Chapter 498: The Husband

In essence, an army formation, a wagon fort, and a city wall are all the same thing — their purpose is to serve as a defensive anchor when an army confronts the enemy.

A rammed-earth brick-faced city is simply a permanent army formation; it is no different from a square formation of armored soldiers bearing weapons — the only difference is that all mobility is sacrificed and defense is maxed out.

So the moment an attacking army breaches the city wall, it means a corner of that square formation has been pried open, and what awaits the city next is inevitably the widening of the breach, command chaos, until the entire defensive system is torn to shreds.

From the instant the first Suzhou Battalion soldier climbed onto the wall, the Gaotai garrison, centered on Yang Jiamo's position, rippled outward like waves — and the farthest ripples were the deserters.

Deserters everywhere.

Just as Mi Layin seized both the inner and outer gates of the southern wall's barbican, the first breakdown occurred on Gaotai's eastern wall, far beyond Yang Jiamo's reach.

Two hundred defenders marching south to reinforce the defense — one of the two gate-commanding centurions, Du Xianzhang, broke away with a few trusted men, forged an order, opened both eastern gates without authorization, shed their armor, and galloped out.

Then the eastern wall erupted in chaos; the belatedly aware eastern reinforcements turned and fled in droves — some stripped off their armor like the centurion, others simply ran out of the city still wearing it.

Worse still, some rushed to the eastern stables, one man seizing over a dozen horses and fighting his way out.

Wave after wave of deserters quickly threw the garrison into utter disorder. In truth, many did not truly mean to flee — it was just that the prolonged pressure of Gaotai's encirclement had long pushed their spirits to the breaking point.

At this moment, most were simply following the crowd. Everyone knew the eastern gate was the gap deliberately left open by the besieging tactic of "surround on three sides, leave one open," and they knew even better that their hometown, Ganzhou City, had already surrendered to the Marshal's Headquarters.

The sky is vast and the earth is wide, but they had long had nowhere left to flee.

Yet it seemed that from the moment the Marshal's troops set foot on the wall, the danger-filled wilderness outside Gaotai City had become safer than inside the city.

Then the northern gate was declared open as well — this gate was forced open from within by the common people of Gaotai, who were the greatest losers in this war.

Gaotai City originally had no civilian population; it was a defense garrison of a thousand-household battalion. But after Yang Jiamo ordered a scorched-earth policy, several hundred resentful civilians were added to the city.

They were all residents of the Gaotai city-gate settlement, the closest to the city. When the scorched-earth policy was first implemented, they responded immediately to the Regional Commander's order, burning and demolishing their own homes and carting timber, stone, and rations into the city.

These people were treated well during the scorched-earth process. At first, when the soldiers were not in a hurry, their conduct was not harsh — they reasoned with them and moved them with emotion, and the people were willing to comply.

To the common folk living near Gaotai, rebels were simply rebels, because their Great Ming was not merely the lofty emperor in the Forbidden City or the officials whose power swayed the court — it was the ten-li radius around the Gaotai city-gate settlement.

It was every blade of grass and every tree, it was neighbors left and right, it was the peddlers and porters, it was the land where their ancestors had lived and died for generations. Their Great Ming was right here.

No matter how high-sounding the pretext, they were unwilling to let anyone overrun this place.

But after being trapped inside the city for a month, their rations exhausted, imperial relief troops nowhere in sight, and news of Ganzhou's fall arriving one after another, the civilians hiding in the city could no longer endure the worsening pressure of war, nor could they accept the fate of living and dying alongside the garrison.

This pressure finally reached its breaking point when the Suzhou Battalion stormed the wall and the eastern garrison opened the gates and fled without orders. Amid the city's extreme chaos, several hundred Gaotai civilians, together with garrison soldiers who had lost the will to hold, forced open the northern gate and fled east along the southern bank of the Hei River.

They dared not flee to the opposite bank — Choktu Taiji's eight hundred Chahar cavalry were encamped right there. The garrison troops who had sortied from the western gate were locked in a chaotic melee with Mo Yujing's Khoshut Mongols. Only the seemingly undefended east offered a path to survival.

Of course, even among the common folk, the vast majority knew the east was a dead end as well — they were simply out of options. Inside Gaotai City, every building that could be torn down for defense had already been demolished; there were absolutely no conditions for alleyway fighting using crooked lanes and winding corners.

Once the city wall was occupied by the Marshal's troops, the defense had essentially failed.

Yang Jiamo, directing the defense from inside the southern gate, did not realize the problem at first. He was wholly focused on dispatching soldiers, trying to drive the Suzhou Battalion off and retake control of the wall.

It was not until Hu Zhishen's troops swaggered through the southern gate into the city, pushing two mounted-firearm war wagons and igniting them to fire rockets wildly at the defenders, that Yang Jiamo understood the southern gate was already lost.

And it was at that very moment that he learned from a Vice Regional Commander's retainer, who had narrowly escaped a blade thrust, that Wang Xingshan — who had taken the field wounded inside the southern gate — had actually been captured alive!

What truly shattered Yang Jiamo's psychological defenses was the sound of hoofbeats — clatter-clatter-clatter — coming from South Street.

Warhorses without even saddles galloped wildly down the long street flanked by ruins on both sides. Farther away, beneath the bell-and-drum tower, someone who had not even bothered to don armor was driving over a dozen horses from the west, passing under the cross-shaped central tower beneath the bell-and-drum tower, heading toward the eastern part of the city.

The southern wall, where the frontal battle raged, had not yet completely fallen, but the defenders on the western and eastern flanks had already collapsed.

In truth, even at this point, Ding Guodong's unit had not fully captured the half-section of wall east of the gate tower; the defenders' will to resist was extremely resolute, and they launched several counterattacks along the horse-ramps and footpaths.

Although Ding Guodong's unit had achieved numerical superiority on the southern wall, the assault troops lacked light and heavy firepower, so at most they could only drive the defenders off the wall. The moment they showed their heads on the ramps and footpaths, they would be bombarded by swivel guns and barbarian-destroyer cannons, resulting in a prolonged stalemate.

But the surrounding environment underwent a massive transformation as the two sides remained locked in stalemate.

First, Hu Zhishen drove his troops into the city. His Suzhou Guard banner troops were neither elite soldiers nor fierce commanders, and they were terribly cowardly to boot.

Seven or eight hundred men practically took their cue from the Assistant Regional Commander. Hu Zhishen dared not lead his troops into close combat, so he hid behind the squad commander; the squad commander hid behind the centurion; the centurion hid behind the soldiers. When no officer dared to lead from the front, the soldiers naturally all showed themselves to be spineless weaklings who dared not fight at close quarters.

They spread out in horizontal lines across the city's ruins, firing their three-eyed guns in volleys from seventy or eighty paces away. Even if the pellets hit the defenders, they would only make a sound.

Still, despite achieving little of substance, seven or eight hundred men pouring in through the gate could still instill in the defenders a sense of hopelessness that all was lost. Many officers originally under Wang Xingshan's command, unable to find him, abandoned their defensive lines and fled in scattered groups toward the drum tower. Even those who did not flee contracted their positions toward Yang Jiamo's location.

The one truly daring and fierce in battle was the Suzhou Battalion's Vice Assistant Regional Commander, Bee-Tail Needle. The moment he learned that Mi Layin had taken the southern gate, he ordered his artillerymen to load canister shot, abandoned the ammunition carts and draft animals, and sprinted toward the gate pushing their crouching-tiger cannons.

At the same time, Liu Chengzong at the central command was also deploying his forces, except he did not order the Tiger Guard Battalion to keep pressing toward the southern gate. The Suzhou Battalion was fighting well and had already applied sufficient pressure on the Ming army at the southern gate; what was needed now was a breakthrough in other defensive sectors.

Therefore, he dispatched Chiliarch Han Shipan to lead troops in a flanking maneuver from the east of the city toward the north, entering through whichever gate was open.

As Bee-Tail Needle led his unit charging through the southern gate, the defenders contracted around Yang Jiamo met their doom. Neither Mi Layin atop the southern gate nor Ding Guodong on the eastern section of the southern wall could quickly break through the Ming defensive line armed with small cannons, fire lances, and even naphtha.

Two centurions under Mi Layin fought their way to the base of the wall and were on the verge of engaging Yang Jiamo's defenders in close combat at the wall's foot, when the defenders unleashed a fierce-oil tank, spraying a tongue of flame over ten paces long. Where it landed, it formed an instant fire barrier — no one could get past.

As Suzhou soldiers, they knew the power of naphtha better than anyone. Even if their cotton armor was soaked through, that only protected against flames from burning siege equipment; it was utterly useless against naphtha. One touch and you burned to death.

But Bee-Tail Needle's men were not afraid. His subordinates were the same old madmen who had split into two forces to assassinate the Guoshi Khan back then. Several hundred-man squads had seen the grand spectacle of charging an army of ten thousand at night — this, at most, was a minor affair.

Five hundred-man squads entered the gate and, like headless flies, barreled around pushing their crouching-tiger cannons, seeking out wherever the defenders were thickest. Once they fixed a direction, they fired — bang, bang — a few rounds from a hundred paces away. Whether it was fierce-oil tanks or fire tubes, one cannon shot flattened them all. After firing, they shoved the gun carriage aside and ignored it, then charged with long spears and saber-and-shield into the breach torn open by the shot.

The defenders gathered around Yang Jiamo dared not let these madmen close in and tie them down. Several officers, seeing the situation was hopeless, pleaded with Yang Jiamo to break out of the city. The southern defensive line was broken, and the rear in the north was an utter mess — even the grain commissioner could not be reached. Holding out inside the city was meaningless; this battle could not be fought any longer.

But Yang Jiamo refused to break out. He merely deployed his soldiers in three staggered defensive lines, gathering over a thousand troops and withdrawing northward in alternating waves. He said, "More than half of Gansu has already fallen. If I cannot hold Gaotai, what use is there in fleeing as the Regional Commander of Gansu?"

In truth, the Ganzhou officers still by Yang Jiamo's side all knew the logic was sound. Gaotai was an isolated city — Suzhou to the west and Ganzhou to the east had both surrendered to the Marshal's Headquarters. Even if they broke out, there was nowhere to flee.

But even if it meant death, for many, until death was staring them in the face, it was hard to summon true resolve.

Had they not retreated, they might have held their ground. But once the three defensive lines were set and over a thousand men began their alternating withdrawal, no single line at the front could withstand Bee-Tail Needle's assault with crouching-tiger cannons, and the flanks could not hold against the repeated thrusts of Ding Guodong and Mi Layin. By the time they withdrew to the bell-and-drum tower, they were met by Han Shipan leading the Tiger Guard Battalion's chiliarch division charging in from the eastern gate.

The defensive lines collapsed in an instant, pierced through one after another amid the booming of cannons and battle cries.

With nowhere left to retreat, Yang Jiamo ultimately withdrew his troops to the northwestern corner of Gaotai. After multiple collapses and reorganizations, the soldiers under his command numbered only a hundred or so, arrayed in two horizontal lines with their backs to the corner of the wall.

The Marshal's troops slowly pressed forward, surrounding them completely from atop the wall and within the city, a hundred paces apart with only a few large pools between them. Ding Guodong, Mi Layin, Hu Zhishen, and Bee-Tail Needle were all at the very front of the line. No one gave the order to attack; they merely watched from a distance as Yang Jiamo walked into his dead end.

Bee-Tail Needle still had twelve crouching-tiger cannons loaded with canister shot. The cannons were lined up beside the pools — he was confident that a single volley could blast Yang Jiamo and his entire group sky-high.

Ding Guodong, still seething with fury, paced back and forth before the line with his blade drawn, glaring at Yang Jiamo from afar. He had no way to cross, because what lay between them were pools filled to the brim with naphtha.

The Tiger Guard Battalion had seized control of the southeastern and southern gates. Liu Chengzong then entered the city to deal with the mess left in the battle's aftermath, capturing sixteen officers of centurion rank and above, over a thousand surrendered soldiers and prisoners, more than seventy light artillery pieces of various types, twenty-two naphtha tanks and fire tubes, over two thousand suits of armor, and more than four hundred warhorses, donkeys, and mules.

Afterward, the battle outside the western gate also concluded. Mo Yujing personally entered the city to report the results: the Ganzhou-born officer Luo Junjie had fought to the death; Squad Commander Zhao Gui refused to surrender and was killed by an arrow while attempting to break out. The Mongol brigade took the surrender of over three hundred Ganzhou troops. At the same time, Khoshut centurions Arlai and Ebum were killed in action, chiliarch Tuba was wounded, and Assistant Regional Commander County Earl Dorji sustained three injuries.

To be honest, even Liu Chengzong was dazed when he heard the County Earl title he had bestowed, but luckily the fierce-sounding name "Dorji" was memorable enough for him, and he quickly pieced together the course of Mo Yujing's unit in the battle.

Taiji Dorji was the Guoshi Khan's sixth son, now serving as Assistant Regional Commander in the Khoshut Battalion of the Farming Brigade, his subordinates almost entirely the original members of the Khoshut tribe.

Battalion Commander Tu Ba's name sounded a bit irregular, because he was not of Mongol feudal nobility by origin, but a warrior born of the Tu Ba tribe, serving as the grand steward *zaisang* of Taiji Duo'erji.

Tu Ba is an evolution of the Tang dynasty's Dubo, originally a tribal name. That tribe once established a tributary relationship with the Tang court, requested the dispatch of Tang officials, and set up the Jiankun Protectorate, entering the imperial map. They nomadized between the Tangnu, Altai, and Sayan Mountains. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, this region was also called Wenlianggai.

Hence the full name is Tu Ba Wenlianggai, which later became Tuva Uriankhai.

When Liu Chengzong reached the southwest corner of the high platform, he paid no attention to Yang Jiamo. He merely met with Ding Guodong and Mi Layin. The fearlessness these two had shown in the siege assault made him value them highly.

As for Hu Zhishen, whose performance had been less outstanding, Liu Chengzong offered no criticism — it was within expectations.

Hu Zhishen's very purpose in that position was to ensure internal stability within the Suzhou Battalion. Ding Guodong and Mi Layin could fight, true enough, but if you made those two regional commanders, the Suzhou Battalion would be fighting *him*.

Hu Zhishen could not fight, but the role he played was precisely to hold them back. When Generals Ding and Mi fought the Ming army, he could hold them back; when Generals Ding and Mi fought the Marshal's army, Hu Zhishen could hold them back just the same.

Is there anyone in this world who is truly useless?

The one who truly got scolded was Bee-Tail Needle. Liu Chengzong had allocated him forty Lion Cannons, and the fellow threw away twenty-eight of them the moment he charged into the city. The entire Gaotai city was littered with cannons he'd discarded, giving the Tiger Guard Battalion a hell of a time searching for them. Even now, two cannons still had no one knowing where he'd tossed them.

As for Yang Jiamo, Liu Chengzong had a guard soldier stand by the poolside and shout loudly: "Grand Marshal Yang, victory and defeat are common matters for soldiers. With scant troops and few officers, you held me off for over a month — that already counts as doing your utmost. Since you lack the strength to reverse fate, why not surrender to me, so that Liangzhou may see fewer deaths? Would that not be a blessing for all under heaven?"

Yang Jiamo had been standing on the opposite side of the pool for a long while, his last hundred-odd officers and household retainers around him, lost in unknown thoughts. Hearing the Marshal's guard's call, he cupped his hands expressionlessly across the pool, then took out a fire stick, blew it alight, and cast it into the pool.

Instantly, raging flames shot skyward. The Marshal's soldiers near the pool's edge hurriedly recoiled. Amid the chaos, Liu Chengzong glimpsed a figure resolutely striding into the fire, sinking into the pool.

Liu Chengzong turned his horse back. After riding a dozen or so paces, he turned around. A surging wave of heat struck his face. He gently applauded. "A worthy death — a true man indeed!"

Good evening!