Chapter 509: Moving Camp

Gu Tianshou soon discovered that Liu Chengzong's army was full of lunatics.

At first watch — that is, between the xu and hai hours — the troops outside the city were in no hurry to return to camp. Like professional farmers, they lit fires in the fields and busied themselves with plowing and planting.

At second watch, pitch-black outside, they went back to camp to eat. They ate straight through to third watch, all the way to midnight, and then they started singing. Those damned ghost soldiers in the city, ready for a night raid, were so exhausted they'd fallen asleep — only to be woken up again by the roughnecks outside the walls howling their songs.

At fourth watch, the troops outside seemed to have finally gone to sleep. The braziers in their camp flickered and flared — perfect timing with the dark night and high winds. But the ghost soldiers couldn't hold out any longer. They lay slumped against the base of the city wall, sprawled every which way. Even the few who managed to stay awake had eyelids fighting each other... In that state, how could they possibly go out and cause trouble?

On that first night of the siege, practically no one in the entire city of Liangzhou — soldier or civilian — got any sleep. They might as well have been burning candles and oil all night for nothing.

Li Hongsi had it the worst.

He had been with the handpicked ghost soldiers the whole time, figuring they'd be heading into battle by third watch. Li Hongsi had plenty of combat experience, so he came over to boost their morale.

He never imagined that Liu Chengzong's besieging army wouldn't sleep. He had already exhausted every platitude he could think of, repeating himself four times over to the ghost soldiers, and genuinely had no idea what else to say.

It wasn't that it had no effect at all — though morale certainly wasn't boosted, the sleep aid effect was superb. Basically, every couple of sentences he spoke, some soldier would yawn out of sheer boredom. Then one would infect two, two would infect four, and it would sweep through the entire force.

You could tell at a glance who was dozing off during Commander-in-Chief Li's lecture.

Though Li Hongsi stood at the city gate in full armor, helmet on, hand on his sword, looking every bit the imposing commander, inside he was so awkward his toes were practically digging out a Forbidden City inside his boots. The hand behind his back kept rubbing and rubbing.

Behind him stood the garrison commander, Liu Shaozong.

Mindful of Li Hongsi's dignity, he dared not interrupt.

They were both generals — ranks might differ, but on the battlefield, unless your luck was extraordinarily bad and you got taken out directly, everyone had their moment of losing a battle and fleeing in disarray. They all had that experience.

As a colleague, you must never provoke a man in that state. Even if your words carry no ill intent, the speaker may mean nothing, but the listener takes it to heart. What if he thinks you're kicking him when he's down, looking down on him, and holds a grudge? So Liu Shaozong had been standing to the side, head lowered, silent.

Now, hearing Li Hongsi going over the precautions with the ghost soldiers for the fourth time, he felt perhaps he ought to rescue the Commander-in-Chief. He stepped forward, pointed at the city wall now tinged with deep blue, and suggested, "Commander, perhaps we should call it off for today and send the ghost soldiers out tomorrow night instead. We thought eating at third watch was abnormal enough — who knew they'd be singing at third watch."

Li Hongsi hadn't been this happy even when he escaped Ganzhou with his life. He nearly slapped his thigh in delight. In his heart he cried, My dear ancestor, you've finally spoken! I've been hinting at you for ages, and you didn't pick up on a single thing!

He immediately waved his hand and declared, "General Liu is right. Let's sleep first today. It doesn't matter if the enemy's movements are unusual — they like farming, so let them farm. The land will run out eventually. When that day comes, they'll be normal again, and then we'll raid their camp!"

The order was relayed to all four gates. The defenders and ghost soldiers alike breathed easy and, with hearts full of relief, sank into deep slumber. But by then, it was already the fifth watch.

Suddenly, Liu Chengzong's cavalry appeared outside, torches raised, approaching from afar and soon spreading out right beneath the city walls. One by one, they shouted at the top of their lungs, urging the soldiers farming outside to rotate shifts and telling them to head to the rear to sleep.

Iron steeds and icy rivers surged into his dreams. Li Hongsi, in the government office on West Street, had barely been asleep for a quarter of an hour when he dreamed himself back to his youth, locked in fierce combat with the northern barbarians on the great battlefield — cannons and guns roaring in unison, men shouting, horses neighing, hooves stomping right onto his face.

He jolted awake, back in this body with graying temples. Before he could even recover from the lingering terror of a giant horse hoof on his face, he heard the toothless old man billeted in the office's side room banging a gong: "They're attacking! They're attacking! They're attacking!"

There was indeed some commotion in the city, but from the sound of it, Li Hongsi could tell it wasn't a real assault. Besides, he had seen Liu Chengzong's army before — they had the fiercest courage in battle, their cavalry was aggressive and ferocious, and they were absolutely not stupid. In pitch darkness, who the hell would launch a siege before daybreak?

Li Hongsi went out, snatched the old man's gong away, and issued an order on the spot: every household in the city with musical instruments was to turn them in to the government office.

"Stirring up trouble when the world's already in chaos!"

Soon, Liu Shaozong, sporting matching dark circles and a face full of exhaustion, came to meet with Li Hongsi. His tone was utterly helpless: "Liu Chengzong's cavalry is running wild outside the city like madmen. On the west wall, a night-watch defender who'd never seen battle panicked and fired the cannon. At the south gate, an artilleryman was startled awake, thought the order had been given, and lit his cannon too."

As the first rays of sunlight on the twenty-ninth day of the fifth month pierced the darkness, two thunderous cannon blasts — one from Liangzhou's west wall, one from the south — declared the entire city's attempt at sleep a failure.

Li Hongsi's face was bitter as he licked his dry lips. "Did the cannon fire kill anyone?"

"I don't know." Liu Shaozong shook his head. "Probably not. Over the past five years, Liu Chengzong has fought the court, the pirates, the western tribes, and the Oirats in turn — he's an old hand now. His cavalry would definitely be spread far apart. Two measly shots, I doubt they hit anyone."

"Ah."

Li Hongsi wasn't particularly disappointed. It was entirely expected. Two shots fired in panic, hit or miss, made no difference to the battle. He gazed at the whitening sky and sighed, "The cost of those two shots is enormous, though. Everyone in the city is awake now."

Liu Shaozong sighed too. Looking at the fully armored Li Hongsi, he ventured cautiously, "Then... Commander, why don't you go back and sleep a bit more?"

"Sleep my ass. How can I sleep? It's already light. That Liu the Simpleton was up to no good all night and never let up — you think he'll let us sleep during the day?"

Li Hongsi said this irritably. He thought to himself, even a fool could figure out that Liu Chengzong's torment of them had only just begun. He said to Liu Shaozong, "You go sleep instead, General. Take over for me in the evening... If we can't sleep, they won't sleep well either."

Liu Chengzong farming outside the city was infuriating enough on its own, but honestly, as a tactic to anger the army, it wasn't really successful. If they liked farming, let them farm — just planting some beans, some corn, all crops that mature in three months.

This would really only make the people of Liangzhou gnash their teeth at Hong Chengchou. The defenders on the walls wouldn't think much of it.

After all, farming is a very drawn-out affair. There's no divine law that says whoever plants a crop in a field must be the one to harvest it.

Just because you plant today doesn't mean you'll still be alive to reap the grain three months from now.

But the ghost soldiers being too exhausted to keep their eyes open and unable to launch night raids — that truly infuriated the officers and men on the walls... They all thought, just how wicked must this Liu Chengzong be, hitting their every timing perfectly?

In truth, Liu Chengzong didn't have that many wicked schemes. The entire night, he was sound asleep at Fengle Fort, fifty li west of Liangzhou — sleeping wonderfully.

The army west of Liangzhou was Ding Guodong's Suzhou Battalion, with Fengweizhen's Ganzhou Battalion to the northwest, and Gao Yingdeng's main camp bringing up the rear behind them.

Liu Chengzong actually had no experience defending a city. In five years, he had fought plenty of field battles, but sieges were rare. As for defending a city — he had truly never done it.

Before the Liangzhou campaign began, he had no idea what a defending army would specifically do when under siege.

But Hong Chengchou had laid out the defense plan for Liangzhou in exhaustive detail, and the Three Calamities Society had handed over Hong Chengchou's city defense manual. From there, things took an interesting turn.

The defending troops inside Liangzhou ate three meals a day. The timing of each meal, what sounds the defenders on the four walls used to signal warnings, how many signals meant what situation, where the four-gate defenders and reserve forces were normally stationed inside the city, when they planned to sally out, and what tactics they would use when doing so.

The Marshal's Army could recite it all with their eyes closed.

And they still wanted to sleep? Still wanted ghost soldiers to raid at night?

The next morning, under broad daylight, before the sun grew too punishing, the troops outside the city shouldered their farming tools and went back to work.

Fengweizhen, tasked with guarding against a sortie from the west gate defenders, even sent men specially to the foot of the wall to proclaim their Grand Marshal's message. They vigorously denounced Hong Chengchou's evil deeds in destroying the fields and told the defenders to inform the city's populace: the Marshal's Army had no intention of making enemies of Liangzhou's soldiers and civilians. All along their march, soldiers and civilians had flocked to them — they had won the people's hearts. Why not just surrender?

The moment the words were out, the defenders on the wall politely launched a volley from a Hundred-Tiger Rocket Battery.

Fengweizhen was furious, but he made no move at the time. He waited until the sun grew scorching hot and some soldiers returned carrying their tools, then had cannons set up two li west of the city.

A group of artillery officers gathered in the command tent, studied their homemade map of Liangzhou's defenses over and over, finally circled a rough location, and had the troops fire three shots in retaliation.

The location they circled was called a "corner intersection" — the crossroads where east-west and north-south main streets met. These spots usually served as marketplaces on market days.

Inside Liangzhou, there were three east-west main streets and three north-south main streets, making nine corner intersections in total. They were aiming at the three intersections closest to the west gate.

According to the manual, the defending army's reserve forces would normally stay near these corner intersections, awaiting the call to assemble.

The reason Fengweizhen waited for the sun to grow scorching was precisely because, at that hour, the defenders couldn't shelter in the shade at the base of the west wall. They would certainly be resting in the residences, houses, and shops near the intersections.

After all, their cannons were firing indirectly to begin with. Hitting a corner intersection precisely was very difficult, and the chance of rounds spreading to nearby buildings was high. So they needed the brutal sun to drive people indoors — that way, the bombardment would kill two birds with one stone.

If they hit the intersection but not the men — no matter, the aim was accurate, the intimidation effect achieved. If they missed the intersection but sent a few roof tiles flying, and there happened to be troops nearby — the objective was still met.

Those three shots didn't kill a single person, but they certainly scared the defenders gathered at the three west-side positions out of their wits. On top of that, they threw the defenders on the east wall into a panic.

The west-side defenders were terrified because they actually saw the cannonballs land nearby. Seven-catty iron balls sailed over the city wall and crashed down near their troop assembly points. One cannonball could be dismissed as coincidence — but three, landing at three different street intersections, all of which were their assembly points? How could they not be afraid?

The eastern garrison panicked because, in Hong Chengchou's manual, each of the four walls used a different sound signal to raise the alarm — this prevented the reserve troops from rushing about blindly and also eliminated the risk of reinforcements being drawn out by enemy forces outside the city.

South wall emergency: beat the great drum. West wall emergency: strike the great bell. North wall emergency: sound the gongs in unison. East wall emergency… fire the cannon three times.

The reserve troops massed at the east of the city had not rested properly all night. From soldiers to officers, their mental state was terrible — dazed and tense. The moment they heard three cannon blasts, they had no time to tell which direction it came from before they were mustering and forming ranks in chaos, charging up onto the wall.

When they rushed up, the eastern garrison were dumbfounded: "There's not a single soul outside the city — what are you all charging up here for in such a frantic rush?"

There really was no one outside the eastern wall. The encirclement Liu Chengzong had laid was a wide encirclement. The closest Marshal Army force to the east was Wei Qian'er's camp, and that fellow was forty li to the southeast, busy seizing the border wall.

Besides, Liangzhou's eastern wall was inherently hard to attack. The western wall was considered hard — it had a moon wall outside and a barbican inside — but the eastern wall was even more outrageous. A gate fortress had been built directly outside it, which was essentially like building a wall around the entire eastern suburb outside the city, linking it all into one.

Wei Qian'er took one look and figured there was nothing left worth besieging. He left a few scout cavalry outside the city and headed straight southeast.

With three cannonballs, Bee-Tail Needle was certain he could have a proper conversation with the garrison on the wall. But before he could send anyone to parley again, that very afternoon, Mister Ding Guodong from Suzhou Camp snatched away the microphone.

Their two camps rotated sleeping. Their main task outside the city was farming, with a side of persuading the enemy to surrender. Beyond that, the implicit order was to lure the enemy out — Liu Chengzong had no intention of having them assault the city at all.

If they could draw the garrison out and beat them up, that would naturally be best. If they couldn't lure them out, they'd just farm properly.

So what the two of them worked out was rotating at the fourth and fifth watches: Ganzhou Camp would handle farming before noon; Suzhou Camp would wake in the afternoon and handle farming at dusk. After all, it was the dog days — farming at high noon, with that sun beating down, no one could stand it.

If they really could lure the enemy out, as long as they weren't routed within half a shichen, it would count as a major achievement.

Behind them, Gao Yingdeng's camp, which was also farming, was the main force meant to deal with any troops that sortied. In truth, Gao Yingdeng's men had long been itching with impatience. That bunch didn't want to farm — they'd only taken up the plow and seeder because there was no other choice. And their reason for not wanting to farm was a little different from everyone else's.

This camp had a chiliarch named Tang Tong. When Tang Tong had fought the Zhenyi Mobile Corps Commander Tang Mingshi, he'd dismantled the pre-loaded canister shot from the cannons and had the firearms troops stuff the loose pellets into heavy arquebuses instead — the effect had been excellent.

Now every firearms soldier in their entire camp was using this loading method of one large ball and three small pellets. They were just waiting to trade fire with someone, and once they'd demonstrated the results, they'd present their proposal to Liu Chengzong.

As luck would have it, the Liangzhou garrison truly did not dare to leave the city.

They were just waiting for the camp outside the city to finish sowing the fields and settle into a normal daily routine.

For three days straight, the Marshal Army's Ganzhou and Suzhou Camps worked day and night without pause, timing their shifts precisely to torment the garrison and deny them sleep. The garrison kept watch every day too, practically witnessing, right before their eyes, the evolution of the Marshal Army's farming tools.

At first they sowed by hand. The next day, people were pushing newly made three-legged seed drills into the fields to sow. With those things, efficiency shot up — more than ten times faster than hand-sowing. They'd barely endured until the besieging army had planted corn and soybeans in all the surrounding fields, and the garrison was rubbing its hands together, thinking the ghost soldiers would finally have a chance to prove their worth.

The Marshal Army shifted camp.

They moved to a patch of unplanted land.

Good evening!