Chapter 462: Laughter and Cheer at Jiayu Pass

Along the Jiayu Pass road, beacon towers flared with wolf-smoke that shot straight into the clouds, the signal fires linking one after another as they stretched eastward along the Hexi Corridor.

The garrison commander who first noticed the anomaly on the pass was called Huozhe Hazhi, a young Company Commander of the Suzhou Guard. His ancestors were nobles from the Hami region who had followed Yamulan in submitting to the Ming during the Jiajing reign, but because they fell ill at the time and could not travel on, they remained in Suzhou.

Yamulan was resettled by the court in Huguang, where he bought fields and land, his family growing wealthy and becoming famous among the great foreign merchants of the southeast. Huozhe Hazhi's ancestors fared worse — no sooner had they recovered from illness and prepared to hurry to Huguang than the Suzhou Guard pressed them into service, and in the confusion they became a military household.

Huozhe Hazhi owed his Company Commander rank to his grandfather's desperate efforts. He had now held the inherited post for several years, but Jiayu Pass was too peaceful — he had never fought a single battle. His greatest pleasure while on guard duty was tilting his head back to watch the birds.

Jiayu Pass had many birds, living freer lives than the banner troops. After years of bird-watching, Huozhe Hazhi knew every creature that flew in these skies — whether golden eagle, imperial eagle, white-tailed sea eagle, or bearded vulture and upland buzzard, he recognized them all. One distant glance was all he needed to name the bird.

But on the seventh day of the third month in the seventh year of Chongzhen, when Suzhou Guard Company Commander Huozhe Hazhi led his twenty-four banner troops up to the pass as usual, he discovered that Jiayu Pass had new visitors. The great birds circling in the sky had wings gleaming with golden light — and he did not recognize them.

The raptors of Jiayu Pass were generally neither too large nor too small. The biggest golden eagle Huozhe Hazhi had ever seen weighed barely twelve jin, but the golden-winged great birds now wheeling in flocks across the sky clearly exceeded that weight. Riding the air currents, they soared at tremendous heights, stirring an inexplicable unease deep in Huozhe Hazhi's heart.

His gaze swept the ground between the Taolai River and the Black Mountains beyond the pass, but he saw only an endless expanse of yellow sand. When the gravel was whipped up by fierce winds and sent swirling past, Huozhe Hazhi felt fear.

He found his superior, Battalion Commander Hei Chengyin, on the opera stage inside the pass fortress. He stepped forward, saluted, and greeted him: "General, how many times have you leafed through that book? Still reading it?"

Hei Chengyin was on the stage reading — Romance of the Three Kingdoms, brush in hand, annotating as he went. Annoyed at being disturbed, he looked up at the words, raised his eyes at Huozhe Hazhi, and frowned. "The Yellow River's cut off, and not a single merchant caravan is leaving the pass. If I don't read this, what else am I supposed to do? Why aren't you at your post — what are you doing down here?"

The "Yellow River cut off" Hei Chengyin spoke of meant the Marshal's headquarters had severed both banks of the Yellow River, so no inland merchants could leave the pass, and even Gansu's local merchants no longer came to this remote corner of Jiayu Pass. There was nothing to buy no matter what you wanted.

Huozhe Hazhi said, "General, put the book down. Come up to the pass and look at the birds — something's not right with the birds in the sky. We need to report to General Ding."

"Something's not right with the birds in the sky?" Hei Chengyin found this strange request from his subordinate baffling. He set the book aside and frowned. "I think it's the bird in your trousers that's not right. Don't you know General Ding has been busy these past days writing to the religious leaders of Ganzhou, asking them to help persuade Grand Marshal Yang to pull the Suzhou Guard troops to Ganzhou and join the war?"

But talk aside, Hei Chengyin still rose, glanced at the old book lying open on the opera stage table, and led Huozhe Hazhi toward the pass, grumbling as they walked: "You really do want to spend your whole life here watching birds!"

Jiayu Pass had known peace so long that this godforsaken place was stable enough for the garrison's hobbies to be either reading old books or watching birds in flight. Whether a man was mediocre or a person of insight, in this desert oasis where there was only day and night but no today or tomorrow, life could only be lived with an end already in plain sight.

Now, in the central Shaanxi and northern Shaanxi regions, men were fighting until the blood ran wrist-deep. Liangzhou and Ganzhou had joined the war one after another, leaving only Suzhou leaning against its pillar, watching.

They could spend a lifetime here watching desert birds and antique books — so long as the banner troops of their brother garrisons never got promoted.

So Hei Chengyin understood perfectly: Jiayu Pass could go thirty years, fifty years, a hundred years without incident, but the moment something happened, it would be a chance to shake the realm.

Of course, stepping down from the opera stage did not mean he thought a chance to shake the realm had arrived. He simply wanted to look — after all, these were indeed sensitive times. The specter of the Mongol Khan had just slipped into the great desert to the north, and he wanted to see what other ghastly thing might crawl out of the Gobi.

Hei Chengyin could never have dreamed it. He merely raised his head as he climbed the horse ramp, and the corner of his eye caught the golden-winged raptors circling in the sky — and every hair on his face stood on end. "Quick, go tell General Ding — something's happened!"

Because the raptors circling in the sky were not eagles. They were vultures.

The small ones were called sparrowhawks; the medium ones were eagles; only the truly massive ones were called golden eagles or vultures. Hei Chengyin had once accompanied Mobile Corps General Ding Guodong to Xining and seen the enormous bearded vultures on the other side of the Qilian Mountains.

Huozhe Hazhi did not understand his shock and asked, "What kind of birds are those?"

"Bearded vultures. The Qinghai men have come."

Hei Chengyin stared fixedly at the enormous shadows circling overhead. He understood vultures — not out of any fondness for birds like Huozhe Hazhi, but because these flying baldies were simply too uncanny. In the sky and on the ground, they seemed like two completely different creatures.

In flight, wings spread as they soared, they resembled the golden-winged great roc of myth and legend, spiraling upward on the wind until even the world's highest peaks could not stop them. Yet when they landed, they were unspeakably ugly, like oversized, bald-feathered wild pheasants.

Only a great battle outside Jiayu Pass, with rotting corpses strewn everywhere, could attract so many vultures. Under normal circumstances, these birds would absolutely never appear at Jiayu Pass — because they fattened all too easily.

Vultures are massive in size. Once they grow fat, they struggle to take off from flat ground, flapping and hopping like pheasants. Only by using the wind from mountain peaks and cliffs can they launch into flight.

Outside Jiayu Pass stretched endless yellow sand — there was no place for them to take off.

When Mobile Corps General Ding Guodong received the news, he was in the official residence inside the pass fortress, writing letters to the religious leaders of Ganzhou.

Ding Guodong, truth be told, had little appetite for winning merit — he was already a Mobile Corps General, after all. But his subordinate soldiers were all eager to go east and serve the court, so he had exhausted every means to have people pass along word, to see if he could pull the troops eastward and join the campaign.

Suddenly hearing that vultures had appeared outside the pass, he hurriedly led several household retainers on galloping horses to the pass, his mind full of doubt.

Vultures could be tamed, but generally no one kept them. So why would so many vultures fly to Jiayu Pass? There were no rotting corpses at Jiayu Pass for them to eat.

But soon enough, Ding Guodong understood.

From the watchtowers perched on the sheer cliffs of the Taolai River gorge, five columns of beacon smoke rose. Signal cannons followed immediately with five successive booms, the cannon fire echoing through the gorge. At the same moment, in the distant Gobi where the Black Mountains and the Taolai River gorge pinched together, a vast cloud of dust came rolling in with overwhelming momentum.

At first there was only the sound of wind, until the dust gradually thinned. From the distant haze, thirty or forty small dark shapes emerged. Ding Guodong raised his telescope to look — cavalry.

Across eight or nine li of Gobi, slender hounds and hunting dogs first darted chaotically through the dust. Then the cavalry appeared in the telescope, mounted on Hexi great horses with white blazes on their foreheads.

They wore the familiar bowl helmets, the shadows of the brow guards pressing down over their eyes, topped with tall red-tasseled helmet spikes. They were clad in the classic Ming army color scheme of red cotton armor, with the identifying back banners of Ming cavalry scouts thrust behind them.

Every man held the reins in his left hand, a long cavalry lance slung diagonally from his elbow, the butt of the lance hooked by a cord to the toe of his straight-seamed cowhide boot. In his right hand, each carried a three-eyed gun, muzzle downward.

Some raised their left hands, blowing on the match cords wound around their arms. Others pulled something from their saddles and tipped it into their mouths to chew. Most made no movement at all, simply letting their bodies rise and fall with the horses' gait across the Gobi, gazing at the pass fortress as they rode slowly forward with reins held loose.

Several dozen cavalry scouts spread out across a width of thirty li, slowly closing in on the pass fortress. The width gradually narrowed as the mountains and rivers to north and south pressed in. The men, spaced one li apart, deliberately bypassed the watchtowers standing on the Gobi, as if they did not see the garrison troops atop them at all. They passed the towers and spread out again, advancing their front line to within two li of the pass. One rider after another slowly came to a halt, planted their lances in the ground, wheeled their warhorses around, and stood in silence.

The banner troops had not yet grasped what was happening. The defenders on the pass murmured among themselves: "How can there be cavalry scouts outside the pass?"

Then more of the dust dispersed. Ding Guodong moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, swallowed, and slowly lowered his telescope. He no longer needed such an instrument to observe the enemy. A vast army corps, weathered by a long march, was deploying before their eyes.

Column after column of cavalry scouts carved the Gobi into squares, bypassing the watchtowers to seize the high ground and cliffs, the low valleys and sandy flats outside Jiayu Pass. Then, from the dust, fully armed cavalry squadrons advanced slowly, forming the first counter-charge line at a distance of three li from the pass fortress.

Close behind them, wagon trains and camel trains filed one after another into the Gobi outside the pass. Still more soldiers, leading horses on foot, reached the front line, surrounding the isolated watchtowers one by one. Others began constructing encampments on the northern hills and transporting timber toward the sheer cliffs of the Taolai River gorge to the south.

Farther to the rear, more troops wound their way forward. When, behind the small cavalry detachments forming up on the front line, tightly ordered square formations of infantry and cavalry in separate columns appeared, more and more raptors circled in the sky above. And the defenders on the pass, under the mounting, ever-intensifying pressure, finally fell into chaos.

Shouts of every kind filled Mobile Corps General Ding Guodong's ears. The horns mustering the troops sounded ceaselessly throughout the pass fortress. War drums thundered. Soldiers on both flanks of the pass sprinted along the walls, bringing him one piece of bad news after another.

No one knew how many the enemy truly numbered. Black Mountain Lake was seized by the enemy forces. Enemy cavalry galloped through the Taolai River gorge as well. Beacon fires and signal cannons linked in a chain, relaying the alarm eastward. The garrison inside the pass all mounted the walls and stood in full battle array — yet they could not instill the slightest tension in this army corps that had so effortlessly pressed up against the fortress.

The enemy formed their battle lines outside the walls with unhurried composure. Banners and pennants blotted out the sun. Military music resounded across the Gobi. It was not until the honor guard that had once belonged to the Guyuan Regional Commander was advanced to the front line that Ding Guodong, through his telescope, saw someone in the enemy formation ascend a dirt mound and gently raise an arm.

The shift in the drum and music's tone spread like a wave. Everywhere it passed across the Gobi, the clamorous music and shouting ceased abruptly.

Moments later, several riders carrying banners rode out from the formation and galloped beneath the walls. They shouted up to the defenders on the pass: "By order of the Grand Marshal, we proclaim to all soldiers and civilians of Jiayu Pass: The Grand Marshal knows well the hardships of the border troops. Our central lands' frontier defenses now reach the Celestial Mountains. Taking pity on your lives and unwilling to shed blood in fratricidal strife, we grant you one shichen to lay down your arms and open the gates. Every officer shall be promoted one rank and retained for future assignment. Every soldier shall be granted three months' pay in silver and marching rations. All military and civil affairs in Suzhou shall continue as before!"

The officers and soldiers on the pass looked at one another. Hei Chengyin, hearing this, was overjoyed. He said to Ding Guodong, "General, one shichen — the Suzhou Guard, the garrisons of Xincheng'er and Shahe forts, and the Liangshankou Camp can all get their reinforcements here!"

But no sooner had he spoken than he noticed Ding Shaoyin, telescope raised, his face turning pale. He hurriedly looked toward the front line of the army pressing against the fortress.

There, in the gaps between the battle formations that lay beyond the range of heavy firepower, column after column of camel carts and donkey carts, stretching from the very limit of sight, were passing through the encampment. Herders were also driving large numbers of livestock into the formations.

There were two kinds of carts. One kind was laden with sand and earth. The other kind — large carts covered with indigo-dyed cloth — no one knew what was inside. All they could see were the very large wheels, which left deep ruts in the Gobi. Sometimes, when they moved onto sandy ground, soldiers had to scurry back and forth, laying door planks over the sand before the carts could pass.

When the carts reached the front line, the soldiers laid the door planks horizontally. On the other side, the small carts full of sand and earth tipped their loads, and water drawn from Black Mountain Lake was poured over the sand. Then the large carts were positioned behind. Ding Guodong had already guessed that the carts carried cannons. He counted them one by one — these gun carts, spaced not far apart, numbered thirty-six in all.

He let out a breath of relief and said to Hei Chengyin, "I told you so. Moving an army of tens of thousands all the way from Qinghai to outside the pass is frightening enough. Good thing they don't have many cannons."

Hei Chengyin was not worried either. He nodded and said, "General, judging by the setup, those carts must be carrying thousand-jin field pieces. Thirty-six of them — we should be able to hold."

They had sixteen thousand-jin heavy cannons on the pass fortress themselves. With the advantage of the wall's height, even if they were outnumbered, they might not come off worse in an artillery duel. The enemy's strength was in their many horses, but they had no siege equipment. As long as they did not fight in the open field, there was nothing to fear even with inferior numbers.

The agitation among the troops on the pass turned to rising morale as the thirty-six gun carts were unveiled.

No sooner had the words faded than seventy-two large carts draped in blue cloth were pushed forward from behind. Ding Guodong and Hei Chengyin both looked a little ill at ease, and the defending troops on the pass once again held their breath.

Who could have guessed that when the blue cloth was lifted this time, completely beyond all expectation, the carts actually carried giant three-legged iron woks. The soldiers mustered all their strength to unload the woks and set them down behind the cannon carts — two woks for every cannon — and no one had any idea what this was for.

The thousands of banner troops who had successively climbed onto the city walls burst into laughter. The defenders' laughter pierced the clouds, and Jiayu Pass was filled with a merry atmosphere.

Because the sight of their Grand Marshal setting out iron woks before the battle lines looked a bit like some barbarian ritual, making these tens of thousands of troops from the Marshal's headquarters all seem none too bright, which greatly boosted the defenders' morale.

But the laughter soon stopped. Jiayu Pass fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Because following the iron woks came herdsmen driving livestock. They slaughtered sheep and butchered cattle before the battle lines, tossing the butchered cuts of meat into the woks, and just like that they set up fires and began stewing. The shattered bones were flung onto the open ground before the pass, and in an instant a mass of vultures plunged from the sky — that seething black shadow needed only a moment to peck every shred of meat from the bones.

Close behind, great-throated bearded vultures flew over, seizing the cattle and sheep bones in their beaks and carrying them away from the battlefield. The Suzhou Guard banner troops all pushed up the brims of their bamboo helmets, tilting their heads to watch the raptors' shadows vanish into the sky with longing eyes, and every man could hear the sound of his comrades beside him swallowing saliva.

Ding Guodong rubbed his stiffened face, and the disbelief in his voice broke the silence as he quietly asked Hei Chengyin, "Those vultures — have they been following them all the way from Qinghai, eating meat as they came?"

Those cavalrymen came again, riding up before the pass and shouting once more: "By order of Gao Yingdeng, Camp Commander of the Left Battalion, Right Brigade, Grand Marshal's Headquarters — surrender and open the pass now and it's not too late. If you don't surrender, once your grandpas have eaten their fill, we'll send you straight to heaven!"