Chapter 276

The hounds raced along the mountain path, a pack of hunters close behind; at a bend in the trail, one man stayed behind, torch in hand, standing by.

The pounding of hooves soon followed — packhorses carrying barding were led thundering across the mountain path, and then company after company of light cavalry trotted forward.

This was the largest march the Baily army had undertaken since Dönme Dorje inherited the throne: four great nobles from across the realm, each leading six Depön, charged into the Nangchen King's territory, rampaging northeast along the Lion Army's line of retreat.

Dönme Dorje was elated to receive the Lingtsang King's plea for aid; for a long time, out of consideration for the Lingtsang family's prestige, he had been reluctant to launch an offensive against the Lingtsang chieftain, and the two had kept the peace — so much so that vast lands north of the Jinsha River remained beyond his control.

To him, the Lingtsang King's plea for aid was no less significant than the Dergé chieftain paying him tribute — it was his chance to extend his ruling reach north of the Jinsha River.

The only ones who suffered for it were the common people of the Baily domain conscripted for ula labor; by custom, an army on the march requisitioned ula from every region along the way, transporting military supplies in relays and providing grain, fodder, horses, cattle, and sheep.

From the moment the army reached a given place, the local nobles would dispatch ula, and the conscripted commoners would carry the relay all the way to the next noble's territory.

But now they faced a situation where there was no one left to take over: the area southeast of Nangchen had already been churned into a barren wasteland by the back-and-forth of war, and most critically, every territory had lost its nobles — Danba had become the final stop for their logistics and supply.

Once they left the Danba territory, the ula accompanying the army could no longer turn back; they had no choice but to follow the army on its rapid march.

Serfs and packhorses were being worked to death, yet they could not be replenished in large numbers; the supply line that once ran from the Surmang territory to the Baily heartland had collapsed, and the army's supply capacity was on the verge of crisis.

But the Baily King's generals were utterly oblivious to this situation — they were marching toward victory.

Faced with the massive offensive, Basang, left to hold Danba, could not withstand it and retreated northwest toward the Nangchen King's palace as soon as the fighting began.

Basang fled ahead, the Depön troops chased behind; in a mere two hundred li, the two sides clashed three times, and Basang lost all three.

Yet his slave-soldiers did not collapse, because the direction of their rout was clear — the slaves had no other way to survive; only by fleeing to the Nangchen Gyalmo Palace by the Zhaqu River was there a sliver of hope.

By the time Basang reached the banks of the Zhaqu, the number of slaves under his command had not dwindled — on the contrary, it had grown to four thousand, more than before the war began. But they had lost nearly all their weapons and supplies; they had nothing left but their lives.

The Depön troops behind him pursued all the way to the Zhaqu River as well, only to be blocked along the river by the garrison's artillery battalion commander, Huang Shengxiao, and forced to turn back empty-handed.

The nine hundred Depön troops, who had burned, killed, and triumphed the whole way, did not break under Huang Shengxiao's counterattack with wooden cannons — yet they fell apart on their own during the march back.

They had nothing left: their grain was exhausted, their packhorses had run themselves to death, their ula laborers had fled, the common folk along the route had been carried off by Basang, and the villages along the way had been torched by their own hands.

On the ancestral lands of Nangchen, ravaged by war into a barren wasteland, this army disintegrated on its own; even the Depön could not restrain the lesser nobles under him. Some fled back to their homes, while more split into small bands and charged toward Riwoche, Yushu, and other places, turning into bandits.

Only a little over a hundred men followed the Depön, heading east along the high mountains and deep valleys in search of traces of the main force's movement.

Meanwhile, in the northeast where the Baily main force was, the Lion Army and the Lingtsang army were locked in a struggle over the iron-chain bridge spanning the Jinsha River.

Luo Rucai's unit's landing had been known to the Lingtsang army from the very start, but it took time for a sleeping army to muster, and that was what allowed Luo Rucai's hundred-odd men to cross the river.

Soon after, over a hundred enemy troops came charging down from the mountain with torches and weapons bared, and the Lion Army's advance river-crossing unit faced an exceedingly awkward situation — their commander had not made it ashore.

But his presence was very much felt.

Beneath the pitch-black night sky, in the rushing river waters, Commander Luo's orders rang out from time to time: "Set up the wall guns — glug glug glug..."

Luo Rucai was the advance river-crossing unit's biggest landlubber.

While those handpicked soldiers who could swim had all crossed the river and thrown themselves into battle, Battalion Commander Luo was still bobbing up and down in the river, swaying left and right along the rope, surfacing now and then to shout — letting everyone know he was still alive.

Be that as it may, Luo Rucai in the river provided a great advantage for this battle.

The river-crossing squad formed up with their backs to the water; soldiers on the outer edge set up fire lances, while others held long spears to hold the position, protecting the soldiers inside as they donned their armor — but in truth, they were in grave danger, because they had no lit matchcord.

The fire-lighter had gone out, the matchcord was not yet lit, and the soldiers inside the formation were groping in the dark through the supplies slid across on ropes, searching for a fire steel.

The enemy troops, torches and weapons bared, raised their fire lances in plain sight halfway up the mountain; then the crack of gunfire rang out, terrifying the river-crossing squad.

No one was hit — the enemy was not aiming at them.

Without firelight, the enemy could not see where the river-crossing squad was; they could only hear Battalion Commander Luo's shouts coming from the river and mistakenly thought they were in the midst of crossing. And so volley after volley of lead shot was fired into the river.

Once the lead was spent, Commander Luo's orders turned to curses: "Son of a bitch, all you know is shooting — glug glug glug... seize the bridgehead, they can't hit a thing — glug glug glug..."

The river-crossing squad was reassured. They left twenty men to guard the riverbank and figure out how to fish Battalion Commander Luo out of the water, while the rest advanced on the bridgehead under cover of darkness.

The enemy troops on the mountainside were still locked in a battle of wits with the river; they dared not close in for melee combat in the dark of night, where friend and foe were indistinguishable, and could only loose volley after volley of fire lances and arrows toward the source of those strange shouts.

They, too, were baffled — why wasn't that man in the river moving?

They couldn't kill him no matter what, and he just kept on shouting.

Luo Rucai had struggled in the river until he was exhausted; once his arms gave out, he realized that because of the rope, the current could not wash him away.

He figured, with his level of swimming skill, there was no hope of crossing anyway, and it wasn't easy to get killed in the river — arrows and lead pellets all lost their force once they hit the water. He might as well just float there.

Whenever he was about to run out of air, he'd pull on the rope, pop up for a breath, curse a couple of times, and then go back down to glug for a while.

It was only when a subordinate grabbed his arm in the water and dragged him toward the riverbank that Luo Rucai finally felt his heart ease and came back to his senses.

Hearing the crackle of gunfire over there, Liu Chengzong on the mountainside clenched his fists tightly. Dai Daozi's scout cavalry had withdrawn twelve men from three directions, which meant the Baily King's army was advancing on this position from three sides, pushing them back four li.

The enemy was bearing down with overwhelming momentum, and Dai Daozi was doing his utmost to ascertain their numbers.

Liu Chengzong dispatched a scout rider to deliver orders to Zhang Tianlin, who was resting on the flank, commanding him to keep moving toward the enemy's flank under the cover of the scout cavalry, ready to coordinate with the main force when the decisive battle came.

At the Baily army's current rate of advance, the decisive battle would come by the evening of the day after next at the latest — there was not much time left for the iron-chain bridge.

Wang Wenxiu's twelve soldiers, carrying six wall guns on their shoulders and dragging benches, stepped onto the iron-chain bridge. The long bridge was laid with wooden planks, but the wind rushing through the gorge made it sway slightly, a heart-stopping, nerve-wracking sight.

They advanced slowly, closing to within eighty paces of the bridgehead. The torches of the garrison holding the far end were no longer a blur; they set down the wall guns and split into three teams, one behind the other.

In each team, the two men in front crouched, the wall guns lashed to the bench and set in place; the two men behind stood, their wall guns braced on the shoulders of the men in front, secured tight with leather straps to keep them from jumping upward.

The Lingtsang garrison at the bridgehead was mustering; this formation was the elite core of the Lingtsang King's forces, a mixed array of over a hundred heavy infantry, a hundred-odd fire lances, and heavy crossbows.

A unit like that was more than enough to block any enemy coming from the bridge.

Night battles were extremely dangerous — for both those who launched them and those who endured them.

The naked eye could not see far; any sudden flash of light, even a spark, was terrifying.

A fire steel struck in the darkness, a trail of sparks igniting the fire-lighter; the tiny flame lit a torch, which in turn lit matchcord after matchcord.

Luo Rucai's river-crossing squad was extraordinarily bold. All of this happened fifty paces from the flank of the bridgehead formation; a Depön officer spotted the telltale glow of fire, drew his bow full, and loosed an arrow in that direction, shouting, "Wheel to the right flank!"

The arrow flew through the night; only a sharp ding was heard. No one knew where that arrow had gone — even the soldiers of the river-crossing squad could not be sure whether it had struck someone's armor or a stone on the riverbank.

All they knew was: fire!

The locks of the four wall guns were cocked; one by one, the matchlock arquebuses fired first, loosing volleys into the dense formation. More arquebusiers spread out from the flank, light and heavy fire lances opening up together. No one could aim precisely, but in a short span, muzzle flash after muzzle flash burst forth, dazzling the eyes amid the thunderous roar, then veiled by gunpowder smoke.

The first instant of the flank attack was terrifying; the wails of soldiers struck by shot rose one after another, and the Lingtsang troops in the formation fell into panic.

An unarmored fire-lance soldier grunted and was knocked down, his matchcord accidentally touching the flash pan, sending a lead pellet slanting into the sky; a warrior under the protection of heavy armor was also struck down — the weight of his armor even made his fall slower, and he took several rounds before he dropped.

There were also massive jingal bullets that pierced through body after body, shattered piece after piece of iron armor, like an unstoppable iron plow carving furrows through a formation of flesh and blood.

Then the front was struck by jingal fire from the bridge. With no war drums, no banners, men shouted and ran and fell. Some tripped over the wounded. The ground was covered in groans. No one knew how many were actually hurt.

Some fled into the darkness to escape the shooting; others rushed toward the firelight to hold the formation. In the scattered ranks, soldiers searched for officers and officers searched for soldiers. Everyone was shouting at the top of their lungs, and panic spread with it.

On the other side of the Jinsha River, horns sounded one after another. Liu Chengzong personally beat the war drum. Wang Wenxiu, waiting at the bridgehead, led his troops, blades drawn, charging toward the opposite bank.

As the first squad of soldiers surged across the bridge and reached the far shore, the Lin Cong troops holding the bank collapsed into rout amid the chaos. Men ran madly for the mountain fort. The Lin Cong troops fled, and the vanguard river-crossing soldiers, having fired their one shot, scattered their formation right after.

Eager to press their advantage, they charged into the stockade with blades raised. Many simply chased any enemy they glimpsed near a light, acting on instinct. Then flight became a habit, and pursuit became a habit too.

Until both sides were exhausted. Some suddenly realized that a dozen of them had been chased a long way by a single man. They spun around and counterattacked, and the roles of attacker and defender reversed.

The pursuit began in disorderly chaos and stopped against organized resistance. The fighting lasted barely a quarter of an hour. Then the Lin Cong troops, having turned back in pursuit, slowly retreated up the mountain under the blocking action of Wang Wenxiu's unit.

In the distance, bonfires flared up one after another, announcing to Liu Chengzong that his troops had taken the chain bridge.

Soon a casualty report arrived. The Lion Soldiers had eight wounded and one killed. The Lin Cong troops had left behind only sixteen corpses and a dozen or so wounded. There were, however, quite a few prisoners who had been lying on the ground playing dead.

The heaviest casualties in this engagement for both sides came from the initial volley of firearms. After that, it was mostly running back and forth in the dark, with almost no real fighting.

Luo Rucai had been fished out of the river by his men. Wrapped in a large blanket, he came back from the far side of the bridge, still shivering uncontrollably, his lips purple. Liu Chengzong watched him with deep concern, thinking he was freezing.

"It's nothing, Commander. I'm just, I... scared." Luo Rucai could not stop trembling. He shook his head. "I-I'm not cold. I'll be fine in a bit."

Luo Rucai truly had been terrified. He had acted quite composed in the river, but that was only because there was no other choice. In his heart, he had been scared out of his wits.

In his own words, he would rather have just taken a bullet.

Alone in the river, he had drawn the fire of at least an entire hundred-man company. Twenty or thirty muskets and thirty or forty bows and crossbows had fired at him without pause. Every splash of a bullet hitting the water or whistle of an arrow flying past had made his heart lurch with fear.

The reason he had come wrapped in a blanket to find Liu Chengzong was that, deep down, he felt safe at Liu the Lion's side.

Although the fighting on the far bank was over and Wang Wenxiu had seized both forts, Luo Rucai could still hear the sound of lead balls tearing through the air over there. The slightest stir would make his heart pound.

As for his purple lips — on one hand, he had been badly chilled in the river; on the other, it was because of the chain bridge itself. Walking across it was terrifying too.

Liu Chengzong smiled. "Do you dare go back across?"

"I dare, but let me rest a moment, Commander." Luo Rucai thought to himself, as long as you don't make me swim in the river again, I'll dare anything. "Right now just thinking about crossing a river makes my legs go numb."

Having said that, Luo Rucai raised a thumb toward Liu Chengzong. "Commander, that rope of yours is truly something. Without those two ropes, I really would have sunk to the bottom."

Liu Chengzong heated some ginger soup for him by the fire and asked, "While you were drifting in the river, who was leading the troops on the other side?"

"Centurion Li Balaing, from Wen'an Post. He used to be a peddler." Luo Rucai cupped the ginger soup in both hands. "After the drought, he always short-weighted people. A disaster star. The moment he joined me, my troops got smashed by Ai Mu."

"Oh... the one who got stabbed in the rear, when Yang Chengzu nearly died." With that one sentence, Liu Chengzong knew exactly when it had happened. "A veteran. Not bad. He fought quite well."

"Veteran" was a nice way of putting it. The old hands under Luo Rucai were really just old bandits.

No wonder these men could fight at night. Back in northern Shaanxi, they had been too weak to operate in daylight, so they could only move by night and strike the great households. Just like Li Laochai — the moment it got dark, those men's eyes would gleam like damn wolves.

"Rest tonight. Tomorrow morning, take your twelve hundred men across the river and relieve General Wang. I need to deal with Dunyue Duoji here, this Lin Cong."

Liu Chengzong patted Luo Rucai on the shoulder. "I'm leaving it to you. Advance as far as you can, take as much as you can. They broke their word — hit them hard."