Chapter 201: Besieged

Outside Fengcheng County.

Zhu Xieyuan gazed at the tightly shut city gates and the empty countryside all around, his face black as if stained with ink.

That the rebels in Fengcheng County had taken precautions was only to be expected.

But how had the rural folk of Fengcheng County also fled so quickly?

Not just livestock and grain — even the valuable furniture had been carted away.

Rice that was not yet fully ripe had been forcibly harvested ahead of time. What truly could not be harvested in time was simply left standing in the paddies, abandoned outright.

There was a spy on his own side — and a very highly placed spy at that!

To achieve surprise, Zhu Xieyuan had not even waited for the autumn harvest to finish, marching when the rice was on the verge of being cut. His army provisions would certainly fall short, but he could just harvest the new rice right there in Fengcheng County. At a time like this, he could hardly worry about the common people — the commoners in the rebel Zhao's territory were no different from the rebels themselves.

Even with such a swift advance, the rebels had still learned of it beforehand. Judging by how calmly the people of Fengcheng had evacuated, the rebels must have received word at least a day or two in advance.

"Who do you say leaked the military intelligence?" Zhu Xieyuan asked.

"I truly have no idea." Wang Tingshi was equally baffled. He could swear any oath — this time it really had nothing to do with him.

Zhu Xieyuan's voice was icy: "Tear down the houses. Besiege the city!"

The residents outside Fengcheng County had already withdrawn into the city ahead of time.

Under Zhu Xieyuan's orders, house after house outside the walls was pulled down to build siege engines. He also dispatched small squads to the nearby fields to harvest the rice — even if unripe, it could still be boiled and eaten.

The officer in charge of defending Fengcheng County was Jiang Liang. He had only a thousand regular troops, but he had urgently recruited a thousand peasant soldiers.

The county magistrate was called Liu Shunyi, formerly an impoverished scholar from Anfu County.

Liu Shunyi was now responsible for maintaining order. He organized all the city's residents into temporary baojia units, making the people watch one another. If any member of a baojia unit dared to stir up trouble, the entire unit would be punished.

There were certainly government spies in the city — more than one — and they had to be prevented from committing arson.

Zhu Xieyuan seemed intent on a hard assault this time. In just one day, several sections of the moat had been filled in.

The next day, the encirclement left one side open — and that remaining side was the Gan River.

Seeing this, Jiang Liang immediately gave the order: "Inform Magistrate Liu. Have him organize men to seal off the eight small gates, leaving only the four main gates. Fengcheng County simply has too many gates. This time the government troops are dead set on storming the city."

…

In the outskirts of Nanchang, inside the Tu family mansion.

The serving maids and page boys had been dismissed. Several scholars were drinking and chatting idly — the very same scholars who had once captured Yang Jiamo alive.

"Gentlemen, have a guess: with the Governor-General marching out this time, can he take Fengcheng?" Tu Tingying asked with a smile.

Yu Shiqin sighed. "Even if they can take Fengcheng, once Regional Commander Zhao's reinforcements arrive, they will surely smash the main force of the government troops."

"Ah, I can only hope that Mr. Zhao seizes Nanchang soon. Otherwise, this business is impossible to carry on." The speaker was none other than the grain merchant Li Fenglai.

Li Fenglai's eldest and second sons were both studying at White Egret Isle Academy as hostages. The batch of scholars who had defected the previous year happened to have been sent to the academy as well, and within days they had recognized Li Fenglai's sons.

This time's tip-off had been their doing.

Though Jiangxi is mountainous and short on land, grain merchants are especially numerous. They buy grain in Jiangxi, ship it to the various prefectures of Jiangnan to sell at high prices, then bring Jiangnan cotton cloth and other local specialties back — profiting handsomely from this back-and-forth.

To sustain his army, Zhu Xieyuan had banned the export of grain from Jiangxi, permitting sales only to the Governor-General's office at market price.

Market price — what kind of nonsense was that?

Could the price of rice in Jiangxi possibly be the same as the price in the Jiangnan prefectures?

Cutting off a man's livelihood is like killing his parents. Zhu Xieyuan had offended every grain merchant in Jiangxi.

Losing a single year's profit might be bearable, but the real fear was a prolonged standoff between the government troops and the rebels. If this dragged on for several years, it would be the death of the grain merchants. They could only hope this war would end soon.

Meanwhile, peasant associations had already begun appearing one after another in the villages of Fengxin, Jinxian, Gao'an, and other counties. It looked like a peasant uprising was only a matter of time.

As great landlords themselves, these grain merchants were finding it harder and harder to exploit the peasants, and they lived in terror of being stripped of their property and wiped out by the peasant associations. With Zhu Xieyuan cutting off their trade profits as well, they were damned either way. They had to pick a side, and soon.

Pick Zhu Xieyuan?

That would mean choosing a protracted war. The rebel Zhao could not possibly be wiped out within three to five years. By then, the peasants would have long since risen up. Forget holding onto their land — the grain merchants' very lives might be forfeit.

Through the networking of Li Fenglai, Tu Tingying, and others, at least seventy percent of the grain merchants in Nanchang Prefecture had already gone over to Zhao Han.

They were extremely sensitive to any movement of grain supplies. The moment Zhu Xieyuan made the slightest unusual move, the grain merchants immediately sent word to Fengcheng County.

They chatted idly and drank until they were thoroughly tipsy.

Li Fenglai raised his cup. "Gentlemen, let us drink to Mr. Zhao! A distant toast to Mr. Zhao's swift conquest of the realm!"

"To Mr. Zhao!" They clinked cups and laughed.

These gentry were less great landlords than great merchants.

Seeing the peasant associations growing more numerous in every county, they knew they could not hold onto their land forever, so they simply resolved to abandon the land and preserve their trade.

As for the gentry who relied purely on land to amass wealth, under pressure from the peasant associations they had raised troops one after another to support Zhu Xieyuan. By now, the forces in Nanchang numbered close to thirty thousand.

They had no choice but to fight — Zhu Xieyuan could not afford to feed thirty thousand troops.

…

The second day of the siege.

The government troops, who had spent the daylight hours building siege engines and laboriously filling in the moat, suddenly slipped away in the dead of night. Every soldier held a chopstick between his teeth, each man grasping the belt of the man ahead as they headed south.

Wang Tingshi was roused in the middle of the night and followed along in a daze, a chopstick shoved into his mouth with orders not to speak.

The entire army of over thirty thousand moved to the hilly terrain ten li south of Fengcheng.

Zhu Xieyuan had originally wanted to seize that ground first — both to form a pincer position with the main siege force and to be able to dispatch troops at any moment to ambush the rebel relief column.

But the moment he saw that all the rural commoners had been evacuated, he knew he was a step too late. The great hills and mountains south of the city were surely packed with peasants. Not only were they mixed in with the rebels' peasant soldiers, but reinforcements from Linjiang Prefecture were very likely lying in ambush there as well.

The moment Zhu Xieyuan's siege stalled, the rebels in the hills would surely surge out and strike.

Huang Yao, in charge of the northern theater, was indeed encamped there — and Li Zheng's hundred-odd musketeers were there too.

The Great Unity naval forces had been transferred south for battle. Without naval superiority, Huang Yao and Li Zheng had simply marched overland and concealed themselves in the mountain ridges, hoping to catch Zhu Xieyuan off guard at the critical moment.

And then they were caught off guard themselves.

In the middle of the night, a great fire blazed up by the river — the signal from the sentries. And there were three great pyres burning at once, meaning the approaching government troops were very numerous.

"Hold the key pass up the mountain!"

Huang Yao gave the order at once. Retreat was already impossible — the fires had been lit from his flank and rear.

The old commander Zhu Xieyuan had actually led two thousand picked troops ahead of the main force himself — Guizhou soldiers he had drilled for years. Two thousand elite troops made a wide circuit and crossed the river from the rear; the hundred-meter-wide stream was forded with ease.

For one purpose alone: to cut off the rebels' escape route.

At dawn the next day, over twenty-eight thousand government soldiers had trapped Huang Yao's two thousand regulars and three thousand peasant soldiers on Lion Mountain.

A few li away stood two smaller hills.

On the northeastern hill were Li Zheng's five hundred regulars and two thousand peasant soldiers.

On the southwestern hill were Fei Yinggong's five hundred regulars and two thousand peasant soldiers.

The three peaks formed a mutual horn-and-antler defensive position.

Wang Tingshi exclaimed in wonder, "Supreme Commander, your calculations are divine — without even sending scouts, you knew this mountain must hold rebels."

Zhu Xieyuan explained, "Word of our army's march leaked out long ago, yet no rebel reinforcements have appeared. They must be lying in ambush in the hills. Near Fengcheng, Lion Mountain and Immortal Maiden Ridge are the most strategically dangerous. Immortal Maiden Ridge lies to the north — I sent men to reconnoiter it long ago, and it was empty. That leaves only Lion Mountain here in the south!"

"Shall we attack the mountain now?" Wang Tingshi asked.

"The men are exhausted after a night's march. Pitch camp first and let the soldiers rest," Zhu Xieyuan said, shaking his head.

The Lion Mountain area is hemmed by water on two sides, making it easy to encircle the enemy on the heights. Zhu Xieyuan also wanted to besiege the mountain and strike at reinforcements, because there were sure to be more rebels in the nearby ridges.

Standing on the summit, Huang Yao murmured to himself, "Twenty or thirty thousand troops, a forced night march of ten li — this Governor-General has been driven to desperation."

With such a rapid night march, the provisions Zhu Xieyuan had brought could last ten days at most!

If he could not take the hill within ten days, Zhu Xieyuan would have to withdraw on empty stomachs, following the stream below Lion Mountain back to Nanchang.

Zhu Xieyuan had had no choice. He had revealed his plan for this campaign only to a handful of trusted confidants beforehand. The intelligence leak made his skin crawl, and the peasant associations in the surrounding counties left him no room to delay further.

Since Fengcheng town could not be quickly stormed, he had to come strike at Lion Mountain — which was, in fact, easier to attack than the county seat.

If he could not take it within eight days, he would pull out at once and return to hold Nanchang in earnest. The purpose of this sortie, in any case, was to raid and harass the rebel rear so that the rebels could not throw their full strength against Ganzhou.

Li Zheng and Fei Yinggong had each led troops to the rescue, but even combined they numbered only five thousand men, four thousand of whom were peasant soldiers.

Moreover, they were peasant soldiers from Fengcheng and Qingjiang counties, whose level of training was not really very high.

"How do we fight this?" Li Zheng asked.

Fei Yinggong said, "A frontal assault is certainly out of the question. While the government troops attack the mountain, we'll harass them from behind. We must drag this out as long as possible — in just half a month, reinforcements from Ji'an are sure to arrive."

The problem was still that Zhao Han had too few troops: half his regulars were fighting in the south, and some of his crack peasant soldiers were guarding against Huguang.

If Zhao Han wanted to send reinforcements, he could only conscript peasant soldiers from Luling, Jishui, Anfu, and the other counties. Mustering them took time, and marching took time — in that window, Zhu Xieyuan could come and go as he pleased.

Just as Fei Yinggong had said, Zhao Han's reinforcements might take half a month, while Zhu Xieyuan's plan was to withdraw if he could not take Lion Mountain within eight days.

By the time Zhao Han's reinforcements arrived, Zhu Xieyuan would long since have fled back to Nanchang. The man was an old fox who never let himself take a loss!

That afternoon.

The twenty-eight thousand-odd government troops, well rested and fed, began organizing their assault on the mountain.

Seen on a flat map, Lion Mountain was truly small — less than five hundred meters long and under two hundred meters wide. Besieging it with twenty or thirty thousand men was truly using a butcher's ox-cleaver to kill a chicken.

Fortunately, a mountain cannot be judged by its flat outline alone.

Meanwhile, from the direction of Zhangshu Town, several troop-transport boats were approaching. Unwilling to wait for the peasant soldiers to muster, Zhao Han had dispatched his own personal guard.

The slave-soldier corps, commanded by Zhang Tieniu and Liu Zhu, wore mail shirts underneath, padded cotton armor over them, and bamboo helmets studded with iron plates on their heads.

They were not many — only four hundred armored men.

A truly ferocious battle was about to begin, a ferocious battle such as the Great Unity Army had never yet faced!

(Grateful thanks to Huai Nanyue for the Alliance Master reward, and thanks to all readers for your rewards and subscriptions.)

(End of chapter)