The Legend of the Condor Heroes

Guo Jing paid no attention, his command flag waved, his teams moved around, the 'coiled snake' changed into 'winged tiger' immediately, the four smaller groups left-hand and right-hand 'qian tian' [front sky] occupied the front position, the rest of the groups enveloped Chagatai's troops from both sides, their corresponding left groups outflanked Jochi's troops on the other side.

By this time Chagatai could see Guo Jing's banner clearly; angrily he swore, "I knew from the start the southern barbarian is not a good person." He gave an order to his troops to kill Guo Jing's. But those tiger's wings contained subtle variations; each was very powerful; it was the formation Han Xin used to crush Xiang Yu at Gai Xia. It was called, "Ten principles to surround the enemy" in the military strategy books. It was said to have a power of surrounding the enemy ten times stronger, the principle of small number surrounding many using ever changing movements.

Chagatai's troops saw Guo Jing's small groups came and went continually, they did not know the exact number of the enemy and their hearts trembled with fear. In a short moment Chagatai's twenty-thousand troops had been cut off, each group could not help the other.

The fight against Jochi's troops took a different turn since their fighting spirit was already weakened. First, it was their fellow countrymen, more than half of them were good friends to each other. Second, they were afraid of the Great Khan's wrath. As soon as Guo Jing small groups surrounded them in confusing movements, they lost their will to fight.

Among the troop movement Guo Jing's loud voice could be heard, "We are all Mongolian brothers, no need to kill each other. Quickly put down your sabers, spears, bows and arrows to avoid the Great Khan's beheadings." Almost all officers and soldiers listened to his plea; immediately they dismounted their horses and threw their weapons to the ground.

Chagatai and about a thousand of his loyal followers charged ferociously toward Guo Jing's troops, but three drumbeats were heard, eight groups of riders came surrounding them from all directions; they carried horse-tripping ropes. One by one the thousand troops fell down their horsebacks. From those eight groups, four or five soldiers surrounded one of Chagatai's loyal followers. They were forced to sit on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs.

Jochi saw how Guo Jing's troops routed Chagatai, he could not help but feeling scared but happy. He was about to move forward to talk to Guo Jing when suddenly the horn sounded again, Guo Jing's front teams moved backward and the rear teams moved forward, very soon Jochi was surrounded on all directions.

Jochi had an extensive battle experience, but he had never seen anything like this. Hastily ordered his men to attack, but Guo Jing's ten thousand men split into twelve smaller groups, did not charge forward, but moved backward instead. Jochi was marveled; he did not know that these twelve groups were:

'da hei zi' [black darkness, 11pm – 1am, the first hour],

'po di chou' [worn out enemy, 1 – 3am, the second hour],

'zuo tu yin' [dashing to the left, 3 – 5am, the third hour],

'qing she mao' [green snake, 5 – 7am, the fourth hour],

'cui xiong chen' [terrible devastation, 7 – 9am, the fifth hour],

'qian chong si' [charge forward, 9 – 11am, the sixth hour],

'da chi wu' [great scarlet, 11am – 1pm, the seventh hour],

'xian feng wei' [first tip (of the tool/weapon), 1 – 3pm, the eight hour],

'you ji shen' [right-hand strike, 3 – 5pm, the ninth hour],

'bai yun you' [white cloud, 5 – 7pm, the tenth hour],

'jue sheng xu' [sure victory, 7 – 9pm, the eleventh hour],

and 'hou wei hai' [rear guard, 9 – 11pm, the twelfth hour ], according to the twelve two-hour periods of the day; with strange variations, swiftly moved back and forth.

These twelve groups moved around, the right-hand groups charged to the left, the left-hand groups strike to the right; Jochi's troops were confused. Less than the time to eat a bowl of rice later Jochi and his men were also surrounded and captured.

Jochi remembered when all of them were kids he had whipped Guo Jing half-dead. Chagatai also remembered he let his dogs loose and bite Guo Jing really bad. Both were afraid that Guo Jing would seek revenge; they sobered up immediately. They were also really scared that their father king would punish them severely.

After capturing these two people Guo Jing thought that as an outsider he had interfered in this sibling rivalry; he was not sure if his action might result in disaster or good luck. He was thinking of discussing this matter over with Ogedei and Tuolei when suddenly he heard loud horn sound; amidst the flickering torches the Great Khan's nine big banners came galloping fast.

Genghis Khan had sobered up from wine, he received the report that his two sons were about to kill each other. He was startled and angrily jumped out of his bed. Without wearing clothes or armor, with his hair unkempt he jumped on his horse and sped to the prairie.

When he came near, he saw his sons' troops sat on the ground, with Guo Jing's troops standing around, guarding them. His two sons, although they were still sitting on the horsebacks, but each were surrounded by eight of Guo Jing's men wielding unsheathed blades in their hands. He was very surprised.

Guo Jing stepped forward and knelt down on the ground, reporting everything. Realizing that a major disaster had been unexpectedly thwarted, Genghis Khan's delight was unspeakable. He came rushing in thinking that two Mongolian armies had fought each other, the casualty must be serious; his two sons might be dead already. Who would have thought that his two sons were alive and well, three armies were intact. Of course he was delighted.

Immediately he called a general assembly of all the princes and generals. He scolded Jochi and Chagatai, and heavily rewarded Guo Jing and his men. He said to Guo Jing, "Do you still say that you cannot lead troops to war? Your merit in this matter alone can easily dwarf the war against the Jin country. If we cannot destroy the enemy's city wall today, we can always come back tomorrow and try again. But if my sons were dead, how can we make them alive again?"

Guo Jing took the rewards, but divided the gold, silver and livestock to his troops. There was a thunderous cheering and applause among his troops that day. All generals came to congratulate him on this great merit.

After sending off the guests, Guo Jing took out the note given to him by Lu Youjiao. He examined it carefully, the handwriting was shoddy, most likely it was Lu Youjiao's handwriting, but he was suspicious, "Although I have trained my troops in 'coiled snake' and 'winged tiger' formations, but I have never mentioned these names to Lu Zhanglao. The difficult parts of the book that I asked him for advice also do not have anything to do with this battle formations. How did he know? Did he read my military strategy book without my knowledge?"

Right away he invited Lu Youjiao into his tent. "Lu Zhanglao, if you like to read this military strategy book, I will gladly lend it to you."

Lu Youjiao smiled, "A poor beggar like me will not become a general in my lifetime; leading a whole bunch of little beggars also did not need to use the art of war. What use will the military strategy book for me?"

Guo Jing pointed his finger to the note, "Then how did you know about the 'coiled snake' and 'winged tiger' formations?"

"Sir has mentioned it to Xiao Ren, have you forgotten?" Lu Youjiao said.

Guo Jing knew he was not telling the truth. The more he thought about it the more he was perplexed; but he was not sure what did Lu Youjiao hide.