Chapter 260: One Cannon, One Goat

Life.

Heaven bestows life; the body is a boat. Living is the necessary passage by which life reaches the other shore — and so is death.

Great spears and wooden cannons roared among the mountains, sheets of powder smoke veiling the cloud-wreathed peaks, as lead balls and cannon shot pierced through the haze one after another.

They penetrated the tamarisk-bundle border walls, and the rammed-clay layers shattered into fragments.

Windhorse flags hanging from the castle fluttered unceasingly; cannonballs cleared the walls and smashed into the mani stone mounds carved full of sutras. Soldiers forgot to take cover amid the wails of their comrades, staring at the largest mandala Nangchen had ever seen, and the most spectacular ritual working of a mantra master.

The mute Depön of the Beri army, who had never earned a Geshe degree, was powerless before it.

The warriors strained every sinew to draw their long self-bows to the full, using their height advantage to send feathered arrows extremely high and far, but the fierce mountain gales always blew them off course, unable to reach that mandala which kept emitting smoke and thunder.

Such paltry human strength could not restrain this great magical weapon, black powder, in the slightest.

The great jingal loaded very slowly, but over a thousand soldiers carried gun barrels and timber up the mountain very quickly.

At first only twelve artillerymen used wooden cannons to bombard the battlements, but when dozens of retired liuhe cannons were set out, with nowhere to place them so that some tumbled off the cliff, Cao Yao also sent up his other twelve soldiers who assembled wooden cannons, and they took up the guns on the stone steps to fire in rotation.

A shriek sounded by Awang's ear.

Before he could react, a splatter of gore mixed with flesh and blood sprayed across the snowy white wall atop the fort.

Awang turned his head back. His sturdy deputy general was looking down at his own chest, slowly reaching out to pry a small fragment of shattered lead from the broken cast-iron heart-protector mirror.

The deputy general wanted to lift this piece of lead and show it to Awang — this was the enemy's magical weapon.

He said, "Cre… cremation."

But the next moment, the deputy general's legs could no longer support his heavy body; he swayed twice and suddenly pitched forward.

The large lead ball had bored into his chest, but on his back, where he wore a mail shirt, radiating toward both ribs, the fine iron-ring mail had seven or eight holes all plugged solid with lead fragments.

Depön Awang followed the trajectory and looked toward the lower outer wall of the castle. There, a soldier holding a sling was still standing; his black felt coat showed no bloodstains or wounds — he looked simply frozen with terror.

But when a Fierce Tiger hero draped in wolfskin ran across the breached border wall and deliberately bumped into him, that body, long since dead, toppled backward, caught at the waist on the inner side of the parapet, and plunged headfirst down into the castle.

Awang could even imagine the crisp crack of the body smashing against the stone surface.

He shook his head. It couldn't be sewn back together.

The monks of Ganden Monastery had never taught him how to treat a wound like that.

Nor had the Beri King ever said how to fight a battle like this. He watched as the bravest Fierce Tiger heroes on the front line abandoned the border walls that shielded them from arrows, withdrew to the open ground inside the castle, and rallied their soldiers, preparing for close combat.

Awang could do nothing. He was stunned senseless.

This fortress had been built four hundred years ago. In those days, the firearm people used was called the pear-blossom lance, the standard weapons were strong bows and heavy crossbows, and the siege engines were counterweight trebuchets that could not be hauled up the mountain paths.

Therefore, the fortress had been impregnable.

But against this kind of enemy?

The monk Awang stood on tiptoe atop the castle and gazed toward the mountain platform. The thick powder smoke was gradually dispersing. Men were using ramrods over six chi long to load ammunition into great jingals nearly eight chi in total length.

A white horse galloped across the castle's open ground. The officer on horseback wore an iron helmet with a white tassel — it was the White Horse Rupön, blowing a tibia horn that emitted a shrill sound to muster the soldiers.

He had mustered roughly… over two hundred men?

Awang searched everywhere, and finally, at the castle's rear gate near the western mountain path, he discovered countless soldiers running that way along the wall.

Some had already gotten out and were fleeing down the mountain.

Awang wanted to flee too, but running away like this would betray the Beri King who had recognized his worth.

So he also walked toward the castle's open ground.

He did not draw his sword; he merely turned his prayer wheel, his mouth opening and closing, chanting sutras only he himself could hear, standing among a crowd of Fierce Tiger heroes and bringing them immense encouragement.

The White Horse Rupön intended to ride out and meet the enemy.

The enemy's "mandala" on the mountain platform was only a little over ten zhang in height and a hundred paces distant from the castle gate — a spot that could hold only a few dozen men.

The White Horse Rupön stopped the monk Awang from accompanying the sortie.

He said: This requires supreme valor — to slay the great mantra masters within the powder smoke by human strength alone. If they prove no match for the enemy mantra masters, he hoped Depön Awang could chant sutras for them and guide their souls to the other shore.

The city gate swung wide open. The White Horse Rupön advanced on foot, blade in hand, his heart long unable to settle.

He did not fear death. The root of his unease lay in the castle's Depön Awang… He had never realized it before, but now, in the midst of this great operation to disrupt the ritual working, a question suddenly struck him.

Something was not right.

The monk Awang had no tongue. His sutra chanting relied entirely on humming from his throat — his recitations were utterly perfunctory.

If this one-eyed monk could deliver him to the other shore, then his own little son at home, who could not yet speak, could also deliver him to the other shore just by swinging a prayer wheel.

But that was as far as the White Horse Rupön's thoughts went.

Cao Yao had been waiting all along.

In his view, the artillery position was here, and the enemy could not hold the white castle's red walls — sooner or later they would have to form ranks and attack.

Although this was fundamentally different from the White Horse Rupön's goal of disrupting the ritual working, the process led to the same destination by different roads.

The wooden cannoneers on the mountain path saw the city gate open and fired upward.

The White Horse Rupön, among a crowd of Fierce Tiger heroes draped in tiger and wolf skins, was extremely conspicuous. Three cannonballs struck him in succession; he likely felt only one before he went tumbling down the stone steps.

He tumbled seven or eight steps, then his body lurched sideways, rolled off the stairway, and followed the same trajectory as those wooden cannons discarded over the cliff after firing — going down the mountain to have an audience with Liu Shizi.

Wang Wenxiu had prepared for everything, but had overlooked one thing: the human-bullet offensive.

When the Fierce Tiger heroes charged straight down the mountain path, his light fowling-piece squads fired volley after volley. The heroes swept everything before them on the path with their corpses, terrifying the artillerymen into dodging one after another, until one by one they crashed through the shield wall.

Slingstones and arrows flew together. Several brave heroes leaped into the formation with blades raised, crashing into the battle-hardened veterans who surged forward in a countercharge around Wang Wenxiu.

Armor and weapons clashed. The Fierce Tiger heroes deliberately avoided the iron arm-guards and hacked at the Lion soldiers, only to discover with astonishment that when an iron blade struck a padded cotton coat, it actually produced the sound of metal striking metal.

What the hell kind of curse was this?

And on the mountain platform… there was no one who looked like a mantra master.

Someone shouted, "It's a trap! Their mantra masters are at the foot of the mountain!"

Morale plummeted in an instant. Men scrambled over each other to run back up, only to be encircled by Lion soldiers who had been resting on the surrounding mountain slopes. From time to time, a wooden cannon loaded with a handful of gravel blasted from the flank.

Wang Wenxiu seized the momentum and led his troops in an assault upward.

By the time the fierce tiger heroes lay dead or wounded, the remaining soldiers of the Baili army swiftly lost their will to resist — some surrendered, some fled, and some, after surrendering, seized the chance to shove nearby comrades off the mountain.

In an instant, the mountain path descended into utter chaos.

The defenders who fled back into the city first were still in shock, and their panic infected the soldiers preparing for a desperate last stand; people scrambled to seal the great gate shut.

As the highest commander in the city, the mute monk Awang was like a bystander — fortunately, the officers in his army were well-trained, and the two remaining Rupons could carry out the mission of commanding the soldiers in his stead.

This command style, with the supreme commander serving as a mere mascot, was not necessarily weak; in the Great Ming, Yang Yanchang, famed as the God of War of Yan'an, had thoroughly mastered the essence of this automated command.

One couldn't say how formidable it was — only that he had never lost.

Though they numbered only two hundred, one Blue Horse Rupon led a hundred-man squad to seal the city gate and form ranks inside the city, preparing for a possible close-quarters fight if the gate was breached.

The other Black Horse Rupon led troops into the two lower stone-built floors of the castle, using the square windows and firing loopholes to block the attacking army.

In any case, they no longer dared to stay on the arrow-proof Bianma walls — those things didn't stop cannon fire and were far less reassuring than stone walls.

Most important was the top of the city gate, where there were firing holes for hurling stones and pouring hot water down; the bronze cauldron was already filled to the brim with ice, and they only needed to heat it before they could splash it down.

They never imagined that before the ice had even melted, the attacking army — using neither ladders nor battering rams — would have several Lion soldiers charging straight at the city gate with poles braced forward.

The native soldiers aiming their muskets and drawing their bows through the windows were dumbfounded.

"They — quick! Go tell the Rupon, they're planning to pole-vault into the castle!"

The city gate here was unlike those of Central Plains walled cities, where one could walk up steps directly to the gate; this gate was as narrow as the door of a house.

Right on the heels of that came several successive explosive booms.

The defenders behind the gate listened to the gate clang and boom, terrified out of their wits.

With a thunderous crash, they struck the right spot — the gate bar crashed down, the wooden door was kicked open with one foot, and then armored soldiers charged into the castle, fighting the defenders in the cramped space.

From the moment they entered the castle, the defenders were under immense psychological pressure.

They had never seen such an outrageous enemy.

This small castle was just like those forts the Ming army built along the border — born entirely of war, except it was born atop a mountain peak, naturally making full use of the terrain; nearly every corner and every corridor was designed to give the defenders a local advantage of fighting many against few.

But that advantage vanished completely in the face of the Lion Army.

The moment Wang Wenxiu charged into the fortress, his first reaction was not to have his elite infantry search for remaining enemies, but to let the artillery take the lead — hugging a wooden tube cannon loaded with a handful of iron slag to seal off the dark corridor.

How were they supposed to fight this?

Several men, wielding slings and dog-beating staves, wound up inside the room, intending to hurl stones at the heads of the enemy soldiers across the corridor — but just as they stepped out, before they could even aim, bang! The entire corridor filled with gunpowder smoke.

Shards of iron sprayed everywhere; the men outside, just six or seven paces away, were torn to bloody shreds.

The Baili troops were all sealed inside the rooms; to the native soldiers, these wooden cannons that spewed smoke and shot pellets seemed more like magical instruments than weapons.

Even if a few knowledgeable people said they were weapons, the slave whelps of Baili didn't believe it.

The mere realization that they were opposing a great curse-master of profound magical power itself required superhuman courage.

These damned bird-men must be wielding the very arms of the Citipati Lord, right?

Anyone who could run, ran.

Only those who truly couldn't escape grew frantic inside the rooms, and some, in their desperation, flipped out through the windows.

The lucky ones got out and fled; the unlucky ones were pinned down by musket and wooden cannon fire, too afraid to show their heads.

The disadvantage of having a mute as general was laid bare in this moment.

The two Rupons each had their own intelligence and sent reports to the central command one after another, but the deputy general was already dead, and the monk Awang could utter no words to boost morale.

So much so that while the troops within the walls were still resisting, the soldiers on the small square in the middle were so frightened they fled one after another.

At the foot of the mountain, Baeyan Taiji sat cross-legged on the ground, tilting his head up, utterly baffled.

He had just seen a group of King Baili's subordinates flee down the western side of the castle; half a month ago, when his own men climbed the stone steps, the enemy had not been like this.

At nearly eighty paces, arrows came from three sides; within fifty paces, muskets fired; up close, stones rained down — that reckless, death-defying spirit of defending the city had made none of his herding soldiers willing to gnaw on this tough bone.

How was it that when Liu the Lion's men went up, before they even entered the city, the enemy fled from the west?

Could it really be because of those wooden-shell cannons that could be made in no time at all?

The craftsmen had all been found by his own tribesmen; Baeyan Taiji knew better than anyone how crudely those things were made.

A blacksmith's apprentice might not be able to forge a good knife, but in the same amount of time, he could hammer out at least twenty of the iron tubes inside those wooden cannons.

The wood was even easier — it was just a section of tree trunk. Spruce was everywhere here; the trees were very round and straight. Chop one into a four-chi pillar with an axe, split it down the middle, hollow out three chi and divide it into six staves, stuff the iron casing inside, bring the six together, reinforce with iron bands, and bind it all with leather straps and rope.

They didn't even trim the rough edges off the wooden casing, and it became a cannon that could fire over a hundred paces.

Baeyan Taiji was reflecting: how had he never thought of this contraption back when he entered Tibet?

With a few hundred of these things, he'd have torn down all thirteen fortress-monasteries of the Tsangpa Khan!

Baeyan Taiji thought and thought, then, followed by his bodyguards, strolled down the mountain to check on Liu the Lion, who was examining a soldier who had tumbled down.

"That thing of yours… how many sheep?"

"Huh?"

Liu the Lion was dumbfounded by the question. One of his soldiers had just rolled down the mountain — the fourth since the battle began, knocked down by an enemy feigning surrender.

Fortunately, the enemy who rammed him had also been dragged down by him, serving as a meat cushion, so he was still alive, though gravely injured.

There had been another man earlier, though no one knew if he was knocked down or lost his footing and fell on his own; clad in forty jin of armor, he was a mangled mess by the time he rolled to the bottom.

Baeyan Taiji suddenly asking about a few sheep — Liu the Lion had no idea what he wanted to buy.

"This cannon that fell apart — how many sheep? I'll buy it for use in Tibet."

Liu Chengzong suddenly understood and refused him: "These can explode. They're just a stopgap measure; they don't suit you."

Baeyan cast him a sidelong glance: "You're being a terrible friend."

"I mean it. If you really want them, there are nearly a hundred of these broken ones on the ground. I'll piece them together and give them all to you — no sheep needed. We're friends, after all."

Having said this, Liu the Lion shook his head again: "But I mean it — they don't suit you."

His soldiers understood gunpowder and knew how to use cannons. The wooden tube cannon was merely an expedient; the first shot used a normal powder charge, and they never fired a second shot from the same cannon. If they absolutely had to fire again, they halved the powder and loaded grapeshot for close combat.

This was a high plateau with insufficient oxygen; the ratio of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal had to change with the altitude. Even under normal conditions, the saltpeter ratio had to be adjusted based on its purity to maximize the gunpowder's power.

The herding soldiers of Baitang Taiji simply did not possess this knowledge.

Most critically, given how scarce iron tools were among Huoluochi's various tribes, casting iron shot meant that every three or five cannonballs would cost you a waist saber.

If they fired stone shot, Baitang's entire army might as well be out on the plateau picking up pebbles.

The soldiers below the mountain suddenly erupted in cheers of "Long live!" Liu Chengzong raised his head. The sturdy mountain fortress — the one Baitang Taiji had planned to besiege until year's end and the defenders had planned to hold until October — now flew a great banner bearing his surname.

"I can give you all of it, but don't come to me for cannonballs. I don't have time to make them for you. If you come asking after you've entered Tibet, it'll be one sheep per shot."

With that, Liu Chengzong clapped his hands. "Come on, let's go up and take a look at this castle, so easy to defend and so hard to attack."