Chapter 449: Ferocious Assault

On the afternoon of the twenty-third day of the first month in the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign, Zhuanglang Garrison was blanketed by rising dust and the smoke of gunpowder.

Amid the creak of wheels and the neighing of warhorses, impassioned military music rose north of the city; over a hundred small and medium field cannons were arrayed in a single row outside the walls, firing in succession, and in the sky-shaking thunder of the cannonade, shells streaked screaming toward the battlements.

Solid iron shot embedded themselves dead in the crenellations, but more shells sailed over the wall to smash into the homes along the city's nine streets and eighteen lanes, shattering tiled roofs and ridgepoles and sending the banner troops' families living inside scrambling over one another in their panic to flee into the streets.

Seeing this, Jing Xiaoliu, who was sheltering from the shells on the ramped horse path inside the north wall, felt his eyes crack with fury; he cursed, grabbed the collar of the local militiaman beside him, and shouted into his ear: "Get over here! You go muster the civilians in the city and drive them all to the southern barbican — those shells burst! They'll be blown to pieces in the streets!"

In Jing Xiaoliu's mind, even though he had occupied this city for only half a month at most, its thousand-odd civilians were all his people.

Because the vast majority of these military household dependents — families so poor that three or four people shared a single tattered cotton coat — had been eating the Grand Marshal's grain since this autumn.

What was more, to calm their hearts, Jing Xiaoliu had long since told them that the military grain in this city was for them to eat together, and if the government troops fought their way in, they would never lay eyes on that grain again.

The local militiamen were all facing a cannonade for the first time in their lives, scared so witless they damn near couldn't speak; one of them had just nodded at these words when a short, abruptly cut-off scream rang out on the horse path.

Then, as if a leather ball had burst, with a bang, a black shell shot through the air and sprayed a sheet of red across the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd on the horse path.

The militiamen instantly fell into chaos; the very one who had been listening to Jing Xiaoliu's orders turned to flee down the horse path, only for Jing Xiaoliu to raise an arm and yank him back, slap him twice across the face, and then say with heavy emphasis: "Remember this — first let them go get the military grain, no carts allowed, take as much as they can carry, and it's not the east, west, or north gates — drive them to the south gate barbican."

"Right, south gate barbican!"

Before the government troops opened fire, Jing Xiaoliu had looked out from the wall and seen that they numbered only around three thousand, not enough strength to spread out and encircle this small city, so they wouldn't be able to seal the south gate for a while yet.

"Once the crowd fills the south barbican, open the gate and let them all out — run south, run as far as you can, and when you've run until tomorrow morning and see Red City, you'll be safe."

In truth, Jing Xiaoliu had considered keeping these women and children to help defend the city, but after weighing it, he decided it was unnecessary and better to let them out.

If six hundred men, more or less trained, could not hold this city, then adding a thousand women and children would still not hold it.

There was no point in costing others their lives.

Even as he gave his orders, fused explosive shells burst one after another on the wall and inside the city — some were explosive shells, some poison-smoke shells — shrouding the city in swirling fumes that choked people until tears and mucus streamed down their faces.

Fortunately, Jing Xiaoliu's troops were all sheltering on the horse path inside the wall, and the enemy artillery outside was mostly concentrated on bombarding the gate tower and crenellations, so for the moment they were not being hit.

Even so, Jing Xiaoliu was battered by terror; the unceasing cannon fire outside made him click his tongue inwardly in wonder, curious just what Xie Erhu had done at Songshan to make the Gansu army outside forgo even building siege lines, instead pushing their fire carts right up to the city and launching a ferocious assault.

Even roving bandits knew to build siege equipment first and then dig trenches when attacking a city — who ever heard of a method like this, charging in recklessly with no regard for anything?

Ding Shaoyin outside the city was not ignorant of the principle of digging trenches; Zhuanglang Garrison's defenses were hollow, and with a brief siege the defenders' resolve would waver and they would open the gates and offer surrender... this was something anyone knew.

But Ding Shaoyin knew even better that he had no time — no time to dig trenches, and still less time to build proper siege equipment. All he could rely on were the cannons in his hands and the crude scaling ladders they had hastily thrown together.

Because although Zhuanglang Garrison's defensive strength was hollow, neither the timing nor the terrain favored him.

Through the middle of this river valley ran the Zhuanglang River, forty paces wide at its narrowest and sixty at its widest; Zhuanglang Garrison lay on the river's east bank, backed against the mountains.

Both the western and eastern mountains had a broad road leading down into the valley: the western mountain road lay to the north, and the tribal soldiers garrisoned at West Datong River Fort could strike at his rear; the eastern mountain road lay to the south, and the Tartar cavalry attacking the Songshan fortress would enter the valley from south of the city.

It was precisely this terrain and the tactical situation that made Ding Shaoyin dare not send troops across the river to circle around via the west bank to the south gate and besiege the city; he could only attack the north wall from the east bank, and he had to do it fast.

Because from Ding Shaoyin's knowledge of the surrounding topography, counting from the moment the beacon fires on Zhuanglang Garrison's towers were lit, his single battalion of Liangzhou troops had only one day to safely assault the city.

Marching speeds vary, so Ding Shaoyin could only calculate based on the enemy moving at their fastest.

After one day, the Mongol Tartar cavalry from the Songshan region could burst out of the mountains to reinforce Zhuanglang Garrison; after two days, the tribal soldiers from West Datong Fort could also reach his rear.

Of course, according to intelligence from the rear, his own reinforcements were already on the march — the personal battalion of Gansu Regional Commander Yang Jiamo was hurrying south at full speed.

The reinforcements were indeed powerful; Yang Jiamo bore the heavy responsibility of Gansu's defense and could not leave, so the Supervising Brigade Commander of the Gansu Regional Commander's personal battalion was a man named Chai Shihua.

Chai Shihua was a man of Xining Garrison, but in the court's eyes he was utterly reliable, because his entire family was already dead.

His father was named Chai Guozhu, who in the Wanli years, astride his horse and spear in hand, had fought his way to a reputation for valor surpassing the three armies; born a hereditary centurion, by age thirty he had served successively as Regional Commander of both Gansu and Shaanxi, bearing at his waist the seals of both the Pacify the Qiang and Punish the Barbarians commands, and had held command at Shanhai Pass and Shenyang; in the early Tianqi years he died of illness as Chief Commissioner-in-Chief of the first rank, having reached the pinnacle of officialdom.

His uncle was named Chai Guodong, who at the Battle of Sarhu led a battalion with the rank of Brigade Commander, attached to Du Song's eastern route army, and was killed in action; his elder brother was named Chai Shixiu, who also died in battle in Liaodong during the Tianqi years, holding the rank of Deputy Regional Commander of the Central Army under the Supreme Commander.

Of the entire family, only this one Chai Shihua remained, and he too was a bold and enterprising commander; earlier, while serving as garrison commander of Caiqi Fort, when the Chahar leader Ligdan Khan came hammering against the border walls, he had rushed to the aid of Zhenfan Garrison three times within a single year, and also raised funds to repair the walls and acquired over a hundred warhorses for the fort.

Though his current rank was only Brigade Commander, his prestige within the army was exceedingly high; even the Turpan people beyond Jiayu Pass held the name of the Chai family generals in solemn respect.

But no matter how reliable this army or how urgent its march, it was still two hundred li away — distant water cannot quench a nearby thirst — and would need at least two more days to reach the battlefield.

Ding Shaoyin hardened his resolve and ordered his subordinates to take the city tonight, without fail.

The most numerous cannon in the Liangzhou army's arsenal was the northwest's Destroy-the-Tartars cannon cart: a three-wheeled flatbed cart with two large wheels in front and one small wheel in the middle at the back, each cart carrying three Destroy-the-Tartars cannons forged of ninety-five catties of pure iron, firing one-catty shot.

This was a small field cannon; its forged barrel was sturdy and durable, and in field battles it was typically used to fire in rotating volleys at close range, fifty paces from the enemy.

Compared to the various other light cannons that served in the same tactical role, the Destroy-the-Tartars cannon's parameters were not outstanding in any respect — the Swarm-of-Pearls cannon was lighter, the Frankish breech-loader was faster, and the court's newly developed Mighty-Awe cannon weighed about the same as an entire Destroy-the-Tartars cart team but was far more powerful.

It had only one advantage: it was cheap.

A single Destroy-the-Tartars cannon cost only five taels of silver; including the cart, an entire gun team cost no more than sixteen taels, and because it was forged rather than cast, there was no need to build large vertical furnaces — extremely friendly to guard units that had military artisans and military households but were strapped for funds.

There was no other weapon that could let a frontier guard unit so easily field the firepower of a hundred and fifty or even two hundred cannons firing in volley.

The northwestern border troops had no need to assault cities; not to mention that the cannons of this era lacked the ability to batter down a three-zhang-thick brick-clad earthen wall in a short time — even if such cannons existed, before Liu Chengzong appeared, all the cities in the northwest belonged to the Ming army itself.

What they needed to deal with were fierce Mongol men with soft bows and swift horses who came and went like the wind, and the Destroy-the-Tartars cannon was the most suitable weapon in the hands of the northwestern border troops.

Even now, when they needed to assault Zhuanglang Garrison, the Destroy-the-Tartars cannon could still suppress the defenders' artillery on the wall by filling the sky with a hail of round shot.

Interspersed among the mass of Destroy-the-Tartars cannon carts were Flying Cloud cannons — their full name was Flying Cloud Thunderclap cannons — which were artillery pieces specifically designed during the Jiajing years to fire explosive shells.

The shape of the barrel fell somewhere between a general's cannon and a bowl-mouth cannon; the core technology lay entirely in the shells, which had cylindrical wooden sabots and base plugs, and fired in parabolic arcs to drop hollow explosive shells onto the battlements and into the city.

The shell's ignition mechanism consisted of a hollow iron ball filled with gunpowder and iron fragments, with a fuse inserted and lit; upon landing, the fuse was easily knocked off or extinguished, so the misfire rate was fairly high.

Most of the time they could only be used as mortars — mortars, that is, firing shells that descend in a parabola to smash people.

But even if only one out of every two shells fired actually detonated, that was enough to intimidate the defenders inside the city.

When several explosive shells burst on the battlements, sending out clouds of smoke, Ding Shaoyin, standing in person at the artillery position to oversee the battle, waved his hand forward.

The defenders' cannons on the wall had been suppressed; only a few Frankish breech-loaders hidden behind the crenellations still had gunners beside them, but their prolonged reluctance to open fire already told Ding Shaoyin everything he needed to know.

"The Frankish guns on the wall are loaded with grapeshot — fire the rockets."

Battle flags waved; the Destroy-the-Tartars cannons were still firing as the Liangzhou Garrison banner troops pushing frame-mounted fire-rocket carts advanced past the artillery position, adjusted the rocket carts to the proper angle at a distance of two hundred paces from the city, and then, one after another, the Hundred-Tiger-Salvo racks erupted in vast clouds of smoke, loosing thousands of rockets toward the battlements.

Amid the shriek of gunpowder, the scattering rockets streaked toward the wall trailing tail-flames, carving irregular trajectories through the air; some embedded themselves in the long-unrepaired earthen sections of the wall, some struck the brickwork and fell, and others sailed over the battlements to rain down wildly in every direction.

Smoke instantly blanketed both the launch position and the battlements, and the defenders on the wall were pinned down so hard they could not lift their heads.

In truth, the defenders on the wall were already nearly scared out of their minds.

Jing Xiaoliu's strength was insufficient to begin with, and he had further split his troops to guard both the north and west walls; the entire north wall had only three hundred defenders, and fearing they would be crippled during the bombardment phase, the vast majority of the soldiers had been ordered to shelter on the sloped horse path inside the wall, leaving only a handful of artillerymen behind on the wall itself.

Everyone knew that expecting these artillerymen, facing hundreds of light cannon with goose-egg-sized shot flying everywhere, to trade fire with their Frankish breech-loaders was pure fantasy.

The local militia of the East Gate had never received any artillery training at all. Firing a few rounds at empty ground on the parade field was a completely different matter from being suppressed by over a hundred cannon on the battlefield.

Even if the opponents were only the standard-bearer troops of the Liangzhou Guard, these were the same troops whose grandfathers had followed Da Yun at Songshan, where one thousand two hundred had routed three thousand captive cavalry; whose fathers had died with their general at Sarhū; whose elder brothers had reinforced Liaodong and faced the eastern captives and Tartars in assaults on great cities and pitched battles at Zunhua and Luanzhou.

Acrid smoke hung everywhere, yet the cannon fire outside the walls did not cease. Only when the smoke finally began to thin did a few militia artillerymen, cowering behind the battlements, dare to steel themselves and peer down through the embrasures.

One glance was all it took to send their souls flying in terror. They turned back toward the rampart ramp and cried out in alarm, "General! The scaling ladders are on the wall!"

In the brief moments when thousands of fire arrows spread a curtain of smoke across the wall and blinded the defenders, the standard-bearer troops under Ding Shaoyin had already crossed the artillery position and pushed one after another hastily modified assault cart up to the base of the wall.

Every cart chassis came from the wagon camp's side-panel wagons. Some had long ladders fixed to them, some had great beams attached with suspended wooden mantlets, and others formed makeshift covered passages from wagons and planks. Hooked long ladders, taking advantage of the smoke, had already caught onto the parapet, and squad after squad of standard-bearer troops were now scaling the ladders from every direction.

Jing Xiaoliu, sheltering on the rampart ramp, glared at the news. He drew his saber and waved it at the men behind him. "Close with them!"

Orders rang out from the company commanders one after another. Squad after squad of militia sheltering on the ramp rushed to every section of the wall with spears, firearms, and polearms, swarming toward the embrasures where the hooked ladders had caught, grabbing defensive implements and hurling them down at the enemy.

In an instant, the wall erupted with war cries. A Frankish breech-loader mounted on a bastion wall was just about to fire into the flank of the assaulting troops when a suspended wooden mantlet was thrown right in its face. The shot blasted through the mantlet, riddling it with light, but could hardly harm the troops below.

Before it could be reloaded for a second shot, a fierce-fire oil tank below had already sprayed burning oil three zhang up the bastion wall. Several artillerymen were instantly immolated, turned into human torches.

And that was not the end of it. Several loaded breech chambers were also ignited. The wrought-iron chambers became little scatter-guns atop the bastion wall, spraying canister shot in all directions. In a flash, the entire bastion wall was engulfed in a sea of fire, and not a living soul remained standing.

On another section, the militia dropped a wolf-tooth racket board chained with iron links down the wall. Several standard-bearer troops climbing with blades in their teeth were smashed into meat patties amid startled cries; even the wooden ladder was snapped in the middle. Those lucky enough not to be struck were sent tumbling from the ladder, battered and dazed.

Soon, several gray bricks were hurled down at the fierce-fire oil tank by defenders braving gunfire, smashing the tank to pieces. A few burning cotton quilts were thrown down after, igniting the spilled oil everywhere. Both above and below the wall became a sea of flame.

One long ladder after another was destroyed, but one ultimately escaped the defenders' notice and was set up on a section of wall slightly to the east. Several standard-bearer troops filed up in quick succession, then signaled back for reinforcements, forming a small battle array and striking westward.

Discovering that the enemy had gained the wall, the defenders hurriedly assembled their own men and formed a battle array on the wall.

At that very moment, Ding Shaoyin below received word that his standard-bearer troops had successfully scaled the wall. With a wave of his hand, from behind the rows of side-panel wagons, the Liangzhou Guard standard-bearers drew their soft bows and loosed a shower of arrows in a high arc toward the parapet.

The hastily assembled militia battle line had not yet braced for the charge when the plunging arrow shower struck, felling a swath of them.

Fortunately, at that moment, the Frankish breech-loader on another bastion wall managed to fire, cutting down half a squad of standard-bearer troops waiting to climb beneath that scaling ladder. The assault party on the wall, cut off from reinforcements, was slaughtered to the last man in the blink of an eye, and the long ladder was soon set alight by the defenders.

The first assault of the Liangzhou army had failed.

Yet no trace of disappointment showed on Ding Shaoyin's face below the wall. He had already probed out the approximate strength of the defenders on the wall. He gave his orders: "Detach one thousand standard-bearer troops to keep each of the three gates invested. Speed the construction of wooden ladders, and seize any chance to scale the wall. Send word to the officers at the north wall: let the standard-bearer troops rest a short while, then launch one more fierce assault before nightfall!"

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Good morning!