Chapter 164: The Ai Family Troops

Ever since spotting the bandits coming from the west, Qi Shuangquan had kept a dark expression on his face atop the southeast corner tower of Wen'an Relay City.

He was the squad leader of the third squad, Left Company, Forward Outpost, Yan'an Garrison.

His brother-in-law, Ma Maoguan, had gone west to take heads and hadn't come back.

It was over — his brother-in-law was gone.

Then the rebel army surrounded the relay city on three sides, and from the southern mountains soon came the rumbling of cannon fire, wave after wave.

He grabbed a familiar general's household retainer and asked; a sorrowful look crossed the retainer's face, and he told him the bandits were too many — the rear outpost to the south probably couldn't hold.

Qi Shuangquan did not think of the men besieging the relay city as bandits; their formations were strict and their equipment uniform — clearly, they were an army too.

They were nothing like Wang Zuogua, Huntian King, or even Cao Cao, who had been chased off earlier.

He preferred to call these men rebel troops.

The sky had gone completely dark.

The rebel troops piled firewood everywhere below the walls and lit towering bonfires, illuminating the ground beneath the city bright as day.

Qi Shuangquan braced his matchlock and aimed at the rebel troops, trying to avenge his brother-in-law.

He hit one bandit soldier carrying firewood; the lead ball pierced his "Courage" helmet, the armful of firewood dropped to the ground, and the bandit soldier collapsed, twitching for a moment — he looked like a boy of only fifteen or sixteen.

He had a young soldier of that age under him too, a hereditary military household conscripted from Xi'an Guard; the boy was always bullied by the veterans in the squad, so he clung to him constantly, even sleeping back-to-back with him in the field.

That young soldier had only ever seen money a few times in his life and had never once owned a single coin of his own, so he had an extraordinary longing for military pay, and had even cheered when he was conscripted into the Yan'an Garrison.

He pestered him with questions all day long.

"Sir, once I'm a garrison soldier, will I really get pay?"

"How much pay will I get?"

"When I get my pay, what should I do with it?"

It was maddening.

Qi Shuangquan himself had no idea how much coin he'd actually see in a year after joining the Yan'an Garrison.

The night wind on the corner tower was cold; Qi Shuangquan hugged his matchlock and curled up back-to-back with the young soldier behind the battlements. The relay city was crammed with too many people, and soldiers lay sprawled everywhere in the narrow streets.

Though a bonfire blazed nearby, it didn't make him the slightest bit more comfortable — instead, one side of him was cold and the other hot, which was even more miserable.

Half-asleep, half-awake, it was all that young soldier's fault — always yapping on about pay — that Qi Shuangquan had a chaotic dream.

In the dream, he brought his three nephews and his sister into the military camp; his brother-in-law pulled them over and said the pay had arrived, a huge amount of back pay, all the arrears from the Wanli reign paid out at once, and every tavern in the whole city of Xi'an Prefecture was packed with soldiers.

A thunderous boom jolted him awake; before he could even register what had happened, a shrieking whistle passed overhead.

A solid iron cannonball smashed through the corner tower's eave teeth; tiles shattered and flew, and half the body of a Dipper-Ox crouching-beast roof ornament spun through the air and slammed down behind him.

He turned his head; the young soldier, eyes bleary with sleep, clutched the back of his head and slowly turned his face, laboring to flash him a slow, stupid grin, as if he wanted to say something.

Then his body went limp, without so much as a groan — only a faint twitch every few breaths.

Before Qi Shuangquan could recover from his stupor, the young soldier's life was gone.

Chaos had erupted atop the wall; soldiers gripped by the terror of being surrounded jolted awake from their sleep and frantically draped armor over themselves.

Their own, someone else's — wearing armor they didn't know, gripping weapons they didn't know, peering down with taut nerves.

Peering down at the blazing lights below the wall, peering across the river into the pitch-black darkness.

The troops inside the city — those bedded in the streets, those sleeping indoors — assembled squad by squad to the sound of horns and climbed the wall.

First they stared at the men beside them with nervous intensity; only when they recognized a comrade did they turn their anxious gaze beyond the wall.

Nothing stirred.

As if that cannon blast had been their collective hallucination.

Only the pool of blood spreading from the young soldier's head was real.

Just as they began to relax their guard, someone pointed at the figures gradually emerging from the darkness beyond the city.

They were a dozen or so riders on horseback; seemingly wary of cannon fire, they stood widely spaced, arrayed in a long horizontal line, slowly pacing their horses forward through the shadows.

As they drew near, they circled the bonfires shouting "Ten thousand victories!" and waving banners as they galloped.

By the bonfire light, Qi Shuangquan heard someone say those were the banners of the rear outpost stationed at Liangjia River.

No one knew what had become of the rear outpost; only that the soldiers' morale inside the relay city was sinking.

General Ai ascended the wall and made a special trip to the southeast corner tower to look; his eyes were full of sorrow.

He asked the young soldier's name, and had intended to cut a lock of hair to bring back to his family, but was told the young soldier had no family. He could only bend down and use his hand to close those eyes, so full of curiosity about the world.

After the general left, everything returned to stillness.

Qi Shuangquan leaned against the freezing battlements; he shut his eyes but could not fall asleep no matter what.

He had campaigned in the southwest against She Chongming; he had seen his share of life-and-death partings.

A man dying shouldn't rob him of sleep and appetite.

Yet every time he closed his eyes, there was the young soldier asking him for pay.

This was not normal.

He touched the young soldier — already cold. Everyone else was snoring away; only he was still dwelling on the words the young soldier had wanted to speak before he died.

He thought and thought, then fished a single coin from his waist pouch. First he placed it inside the young soldier's clothes against his chest; then, after a moment's reflection, he took it out again, forced open the young soldier's tightly shut mouth, placed that Jiajing Tongbao coin inside, and closed it.

This time, he was finally able to sleep.

During the night, the rebel troops fired two more cannon volleys — one a long-range shot from a heavy cannon, the other when they pushed four small cannons up to the riverbank, loaded them with grapeshot, and fired at the wall top.

That night, Qi Shuangquan managed perhaps a little over two hours of broken sleep.

When he woke in the early morning, the sky was not yet fully light, but the rebel troops outside the west gate were already engaged in battle; he heard it said that the forward outpost troops stationed at Firewood Gully had launched an attack on the enemy's flank.

So the rebel troops besieging the eastern side were also shifting westward.

The general issued orders within the relay city: no drums or gongs were to be sounded; five squads were selected to sally out and delay the rebel reinforcements, and mounted troops were dispatched to Yulin to seek aid.

The city gate had only just opened when the artillery on the opposite bank opened fire from two hundred paces away — red-barbarian cannons and Frankish breechloaders, solid iron balls drilling one after another into the gate tunnel.

Qi Shuangquan listened to the miserable cries coming from not far away, irritably rubbed his beard, and cursed, "Who the hell was the first to make a city gate?"

Those who want to get in can't get in, and those who want to get out can't get out.

The infantry sent to coordinate were all pinned inside the city by cannon fire, unable to get out. In the end, only twenty-some riders braved the bombardment and charged out of the city. The rebels fired a volley from across the riverbank and half of them fell; the rest scattered in disarray and were chased down by enemy cavalry.

The sounds of battle to the west quickly died down, but the bandit troops didn't stop. They left a force to besiege the city outside the walls, while the main force attacked toward Fire Burn Gully to the west.

The full hundred-man squad Qi Shuangquan belonged to was withdrawn from the corner tower by the squad commander.

Tonight they could sleep indoors — eighty-seven men, four rooms, one of which had no roof.

But carrying the young soldier's corpse down from the wall, none of the brothers could feel any joy.

The corpses were taken to the government office north of the city. Inside were already over twenty bodies. Those killed directly by cannon fire were a horrific sight; the young soldier's was considered one of the better-looking ones.

Even after withdrawing from the wall, they couldn't rest idle. The old trees in the post station town, the roof timbers, and the wild grass inside the city all met their doom.

That afternoon, the general's eldest son, reeking of filth, came with household guards and confiscated all the un-tanned leather belts, hides, and boots from the infantry and cavalry, and also gathered up spare straw sandals from the troops.

There were three wells in the city, but only one was usable. Drawing water day and night without pause could barely supply drinking water for over a thousand soldiers.

Of the other two wells, one was completely blocked by rubble, and soldiers were still down there digging it out.

The last well had a dead man soaking in it. People said the first thing fished out had been an official seal — apparently the post station master had been pushed down it when the post soldiers rioted.

That well had been cleared out by the general's order that very morning. The one who went down to carry out the corpse was the eldest son, Ai Huaiguang.

Otherwise, many would rather die of thirst and steal others' water than be lowered into a well to do that job.

On the second night of the siege, the Guanzhong soldiers ate the most extravagant yet crudest meal since the expedition began.

Horse meat, grass roots, and dry hay boiled with noodles.

General Ai's three sons in the army all brought their household guards and dispersed among the ranks, eating together with the soldiers from Guanzhong.

The eldest son, Huaiguang, ate very quickly. His clothes were filthy, so he had changed into a bloodstained dead man's clothes and given himself a simple wash, then sat among the ranks chatting with the soldiers.

Qi Shuangquan asked him, "Young General, didn't they collect all the hides today? How come there's none in the noodles?"

"You want some?" Ai Huaiguang shook his head with a grin. "I tried it. Can't bite through it. Needs another two days of soaking. The water problem's already been solved."

"The general had me clear a well today. Ugh…" Mentioning the well-clearing made Ai Huaiguang want to vomit. He gritted his teeth and held it back, then said, "I scrubbed the bottom clean. Let it flush for two days, the dirty water drains away, and we'll have three wells. Water will be enough."

"Don't worry about rations either. We brought four days' field rations for over a thousand men, plus six days' emergency rations, plus mules, donkeys, oxen, and warhorses. The four-day rations mixed with grass roots, dry hay, raw hides, and large livestock meat will last eight days. We'll slaughter more animals when the time comes."

"There aren't even any common folk around here. How could those bandits outside the city possibly besiege us for a month? We've already sent word to Yulin for reinforcements today. Commander-in-Chief Du will dispatch troops to relieve us before long."

Ai Huaiguang sat cross-legged on the ground just like the soldiers, waved his hand, and said, "Brothers, you were living the good life in Guanzhong, and the general called you here. Now in this post station town, you're eating grass roots and gnawing on hides."

"The general said, once we fight our way out, you brothers can feast on fish and meat, and he'll take me to eat bear paw. But as long as we're in this city, whatever you brothers eat, we father and sons will eat what's left in the pot. So long as we haven't starved to death, you needn't worry about starving."

As he spoke, Ai Huaiguang turned his head southward, toward the rebel camp outside the city. "If I'm about to starve to death, I'll go out and catch a couple of bandits for you to eat."

Amid the soldiers' cheers, Qi Shuangquan watched the spirited Ai Huaiguang, and he understood.

People always said the Ai family had produced generals for three generations, each generation bringing their sons into the army.

Before, Qi Shuangquan had always thought that a father and son fighting together brought some courage, but a father-and-son pair of generals on the battlefield seemed rather useless — and if they died, the family line was wiped out.

But today, his view changed.

A general bringing his sons into the army was truly very useful.

What the soldiers were unwilling to do, the sons could do. What the soldiers were unwilling to eat, the sons could eat.

If the general's sons had done it, what couldn't the soldiers do? If the general's sons had eaten it, and eaten it with great relish, what couldn't they eat?

Ai Huaiguang walked back to the south gate tower under the cover of night. The soldiers' morale had been greatly boosted. The bandit troops fired a few more cannonballs at the wall, which annoyed him greatly.

'Do these bandits have an endless supply of gunpowder?'

The roof of the gate tower had been struck by cannonballs, showering dust everywhere. As he entered the gate tower, Ai Mu was shielding his rice bowl with a military treatise, waving away the falling dust before him.

"Cough… Huaiguang, how is the army's morale?"

Ai Huaiguang cupped his fists and said, "Father, the army's morale can be put to use."

This put Ai Mu at ease. He blew the dust off his chair and sat back down. He sighed at some thought, then smiled and removed the military treatise covering his bowl.

In the bowl was a shallow layer of broth, with two squares of stamped hide soaking in it. Ai Mu laughed, "I really should have listened to you. It truly can't be bitten through."

Huaiguang glanced into the bowl, his expression awkward as if he wanted to laugh but didn't dare. Then he straightened his face and said, "General, you must put your health first. Hides and grass roots — let us children eat them."

Ai Mu chuckled lightly. "Your old man's health is perfectly fine. I could kill an ox with one punch. If it weren't for your grandfather's military merit granting me the inherited rank of Assistant Regional Commander, I'd have taken the military examination like your Uncle Yuhua."

"These few pieces of hide won't kill me."

When he said the word "kill," Ai Mu visibly froze for a moment.

When his father Ai Yingzhao was still alive, Ai Mu had never once thought that one day he himself would die.

He had always felt he had limitless time to do whatever he wanted.

But when his father passed away, it was as if a stopped hourglass had suddenly been turned over, filled with the time he had left.

He could clearly see the end of his own life.

Like a great hand at his back, pushing him forward, yet making him unable to resist looking back, afraid he might leave his children behind.

Ai Huaiguang did not understand his sudden silence. He simply cupped his fists and asked, "General, what's wrong?"

"Huaiguang…"

Ai Mu shook his head, took a deep breath to steady his mood, and said gravely, "We must treat the soldiers with sincerity. Some things can be deceived, but some things must never be deceived."

"I, as your father, can let you tell the soldiers that our rations are ample, enough to last until next month."

In truth, their provisions were extremely tight. Even rationing at levels that couldn't sustain combat effectiveness, they only had enough for half a month.

Because the soy paste and vinegar were insufficient.

Without soy paste, there was no salt. Without salt… after fifteen days, the entire force would turn into weaklings.

And as for Du Wenhuan — Ai Mu was not certain whether Du Wenhuan had the courage to lead troops to their relief.

If he could get Ai Wannian to bring troops, that alone would mean the incense burned at the Ai family ancestral grave this year hadn't been wasted.

But right now, Ai Wannian might not be able to get away. So as for reinforcements… in truth, Ai Mu held no hope for reinforcements in his heart.

"But you must not deceive the soldiers by telling them you eat the same as they do, when in fact you do not."

Ai Mu pointed a finger at Ai Huaiguang, a trace of amusement on his face, and said, "To you, this seems a trivial matter, but to the soldiers, it is an insult. In the Great Ming Code, if a soldier or civilian strikes their commanding officer, and the officer brought the humiliation upon himself, the striker is not guilty. Do you want your father to get beaten?"

As moonlight spilled over the land, the sound of battle rang out once more from the west side of the city.

This time, the fighting lasted longer and was even fiercer.

Ai Mu hurried out of the gate tower. He saw that this time, the bandit troops outside the city made no move; the forces besieging the east side remained firmly entrenched in their positions.

This could not help but make him furrow his brow.

Immediately after, a soldier came running swiftly along the city wall and reported to him, "General! Forward sentry Thousand-Commander Zhang led his unit in a fierce charge against the enemy lines and drove the enemy troops on the west side back two li. They are now following the moat's pontoon bridge to the west gate. Shall we open the gate?"

"Open the gate at once! What are you waiting for?"

"Their, their baggage train was cut off by the bandit troops!"

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