What Even Is a Han Nation? (4)
'Huai'an' was supposed to be the most important city of Huaiyang Commandery, was it not?
It was an event momentous enough for one to believe that a nation's capital itself had fallen. Compared to the small fortresses that had been captured so far, the difference was vast.
For if the enemy could reach this far, it meant the capital itself could fall next.
"No! How could this happen!"
"Th... the... the fortress has collapsed, Your Majesty!"
"Co—collapsed? What did you say?"
Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, was utterly dumbfounded. Not merely broken or breached—collapsed?
"Is that place the one called Huai'an?"
"Yes, sir. That's roughly how the locals' name for it comes across in our tongue."
"It sits by the water, so I suppose we can't expect a surrender?"
"Correct."
"Then I'd say this counts as our first true siege!"
Up until now, there had simply been too many fortresses that surrendered on their own. Perhaps they had no stockpiled supplies, because barely any time after encirclement began, surrender envoys would come crawling out.
"Give the soldiers plenty of rest, then assemble the ballistae!"
"Yes, sir!"
At last there came a chance to actually use the Great Wall Ballistas, the weapons they had lovingly hauled across half the world, disassembled and never once properly fired.
「Creeeak! Creeeak! Clank-clank—」
"Maknae! Where'd you get to?! One's missing, I can't see it anywhere!"
"I got them all out, sir!"
"Huh?"
All he had to do was slip on one final pin—and the last part was missing?
"What do you mean, missing! You brat! Didn't you check?"
"We checked together, didn't we?"
The Maknae felt rather wronged. Hadn't the older sailor insisted on doing everything together, saying he was nervous about having a rookie around?
"You dare talk back to me?"
「SMACK!」
"Yeowch!"
Cuffed squarely on the back of the head, the Maknae was beside himself with indignation. Not a single component of the ballista was small enough to misplace—how could it simply be gone?
"It's truly not there, sir! I swear it's gone!"
"Then what do we do now?"
Chaos erupted among the soldiers. They overturned carts and searched in every direction, but the part was nowhere to be found.
"Whew... Hold on. Leave it to me. I'll fix this."
"You have a way, sir?"
Well, he did have a way. It belonged to the veteran soldier ambling lazily back and forth across the ground.
「Clank-clank—」
He sauntered over to one of the ten ballistas in the midst of assembly and deftly palmed a pin off it.
Apparently this brand of thievery made no distinction among victims. And with that, he hurried to finish his own assembly.
"What?! Why is mine missing!"
"No idea, sir!"
"Damn it! Wait right there!"
And the soldier who had been assembling that very ballista, in turn, casually lifted a pin from another one a little ways off.
Another peaceful day for the bandits of Daehan.
"Assembly of the Great Wall Ballistas is complete!"
"Excellent! Rouse the soldiers and form up the ranks! We're outside their range, so we can open the gates and advance!"
"Yes, sir!"
The range of the Great Wall Ballista was truly monstrous. It varied with the projectile, but at maximum the bolts could fly nearly four li—an absurd, almost unnatural distance.
Granted, the enemy walls were tall enough that their arrows did come arcing down at them, but they carried no real force. Raised shields were enough to deflect them outright; they couldn't even manage a scratch.
"Crank it!"
「Grrrrroooan」
As the soldiers turned the winding wheels to reload, the crossbow's bowstring drew back with a bone-chilling sound.
「CLUNK」
"Loaded and locked!"
The string caught into place, and the soldiers released the winch lines they had been winding.
Then the weapon was cocked—a wooden stock as thick as a man's forearm, bearing an arrow forged of iron with a head the size of a human skull.
They had closed to a fairly short distance in order to fire their heaviest bolts.
「Ratta-tat-tat PANG」
"Ugh!"
"Shields up, you lot! What are you doing?!"
Perhaps sensing something ominous, arrows rained down ceaselessly from the fortress ahead.
Whether the enemy bows were of inconsistent quality or what, their ranges varied wildly, and many fell far short of reaching the Daehan lines.
「FWOOOOM」
"Firing signal! Stand clear!"
The ballistae were anchored to the ground, but the recoil was so tremendous that even the firing itself demanded caution.
「BOOM. KA-BOOM KA-KOOM WHUMP」
As expected, the report of the ballistae was terrifying—a sound like cannon fire.
Being positioned across the lakeshore, the wind was at their backs today. That could only bode well.
「Thud. KU-RUM KU-KUM WHUMP」
"Hm? Or did I see that wrong?"
As the commander watched the walls, the arrows seemed to be vanishing entirely.
"Did they embed themselves clean into the wall?"
"Don't worry about it and reload, damn it! Move!"
"Yes sir!"
The ballistae had to keep firing—until the arrows ran dry or the limbs snapped.
And a commander watched it all through his telescope.
"Huh?"
"Is something the matter, sir?"
His eyes went round as saucers, fixed on the wall.
"Ah— no, must've been my imagination for a moment."
Doubting his own eyes, he raised the telescope to the wall again for a closer look. Just then, the next ballista bolt arrived at the rampart.
"Wha—?!"
It had been no mistake. The ballista bolts were simply punching straight through the wall—and some were boring clean holes all the way through it.
"What's happening, sir?"
"The ballista bolts are going right through the wall."
"Hmm? Is that... a good thing?"
"Well? I'd say so, wouldn't you?"
The fortresses of Han were rammed-earth works—earth and gravel pounded down into solid mass. Once a crack formed, the consequences could be dire.
「KRRRRUMBLE CRASHHH」
Like this, for instance. Sometimes they simply collapsed. As it happened, the ballistae had been hammering away at precisely the spot where a crack had formed.
"What is that?"
"What's going on over there?"
Hundreds of soldiers who had been waiting atop the wall were buried alive along with it.
Once one section crumbled, the ballistae simply shifted over and kept firing at the next.
Once the rammed earth began to fall, it kept toppling and breaking apart on its own. And the bolts slipping through the breached gap, though invisible from outside, were carrying out a horrific slaughter on the other side.
"It looked so thick—I never imagined the wall would come down like this."
"Tell me about it, sir."
The shooters were stunned; the targets had gone mad with terror. And with the fortress collapsing, the defenders' morale had already hit rock bottom.
"Shall we move in now, sir?"
"Hurry and prepare, men!"
Even the Daehan soldiers, who had planned to spend days doing nothing but firing ballistae, were just as unprepared. They scrambled to ready themselves for scaling the walls.
"Orders to prepare for the wall assault!"
"And I thought we'd get a few days of rest. Who knew the thing would collapse?"
"Astonishing, isn't it?"
The soldiers waiting in the rear had half expected this. The wall had crumbled, after all—what was there to wait for?
All that remained now was the contest of who was stronger. Close combat.
「SHRIIIIEEEK」
"Shields up and form the ranks!"
At the sound of the whistle, the soldiers assembled their formations. The basic unit of Daehan's army was a hundred men.
Each soldier joined his assigned rank, building walls out of shields—those on the edges held theirs upright, while the men in the center raised theirs to blot out the sky.
Once the formation was sealed on all sides, there was no gap left for an arrow to slip through.
「FWOOOOM!」
"Advance!"
At the blare of the advance horns, the soldiers began to move forward. Crammed shoulder to shoulder to cover every side, their pace was inevitably slow.
「Ta-da-DANG ta-DANG TANG」
The closer they drew to the walls, the more terrifying grew the sound of arrows slamming against their shields.
"Whoa! Damn, that's brutal."
"They're not going to punch through, right?"
"I told you—if they hit at an angle, they won't go through!"
Perhaps the effect of all their war games? Even their own field wisdom was being passed down the ranks.
Accounting for the ballistae's range, the distance was two or three li. A stretch that at a normal walking pace would take five or six minutes—but they were taking a full twenty minutes to cover it.
The soldiers inched forward, one slow step at a time.
Many died during the advance, crushed under stones flung from the catapults—the greatest weakness of the shield formation.
「Ta-da-DANG KABANG」
"Damn it all? Now they're throwing rocks too?"
「THUNK」
"Gahh! It went through!"
Occasionally an arrow did pierce a shield. Some of the enemy bows, it seemed, packed real power.
"A little farther and we cross the wall! Get ready!"
The enemy archers atop the rampart would now be aiming down at them from behind the approaching shields. Their own task was to charge in fast and secure the breach.
The wall had collapsed across a fairly wide stretch, so what awaited was a true, savage brawl.
"Enemy spearmen! Tip the shields down! Once their spears ride up the slope, push straight through and in!"
"Yes sir!"
The plan was to lay the shields nearly flat, so that when the enemy spears slid up along them, the Daehan soldiers could drive deep into the gap.
Each man carried a square shield nearly as tall as his body in one hand, and an axe or longsword in the other—weapon of personal preference.
「Skritter-skitter THUNK」
"Ngh!"
Plenty of spears skidded up the tilted shields, but plenty more wormed through the gaps as well. Soldiers took wounds to arms and legs one after another.
Even so, none of them were fatal.
"That's it! Go!"
The enemy spears reached at most two paces. Take a stride or two past the shafts, and the world belonged to Daehan now.
"WAAAAH!"
"Let's go!"
"CHARGE!"
Blood streaming from their limbs, the soldiers broke formation and sprinted straight at the enemy spearmen. Despair bloomed across the defenders' faces.
The spearmen, tangled in a disorderly mass with nothing but their shafts thrust out before them, had no other weapons. Beyond the midpoint of the spear shaft, the weapon was nothing more than a stick.
And in moments, the men with axes and swords were upon them.
"KILL THEM!"
"GYAAAAH!"
"Spare me!"
"Mother!"
Countless soldiers tangled together as the melee erupted. What mattered most in close combat? Weapons—and next, sheer size. Daehan's soldiers were taller and stronger than these men.
And the greatest difference of all: the Han army was conscripted, while Daehan's was volunteer. Their very attitude toward battle was different.
"Run!"
"They're like demons!"
"We can't beat them!"
Daehan's soldiers, too, were falling—spitted on spears, cut down by arrows—but the Han soldiers were paralyzed with terror.
One by one, they turned and fled.
「Shff Shff Shhhff」
And from atop the walls, arrows came raining down—Daehan had evidently seized the ramparts as well.
Their command structure shattered, the Han forces resisted in scattered, chaotic bursts. But Daehan's men had their course of action decided from the very start—even without orders, each carried out his assigned task on his own initiative.
Some took the walls, some the gates, some the city streets.
Huai'an was an enormous fortress city with a vast population, and even so, the final pacification took no more than a single week.
Perhaps their loyalty ran unusually deep—even the residents joined the resistance. Countless people died.
The vast majority were Han subjects, but Daehan bled just the same.
"What should we do with the city, sir?"
"That's a difficult question..."
One side of the wall was riddled with a gaping hole, the breach itself was far too wide, and the residents were in no mood to cooperate.
"No help for it. We burn it."
"Yes sir..."
The commander ultimately resolved to raze the city entirely. If Daehan withdrew and the enemy reoccupied it, it would only become a headache later.
Han dwellings were plastered with mud and roofed with tile, but their basic frame was timber—almost everything was made of wood.
"Well, there go our fried and stir-fried meals for a while."
The soldiers prepared to set the fires, splashing the soybean oil they had brought for cooking in every direction.
And the Han people stood at a distance, staring blankly at what they were doing.
"Why are they just standing there when we told them to run?"
"Who knows... once the fire spreads, they'll scatter on their own."
Being forced to abandon their homeland was bitter enough for the residents, but Daehan's men didn't feel easy about it either. And yet they could hardly leave it be.
「FWOOOOM」
"Then light it up!"
The soldiers began setting fires from one end. Soybean oil did not catch alight right away.
But with kindling—wood shavings, straw, anything to raise the temperature—once it passed a certain threshold, the oil erupted into flame explosively.
「KRWOOOOSH~」
The blaze spreading through the city was beyond ferocious—rising currents of heat surged like dragons leaping skyward, and the smoke climbed endlessly into the heavens.
"AAAAH! Put it out! Put out the fire!"
"Water! Bring water, quickly!"
「SHWAAAAH KABOOM!」
So much oil had been poured that when the water struck the pooled oil, it triggered an explosion. Water is a poor weapon against burning oil.
"AAAAAGH!"
"Help me!"
"It's burning!"
Oil sprayed in every direction, setting bodies aflame, and the burn casualties only multiplied.
These were the very people who had refused to flee to the end, now becoming victims a second time in their desperate attempts to put out the fire.
The Daehan men consoled themselves that there had been no other way—but in the end, what they had done was a barbaric act.
"Whew... it pains my heart."
"If only the residents had cooperated, it wouldn't have come to this. There was truly no other choice, sir."
The greatest reason they had done this: they could not distinguish the enemy soldiers hiding among the residents.
Those soldiers launched nightly attacks, and the townsfolk sheltered them—so holding the city was impossible.
And Daehan had no intention of fighting a war of occupation. The only remaining option was to abandon the fortress.
「KRRRUMBLE」
In the flames, yet another section of the wall came crashing down.