Chapter 517: Helmet and Spear

Early morning, the twenty-third day of the sixth month.

Opposite the towering Iron Cabinet Mountain deep in the Gulang Gorge, Xianglin Temple sits right on the Gulang River.

This place is not a single temple, but a gathering ground centered on a Chan monastery, encompassing Buddhist temples, shrines, Daoist abbeys, nunneries, and all manner of folk-faith assembly sites.

The roaring Gulang River forms the heart of the area — the Chan monastery lies on the west bank, the Daoist abbey on the east bank, and the hills above are dotted with shrines to folk deities: Guan Di, the Earth God, Erlang, the Dragon King, Daoist gods, the Three Officials, and others.

Whether scripture halls and meditation quarters or Daoist lodges and worship halls, all are white-walled with red tiles, hemmed in on the outskirts by the native mountain poplars, yellow thorn, birch, pine, cypress, and brush.

At this hour on any ordinary day, the temples and abbeys would echo with a chorus of bells — yet today that sound has been usurped by the murderous roar of cannon fire.

Days earlier, Ming troops had moved into Gulang Gorge in force, building encampments and erecting stockades. The monks, Daoists, and shrine-keepers in the vicinity of Xianglin Temple had already withdrawn into Zhuanglang Garrison; now nothing remained here but countless soldiers.

Before the Laojun Temple gate on Iron Cabinet Mountain, Liu Chengzong raised his telescope and looked down the slope. In the folds of the great Wushao Range, company after company of Ming troops and Marshal's Army soldiers charged and clashed. Along the monastery walls, Crouching Tiger Cannons roared one after another.

Among the mountain pine groves, heavy jingal muskets spat muzzle-flashes; farther off atop a pavilion, several of the Marshal's Army's thousand-catty heavy cannons fired in sequence — with each belch of smoke, years of accumulated dust and rotted leaves on the pavilion roof shuddered up in clouds.

Shielded by the advancing main force, Liu Chengzong had in the end hauled his artillery into Gulang Gorge — ten thousand-catty cannons, thirty Lion Cannons, every last piece, all dragged here by him.

As for the four five-thousand-seven-hundred-catty Mighty Generals cast in Gansu — those things struggled just to move on flat ground; dragging them up a mountain was simply beyond human strength. Only one had been left with Feng Rang's wagon encampment at the foot of the mountain; the other three, along with their shot, had been sent by Gao Yingdeng to Ganzhou for Cao Yao.

Liu Chengzong's vantage point commanded a full view of the entire battlefield.

The Tiger Guard Battalion had seized the mountain pavilion and set up a six-gun battery of thousand-catty cannons. Using the height advantage, every Ming strongpoint within a three-li radius lay within the heavy guns' threat zone.

In an extremely short time, the Suzhou Battalion under Ding Guodong and Mi Layin had dispersed, clearing multiple strongpoints north of the temple, their spearheads pressing straight toward the main gate.

On the other flank, Fengweizhen likewise led the Ganzhou Battalion troops forward as the main assault force to take Xianglin Temple.

This disposition of forces was made because the Suzhou Battalion's soldiers were of decent quality to begin with, and after the battle at Gaotai their morale was steady and spirits high — they were already a regular army subordinate to the Marshal's Headquarters.

The Ganzhou Battalion, by contrast, was far inferior to the Suzhou Battalion in both soldier quality and morale. Although the Ganzhou Battalion's officers were quite eager to take on the assault mission, Liu Chengzong simply did not dare let them disperse their troops to fight the Ming forces among the woods.

He had risen from the ranks of Ming common soldiers himself and understood the thinking of the rank and file all too well — these Ganzhou Battalion chiliarchs, squad commanders, and centurions, all hereditary officers from the guard-battalion system.

For all their shouting and pleading for battle now, once they were actually dispersed leading men through the woods, they would be lucky to bring half their troops back from a single engagement. There would absolutely be those who turned and ran for the enemy camp, or were shot dead from behind by their own soldiers.

And of course, a very strong chance of being beaten to death head-on by their own men.

Back when Liu Chengzong was a vanguard, if old Garrison Commander Wu Zimian of Yulin had dared to take Liu Chengzong, Liu Chengzu, Cao Yao, and that lot, form a fifty-man squad, and plunge into the woods — every last one of them would have put an arrow in him.

Right now the Ganzhou Battalion was in the midst of ideological chaos. These hereditary guard officers begging him for battle had no idea that it was the army's organization that was saving them.

They needed at least one proper battle, with the soldiers seeing reward money and settling their hearts, before normal command could even be discussed.

Just as Liu Chengzong was mulling over the question of post-battle rewards for the troops, his eyes on the battlefield below, he saw the outpost cavalry on the northern mountain path falling back in relays. Moments later, a messenger with a yellow backing-flag sprinted up the hill.

The messenger quickly reached the summit, knelt, and reported: "Marshal, Mopan Ridge on the eastern route has fallen to three hundred enemy troops. On the western route, enemy traces have been spotted at Gunzigou and Big and Small Ice Gullies. The outpost troops cannot hold them."

Liu Chengzong nodded slowly and turned back into Laojun Temple.

Before the offering table in front of Laozi's statue in the main hall, several Tiger Guard Battalion officers were cross-referencing maps and war-gaming their own forces' advance. Liu Chengzong stepped forward and said: "Mopan Ridge on the eastern route, Gunzigou and Big and Small Ice Gullies on the western route — all taken by the enemy."

The officers quickly marked the positions of the three mountain paths. Liu Chengzong studied them, then turned to the messenger: "Tell Chiliarch Ma to concentrate his outpost cavalry and delay the enemy at Big and Small Ice Gullies and Mopan Ridge at all costs, but let the enemy through at Gunzigou. Relay the intelligence to General Feng — have him prepare to engage and annihilate the enemy from Gunzigou as quickly as possible."

This one ridge and three gullies where the enemy had appeared were all near the main road through Gulang Gorge. The Marshal's Army's two main encampments under Zhang Tianlin and Wei Qian'er were advancing on routes far more distant. If all four enemy columns broke through simultaneously, Feng Rang would be under immense pressure.

Because the western breakthrough axis led to Liutiao River, while the eastern one would break straight through the mountains to Gulang Fort.

This was indeed something Liu the Lion had not anticipated. He had foreseen the Ming army using the side mountain paths to break through, but in his thinking, the Ming forces would mass their strength and break through on a single axis.

That was standard Ming tactics — divide into five recon columns, envelop and encircle.

But an envelopment split four ways was somewhat beyond Liu Chengzong's imagination.

In reality, it was five ways.

Liu Chengzong stepped out of Laojun Temple and saw that the assault on Xianglin Temple below was nearing its end. Every strongpoint around the temple had been cleared; the two Gansu battalions' troops had pushed to the temple's front, and the cannons from the pavilion were already descending the mountain.

The fall of Xianglin Temple was only a matter of time.

Just then, the Marshal's Army's signal guns thundered from Iron Cabinet Mountain, and several signal rockets shrieked skyward.

Liu Chengzong followed the sound. On the farmland linking the southern slope and the river valley, amid a rising and falling chorus of bugles, a large Ming formation emerged in loose order, advancing rapidly northward from the edge of the pine forest.

A full chiliarch's command, deployed in the classic formation-within-a-formation. The entire chiliarch's unit was one dispersed whole, divided into left and right squad-commander divisions. The five centurion companies under the two squad commanders were arrayed two forward, three back, giving the entire battle formation a concave face.

Like a crab, brandishing two great pincers as it rushed toward Xianglin Temple.

The Ming reinforcements had arrived faster than Liu Chengzong had imagined, but he was not alarmed. Quite the opposite — the moment he saw this relief force, a complex smile, fierce and gratified, spread across his face.

In wartime, the movement of troops is the most direct way a commander expresses his will to fight.

This relief force, arriving at this battlefield at this hour, was the enemy general clearly expressing one will: the Great Ming still had an army in Gansu that dared to fight. Your unstoppable rampage ends at Xianglin Temple.

Liu Chengzong instinctively looked toward the far end of the southern river valley. The Ming commander-in-chief encamped on the Gulang River should be there, and he judged that the courage this enemy general was displaying likely belonged to an old acquaintance — Cao Wenzhao.

But the manner of this army did not quite match Cao Wenzhao's style. Though a relief force, it was not rash; it pressed forward step by step, extremely steady.

Liu the Lion wondered: could it be that after the beating I gave him, Cao Wenzhao has had a change of character?

Whatever the case, there could be only one victor on the battlefield. And will is never expressed one-sidedly — it is instilled, mutually instilled, and in the end, just like the battlefield itself, there can be only one winner.

As signal flags waved from the mountaintop, orders were relayed one after another to the vicinity of Xianglin Temple. Suzhou Regional Commander Ding Guodong, already engaging the enemy, received the message and turned to his deputy Mi Layin: "Reinforcements have come."

Mi Layin immediately climbed to high ground, drew his telescope, and scanned south. Moments later, his face dark, he strode over to Ding Guodong just as the ten thousand-catty cannons, now repositioned to the foot of the mountain, had set up their battery and began bombarding Xianglin Temple's main gate and outer walls in succession.

Amid the thunderous cannonade, Mi Layin's brow was tightly furrowed. He said to Ding Guodong: "Enemies on a narrow road — guess who's coming?"

At the words "enemies on a narrow road," Ding Guodong already had a clear inkling of this relief force's origin. The words escaped his lips: "The General-in-Chief's Guard Battalion?"

Mi Layin nodded heavily: "I saw Yang Siren."

Yang Siren was Yang Jiamo's Guard Battalion chiliarch. To anyone else, the Gansu General-in-Chief's Guard Battalion showing up at Xianglin Temple meant little; but to Ding Guodong and Mi Layin, no matter what that lot had come to do, for them there was only one purpose.

Ding Guodong narrowed his eyes: "General Yang's ghost has come to demand our lives."

"That depends on whose horoscope is tougher!"

Mi Layin said this, then gave a string of orders to the troops behind him. He turned to Ding Guodong and clasped his fists: "I'll go hold them off. Once you've taken Xianglin Temple, General, join up with me. A thousand-odd men and they dare come for our lives — they overestimate themselves!"

Just as he was about to turn and leave, to lead troops and fight the Guard Battalion to the death, Ding Guodong shook his head. He raised a hand and rapped his own helmet: "Still got it?"

Mi Layin paused, then slowly nodded.

He understood — Ding Guodong meant the Ming army helmet tassels and helmet flags.

Ding Guodong jutted his chin toward Xianglin Temple: "There are six hundred Ming troops in there, and the relief force is over a thousand. Our two battalions have five thousand men. Holding them off isn't hard — we might as well devour them."

The two had been working together for several months and had both experienced the storming of high platforms; many things didn't need to be spelled out — they already understood each other without a word.

Moments later, a thousand-man unit carrying Ming army helmets, spears, and helmet flags withdrew south under the cover of the birch forest. The remaining Suzhou Camp troops besieging Xianglin Temple then joined forces with the Ganzhou Camp to launch a general assault.

Ten thousand-catty cannons roared in unison at the courtyard wall. Seven-catty solid iron cannonballs smashed hole after hole through the temple's white walls with devastating force. In the blink of an eye, the courtyard wall collapsed into gaping breaches, and Bee-tail Needle led his troops pouring through them in single file.

During this process, however, the Marshal's army holding the southern side of Xianglin Temple quietly lifted the siege. The Ming troops stubbornly resisting inside the temple quickly retreated through the southern breach into the forest.

Liu Chengzong on the mountaintop took it all in. He watched with his own eyes as another dispersed Ming force emerged from the dense woods, whereupon Ding Guodong's unit lifted the siege, and the defeated troops from Xianglin Temple promptly withdrew through the gap.

At the same time, as the cannon fire grew ever more intense, the Ming reinforcements from the south quickened their pace, pressing forward faster with every step.

On the other side, the Ganzhou Camp also withdrew from the fallen Xianglin Temple and assembled south of the monastery into a formation equally thick on both flanks and thin in the center.

However, due to the terrain, Bee-tail Needle's flank troops could only advance in small squads through the pine forest. Only the central force pushed forward with thirty Lion Cannons arrayed in a single line, advancing south across the farmland and road.

Horn calls, waist drums, suona horns, and the clash of gongs and cymbals rose and fell in waves. Everywhere among the mountain forests and roads, military banners fluttered. One force fled, one pursued, one advanced to meet them — in an instant, the defeated troops and the reinforcements merged into a single mass.

And then, within Liu Chengzong's field of vision, something very interesting happened.

The reinforcement commander was a man who knew his business. Seeing the defeated troops rushing toward him from afar, and to prevent them from disrupting his formation, he specially dispatched soldiers to shout orders several hundred paces ahead of the battle line, directing the routed men to withdraw around both flanks of the formation and regroup behind it.

The defeated troops were indeed very obedient. At the junction of fields, mountains, and woods, they streamed away to both flanks like wind passing through a mountain peak. The reinforcements then steadied their battle line.

Military banners fluttered in the wind, martial music rose and fell in waves. Squad by squad, they placed small-caliber field guns — Pouring Pearl Cannons, Crouching Tiger Cannons, Barbarian-Subduing Cannons — before the formation, ready to meet the attack.

Before them, the Marshal's headquarters' Ganzhou Camp and the remnants of the Suzhou Camp arrived at a leisurely pace. The Ming army had rushed to reinforce without bringing heavy cannons, and the Marshal's army likewise had no time to push their thousand-catty cannons forward during the pursuit. The Lion Cannons' maximum range was less than half a li, and their effective range was only two hundred paces. Clearly, a close-quarters clash was about to unfold.

But precisely at this moment, chaos erupted behind the Ming reinforcement formation.

The reinforcements consisted of only one Brigade Commander's unit, which had already packed the farmland near the official road west of the Gulang River to the brim. The Ming troops garrisoning Xianglin Temple amounted to only one Company Commander's command. By all reasoning, their current position should have provided the Ming reinforcements with a ready reserve force.

But that was not the case now.

Yang Siren, Brigade Commander of the Gansu Regional Commander's Guard Battalion, heard the commotion behind the lines. Standing on his horse and looking south, he realized this routed force was not just a little too large — its strength was nearly twice his own.

By now, not only he but even his own soldiers had sensed something was wrong. The various deputy officers toward the rear of the formation had all given orders for the soldiers to turn their weapons toward the back.

The defeated troops standing behind were equally dumbfounded by this situation. They had fled all the way here in a rout; not only was maintaining organization at the Company Commander level impossible, even the Platoon Commander level could not be preserved. The only ranks that still barely held any structure were the Squad Leaders and small-unit commanders.

To regroup, everyone would naturally seek out their own officers. If they couldn't find their own officer, they would skip ranks and look for their officer's officer... In terms of organization, they were only a Company Commander's command. Different ranks wore different attire, recognizable at a glance.

And at this moment, behind the Regional Commander's Guard Battalion reinforcements, the highest-ranking person was without a doubt — the former Ming army Suzhou Camp Brigade Commander, Mi Layin.

Mi Layin was handling the task of gathering the routed troops behind the lines with practiced ease, as if he were not in the midst of the enemy's formation but rallying scattered troops within his own army's lines.

Though dazed and confused, the defeated troops withdrawing from Xianglin Temple all accepted this premise, mentally filling in Mi Layin's identity as a reinforcement Brigade Commander specially assigned to regroup them behind the formation — until they realized there were rather too many people.

After being reorganized, not only did they not know the squad commanders leading them, they didn't even recognize their fellow Squad Leaders in the new squads, and they knew even fewer of the soldiers beside them... They had been thoroughly broken up and scattered.

Both the reinforcements and the defeated troops were stupefied.

Just then, Bee-tail Needle's Lion Cannons roared. Thirty one-catty cannonballs screamed through the air and slammed into the reinforcement positions. And from the regrouped defeated troops' position behind the reinforcements, the call to attack sounded as well.

Mi Layin issued his first order: "All troops — helmets and spears off!"

Good evening!