The time actually left for the Liang forces was quite limited. On one hand, the Dragon Sparrow Army’s Fourth Battalion was advancing step by step toward this location. On the other hand, the Xiangzhou forces on the southern bank had also begun to have several hundred soldiers emerge from their fortified camp and assemble on the riverbank, preparing to board boats and cross the river to provide aid.
The Liang forces noticed that the city had ample stores of tung oil, and dispersing around the city to swarm up the walls was unfavorable to them. They quickly all shifted to outside the southern gate.
Over ten cavalrymen of exceptional skill and daring drew their swords and stabbed their horses, driving their mounts into a frenzy. Then they rode the horses in a direct charge toward the seemingly fragile city gate. At the instant before impact with the gate, these cavalrymen leaped down from their horses and rapidly retreated, withdrawing under the protection of the large shields of other dismounted infantry fighters. Even with Zhao Wuji’s quick hands and feet, he only had time to shoot two of them dead.
At this time, Canglang City could only be considered a rammed earth stockade. The city gates were made of thick wood without iron or copper plating. After being successively rammed by over ten crazed warhorses, the gate pivots broke and collapsed at an angle. However, the gate passage, five to six chi deep, was filled with sand and stone, so in the short term there was no fear that the Liang forces could dig through this sand and stone to attack through the gate passage.
What was truly difficult was that the Liang forces fought with exceptional ferocity. After mentally preparing themselves, despite the cold weather, they still used river water to thoroughly soak their clothing and armor, then used large shields to cover their heads and faces while concentrating their assault from the southern gate…
The Liang forces hadn’t prepared too many scaling ladders in their haste. Fearing the burning tung oil, they eventually piled horse corpses mixed with mud near the southern gate of Canglang City, forming a simple ramp so they could directly assault the wall top without needing to climb ladders.
This was mainly because Canglang City’s protective wall was too short. Not counting the outer ring of drainage ditches, it was only eight chi high. Over twenty horse corpses piled at the wall base, combined with thousands of bags of earth transported in military supply sacks and dumped there, formed a sloped path six to seven bu wide and twelve to thirteen bu long. It almost reached the wall top, and at this point the Liang forces could even directly ride horses up to the wall top.
From inside the city, they threw down short logs requiring one person to embrace, over a zhang long, studded with iron caltrops, letting them tumble down the slope. Entire barrels of tung oil were thrown without regard for cost into the sea of flames near the slope to fuel the fire and suppress the Liang forces’ charge.
One hundred sixty to seventy robust laborers actively participated in battle. Especially since the leaders from each stronghold had mostly stepped forward, Han Qian’s manpower appeared much more abundant. Looking at the Liang forces outside the city, Han Qian also secretly sneered, thinking these Liang soldiers perhaps assumed only forty to fifty elite scouts from the Left Bureau were defending inside the city, but they didn’t have a deep understanding of the situation of the hundred-plus large and small strongholds along both banks of the Han River and Dan River. Or perhaps they didn’t have sufficient knowledge of what he had been doing at the old city of Jun County during this time!
Han Qian drove the remaining laborers into the residences in the middle of the city, having them defend themselves with shields and spears. Seeing the Liang forces’ assault was too fierce, he even had the rooftop directly facing the slope vacated, directing Tian Cheng to organize forces from both flanks to strike at Liang soldiers who broke through the protective wall.
This battle continued until the sun rose above the treetops. The several hundred soldiers from the Xiangzhou forces on the southern bank advanced on three warships, and the Liang forces, leaving behind over a hundred corpses, were forced to bypass Canglang City and retreat northward along the remnant path between the western side of Black Dragon Mountain and the Dan River.
At this time, the Liang forces’ assault on Iron Crocodile Ridge to the north had only just begun.
Han Qian was currently powerless to reinforce Iron Crocodile Ridge. The two battalions of elite troops that Li Zhigao had transferred from Jingzi Pass should also be arriving at Iron Crocodile Ridge soon.
Regarding the Xiangzhou forces reinforcing from the southern bank, he only said the city was in complete disarray and unable to receive them inside, sending people to deliver over a hundred jin of meat and wine as a token of appreciation.
Ten elite scouts died in battle, twenty slave soldiers died in battle, and over thirty laborers also died in battle, with over a hundred wounded. This battle had essentially crippled half of the Left Bureau’s meager resources.
What pained Han Qian even more were the losses from the battle and the post-war compensation.
The newly built small city of Canglang had been reduced to this state. It would take at least eight to ten days of cleaning up before it could be restored to its original appearance.
Compensation for the slave soldiers was straightforward—those who died in battle and had family and descendants, as well as those who fought bravely and were wounded, would naturally have their slave status and that of their family members removed.
The Left Bureau scouts held official military registers in the Dragon Sparrow Army and would be rewarded according to military merit. Even the Liang army heads captured this time could be credited to them. Distributing two to three heads per person could essentially resolve the matter of low-level merit officer status for a large batch of elite scouts.
For the laborers who died in battle, those who fought bravely and were wounded, and to fulfill his pre-battle promises, Han Qian would need to give out nearly four hundred ingots of gold as rewards.
Han Qian secretly felt that if they fought another battle this brutal, the Left Bureau would go directly bankrupt. However, he couldn’t concern himself with these matters at the moment.
Besides the military merit rewards that couldn’t yet be confirmed, the greatest gains were stripping over a hundred sets of tattered armor from the Liang army’s dead soldiers and pushing out over thirty horse corpses from the earth pile, from which they could harvest five to six thousand jin of horse meat.
The Fourth Battalion’s fifteen hundred soldiers hurriedly passed by Canglang City by boat before noon. Arriving at Canglang City almost simultaneously with the Fourth Battalion soldiers were Yang Qin and Feng Xuan, who had set out from Xuzhou and were again heading north with the Four Surnames fleet and Xuzhou boat gangs.
However, this fleet was twice as large as the previous two times. Besides Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, Feng Zhang, Gao Bao and others from the boat gangs and Four Surnames fleet escort forces, Zhao Kuo had also led over five hundred men to reach Canglang City.
Honestly speaking, seeing Zhao Kuo bring so many people off the boats from the riverbank, Tian Cheng, Xi Ren, Zhao Wuji and others were all startled. They hadn’t imagined at all that Yang Qin and Zhao Kuo could bring so many people from Xuzhou: “How are there so many people? Where did you get enough money and grain to have Yang Qin redeem so many stronghold slaves?”
When Han Qian saw Zhao Kuo jump off the boat, his mind eased, knowing in his heart that the letter he had previously asked Yang Qin to deliver to his father had successfully persuaded his father.
Facing Tian Cheng and the others’ astonishment, Han Qian only smiled without speaking.
To resist the Liang forces’ offensive this time, the court mainly conscripted troops and grain from the twelve provinces of Jiang, Huang, E, Ying, Sui, Jing, Tan and others to reinforce the northwestern defense line at Deng and Xiang. The southwestern border provinces of Chen, Xu, Shao, Heng and others were not within the scope of this conscription.
However, this didn’t mean that provinces and counties like Chen and Xu couldn’t actively support the northern front battle.
In fact, although provinces and counties like Hui and Gan were also not within the scope of this conscription, these places had been completely incorporated into Great Chu’s territory. Provincial and county officials were all appointed by Jinling, and more or less, in the form of donations and tributes, in addition to normal taxation, they also allocated an extra portion of money and grain to transport to the front lines to support the war effort.
The money and grain under Han Daoxun’s control in Xuzhou was quite limited, but Han Qian wrote to his father requesting that all the convicts within Xuzhou’s provincial prison be transferred to Xiangzhou, in the form of convict soldiers to reinforce the northwestern battle. This was also a form of support.
This time, Zhao Kuo was escorting five hundred Xuzhou convicts to Xiangzhou to hand over to Han Qian.
For these convicts, being incorporated into convict soldier units would reduce their sentences by one degree. Afterward, based on military merit and service period, they would still have opportunities for sentence reduction or even rewards.
It wasn’t particularly coincidental that among the five hundred Xuzhou convicts, over thirty were Xi clan members—all sent to prison for talking back to or injuring former masters, or robbing former masters’ property. In short, various kinds of restlessness.
Han Qian had previously wanted to secretly bring these Xi clan members over, but his father adhered to the court’s laws and firmly refused. However, this time they were sent to Xiangzhou together as convict soldiers.
Although this batch of convict soldiers had not undergone any training and temporarily couldn’t form much combat strength, having so many men enter Canglang City was enough to make people feel reassured.
Yang Qin and Zhao Kuo also hadn’t expected that despite their urgent haste, they still missed the fierce battle that occurred at Canglang City in the early morning. After going ashore and seeing the devastation inside and outside the earthen city, they found it hard to imagine that Han Qian and his hundred-plus men, relying on such a simple fortified camp, could actually withstand the fierce assault of over four hundred elite Liang soldiers.
With Yang Qin and Zhao Kuo arriving, Han Qian fulfilled his pre-battle promises to the stronghold laborers, taking out sixty dan of salt to calculate as reward money.
The strongholds urgently needed salt and iron and were more willing to accept salt as reward money—a point that Han Qian was most happy about.
On one hand, this batch of salt was allocated by Du Chongtao to the Dragon Sparrow Army as laborer military provisions and didn’t require Han Qian to pay out additional reward money from the Left Bureau’s private accounts.
On the other hand, in the imperial edict that Emperor Tianyou had transmitted to Xiangzhou this time, he also formally agreed that the Dragon Sparrow Army could act expediently and exclusively manage salt affairs within the old Jun Province territory west of Xiangzhou to raise military funds.
Han Qian now obtained salt from the Xiangzhou Salt and Iron Bureau at a price of one thousand coins per dan. He was now calculating it as reward money to the strongholds at the high price of six to seven thousand coins per dan. No matter how he calculated, he wouldn’t lose money.
Afterward, Han Qian immediately arranged boats to transport over two hundred laborers across the Dan River and Han River by boat, allowing them to return to their strongholds to demonstrate his trustworthiness.
The vast majority of the stronghold laborers didn’t want to participate in warfare.
Moreover, Han Qian had been extremely generous with reward money this time. Most laborers, upon returning to their strongholds, could live quite comfortably for two to three years.
This kind of money earned with one’s life—unless absolutely necessary, for the vast majority of people, earning it once was enough. Even if Han Qian showed complete sincerity, even if they truly wanted to leave the strongholds and move to live on flat land, they would still need to see how the war situation developed.
However, in the end, over twenty robust laborers had no dependents in the strongholds and nothing to worry about. Thinking that returning to the strongholds to continue their previous hard lives wasn’t as good as staying, at least before dying in battle, they could get enough to eat at every meal, and every few days there would be meat and wine supplied.
These men were precisely the ones with the strongest combat ability among the stronghold laborers. The vast majority were veteran soldiers who had previously been defeated and fled into the mountains. They also didn’t need to obtain any fields or residences in Canglang City. They only hoped to have armor, excellent weapons, and a portion of reward money.
Han Qian dispatched a scout group to head north to monitor the battle developments at Iron Crocodile Ridge to the north, while simultaneously arranging the men that Yang Qin and Zhao Kuo had brought at the fastest speed.
Among Xuzhou convicts, they were naturally also divided into local and immigrant registrations.
The locally registered convicts belonging to the Four Surnames numbered about two hundred. Han Qian assigned all these men to Master Craftsman Zheng Tong, organizing them into an Artisan Household Battalion to take over clearing the battlefield and repairing the fortified city after the stronghold laborers left, and unloading the supplies transported from Xuzhou from the boats.
If possible, Han Qian also wanted to continue expanding Canglang City northward on the existing foundation while building several catapults.
As for the other small surname local registrants and immigrant registrant convicts, Han Qian decided to mix them with the slave soldiers led by Xi Chang to form a temporary Xuzhou Battalion.
After the war, these convict soldiers would all be sent back to their home regions, and the slave soldiers led by Xi Chang also had no formal organization within the Dragon Sparrow Army.
Han Qian couldn’t immediately release Zhao Kuo back to Xuzhou either. For now, he temporarily appointed him to serve as commander of the Xuzhou Battalion, with Xi Chang and Guo Nu’er as his deputies. Additionally, he transferred over ten veteran soldiers from the Left Bureau Military Bureau to serve as squad leaders and decurions to first establish the framework of the Xuzhou Battalion.
Furthermore, Han Qian incorporated these over twenty stronghold laborers willing to join the Left Bureau into the Military Bureau to be used as elite scouts, supplementing the insufficient manpower.
This way, Han Qian had at Canglang City an Artisan Household Battalion with a complement of three hundred men, a Xuzhou Battalion with a complement of four hundred men, and a Military Bureau with fifty elite scouts available for use.
Of course, Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, Feng Zhang and others still had over two hundred guards and sailors plus eighteen boats. After unloading cargo, Han Qian temporarily didn’t want to release them back to Xuzhou.
The western front battle had suddenly become critical. The water transport of supplies and personnel on the upper reaches of the Han River would also become increasingly heavy. The Xiangzhou forces’ boats were also limited. From today’s reinforcements from the southern bank being delayed until the last moment before crossing the river, Han Qian was also clear that he couldn’t place too high expectations on friendly forces.
With the Xuzhou fleet temporarily staying, he could feel more at ease.