Chapter 01: Guo Ping’s Day
The great fire in Kucha City had never been extinguished since the first day the Turkic allied forces arrived.
Guo Ping shot the last crossbow bolt from his hand, then rushed to the parapet, using a pitchfork to forcefully push down the enemy’s ladder. Without even a chance to catch his breath, he picked up his shield and positioned it at this gap. The clanging sounds immediately rang out incessantly from above. Squatting with his back against the shield, he pulled out a rice ball from his bosom and stuffed it into his mouth. From morning until afternoon, he hadn’t eaten a single thing, and this rice ball had already gone sour.
The sky was filled with large stones—these were the Turkic catapults. Ever since the eight-ox crossbows on the city walls had exhausted their bolts, these devices could approach the city walls. The Turkic catapults weren’t large, and the stones they hurled weren’t big either—just about the size of a human head—but there were many of them. There was no way to dodge them. Kucha’s city walls weren’t like the walls inside the Pass that had soldier-hiding caves; here, the walls were just earthen barriers two zhang high.
Whether one would be struck by stones depended on luck. Shitou’s luck was bad—he was hit by two stones in succession. His ribs were already exposed, and half his head had disappeared as well. Only his hands and feet could still twitch unconsciously a few times.
Of all names, why did he have to be called Shitou!
Guo Ping’s luck was good—the closest stone to him was a full zhang away. When the stone rain stopped, a horn sounded outside the city—three short blasts and one long—this was the Turks’ retreat signal. Guo Ping straightened his curled legs and turned his head to look through the gap in his shield at the Turks receding like a tide.
He looked at the barbarians fallen on the city walls and noticed they were wearing white robes. These weren’t Turks, but must be people from the Zhaowu Nine Surnames. At first, he still had the mind to cut off heads or ears to claim military merit, but as time went on, no one was interested in doing this anymore. At this moment, being able to drink a mouthful of clean water or eat a bowl of noodles would be the greatest enjoyment.
The captain’s shouts rang out from the city walls: “First squad assemble! Second squad assemble! Third squad assemble! Count off! If your mouth is injured and you can’t speak, have someone beside you count for you.”
Guo Ping perked up his ears to listen. The three hundred-man squads fell silent when the count reached sixty-one. Yesterday there were still one hundred and seventy-three men; today they had suffered casualties of exactly one hundred and twelve men.
Life and death are ordinary matters! Guo Ping very much wanted to say this phrase. When he first entered the military, the veteran soldiers said exactly this. At the time, the veteran didn’t speak with passionate fervor, but said it very flatly, just as plainly as saying “I’ve already eaten.”
Shitou’s corpse was dragged away by auxiliary soldiers. His armor was removed, and an auxiliary soldier put Shitou’s armor on himself, casually taking Shitou’s horizontal blade and spear, then sat down beside Guo Ping.
The auxiliary soldier pulled out a fist-sized raw watermelon from his leather bag and handed it to Guo Ping with a smile, saying: “When I was requisitioning those barbarians’ residences in the city, I found watermelons in a garden. They’re just not ripe yet and have white streaks, but eat some anyway.”
Guo Ping knew this was the new soldier’s way of showing goodwill. Yesterday, Shitou had promised that after returning to Sanyuan, he would take him to the Wei River bank to secretly watch women bathing—those women’s pale white bodies were extremely beautiful to look at.
The watermelon was bland and tasteless, the flesh like tattered cotton wadding, but fortunately the rind had plenty of moisture—good enough to moisten one’s throat.
The auxiliary soldier then sneakily slipped Guo Ping a complete base quantity of crossbow bolts. When he felt them, he discovered the oil hadn’t been cleaned off yet—twenty-four short bolts one chi and six fen long, not a single one missing.
“Where did you get these? Aren’t these things already under rationed supply?”
“I’m working in logistics. My brother-in-law got me this position. Now my brother-in-law has been transferred by the general to the north of the city. I don’t know how he’s doing. These crossbow bolts were what he left for me. I can’t use crossbow bolts, so it’s better to give them to you.”
Guo Ping nodded and lowered his head, tearing off a piece of hemp cloth to begin wiping the oil from these crossbow bolts. He had just made an oath that he would never again ask the names of newly arrived soldiers—ask about one, and one dies. It was inauspicious.
The stars came out. The Turks in the distance hadn’t left. Looking at the scattered campfires outside the city that seemed to extend all the way to the horizon, who knew exactly how many enemies were there. The first to attack were the Tuyuhun people. These people were easy to deal with—as long as you killed the leading general, they would scatter.
Next came the Xueyantuo people. Their bodies were all very strong. They charged up bare-chested, their chests covered entirely with thick black hair. These fellows’ necks were very thick—even sharp horizontal blades couldn’t sever their heads in one stroke and might instead get stuck in the blade. His own squad leader had died this way. He was a very formidable veteran, but with just this one pause, he was killed by a Xueyantuo soldier’s flail that shattered his skull. Guo Ping believed the best weapon for killing these fellows was the throwing spear. With their thick bodies making large targets, the spearheads over a chi long could easily pierce through their bodies, even if they wore leather armor.
The curved blades of the Zhaowu Nine Surnames were formidable. More than half of today’s casualties were from curved blades, with wounds at joints and throats that armor couldn’t protect. The best way to deal with them was to use short crossbows like these. If the short arrows were poisoned, that would be best, but the commander didn’t allow his subordinates to use poison—unlike those people in Beiting who could use poisoned arrows. Even if these short crossbow bolts were lost, it didn’t matter. The barbarians didn’t have such things anyway. The crossbow bolts were a full chi shorter than the arrows used in their cavalry bows. So what if they got them? Were they going to throw them by hand?
Today’s food supply was still only rice gruel. Guo Ping understood the general’s difficulties. Reinforcements from Beiting would take at least a month to arrive, perhaps even longer. Everyone needed to conserve food to last through this month or more.
He’d heard that Commander Yun from Beiting and Commander Guo didn’t get along. They each found the other disagreeable. Commander Guo thought Commander Yun was a timid young man, while Commander Yun said Commander Guo was an old bull who only knew how to charge forward. In anger, Commander Guo submitted a complaint directly to His Majesty, and as a result, Commander Guo broke free from Commander Yun’s command. The Anxi Army had always existed independently; no one had heard of it being under anyone’s command. This was gossip the captain mentioned during meetings, which Guo Ping, as the new squad leader, had heard.
Following Commander Guo, there was no reason to speak for Commander Yun, even though Commander Yun’s noble rank was higher than Commander Guo’s, even though Commander Guo had led everyone into an encirclement by the enemy’s large army—no one complained. The commander had also begun patrolling the city walls these past few days, encouraging everyone to hold on a bit longer. The Beiting Army would come through, and then everyone would unite together to slaughter all these barbarians.
Strangely enough, everyone knew that Commander Guo had already fallen out with Commander Yun, yet not a single person doubted that Commander Yun would deliberately fail to come to their rescue. Even the army cooks wouldn’t think this way. Everyone would only count on their fingers to calculate where Commander Yun had gotten to. After all, from Gaochang to Kucha was a full sixteen hundred li, with a desert in between.
“Endure another thirty-six days, and Commander Yun’s great army will arrive. Then we’ll leave the city and kill to our hearts’ content!” Guo Ping suddenly turned his head and said happily to the new soldier dozing beside him.
In the morning there was another meal of thin gruel, but each person would get two more rice balls—otherwise, two meals of thin gruel a day would cause even strong men to collapse from hunger. Guo Ping quickly finished the thin gruel, ate one rice ball, and wrapped the other one carefully to tuck into his bosom. This was his lunch. Once the Turks began attacking the city, his group wouldn’t have lunch to eat. He had already been fighting on the city walls for seven days. If he persisted three more days, he would be rotated out. So no matter what, he had to endure these three days.
The auxiliary soldiers had labored all night. The damaged gaps were already blocked with wire mesh, and behind the mesh were piled countless sharpened beams—clearly pulled down from people’s houses.
Guo Ping received a new order: he needed to lead his hundred-man squad to focus on defending the corner of the city wall. This position was terrible. Because of the corner’s angle, the entire squad was deployed at the very front, also the most dangerous place. This meant using his one squad as two squads.
Guo Ping was just about to open his mouth to say he only had seventy-one men left and couldn’t bear such a heavy responsibility, but seeing the captain’s bloodshot eyes, he couldn’t say a word.
The captain drew five crossbow bolts from his own quiver and placed them in Guo Ping’s hand, saying: “Stay alive and hold your position, damn it!” After speaking, he left. The captain was from a prominent family. His father seemed to be either a viscount or a baron? Guo Ping couldn’t distinguish which of these two noble ranks was higher. He only knew that once when the captain got drunk and boasted, he said that even the commander had to bow and greet his father as “Master Tingdu.” He didn’t know if it was true or not.
This damned Western Region became scorching hot from the moment the sun rose. The corpses at the base of the city walls had fermented through the night and already reeked to high heaven. To avoid contracting corpse poison, Guo Ping needed to wear a pig snout mask. Only by wearing the pig snout could the pungent stench be reduced somewhat. Some barbarian corpses had bellies swollen extremely large, bursting their leather armor open by sheer force. Guo Ping turned his head, not wanting to see that sight.
Because that belly was about to burst open. Sure enough, after a tremendous bang, colorful internal organs flew everywhere. Whenever this happened, swarms of flies would buzz up in a cloud, nearly blocking Guo Ping’s reconnaissance line of sight.
Yesterday the commander used arrows to shoot out documents informing the other side they could collect their own people’s corpses, and the city walls would not release arrows during this time. This was a common method between two warring armies. Once plague arose, it would be bad for both armies. But the Turks seemed to have no reaction—they had no intention at all of collecting their own people.
“Damn it, after the battle’s over, I’ll probably have to soak in perfume to get rid of the stench on my body!”
The Turks slowly pushed their catapults over from the distance. Behind them were large groups of soldiers marching on foot. Guo Ping counted—a full ten thousand men, double yesterday’s five thousand. It looked like today would be a hard day.
“Prepare to find cover. Don’t expose your bodies outside. The parapets can’t be relied on. Once the catapults begin their bombardment, press your bodies tightly against the base of the walls. Don’t run. As soon as the stone throwing ends, you must quickly stand up and fight! Did you hear?”
“Yes!”