Chapter 239: Honor Above Life

The fifteenth day of the first month, the eighth year of Tianqi.

Barom Chetta, prince of Chenla, arrived at Phnom Penh (present-day Phnom Penh) at the lower reaches of the Mekong River.

Behind him on the dock, two thousand royal guards were filing off the ships.

The soldiers were equipped with javelins and rattan shields, supplemented by Burmese swords, and even a small number of firearms and a war elephant.

This was all the elite forces the Chenla royal court could currently muster.

A month earlier, news of the death of Black Mast, a pirate on Poulo Condore Island, reached the Chenla court, causing an uproar.

Black Mast was backed by the Siamese behind the scenes—this was an open secret at court—and this act was undoubtedly a resounding slap in the face to the Siamese. The Siamese regarded Chenla as their private preserve; even the Nguyễn Lords' covert southward expansion was hard for them to stomach, let alone this kind of direct conflict.

Within two days, a Siamese envoy personally came to the court, demanding that the Chenla royal house "send troops to suppress the rebellion."

At this time Chenla's national strength was weak, and they dared not directly refuse the Siamese demand.

They could only, as in the past, ask the Nguyễn Lord to step in and mediate.

This time, however, for some unknown reason, the Nguyễn Lord showed no response at all.

The king of Chenla was caught in a dilemma: if he sent troops to the Mekong Delta, it would easily give the Siamese an opportunity to take advantage.

But if he flatly refused and the Siamese opened war directly, the Chenla army would also find it hard to resist.

At this point, Barom Chetta stepped forward, willing to lead two thousand elite troops to put down the unrest.

He said to the king: "Those who killed the Siamese pirates are a gang of Han Chinese. These Han are best at internal strife—they look numerous, but in reality they are a heap of loose sand. As long as we lead an elite force, breach their stockade village, and kill some Han to settle the matter, the Siamese should be satisfied."

There were in fact quite a few Han in Chenla as well. The Chenla royal house mainly made use of the Han—though they did not discriminate against or mistreat them, in a time of great crisis they would not offend the Siamese over the mere lives of some Han.

So the king agreed to Prince Barom's plan and placed his most elite royal guards under his command.

Considering that the Han had been able to cross the sea to wipe out the sea bandits, they must possess a powerful navy with warships.

Therefore Prince Barom only sailed as far as Prey Nokor, and the rest of the journey would be made by land march.

It took a day for the army to disembark and assemble, then another day to rest and reorganize, before formally setting out toward the lower Mekong.

The terrain along the way was flat and the march was fast; after four or five days, the first Han stockade village appeared before their eyes.

This place was called Yong'an Fort, the northernmost of the Han stockade villages.

The village was not far from the riverbank. Judging by its size, it held at most three to five hundred people, yet its defenses were extremely solid.

The village was built on high ground at the bend of the riverbank, where it would not easily be flooded.

They had also diverted Mekong water to encircle the village, forming a moat around it.

Around the moat, large numbers of mangroves had been planted, forming a natural ring of defense.

The stockade wall had a rammed-earth core faced with brick and stone, about one zhang high, with parapets on top and bastion gun platforms at the four corners.

Inside the village, a three-story brick-and-stone watchtower could also be seen.

There were also hidden sentry posts on the river and in the forest; wolf-smoke signals had already risen when the Chenla army was still ten li away.

At this moment the village gate was tightly shut, the drawbridge over the moat was raised, and heads were bustling along the wall top—clearly the whole village had been mobilized.

Water Chenla was contested by three powers and was in a near-anarchic state, with bandits running rampant and the strong preying on the weak; a village that did not defend itself well would not survive. Moreover, most of those who migrated to Chenla were people from the Fujian and Guangdong regions, long harassed by wokou raiders and quite experienced in defending against pirates and bandits.

These watchtowers and stockade walls had been built up by the villagers generation after generation.

Just as he was pondering a strategy to breach the village, a soldier came to report: "Your Highness, we have scouted around the village. The walls on all four sides are intact with no obvious weak points, and most of their farmland lies along the riverbank south of the village."

Prince Barom's army had artillery—a six-pounder cast-iron cannon bought from Dutch merchants to deal with the Siamese.

In addition, they had large quantities of light firearms seized from the Siamese, as well as Great Ming firearms purchased from the Nguyễn Lord.

But light firearms were basically useless against this kind of rammed-earth wall.

And because the riverbank was hard to traverse, the cast-iron cannon was pulled by oxen and moved slowly, falling about a day's march behind the main army.

Speed was paramount in war, and Barom did not want the army held up, so he ordered his men to go and urge surrender.

His men ran to the foot of the wall and pleaded for a long while, alternating between Hokkien and Cantonese.

The response from atop the wall remained lukewarm throughout.

Seeing that dusk was approaching, the army had wasted half a day outside this tiny stockade village without achieving a single thing.

Barom felt a surge of irritation.

He thought for a moment, and a clever plan surfaced in his mind. He instructed his men: "The Tang people value farming most of all. Take some men and go south to destroy their fields. I don't believe they won't surrender."

His men obeyed, picked out over twenty people, and circled around the village, heading straight for the rice paddies to the south.

It was now the dry season, the Mekong's water level was very low, and the fields were almost dry.

The Mekong region had abundant heat and water, and rice could yield two or even three crops a year.

The rice in these fields had been sown in May of last year and had now reached harvest time.

Most of the rice plants had already naturally bent and fallen over, interlacing and supporting one another, their stalks withered yellow, while the panicles hung golden and heavy, drooping over the water, swaying as if about to fall.

Looking out across the view, over five hundred mu of paddy fields formed an entire golden sea, like a velvet carpet spread along the riverbank.

A gentle breeze blew, and the riverbank rustled with the friction of leaves, mingled with the smell of earth and the fresh fragrance of rice.

Unlike the south of the Great Ming, most of the rice grown in the Mekong Delta was floating rice, also called deepwater rice, with yields somewhat lower than ordinary varieties.

Yet in the fields before them, every single plant was full-grained; a single slap sent all the grains falling off—clearly the result of the villagers' careful cultivation. The Chenla soldiers ordered to destroy the fields could not bear to do it when they saw this, and said to their leader: "Headman, the Tang people didn't grow this grain easily. If we destroy it all, isn't that a pity?"

The headman thought for a moment and said: "We won't use fire. We'll just cut the rice down with our blades."

The rice falling in the field would naturally become seed on its own—that wouldn't be too deep a sin.

His soldiers readily agreed.

They had cut less than half a mu when a Chenla messenger ran over from afar and berated them: "His Highness sent me to ask—what are you doing?" "Destroying this paddy field," said the headman.

"Idiots! It's the dry season now—why don't you use fire? Cutting it stalk by stalk like this, aren't you turning all the panicles into seed? How will the Tang people feel heartbroken enough to surrender?"

With that, the messenger tossed down a burning torch and strode off.

Military orders were hard to defy. The headman helplessly picked up the torch and had his men gather branches, each making a torch for himself.

The headman was the first to thrust his torch into the field before him.

The floating rice stalks were withered and yellow, and had fallen over and tilted, pressed tightly against one another—the moment they touched open flame, they quickly caught fire with bright yellow flames.

Then the line of fire spread through the rice paddies at tremendous speed, and within the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, the entire field was engulfed.

Thick black smoke rose into the air, rice ears crackling and popping as they burned, the air filled with the smell of scorching mixed with the rich aroma of toasted rice.

At the same time, his men were setting fires in the other rice paddies as well, and soon all five hundred mu of farmland were ablaze.

The rising columns of black smoke grew ever thicker, climbing more than ten zhang into the sky before the wind blew them across, blotting out the sun.

Yong'an Fortress showed no reaction at first, quietly watching the Zhenla army burn the fields, but gradually suppressed weeping could be heard from the stockade walls.

As the fire grew fiercer, the wailing from the walls grew louder, with women's shrill, piercing cries that tore at the heart.

At Baron's command, a man strode quickly to the moat and called up to the people on the walls, urging them to surrender.

"Outside the walls is the Zhenla Royal Guard, led by His Highness Baron Chettha. Though you are Tang people, you are still subjects under Zhenla rule—open the gates quickly.

His Highness has come this time to seize the murderers of the Kunlun Island sea merchants. For Tang villages that open their gates willingly, there will be no punishment!

But if you stubbornly resist, those five hundred mu of rice paddies south of the city are what awaits you!"

The weeping from the walls did not cease, yet no one showed their face to say a single soft word.

A village this large could not possibly have only five hundred mu of fields. Even while the fields were being burned, the scouts had already reported that there were still over three hundred mu of small rice paddies west of the city.

So the envoy threatened them with this: "His Highness has already given the order—if you do not open the gates and surrender, the paddies west of the city will not be spared either.

You worked hard to plant this grain—it wasn't easy. You finally waited for the harvest, and now a single fire burns it all away. What will you eat for the remaining months? And what will you trade for salt, iron, and cloth?

Why throw away the lives of your entire village for the sake of a few petty thieves?"

At this, someone on the walls shouted in a tearful voice: "They are not thieves—they are the Nan'ao army, the royal forces of our Central Plains! Just wait—once the royal army arrives, you're all dead!"

The latter half of the shouter's words was very muffled—clearly his companions had covered his mouth.

But the envoy still heard clearly enough, and flew into a rage, sneering: "The Great Ming? Are you living two hundred years in the past? Waiting for Zheng He to come save you?

The Great Ming can barely save itself—why would it bother with you castaway remnants overseas?

Look outside the city—His Highness has brought ten thousand elite troops this time. Even if Zheng He himself came, he would be no match. Hoping the Ming army will rescue you? Dream on! I'll tell you plainly—tomorrow the red barbarian cannons arrive. We'll see whether your walls are harder, or the cannonballs! Think it over carefully!"

Night fell, and only a small portion of the floating rice paddies south of the city still burned with open flame.

The flames in most of the paddies had died out, leaving behind a blackened land wreathed in wisps of blue smoke. The simple waterwheel by the river had also been burned to charcoal.

In the military tent, Baron was drinking wine and eating meat, attended by a beautiful concubine.

A subordinate reported from outside the tent: "Your Highness, half of the paddies west of the city have been harvested. We can finish reaping by tomorrow."

"Understood." Baron said lazily.

During the daytime surrender demand, the envoy had told Yong'an Fortress that surrendering would preserve the remaining three hundred mu of farmland—but that was merely a trick to lure their surrender.

The farmland west of the city was far from the village, with a forest blocking the view in between, so the Tang people on the stockade walls could not see it.

The moment the Zhenla army had discovered the paddies west of the city, they had already begun harvesting—after all, no one would ever complain about having too much military grain.

By custom, when the Zhenla army marched, the villages along the route were obligated to provide supplies anyway.

The Zhenla kingdom had long neglected governance over the lower Mekong region and had not levied taxes for years. Now that they had finally come, taking rice as back payment of taxes was only proper. As for the fate of Yong'an Fortress?

Baron did not care. These Tang people lived on Zhenla soil yet refused to submit to authority—if they all died, they had it coming.

"Your Highness, please drink." The beautiful concubine beside him gently raised the wine cup and brought it to Baron's lips.

Baron glanced at her graceful figure and laughed: "I'd rather pour it on you and drink."

"Your Highness—" The concubine clutched her chest, her face flushing crimson, her expression shy and embarrassed.

Baron was about to go further when someone outside the tent said: "Your Highness, we've caught six Tang people who sneaked out of the stockade."

Baron's expression stiffened, and he pressed: "Going to seek reinforcements?"

"They went to the southern paddies to put out the fire."

"Hah, fools!" Even as he spoke, Baron's hands continued to roam over the concubine's body. "Keep them under tight guard. Tomorrow at dawn, erect an execution platform in front of the stockade." "Yes!" The subordinate's footsteps faded into the distance.

From within the tent came the concubine's muffled cry of surprise: "…Your Highness, don't… mm~"

The next morning, Baron emerged from the tent, weary.

As he had ordered, at a bowshot's distance from the stockade gate, an execution platform had been erected, with six wooden stakes set upon it. The Han people who had sneaked out of the stockade the night before—four men and two women—were bound to them.

The six were listless, their bodies covered with whip marks—clearly they had already been tortured.

On the execution platform stood an executioner, glaring fiercely, with all manner of instruments of torture set beside him.

The Zhenla envoy strode forward quickly and shouted toward the stockade wall: "Open the gates, and our army will release them!"

They waited a long time, but still there was no response from the stockade wall.

The muscles in Baron's face twitched, and he gave the order: "Beat them hard."

The executioner went to work, and the six let out heart-rending screams. Finally someone could not bear it any longer and shouted toward the stockade wall: "Uncle Chen! Open the gates, Uncle Chen… we can't hold out… ah! If you open the gates, we can still save three hundred mu of grain, ah!"

Another person beside him also said: "Master Chen, have mercy, save us! It hurts—we can't take it anymore!"

"That so-called Nan'ao army, that bullshit royal force—where are they? They ran off long ago without a trace! The Ming army has always been just like this! Aiyo! Master Chen, I beg you, open the gates. Miss Chen, please, put in a good word for us!"

One woman among them was extremely tough. She gritted her teeth and bore it in silence, taking more than a dozen lashes until the flesh of her chest was a bloody mess. Drenched in cold sweat from the pain, she sucked in breath and shouted: "Father! Don't worry about me—I saw it! In the enemy camp there's unhulled new rice that hasn't been husked. It must be from those three hundred mu—they've taken those too…" Before she could finish, a sharp blade pierced through her body from behind. Blood flowed from the wound, staining the execution platform red.

The woman died before she could finish her words, a relieved smile surfacing on her sweat-soaked face.

The executioner flew into a rage and threatened the remaining five: "Anyone else who talks out of turn—this is what awaits you!"

On the stockade wall, someone shouted hoarsely through tears: "Motherfuckers, I'll fuck your ancestors! The Siamese should have killed every last one of you—a pack of beasts!" Zhenla's national strength was weak, and it had suffered repeated oppression by Siam—this was a thorn in the heart of every Khmer.

This matter being exposed publicly, each of them burned with shame and indignation. The executioner no longer held back, and his whip lashed even harder.

The remaining five were whipped unconscious, then revived with water, then whipped within an inch of their lives. At first they could still scream in agony, but soon they had no breath left, like lumps of rotten meat. Seeing the hostages dead, Baron knew he had forged an irreconcilable blood feud with Yong'an Fortress—there would be no peaceful resolution now. He asked his subordinate: "Where have the cannons reached?" "Your Highness, they are one li away. We can begin siege preparations immediately."

Baron said in a cold voice: "Transmit my order—once the stockade is breached, the soldiers are permitted to loot for one full day."

For such a small village, a full day of unrestrained looting would leave virtually no survivors and no valuables behind.

The order was passed down, and the morale of the Zhenla soldiers soared. Two thousand men shouted the killing cry in unison, their momentum astonishing.

From far away came the sound of a cannon blast.

Baron looked in surprise toward the rear of his own formation, only to see that the cannons had not been positioned. He asked his subordinates, "What's going on? Why are they firing?" A subordinate frowned and said, "It seems to be a signal—"

According to Ming military combat regulations, before the army's five-color banners gave the order, a signal cannon had to be fired to alert the entire force.

Before Baron could respond, he heard a low "Woo—" sound from a conch horn—deep, sonorous, and long, carrying a buzzing, trembling tail note. It did not sound like a horn at all, but rather like the cry of some colossal sea monster.

The conch horn was also a type of Ming military signal, made from a large ceremonial conch shell, generally blown when the Ming army formed ranks, assembled, or before making contact with the enemy.

"Ming troops? The Ming army is here?"

Murmurs spread among the Champa soldiers, and their formation began to waver.

A starved camel is still bigger than a horse—the Champa army dared to speak arrogantly of the Great Ming only because they knew the Ming was mired deep in the Liaodong battlefield and could not extricate itself.

Champa had been a tributary state of the Great Ming for over two hundred years. Even though in recent years their tribute missions had been delayed by wars with Siam, they still knew full well the might of the Ming empire. The Ming army could not defeat the Jianzhou barbarians, but fighting their Champa army—wouldn't that be like chopping vegetables?

"Don't panic!" Baron roared at his subordinates. "Form ranks! Where are the war elephants? Bring me my war elephant!"

"War elephants—bring the war elephants quickly!"

Runners scattered in all directions, shouting orders through the formation, and the camp instantly dissolved into chaos.

"Look at the river!" Amid the confusion, someone pointed toward the waterway.

Baron followed the pointing finger and saw a shadow blocking the river completely, slowly advancing upstream against the current.

"Stay away from the river!" Baron roared his order.

Throughout the Champa army, shouts of "stay away from the river" echoed as orders were relayed.

"Your Highness, the war elephant is here!" In the chaos, a subordinate led over a war elephant.

This great beast stood nearly twice a man's height, with two long, gleaming white tusks. Its body was adorned with silk and jewels, giving it an imposing presence.

Under the mahout's control, the war elephant bent its right foreleg. Baron stepped onto it, took the mahout's hand, and with a pull and a push, seated himself in the howdah on the elephant's back. "Your Highness, the cannons have arrived!" A subordinate came running to report.

Perched atop the war elephant, Baron had an excellent view and could see the red barbarian cannons being unloaded from the oxcarts.

After a bout of chaos, the Champa army finally steadied its formation.

Baron secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he saw it—to the south of Yong'an Stockade, across the scorched black rice paddies, a dense, dark mass of an army was approaching.

This ground had rice paddies on one side and forested marshland on the other—terrain hardly suited for marching.

But the Champa army had personally burned the paddies to the ground the day before, exposing the dry earth, which had instead become a smooth highway for the march.

"Thump... thump... thump!"

As the enemy advanced, the faint sound of war drums drifted from within their formation.

The drumbeats were low and powerfully rhythmic, almost perfectly matching the cadence of marching feet.

As the enemy drew closer, the mingled sound of drums and footsteps grew ever clearer, vibrating the gravel on the ground until it trembled.

Within their formation, multiple crimson shield-and-halberd banners snapped in the wind, radiating immense authority.

The Champa soldiers murmured in fear and dread.

"That's the Great Ming's Flame Banner!"

"We're done for—it really is the Ming army!"

"What do we do? Can we even fight them?"

The chieftains of each formation shouted at their men: "Silence! Silence!"

The drumming grew louder still. The Ming army had reached the front of Yong'an Stockade and formed its lines, standing a little over three hundred paces from the Champa forces.

The drums stopped abruptly. The Ming formation halted, and the tremendous noise dissolved into nothing, leaving only the mournful whisper of wind along the Mekong River.

A moment later, the sound of units dressing their ranks arose from within the formation. Under the shouted commands of each unit leader, the ranks grew tighter and more orderly.

At the same time, the fleet of warships on the Mekong drew near as well—nearly twenty Haicang vessels in all, arrayed in a single line across the river, their hard sails blotting out the sky so completely that one could scarcely see where they began or ended. The shield-and-halberd banners on the ships snapped loudly in the wind.

"Your Highness, what do we do?" A subordinate ran up beneath the war elephant to ask.

Baron was panicking now too. He had come to suppress rebels—how would he dare provoke the regular army of the Great Ming? Against powers like Lord Nguyen or the Siamese, Champa had to grovel and bow. How much more so when facing a colossus like the Great Ming?

He cursed inwardly: "Hasn't the Great Ming always treated overseas Tang people as abandoned subjects? Had I known the Ming would truly send troops, even with a hundred times my courage, I wouldn't have dared offend the Tang people!"

Champa sat squeezed between two great empires. To survive, one had to pick the softer persimmon to squeeze.

The royal court had chosen the Tang people as that soft persimmon.

Who could have imagined—they'd barely touched the persimmon's skin, and the Great Ming sent an army straight over to chop off the hand!

Was this still a nation of propriety? Did it still preach civilization and the kingly way? Why did it carry the scent of the Han and Tang dynasties' militarism and long-laid plans?

While Baron dithered, another signal cannon sounded from the Ming formation.

The blast made quite a few Champa soldiers flinch.

The war elephant flapped its ears uneasily and swung its head side to side. The mahout patted its skull to soothe it.

In the Ming formation, the five-color banners waved, and unit leaders could be seen shouting instructions to their soldiers.

"... The time has come to give our lives! Let your fathers and elders see that your bowls of rice were not eaten for nothing!"

"... We Han people have, since ancient times, valued righteousness above life itself..."

The Champa formation was too far away to make out the words—they could only catch fragments like revenge, life and death, fighting spirit, disgrace, kill them all. Baron felt every hair on his body stand on end; every shout of "kill" from the enemy made his heart leap with terror.

A subordinate said in a trembling voice: "Your Highness, in my humble opinion, we should send an envoy at once to explain the situation."

"Yes, yes." Baron said. "Send an envoy to negotiate—anything can be discussed. No matter what, Champa is still a nation the Great Ming has declared it will not conquer." "Woo—"

Another low blast of the conch horn sounded, its penetrating cry echoing across both banks of the Mekong—bleak, desolate, and murderous.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The heartbeat-like war drums began again. Keeping time with the drumbeats, the Ming formation advanced slowly—slow and steady, carrying an avalanche-like momentum.

Judging from the formation, the Ming army numbered only a little over a thousand.

The Champa force outnumbered them two to one, yet for a moment they were cowed by that momentum, staring blankly as the enemy drew near.

"Fire the cannons! Fire!" Baron snapped back to his senses and shouted repeatedly.

The orders passed down the chain, and after loading and lighting, the Dutch iron cannon in the formation erupted with a thunderous boom.

A moment later, eighty paces before the Ming formation, a patch of earth burst upward—the dark silhouette of a solid iron shot bounced off the ground, tumbled forward a few more times, and finally came to a stop thirty paces in front of the Ming lines.

"Raise the elevation—wedge that wooden block in deeper!" the Zhenla artillery crew shouted.

Though the Zhenla forces had tiger-crouch cannons and Folangji cannons, the Ming troops had not yet entered their range.

The Zhenla artillery crew fumbled to load the shot, and only after a long while finished loading—then another cannon fired.

This shot flew too high, the cannonball dropping straight into the moat around the stockade, splashing up a great sheet of water.

"Too high! Pull the wedge back out a bit more!" the crew shouted, their voices growing ever more urgent.

The Ming troops advanced to one hundred fifty paces out, and the moment the drums stopped, they all halted in unison.

"What's going on—why have they stopped?" Balong anxiously asked those around him, yet not one of his men could answer.

Balong looked left and right from atop his war elephant, and suddenly caught sight of cannons being dragged by five war horses on the Ming right flank near the riverbank. Once the cannons were in position, the horses were unhitched from their tow lines, and the gun crews immediately rushed forward, loading with swift, practiced motions.

The gun captain stretched out his arm, raised his thumb, and took aim at the Zhenla formation.

"Watch out for the Ming artillery!" Balong shouted.

The Zhenla gunners also noticed the anomaly on the Ming flank and hurriedly shifted the cannon wheels to turn their muzzles around.

In that instant—Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—five cannon shots rang out.

The next moment, the whistling shriek of the shots came from far to near, hurtling straight at the Zhenla artillery!

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen