Chapter 511: Chance Encounter

The night before Liu Chengzong reached Liangzhou City, the two ghost-troop forces outside the city's west gate broke into chaos.

But not complete chaos — both ghost-troop forces had very clear objectives. The Liangzhou ghost troops wanted to charge into the barbican, while the Ganzhou ghost troops wanted to pin the Liangzhou ghost troops down and drag them outside the city.

For the Ganzhou troops, there was no way to slip into this city, because Hong Chengchou's rule was that when ghost troops returned to the city, they first had to wait in the moon-court. The ghost-troop squad leader would then lead them into the barbican, and only after their original squad leader inside the city called out their names could they enter the city and rejoin their unit.

The Ganzhou troops could not even get into the moon-court.

The barbican is an outer fortification built at the city gate. Its essence can be summed up in eight words: catch the turtle in the jar, shut the gate and beat the dog.

In some inland metropolises with convenient transport, where the defensive function of the city's fortification system yields to civilian convenience, the barbican gate is built facing forward to ease pedestrian traffic. But on a barbican designed for genuine military defense, the gate is usually set into a side.

For example, Liangzhou's west gate faces due west, but protruding outside the west gate and wrapping around it is a barbican, and that barbican's gate opens to the south. Outside the west barbican, a moon-court was also established.

A moon-court is like a small barbican attached to the barbican, but its design purpose differs. The moon-court wall is far lower than the main city wall, and the area inside is extremely small — less than five meters deep and no more than forty-some meters wide. You could almost say it is just a narrow passage wrapped by walls.

Liangzhou is an ancient city from the Tang dynasty. Although it only received its brick cladding in the second year of the Wanli reign, its construction logic follows the old-style city wall. The man who built it was Li Gui, who briefly declared himself emperor while carving out a separatist regime in Hexi at the end of the Sui and the beginning of the Tang.

In that era, trebuchets had not yet swept the world, and during the period when warlords contended for supremacy, extraordinary care was lavished on fortification construction. As a result, this city wall is defined by two words: tall and thick.

At the time, this city wall was four zhang and eight chi high, with a base thickness of eight zhang. By the early Ming, the Regional Commander Pu Ying added another three chi to it, bringing the height to five zhang and one chi. Then, in the second year of the Wanli reign, it was fully clad in brick.

A wall base this thick can hardly be called a wall anymore. Without mincing words, it is a mountain ridge sprawled on the ground.

It therefore looks extraordinarily majestic and spectacular. City walls this tall were almost all destroyed during the era when counterweight trebuchets flourished. Nowadays, city walls are generally a low two zhang, and the tall ones reach only three zhang. Liangzhou City, having survived the flames of war, is unquestionably a monster.

And the west gate's defensive system was built by Song Sheng, the Marquis of Xining who awed the northwest in the early Ming. At that time, the firearms deployed on the battlefield had relatively short range. The moon-court wall was low and small precisely so that the defenders on the barbican wall and the defenders on the moon-court could fire simultaneously at enemies attacking from outside the city.

In addition, the moon-court gate opens to the north.

This means that when an army attacks the city — after filling the moat, breaching the ram-and-horse wall, crossing the drawbridge, and arduously reaching the exact west face of Liangzhou City — there is no city gate before them. There is only a moon-court wall eight meters high and over twenty meters thick, and behind it, a barbican wall sixteen meters high and over twenty meters thick.

From those two walls, one in front and one behind, one low and one high, the defenders are madly raining down arrows, bullets, and cannonballs.

After enduring concentrated attacks from the defenders on the moon-court, the barbican, and the flanking wall bastions, the assaulting army circles the wall and moves north, beginning its attack on the moon-court gate that opens due north.

Having finally forced the gate open with great difficulty, they find inside an extremely cramped moon-court that allows only six or seven men to walk abreast. The main army is jammed up outside the moon-court. The vast majority of siege equipment cannot pass through the moon-court. Squad after squad trickles into the moon-court, only to be bombarded and blasted from all sides by the defenders on the moon-court walls. After crossing the forty-some meters of the moon-court and making their way all the way to the south side, they can finally attack the barbican gate that opens southward.

The assault basically grinds to a halt right here. With only this handful of men who made it into the moon-court, how could they possibly break open the barbican gate? Even if they did, with the moon-court acting as a choke point controlling the flow of men, the killing efficiency of the defenders on the barbican would inevitably outpace the assault force's replenishment speed.

This was precisely the confidence behind Hong Chengchou's order for the Liangzhou garrison to open and close the outer gate at intervals: our gate is open, you can come in anytime — coming in just means coming to your death anyway.

If the city gate cannot be breached, they have to assault the city wall. A brick-clad rammed-earth wall, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, over twenty meters thick at its very base, is waiting for them. Its base is even thicker than Zhu Yuanzhang's Nanjing city wall.

In this city, a few hundred infantrymen sneaking into the moon-court is just suicide.

Fengweizhen did not have that breadth of insight, but the defense map of Liangzhou City had long been distributed throughout the entire army. Besides, Liu Chengzong had not ordered him to assault the city. He was simply in a playful mood and wanted to use his ghost troops to toy with the garrison's ghost troops and see who the real ghosts were.

The two forces fought a chaotic battle outside the city by the light of the campfires. Once they were locked in combat, neither side's artillery dared fire at them. The ghost troops who fled to the city gate shouted for it to be opened, but the garrison dared not let them in. They kept at it until both sides were exhausted from fighting, with those who could flee scattering and those who could run dispersing. Only after the Ganzhou Camp's ghost troops withdrew from the battlefield with their captives and surrendered soldiers did the city grudgingly take in fewer than a hundred men.

That very night, Li Hongsi made up his mind: he would never again play mind games with Liu Chengzong's army. You lot outside the city, do whatever the hell you want — I'm just not coming out, alright?

The next day, however, Li Hongsi, who had just fallen asleep, was roused by his replacement, Liu Shaozong: "Commander, the bandit troops outside the city have hauled over a red-barbarian cannon!"

Li Hongsi had not had a proper sleep in a very long time and was severely sleep-deprived. The moment he was jolted awake, his temper flared right up. He snapped, "Who hasn't seen a red-barbarian cannon? I've still got three Bandit-Pacifying Junior Generals on hand. I know Liu Chengzong has a red-barbarian cannon!"

Bringing up the Bandit-Pacifying Junior General made Li Hongsi even angrier. That cannon was originally his copy of Gao Yingxiang's version of the lion cannon. He had once had twenty of them, and they had swept all before them in the Shaanxi pacification campaigns. Over the years, ten had been destroyed in battle. After the chaotic fight at Ganzhou, only three were left when they pulled back after the battle.

The first thing he did upon retreating to Liangzhou Garrison was to have the military artisans use the cannon to make clay molds. The clay molds, now drying in the sun, were nearly ready for use. He wanted to cast thirty more. He was used to this type of cannon — its power was just right, it felt familiar, and it was reliable.

But Liu Shaozong had no idea about Liu Chengzong's red-barbarian cannon. Upon hearing this, he stared wide-eyed: the Commander really knows his stuff.

He hurriedly said, "Then Commander, do you know what's different between your Bandit-Pacifying General and Liu Chengzong's Bandit General?"

Li Hongsi considered himself someone in the northwest with a decent understanding of the Marshal's Command's military equipment. He answered off the cuff, "The Bandit-Pacifying General is bigger than his Bandit General!"

He was not wrong about that. The Bandit-Pacifying Junior General was a copy of Gao Yingxiang's version of the lion cannon, weighing three hundred jin. The bronze lion cannon that Liu Chengzong had as standard issue was the later roving-bandit improved version, weighing two hundred jin. Its power and range were slightly inferior, but it placed lower demands on logistics and had higher mobility.

Liu Shaozong's expression turned a bit odd when he heard this. "Then Commander, you'd better come with me up to the west wall. His Bandit General is bigger than yours — much, much bigger."

Li Hongsi ascended the wall and discovered that the encirclement camp outside the city, which had previously been two to three thousand men rotating in shifts, had transformed into a boundless, unbroken encampment of ten thousand men. The frontline troops had also advanced in scattered groups to within four li of the city. Countless soldiers were toiling with their heads down, linking several camps together and forming a crisscrossing network of trenches.

At the very forefront of those trenches, with just a cursory sweep of his eyes, he saw many men who looked like Marshal's Command officers holding telescopes and peering at the top of the wall.

Following Liu Shaozong's pointing finger, Li Hongsi finally laid eyes on the "Bandit General" Liu Shaozong had mentioned. It was a cast-iron cannon nearly a zhang long, mounted on the Marshal's Army's signature two-wheeled gun carriage. The wheels were as wide as pillars. Clusters of soldiers were helping to adjust the muzzle of that cannon.

Li Hongsi took just one look, and his eyeballs were glued to that cannon, unable to look away.

It was not that he had never seen a cannon like this. He had. The first time the Great Ming copied a red-barbarian cannon at the central government level, the copy was a cannon of exactly this caliber and length, unloaded from a ship.

Just last year alone, the imperial court allocated to the single garrison of Xuanfu one hundred and thirty-seven Western-style cannons and one hundred forty thousand jin of saltpeter. But in field battles, especially on the northwestern theater, there was simply no need for a cannon like this… In the hands of government troops, this thing was simply not needed.

So much so that the concept of such a cannon appearing on the battlefield simply did not exist in Li Hongsi's mind.

Just as he was reeling from the shock of Liu Chengzong's twenty-jin cannon, Liu Chengzong, outside the city, was holding a telescope and sinking into his own bewilderment over Liangzhou City — what era is this, how can there still be a city wall this tall?

The ancient city of Liangzhou bewildered every general of this era who laid eyes on it.

The development of military technology has always been a systematic process of adapting to the enemy. For every spear, there is a shield. Most of the time, a dynamic balance between offense and defense is maintained. When a particular technology makes a huge leap forward, it breaks the balance for a short time, but eventually, as the technology proliferates, the balance returns.

The same holds true for city walls. In the era when suppressing defenders on the walls relied mainly on methods like siege towers, city walls were built taller and taller. This Liangzhou city is a relic of that era. But that trend was changed by the counterweight trebuchets the Mongols used in great numbers.

The taller the city wall, the thicker the base must be and the thinner the top, and the easier it is to hit with the massive stones hurled by trebuchets… By the Ming dynasty, the task of defending and suppressing the weapons on the city wall was basically handled by cannons.

Suppressive capability grew stronger, and defensive capability grew stronger too. At this point, expending enormous effort to make the city wall a zhang or two taller yielded little meaningful benefit — the cost-effectiveness had dropped.

Therefore, nowadays, county and garrison city walls are generally around two zhang high, which is sufficient.

Holding his telescope, Liu Chengzong studied this city with meticulous care, then slowly shook his head. "This is a relic — a relic that symbolizes the Great Ming's three great military achievements."

Fengweizhen, who was standing at his side recounting the previous night's chaotic ghost-troop battle, heard this lament and could not help asking curiously, "Is the Commander referring to the Three Great Campaigns?"

"The Three Great Campaigns?" Liu Chengzong smiled and shook his head. Pointing at Liangzhou City, he explained, "This is an ancient city. Only ancient cities have walls built this tall. I'm talking about the recovery of Yan-Yun, Yun-Gui, and Hexi in the early Ming."

"Hexi, from the time of the Return-to-Righteousness Army military governorship of the Great Tang; the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun, from the time Shi Jingtang ceded territory to beg for aid — both had fallen into barbarian dust for several centuries. When the Ming army advanced from Guanzhong into Hexi, they had to set up a dedicated translation bureau. In my residence at New City, I still have a copy of the Hexi Translation Glossary compiled back then. The recovery of Hexi and Yan-Yun was practically an expedition into foreign lands, starting from scratch."

"Now, every person in Hexi is descended from those who came from the vast fertile heartland of the Central Plains, who bundled up their wives and children, rolled up their bedrolls, and ran to the frontier to kill Tatars and eat sand — true heroes."

Having said this, Liu Chengzong patted Fengweizhen on the shoulder and smiled. "Read more in your spare time… Who is the defending general of this city?"

"Ding Guodong says during the day it's a man named Liu Shaozong. The one I faced at night was Vice Regional Commander Li Hongsi. Should I go wake up that Tang Mingshi we captured tonight and ask him?"

At the mention of Tang Mingshi, Liu Chengzong could not help breaking into a grin. He waved his hand. "Don't wake him. Find someone to deliver a letter to the foot of the wall."

Tang Mingshi was a chronic hard-luck case. He had taken a club to the head in the early morning hours and was sleeping soundly — he still had not woken up.

Liu Chengzong figured that the mace blow he took was nothing serious. It was just that over the past few days, Fengweizhen and Ding Guodong had tormented him so much that he dared not sleep day after day. Now that he was captured, he was unwilling to be interrogated for intelligence, and he could also catch up on some good sleep, so he had covered his head and was sleeping with all his might.

So Liu Chengzong had no intention of waking Tang Mingshi either. He just wanted to let him sleep and see how long he could stay asleep.

A moment later, a letter was shot onto Moon City by an armored soldier of the Marshal Army. Soon the defending troops brought the letter to Li Hongsi and Liu Shaozong, saying, "Commander, a letter from the enemy for General Liu."

Li Hongsi said nothing, took the letter, and handed it directly to Liu Shaozong. "See what it says."

Liu Shaozong opened the letter. It was very short, just a few lines, but his expression turned as though he had swallowed a fly — disgusted from start to finish. In the end, he simply tossed it to Li Hongsi. "Commander, read it yourself. This fellow is... is truly so polite!"

Li Hongsi glanced at the opening salutation and laughed. Back at Camel City, Liu Chengzong had also sent him a surrender-demanding letter, addressing him as "elder brother" this and "elder brother" that, urging him to surrender.

This letter, though not asking Liu Shaozong to surrender, was still written in very cordial terms. The gist was that he bore no ill will toward Liangzhou City, and if they were unwilling to surrender, so be it.

However, a new cannon had been cast by chance in the army, and since it had not yet been test-fired, they dared not mass-produce the molds. Thinking of Liangzhou City's sturdy walls, he had come to give it a try. In a quarter-hour, three shots would be fired. To avoid accidental harm, he earnestly hoped his elder brother would temporarily withdraw the defending troops from the west wall, lest harmony be damaged — for which his younger brother would be endlessly grateful.

After reading the letter, Li Hongsi was angered to the point of laughter. Holding the letter, he said to Liu Shaozong, "He 'cast a cannon by chance,' by chance?"

He made it sound as if the cannon had just been picked up off the ground — as if he were assembling weapons here. When casting a cannon and opening the clay mold, did he not know what he was making?

Liu Shaozong said expressionlessly, "He is informing you and me that his army can cast cannons and is preparing to mass-produce heavy cannons... flaunting his might."

"Exactly." Li Hongsi nodded. "I've been fighting him ever since he entered Jiayu Pass. I've seen his letters more than once or twice. He has three standard moves. First, he excels at humbling himself before the worthy — his surrender-demanding letters flatter people into a daze. Second, his officers and soldiers fight to the death; he is skilled at using men's utmost strength. After all, whoever is willing to lead troops and risk their life for him, he genuinely calls them 'elder brother.' I've heard that he does the same within his own army — every single one who leads troops is 'elder brother.'"

Liu Shaozong asked, "And the third?"

"The third?" Li Hongsi chuckled. "The third is he excels at using cannons. Once his bewitching potion fails to take effect, he hauls out several dozen divine weapons and blasts people senseless... I reckon, right now, he already has shade-dried heavy cannon clay molds in hand."

"Then if he really does cast cannons beneath the city walls and produces a pile of these things," Liu Shaozong shook his head, "Liangzhou City will likely be hard to defend. These walls are too high."

"It's fine."

Li Hongsi shook his head. "The Simple Khan is a clever man, extremely fond of his reputation. He must already know that the city's provisions are running low. Seizing the city brings him no benefit. Dragging out the cannons is merely to intimidate and overawe us. Here's what we'll do — we'll stall. Have Brigade Commander Lin write the reply."

Brigade Commander Lin was Lin Chengdong, the one who had abandoned the chariot camp's equipment and withdrawn his unit intact from the battlefield. He was also on the wall at that moment and asked upon hearing this, "Commander, what do you mean by that?"

"You are neither the highest-ranking officer nor the defender of Liangzhou. Even if your reply promises him something, we all know it's a stalling tactic. The court will not blame you."

Li Hongsi said, "Write and tell him that you are now the defending commander, that Liangzhou has no intention of opposing him, and that he should go cut off Longzhou. If he can block the court's heavenly troops east of Guyuan, then Liangzhou will surrender... He can't even get past Gulang Gorge."

Good morning!