Chapter 107: Section Fifteen

Jin Qiude led the soldiers to the Lüshun armory to receive their equipment, while Huang Shi followed Zhang Pan up onto the gate tower to observe the fortifications.

Lüshun Fort faced the sea on one side. Zhang Pan had painstakingly managed this place for seventeen months now. On the landward side, he had built two wooden walls outside the fort wall, and beyond the outermost wall he had planted a large number of wooden stakes. The soldiers inside the fort were checking the defenses with fiery enthusiasm, as if their bodies brimmed with inexhaustible energy.

Behind the north gate tower of Lüshun Fort, a towering pagoda had been erected. This was the fort’s commanding height and its command post, from which one could look down upon all the fort’s walls and gates. Atop the tall pagoda, a command banner five zhang high had already been raised, surrounded by several command flags and battalion flags of different colors. Zhang Pan swept his gaze across the whole of Lüshun Fort and ordered the flag officer to begin testing the command system.

Whenever the command flag pointed toward a particular fort gate, the defending troops’ flag on that gate tower was to wave in response — this was called “answering the flag,” signifying receipt of the superior’s order. Zhang Pan and Huang Shi followed the direction of the command flag with their eyes. The flags on the gate towers promptly quivered several times in succession, each time passing the order down to the lowest Squad Commander’s flag.

Next came the test of troop control below the gate towers. There, after answering the flag, the Company Commanders struck their wooden clappers and war drums one after another, and according to the pagoda’s orders, either ascended the wall to reinforce or formed battle arrays on the inner side.

On the gate towers of each fort gate there were also black and yellow flags — these were, respectively, the warning flags for reporting battle conditions to the pagoda and the report flags for the status of mission execution. Both the pagoda and the flags below had orderlies, soldiers who could be used to meet the needs of complex tactical communication.

Flags were the most important means of command in this era. Zhang Pan, far up on the tall pagoda, could not use his general’s banner to direct specific soldiers, nor could he issue precise commands. The warning flags and the like of each unit were, moreover, the eyes of the officers. Once the flags were lost, command was lost. No matter how numerous the troops or how ample their weapons and equipment, they would instantly fall out of the army’s organizational structure.

Each time a flag was pointed, the unit being commanded promptly answered the flag and passed the order downward. Although Huang Shi could not read the flag signals of the Lüshun army, seeing the faint smile on Zhang Pan’s face, he assumed they were accurate without error. Every officer being commanded, while transmitting the flag signals, also led his subordinates in saluting toward the tall pagoda.

This extra gesture surged toward Huang Shi head-on. Led by their Regional Military Commissioners, Garrison Commanders, Company Commanders, and Squad Commanders, the soldiers, as their unit’s flag waved, raised their weapons high above their heads and beat them furiously. Wherever the flags pointed, every man, as if gone mad, roared toward the tall pagoda.

The cheering passed through the army like a bouquet of flowers tossed from hand to hand. The fervent voices and the leaping figures of the soldiers stretched on without end, gradually stirring him until he could scarcely breathe. After the last flag had answered, the troops that had already been named could no longer contain themselves. Every soldier — no matter what corner he was in — let out his loudest voice to show the general on the tall pagoda his courage and fighting spirit.

Only long after this overwhelming, sky-covering surge of ardor had ended did Huang Shi let out a great breath and call his soul back from beyond the ninth heaven. When he turned his head to look at Zhang Pan beside him, he found that the latter, though still wearing a smile, had lips still trembling uncontrollably with emotion. Zhang Pan looked at Huang Shi, opened his mouth, and produced a few indistinct, broken syllables.

“With such army morale, breaking the Jianzhou slaves is certain,” Huang Shi finally managed to say a complete sentence.

“Just as General Huang says…” Before he could finish, Zhang Pan suddenly threw his head back and laughed loudly to the sky. Within the long laughter was mingled a note of grief. When the laughter finally stopped, it ended in a low, deep sigh: “I shall certainly drink deep of the Jianzhou slaves’ blood with General Huang.”

With those words, Zhang Pan recovered his composure and confidence. That sigh, so full of resolve, seemed at once a promise made to the dead of Liaodong and a prophecy pronounced against a cruel foe.

Next, Zhang Pan discussed with Huang Shi the command arrangements for his five hundred troops. The Dongjiang garrison had not yet been formally established, nor had its own official garrison flag signals been issued, so Zhang Pan could not directly command Huang Shi’s troops. True, everyone devised flag signals based on the Ming army’s military regulations, but they varied considerably from general to general. With the addition of personal preferences and habits, Zhang Pan’s and Huang Shi’s flag signals were similar in appearance but different in meaning.

A guest general’s command banner, four zhang high, was ultimately raised at the guest position to the left of Zhang Pan’s main banner. The two generals would communicate via orderlies. Huang Shi’s soldiers were assigned to stand by beneath the pagoda together with several hundred other combat troops as a reserve. He Baodao and Jin Qiude would go down to lead the troops, while Deng Ken would remain with Huang Shi on the pagoda.

On the eighteenth day of the fourth month of the fourth year of the Tianqi reign, the Later Jin army dragged out from behind the northern hills a large batch of siege equipment they had rushed to build, and the Lüshun defensive battle commenced.

Huang Shi tactfully withdrew far to the edge of the pagoda. At such a tense moment, he must not disturb Zhang Pan’s command. Moreover, from where he stood, he could clearly observe the fighting below the wall.

The Later Jin soldiers first attempted to remove the wooden stakes and immediately came under intense fire from the watchtowers on the fort wall. The Later Jin warriors at the front of the demolition work were bulging all over, every man clad in double armor. The rain of arrows poured down from fifty meters away caused little harm. Apart from a few soldiers wounded in the arms, some men with several arrows stuck in them showed no reaction at all. After firing two volleys, the Ming troops ceased and switched to steel-armed crossbows.

Crossbows were relatively slow to load, about the same rate of fire as a matchlock. Ming soldiers therefore generally disliked using them in field battles, but they proved very effective for defense. Zhang Pan’s Lüshun Fort actually had a hundred of these devices in store.

According to the Ming method of reckoning, one slash counted as seriously wounding one enemy, whereas three arrow hits counted as only one serious wound. Huang Shi had witnessed this with his own eyes: a warrior clad in armor usually suffered only flesh wounds from arrows, which did not affect his combat effectiveness in the short term. The effect of three arrow hits was indeed about the same as one slash. But once struck by a spear, not only a man but even a horse would be disabled. Even a sharpened wooden spear could pierce a man’s chest or belly and directly injure his internal organs.

The power of a steel-armed crossbow was still less than that of a spear, but its effect approached that of a saber slash. Although it could not penetrate the Later Jin shields, its bolts flew very fast, making them difficult for the Later Jin soldiers to parry with their shields. From their elevated position, the Lüshun Ming troops fired volley after volley of crossbow bolts. Each time, a dozen or more Later Jin soldiers screamed in agony, dropped their shields, and tumbled to the ground.

The Later Jin soldiers did their utmost to hold up their shields, protecting the vital points of their heads and chests, while desperately scraping away the earth on the wooden walls and working together to pull the stakes out of the breastwork. To conserve the shooters’ strength, each crossbow had an assistant soldier beside it. While these men spanned the crossbows, the shooters watched coldly down at the base of the wall.

After the assistants loaded the iron bolts into the crossbows, the shooters closed their left eyes, took careful aim, and fired. They would either cry out in excitement or sigh in disappointment, then step aside to let the assistants repeat the process.

After seven or eight volleys, the assistants’ loading speed began to slow. The officers immediately signaled the replacement soldiers in the rear rank to switch duties. After suffering over a hundred casualties, the Later Jin vanguard finally cleared a passage through the stake array. Hide-covered carts were pushed forward, and their raised canopies shielded the assault teams as they continued to demolish the wooden walls.

The Ming troops lit their windproof lanterns one after another. Many large arrows bound with resin had already been prepared on the parapet. Once the shooters signaled that they had aimed, the assistants ignited the large arrows and let the crossbows nail the flaming bolts onto the carts.

This wooden wall was only thirty meters from the fort wall. Unwilling to come out and face certain death, the Later Jin soldiers stayed beneath the carts and kept tearing down the wall until the flames engulfed the canopies, at which point they all fled together to the shelter of other carts. The Ming shooters, who had been waiting for a long time, released their triggers in unison and pinned a portion of the enemy soldiers to the ground.

As carts kept being set ablaze at the front, fresh carts kept being brought up from the Later Jin lines. The defenders and the soldiers below the wall began a psychological game. Some carts were clearly about to collapse from the fire, yet the Later Jin soldiers simply would not flee. From under some canopies that had not yet burned through, the soldiers underneath would bolt to the rear of another cart.

Huang Shi saw one Later Jin soldier pick his moment. After the Ming troops fired a volley, he immediately sprinted with all his might, fleeing toward a spot a few meters away. But a crossbowman who had intended to burn a cart fired a bolt in time, and the burning mass pierced through the man’s thigh. Even as the Later Jin soldier screamed, he struggled to crawl away, but more crossbow bolts immediately flew at him, blasting a large hole in his back. The corpse lay on the ground, its limbs twitching for a long while.

The Later Jin army ultimately broke through both wooden walls before all their carts were burned. Seeing the observation platforms being slowly pushed forward, Huang Shi on the tall pagoda of Lüshun Fort began to miss the cannons of Guangning again. As he turned his face slightly away and sighed, he noticed that Deng Ken beside him was also gently shaking his head.

“Does Mr. Deng Ken have some thoughts?” Huang Shi asked in a lowered voice.

“The fort is too crudely built. This type of fortress was already obsolete a hundred years ago in our Taixi.”

Deng Ken looked around as if searching for something. Huang Shi also swept his eyes around — all were their own men. He drew his saber and handed it over.

Deng Ken did not decline. Using the tip of the saber, he lightly began to draw on the ground — a rough sketch of a star fort, its star-shaped outer walls sheltering an inner wall that was likewise star-shaped.

Deng Ken tapped the ground with the saber: “It is like this — no matter from which position the attacker assaults, he will come under fire from the front, the oblique front, both flanks, and the oblique rear. The enemy’s defensive carts just now would have been utterly useless. No defensive cart in the world can shield against attacks coming from seven directions.”

Huang Shi stared at the sketch of the star fort for a while. It was indeed a superb design, though the sharp protruding points of the outer wall seemed to be potential breach points.

When he raised this question, Deng Ken solemnly dragged the saber tip across the ground, carving a straight vertical white line from the sharp angle through to the inner wall: “Break through to here? What use would that be? Directly ahead is a solid inner wall with no entrance. And in that position, there would be two sections of outer wall at your back. The attacker would come under fire from eight directions.”

Deng Ken then drew a horizontal stroke, slicing off the tip of the star fort’s outer wall angle: “When attacking this position, one would also come under frontal and oblique frontal fire, needless to say — the same situation as Lüshun Fort today. Even if a section of the outer wall is destroyed, the defender suffers no loss whatsoever. The enemy remains exposed to converging fire from multiple sides at all times, and the defense of the fort gate is not weakened in the slightest.”