Chapter 167: The Breakout Battle at Wen

On the seventh midnight since Wen'an Relay Station was besieged, the city blazed with light.

Bleak moonlight fell upon the earth. Ai Mu stood atop the wall and looked back at the bustling city within.

Copper coins were distributed one by one, sacks of earth were laid at the gate tunnel, and the remaining dry rations were handed out to every man.

Soldiers were prying the horseshoes from the warhorses and wrapping the hooves in cloth instead; the animals' eyes were all blindfolded, their bridles cinched tight so the mounts would not make a single sound.

Sabers and spearheads blackened with pot-bottom soot were laid out on the street; soldiers held their noses as they drew their blades through the filth slurry.

They were going to break out.

Ai Huaiguang, up on the wall, said, "Father, the campfires have dimmed."

He meant the campfires outside the city. Every evening, the roving bandits outside would light a string of campfires fifty paces from the walls.

The fires were fed three times a night, and before each feeding there was a window of nearly a quarter hour when the flames dimmed and the city gate was hard to see.

"Pass the word — total silence throughout the army. Open the gate."

Ai Mu knew that the bandit chieftain outside the city was waiting for him to fire his cannons. Firing the cannons would signal that provisions were running low, that there was no need to husband gunpowder any longer, and that a breakout was imminent.

So from beginning to end, he had never fired a single cannon.

In truth, the best direction for a breakout was west of the city, but the stone bridge over the moat there was far too loud under warhorses' hooves.

If they were blocked at that spot, they would be unable to charge through swiftly.

These defensive works, at times, could also make a breakout difficult.

So the only possible direction for the breakout was east of the city, where Gao Xian's Left Outpost was stationed.

A faint creaking echoed through the gate tunnel. The two heavy gates slowly swung open. The government troops stood inside the tunnel, gazing across the river at the bandit camp with its scattered points of lamplight, not daring to breathe.

They paused a moment. The camp showed no sign of stirring.

Company after company of government troops, following the prearranged plan, began moving slowly along the relay station's southern wall.

The vanguard had already reached beneath the southeast corner tower, while the troops at the rear had yet to emerge from the city. Company after company halted beneath the corner tower.

In the darkness, few could see any distance. They pressed man against man, horse against horse, utterly silent.

Someone fed firewood onto the campfire pile at the western corner of the city, and then one campfire after another blazed up again, lighting the ground outside the walls as bright as day.

The situation Ai Mu least wanted to see had come to pass. The troops still inside the city ceased moving out.

Before long, the voice of his subordinate, a battalion commander, came down from the corner tower: "General, please break out. Your humble subordinate will remain on the wall to cover your rear."

"Get down here! Rope yourself down!"

There was no reply from the wall, only someone on the southern gate tower raising a torch.

Ai Mu said no more. He led his thousand-odd troops eastward, groping their way through the dark.

They soon reached the first trench. Sack after sack of earth filled a path, and men and horses filed through in single file.

Just as half the force had crossed, someone stepped into empty air and fell into a trench studded with sharpened stakes. Though the man did not cry out, the sound of a heavy body hitting the ground still alerted the bandit sentries not far away.

Voices drew nearer. They began to move at a quick march.

The second trench had only just been filled to form a path three feet wide when bandit soldiers nearby raised torches and looked their way. Several arrows flew toward them.

"The government troops are breaking out!"

A shriek tore through the stillness beneath the night sky.

The entire eastern camp erupted in chaos. Bandit soldiers scrambled to don armor and mount horses; some, not yet fully armored, were dragged out to check the defensive line.

In the black of night, all banners and signals were useless. Ai Huaiguang sounded a low horn blast.

With a sudden roar, unit after unit crossed the not yet fully filled second trench, assembled briefly, then turned and charged east.

Gao Xian, seated in his tent, was jolted awake by the horn. His eyes snapped open. He rose with the clatter of full armor plates striking together, flexed his numbed legs, and ran straight into a subordinate rushing in to report.

"Outpost Commander, the government troops have already charged past the second trench!"

Gao Xian was not thrown into a panic. They all knew the government troops would inevitably break out from the eastern side, and the day of the breakout had been drawing nearer and nearer — they had long been fully prepared for it mentally.

Hearing the news of the breakout, in fact, let Gao Xian breathe a sigh of relief inside.

These seven days and nights had been hard on the defenders inside the city, and hard on his own subordinates as well.

As the defense line tasked with guarding against the breakout, for the first three nights, one company had slept in its armor every night. From the fourth night on, two companies did so. Starting the previous night, three companies slept in their armor.

There is no such thing in this world as guarding against bandits a thousand days on end.

They could thank their luck that the government troops were short on provisions; had it gone on two more days, all their soldiers would have had to sleep clutching their spears and awaiting dawn. Such a defense put far too great a strain on their stamina and morale.

He said, "Pass the order: the left and right companies are to set up wooden bridges and envelop the enemy's rear. The center and rear companies, don your armor."

The front company needed no orders. His outpost was divided into five companies that rotated camp positions daily. The front company's tents were positioned right at the edge of the second trench.

They should already be engaged with the government troops by now.

Sure enough, at that very moment, the report of a gushing-bead cannon sounded from far away.

The direction of the muzzle flash was precisely the direction of the government troops' advance.

At the edge of the second trench beneath the night sky, slaughter had already begun.

Even with wooden bits clenched between their teeth, men could not stop the wooden caltrops and spikes from piercing the soles of their feet. When cries of agony rang out, the musket squad outside the Left Outpost barracks fired toward the direction of the screams.

Warhorses toppled. Government foot soldiers came charging in, brandishing sabers blackened with pot-bottom soot. Squad after squad, shielded by the night, charged eastward.

The sounds of battle jolted the entire besieging camp awake.

Liu Chengzong, like Gao Xian, had been sleeping seated in his tent in full armor. Jolted awake by the cannon fire and battle cries, he immediately shot out of the central command tent and shouted, "Send word to the west: hold position!"

The southern camp was thick with massed troops. Every unit was jolted awake and, under their respective commanders' orders, began mustering their men.

The first to come report were the household cavalry led by Zhong Bao. Soon after, Yang Yao personally galloped over to ask for orders.

Liu Chengzong gazed at the brightly lit city wall, raised his telescope to study it for a moment, and said, "There are still men on the wall. Outpost Commander Gao may not be able to stop all of them. Outpost Commander Yang, take the cavalry five li east and intercept the government troops there."

After that, Cao Yao and Feng Rang arrived together after marshaling their troops. Liu Chengzong assigned Feng Rang to lead his men to reinforce Gao Xian, and kept Cao Yao's cannon outpost with the main force.

Outside the city, it was pitch-black. If the cannon outpost fired a blast of grapeshot, it might well hurt their own men worse than the enemy.

"You hold the main camp. Don't let them break through here. Feng Rang!" Liu Chengzong stepped forward and called out to Feng Rang, who was about to depart. "Tell your men: once you catch up to the enemy from behind and engage, start shouting — 'Ai Mu is dead! Surrender and you will not be killed!'"

Feng Rang froze for a moment at the order, then nodded heavily. "Rest assured, General, I understand — force Ai Mu out into the open."

He thought back to that night when Lu Cheng died at Yanshui Pass. Lu Cheng would not have died, but to stop his soldiers from routing, he lit a banner as a torch, which drew repeated cannon fire and caused him to be struck and killed by a wooden splinter.

The battlefield east of the city had descended into complete chaos.

Of over a thousand government troops, only a little more than four hundred made it across the second trench. The rest were jammed up on the west side of the trench. A few men lost their footing and fell into the trench, where they were impaled and killed or wounded, and those behind them dared not advance.

It took them a very long time to regroup and find the earthen bridge the vanguard had filled in across the trench. But once they crossed the second trench, the conditions were like heaven and earth.

Wailing soldiers were everywhere. Beyond the second trench, the ground was strewn with wooden caltrops, even mixed with some iron caltrops.

What infuriated them most was that these iron caltrops came from their own baggage train in the two camps north and south of the post city, and now they were turned around and used to spike their own men.

Though they had roused morale again and again before the breakout, now that the moment had come — in this pitch-black night where you could not see your own hand, with an iron caltrop ready at any moment to cripple a man for life?

The soldiers at the rear were pushing forward from the west side of the trench, while the soldiers at the front were jammed up on the east side, too afraid to advance.

The entire breakout force was split into three segments.

But the fighting was far from easy for Gao Xian's unit.

He had too few men.

The forward squad first thrown into the battle numbered only a little over eighty men. After firing one cannon shot, they drew a mounted breakout force from the government troops that struck from the flank, cutting the squad into several pieces.

Then several government infantry squads breaking out charged, and they were battered so badly they dared not hold their ground any longer.

Fortunately, under the larger unit structure they still had the two safety nets of squads and support auxiliaries. The cut-up squads could still maintain some organization and fell back one after another toward the rear camp.

The defense was immediately taken over by the middle and rear squads, personally led by Gao Xian, who used the camp fortifications to continue blocking the government breakout force.

The fighting on this side was far easier, because the campfires outside the camp provided at least some light, and the men were not quite so terrified in their hearts.

But the poor visibility still gave the government cavalry chances to appear and vanish like ghosts. In squads of several riders, they would burst out from the left one moment, from the right the next — now ahead, now behind — putting tremendous pressure on Gao Xian's men.

Gao Xian's division into five squads also proved effective. The left and right squads, keeping their distance from the battlefield, executed a flanking envelopment.

They knew where the iron caltrops were on the battlefield and where they were not. They swiftly passed through the gaps in the defenses, moved to the north and south sides of the second trench, and converged toward the center, attempting to cut the enemy force in two from the middle.

But they had not anticipated the sheer scale of government troops paralyzed by the iron caltrops.

The two squads could not see clearly in the darkness either. One to the south and one to the north, they spotted a few government soldiers in the distance and pressed the attack in a pincer movement.

Only when they got close did they discover several hundred men jammed up on both sides of the trench. By then it was too late to retreat, so they had no choice but to grit their teeth and fight.

In the darkness, men dared not spread out their lines, so the fighting was very restrained, yet in close-quarters combat it was especially fierce. At times they cursed each other in Guanzhong dialect and Northern Shaanxi dialect; at times they told friend from foe by the glint of blades.

More often, men fought in silence, and when they heard a different accent beside them, they raised their blades and stabbed.

Soon, Feng Rang's troops crossed the dry riverbed of the Wen'anyi River and reached the battlefield through the narrow strip between the two trenches, throwing themselves into the melee.

At once, shouts from Feng Rang's unit rang out across the battlefield: "Ai Mu is dead — those who surrender will not be killed!"

The shouts rose and fell across the battlefield. Not only the support auxiliaries of Lion Camp were shouting — even some of the Guanzhong soldiers joined in.

For a moment, the government troops still trapped behind the first trench began retreating toward the post city, while the government troops caught between the two trenches laid down their weapons and surrendered in droves.

The cannons atop Wen'anyi Post City also roared to life at that moment.

They were firing at Feng Rang's unit. Small-caliber solid shot and grapeshot tore through the air, raining iron pellets onto every inch of ground in the strip between the trenches.

Then the red-barbarian cannons that Cao Yao had long since positioned south of the city also thundered — not just the red-barbarian cannons, but also general cannons and Frankish breech-loaders.

In seven days of besieging the city, the cannons on both sides had never fired at full force as they did tonight.

The southeast corner tower of the post city had its beams and pillars shattered in the third cannon salvo and collapsed entirely.

The four cannons positioned at the southeast corner fell silent as a result.

Wang Wenxiu immediately led his troops across the river and pressed straight toward the south gate, cutting off the retreat of the government soldiers trying to flee back into the city. Cao Yao's musketeers also advanced under the protection of blade-and-shield men, firing at the defenders atop the walls.

Seeing their retreat cut off and no follow-up government reinforcements coming, the cavalrymen who had broken through Gao Xian's line stopped clinging to the fight and broke out eastward one after another.

The infantrymen abandoned by the cavalry and their commanders remained trapped in bitter combat, able only to watch as more and more enemy troops bearing torches surrounded them in a tightening ring.

Liu Chengzong sat on a rock on the earthen hill at the central army position, surveying the battlefield. He had never heard so many harrowing shrieks crash into his ears.

Soon, mounted and foot messengers came one after another to gather below the earthen hill, reporting the results from each unit.

"The cannon outpost and rear outpost are still engaged with the enemy. There are at least two hundred defenders still on the walls. Requesting scaling ladders."

Two scaling ladders were dispatched to the battlefield, and at once Wang Wenxiu's unit began storming the post city.

"General, several dozen riders have broken out east of the city. The remaining government troops have laid down their arms and surrendered." The cavalry messenger from Gao Xian's unit spoke with shame. "Squad Leader Gao says the enemy general may be among the cavalry."

Ai Mu had fled?

Liu Chengzong drew a deep breath. "Go tell Squad Leader Gao that Ai Mu cannot get away. Squad Leader Yang is already cutting off their retreat."

Feng Rang's soldier arrived beaming with delight. "General, the enemy troops between the two trenches have all been taken prisoner. We are tallying casualties and captives."

The two trenches and the government troops' own iron caltrops had turned the night breakout into a disaster.

Liu Chengzong held up a string of iron caltrops, examined them again and again, and shook his head as he said to those around him, "These things are a real treasure."

He dared not imagine what this battle would have become if his troops had arrived a single day later.

These strange objects from the government baggage train — four cast-iron curved spikes welded together with a small hole in the center — could be strung together on a rope, and the moment you tossed them on the ground, they became a defensive line.

He did not even need to look to know that the vast majority of the wailing on the battlefield had been created by these things.

Wang Wenxiu was the first to fight his way onto the city wall and secure a foothold. Soon more and more combat soldiers from the rear outpost scaled the wall, seized the ramparts, and pushed further into the post city.

The battle outside the city was over.

Soon the casualty figures for each unit were tallied. Gao Xian's unit had borne the brunt, suffering massive casualties of over a hundred men.

Feng Rang's unit had been shelled by government cannons from the city walls. For the moment, thirty-two were confirmed dead, and over a dozen more were too gravely wounded to be saved.

But Feng Rang's unit had lost only five men in direct combat. The rest of their wounded were mostly lightly injured. They immediately detailed men to guard the prisoners, then led the rest into the city to further mop up enemy forces.

The soldiers counted the dead, and the final tally was gathered at the central army. Lion Camp had lost one hundred and two men killed and ninety-seven severely wounded in this government breakout battle.

The government dead were also counted — only one hundred and thirty-one killed.

But the government wounded were far too many: a full three hundred government soldiers had lost combat effectiveness, over two hundred of them from stepping on iron caltrops during the breakout.

Liu Chengzong ordered his subordinates to be sure to collect every last iron caltrop. These things were to be loaded onto two carts specially — they would be used again.

By early morning, when the sky was barely bright, a few sporadic screams still rang out from within the post station.

Yang Yao returned with his troops, treading through the morning dew, bringing back a corpse. He cupped his fists and said, "General, Ai Mu still escaped. The general who covered the retreat died in battle — it is his son, Ai Huaiguang."

Liu Chengzong lifted the banner draped over the corpse, closed the young man's wide, glaring eyes, and nodded slowly.

"He was Great Ming's hope. Bury him well."

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