Chapter 440: Hooge, It's Your Turn! (Second Update)

Building a bastion fort inside the dilapidated city of Fengyang was the idea of Zhu Chunchen, the Ming garrison commander left to guard the central capital — heaven knows how he came up with it. In any case, this descendant of a famous general had a sudden flash of inspiration and, faced with the two great difficulties of defending a large city with few troops and limited funds, produced a solution: "an ambush bastion fort within the city."

The Fengyang bastion fort was built on the foundation of the Forbidden Enclosure and the palace city, and its core was the palace city, which had a circumference of seventeen li. The palace city was built of brick, five zhang high and two zhang three chi wide. To save money and labor, Zhu Chunchen simply ordered part of the Forbidden Enclosure wall torn down for bricks. With the bricks taken, he built eight solid gun platforms each about three zhang high. The surplus bricks were used to build a shot-proof sloping face onto the palace city wall, and the wall's width was increased to between three and a half zhang and two zhang seven chi.

While converting the Forbidden Enclosure and palace city of Fengyang into a bastion fort, Zhu Chunchen also had three mountain forts built on Phoenix Mountain, Moonlight Mountain, and Long Live Mountain, occupying the high ground to cover the Fengyang bastion fort.

In addition, most of the buildings in the southern part of Fengyang were torn down. The Central Capital Garrison Command and all its subordinate offices moved into the bastion fort to work, and the garrison command's barracks also moved into the bastion fort.

Thus the prosperous southern part of Fengyang that Shang Kele and his men longed for no longer existed.

What awaited them were only two gun platforms and the great general cannons mounted on them!

"Ambush! There's an ambush — a castle ambush!"

"Quick, quick, quick, fall back!"

"Too late — protect the Seventh Master!"

Shang Kele could not find anything to laugh about this time. The Han troops of the Bordered Blue Banner under his command were like startled prey, crying out in terror.

There were certainly guns on those gun platforms — otherwise why call them gun platforms? And those guns were surely all aimed at these unlucky wretches. What was more, they had blundered in between the two gun platforms, with gun platforms on both flanks and directly ahead an even taller core bastion — and the core bastion surely had cannon too!

Cannon were mounted on three sides — this was crossfire with no dead angle! There was nowhere to hide.

At that moment Zhu Chunchen was standing on the high wall of the core bastion of the Fengyang fort, peering through a single-tube telescope and muttering to himself: "Why so few of them? All infantry, it seems there's no big fish. What a pity! If only Hooge had charged in."

The fellow certainly had a fine imagination — he even wanted to lure Hooge in and kill him with a single cannon shot!

Unfortunately Hooge was not so impulsive, and Zhu Chunchen did not have that kind of luck.

Boom, boom, boom—

Just then, the great general cannons placed on the Fengyang bastion fort opened fire. Fine pieces like Hongyi cannon and three-pounder battalion guns could not be supplied in large numbers to the Central Capital Garrison Command; Zhu Chunchen was given only two Hongyi cannon in all.

So Zhu Chunchen had to settle for second best and ask Zhu Cilang for more great general cannons, while at the same time mobilizing all the blacksmiths of Fengyang Prefecture to cast great general cannons on their own. In the end he managed to obtain over a hundred great general cannons — most of them old stock that Zhu Cilang had scavenged from the cities and forts of the southeast, left over from the days when Hu Zongxian and Qi Jiguang fought the Japanese pirates. Back then the Great Ming still had men who could get things done, so they cast some serviceable great general cannons, which solved Zhu Cilang's urgent need.

And they also took Shang Kele's life!

Though he wore three layers of stout armor and was tightly shielded by several dozen of his personal guards, who used rattan shields and their own bodies without regard for their lives, it did not save him from anything.

Because the several dozen Qing soldiers huddled together were themselves a large target that drew fire. All twenty-four great general cannons on the two gun platforms and the high wall were aimed at this "target" and opened a fierce bombardment.

Since the distance was somewhat long, and the great general cannon had a relatively short range — even shorter when firing grapeshot — what went out this time were all solid shot. Twenty-four stone balls fell from the sky and smashed down all around Shang Kele. Some of them bounced up and swept through the crowd of panicked, fleeing Qing Green Standard troops! The hard stone balls struck and grazed human bodies, or passed through some part of a body, and instantly flesh and blood flew, screams and cries of alarm rang out without end, and the air was thick with the smell of blood.

Shang Kele's group fared no better. Three stone balls landed squarely in their midst!

Rattan shields, stout armor, brave warriors — before the stone balls fired by the great general cannons they were nothing but a pile of mangled flesh.

Shang Kele only heard a horrifying series of "thud, thud" sounds, and then felt his right calf struck hard by something. A violent pain shot through him, and he could no longer stand; he pitched forward and fell.

He knew things had gone very wrong. Fighting through the pain, he looked at his right leg — and at the sight his heart went cold and his hair stood on end. His right calf was gone, leaving only blood gushing out in spurts!

The blood was flowing far too much! Shang Kele was so desperate he wept. How much blood did his body hold? At this rate it would soon run dry — and when the blood ran dry, a man died.

He struggled to press his hands over it, but before he could reach the spurting wound, a wave of battle cries suddenly reached his ears!

"Kill the Tartars! Kill the Tartars!"

It turned out Zhu Chunchen had also hidden one thousand sword-and-shield men in the trench in front of the two gun platforms, and now they charged out to harvest Tartar heads!

These sword-and-shield men could all throw javelins. After rushing out of the trench, shield in one hand and javelin in the other, they hurled two volleys of javelins into the disordered, fleeing Qing soldiers before charging into them.

The Qing soldiers, already in chaos, could not stop them at all. Two or three hundred men were immediately skewered into bloody sieves. Some did not die at once, but fell screaming, spraying blood and convulsing violently.

Shang Kele was terrified out of his wits by the sight. He no longer cared about pressing his wound to stop the bleeding, but only crawled desperately. Yet how fast could crawling be?

In the blink of an eye, the cry of "Kill the Tartars" was right behind him.

At that moment, someone seized the queue at the back of Shang Kele's head and yanked hard. His neck was stretched out long, and a gleaming knife was thrust before his eyes.

Was this to cut his throat?

Shang Kele was so frightened he wept, crying out: "No, no — I'm not a Tartar, not a Tartar—"

Then came a soft "squelch," and Shang Kele, who was not a Tartar, had his throat cut.

At the moment Shang Kele was having his throat cut, his sworn brothers Shang Kexi and Shang Ke'ai were leading a large force of Han troops of the Eight Banners through the Rear Right Jia Gate and advancing along Right Jia Street.

Shang Kexi, Shang Ke'ai, and Kong Youde were all at the head of the troops, riding at the front of the column. Behind the three of them stretched the vast ranks of the Eight Banners' heavenly soldiers.

The three were in fine spirits and thought nothing of the defenders inside Fengyang, chatting and laughing as they marched. Even when they heard the sound of great general cannons firing up ahead, they did not take it seriously — was it not just some great general cannons or Folangji cannon? Most likely mounted on the wall of Fengyang's Forbidden Enclosure. What was so remarkable about that? As long as one kept far away, they could not hit you!

But just as Shang Kexi, Shang Ke'ai, and Kong Youde continued to lead from the front, several hundred defeated Qing soldiers came running out of the mountain pass between Phoenix Mountain and Moonlight Mountain, weeping and wailing. As they ran they howled: "There's an ambush! There's an ambush—"

An ambush? Shang Kexi and Kong Youde exchanged a look, both utterly unconcerned.

What was there to fear in an ambush?

Shang Kexi shot Shang Ke'ai a look, and Shang Ke'ai at once rode forward with a hundred or so horsemen to block the Green Standard troops and Han troops of the Eight Banners fleeing for their lives. These "deserters" saw the banners of the two princes and knew things had gone very badly for them.

The Great Qing's military discipline was strict! Desertion in the face of the enemy meant beheading!

So some of them began loudly weeping and reporting the grim enemy situation.

"My princes, the southern soldiers are too treacherous! They've hidden a castle behind the mountain pass up ahead!"

"A great big castle! And a whole lot of gun platforms—"

"The gun platforms are packed with cannon!"

"At least a hundred of them—"

"We fought with all our might but couldn't hold them off!"

"My prince — the Seventh Master Shang has fallen in battle! Blasted to pieces by cannon!"

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