Chapter 105: Chaos

One chapter today; tomorrow, four chapters with ten thousand words as the baseline.

"Bang, bang, bang—"

Above the eastern part of the city, deafening gunfire suddenly rang out. It crackled and popped for a spell, then fell quiet again, but the battle cries never ceased — on the contrary, they grew louder, as if two bodies of troops were locked in a desperate, deadly struggle.

The banner troops hurrying toward the east side of the city were not frightened by the gunfire; instead, they grew all the more excited, because they knew that in this city only their Han Banners had firearms. The ones firing could be no one but their own.

And once shots were fired, the meaning of it all changed completely.

Because Guangdong produced no powder or shot, and the army's gunpowder was mostly transferred from the north, the banner troops under the two princes of Pingnan and Jingnan had rules about using firearms: they were not to fire unless they encountered the Ming army.

So the sound of gunfire meant the banner troops were not suppressing unruly commoners or a small band of bandits in the city, but were truly locked in valiant combat with the Ming army.

If there were Ming troops in Gaoyao, then this city must be put to the sword.

Later they would surely ask the company captain to give the order to wash Gaoyao clean: the men's heads would be cut off and reported for merit, and the women would all be seized and hauled back to the provincial capital to be sold!

As for those brothers in the east city who had fired the shots, they would certainly get a larger share. If they had not put on such a convincing show, how could they so openly wash the city and make their fortunes?

Unlike what the banner troops imagined, Xiang Guoqing, the Bordered Blue Banner company captain commanding this Han army, cursed loudly when he heard the gunfire, damning his men in the east city for wasting powder and shot: those little bastards, if they really wanted to slaughter Gaoyao, firing a few shots would have been enough.

What the hell was all this crackling and popping — how much powder and shot did they have to burn through? Did they have any idea how precious the stuff was?!

Damn it, no. In the past he had only taken forty percent; today, when the city was put to the sword, he would take sixty for certain.

Then he turned the thought over again, and his brows smoothed into a grin. The gunfire was a good thing.

Once shots were fired, the consumption of powder and shot became impossible to account for — just the thing to patch the hole left by those several hundred catties of powder from last time.

Once he returned to Guangzhou, he would send someone to ask that fellow from Deqing whether he still wanted powder. If he did, he would sell him another few hundred catties, and report the whole lot together as battle losses.

Hearing the gunfire, Li Fuguo, the Green Standard Battalion Commander garrisoned in Gaoyao's west city, was likewise stirred to excitement.

He drew his saber and pointed toward the east city, where the shots had come from, ready to lead his garrison troops over to join the excitement. The banner troops were "suppressing rebels," and his garrison troops could hardly stand by and watch.

If they put in some effort now, there would surely be a share of the spoils afterward. At the very least, if they performed well, the banner troops would not find them too much of an eyesore when the city was washed, and would not refuse to toss them a few bones.

Besides, the wealthy and prominent households of the city all lived in the east city; that place had far more fat to skim than this poor warren of a west city. If they did not hurry over to fish in troubled waters, what were they waiting for?

A gang of Green Standard soldiers busy extorting the common people heard their Battalion Commander's shouting and scrambled out one after another, hollering that they were off to the east city to "join the fight." But Company Commander Wu Er was a man who saw things clearly.

At the sight of this, he was alarmed and hurried forward to warn Li Fuguo: "Sir, we must not get mixed up in what is happening in the east city. If this really were unruly commoners rebelling, that would be one thing.

But if it is not, then our going would do more harm than good, and we might well spoil the company captain's business."

"Mm..."

At this reminder, Li Fuguo caught on at once. There were surely no real rebels in the city; who knew what the commotion in the east city was about.

If Xiang Guoqing had deliberately stirred it up to find a pretext for washing the city, then his rushing over with his men would be a bad move. The wise thing was to stay put and wait for word.

If he blundered into something and gave Captain Xiang ideas, the loss would far outweigh the gain.

"That is the counsel of an old hand. Had you not reminded me, I would have nearly made a grave mistake."

Li Fuguo clapped Wu Er on the shoulder with great approval, then, with a stern face, ordered him: "Take men at once and shut the east and west gates. Let people in, but let no one out. Without an order from me or Captain Xiang, not even the King of Heaven himself may leave this city!"

At the order, Wu Er bowed sharply and answered heavily: "Rest assured, sir! With this humble officer here, not even a fly will escape Gaoyao!"

The words had just left his mouth, and he was about to turn and set off, when his whole body froze in place, because he clearly heard, from the east city, explosions louder than gunfire, and then countless voices shouting, "The Qing army is beaten! The Qing army is beaten!"

What did they mean, the Qing army was beaten?

Wu Er was utterly baffled, and Li Fuguo was equally at a loss: what trick were those Bordered Blue Banner troops playing?

The Bordered Blue Banner troops were playing no trick, for they would never be so foolish as to shout "The Qing army is beaten." Yet the cry of "The Qing army is beaten" was undeniably ringing in their ears.

Company Captain Xiang Guoqing and the banner troops hurrying toward the east city were all badly startled, and the banner troops in the east city, locked in a desperate fight with the Taiping Camp, were cursing their luck even harder.

The Qing army had not been beaten. To be precise, after Qin Zhisheng and Tie Yi led their troops charging into the city, the Han Banners facing them numbered only a few dozen men, but they were all battle-hardened veterans who had come from Liaodong.

They had followed the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, through countless battles great and small, and every man had honed his skills. Moreover, as men of the Han Banners, they ordinarily regarded themselves as bannermen and had long ceased to think of themselves as Han.

When they suddenly saw Ming troops, they were startled but showed not the slightest fear. On the contrary, they shared a common hatred and fought with fierce courage.

Some of them also carried firearms and wore padded cotton armor, so that Qin Zhisheng's and Tie Yi's units, despite their superiority in numbers, had failed to annihilate them and were instead pinned down in the east city.

Seeing the situation turning bad, Tie Yi feared that the banner reinforcements would arrive before the main force entered the city, so he immediately ordered his men to bring out the thunderclap bombs they had been reluctant to use.

They hurled seven or eight in succession into the midst of the banner troops. Nails flew out with the explosions and shot toward the banner soldiers, cutting down a swath in an instant.

The banner troops had never seen such a weapon. Seeing that this thing, which looked like a firecracker, was so deadly, they were all frightened.

Even so, the dozen or so remaining banner troops still did not break in panic. Instead, they fought on while retreating, and sent men to beg the company captain for help.

As soon as Zhou Shixiang learned there were Han Banners in the city, he led his troops in at once.

Once inside, he saw that the Han Banner force not only had firearms but was extremely fierce — even the thunderclap bombs had not frightened them into throwing down their weapons and surrendering — and his heart lurched.

He did not know how many Han Banner troops were in the city, and he feared the garrisoned Green Standard would rush over as reinforcements.

Amid his worry, he recalled an old story from former times and immediately ordered the Taiping Army troops entering the city to shout "The Qing army is beaten!"

The Taiping Camp did not know the Han Banners' true strength, and the Han Banners in the city likewise did not know the Taiping Camp's true strength.

Zhou Shixiang had his men shout "The Qing army is beaten" precisely to disrupt the Qing troops' will to fight and make the Qing forces in the city lose heart — a kind of psychological tactic.

After the "The Qing army is beaten" psychological tactic was deployed, the resisting banner troops could not tell for a time how many enemies had come, and imagined that the enemy had not only broken in from the east city but had entered from the west as well.

On top of that, the Ming troops facing them were too many, and they did not know how things stood with their company captain. In the end, after taking two more thunderclap bombs, they lost all heart for fighting and fled, each man for himself.

Seeing the banner troops fleeing in defeat, the Taiping Army, now in a killing frenzy, was hardly going to pass up the chance to beat a drowning dog. Zhou Shixiang climbed the city wall and looked out over the city.

Finding that the Han Banners in the city seemed few in number, he at once divided his forces: Qin Zhisheng's and Tie Yi's units would continue pursuing the fleeing banner troops before them, while the remaining units would attack toward the west city, making certain the fleeing banner troops could not link up with the Green Standard.

Under the Taiping Camp's superior numbers and the pounding of those thunderclap bombs — whatever the hell they were — the banner troops in the east city fled in rout.

Qin Zhisheng led his remaining thirty-odd soldiers charging at the very front, and for a time they swept all before them.

And those banner troops who had originally been hurrying over to suppress the "rebels," seeing the men from the east city retreating toward them, truly believed a large Ming force had come from outside the city and that their own side had been beaten.

In their fear, they too lost the will to fight and turned and fled.

All through Gaoyao rang the cry of "The Qing army is beaten!" Company Captain Xiang Guoqing, seeing his men collapse and unable to organize any resistance, did not hesitate: he led his personal guards, whipped his horse, and fled.

Once the company captain fled, the banner troops were a dragon without a head, thrown into utter confusion, and could do nothing but flee on their own.

The consequence of a disorderly retreat was that everyone wanted to escape quickly, yet no one would stop to let another go first. Thus the streets became jammed, and banner soldiers were constantly knocked flat by their own comrades.

One place fell into chaos, and then everywhere fell into chaos. Three or four hundred banner troops desperate to save their lives truly looked like a routed army.

Once the overall situation collapsed into chaos, even though these several hundred Han Banner soldiers were all warriors tempered by a hundred battles, in such a great collapse no amount of individual ferocity could save the day — and besides, even the company captain had fled.

What could they possibly do?

"We surrender! We surrender!"

"Brothers of the Ming army, we are Han too! We surrender, we surrender — don't kill us!"

Seven or eight banner troops had been cornered by the Taiping Camp in a dead-end alley. Truly there was no road to heaven and no door to the earth. Seeing that all was lost, some among them actually called out to surrender.