What Is a Han Nation? (2)
The ten thousand soldiers on the wall fired arrows and bolts with the desperation of men fighting for their very lives. The volley of arrows at the outset had made the enemy stagger, but once their pre-loaded reloading magazines ran dry, the Han troops regained their momentum and pressed closer.
"Hold strong! Reinforcements will be here soon!"
"They'd better get here before we're wiped out!"
"They will! Now fight!"
Thud. Crumble.
"Gwaaah!"
No matter how diligently they cranked their ballistae and loosed their arrows, there were simply too many enemies. Catapults within close range hurled stones, and the enemy archers returned fire in kind.
Whether it was that the catapults lacked power or the wall was simply too sturdy, only flakes of debris crumbled away — the wall itself never so much as flinched.
Still, Daehan's soldiers were beginning to take casualties.
"The enemy has weapons too, you idiots! Get some cover!"
"Too much is flying at us for that, sir!"
"Huh? Is that so? Then dodge well while you shoot!"
What else could they do? They couldn't just stand around watching until the arrows ran out — the only option was to shoot fast and duck fast.
"Ballistae! Crush those battering rams, now! Once they get any closer, we won't even be able to fire!"
"Yes, sir!"
The Large Wall Ballistae were undoubtedly powerful weapons, but they couldn't be carried and fired by hand, nor could they aim below a certain angle. Catapults standing far off and tall siege towers were fine targets — but battering rams, once they closed in, were nearly impossible to counter.
Crack-boom.
"Gwak!"
Perhaps worn down by stray arrow hits, even the great ballistae were beginning to burst apart. No matter how good your weapons were, war was a numbers game first and foremost. Every ten thousand arrows this side loosed, two or three hundred thousand came flying back.
"Ggheuk!"
"Kgh!"
Soldiers bristling with arrows in their bodies still shot back with ferocious tenacity.
"Khh."
"Kik. Got hit again?"
"Hurts like hell."
"Would you quit getting hit already?"
"Says the man who's taken three."
Of the five thousand soldiers who had first taken up the fight atop the wall, only about half were still standing.
"Nothing for it. Pull half the men at the gate up here!"
"Yes, sir!"
There was no other way. The wall had to be held first.
"You only need to hold out until the men arrive from the neighboring bastion!"
Despite the commander's desperate cry, his soldiers kept collapsing one after another. Bastions had been built every two ri along the wall, and if each sent just half its garrison, they could hold until Bongpyeong's forces arrived.
But what if they're under attack too?
The commander prayed desperately that anyone — anyone at all — would come, if not for his own sake, then for the sake of his fallen subordinates who hadn't even been able to close their eyes. For once a wall was breached, there was no stopping what followed.
Still, I cannot give up! Even if every one of us dies here.
Just as he steeled himself to hold this ground even if they all fell where they stood, a welcome sound reached his ears.
RAAAAGH—
"Waaah! Reinforcements!"
"You bastards! What took you so damn long?!"
"We're here!"
Soldiers from the neighboring bastions came rushing up. With ten thousand men garrisoned at each bastion, they must have sent half apiece.
Many would still die, but this much at least would buy time until the main force arrived.
"Don't panic — keep shooting!"
"Move it!"
"Wounded, clear the line!"
Many of those felled by arrows were still alive. Treated quickly, they could get back on their feet. There simply hadn't been a moment's respite to carry them somewhere safe.
"They can't keep swarming forever!"
"Take them down from the front lines, one by one!"
They say a siege typically demands ten times the defenders' numbers — and atop walls this high, the ratio would need to be even greater. The enemy bows were short-ranged. If they could whittle the attackers down beyond a certain distance, the defense held an overwhelming advantage.
Ki-ki-ki-GEUK.
"Waaah! We made it!"
The battering ram had finally reached the gate. From beyond it came the triumphant shouts of Han soldiers.
"One! Two!"
THUD.
"One! Two!"
THUD.
"One! Two!"
THUD.
The ram hammered away at the gate in time with the enemy's battle cries. However much Daehan had reinforced the structure, a gate still had to open and close — which meant, inevitably, it had to be made of wood.
And perhaps because they lacked combat experience, their response to an enemy that had closed the distance had been inadequate. There were no rocks to drop from above, no boiling oil to pour.
THUD.
SCREEEECH.
"Hurry with those axes!"
The ram tore a great crack in the gate, and with every axe blow it splintered further apart. Tension began to spike among the twenty-five hundred soldiers waiting behind it.
"Hrahaha! I can see them!"
Thok.
"GAAAHK!"
Holes began punching through the gate — and the Daehan soldiers waiting inside started skewering whatever came through them with their spears, without mercy.
They couldn't exactly stand around watching the gate get breached, could they?
THUD.
CRACK.
And then, the crossbar broke.
"The crossbar's snapped! Everyone fall back!"
"Quickly! To the rear!"
"Move slowly — eyes forward!"
Hurry up, but slowly? Was that even possible?
"The crossbar is broken! PUSH!"
The Han soldiers outside had evidently caught on too, and began shoving the gate with all their might.
SCREEEE—
criiiiieeek.
"Bwahahaha! Go! CHARGE!"
Enough men pushing together, and even a thick crossbar snapped in moments. Han soldiers flooded through the short passage like a bursting wave.
"BLOCK THE WAY!"
Srrrrring.
At a single man's shout, iron pillars as thick as an adult's forearm erupted from the middle of the passage, extending one after another until they locked into the opposite wall.
A cavity had been hollowed into the wall's interior, the steel bars pre-loaded and waiting. A person couldn't possibly squeeze through — but there was ample room for spears and arrows to pass.
"ATTACK!"
"RAAAH! KILL THEM ALL!"
"You bastards think you can just crawl in here?!"
They had prepared all of this in advance, anticipating the gate would fall. Forearm-thick as the bars were, they were forged of solid steel besides. And the passage wasn't particularly wide — this was nothing that could be broken by shoving or prying.
Spears thrust wildly from the inside, and corpses began piling up at the gate. Given time, the enemy could conceivably climb over the mound of bodies — but how many would survive the rain of arrows to even get there?
"Good, the gate's holding. Keep it up, just a little longer!"
"Half a day! Just half a day!"
Bongpyeong was roughly two ri from their position — Daehan's soldiers could cover that in half a day. And the enemy would have to eat and regroup at least once; surely they'd withdraw a single time.
"We hold out just once more!"
"Yes, sir!"
"We're not ending it like this!"
Of the two dozen-odd ballistae that had been firing without pause, only eight remained — but the enemy's siege engines were nearly all smashed to splinters too. With the siege towers destroyed, ladders were useless; they couldn't reach the top.
"Their numbers are spent! Hold on a little longer and they'll retreat!"
"Dig in, you dogs!"
"WRAAAH!"
However much stronger and taller they were than the people of the neighboring countries, war was never an easy thing.
"Kh... hek. Hrrk."
"Hah. Hah."
"Hrrgh. Bastards."
Daehan's soldiers were heaving for breath. The speed of their archery had slowed noticeably.
Puuuu— Puuuu—
"Wha— WAHAAAH!"
"They're falling back!"
Right on cue, the Han army began to withdraw. They had clearly never anticipated resistance this fierce. Had they attacked in successive waves, one after another without pause, the wall would have collapsed in no time — retreating now was the Han's fatal blunder.
Because not far away, the relief force out of Bongpyeong was already on its way.
The battle raging now was at Bongpyeong's First Gate, the closest fortress to the region itself. And four ri away, another gate was opening.
Dududududu.
An immense tide of men and horses began pouring out.
"Form ranks, quickly!"
Puuuu.
To the blare of trumpets, the soldiers lined up in immaculate order.
"MOVE OUT!"
Dududu.
Twenty thousand men passed through the gate. Their road was six ri long — a path leading to strike the enemy's flank.
Each man rode mounted, with three horses apiece in tow — though only one wore armor.
They rode for a long while.
"SWITCHING HORSES!"
Puuuung.
Tadadak.
Yes, the ponies were smooth-gaited and easy to ride — but swapping horses mid-gallop? It was practically a circus act.
"Horses, take care of them!"
"Yes, sir!"
Piiiii.
At the shrill of whistles, the horses they had ridden this far began splitting off, following a detachment peeling away into the distance. A few horses broke ranks midway, but watching a herd of twenty thousand divide apart was a truly spectacular sight.
Then more riding, and more still — until, far in the distance, the banners of Han began to come into view.
Piiiii.
Whistles sounded on all sides once more, and horses began dropping away from the formation again. This time it was the twenty thousand soldiers mounting the armored horses.
The mounts they took up now were larger and more magnificent than any they had ridden so far — warhorses, specially bred from the finest stock of the pony lines and raised with exceptional care.
"At a normal walk!"
Whether they'd been spotted or not, the Han camp was starting to stir into disarray.
Horses have four gaits: the slow walk, the ordinary walk, the fast walk, and the gallop. Though the riders' weight wasn't yet upon the armored horses, the commander ordered a slower pace all the same — to conserve the strength of mounts that had already run this far wearing armor.
Even having entered their field of vision, under this era's system of relaying orders, it was far too late for the enemy to prepare. And even a horse's slightly quickened walk was faster than anyone would imagine.
The enemy's ranks drew close enough to count by eye.
"Fast walk!"
The formation matched the pace of the lead riders.
The ponies were a touch slow, but their endurance was superb — and these were men who had bred such horses for generations.
Feee-wip. Fububuk.
Arrows came flying from the Han camp, and the Han lines facing the Daehan cavalry began raising their spears. But their bows lacked the range — and Daehan's cavalry carried bows of their own.
"Huh? What are they doing?"
"Bows UP!"
And there they were — the trusty ten-shot reloading magazines, four strapped to every saddle.
"LOOSE!"
Tudutung! Shef!
The soldiers of the lead rank began pouring arrows down from beyond the reach of the enemy's bows.
This was what made horse archers so terrifying. Daehan's horn bows already out-ranged everything else, and with the acceleration of a galloping horse added on, their reach stretched further still and their power grew even deadlier.
Ten arrows loosed in an instant.
"Lead rank — normal walk, wheel aside!"
Having spent their arrows, the riders wheeled sideways and galloped back toward the main force, still far off — and behind them, the ground was strewn with Han soldiers writhing and rolling in the dirt.
Seen from a distance, wasn't that just plain dirty?
It was like a big man pinning his opponent by the collar so he couldn't move a muscle, then slapping him across the face all by himself.
"Ahh, shooting's easy enough, but reloading is such a pain."
"Right? Want to go over there and charge in with a spear instead?"
"Ah — no thanks. I'll just keep loading my arrows, diligently."
Those who had wheeled aside and rejoined the rear ranks walked along slowly, busy refilling their quivers. Never mind the reloading gear — where on earth had they gotten so many arrows?
These men were not shock cavalry. They were horse archers.
They would charge if they had to, but their core doctrine was hit-and-run. Closing to melee range was never part of the plan. Besides, with their own arrows and the Large Wall Ballistae raining terror down from the wall, they looked perfectly content to stay far away from the front.
KWAGAANG.
"Whoa..."
"What in the — what IS that?"
The men firing from atop the wall couldn't truly grasp it, but the horse archers, who had come that much closer, watched with their own eyes as a ballista bolt struck the earth, ricocheted, and went bouncing along — mowing down men in its path.
At that distance, the noise alone was horrific.
"Honestly, their spears scare me less than our own side's arrows."
The horse archers were pale with dread. Getting caught in that sweep, they felt, would leave nothing behind but scattered bones.
Han had fielded cavalry of its own, to be sure — but a token number of half-baked riders was nothing more than prey for men like these.