Chapter 497: Indulging the Tongue

On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month.

Hei Chengyin, born and raised in the ranks and nine years a soldier since inheriting his post at seventeen, spent the most exhilarating hundred and eighty seconds of his first half of life atop the walls of Gaotai City.

In those hundred and eighty seconds, Hei Chengyin fought as though he had left his brain behind — relying on his stout armor, he charged left and struck right between the battlements and the horse path, driving straight into the surging Ming troops, hacking at every man in sight with blade and axe, seizing the initiative for the scaling troops to gain the wall.

Hei Chengyin's mind had already been overwhelmed by adrenaline; he could hear no sound, see no scene — even if a whole rank of men stood before him, he could only see the one man he was fixed on, utterly oblivious to everything else.

Because this was, in truth, the first real blade-against-blade kill he had ever made outside of training in all nine years since inheriting his post.

After those hundred and eighty seconds on the wall, no one knew where Hei Chengyin had gone.

The first squad to scale the wall, fewer than six men, held out only a brief moment before being swallowed by ten times their number of Ming troops surging up the horse path and footpaths — yet their action was neither suicide nor bravado; it was itself a rigorously trained tactical maneuver.

The tactical purpose of this ladder-top scaling was to ensure, the very instant the long ladders reached the wall, that there were friendly troops atop it — serving in place of hooks, guaranteeing the ladders could not be overturned by the defenders' logs, and that the soldiers climbing up would not have their hands hacked off by the defenders before their heads even appeared.

Because a long ladder is not a cloud ladder; a cloud ladder has a cart beneath it, an extending secondary ladder, and iron hooks at the top of the secondary ladder that grip the crenellations — so a cloud ladder fears no push, what it fears is fire oil and boiling filth.

The crude long ladder, by contrast, is itself a tactical weapon, akin to a surprise force beyond the regular troops; its purpose in a siege is to increase the ant-swarm assault area — its proper use environment is after the troops on the cloud ladders have already gained the wall and drawn off the defenders, whereupon long ladders are set up at the undefended gaps to scale the wall and break the situation open with more troops.

But at present, the Suzhou Army had lost a great quantity of siege engines in the first assault — tube ladders, cloud ladders, and approach carts all destroyed by fire oil — so they could only use this method to ensure that at least a few men followed the long ladders onto the wall to keep the ladders from being pushed over.

In other words, Hei Chengyin and the other armored soldiers, the moment they chose to carry out the scaling order, had already realized that, lacking tactical weapons, they themselves were the tactical weapons — the job they were doing was trading hot blood for time.

Ding Guodong had truly gone ruthless: the six men pushed up onto the wall by the ladders were one Battalion Commander and five Company Commanders — because by Ming regulations, if a commanding officer died, his subordinate officers would all be beheaded after the battle, a chain of mutual responsibility.

If Hei Chengyin died, those five Company Commanders would be beheaded even if they survived; only this way could they entrust life and death to one another atop the wall.

Only, by the time Hei Chengyin and his five men were swallowed by the tide of Ming troops, no one on the battlefield was looking for them anymore — because the time they had bought was already enough for their subordinates to climb the long ladders and gain the wall.

The very moment the first unit banner was planted on the walls of Gaotai City, the Chiliarch Mi Layin below the wall moved.

He did not launch his assault at the southeast corner where the scaling had originally been prepared; instead, he led soldiers in soaked clothing, carrying long ladders, sprinting beneath the wall straight for the burning approach cart outside the south gate tower.

While the defenders' attention was still fixed on Ding Guodong's scaling force, Mi Layin had already left eight hundred men below the wall and personally led a hundred-man company charging through the flames onto the approach cart, leaping onto the wall to form ranks.

The darkest part was that Mi Layin's soldiers had actually been hiding their plucked helmet tassels all along, just waiting to turn coat together with Ding Guodong — yet now, far from turning coat, Ding Guodong was attacking the city with extraordinary zeal.

Mi Layin felt no psychological burden; he had the hundred-man company following him up the wall tie on their helmet tassels, and the moment they scaled the wall they charged into the gate tower.

The gate tower, already battered by over two hundred seven-catty cannonballs from the heavy cannons, was riddled with holes; the Ganzhou Army artillerymen inside were wholly absorbed in watching Ding Guodong's scaling troops.

They were just figuring out how to get a shot off at them when they saw a group of very well-equipped friendly troops rushing over in frantic haste.

They were still puzzling over it when Mi Layin, with the very first move, drew his blade and struck — and the soldiers behind him, originally reluctant to shed the blood of their own comrades, had no other choice but to swarm forward and kill every man in sight.

In the blink of an eye, the gate tower was seized by Mi Layin; the drawbridge outside the south gate barbican slammed down, the thousand-catty iron portcullis of the barbican's outer gate was winched up, and company after company of Suzhou soldiers waiting outside the gate, carrying long ladders, streamed in single file.

Mi Layin was an old Suzhou garrison soldier, not of the same system as the Guard troops; ordinarily stationed in a stockade, he had no city walls to practice the tactical maneuver of pushing troops up onto a wall — so he did not risk a direct assault, choosing instead to set up cloud ladders inside the barbican.

The eight hundred troops left outside the city immediately scaled the walls from all four sides of the barbican's inner wall — those who could not even wait for the cloud ladders hacked their axes into the gaps between bricks to form rung-ladders and clambered up.

They swiftly converged into two streams of soldiers around the circular barbican, one blocking the Ming troops on the horse paths along both flanks who had spotted their scaling, the other, under Mi Layin's lead, swarming toward the inner gate tower of the barbican.

Moments later, the thousand-catty portcullis of Gaotai City's main south gate was likewise winched up, and the city gate swung wide open.

Compared to the three genuine battle commanders — Ding Guodong, Mi Layin, and Hei Chengyin, all from the Suzhou Garrison and Suzhou Guard — Marshal's Headquarters Suzhou Battalion Vice General Hu Zhishen was a disgrace in more ways than one.

Even after Mi Layin had opened the city gate, Hu Zhishen was still on the far bank of the moat observing the battle — in fact, seeing Ding Guodong's troops breaking the situation open on the wall, he was even starting to feel eager, discussing with his staff officers Dong Ju and Yan Zhi whether he should commit his own banner troops as reinforcements on the wall.

Mi Layin, having seized the gate tower, found the friendly troops outside utterly unresponsive and was frantic enough to want to kill someone... he was on the verge of being unable to hold back the Ming troops.

Mi Layin had dealt a lethal hand against the Ming troops inside the gate tower, but when it came to blocking the Ming troops scaling the wall, he was indeed merely blocking them.

One group of his soldiers, wearing helmet tassels, went down the horse path and footpaths with their backs turned; another group, without helmet tassels, shoved and hacked at these men with their blades — all of them wearing armor, damn it, and so long as those goose-quill sabers didn't thrust, even if they chipped the blades to curling, they couldn't hurt anyone.

The Ming reinforcements coming up from behind paid no attention to what was happening here, assuming they were just soldiers withdrawing from the wall; they clogged the path so that the men behind them could not get up at all, and could only trade shots with the troops on the wall from below.

The problem was, the Marshal's Army's cannons had swept the outer crenellations of the wall clean, but the inner crenellations were still there... the disadvantage in trading shots was anything but small.

Fortunately, the gate tower held the signal rockets the Ming troops used to relay messages; one of Mi Layin's quick-witted Company Commanders grabbed an armful of signal rockets, ran to the outer gate tower, and launched them into the sky.

Hu Zhishen could be called slow on the uptake, but this had nothing to do with Mi Layin's signal rockets — it was entirely because Liu Chengzong, five li away, had sent someone to urge Hu Zhishen to advance across the drawbridge.

In battle, Liu the Lion, aside from the main force he personally commanded, was always reluctant to prod his subordinate generals — at most, he would send word to the frontline commanders reporting the coordination status of each unit, or pass along some special intelligence he had spotted from the central army.

Every man's position was different; the methods and measures a frontline commander adopted were usually the optimal solution for the situation they were in at that moment — though others could see the part but not the whole, and he could see the whole, this also meant he could not see the true situation of the part.

Just as at this moment, Liu the Lion did not know the inner gate had already been taken; standing on his tower cart, he could only see that near the inner gate tower, Mi Layin's troops were locked in bitter fighting, and then he saw Hu Zhishen's troops still loitering outside the city — it was only then that he lost patience and sent men to urge them forward.

The difference between the equipment of the Marshal's Army field battalions and the Ming troops was clear at a glance, but the Suzhou Battalion's equipment was itself Ming equipment — the only distinction being that the Suzhou Battalion's helmets and spears lacked helmet tassels and helmet flags.

Mi Layin's fight was truly bitter — so bitter that Liu Chengzong, watching through his telescope, felt a bitterness in his own heart; he mused that these two hundred-man companies with different helmet tassels were truly a case of a worthy foe meeting his match — though each served his own master, their daily drill manuals were the same, so had the drill instructors sworn a death oath never to teach anyone the correct way to use a blade?

Why was the goose-quill saber made with a point and a back edge, why was the blade curved but the point ridged and straight, hmm? Wasn't it precisely so that when you saw a man in armor, you'd use the pointy end and thrust?

Liu the Lion brooded: I'm a weapons master proficient in all eighteen arms, and this is what you show me?

Infuriated, he desperately wanted to charge up and give the soldiers on both sides two great slaps across the face, then grab them by the ear and curse: You idiots, hacking back and forth like this, you'll drop dead of exhaustion before you kill anyone!

But the facts proved that he was, in fact, the idiot — though of course not him alone; on the other side of the wall, leaning on a crutch and directing troops to reinforce the wall, Deputy Regional Commander Wang Xingshan was an idiot too.

After all, as the old saying goes, the waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first — Wang Xingshan was close, and he really did have those "Ming" soldiers who didn't know how to use the point of a blade pulled off the wall and cursed them out while grabbing them by the ear.

He cursed with great satisfaction.

Those soldiers who didn't know how to use the point of a blade, and who had been slouching about with impatient looks, immediately knew how to use the point the moment they finished being cursed — a few exchanged glances, their faces flipping faster than a turning page, and with a series of wet thrusts they drove their blade points into the surrounding bodyguards; Wang Xingshan's utterly unprepared household retainers collapsed in an instant, the effect spectacular.

Not only did Wang Xingshan have no time to react to the sudden upheaval — even Mi Layin up on the wall had not expected this scene; the soldiers forming ranks to scale the wall nearby also had no time to react before these Suzhou troops had Wang Xingshan bound.

Once those soldiers came to their senses, they dared not pursue, and could only block the inner side of the gate tunnel.

Because they had not only bound Wang Xingshan — they had also seized two Defensive Fire Carts stationed at the gate entrance.

A Ming-dynasty "fire cart" was of course not the steam locomotive driven by firepower of later ages — the term meant a war cart equipped with firearms; the Defensive Fire Cart was a type of city defense implement, its predecessor being the Gate-Blocking Blade Cart, whose deterrent value exceeded its practical use.

Only, the advancement of firearms had largely rendered the less intimidating Gate-Blocking Blade Cart obsolete.

The two war carts they seized were packed full of fire arrows; under normal circumstances, fire arrows had little deterrent effect — after all, if you kept your distance, a shield or shielded cart could block them, and besides, you never knew where a fire arrow would fly.

But inside a gate tunnel, the deterrent power of a fire-arrow cart was immense — no less than shoving a fire-arrow volley at a siege tower; who would dare pursue? Pursue them into the gate tunnel and the fire arrows would spray wildly — even heavenly troops and generals would be skewered into hedgehogs.

Hu Zhishen had just entered the barbican from outside the city when he saw a group of men come running out from inside, who promptly tossed the trussed-up Wang Xingshan onto the open ground of the barbican: "General, we've caught an enemy commander!"

Hu Zhishen raised his riding crop and leaned forward from the saddle, squinting at the cursing captive — the next moment, he abruptly dropped low on his horse and rolled from the saddle to the ground: "Oh! Regional Commander Wang!"

Wang Xingshan, who had been suppressing rebellions in Shaanxi all this time, racked his brains but could not recognize who Hu Zhishen was.

This was not his fault; Gansu had over a dozen Guard units, each Guard having at least seven or eight, sometimes over ten, hereditary Guard Commanders — just these Guard Commanders standing together would form a hundred-man company; Wang Xingshan had never dealt with the Suzhou Guard and merely had a faint impression of this man, as though he had seen him somewhere before.

"You recognize me?"

Hu Zhishen knew from hearing this that Wang Xingshan didn't recognize him, but that was fine — they'd been colleagues in the past, it was perfectly normal not to recognize each other, and he didn't recognize Li Hongsi either. Still, he rather wanted to persuade Wang Xingshan to surrender, so he saluted and said with a smile: "Of course I recognize you. I'm Hu Zhishen, Commander of Suzhou Guard. Up on the wall are Mobile Corps Commander Ding Guodong and Battalion Commander Mi Layin."

This siege battle had made Hu Zhishen realize that the burden on his shoulders was indeed a bit heavy.

What he meant by saying this was: our Marshal's headquarters has plenty of Gansu soldiers here, we've got a firm footing — if General Wang comes over, he'll immediately be the boss of all of us.

But Wang Xingshan didn't see it that way. Originally, he'd been amiable with Hu Zhishen because he hadn't figured out who he was. Now that Hu Zhishen had announced himself, it made Wang Xingshan so furious his eyes rolled white, and he opened his mouth and cursed: "You shameless wretch!"

"The common folk of Gansu can surrender, the supernumeraries can surrender, the guard troops can surrender, the border army can surrender — even if battalion soldiers and officers surrender, it's forgivable. But you, a Guard officer, alone cannot surrender!"

"You hold hereditary titles and hereditary stipends — two generations who've never faced the clash of arms, yet the court's favor has sustained you as before. When war came, first you couldn't quell the rebels and eliminate the bandits; second you couldn't fight to the bitter end in defeat; third you couldn't requite the state with your loyalty. Instead, you kowtowed and called him 'sire,' willingly handing over the city on a platter. What face do you have to stand here speaking to me!"

"Heh heh, the General still doesn't understand our hardships."

Hu Zhishen, that little master of letting it all slide, how could he be afraid of being cursed to his face? He chuckled twice, thinking to himself: given the state Suzhou Guard was in when Liu Chengzong attacked Jiayu Pass — the entire Suzhou had been turned upside down by the Three Tribulations Society — what damn use was he, an unconfirmed Commander?

On the very day the Three Tribulations Society rose up, nearly all the unconfirmed commanders and chiliarchs had been slaughtered clean by the mutinous troops. Only he, because he was close to Song Xian and Song Xian just happened to need someone like him, had managed to cling to his life.

So it wasn't that they'd handed Suzhou City over on a platter at all — it was that the entire Suzhou City had cast off the Great Ming and was madly scuttling on all fours toward the Marshal's headquarters.

In that situation, forget him — even Lord Guan himself couldn't have held Suzhou alone.

Hu Zhishen also knew his own words carried little weight. It seemed his idea of persuading Wang Xingshan to surrender had gone down the drain, but that didn't matter much either. Instead, it only strengthened his resolve to just coast along — forget about earning great merits like persuading a Regional Commander to surrender and capturing him, or persuading a Vice Regional Commander.

Just bring along those two gold-medal enforcers and be a little good-for-nothing, that'll do.

So after he finished laughing, he simply didn't bother saying more to Wang Xingshan, who was still venting his spleen. He just waved a hand at the soldiers and said: "General Wang cursed this humble one, and he wasn't wrong! I am deficient in moral integrity, too shameless to keep attending you... You lot, attend General Wang well — tie him up good and tight and send him to see the Marshal."

Good evening!