Chapter 290: The Fall of North Pass

"Stop hiding down there, get up and fire the cannon, fire!"

On the eastern wing of the barbican, Hu Maozhen grabbed the gunners one by one from where they cowered behind the crenellations, shouting at the top of his lungs.

He had followed Gao Jie through years of fighting across the north and south—been a bandit, been a mountain outlaw and a highway robber—and in the end had still become the very government soldier he had once cursed with every breath. No matter. Wasn't a man's whole life just a fight for that one breath of pride?

A brigand—who would willingly be one?

Following the court, at least he had a proper title now, a hundred times better than being called a roving bandit. And besides, the Emperor was ruthless toward civil officials but generous to military men—this was exactly the time to win merit.

In the worst of times, Hu Maozhen and Gao Jie had been left with only a dozen or so men, and even then he had never once thought of abandoning Gao Jie.

To be honest, of all the men under heaven Hu Maozhen knew little, but when it came to Gao Jie, he was the one Hu Maozhen admired most. Wherever Gao Jie went, he would follow!

After a while, under Hu Maozhen's threats and cajoling, the gunners finally began frantically loading the cannon. As they loaded the shot, their whole bodies trembled without cease. Hu Maozhen knew nothing of working a cannon and could only watch in anxiety.

Before long, a lead ball shot out from the eastern wing of the barbican, arcing crookedly down into the massed ranks of the roving bandits below the walls, kicking up a spray of dust and blasting several bandits apart.

Hu Maozhen nodded, shouting as he hurried to reinforce other spots that had run dry, still yelling: "Keep going, don't stop, keep firing!"

"But General, this... the barrel is glowing red. If we don't swap it out, not only might it burst, but the accuracy has already fallen off badly." The gunners exchanged uneasy glances, somewhat afraid.

"How long does swapping it take?" At this, Hu Maozhen's face flushed with anger. He had barely finished the question and the gunner was just beginning to answer when Hu Maozhen's thoughts suddenly flew up over his head.

Just as the gunner was replying, Hu Maozhen's ear twitched—he heard a very shrill sound pouring down from above, just like the cannonball they had fired moments before. Almost instinctively, he braced himself with one hand and flipped straight down behind the parapet wall.

The next instant, the spot where Hu Maozhen had been standing was struck by a lead ball from a distant hillside. Crenellations shattered, stone fragments flew everywhere, and the gunners and passing soldiers who had been there vanished without a trace, leaving only a small pool of blood in their place.

"Damn rotten luck!" A lifetime on the battlefield had long made a man like Hu Maozhen accustomed to such scenes—even if someone was cut down before his very eyes, he wouldn't so much as frown.

For now, he merely brushed the stone dust from his body and leaped back up onto the wall to direct the fighting. Running was out of the question—he would never run, not in this life. The worst that could happen was dying in battle.

Gao Jie had always felt that reaching his present position was entirely due to a moment of impulse on his part, and right now he was personally at the front with his household retainers.

He had just cut down a bandit who climbed onto the wall when he suddenly felt his vision go dark. Without even thinking, Gao Jie instinctively dodged to the side, and the next moment a long blade came whistling down in a vertical chop at the spot where he had been standing.

Gao Jie's weapon was different from ordinary men's. Most men fought with saber or spear—even the Tartars did—but he used an iron staff. One iron staff whirled with fierce gusts of wind, and with his natural strength being beyond the ordinary, ordinary blades and spears could hardly withstand him.

The moment he dodged past, Gao Jie immediately whirled his iron staff and struck back.

Perhaps never expecting the man to be so fast, the bandit chieftain who had climbed onto the wall in the gap of Gao Jie's dodge had not even steadied himself before suffering a heavy blow—he spat a mouthful of blood and was sent flying straight off the wall.

Among the Dashun cavalry not far away, several chieftains were roaring with laughter. Zhang Nai pointed at the hard-pressed Xuanzhen Ming troops and said excitedly:

"Marquis, this time the top credit for taking Gu Pass—we brothers have won it for you!"

Liu Zongmin also laughed heartily and said:

"That Gao Jie bragged he could beat even the Qing Tartars beyond the pass, and now he's been beaten to this state before our Great Dashun. Seems those Qing Tartars are just the same piss-poor stock as these government troops—no real fighting ability at all!"

None of the other Dashun generals had ever crossed swords with the Qing army. Liu Fangliang's force, which had fought Ajige, had already been wiped out to the last man at Gu Pass. Zhang Nai, though a veteran of the Dashun army, had only ever fought back and forth against government troops, so naturally he knew nothing of the Tartars' fighting strength. He gave a few cold laughs and said:

"The Marquis speaks truly. Government troops are just this weak, and the Tartars haven't broken through the pass in all these years—clearly their fighting ability is nothing much either. Otherwise, wouldn't they have come through long ago!"

This was the simplest logic, and Liu Zongmin and the others believed it utterly. If the Tartars were really as strong as the Ming army boasted, how could they still be trapped in that impoverished land east of the Liao, unable to enter the pass?

By now the Dashun army was different from last year—besides their advantage in numbers, they had every kind of siege equipment in full readiness.

Apart from scaling ladders, they even had simple siege towers and shield carts to carry soldiers to the city gate for assault. Heavy cannons no fewer than the city's own firepower stood on the distant hillside.

After fighting this long, though Gao Jie's barbican had not yet fallen, the government troops holding the northern and southern passes of Gu Pass were not as good as the Xuanzhen garrison—they were already tottering, several times driven off the walls by the bandits, and looked about to lose the pass at any moment.

On the battlefield now, the bandits' cavalry and Liu Zongmin kept circling in the distance but never entered the fray—their purpose was only to form a threat, waiting for a chance to pick off easy gains. The infantry were everywhere, spread completely apart, and at every crenellation of Gu Pass countless bandits swarmed up.

Yet the government troops fought with extraordinary valor. Though outnumbered, the scattered soldiers rarely fled—they used whatever was at hand and fought back desperately against the bandits. The northern and southern passes were taken by the Dashun army several times, and the government troops wrested them back through sheer grit, repeating the cycle almost without end.

"Protect the Supreme Commander!"

By this point in the battle, even the main pass city where Chen Qiyu was stationed was showing signs of strain.

Though Mou Wenshou and Mou Wenju held the line with their household retainers, the rest—Shandong soldiers and raw recruits from the Northwest Grand Camp—had seen little of real battle. Exhausted from the long fight, they faced the ferocious bandits and were almost slaughtered one-sidedly.

All Chen Qiyu could do now was keep standing up high, letting the soldiers fighting below see that he was still there. Because at this stage the two sides were completely locked together—no stratagem would work. All that remained was slaughter.

A government soldier before a crenellation was about to hurl the stone in his hands down to crush the bandit below. Fear flickered in the bandit's eyes—he was clearly terrified.

But the battlefield shifts in a thousand ways. Before the soldier could throw the stone, a sharp-eyed bandit archer below took aim at him and put a shot clean through his heart.

The bandit who had been climbing the ladder saw his chance, bit down on his blade, and leaped into the city. The soldiers around were nearly all raw recruits; seeing the fierce-faced bandit, several of them trembled in fright and stood frozen, not knowing what to do.

That moment of hesitation was very brief, but the bandit who had scaled the wall seized the opportunity—first taking the blade from his mouth back into his hand, then stepping forward and thrusting viciously.

The soldier wore the standard-issue mandarin-duck jacket. Though it looked thick, its actual protection was next to nothing—the blade pierced through almost without resistance. Never having suffered such a wound, he began screaming, and the bandit added a kick that sent him tumbling straight off the wall.

"Kill the government troops!"

Even as this fight was happening, more bandits climbed onto the wall behind this one. Gripping their waist sabers in one hand, they turned and charged straight at the government troops the moment they were up.

The government troops recovered and, led by their officers, met the charge.

A soldier was busy stripping gold and silver from a bandit's body when a bandit suddenly leaped up over the crenellation to his left. This one wore iron armor and carried a steel blade—a veteran of the old camp, seasoned in many battles.

The soldier was frightened and turned to flee, but the old bandit grabbed him. His flailing resistance was useless, and the old bandit slashed his throat open. Clutching the spurting wound, the soldier made gurgling sounds through his mouth before pitching headfirst off the wall.

"Run, run!"

"The city's breached, the city's breached!"

Facing the bloodthirsty bandits, the government troops, now reduced in number, were quickly stretched thin—they simply could not keep enough men on every stretch of wall.

But the bandits seemed endless. Kill one and more were still below. Whether it was a bandit or a soldier shouting "the city's breached," when it reached the ears of the already terrified troops, it was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Soon the government troops on North Pass City burst apart with a roar. They no longer had any will to resist—all of them screamed and shouted, some kneeling to beg for mercy, others throwing down their weapons and scattering in every direction. Even certain officers were nowhere to be seen.

But none of this did any good. The bandits, eyes red with bloodlust, knew neither friend nor foe—whether one surrendered or resisted, down came the blade. In an instant, North Pass City became a slaughterhouse, a very hell of carnage.