Chapter 320: Steadiness

Inside the Octagonal City, in the temple that once belonged to Lhazang.

The monk, his expression peculiar, was translating the letter into Mongolian. He scratched his ears and cheeks as he worked, his face a mix of vexed anger and lighthearted ease, so much so that a fine sweat beaded on his forehead.

Seated cross-legged before the Buddha statue, Choktu Taiji's expression remained as usual, only he felt great pity for his monk. He specially had an attendant fetch a hand towel and even offered words of comfort, saying that Chinese was obscure and difficult, and he was in no hurry to read this letter.

The monk's name was Zorji. Proficient in Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian, and skilled in medicine and painting, he had first been ordered to Guihua City to preach. In the forty-sixth year of the Wanli reign, he had been entrusted by Choktu Taiji's mother to translate the *Biography of Milarepa* into Mongolian, introducing it to the Khalkha.

For him, Liu Chengzong's wording in the letter was not obscure at all. He understood every character, and the phrases they formed posed no problem either — it was just that he could not translate them directly and present them to Choktu.

In truth, Monk Zorji was deeply puzzled. Before this war began, he had been ordered to enter Gansu to gather information on the Marshal's Office that had seized Qinghai, so he had some understanding of the Liu family.

In the monk's understanding, Liu Chengzong's family all came from the interior of the Han lands. His father, Liu Xiangyu, had once governed tens of thousands of commoners as an official, while Liu Chengzu and Liu Chengzong were both fierce and valiant warriors.

Leading their army, they had maneuvered against several Regional Commanders and generals in the Han interior, ultimately fighting their way a thousand li to enter Qinghai, their southward military edge once pressing straight toward Ü-Tsang.

Moreover, someone had specifically told the monk that all three men of the Liu family, father and sons, possessed extremely high learning and cultivation.

Zorji expressed doubt about this.

Because in the letter, Liu Chengzong addressed Choktu with the title 'Brother Rabbit Who Mindlessly Parrots Farts,' told him to 'look at your own reflection in piss' to see if he was worthy of occupying Qinghai, ordered him to quickly muster his troops and come to Heka Grassland to 'stretch out your neck and be butchered — I've never seen a Tartar under heaven who can fight,' or if he was too cowardly, to wait in Octagonal City for two months, 'at your advanced age, don't go dying first. Wait till I've chopped up the little rabbit bastard hiding in Ulan Mountain, then I'll come for you.'

Monk Zorji thought to himself: Damn, the blood in this letter is practically overflowing — how am I supposed to translate this?

He was truly afraid that if he translated it directly, Choktu Taiji would die of rage before the fighting even started. Yet he couldn't leave many things untranslated either. After all, Monk Zorji knew a great deal, but he simply did not understand warfare, and he feared omitting some crucial detail that would lose them the war.

After lengthy preparation, the letter was finally rendered with wording and phrasing gentled by more than ten thousand times, while retaining its general meaning.

Choktu took the translated letter and placed it on the scripture table. His calloused hand stroked his beard as he read it over and over.

In the letter, Liu Chengzong first extended sincere blessings and greetings to him and his family, then proceeded to expound his views on the matter of Choktu's invasion of Qinghai and occupation of Octagonal City, condemned his tactic of the two-pronged pincer attack, and cordially invited him to a joint hunt on Heka Grassland. Should the timing be inconvenient, he wished him good health and announced that he would schedule a visit to Octagonal City two months later.

In the end, a smile on his face, he said to the monk, "This young lad of the Han is very modest and courteous!"

What could Monk Zorji say? He felt guilt in his heart, and with the corners of his mouth drooping, he acknowledged this very seriously before hastily changing the subject: "Indeed! This humble monk has heard that the Qinghai Marshal comes from a scholar background... Will Taiji go to Heka Grassland to fight him decisively?"

Choktu shook his head and raised a hand to tap lightly twice on his crossed leg. "Fight what decisive battle? If Liu Chengzong marches west, we will leave by the west of the Yellow River, circling around him and departing this place."

This polished letter did not make him feel anger, so he very rationally recognized that Liu Chengzong's attack on Ulan Mountain was the best opportunity for him to lead his army away from here.

Although retreating from Qinghai in disarray was not his original intention, his raids on the territories of Guru Taiji and Little Lhazang had already brought him enormous wealth. Leaving now would not be a bad outcome.

Choktu Taiji did not loudly publicize the capture of the messenger. He merely ordered the garrison in the city to build defensive equipment on a large scale while sending men to move toward the Yellow River in the west to scout the defensive deployments along the banks, waiting for Liu Chengzong to go west on his Ulan Mountain campaign so he could seize the chance to leave Huangnan.

But how could Liu Chengzong possibly leave?

In fact, just as Choktu sent men to monitor the defenses west of the river, Liu Chengzong had already dispatched Dai Daozi to lead reconnaissance riders across the Yellow River to convey his thoughts to Liu Chengzu. The two sides established a communication line in Huangnan to relay military intelligence back and forth.

What worried Liu Chengzong was storming the city. His experience in siege warfare was not extensive, but he still knew the most basic principle of war: attacking a city is the worst possible strategy.

Unless the enemy surrenders at the mere rumor of your approach or an insider opens the gates, any time the defenders fight to the death, it is a nightmare for the besieging side.

Liu Chengzong had always had the manner of a rough soldier. He could hardly be called a proper scholar, but he rarely insulted people without any regard for face, or purely for the purpose of disgusting them.

He wrote that disgusting letter to Choktu simply in the hope that Choktu would, provoked by his abuse, come out in full force. Then the decisive battle would be fought on Heka Grassland, Liu Chengzu would lead troops to cut off his retreat to Octagonal City, and the war could be ended very easily.

And releasing the prisoners was to let the garrison know there would be no reinforcements, thereby dissolving their will to fight to the death.

If even a plan like this failed, then he would have no choice but to build siege equipment and prepare to storm the city.

At the Heka main camp in July, Shi Chengwo led the craftsmen in arriving. They erected two tall furnaces, smelting iron and melting copper on one hand while manufacturing equipment on the other.

Speaking of which, Ahaidaiching had actually done Liu Chengzong a favor. If not for the ready-made counterweight trebuchets in hand, even if the Marshal's Office craftsmen were to build siege equipment, they would hardly have thought of this type of siege engine.

Now he had two dismantled counterweight trebuchets on hand. They could be transported to Octagonal City and put to use in the siege — it would be a waste not to use them.

Large siege equipment was very difficult to transport, so what Liu Chengzong built on this side were all small-scale devices and standardized parts for large-scale equipment, relying additionally on Xining Prefecture for ammunition resupply.

The small-scale equipment was naturally the set of old treasures — scaling ladder carts and wooden mantlets — used to seize Zhenyuan City. That was Liu Chengzong's only proper siege assault in three years of military life, so they could be called the siege equipment he was most familiar with.

Beyond that, because he had a high-ranking officer like Li Bei serving as an advisor, their siege arsenal had gained several more blueprint designs.

There were only two types of heavy equipment: trench-filling carts and moat-bridging carts. Apart from these, there were bursting shells... not the kind that explode and send shrapnel flying everywhere. Those had a low ignition rate and could easily be picked up by the Mongols during a siege, lit, and thrown back down.

The bursting shells Li Bei spoke of were smoke shells packed with a large amount of saltpeter and a mixed charge, used to obscure the vision of the defending troops.

The trench-filling cart and moat-bridging cart were two types of wooden vehicles. The former was a mobile wooden shell used to shield against arrows and protect soldiers as they pushed earth, wood, and stone up to the moat to fill it in and create a path.

The latter was similar to a scaling ladder cart, but what it extended was a wooden plank, used to bridge narrower moats so the attacking army could cross.

Besides these, Liu Chengzong's army was halted at Heka, manufacturing copper stock to be processed. Shi Chengwo's copper alloy ratio was ninety-two catties of pure copper to eight catties of tin and lead, cast into five-catty thin plates awaiting processing, convenient for transport and use.

This time, what Liu Chengzong wanted Shi Chengwo to make were thousand-catty heavy cannons. They needed to prepare at least thirty thousand catties of copper stock.

By the time all these things were ready, it was already August. Liu Chengzong could not help but sigh with regret in the height of summer. His provocation tactic against Choktu Taiji had still failed.

Choktu was indeed able to sit tight. According to news relayed back by his elder brother at the Guide Battalion, during this period the army in Octagonal City had not even sortied. They only dug trenches and built defensive equipment within the city. They had even managed to cobble together twelve traction trebuchets and four cannons atop the walls — terrifying indeed.

On the other hand, the deception tactic against Alslan over at Ulan Mountain had succeeded.

Although Alslan could not sit idle, spending over a month locked in a battle of wits and courage with Zhong Hu, who guarded the Chaka Salt Lake, and even leading his horse troops past Nanshan Fort for a cordial chat with Haixi County Magistrate Liu Guoneng, no matter what, he absolutely refused to come to Heka Grassland to cause trouble for Liu Chengzong.

In short, Liu Chengzong greatly appreciated this peer who was ten years his senior, whose entire being exuded a mature steadiness at odds with his age.

Liu Chengzong felt that even if Choktu sent a messenger to Ulan Mountain right now to ask for reinforcements, Alslan probably wouldn't believe it and might even retort: "Your father's the one telling you to go to Heka!"

On the ninth day of the eighth month, Regional Commander Yang Yao of the Xining Prefecture garrison led his troops out from Nanshan Fort to further seal off Alslan's route eastward. Liu Chengzong's main army formally struck camp from Heka Grassland, crossed the Yellow River with a large baggage train, and advanced eastward.

At the same time, Li Wanqing, a battalion commander of the Xining Guard under Liu Chengzu, led his troops out and entered the hundred-li radius around Octagonal City, beginning to clear the strongholds occupied by the Khalkha Mongols.

Within ten days, they clashed eight times: routed the enemy six times, were routed once, and in one engagement faced off until dark with both sides withdrawing. They captured a total of forty-six enemy soldiers, gradually fed them various pieces of false intelligence, and deliberately let the prisoners escape.

These days had not been easy for Choktu Taiji.

Fragmented intelligence reports, regardless of sequence, were transmitted back into the city by the escaped prisoners.

When night covered Octagonal City and campfires dotted the walls of this cross-shaped fortress, the Mongol soldiers in their sheepskin coats sitting around the fires would invariably steer the conversation toward the oppressive war situation.

The tribesmen vividly recounted the words of the escaped prisoners, announcing on Liu Chengzong's behalf that the lively and kicking Alslan at Ulan Mountain was already dead, killed in the cannon fire of the besieging army.

Arguments erupted. Some said Alslan was not dead; according to what they knew, the Marshal's Office had withdrawn after the first failed assault.

The storyteller among the tribesmen wore a look of scorn. "What you know is from before the fighting was over. They retreated because Liu Chengzong didn't bring thick clothes. Look at what we're wearing? He only had a single layer — how could he stand it? He went back to get thick clothes and then laid siege again!"

It was all hearsay anyway, and the tribesman who believed Alslan was not dead was not that firm in his conviction. He quickly asked, "And then what happened?"

"Then they brought up the big cannon. All you could see was the flash of fire. A cannonball hit the defender and smashed his head to pieces. The brother who told me this said it was the defending general, but what defending general is there in Ulan City? It was Alslan, no doubt about it."

As the stars glittered at night, as mutton churned in the pot by day, the same scene repeated itself again and again within Octagonal City.

These tidings spread like wildfire through the felt tents that stretched unbroken from inside the city to beyond its walls, passing unchecked from mouth to mouth until they reached the nobles' ears.

In Liu Chengzong's reckoning, the news would reach Choktu at once, who would then very likely order all mouths shut — so this was just a matter of throwing a casual punch, whether the dates fell or not.

But his worry was entirely needless, for this Mongol army had not attained such a high degree of regularization; their level of organization was like the wife of the Grand Marshal of Qinghai — many people wished she existed, at times it seemed she did, but in truth she did not.

Choktu, chanting sutras in his little temple, did not even know that captives had escaped back; in this city, Choktu Taiji was never the first to learn any intelligence from outside.

Of course, even if he ordered mouths shut after learning of it, he could not possibly be the last to know either.

As the false tidings — that the Mongol city at Wulan Mountain was under siege, its defending general killed by cannon fire, its garrison fleeing in rout, and the Marshal's headquarters winning a great victory — became known to all, panic spread through the great camp at Eight-Sided City.

On the evening of the nineteenth day of the eighth month, the tribes grazing to the west fled in panic toward Eight-Sided City; they had seen Han troops in gleaming armor crossing the Ze River, their horses' hooves trampling the hillsides full of yellow flowers as they wound their way toward Eight-Sided City.

Choktu had not yet emerged from the grief of losing his son when thousands of Mongols within this cruciform city began chanting the Buddha's name aloud; a thousand prayer beads were rubbed simultaneously by a thousand fingers, merging into a vast susurrus above the city walls, so that even the herding soldiers outside the city joined in the prayer.

People prayed not for the sake of prayer, but only to merge themselves into this collective.

It was something of a paradox: in the age when Chinggis Khan lived, the Mongols needed no ritual of identity, yet now, this very ritual born to forge a shared identity proclaimed precisely how little shared identity remained, and how perilously the great khanate's survival hung in the balance.

The moment Choktu Taiji had long awaited had finally arrived — war had begun.

All that remained to him were these city walls, and some ten-thousand-odd warriors who for now would fight for him; with his son's fate unknown and Ligdan Khan too far away, these men were the sole strength he could lean on.

From the morning of the twentieth day of the eighth month, his tribesmen who had been out grazing came fleeing back in wave after wave; they had not engaged the enemy, but the mere distant sight of the army winding its way forward had shattered their courage and sent them converging upon Eight-Sided City.

From the accounts of these warriors who had caught a single glimpse of the foe, Choktu learned that his enemy possessed orderly troops and gleaming armor.

Liu Chengzong had neither; he did not have a single unit whose armor was uniform, and Basang's warriors could hardly be called orderly in formation.

He had merely ordered Zhang Tianlin to assemble three hundred men who possessed Ming-style armor, mounted them on tall, grand horses, and placed them at the very front of the army to intimidate the enemy.

The Ming armor proved splendidly intimidating; when the morning sunlight fell upon them as they rode their horses slowly toward the enemy, the dazzling effect was superb.

On the twenty-second day of the eighth month, Liu Chengzong rode his horse to the steep slope on the southern bank of the Yangqu River and at last laid eyes on Eight-Sided City — that strange city he had long heard of from the Junior Lhazang but had never seen.

Choktu Taiji had already completed his scorched-earth preparations; on the grasslands, apart from the river and its shoals, and the fields the Lhazang had planted now full of crops nearing harvest, there was only this solitary cruciform city.

The Mongol troops had all withdrawn inside the city; only a few mounted detachments still prowled west of the city under the protection of the river.

Liu Chengzong was in no hurry to attack; he merely encamped on the opposite riverbank to the south and west of the city, set up copper-smelting furnaces for casting cannon, and farther afield gathered timber to begin building large siege engines.

At the same time, he dispatched Gao Yingdeng to seize the high ground east of the city, ordered Huang Shengxiao to use jingals to drive the Mongol pickets on the opposite bank back inside the walls, and began digging earth to fill the river and erecting wooden bridges.

As one siege engine after another was completed, as one thousand-catty Lion Cannon after another was cast, as the outermost river was blocked up section by section with earthen dams, and several wooden bridges were built simultaneously — everything was fully in readiness.

On the morning of the third day of the ninth month, Liu Chengzong, fully arrayed in his battle dress and carrying his helmet, strode out of the command tent and had his men raise the commander's banner bearing the character Liu outside the camp gate; drums beat in waves as his guardsmen rushed through the entire encampment, proclaiming to the whole army: "The battle to seize Eight-Sided City is about to begin!"