men; Yang proposed calling in Song Jiang’s greater force from Liangshan.

In time Huyan Zhuo joined Liangshan himself. At the feast welcoming him to the stronghold, Lu Zhishen caught sight of his former opponent across the crowd. He carried a bowl of wine over. Huyan paused, accepted the bowl, and gave him a soldier’s salute.