Heavy Losses and Defeated Generals

The next day, as dawn broke, the vanguard of the expedition against Liaodong, General Mai Tiehang of the Right Tuntun Guard, led tens of thousands of troops equipped with numerous scaling ladders and siege towers, preparing to assault and capture the city.

Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang, personally saw him off, offering three cups of wine to encourage him to summon the courage to slay the heavens and secure victory in the opening battle to boost troop morale.

Deeply moved, Mai Tiehang resolved in his heart to capture Liaodong City in one swift strike to repay the Emperor’s immense grace and favor.

Lately, Mai Tiehang had been feeling unwell and had been taking medicine to recuperate.

Military physician Wu advised him to drink his medicine before setting out on the march again.

Mai Tiehang’s fierce tiger-like visage hardened as he rebuked, "A great man’s life and death are ordained by heaven; how can they be swayed by such minor ailments? Even if I die, I must fight fiercely to slay the enemy and serve the imperial court. How can I shrink back from fear of a mere trifle like this?"

The physician shook his head and sighed, having no choice but to drop the matter and pour the medicine out onto the ground.

Standing within the camp and watching this scene from afar, Li Dong felt a deep sense of admiration. This was a true warrior, a genuine fierce general!

Mai Tiehang’s life had been full of twists and turns, deeply legendary and inspiring.

In his youth, while in the Chen State, Mai Tiehang had been nothing more than a vagrant, making a living by theft and thievery. He was fierce in movement and swift as the wind; many people, even after discovering him, were completely helpless and unable to catch him, forced to watch powerlessly as he escaped.

The Governor of Guangzhou, driven to his wits' end by his antics, devised a secretive scheme to capture him and sent him to Southern Chen as a slave, serving as an imperial umbrella-bearer for the Last Emperor of Chen. He had to attend the Emperor daily by his side, with not a single moment of freedom.

At night, whenever he stole a moment of leisure, he would secretly vault over the wall and flee, running over a hundred miles away to Nanxuzhou to commit thefts. Though his tracks were discovered repeatedly, his speed like the wind always allowed him to make a safe getaway and return to the Emperor’s side by the same night, without delaying his normal guard duties the next day.

Consequently, he was repeatedly accused of being a thief, but the Last Emperor of Chen refused to believe it! How could a slave, with no personal freedom, possibly procure a horse? How could anyone travel back and forth over three hundred li in a single night?

Later, someone devised a scheme, claiming that an urgent message needed to be sent to Nanxuzhou and offering a heavy reward to whoever could deliver it on time. Unaware of the trap, Mai Tiehang accepted the letter, ran through the night to Nanxuzhou to deliver it promptly, and returned to the Last Emperor’s side the following day as usual.

This time, the evidence was ironclad, leaving the Last Emperor speechless. The Emperor hated his unprincipled behavior and his lack of wit in falling for another’s malicious trap, which had even cast aspersions on the throne itself. However, considering his peerless advantage of wind-like speed, the Emperor simply had him beaten as a warning, sent him home, and barred him from official service forever.

Later, when the Sui dynasty conquered the Chen State, Mai Tiehang followed the Sui Chancellor, Yang Su, for a long time. Because of his swift movements, he was sent out on reconnaissance, but was discovered by the enemy and, outnumbered, was captured with his hands bound and sent to the capital.

During a meal, the soldiers guarding him saw that his hands were tied and that eating was extremely difficult, so they untied his ropes. Seizing a moment when the guards were eating inattentively, he seized a soldier’s weapon, killed all his captors, and fled back safely. Remaining closely by Yang Su’s side to protect his safety every step of the way, Yang Su was deeply gratified by his loyalty.

When Emperor Yang of Sui ascended the throne, Prince Yang Liang of Han rose in rebellion. During the punitive campaign against him, Mai Tiehang displayed extraordinary valor and earned great military merits, leading to his appointment as a Pillar State and Grand General. Afterward, he was transferred to serve in Laizhou, but due to mediocre governance achievements, he was reassigned as the Prefect of Runan.

By this time, as he grew older and experienced more of the world, he no longer relied solely on brute physical strength to fight as he did in his youth. He also learned to exercise his mind, managing government affairs in the office through strategy and decrees, turning the governance of Runan around into something quite promising. This rapid transition from fighting with brute strength to governing with intellect was truly remarkable.

During this campaign against Liaodong, Emperor Yang placed high hopes on him, appointing him as the vanguard of the twenty-four armies. Mai Tiehang felt overwhelmingly grateful.

Looking back on his life, just over a dozen years ago he was merely a commoner and thief, never daring to dream of entering the imperial court as a high official. Yet Emperor Yang had bestowed upon him all this glory and wealth. How could Mai Tiehang not shed tears of gratitude and vow to fight to the death to repay the imperial grace of his patronage?

Mai Tiehang’s army broke camp and set out, surging forward like the mighty Yangtze River, and the camp quickly emptied out.

Because Li Dong and Qin Qiong were subordinates of Lai Hu'er, they did not leave the camp with them.

Watching the billowing dust kicked up by the departing army, Li Dong’s heart surged with emotion.

Mai Tiehang’s background proved him to be a quintessential martial hero, and being hailed as the fiercest general of the Sui was a title well-deserved.

In this expedition, Mai Tiehang seemed to have made up his mind never to retreat, even if it meant dying on the battlefield. He knew full well that if he died in battle, the Emperor would grant even higher honors to his family! He was already a General of the Right Tuntun Guard and held the title of Grand Master for Closing Attendance. Just one step further, and he could rank among the Three Ducal Ministers.

Rising from a lowly thief, his official rewards under the Sui Emperor had reached their peak. If he did not die, his sons would never attain the status of the Three Ducal Ministers. But if he died, his sons would certainly inherit his post as General of the Right Tuntun Guard. Coupled with sacrificing his life to repay the Emperor’s favor, this would surely win the Sovereign's immense grace, allowing them to enter court as officials, attend the imperial chariot daily, and reach the pinnacle of officialdom.

From his lack of strategic foresight in youth—repeatedly falling into traps—to his calculated foresight as an official, Mai Tiehang had clearly completed his transformation from a mere bruiser into someone possessing both courage and resourcefulness.

Yet, throughout his life, he harbored one major flaw: he was obsessed with fame and fortune. No matter when or where, he pursued them with unremitting zeal, his desires burning unextinguished like a raging fire.

Sure enough, around noon, Mai Tiehang’s army returned in utter defeat. Out of tens of thousands of troops, only a few hundred escaped back—and only because they protected his three sons did these few hundred manage to avoid perishing on the battlefield. Mai Tiehang himself, along with two military supervisors, died on the battlefield, finally fulfilling his pledge to serve the country with his life.

The hundreds who escaped death from the jaws of peril had been treated very well by Mai Tiehang during his lifetime. Now, having lost their pillar of support, they were overcome with grief, their weeping echoing for miles.

Upon hearing the cries, Li Dong, Qin Qiong, and several garrison soldiers secretly ran out to watch. Witnessing the tragic and heroic scene, they could not help but wring their hands in lament, deeply grieving the loss of a fierce tiger-general for the Sui.

When Emperor Yang received the grim news of Mai Tiehang’s death, he was also deeply grieved. Choking back tears, he pacified the returning remnants of the army and urged them to take care of themselves. He posthumously appointed Mai Tiehang’s three sons—Mai Mengcai, Mai Zhongcai, and Mai Jicai—as Grand Masters of Glorious Ceremonies, allowing them to hereditary inherit Mai Tiehang’s official titles and enfeoffments.

Enraged, the Emperor then ordered Yuwen Shu to renew the siege and keep fighting until the enemy surrendered.

The reason Mai Tiehang met his death was entirely because the Sui soldiers had been delayed in constructing bridges across the Liao River and were still short by more than a zhang from completing the western bank when the enemy general Eulji Mundeok dispatched Goguryeo death-squads to charge.

Disregarding their lives, the Sui garrison soldiers leaped into the freezing river, swam ashore, and engaged the enemy in fierce combat, suffering heavy casualties. Mai Tiehang and the two military supervisors charged onto the bank and fought desperately against the swarming enemy soldiers, but being outnumbered, they were killed.

Receiving the order to assault the city, Yuwen Shu first had the bridges completed before unleashing a bloody massacre upon Eulji Mundeok's forces.

Unable to withstand the onslaught, Eulji Mundeok’s army fought and retreated all the way back to Liaodong City, also known as Xiangping City.

There, they feigned defeat and offered to surrender.

During the negotiations over the terms of surrender with Yuwen Shu, observing that the Sui army was careless and unprepared, they launched a sudden, violent uprising.

Because the event happened so abruptly and Yuwen Shu was unprepared, he too suffered a disastrous defeat!

He only managed to look slightly more respectable in defeat than Mai Tiehang, escaping back with around two thousand men out of tens of thousands.

This time, Emperor Yang of Sui was consumed by furious rage! In just a single day, over a hundred thousand troops had effectively been utterly defeated, without gaining the slightest advantage.

Amidst his anger, he thought of Zhang Xutuo of Qi Commandery, and consequently of Li Dong of Zhangqiu. He mused that if Li Dong were here, with his profound resourcefulness, how could he have suffered such a crushing defeat? He surely would have seen through the enemy's treacherous tricks and restored some of the Emperor's lost dignity.

Remaining stationed in the camp, Li Dong naturally also received the news of Yuwen Shu’s defeat.

Li Dong surmised that there must be a traitor within the Sui military camp who had secretly divulged the Emperor's orders—specifically the directive to keep fighting until the enemy surrendered—to Eulji Mundeok, enabling the enemy to exploit this condition and preserve their strength when facing imminent defeat.

The only course of action now was to devise a plan to root out this traitor; otherwise, they would inevitably suffer another miserable and catastrophic defeat in the future.

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