Chapter 940: The Tanzhou Affair Replayed

The spring sun shone high, and a slightly dry wind blew across the land of Yunzhou. Outside Yunzhong City, the battle banners of the Great Han blotted out the sky. Since the assault began, the deep, resonant war drums had never ceased—the drummers had been rotated through several shifts to keep the soldiers' spirits up.

Though this was a siege, there was little actual fighting on the walls of Yunzhong. All of the Han army's energy was devoted to earthworks. Infantry squares were arrayed before the city, iron cavalry roamed the perimeter—not to attack, but to provide cover.

Large numbers of auxiliary troops and conscripted laborers, like diligent swarms of ants, carried bag after bag of packed earth from the rear and dumped them into the moat before the city, continuing the work left unfinished earlier—filling it up, leveling it out.

The defenders had anticipated the Han army's movements, for in the earlier probing attacks, part of the moat had already been filled. With the moat uneven, many of the Han army's heavy siege engines could not be brought into effective play or pose too great a threat to the city walls.

Against this, the Liao army naturally answered with arrows, striking at the soldiers and civilians. Braving the rain of arrows from the walls, and despite having some protective equipment and facilities, casualties were still considerable. Of course, there were also crossbowmen below the city exchanging fire, but because the walls of Yunzhou were so tall, they could not achieve much in the way of suppression.

However, once the moat was filled, what came next made the Liao army uneasy. Sandbags continued to pile upward, secured with logs and rope netting, then packed with clay. Under the hard labor of the soldiers and civilians, the earthen wall grew higher and higher, a ramp gradually taking shape, and continued to rise...

Yelu Talie watched the Han army's movements from the north wall, and with his experienced eye, he naturally knew exactly what the Han army was up to.

Without a moment's hesitation, he opened the city gates and sent cavalry out to harass, hoping to disrupt the Han army's dangerous engineering work. However, the Han infantry and cavalry waiting in formation below the city were not idle spectators—the spear-and-shield formations advanced on the Liao troops emerging from the city with an utterly oppressive bearing.

Because the space was cramped, the Liao cavalry that rode out, though not numerous, could not deploy at all, and in close-quarters melee, they were no match for the Han army's formations. Though arrows from the walls provided cover, the effect was minimal.

Soon, the Liao troops who had ridden out could no longer hold. Not only did they fail to destroy the earthen mound, but they lost over six hundred men and hastily withdrew back into the city. Seizing the opportunity, the Han army charged toward the city gates, trying to follow the returning Liao cavalry inside. Had the defenders on the walls not spared arrows and rolling stones, had Yelu Talie not decisively poured out fire oil to block the way, personally directed the resistance, and lowered the thousand-jin portcullis, the Han army might well have broken through.

Though the danger had passed without incident, Yelu Talie was still shaken. At the same time, he calmed himself, knowing full well that with the Han army pressing so close to the city, it was unwise to sally forth—the risk was simply too great.

But on the other hand, facing the Han army's relentless piling of earthen mounds and raising of high walls, his inner anxiety was beyond measure.

This earthworks project of the Han army was even more excessive than the one at Tanzhou—the mounds were built closer, spread wider, and piled higher. It was also because the Liao army had put great effort into defense. Yelu Talie had carefully discussed the details of Tanzhou's fall with Xiao Siwen and Han Kuangmei, and had made targeted preparations.

Over the course of one winter, the walls of Yunzhong had been raised to nearly four zhang, widened and thickened by more than one zhang. All wooden structures such as houses around the walls had been demolished, sand and earth were stockpiled in abundance, and large reserves of fire oil were stored. This rendered the Han army's heavy siege equipment like scaling ladders essentially useless—they were not tall enough. Of course, they could be modified, but that would be time-consuming, laborious, inconvenient to transport, and unstable...

So, adapting to local conditions, they simply built several earthen mounds. That way, men could be spread out more widely and in greater numbers, and they could also establish an advantage in height. The Han army lacked no resources, and above all, it lacked no men.

For an entire day, what the Han soldiers did was pure manual labor, massive construction work—and even so, it was not completed. That night, the Liao army sallied forth once more, gambling on the chance that the Han troops might be lax, and under cover of darkness, they tried to destroy the earthen mounds.

However, the Han army was prepared for this too. Behind the earthen mounds and high walls, elite troops lay hidden in ambush. When the Liao cavalry rode out, arrows and bolts rained down like a storm, inflicting heavy losses and sending them fleeing back in disarray.

The next day, the same approach was repeated, and with even greater efficiency. Taking the north wall as an example, a total of three earthen mounds were constructed, all level with the walls of Yunzhong or even higher, with the mounds spaced half a li apart. Each mound's flat top could hold two thousand soldiers, and cavalry could ride directly across them.

Of course, progress varied on each of the four walls, with Murong Yanzhao's side being the most efficient, given his experience with Tanzhou. It took three days for all the earthen mounds and high walls to be completed.

On the fourth day, the Han army's trebuchets came out in force. At each city gate, one hundred and fifty thunder-cart catapults were assembled, hurling fire oil and stone projectiles at the walls without regard for cost—a sky-covering barrage of "shells" that seemed as if it would smash the city to rubble. This continued for an entire day, with not the slightest sparing of expenditure.

Faced with this style of warfare from the Han army, even though Yelu Talie had been prepared, when he actually confronted it, he still felt a sense of powerlessness and frustration. In fact, once the Han army's earthen mounds and high walls were raised, the Liao defenders were completely locked inside the city, with no room left to sally forth.

In view of this, Yelu Talie also made countermeasures within the city, such as sealing every city gate with earth and stone, to demonstrate his resolve to defend to the death. Yelu Talie was well-versed in military doctrine and knew that pure passive defense would not do. In his conception, even when defending a city, one should make full use of the cavalry's mobility to harass, disrupt, and strike—but the Han army simply gave no opportunity.

Originally, Yelu Talie had hoped that Yelu Jing would leave a crack force of elite cavalry and a great general along the Great Wall front, to consolidate the troops of the prefectures and counties around the Yin Mountains and harass from outside. The troops need not be many—just enough to serve as a distraction and coordinate with the defenders inside the city, responding to each other from within and without.

However, the first thing he had not anticipated was that the Liao emperor had again been defeated at the hands of Yang Ye, and problems had arisen with Yelu Sha's army, so demoralizing the troops that they could not be held in reserve. The second thing he had not anticipated was that the rebellion within Liao was far more serious than imagined, with far-reaching consequences, leaving no strength to attend to the situation at Yunzhou.

Although Yelu Jing had still left Yelu Xian in the south to command troops and support Yunzhou, the Han army was not without a response. They found two opponents for Yelu Xian—one Shi Shouxin, one Guo Chongwei—who deployed twenty thousand infantry and cavalry along the Great Wall front.

Thus, Yunzhou was a lone city. Under such circumstances, the Han army still built solid camps, fought a steady war of attrition, with suffocating preparation and an oppressive rhythm of attack that left one completely breathless.

Tanzhou was certainly a formidable city, but compared to Yunzhou, it fell considerably short. And so, Yunzhou became the city that truly tested the Han army's siege capabilities and displayed its art of offensive warfare.

Of course, no matter how many facilities and structures there were, they all served the people—the outcome of war still depended on the soldiers and generals. It was not until the sixth day that, under the command of the generals, a battle even more "lavish" than Tanzhou formally began.

More than two hundred thousand soldiers and civilians of the Great Han were divided into three shifts, resting in rotation day and night, attacking continuously, displaying the valor and splendor of the Han army to the defenders of Yunzhou with an extremely aggressive and confident bearing.

The Liao troops in Yunzhou were not like the defenders of Tanzhou, who had been at a loss. They too had been trained in city defense, and under Yelu Talie's overall command, they resisted tenaciously, fighting with all their might.

But with so few troops, and the Han army so overwhelmingly strong, the outer city defenses of Yunzhou that Yelu Talie had painstakingly built held for three days before being breached.