1636- the China Venture

by Eric Flint

  All along the inside of the parapet were caches of rocks, bricks and pottery shards, which could be dropped on or thrown at the enemy. Moreover, at intervals, larger stones were held in nets which could be cut loose to knock down the attackers and smash their ladders. The defenders who didn’t have other missile weapons used these with gusto.

  However, there was a second wave of bandits, who had been lying still on the remote side of the moat. These rose, held up their bows, and pulled arrows from their quivers. As soon as the defenders showed themselves on the battlements, they fired. While the wind was against the bandit archers, at this close range, that didn’t matter much. First one defender and then another took an arrow and slumped down, dead or out of action. There were more bandits than defenders, and the bandit archers had more experience. The bandits’ missile fire forced the defenders to keep ducking back behind the wall of the parapet, and that in turn limited the defensive fire against the climbing bandits.

  At the parapet, most of the defenders set down or dropped their missile weapons and grimly grabbed spears, halberds, or long axes. A few ran away, despite the outraged protests of their more resolute companions.

  At one point, some bandits made it to the top. By then, Yizhi and his men could hear the sounds of battle and had increased their pace to a double march.

  The bandits started pushing back the defenders, widening their foothold on the battlement.

  Yizhi and his men arrived at the scene. Yizhi saw that there were bandits on one segment of the battlement, with a rapidly dwindling number of militia meleeing with them, and quickly divided his forces, leading half his men up one stairway and sending his lieutenant to the flanking stairway with the remainder.

  Yizhi and his men rushed up the stairs, reaching the top of the wall just as the bandits cut down the last of the defenders in their immediate vicinity. “Fire!” he yelled. Here, screened by a tower, they could shoot at the intruders without exposing themselves to the bandit archers still outside the walls.

  Their first volley threw the bandits in disorder.

  By now Yizhi’s lieutenant and his men were also on the battlement, but the bandits’ attention was on Yizhi. His lieutenant raised his sword and silently pointed at the bandits. Then he and his men charged.

  Seeing this, Yizhi and his men charged too. The bandits were caught in a pincer movement and panicked. Some bandits were killed by Yizhi’s men, others were trampled by their fellows, or jumped off the wall.

  With the battlement cleared of the enemy, the reinforcements brought out additional hardware specifically designed for fighting off an escalade. These were cart-borne weapons. One was the thunderstick, essentially a tree trunk sawed down to a five-foot length, and covered with spikes. Another was the wolf’s tooth, a square wooden board carrying spikes. Both weapons were dropped down, knocking multiple bandits off their ladders, and occasionally even splintering the ladders themselves. They were attached by ropes to a windlass mounted on the cart, so they could be hauled back up and reused, unless one of the attackers had the opportunity and presence of mind to sever the ropes.

  * * *

  Soon after Yizhi was sent off, Eric Garlow was awakened. Fang Kongzhao told him it was time to use some of his precious western weaponry to blunt the attack. He mounted a horse—thankfully, he’d spent enough time in the USE army to have learned that skill—and rode north.

  With the thundersticks and wolf’s teeth entering the fray, the bandits had been stymied, at least temporarily. When Eric Garlow arrived at one of the northern mamian, he fired off several rifle grenades, devastating the bandit archers who had been supporting the escalade. He then switched to bullets, targeting any bandit who seemed on the verge of reaching the parapet.

  The attack faltered and the bandits retreated. Many were killed as they tried to swim back across the moat.

  Eric leaned over the parapet to make sure that none of the bandits between the wall and the moat were still alive but feigning death. He didn’t see any survivors, but did see the limbs torn off by his rifle grenades. He felt bile rising and threw up over the wall. When he was sure that the reaction was over, he rinsed the acid taste out of his mouth and went back to the command post to report.

  Jiujiang

  Xu Xiake and the Hubers retraced their route, down the Gan River to Lake Poyang, but were not permitted to continue on to the Yangtze. At Jiujiang, they were told that Anqing was under siege by a large bandit army, and that water traffic was restricted for the moment to military traffic and escorted supply ships. No chances were being taken that some sympathizer might rendezvous with the bandits and help them cross the Yangtze.

  “What about Tongcheng?” asked Xu Xiake. “We have friends there.”

  “I have heard nothing,” said his informant. “But we heard of the fall of Luzhou.”

  “Luzhou! That is very troubling.” Xu Xiake turned to his companions and explained that Luzhou was larger than Anqing, let alone Tongcheng.

  “Well, under the circumstances, no one can complain about our staying here in Jiujiang. We might as well make the most of it.” They decided to spend their enforced stay looking at the local geology.

  Chapter 46

  Ninth Month, Day 11

  Tongcheng

  Colonel von Siegroth and Fang Kongzhao stood on the top deck of the south gatehouse tower. The colonel set down the telescope. “Someone in that bandit army has siege experience.”

  “That could be,” Kongzhao admitted. “Our military has had to retake captured towns from the northern and western barbarians, and so we do conduct sieges occasionally. Pay for soldiers is often in arrears, and some desert and become bandits. I have heard that Li Zicheng himself was once in the army.”

  Kongzhao pointed toward the area where the bandit army was working diligently. “What are they doing?”

  “They are piling up fascines just outside of the range of our archers.” Fascines were simply bundles of brushwood which could be thrown into a moat to create a crude foundation for a bridge. The next step, Fang Kongzhao acknowledged, would be to throw in filler—stones and earth, that would be held by the brushwork—or to lay long sleepers on top of the fascines.

  “Are you going to fire your cannon at them?”

  “They are too spread out. One man for one cannonball, or even three or four for one shell, is not good enough return, given their numbers. To actually take the walls, they’ll need bridges and boats, and then ladders and rams. I’ll hold fire until those appear.”

  “I will increase the number of sentries,” said Kongzhao. “And I think we best allocate more lamp oil to the wall torches, in case they try an escalade at night.”

  * * *

  Eric Garlow ran a patch through the bore of his rifle and studied it. Deciding that it was clean, and thus all powder fouling was removed from the bore, he put away his bore brush and reassembled the firearm.

  Eric Garlow had grown up in Charleston, West Virginia. He had hunted deer, first with his father and later, after he turned fifteen, with his friends. Then came the Ring of Fire, and, twenty-three years old, he joined the NUS Army. He had ridden in one of the American APCs and fought at the battles of Jena, Suhl, and Eisenach in 1631, and others in 1632, before he was recruited into Army Intelligence. He had, as the American Civil War soldiers put it, “seen the elephant.”

  While he would not have dreamed of trying to hit a foe at a thousand yards, as Julie Mackay did at the Alte Veste, he was confident that he could take down a bandit at three or even four hundred yards. At least with a scope-mounted rifle rather than open mechanical sights. He was carrying a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle, with .30-06 ammo.

  Eric was now posted again in the southeast tower. Colonel von Siegroth and Fang Kongzhao had told him his priorities. “Commanders. Then artillerymen.”

  He scanned the enemy positions looking for commanders. Unfortunately, bandit leaders didn’t wear fancy uniforms. He had to study the enemy more carefully, looking for those who appeare
d to have gotten a nicer cut of the loot, or who seemed to be giving orders to others. Still, he would do his best. But he had only so much .30-06 ammo, and when he used it up, his rifle would be just a poorly balanced club. Or at best a spear, if he attached a bayonet to it. So he wasn’t going to take questionable shots.

  * * *

  Eric was dreaming of eating burgers and fries at a restaurant in Morgantown that he used to go to with Tom and Rita Simpson. They were trying to have a conversation, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying, because a band was marching down the street. Rank after rank of trumpeters and drummers, seeming without end.

  Suddenly, he was shaken awake by one of the militiamen. “You are a sound sleeper; didn’t you hear the trumpets and drums?”

  Eric blinked his eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “Night attack. The bandits are dumping fascines into the moat, south side. It’s time to shoot your fancy gun.”

  Eric grabbed his rifle and ran up the staircase to the parapet. It was a target-rich environment, and the bandits were at close range. They were necessarily at the far side of the moat, and the near side was only fifty yards from the wall. Still, Eric had to conserve ammo. Most of the bandits wore peasant dress—trousers and a long blouse, with a simple cap—so Eric concentrated, as Fang Yizhi had advised him, on those who seemed to be wearing plumed officer helmets or black double-winged mandarin hats.

  Eric’s companions weren’t worried about conserving ammunition; they were firing as fast as they could. Mostly bows and crossbows, but there were a couple of ancient Portuguese arquebuses.

  * * *

  A few minutes after the engagement commenced, Mike Song and Liu Rushi came up, Mike helping Liu Rushi negotiate the stairs more quickly than she could without assistance. Once they were up on the parapet, Liu Rushi pulled an arrow from her quiver, and set it. She drew and fired.

  Mike Song was from Taiwan, where it was illegal for a civilian to own a firearm. He’d left Taiwan when he was too young to serve in the military, and, after the Ring of Fire, he worked as an engineering drafting trainee, rather than joining the NUS Army. His gun-handling experience was limited, so he was carrying a ten-gauge pump-action shotgun intended for close combat. A gunsmith had modified it to include a bayonet lug, and he had a knife bayonet that would fit it quite nicely. He fervently hoped that he would never need to use it.

  For this encounter, he loaded the shotgun magazine with slugs. The far side of the moat was a bit far for shooting buckshot, even allowing for the range boost from being on top of the wall. He fired, then smiled at Liu Rushi, who was taking aim again.

  “This has got to be the strangest date I’ve ever been on,” Mike mused.

  Liu Rushi smiled back at him. “For me, as well—at least, if I’m interpreting the word ‘date’ properly.”

  * * *

  The night attack was repulsed without the enemy making much headway toward bridging the moat.

  Ninth Month, Day 12

  So far, the day had been quiet. The enemy, apparently, was licking its wounds.

  Colonel von Siegroth approached the stairs leading up to the north gatehouse. He smiled when a voice called out a challenge; the sentries were doing their job. He answered with the appropriate phrase, and the sentry said, “Pass, Colonel.”

  On the second floor, the four men assigned to the three-pounder stationed above them were at dinner. It was evening, and another night attack was unlikely. Still, there were watchers posted, and they could run upstairs quickly enough.

  “Sven.”

  The gun captain, one of the two gunners he had brought with him from Gustav’s army, looked up. “Sir.”

  “Walk with me.” After they’d taken a few paces, von Siegroth asked: “Your second, is he ready for promotion?”

  “Yes, sir. When we started, he was as dumb as a bundle of straw, for all his book learning, but now he knows the breech from the muzzle.”

  “Well, I want him to step up to take over your position here because I need you to train a volley-gun crew. We need to be prepared for a breach. These militiamen may lose heart once the enemy climbs over or batters down a wall.”

  “As you wish. May I take one of the others with me, so I have a man I don’t have to train from scratch?”

  “That’s not a problem.” The normal crew for a regimental three-pounder in the Swedish army was just a konstapel and a hantlangare, but here in Tongcheng it was twice as many because Colonel von Siegroth had so few trained men relative to the number of pieces. “Let’s go tell them, then.”

  “Attention!” Sven barked.

  The three Chinese rose hastily to their feet, one still chewing furiously.

  “Yao Defu, your merit has been recognized,” said Colonel von Siegroth. “You are promoted to konstapel.” The colonel reached into the small shoulder pack he was carrying. “You are authorized to wear a green sash,” he added, handing the article to Yao Defu.

  Yao Defu bowed. “I will repay your trust in me.”

  “Sven is taking command of a volley-gun unit.” The colonel gave Sven a look.

  “‘Sweet Melon, you’re coming with me,” said Sven.

  The colonel shook his head. It was sometimes better not to know the meaning of a Chinese nickname. “Let’s head out, then.”

  Ninth Month, Day 13

  “Damn it!” said Eric. In his scope, looking south, what the bandit army was doing was all too clear. They had taken captives—he could see women and children as well as men—and were forcing them ahead, carrying more fascines for bridging the moat.

  It wasn’t probable they had planned this from the beginning. Most likely, the prisoners had been taken to ransom back to relatives, or to sell as slaves in the northwest or across the border. But the bandit leader had responded in a logical if cold-blooded manner to Tongcheng’s defeat of the first wave of bandits.

  Grimly, he tried to pick off the bandits herding the captives forward, but he rarely got a clear shot.

  Ninth Month, Day 14

  “How far have the bandits gotten with their attempt to fill in the moat?” the colonel asked.

  “In the south, perhaps halfway across in places,” Yizhi reported. “In the north, a quarter at best. They have made no attempt in the east or west.” He paused. “It seems a great deal of trouble to go to, considering that they could swim across. Especially if each carried a wood plank into the water, to buoy himself up.”

  “It would be difficult to get ladders, let alone rams, across the moat without a bridge or boats,” his father told him. “And their goal is to get into the city, not merely across the moat.”

  Once again, the bandits forced captives forward. This time, they weren’t carrying anything, and so Tongcheng’s defenders held their fire.

  “What are they up, too?” wondered Eric.

  “They’re shouting slogans,” said one of the sentries standing next to him.

  It was hard for Eric to figure out what they were shouting since they were speaking in the local dialect, and the acoustics were less than optimal. But eventually he understood.

  “Welcome the Dashing King and Do Not Pay Taxes! Equalize Land! Equal Buying, Equal Selling! Three Years Remission of Taxes!”

  Eric couldn’t help but look at the militiamen nearby, and try to judge whether this brazen appeal was affecting his allies. No one clapped, or even smiled, but who knew what they were really thinking?

  The captives were marched all the way around the city, shouting as they went, before they were ushered back to the bandit camp.

  The peculiar incident was the subject of much discussion at the officers’ mess that night.

  “They hope to instigate another uprising,” said Sun Lin.

  “You are a master of pointing out the obvious,” said Yizhi. “But there is no cause for worry, since my father rooted out all the discontents in town. They were all executed or exiled.”

  Not for the first time, Mike was struck by the disparity between up-time American attitudes
on proper government and those of imperial Chinese officials. They were a civilized folk, certainly—even highly cultured—but given to sometimes breathtakingly ruthless pragmatism.

  But it would have been pointless to make any criticism. So all Mike asked was: “Are the bandits often this politically sophisticated?”

  “Now, that’s a good question,” said Yizhi. “I wonder whether any of the literati have attached themselves to the leaders.”

  “An even better question is, should we be shouting any slogans ourselves?” said Eric.

  “You mean, like, ‘fifty taels for every rebel head!’” asked Sun Lin.

  “Too much!” said Zhou Qi. “For fifty taels, someone might cut off your head, and say it was a rebel’s!”

  “More to the point, I am not sure we can get anyone to offer that much. Not after all the contributions our families had to make to put the town defenses in order.”

  “I think we better increase the number of sentries at the gates,” said Fang Kongzhao. “And perhaps come up with some slogans of our own.”

  “How about ‘all for one and one for all’?” asked Mike Song.

  “Too abstract. How about ‘Remember Luzhou!’” Eric Garlow suggested.

  “Yes, that’s the sort of thing I have in mind,” Kongzhao acknowledged.

  “Of course, the best thing we can do is deal the bandits a decisive defeat, isn’t it?” asked Colonel von Siegroth.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Eric. “I think we can set the moat on fire. When they try an escalade, catch the bandits between the wall and the moat.”

  Von Siegroth shook his head. “I realize that the boards and the fascines beneath them are flammable, but they have been immersed in water. How can they burn?”