Chapter 259: Sorcery

In the cramped chamber of the fortress, an oil lamp burned steadily, filling the room with the smell of smoke and fire.

Awang Daiben wrinkled his nose and, bent over the low kang table, meticulously painted a thangka on the Tibetan paper spread across it.

It was an anatomical drawing of the human body, depicting bones and organs. Using a Tibetan brush dipped in white earth pigment, Awang Daiben drew various surgical instruments, annotating which injuries to treat and how.

The mountain nights were bitterly cold, so even the largest chamber inside the fortress, which looked so majestic from the outside, measured barely two paces square — just enough for a small bed and two Buddhist shrines.

Awang was his name; Daiben was his official rank.

As the highest commander stationed at Nangqian by the King of Beri, Awang resembled a monk far more than a general.

Long ago, Awang had indeed been a monk — back when his tongue was still in his mouth.

He was born on the Jiama Chikang estate in Lhasa, the very birthplace of Songtsen Gampo. Awang's father was a knight-official whose blood-price was eighty taels of gold.

Awang was the cleverest son in the family. At the age of twelve, when the Mongols entered Tibet, his father, summoned by his lord, fought bravely and was gravely wounded. On his deathbed, he donated the family property to Ganden Monastery and, choosing Awang from among his seven sons, sent him into the monastery to study.

Awang's origins were upper-middle, but within Ganden Monastery, such origins were not worth mentioning.

His future should have been boundless — perhaps he could have used his martial skill and wisdom to become an iron-staff monk, or used his medical arts to wander the land spreading the teachings and become a monastery abbot known in every household.

Unfortunately, back then Awang loved to argue. In a debate with the son of a Dzongpön, he won the debate and lost his tongue.

After that, he left Ganden Monastery.

In the years that followed, Ü-Tsang was tossed by storms, and the monk Awang drifted like a willow catkin in the wind. Sometimes he earned rewards by treating the sick; more often, he had only his monk's robes to rely on, receiving alms from the common folk.

He tried to seek refuge with local aristocrats, hoping to trade his knowledge for a decent, upper-middle livelihood. But no noble was willing to wait for a mute who had never earned a Geshe degree to write things out — and even when he did, they couldn't read it!

The world is strange that way: some who can speak choose not to, while others long to speak but cannot.

To survive, the monk Awang resolved to venture into peril.

Wherever there was war, he went to perform surgery. Still no great noble recognized his worth. Instead, a Mongol shot out one of his eyes, and in a chaotic battle with bandits, he lost his left ear.

But none of that mattered.

Aside from the tongue he had long since lost, most of the bodily parts Heaven had granted him came in pairs.

Lose one, and there is still another.

It was not until four years ago, when he wandered into Kham, that he met the first noble who recognized his worth.

That noble was named Dönyö Dorje. He was willing to spend his precious time waiting for Awang to write, could understand what he wrote, and did not mind that he was a fake monk who had never earned a Geshe degree.

Very few monks were willing to rush to the battlefield. The monk Awang was one of them. He was more familiar with battlefields than with temples, and he had tramped across every corner of the land with the army of the King of Beri.

At first, people called him the monk Awang; later, they called him Doctor Awang; and later still, he became a Daiben officer.

Last autumn, he personally led the assault that captured this fortress of the King of Nangqian. Now it was his turn to defend it.

The wooden door of the chamber was gently knocked. His subordinate, the Baima Rupön, stepped forward to report: "Daiben, all one hundred and twenty prisoners in the dungeon have been executed."

Awang nodded to show he understood. The Rupön officer's expression was troubled as he said, "The army below the fortress has grown. At noon today, two great booms sounded from the foot of the mountain."

Awang thought for a moment, then took up paper and brush and wrote: "The Mongol assault is like the wind of the final kalpa — it howls fiercely; but when it burns, it is like a timid sorcerer setting a fire. Before long, they will flee back to their homeland. Be at ease."

The food-wasting prisoners in the dungeon had been executed; they had enough provisions to last through the warm season.

Last through October, and the earth would freeze solid again. The Mongols would flee back to Qinghai — and if they didn't, the army of the King of Beri would drive them off.

Although this fortress had only six hundred defenders, by relying on the mountain terrain, they still held an absolute advantage over the tens of thousands of Mongol troops below.

Awang's ease was not the confidence of certain victory, but the fearlessness born of thorough preparation.

The stone wall foundations were nearly impossible to destroy; the loose, layered structure of the upper bamah walls could withstand arrows; and the narrow mountain paths ensured the defenders' numerical advantage.

Just as when he had captured the fortress himself, inside this strong bastion, the nature of the enemy had never really mattered.

The defenders' greatest enemy was themselves.

So for the past half-month, he had ordered the army to melt ice and store water, take inventory of grain, reduce the population, and arrange the defenses. He had even promised the soldiers in his army that when they returned to Barkham, he would personally treat their ailing family members.

After writing that sentence, Awang saw that his subordinate officer was still deeply uneasy. Smiling, he continued to write: "Issue orders to the three ru: if any native soldier falls defending the fortress, I will find a sky-burial master; if any hero falls, I will personally conduct their fire burial."

The Rupön of the Baima Ru watched him write slowly, his eyes widening rounder and rounder, and stammered out broken words: "Fire — I, I can also have a fire burial?"

Awang nodded slowly, deeply satisfied with his officer's reaction.

As a rule, the customs that survive and spread most widely are precisely those that, in the past, were privileges enjoyed only by the few.

Peasants of the Central Plains could not afford silk and satin; Miao village girls could not afford silver ornaments; Mongol herders grudged eating meat; Jurchen hunters could not afford sable coats; and the common people of Tibet had no right to a sky burial.

Sky burial was a privilege reserved for nobles and monks, and fire burial was even more exalted — only great lords and eminent, virtuous monks could produce relics from the flames.

This was Awang's secret to winning people's hearts.

Long ago, when Awang Daiben was still the wandering monk Awang, he had nearly been acclaimed as a minor regional chieftain for holding funerals for serf soldiers who had died in battle... Unfortunately, he could not speak, and the few dozen surviving serf soldiers were soon reclaimed by their masters.

The officer rushed out excitedly to relay the order. Before long, from his chamber, Awang heard the soldiers' cheers echoing one after another throughout the fortress.

He curled the corner of his mouth in satisfaction and continued his painting with a tranquil mind.

By afternoon, the tibia horns in the fortress sounded in rapid succession. The three-story corridor creaked loudly under the feet of soldiers being urgently mobilized.

An attendant cavalryman knocked on the chamber's wooden door: "Daiben, the enemy is about to launch a full assault!"

Awang set his Tibetan brush down on the kang table, his face full of bewilderment at this news.

It was already nearing dusk. In the warm season, night fell a little later here, but there were still only two shichen until darkness descended. If the Mongols launched an attack now and failed to take the fortress before nightfall, the unfamiliar high mountain alone would send the assaulting army scattering in chaos.

Not long after, Awang, wearing an iron helmet adorned with peacock feathers and a suit of chainmail with front and back heart-protector mirrors that glittered under the moonlight, ascended to the fortress's flat roof to observe.

The army below was like a colony of ants migrating their nest — a dense mass advancing along the mountain's stone steps toward the platform.

In the open ground inside the fortress, the Beri army units were mustering under their officers' command. Two Rupön officers, their helmets distinguished by tassels of different colors, led soldiers up onto the outer high wall.

Slingers, archers, and thirty-two peasant soldiers clad in tiger or lynx pelts manned the high wall, their breath puffing out in white plumes. A grim, killing stillness hung over the ramparts.

Those peasant soldiers were the most elite force. Draped in tiger skins, each had earned the title of Fierce Tiger Hero in battle. Equipped with the finest chainmail and four-mirror armor, bearing powerful bows or matchlock guns from Tibet and the Central Plains, they were a majestic and awe-inspiring sight.

Awang fixed his gaze on the army laboring up the mountain. As they climbed higher, he could now make out the silhouettes of the enemy slowly scaling the slope.

Awang frowned. Those men... those men did not look like Mongol troops.

They carried square timbers, apparently shields to ward off arrows. They wore armor and on their heads were deep helmets, each helmet fitted with a tall plume-holder.

It seemed that, aside from those carrying shields, the men behind them were each shouldering a length of wood.

Apart from that, there were bird guns — Han-style bird guns and large fire lances similar to those from the west, only they seemed bigger and longer.

The officer at the front carried a banner. The flag had been whipped into a furl by the biting mountain wind, making the characters on it impossible to read; all one could tell was that it was a crimson red flag.

They were not Mongols.

The Deputy General pointed at the army scaling the mountain and said, "Dai Ben, they've brought wood — do they mean to set fire to us?"

Awang shook his head and raised a hand to point at the dry grass beside them. His meaning was unmistakable.

The upper half of the mountain fort was indeed a Bianma wall, but a fire could not reach that high. Besides, with only firewood and no dry grass, starting a blaze on this bare earthen hill would be no easy task.

The Deputy General looked at the dry grass and understood in an instant. He spoke with absolute certainty: "The Dai Ben is right. I was too dull-witted."

Awang shot him a sidelong glance, then raised his right hand and rubbed it along his left cheek down to his chin. What... what did I say?

This Deputy General, he thought, must be what the scriptures describe as "smiling without speaking — a wonder beyond words."

He has the root of wisdom.

Awang was deeply worried about those fire lances and suits of armor. From Ü-Tsang to Kham, he had never seen an army so well-equipped.

Soon, the vanguard occupied the ledge. On the high wall, tibia-bone horns sounded one after another, and orders were relayed down the line. The archers stood ready in tight formation; with their height advantage, the enemy on the high platform was already very close to their range.

But those troops did not continue climbing. Instead, they planted shields on the ledge, and the men behind set down the timber and began to rest.

With a slap, the Deputy General beside Awang struck his palms together and said worriedly, "The Dai Ben was right all along — they mean to build a mandala platform with that wood. They must have brought a mantra master of great power to start the fire!"

"The King sent no mantra master here. Dai Ben, can you stop them?"

Dai Ben Awang opened his mouth. The remaining root of his tongue stirred twice, but in the end, only a sigh escaped him.

Over all these years, Awang had wandered from place to place, moving from one battlefield to the next. He had seen many mantra masters and monks set up mandala platforms — to invoke deities and cure illness, to subdue demons and exorcise evil, to summon wind and rain, or to call down hailstorms.

Some saw their ritual instruments fail and their power run dry, falling short at the final step; others succeeded in casting their spells.

Awang did not understand the principle behind it. Perhaps they borrowed the forces of heaven and earth for their own use; perhaps it was a blind cat stumbling upon a dead rat.

But he had never once seen a mantra master push an army right up to his face before working his magic.

What was more, that crimson banner had now unfurled. Awang did not recognize the character on it, but his instinct told him it was a Han character. He had seen Geshe monks at Ganden Monastery leafing through books like that.

The Han have come.

The man bearing the flag was Liu's infantry battalion Commander, Wang Wenxiu.

The defenders were crouched inside the fortress arranging their defenses and had not contested the ledge, which made Wang Wenxiu feel considerably more at ease.

The infantrymen were panting from exhaustion. They planted their shields, set up light bird guns to form a defensive line, put down the wooden blocks they had carried, and took a short rest while waiting for the reinforcements behind them.

Though called a mountain ledge, it was really just a slope that was not quite so steep — four zhang square, still over ten zhang in height and more than a hundred paces from the fort. It could not mass many troops.

Especially with the wooden blocks being sent up without pause, apart from the twenty soldiers with light bird guns, the rest scattered across the mountain terrain where there were no stone steps, searching for flatter spots that offered cover from arrows to rest.

At last, the forward hundred-man squad dispersed to the sides, and the second echelon's artillery battalion Commander, Cao Yao, came up.

"A broken-down place like this, can't even deploy the weapons properly. Damned cowards."

Cao Yao climbed up full of grumbling. He threw down the iron-sheet tube he had been carrying on his shoulder, gulped several ragged breaths, and only then turned his head and shouted, "Lads, set up the Grand Marshal's jingal guns and assemble the Six-Union cannons!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Lion Army artillerymen, who had been resting with their hands on their legs, answered in unison. They crouched on the ground and began searching among the three-chi-long iron-sheet tubes and the wood blocks piled into small hills for the parts they needed.

The weapon Liu Chengzong had prepared for this assault on the fort was the early Ming Six-Union cannon — in other words, a wooden cannon.

It used a thin iron-sheet tube with a sealed base as its core; a round log was hollowed out and split into six pieces to form the casing, bound together with two iron bands, rawhide straps, and ropes.

With a powder charge of two and a half liang and a projectile weighing three and a half liang, its range was far inferior to his large jingal guns.

But its advantage lay in... the thick wood and the abundance of barrels.

Abundant enough to use as disposable large matchlock guns.

Cao Yao shaded his brow from the sunlight and looked up toward the mountain fort. Watching the crowd of heads stirring atop the high fortress wall, he licked his dry, cracked lips with excitement.

Five large jingal guns had their tripods removed and were mounted on rectangular wooden shields. Cao Yao pointed up high and asked, "This fort is stone below and branches with mud walls above. In a moment, pick out those men and shoot right through the wall into them."

"General, the eighteen Six-Union cannons are ready."

Cao Yao turned his head. The eighteen wooden-barrel cannons brought in the first batch were already arranged in three rows on the open ground behind him. Looking down, soldiers carrying timber were still climbing up from the foot of the mountain.

Even the craftsmen back at the siege camp were still hammering out iron-sheet tubes and splitting wooden barrel casings.

"The Grand Marshal's original words: the Lion Army has come here to make a show of force."

As he spoke, Cao Yao struck his fire steel to light the artillerymen's firing hooks. The air here was thin; the Lion Army's fire starters kept going out the moment they were brought along.

He turned his head to address the men: "Six gunners step forward. Fire where the crowd is thickest. Aim low, not high — make it so no one can stand on the wall."

Six gunners obeyed, hoisting the wooden-barrel cannons, which were less than four chi long, and stepping out past the shield wall. They staggered their positions along the stone-step slope, set down the wooden cannons, adjusted their angles, and stood ready at the gaps.

Behind them, six more gunners prepared themselves beside the loaded wooden cannons.

The marksmen manning the five large jingal guns likewise cocked their hammers and rested the guns on the shields. The men lay prone on the ground to aim. Once they had their targets, an assistant soldier would press down on the barrel with a felt pad to keep the heavy gun from recoiling off the cliff.

The moment the six wooden cannons were placed on the stone steps, the defenders on the wall stirred into commotion. A volley of arrows arced down from afar; depending on the draw strength of the bows, some fell near and some far, scattering across the mountainside.

Cao Yao did not even blink. A habit forged over years of working cannons made him tilt his head to one side as he raised his right arm and lifted the command flag.

Boom!

One large jingal gun fired first, a muffled blast wholly unlike a bird gun. Three more followed right after. Once the hammers were re-cocked, the last jingal gun was fired as well.

Gunpowder smoke billowed across the cramped mountain ledge. Five lead balls, each weighing two qian and five fen, punched holes straight through the upper section of the wall. The soldiers behind it were maimed at a touch and dead on impact.

Right on their heels, the six wooden cannons among the stone steps were fired in sequence by the gunners. Iron or stone shot weighing three and a half liang were hurled out by the powder charge and smashed into the stone wall or the Bianma wall.

Before the muzzle smoke of the Six-Union cannons had even cleared, they were hauled back to the ledge by the gunners. A fresh wave of artillerymen stepped onto the stone steps, taking the firing hooks and preparing to launch a new round of bombardment.

The fortress wall, which had stood for four hundred years against traditional siege methods, might as well not have existed. Wounded Bili soldiers clutching their injuries and rolling on the ground filled the sky above the fort with howls of agony.