Chapter 460: Hawk

Bai Chaozai lay sprawled on the ground, his mouth full of sand.

He came from a farming family in northern Shaanxi, same clan as Bai Guang'en. In times like these, a man had no say over his own fate. In the third year of Chongzhen, Bai Guang'en returned to his hometown to recruit after a defeat. For the sake of a meal, Bai Chaozai and his two elder brothers and three younger brothers shouldered their hoes and muddle-headedly became bandits, then later followed Bai Guang'en and muddle-headedly became officials.

This name was only chosen after he became an official. When they accepted amnesty, only three of the six brothers remained. Small fry, you see — their real names meant nothing to anyone, and their nicknames were far too casual: Third Hawk, Fifth Hawk, and Sixth Hawk.

The hawk is a fierce little bird, often beating its wings to glide through the air, spotting prey and killing with a single strike.

Men who take "Hawk" as a nickname fall into only two types. One is the peerless rider, a match for ten thousand, who drives his warhorse wielding a long weapon, charging and wheeling — before him, every man is just a chick to be hunted. The other type has no real skill, can only hunt chicks even smaller than themselves, and survives by fighting tooth and nail with desperate ferocity. They too become hawks.

Because another trait of the hawk is that a mere twenty days after breaking its shell, it becomes a fierce predator that hunts alone.

They were the latter. Fighting tooth and nail was never a family trade passed down in farming households, but it was indeed the one skill of men who had nothing at all. By selling their lives cheap, the six Bai brothers were whittled down to three hawks famed for their valor.

After accepting amnesty, they gained official rank — centurion, with wives to be honored and sons to inherit. They could no longer go by such names, so the three brothers hired a scholar to choose new names for them: Bai Chaozai, Bai Chaoxiang, and Bai Chaochen.

They sounded like men of standing, true heroes.

Now Bai Chaozai served as squad commander in Hong Chengchou's governor-general's escort battalion, commanding four hundred and forty horse and foot. His two younger brothers, Chaoxiang and Chaochen, served under him as company commanders. Through four years of war in Shaanxi, they had seen their fill of desperate combat and countrymen slaughtering one another — veterans of many battles, you could say.

But Bai Chaozai had never witnessed anything like this — a force that shook the heavens and moved the earth.

One moment earlier, he had been advancing at the head of a disciplined formation, his squads pushing forward in successive horizontal lines. His soldiers wore black bowl helmets with feathered plumes, earth-yellow cotton armor studded with brass nails, a ring of preloaded powder tubes at their waists, tin powder flasks slung across their bodies, and Lightning-Fire arquebuses gripped tight — full of high spirits and martial pride.

This was all brand-new equipment issued to the governor-general's escort battalion. The oil on the Lightning-Fire arquebuses hadn't even dried yet.

In that moment, Bai Chaozai clearly saw his awe-inspiring clansman General Bai Guang'en, mounted on a great horse with a Ministry of Works saber at his shoulder, suddenly turn his head back toward their direction, his face a mask of shock and terror.

He also heard behind him a shriek like a hundred demons wailing — six hundred giant Liu Guonengs descending from the sky with a roar.

The next moment, the earth shook and the mountains swayed. The disciplined battle line was smashed to splinters by iron cylinders packed with gunpowder. The deafening roar of explosions came from every direction. Arrow-shell fragments and cast-iron balls tore through armor and shattered bone. Clusters of blood mist bloomed like flowers unfurling amid the gun smoke.

Bai Chaozai finally came to his senses. He spat out sand that tasted of blood, staggered forward, shoving aside panicked subordinates who rushed toward him, threading his way through wounded soldiers writhing all over the ground. He turned over one rigid corpse after another, and when he spoke, he didn't even notice his own voice trembling: "Chaoxiang... Chaochen?"

No one answered his call. When the wind sweeping across the Gobi dispersed the gun smoke, the entire stretch of sand was dyed crimson, as if crudely plowed by an old soldier who knew nothing of farming. A battle line seven hundred paces wide had been evenly drenched — of forty-five small horizontal squads, forty had been blasted to ruin. Countless agonized wails merged into a colossal wave of sound that pierced the clouds.

Hell was right here.

More and more soldiers in disheveled armor clambered up from the ground. Wounded or not, as long as they could still move, they broke from the battle line and fled north.

Every man's ears rang from the unceasing explosions, but most could still see. And what they saw was the figure of their general at the front of the line.

Bai Guang'en was racing his horse across the front, battle flag held high. No one knew what he was shouting, his face twisted with ferocity, but they knew the direction his war flag pointed — north, toward Ganzhou.

Bai Guang'en was sick with regret. He knew the Marshal's Manor's relief force was on the road, but he still hadn't posted reconnaissance riders to the south, because he didn't believe the Marshal's Manor could haul heavy artillery over the Qilian Mountains.

In his mind, without heavy artillery, there was no way to launch an attack from a mile or two away. Even a cavalry charge would give his formation enough time to wheel and array itself.

Now it was too late for any of that. Bai Guang'en had only one word in his mind: run.

He watched helplessly as those iron-cased rockets plunged from the sky into his formation. He had some estimate of the casualties among his infantry lines — though it looked horrific, the actual losses weren't absurdly high. At most, twenty percent of his soldiers were dead.

In a pitched, stand-up melee, Bai Guang'en believed his soldiers could have withstood such losses. After all, back in their bandit days, a company of a hundred men would often break and flee after losing just four or five, and only escape after half had been killed.

Death was far too normal for their officers and men. In theory, every officer under his command could fight to the last soldier's death.

But this damnable attack defied all reason. Several squads had been hit by rockets again and again until not a single man was left alive. Yet five squads, amid the heaving, erratic explosions all around, had come through utterly unscathed — not a hair harmed. Over two hundred men stood like utter fools on a battlefield strewn with corpses, not even understanding what had happened.

And for the vast majority of the remaining squads, the officers had the worst luck imaginable... In every small squad of fifty-odd men, the squad leader, the deputy, and the non-commissioned officers — standard-bearer, deputy standard-bearer, drummer, horn-blower, arms sergeant, supply sergeant — all stood together. One rocket came down, and the backbone of the entire unit was gone.

On top of that, in the chaos, a few officers like Bai Chaozai made things worse. Kinship ties — fellow villagers, clansmen, fathers and sons, brothers — which normally steeled a soldier's will to fight, became an obstacle to holding the unit together under indiscriminate slaughter. Bai Guang'en knew all too well: this battle was fucking lost.

If you can't fight, run.

When facing roving bandits — or the Marshal's Manor that had evolved from roving bandits — Bai Guang'en's urge to flee was far stronger than any Ming officer's. Fight if you can, run if you can't. Lose your troops, recruit more; lose your armor, requisition more. The one absolute was never to be captured alive.

To live was everything.

After all, Bai Guang'en could already see that on the sand dunes at the other side of the battlefield, the Marshal's Manor cavalry, itching for action, were already charging forward, lances leveled and bows slung, rising and falling with the gallop of their horses.

Zhang Tianlin was laughing — laughing with utter abandon. His knees were locked straight, his body leaning forward and rising upright on the horse's back. The Huangfan-made straight saber in his hand traced a blade-flower above his head, then with an outward flick of his wrist, he pointed the blade forward.

Behind him, six hundred riders churned up the dust as they charged, splitting into ten companies, coiling like earth-dragons as they galloped down from the dunes to assault and trample the disordered infantry lines.

Like the north wind scouring the earth, like wildfire burning across the plains, the cavalry company crashed into the remnants of the enemy line, cutting down and skewering anything that moved before them. Without a moment's pause, they burst through the formation and continued their assault northward, slamming straight into the rear of the cavalry that was pursuing Wang Ziyong.

Those cavalrymen no longer dared to fight them. Their horses were already exhausted from the chase, foaming at the mouth, and now they all fled in disarray alongside Bai Guang'en.

Zhang Tianlin had no intention of chasing Bai Guang'en's two-thousand-odd men to their deaths. After all, he still had over two thousand infantry of his own left behind — short on men and short on armor.

So after driving them five or six li, he whistled for his various cavalry companies to halt the pursuit, sent scouts to tail Bai Guang'en, and wheeled his horse around, ready to go back and collect weapons and spoils. To his delighted surprise, he discovered there was still a flock of little darlings on the battlefield.

They were the second wave of Bai Guang'en's three-wave force — the remnant infantry originally under Mobile Corps Commander Li Yun, now led by Squad Commander Liu Can.

Liu Can was a hereditary military officer of Ganzhou Garrison. His father, Liu Guodong, had already been a regional commander by the final years of the Wanli reign, though a serious illness had forced him to return to the garrison to recuperate for a few years, and he was still a regional commander now.

During the Chongzhen years, Gansu was a relatively peaceful place in the north. Liu Can hadn't fought many battles. After his commanding officer was killed, not only was he somewhat panicked — over a thousand men were all shrouded in the terror of their commander's death.

They had been huffing and puffing as they pushed their war wagons forward, hoping to complete the encirclement, when in the blink of an eye Wang Ziyong led his cavalry charging into their position.

After a brief skirmish, Wang Ziyong came fast and left fast, chased northward by Bai Guang'en. So they pushed their little carts and chased northward too.

Before they could catch up, behind them it sounded like New Year's — a continuous, earth-shaking roar. Turning their heads, they saw a sky full of Liu Guonengs smashing and blasting their allies to death. Looking ahead again, they saw the valiant General Bai Guang'en scared out of his wits and fleeing for his life.

Zhang Tianlin's galloping cavalry passed right by them and paid them no mind. The infantry behind, busy dismantling the launch racks and collecting weapons from the rocket-blasted battlefield, also paid them no mind.

Liu Can didn't dare move either. Four or five hundred cavalry still surrounded them, eyeing them like tigers. He didn't dare break the wagon formation. But if he didn't break the wagon formation, it looked like those big rockets were specifically meant to smash wagon formations.

With no other choice, Liu Can led this army like a frightened little rabbit, pushing their little carts and shivering in the middle of the battlefield. They couldn't run, and they couldn't stay — an exceedingly awkward predicament.

Push the carts and run? They couldn't outrun horses. Abandon the carts and run? They'd get a beating when they got back. Not run at all? Judging by Old Master Bai's smooth getaway, it was doubtful he'd be coming back to rescue them.

Liu Can didn't have much time to hesitate, because Zhang Tianlin soon returned with his cavalry.

Liu Can swept a glance from within his wagon camp and felt half his life had already left him. Damn it all — Zhang Tianlin had clearly ridden out with six hundred riders, so how had he come back with nearly two thousand?

He was sly as a fox. From within his wagon fortress, he raised his telescope to assess the balance of power. To the north, two thousand enemy riders were returning side by side. Around him, four or five hundred riders were watching like hawks. Not far away, another two or three thousand infantry were donning armor and readying weapons.

Liu Can very much wanted to make a fight of it.

Against ordinary roving bandits, at this scale of four or five thousand, he believed his thousand-odd foot soldiers could put up a fight. After all, with bandits, only the cavalry were elite troops.

But it was better not to use the telescope. When he looked closely, he realized the enemy infantry at the rear were far from ordinary. The way they donned armor and hefted weapons was disciplined and practiced. Even when policing the battlefield, they kept to their formations. And there was no scrambling to snatch high-value spoils like armor. This made him doubt his own strength again.

Just then, a subordinate company commander reported: "Young Master Liu, the bandit chiefs have entered artillery range."

Liu Can looked — sure enough. Two bandit chiefs. One was the man who had earlier led cavalry charging into their position; the other was the cavalry commander who had just chased Bai Guang'en off like a rabbit. The two men, escorted by a dozen riders, had ridden within a single li of their wagon formation.

And it even looked like the two were arguing, occasionally pointing this way. He had no idea what they were saying.

The Centarch asked, "How about… we bring over a few cannons and blast them dead?"

Liu Can glanced at the Centarch, thinking to himself how casually the man made it sound: "And what if we miss?"

In this world, no cannon existed that could accurately hit a single man from over a li away. If they hit, fine — maybe they could take a gamble against four or five thousand leaderless troops and win; if they missed, their own thousand-odd men were as good as dead.

He handed the telescope to the Centarch and pointed south. "Take a look. Those wooden frames and iron tubes — hit or miss, if those things come crashing down, the falling debris alone will crush us to death."

The infantry to the south had already laid out several hundred launch racks on the ground.

"Then… does the Squad Commander mean to surrender?"

Liu Can shook his head. "I think they want to recruit us. Let's fake a surrender. They're heading for Ganzhou, so once we're back inside we'll turn on them. I swear I'm going to file a complaint against that scoundrel Bai Guangen — damn it all, in a single battle, he sold me out twice!"

He had never imagined that the very source of Zhang Tianlin and Wang Ziyong's quarrel was them.

Wang Ziyong had said these men were all good soldiers, that recruiting them would be of great use. The Three Tribulations Society had thirty thousand congregants — as long as veteran soldiers joined, they could immediately field an army.

Zhang Tianlin did not believe a single word of it. "Don't give me all that. With the way you fight, even thirty thousand veterans would be wasted on you. You talk as if you could actually afford to feed these thousand-odd men once you recruited them."

With that, he waved someone over, pointed at the wagon fort, and said, "Go ask them if they'll surrender. If they're willing, have them strip off their armor and weapons and stand aside."

Liu Can was certainly willing. Before long, over twelve hundred soldiers had shed their armor, laid down their weapons, and been led to one side — but what happened next was not quite what they had imagined.

Zhang Tianlin's men took every last piece of weaponry, armor, and equipment, leaving nothing behind, then told them to carry the wounded onto the war wagons.

Liu Can was secretly delighted, thinking to himself that these bandits really were short on manpower — they wouldn't even leave behind the crippled and maimed wounded. Truth be told, at this moment even he was somewhat tempted to genuinely surrender.

After all, these Marshal's Manor troops truly seemed to treat their soldiers well. Not only did they tend the wounded and bandage them, they even brought out great cauldrons and cooked congee for them to eat. The congee was thick, too — it looked foolishly generous.

But what Liu Can had never imagined was that after the meal, Zhang Tianlin rode up before their formation, called the officers over, and waved his hand outward. "You've eaten, your wounds are treated — now go back."

"Huh?"

"Huh, what? Go back wherever you came from. Take your carts and return to Ganzhou."

Zhang Tianlin even looked somewhat apologetic. "I am Zhang Tianlin, Assistant Regional Commander of the Grand Marshal's Manor. By our Grand Marshal's rules, you ought to be given a few mace of silver for travel expenses, but alas, this grandpa's pockets are empty. I can only give you some rations. Now go back."

Liu Can's heart was in turmoil. He hurriedly said, "We are surrendering in earnest. General, take us to attack Ganzhou."

"No one said you were faking it."

Zhang Tianlin looked at Liu Can with a puzzled expression, studying him again and again, and finally waved his hand. In any case, real surrender or fake, it made no difference. These two or three thousand mouths, surrendered troops and wounded combined, were more than he could afford to feed. Sending them back would at least tie up a good soldier in Ganzhou to care for the injured.

He consoled them: "It's fine. The days ahead are long. Who knows, next time we meet might be at Liangzhou Garrison, and by then this grandpa might have a bit more cash on hand. Surrender then and you'll get your silver."

Zhang Tianlin waved them off. Liu Can, leading the deeply bewildered surrendered troops, pushed the small carts carrying the wounded and slowly departed, vanishing at the edge of the Gobi.

Wang Ziyong asked, "What now, rest up and then strike Liangzhou Garrison?"

"Look at you, believing whatever anyone says. With that, even a hundred thousand crack troops wouldn't be enough to die."

Zhang Tianlin laughed with satisfaction and issued orders to those nearby, his rough voice like the sands of the great desert: "All units, break camp. Objective: Suzhou!"