novelAbuy Chapter 18 Siege
Chapter 18 Siege
The Ming Dynasty had nine important border towns, of which Yansui, Ningxia, and Guyuan were located around northern Shaanxi. People born in this area were almost always involved in military affairs.
Unlike the Confucian scholars in Jiangnan who were weak and helpless, the scholars in northern Shaanxi were more martial and virtuous, and almost everyone had some martial arts skills.
Wei Mingdao had learned martial arts from the guards of his family's caravan since he was a child. He could draw a bow and swing a broadsword with great skill.
Upon hearing Yang Sheng say that bandits had appeared, Wei Mingdao grabbed his goose-feather knife and rushed towards the city gate tower.
Yijun City is located on Turtle Mountain. It is a mountain city with walls that are 22 feet high and have a circumference of 5 li.
The city wall is not very high at 22 feet, but if you add the height of Turtle Mountain, the total height difference is more than 20 meters.
There is a moat outside the city, but due to the drought, only mud remains at the bottom.
When Yijun City was built, it was considered as a strategic pass, thus occupying a prime location.
Yijun has been a strategic location on a major transportation route since ancient times, and there has always been a city there, but its location has changed with the needs of different dynasties.
During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, there was only one post station in Guishan, Yunyang Post Station, and the county seat was located in the middle of Yijun Liang.
Yijun Ridge is the core mountain ridge of Yijun County, and the county's name originates from it.
Yijun Liang is a southeastern branch of the Ziwu Ridge, running north-south. Its southern starting point is Kuquanpu, and its northern end is Huangling. It is more than 80 li long, winding like a giant dragon, which perfectly divides northern Shaanxi and Guanzhong.
During the Jingtai era following the Tumu Crisis, the Ming Dynasty's border defenses were tense, with Mongol cavalry frequently breaking through the border passes, crossing Yijunliang, and advancing into Guanzhong.
So Yijun moved the city to the side of this official road, using it as a strategic pass for defense.
Originally, Yijun City was located on the north side of Guishan Mountain.
However, the local stone was mostly sandstone, which was unsuitable for building a city, so they used the rammed earth method to build earthen walls.
The earthen city wall had a problem: each rain would wash away a layer of it, and every year the government had to conscript laborers to repair it, which greatly troubled the local scholars.
It wasn't until the Chenghua era that Yang An, the registrar at the time, who is now the ancestor of the Yang family in the city, applied to the authorities to relocate the city.
Where should we move to?
Then we went to Turtle Mountain.
The problem of poor quality local stone has now become an advantage that facilitates construction.
They leveled Turtle Mountain, creating a platform on the summit that measures 180 meters north to south and 67 meters east to west, where they built the county government office, Confucian temple, and granary. The area below the eastern side of the mountain was used for residential housing.
The entire city of Yijun has only two gates, one in the south and one in the north. The south gate is called Baozhang Gate, which protects the territory and its people; the north gate is called Jinque Gate, which is used to pay homage to Beijing.
Wei Mingdao went to the security gate.
When Wei Mingdao and Yang Sheng arrived at Baozhang Gate, they found the city gate in complete chaos.
The gates were tightly shut, and some people carrying bundles were wailing and crying at the city gate.
Some people and government officials are maintaining order and trying to evacuate the crowd.
Wei Mingdao recognized the leader; he was his classmate, Liu Huan.
"Meng Ran, what's going on?"
"Is there even a question? They were all people preparing to flee, but they were stopped by the bandits' cavalry."
Wei Mingdao was somewhat surprised.
He hadn't expected that the bandits would have cavalry.
In his mind, refugees were the kind of farmers who, when they ran out of food, came out to look for grain.
All he had left was the tattered clothes he was wearing.
"Roaming bandits" refers to groups of refugees.
I've seen quite a few of them in the last two years, and he occasionally takes pity on them and gives them some food.
Of course, they can only accept it if you give it to them yourself; you can't just take it from them.
As for cavalry, why would someone who can support a horse become a refugee?
How many?
"Quite a few, the Prefect is watching from the city wall."
Wei Mingdao bowed to Liu Huan, then quickly climbed up the city wall.
The guards recognized him and did not stop him.
Upon reaching the city wall, they saw Zhou Dezhao intently gazing outside the city.
He followed Zhou Dezhao's gaze and saw the bandits.
Surprisingly, the number of bandits outside the city was not large.
Thirty or forty riders were galloping around the city, seemingly searching for something; in addition, there were three or four hundred people outside the moat, watching Yijun City.
Although these people were all young and strong, they were far from the tens of thousands that had been rumored yesterday.
Wei Mingdao couldn't help but mutter, "With such a small number of men, even if they are strong and capable, how can they possibly capture Yijun?"
Zhou Dezhao heard this and nodded slightly.
Those around him echoed his sentiments, all agreeing that although the enemy appeared formidable, their numbers were too small to possibly breach the city.
Only Liu Chang, the head of the Liu family who had been silent and observing until now, spoke up:
"These are merely the enemy's vanguard, intended to contain them."
Meanwhile, Luo Dai, a member of the rebel army outside the city, summoned a cavalryman and sent him back to report to Wang Er:
"They've blocked the breach in the north of the city. We're too late to launch a full-scale attack. We inform the chief that we'll wait here."
After receiving the order, the cavalryman galloped away.
Luo Dai led his men to guard the moat, and Zhou Dezhao and the others on the city wall dared not move.
Thus, a stalemate ensued, both inside and outside the city, until noon.
Wei Mingdao stayed on the city wall until lunchtime, when a commotion arose from below the city wall.
A short while later, Zhou Dezhao returned with a grim expression.
Yang Sheng whispered in his ear, "Young Master, there was some trouble below the city gate just now."
Wei Mingdao hurriedly asked, "What happened?"
"Some wealthy households donated rotten, old rice, which tasted bitter when cooked and was inedible. The able-bodied men guarding the city refused to accept this and started a riot."
Wei Mingdao was speechless. What kind of time is this to dare to do such a thing?
Greed truly blinds one's judgment.
At the hour of Shen in the afternoon, the archer responsible for keeping watch on the city tower shouted loudly:
"The enemy is coming! The main force of the rebel army has arrived!"
Wei Mingdao looked in that direction and saw a scene he would never forget:
Countless people, like a black river, spread from the south towards Yijun City.
-----------------
Before nightfall, the bonfires outside Yijun City were already more numerous than the stars in the sky.
Li Chengen added firewood to the fire, and the iron pot on top was already boiling, emitting a meaty aroma.
"Alright now." The stone sitting next to him was drooling all over the ground.
He couldn't wait to try a bite of the beef inside.
"What's the rush?" Although the two were childhood friends, Li Chengen didn't spoil him and tapped him on the head with a ladle.
"Beef tastes best when it's stewed until very tender, and Brother Yang and my brother haven't come back yet. What's wrong? Don't you want to wait for them?"
"No, that's not what I meant."
Shi Tou hurriedly explained, "What's Cheng Ye doing? Why is he so slow?"
"He went on patrol. Today is different from before. Before, my brother only took charge of our detachment, but now he is the captain of the third team, with more than a thousand people under his command. Patrolling the camp will take more time."
At that moment, several figures appeared from beside the rock.
"What are you talking about?"
The speaker was Li Chengye. He unfastened the goose-feather knife from his waist and sat down around the fire.
Then Yang Chongwang, Master Qin, and Han Sanhu also put their weapons aside and sat down around the fire.
"Brother, Stone and I were talking about your camp patrol."
Master Qin stretched and said to Li Chengen, "Today's patrol was quite a struggle. Chengen, you have no idea what we saw."
"Definitely! My brother got promoted, didn't he? The camp must be different now."
Upon hearing Li Chengen's words, Master Qin burst into laughter, and even the usually stern Yang Chongwang couldn't help but smile.
Han Sanhu was still a little reserved because he had only joined the team a few days ago, so he held back.
Li Chengye reached out to touch Chengen's head, but found he couldn't reach it through the stone, so he withdrew his hand.
"Cheng'en, this official position is not one I wanted."
Just this morning, before the rebel army set off from Kuquanpu, Wang Er promoted three people, including Li Chengye, in front of everyone.
Li Chengye was promoted from the third sentry commander of the rear camp to the captain of the third team of the rear camp, and now has 1,800 men under his command.
In the Ming Dynasty army, to command 1,800 men, one would need to be at least a chiliarch (a military officer of the fifth rank).
If only his new subordinates weren't starving corpses that could be blown away by a gust of wind.
Li Chengye hadn't expected things to turn out this way. He had worked hard to train everyone, hoping to improve their survival rate in the future.
But unexpectedly, in the eyes of those with ulterior motives, it was seen as something far more ambitious.
Although Wang Er didn't completely believe it, he still wanted to test his waters.
The two people who were promoted at the same time as him were a bandit leader and a local village head, each with more than two hundred men under their command.
Both of them initially went along with Wang Er because they saw that he was too powerful to resist.
After being promoted, they turned pale when they heard that they were to lead troops to attack the city the next day.
But seeing the men standing on either side of Wang Er with their swords at their sides, no one uttered a sound.
During their patrol tonight, seeing the starving civilians who had just arrived at the camp and were barely clinging to life, Li Chengye and his men could only exchange speechless glances and bitter smiles.
Li Chengye took out some grain and slaughtered a lame ox that had been lying on the road, so that they could at least have a full meal that night.
They only returned after watching the starving people finish their meal.
Everyone was exhausted.
Once the soup was ready, Li Chengen took out several wooden bowls and passed them around to everyone.
Yang Chongwang stirred the pot with a ladle, watched the beef tumbling in the boiling water, and took a deep breath.
"This last meal before execution actually tastes delicious."
"Get out of here, young man, what nonsense are you spouting?" Master Qin was displeased with Yang Chongwang's words. "So what if we're going to lead the charge tomorrow? How does that mean we're going to the guillotine?"
"Master Qin, how could it not be? You showed us Yijun City, didn't you? It's high ground and the city is fortified. To conquer a city like that, you have to feed it with human lives first."
That's a heavy statement, but it's the truth.
Before patrolling the camp, they first went to check on the situation of Yijun City, and it was indeed a mountain city with high ground and a dangerous fortification, just as Yang Chongwang had said.
Moreover, it is said that the breach in the north of the city, which was previously a loophole, was also plugged up with bricks and stones by the garrison.
The only good news was that the moat was dry, and had become a ditch two zhang wide with mud at the bottom.
Leading a group of starving people to attack such a mountain city, even knowing that there were few regular troops stationed there, Li Chengye felt it was risky.
He felt the truth was that Wang Er had sent him and his men as cannon fodder to deplete the city's arrows, logs, thunderstones, and even molten gold.
It's not that Li Chengye's thoughts were dark; it's just that reality is developing in that direction.
However, he had serious doubts about whether he could complete this cannon fodder work with those starving corpses.
When they set off in the morning, Li Chengye roughly counted the number of his team, which was over two thousand. However, when they set up camp at the foot of Yijun City, only a little over eighteen hundred remained.
Two hundred people died just like that. Excluding a small number who got separated from the group, the rest died on the road because they couldn't catch their breath.
During the march, Li Chengye led his men to collect the corpses, and he personally buried more than a dozen of them.
There were too many people to take care of, so the hole wasn't very deep, but at least they're laid to rest.
"I don't think Yijun City is difficult to conquer."
Han Sanhu took the bowl of beef soup that Cheng En had ladled out for him, thanked him, and said this while staring at the rising steam.
He suddenly felt the silence around him, and when he looked up, he found that Master Qin, Yang Chongwang, and Li Chengye were all looking at him.
"Brother Han, what's your opinion?"
Li Chengye now wants to hear the opinion of this new member of the team.
"General, when we were circling around Yijun City, I discovered that the gap in the north wall is a weakness."
Hearing this, Li Chengye was somewhat disappointed.
He also went to check on the gap, and it had already been patched up with blue bricks.
Han Sanhu put down his bowl and quickly drew a schematic diagram of the north wall of Yijun City by the fire with a twig, highlighting the gap in the wall.
"General, General Yang, General Qin, when we were observing the city, we all saw that newly repaired wall, which was made of blue bricks."
At first glance, this city wall seems like a tough nut to crack.
But because it was a rushed repair, it left flaws.
When I was at Yezhumaodun, I dealt with the border walls, so I know what these hastily repaired city walls fear most.
What I fear most is an unstable foundation, and even more so, a foundation that's only superficially solid.
"Two layers of skin? What does that mean?"
Li Chengye pressed for an answer.
Han Sanhu didn't keep him in suspense and explained directly: "When building a city wall, you lay the foundation, lay bricks, and fill it with rammed earth. You build one layer at a time and then build another layer on top of that."
But they rushed to repair it last night, and I reckon they probably just hastily piled up the bricks and stones on the outside to make it look like a wall.
There wasn't even time to fill it with soil and stones; they just haphazardly filled it with some sand and debris.
Moreover, that section of the wall already had gaps and had collapsed, so the foundation was probably also loosened. They may not have had time to reinforce the foundation.
Li Chengye's eyes lit up: You mean that the new wall might just be an empty shell?
"right!"
Han Sanhu continued, "Moreover, because of the rush to complete the work, the mortar in the brick joints probably hasn't dried completely, so the bonding isn't strong."
In a normal attack, it could withstand arrows and swords.
But if we concentrate our strength and ram it with a heavy object, or pull it with an iron hook, we might be able to break through or collapse this entire newly built wall.
Yang Chongwang slapped his thigh: "I've heard that when the Jurchen Tartars in Liaodong attacked Liaoyang and Shenyang, they would specifically look for sections of the city wall that had been in disrepair for a long time and repeatedly ram them with large wooden stakes with iron-plated ends, sometimes even managing to knock down a section of it."
"If we find the heaviest timber, and wrap the front end with iron, then dozens of people can push it against that new wall, and maybe it really will work!"
Li Chengye's heart raced. If Han Sanhu's speculation was correct, then they were not facing a dangerous pass, but a substandard project with fatal flaws.
But... how do we confirm it?
If it's as Han Sanhu guessed, that would be great. But if the inside is really solidified, and they can't break through the rammed earth tomorrow, then they'll become easy targets for the city's defenders.
That would be suicide.
"General, tonight after nightfall, I'll take two brothers to the moat and get as close to the north wall as possible. We'll put our ears to the ground and listen; maybe we can hear any movement at the base of the wall."
"If I could risk getting a little closer, I would gently poke the cracks in the brickwork at the base of the wall with a long pole to test its strength."
Li Chengye remained silent, this was indeed a bold reconnaissance plan.
The risk is a bit high, but the reward could be decisive.
"Brother, let me go with Brother Han! I'm small but agile."
Li Chengen suddenly spoke up.
"Nonsense!"
Li Chengye and Master Qin reprimanded each other almost simultaneously.
Yang Chongwang finished his soup and said, "Brother Han's idea is worth a try. However, Cheng En can't go, so let me go with him."
(I'm still not very good at taking pictures, and I tried several times but the picture didn't quite meet my expectations. Please bear with it for now. This is what the terrain looks like.)