The Walls Come Down
"...At sunrise we confirmed the corpses of the enemy who fled. Between the dead and the all but dead, they number over seven hundred, and more than half of them are those big-nosed fellows in mail."
I had woken during last night's raid, but I never took the field myself. The fighting had not dragged on nearly as long as I expected.
"After we broke them, we did not pursue the ones who ran."
"Good. You did right. There's no need to chase them."
The Tiger Hunting Army had gained a great deal from its night-fighting drills, but night combat is full of variables at the root of it. Our object was Fuzhou. With the wall not far from coming down, there was no reason to court needless risk.
"How are the men? Did you let them sleep properly?"
"We had them rest in shifts."
"And the officers?"
"The commanders and the officers stood their watches in rotation as well. There will be no trouble in today's fight."
At Dolswe's report I nodded and looked to Huindungi.
"Do we have enough shot and powder?"
"Yesterday they brought plenty more up by boat from Changle County. We could pour shot for days and still have enough."
We had laid in more than twice the expected expenditure, yet the consumption was heavier than I had thought. Every solid round that left the muzzle flung five and a half kilograms of iron downrange, and the charge alone swallowed more than a kilogram of powder. Once the fighting was done, we would have to salvage shot from the rubble—reuse whatever was still sound, and melt the broken pieces down to cast anew. Casting shot could be handled in Jiangnan, at least...
"The wall will fall today. The moment a breach opens, the Tiger Hunting Army crosses the moat."
They held their tongues.
"Go in through the breach and secure a bridgehead. After that, take the van and drive along the main road into the inner city."
"We will see it done, my lord!"
Dolswe and the Tiger Hunting Army officers answered with force. I nodded, then turned to Huindungi, who was leading the naval troops in Makdong's place while Makdong remained in Changle to hold the supply line.
"Once the Tiger Hunting Army has the bridgehead, the navy supports them from behind. Secure the eastern wall and the gates, crush whatever resistance is left inside the city, and take Fuzhou."
"Yes, my lord! Understood!"
"Feed the men a full breakfast. The moment the meal is done, the assault begins."
The time to finish this was drawing near.
Boom. Boom. Crash—
The guns spoke in a steady, unhurried rhythm, and with every report a cloud of dust lifted off the wall beyond the moat. Along the long stretch of rampart the brick at the foot was shattered and fallen, laying the rammed-earth core bare in place after place. Even that hard-packed earth had given way here and there, and soil lay heaped along the base.
"Fire!"
Boom—
All morning they had poured it on without haste, battery relieving battery. Dolswe watched the wall across the moat with a sharp, unblinking eye.
For two days they had closed to spitting distance, divided the face into assigned sectors, and hammered the foot of the wall with calm, exact, relentless fire, one gun after another. The outer face of the eastern wall, once as solid as an iron fortress, had at last reached its limit.
A groan of stone, a crack—
The brick skin, already gaping open in patches, slumped all of a piece, tilted, and came down.
"Th-the wall! The wall's coming down!"
"Waaaaah!"
At first the soldiers had watched the bombardment as if it were some marvel. By now they were used to it, and had fallen to muttering among themselves—until the outer brick face collapsed, and the cheer tore out of them.
But only a portion had fallen. The gunners did not stop. They shifted their aim and poured it on again.
Boom. Boom. Crash—
Dust boiled up as stretch after stretch of wall gave way, and where the foot was smashed, whole faces of brick leaned out and toppled. The brick skin that had held the outside together came down in sheets, and even the rammed earth was eaten away along its lower edge, a little more with every shot. The wall that had seemed impregnable could not hold, and began to slough apart.
"The wall's down! The wall's down!"
"Waaaaah! The wall's fallen!"
The rammed-earth core went with it, and a slope some thirty meters deep opened in its place—gentle beside the sheer face it had been, though heaped with brick and broken clods that would make the climb awkward. It was nothing compared to a standing wall.
Dolswe knew the moment he had been waiting for had come.
The drums for the advance began to beat, stroke after stroke.
"Lay the pontoon! Move!"
"Aaaaaah!"
Tiger Hunting Army soldiers, bearing rafts of thick bamboo lashed solid, broke as one for the moat.
"Matchlocks! Cover them!"
"Aaaaaah!"
Crack, crack, crack—
Men with mantlets and matchlockmen pushed out and poured fire at every enemy who showed himself on the walls to either side and along the ruined stretch, covering their own. The moat was barely ten meters across. Rafts went into the water, were bound with rope, and a rough pontoon was complete.
A conch horn bellowed.
The black tiger standard went forward. At the same moment the elite 1st Division of the Tiger Hunting Army, waiting in readiness, began to cross.
"In order! Don't rush it!"
"First Battalion across! Second Battalion, stand fast!"
Pikemen in black armor ran out and planted a shield wall before the fallen rampart. Matchlockmen came up behind them and shook into ranks with swift discipline—by fives and by tens, by banners, platoons, and companies.
The slope was nothing but the wreck of the wall. Woven straw mats were flung across it here and there to give the men a footing.
"First Company! Advance!"
"Second Company! Advance!"
The formed ranks started up the slope, one step and then another.
Crack, crack, crack—
A hideous whistle skimmed overhead with the popping of the guns, like beans rattling in a pan.
"Gyaaah!"
"Guh..."
An enemy on the rubble who had been trying to loose a crossbow pitched backward. Under covering fire the vanguard climbed the wreckage. Beyond it, on the inner side of the wall, a mass of enemy soldiers gathered in the street came into view.
They were a wretched sight, coated head to foot in the white dust the collapse had raised. Fear flickered in their blinking eyes, and the tremor in their hands betrayed how badly they were shaken.
Division Commander Dolswe climbed the rubble with the vanguard, the division banner snapping beside him. He glared and roared.
"Fire!"
Beyond the solid shield wall, matchlocks were thrust forward over the shoulders of comrades. Flame spat from every muzzle at once.
Crack, crack, crack—
Crack, crack, crack—
"Uuuugh... save me..."
"Inside! Get inside, now!"
Groaning wounded went past on litters. A Persian soldier, looking like a beggar under the white dust, kept urging his comrades through the gate in a voice gone thin with fear.
The inner city held Fuzhou's offices and principal buildings. The great avenue that cut the city north to south entered it by the southern gate, and Hujie Gate was pandemonium.
"What is this? What in the world happened?"
"The east—the eastern wall is completely down! The enemy is inside the wall and driving up the avenue!"
"What? What did you say? The Naib—where is the Naib?"
The Persian officer commanding Hujie Gate seized a straggler by the collar and shook him.
"C-Captain... something about this doesn't..."
"I know. This smells wrong."
Hasan pulled a long face along with the Arab sailors who had been released with him and come by ship.
Most of the Persian soldiers, the main strength of the Ispah army inside Fuzhou, had been drawn off to hold the eastern wall, so Hasan and the Arab sailors had been put to guarding the inner city. That was why they stood at Hujie Gate with nothing but spears and swords, and no armor on their backs.
Thunder had rolled from the eastern wall for two days straight, and then, all at once, Persian soldiers came pouring in. Men who had never done anything but swagger were running helter-skelter, caked in dust and blood and sweat.
"Captain, if the Duke of Yue's army is inside the city, isn't it over?"
"And if we get taken prisoner again?"
"They won't forgive us this time..."
Hasan and the Arab sailors had seen with their own eyes how terrible the Duke of Yue's army was. They had watched the moment when Qaid Hussein, whose courage was famous enough, and his brave Persian guards were slaughtered outright before they could so much as put up a fight.
This was not the same thing as the rabble of Yuan government troops or the southern militia. It was an army in black armor that smelled of iron and blood.
Crack, crack, crack—
"Waaaaaah!"
Gunfire and shouting were already coming up the avenue from the south, and drawing close. Hasan was racking his brains in desperation when Saifuddin came through the gate at the head of several hundred men.
"Quick! Shut the gate, quick!"
"Naib! But the men holding the other gates haven't come back yet!"
At the gate captain's objection, Saifuddin's eyes went wide.
"There is no time for that! They're on top of us! And most of the rest are unbelievers! Why would I trust them inside the inner city?"
The Ispah army numbered fourteen thousand in all, and ten thousand of them were bandits and militia out of Fujian. Cornered as he was, Saifuddin had no intention of letting unbelievers into the inner city.
"Shut the gate this instant! Are you refusing an order?"
"N-no, Naib! The gate—shut the gate, now! Hasan, you bastard!"
At the gate captain's urging, Hasan and the sailors strained and heaved, swung the gate shut, and dropped the locking bar.
"I'll drag Buqa Temür back here! If we have him, we can still stop the Duke of Yue somehow!"
"Th-then what about us..."
"Hold this gate fast until I return! I'll send reinforcements at once!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Saifuddin hurried off toward the government offices with his men. Hasan watched him go and swallowed hard.
"Captain! What do we do now?"
"What do we do..."
His own Arab sailors pressed in around him, and with them the mixed-blood Muslims of the Ispah army, all of them staring. Hasan swallowed again.
Unlike the Persians, with their deep-set eyes and sharp features, most of the Sunni Arabs of Quanzhou were men whose families had settled generations ago, and they looked little different from the locals. Sect divided them, and so did their faces, and even as brothers in the faith Hasan had been slighted by the Shi'a Muslims who formed the mainstream.
"Do we owe those Rafida our deaths? Haven't they always looked down on us and spat on us? Called us fallen, and worse..."
At Hasan's murmur the others nodded. Sunnis call the Shi'a Rafida—the rejectors. The Shi'a call Sunnis Nasibi—enemies of the Prophet's house. They had joined the Ispah army on the single pretext of standing together against the threat of unbelievers, but neither side truly trusted the other.
"Sir, but if we surrender, will the Duke of Yue actually let us live? He isn't a Muslim. Take one wrong step and it's only our heads that go..."
It was a Sunni soldier, not one of his own sailors, who asked. Hasan shook his head.
"The Duke of Yue is an infidel, but he keeps his word. He spared every one of us, just as he promised, and sent us here."
"That's right! He isn't a man who says one thing and means another!"
"Terrifying, though..."
When the sailors backed Hasan, everyone caught in that desperate moment nodded.
"Then what should we do? Lead us, sir. We follow the same Sunna, don't we?"
They all whispered that they would follow him. Hasan glanced around the gate and gave his orders, and they moved at once.
"Up onto the gate tower, move! Move! Why are these Nasibi so damned slow? Well?"
"F-forgive us!"
The Persian gate captain came at Hasan with a face dark with anger.
"They're coming! You—you said you were good with a crossbow. Get up to the gate tower and—ghk!"
The pain was such that he could not draw breath. Hasan had driven a dagger into the stretch of throat the mail did not cover, and twisted.
"Krrrgh..."
"A heretic, and you call me a mongrel? Well? How's a mongrel's knife taste?"
Hot blood poured out, and the gate captain collapsed. In the same instant screams broke from every side.
"Betrayal! It's betrayal! Gyaaah!"
"Guh... s-save..."
The Arabs and the mixed-blood Muslims had struck without warning. The handful of Persian soldiers, who had been staring anxiously at nothing but the outside of the wall, died before they could resist.
Hasan scrambled up the gate tower and looked down the avenue to the south. A black army was advancing under a snapping black banner, and it was already on top of them.
"A white flag! Fetch a white flag and hang it from the tower! And open the gate! Now! Hurry!"
"Yes, Captain!"
With a long groan of timber, the southern gate of the inner city, barred fast only moments before, swung wide. Above the gate tower a hastily made white flag began to flap.
"This way, my lord."
I followed Dolswe into the inner city. Corpses lay strewn everywhere, and disarmed prisoners of the Ispah army were being dragged off in bonds.
"When the inner city's gate opened, most of them threw down their weapons and surrendered, apart from the rebel leaders and the soldiers closest to them."
Hearing Dolswe's report, I looked to Huindungi.
"How goes the securing of Fuzhou?"
"We've taken every gate and we're arresting the stragglers. Almost no one resisted. Some ran into the streets and hid, so we're searching."
The Persians, the core of the Ispah army, could not hide in any case; their faces gave them away, and they would not be hard to take. The rest were sealed inside the gates. They could be rounded up at our leisure.
"This is the rebel chief? Saifuddin?"
"Yes. He occupied the offices, took the officials hostage, and meant to hold out, so we had no choice but to shoot him down with matchlocks on the spot."
"Is that so? Well, it couldn't be helped. There was no need to take him alive..."
I gave the corpses of Saifuddin and the other Ispah officers, sprawled on the ground, a cursory look.
"Cut off the heads and display them in the marketplace."
"Yes, my lord!"
Dolswe then brought forward a familiar face.
"G-great man—no, Your Excellency! I am at your service!"
The Arab Hasan was flat on the ground, forehead to the earth. I tilted my head.
"Just before we arrived, this man cut down the captain of the inner city's southern gate and opened it. Thanks to him, we got inside before the Ispah army could set a defense."
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Th-this humble one wishes to follow the proper order of things and offer his loyalty to the court—no, to Your Excellency!"
Hasan lay pressed to the ground, and behind him disarmed prisoners watched with uneasy eyes. I smiled faintly and spoke to him.
"Very well. You've done a service, and a service deserves a reward. You carried out my instructions faithfully, and you've distinguished yourself, so I pardon your part in the rebellion."
"Th-then the rest of us who took part in this..."
He looked frightened enough, but he was not trying to slip free alone. There was a sense of responsibility in that, and I liked it.
"If you did not abuse the people of Fuzhou at your pleasure, your part in the rebellion will be pardoned as well."
"Thank you! Thank you, Your Excellency!"
I gave Dolswe the order at once.
"Take this man and sort the Ispah prisoners. Separate them by sect, by affiliation, and by the weight of their crimes, and hold them apart."
"Yes, my lord!"
Rebels or not, I could not kill them all. Those who could not be trusted, and those who had run wild, would be removed. Those who still had a use would be kept. If I meant to hold Fujian and make the overseas trade to the southern seas and India flourish again, I would badly need Muslim merchants and sailors who knew those waters. A good name among the Muslims willing to cooperate would matter. This Hasan might even prove useful.
"Is Pingzhang Buqa Temür safe? And the other officials?"
"A few were killed while the rebels were still resisting, but His Excellency Buqa Temür is unharmed. We've gathered them all in the main hall for now, and they're under watch."
"Good. Let's go."
I went into the main hall with Garshakan and the Jurchen guards. Under the eyes of Tiger Hunting Army soldiers, I approached the officials clustered there, all of them watching me uneasily.
"Which of you is His Excellency Buqa Temür?"
"I am Buqa Temür."
A middle-aged man in official robes stepped out from among them. Braided hair, a silk robe of office—a Mongol noble to the life. I glanced back at Hwang Gwan, who had come with us, and he nodded as if to confirm it.
"I am the Duke of Yue, Im Hyeon. I regret that we should meet like this."
"Hmm..."
Buqa Temür flushed and looked away.
"I don't believe a formal handover will be necessary. I'll provide a ship. Gather your family and your baggage and return to Hangzhou."
"This very moment, you mean?"
"Do you require more time?"
"That is..."
Buqa Temür looked back at the officials behind him, ill at ease.
"Ah, and the officials already posted here will be going to Hangzhou with you."
"What is the meaning of this?"
A man suddenly stepped out from among them and raised his voice.
"You may have been appointed Pingzhang of the Fujian Branch Secretariat, Duke of Yue, but this is an overreach! To drive out officials formally commissioned by the court, at your own whim!"
"And who are you?"
"This humble official is Guanyinnu, Assistant Administrator!"
The man had a certain backbone, and he looked Semu. Not that it mattered...
"A Pingzhang oversees the practical business of the Fujian Secretariat. He has no authority to dismiss the Secretariat's officials as he pleases. Officials may be removed only when an order comes down from the court..."
"Then how about this?"
I looked at Guanyinnu, still raising his voice, and smiled.
"I declare every official here a traitor who colluded with rebels and opposed the imperial army."
"Wh-what are you saying? We were merely detained by Saifuddin, by that man..."
"Are you telling me you had no part in bringing them in?"
"Th-that..."
I glared at Buqa Temür, at Guanyinnu, and at the senior officials of the Fujian Secretariat, Semu and Han Chinese mixed together.
"The Pingzhang appointed by the court to take up his post was ambushed at sea. You then refused the order to explain yourselves, barred the gates, and went so far as to fight."
They said nothing.
"And all that while, what exactly did the officials here do? Was there a single one among you who risked his life to punish them or put them down?"
I looked at men struck as dumb as if they had swallowed their tongues, and shook my head.
"Looking at you, I begin to understand why the troubles in Fujian have gone unsettled for more than ten years. Men who eat the realm's grain are skilled at nothing but sucking the marrow from the people, and so incompetent that the moment they lead an army out they lose every fight they fight..."
Still they said nothing.
"So you brought the bandits in and borrowed their strength. Isn't that it?"
Guanyinnu glared at me, his face burning red. He was not wholly without a grievance, I supposed. I had heard that Assistant Administrator Guanyinnu had taken the field against the rebels more than once himself.
"If I had my way, I would behead every one of you, and show the realm that discipline still lives! I have only refrained because it would not do for His Excellency Buqa Temür, here, to be tangled in needless scandal before he takes up his imperial appointment as Censor-in-Chief of the Jiangnan Censorate."
I swept my eyes over the officials and growled.
"Choose. Will you be beheaded here for treason? Or will you go to Hangzhou with His Excellency Buqa Temür?"
They swallowed hard, rigid with tension. Then someone stepped forward from among them.
"I—I will go to Hangzhou!"
"I will too! I'll go as well!"
Under the soldiers' watch, the officials started for the door. Guanyinnu's face was scarlet, but when Buqa Temür caught his sleeve and held him back, he trudged after the rest and went.
I sat in the Pingzhang's seat of the Fujian Secretariat and spoke to Liu Ji, who stood silent beside me.
"In your eyes, sir, this must look unseemly. Breaking the realm's law and wielding authority beyond my office, as I please."
"Hah..."
The middle-aged scholar Liu Ji let out a sigh, his face dark.
"No. Your Excellency is not wrong. If the rotten roots are not pulled out, how is this land of Fujian—a hell on earth for more than ten years—ever to be made stable?"
Liu Ji, who had so persistently worked to check the growth of my power, and he comes out with that...
"A sound judgment. Think only of the people. Only of the people who suffer."
"I shall, Your Excellency."
Liu Ji, and with him Ban Baeksu, Jang Il, and the other officials who had come up with the follow-up force—and the Fujian scholars Hwang Gwan and Won Cheonrok as well—bowed their heads deeply at those words and gave their assent.
"There. At last we have Fuzhou. From here on, the civil officials in this room will have a very great deal to do."
"We receive your command!"
For the first step in pacifying Fujian, it was not a bad beginning. Carefully, now—the next step would have to be prepared.