Zhang Jian no longer wanted to think about his own affairs, because thinking about them was useless. The laws of war would naturally strangle all people and things that should not appear, such as Heji.
The horn sounded from the city wall. The soldiers habitually straightened the flags on the wall and adjusted their armor, preparing to welcome a new day. Trapped in a besieged city, each day felt like a year.
Zhang Jian squinted his eyes looking at the quiet enemy camp opposite. After watching for a long time, seeing a flock of birds land in the military camp to forage, he finally asked Wang Junke: “Have you sent scouts to investigate the enemy’s military situation on the opposite side?”
Wang Junke said: “No, starting yesterday the Silla people have been frantically hunting down our scouts, so I haven’t sent out any scouts since yesterday. Commander, if you need it, this subordinate will go right away.”
Zhang Jian shook his head and said: “Forget it. At this time, outside must be full of dangers. The Silla people certainly don’t want us to know they’ve already left. Our forces are insufficient to pursue them. It’s better to guard our own city well.”
“Left?” Wang Junke looked toward the enemy’s camp in disbelief. Yesterday they were still fighting fiercely, and the corpses below the city wall hadn’t been collected yet. How could they possibly have disappeared now?
“When hundreds of birds land in a camp, it means there aren’t many people in the camp. The Silla people have left. I think the Baekje people to the north should have left too?” Zhang Tai appeared like a ghost behind Zhang Jian again.
“Left?” Wang Junke gripped his horizontal blade in his hand, ready at any moment to chase and kill the enemy.
“Indeed they’ve left. Junshi spoke correctly—we don’t have the strength to pursue them. Right now, holding Pyongyang and establishing roots here is the primary task. However, this way, Niu Jinda’s pressure will be too great!”
Zhang Jian couldn’t help but look westward. Niu Jinda must have already arrived here. Queen Seondeok’s half month of fierce attacks was precisely to use the final moments to weaken the Pyongyang garrison to the maximum extent, trap Zhang Jian’s troops in the city, cut off Zhang Jian and Niu Jinda’s connection, and then personally lead her large army to confront the hastily arriving Niu Jinda from the front.
Old Niu’s army had no solid city walls to rely on, nor any treacherous terrain to utilize. Queen Seondeok believed that as long as her army charged to Niu Jinda’s front, just one round of attack would be enough to submerge Niu Jinda’s thirty thousand troops.
Besieging the city to strike at reinforcements was originally an ancient battle tactic. Queen Seondeok was well-read in history—how could she not know this principle?
Zhang Tai laughed in a sinister manner and said: “Niu Jinda doesn’t need us to rescue him. His army is different from our army, from equipment to combat methods. Actually, we’re at a great disadvantage. We left the Great Tang too early, and the brothers didn’t have time to change equipment. Let me tell you, we lost at least seventy percent of our combat power. His Majesty pitied us and only gave us five hundred explosive shells for something as good as gunpowder bombs, but in Niu Jinda’s troops, every person is equipped with five. As for gunpowder crossbows and fire oil crossbows, I heard their single-arm catapults can even launch large gunpowder bombs beyond five hundred paces. They’ve even formed a complete set of military command regulations.”
“The Great Tang’s new-style armies now emphasize eliminating the enemy on the road as they charge toward us, so large-scale battles are their favorite method of combat. Yun Ye has already successfully tested this in the Western Regions. His camel city developed the power of this tactic to the extreme. Surrounded by an army of four hundred thousand, he could remain as majestic as a mountain, impregnable, killing enemies like mowing grass. He relied purely on his formidable combat strength to force Tushi to death beneath the city walls. Once we finish changing equipment, this old man will definitely make the Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo people understand your grandfather’s might.”
Wang Junke shook his head dismissively and said: “When it comes down to it, warfare is about fighting with people’s spirit and vigor. Having sharper war blades and more solid armor is fine, but now making it into this kind of situation—where is this still called warfare?”
Zhang Jian said bitterly: “This old man doesn’t care what methods are used. Even if poisoning could kill these opponents, this old man would use it without hesitation. Junshi, more than twenty thousand death notices for fallen soldiers—that’s enough for you to write for a year.”
When Zhang Tai heard this statement, the smile on his face immediately vanished. He couldn’t even muster the interest to speak. He picked up his blanket from the ground, draped it over himself, cupped his fists toward Zhang Jian and Wang Junke, and quickly descended from the city wall.
Not only did Zhang Tai lose interest in talking, even Zhang Jian and Wang Junke lost interest in speaking. Looking up, the morning sun’s rays spread across the earth, the entire world filled with light, except for those dark corpses at the bottom of the city wall, still stubbornly displaying the darkness of the human world.
Just as Zhang Jian felt sorrowful, Niu Jinda’s bearded face was covered with a fierce smile. Excellent! This place was truly an excellent battlefield—open on all sides, flat land, most suitable for large-scale charges, especially suitable for cavalry charges. Before long, this place would be covered with corpses.
Even in the Great Tang’s most brutal days of warfare, the path of elite military forces continued unabated—weeding out the weak and keeping the strong, frantically strengthening military equipment. The fubing system was slowly fading from people’s view. The original purpose of establishing the fubing national policy was to hide soldiers among the people—common people half farmer, half soldier, farmers when at home, soldiers when deployed. This could effectively reduce the nation’s financial burden, but now it was no longer necessary. The professionalization of the military was accelerating constantly. The fanatical emperor, together with his ministers, was arming the Great Tang’s professional soldiers to the teeth.
Eliminate the enemy on the road of attack—this was the emperor’s requirement for his generals. Minimize as much as possible the physical contact between soldiers and enemies, weaken the role of famous generals, and begin to believe in absolute military force. Before absolute power, all conspiracies and schemes were laughable existences. Since the Great Tang’s military force could maintain absolute superiority, what needed to be done now was to expand this advantage to the extreme.
Niu Jinda very much wanted to make an attempt—in the absence of a solid city to rely on, could the Great Tang’s soldiers gain an advantage through weapons in field battles? He very much wanted to know.
Thirteen wire fences were pulled up. The ground was scattered with caltrops. Small holes to obstruct galloping warhorses were also densely dug along his trenches. As for the large piles of gunpowder that had already been buried, the soldiers had creatively buried gunpowder and fire oil together. The sealed earth was covered with caltrops. Once the gunpowder exploded, the power would certainly be extremely terrifying.
This was a new invention by academy students. Niu Jinda finally recognized the benefits of bringing people with good scholarship into the army. At least ordinary soldiers couldn’t think up such vicious methods.
Wire fences to slow horse speed, caltrops to scatter the enemy forces—when the enemy experienced bombardment from catapult gunpowder bombs, then received another round of dense attacks from eight-ox crossbows, and finally had to face the baptism of the soldiers’ strong crossbows and thrown gunpowder bombs, if after enduring such round after round of strikes the enemy could still charge to the front of the battle formation, then at that time there would be nothing more to say—just take up blades.
It sounded simple, but in actual operation, this sequence had strict regulations. Looking at those densely packed colorful little flags on the battlefield, Niu Jinda couldn’t help but sigh. These bastards had already turned killing into a project, a rigorous project that couldn’t be disordered in the slightest.
Complex warfare had become extremely simple. One only needed to follow one principle: don’t fight unprepared battles with the enemy. Scouts might sometimes be negligent, but the hot air balloon floating overhead wouldn’t have any errors or omissions. Under clear skies, the field of vision could extend to the limits of sight. One only needed to give the army one hour of preparation time to arrange a new killing ground.
The only trouble was supply—they needed to carry too many materials. However, in Niu Jinda’s view, this wasn’t a very serious matter. The military must be controlled by the state. Otherwise, such a large army creating chaos would cause very great trouble.
Ordinarily there wasn’t such equipment. Only during wartime would people from the Jiangluo Bureau configure all the equipment this army needed according to the army’s requirements. Especially gunpowder and fire oil were under strict control.
Under Niu Jinda’s command, there were officials from three departments supervising—one was an envoy from the Dushui Bureau, one was the Wuli Marshal, and another was an official from the Jiangluo Bureau.
The Dushui Bureau could be ignored. The Wuli Marshal was needed to appease the soldiers and exercise the authority of rewards and punishments. Officials from the Jiangluo Bureau would generally become logistics officers. Their main responsibility was to ensure that weapons transported to the military camp were completely consumed on the battlefield, rather than being sold off or secretly kept by the commander.
An urgent whistle came from the hot air balloon—two short, one long.
Seeing the young officers begin to bustle about, Niu Jinda became very happy. Very good—the enemy had already arrived ten li away. Not one of these young subordinates of his felt fear. On the contrary, from their faces he saw expressions eager for battle.
Queen Seondeok was destined to lose. Attacking a city was like cracking walnuts—if one hammer blow couldn’t open it, then just keep hammering until it opened. She couldn’t get anywhere with Zhang Jian there—could it be that this walnut of his was easier to crack?
What kind of lousy battle was this, attacking here and there? Besieging the city to strike at reinforcements, but before even figuring out whether these reinforcements could actually be consumed, planning to wipe them all out in one fell swoop, needlessly giving the exhausted Zhang Jian a chance to catch his breath. I heard such things had happened more than once. Warfare was a competition of who could endure—without any staying power at all, running onto the battlefield to embarrass oneself. Women were naturally unsuited to be commanders.
Seeing small gains, forgetting one’s life; doing great things, yet cherishing one’s body. Attacking everywhere like trying one’s luck—in the end, probably nothing would remain. In the future, she would only pick up an embroidery needle, weep while embroidering repentance pictures, and send them before His Majesty to gain sympathy, hoping he wouldn’t behead her.
Niu Jinda curled his lip. He saw the dust being raised. Starting to charge from ten li away—how foolish must someone be to make such a move? Upon arriving at the battlefield, one should preserve all the strength of one’s soldiers and warhorses for an all-out strike. Now it was good—after running ten li to the front of the battle formation, they still needed to call for surrender. The spirit and vigor just exhausted would immediately dissipate. What kind of lousy battle was this? Did this old man look like a weakling who would immediately surrender after you spoke a few harsh words?
“If the Silla people send someone over to demand surrender, kill them with the eight-ox crossbow!” Niu Jinda issued the order to the young officer beside him, then returned to the central army, planning to assess the Silla people’s combat strength.