Chapter 487: Fake

On the walls of Gaotai City, Yang Jiamo's expression soured in an instant.

Because Wang Xingshan's plan to array his troops with their backs to the city south of the walls had fallen through — Liu Chengzong's forces were utterly indifferent to them, watching from afar in scattered groups across the paddy fields as if enjoying a joke.

Arraying with the back to the city was a standard Ming army defensive tactic; its logic was simple, safe, and effective, and the most crucial key to this tactic lay precisely in having the city at one's back.

War is a game of strategy — when a commander chooses to defend a city, he must have judged the moment unsuitable for a pitched battle, which usually means the battlefield situation is one of enemy strength and our weakness.

Over the long course of history, offensive and defensive technologies developed rapidly, but city walls are not consumables, which meant that defensive techniques did not always stay ahead of siege techniques.

The besieger's objective is to take the city, so the defender must create difficulties for the besieging army — whether by burning siege equipment or forcing the encircling troops into a state of tension that prevents them from quickly securing the outskirts, the means all involve sending troops out of the city.

But since defending a city is already a choice made under conditions of enemy strength and our weakness, sending troops out again makes them far too easy to annihilate; thus arraying with the back to the city became an excellent option.

After all, in field battles it is rare for an army to be routed by a frontal assault — even if defeated head-on, it is hard to suffer devastating losses. The most terrifying thing remains being encircled and having hammer-and-anvil tactics strike your rear. Arraying with the back to the city is like putting a pair of iron underpants on your army to protect its rear, so that both flanks and the rear of the formation are all under the covering protection of the defending troops.

And the terrain at Gaotai at this moment could maximize the defenders' advantage in a standoff — this was a stretch of open ground that should have been flat and unobstructed, yet north of the city it bordered the Hei River, to the south ran three large canals parallel to the Hei, and in between were countless smaller channels, carving the vast farmland into separate plots.

On this kind of terrain, the Marshal's army's superior mobility and troop strength would both be neutralized by the ground.

Liu Chengzong's forces were not entirely confident of dealing with an enemy arrayed with its back to the city either, but the battlefield in his eyes and the battlefield in his mind were two completely different things.

On the physical battlefield before him, the city walls were city walls and the formations were formations — you had to break the formations before you could assault the city. But in his mind, the battlefield held none of these things; there were only him and Yang Jiamo, two men pouring their will across this land through their soldiers.

So he was not the least bit anxious. First he wrote over three hundred letters urging surrender within the army, ordered the Chahar horse troops to gallop across the ditches and shoot the letters into the enemy formation from a distance, and had the Khoshut cavalry spread out in twos and threes along the canal banks to stand guard.

The reason Yang Jiamo hoped he would send troops to fight the Ming army arrayed with its back to the city was precisely because of those canals — troops could neither advance quickly nor retreat quickly — but favorable terrain is never anyone's exclusive privilege. The crisscrossing canals would bring difficulties for Liu Chengzong's army in close combat, but they could just as easily produce the effect of penning Wang Xingshan in and trapping him.

With one careless move, Wang Xingshan had put himself in an awkward spot.

This Ganzhou army was made up of new recruits, true, but they had not joined the army just for rations. They were hot-blooded youths spurred on after Wang Ziyong beheaded the Ganzhou-born Mobile Corps General Li Yun at Liyuan Fort, stirred by the sight of every household in Ganzhou City draped in mourning white, and they had volunteered to enlist in a wave of united, vengeful fervor from top to bottom.

This was the fundamental difference between them and other armies in terms of fighting spirit.

But passion stirred up in this way comes quickly and is consumed just as quickly; what they needed most was to press forward with one bold stroke to boost morale, yet Liu Chengzong simply refused to fight them and only kept urging surrender.

The surrender letters were the same old routine, and against the newly formed Ganzhou army they were basically useless — these men had not been soldiers before, so it was hard for them to feel any kinship with old border troops like him — but at least the message that he did not wish to be their enemy was expressed clearly enough.

Wang Xingshan saw all this and fretted inwardly, yet he could not take the initiative to cross the canals and attack. The entire battlefield sank into an eerie calm, as the scattered Khoshut horse troops grazed their mounts along the canal banks while watching the Ganzhou army's formation with tiger-like stares.

The Central Army's Tiger Guard Battalion behind them went even further — using a few unburned villages and forts as strongpoints, they set up pots on the spot to boil meat, slaughtered pigs and butchered sheep, and amid the sky-blackening smoke sent up column after column of cooking smoke, acting as if Wang Xingshan's army simply did not exist.

The two sides faced off for the entire afternoon, and only at sunset did Yang Jiamo helplessly signal the withdrawal, pulling the army back into Gaotai.

That very night, Wei Qian'er brought back several headmen chosen by the common people of Gaotai — both elders of high virtue and prestige and local gentry of established repute. Liu the Lion had milk tea brewed and invited them into the command tent for a talk.

The same rice feeds a hundred kinds of people. When the headmen came in, they said all sorts of things — some representing the common folk urged Liu Chengzong to withdraw his army, others flaunted their age and seniority hoping he would not add to the chaos of war. Liu Chengzong accepted all of it with an open mind, then had them thrown out.

In the end he kept only the leader, a man named Yin Ruyue, a military student of the Gaotai Confucian school — young, clear-eyed about the situation, and not given to speaking out of turn.

Liu Chengzong said, "If I meant to withdraw my army, why would I have raised troops from Qinghai in the first place? Now that I have occupied Gaotai, you are all subjects under my rule. I called you here to discuss how to settle the population and resume farming, so that officials and commoners alike may rest secure. Other words are unnecessary."

Yin Ruyue nodded in agreement, though in his view this was not a matter he had any say in — they were the fish on the chopping block. He cupped his hands forthrightly and said, "Since we have already submitted, we shall follow whatever orders the Grand Marshal gives."

Liu Chengzong let out a laugh at that, knowing his own manner had frightened this military student. He waved his hand and said, "There is no giving orders or not giving orders. I know the people of Gaotai did not submit to me willingly — it is simply that they are even less willing to be forcibly relocated."

"The most urgent task is to settle the common folk who lack food and clothing. With battle at hand, I temporarily appoint you as Thousand-Captain of the Artisan Battalion — recruit men to work, build equipment, and transport timber and stone. The Marshal's headquarters will issue tents and provide provisions. After the battle, Gaotai will register households, equalize land, and distribute fields, and we will build and repair houses."

Yin Ruyue was extremely satisfied with this appointment.

Not because he had been temporarily appointed to the office of Thousand-Captain, but because the Marshal's army's resettlement policy was far better than the Ming army's forced relocation... Gaotai did not have many people, but it had plenty of land — there were intensively cultivated paddy fields as well as dry fields of extensive planting and meager harvests. With abundant produce, the people's standard of living was not bad.

Under such circumstances, relocating people away naturally pleased no one.

And the Marshal's headquarters' consistent land distribution policy was even more interesting to Yin Ruyue. Gaotai originally had over three thousand people and more than three hundred thousand mu of land, including military fields.

From what Liu Chengzong meant, he did not intend to keep a Thousand-Household Office here but planned to register households and equalize land — so how exactly were those three hundred thousand-plus mu of land going to be divided?

With only sixteen hundred people left, no matter how you divided it, everyone would get a share!

Most crucially, they — the ones originally slated to be relocated — were the military households registered to Gaotai, whereas the soldiers inside Gaotai City were all men from Ganzhou.

Precisely because of this, when Yang Jiamo climbed the city walls again the next day, the army outside was still an army, but beyond the army, three encirclement camps dotted with felt tents had also appeared across the fields.

Lele carts laden with timber and stone were scurrying everywhere, hauling supplies into the camps. The Gaotai common folk, brimming with drive, made every spot blaze with activity, giving their all to contribute to the capture of the Gaotai Thousand-Household Office.

Yang Jiamo knew — the backlash from the failed scorched-earth policy had arrived.

It was also on this day that a courier who had raced over from Suzhou reached the encirclement camps outside the city. It was Regional Commander Huang Shengxiao, left to besiege Jiayu Pass, who had sent a letter.

In the letter, Huang Shengxiao was unstinting in his praise of Suzhou Regional Commander Hu Zhishen. This former Suzhou Guard Commander, who had seemed to have no particular ability, had actually managed to accomplish something.

Six days earlier, Hu Zhishen had ridden alone into Jiayu Pass. Three days later at dawn, as Huang Shengxiao's troops watched, the general's banner was thrown down from the pass. Mobile Corps General Ding Guodong ordered the pass's flags changed, opened the gates to surrender, and accepted reorganization — Jiayu Pass was declared fallen.

Just one day later, before Huang Shengxiao's troops had even finished picking up cannonballs inside and outside the pass walls, the newly reorganized Suzhou Battalion of eight hundred surrendered troops had already marched out under Commander Hu Zhishen's leadership. In only half a day, using the same persuasion tactics, he secured the surrender of Thousand-Captain Mi Layin, who was holding Linshui Post.

By now the over-strength Suzhou Battalion had already been led by Hu Zhishen toward the front lines; it was estimated they would reach Gaotai in another two days.

In his letter, Huang Shengxiao suggested that Liu Chengzong let the Suzhou Battalion take the vanguard — to be precise, let this Mobile Corps General Ding Guodong under the Suzhou Battalion take the vanguard, with just those eight hundred men.

As for the reason, Huang Shengxiao frankly admitted it was not really a personal grudge — it was just infuriating. As the only commander in the Marshal's army who had walked into Gansu through the gate tunnel of Jiayu Pass, Huang Shengxiao had seen the pass with perfect clarity: those eight hundred men inside the pass fortress had not left a single bite of food behind.

Huang Shengxiao was utterly envious. While they besieged the pass, Ding Guodong had ordered his men to requisition plenty of livestock and grain from inside the pass. During the siege, there had basically been no serious fighting — just a few volleys of cannon fire exchanged, and later they had not even bothered with the cannons.

The defending troops inside the pass had been somewhat on edge at first, but later they gradually let themselves go, transforming their fighting spirit into appetite, and every day up on the pass they chowed down with gusto.

It was said their original plan had been to eat through most of the grain stored in the pass and then break out, heading west to occupy Hami — or be occupied by Hami.

In the end, Hu Zhishen came to urge surrender, and Ding Guodong did not say much.

People's thinking goes through a process of dynamic change. At first, when they were chowing down with gusto, it was because a death wish had sprouted in them — having a few good meals before dying was not excessive.

By this point, with Liu Chengzong leading troops east and Liu Chengzu leading troops north, the defenders on the pass had all realized that Suzhou had already fallen and Ganzhou was in danger too — friendly forces could not possibly come to their aid. They had also eaten quite a lot of good food, and moreover they could see that these men of the Marshal's army were no different from themselves and truly had no intention of killing them.

Facing Hu Zhishen's persuasion to surrender, none of the officers and men on the pass could bring themselves to be the first to speak. It was the Hundred-Household Commander Huozhe Hazhi, long accustomed to watching birds, who mustered the courage to raise a question: "General, there is still quite a bit of grain and fodder left on the pass. This..."

Huozhe's original intent was that the grain could still last a while — perhaps they should wait and see. Who could have guessed that everyone would unanimously suggest that since there was still plenty of grain, they should hold a banquet.

As soldiers of the Great Ming, eating the Great Ming's grain — that was only heaven's law and earth's principle!

The banquet went on for three days. Every scrap of edible meat was devoured by the eight hundred soldiers until not a single bite remained. On the final day they even drank wine, and once they had sobered up they opened the gates and surrendered neat and tidy, then opened their mouths and demanded grain from Huang Shengxiao.

It infuriated Huang Shengxiao — these working stiffs of the Great Ming Empire had truly mastered the art of eating at the public trough. So it turned out the Marshal's headquarters' three-thousand-li expedition had just been to improve the living standards of those eight hundred men at Jiayu Pass.

As for Mi Layin's side, that went without saying. Unlike Jiayu Pass, which had ample rations, his post was a relay station to begin with. After being besieged, the stored grain was nowhere near enough to feed over a thousand people for ten days or half a month. Inside the post town they were already mixing leather goods and wood shavings into their food. Even if Hu Zhishen had not gone to urge surrender, they were not far from infighting.

It just so happened that Hu Zhishen came to urge surrender — the Suzhou Guard Commander and the Mobile Corps General had both surrendered, so they had no burden either. They climbed right up the pole offered to them, surrendered, accepted reorganization, and after a single meal of proper army rations their morale soared.

At the same time, Huang Shengxiao also gave a brief report on the casting of military equipment at Chijin Guard and Suzhou Guard. He had already cast six hundred solid cannonballs and four hundred canisters of grapeshot, made twenty-four clay molds for thousand-jin cannons, and finished gathering materials. In another month, at least twelve thousand-jin cannons would be ready to enter the war.

To Liu Chengzong, this was undoubtedly good news — more replacement troops, more thousand-catty cannons and ammunition could better solve the current problem of being stretched too thin, and even made him considerably more optimistic about the overall battlefield situation.

Facing the siege camp outside the city that was building assault equipment, Yang Jiamo once again sent Wang Xingshan out to form up with the city at his back. Liu Chengzong still paid Wang Xingshan no attention, simply and unhurriedly having his men shoot more surrender letters at them — only the wording of this second letter was a bit fiercer.

Wang Xingshan's threatening force certainly had to be eliminated before storming the city, but he did not want to make his offensive intent too obvious. Liu the Lion was holding back, biding his strength.

The artisan camp was rushing to build assault mantlets, scaling ladders, wooden baskets, planks, and support beams for digging tunnels. He listed every siege method as an option — best to win at a small cost, but if that failed, a direct assault, tunneling, or even blasting the walls could all be tried.

For Wang Xingshan's force, he had likewise made two preparations. The artisan camp had already readied over five hundred carts of earth and rubble, just waiting for Wang Xingshan to withdraw into the city this evening. Then they would fill several paths across the main canal — on one hand preparing for the close-quarters fighting to come, and on the other, trying to bottle them back inside.

The size of a city and the number of defenders have an optimal ratio. A large city cannot have too few defenders, but too many defenders in a small city is not necessarily a good thing.

Liu Chengzong wanted the enemy troops to enter the city and hole up — cram nearly ten thousand defenders into this small city, and the tense atmosphere would spread and redouble through the ranks.

Of course, the enemy might not do as he wished, but after today, even if Wang Xingshan dared to lead troops out again, it would no longer be so easy. Once the main canal was filled flat, the cannons could be quickly moved across.

Liu Chengzong had already transferred all six of his thousand-catty cannons to Wei Qian'er. Combined with the Lion Cannons, there was a chance to blast through the enemy formation before close combat even began.

Come evening, Wang Xingshan's thoroughly bored army had stood outside the city on punishment duty for another day, so hungry their bellies stuck to their spines, and once again slunk back into the city covered in dust and shame.

The city gates of Gaotai had barely closed when Yang Jiamo on the wall saw swaths of dirt-laden lele carts surge toward the canal. In just a moment, they had filled the main canal northward for over ten paces.

Yet at this moment, Liu Chengzong was inwardly far more horrified than Yang Jiamo.

Because Khoshut herder-soldiers spread out in the field had captured a Ming messenger. The messenger carried a letter from Hong Chengchou, which said that the eastern Ming army had already retaken several fortresses in the Song Mountains and recaptured Zhuanglang City, and was beginning to advance toward Hehuang.

Liu Chengzong set down the letter and laughed. "Yang Jiamo actually tried to fool me with a fake letter."

Wei Qian'er asked, puzzled, "Commander, how can you tell the letter is fake?"

Liu Chengzong chuckled lightly and patted Wei Qian'er on the shoulder. "Once this battle is over, you'll understand."

Whether this letter was real or fake did not matter. What mattered was army morale — the letter needed to be fake.

Good evening! Your sickly author is back with an update. Just got over the fever today. No one in the family dodged it, but thankfully the kids and the elderly only had fevers. Everyone who hasn't caught it yet, make sure to protect yourselves — if you can avoid getting sick, avoid it. Being sick is just miserable.