Backs to the Water
"We wore the enemy down and put the fear into them. Then we raised torches on every side, so they'd think our strength was several times what it was."
"When we struck all at once under cover of dark, they never managed a proper resistance. They simply collapsed."
A hundred li upriver from Yanping by boat, at a camp pitched halfway along the Jian Creek where it climbed the upper reaches of the Min—there An Hyeon listened to the report of an Akuto courier who had ridden the brutal mountain tracks day and night to reach him.
"It was too dark to count every corpse, but we took several thousand heads at the least. The enemy who had been marching north to hit our men broke and ran straight for Jianning."
"Where has Kagetora moved?"
"To keep the pressure on them, he said he would shift his camp south. As you ordered in advance, my lord, he will come down to a point thirty li from Jianning, establish a new camp, and wait for your command..."
The main force in the south, Kagetora in the north, and Hoshim in the east—three armies, closing on the encircled city of Jianning to the thirty-li line they had fixed beforehand. A courier had arrived from Hoshim as well. The net was complete. An Hyeon felt a twinge of guilt toward the messenger, who looked like a beggar after riding the mountains without rest, and asked anyway.
"Can you get back to Kagetora with my orders before dawn tomorrow?"
"Of course, my lord!"
The young warrior bowed his head hard.
"I came with a guide who knows the mountain paths. I've already ridden the road once. I can make it in time. I'll leave this instant..."
"No. Eat something and shut your eyes first, then go."
"Yes, my lord!"
An Hyeon dismissed the Akuto courier and summoned his principal officers. Dolswe, Huindungi, Fang Guozhen—when they were all assembled, he spread the map and set a finger on Jianning.
"The enemy in Jianning is surrounded. But if they're willing to gamble, they can still slip west over the hard ranges and run."
"Then we have to move before they get their wits back."
"Yes. I'd rather wait until every available force has gathered before we attack... but if we give them time to think, there's a good chance they'll throw everything away and bolt."
Chen Youliang's army had tried to crush An Hyeon's forces piecemeal to the north and been badly beaten—only last night. By now the remnants of that rout had likely stumbled into Jianning.
"We move at first light tomorrow."
"And coordination with our men to the north and the west?"
At Dolswe's question, An Hyeon frowned.
"The courier should arrive by dawn. But aside from the main body, we can't use the waterways, so the others may not get there in time."
The enemy had started at fifty thousand. Even allowing for last night's defeat and the losses of the siege, they were still an army of forty thousand at the least. Against them An Hyeon had the Tiger Hunting Army, the sailors, and the Garrison Army—twenty thousand in all. The best course was for all three forces to join and strike together...
"Once we're near Jianning, I'll send scouts to make contact with our people. Depending on how things stand, though, we may have to fight them alone. Can you do it?"
"Of course, my lord! The moment our field guns start belching fire, those bastards will piss themselves!"
Huindungi thumped his chest as he roared it, and Dolswe and Fang Guozhen nodded as well.
"The Tiger Hunting Army is ready whenever you are."
"So is the Garrison Army, my lord!"
An Hyeon smiled at the men he trusted.
"Good. At dawn we go to Jianning. Time to finish this fight cleanly."
"We obey, my lord!"
The command tent of Ganlan Fort—the camp whose palisades ringed the fields and hills north of Jianning like a siege line of their own—was thick with gloom.
"So you're telling me we abandon Shuinan Fort?"
"We can't hold the river anyway, can we? Split the men onto the far bank, and if the water cuts them off they'll be stranded..."
"Damn it all! Nothing goes right!"
Deng Keming slammed a fist on the table and let his fury out. In any other hour, if Kang Tai had come crawling back with his tail between his legs like a beaten dog, Deng might have savored it and needled him for the pleasure. He had never liked the young army supervisor's swagger—the way Kang Tai preened over sharing Chen Youliang's hometown and serving as his direct subordinate. But this was not that hour. Deng Keming's own life, and his brothers', hung on what they decided now.
"I have no face to show you, Marshal Deng."
When Kang Tai's proud host of thirty thousand had limped back reduced to twenty, rage had climbed Deng's throat. Even so, he knew how to tell sense from spite.
"What good does it do to pick over who's at fault now? By that measure, the trouble started when my own brother Zhiming lost Yanping."
Deng waved the matter off and dropped heavily into his seat.
"Enough of this useless pissing contest. Let's talk about how we get out of here alive."
"Hm..."
"We can't keep hammering Jianning. The problem is, we also have no road out."
"There's no road north, but if we cross the river and climb the mountains to the west, wouldn't that do it?"
At Kang Tai's question, Deng Keming gave a bitter smile.
"Our combined strength is forty-four thousand. If we hadn't been moving the grain by water, could we even have fed them?"
"That's..."
"Even the high road the northern enemy has blocked won't let us carry much grain. And you want to take the side paths through the hard ranges west of the river? Each man would be lucky to bring a sack of rice. How many days do you think we'd last?"
"And if we stay and hold, how long does the grain last then? They've corked every road. A month at the outside, and the stores are gone."
Neither Deng Keming nor Kang Tai had an answer. They pressed hands to their brows. Ganlan Fort had been built solid for the assault on Jianning. Grain was plentiful, the defenses nothing to sneer at; if the enemy came in force, the place could hold for a while. Only while the grain lasted. Stranded in hostile country, they could not even hope for relief.
"But our men aren't used to the mountains. If we crawl along those narrow trails through the high ranges and walk into an ambush the way you did..."
Kang Tai had nothing to say to that. The enemy he had faced—especially the armored soldiers in red—were viciously good at fighting in the hills, and quick even under heavy plate. Forty thousand and more strung out along a winding track: if those men seized the choke points and harried them and hit them as they had before, what then? And if, while Deng's own men gasped along hungry and spent, the enemy's main body came up behind them?
"Even so—even so, we have to move now. You know as well as I do that if we stay, every one of us dies."
"Damn it..."
Deng Keming ground his teeth, then nodded.
"First we send the tribal warriors who know the mountains out as scouts. They check the side paths for ambushes, take the choke points, and then the main body moves. How's that?"
"We travel as light as we can, grain excepted. If we can reach Shunchang County on the far side somehow, we make for Shaowu and look for a way to rise again."
"Right. Plant stockades in these cursed mountains and hold, and they'll wear themselves out and fall away."
The two of them hurried scouts across the river. They drove their subordinates to be ready to cross and run at a moment's notice.
"Move! Move faster! Grain first!"
"Leave the rest of the stores! When we go, we put them to the torch and burn the lot!"
The vast camp was still heaving into that frantic motion when it happened.
Chaeng—chang-chang-chang—
"E-enemy ships! The enemy's come up from Yanping!"
From the watchtower a sentry beat a small gong without pause. Deng Keming and Kang Tai scrambled for the western gate of the camp and climbed the tower. River craft under full sail were coming on, packing the summer-swollen water from bank to bank.
"The boats on watch—where are they all..."
"Taken, by the look of it. They brought a proper fleet."
Deng Keming exploded.
"Damn it! We should have moved sooner! Now we can't even cross the river! At this rate..."
"Marshal Deng! There—look there!"
He followed Kang Tai's pointing finger and saw the ships putting in along the bank, one after another.
"What? What in hell are they thinking?"
Deng Keming scowled at a move he could not understand. There were a great many hulls choking the river, but even if every man aboard came ashore, they would be half his forty thousand in Ganlan Fort at best. In their place he would have sealed the water and waited for the other armies to arrive...
"They seem to think we're fish already in the net. Heh. Not a scrap of fear, and with only that many men..."
Kang Tai was muttering beside him, face flushed red, when Deng Keming's eyes suddenly flashed.
"This—this is a chance, isn't it?"
"What? What do you—"
"Look! That great black banner! Isn't that the command standard of the Duke of Yue, the one the rumors won't shut up about?"
Kang Tai looked to the black flag snapping among the enemy still landing on the bank, and to the white dragon writhing across it, and nodded.
"You mean the Duke of Yue himself has come ashore out there?"
"Drunk on victory and grown proud, I'd say. However fine a general is, let him drop his guard once and he's finished..."
Deng Keming's mouth split in an ugly grin.
"Now. It's now. This is the chance. We go out at once, smash their main body, and take the man—what then?"
"Take the Duke of Yue?"
A strange light came into Kang Tai's eyes. In the same instant he understood that the chance of a lifetime had been set in front of him.
"The opportunity is before the bastards blocking our north and east have joined them. And they've camped on the riverbank—that's a formation with their backs to the water, plain as day. We hit them in one rush and they'll be screaming over each other to get back aboard..."
"True enough. They got careless and walked right up under our noses..."
They were still speaking when an urgent voice rose behind them.
"Y-you can't think of it that simply, elder brother!"
Deng Zhiming, who had climbed the tower at Deng Keming's heels, spoke in a rush to his brother the commander and to Supervisor Kang.
"How many times have I said it? The cannon they handle are monstrous. You cannot take them lightly!"
"Mm. There is that..."
Deng Keming frowned and hesitated, and Kang Tai turned on the defeated Deng Zhiming.
"The heavy losses you took from those guns—that was when you were packed in front of the gate, wasn't it?"
"Th-that's right, Supervisor Kang."
"And if we spread the vanguard wide and open the intervals between the men? Will those lumps of iron they fling still do us such harm?"
"Eh? That's..."
"The field out front is a good two or three li across—nearly a kilometer. We have the numbers. We deploy wide, then send part of the line in first, scattered, to close the distance."
"Oho. Get in close that way, and then?"
Kang Tai had handled countless traction trebuchets and general-cannon in his time. He knew well that such weapons looked impressive and made a terrifying noise, and that actually killing or maiming a man with them was another matter. Hurl a stone the size of a house, and how many scattered soldiers would it hurt?
"Once we're on them, it's over! Open ground, a fight on the riverbank—they haven't room for any other trick."
"Yes. That's a fine idea!"
Deng Keming and Kang Tai, who had been at each other's throats, found their minds stuck fast together in the moment of crisis. Deng Zhiming felt something ominous stir, but a shamed and beaten general had no business opening his mouth here.
"All forces—sally! Form up before the camp gate!"
"The Duke of Yue must be taken alive! Rank and a thousand in gold to the man who wins the merit!"
Deng Keming and Kang Tai shouted themselves hoarse, whipping their men's spirits up. Forty-four thousand poured out of the camp and began to mass on the field.
"Push the field guns! I said push! This way—the front's blocked over there, you son of a bitch!"
Veteran naval gunners, many of them hard-handed sailors, snarled and kicked the recruits in the backside.
"Form under the company colors! Second Company! Second Company! Follow me—this way!"
Tiger Hunting Army soldiers in black armor and spiked helmets moved to the clack of metal. They dressed their ranks with crisp order. Armored men with shields and long pikes locked a solid shield wall. Behind them the matchlockmen took their places, stripped of the odds and ends of spare armor and armed light.
"Pull the muzzle plugs! Check your loads!"
"Fix bayonets now! Don't fumble for them later!"
They seated the tubular bayonet sockets over the muzzles. Practiced hands set the front sight into the groove of the iron tube and gave it a turn so it would not slip free. A matchlockman struck flint to steel and lit his slow match, then touched the coal to the cord-end a comrade held out.
Not one man with his back to the river and the enemy before him showed a trace of unease. They were the Black Tigers, and the Black Tigers had never lost.
Dolswe, senior division commander of the Tiger Hunting Army and the man to whom Lord An Hyeon had given command of this battle, stood beneath the black great banner that stood for his lord—the Black Dragon standard—and shouted to the division, regiment, and battalion commanders gathered there.
"His Lordship is watching from across the water! Is there a coward among you whose knees are shaking because he isn't standing here beside us?"
"There is not!"
"The enemy in front of you outnumbers us two to one! At our backs runs deep river water! Are you afraid?"
"We are not!"
"Anyone who's afraid can get the hell out! We are the Tiger Hunting Army, and no one gets past us!"
Dolswe had the seasoned weight of a man who led an army now. At his shout they beat their chests and answered.
"The Tiger Hunting Army, unbroken!"
"Let's show them what we are!"
"Move to your posts and do your duty! His Lordship expects you to keep your oaths!"
Every Tiger Hunting Army officer standing there had begun as a recruit screaming through the training camp. They had sworn, and sworn again, to fight beside their comrades—never to run and leave brothers behind. Only those who had kept that oath to this day had proved they belonged on this ground.
"Fight for your lord! Fight for the men beside you!"
"Aaaaaah!"
The officers gave the military salute and ran to the roar. Huindungi, watching, burst out laughing and knocked Dolswe on the shoulder.
"Kahaha! Leave it to us! We'll show those bastards exactly what these gunners can do!"
"Yes! I'm counting on you, brother!"
Two Tiger Hunting Army divisions, two Garrison Army regiments, and the fleet's gunners and their guards—eighteen thousand in all. With the river at his back and the ranks set hard, Dolswe fixed his eyes on the enemy drawing nearer.
"Khan. The enemy is moving."
"Yes. So they are."
On a sandbar mid-river, An Hyeon watched the enemy host come on, slow and vast. Garshakan's Jurchen and one regiment of Fang Guozhen's Garrison Army kept a grim watch on every side, and it chafed him to be held so far back that all he could do was look. Dolswe, Huindungi, and the other commanders had opposed him to the last, and so he could not stand in the line. He had to watch the fight from a distance.
"Still no word?"
"No courier has returned."
At Garshakan's answer, An Hyeon frowned. Before reaching Jianning he had sent word to Kagetora and Hoshim: join him at once. The mountain roads were hard, and they had to swing wide. They were late. Should he have waited for them? Or...
Kwa-aang. Kwagwang. Kwaang—
The enemy had closed to some six hundred yards. The deployed field guns began to vomit smoke and fire. The trouble was the enemy's formation.
"Hah. Those bastards... they've already adapted?"
An Hyeon clicked his tongue, incredulous. Across a field a kilometer and more across, the enemy had opened into a great loose front. The men in the forward line came creeping in with gaps before, behind, and to either side.
Kwagwang. Kwa-aang. Kwaang—
Shot from the naval gunners struck and threw up plume after plume of dust. Ricochets lanced through the enemy ranks, but even from a distance the harm looked slight.
"Khan. A shame. If we had brought enough horses..."
"Yes. You're right, Garshakan. If we had cavalry, we'd have shown them something."
A dispersed line was their ordinary formation to begin with, and it halved what the guns could do. And now these men of Chen Youliang were coming on scattered, as if they had invented light-infantry tactics. The artillery was failing to shock them.
Kwa-aang. Kwagwagwang.
Piping. Seeeing. Pipipiping—
Huindungi had read the field; he had changed his ammunition. No more round shot skipping and raising dust—grape and canister now. More of the enemy went down than before...
Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung...
They had been hammered a few times. Unlike the fight at Yanping, they seemed to have decided they could bear it. Drums rolled, and they closed the gaps at a run.
"Mm..."
A thread of anxiety pulled tight in An Hyeon as he looked across the river to his own army, dressed in hard ranks beneath the snapping black banners. The field guns, which had been roaring and smoking without pause, fell silent. The gunners hauled the pieces back. The shield walls of the Tiger Hunting Army and the Garrison Army drew in and sealed the intervals. As the pouring fire thinned, the enemy's density surged and they came on.
"Waaaaaaaah!"
They screamed and charged as one, and An Hyeon clenched his fist.
"Now. Now..."
A moment that seemed to dry the blood in him.
Tatang. Tatatang—
Tatatang. Tatang. Tatatatang——
A monstrous crash, and smoke boiled out along the whole length of the shield wall. The wind tore the smoke apart, and the field came back into view. The enemy who had charged to within a breath of the line were down or staggering under the Tiger Hunting Army's volley. For an instant the battlefield went still.
Puuuuuu—
Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung...
But the enemy did not break. The forward line had taken a hideous blow; the men behind it were intact. A rear line easily twice his own strength, and it began to roll in like a wave.
"Hold the... line... stand..."
"Aaaaaaaah!"
He was too far to hear it clearly—the great shouts, the screams, the hard voices. He could see the enemy, a violent surf, hurling themselves at the shield wall.
Tang. Tatatang. Tang——
From behind the wall, over the shoulders of the men in front, matchlocks kept spitting fire. It had none of the crushing weight of a volley. Even so, the shield wall took strength from that crackle and held firm. The enemy was driven back, and came again.
Dung... dudung... dung... dudung... dudungdung...
Chaeng—chang-chang-chang—
Drums and gongs, and the enemy's command banner pushing close to the line, standards thrashing, trumpets screaming. A human tide that would not stop breaking, and before it the black-armored wall endured, and endured again. Dust climbed. Shouts, war cries, and the sounds of men dying carried across the water. Heat rose in An Hyeon's body. Sweat gathered along his back. He turned sharply on Regiment Commander Yeo Munyeop, waiting in front of him.
"The right—the right is wavering! Commander Yeo! Commit the reserve! To the right!"
"Yes, my lord! Go! Follow me!"
At Yeo Munyeop's bellow the Garrison Army soldiers waiting on the sandbar piled into the boats as one and crossed. The right wing, Garrison Army and weaker than the Tiger Hunting men, took the reserve and still gave ground by inches before an enemy that simply had more bodies. An Hyeon's mouth went dry.
"Perhaps I should..."
"Khan! There—east, before the walls!"
At Garshakan's voice An Hyeon looked where he pointed, toward Jianning. Dust was rising. An army advancing under brown banners.
"Hoshim. Hoshim's here. Yes..."
Garrison Army, racing hard along the very foot of Jianning's walls and closing fast. The enemy noticed late. In a scramble, part of their strength turned about to meet Hoshim's men.
Buuuuuuung——
Then, from the north, came the deep blast of a conch. Red armor under white standards.
"Kagetora. Kagetora's come!"
The host that had been driving the Tiger Hunting Army back against the river began to shudder as allied troops poured in from north and east. Dolswe's Tiger Hunting Army held the western bank. On the northern field came Kagetora's Akuto; from the east, Hoshim's Garrison Army. To the south, the walls of Jianning stopped every road.
"My lord. They're breaking."
"Yes, Garshakan. We've won."
He had pushed his luck and very nearly paid dearly for it. He had trusted too much in the field guns, the matchlocks, the edge of his elite army. These were not Zhu Yuanzhang or Chen Youliang. They were men whose names he had never even heard. The arrogance of believing such rabble could never break his troops—and the foolishness of rushing, set on bagging the enemy in a single stroke before they could run. An Hyeon wiped his sweat-soaked brow with his sleeve.
"That took ten years off my life..."
"C-Commander, sir! Th-that's..."
On the ridge across the river, men who looked more like beggars than soldiers stood with their mouths hanging open. A vast field where tens of thousands fought tens of thousands—and cannon that would not stop vomiting fire, smoke, and thunder. Commanders and soldiers who had swaggered over their courage in the mountain hollows could not keep from shaking.
"That's the Duke of Yue's army..."
"Father. What should we do now?"
Chen Zonghai, the eldest son, always steady and brave, asked it with a troubled face. Chen Youding had no answer. He was silent. These were men who had crossed five hundred li of brutal mountain road to win the great merit of relieving Jianning. Most of them now wore empty looks as they stared at a battle already ending. The man who had led them here was no different. At the head of ten thousand he had smashed plenty of Chen Youliang's soldiers who tried to bar the way. To feed his men he had raided government offices and had not scrupled to levy grain from the common people... and when he arrived, the fight was already over?
"We've made ourselves into the dog that chased the chicken."
Chen Youding sat down hard, the strength gone out of his face.