Chapter 800: Stopped

Seeing the roving bandits begin their advance, the sudden blare of horns and drums rolled down from the plateau. On the Jia-5 defense line, the supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander swept his hand forward. The New Army squad commander and the battalion squad commander, who had been staring intently at him from the first low wall, immediately barked out tense orders: "All to your positions! Prepare for battle!"

"Matchlock gunners, make ready!"

The New Army and battalion soldiers rushed to the low wall, bracing their matchlocks upon it. Not just here — across the entire twenty-plus li of defense lines, officers' furious shouts rang out one after another. Along every line, the gunners clattered their matchlocks into position, a continuous metallic clanking.

On the Jia-5 first low wall were one hundred New Army matchlock men, arranged in three firing tiers. Alongside the first tier were over ten matchlock men from the battalion firearms unit. Once their pieces were braced, each man lit his match cord with a fire striker, and the officers made a final check of their firearms' condition.

Sheltered behind the low wall, they watched the roving bandits pour down from the opposite side. The bandits wore yellow headscarves, and as the human tide cascaded down the plateau slope, one could not help but think of the Yellow River's waters, of Hukou Falls — that all-consuming torrent drained the color from every face.

Even those battalion soldiers who boasted of being battle-hardened veterans now turned as pale as paper. Had the Jingbian Army supervising unit not been present, some of them might well have fled.

The battalion squad commander and the New Army squad commander watched the enemy with taut nerves. They glanced at the opposite side, then back at the supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander, whose face was as still as sunken water, his expression utterly motionless.

The thunder of footsteps drew nearer and nearer. Amid the sky-churning dust, the roving bandits charging down the plateau's narrow paths had already descended into the gully. The human tide seemed to recede for a moment, then abruptly surged up the slope on this side. Howling, shouting, they came rushing along the uphill path toward the terrace cliff.

Their numbers were simply too great. A rough estimate put the bandits surging toward the Jia-5 sector at over two thousand — five times the total Ming troops defending the first low wall. And this was with the terrain restricting their deployment; otherwise, ten times or twenty times that number would have been nothing out of the ordinary.

The slope was already filled with their figures. A single narrow path could not contain such density, so the human tide spilled over onto the slopes on both sides of the road.

Everyone could now clearly see their expressions. Every face was contorted, brimming with fanaticism. Looking at those starved soldiers' savage visages, every man — New Army or battalion soldier alike — felt his heart pound violently. The hands gripping the matchlocks showed bulging veins as they waited tensely for orders.

The supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander remained composed. The battalion squad commander and the New Army squad commander wore anxious expressions, but they dared not act rashly; if they did, that Squad Commander could cut them down on the spot.

Closer, ever closer. The plateau slopes on both sides were now swarming with roving bandits, packing the road solid. Their numbers were so vast that the front of their formation was already on this side of the plateau slope, while the rear still stretched back onto the opposite plateau.

Everyone could also see more clearly: the charging bandits were mostly gaunt, sallow-faced starved soldiers, wearing only headscarves and armed largely with spears and clubs. Among them were a small number of veteran bandits carrying sabers and shields, and further back, some supervising foot soldiers following behind.

The supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander still did not move. Nor was he alone — not a single man in the supervising Jingbian Army units on the plateau slope gave the order to open fire. The cannons had temporarily ceased their bombardment, and across the entire twenty-plus li of the Yuanwang Gully defense line, an eerie silence reigned.

The tide-like press of bandits sent alternating chills and fever-heats through the defenders. Just as the bandits were about to surge to the terrace cliff's edge, just as the defenders' endurance neared its breaking point, just as the battalion squad commander and the New Army squad commander were about to grind their teeth to splinters, the supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander suddenly bellowed: "Fire!"

The matchlock men pulled their triggers in unison. They roared as they fired, releasing the pressure in their hearts along with the falling match cords. The ignition charges in the flash pans caught, flame and thick smoke belching forth; then the priming charges ignited the powder inside the barrels, erupting in fiercer flame and denser smoke, merging into a deafening volley of gunfire.

Dense white smoke billowed up from the Jia-5 defense line. It then merged with the smoke rising from the adjacent lines, until finally, all eighteen defense lines of Yuanwang Gully were shrouded in thick white mist, blanketing these twenty-plus li of plateau slopes.

A rolling thunder of matchlock fire, waves of heart-rending screams. With that volley, the tide of roving bandits surging toward the Jia-5 first low wall suddenly faltered. The starved bandits at the front toppled in swaths, like wheat cut down by the scythe.

They pitched forward to the ground, the heavy thuds of bodies striking earth echoing out.

"Fire!"

The first tier of gunners withdrew, and the second tier stepped forward, continuing to spew smoke and flame ahead. The battalion firearms unit, however, sent no more matchlock men forward — they had only a dozen or so, and the three-eyed gun men had not yet gotten their turn to fire.

After withdrawing, they reloaded using the powder flasks and lead-shot pouches on their persons. The matchlocks they used were still of the old pattern: muzzles of varying sizes, barrel walls of uneven thickness. Not only did this pose quality risks, but they also could not use pre-measured paper cartridge ammunition.

"Fire!"

The area before the low wall was thick with smoke. The third tier of gunners stepped forward and fired a volley into the panicked crowd ahead. On the slope, the starved soldiers wailed in a chorus of misery. The concentrated volleys of fine matchlocks were something even Qing troops could not withstand, let alone these refugees who had only recently been coerced into service.

The starved soldiers struck by shot rolled and howled on the ground. The musket balls tore into their bodies, shattering bone and viscera, inflicting an agony that made them wish for death.

Though the New Army and battalion troops combined had only a little over a hundred matchlocks firing, and many men were fighting for the first time, the roving bandits on the road and slopes were so numerous that every volley rarely missed its mark. Moreover, those hit were often the fiercest and boldest men in each band — they charged at the very front, and so they died the fastest.

When the matchlock balls struck them, the soft lead, lacking strong penetration, deformed and tumbled inside their bodies, tearing and pulverizing much within, and even sending jagged lead fragments spraying in all directions, inflicting horrific wounds.

Seeing the gut-spilling, gruesome deaths of those struck, watching them crawl, scream, and writhe on the ground — the brutal sight instantly evaporated the starved soldiers' ferocious momentum. Many turned and fled, shouting. Before being pressed into battle, most had been ordinary commoners; they could manage jeering and mobbing, but they could not stomach the real thing. Once the boldest men in their ranks were dead, their blood-courage vanished in an instant.

Seeing these men flee, the veteran bandits with sabers and shields desperately tried to suppress them. Meanwhile, the starved soldiers behind, driven forward under the threat of the foot soldiers, surged ahead, packing the slope so densely that some lost their footing and tumbled down, bowling over a great mass of people.

Seeing the chaos on the slope, the supervising Jingbian Army Squad Commander seized the moment and shouted again: "Loose arrows!"

Another whistling storm of arrows followed, and another large swath of starved soldiers on the slope collapsed. The battalion archers behind the low wall loosed volley after volley at them with all their strength. Though the bows they used were not of great draw weight, they were more than sufficient against unarmored starved soldiers.

In particular, the battalion soldiers mostly used the small-tip bow, famed for its arrow speed, along with some Kaiyuan bows. In a short span, the rain of arrows seemed to blanket the entire slope area before the low wall.

Amid these arrows streaked even more trails of thick smoke. The first low-wall defense line had over fifty archers, but the number of rocket men reached over a hundred. They were all equipped with trident-spears, with match cords tied to the central tines. They would take rockets from their quivers, brace them between the tines of the trident-spear, aim at the enemy, then touch the fuse to the match cord, releasing it once lit. The arrow would then fly forth.

Although their rockets were not as fast as bow-shot arrows, they required no great exertion, and bracing them on the trident-spears made aiming convenient, much like using a crossbow. Even if some rockets flew erratically due to quality issues, the starved bandits crowding the narrow slope paths were so numerous that, again, few shots missed their mark.

The arrows propelled by gunpowder struck with ferocious force, their power reaching the standard of a strength-bow. Anyone hit by a rocket was sent tumbling backward by the sheer impact, crashing into those behind them and dragging them down the slope, causing even greater chaos.

"Hurl stones!"

Stones rained down, and the starved soldiers on the slope path scattered and howled like headless flies.

"The roving bandits have been stopped?"

Up on the Jia-5 plateau, messengers streamed in continuously with reports of the battle on the plateau slopes. The New Army battalion commander and the battalion mobile corps commander responsible for this sector were visibly delighted. Han Kaizhi, however, remained calm. This was only the bandits' first assault; those refugees had no offensive power whatsoever, while their own side...

Not to mention the fine matchlocks and firearms, just look at the defensive works. Those terrace cliffs, low walls, and trenches — ordinary refugees could neither climb nor storm them. Add to that the terrain of these plateau-slope paths, and the starved soldiers armed with spears and clubs could only crowd on the road and take a beating. Stopping them was only to be expected; otherwise, the Yuanwang Gully defense line would have been built for nothing.

But this was only the first wave, and the roving bandits had only sent forth their crudest starved soldiers. The battle for Tongguan had just begun; there was plenty of fighting yet to come.

He issued an order: "We cannot merely defend and wait passively for the bandits to retreat. The spear troops on the defense line must seize opportunities to sally forth, take the initiative to drive the bandits back, and exert heavy pressure on the enemy!"

At the edge of the plateau by the Chengbei Stockade, Sun Chuanting stood beside the commander's banner. Through his spyglass, he kept his gaze fixed on the plateau opposite, occasionally glancing down at the situation on the slopes below. He watched as matchlock fire roared in a continuous din, smoke billowing thickly, and now and then the acrid smoke, tinged with the stench of blood, reached his nostrils.

A steady stream of messengers came to report to Sun Chuanting on the situation at each defense line. Sun Chuanting's expression remained impassive; the battle conditions from Jia-1 to Jia-10 were within his expectations.

The roving bandits' greatest skill was their human-wave tactic, but in this kind of terrain and against these defense lines, their greatest advantage could not be brought to bear. His own New Army was no pushover either. That the bandits at each defense line were stopped before the first low wall was the most normal outcome.

What concerned him was the battle situation at the southern end of Yuanwang Gully, from the Jia-11 defense line to the Jia-18 defense line. There, the gully bottom was broad, generally over one li wide, even reaching two li in places, allowing the bandits to deploy their forces — and that gave him some worry.

He listened to the continuous roar of cannon and matchlock fire from that direction. A messenger also came to report: "The roving bandits are extremely numerous, but our army's cannon fire bombards them fiercely, and the bandits are suffering heavy casualties."

With a shrill shriek, an iron ball weighing several jin slammed heavily into the ground, throwing up a great cloud of dust. The ball then ricocheted up again, crashing headlong into a group of foot soldiers in red uniforms. Wherever it passed, flesh, blood, and severed limbs flew. A picket unit of the Right Battalion, arrayed in formation there, scattered in terror.

The plateau surfaces and gully bottoms of Dai Camp, Nantou Plateau, and other areas were packed with the troops of the Chuang Army's Right Battalion. This area lay at the southern end of Yuanwang Gully, where the ravine's drop was gentler and the gully bottom broad. Thus, Liu Xiyao, the General of the Right Battalion in charge of this sector, had deployed a massive force here.

When the assault began, from the Jia-11 defense line to the Jia-18 defense line, Liu Xiyao assigned ten thousand men to attack each line, intending to use human-wave tactics to overwhelm the Ming troops defending the plateau slopes.

Before the attack began, the Ming troops made no move, allowing Liu Xiyao to arrange his forces at leisure. Along the broad gully bottom, he set up one battle formation after another — naturally, with the starved soldiers in front and the supervising foot soldiers behind to keep them in check. Unexpectedly, the moment the battle started, the Ming forces fiercely bombarded the formations in the gully bottom. In particular, they ignored the starved soldiers at the front and concentrated on the foot soldiers at the rear, causing the Chuang Army's Right Battalion unbearable suffering.

When the Yuanwang Gully defense line was first established, the Jingbian Army's artillery officers had already measured the elevation positions here. The cannons set on the plateau slopes simply fired according to their designated units, with astonishing accuracy.

The breech-loading falconet cannons were also famously fast-firing. Amid the shrieking shells, a rain of shot fell upon the foot-soldier formations. Flesh and blood flew, arms and legs were severed; every time a cannonball landed, it caused immense turmoil. There were also large quantities of poison-smoke shells and ash shells, which caused chaos no less severe than the solid shot.

In truth, the artillery deployed here was not particularly numerous. On the plateau, there were only twenty great general cannons and twenty mortars, dispersed across the various defense lines. But in this era, the terrorizing power of artillery was immense. Troops who could stand firm and calmly endure bombardment were elite forces with exceptionally firm willpower — and clearly, the Chuang Army was not an army of firm willpower.

Thus, even though the plateau cannons did not actually inflict heavy casualties on the Chuang Army's Right Battalion, the fear of being shelled caused turmoil in many formations. Every time a cannonball landed, the Chuang Army soldiers who felt they were in its path would invariably turn tail and run — whether officer or common soldier.

The reason the roving bandits' human-wave tactic was so devastatingly effective was that large numbers of veteran foot soldiers drove, supervised, and forcibly held in check the coerced refugees from behind, making them use their flesh and blood to exhaust the enemy's bullets and arrows, to deplete their effective strength. Only when the moment was ripe would the main elite force be committed.

But at this moment the infantry driving and suppressing from the rear could barely look after themselves — how could they spare attention to supervise the starving soldiers up front? And most of those starving soldiers were ordinary famine refugees who had never seen a battlefield in their lives. Even if the old bandits’ incitement and threats before battle had stirred up some reckless courage, that spirit came fast and left faster. Often a single volley was enough — once the boldest ones charging ahead were shot dead or wounded, they instantly turned back into timid, fearful little common folk.

In the past, the old bandits among the squads would have desperately suppressed them and driven them forward, but now the rear infantry themselves were in chaos — how could they supervise?

Because of the artillery, the Right Battalion Chuang army attacking Nangou fared even worse than elsewhere. After all, however deadly the arquebuses were, they could only hit the starving soldiers up front. The supervising infantry in the rear were largely safe. They could comfortably drive and suppress the famine refugees from behind, but here, they had to endure a treatment the starving soldiers did not: shelling!

The shriek of cannonballs came wave after wave, and lime-poison mist spread everywhere. Standing on the plateau slope, Right Battalion General-in-Chief Liu Xiyao watched the battlefield below, his face turning livid.

If the starving soldiers up front were shattered into rout by the Ming army’s several volleys, that was one thing, but the rear holding infantry were also being shelled into a stampeding, utterly disorganized rabble — this he could not tolerate. As a former officer of the Left Ge Five Battalions, he had wanted to distinguish himself well in this battle. He had carefully organized before the attack, never imagining that the moment battle began, this offensive on which he had pinned such high hopes would turn into a farce.

On the plateau, Zhao Rongcheng withdrew his telescope. Below, the human tide swarmed like ants. The bandit army had looked immensely imposing at first, but after the fierce bombardment, chaos was clearly visible everywhere — no matter which defense sector, from Jia-11 to Jia-18.

Such results were within Zhao Rongcheng’s expectations. In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen he had campaigned south with the army; at that time he was still an ordinary pikeman, and he already knew then that to suppress bandits, killing however many famine refugees up front was useless. To strike, you had to hit the infantry in the rear, even the old camp.

Watching the dark mass of humanity below, he issued orders: “Continue the bombardment — strike the infantry bandits in the rear hard. Order the pikemen at every defense line to sally forth and deal the bandits a heavy blow!”

“Fire!”

The Grand General Cannons on the plateau continued to belch fierce flames. Amid the deafening roar of cannon fire, thick white smoke mingled with the gunpowder smoke from the arquebuses, shrouding this entire stretch of gully and plateau.

…

On the third day of the fifth month, the battle for Tong Pass that held the entire nation’s attention commenced along the more than twenty-li defense line at Yuanwang Gully. Seen from the air, the whole Yuanwang Gully was veiled in drifting smoke, through which the ant-like sea of men below was faintly visible.

The human sea poured from the plateau down into the gully, like a flood threatening to surge up onto the plateau, but they were firmly blocked by the defense lines along the plateau slopes — the raging tide was quelled by solid dykes.

Just as the Chuang army launched its fierce assault at Yuanwang Gully and the Ming army resisted stubbornly, over two thousand Chuang cavalry set out from before Jindou Pass to probe, and perhaps even attack, the northeast and east sides of Tong Pass.

By now the Chuang army had long controlled Niutou Plateau, so the five-li natural barrier from Jindou Pass to the east city gate was like level ground to them. Over two thousand cavalry galloped along the official road, their rumbling hoofbeats like rolling thunder. They rode all the way to the edge of Yuanwang Gully; not far beyond the gully lay Mount Qilin. Because the city wall and the east gate tower were built on the mountain, this end of Yuanwang Gully had no low-wall defense line.

The two thousand Chuang riders paused briefly before Yuanwang Gully, observing how the city wall ahead snaked along the mountain contours, and how the east-side “Yingen Gate” on Mount Qilin seemed even more like a crouching tiger, coiling dragon. Not far below the slope surged the waters of the Yellow River.

The old-camp Valiant General leading them hesitated. He had observed the east side of Tong Pass from afar on Niutou Plateau; now viewing it up close, he found the east gate even more forbidding.

Finally he waved his hand. A picket officer gritted his teeth and led a troop of fifty riders out. They charged down into Yuanwang Gully, then followed the official road up onto the gully’s far rim.

After climbing out of the gully they split into two groups: one followed the official road toward the “Tianxian Tower” archery tower before “Yingen Gate”; the other headed south, along the gentle-sloped path beside the gully at the foot of Mount Qilin, to see if they could circle around to Tong Pass’s south gate.

But no sooner had they ridden down into the gully than dense heads appeared atop the city wall. The moment they climbed out and neared Mount Qilin, they heard a rumbling from the mountain. A great quantity of rolling logs and stone rollers were hurled from the wall. The height here, counting both wall and hillside, exceeded ten zhang. The force of rolling logs and stone rollers tumbling down the slope was unimaginable; as they rolled they kicked up vast amounts of dust and rubble, like a mudslide.

Amid the rumbling, the agonized cries of men and the shrieks of horses rang out unceasingly. From time to time a Chuang rider was struck and carried away. At such a height, with such force, any man or horse hit or swept by rolling logs and stone rollers suffered broken bones and shattered sinews, coughing blood and dying on the spot.

Especially the dozen or so riders detouring along the gully edge toward the south — because the path beside the mountain at the gully’s edge was narrow, with extremely little room to dodge, the huge, rounded stone rollers rushing down from the wall and hillside simply smashed them straight into Yuanwang Gully.

The old-camp Valiant General saw with his own eyes one rider struck by a stone roller. He watched man and horse fly bodily into the air, screaming as they plunged sideways into the gully. The horse was still neighing wildly in midair, the rider howling in terror. Yuanwang Gully here was both high and deep; it was a long while before the crowd heard the dull thud of man and horse hitting the ground.

Not just that one rider — amid the flying dust, rolling logs and stone rollers fell like rain, and one after another, every single one of the dozen-plus riders detouring south was smashed into the gully, none spared. The watching men and horses all paled drastically, silent and speechless.

The Chuang riders heading for the east gate fared no better. The official road hugged the wall’s base along the mountainside, winding upward all the way to the archery tower and barbican. For the defenders, these bandits coming up the official road were entirely within their field of fire — even within the range of rolling logs and stone rollers.

Rolling logs and stone rollers rained down; shrieks rang out continuously. One Chuang rider after another was struck. Those remaining saw dust billowing overhead, dense rolling logs or stone rollers howling toward them without pause. Some frantically wheeled their horses and fled back; others, in blind panic, charged off the steep slope beside the official road, heading for the banks of the Yellow River.

The old-camp Valiant General watched, his face livid. This probing had cost him dearly — in the blink of an eye he had lost over thirty riders. Unlike famine refugees, every cavalryman killed was enough to make the old camp’s high and low ache with grief.

Gathering his battered troops, the old-camp Valiant General looked around. Every officer avoided his eyes. The reality was plain: probing this kind of terrain was utterly pointless, and they had no wish to throw their lives away for nothing.

From the distant official road came the wails and groans of the wounded, so pitiful they unsettled anyone who heard them. The men simply pretended not to hear; none dared suggest a rescue, lest they get themselves killed in the attempt.

The old-camp Valiant General recalled his orders. Finally steeling his heart, he designated a battalion commander and ordered him to take two troops along the Yellow River bank below the slope, to see if they could probe the defenses at the North Water Pass and North Pass, or even find a way around to the west gate.

The battalion commander cursed his bad luck inwardly. He opened his mouth, wanting to object, but seeing the Valiant General’s icy glare, he dared not defy the order.

He had witnessed the previous scene clearly, so after setting out with his two troops, the moment they charged down the official road into Yuanwang Gully and climbed out again, he immediately led his riders off the road, keeping as close to the Yellow River bank as possible.

The riverbank here was fairly broad, but where Mount Qilin and the Yellow River pinched together, the traversable floodplain was only a few dozen paces wide. Even though they kept as close to the water’s edge as they could, the moment the battalion commander and his riders drew near, rolling logs and stone rollers rained down from the wall and hillside, and several riders screamed as they were smashed to the ground.

At the same time, arrows poured like rain from the archery tower and wall, and the crackle of arquebus fire erupted. The old-camp Valiant General saw it clearly: in that instant, the battalion commander had lost thirty percent of his men and horses.

Then the battalion commander led his remaining riders around the bend and vanished from sight. The old-camp Valiant General waited anxiously; he heard volley after volley of arquebus fire from that direction, mixed with the sound of cannon.

After a long while, the crackle of arquebus fire suddenly erupted again from the pinch point between Mount Qilin and the Yellow River. Then a single rider burst out, drenched in blood, racing desperately back toward their own lines. But before he had fled more than a few paces, the rider tumbled off his horse, and the horse’s legs buckled as it let out a pitiful neigh.

The old-camp Valiant General’s face was utterly grim. Total annihilation — this round of probing had been even worse than the first.

He began to understand why, throughout history, assaults on Tong Pass always had to come through Yuanwang Gully and Jin Gully. This time too, when the Chuang King attacked Tong Pass, his main force was committed to the southern section at Taojiazhuang in Yuanwang Gully. With terrain like this on the northeast side, one man holding the pass could block ten thousand; rolling logs and stone rollers alone could stop anyone in their tracks.