Chapter 106: Fierce Battle

Gao Yingxiang sat in a folding chair draped in a cloth robe, his face twisted in a terrifying snarl, eyes burning as if about to spit fire, fixed directly on Gao Ying'en kneeling in the tent. The major chieftains such as Guo Tianxing had also rushed over upon hearing the news; under the tense atmosphere no one dared make a sound, the air in the tent as if frozen solid.

The single great fire set by the government troops had burned over five thousand dan of fodder and bean feed. The blaze in the fodder and stables sent the startled warhorses running wildly in every direction; most of the two thousand-plus warhorses, after trampling through the horse camp, surged out through the camp gate and burst into the bandit camp, smashing the bandits' outer encampment south of the city to pieces. In the panic, bandits trampled and crushed to death by the horses were too numerous to count. After nearly half a shichen of chaos, the horses finally quieted once exhausted. A count afterward revealed that of the two thousand-plus warhorses, over six hundred were dead or wounded, and of the two-thousand-man cavalry, more than five hundred were casualties—these were the very apple of Gao Yingxiang's eye.

Looking at the culprit before him, Gao Yingxiang had half a mind to slice him alive. But after all, they were born of the same mother, and Gao Ying'en ordinarily treated his elder brother with the utmost respect; he was his eyes, ears, and claws in the camp.

He could not kill him—but if he did not punish him severely, how could Gao Yingxiang command others thereafter?

Gao Yingxiang gritted his teeth and said venomously: "How many times have I told you—at night you must post sentries and patrol the camp! Why won't this beast of yours listen? If someone had been patrolling tonight, what could those few government troops have accomplished? Men! Drag this beast out and behead him!"

He had agonized for a long while, and in the end still intended to kill Gao Ying'en. First, without killing him, the ranks would not be appeased—several hundred elite troops dead while the chieftain walked free as if nothing had happened; what would his men think? Second, it showed his impartiality. If he killed even his own younger brother for breaking the rules, then anyone who dared disobey would have Gao Ying'en as their example.

Guo Tianxing at the side had followed Gao Yingxiang since he first raised his forces and knew his temperament all too well. Seeing Gao Yingxiang hesitate for so long before uttering his harsh words, Guo Tianxing immediately stepped forward to plead: "Dashing King, Brother Ying'en does deserve punishment for tonight's affair, but beheading is too severe! We've fought the government troops countless times over these years—when have they ever launched a night raid? It wasn't just Ying'en; if I'd been leading that unit, I'd have fallen for it too! I say spare his life and let him atone by killing enemies on the battlefield!"

The other chieftains also spoke up one after another to intercede. Gao Yingxiang breathed a silent sigh of relief, but said aloud: "For the sake of all you brothers pleading for him, I'll spare your life! But without punishment, I cannot answer to our dead brothers! Drag him out and give him fifty strokes of the military cane! After that, clean up the camp!"

Several personal guards carried out the disheveled, bedraggled Gao Ying'en, stripped off his undergarments to expose his pale backside, pressed him down on a long bench, and began administering the cane. The bandit soldiers watching on all snickered endlessly, taking the whole matter as nothing at all.

Inside the tent, Gao Yingxiang spoke: "We've taken a heavy loss tonight—this can't just end here! Once we've sorted ourselves out, we'll assault the city! Break Shouzhou and no quarter for three days! The first to scale the walls gets a hundred taels of silver and two women!"

Hun Shiwan said: "Dashing King, though we've taken a loss, we've also seen something!"

Gao Yingxiang hurriedly asked: "Seen what?"

Hun Shiwan said smugly: "The government troops in the city must be few in number—why else would they sneak-attack at night? They're just trying to scare us, make us afraid of them!"

Gao Yingxiang nodded: "Mm, Old Zhao speaks sense! If the government troops had many men, they'd have fought us openly long ago! Everyone put in the effort—I want to eat lunch in Shouzhou!"

In the government troops' camp within Shouzhou city, Wu Qun and a dozen or so soldiers who had taken part in the night raid lay in a spacious tent. The army's Bureau Director was applying medicinal ointment to their wounds, then wrapping them in boiled white cotton cloth.

Of the hundred-man raiding party, including Wu Qun, sixty-seven had returned. Thirty-two had died fighting outside the city; nearly all the rest bore wounds of some kind.

When the group had set fire to the stables and fodder, Wu Qun saw that the main gate was already impassable. On a sudden inspiration, he used fire to burn open a section of the camp palisade, and while the bandit soldiers dodged the stampeding warhorses and rushed over to fight, he led the men out through the breached palisade.

Though the bandits, furious and humiliated, pursued them relentlessly, all the nearby bandits had been roused by the commotion. Seizing the chaos, Wu Qun shouted at the top of his lungs: "The government troops are here! Run!"

The outer bandits, just startled awake and still groggy, could not tell truth from falsehood, and instantly fell into utter confusion. Though they indirectly blocked the pursuers, tens of thousands of people running wildly made for a terrifying scene. Several government soldiers were crushed in the press and nearly trampled to death. Wu Qun quickly shouted for the rest to cluster around him, and the dozens of men forming a united mass avoided even greater casualties. Then Wu Qun led everyone to the city wall, followed it back around to the south gate. The bandits were too busy putting out fires and rescuing horses to pay them any mind, and the group entered the city safely.

Sun San and the others had fallen in the bandit camp after desperate fighting. More than ten died in combat with a band of enemy soldiers while setting fires on the left flank; seven or eight were trampled to death by the crowd.

Huang Degong was extremely pleased. At the cost of a few dozen men, they had thrown the roving bandits into tremendous chaos and loss—well worth it.

He came to the tent to visit Wu Qun and the others, saying that once the great battle was over he would report their merits and distribute rewards. The names of the fallen would be submitted to the court, and burial silver would be delivered to their families by the Ministry of War—their deeds would certainly not be buried in obscurity. Then he hurried away, for he still had to arrange the city defenses and prepare for the bandits' retaliatory assault.

After clearing the camp and burying their dead, the roving bandits finally launched their attack on Shouzhou.

The south gate was assaulted by five thousand men under the bandit chief Yizhang Qing; at the east gate, Hun Shiwan also led several thousand in the attack; west of the city, the Xi'an camp showed signs of mustering troops but had yet to advance on the walls.

Since there was no longer any need to conceal their strength, Huang Degong's forces took over the defenses of both the eastern and southern sections. Li Long's guard station troops fielded a thousand to defend the west, three hundred guard station troops were posted on the north as a watch, and the remaining guard station troops served as reserves ready to support at any moment. Over two thousand civilian conscripts were tasked with moving equipment and carrying the wounded and dead down from the walls.

Apart from the north gate, the other three city gates remained blocked, to prevent the bandits from smashing through with battering rams while the defenders' attention was drawn to those scaling the walls.

In truth, judging by the roving bandits' past performances in taking cities, they had always breached walls by climbing—never once had they broken through a city gate from outside. The gates were exceedingly heavy, and the bandits lacked battering rams, making it impossible to force them open.

Around the hour of Si, with the blare of clarion horns, the roving bandits carried long ladders and launched their assault from the east and south.

Unlike the Xi'an camp's several previous attacks, this time the Dashing King's camp employed human-wave tactics. The moment the horns sounded, several thousand bandits on each side surged toward the walls with shouts. Those in the front ranks carried dozens of ladders, among them scaling ladders fitted with iron hooks—once set against the wall, the hooks would grip the crenellations firmly, preventing the defenders from toppling them.

Both sides of bandits had dispatched large numbers of archers—around eight hundred on the south, and fully a thousand or more on the east.

The long thatched shelters atop the walls had been considerably widened to prevent the bandits' arrows from striking at an angle and wounding men. The thatch had been thoroughly soaked with water, and numerous wooden buckets filled with sand and earth had been placed about.

Originally Huang Degong's force had only two hundred archers and three hundred musketeers—their ranged striking power was somewhat weak. Chen Qiyu, being meticulous, asked about the situation and transferred five hundred archers from the Xuzhou troops. Added to the two hundred archers of the Shouzhou guard station, the city now had nearly a thousand archers—barely adequate.

South of Shouzhou city, several hundred bandits carrying scaling ladders ran at the very front, with the main mass of bandits following behind. Just as the ladder-bearers came within about twenty paces of the wall, a trumpet sounded from the battlements, and a row of archers suddenly appeared at the crenellations. In the next instant, volley after volley of triangular-headed long arrows shot down from the wall, felling over a hundred bandits in the blink of an eye.

The government archers did not pause for a moment. Each man loosed seven or eight arrows in one breath, and only when their arms were sore and spent did they withdraw down from the wall to rest. Of the several hundred bandits carrying scaling ladders, almost none remained standing.

The bandit archers arrived and took position about ten paces from the wall, forming two ranks of two hundred men each, with several hundred shield-bearers holding their shields in defense. Several hundred bandits picked up the ladders from the ground and continued charging forward.

At a single command, a small cloud of two hundred arrows flew up over the wall, while the bandits carrying ladders rapidly closed on the city wall. As the arrows flew without cease, dozens of ladders were set against the wall.

When the first wave of archers was spent, a second wave of two hundred stepped forward to replace them, and already some bandits had mounted the ladders and begun to climb.

The government troops on the wall seemed suppressed by the arrow fire—no counterattack came at all. By the time the second wave of archers withdrew, some bandits had already reached the crenellations.

This time the bandits were utterly determined. Even after their men began scaling the walls in succession, a third wave of archers continued to shoot. Their intent was to inflict indiscriminate casualties while the government troops grappled hand-to-hand with the bandits who had reached the wall—they had plenty of men to spare, after all.

A volley of gunfire rang out from the wall as the musketeers in the thatched shelters discharged their firelocks. The southeastern defense sectors each had a hundred and fifty musketeers deployed, in groups of fifty, covering a span of over forty paces of wall. Any bandit who scaled the wall within this range could hardly escape being shot. Even if the occasional one slipped through, a few men reaching the wall top were utterly useless.

After three rounds of musket fire, few of the bandits who had climbed onto the wall in this area were still standing—yet the bandits kept pouring up onto the wall without end.

The musketeers, after each round, swiftly withdrew to the sides of the thatched shelters, and after the third round all had descended from the wall to await orders.

Though the bandits' third wave of arrows had inflicted no casualties on the government troops, it had bought the bandits enough time to scale the wall. By now over a hundred bandits had climbed up onto the battlements, and the archers ceased shooting.

The bandits who had scaled the wall saw the thatched shelter before them empty of men and were about to split up and charge both sides when a whistle sounded, followed by the rumbling thunder of approaching footsteps.

From both flanks of the wall beyond the range of the bandits' scaling ladders, two formations of spear-wielding soldiers advanced steadily toward the bandits who had climbed the wall.

Each government formation was ten men per rank and fully twenty ranks deep, leaving a pace of clearance on each side of the broad passageway for ease of maneuver.

The front-rank soldiers leveled their spears, the sharp tips glinting coldly. The second rank rested their spears on the shoulders of the men before them, while those behind held their spears upright.

At a single command, the formations on both sides halted and shouted in unison: "Guard!" Then no further sound was made.

The overwhelming pressure of the formations made the bandits feel they could scarcely breathe. Suddenly one bandit let out a shout and charged with his blade toward one side; the rest, shouting wildly, also split to attack both flanks, while more bandits who kept climbing onto the wall joined the assault.

The front-rank government soldiers watched the charging bandits coldly. The bandits' shouts and curses had not the slightest effect on them.

"Thrust!"

At the command, the front-rank soldiers lunged forward in bow stance, legs, waist, and arms exerting force simultaneously as they thrust their spears out in perfect unison. The foremost bandits were struck in the belly or thigh, collapsing with screams as blood instantly stained a small patch of ground red.

The government troops swiftly withdrew their spears, then continued thrusting in time with the commands. The spears, over a zhang long, gave the bandits no chance to close in. Occasionally a clever bandit would roll to dodge the front rank's concentrated thrusts and try to rush in for close combat, but was pierced at an angle by the second rank's spears and pinned directly to the ground.