Chapter 605: Burning the Camps

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the fifth month, in the eighth year of the Chongzhen reign.

At the very center of the battle, beneath the walls of Baoji, Zuo Liangyu had no idea that Liu Chengzong had already woven a vast encirclement around the Ming army, trapping thirty thousand Ming soldiers within it.

He stood atop the earthen rampart of the siege camp, his eyes reflecting the smoke and raging flames beneath Baoji's walls; the billowing black smoke made his heart burn with fury, and his orders urging the army to storm the city grew harsher with each command.

In a single shichen, the Changping troops under Zuo Liangyu launched three fierce assaults on the battlements, each time beaten back with nothing to show for it, leaving seventeen corpses beneath the walls and over two hundred wounded.

With that kind of casualty ratio,

three assaults, and every damn time they pulled back after just a few men died, claiming they were storming the walls with all their might — who would believe that?

Yet the Changping troops really were fighting tooth and nail; it was just that Luo Rucai's method of defending the city was nothing like what normal people would do.

When the enemy pushed their siege engines up to the base of the wall, he neither ordered arrows loosed nor guns fired; the defenders simply crouched behind the battlements, and because two soldiers had stood up on their own to shout, he had their heads chopped off and hung from the tall poles on the wall.

By now, seven or eight heads hung from the battlements on all four sides — Luo Rucai had killed more of his own men than the Ming army had lost in the assault.

The defenders on the wall were under strict orders: no shouting, no moving about, no loosing arrows, no firing guns, no discharging cannon.

Each crenel was assigned as a defender's designated post, with several men's names carved into the wall bricks; eating, drinking, shitting, and sleeping all happened at their post — leaving was forbidden.

Felt blankets and bedding hung outside the parapet — in the Marshal's manual of city defense, this was called "hanging curtains"; by day they hung outside the battlements to catch arrows and block bullets and shot, by night the defenders draped them over themselves against the cold.

Luo Rucai ordered that the besieging army outside could fire their guns and loose their arrows all they wanted — his men were forbidden to return fire.

For one, arrows and shot inside the city were limited, and the walls of Baoji were somewhat narrow; the camp's three heavy thousand-jin cannon could not be mounted on the wall, and only ten small-caliber lion cannon could be placed up there, so trading fire meant little.

For another, trading arrows and gunfire with the besieging army — even though he held the height advantage of the wall — still left him at a disadvantage in troop numbers, and his own forces included many poorly trained new recruits who struggled to obey orders; every veteran lost was one less, so better to fight hand-to-hand than trade fire.

So he had his soldiers stay behind the battlements, either gripping adzes and axes, or simply clutching gun barrels and fire tubes, waiting only for the Ming troops to climb the scaling ladders onto the wall.

In any case, Zuo Liangyu's Changping troops had no heavy siege cannon; the field-model Frankish-style general cannon they carried could hardly destroy the battlements, and even if a lucky large shot smashed one crenel, under the cover of the hanging curtains, the besieging army would have no idea whether that section of battlement had actually shattered or not.

Instead, Luo Rucai's Han soldiers and hidden troops used the battlements as their boundary — hands that came over, they chopped; heads that came over, they chopped.

Of course, this was only Luo Rucai's hand-to-hand combat plan.

In reality, before any melee broke out on the wall, his defenders first had to pour several days' worth of accumulated boiling "golden broth" down the scaling ladders.

Those two-hundred-odd wounded in Zuo's army had all been drenched by boiling golden broth, their whole bodies scalded; only a dozen or so men managed to charge onto the wall through the golden broth, only to be hacked down by axes and adzes and fall to their deaths.

Those were all elite vanguard soldiers in full armor and helmets — scalded by golden broth like that, barely any would live to see the battle's end.

Zuo Liangyu was beside himself with rage.

His siege preparations had been excellent: sixteen sturdy-based scaling ladder carts, sixteen tube-ladders with wooden cylinder shielding around the outside, and over twenty wooden mantlet carts; he had counted on this equipment being enough to take Baoji in a single sweeping assault.

The one thing he had not accounted for was that his hand-to-hand fighters on the wall would be hacked down, and he had neglected to build tower carts or arrow towers; as a result, after Luo Rucai taught him a thorough lesson with golden broth, he furiously ordered his troops to pull back and once again pounded the battlements with his general cannon in a frenzied bombardment.

The cannon roared — boom after boom — terrifying Luo Rucai on the wall out of his wits; he crawled forward on his belly along the battlements, cursing under his breath as he went officer to officer, lecturing each one.

"Every last one of you damn well hold this city — if the wall breaks, slit your own throats, you hear me? That old crone Zuo has gone mad; if he catches you, he'll flay every one of you alive!"

Luo's troops were all lying flat behind the battlements, pinned down by the cannon fire, unable to lift their heads. A battalion commander beside him asked, "General, the Grand Marshal's reinforcements are right nearby — why don't we cross the river and hit him?"

Luo Rucai thought to himself, how do you even function as a subordinate?

Always asking damn questions your commanding officer can't answer — utterly unreasonable.

Luo Rucai lied through his teeth with eyes wide open: "The Grand Marshal wields troops with divine skill; he must have a plan to annihilate the enemy. We just hold the city — ten days at most, the Grand Marshal will surely have them all dead... Those tribal squad leaders, don't just sit idle — those who chant sutras, chant sutras; those who recite incantations, recite incantations."

Having said that, he shot a fierce glare at the battalion commander who had asked the question, thinking to himself: you and I are both officers of the Marshal's headquarters, trapped together here in Baoji — you don't know the answer, so where the hell am I supposed to know?

He was scared too. He said ten days, but in truth he could only give Liu Chengzong three days.

Everything Luo Rucai knew about assaulting and defending cities, he had learned from Liu Chengzong.

And any city Liu Chengzong decided to attack, from the moment the siege formally began — not a single damn one had ever held out for three days.

If the Grand Marshal really needed ten days to finish off Zuo Liangyu outside the city, then by the time he entered Baoji, it would be just in time to burn incense for our Cao Cao Luo's seventh-day memorial.

He hoped the Grand Marshal could move a little faster — ideally while he was still warm, he could support and tie down Zuo Liangyu.

What he did not expect, however, was that Liu Chengzong's movements would be far faster than he had imagined.

Outside the city, Zuo Liangyu used his general cannon to pound the battlements — clang, clang — for an entire day, only lighting cooking fires at dusk.

Luo Rucai, who had been on edge the entire half-day, had just begun to relax when he received word from his uncle Luo Daien, defending the north wall, that the ten thousand Ming troops originally to the north had now marched south from the west bank of the Qian River, their vanguard already reaching Shilipu outside the city, and were expected to join the assault the next day.

And their Grand Marshal, with three battalions of elite troops, was still sitting unmoving on the east bank of the Qian River.

Luo Daien suggested that if the Grand Marshal still did not move by tomorrow, they might as well break out.

Luo Rucai thought to himself, breaking out is easier said than done — to break out north, they would first have to punch through Ai Wannian's Yansui Battalion, then cross the Wei River before they could link up with Liu Chengzong's main force.

Those two hurdles alone would probably cost more casualties than holding the city for three days.

With a troubled heart, Luo Rucai sent his uncle a reply: Tomorrow's matters can wait until tomorrow; things have come to this — get some sleep first.

At midnight, on the plateau where one could not see their own hand before their face under the night sky, in the mountain forests on the west bank of the Qian River, flames shot up into the sky on all sides.

It was Yang Chengzu, garrison commander of Qianyang City.

Yang Chengzu had long wanted to go rescue Luo Rucai; he and Luo Rucai were childhood friends, and Luo Rucai was his big brother.

In truth, if Luo Rucai had not submitted to Liu Chengzong, he would have much preferred to run with Luo Rucai.

Admittedly, the Marshal's headquarters was the overlord of the northwest — many troops, broad ranks, strict military discipline, ample rations, awe-inspiring in all directions — and Liu Chengzong had shown him grace, once pulling him out of a pile of corpses.

But in the end, back in Yan'an Prefecture, Luo Rucai had tossed him four thousand bandit troops to manage, and in one winter they had three internal mutinies, fighting among themselves until only four hundred remained; by spring, he was so ashamed he was ready to desert.

It was just that Luo Rucai came back early, saw the four hundred plump, sturdy men, threw an arm around his shoulder, praised him for his skill in leading troops, and made a special trip out to snatch him a bed-warming woman.

Yes, following Liu Chengzong was indeed glorious — they were a proper army, and he, Yang Chengzu, was a general now, a man who had made something of himself.

But that could never compare to how good it felt when he followed Luo Rucai.

By Luo Rucai's side, Yang Chengzu could truly feel that he alone — one Yang Chengzu — mattered more in Luo Rucai's eyes than thirty-six hundred peasant soldiers.

The Grand Marshal could make Yang Chengzu fight for him; Cao Cao Luo could make Yang Chengzu die for him.

Now that Luo Rucai was besieged in Baoji, even without Liu Chengzong's order, Yang Chengzu had been preparing to sally forth and break the siege, even though he had only twenty-five hundred men under his command.

The moment Liu Chengzong's order arrived during the day, Yang Chengzu was greatly heartened — as long as the Ming army went to attack Liu Chengzong, the siege of Baoji would collapse on its own; then, following orders, he would go burn a few empty camps of the Ningxia troops — easy and satisfying.

But Yang Chengzu had not expected that the Ningxia army, after crossing the Qian River in the afternoon, would actually shrink back again and march south along the Qian River.

Yang Chengzu thought to himself, if they go link up with Zuo Liangyu, won't Luo Rucai be in even greater danger?

So he still had to leave the city — first burn the camps, then worry about the rest. If it could draw the border troops back, all the better; if not, he would just follow the Grand Marshal's next order.

Before leaving the city, he had already sent a fast rider to bring word to Liu Chengzong. The message reached Liu Chengzong that very night. Lion Liu merely nodded.

Since the Ningxia army had not come to attack him, whether Yang Chengzu went to burn the camps or not made little difference.

Because in his view, this idle move only held its greatest significance when the Ningxia army was already committed to battle.

Imagine the two armies locked in fierce combat on the Fengxiang Plateau — the Ningxia soldiers turn their heads to see black smoke rising behind them, their camp set ablaze. Their morale would inevitably be shaken.

But as things stood now, it served at most as a feint, letting them know there was still a Marshal's army to their north.

On the battlefield, however, plans never keep pace with change. The Ningxia army had crossed the river, shown its face, then pulled back. Yang Chengzu was also quite far from the central army. If he wanted to go set a fire, let him — it wouldn't affect the overall situation.

Besides, even if Liu Chengzong had wanted to stop him, Yang Chengzu had already set out. There was no stopping him now.

So he simply ordered this intelligence forwarded to Zhang Xianzhong, who had reached the south bank of the Wei River and was resting there.

Zhang Xianzhong and Shi Xiang had reached their designated position after nightfall. They had originally wanted to launch an immediate attack on Long Zaitian's Yunnan troops, but the quality of the soldiers under their command simply could not keep pace with his ambition.

After all, this was a large-scale march of ten thousand troops, both horse and foot, covering one hundred sixty li in two days. For most of the Marshal's field battalions, this posed no great problem, but the Lintao Banner troops could not endure it.

As for the newly surrendered bandit soldiers from Xi'an Prefecture under Yang Guodong's command, they could still march on, but their stamina was poorly managed. In combat, they could muster at most fifty percent of their fighting strength — making a night raid extremely difficult.

On top of that, both the Lintao Banner troops and Yang Guodong's unit had soldiers straggling behind to varying degrees. Zhang Xianzhong turned it over in his mind — they could not fight.

After all, Zhang Kewang had made it clear: the Grand Marshal meant that how to fight was up to him, but if they lost, he would be the one punished.

After weighing it all, Zhang Xianzhong, uncharacteristically, showed consideration for the Lintao Brigade under Shi Xiang's command: "Everyone rest. No rush to attack. Eat something first, then rest for two double-hours."

If these three battalions had been in the same state as the old Western Camp soldiers, they would have already thrown themselves at Long Zaitian like mad dogs, biting and tearing.

Yang Chengzu moved fast. Before Liu Chengzong's forwarded letter even reached Zhang Xianzhong, the tens of thousands of troops across the entire Fengxiang Plateau could all see it — in the night-shrouded northwestern mountains, a pillar of fire blazed up among the forests, and thick smoke billowed into the deep blue night sky.

Soon, three more pillars of fire rose, one after another.

The night raid on the camp went far more smoothly than Yang Chengzu had imagined. The Ningxia army had left very few men in the camp. Across four camps, there were only a little over two hundred soldiers, all previously wounded. They were killed or captured in the blink of an eye.

Yang Chengzu struck fast and withdrew fast. He set the tents, wooden palisades, carts, and other equipment left in the camp ablaze, conveniently hauled off some chevaux-de-frise, and ran straight back to Qianyang City, setting them up between the moat and the rampart wall.

The camp raid was a great success. The only blemish was that they found no grain.

Whether grain for men or fodder for horses — not a single grain to eat.

Soon after, an urgent report crossed the Qian River from the west bank and was delivered into Liu Chengzong's hands.

Lion Liu unfolded the letter. It had been sent by Yang Chengzu during the raid. The letter reported the results of the raid, but that was only mentioned in passing.

What mattered was a piece of intelligence within. Yang Chengzu had written this letter specifically for this intelligence.

Lion Liu held the letter and narrowed his eyes: "Four campsites, three had chevaux-de-frise, tents, and carts — but one campsite had nothing inside. Everything had been cleared out?"

Yang Chengzu had interrogated the wounded prisoners. All they knew was that the camp belonged to Regional Commander Bai Guang'en, but as for where Bai Guang'en had gone, the prisoners had no idea.

Bai Guang'en... surely he hadn't fled the battlefield before the fight?

The thought lingered for only an instant before Liu Chengzong shook it from his head.

On one hand, it was based on his understanding of Bai Guang'en. The man was rather cunning in the wake of defeat, knew how to read the situation, and would turn and run the moment things looked bad. But he had never fled at the very start of a campaign. He fought boldly and fiercely — he wouldn't flee now.

On the other hand, the manner in which the three Ningxia battalions had moved south did not look like a forced redeployment after an ally's desertion.

Lion Liu therefore judged that Bai Guang'en had struck camp and left to carry out some order issued by Cao Wenzhao.

As for the direction he had taken, that was also easy to deduce. North was impassable, east was impassable, south was impassable — that left only Qinzhou to the west.

In other words, Bai Guang'en had gone to Longxi. Going to Longxi at this time could only be to forage for provisions.

At this thought, Lion Liu gave a soft laugh: "Heh!"

Longxi had no grain.

No one understood the situation in Longxi better than Liu Chengzong.

Longxi was vast, but right now, there was no hope of finding enough provisions there to supply a large army. Even supplying the rations for Bai Guang'en's single battalion would be difficult.

Jingning Department, with over twenty thousand qing of mountain-plateau and river-valley farmland yet a population of only one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven people, was the epitome of Longxi at this moment.

That tiny population was outnumbered by the wolves, jackals, tigers, and leopards roaming wild. Most of the able-bodied men were crippled by war, missing hands or fingers, and had not the slightest resistance to natural disasters.

In other words, whether for the Ming army or the Marshal's army, apart from the Guanzhong Plain, in the region east of Lanzhou and west of the Yellow River, grain could only be obtained at Pingliang, where the Prince of Han's estate was located.

Otherwise, Liu Chengzong would not have needed to send Ren Quan'er with troops to Pingliang.

Sending Ren Quan'er and Yang Yanchang with over ten thousand troops to Pingliang Prefecture was not entirely to form this grand encirclement. The strategic deployment for annihilation was only one of the reasons.

The more important reason was that, at present, only Pingliang could shoulder the provisions burden of those ten thousand-plus troops.

After all, Fengxiang Prefecture's grain reserves were finite, and the Fengxiang Plateau could not accommodate the deployment of any more troops.

If they ate for one month in Pingliang, the forty thousand troops in Fengxiang Prefecture could save ten days' worth of rations.

With the provisions burden shared, Liu Chengzong could plan his tactics with far greater ease.

At the same time, controlling Pingliang meant throttling the Ming army's possibility of obtaining supplies. No matter where the battle was fought, he could secure an invincible position.

And the key to controlling Pingliang lay with the Prince of Han.

To be honest, that young Prince of Han had a peculiar turn of mind. Back then, he had howled and clamored to be enthroned, and even now, Liu Chengzong still did not know whether he was a true hero who had never wavered from his ambition.

Regardless, with Yang Chengzu burning all four camps in succession and Zhang Xianzhong leading his troops to the battlefield, the situation across the entire theater shifted once more.

The crux of this shift fell upon Luo Rucai, who had just fallen asleep.

He was roused by a soldier: "General, the north is burning!"

"A fire?"

Luo Rucai stumbled groggily to the northeast corner of the city wall. Looking northwest, he saw the flames and was instantly jolted wide awake: "Quick, the ghost troops — send the ghost troops out of the city to cut down the camps!"

"Don't hit Zuo Liangyu — strike those Ningxia soldiers who just arrived during the day!"