Chapter 267: Section Twenty-Four: Tearing Down the Wall

Just now as Geng Zhongming stepped onto the battlement, two spears thrust straight at his chest. Not daring to take them head-on, he threw himself hard to the right, leaping onto a battlement to his right. Unfortunately, a Ming soldier behind him jumped up right after and was caught — one long spear pierced his thigh, and another stabbed into his lower abdomen. With a miserable cry the soldier dropped his shield and grabbed the shaft buried in his belly with both hands.

Two Later Jin soldiers shoved hard and pushed that Ming soldier off the wall. The spear in his leg was pulled free, and blood instantly sprayed a great blossom across the outer wall. The other spear could not be withdrawn; its shaft snapped in two against the battlement. The Ming soldier tumbled from the Haizhou wall and hit the ground with a dull thud.

By then Geng Zhongming had already jumped down from the battlement, one hand raising his shield to guard his vitals, the other whirling his blade into a curtain of light. Behind him, one Ming soldier after another leaped down from the battlements, and in an instant the clangor of clashing swords and spears rang out across the wall. The Later Jin troops on the wall fought as they retreated, doing their utmost to contain the Ming soldiers within a relatively narrow area.

From behind the Later Jin lines, javelins and arrows kept flying over. One Ming soldier had just leaped onto a battlement and steadied himself when a javelin shot through the air and pierced his chest. The soldier clutched the shaft at his chest; before his mouth could even open, a mouthful of blood surged up his throat and sprayed straight from his nostrils.

That soldier still stood on the battlement, swaying twice. Blood poured from his nose and mouth, streaming down his face and chest, before his legs gradually went limp and his body slowly toppled backward — then, headfirst, he vanished from the wall.

Geng Zhongming’s blade rose and fell, cleaving a Later Jin soldier before him in two, and he charged forward two urgent steps. He peered over the inner side of the wall to look into the city, but the moment his head appeared, he saw several arrows flying straight at his face. Geng Zhongming threw himself backward and arched away with all his might — then felt a jolt through his upper body as an arrow buried itself in his shoulder armor.

Geng Zhongming had no time to check how bad the wound was. He simply snapped off the arrow’s tail with his hand and roared hoarsely: “Javelins! Javelins, archers up!”

Although he had only poked his head out for an instant, Geng Zhongming had clearly seen about ten Later Jin soldiers below the inner wall, every one of them with bow drawn and arrow nocked, waiting to snipe any Ming head that showed itself. At Geng Zhongming’s bellow, seven or eight Ming sword-and-shield men who had just gained the wall unstrapped the javelins from their backs, surged to the wall’s edge, and hurled them fiercely down in unison.

The Ming soldiers who had gained the wall gradually seized control of a short stretch of it, and right behind them a large group of men carrying hammers and iron crowbars followed them up. Once on the wall, these men did not join the fight but turned their attention to the battlements. Shielded by the sword-and-shield men, they began hammering at the battlements with all their strength, some working in teams to pry the wall bricks loose.

Below these Ming officers and soldiers, even more Dongjiang troops surged to the base of the wall. Once the threat of heavy objects being dropped from above was neutralized, these soldiers — in groups of a dozen or several dozen — hugged great wooden rams and slammed them against the wall with thunderous booms. Under the pounding of these great logs, the wall of Haizhou trembled faintly, and streams of dust and smoke kept billowing from the cracks between the bricks. The wall, battered without pause, gradually began to loosen.

A Dongjiang officer braced one hand against the wall, his other hand clenched into a fist, pumping rhythmically through the air with force. This officer wore armor in the style of a general, and a great beard nearly covered his mouth. He grinned from ear to ear at his men, baring his teeth, and as he swung his arm even harder, he shouted a work chant in the same rhythm to spur the soldiers on:

“Take Haizhou — and the meat is ours!”

“Take Haizhou — and the meat is ours!”

“Hey —”

“Hey —”

Those Dongjiang soldiers answered their officer’s call with a thunderous work chant of their own, again and again driving the great rams with all their might against the wall…

“Halt!” the officer suddenly shouted. He pointed joyfully at one wall brick and yelled: “This one’s loose — pull it out, quick!”

Several soldiers rushed forward at his words and wedged wooden staves and iron spades into the gaps around the brick. Amid the cheering of the crowd, each man strained with every ounce of strength he had, and they wrenched that brick clean out of the wall.

“Good, good!” That Dongjiang general officer was so delighted he practically jumped. He stepped back two paces and swept his arm forward: “Brothers! Keep ramming!”

The booming of the rams against the wall never stopped for a moment. One after another, wall bricks were pulled from the wall of Haizhou. As more and more bricks and stones were dragged out, the remaining bricks grew increasingly unstable, and the Dongjiang troops’ demolition of the wall proceeded faster and faster.

Bai Youcai had by now finished the prize he had just won, and having watched plenty of the show, he reckoned he had rested enough. Rubbing his hands eagerly, he walked back into the ranks. The Dongjiang general officer gathered up these returning men and formed them into a new unit, then led these several hundred men to sit in the rear, waiting for their own unit’s banner to signal them to attack.

Beyond the formation of Bai Youcai’s Dongjiang unit, countless other units waiting to attack were arrayed. Several thousand men sat quietly on the ground, conserving their strength. In front of these waiting men, the Dongjiang army’s transport teams streamed back and forth without pause. Every moment, someone ran past carrying a wall brick, then exchanged the brick for a white tally from the inspecting officer.

Over these two double-hours, Huang Shi had been constantly estimating the defensive strength inside Haizhou. The conclusion was now very clear: the forces within Haizhou were insufficient to cope with this kind of

human-wave tactic.

“How many casualties do we have? Two hundred? Three hundred?” Huang Shi asked his guard detachment hesitantly. Although the enemy on the wall of Haizhou had dragged over a few small cannons, after all this time they had not inflicted more than a few dozen casualties. The Dongjiang army’s losses came mainly from arrows, logs, and stones. Earlier on the earthen mound, a rolling log had not been stopped in time, and Huang Shi had watched helplessly as it rolled over a dozen men; he estimated that several of those officers and soldiers had been killed.

“Probably not three hundred. The Jian slaves’ archers cannot deploy effectively at the corners, and their main strength is pinned down by our forces at the four city gates. But this subordinate believes two hundred casualties is likely.”

What Hong Antong said was roughly in line with Huang Shi’s own assessment. Huang Shi swept his gaze around the Changsheng Island inner guard surrounding him; the faces of these subordinates all showed an eager, itching-for-action expression. Huang Shi gave the order: “I will go now and request permission to attack from Marshal Mao. Pass the word to the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company — have them prepare to enter the fray.”

By the time Ouyang Xin led the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company to the base of the wall, the firepower coming from inside Haizhou had already caused them several casualties. By now a long stretch of Haizhou’s wall bricks had been stripped away by the Dongjiang troops; the battlements and protective wall bricks had all vanished. That Dongjiang officer, the one with the perpetual grin on his face, was still leading the chant: “Take Haizhou — and the meat is ours.”

Ever since the wall bricks before him had been torn away to expose the earthen core inside, this officer had personally taken up an iron spade and, together with his men, was frantically digging away at the wall’s earthen body. Above them, the Dongjiang sword-and-shield men had extended their coverage further to both flanks and the front to protect the comrades at the corner, doing everything possible to let them demolish the wall undisturbed.

By the time the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company reached the base of the wall, Geng Zhongming was leading his own battalion troops back in withdrawal; fresh troops from other battalions had already taken over the front. Panting heavily, Geng Zhongming shook his numb, aching arms and bounded down from the wall in a few leaps. His battle robe was covered in mottled bloodstains. He made a deliberate detour to the side of that ever-grinning Dongjiang officer and clapped him approvingly on the shoulder: “Pan the Fool, you’ve done damn fine work today!”

“That I have, that I have.” Pan the Fool laughed heartily. His men redoubled their efforts, swinging their spades blow after blow into the earthen wall, and at the same time he shouted with doubled force: “Hey, brothers! Take Haizhou — and the meat is ours ～～～～”

The earth and stones dug from the wall could not be left scattered on the ground to block the way, so while the men in front dug, the men behind cleared the debris and packed it into sacks to be carried away. To make it easier to tally achievements and give rewards, these earth sacks were also carried back by Dongjiang officers and soldiers to exchange for white tallies. Mobile Corps Commander Wu, who was bagging the loose earth, had stripped off his entire upper garment and rolled his trousers above his knees. His bronze-colored back was covered with scars and glistened with a sheen of sweat.

Bai Youcai dashed back, dropped off his third earth sack, then clutched his white tally and went to exchange it for meat broth and flatbread. When he reached the opera shed, he happened to see Sun Ergou and his third brother sitting there. As Bai Youcai went over to greet them, he noticed that the broth and flatbread in front of the Sun family’s third son had not been touched at all.

Sun Ergou held his younger brother against his chest, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the opera stage ahead. The younger brother’s head rested limply against Sun Ergou’s shoulder. Bai Youcai walked up beside the two of them and had meant to say hello, but the words turned in his throat a few times and he forced them back down.

Sun Ergou acted as if he did not even see Bai Youcai standing beside him. His right arm was wrapped around his younger brother’s shoulder, and his hand was still gently patting the boy’s shoulder. Bai Youcai stood beside these two, listening as Sun Ergou now and then cheered the performance on stage. Every time he shouted his approval, Sun Ergou would use his other hand to pat the third brother in his arms. Gazing ahead, he murmured to his younger brother: “Look, isn’t this your favorite part? Look, Third Brother, didn’t you always say this passage was the most thrilling?”

Bai Youcai pressed his lips tight. He gently set the things in his hands down on the table in front of the two of them, and stood motionless, watching the strange smile on Sun Ergou’s face. After a long while, he forced out a single anguished phrase: “Brother Sun.”

Bai Youcai did not know what to say next. Sun Ergou’s face still wore a smile, even as tears streamed steadily down. He called out another low cheer, and at the same time hugged his lifeless younger brother tight and shook him hard: “Look, look. You loved this part when you were little. You always pestered Father and Mother to watch it. I still remember — I remember everything.”

Sun Ergou’s words made Bai Youcai recall his own past. The elders of the Bai and Sun families had all been honest, dutiful common folk, living a life of rising at sunrise and resting at sunset. Though the days were hard, like all hardworking people of Liaodong, their daily toil brought them the harvest of the land, and even more, they could share the happiness of ordinary people with friends and family.

Ten years ago, Bai Youcai’s grandfather had always been thinking about how this eldest grandson of the family could grow up faster so that he might hold a great-grandson in his arms. Even now, Bai Youcai still remembered the smiles on his parents’ faces whenever the old man brought it up. Through several generations of farming and clearing land, the Bai family by this generation had acquired some farmland of its own. Grandfather Bai would always sigh: Bai Youcai’s father lived a better life than he had as a child, and Bai Youcai lived a better life than his father had as a child. Seeing the family’s circumstances improve day by day, Grandfather could close his eyes in peace when he died.

But all these beautiful prospects shattered like bubbles. Bai Youcai’s father was hacked to death beside the well by the Jian slaves while trying to defend the family ox. His mother and younger sister were both carried off by the Jian slaves — sold to the Mongols, it was said. Grandfather Bai

fled desperately to Dongjiang with Bai Youcai and his younger brother, but Bai Youcai’s younger brother starved to death on the road because there was no food.

Now Bai Youcai’s dream was that one day he could follow Marshal Mao back to fight for Liaodong — that he could let his grandfather sit once more on the land the Bai family had cleared over generations, holding a great-grandson and telling him stories. Yes, when that day truly came, Bai Youcai and his grandfather would surely stroke the soil of their ancestors and weep, and they would surely set up a longevity tablet for Grand Marshal Mao.

Bai Youcai knew that the four Sun brothers shared the same longing. When they gathered to talk, the Sun brothers would always ramble on, reminiscing about how their ancestors had cleared the land, recalling the old family home the Sun elders had left their descendants, and remembering the fertile soil of Liaodong that had nourished the Sun family for generations.

Bai Youcai looked around wordlessly. Over a hundred fallen Dongjiang officers and soldiers had been carried near the opera shed. Like the Sun family’s third son, they were placed on benches by Dongjiang comrades — some known to them, some strangers. Before each fallen Dongjiang soldier, a portion of broth and flatbread had also been set out. The blood and grime on their faces had been carefully wiped away. The Dongjiang comrades tending them, with hot tears in their eyes, gently smoothed their pain-twisted faces into something more peaceful, so that they could enjoy the opera one last time.

Ever since the Ming dynasty recovered the Northeast from the Mongols, over a million Han people had left their homes and traveled to this then-desolate land. No one knows how much hardship they endured to open up this territory, and even less is known how many died here from cold and hunger.

After nearly three hundred years of arduous labor, these Han people had dug crisscrossing irrigation channels across the northeastern wilderness, turned it into fertile farmland, and built towns and markets. Their descendants multiplied generation after generation, once reaching as many as five million. Whether Sun Ergou or Bai Youcai, they all belonged to this rich land their ancestors had opened up; and this northeastern earth, saturated with the blood and sweat of over a dozen generations, belonged without question to them as their homeland.

But all of this came to an end during the Wanli reign. The Jian slaves, migrating from the Tungusic ice fields, slaughtered those five million Han down to a mere few hundred thousand, and then sought to seize the Northeast for themselves. Right now, this slaughter is still going on, and the resistance of the Liaodong Han people grows ever fiercer.

More bodies of fallen Dongjiang soldiers were carried into the opera ground. Watching those senseless corpses, Bai Youcai suddenly felt as if a flame were blazing fiercely in his heart, an agony that felt like his chest was about to burst open. Bai Youcai abruptly threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and let out a furious, hoarse cry toward the heavens. Bai Youcai could not read; he understood very little. He did not know how many of his countrymen had died under the Jian slaves’ blades, and he knew even less why the savage Jian slaves wanted to slaughter the Liaodong Han people who had helped them settle and provided them with food.

This long, furious howl stabbed straight into the blue sky. A moment later, the Dongjiang army’s assembly ground was filled everywhere with these cries of incomprehension and agony. These thousands, these tens of thousands of Dongjiang officers and soldiers were, for the most part, as simple and unsophisticated as Bai Youcai. They had never wanted to walk this road of living by slaughter, but although these people were kind-hearted, they all understood one most basic truth:

“Love those who love us. Hate those who hate us!”

…

The Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company had never torn down a city wall before, so at first they were somewhat hesitant and timid. Watching the prideful Dongjiang main-force comrades, Ouyang Xin’s heart kept beating nervously, afraid of disgracing Changsheng Island and the Dongjiang Left Auxiliary. The engineer company initially took over only a short stretch of the wall from the friendly troops, then brought up their various digging tools to try. The engineer company officers all watched the progress of the work with intense anxiety.

Although the wall bricks on this stretch had been stripped completely clean, the earthen core inside was still extremely hard. A pickaxe blow left no more than a shallow white mark, and even the steel tools used by Changsheng Island had no obvious effect on the rammed earth. But the engineer company soon discovered that Changsheng Island’s boring drills worked reasonably well on the wall core. They cranked the handles round and round, driving the drill bits deep into the wall.

After repeated deep drilling, cracks began to appear across the surface of the iron-hard wall core. Several engineers heaved together, and with a cheer from the crowd, a great chunk of earth finally crashed down. Having found the right method, the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company brought up all their auger drills. They soon bored one hollow after another into the stubborn surface of the wall core, and steadily enlarged these hollows.

The Dongjiang main-force officers and soldiers working right next to the Changsheng Island engineer company watched their progress and, one after another, stopped their own work in astonishment. The area the Changsheng Island engineer company was responsible for kept expanding. More and more Dongjiang main-force officers and soldiers saw the efficiency of the Left Auxiliary, and more and more of them willingly yielded their own sections of responsibility.

That Dongjiang Mobile Corps Commander whom Geng Zhongming called Pan the Fool had been swinging a pickaxe with all his might against the wall. Great beads of sweat rolled down his beard and dripped onto the ground, forming a wet patch before his feet. The wall core in front of General Pan had been gouged into a dense mass of small pits, looking at first glance like a heavily pockmarked face.

The progress of the Firefighting Battalion’s engineer company made General Pan stop as well. He stood to one side and watched, dumbstruck, for a while, then threw down his pickaxe, walked over, and questioned Ouyang Xin at length. He murmured: “This engineer company really is useful.”