By Li Chi’s reckoning, he had been leading his army in Shu for nearly two years, and had spent more than a year and a half outside Mei City alone — the greater part of that time devoted to wearing down the Meishan garrison camp.
The first great benefit of this approach was a drastic reduction in his own soldiers’ casualties. The second was the effect it had on the morale of the enemy inside the city.
At the very least, it showed the enemy that the Ning army had absolutely no concerns about its supply of grain and provisions.
With logistical support this formidable, the Ning army could besiege Meishan for a year and a half — and could grind Mei City down just as patiently.
After Guan Zaixing’s death in battle, the mood inside the city shifted almost immediately into a kind of dread. The hope that had been built on one man’s courage was like a glittering bubble — it popped, and was gone.
All this time, the Ning army had been making preparations for the assault. To take Mei City while minimizing casualties, trebuchets were an indispensable weapon.
The few days during which Guan Zaixing had been issuing his challenges were, in fact, the reason the Ning army had not yet attacked — they had been waiting for the trebuchets to arrive.
Trebuchets are massive things, and the roads in Shu were not easy to travel, so the rate at which they could be transported was far slower than the pace of an army on the march. More than two hundred thousand Ning soldiers had long since set up camp outside Mei City, while the convoy carrying the trebuchets was still somewhere on the road.
Even from the relatively short distance of the Meishan garrison camp to Mei City, the journey had already taken over ten days — making barely ten-odd li per day. This was partly because of the sheer number of trebuchets the Ning army had brought for this Shu campaign, and partly because among them were some truly monstrous machines of a size that beggared belief.
Against a besieged city, a giant trebuchet was nothing less than a ground-leveling beast.
Shu’s official roads were somewhat narrower than those elsewhere in the realm, and much of the terrain was mountain paths — making the transport of such large equipment genuinely grueling.
On the level plains of the Central Plains — in Ji Province, Yu Province, or places like the capital province and Yue Province — the Ning army could use enormous carts pulled by dozens of draft horses to haul trebuchets. In Shu, carts like that simply could not move through the terrain. In some places where the roads narrowed, the only option was to use rolling logs to push the machines through inch by inch.
This was, in part, Li Chi’s own fault — for his insistence on bigger. Always bigger. As big as possible.
Ever since his first engagement with Han Feibao, when Li Chi discovered that Han Feibao’s trebuchets were larger than his own, he had been deeply annoyed. The consequence of that annoyance was his standing order to build them larger — as large as could be managed, and no smaller than Han Feibao’s.
Half a month after Li Chi’s forces had set up camp outside Mei City, the supply column finally managed to get the massive quantity of siege equipment through.
But it wasn’t only trebuchets.
Li Chi’s demands for bigness extended to every piece of siege equipment — not just the trebuchets.
Battering rams, siege towers — all of these enormous engineering machines were even harder to move than the trebuchets.
Once they had arrived outside the city, the support troops had barely a moment to rest before they began erecting the trebuchets and other equipment at appropriate distances from the walls.
Standing on the Mei City battlements, the Shu army soldiers watched one colossal monstrosity after another rise up from the earth, and the feeling this gave them, it is safe to say, was not pleasant.
To see it — to be unable to stop it — and to be able to imagine clearly the damage these machines would inflict upon them.
How could that feel anything but dreadful?
Li Chi and Xiahou Zhuo stood among the support troops, watching the preparations, and the mood in the camp lightened considerably.
One advantage Shu’s difficult terrain offered: stone was everywhere. There was no need to transport it from far away.
Mei City had been built against the contours of the mountains, and the Ning army could simply collect stones from the surrounding hillsides.
So for the assault, everything was now in place — the equipment vast in scale and overwhelming in quantity.
“You take command,” Li Chi said, turning to Xiahou Zhuo.
Xiahou Zhuo laughed. Li Chi’s habit of handing things off and stepping back was one he carried with him no matter where he went.
Xiahou Zhuo nodded. “Alright.”
Just then, a rider came galloping in at full speed with urgent dispatches — travel-worn and clearly arrived from a great distance.
Li Chi took the letter and read it, and the corners of his mouth curved upward.
He handed it to Xiahou Zhuo. “Military report from Shen Shanu.”
Xiahou Zhuo read it, and his own mouth curved.
After more than a month of bitter fighting, Shen Shanu’s forces had finally broken through the mountain pass held by the Shu army.
She and Tang Ancheng’s forces had linked up, but Shu army general Tan Mingcheng had led his remaining tens of thousands of troops in a retreat to Xiao’gu Mountain.
The terrain of Xiao’gu Mountain was equally difficult to attack, so Shen Shanu had decided to leave fifty thousand troops to seal off all routes out of the mountain, while she led the rest to continue pressing northwest.
Tang Ancheng, upon receiving Li Chi’s orders, had begun the march back to Yong Province, where he was to join Grand General Dantai Qi in applying pressure to the Western Regions.
Whether more roads could be built, and how many, depended on how much in “sponsorship funds” could be extracted from the Western Regions.
Honestly speaking, the difficulty of roads in Shu had genuinely frustrated Li Chi throughout this campaign, and it made him think further ahead.
Shu was the last region to be conquered. Places like Ji Province and Yu Province had long been at peace, their people already living well. To stabilize Shu quickly and give its people a strong sense of belonging to the new Ning dynasty, improving the mountain roads was something that simply had to be done.
Tang Ancheng and Dantai Qi together ought to be enough to make the Western Regions tremble three times over.
But Li Chi felt it still might not be quite enough — for it was not just Shu’s roads that needed building, but also the Western Frontier Highway and the Northern Frontier Highway.
So after thinking it through, Li Chi had a follow-up letter sent to Tang Ancheng and Dantai Qi.
The message: if the Western Regions prove uncooperative, wipe out one or two small kingdoms as a demonstration.
If one or two are not enough to inspire sufficient fear, wipe out a few more.
And if the wealth from those conquests turns out to exceed what intimidation alone would bring — then wipe out several more.
For Grand General Dantai Qi, there was only one word for this kind of thing: satisfying.
In the past, the Western Regions had feared him — but limited manpower in Liang Province had always kept him to deterrence. Liang Province’s forces were never quite plentiful enough for the full stretch of the western frontier; he was always covering the front while leaving the back exposed.
Now, with troops in abundance, provisions plentiful, and the Prince of Ning’s backing — Dantai Qi had never had it so easy in all his decades guarding the Western Frontier.
Li Chi finished reading the report and let out a long, slow breath.
“Now we can settle things properly with Pei Qi.”
He looked toward Mei City, and something cold flickered in his gaze, there and gone in an instant.
Pei Qi was not the chief culprit behind the chaos that had swept the Central Plains — that distinction belonged to the already-destroyed Chu. But Pei Qi was unquestionably the single greatest instigator.
After dealing with Pei Qi, though pockets of unrest still lingered across the realm — scattered minor rebel forces here and there — the great outcome was already determined.
After dealing with Pei Qi, Li Chi could go and see the city of Chang’an — the one he had championed and pushed to build for years now, the city he had dreamed of so long.
After dealing with Pei Qi, Li Chi could return first to Ji Province, to the small courtyard he had bought for his teacher, and there, in the most solemn and proper ceremony, marry the girl he loved most.
Ji Province. The place where it all began.
Li Chi let out another slow breath, then patted Xiahou Zhuo on the shoulder. “Bombard Pei Qi until he chokes.”
“Understood.”
Xiahou Zhuo grinned. He knew exactly what Li Chi meant.
This was the last fierce battle in the Central Plains, and the Ning army at this moment was at the height of its power. Of course it had to be fought with crushing, overwhelming force.
Only by absolute, total dominance could the people of Shu understand whose realm this was.
“Bombard for half a month first,” Xiahou Zhuo laughed. “Even if the city walls come down, don’t send in the troops. Not until the full half month is up.”
So it was that Mei City’s misfortune was sealed.
Three days after the support column had arrived, everything was ready. At Xiahou Zhuo’s command, the horns of Great Ning sounded, and at least one hundred and fifty trebuchets opened their roaring assault on Mei City.
Bombard — day and night, without pause. Regardless of cost.
Meanwhile, young Taoist Zhang and Peng Shiqī, acting on Li Chi’s orders, had already been gone from Mei City for over ten days.
The two of them had mapped out a route — carefully planned.
This route would pass through many of the great cities of the Central Plains. As they traveled, they were to spread word that Chang’an was the finest piece of geomantic fortune in all the realm.
Their other mission: through this journey and this proclamation, let every region know that the Prince of Ning’s chosen imperial capital was Chang’an.
“I don’t care for that kind of spectacle, personally,” said Peng Shiqī, sitting in the carriage and dangling his legs over the side, a look of anticipation on his face. “But the people we’re trying to swindle love it.”
Young Taoist Zhang said, “What kind of spectacle do you have in mind?”
“You represent Dragon Tiger Mountain,” said Peng Shiqī, “and I represent Zhongnan Mountain. We need people to look at us and know at once that we are the genuine article.”
“Specifically?” said Young Taoist Zhang.
“I’ve been thinking about what hook to use to make sure people along the way all hear about the capital being established in Chang’an. No matter how I think about it, we can only do it through spectacle.”
“Enough with the suspense,” said Young Taoist Zhang. “Just say it.”
“I’ve decided,” said Peng Shiqī, “that we should give ourselves a title. You can be the Southern Dao Master, appointed by the Prince of Ning…”
Young Taoist Zhang blinked. “You’re a female Taoist?”
Peng Shiqī shot him a sideways glance. “I’ll be the Northern Dao Master. The two of us together — officially designated by the Prince of Ning as the finest representatives of the Dao traditions of the North and the South.”
Young Taoist Zhang considered this in silence. “That part is actually true.”
Peng Shiqī shot him another glance and continued. “We go all the way along the route making a grand spectacle of ourselves, proclaiming that we have been sent by the Prince of Ning to perform the consecration ceremony at Chang’an.”
Young Taoist Zhang said, “That might be a bit much… I worry the two of us don’t have the presence to carry it off.”
Peng Shiqī said, “Then say we’re going on the Prince of Ning’s behalf to inspect the site — whatever we say, the point is that we two represent the Prince of Ning on this trip to Chang’an, to make preparations for the enthronement ceremony.”
Young Taoist Zhang said, “In that case, from here all the way to Chang’an, the people lining up to flatter and curry favor with us will stretch ten li long.”
Peng Shiqī said, “Our lord is short of money right now. If the two of us can pull this off and squeeze out enough to fund a Western Frontier Highway — wouldn’t that be earning merit for all those who sponsored it?”
Young Taoist Zhang nodded slowly. “This is the first time I’ve ever thought you were reliable.”
“That says more about you than about me,” said Peng Shiqī. “I’m Shiqī — seventeen. You’re seven. How could I be less reliable than you?”
Young Taoist Zhang spat in disgust, then started calculating.
All the way along the route going back, one was the Southern Dao Master, the other the Northern Dao Master — between the two of them, surely they could con eight hundred or a thousand wealthy marks.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to hold up. He was feeling very pleased with himself.
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