General Zhou Shang had his remaining archers advance behind the mangonels and moat bridges as General Lu Liang had requested, rank and seniority had cracked because of Zhou Shang’s disastrous misstep. The evening before the General Who Quells Rebellions had read the stars and found inauspicious movements in the Heavens, ill-fated for him specifically. Surrendering command to Lu Liang, who had the larger army and the siege engines, made good strategic sense and, he prayed, would prevent his ill-fortune from manifesting.
He commanded the spearmen from horseback, guarding the right flank of the mangonels from potential raids. He arrayed his troops in a crescent moon formation and held position a couple li from the moat. The mangonels rolled into range of the city walls and began to launch boulders and thick clay pots of fish oil followed by great knots of sticks and hay set alight. Stone erupted from the walls of Xiangpi, that which was doused caught flame, swift and hot, forcing the rebels atop the walls to flee or waste time attempting to quench the fires.
The moat bridges were rolled into position on the western side of the north wall, the soldiers pushed the siege equipment along by long rods set between the wheel with canopies of hide to deflect arrows. The odd arrow had slipped through and at least four of the twenty man crew was dead, their corpse left to bake in the sun. The first concertinaed bridge reached the moat and the living crew hurried to winch the bridge into place. The layers of the bridge began to raise into the air and come apart like a snake. Arrows clattered and rocks cracked into the siege weapon, to no avail, the crew safe beneath their hide canopies and behind the bulk of the bridge parts. The head slithered into place, craning across the moat until it crashed down on the other side. The bridge was ramped either end and flat in the middle to allow the towers to cross.
The second moat bridge began its approach on the eastern side of the north wall. Lu Liang’s soldiers escorted it into place. All Zhou Shang could do was watch.
The drums sounded a steady beat for the mangonels to launch projectiles too and for the army to advance on the city. Zhou Shang knew that there was a time when he would have to assault Xiangpi, leading his spearmen across the moat bridge and attempting to infiltrate the city itself.
To Lu Liang the siege appeared as a silk painting, unrolling gradually with each volley of arrows from the rebels followed by the barrage of stone and fire from the Imperial army, his army. The first moat bridge was in place, the mangonels on the western side pummelling the walls, and beyond, into submission. It was only a matter of time before a hole opened up, and if it didn’t the siege towers would enable his troops to pierce the walkway.
The eastern bridge had reached the moat too. Flaming arrows rained down like poppy petals from the rebel held walls, pattering the hide covered timber. Seven of the crew had been downed by the enemy archers and the remaining thirteen were huddled behind the siege weapon, four of them turning the huge winch to assemble the bridge. Lu’s own archers loosed in high arcs towards the city but their arrows splintered against the wall. The next volley also failed to reach the height of the wall. The general considered ordering them the move closer but that would place them in range of the enemy.
Flames flared to life on the western moat bridge. The fire laced over the sections of bridge, devouring the mechanisms that allowed its movement. The thirteen remaining crewmen fled, only to be picked off by bowmen on the wall.
Lu Liang watched half of his crucial weaponry be destroyed knowing it was only a matter of time before the western bridge suffered the same fate.
‘Captain Fei, order the western infantry to advance across the bridge and lower the drawbridge, mangonels and archers to provide cover.’
‘Yes, general,’ Fei Yiling saluted, fist in palm, and ran to the nearest drum stand to convey the message.
The rhythm of the music quickened and slowed, quickened and slowed. General Zhou Shang sighed, knowing death awaited him on the other side of the bridge. His spearmen were to lead the charge over the moat and lower Xiangpi’s north drawbridge. Zhou Shang had expected the order to come after the towers had attempted to cross the bridge but the destruction of the other moat bridge must have struck fear into Lu Liang and Zhou Shang was to pay the price.
Zhou Shang raised his sword and guided his horse forward. The spearmen diligently obeyed, ‘The only way across is with haste. Once across head east and focus on securing the drawbridge. Forward!’ Zhou cracked the reins and galloped ahead, his men cheered and sprinted after him.
The General Who Quells Rebellion thundered across the moat bridge. The clatter of hoof on wood drowned out the war drums for a brief moment. Arrows rained down around him, snapping against the bridge and splashing into the water, he hunkered down in the saddle, hearing a number of quarrels whistle overhead. His men screamed, grunted, or simply sighed and slumped over, as volley after volley drove into them. The dead fell where they stood or slid into the water with a crash. Zhou Shang caught sight of corpses floating in the water and drove his heels into his mount’s ribs. The solid planks of the bridge gave way to the dry soil and Zhou yanked the reins to head east once he had reached the shadow of the city walls. He glanced behind to find the van of his spearmen rushing off the bridge and towards the wall. Mangonel launches careened through the air, arcing high and blazing, to crack into Xiangpi. The stone cracked from the impact, showering Zhou Shang in grit and pebbles, but the structure held.
The eastern bridge was engulfed by the inferno, the flames licked the sky and spewed out great gouts of black smoke in billowing puffs. Zhou Shang raced for the drawbridge sitting vertically with huge chains winched tight, all he had to do was turn the two winches to lower the bridge and open Xiangpi to another angle of assault.
General Zhou Shang leapt from his horse and shoved his whole weight behind the furthest crank.
It refused to budge.
An arrow clipped the chain, shattering on impact.
He looked to the gatehouse, the north gate still shut, to find bowmen taking aim at his location. His men began to arrive, the fastest chucked their spears to the ground and threw themselves at the arms. The chains rattled. The bridge shuddered, beginning its slow descent across the moat. Arrows pelted them from the gatehouse, picking off man after man. Zhou Shang’s soldiers at the rear formed a spear wall facing the city.
A great echoing groan bled from the north gate. There was a cacophonous cry and then the clashing clash of iron. Zhou Shang could not see the fighting but he knew the rebels had launched an assault on his men, on him. He was sent sprawling over the arms of the winch, an arrow in his right shoulder. The man beside him fell down dead, an arrow through his neck. Another of his soldiers replaced him and a few moments later joined him, an arrow piercing his eye.
Blood sluiced down his arm and his right arm refused his commands. The drawbridge lay at a forty-five degree angle and was falling fast. In a hundred heartbeats it would be down and reinforcements would relieve them.
A second arrow buried itself in his lower back. Zhou Shang slumped over the winch.
‘General!’ the men around him cried and carried him back. One was pierced through the cheek and crashed in the dirt, dead. The arrows poured down as thick as the spring rains and his ten thousand men had been reduced to less than half. A third arrow tore open his thigh.
All he could see was a press of men about him, eyes wide with terror and blood smeared with mud on their faces. Their screams were punctuated by the strumming of bowstrings. One by one those around Zhou Shang were cut down. The spear wall held but only because it was a thousand men thick and arrows took time to loose.
‘The drawbridge is down!’ a man screamed.
A few dozen men rushed to cross over it, back to their own lines, but they were picked off by the expert archers atop the walls.
Zhou Shang was left lying in the dirt, surrounded by the dead and dying. He was the latter and would soon be the former. He wondered what he would be remembered for, falling for the ambush in the valley or for his heroic advance to lower the drawbridge. The thought was cut short as an arrow punctured the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder. his life seeped out of him and he passed into the afterlife.
Lu Liang observed Zhou Shang’s death and waste of his spearman, ‘That man was a fool, the Empire is improved with him gone. How many men did he lose in that demonstration of disastrous tactical judgement?’
‘A few thousand, general,’ Colonel Fei Yiling answered. He had trimmed his campaign beard, making him seem older than he was.
‘At a time when we have insufficient men as it is,’ Lu Liang shook his head. ‘At least Zhou Shang can damage us no longer. Have a unit of heavy pike secure the drawbridge, make sure they have assault covers, I don’t want unnecessary loss.’
Colonel Fei Yiling saluted and hurried to organise the relevant people. Fei Yiling would not have usually handled such requests personally but he had limited messengers and fewer still that he trusted wholeheartedly.
Lu Liang stood upright, hands behind his back, his cloak wafting in the breeze. He watched his army advance on the north side of Xiangpi and wished there was a hillside he could observe the city from. Alas, that was not to be and he would have to suffice being unable to see over the walls.
The sun arced across the sky and the fields were in full bloom with broken arrows. Great gashes scarred the walls of Xiangpi. The north gate had been smashed by boulders, though not completely destroyed, and dead rebels were sprawled along the merlons, some having fallen to their deaths lay at the foot of the walls. Three mangonels were little more than smouldering heaps and one tower had reached the walls but the men inside had yet to secure a footing. Heavy pikemen stood at the drawbridge Zhou Shang had unnecessarily spent his life to lower, his corpse, along with thousands of others, lay strewn across the ground between the ruined gate and the bridge. A cluster of soldiers leaned against the levers that lowered the bridge and against one another and from a distance appeared to be merely sleeping oddly.
A barrage of brickwork and bundled together timber was flung from inside the city. The timber spun through the air, came apart, and crashed to the ground harmlessly. The boulder careened and crashed into a mangonel, annihilating the siege weapon and slaying three of its operators. Only two of the weapons remained.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Lu Liang muttered to himself. Colonel Fei Yiling, Captain of the Army, stood nearby, along with a dozen other lower ranked officers awaiting orders. Runners were waiting too, ready to relay commands to far off units and, most importantly, the drummers who would inform army of various commands with various flags and distinctive beats. ‘Colonel Fei! Have a ram destroy what remains of the north gate. Colonel Dong Jia, ready the pikemen to advance, archers behind. Where’s the other tower!? Someone bring me Pang Huan!’
Colonels Fei and Dong raced to see to their respective commands and to command the outcome personally, a number of the officers went with them. Runners dealt with the rest. The drums were swift to alter tempo and beat. Within one hundred heartbeats one of the runners returned with a message saying the other tower had been damaged but failed to say how. The drums rang out a round and Pang Huan appeared, flustered and breathless, ‘What is it, general?’
‘I need you with me when I lead the charge, you will direct us, warn us of potential dangers you know of inside the city,’ Lu Liang had someone bring him two horses and spear.
‘I… am no soldier,’ Pang Huan was stooped and curled his shoulders in but Lu could see the man had a solid build.
‘I’m not asking you to fight, I’m asking you to guide,’ Lu Liang was not giving Pang Huan a choice. The noble had surrendered himself and in Lu’s mind that meant he was as good as his to command.
Pang Huan straightened, ‘Very well.’
Lu frowned, disappointed the nobleman had given up without much of a fight. He thought he caught a glimpse of a smile but convinced himself he was mistaken.
The gate shattered after the third swing of the ram. Arrows, flaming and piercing, rained down from the gatehouse and walls to, mostly, thud uselessly into the wheeled assault covers the pikemen sheltered under. One hundred or so men had met their end clearing out the bodies of Zhou Shang’s men between the drawbridge and the north gate so the ram had been able to reach the gate. Lack of foresight was another of Zhou’s failings in Lu’s mind, one that would be included in his report to the Imperial Court after the Emperor’s rule had been restored to Xiangpi. The ram was wheeled away but before it moved even a zhang the rebels sallied out and slaughtered the men. Orders were issued to the front rows of pikemen to drive the enemy back while the fourth and fifth were to move the ram. More men died needlessly from the bowmen overhead.
Flames roared to life to the east, lancing up the siege tower and reaching the clouds. Lu Liang watched, despondent, at the tower becoming enshrouded in flames. Soldiers screamed and threw themselves from the top of it, others sprinted from the base, flailing flaming arms and legs, to jump in the moat only for some to drown as the weight of their armour dragged down. General Lu scanned the length of the wall, pausing to assess the craters and holes in the wall, he could see the glistening ji behind those big enough to impregnate. Any route inside the city would cost an inexorable number of lives, but still less than retreating and risking pursuit.
The pikemen had made short work of the rebels who attacked the ram unit and already the vanguard was inside the walls, lockstep and shoulder to shoulder, advancing with grim determination. The long polearms were making quick work of the rebels, most of whom fought with farming equipment or decaying weapons from ages past. Lu spotted some of the enemy wearing breastplates, helmets, or scale vests, but not one who sported a full set of armour. ‘Pang Huan, where are the rebellion’s elite soldiers?’
‘Last I saw they were defending the old palace.’
‘That doesn’t take tens of thousands of men.’
‘The rebels don’t have that many elite troops.’
‘They must do, somewhere, hidden perhaps. We must stay alert for ambush,’ he directed runners to spread the word to the officers.
Lu Liang guided his horse from the security of his makeshift command tent and down onto the field of battle. The infantry had pierced the city and he could see fighting on the walls. Once those were secure the whole of Xiangpi would be within days. Pang Huan followed and once clear of the camp the general urged his mount into a gallop and shouted for Pang to keep up.
Dong Zhi saw that Wen Bei’s body was wrapped in death clothes and placed in a coffin of the proper dimensions for his rank. He had commanded the surviving army to don mourning clothes over their armour and break camp in preparation for a retreat back to the Celestial Capital. The rites demanded it, strategy demanded it also. Less than a quarter of one hundred thousand who had set off were still living, and many were close to death due to disease. He struggled to believe such a large force had been eviscerated so quickly but disbelief did not change reality. Wen Bei had accomplished his orders to drain the River of Falling Stars and died for it. Dong Zhi did not wish to die so far from home, nor see the rest of his men die needlessly. Retreat was the only option and he had already begun composing his memorandum to the court explaining it all. His fate was in the hands of the Son of Heaven.
Lu Liang raced across the drawbridge, the clatter of hooves like sweet singing. Finally, I will crush this rebellion and receive rightful recognition. The heavy foot soldiers had advanced a li into the city, with swifter swordsmen charging to the top of the wall to prevent the rebel bowmen striking from behind. The rebel melee soldiers had little discipline or coordination and were being crushed. Morale was high but Lu Liang knew the rebel leader was keeping his best for last. He quizzed Pang Huan about troop locations but the aristocrat had nothing else to offer beyond sweat and stammered words.
Lu gazed about the city like a hawk, looking out for an archer trying to pick him off or a rogue band of rebels attempting to flank him. His heart quickened from the danger, arguably unnecessary, but he wished to slay the rebel leader himself, to land the crippling blow and restore stability to the Empire. Perhaps it was a younger man’s dream but it was one he would attempt to make true if only so Zhou Shang’s ghost would weep for realising who was the better man.
Near to the palace was a residential district with massive walled homes replete with gardens and lakes once home to chancellors and other top ministers of a previous dynasty. The mammoth three-quarter circle doors of one had been smashed in recently, a trail of silk of bronze mirrors littered the cobbled streets. ‘Was one of these yours?’ Lu Liang asked.
‘It was, further away from the palace. Smaller than these but with a fine garden, ponds, and pavilions. I’m sure the rebels will have destroyed it,’ Pang Huan continued to talk about his lost home but Lu Liang had ceased to listen.
Echoes of clashing steel and rabid men boomed down the streets just wide enough for a noble’s carriage drawn by six horses. A rider approached, his horse skittering to a stop before Lu Liang. He saluted, fist in palm, ‘General. The rebels are engaged in a fighting retreat. Colonel Fei is requesting instruction.’
‘Pursue! We must be close! Pursue!’ General Lu threw his hands in the air. ‘The rebels are preparing a last stand, we end this here and now!’
The rider saluted again and galloped back along the edge of the road, clinging to his stallion’s neck to avoid hitting the lamps above the doors of the estates.
‘Pang Huan you must invite me for a banquet after our victory and I will be sure to memorialise you to the Emperor for proper recognition of you assistance,’ Lu Liang wanted the man indebted to him and any reward he received would be inconsequential at court.
Pang Huan leapt from his horse and threw himself to the ground before Lu Liang, forehead pressed to the stone, ‘The general is much too kind! You will be a hero to me and this city forever, we will feast you yearly as thanks.’
Lu Liang smiled and guided his horse round the undignified nobleman.
A shrine opened up between two estates on Lu’s right. Wooden plaques filled the shelves each with a name written on it and incense burning before it. The cloud of musk lazily crawled out the front and over the low pitched roof. Lu Liang gave a tug on the reins to stop at the ancestral shrine, likely of a family now wiped out with no sons to continue honouring their ancestors. A grim fate for all. On closer inspection he found the names were from multiple families, an odd thing for aristocrats who often had personal familial shrines. Reading from left to right and from the top shelf down he didn’t recognise any names, which wasn’t much of a surprise, but on the second to last was a cluster of dead men with the surname Pang. The third one in from the right read Pang Huan. Tongue suddenly dry he spun around but Pang Huan had vanished and left his horse loitering in the street in the way of Lu’s advancing soldiers. A family did not use the same forename as a relative so perhaps, Lu thought, there were two Pang families.
Not likely at the same rank in the same city, Lu Liang thought.
A flaming arrow thudded into the roof of the shrine chipping the wood frame. The fire dripped down. A hundred more fire arrows followed.
‘Prepare for battle!’ Lu Liang bellowed, reaching for his spear.
Screams echoed from the estates and alleyways. Ruined doors burst open and rebels rushed out, fully armed and armoured, ladders crashed against the interior walls and men clambered up to leap down from the height of the walls or to loose arrows.
‘Formation! You secure that building!’ Lu Liang spun to the south. ‘You lot seal that door!’ He spun north. ‘Send word to the main camp for reinforcements!’
A swordsman leapt through the flames engulfing the roof of the shrine. He shrieked, sword in both hands overhead. Lu failed to raise his spear in time. The blade bit into his shoulder. Lu Liang screamed and fell from his horse, spear arm limp at his side. Five more rebels dropped down and skewered him like a hog.
“Pang Huan” glided round the bodies of the false Emperor’s host. He had been sad to hear of Lu Liang’s death but knew it was for the best, such a man was a danger left alive even if he lacked wit. Heaven had bestowed favour upon “Pang” and his uprising by allowing such a resounding victory over Emperor Ling’s mighty army.
Scouts had reported the retreat of the third part of it, the part responsible for drying up the river. He had already despatched engineers to undo the damage and restore Xiangpi’s water supply. Once they returned the army was allowed three days rest, then it was on to the Celestial Capital to claim the Mandate of Heaven.
Many thanks for reading, it means a great deal.