Hurrying and dragging by turns, it still took twelve days to reach the frontier.
The army pitched camp three miles from the frontier.
Ning Chen led a party out himself to scout the ground.
The great gate-fortress lay like a vast dragon across the ranges and the high peaks.
Very like the Great Wall back in the modern world.
Ning Chen studied the lay of the land around it.
The frontier troops should normally have been quartered on the open ground where he was standing now.
But they had all pulled back onto the wall.
The gate-fortress wall stood fifty or sixty feet high, and the crucial thing was its length — the Grand Tutor’s army could spread out along the whole of it.
If a hundred thousand men went at that wall and the Grand Tutor’s army loosed a rain of arrows, there was no telling how many would die.
Ning Chen’s eyes came to rest on the heavy gates of the fortress.
Massed cannon fire ought to blow those gates open.
Ning Chen’s face and eyes were cool, but he sighed deeply.
“Everyone else fights his way in. We’re fighting our way out — and against soldiers of our own Great Xuan.”
Pan Yucheng could not help sighing either. “A soldier’s first duty is to obey his orders. They have no choice in it. If that last battle had finished the Grand Tutor, there would be no battle now.”
Up on the fortress, the Grand Tutor stood in silver armor, looking out at Ning Chen and his party.
Ning Chen had scouts, and naturally the Grand Tutor had them too.
So it was no surprise that the Grand Tutor knew Ning Chen was coming against the frontier with an army.
A hundred thousand men cannot be hidden.
In truth the Grand Tutor was still shaken. He had not expected Ning Chen to move this fast.
He had guessed Ning Chen would bring an army against the frontier, but with the cold hard on them and the snow lying, he had figured on spring at the earliest.
Instead, less than a month after that last battle, Ning Chen was at his walls.
He narrowed his eyes at the boy in fine clothes on his spirited horse, and something in him was uneasy.
Last time he had gone to attack Mangzhou: fast going out, faster coming back.
A hundred thousand men, broken past holding at the first exchange, throwing away helmets and armor and running for home.
He had been at war half his life, and he had never cut so sorry a figure as that.
The Wu were good fighters, and he had crossed swords with the Wu more times than he could count, and never come out of it looking like that.
When he thought of those things that exploded, one burst taking out a whole patch of ground, he was shaken still.
But remembering that the Wu army was on the road, the Grand Tutor felt easier.
He had a hundred and forty thousand men in hand now, and he held the ground.
Even if Ning Chen handled troops like a god and had those firearms with their monstrous killing power, he could not think of taking the fortress quickly.
Last time it was he who attacked and Ning Chen who held the city, and it had cost him dearly.
This time Ning Chen would do the attacking and he would do the holding, and he would make Ning Chen learn what he was worth too.
When the Wu support arrived, they would wipe out Ning Chen’s army at a stroke.
The Grand Tutor looked at the herald beside him and said a few words.
“Ning Chen — I never thought you’d actually dare come!”
The heralds shouted it out together, carrying the Grand Tutor’s words to Ning Chen.
Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng, and before he could get a word out, Feng Qizheng bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Zhao Bokang, Ning Chen sends his regards to your mother!”
Ning Chen’s forehead filled with black lines.
Feng Qizheng scratched his head. “Wasn’t that what you wanted to say?”
Up on the wall, the Grand Tutor’s old face went iron-gray.
Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng and said, “Call across to them. Tell them we’re all young men of the Great Xuan and I have no wish to cross swords with them…”
Feng Qizheng bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Zhao Bokang, you miserable old bastard! Over one private grudge of yours, you’d throw away the lives of two hundred thousand men of the Great Xuan?”
“The blood outside Mangzhou isn’t dry yet. Tens of thousands of brave souls are wandering ghosts with nowhere to go. Haven’t enough men died? Won’t you be satisfied until you’ve killed every one of us?”
“Soldiers of the frontier, think of your families. You are soldiers of the Great Xuan, His Majesty’s own people. You are not Zhao Bokang’s private army.”
“Zhao Bokang’s family is dead to the last of them. He stands alone, with no shame left, and he has gone over to the enemy and betrayed his country and sold his sovereign for a price. But you have families. Have you thought about them? Do you want your own people pointed at behind their backs and cursed?”
Up on the wall, Zhao Bokang’s face changed on the instant.
He knew that talk like this would shake the men.
He could not let them go on working on his soldiers’ hearts.
He gave the herald his orders at once.
“Ning Chen, spare us the sham benevolence. The emperor on the throne today is the man this old man put there. This old man fought his campaigns abroad, guarded the state and guarded the people — and what did he get for it in the end?”
“My son and my daughter both died at your hands. The emperor of the Great Xuan is a cold, thin-hearted man and a fool on the throne. Is it wrong for this old man to seek justice for his own children?”
Feng Qizheng shouted, “Zhao Bokang, have some shame! Didn’t your son deserve to die? Didn’t your daughter deserve to die? For what they did and the crimes they committed, dying a hundred times wouldn’t be enough.”
“And even granting all of it — this is your own private grudge. Why drag two hundred thousand men of the frontier into the grave with you for it?”
“Brothers on the wall, you are all young men of the Great Xuan. His Majesty is merciful and General Ning is merciful. Lay down your weapons and surrender, and you can be spared the death penalty.”
“But if you stay obstinate past all reason, you will not see your families in this life — and after death you will not go back to your own soil or come home in spirit either. Rebels while you live, wandering ghosts when you die.”
“That’s all that needs saying. Think it over carefully. The choice is yours to make.”
Zhao Bokang’s face flooded dark red, and his beard shook with rage.
Every word of that went straight to the mark. It had surely already sent ripples through his soldiers’ minds and set them thinking other things.
He had to get it back and steady them.
But just as he was about to have the herald shout again, he nearly brought up a mouthful of old blood.
Ning Chen had simply taken his people and gone, off in his own dust, without giving him the least chance to get anything back.
Zhao Bokang clutched his chest as though someone had put a knife into him and left it there.
“Damned little bastard. This old man will cut you into ten thousand pieces…”
Zhao Bokang went raging up and down like a mad dog.
Ning Chen led his men back to camp.
He sent for Yuan Long and the rest of them.
“I’ve had a look at it. Below the wall it’s all steep rock slope, so getting up onto the wall won’t be easy, and that isn’t the way to do it either. Zhao Bokang has his men spread out along the whole wall in a single line, and forcing an escalade would cost us far too many.”
“My plan is this. The moment the battle opens, every catapult goes to work. Don’t spare the satchel charges or the powder kegs. The men on that wall have to be kept with their heads down and unable to shoot back.”
“Then the cannon go right to the front. Thirty-two cannon, and I want them firing on that gate. I figure two rounds at the outside will blow it open.”
“When that happens, the musket battalion charges first, and the infantry battalions follow up behind.”
They all nodded. Nobody had any objection.
The hard part was blowing the gate open and getting up onto the wall. Once they were on the wall it was hand-to-hand, and no strategy is worth anything then. When two meet on a narrow road the bolder man wins, and after that it comes down to whose life is tough enough.
Ning Chen frowned slightly and looked at Pan Yucheng. “I watched that place half the day. How is it I never saw Zhao Bokang’s armory or his grain stores?”
Pan Yucheng said, “Most likely they’re on the far side of the fortress.”
Ning Chen gave a slight nod. “The cannon can’t get up onto the wall. So once the gate is blown open, Lei An takes charge of the cannon battalion and finds Zhao Bokang’s armory and grain stores.”
“If it goes against us in the hand-to-hand up on the wall, blow their armory and their grain stores for me. It’ll break the enemy’s spirit.”
“Of course, if our side has the upper hand, there’ll be no need for it.”
Lei An bowed quickly. “This officer accepts the order!”
(End of Chapter 273)