Chapter 321: Storming Eight Corner City by Force

The Marshal's headquarters troops seized the flatlands, hills, and tablelands outside Eight Corner City; banners large and small fluttered everywhere due west and due south of the fortress.

Liu Chengzong and his guard soldiers mustered on a tall earthen hill ringed by terraced fields west of the city; the White Cliff West Tibetan monk guide sent by Li Wanqing said that a Western Xia princess might be buried beneath this hill.

This city's defensive works were very unusual — its eight outer corners had been smoothed into sixteen outer corners, twenty inner faces, and four inner right angles; every wall face had bastion walls and wall platforms to eliminate dead zones for shooting.

Beyond the walls were a moat and a defensive trench; inside the moat ran a low sheep-and-horse wall, which did not block the city wall's archery against assaulting troops yet still served as a defensive measure once the moat froze in winter.

That thing alone was enough to let the defenders hide behind the sheep-and-horse wall and shoot the laborers filling the trench like shooting rabbits.

Although this city's building terrain lacked the defensible heights of those mountain fortresses in northern Shaanxi, its special construction gave it even superior defense.

Especially at this very moment, with the defenders compressed inside the sheep-and-horse wall, over ten thousand defenders packed into a not-so-large fortress — it could be called utterly impregnable.

Beneath the fluttering command banner, Liu Chengzong looked down from his high vantage and observed the buildings and troop dispositions inside the city through his telescope.

This city could be seen as five squares joined together; neither of its two gates faced straight outward — one was at the northwest inner corner, the other at the southeast inner corner.

Such inner corners would bring great difficulty to his assaulting troops: to enter from the west gate, the west-side north wall, the north-side west wall, and the two bastion walls would form a structure like a barbican, shooting at his troops from four sides.

Liu Chengzong lowered his telescope, turned his head and drew a deep breath, and said, "Begin."

This city had ample defenders; the assaulting troops held no advantage in troop strength and could not scale the walls in a direct ladder assault like they had attacked Zhenyuan County. To breach the city from the west gate, they first had to clear the defenders from the two wall faces and the bastion walls.

On a slope not far away, the artillery had already leveled a position suitable for placing cannons on the hillside; one after another, heavy cannons loaded on brand-new gun carriages were being hauled from the front and pushed from the rear by soldiers, laboriously moved into the position.

This batch of newly cast heavy cannons numbered twelve in total; Liu Chengzong had prepared enough copper stock to cast thirty, planning to cast twenty in succession and allowing for a loss of ten as defective pieces.

However, casting heavy cannons of this specification was far easier for Shi Chengwo than casting small cannons; he had experience casting thousand-catty red-barbarian cannons at Sanyuan and could recite the cannon modular standards Wang Zheng had made from memory — his casting success rate was very high.

Guard soldiers with small flags on their backs sprinted down the leveled mountain path; when they reached the artillery position, the artillerymen were leading mules to unload cases of cannon ammunition into the position.

Once all preparations were complete, Huang Shengxiao took the command flag and waved it toward the earthen hill to signal.

As Liu Chengzong nodded, the command flags on the earthen hill unfurled, and the Marshal's headquarters firearms troops began their assault on Eight Corner City.

The first to launch the attack were the lion cannons; on a battle line two hundred paces wide on the west bank of the moat, thirty-six concentrated lion cannons, separated from the defenders by the moat, opened fire on the sheep-and-horse wall as the commands rang out.

The artillerymen beside the cannon barrels each turned sideways, bent at the waist, and covered their ears; one by one the lion cannons erupted with flame from north to south — the yellow earth in front of the line rippled outward like waves; amid the sky-filling dust and gun smoke, the cannon barrels drove the carriages recoiling violently backward; iron balls traced parabolas through the air and smashed into the defenders behind the sheep-and-horse wall.

With a heaven-rending, earth-shattering din, iron balls came whistling with the sound of rushing wind and embedded themselves in the six-chi-thick sheep-and-horse wall, blasting yellow earth flying from the five-chi parapet-topped low wall; more cannonballs fell behind the sheep-and-horse wall, and the defender line, bows in hand and ready to loose volleys, was smashed apart in the blink of an eye — men wailed for their fathers and mothers as they scrambled behind the sheep-and-horse wall.

A cannonball came hurtling through the air and struck a corner of the parapet; shattered rammed earth smothered a defender wearing a red-tasseled leather cap on the head — his vision went black, his head spun, and he collapsed spread-eagled on the battlefield.

More defenders stepped over their fallen comrades, crouching behind the sheep-and-horse wall with bows drawn and arrows nocked; every tremor of the earthen wall made them feel a soul-leaving terror; before the men could recover from the first bombardment, the second was already upon them.

At the front of the Marshal's headquarters battle line, the flag-bearing artillery company commanders shouted themselves hoarse on the smoke-and-dust-choked battlefield; the smoke and grit pouring into their mouths and noses set off violent coughing: "Load smoke shells!"

The lion cannons' barrels were expertly cleaned by the artillerymen; cylindrical explosive shells were lit by the artillerymen and then rammed into the barrels, and then again the unending roar of cannon fire sounded.

Boom!

The lit shells trailed their fuses as they flew from the barrels, spinning through the air above the moat and landing in front of and behind the sheep-and-horse wall — but this time the firepower effect was entirely different.

Some shells struck men, and those hit felt as if they had been punched hard, without the effect of piercing through the body; shells that struck the sheep-and-horse wall merely embedded themselves lightly, then with a muffled poof were pushed back out and fell to the ground, emitting large amounts of choking smoke.

Among the defenders, the Mongol soldiers who had battle experience against the Ming army instantly panicked; they had not been this frightened even under the iron-ball bombardment, but now they abandoned even the bows in their hands, threw down their weapons, opened their mouths and shouted: "Poison smoke, poison smoke — cover your mouths and noses!"

For a moment the defenders were thrown into great terror; men no longer dared to hide behind the sheep-and-horse wall and instead fled toward the city gate.

Poison smoke was a common Ming army weapon — smoke-producing shells made from arsenic, realgar, wolf dung, soap-pod powder, ginger powder, and the like; it stung the eyes, seared the nose, and was toxic.

Although Liu Chengzong's smoke shells appeared similar to Ming army poison smoke, he did not control any arsenic-producing regions, so his smoke shells could only produce smoke — non-toxic and harmless; both served the purpose of screening the battlefield, but the methods of achieving that purpose differed.

Poison smoke made it impossible to open one's eyes at the root, whereas smoke shells could only screen visually; either way, in an exposed environment the smoke did not last long.

The Mongol soldiers also quickly discovered that the Marshal's headquarters smoke shells contained no poison gas; in any case, Choktu Taiji had shut the city gate and would not let them in, so they had no choice but to reform ranks under their nobles' leadership and loose volleys of arrows blindly in all directions beyond the smoke.

Taking advantage of the swirling smoke, two hundred-man companies advanced slowly alongside two tower wagons, pushing forward to two hundred and fifty paces from the city.

Tower wagons generally had no fixed height specifications; they were wide at the base and narrow at the top, and their height was related to the height of the walls being assaulted.

Liu Chengzong's tower wagons had four levels; the bottom level was driven by the manpower of thirty soldiers; the second level held fifteen heavy arquebusiers tasked with suppressing the sheep-and-horse wall; the third level was level with the city wall and held nine heavy arquebusiers; the topmost level had eight soldiers using strong bows to loose volleys and suppress the defenders on the city wall.

The main purpose of this thing was to serve as the first echelon in a siege to suppress the defenders and provide a safer environment for the soldiers filling the trench.

The two hundred-man companies beneath the tower wagons served the same purpose; they were one hundred jingal teams assembled from various units.

The jingal bearers dashed forward carrying half-length bench legs and tall shields; the smoke shells lofted by the lion cannons arced over their heads across the battlefield, covering their rush into the danger zone; they lined up the half-length bench legs as gun rests, then coordinated with the gunners to set the heavy jingals in place and raised the tall shields.

The defenders' volleyed arrows, loosed through the smoke, thudded down in neat rows before the battle line; a Mongol commander on the city wall used whistling arrows to guide the defenders outside whose vision was obscured; then a row of muzzle flashes flickered at the front of the line, and the jingals' large slugs swept across the battlements in unison, forcing the defending commanders to keep their heads down.

Liu Chengzong was very satisfied with the first-echelon assault; beneath the unremarkable attack lay his precise calculation of every weapon's range — the jingal gunners' line was exactly positioned to suppress the city wall, while neither the defenders on the wall nor their trebuchets could reach them.

The jingal gunners were only within the maximum range of the archers behind the sheep-and-horse wall.

He turned his head and ordered Fan Sanlang to wave the command flag, signaling the second-echelon assault troops to press forward.

The second-echelon assault troops were mainly Basang's soldiers, divided into a forward and a rear section totaling thirty-five hundred-man companies.

Five hundred-man companies were in front, advancing with a large number of carts to one hundred and fifty paces from the city; right under the defenders' noses they unloaded the timber parts for trebuchets and trench-filling carts and slowly assembled them.

Siege engines like trebuchets did not necessarily have to be assembled within the defenders' line of sight; ultimately, what Liu Chengzong wanted to strike at was still morale — he wanted the defenders to watch helplessly as he assembled his siege engines and savor the frustration of being powerless to stop it.

Four trench-filling carts were assembled; this thing was essentially a square frame covered with thick planks on the front, top, and both sides, able to hold several men walking abreast inside — it looked like a large wooden shipping container with eight wooden wheels.

The soldiers covered the top of the trench-filling carts with yellow earth as fireproofing, then pushed them toward the defensive trench; the front of the cart would overhang the edge of the trench, protecting the several dozen soldiers inside from the interference of arrow volleys so they could concentrate on filling the trench.

The remaining thirty hundred-man companies dug a trench three hundred paces from the city; the excavated earth and stone were loaded onto the lele carts captured from Akhai Daiching and transported to the front line to fill the trench.

Although Shi Chengwo had cast twelve thousand-catty cannons for Liu Chengzong, using cannon fire to collapse such a two-zhang-thick city wall was nothing but an unrealistic fantasy.

Of course, an iron pestle can be ground down to a needle — this trench they had begun digging was precisely Liu Chengzong's preparation for thoroughly blasting the city wall into collapse.

He would attack the west side first, then the south, then the north, then the east; the trenches on all four sides would link up, completely trapping the enemy inside the city — no one would even think of running.

The Lion Army had even brought farming tools; in a few days he would harvest all the fields outside the city, plant some vegetables, plant some wheat, and by the fourth month next year, they could enjoy the joy of a bountiful harvest.

As long as the thousand-catty cannons kept up their relentless bombardment, by then the city wall would probably have been blasted into collapse — though most likely, before the wall caved in, Choktu would already have been angered to death by him.

One after another, the trench-filling carts halted beside the trench; behind them, lele carts laden with earth and stone transported their loads to the trench; for the several thousand defenders on the city wall, watching these things was excruciating — they were clearly so close, yet they could do nothing against these bizarre contraptions.

Commander after commander loudly pleaded to sally forth, but none could obtain Choktu Taiji's permission; he had found no opening in Liu Chengzong's siege encampment, only trap after trap luring him out of the city for a field battle.

The commanders raged and fumed on the city wall; Akhai Daiching, risking his life, leaned his body over the crenel, stretched out his arm, and pointed to the far bank of the moat: "Shoot them dead!"

A sudden burst of flame erupted from the distant hilltop; with a whoosh, a seven-catty cannonball skimmed over the moat with almost no arc, grazed Akhai Daiching's helmet, and flew straight into the city.

When everyone's gaze followed the path of this cannonball and looked into the city, then turned back, Akhai Daiching was still standing at the crenel as if under an immobilizing spell, frozen in the posture of cursing toward the outside of the city.

Ahai Daiqing's wide-staring eyes crossed into a squint, the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end one by one, and the red tassel atop his helmet, lifted by the cannon blast, was only now slowly settling back down.

It lasted a full several seconds before Ahai Daiqing managed to shift a leg with difficulty; his knee buckled and he sprawled to the ground.

But no one noticed his sorry state anymore, because on a hilltop a li away, another thousand-jin cannon had already adjusted its angle and was bombarding the city wall.

This time the cannonball struck even lower; the solid iron shot slammed dully into the wall, embedding itself dead into the rammed-earth fortification, blasting cracks a dozen cun wide around it, and a great swath of earthen crust came crashing down from the wall in a clattering cascade.

After a brief pause, several cannonballs came pounding at the wall in rapid succession like a string of beads; every shot that struck the wall made hearts and livers quake, and still more balls swept over the wall to crash inside the city, where the panicked, chaotic neighing and bleating of cattle, horses, and warhorses rose everywhere.

Another cannonball smashed squarely into the crenellated parapet; not only did it shatter the foot-thick parapet to bits, but the rolling shot also crushed a soldier's foot, and a cry of bone-deep agony rang out across the sky above Eight Corner City.

Ahai Daiqing was still somewhat dazed even now; Liu Chengzong's cannon surely harbored sorcery — that cannonball had grazed right over his head, his soul had left his body and seen someone else inherit his wife, and on top of that, it had actually let him find the sensation of his hair standing on end.

"Sorcery!"

Seeing the bombardment was extremely fierce, Ahai Daiqing hunched his back and descended the wall, still muttering to himself: "It's definitely sorcery."

Was Ahai Daiqing, that Khalkha's Hojigor, a title earned in vain? Where on his head was there even any hair left!

Twelve thousand-jin heavy cannons bombarded the wall without pause; Ahai Daiqing stood in the shadows beneath the wall, face tilted upward, listening to the terrified, uneasy shouts mixed with curses and wails from above, watching as now and then a cannonball flew over his head and the occasional helmet or severed limb was sent flying by a shot, and sank into deep contemplation.

What he was contemplating had nothing to do with the war situation.

Faced with this composite fire-suppression capability of large cannonballs, small cannonballs, large lead shot, and small lead shot, Ahai Daiqing felt he was no longer qualified to even consider matters like the war situation.

He had thought those long muskets that could kill a man beyond two hundred paces were already Liu Chengzong's secret weapon, something they could still resist a bit by relying on the city wall with stiff bows, and by building twelve trebuchets they could even match him blow for blow.

Now, with cannonballs flying in from a li away, this thing was simply not a gap that tactics could bridge.

Ahai Daiqing was just deeply puzzled — Qinghai was supposed to be a place for people like them, where everyone drew swords over two questions: "This is my grass" and "Why the hell are you stealing my grass?"

Damn it, what were a bunch of Han soldiers doing bringing muskets and cannons here?

If you've got nothing to eat, just tell me — I'll give you food, right? No need to start swinging blades and firing guns and hurting goodwill.

To be fair, if the soldiers under Liu Chengzong were willing to defect to Ahai Daiqing, he would feed every single one who came, even give them a horse, and also assign them one — no, two women.

Just as Ahai Daiqing was mulling over assigning women to Liu Chengzong, the whistling of wind ended with a thunderous boom; the inner face of the wall gushed dust outward in a rustling cascade, choking him out of his contemplation.

This sound Ahai Daiqing knew all too well — the Muslim trebuchet, it was his Muslim trebuchet, smashing into his city wall.