Chapter 287: The Bandit-Terrifier: Gao Jie of Xingping

"Clang, clang, clang!"

At this moment, atop the walls of Guguan, all was deathly still—but suddenly an unusually urgent string of copper bells rang out, and immediately after, a Company Commander ran across the wall shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Get up, get up now—the roving bandits are attacking the city!"

"Damn it all, get up! If you keep sleeping here, mind you don't get your throats slit in your sleep when the bandits climb up!" Seeing a small circle of soldiers huddled together fast asleep, the Company Commander didn't hesitate—he simply kicked each one in turn.

Without waiting for these soldiers to rise, the Company Commander kept walking along the wall, ringing the copper bell as he went.

Gao Jie was likely well aware that the defeat at Taiyuan stemmed from his failure to resolve the old grudge between himself and Bai Guangen, so upon his return, when faced with Chen Qiyu's stern reprimand, he offered no excuse whatsoever—he merely said a single sentence in a low voice:

"Your subordinate knows full well the weight of his crimes and bears an inescapable responsibility for the battle at Taiyuan. I request permission to lead my own troops in defending this small city, to fight to the death against Li the Dashing. As long as the city stands, I stand; if the city falls, I die!"

Chen Qiyu was a man full of cunning schemes. His loud berating of Gao Jie at the meeting was precisely to provoke him into volunteering for the task.

First of all, aside from Gao Jie's own troops, Chen Qiyu truly had no other battle-hardened soldiers under his command. Mou Wenshou's Shandong army, though fully organized, was seven or eight parts raw recruits who had just enlisted—too few veterans to hold up their end.

Gao Jie was different. His subordinates were nearly all veterans who had survived a hundred battles—a famously fierce brigade among all the government armies of the day. Some even said that Gao Jie's Xuan garrison troops were the army most capable of striking terror into the bandits' hearts since the battles of the elder and younger Cao.

Moreover, Gao Jie had cuckolded Li Zicheng—the two were locked in an irreconcilable, mortal enmity, a fact well understood by all the other generals.

Secondly, Chen Qiyu was secretly laying a scheme to protect Gao Jie from whatever punishment Chongzhen might see fit to mete out.

The trouble Gao Jie and Bai Guangen had stirred up was, to Chongzhen's ears, merely a single memorial—but only those who had been there truly understood how enormous it was. It was foreseeable that the Ming army's defeat at Taiyuan would cast a long shadow even in later generations.

The Chongzhen Emperor was not one to investigate matters thoroughly before rashly disposing of great generals—this was hardly the first or second time. Chen Qiyu's goading of Gao Jie to volunteer for the defense of the barbican was precisely an act to wash away Gao Jie's crimes.

According to his plan, so long as Gao Jie could hold out until Chongzhen's main army arrived, he could then conveniently plead for mercy on his behalf. Of course, if even the Xuan garrison troops could not hold this barbican for a dozen-odd days, then there was no point considering any other possibility—because Guguan would certainly fall as well.

When that time came, the Chongzhen Emperor could readily go with the current and keep this fierce general—unless he did as in history, disregarding everything to punish Gao Jie regardless.

If it truly came to that, then no matter what scheme Chen Qiyu laid, there would be no second possibility—the Great Ming would once again tread the old road of the year Jiashen.

Beyond this, Chen Qiyu also knew that Gao Jie and his Xuan garrison troops were brave and eager to fight—they had once routed in open field battle the cavalry led by Ajige, the false prince of the Tartar Qing.

It was said that the Xuan garrison troops had made full use of the terrain at the time, and Chen Qiyu did not know the specifics—but what Gao Jie had brought back were real, genuine queue-wearing heads. Such a feat had already earned them a fearsome reputation throughout the nation's armies.

It had been over ten days since Li Zicheng had led his great army to the foot of Guguan's walls. During these ten-odd days, the Dashun army seemed to have learned from the lesson of their furious assault on Ningwu Pass years before—when they had failed to take it, lost men and materiel, and been cut down and routed by government troops. They had not launched any sustained assault, instead fighting for a while and then resting for a while, as if determined to grind the court into a stalemate.

According to tallies, the longest single attack the Dashun army had mounted in these ten-odd days lasted only half a day. Most of their other attacks were small-scale skirmishes—mostly they would wait until you had roused your men and prepared for battle, then after just one brief exchange, they would withdraw.

Clearly, Li Zicheng had adopted an ox-nose strategy, seeking to wear down the Ming army with attrition.

"Kill the government troops! Kill the government troops! Kill the government troops!"

Below the walls, the Dashun army, rested at length, advanced in orderly steps, shouting their three-character slogan in unison, pressing forward slowly in several square formations. Gazing upon the boundless sea of roving bandits before them only deepened the endless despair felt by the exhausted government troops atop the wall.

Atop Guguan's walls, watching the roving bandits surge forward like a tide beneath his very eyes, Gao Jie wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He said nothing—merely silently raised the steel blade in his hand.

Beside him, Xuan-Da Assistant Regional Commander Hu Maozhen, egged on by several of his subordinate officers, plucked up his courage and stepped forward to say:

"Great Commander, the brothers aren't afraid of the bandits—but right now they're exhausted beyond bearing. When the bandits climb the walls, most of our men don't even have the strength left to swing a blade or thrust a spear. Who can hold them back!"

"Can you—can you have the Supreme Commander swap in the Shandong troops to hold the line for a while?"

Gao Jie was still brooding over the defeat at Taiyuan, believing it was his own and Bai Guangen's fault for squandering the finest opportunity to wipe out the roving bandits. Hearing this, he immediately turned his head to glare at Hu Maozhen and barked:

"Tired? You're not afraid of death, but you're afraid of being tired!"

The other subordinate officers were all deeply afraid of Gao Jie. Hearing the displeasure in his voice, they hastily stepped forward to plead on Hu Maozhen's behalf, each offering their own opinions—but no matter how they put it, the gist was the same: the Xuan garrison troops had borne the brunt at the very front for over ten days straight, and every unit was already worn to the bone. To keep going like this was nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

Atop the wall, Shandong Assistant Regional Commander Mou Wenju took a look at the brutal slaughter unfolding below between the Xuan garrison troops and the Dashun army, then stepped forward and said in a low voice:

"Supreme Commander, the Xuan garrison has held the front for over ten days. It's time for a rotation."

Hearing this, Chen Qiyu remained silent. He looked at the Shandong troops—were they really any better off than the Xuan garrison?

In truth, when a battle had reached this stage, no government unit still on the walls had it easy. Every unit was exhausted, run ragged by Li Zicheng's new tactics, unable to cope.

If there was any real difference, it was merely one of degree depending on position. For instance, Gao Jie's Xuan garrison troops had volunteered to defend the barbican outside the pass, besieged on three sides by the roving bandits—naturally, their losses were grievous.

Mou Wenshou's Shandong troops were responsible for defending the main pass, where only a small portion came under threat—so naturally their losses were the lightest. In truth, Mou Wenshou secretly rather admired Gao Jie as a man.

At first, when word spread last year of the open-field rout of Ajige, not a single general among the various armies believed it. How could it be? The Tartars' reputation for invincibility in open battle was ingrained in everyone's minds—they all thought Gao Jie and his troops had simply stumbled onto easy pickings.

But now, witnessing this scene—in those first few days, the Xuan garrison troops had truly been worth two men apiece, slaughtering the Dashun soldiers who had already leaped onto the walls and driving them back down in disgrace. From that point on, no one ever raised those old doubts again.

Setting everything else aside—just the fact that they had squarely faced the bandits' million-strong army and held for over ten days, even if Li Zicheng hadn't been going all out—was there any other general present who could claim the same?

Mou Wenshou looked at his own Shandong troops and shook his head inwardly—these lads still needed more training.

As the saying goes, as the commander, so the troops. Gao Jie himself was unruly and proud, fierce and unyielding—so naturally his subordinates were all the same. Though hard to discipline in peacetime, once battle came, every single one of them fought with a life-staking style.

In sheer ferocity and love of combat, they surpassed even the roving bandits.

Compared to his younger brother, Mou Wenshou was more mature and thought more deeply. Seeing that Chen Qiyu remained silent, he leaned in and said: "Supreme Commander, His Majesty's relief forces haven't arrived yet, but estimating at the slowest pace, they should be here within at most these two days."

As he spoke, Mou Wenshou leaned in closer and lowered his voice: "At this moment, the Xuan garrison still holds the barbican, which can give the bandits the false impression that our government forces are weak and exhausted. Once His Majesty's army arrives and strikes when they least expect it, we can surely break them in one blow. In other words, even if we can't break them in a single stroke, we can still deflate the bandits' arrogance and turn the tide of battle."

Chen Qiyu understood Gao Jie's intentions perfectly. In truth, regarding Gao Jie as a man, Chen Qiyu's view was much the same as Chongzhen's—appreciation outweighed wariness. However one looked at it, this man was a rare fierce general for these times.

Not to mention the utterly irreconcilable blood feud between Gao Jie and Li Zicheng—a point the court could fully exploit.

Hearing this, Chen Qiyu finally nodded—but still said nothing. Leaving the other generals to their deliberations, he turned his gaze toward the tent on the distant hillside where a great banner bearing the title "Yongchang Emperor" was planted.