Chapter 297: What Does Death Matter

"Second Master, look—this spot we've chosen is farther from that western barbican. If we were too close to the barbican, we'd be attacked from the left as we scaled the wall, and the defenders could rally inside the barbican and sally out. If that threw us into chaos, the projecting bastions on both flanks are also far enough away that we wouldn't have to worry much about them." Hou Wu pointed from a distance as he explained. Xu Hongju nodded slowly.

A city wall is never a perfect square or rectangle. At the gate there is usually a protruding section with an inner and an outer gate, and the wall encloses an open space between them—that is the barbican. In wartime, if the enemy breaches the outer gate, there is still a second line of defense inside. The garrison can also assemble and form up in the barbican's open ground, then close the inner gate, open the outer gate, and charge out.

"Horse-faces" are the bastions—raised platforms that jut forward from the wall at intervals, allowing defenders to strike at enemies scaling or assaulting the wall and to clear the dead zones where the wall itself cannot be covered.

However, while every proper city can manage a barbican, the bastions often cannot eliminate every blind spot. At the position the refugees had chosen, the bastions on either flank could only reach them with a full-power bowshot—but where would they get that many bows and arrows?

Earth and corpses soon filled the not-very-deep moat. The captured commoners of Xuzhou, carrying earth-filled sacks and bags on their backs, were driven forward again. At that moment, the defenders on the wall began hurling logs and stones.

"I'm a Xuzhou commoner!"

"I always set up my stall right by the city gate…"

The captured commoners were all weeping and shouting, but the objects raining down from the wall did not lessen in the slightest. Heavy things dropped from a wall over ten meters high were more than enough to kill a man.

Screams and cries wove together into a single din. After several dozen people below the wall had been crushed to death, the captured Xuzhou commoners scattered in a panic, throwing down whatever they were carrying and fleeing to the rear. But how would the refugees let them escape? Sharpened wooden stakes stabbed down viciously, claiming many more lives. The captives had no choice but to carry earth back to the wall, only to be crushed to death again—on and on it went, over and over…

"Report to me when only a hundred are left!" Hou Wu shouted to a man. The man acknowledged and ran off toward the city wall. He wore tattered clothes and looked no different from any other refugee.

Xu Hongju watched the seething chaos ahead, then glanced eastward and said in a muffled voice, "Do we begin now?"

"Not yet. At a critical moment like this, we have to throw everything we have at this spot and press the attack to the death—only then will the other positions get their chance. Once the captured Xuzhou commoners are all dead, we send in the main force!" Hou Wu, beside him, said grimly.

Below the section of wall under assault, a slope of earth and corpses had already formed. When the captured commoners were driven back once more, boiling water poured down from the wall. Some were scalded to death on the spot beneath the ramparts. Heart-rending screams shook heaven and earth. After several such cycles, few of the captured Xuzhou commoners remained.

Perhaps because the sight of boiling water cascading down was too horrifying, even the refugees holding sharpened stakes froze for a moment. A brief stillness fell over the scene.

The soldiers on the wall were holding up, but the yamen runners and militia were all weeping and shouting as they hurled things down. The people below the wall were Xuzhou's own local commoners—some of them might even be acquaintances they knew. But at a time like this, they could afford to care about nothing.

"What are you standing around gawking for? Move the damn supplies, move!" Officers and squad leaders all along the wall were bellowing. Inside the city, a steady stream of able-bodied civilians and militia kept replenishing the expended materials.

"If those bandit scum break through the city, they'll probably eat our flesh. Pull yourselves together…" Commander Wang had just roared a couple of lines when he stopped in surprise and turned to look down below the wall.

A moment ago there had been a lull. Now it seemed someone in the rear of the refugee host was shouting something, and the shout spread from the rear to the front, growing louder and louder until it became an immense wave of sound. Men on the wall were shouting too, only to realize the person next to them could not hear a thing.

"Open the city and eat our fill!" "Open the city and eat our fill!" Every single refugee below the wall was shouting this. Those in front began to run; those behind began to run. The entire host surged forward. Tens of thousands of refugees were like an ocean swell that, in this instant, had suddenly become a tsunami, as if it would smash through this section of wall and drown the whole city.

Commander Wang recoiled two steps in fright, then recovered himself and roared, "Smash them! Smash them dead!"

He did not need to shout. Everyone behind the battlements was already raising whatever they had and hurling it down. Every stone dropped, every log thrown, sent blood spraying—but no one could hear the screams, because the entire field was one roaring din.

After Commander Wang finished shouting, he shook his head and muttered to himself, "What the hell am I afraid of? Charging like idiots like that, how could they possibly get up here?"

The refugees below the wall did not simply rush to the base of the wall in one mindless wave. In fact, they advanced in turn according to the squads they had already been divided into during normal times, each group dropping the earth they carried or pouring it directly before the wall, their own bodies becoming part of the slope.

Stones, logs, and boiling water poured down without pause. Those in front died, or were trampled to death by those behind before they could even finish dying. Corpses and earth below the wall piled up rapidly.

No matter how fanatical the refugees were, no matter how ignorant and frenzied, they were not truly madmen or fools. As the assault went on, they too understood that charging forward meant death. Some clear-headed ones tried to fall behind and flee.

"He's a demon!" "He's trying to hold us back!" The moment anyone tried to run, the core members in each squad would shout themselves hoarse, then pounce with blades and clubs in hand, driving the would-be deserters back. Even those who always wore kindly, benevolent faces now held weapons, killing every single person who tried to flee.

In such a frenzied atmosphere, those who were clear-headed had no time to escape, and more and more people were swept up and assimilated by this mad fervor, charging forward with no thought for anything else.

"…Dying is a release. Dying means no more suffering…" Someone below the wall was shouting this too. Perhaps such shouts were the true voice of the refugees' hearts. Years of drought had killed every crop in their fields. There was no food to eat, yet the landlords and tax collectors pressing for rent and levies did not ease their grip in the slightest. They could only sell their land, sell their houses, sell their sons and daughters. Even that could not sustain them. They watched their own kin starve to death beside them, one after another. Some even ate the corpses of their own family.

Unwilling to do that, they fled their homes and wandered to strange lands, where they met others just like themselves. Every day there was nothing but hunger and more hunger. The people around them no longer looked human; they seemed like hungry ghosts from hell. Endlessly they trudged on, day after day, told they could survive if they went south. Every day was hunger. Every day the people around them died. Those kindly ones spoke of burning incense and Maitreya. Some people indeed got to eat their fill, but most never got that chance. Women had to trade their bodies like whores.

Today they came beneath the city wall. Looking up at the ramparts nearly thirteen meters high, at the stones and logs raining down like a storm, at their screaming comrades, they finally understood that it had all been a lie. Such days were worse than a clean death. Dying was a release—dying meant no more of this torment. But before they died, they would drag others down with them!

By this point, the mood of the refugees below the wall had turned truly insane. The slope they were piling up rapidly grew higher and wider, drawing closer and closer to the top of the wall.

"Pour the oil! Pour the oil, quickly!" someone shouted the order, but the oil cauldrons were not positioned directly facing this part of the slope. Several men scrambled to move them over, only to accidentally tip one and spill it. The refugees outside were unharmed, but on the wall someone screamed in agony—being scalded by boiling oil was no laughing matter.

Despite the chaos, boiling oil was still poured down. No matter how frenzied the refugees were, they could not withstand scalding oil. The smell of cooked meat spread through the air. Countless bodies writhed and screamed on the slope, and soon fell silent.

The situation on the wall was no better. Even the defending soldiers could not help vomiting. Probably many of them would never eat fried meat again.

A few cauldrons of boiling oil poured down finally cleared a patch of open ground near the wall. The refugees' assault also slowed, because the earth sacks they had prepared the night before were nearly used up, and they had to start digging earth and carrying it forward all over again.

Both inside and outside the city, wails filled the air. Outside, dust rose to the sky. No one much noticed that the sun had already climbed high.

Liu Cheng, who had come from the Kong Estate, led his men to the left of Xu Hongju and the others, keeping a distance of a little over a hundred paces. The motley assortment of mounted brigands and outlaws from every corner of the land all clustered around Liu Cheng.

They watched the seething chaos below the city wall, every one of them dumbstruck.

"Damn. This really is something. Tens of thousands of men, whipped up like this and sent to their deaths. Given the right moment, a hundred thousand or even several hundred thousand wouldn't be impossible." Liu Cheng sat on his horse and murmured.

"Ever since Xu Hongru became the sect master, the Smelling Incense Sect has spread like wildfire through Shandong. Now everyone in the rivers and lakes, all the men of the greenwood, has to show them some respect. Truly remarkable!" someone beside him chimed in.

"…The way the harvests are failing worse year after year, won't these people just keep growing bigger and bigger…" The voice of the man who said this was trembling.

Liu Cheng shook his head on horseback and spoke: "Brothers, young and old, we don't need to worry ourselves over all that. Let's all just be ready. The moment the city falls, let's not miss our chance to get rich. If four legs can't outrun two legs, wouldn't that be a joke?"

Only then did the mood among the mounted brigands shift. Many of them burst out laughing on their horses. One even said, "Master Liu, we only came on this trip because we couldn't refuse their family's request. Do you really think we can break the city and make our fortunes? With this many ants, they still can't gnaw through Xuzhou!"

Everyone laughed again, laughing especially loudly. Some could not help but pull their clothes tighter. Even watching the assault from a distance, the scene still sent chills through their entire bodies. If you watched too intently, it no longer seemed like the world of men.

"Don't laugh, everyone. We're not those brainless refugees. We all know how much capital their sect has sunk into this. If they've put in this much and still can't take Xuzhou, wouldn't the loss be far too great?" Liu Cheng raised his voice. At this, everyone fell silent.

The conversation here was not kept particularly secret, and word of it soon reached Xu Hongju and his group. Hearing it, Xu Hongju gave a cold laugh and said, "They've figured things out quite clearly. Gentlemen, it's time for the second wave, isn't it?"

Hou Wu and Xia Zhongjin exchanged a glance. Hou Wu nodded and said, "The earth is mostly packed. Second Master, stay here and watch. Your subordinate needs to go to the front and oversee things."

With that, Hou Wu took a tattered cloth robe and draped it over himself. Surrounded by a dozen or so sturdy young men, he walked off into the crowd.