Page:Romance of the Three Kingdoms - tr. Brewitt-Taylor - Volume 1.djvu/207

 out his men under command of Lei Hsü and Chang Hsien. When the array was complete Chang Hsiu took his station in front and pointing at Ts‘ao Ts‘ao railed at him saying, “O false and pretended supporter of benevolence and justice! O shameless one! You are just a beast of the forest, and absolutely devoid of humanity.”

This annoyed Ts‘ao Ts‘ao who sent out Hsü Ch‘u against the insulter. Chang Hsien came to meet him and fell in the third bout. Thence Chang Hsiu’s men fled and were pursued to the very walls of Nanyang, only managing to get within just before the pursuit came up. The city was then closely besieged. Seeing the moat was so wide and deep that approach to the wall would be difficult they began to fill up the ditch with earth. Then with sand bags, brushwood and bundles of grass they built a great mound near the wall and on this erected steps so that they could look over into the city.

Ts‘ao rode round the city closely inspecting the defences. Three days later he issued an order to make a mound of earth and brushwood at the north west angle, as he would mount the walls at that point. He was observed from within the city by Chia Hsü, who went to his chief and said, “I know what he intends and I can defeat him by a counter-move.”

What the counter-move was will be told in the next chapter.