Chapter 96: Counterattack

The cannonball slammed down beyond the pass. In Liu Chengzong's eyes, it was like cold water splashed onto hot oil.

With a roar, the already ragged troop formation scattered as if the pot had boiled over.

Feng Rang shouted from the wall: "Quick, clear the barrels, reload!"

Liu Chengzong had been dozing on the wall top the whole time. Only after shouting twice did his mind clear a little. Standing on the steps leading up the wall, he called out to the bandit soldiers.

"Wake up, the government troops are about to attack!"

Just like the government troops, the soldiers of the Mule Camp were also exhausted.

They had fought at Jingjiagou, eaten the horse meat the government troops had stewed for them, and force-marched forty li to Slabstone Mountain.

They had bivouacked in the ridge wilderness of Slabstone Mountain, slept barely two hours in their clothes, then rushed another ten li to join the battle to seize the checkpoint passes by deception.

After the defending government troops were wiped out and surrendered, Liu Chengzong had again ordered them to sleep, right beneath the walls of Yanshui Pass.

How they longed for a comfortable bed!

Now, the hundred-odd bandit soldiers of the Mule Camp were all roused and on the move.

Yawning and bleary-eyed, they carried arrows and weapons up to the wall as ordered, stringing their bows and crossbows.

The bandit soldiers stood behind the battlements, long spears and short axes leaned against the wall, bows and crossbows in hand making final preparations. They were not as calm as they appeared on the surface.

Some had thighs trembling, some kept clenching their fists, and some had lips quivering, muttering prayers no one could hear.

Because they did not even have enough men to station one soldier per battlement.

The darkness was good. Darkness could hide everything, including their fear.

Liu Chengzong's gaze passed over them and looked down below the wall.

Outside the pass wall, lit by campfire glow, squads of government troops emerged from the darkness.

They had already recovered their composure from the panic of the cannon strike. Led by junior officers, with the tramp of footsteps and the rustle of armor, they approached the pass with immense oppressive force.

In that instant, Liu Chengzong felt the hand gripping his bow turn a little cold.

His mind was a tangled mess.

There was the tension of being in a death trap, and even more, an anticipation for the future mixed with excitement and worry.

This was utterly absurd. As the frontline commander, even Liu Chengzong himself did not realize that his mind was not entirely on this battle.

It was drifting to a farther place, drifting to after this battle was over.

Fortunately, Feng Rang was at his side and pulled his thoughts back: "Chief, the four cannons are loaded."

"Brother Rang, do you know what happens if we win this fight?"

Liu Chengzong raised a finger: "We will be the first among all the righteous armies in Shaanxi to annihilate an entire Mobile Corps Vice Commander's division."

He took two deep, heavy breaths, looked around, and said: "Brothers, shout with me: The General sent you here to eat cannonballs — has last year's pay been issued?"

The bandit soldiers on the wall shouted in unison: "The General sent you here to eat cannonballs — has last year's pay been issued?"

The government troops gave no response. They still resolutely carried out their orders, closing in on the pass step by step.

The wall shouted again: "Better to join me, Liu Chengzong — guaranteed full meals every day, never go hungry!"

The government troops remained unmoved. The battle line had advanced to a hundred-odd paces beyond the pass. Soon they would be able to loose arrows at the bandit soldiers on the wall top.

"Finished talking. They won't surrender."

Liu Chengzong smiled with satisfaction, turned to Feng Rang and said: "Fire the cannons. Bows and crossbows, prepare to shoot."

Liu Chengzu had told him before that the tactic of calling for surrender before battle was actually very effective, only it never worked immediately.

Depending on the psychological impact of the words, it could erode the enemy's will to fight, but it would not eliminate the enemy's will to fight.

The battle still had to continue. The pre-battle surrender call would gradually take effect as the enemy suffered casualties and encountered difficulties, eventually causing the enemy to gradually collapse when faced with hardship.

Orders were passed down through the Left Squad leaders and squad commanders. Men began selecting suitable arrows, drawing bows and nocking arrows.

Liu Chengzong also drew three arrows and held them in his hand. He wrapped them with cloth strips and lit them, then shot them one by one with the bow not fully drawn — at a high angle, a low angle, and flat trajectory.

The landing points of the feathered arrows differed somewhat in distance from the several campfires outside the pass.

The Left Squad bandit soldiers under Feng Rang all used light bows seized from the garrison, with draw weights generally around forty to fifty jin. Liu Chengzong's range and power with the bow not fully drawn were about the same as theirs at full draw.

And the campfires outside the pass had been placed by the earlier defending troops, all positioned according to the draw weight of seventy-jin war bows.

If the archers on the wall aimed at the campfires to shoot the enemy, they would likely miss with every other arrow.

However, the three arrows Liu Chengzong shot were not meant for anyone to see. In the dark of night, they could neither be seen nor found.

It was simply to use that brief moment when the feathered arrows streaked through the air to give them a rough sense of the range in their minds.

The stars in the sky had already faded, and the moon was gone too. It was darkest just before dawn broke.

Shooting at this time was not a question of whether you could precisely hit the enemy — once the arrow left the string, you simply could not see it anymore.

Boom!

The cannon roared again. Four more cannonballs flew into the front of the formation, swept into the enemy troop lines, smashed down seven or eight men, and ground out gap after gap.

The gaps were quickly filled. Under the officers' orders, columns of battalion soldiers advanced with bows, passed the farthest campfire, took another seven or eight steps forward, broke formation and stood firm, then drew their bows and shot toward the wall top.

Liu Chengzong shouted, and the men all ducked behind the battlements to take cover.

A uniform volley of arrows shot toward the wall top, some nailing into the gate tower, some striking the wall.

During a gap in the shooting, Liu Chengzong peered out through a breach in the wall. A squad of infantry carrying tall shields advanced through the gaps between the archers, set the shields up in front of the archers, then the archers continued forward another ten steps and loosed feathered arrows at the wall.

They had entered range.

The bandit soldiers on the wall also began, under Liu Chengzong's lead, to rain arrows down on the attacking enemy troops.

But compared to the government troops, their volleys were disorderly and chaotic, landing sparsely in front of the government troops' formation. The bow draw weight was insufficient, and at this distance, it was hard to cause any decent damage.

In the blink of an eye, the government troops had already deployed five rows of archers in front of the pass using layered formations, and then the formation began to advance in overlapping waves.

Those behind moved up, those in front advanced. In the intervals, they shot volley after volley of arrows at the wall top. The arrow rain came dense and accurate, pinning the bandit soldiers on the wall down so they dared not show their heads.

After that, musketeers carrying fire lances, three-eyed guns, and bird guns advanced from the rear with their weapons, passed through the broken-line gaps of the archer formation, and under the cover of the arrow rain, stood thirty paces before the pass.

They had no intention of storming the wall, nor did they possess siege weapons. They were simply using long-range arrow volleys to suppress the wall top and using firearms to aim at the battlements from close range.

Truthfully, even at this distance, it was impossible to aim accurately in the dark — they could only shoot by feel, firing whenever a silhouette moved on the battlements, and worry about hitting it later.

Twice Liu Chengzong tried to shoot at the musketeers who had entered his range, but each time he was forced back behind the crenellations by the fear of being hit himself.

His men were in much the same situation — even one of the artillerymen had been struck in the forehead by a musketeer while firing, killed outright on the spot.

In truth, even with such simple, mechanical, and clumsy methods, government troops with three times their numbers could kill them all atop the gatehouse.

They would not even need siege engines — once most of them were shot or wounded, even if they refused to surrender, a single rope would be enough to scale the pass.

Liu Chengzong hunched low and darted back and forth behind the battlements, moving among the soldiers cowed by the rain of arrows and lead balls, slapping their shoulders or faces and shouting encouragement: "Don't be afraid — the situation will turn in our favor any moment!"

These were not empty words.

Before Liu Chengzong had even finished encouraging everyone, Feng Rang up on the gatehouse had already bellowed: "Reinforcements have arrived — the enemy is surrounded!"

Bang! Bang!

The moment Feng Rang's voice fell, muffled cannon blasts sounded from behind the enemy lines.

It was the Crouching Tiger Cannons and Rolling Pearl Cannons.

The small shot from the light cannons stirred chaos in the enemy's rear, as a mounted column came crashing into the enemy's back with a thunder of hooves.

The battalion artillery outpost he had placed on Flagstone Hill, Gao Xian's right outpost, and those postal relay soldiers and courier station cavalry who had joined them — all now entered the battlefield under Cao Yao's command.

The archers atop the pass, suppressed for so long, at last struck back at the government troops once more from their commanding height.