Chapter 49: The City Falls

In Hezhou city of Chuzhou Prefecture, Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, and a host of bandit chieftains stood triumphantly atop the city wall, watching their troops pour into the city like a tide.

Gao Yingxiang said happily, "We've taken Hezhou — brothers, three days of revelry! I'm thinking of sending a force to attack Chuzhou. Which brother is willing to go?" As he spoke, his eyes turned toward Zhang Xianzhong.

Before Zhang Xianzhong could speak, his trusted confidant Ma Shizhong, nicknamed "Sky-Shaker," said boisterously, "Dashing King, I'll go take Chuzhou! But you'll need to give me more men. Once I take Chuzhou, I'll push north — I'm planning to dig up old Zhu's ancestral graves again, and make the Zhu Emperor weep for his ancestors every day!"

"Good! Brother Ma truly has spirit! You go take Chuzhou, and after you succeed, hit Fengyang. I'll lead the main force north as well. We've broken plenty of these small prefectures and counties — this time let's make a name for ourselves and go straight for Kaifeng!"

Ever since his last defeat at the hands of Lu Xiangsheng, Gao Yingxiang had led his forces eastward from Ruyang, capturing Queshan, Zhenyang, Guangzhou, Lu'an, and other prefectures and counties along the way, plundering vast amounts of wealth and supplies — the shadow cast by the defeat at Ruyang was completely swept away.

At this moment, Gao Yingxiang's ambition soared to the heavens. He no longer deigned to break small counties and prefectures; he was now eager to capture an influential great city, so as to make an even louder name for himself and attract more followers.

Zhang Xianzhong had followed Gao Yingxiang all the way from Henan to South Zhili, continuously gathering able-bodied men along the route, looting prefectures and counties, and breaking into the manors of wealthy gentry. His gains were considerable, and his forces now numbered over fifty thousand.

The army had also taken in over a thousand women seized by force, kept for the carnal pleasure of Zhang Xianzhong and his trusted subordinates. His adopted son Li Dingguo had once bluntly said that having women in the army boded ill and urged him to release them, but Zhang Xianzhong paid him no heed and continued as before.

When he heard that Gao Yingxiang intended to divide his forces, Zhang Xianzhong approved in principle, but he did not think highly of Ma Shizhong.

He knew why Gao Yingxiang was returning to Henan: first, to attack a great city and probe the strength of the official army; but most importantly, the region of South Zhili was crisscrossed with waterways, unsuitable for large-scale cavalry maneuvers.

Though he had suffered several losses, Gao Yingxiang still had over ten thousand horsemen under his command — that was the true source of his confidence. The Central Plains were flat and open, ideal terrain for cavalry warfare. Even if they couldn't defeat the official army, cavalry had superior mobility and could withdraw from the battlefield at any time.

Zhang Xianzhong laughed and said, "Dashing King, I'll follow you to attack Kaifeng! If we take Kaifeng, our righteous army's fame will soar, and heroes from across the realm will come to pledge themselves to you! The Prince of Zhou in Kaifeng is a fat pig for the slaughter — break Kaifeng, butcher the Prince of Zhou, and we'll be rich! Hahahaha!"

Gao Yingxiang knew him to be cunning — he only wanted to follow behind and eat the meat, unwilling to lightly expend his own men. So he did not press him, but in his heart he had already grown disgusted with him.

Gao Yingxiang laughed and said, "With a hero like Brother Zhang helping, taking Kaifeng will be no trouble at all! Enough idle talk — brothers, go enjoy yourselves! Hahaha!"

Zhao Yunsheng, the forty-year-old Prefect of Hezhou, sat calmly in the main seat of the hall, dressed in a brand-new set of official robes. His original robes had become filthy and tattered while defending the city; after the city fell, he had returned to the yamen to change.

Subprefectural Judge Li Ju sat below the hall, his official robes stained with blood, his right hand still clutching a sword riddled with notches.

Vice Prefect Gao Deyou had already been killed on the city wall by an arrow through the neck from the bandits; the remaining clerks and runners of the prefectural yamen had all fled and scattered.

Several servants of Zhao Yunsheng and Li Ju had braced the yamen's main gate with timber and bricks. From the streets outside came the screams of women, cries for mercy, the weeping of children, and the agonized shouts of men. Amid a burst of clamor and shouting, heavy footsteps arrived outside the yamen gate. The roving bandits found the gate tightly shut, so they fetched roof beams from nearby civilian houses and began to batter the gate.

Zhao Yunsheng's household servant Zhao Hai, tears streaming down his face, stumbled out from the inner hall sobbing. A thick plume of smoke rose from the rear courtyard and quickly spread into the main hall. Zhao Yunsheng smiled bitterly and asked, "It's done?"

Zhao Hai collapsed to the ground and burst into loud wailing, speaking in broken fragments: "Mas... master... the... the mistress... the young... young master... and... and... the young... young miss... are all... gone... This servant heard... heard the young... young miss's cries... I wished... wished I could... die!"

Zhao Yunsheng said woodenly, "They've gone on ahead. This official will go down to accompany them now!"

Li Ju was also weeping without cease. He said, "Brother Zhao, what crime did your wife and children commit? You should have sent them away long ago!"

Tears silently streamed down Zhao Yunsheng's face. He shook his head and said, "They couldn't leave. They couldn't leave! As a court-appointed official, I could never allow my wife and children to fall into bandit hands!"

With a thunderous crash, the gate was smashed open. The bandit soldiers rushed into the yamen in a frenzy, and several servants were cut down by random blades in an instant. Then, shouting wildly, they charged into the main hall.

Li Ju let out a great shout, rose to his feet, and thrust his sword forward. Several bandits knocked the blade aside, their swords and spears slashing and stabbing. Li Ju's eyes bulged wide as he fell to the ground dead.

Zhao Hai, empty-handed and with a ferocious expression, hurled himself at the crowd of bandits. In the blink of an eye, he was hacked to death by several blades.

The bandits at the front shouted excitedly as they charged toward Zhao Yunsheng.

"He's a big official!"

"He's a great lord!"

"I caught him first!"

One bandit at the very front threw away his blade and grabbed hold of Zhao Yunsheng, laughing triumphantly. The other bandits all shouted and clamored.

The bandit holding Zhao Yunsheng sensed something wrong — Zhao Yunsheng's body was completely still. He hastily let go to look, and only then discovered that a short knife was buried in Zhao Yunsheng's chest. He had already breathed his last!

By now the main hall was filled with rolling smoke. Enraged, one bandit chopped off Zhao Yunsheng's head with a single stroke of his blade and ran out of the yamen carrying it to claim merit. Some of the other bandits went to cut off the head of Li Ju, who still wore his official robes, while most ran toward the rear courtyard. Passing through the inner hall, they discovered that a room in the rear courtyard had already burst into roaring flames, and the fire was beginning to spread to the other buildings. None of the bandits had any mind to fight the fire — cursing, they left the yamen.

In a compound near the eastern gate of Hezhou city, the gate tightly shut, Hu Qing stood guard outside the door of the house, gripping a red-tasseled spear used for martial training. Inside, his wife, née Li, sat on the edge of the kang, clutching their terrified daughter in her arms. Their fourteen-year-old son, Hu Chun, gripped a gleaming short knife tightly in his hand, staring nervously at the doorway.

Hu Qing's ancestors had lived in Hezhou for generations. His parents had supported him and his younger brother by running a small business. In recent years, both parents had fallen ill and passed away one after another. After his younger brother came of age, he became a clerk at a grain shop in Nanjing, then married and settled there. Because the distance was so great, the two families rarely met. Hu Qing had been restless and active since childhood; at age seven he had apprenticed himself to a martial arts master in the city. After reaching adulthood he married Li, and they had a son and a daughter. Later, Hu Qing became a guard for a trading firm, traveling north and south with the merchant caravans. Though the work was hard, the pay was generous. In his spare time he also taught his son Hu Chun martial arts, so that when the boy grew up he could follow in his father's trade. His wife Li was gentle and virtuous, and his eight-year-old daughter Xiao Hua was cute and well-behaved. The family's little life was quite content — who could have imagined that all this happiness would be utterly shattered just a few days ago?

Days earlier, many refugees had fled into Hezhou city. News that the roving bandits had breached Hanshan county and were burning, killing, and looting on a massive scale spread throughout the city. Many of the wealthy households had already begun fleeing to Nanjing with their families and valuables. Hu Qing, unwilling to leave the place where his ancestors had lived for generations, did not flee with the others.

A few days earlier, the prefectural yamen had organized able-bodied men to defend the city wall against the roving bandits. Hu Qing signed up without hesitation. When he stood atop the wall and saw the boundless tide of bandits surging toward them from afar, he felt tremendous fear and despair in his heart.

The city wall held for only a few hours before being breached by the bandits. The city gates were thrown open. Among the officials, runners, and civilian defenders, the dead and wounded were beyond counting; the rest scattered in complete rout.

Hu Qing sprinted home. By the time he had gathered their valuables and was ready to flee, the bandits had already spread through the streets. With no other choice, the family could only return inside, bolt the gate tightly, and pray to heaven that the bandits would not break in on them.

Hearing the screams from outside, the wailing of women and children, and the excited, frenzied shouts of the bandits, Hu Qing's hand gripping the spear was already slick with sweat. His face was pale, and his mind was a complete blank.

Suddenly a clatter of chaotic footsteps stopped outside the gate. With several dull thuds, several bandit soldiers began slamming against the door from outside.

Hu Qing gripped the spear shaft tightly, staring at the doorway.

After more than a dozen impacts, the two gate leaves burst open. Four bandits, bearing swords and spears, rushed in one after another. The last one in casually leaned his long spear against the doorframe, marking that this household had already been claimed.

Seeing Hu Qing blocking the door of the house with his spear, the bandits hesitated for a moment. Then a burly bandit raised his long blade and lunged forward. Hu Qing thrust his spear fiercely at the man's throat. The bandit twisted aside and swept his blade, trying to knock the spear away. The iron-sheathed spearhead was deflected outward by the blade and stabbed into the bandit's shoulder instead. The bandit let out a miserable cry, his blade falling to the ground, and reached out to grab the spear. Hu Qing swiftly yanked the spear free from the bandit's body, then stepped into a bow stance and thrust downward — the spearhead sank into the bandit's belly. The bandit's face twisted in agony; he tried to scream but no sound came out. It was as if all the strength in his body had been drained at once, and he slowly sank to his knees. Hu Qing stepped back and pulled the spearhead out. A gush of blood poured from the bandit's abdomen. With a thud, the bandit pitched forward onto his face, his body twitching a few times before going still.

The remaining three bandits exchanged glances, then quickly spread out, surrounding Hu Qing in a semicircle.

One bandit gave a low shout and thrust his spear at Hu Qing. Another, wielding a blade, rushed forward a few steps and raised his sword to chop down at Hu Qing's head.

Hu Qing twisted aside and stepped back, parrying the spear away — but the blade slashed a long gash across his arm, and blood poured out immediately.

Enduring the searing pain, Hu Qing seized the moment when the blade's momentum was spent and thrust his spear forward, striking the sword-wielding bandit square in the thigh. The bandit howled in agony, threw away his blade, and collapsed to the ground clutching his wound.

Suddenly a short axe flew through the air. Hu Qing could not dodge in time — the axe struck his chest and embedded itself in his left breast.

Hu Qing roared in pain, dropped his spear, and yanked the axe free. With all his remaining strength, he hurled it back at the bandit who had ambushed him. That bandit was still savoring his triumph and never expected Hu Qing to be so desperate. From a distance of seven or eight paces, the axe arrived in an instant — the blade struck dead center in his forehead. The momentum of the impact carried him stumbling backward several steps before he toppled stiffly to the ground, dead.

The spear-wielding bandit seized the opportunity to thrust forward. The spearhead sank deep into Hu Qing's abdomen, then he twisted it violently, churning his guts to pulp inside.

Hu Qing staggered several steps, blood mixed with shreds of viscera gushing from his mouth. His hands trembled as he tried to grab the spear shaft. The bandit gave a grunt, shoved the spear in deeper, then yanked it out abruptly. Hu Qing's body pitched forward like an emptied, tattered sack — dead.

The wounded bandit lying on the ground saw this and called out through his pain, "Old Seven! Come help me quick!"

Old Seven threw down his spear, ran over, and glanced at him. He turned and tore a strip of cloth from Hu Qing's robe, then crouched down. As he bound the wounded bandit's injury, he said, "Damn rotten luck! This little backwater cost us Old Chang and Big Banner. Who was that fellow — tougher than the official army!"

The wounded bandit said, "Enough of that — hurry up and search the house. With a setup like this, there might be good stuff inside!"

Old Seven picked up a long blade and walked toward the house, cursing as he went: "Should've known better than to loot this damn place. What a cursed spot!"

The wounded bandit sitting on the ground called out, "Old Seven, be careful!"

Old Seven kicked the door open and stepped inside. The small hall held only a table and chairs. He glanced into the inner room and spotted a pretty woman staring at him with hate-filled eyes, while a little girl clung tightly to her waist, looking at him in terror. Old Seven was overjoyed and shouted, "Donkey! There's a woman in here — and she's a looker!"