Chapter 875: Outside Shiguo City, Holding Up the Falling Sky (Part Two)

Yingchun Fort lay a little over forty li west of Wanli City. Situated on the plains of Shiguo City and the only fort among those under the Wanli Pacification Commissioner built against a mountain, Yingchun Fort had always been the main supplier of beef and mutton for Wanli City.

Because it stood at the boundary between hilly country and the plains, its scenery was lovely, and it was the first of the eleven forts under the Wanli Pacification Commissioner to see spring, hence the name Yingchun Fort — "the fort that welcomes spring."

But the fort itself was not large, only about four li in circumference, built of stone mixed with rammed-earth walls. Inside the fort lived a little over sixty households, and outside it roughly four hundred more.

The fort master, Wang Liulang, was short and stocky, utterly unremarkable in appearance, but in truth he was ruthless and hard-hearted. In his youth he had been a well-known fire-team leader among the leaping skirmishers of the Tianping Army in Yunzhou.

With his build, like a squat spinning top, he could carry about ten jin less armor than a tall armored soldier, and because of his small stature he could slip more nimbly through a forest of long spears.

With only a small round shield and a mace, he could produce the effect of a steel awl on the battlefield.

At first, Wang Liu had somewhat resented the court, and hated Emperor Zhang in the palace of the Divine Capital.

Because on the journey when he was banished to Hezhong, his eldest son and his second wife had died one after another from the unfamiliar climate and illness. Often when he woke from dreams in the dead of night, Wang Liu felt a tightness in his chest.

This was all the doing of the court's dog officials. If they had not forcibly driven his whole family to Hezhong, ten thousand li away, his eldest son and his second wife would never have died.

But after a few years in Hezhong, this hatred was, unexpectedly, very quickly diluted.

For no other reason than this: the court gave too much!

Before Zhang Zhou, the Central Plains court's attitude toward the Western Regions and Hezhong had, in a sense, been that of a "blood bag."

At first it was a blood bag for pincer attacks on the Xiongnu and Turks — one that could take a beating and send out troops. Later, through the Silk Road, it became a true blood bag that continuously sent goods and wealth into Guanzhong.

Since it was a blood bag, the court naturally could not allow the Han soldiers of Anxi to have too much autonomy.

Therefore, whether it was the Western Regions garrison-farm soldiers of the Han dynasties or the Anxi Army of the Great Tang, although they could enjoy more autonomy than troops and officials in the interior, at bottom they were still laborers working for the court.

Most of the wealth and goods they obtained in Anxi through various means ultimately ended up, through such policies and methods, in the pockets of the powerful families of Guanzhong.

So much so that by the late Wu Zhou period, people of the interior regarded going to Anxi to serve as a soldier or official as a dead end. They avoided it if they could, and those who did go mostly just held a few large cities, close to giving up entirely.

Had it not been for Gao Xianzhi, who was audacious enough to forcibly intercept a portion of the wealth and goods that should have been sent to Guanzhong in order to support the Anxi Army, making the Anxi Army shine once more under his command, and then using war to sustain war and training tens of thousands of armored soldiers —

the Anxi Army's fighting strength should have been the fastest to decline among the Tang armies.

History records that Gao Xianzhi was extremely greedy, levied harsh taxes, and bribed high court officials heavily. Apart from his own character, maintaining the Anxi Army's fighting strength and special status was probably also a very important reason.

In history, Gao Xianzhi had no choice but to retreat and hold Tong Pass. Yet Li Longji, after hearing only a slanderous report from Bian Lingcheng, decided to send him to the front to execute such important generals of the state as Gao and Feng.

It was not impossible that Gao Xianzhi's conduct in Anxi had left the emperor deep in the palace with the deep impression that he was exactly that kind of man, and the muddled old ruler gave the order without a second thought.

But under Zhang Zhou, things were different. Even a coarse fellow like Wang Liu could very easily feel that once one passed Shule, the status of Han people shot up sharply.

No matter what kind of villain or scum you were in the Central Plains, as long as you could wield a blade and cut men down, then you were a lord.

Not to mention a professional like Wang Liu — even an ordinary man, as long as he was strong and dared to kill, could get several hundred or even a thousand mu of land, dozens of livestock large and small, and two or three households of natives as servants.

In Hezhong, apart from Suyab, Zhang Zhou truly shared the realm with the Han people who had gone beyond the passes!

When the ministers urged that he should not create enfeoffed vassals on a large scale in Hezhong, warning that it might lead to rebellion and fragmentation, Emperor Zhang responded thus:

"In this realm, whoever contributes the most gets to eat the biggest cut of meat!"

"If migrants to Hezhong still want to split off and become fully independent, then that is the incompetence of all the court's officials!"

"Even if Hezhong is no longer the state's, what of it? As long as they still speak the Han tongue, still follow Han rites, and their descendants remain Han, that is enough."

With the emperor's direct support and endorsement, the Han people who came to Hezhong in these years basically all developed according to one pattern.

That is, they first went to the court's Hezhong field headquarters office to rent weapons, armor, warhorses, and the like, and then in groups of dozens or hundreds they seized farmland and pasture everywhere, arresting the local people and forcing them to submit.

Once their position was somewhat stable, they immediately reported to the court office. The office sent men to verify, then issued them golden seals, registered their households and land maps, and dispatched craftsmen to build fortifications.

The weapons, armor, warhorses, and the like they had originally rented were then converted on the spot into production loans, which they were allowed to repay over three to five years.

After that, as long as they paid their taxes on time every year and repaid their loans, they were vassals. When they came under large-scale attack, they could obtain military support from the office.

At the same time, every year the office would regularly organize training, and then launch large-scale raids southward or westward to plunder people and wealth.

This kind of life was far too dangerous for farmers of the Central Plains — no different from a time of chaos.

But for killers like Zhang Baoyi, Song Heishan, and Wang Liu, it was simply paradise.

This was also the reason Wang Liu's outlook changed so quickly after arriving in Hezhong. In the Central Plains, he was just an old yabing guard, a murderous wretch, who never knew when someone might kill him.

But in Hezhong, he was a lawful vassal of the court, with a great crowd of commoners under his rule.

So what if he was a local tyrant? A local tyrant was still a king!

Twang! A short bowstring vibration rang out. Outside the south gate of Yingchun Fort, a Persian cavalryman who had been shouting and showing off his prowess suddenly jerked on horseback — he had been shot.

At the same time, his warhorse also suddenly shuddered; it too had been struck in the rump by an arrow. In pain, the horse screamed in fright and broke into a wild gallop.

The wretched cavalryman had been shot in the neck and could originally have been saved, but the horse's mad dash threw him from the saddle in an instant.

At the same time, the cavalryman's right foot was still caught in the stirrup. Unable to free himself, he was dragged about by the panicked horse across the sandy ground outside the fort, his head immediately knocked into countless lumps. Panic and pain made the cavalryman scream in agony.

Clatter, clatter! Another cavalryman, seeing his comrade's screams, immediately risked riding forward, wanting to intercept the galloping horse and rescue the man.

"The thieving barbarian has nerve!" The sharpshooter from before was furious. He drew a breath, drew his bow, and shot another arrow.

There was only a muffled thunk, and the Persian barbarian rider who had spurred forward suddenly opened his mouth wide and sprayed a mouthful of blood from horseback.

After the bright fletching swayed twice on his back, the man pitched straight off the horse.

"What shooting, Third Young Lord!" A chorus of wild, howling cheers rose from the earthen wall of Yingchun Fort, and morale instantly soared.

And this Third Young Lord, after forcing out a faint smile, laboriously shifted his left leg. The medicinal plaster bound to his ankle with white cloth was plainly visible.

"It's nothing. Though the bandit riders are many, the armored troops in Wanli City will get word soon enough. Once they arrive, we'll be safe." Wang Liu said as he stepped forward with a touch of ingratiation.

Although this Third Young Lord was his son, the relationship between the two was a little delicate, because he was a stepchild his second wife had brought with her.

Actually, their relationship was already much better now. Before they came to Hezhong, the eleven- or twelve-year-old Chen Sanlang had felt that Wang Liu had stolen his mother away, and he had been extremely hostile toward this stepfather.

But after arriving in Hezhong, Chen Sanlang, devastated by his mother's death, had, with Wang Liu's encouragement, gone out with his father to campaign against the nearby bandit barbarians.

Through many shoulder-to-shoulder life-and-death battles, they had forged a somewhat strange bond of father and son, and of comrades-in-arms.

This infiltrating Persian cavalry force numbered over a hundred riders, and with the local guides they had picked up, there were nearly two hundred riders in all.

Moreover, they were well equipped, with more than forty sets of mail armor and fifty or sixty sets of the lighter Hezhong leather armor.

Such an elite cavalry squad had originally been meant to infiltrate farther north, toward the area around Zhenhu Fort.

Zhenhu Fort lay between Baishui City and Shiguo City, in an even more important geographical position — it was the key route by which supplies from Baishui City were sent to the front lines.

Moreover, that place has many stubborn believers in the Heavenly Creed, unlike Yingchun Fort here, which still houses some Zoroastrians.

Therefore, if a hundred or more elite cavalry could reach the vicinity of Zhenhu Fort, under the cover of the local Heavenly Creed believers, they would be enough to cause great trouble for the Han army, which has already transferred large numbers of troops to the front.

However, when they reached Yingchun Fort, they had only intended to rest for a while, but at some point the news leaked out, and Wang Liu, the Patrol Inspector of Yingchun Fort, seized the opportunity to launch a surprise attack in the early morning, costing them seven or eight men.

Originally this was nothing, just a moment of carelessness; they could simply bypass Yingchun Fort and speed north.

But after Wang Liu of Yingchun Fort interrogated the several captured Persians, he learned that they were heading to Zhenhu Fort, and he immediately realized that he could not let these Persians continue north.

Therefore, Wang Liu made a prompt decision and hung three corpses on the road west of Yingchun Fort leading to Zhenhu Fort.

These three corpses were all Persians who had been captured or killed by Wang Liu and his men in the early morning raid.

What was even harder for Salar, the Persian cavalry centurion, to accept was that all three corpses had been dressed in women's clothing, and in each corpse's mouth had been stuffed a glistening, plump piece of braised pork.

On the wooden placard beneath the three corpses, six words had been considerately written in Turkic: "Wang Beg of Yingchun Fort."

Dressing men in women's clothing and making them eat pork — for any believer of the Heavenly Creed, this was an unbearable insult that absolutely had to be washed clean with blood.

Especially when Salar saw the doubtful looks in the eyes of the twenty-odd local guides, he had even less room to choose.

It was already humiliating enough that two hundred men had been raided by twenty-some men, frightened into fleeing more than ten li, and lost seven or eight men.

Now, if they were insulted like this and still did not dare to resist, then there was no need to go to Zhenhu Fort, because before they could reach Zhenhu Fort, the guides would all have run off.

Chen Sanlang turned his head to look at his stepfather, and only after a long while said in a low voice: "These people are not simple. Look, their elite troops haven't moved at all — at least around eighty men. If they all moved together, with just the twenty men in our fort, we couldn't hold them off."

After speaking, Chen Sanlang fell silent for a short while, then took a deep breath and said slowly: "I know you've kept a fast horse in the back courtyard. Once the fighting starts, leave quickly. Don't let everyone die here."

Wang Liu looked at his stepson with surprise, then shook his head with satisfaction. "That horse was kept for you. Old Chen the Daoist has only you as his son. If you die, his line ends.

Besides, if I ran off by myself, how could I face your mother in the netherworld below?"

Wang Liu had four sons. The eldest had died in Liangzhou, the second had died young, Chen Sanlang was here before him, and the youngest was studying in Wanli City, so his line would not end.

Chen Sanlang's father could also be considered his former comrade-in-arms. The two could not be said to have had deep feelings, but he still could not bear to watch his old comrade's line die out.

"I've injured my foot and can't use the stirrups. Even if I ran, I wouldn't get far. There's no need to waste a chance to escape. Sir, go and prepare quickly."

Chen Sanlang still stubbornly shook his head, but at this moment of life and death, he seemed to have come to terms with things.

Wang Liu suddenly burst out laughing twice, and clapped his stepson Chen Sanlang on the shoulder. "Then there's no need to argue. You and I, father and son, will stand side by side. Even if we die, we'll die heroes!"

"I think you've lost your mind!" Chen Sanlang was stunned for a moment, then cursed lightly and turned his head away from Wang Liu.

Wang Liu paid him no mind and beckoned to several Han-looking armored soldiers nearby. "These cursed Hu are tough. It looks like they're going to storm us.

Yingchun Fort is only forty li from Wanli City. They should have received word by now. Even if assembling takes some time, within an hour someone should arrive.

That means as long as we hold out for one hour, we'll live."

A bow-legged man who spoke broken Han speech and looked like a steppe Hu who had submitted to the Han shook his head and said in a low voice: "We can't hold. Those donkey-fucked cursed Hu have at least thirty or forty sets of iron armor, while we have only five.

Patrol Inspector, you should persuade your Sanlang more. His bow and horsemanship are unmatched, and he is certain to have a great future. The next generation of the fifteen Han households in our Yingchun Fort will all depend on his patronage."

"Hu Shang speaks rightly. Sanlang only came back to Yingchun Fort to recover because he injured his leg. He still has a bright future ahead. We can't let him die here with us old fossils."

Hu Shang was the bow-legged man who had just spoken. He was a Zubu man and a devout follower of the Six Dharma Sect. In daily life he often liked to preach to the local natives like a monk, so he simply took the surname Hu, and took the character Shang from heshang, "monk," making his name Hu Shang.

Wang Liu looked at the distant figure of his stepson Chen Sanlang, shook his head, and said with a mixture of helplessness and pride:

"No need to persuade him. He won't leave. He's Old Chen the Daoist's seed, and he was raised by me, Wang Liu. He couldn't do something like abandoning his comrades and running off on his own!"

Having said this, Wang Liu looked at Hu Shang and said: "Conscript all the men in the fort, and lock all their families in the granary. Drench the firewood with lamp oil.

Tell those men: whoever dares not fight to the death, before the fort falls I will certainly burn their entire families to ashes.

If the fort is held, every household is exempted from the autumn tax. Those who are wounded — I will give money and grain as compensation. Those who die — I will raise their children and support their parents in old age."

See that? This is what professionalism looks like. If an inexperienced person had come, the natives in the fort would probably have steeled their hearts and simply sold them out.

But for a ruthless old yabing guard like Wang Liu, such tricks came as naturally as reaching into his sleeve.

Salar silently gazed toward Yingchun Fort. He cared nothing at all about the deaths and injuries of the two auxiliary iqta knights.

He also knew that he was very likely already exposed, and that it would be best not to linger here too long.

No, it would be best not to attack Yingchun Fort at all, but to proceed to the vicinity of Zhenhu Fort according to the original plan.

But as he looked at the silver-white banner with the character Wang fluttering in the wind above Yingchun Fort, the rage and disgust in his heart could no longer be suppressed.

Salar took out a very fine crystal hourglass, adjusted it, and then waved his hand.

"Half an hour. If we can't take it, we leave."

"Woo-wah! Woo-wah!" Strange cries suddenly rang out. The Persian cavalry in the distance wore chainmail painted with white stripes on the outside, spaced five or six paces apart, and began to gallop with whistling cries, deliberately kicking up sky-covering yellow sand and making a show of being about to charge in.

But Chen Sanlang did not even raise a hand, and the Han armored soldiers on the earthen wall did not move either.

Only Wang Liu, holding a wooden club, gave a sound beating to the natives, who had been frightened into shrieking and wailing, their legs trembling, some even turning to flee.

Seeing that this ploy was ineffective, the nearly two hundred Persian armored riders began to gallop back and forth around Yingchun Fort, occasionally firing a symbolic arrow at the wall to probe for weaknesses here and there, but still not one of the Han armored soldiers moved.

They were all veterans of many battles; no one would fall for such a trick.

The Persian armored riders galloped several circuits without discovering any opening, then dejectedly withdrew to change horses.

Salar was not surprised, because if these Zhou people did not have at least this much ability, they could not have held their own against a population of several million with only a core tribe of a hundred thousand or so.

"Attack the east side. Everyone to the east side!" Salar quickly made his choice, and several accompanying cavalrymen took out small drums from the spare horses and began to beat them: boom, boom, boom.

Among this small cavalry force were twelve true iqta knights. With the help of their auxiliaries, they put on iron lamellar armor sturdier than chainmail and donned iron helmets.

A sound like a vertical flute rang out. The Persian knights, who had already ridden slowly to about eighty paces from Yingchun Fort, suddenly accelerated to about forty paces.

In this wave there were almost fifty riders, and they shot all their arrows at the earthen wall where Chen Sanlang was positioned.

It seemed they also knew how formidable Chen Sanlang was, and wanted to eliminate the enemy sharpshooter in one blow.

Chen Sanlang was hampered by his injury and chose not to take up his bow to return fire. He had already loosed five arrows in succession just now, and needed to conserve his strength.

Because in Yingchun Fort, where most of the elite troops had gone to the front, he was the only one with the ability to pierce armor with a hard bow.

Everyone else was a half-old man like his stepfather Wang Liu. In close combat they were not much of a problem, but the continuous drawing of a hard bow — work requiring explosive strength — was no longer something they excelled at.

Wang Liu let out a howl. Wearing lamellar armor and raising his shield, he threw himself in front of Chen Sanlang.

The rain of arrows came rushing in like a swarm of bees, and arrows kept slipping through the gaps in the great shield, striking them one after another.

Father and son both felt a piercing pain shoot through their bodies. Arrows from bows at thirty or forty paces, with the added force of the horses' speed, couldn't pierce armor, but their impact was still considerable.

One volley, another volley, and then yet another.

The rain of arrows poured down without pause, making the yellow earthen wall of Yingchun Fort look as if it had suddenly sprouted fur.

Wang Liu and Chen Sanlang, father and son, were both bristling like hedgehogs, blood slowly seeping from their bodies, but none of the wounds were serious.

While the father and son were being shot at, the Persian cavalry charging the earthen wall also had three or four riders shot down. Then both sides wisely abandoned this pointless probing.

The Han armored soldiers on the earthen wall had sufficient protection, but they also found it hard to hit these fast-moving Persian cavalrymen from atop the wall, so both sides chose to get straight to the real fighting.

The battle instantly intensified. The Persian riders dismounted, and wearing mail armor, carrying round shields and curved sabers, they swarmed toward the east gate.

Yingchun Fort was only a small fortress, home to just three or four hundred people. It couldn't possibly have a moat, nor could it have stockpiled rolling stones or logs. The gate was nothing more than a slightly thicker plank door.

Hu Shang and the others yelled wildly as they hurled fire-oil bottles down, but there weren't many to begin with. After burning two or three Persians to death, they were used up, and he could only put on his armor and use his own body to block the gate.

Crack! Crack! The thin wooden gate couldn't withstand the great axes' blows. After paying with more than a dozen lives, the Persians finally hacked open the east gate.

The instant the wooden gate fell, both sides let out a howl and lunged at each other. Spears and great axes, amid roars and screams, also let out dull, heavy sounds.

Wang Liu hunched over like a rat and darted through in an instant, then began stabbing wildly with his short blade, specifically targeting the Persians' unarmored calves.

Against this iron-armored fierce rat, one meter fifty-eight tall and weighing one hundred fifty jin, the Persians were caught completely off guard and immediately suffered badly, sent wailing in agony by Wang Liu alone.

Many armored soldiers in mail weren't skewered by the enemy spears, but were stabbed in the calves by Wang Liu, collapsed to the ground, and were pinned down and stabbed to death.

Chen Sanlang also let out a breath on the earthen wall. He had already spotted the dozen or so Persian iqta soldiers in splendid iron-plate armor — they were already close to the east gate.

"Mother, I won't die here. I'll live on in glory, ten thousand li from home, living on in your place and my sister's, with wine and meat every day!"

Having finished his prayer, Chen Sanlang let out a great shout. His arms spread like an eagle's wings — drawing in breath, he drew the bow; exhaling, he released. The bowstring thrummed like thunderclaps, crack-crack-crack.

One iqta armored soldier had just rushed to the very front when he suddenly felt as if he'd been punched square in the chest. He paid it no mind — it wasn't as if he'd never been hit by an arrow before.

But after running two more steps, he suddenly felt his body go weak. Before a scream could even leave his mouth, his vision went black and he pitched straight to the ground.

Chen Sanlang used a one-dan strong bow. At a distance of thirty-some paces, unless one wore two layers of cloth-faced iron armor, a hit meant instant death!

Another iqta saw his comrade ahead fall and couldn't help looking up toward the earthen wall. Then he only saw a flash of silver, and his neck involuntarily snapped back hard.

An arrow had pierced through his aventail, sinking a full two cun into his neck.

This iqta let out a scream, dropped the weapon in his hand, and fell to his knees, both hands clamping over his neck.

Though he desperately wanted to save himself, the force of life, with the hissing sound of a ruptured water pipe, rapidly drained away, until at last his head plunged into the dust.

The battle was extraordinarily fierce. Though Chen Sanlang was a divine archer, after seven or eight arrows he could only look at his aching arms in bitter self-reproach.

Wang Liu's fighting strength was indeed formidable, but it was nineteen of them against a hundred fifty or sixty of the enemy.

After killing a dozen or so of the enemy, Wang Liu was nearly hacked down by a Persian great axe several times, or nearly crushed to the ground by the surging crowd.

Outnumbered, these old yabing guards were beaten back step by step.

Amid the screams, Salar kept his eyes fixed on the hourglass in his hand. When the hourglass had run for half a shichen, this officer from Damascus — resolute and cold, and at the same time a fanatical holy warrior — gave the order to retreat.

No matter how many men had been lost now, they could not be surrounded, because he held the precious guides in his hands.

As long as they could retreat, in a few days he could find a way to rally the guides' morale and then slip away toward Zhenhu Fort.

Hu Shang was dead. He had been struck in the neck by a Persian great axe. Though his aventail protected his flesh, the enormous impact shattered his cervical vertebrae, and the bone fragments pierced his windpipe. He struggled for a while, then lost his life.

Also killed in battle were nine Han armored soldiers; nearly all the rest bore wounds.

Of the native auxiliary troops, nearly two-thirds were dead — either killed by the Persians, or stabbed to death by the Han armored soldiers when they tried to flee.

Wang Liu took a deep breath. One of his legs was broken, and his chest ached dully — probably a rib problem, quite possibly close to breaking.

But when he saw the Persians beginning their planned retreat, that inexplicable mad stubbornness and pride peculiar to Five Dynasties warriors suddenly surged to his head.

"Leave? Your daddy wants to see if you've got the face to leave. You've killed this many of my comrades, and you think you can just go!"

Wang Liu let out a great shout. The other old yabing guards, all from the Pinglu Army of Qingzhou and the Tianping Army of Yunzhou, understood him without words.

They roared, shoulder to shoulder, and walked forward slowly but resolutely, stopping twenty-some paces beyond the east gate, forming ranks there — solitary, yet looking down on all creation.

"Come on! You donkey-fuckers, if you've still got the balls, come over here! If you haven't got the guts, then drink up your daddy's piss and I'll let you go!"

Wang Liu bellowed abuse at the Persians still retreating two hundred paces away, and even undid his robe and actually pissed on the ground.

"Hahahaha!" The old yabing guards, whose average age had to be over forty, roared with laughter.

Salar's face turned ashen, as if that piss had been poured directly onto his face. In that instant, fury completely overwhelmed his reason.

This petty noble from Damascus hurled the crystal hourglass in his hand hard onto the ground, then drew his curved saber and pointed it forward.

"Kill them! For God, kill them all!"

Chen Sanlang's tears finally flowed, because Wang Liu and the others were quickly swallowed up in the dust cloud kicked up by the Persian cavalry, and he didn't know how many of them would still be alive.

He let out a hoarse roar. The ache in his arms seemed to ease greatly all at once, and his back straightened even more. In his heart he swore a secret oath: as long as he was here, even if only this one stretch of earthen wall remained of Yingchun Fort, it would not fall.

At that very moment, through lashes wet with tears, Chen Sanlang suddenly spotted a streak of silver in the distance, glittering brilliantly in the sunlight.

Beneath that streak of silver, hundreds of warhorses were galloping toward them at full speed!

(End of Chapter)

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