Chapter 172: Burning the Fudu River Crossing

In the dead of night, the city gates of Gaizhou swung wide open, and countless cavalrymen surged out with torches raised—under the night sky, they looked like a churning fire dragon, racing straight south.

The cavalry galloped through the night and reached the north bank of the Fudu River by noon the next day.

Vice General Yu Renlong reined in his horse, and the five hundred-plus cavalrymen behind him all halted in unison—at such close quarters, not a single man collided with another. Their horsemanship was truly remarkable.

This rebellion of Liu Xingzuo in Fuzhou was no small matter. Liu Xingzuo was well-versed in the art of war and fought with ferocity—he was by no means someone five hundred cavalry could stop.

Vice Regional Commander Mukun had brought nearly two thousand mounted and foot soldiers as the main force, and messengers had already been sent to report to the Khan—soon, the main strength of the Eight Banners would also arrive.

Thus, Yu Renlong and his men were merely the vanguard, meant to open the road and slow the rebels down.

"General, why have we stopped?" a personal guard behind him asked.

Yu Renlong surveyed the river terrain before him.

The Fudu River was a mountain-stream type river. Its source valley was narrow, the current extremely swift, and the water level rose and fell abruptly, varying markedly with the seasons.

For this reason, the ferry crossing was not far from the river mouth. This spot lay in the lower reaches, where the river widened and the current slowed, making it convenient for crossing—the official road also ended here.

It was now early summer, and the river was already showing signs of rising. Yu Renlong weighed the matter again and again, and for the sake of caution, decided to build a pontoon bridge.

First, there were many abandoned fishing villages in the surrounding area, with plenty of sampans that could be used as materials for the pontoon bridge.

Second, building pontoon bridges was something the Liao people excelled at—it would take little effort and would also facilitate the passage of the main force that followed.

At Yu Renlong's command, the troops scattered to search for planks and timber.

Just then, a personal guard pointed at the distant sea and said, "General, look."

Yu Renlong followed his gaze and saw that, at some point, a long, slender vessel had sailed in—single-masted, with a triangular sail, anchoring about a thousand paces from shore.

This ship was unlike any vessel of the Great Ming, and Yu Renlong did not recognize it.

Though its hull was about four zhang long, it was only roughly six chi wide. Such a narrow hull surely could not carry many soldiers—it probably wasn't a warship, just some fishing boat or merchant vessel, so he paid it no mind.

By the afternoon, his men had finished gathering materials for the pontoon bridge.

The river was less than fifty zhang wide. The bridge, built with planks and wooden boards, would be completed by this time tomorrow.

At dusk, Yu Renlong ordered his men to set up camp and cook. Seeing that the strange slender ship still hadn't left, he felt a vague sense of unease. Since there happened to be sampans available, he ordered his men to row out and drive it away.

Sure enough, as the sampan drew near, the strange ship hoisted its sails and fled.

Yu Renlong thought nothing more of it. He arranged for soldiers to keep the night watch, ate and drank his fill, and fell asleep.

By noon the next day, the pontoon bridge was more than half built.

Dust suddenly rose on the official road behind Yu Renlong—it turned out Mukun had arrived with the main force.

Upon learning that Yu Renlong had been building a pontoon bridge, Mukun flew into a rage and cursed: "I sent you with troops to delay the enemy—what are you building a pontoon bridge for?"

Yu Renlong explained his reasoning: "The walls of Fuzhou are strong and difficult to assault. Aita is skilled in the use of troops. My five hundred men would be of little use there. Better to finish the bridge so reinforcements can cross easily."

Mukun cursed: "Idiot! What strong walls? Can't you see that Aita is planning to flee by sea with the southern barbarians of Fuzhou?"

"Fuzhou has fifty or sixty thousand people. Moving them across the sea will take at least a month or two. What's the hurry?"

Mukun thought it over—that made sense too, and since the bridge was nearly finished anyway, he said no more.

At that moment, a personal guard reported: "General, that ship from yesterday is back."

Yu Renlong looked out to sea and indeed saw the strange ship from yesterday—except this time there were two of them. One was cruising along the coastline, while the other approached the pontoon bridge area to observe.

The ship near the bridge was only two or three hundred paces from shore, close enough that Yu Renlong could barely make out its deck.

On the strange ship's deck were four men. One was measuring the water depth with a rope weighted with a heavy object, and another was peering toward the shore and the pontoon bridge through a cylindrical object.

Of the other two, one was working the sails, while the other was blowing on a burning match cord, apparently about to light something.

The four men worked in clear division of labor, utterly focused—they paid no attention at all to the Great Jin soldiers so close at hand.

At this distance, a cavalry charge would reach them in an instant—yet out on the water, there was nothing to be done.

Yu Renlong could only send another sampan to drive them off.

"Whoosh—bang!" A red signal flare ignited on the strange ship's deck and burst open in the sky.

In broad daylight, the brilliance of the firework could hardly be seen, but its sound carried far—this was clearly a signal to the enemy.

"Not good!" Yu Renlong's heart sank. He hastily ordered an alert and sent out scouts to search the surrounding area.

After a while, nothing happened.

The scouts returned from the forests on both sides, reporting that there were no ambushes in the woods.

Yu Renlong was puzzled. Could the strange ship have fired fireworks just to scare them into retreating?

Then he heard Mukun laugh: "In the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang used the Empty Fort Strategy to drive back Sima Yi. Now the southern barbarians are using the same trick—they must think very little of us Jurchen."

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms had a profound influence in the Great Jin. Nurhaci had even specially ordered it translated into the Manchu language.

Many Jurchen generals who had never read a book in their lives could recite the tales of the Three Kingdoms backward and forward, treating it almost as their primer for military and political study.

Now, seeing that no ambush had appeared after the signal flare burst, Mukun naturally thought of the Empty Fort Strategy and assumed all was safe.

But Yu Renlong instinctively felt this was not so simple—otherwise, the Ming army would be far too stupid.

Sure enough, a moment later, someone pointed at the distant sea: "General, look quickly!"

Yu Renlong looked and saw several great warships appearing on the sea, sails spread full, racing toward them.

Seeing this, Mukun mocked: "The southern barbarians' warships are charging straight at the shore! Don't they know that Cao Aman had to cut his beard and abandon his robe because Ma Mengqi struck him while he was crossing the river?"

Yu Renlong thought to himself: "The Ming navy is formidable—they may not even come ashore. Attacking the pontoon bridge would work just as well. We're the ones who'll be struck mid-crossing!"

But with the enemy at hand, mocking the half-baked Tartar general was pointless. Yu Renlong picked out several dozen skilled archers, seated them on ten sampans, equipped them with torches and bows, and sent them to meet the incoming ships.

Yu Renlong knew these men were not enough to defeat the enemy—but if they could hold them off for two or three hours until the bridge was finished and the army could cross, that would suffice.

Mukun did not understand what Yu Renlong was doing, but since the men sent were all surrendered Han soldiers, and he knew nothing of naval warfare anyway, he let Yu Renlong command.

The two stood on the shore watching from afar as the ten sampans slowly rowed up to the warships.

Yu Renlong's heart gradually sank. Before the three great lead ships of the Ming fleet, the sampans looked as small as sesame seeds.

Only then did Yu Renlong realize—with no reference points out on the open sea, he had misjudged the size of the enemy ships.

But what was done was done. He could only pray that the ten sampans would work a miracle. Warships feared fire attacks most of all, didn't they? Every man on the sampans carried a torch—if they could hurl them aboard, they might still set the warships ablaze.

Watching ten sampans draw near, the Ming army seemed not to see them at all, paying them no heed whatsoever—no counterattack, no change in speed or course to avoid them.

Yu Renlong was overjoyed, thinking to himself: "Could it be that the Ming ships are so large they haven't spotted the sampans? How fortunate—an unintentional oversight, and yet we reap the benefit."

But the very next moment, he could no longer be pleased.

The sampans were capsized by the great ships' wakes, and one, unable to veer aside in time, was struck head-on by a great ship and shattered on the spot, its soldiers unable to make the slightest reaction before being crushed beneath the hull and vanishing from sight.

Four or five sampans steadied themselves and, by luck, avoided capsizing; they hurled torches at the great ships, and the torches spun in parabolic arcs before striking the hulls and falling into the water.

The bulwarks were too high—the torches could not even be thrown up onto them.

Those with strong arms managed to toss torches aboard, yet the imagined scene of fire never materialized.

The Jurchen troops then drew bows and loosed arrows from the pitching sampans—far harder than shooting from horseback—and every arrow came off weak and feeble, bouncing off the ship's hulls.

Then, from the great ships' bulwarks, came a dense rattling sound—"Pa-pa-pa-pa—" —as plumes of white smoke rose up.

The soldiers on the remaining sampans showed no sign of arrow wounds, yet one after another they collapsed and lay still.

Yu Renlong was instantly dumbstruck.

He was a man of Liaodong, his family having made their living by hunting; only now did he recognize his own limitations—his understanding of naval warfare was, it turned out, much the same as the Jurchens': six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Soon the three great ships had sailed to within two hundred paces of the shore, framed against the scenery of the coast, and only then did Yu Renlong's troops grasp the size of those three warships, and fear could not help but rise in them.

Yu Renlong swallowed hard and rallied his men's spirits: "The Ming army is formidable at sea, but they're no good on land—they wouldn't dare come ashore!"

At this moment, the three great ships had slowly lowered their sails and were decelerating, slanting to a stop a hundred-odd paces from the shore, separated from the Gaizhou army by three hundred-odd paces.

Here, the shore was a vast expanse of tidal flats and sandy beach. Yu Renlong recalled the earlier depth-sounding gesture of the man on that strange ship's deck, and suddenly understood. He shouted: "The water here is shallow—the great ships can't reach the shore, they can't get across!"

At these words, the surrounding soldiers felt a surge of encouragement—but then their spirits fell again.

On the towering bulwark of the largest ship, the gunports on its side swung open, and the dark, gaping muzzles of cannon were thrust out.

The soldiers immediately sensed that something terrible was about to happen.

A moment later, a thunderous roar like mountains crumbling and seas overturning struck—on the sides of the three ships, crimson flames flickered without cease, and gunsmoke billowed.

Upon the ground of the Gaizhou army camp by the shore, a rain of iron suddenly fell.

Solid shot struck the earth and bounced up again, flinging up great quantities of sand and gravel and mud, the surrounding ground churning violently as if plowed by some calamity.

Along the trajectory of the cannonballs, any flesh-and-blood body that met them was turned into splattering gore.

The Gaizhou troops on the pontoon bridge, seeing this, leaped off the bridge one after another, swimming for their lives.

Fortunately, the three ships' cannon had not aimed at the pontoon bridge, but were firing without cease at the Gaizhou army's camp on the north bank.

After several rounds of bombardment, the entire Gaizhou army camp was shrouded in smoke and dust, the cannonballs' points of impact impossible to make out.

The terrain here was open, giving the Gaizhou troops ample room to flee, so saturation fire was pointless; the three ships ceased their bombardment.

Only after the time it takes to burn one stick of incense did the smoke and dust gradually disperse, revealing the miserable state of the Gaizhou army camp.

The camp was now a scene of utter ruin—every tent destroyed, the ground pockmarked with craters, and the earth hurled into the air having buried corpses, bloodstains, and tents beneath a layer of dirt.

During the first round of bombardment, the Gaizhou troops had already retreated in full to the woods to the east, and so their casualties in men were not heavy.

But their horses, provisions, and baggage had all been left behind, and now all had been destroyed by the gunfire.

The warhorses especially—tethered here and there, they had no escape when the cannonballs came, and were blasted to death in heaps and clusters.

Wherever horse carcasses lay fallen, the surrounding ground was thick with mangled flesh and congealed blood, staining the area five or six paces around a vivid red—a sight enough to make one retch.

The grain carts had also been shattered by the bombardment, grain scattered everywhere like dirt, spread evenly across the ground, most of it soaked in bloody mud.

Only now that the cannon fire had ceased did the screams of the wounded and the mournful neighing of dying warhorses rise together.

The vast camp had been blasted into something resembling the underworld itself.

Yu Renlong hid behind a pine tree fifty paces away, and through the sparse trees he could dimly make out the camp's devastation, a wave of lingering fear washing over him.

If he had been slow to react when the Ming army opened fire just now, he would likely have met the same fate as the warhorses.

"General, the pontoon bridge," a subordinate reminded him.

Yu Renlong looked over and saw Ming soldiers approaching slowly in a bird boat, unhurriedly tossing out a short black rod.

The rod had a fuse, which burned after being lit, flowing out bright-orange molten iron that set the pontoon bridge ablaze.

Nor did they toss just one such rod—every ten paces, they threw another onto the bridge, ensuring the fire burned evenly and that not a single plank would be spared.

Sometimes a rod that was thrown failed to ignite, so they would add another; two burning together made the fire even fiercer.

Watching this scene, Yu Renlong clenched his jaw and slammed his fist hard against the pine tree, shaking pine needles and cones loose to fall, his knuckles split and bleeding.

Only now did he understand: the Ming army had discovered his bridge-building yesterday, and had refrained from interfering simply to waste his time.

He had originally been headed to Fuzhou to delay the enemy, yet instead he had been delayed by the Ming army.

Not only was the pontoon bridge destroyed, but his warhorses and baggage were lost as well—a truly humiliating disgrace!

In the afternoon, amid the blaze of the burning pontoon bridge, the two commanders Mukun and Yu Renlong gathered their remaining troops and tallied their dead and wounded.

Counting the fifty-odd men who had perished on the sampans earlier, the Gaizhou army had lost over a hundred and twenty dead in this battle, with more than eighty wounded.

Most of the warhorses were dead, and only two-tenths of the military grain and weapons remained.

The two men calculated together that a defeat so complete—abandoning armor and weapons alike—would surely bring heavy punishment once it reached the Khan's ears; they had to win new merit as quickly as possible to atone for their crimes.

Now that most of the warhorses were dead, there was no need to worry about swimming the horses across—this was just the time to put the hun-tuo rafts to use.

But since they would be using skin rafts, the current could not be too swift; they still had to cross downstream, and they could not do so within the cannon ships' firing range.

After some deliberation, the two decided to cross the river four li to the southeast of this spot—though they would have to travel through mountain forests and wild paths, at least the terrain was flat, with no hills to climb or ridges to cross.

By evening, the Gaizhou army reached the Fudu River.

Mukun immediately ordered the hun-tuo rafts inflated, lashing them together into skin rafts in preparation for the crossing.

Just then, a scout came to report that firelight had been spotted on the river.

Yu Renlong followed him to the bank for a look, and the expression on his face instantly became a picture of utter consternation.

There, floating on the river, was a bird boat, clearly patrolling along the waterway; upstream and downstream from it, at a distance of roughly a hundred-odd paces, other firelights could be seen—clearly there was more than one bird boat.

These boats had all been borrowed from the Denglai naval forces; the Niangnianggong ferry landing could only berth a limited number of vessels, and not all of them could be put to use.

Thus Lin Qian borrowed these bird boats—limited in carrying capacity, yet agile and with a shallow draft—to defend the Fudu River.

As for the crews of the bird boats, they were all Lin Qian's own men.

Seeing this, Yu Renlong immediately ordered his men to extinguish their torches, but it was already too late.

The bird boats in the river, spotting the firelight on the shore, immediately launched signal flares skyward, then drew close to the north bank and hurled thermite charges toward the shore.

This place was a forest, the ground covered in a thick humus layer of pine needles and oak leaves—even without deliberate arson, early summer was the peak season for forest fires.

At this moment, several thermite rods came flying over, and over a thousand degrees of red-orange molten lead flowed across the ground—how could the humus layer withstand that?

The fire leapt up with a whoosh.

Even though it had rained here just a few days prior, it could not hold back the surging blaze.

The more thermite they threw, the more ignition points appeared across the woodland; wherever the molten lead flowed, even thick tree trunks were set alight in an instant.

In the time it takes to milk a bucket of mare's milk, the fire leapt from the ground up the trunks, then into the crowns, burning into a wall of flame that dyed the night sky crimson.

All around was the crackling pop of wood bursting into flame; thick smoke spread through the entire forest with the southwest wind, choking men into coughing fits, their eyes unable to open.

As a man of Liaodong, Yu Renlong knew the terror of mountain fires. Many times a wildfire seemed to move slowly, but in truth both escape routes were already sealed off—in places unseen, the fire raced faster than a sika deer.

Especially in early summer, after a wildfire passed through, the number of game animals roasted or charred in the woods was beyond counting.

And today the southwest wind was blowing—they were downwind of the fire. If they did not immediately run for their lives, death was all but certain.

At that thought, Yu Renlong scrambled back to camp, mounted his warhorse, shouted "Retreat now!", gave the reins a shake, and fled for his life, vanishing into the forest in an instant.

Mukun was still in a daze when he suddenly heard someone shout in Jurchen: "Fire! Run for your lives!"

Mukun abruptly felt the surroundings brighten and grow considerably warmer, and caught the thick smell of burning firewood in his nose.

Turning his head, he saw a wall of flame five or six zhang tall, stretching beyond sight left and right, bearing down on him. The temperature around him climbed rapidly, and soon he could feel waves of searing heat rushing at his face.

Wind fed the fire, fire fed the wind—the mountain blaze grew ever larger, as if the world itself were being consumed.

Before such a cataclysm of heaven and earth, even the most cruel and ferocious Jurchen warriors turned pale with terror and scrambled onto their horses to flee.

After the earlier Ming artillery bombardment, the camp had not enough warhorses to begin with; now with the fire bearing down, everyone fought over them, and in no time many men were brawling with each other.

Mukun ran toward a warhorse. The horse's eyes reflected the firelight as it neighed in panic—had it not been tied to a tree, it would have bolted long ago.

Beside the horse, three Jurchen warriors were punching and grappling with one another over it.

Mukun drew his blade in one smooth motion and drove it into one man's belly. The other two, cowed by Mukun's ferocity, dared not fight him for it and fled at once.

Mukun untied the reins, swung onto the horse, squeezed its flanks, and galloped northwest.

Along the way he saw camp soldiers casting away armor and turning their weapons on each other, but he paid them no mind—at a time like this, saving his own skin was what mattered.

He spurred his horse on at full gallop while glancing back over his shoulder. He felt he had covered a great distance, yet the wall of flame was still not far behind.

Moreover, the heat grew ever more intense—the cold sweat on his back was baked dry, and if it kept roasting like this, the very oil would be rendered from his body.

He clenched his jaw, squeezed the horse's flanks again and again to drive it faster, while crouching low and pressing himself tight against the horse's back.

It was thanks to his superb horsemanship that he could ride so fast through the forest.

He did not know how far he had fled before the heat at his back finally lessened. Seeing the wall of flame now far behind, Mukun relaxed at last, turned his horse, and headed for Gaizhou city.

Whatever few of his soldiers survived, the grain and weapons were absolutely reduced to nothing by that great fire—there was no possible way to march on Fuzhou to put down the rebellion now.

The proper course now was to return to Gaizhou and gather the remnants of his troops.

On the way back, Mukun thought to himself: "Everyone says Aita, though a Han, is a master of war, so trusted by the Khan himself. Now I see it's true—this fire attack is truly vicious, a match for Zhuge Liang!"

He had read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms only superficially, and held no fondness for Shu Han, preferring Cao Wei instead—which was why he used the word "vicious" to describe Chancellor Zhuge's stratagems.

At this moment, aboard the bird boats, the soldiers were still hurling thermite charges without pause—after all, legally burning down a mountain was simply too much fun.

Each thermite charge thrown produced a whoosh of flame, immensely satisfying feedback, much like setting off firecrackers.

And they were upwind—the great fire and thick smoke could not reach them; instead, from far away, it felt rather warm, like sitting by a fire.

After throwing for a long while, someone finally said: "Stop throwing—if you keep going, we'll run out!"

And so the crew finally stopped.

At dawn the next day, the forest along the bank was nothing but a scorched wasteland of black, wisps of blue smoke curling up from everywhere.

The wall of flame had moved northwest; no open flames remained here, but the very soil had been baked hot and radiated heat all night long.

The bird boats moored alongside felt like lying on a heated kang—warm and cozy all night, and even the night watch no longer felt the cold.

In Liaodong—a land of vast spaces, sparse population, bitter cold, and dense vegetation—forested areas with thick humus layers generally also had a layer of peat beneath.

That stuff was combustible, and it would smolder slowly underground, extremely difficult to extinguish.

The wildfire they had set last night appeared to have burned itself out, but in truth the wall of flame had already advanced to the vicinity of Gaizhou.

Had the people of Gaizhou not cut down all the trees around the city for their daily cooking fires, the great blaze would have burned Gaizhou down along with everything else.

As for the fire in the underground peat layer, when it would ever go out, no one could say.

Even though the forest fire along the river had now died out, many hidden dangers might still remain.

Therefore Lin Qian ordered that the soldiers on the bird boats were not permitted to enter the burned area to investigate at will.

After one last admiring look at their handiwork, the soldiers returned to the Tianyuan to report and change shifts.

In the captain's cabin of the Tianyuan, at the mouth of the Fudu River.

Learning of last night's battle, Lin Qian was rather surprised—after all, the Gaizhou area had seen several rains not long before, and the fire should not have spread so far.

But since the fire had been lit, it was no great matter. The forests of Liaodong at this time were almost indistinguishable from uninhabited wilderness, with a strong ecological carrying capacity—one wildfire could be weathered.

And with plenty of Tartar and warhorse corpses to fertilize the soil, the future trees would only grow more lush.

What did concern him was that over the course of this fighting, thermite, gunpowder, and cannonballs had been consumed at a prodigious rate.

Eight days had passed since the uprising at Fuzhou, and by the most conservative estimate, he still needed to hold out at least seven more days.

If landing on the island went poorly, he would need to hold out at least half a month more. Supplies were becoming a problem—gunpowder could barely be patched together with Ming powder, but cannonballs of proper caliber and thermite the Ming army simply did not have.

So Lin Qian sent the eagle boat back to Nan'ao Island to relay orders and transport supplies.

Additionally, from the batch of Fire Sail Battalion warships captured earlier from Li Guozhu, Lin Qian had ordered ten of them refitted as Sea Wolf warships.

Counting the days, it should be about finished—let's open it up together.

Just as the Eagle Ship sailed south, at Liguan Beach, eight li southeast of the fire site.

Ma Shilong listened to his scout's report of yesterday's battle and was already stunned.

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen