Chapter 173: Attack and Defense (Twelve)

The battle had already reached white heat. The entry of the Shang family's household troops into the fight made the Qing army as excited as if they had been injected with rooster blood.

In several sectors, Taiping Army casualties atop the wall exceeded for the first time the Qing soldiers scaling it. Many of them were not shot dead by arrows but hacked to death by the household troops who had climbed up.

On a battlefield, individual martial skill cannot decide the outcome, but it can decide whether an individual lives or dies.

The Shang family's household troops were handpicked from the elite of the Han Banners under Shang Kexi, and their officers were all veterans of the old household troops. In the craft of killing, the Taiping Army, founded only a few months before, was far inferior.

In ferocity, only the bandit-born officers such as Ge Zheng, Ge Yi, and Bald Jiang could compare; the rest were far behind.

When the household troops scaled the wall, they also differed from the disorderly Green Standard. After climbing onto the ladders, they did not rush upward.

Instead, they gripped the ladders tightly while tilting their heads back to observe the crenellations above. The moment they spotted anything falling from the wall, they dodged swiftly.

Then, taking advantage of the pause in the Taiping Army's barrage above, they flew up the ladders, and upon closing in, inflicted casualties on the Taiping troops.

The household troops climbed onto several crenellations. These banner soldiers in heavy armor, relying on their suits of armor, held one side against the wall to fend off the Taiping Army's attacks while covering their comrades climbing up below.

Once two or more household troops got up, even five or six Taiping soldiers facing them could not drive them off. Fortunately, the number of household troops who had actually gained the wall was still small.

Although they had seized several crenellations, under the counterattacks of Taiping reinforcements that followed, they were unable to expand their foothold. One position was even retaken by Ge Yi, whose eyes had gone red with killing, and his men.

Ge Yi's right little finger had been sliced off by a blade during the earlier Green Standard assault. Without bothering to bandage it, he had thrown himself back into the new round of slaughter.

Like his elder brother, Ge Yi could never keep crude curses out of his mouth. As he swung his blade and cut men down, he ceaselessly inquired after the female relatives of the Qing soldiers opposite him, and words for reproductive organs flowed without pause.

Such a manner greatly vented the spleen of the Zhenlu Battalion soldiers around him, and they too fought as fiercely and unstoppably as Ge Yi.

As the saying goes: one brave soldier makes a brave squad; one cowardly officer makes a cowardly whole.

The bandit origins of the Ge brothers had always been a knot in Zhou Shixiang's heart that he could not get past.

He had always believed that these bandit-born subordinates could not be entrusted with great tasks, and that when the time truly came to drive the Manchu Qing out of the Han people's land, they would have to rely on sons of respectable families.

But now it seemed these two bandit brothers could set his mind at ease, allowing him to fight on in bloody battle without worrying that someone might suddenly abandon him and flee.

Since ancient times, the righteous have always come from among the butchers and dog-sellers!

With the Ge brothers here, this city cannot fall!

Zhang Erjiang, probationary centurion of the Guard Battalion, promptly led men to plug the several breaches the household troops had opened. More than a hundred arquebusiers, led by their officers, occupied the position and kept firing their matchlocks down at the Qing soldiers on the ladders below.

The cannons that had fallen silent roared to life again. The red-barbarian cannons bombarded the Qing troops streaming forward from several li away, preventing the reinforcing Qing soldiers from closing in quickly.

Shang Kexi, watching the battle from afar, was both deeply wary of the red-barbarian cannons on the wall and greatly enraged. He had committed his household troops at any cost precisely to end the battle quickly and bring Xinhui back under control.

Yet half a shichen had passed, and apart from piling up nearly a thousand more corpses, Xinhui remained firmly in the Taiping Army's hands.

After leading men on a circuit of the city to observe, Shang Zhixin returned and advised his father to immediately dispatch troops to attack the other three gates simultaneously. The proposal won Ban Zhifu's approval.

The situation was obvious: if they kept hammering at the east gate, the Taiping Army inside the city might be short of troops, but it could promptly receive reinforcements from the garrisons at the other three gates, while the Qing army could only assault one stretch of the east gate.

As long as the Taiping Army still had fresh troops to feed in, the wall could not be taken in a short time. Judging by the casualties below the wall, truly taking Xinhui would likely cost the Qing army several thousand casualties.

Several thousand casualties was something the Qing forces in Guangdong absolutely could not accept, and even less something the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, could accept. The proposal of Shang Zhixin and Ban Zhifu was quite reasonable.

Only by attacking all four gates of Xinhui at once could the Taiping Army inside be made to attend to one thing and lose another. As the old saying goes, to set defenses everywhere is to set defenses nowhere.

With the Taiping Army's paltry numbers, they simply could not hold out; attrition alone would wear them to death!

Last year, when Li Dingguo came to besiege Xinhui with tens of thousands of troops, the Qing garrison inside the city had twice the numbers of the present Taiping Army — a full six thousand men — and there were also reinforcements from Guangzhou outside.

Only under those circumstances, with the situation alive both inside and out, did Li Dingguo have no choice but to withdraw. Had there been no reinforcements from Guangzhou, the final fate of Xinhui would truly have been hard to say.

But the Taiping Army now was no Li Dingguo, and it had no reinforcements outside. Before leaving Guangzhou, Shang Kexi had long since ordered the various prefectures to send urgent military reports, especially from Zhaoqing.

Everywhere the reports were clear: there were no signs of large-scale Ming army activity in their areas.

Xu Erxian was even more detailed: ever since the self-appointed Garrison Commander Tang Sanshui had seized Luoding, the Ming army in Gaozhou to the west had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth and paid the matter no heed.

Scouts sent to Gaozhou had also confirmed through various channels the intelligence that the Gaozhou Ming army was doing nothing.

Though it was unclear why the Gaozhou Ming army had not reacted to the loss and recovery of Luoding, this intelligence gave Shang Kexi a dose of reassurance.

To speak frankly, if there was anyone left in this world who could make His Excellency the Prince of Pingnan feel fear, it was probably no one other than Li Dingguo. Even the Son of Heaven in the Forbidden City he merely respected, not feared.

Had the Taiping Army not been an isolated force, had Li Dingguo moved with the opportunity, Shang Kexi would never have taken a single step out of Guangzhou.

He would surely have played the turtle hiding in its shell, then sent eight-hundred-li express dispatches to Beijing every day, begging the Manchu troops to come rescue him.

The reality was that the Taiping Army was merely a new force that had suddenly sprung up, and an isolated one at that, while that tiger Li Dingguo was still dozing in Guangxi.

It was the combination of these two pieces of intelligence that produced the Prince of Pingnan's personal campaign against Xinhui. Otherwise, His Excellency would never have stirred lightly from Guangzhou.

Last year when Li Dingguo came, the court had issued several imperial edicts in succession and still could not get the Prince of Pingnan to take one step out of Guangzhou.

Instead, he kept sending urgent appeals to the court, and only when the Manchu-Han army led by General of Jingnan Zhu Mala arrived did His Excellency set out with relish to relieve the siege of Xinhui.

Words like "This prince has eaten more salt than you have eaten rice" were naturally not something the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, could bring himself to say. He did not adopt the suggestion of his son and trusted aides, but insisted on the main assault at the east gate.

To that end, he ordered the remaining units in the camp to join the battle as well, preparing to overwhelm the Taiping Army in the city with sheer numbers.

The Prince of Pingnan was also out of options. With the battle fought to this point and so many dead, he too was riding a tiger and finding it hard to dismount.

Attacking on all four sides could indeed disperse the Taiping Army's forces, but was it not also dispersing his own, the Prince of Pingnan's, troops? If dividing his forces could break the city, that would be one thing — but what if it failed?

Did he want that pale-faced whelp in Guangzhou laughing at him, saying this prince could not even take one little Xinhui?

I cannot beat Li Dingguo — hmph, but can I not beat a mere bandit!

Pile them on! I refuse to believe this piddling Taiping Army can stop this prince's advance!

Gritting his teeth, Shang Kexi once more shifted his troops. He had hardened his resolve: no matter what, he would take Xinhui!

Looking out from the east wall of Xinhui, all one could see were scaling ladders, and every ladder was packed with men. This was truly an ant-swarm assault.

For an ant-swarm assault to break a city, the key was disparity in numbers: only when the attackers' numbers were so great that the defenders could not catch their breath could the city be taken.

The Qing army's follow-up troops were constantly being shifted, but the Taiping Army's cannons in the city prevented those follow-up troops from reaching the foot of the wall in time, thus causing the household troops, who had several times nearly broken through, to fail at the final step.

Time and again the same movements, the same assaults, and all they bought was the ever-higher mountain of corpses piling up below the wall.

Boom— Boom—

A dozen or more cannon blasts, like muffled thunder, shook the very wall-bricks until they seemed to sway. The captured Han Banners gunners nearby covered their ears, yet the muffled thunder still rattled their hearts with panic.

The cannon fire did not make the reinforcing Qing troops fall back, nor did it strike fear into the Qing soldiers scaling the wall. The wealth and women inside the city tempted them like devils — or perhaps they had already gone red-eyed with slaughter.

Whether Han Banners soldiers or Green Standard troops, at this moment they had but a single thought: take Xinhui, kill everyone!

The main force of the Qing Green Standard in Guangdong was in fact composed of former Ming troops, with a small portion being laborers forcibly conscripted after the Qing occupied Guangdong.

These former Ming soldiers and Han people had not fought to the death against the alien Tartars, but under the oppression of their blades had become part of the Qing army, serving as vanguard and cannon fodder in countless battles.

Often after a battle, the greatest number of dead were these green-flag camp soldiers. But as long as they could keep their lives, what more was there to be dissatisfied with?

Could their necks be harder than the great swords of the Manchu soldiers?!

Just as the Manchu Eight Banners treated the Han Eight Banners and Mongol Eight Banners, Shang Kexi used both kindness and severity toward the surrendered Ming generals and soldiers he had recruited after coming south.

As long as they were willing to sell their lives, he showered them with rewards. After all, what he gave away did not come from the Prince of Pingnan's own pocket, but was the very property of those southerners themselves.

As for massacring cities, such things were commonplace.

Shang Kexi himself did not know how many massacre orders he had issued, how many southerners — no different from livestock in his eyes — he had slaughtered, though these southerners had once been his compatriots, once the people he was sworn to protect.

A single general's glory is built on ten thousand bleaching bones. When enough cannon fodder died, someone naturally profited from it.

Many former Ming army officers became Regional Commanders and Assistant Regional Commanders in the Green Standard, becoming the core of the Guangdong Green Standard, becoming accomplices of the alien race in oppressing their own compatriots, helping the Manchus — a people of only a hundred-odd thousand — seize the Han people's land.

These Green Standard officers lorded it over others for the sake of wealth and rank, while the common camp soldiers at the bottom fought desperately just to stay alive. And the reward granted them from above was the release that came after victory — massacre.

Just as the Eight Banners were divided into the three grades of Manchu, Mongol, and Han, the Green Standard too had its internal factions.

The Green Standard garrisoned in Guangzhou was the main force of the Guangdong Green Standard; they were the first-class men of the Green Standard, while the garrison Green Standard troops under the various prefectures were the second-class men.

The most obvious difference was that the quality of the Guangzhou Green Standard troops was superior to that of the prefectural garrisons, and their fighting power was far higher.

Therefore, when the Green Standard went to war, the first-class men always bullied the second-class men. Now, the ones charging at the very front were the garrison Green Standard troops of the various counties under Guangzhou Prefecture.

For this campaign against Xinhui, the county Green Standard troops had been almost entirely conscripted. They were placed under the unified command of Lin Shanzhi, Regional Commander of the Guangzhou Green Standard.

In the earlier assaults on the city, the county Green Standard troops had essentially been used by Lin Shanzhi as cannon fodder and had suffered grievous losses. Of more than two thousand men who withdrew, only half remained.

The garrison Green Standard troops of several counties had been shattered and simply could not be sent up again. Therefore, in the second assault, Lin Shanzhi had not called on these shattered camp soldiers to attack.

Yet these county garrison troops had not had long to congratulate themselves before the order to attack the city came down.

As they charged through the impact zone of the city's cannons, the garrison troops were terrified out of their wits by the concussions. Many camp soldiers who had survived the previous assault threw their lives away again on this blood-soaked ground.

Some camp soldiers stood frozen in fright, but quickly recovered, and paying no heed to the comrades blown apart by cannonballs, they howled with reddened eyes and charged at the wall.

The power of the red-barbarian cannons was indeed beyond that of ordinary cannon. Any Qing soldier struck by a cannonball had bones snapped and sinews torn, brains splattered, flesh mangled beyond recognition — a sight too horrible to behold.

Screams, groans, and wails rose one after another. Those red-barbarian cannons fired down at the Qing troops from on high, and the cannonballs fell with tremendous force, bouncing up again the moment they hit the ground.

One after another, solid iron balls weighing dozens of jin tore through the Qing ranks, and whatever they touched was pulped. Whether it was a hand or a leg grazed by an iron ball, it was smashed to ruin outright.

The blood gushed unstoppably, and such wounds, even if Hua Tuo himself returned to the world, would be beyond saving.

No one knew how many garrison Green Standard troops of the counties under Guangzhou Prefecture had died, still less how many Guangzhou Green Standard troops.

On the corpse-heaps below the wall lay the bodies of over a hundred household troops as well, and the corpses of other banner soldiers could be seen everywhere.

With the battle fought to this point, both sides had gone red-eyed, and neither had any room to retreat — only roaring battle cries remained.