Chapter 784: White Tiger Banner

On the morning of the twelfth day of the eighth month, Yulin's walls were breached.

Zhou Qing's subordinate Yi Zhangqing was first onto the wall, scaling the city by long ladders set against the collapsed section of the rampart.

The Ming army promptly dispatched its reserve assault troops from below the wall to ascend and block the Marshal's forces along the breach; then Wang Shiqin, the defender of the eastern wall, urgently sent his household retainers to repair the breach by binding timbers with rope.

A collapsed wall is not, in fact, the decisive point in a defensive battle, because even when the wall crumbles, the gap is never very wide, and troops outside must still use ladders to climb up onto it.

Once up on the breach, they must set ladders again among the chaotic rubble where no foothold is steady, just to reach the intact wall on either side, or else find a way to leap directly down into the city — in any case, none of these is actually easier than assaulting the wall directly with cloud ladder carts.

So long as the defenders can beat back the vanguard, they will have time to repair the collapsed section and drag this hopeless battle on.

History is full of siege battles where the attackers brought down a section of wall, yet the defenders fought by day and repaired it by night, keeping the battle going.

Still, a collapsed wall is a powerful symbol that the attackers hold the upper hand.

It can lift an army's morale and rouse the soldiers' courage.

For the besieging army outside these high walls in particular, every senior officer understood that their future power and status depended entirely on winning this battle.

Yi Zhangqing's troops assaulted the breach, while the defenders' reserve assault troops set up over a dozen Gushing Pearl cannons on the other side of the gap and fired them in rapid succession — yet even when their blades were nicked and curled, Yi Zhangqing's men still fought on without retreat, heaving city bricks down upon the enemy.

Regional Commander Zhou Qing's support was swift as well: the moment he saw Yi Zhangqing and his men strike successfully and gain a foothold on the breach, he threw his entire battalion against the foot of the wall, with the ponderous but well-protected cloud ladder carts still coming up behind.

A dark mass of over a thousand men formed up in columns, carrying more than ten long ladders and crisscrossing them against the wall, while every man bore a sack of earth on his back to fill the rubble and rammed earth that had collapsed at the base of the breach, shaping it into a slope easy to ascend and descend.

Zhou Qing himself rode forward into the range of the defenders on the wall — not just into cannon range; he stood holding his horse's reins on the filled-in section of the moat, shouting orders for his squad leaders to lead their troops up the wall.

He had barely shouted twice when an eagle-feather arrow lodged in the chest guard of his brigandine. Startled, he scrambled and tumbled behind a nearby low mound of earth and stone; moments later, several lead balls whistled through the air and kicked up two small craters in the dry ground behind him.

Even so, Zhou Qing snapped off the arrow shaft embedded in his chest guard, rose again into a crouch, rested one hand on his knee, and with the other pushed up the brim of his helmet that blocked his view, craning his neck to watch the contested wall where the two armies clashed.

Amid heaven-shaking battle cries.

Another of his squad leaders, Lone Head Tiger, had already led several hundred soldiers to set long ladders against the wall south of the breach; his household retainers in the vanguard leaped onto the rampart and fought a bloody melee with the Ming reinforcements closing in from both sides.

In this moment, pressing the attack was all a matter of momentum.

Because the location where they had breached the city was, frankly, not ideal — Haichao Temple lay outside the southeastern corner of Yulin's wall, slightly toward the east.

The wall here was thick, and it was the junction of the eastern and southern walls.

In a short time, defenders from both walls would rapidly converge on the collapsed section to reinforce it.

But there was no better choice, for sapping was generally done at a corner; though the wall was thicker there, the dead angle of the corner meant it received less flanking fire.

Only less — a fully constructed square city wall, with its corner towers jutting out, its ramparts studded with projecting bastions, and its gates protected by projecting barbicans, has no absolute blind spots for fire.

The true blind spot was Haichao Temple itself, a civilian structure built outside the wall during a long period of peace.

They had no choice but to dig there and wreck the wall first.

Now that first step was complete, but assaulting through the breach was proving to be the second, more difficult problem.

At this moment, the whole army was surging forward, every unit pressing the attack on the wall. If they were driven back by the Ming army now, their morale would collapse, and the dark mass of men would retreat in a rout, turning their backs to the defenders on the wall — who knew how many would be shot down by cannon fire.

But his men at the breach were being attacked from both sides by the Ming army. Every moment, soldiers on the breach and on the wall were struck by bullets and arrows, hacked and bludgeoned to death, and sent plummeting from the wall.

Just then, he heard a chorus of panicked cries from the breach a hundred paces away. He saw men in utter alarm, four or five soldiers throwing down their weapons and frantically carrying a man down from the breach.

The man they carried wore a yellow-brown brigandine soaked in blood and iron arm-guards; his helmet was gone. Though his face was obscured, Zhou Qing recognized him at once by his lanky frame and armor — it was his subordinate Yi Zhangqing.

The cloud ladder cart with its hanging wooden mantlets had not yet arrived, and now the vanguard commander had been struck down. The soldiers on the breach suddenly lost their anchor, and the assault visibly began to waver.

Zhou Qing was frantic. With one hand he groped over the leather straps connecting the parts of his armor; with the other he seized the collar of the attendant beside him. "Where the hell are the cannons? Get Hui Dengxiang! Haul the big cannons up onto the tower carts and sweep those Ming reinforcements off both walls!"

He turned his head. Planks laid one after another covered the unevenly filled moat. The cloud ladder cart with its hanging wooden mantlets came lumbering late, its overburdened wooden wheels creaking and groaning as they rolled across the moat.

Zhou Qing drew the short axe and the mace from his waist, one in each hand, and shouted, "Those in front, hold your ground! Guards, raise the banner and follow me onto the cart!"

A great banner unfurled — black field with chaotic white lines, like a burst of fireworks across a night sky — and followed behind Zhou Qing, shielding the cloud ladder cart as it set against the wall on the eastern side of the breach.

Anyone who had spent even a couple of days in community school would have no idea what that mottled banner was supposed to mean.

But to the men under Zhou Qing's command, it brought a tremendous surge of morale that completely overwhelmed the shock of Yi Zhangqing's wounding. They knew — their great chieftain had taken the field!

At the very moment that black banner was raised.

On the other side of the battlefield, at the siege lines east of the city.

Liu Fangming watched as one cloud ladder after another was set against the southeastern corner of Yulin's wall, his heart a tangle of emotions.

There was the thrill of being about to breach a strong city and win martial glory, and also the grief of a fox mourning the hare's death... Yulin, with its dozen or so Chief Generals — could it really not withstand Liu Chengzong's onslaught?

Liu Fangming himself had no great ambition, and he could hardly speak of any sense of belonging to the Marshal's headquarters.

If there had been any other way, he truly would not have wanted to fight a life-or-death battle against that crowd of old Chief Generals inside Yulin.

But he understood perfectly well why Liu Chengzong had sent them here, and he would not be allowed to slack off in this campaign.

The one saving grace, however, was that he had another Regional Commander beside him — Xu Yong, formerly under Zuo Liangyu's command.

The two of them could never get along.

Before surrendering to Liu Chengzong, Liu Fangming had tried to drive Hong Chengchou out of Ningxia, only to be pursued by Zuo Liangyu's army into the secondary border wall and forced to surrender to Liu Chengzong to save his life — and the man who had led the pursuit was none other than Xu Yong.

Yet before long, Xu Yong had surrendered along with Zuo Liangyu as well.

The two men, and their two battalions, already bore grudges against each other, and outside Yulin there was no talk of coordination — they simply went about their own business.

At first, Liu Fangming had felt a certain smug satisfaction in Xu Yong's presence, but then Xu Yong, with an air of studied casualness, mentioned that he was from Yuhe Fort. Liu Fangming felt as sick as if he had swallowed a fly.

Yuhe Fort in Yulin Garrison — Liu Chengzong's very place of origin. Didn't that mean Xu Yong's future prospects were boundless?

After that, Liu Fangming put away his disdain and contempt for Xu Yong.

As it happened, Xu Yong was a man deeply concerned with face, driven by a hunger for fame and fortune, seeking nothing but promotion and wealth.

He could see that the defenders on the eastern wall, forced by the assaults of Zhou Qing and Hui Dengxiang, were inevitably drawing off troops to reinforce the south. His own forces had also begun setting long ladders and cloud ladders against the wall, launching a full-scale assault along the entire line.

Liu Fangming knew the moment had come to commit an elite force, strike where the defenders were weakest, and seize the fortifications in one decisive blow.

This was the highest merit in storming a city.

Sure enough, a rider galloped up from the command post with an order. He tumbled from the saddle, removed his helmet, revealing the close-cropped stubble of the Liaoyang Battalion's shaved-and-regrown hair, and saluted: "General Liu, General Xu — the Grand Marshal orders you to press the attack. Commit your elite troops and breach the city."

Liu Fangming and Xu Yong exchanged a glance. Before Xu Yong could speak, Liu Fangming cupped his fists and said, "I think the time is about right. Brother Xu is from Yuhe Fort, the Grand Marshal's place of origin. The first merit of breaching the city — please, Brother Xu, accept it. My troops will follow up behind."

At these words, Xu Yong smiled, fastened his helmet, and cupped his fists with considerable self-satisfaction. "Many thanks for your generosity, Brother Liu."

With that, he turned his head toward the messenger from the Liaoyang Battalion, lifted his chin, and said, "Please tell General Sun that this Xu will now scale the wall and seize this merit for the Grand Marshal!"

He was no man of Fish River Fort.

Xu Yong was a man of Liaodong. His original surname was Gao. His father died when he was young, and his mother later took up with an old military officer.

Without formal status, to stop wagging tongues, the old officer took him as an adopted son, using that to keep his whole family by his side. Later, the old officer was promoted and posted to garrison Ningwu Pass in Shanxi, and he followed him to Shanxi. He was still small then; they called each other father and son, and everyone took him for the officer's own child.

That old officer was a man of Fish River Fort in Yansui Garrison. He had a son of his own, a little older than him. Later, his adoptive father was dismissed from office and brought him back to live at Fish River Fort for a time.

But he never got along with that elder brother. What he did get, growing up among the ranks, was a full set of skills in bow, horse, mounted archery, and sword.

Not long after the old officer returned to Fish River Fort, he passed away. For one, he left no great family fortune; for another, even if the fortune had been great, it would have had nothing to do with him.

At the time, Xu Yong was not yet twenty. He bade his mother farewell, and relying on his martial skills, ran off to Liaodong to enlist, eventually ending up under Zuo Liangyu.

Later, he was always bragging to people, calling himself the adopted son of a Regional Commander, raised in silks and fine food since childhood. But in truth, his adoptive father was only a low-ranking military officer.

If he ran into someone who knew better, he would just push his adoptive father's age back, making him a man of the generation before last.

When that really couldn't hold up, he would say his adoptive father was dismissed for crimes in the end, so it was only natural you wouldn't have heard of him.

All of it was nothing more than a fatherless child with no one to lean on, a deep inferiority driving him to raise his own worth.

Though Xu Yong had already earned the rank of Brigade Commander by martial merit, had fought across the north at Zuo Liangyu's side, and had preserved his strength when Hong Chengchou fell from power, surrendering to become a general under the Grand Marshal's command — still, the habit of telling tall tales and gilding his name, formed in his youth, could not be changed overnight.

In his heart, however, he was not afraid of his lies reaching Liu Chengzong's ears and being exposed by the Grand Marshal himself… because although he was not born at Fish River Fort, he truly counted as half a man of Fish River Fort.

Not many years after he enlisted in Liaodong, his mother died of illness and was buried at Fish River Fort.

And in the final reckoning, a man's origins and background can be fudged, but real skill on the battlefield — that, no one can fudge.

That Liu Fangming did not want to throw his full strength into this battle suited him perfectly… In his youth, he had drifted, lived under others' roofs, endured cold stares. Barely in his teens, he had struck out alone for Liaodong, relying on a blade, killing Tartars to fight for fame, fortune, and glory — all for the sake of his pride, to make people look up to him.

And now, above him was the Grand Marshal's adopted son Zuo Liangyu, his old commander; below him was the Grand Marshal's dragon-rising homeland, half his own hometown. He had never been so close to the fame and fortune he dreamed of.

The first merit of this battle — Xu Yong was determined to claim it.

War drums thundered.

Amid the dense siege lines east of Yulin City, fourteen Great General Cannons emptied six pre-loaded sub-chambers against the barbican at the East Gate Pass.

Under six volleys of concentrated fire, Xu Yong led a force of over five hundred Changping troops, raising the White Tiger Banner that Zuo Liangyu had once used to symbolize the western advance. With three scaling-ladder carts in coordination, they struck directly at the East Gate barbican, hooking the carts' grapple ladders onto the barbican wall.

Xu Yong stood in the center of the formation, clad in double armor, three goose-quill sabers hanging at his waist, his eyes fixed on the battlements.

Two wooden mantlets of thick planks hung from either side of the scaling-ladder carts, shielding against bullets and shot fired from left and right.

A squad of soldiers scaled the wall with blades clenched in their teeth. The first man to reach the top had just set foot on the crenel, not yet ducking to leap down, when a mud-ram pushed by the defenders on the wall slammed into him and sent him flying.

The thing was just a wooden shell packed solid with mud, suspended from a frame. When a scaling ladder hooked onto the wall, the defenders pushed the frame behind the crenel, hauled back the ram, and the moment they saw a head appear, let go — the ram swung down and smashed straight into the attacker.

But the second soldier climbed onto the crenel right behind him, drew his blade, leaped onto the wall, and hacked wildly in every direction.

Then, at three points along the crenellations, one after another, more and more Changping soldiers gained the wall, weaving and clashing among the various siege-defense engines.

By the time Xu Yong reached the top of the wall, his Changping troops had already carved out a foothold on the barbican above the east gate. The limited defending force was dragging the cannons from the wall, retreating toward the gate tower on the inner side of the barbican.

Arrows and stray shots raked the wall from all directions; soldiers fought hand-to-hand everywhere.

Standing atop the wall, Xu Yong swept his gaze across the barbican and quickly found his target — beneath the gate tower, there was a slightly older general in gilded-scale riveted armor, surrounded by household retainers. He looked to be the defender commanding the east wall.

Xu Yong drew his blade at once, charged the nearest Ming artillerymen, cut down two soldiers, and smashed the last one to the ground with the pommel of his saber. He had his men seize the General Cannon, then grabbed the captured gunner by the collar of his armor and pointed toward the gate tower. "That man directing the defenders below the tower — who is he?"

"That's… that's Regional Commander Wang."

"Which Regional Commander Wang?"

"Wang… Wang Shiqin."

"The one who held Shanhai Pass? Ha!"

Xu Yong let go, shoving the captured gunner head over heels. He looked again across the barbican. He truly had not expected that a famous general whose name he had heard years ago would be met on a field like this.

"Haul the cannon over! The first merit of this assault — our Changping Army is taking it!"

The Great General Cannon was pushed back to the outer edge of the barbican, its muzzle turned inward, aimed across the barbican wall at Wang Shiqin, who was directing his troops but stretched thin on every side.

Smoke and iron shot erupted in a blaze of fire.

The recoil shook the dust from the gaps in Xu Yong's armor. As the soul-seizing roar of the cannon sounded, inside the great ringing in his ears, Xu Yong was laughing wildly.

"Hit!"

"Pass the word to the left and right vanguard squads — charge over and cut his head off for me! Plant the White Tiger Banner on that gate tower!"

Good morning!