Two days went by in a blur.
The scouts kept bringing back word of the Grand Tutor’s army.
That day Ning Chen had word that the Grand Tutor’s army was less than nine miles from Mangzhou.
Ning Chen went to the north gate and climbed up onto the wall.
Toward evening a wall of dust rose in the distance.
The Grand Tutor’s hundred thousand men came on out of it like one long dragon with no end to it.
As the saying goes: ten thousand soldiers and you cannot see the edges of them; a hundred thousand and they cover the ground to the sky.
A hundred thousand men. The weight of them coming on made a man’s scalp crawl.
The war banners streamed in the wind.
The army the Grand Tutor led had even changed Great Xuan’s banners.
Great Xuan’s war banner should have been a dragon pattern on black, with the golden character Xuan worked into it.
The Grand Tutor’s banners had been changed to a yellow ground with one great character Zhao on them.
The Grand Tutor’s surname was Zhao, and his name was Zhao Bokang.
In the middle of the army was a flatbed cart a good two or three meters high, drawn by seven or eight warhorses, like a platform on the move.
On the platform stood an enormous chair of state.
An old man past sixty, in full armor, sat squarely in it.
Past sixty, and gray in the hair and beard, but the old man was strongly built and his face was hard, and there was a weight to the whole man — he did not need to be angry to be feared.
This was the Grand Tutor. Zhao Bokang.
The army halted five hundred paces from the gate.
That distance was just outside the range of a bow.
Zhao Bokang’s leopard eyes were fixed on the top of the wall.
Ning Chen stood at the parapet in his cloak, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, looking out at Zhao Bokang.
“Boy. You are Ning Chen?”
The rebel criers shouted it in unison, carrying Zhao Bokang’s words for him.
Ning Chen shouted, “I am indeed Ning Chen… cough, cough, cough…”
No. This kind of thing needed Feng Qizheng.
Feng Qizheng stepped forward, his voice like a great bell. “Grand Tutor! Ning Chen sends his regards to your old mother.”
Ning Chen’s expression froze on the spot, and he kicked him, sourly.
“Ning Chen, boy, open the gate and surrender at once… or when this old man breaks into Mangzhou, he will cut you into ten thousand pieces.”
The Grand Tutor’s criers roared it out.
Ning Chen glared at Feng Qizheng with nothing to say.
“Old Feng, tell them this. They are sons of Great Xuan and here they are in treason against their own country. Tell them to think of their families. Ask them whether they aren’t afraid of being nailed to the pillar of shame in the histories.”
Feng Qizheng put his voice into it and carried Ning Chen’s words to the Grand Tutor.
The Grand Tutor’s criers shouted back in unison, “Ning Chen, boy! This old man was holding the frontier and not at court, and it let a capering clown like you hop around and lead His Majesty astray and destroy my son and my daughter.”
“This old man has come back to root out the flatterers, to clear the ground beside the throne, to save the king and guard the throne!”
“Ning Chen, boy, if you know what’s good for you, open the gate and surrender at once. If you do not, then when this old man breaks into the city he will have you cut by a thousand cuts.”
“Soldiers in the city, listen. This has nothing to do with you. This old man will kill Ning Chen and no one else… if you know what’s good for you, take him and bring him out to this old man, and this old man promises not to harm a hair on your heads.”
Ning Chen smiled coldly and set Feng Qizheng shouting again.
Feng Qizheng put his voice into it. “You traitors have the face to talk about rooting out flatterers and clearing the ground beside the throne?”
“You are sons of Great Xuan and you have followed Zhao Bokang into rebellion, meaning to seize power and steal a country, and you have thrown your own families away. No sovereign, no father… you are a pack of men without loyalty, without duty, without decency and without honor.”
“Zhao Bokang!”
相鼠有皮，人而無儀。 人而無儀，不死何為？
Even a rat has a skin; a man without dignity — a man without dignity, why does he not die?
“You old thing with a man’s head and a dog’s face, do you remember what it means to be loyal to your sovereign and love your country?”
“It would be one thing if you rebelled alone, but you want two hundred thousand sons of Great Xuan in the grave with you. There is no shame in you at all… I have never seen a man so shameless.”
As Feng Qizheng’s voice reached him, the Grand Tutor, who had been sitting as steady as an old dog, came up out of the chair. The blood rose in his face and his beard shook.
“Tell them this old man wants Ning Chen and nothing else… if they do not want to die, hand Ning Chen over.”
The criers roared it out in unison, carrying the Grand Tutor’s meaning.
Ning Chen heard it, smiled coldly, and said a few words to Feng Qizheng.
Feng Qizheng put his voice into it. “Sons of Great Xuan! Think hard. What did you become soldiers for? To guard your homes and your country. So that your parents and your wives and your children could live out their days in peace.”
“The Grand Tutor’s son, the Empress’s brother, was kin to the imperial house by marriage, and he used that standing to ride roughshod over everyone, to treat a human life as so much grass, to force decent women into the trade, to hold the people’s lives as worth no more than weeds… Ning Chen was not afraid of his power and cut him down. Ask yourselves honestly. Was he wrong to do it?”
“The Grand Tutor’s daughter, the Empress, plotted against His Majesty and dealt with the enemy and betrayed the country, and His Majesty granted her death… where is the wrong in that?”
“You are soldiers of Great Xuan, and for one man’s grievance over the Empress’s brother you have turned your blades on your own people, and you will carry the name of men without decency, without honor, without loyalty and without duty. Are you content with that?”
“We are all sons of Great Xuan, and Ning Chen does not want it to come to blades between us. Lay down your weapons and it will be let go and never raised again… and if you will not see sense, you are cut down where you stand!”
As Feng Qizheng’s voice died away.
There was a small stir among the officers and men around the Grand Tutor.
The army farther back gave no reaction, because they were too far off to hear a word of it.
The Grand Tutor’s face went dark.
He understood well enough that this could not go on… Ning Chen’s words were far too stirring.
Let him keep talking and the army’s nerve would go to pieces.
He rose to his feet and roared, “The Xuan Emperor is a fool on the throne. He loves flatterers and keeps loyal men at a distance… today this old man will clear the ground beside the throne and save the king and guard the throne!”
“Take my order. Storm the city… Mangzhou is to be taken before daylight.”
“To the man who gets up on that wall, ten thousand in gold and a marquisate of ten thousand households.”
To make your name on a battlefield there were four ways — first up the wall, cutting down a general, taking a banner, breaking a line. They were the fastest way to rise and the most dangerous.
First up the wall meant the man who got onto the wall first… and once he was up there and the day was won, his family would not want for food or drink for generations.
The Grand Tutor’s order was passed down through the ranks, one level to the next.
“They’re going to storm the city!”
Yuan Long said it, low and hard.
Every man of them went tight all over.
Ning Chen smiled coldly and said, in a voice that carried, “If it were two hundred thousand I might frown over it… a hundred thousand isn’t worth worrying about. Clay chickens and pottery dogs. Let them come, and let none of them go home.”
On a battlefield there is nothing worse than showing fear.
Above all in the man commanding an army. If he shows fear it goes straight through the whole force.
Ning Chen said sharply, “Archers ready. Musketeers ready… let them come, and let none of them go home. Let them find out how sharp our edge is.”
Boom. Boom. Boom!!!
The Grand Tutor’s hundred thousand men beat the drums for the charge.
“Kill!!!”
A hundred thousand men came on like a black cloud, and the war cry shook the sky.
A rain of arrows came up at the top of the wall.
That was the crossbow battalion, laying down arrows to keep the heads on the wall down and make an opening for the men going up first.
“Charge!!!”
“Kill!!!”
With the crossbow battalion holding them down, the first wave came on with scaling ladders on their shoulders and siege carts rolling forward.
Behind the first wave came the provost battalion. Besides killing the enemy, their chief work was watching their own… on a battlefield, any man who hangs back out of fear is cut down. Any man who shakes the army’s nerve is cut down.
At a moment like that, a man has no choice but to go forward. Never mind retreating — so much as turning his head might get him cut down by the provost battalion.
A hundred thousand men came at Mangzhou like a flood, and as far as the eye could see there was nothing but heads, and the sight of it made a man’s scalp crawl.
(End of Chapter 257)