Battle of Jieqiao - The Battle

The Battle

Soon Yuan Shao himself came in force and the two sides met 40 km south of Jie Bridge, a crossing on the Qing River. Gongsun Zan's army had a reported strength of 40,000, consisting of 30,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. He arrayed his infantry in a square and divided his cavalry between the left and right wings. In the centre were placed his "white horse volunteers" (白馬義從), an elite mounted unit which formed the core of his fighting force. Whilst the numbers may have exaggerated, their appearance must have been impressive; Records of Three Kingdoms describes how their "flags and armour lit up Heaven and Earth". Though Yuan Shao's army was of comparable size, it consisted almost entirely of infantry. His commander Qu Yi was placed at the van with 800 crack troops and 1,000 crossbowmen. Behind them stood masses of footsoldiers, numbering in the tens of thousands, commanded by Yuan Shao himself.

Observing that Yuan's vanguard was thinly spread, the experienced horseman Gongsun Zan ordered a charge by his cavalry. The aim was to "break the enemy line" - destroying the core of an opposing army and then rolling up its retreating multitudes. Qu Yi's men formed a shield wall and awaited the onslaught. When Gongsun's cavalry was a mere ten paces away, the crossbowmen loosed waves of bolts, followed by the footsoldiers, who rose with their spears. After a general melée the front of Yuan Shao's line was littered with cut down horses and Gongsun Zan's dead. Gongsun's general Yan Gang was killed in the fighting. Yuan Shao's army is said to have taken 1,000 heads. Having failed to breach the enemy line, Gongsun's cavalry wheeled around and streamed away from the battle, followed by the infantry.

Gongsun Zan attempted to regroup and hold the line of the Qing River. His rearguard clashed with Qu Yi's men at Jie Bridge itself and were driven into retreat. The abandoned Gongsun camp was quickly overrun, its yak tail standard (comparable to the regimental colours of European armies) lost.

Seeing that Gongsun was all but defeated, Yuan Shao advanced with a bodyguard of several tens of crossbowmen and a hundred men-at-arms. He was caught by surprise by 2,000 horsemen who had been detached from Gongsun Zan's main force. According to the Records of Three Kingdoms, the aide-de-camp Tian Feng was about to support Yuan Shao behind a low wall for refuge. Yuan threw his helmet to the ground, and said, "A real man should die in front of the ranks. To be idle behind a wall, that is no way to live!" The enemy horsemen, ignorant of Yuan Shao's identity, were beginning to withdraw when Qu Yi arrived on the scene to drive them away. This story, somewhat detached from the main battle sequence, emphasises Yuan Shao's bravery.