Chapter 203: Siege of Bianjing: The Emperor Flees

On the third day of the first lunar month, Bianjing.

This city had not seen warfare for a long time. Since the Jingkang era when Jin troops breached the city and captured the two Emperors, Bianjing had spent nearly eighty peaceful years under Jin rule. The city walls were still those from the late Northern Song: rammed earth faced with bricks, three zhang thick at the base and over one zhang wide at the top, with thirteen city gates on all four sides, and a protective dragon river outside drawing Bian water to fill it. Eighty years ago, when Jin troops attacked this city, they used trebuchets, siege towers, and tunnels, besieging it for a full month before taking it. For eighty years, the Jin state had continuously reinforced it, believing this city would never be attacked from the outside again. No one expected that the enemy arriving at the city walls next time would have trebuchets already in museums.

Wanyan Honglie arrived in Bianjing on the second day of the first lunar month. He was not here for an inspection; he was here to hide. When news of the collapse of the Huaihe defense line reached Zhongdu, Wanyan Honglie sat in the Daxing Hall for an entire night. At dawn the next day, he issued an edict: relocate the capital. These two words were easy to say, but doing so meant admitting that the Great Jin's rule in the Central Plains was already tottering. He had no time to think deeply—Sizhou to Bianjing was only a few hundred li; the thirty thousand defenders of the Huaihe line were crushed in less than two days, and the vanguard of the Jiangnan Army Group could appear before Bianjing at any moment. He left Zhongdu to Wanyan Honglie, while he himself, with the Privy Council, the Ministry of Revenue, and dozens of carriages carrying the harem, entered Bianjing in the cold wind of the second day of the first lunar month.

When Wanyan Kuang welcomed the Imperial Majesty at the city gate, Wanyan Honglie almost failed to recognize him. This veteran general, who had guarded Tangzhou for three years and worn down the Song army for several months, now had sunken eye sockets and protruding cheekbones, with mud from the Huaihe banks still clinging to his armor. When Sizhoucheng fell, he broke out through the north gate with his personal attendants, running three horses to death along the way; by the time he reached Bianjing, the inner thighs of his legs were raw and bloody from the saddle.

"Your Majesty," Wanyan Kuang knelt on the ground, his voice hoarse, "this guilty minister has lost an army and shamed the nation. I beg Your Majesty to grant me death."

Wanyan Honglie looked down at him, silent for a long time. The wind at the city gate whipped yellow sand against the dragon flag, crackling loudly. He did not punish Wanyan Kuang—not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. The Great Jin now had very few veteran generals capable of fighting. Hezhi Lie Zhizhong, before being surrounded at Suzhou, had sent his personal soldier back with the last military report, containing only ten characters: "I have done my utmost; Suzhou cannot be held; Bianjing must be defended urgently." Wanyan Alubao was shot in the chest while retreating from Tangzhou, dug out of a pile of corpses by his attendants, and now lies in the wounded camp at Dengzhou, his life or death unknown. The Great Jin had very few veteran generals left to use. If Wanyan Kuang were killed again, who would defend Bianjing?

"Rise," Wanyan Honglie said. "You still have a city to defend."

On the fourth day of the first lunar month, at dawn. The mist had not yet dispersed when a sentinel in the south of Bianjing heard a strange sound—not hoofbeats, not a bugle, not human shouts of battle, but a low, rhythmic humming coming from the sky. The sentinel looked up and saw a huge gray-white sphere floating in the southern sky, with a basket hanging beneath it, in which figures seemed to be swaying. The sentinel thought his eyes were deceiving him, rubbed them hard, and looked again—the sphere was still there, and closer. It slowly drifted over the southern city wall of Bianjing, like a silent giant bird, overlooking this capital that had not seen warfare for eighty years. The Jin soldiers on the wall looked up, dumbfounded.

Wanyan Kuang, using a telescope from the south gate tower, clearly saw what was in the basket hanging beneath that balloon—not weapons, but a person, holding a pen and a notebook, calmly drawing something. Wanyan Kuang slowly lowered his telescope, his voice dry: "They are drawing our city defense map." He guessed half right. The balloon's observer was not just drawing; he also held a wired telephone, the line dangling from the balloon, the other end connected to the artillery command post being set up on the high ground to the south. Every street inside Bianjing, every arrow tower, every barracks was under his view, with real-time firing data transmitted to the artillery position's firing tables.

Wanyan Honglie heard the report about the balloon in the Bianjing temporary palace. He did not go to the city tower to look—not because he dared not, but because it was meaningless. He sat behind the Shanghe Yuan, before him spread the defense plan drafted by the Privy Council. The plan was comprehensive—ballista crossbows deployed on the walls, three defense lines inside the city, reserves gathered in the palace city, prepared to fight street battles to the end if necessary. He read every word, but he knew this plan was utterly useless. The Jiangnan Army Group would not fight street battles; they did not need to enter the city at all. Their artillery could fire shells into any building from outside the city.

On the sixth day of the first lunar month, the siege began.

The advance speed of the Jiangnan Army Group exceeded the imagination of all Jin army generals. The vanguard troops arrived in the southern suburbs of Bianjing on the night of the fifth day of the first lunar month, and the main force was fully in position by dawn on the sixth. A whole row of cannons was set up on the high ground to the south, their barrels slowly rising in the morning mist like a row of silent steel fingers pointing at Bianjing. The Jin army originally had several outer defense lines outside Bianjing—the walled gate city outside Nanxun Gate, the earthen ramparts outside Chenzhou Gate, the moats and caltrops outside Dailou Gate—less than half of the outer defenders retreated; the other half remained forever on the plains south of the city. The outer defense lines were cleared in less than half a day. The cannons did not bombard the city walls first; they bombarded the bastions and arrow towers outside the walls—these structures protruding from the walls were the main positions for defenders to fire laterally at attacking forces, but under direct cannon fire, they became the most obvious targets.

The bastions on both sides of Nanxun Gate, each occupying less than two zhang square, were crowded with over twenty crossbowmen and two ballista crossbows. A high-explosive shell drilled through the firing slit of a bastion, exploded in the enclosed space, and the shock wave, wrapped in broken bricks and flesh, sprayed out through the same slit like a volcanic eruption. The Jin soldiers on the wall who witnessed this scene began to vomit.

Wanyan Kuang commanded the defense on the Nanxun Gate tower. He crouched behind the battlements, issuing orders one after another in a hoarse voice to deploy reserves to fill the gaps, but he knew clearly in his heart that this was only delaying, not stopping. Every soldier sent to the wall would not survive half a double-hour. He was not afraid of death; he was afraid of dying without seeing any hope of victory.

On the eleventh day of the first lunar month. Nanxun Gate was bombed into collapse.

The bombardment lasted for three full days. During these three days, the defenders on the wall were replaced three times; in each rotation, more than half of those who went up were killed or wounded in less than half a day. Soldiers began refusing to go to the wall—not out of rebellion, but by sitting motionless in the barracks; even with a sword held to their necks by officers, they would not move. An old soldier sat on the ground, looked up at the officer, and said a sentence that left the officer speechless: "If you chop me down, I die. If you let me go to the wall, I also die. Chop me down; I will die in the barracks, at least leaving a whole corpse."

On the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, the siege entered its eighth day. Wanyan Honglie summoned the last batch of high-ranking officials he could find in the temporary palace. No lamps were lit; the firelight from outside the window reflected on his face, shifting between light and shadow. Jiagu Heng stood before him, this old minister who had controlled the Ministry of Revenue for twenty years, a veteran of three reigns, with beard and hair all white. After the collapse of the southern front, he retreated from Dengzhou, following the Imperial carriage all the way to Bianjing, witnessing along the way routed soldiers, refugees, burning villages, and red flags covering the mountains and fields. The only advice he gave Wanyan Honglie was: "Your Majesty, leave. Bianjing cannot be held. But the Great Jin still has Hebei, still has Guansha, still has Liaodong."

Wanyan Honglie looked at Jiagu Heng's wrinkled face, silent for a long time. Jiagu Heng was not a deserter—he had organized logistics in Dengzhou, ensuring the front-line supply lines, day and night without rest, until his eyes were nearly blind. He said "Your Majesty, leave," not because he feared death, but because he knew that if Wanyan Honglie died in Bianjing, the Great Jin would truly be finished. As long as the Emperor lived, the court lived; as long as the court lived, the Great Jin still had a brand. With a brand, they could still recruit soldiers, gather grain, and fight again.

"How is the northern border?" Wanyan Honglie asked.

"The Zhao Wang is still on the border wall," Jiagu Heng said. "He sent a secret letter, containing only one sentence: 'The border wall remains, and I remain. Your Majesty should not worry about me, but should take the state as paramount.'"

Wanyan Honglie closed his eyes. Wanyan Honglie had guarded the border wall for six years, from the fifth year of Mingchang to the present, from steppe cavalry to the New Ming Party; the enemies across the border wall had changed from one generation to the next. Wanyan Honglie had never been given enough men and grain, yet he had never complained once. Every military report he sent back to Zhongdu contained only a few words: "Nothing happened today," "The northern border is quiet," "The border wall is stable." Everyone knew the northern border could not be quiet, and the border wall could not be stable. He simply did not want the court to worry. Now, this person was still on the border wall.

Wanyan Honglie stood up and walked to the entrance of the temporary palace. On the night of the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, Bianjing was shrouded in a sea of fire. The firelight from the direction of Nanxun Gate was the brightest, with thick smoke rolling up, obscuring half the sky. The cannon fire continued, wave after wave, like the heartbeat of the earth. He stood there, looking at this capital about to fall, and suddenly remembered something—eighty years ago, when his ancestor Wanyan Zongwang breached Bianjing, Songhui Sect was also on such a night, standing at the palace gate and watching the fire in the city. History had turned a circle and returned to the starting point.

He turned around and said to Jiagu Heng: "Issue the edict. Break out tonight. Exit through the north gate, follow the Yellow River, return to Hebei."

Jiagu Heng knelt and kowtowed: "This subject obeys the edict."

The preparation for the breakout was carried out under extreme secrecy. Wanyan Honglie personally selected the breakout route—not the main north gate road, but the water gate at the northwest corner of the city. The water gate connected to Huimin River, linking Bian River and Yellow River; the channel was narrow, flanked by civilian houses and warehouses, with complex terrain unsuitable for large army deployment, but also not easily discovered. The accompanying personnel were reduced to the minimum—of the harem consorts, only the Empress and two Imperial Princes were taken; the rest were all left in Bianjing, cared for by the remaining palace maids and eunuchs. Wanyan Honglie said one sentence to the Empress: "I have let them down. But the Empress of the Great Jin cannot remain in Bianjing as a captive."

The most painful decision was to stay behind. There were still tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Bianjing, still holding their ground behind the city walls. If the Emperor left, who would defend the city? Wanyan Honglie entrusted this task to Wanyan Kuang. He summoned Wanyan Kuang; in the side hall of the temporary palace, there were only the two of them. Wanyan Kuang knelt on the ground, his armor still stained with broken bricks and ash from the Nanxun Gate tower.

"Wanyan Kuang," Wanyan Honglie's voice was very soft, "I entrust Bianjing to you. Not to hold it—to delay. Delay one day, and I gain one day to retreat to Hebei. Delay three days, and I can redeploy along the Yellow River. Delay five days, and perhaps the Zhao Wang can send troops from the northern border."

Wanyan Kuang looked up at the Emperor, his eyes holding no fear, no hesitation, only a sense of relief. This veteran general who had guarded Tangzhou for three years and worn down the Song army for several months under Dengzhou city walls had long known his fate lay on the battlefield. He said: "This subject lost a city at Lingbi, lost a city at Sizhou. This time, I will not lose it again. I will not leave."

Wanyan Honglie personally helped Wanyan Kuang to his feet. Neither spoke; the firelight from outside the window reflected on their faces, alternating between light and shadow.

At the third watch of the hour of the Ox, the iron grate of the water gate was quietly winched up. The waters of Huimin River shimmered with a faint light in the night, with thin ice floating on the surface. The first to depart were the civil officials of the Privy Council and the Ministry of Revenue, taking small boats out through the water gate and rowing north along Huimin River. Next came the Empress's carriage—not a horse-drawn cart, but a litter carried by beasts, the curtains tightly covered with black cloth. Finally came Wanyan Honglie himself. He changed into the uniform of an ordinary cavalryman and rode a black horse. Before leaving, he looked back once at Bianjing—the firelight in the city reddened half the sky, cannon fire continued, and the faint sounds of battle came from the direction south of the city. He said a sentence in his heart, without making a sound. Then he spurred his horse into the water gate and disappeared into the darkness at the end of the waterway.

One double-hour later, Wanyan Kuang climbed the Nanxun Gate tower alone. The city gate had been bombed into collapse, with piles of broken bricks at the breach forming a small hill. He stood beside the breach, gazing at the campfires of the Jiangnan Army Group outside the city, stretching for several li like a burning river. He drew his sword and planted it in the broken bricks before him, holding the hilt with both hands, standing like a statue. The campfires below reflected on his face; that face was scarred by a blade, his skin blackened by gunpowder smoke, but his eyes still shone. He knew he would not wait for reinforcements. But that no longer mattered. What mattered was that he stood here, and the city gate was closed. He stood here, and the Great Jin still had a Bianjing.