The north wind howled, and the tents cracked and snapped with it.
By afternoon the sky had turned overcast. It looked like snow.
Ning Chen said in a heavy voice, “If there’s nothing else, tonight we rest and build our strength, and tomorrow at dawn we go at the gate-fortress.”
Pan Yucheng said hesitantly, “Why not attack in the small hours, when men are at their most tired?”
Ning Chen shook his head. “Zhao Bokang has already been burned by us, and he’s an old general with plenty of experience. He won’t give us the chance for a surprise attack.”
“So what worked on the Left Chancellor won’t work on him. He’ll already have men on watch against a night attack at every hour.”
“Besides, we’ve come the whole way at speed. Men and horses alike are worn out. Let the men have one good night and build their strength.”
Pan Yucheng nodded. He was very good at running a case, but he did not know much about what happened on a battlefield.
Something had puzzled him all along, though. Ning Chen was a boy of sixteen — how did he know so much about a battlefield? Learning it out of books could hardly make a man this seasoned.
Ning Chen waved a hand. “Go and get some rest, all of you.”
Yuan Long and the others saluted and withdrew.
Inside Ning Chen’s tent there was a low table, a few rush mats, and a small cot.
On the cot lay filthy bedding with bloodstains still on it.
In an army, that counted as clean bedding.
The ordinary soldier’s bedding had long since gone glazed with grime.
But that was army life. Conditions were limited, and nobody was going to hand you fresh bedding every day.
Soldiering and fighting is not sightseeing.
Nobody knows when he’ll die under an enemy’s blade, so who’s going to care whether his bedding is clean?
Ning Chen really was tired. After the army pitched camp he had made another trip out to the gate-fortress.
He paid no attention to how filthy the bedding was, lay down in his clothes and went to sleep.
But with things on his mind he never slept soundly — half dreaming and half awake, seeming to sleep while his head never stopped for a moment.
Until Pan Yucheng came and woke him.
Ning Chen got up with his head thick and muddled, more tired than if he had not slept at all.
Pan Yucheng brought him a bowl of meat broth.
There was no washing his face or cleaning his teeth. An army has no facilities for it, and going a month or two without a bath is nothing out of the ordinary.
Ning Chen gnawed through two pieces of dry rations with the hot broth.
The rations were coarse, and with the bitter cold they were hard as stone, but Ning Chen ate with a will. He was not a man who fussed — and besides, the fighting was about to start, and how would it do not to eat his fill?
Full and warm, Ning Chen walked out of the tent.
Snow had fallen in the night, not deep, but as far as the eye could see the world was white.
The cold wind blew, and Ning Chen came fully awake.
The army was already assembled, the war banners streaming and snapping in the wind.
Ning Chen swung into the saddle.
At a word of command the army moved out, straight for the gate-fortress.
Zhao Bokang had had word from his scouts long before.
He had not slept all night either.
Learning that Ning Chen was bringing his army straight for the gate-fortress, he went up onto the wall at once.
Between heaven and earth everything was white.
Ning Chen’s army came on toward the gate-fortress like a dragon whose tail could not be seen, and the force of it was frightening.
Zhao Bokang set about moving troops and appointing officers in haste, ordering his dispositions and preparing to meet the attack.
Ning Chen’s army halted.
One huge catapult after another was assembled.
The soldiers pushed the siege carts forward, closing carefully on the gate-fortress.
Up on the wall, the Grand Tutor saw them and his heart began to thud.
Other men’s catapults threw boulders. Ning Chen’s catapults threw things that exploded.
His hundred thousand men had been broken past holding by exactly those things.
Catapults were run up on the wall too.
Zhao Bokang gave the order. “Aim at their catapults and shoot!”
Ning Chen had already seen clearly what the enemy on the wall was doing.
At a word from Ning Chen, cannon were hauled out one after another from behind the catapults.
Zhao Bokang narrowed his eyes hard, trying to see. What were those things?
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
Before Zhao Bokang could make them out, one earth-shaking blast came after another, loud enough to make the deaf hear.
Fire spat out, and powder smoke rose on every side.
Shot after shot left the barrels and struck the top of the wall.
Up on the wall the men were packed close together.
Some of the shot struck the wall itself and brought down a great stretch of it, and the whole wall shuddered with the impact.
Some flew clean up onto the wall, and the soldiers at the very front went to pieces in an instant, flesh and blood flying.
CRASH!!!
The catapults on the wall were smashed to bits by the shot.
The sound of it, the sheer power of it — the men on the wall were struck stupid where they stood.
Zhao Bokang went white. What in the world was this?
Under the cannon’s cover, the siege carts came within range.
Zhao Bokang came back to himself all at once and roared himself hoarse. “Steady! Hit back at them, hit back — archers ready. The moment they close, loose!”
“Catapults — shoot!”
Huge stones crossed the sky with a sound of tearing air and came down in Ning Chen’s camp.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
The power of those boulders was every bit as frightening.
A good many soldiers were pounded into pulp where they stood.
Ning Chen roared, “Shoot!”
The catapults were adjusted for angle.
Satchel charges and powder kegs went one after another across the empty air and came down at different points along the wall.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
With the earth-shaking blasts, fire swept out and powder smoke rolled up, and the soldiers around them were torn to pieces before they could even react, flesh and blood flying.
“Don’t spare them! Hit them hard for me!”
“All cannon — aim at the gate!”
“Musketeers, stand ready!”
At Ning Chen’s orders, one after another, all thirty-two cannon fired on the gate together.
With blasts loud enough to make the deaf hear, shot after shot flew out of the barrels and struck those heavy gates.
In an instant splinters were flying, and the heavy gates were pocked with holes large and small, riddled from end to end.
Behind the gate, the screaming rose.
The soldiers holding the gate were killed in numbers by the shot. The shot lost much of its force in punching through the gate — but the things were great iron balls, and one coming down on a man could kill him easily enough.
“Again!”
Ning Chen bellowed.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!
The shot came down on the gate like rain.
The heavy gates could not in the end hold out against the cannon’s hammering. They came apart and fell with a crash.
“Musketeers — charge!”
“Everyone else, follow them up!”
Ning Chen shouted.
Under the cover of the shield troops, the musketeers began their charge at the gate.
The infantry followed close behind.
A hundred thousand men poured toward the gate-fortress like a flood.
“Loose! Loose, damn you—”
Up on the wall, Zhao Bokang was shouting himself hoarse in his turn.
A thick rain of arrows came down like a swarm of locusts.
A good many of Ning Chen’s men went down.
“Don’t stop the cannon. Keep firing on the wall.”
“Catapults — faster!”
“Crossbow battalion, loose!”
Ning Chen shouted himself hoarse, but his voice had long since been swallowed in the noise of the killing.
Luckily there were the runners.
The runners ran themselves ragged carrying Ning Chen’s orders.
Arrows fell like a waterfall, shooting up at the wall.
With terrible blasts, all thirty-two cannon fired together, hammering at the top of the wall.
Countless satchel charges and powder kegs flew up onto the wall.
Fire broke out everywhere, and powder smoke filled the sky.
The noise of the killing and the screaming rang against the sky.
“Loose! Shoot them down, hard—”
Zhao Bokang was howling it.
“Grand Tutor, it’s bad — the gate has been breached!”
“What nonsense are you talking?”
Zhao Bokang’s first reaction was that it was impossible. Ning Chen had not even used his siege carts.
“It’s true, the gate has been breached. The enemy are already fighting their way in. They have muskets and we can’t hold them. They’ll be up on the wall any moment.”
There was a roaring in Zhao Bokang’s head, and his old face went white.
He looked at the great iron ball that had smashed a crater into the ground, and understood at once. That had to be what had breached the gate.
Ning Chen, that little bastard. Where did he get such terrible things? The musket was frightening enough. What in the world was this?
(End of Chapter 274)