The majestic and magnificent thousand-year-old famous city of Chizhou had been battered beyond recognition by both warring sides by the end of November.
Large sections of city bricks had been continuously bombarded by stone projectiles from whirlwind ballistae for over twenty days, collapsing and falling away in great chunks. The exposed rammed earth walls were covered with branching cracks—a scene of utter devastation.
Collapsed breaches dotted the city walls everywhere, long since thoroughly soaked with the fresh blood of soldiers from both sides.
Below the walls lay broken swords, bows, halberds, and spears everywhere, with countless snapped arrows beyond counting.
In the haste, some corpses hadn’t been cleared away and were buried together with broken bricks and crushed earth to fill the breaches. One or two severed arms protruded from the wooden palisade walls—a truly gruesome sight.
Chizhou city bordered the Yangtze River to the north, relied on Qitian Lake to the east, connected to the mountain ridges extending from Mount Jiuhua toward the riverbank to the south, and the city walls were built high on險要 ground. Though the Yanjiang Pacification Army and Jiangxi Pacification Army had one hundred twenty to thirty thousand troops total, they lacked sufficient open battlefield space to deploy them.
Besides approaching the city from the west, the attacking forces could only thrust forcefully in from the official post road at the southwest corner, penetrating into the two to three li wide, narrow valley between the northern foothills of Qijing Mountain and Chizhou, to launch an offensive against Chizhou’s south gate.
The attacks from these two directions were respectively handled by the Yanjiang Pacification Army and Jiangxi Pacification Army. Then the Five-Tooth Army naval warships transported a portion of Yanjiang Pacification Army soldiers to the north gate facing the river and the east gate facing Qitian Lake to draw the defenders’ attention.
Chizhou’s garrison had been increased to over forty thousand before the battle, with command also transferred to Wen Bo, son of Wen Muqiao.
In his early years, Wen Muqiao had served as Supervisor to the Huainan Military Commissioner. Though a civil official, he understood military affairs.
When Emperor Tianyou rose to power in Jianghuai and led troops to campaign in all directions, Wen Muqiao had assisted Empress Dowager Xu in guarding the rear. Over these years, he had fought countless hard battles.
Though Wen Bo and other sons of the Wen clan hadn’t established illustrious military achievements like Li Yu, Zhang Xiang, Du Chongtao and others, they had followed their father in defending cities and resisting attacks from powerful feudal lords since childhood. When it came to defending cities, they were in no way inferior to renowned contemporary generals like Zhang Xiang and Du Chongtao.
However, considering that the Southern Bureau Forbidden Army primarily defending Chizhou had scattered morale and low spirits among officers and men, no one thought capturing Chizhou would pose too great a difficulty.
The Left Vermillion Bird Army had been expanded to over twenty-five thousand before the battle, but Li Zhigao had used the Left Vermillion Bird Army as his main force to attack Chiwu and Xunyang cities in Jiangzhou at the fastest speed. They had fought two hard battles fiercely at the Hengzin River bank and during the assault on Xunyang city.
Especially in the battle where Li Zhigao captured the fierce Jiangzhou general Zhong Yanhu at the Hengzin River bank, the Left Vermillion Bird Army’s casualties were actually higher than Zhong Yanhu’s forces. Including the assault on Xunyang city, the two engagements killed, wounded, or captured over fourteen thousand enemy troops, but the Left Vermillion Bird Army’s cumulative casualties also exceeded seven thousand—much greater than Yang Zhitang’s Jiangxi Pacification Army, which was responsible for attacking Pengze city from the west bank of Poyang Lake.
Though the Left Vermillion Bird Army was battle-hardened elite troops, with such a high casualty ratio, it was very difficult to immediately throw them into the next fierce battle without pause. They had to undergo reorganization.
Besides wounded soldiers needing recuperation, they also needed to summon more new recruits from prefectures and counties in the rear to supplement the ranks for drill and training.
Moreover, as the Principal Commissioners of both armies, Yang Zhitang and Zheng Yu couldn’t possibly sit by and let Li Zhigao claim all the glory.
Therefore, when actually organizing the attack on Chizhou, the Left Vermillion Bird Army wasn’t directly pushed to the walls of Chizhou in the early stages. Instead, they remained in Pengze city for reorganization, while mainly the Jiangxi Pacification Army and provincial troops conscripted from various Hunan prefectures pressed toward the city walls, taking turns conducting siege operations.
The difference between main elite forces and local troops was thoroughly demonstrated at this time.
Apart from the Five-Tooth Army naval fleet blocking the Yangtze waterway and preventing the Tower Ship Army fleet’s warships from reinforcing Chizhou from upstream—having no energy or combat strength to participate in coordination—the eighty thousand troops mainly composed of local forces took turns attacking Chizhou. After fighting for a full twenty days, losing large quantities of siege equipment with troop casualties exceeding twenty thousand, they still hadn’t managed to break into the city.
The principle that one side’s gain is the other’s loss applied everywhere. After Yueyang forces conducted siege operations in turns for over twenty days without crushing the defenders’ morale, the defenders instead saw hope of repelling the Yueyang forces, and their morale and fighting spirit grew increasingly vigorous.
As for the Tower Ship Army fleet led by Marquis Zhenyuan Yang Jian, due to material shortages preventing them from building new ships, their naval warfare became more cautious. Initially they only conducted small-scale harassment from downstream to upstream.
Seeing that the Yueyang forces’ attack on Chizhou was feeble and exhausted, the Tower Ship Army fleet’s sorties from water fortresses in the downstream Fanchang and Tongling directions became increasingly frequent. In the later stages, they organized hundreds to thousands of warships large and small surging toward Qitian Lake, frequently engaging in major clashes with the Five-Tooth Army warships at the mouth of Qitian Lake.
After the Five-Tooth Army fleet combined with naval camps from various Poyang Lake prefectures, their warships and troop scale exceeded the Tower Ship Army. However, whether ordinary soldiers, mid and lower-level military officers, or even high-ranking generals commanding operations, they all lacked experience in large-scale naval warfare on broad waters. After several defeats, they were finally suppressed by the Tower Ship Army fleet and could only huddle defensively inside Qitian Lake east of Chizhou city.
This was also because the Guangde Army had reversed the situation in Xuanzhou too quickly and too suddenly. When large numbers of troops gathered together, they couldn’t adapt to the rhythm of bloody siege warfare and naval combat in a short time, let alone gradually accumulate tactical advantages.
Existences like the Chishan Army that could form formidable combat strength in a short time were, after all, exceptional cases.
Seeing the unfavorable situation, Zheng Yu and Yang Zhitang could only steel themselves and hand command authority on the battlefield to Li Zhigao. They brought up the Left Vermillion Bird Army, which had been reorganized and supplemented with new recruits, to launch a strong assault on Chizhou from the west. Using over a hundred whirlwind ballistae newly manufactured in Xuzhou and transported here, they assembled them before the city, suppressed the defenders, and after three days of fierce attack, finally captured the west gate.
However, the defenders didn’t collapse.
Under the command of their general Wen Bo, during the stalemate of over twenty days of offensive and defensive operations, they not only connected the city’s drainage channels to serve as inner moats for defense, but also surrounded narrow streets and lanes near the north gate water passage and sturdy buildings like the prefecture office with palisade walls, simply forming an inner city for desperate resistance as a final stand.
Li Zhigao deployed tens of thousands of soldiers into the city to fight for every street and every lane against the defenders. It wasn’t until the end of the month that they completely occupied the thoroughly devastated Chizhou, but they still watched helplessly as defending general Wen Bo led over three thousand remnant troops in breaking out through the north gate water passage, joining with the Tower Ship Army fleet to escape downstream along the Yangtze River.
In the battle to capture Chizhou, the combined casualties of the Yanjiang Pacification Army and Jiangxi Pacification Army exceeded forty thousand—even somewhat higher than the defenders who before the battle were considered to have low morale and feeble combat strength. This was somewhat bewildering.
However, after capturing Chizhou city, the defenders in Tongling and Fanchang all fled in panic toward Caishi city, the major stronghold east of the Shuiyang River mouth. This also meant that the passage for Yueyang’s main forces to advance eastward to Jinling and join with the Guangde Army was now open.
For Yueyang, this was still an extremely crucial victory.
Standing before the relatively intact north gate tower, Li Zhigao gazed toward the mouth of Qitian Lake in the northeast corner. Sunken warships still had their broken masts protruding above the vast water surface. Though the final glory belonged to him, his heart was still secretly alarmed and darkly saddened by the heavy casualties.
“The Marquis captured Nanling two days earlier than here, but the fighting wasn’t easy either. And this time, to preserve his strength, Han Qian didn’t deploy the Left Guangde Army at all…” Deng Tai climbed the gate tower, bringing over the messenger sent by Li Pu, and reported the details of the Right Guangde Army’s attack on Nanling city under Han Qian’s orders.
Deng Tai’s tone carried much criticism of Han Qian. Li Zhigao naturally understood why Deng Tai had undergone this subtle change. His heart sighed slightly, but he only said flatly, “I understand.”
……
……
At this moment, Li Pu stood atop Nanling city walls, feeling somewhat high-spirited and proud.
They had successfully captured Nanling city two days earlier, but the fighting hadn’t been easy.
The main issue was that Li Pu and Gu Zhilong had initially wanted to preserve their own forces’ strength as much as possible, first using provincial troops from Hangzhou and Xiuzhou to attack Nanling city.
The Xiu and Hang provincial troops might not be weak at defending cities, but whether the Troop Commanders directly leading the soldiers or the basic-level military officers, very few had experience participating in siege warfare.
Moreover, having traveled from afar, apart from crude scaling ladders, they weren’t equipped with large siege equipment, nor did they have craftsmen skilled in building large siege equipment accompanying the army.
For them to suddenly be thrust forward as the main force in siege operations—how could the siege progress smoothly?
Li Pu and Gu Zhilong were also eager to establish merit and pressed urgently. The forces from both prefectures gathered below the city could only steel themselves and raise scaling ladders to attack the walls.
Although Nanling city wasn’t large and couldn’t be considered particularly high or險要, with only over five thousand defenders inside—less than half Southern Bureau Forbidden Army, the rest mostly county soldiers or forcibly conscripted militia, with scarce supplies and scattered morale and low spirits among officers and men—even so, the troops from Xiu and Hang prefectures attacked clumsily for several days with heavy casualties, and were even counterattacked twice by defenders sallying from the city.
If Li Sui hadn’t led elite troops to supervise the battle nearby, personally leading a small number of elite forces to repel the sallying defenders both times with his individual martial prowess, the local provincial forces from both prefectures would have nearly been routed.
Seeing that the local provincial troops had such poor morale and combat strength, Gu Zhilong and Li Xiu—ignoring the objections of Hangzhou Prefect Wu Zun and Xiuzhou Prefect Chen Fan—decided to break up the Xiu and Hang provincial troops, select the strong and able from among them to strengthen the Right Guangde Army under unified command, then organize the remaining old and weak soldiers into auxiliary battalions, exclusively responsible for building siege equipment, constructing trenches and fortifications, transporting grain and fodder, and other matters, slowing down the pace of siege operations.
Only after this did they establish a firm foothold outside Nanling city.
After building a batch of siege equipment, Li Pu and Gu Zhilong brought up the Right Guangde Army again, systematically rotating squads to attack the city in turns, gradually grinding down the defenders’ will to fight. Two days before Chizhou city fell, they finally annihilated the Nanling defenders entirely, capturing Nanling city at relatively small cost.
Though casualties in this battle seemed considerable, they were mainly concentrated among the local forces from Xiu and Hang prefectures. After the Right Guangde Army absorbed the strong and able from the Hang and Xiu provincial troops, their soldiers were tempered in siege warfare, and their combat strength was considerably enhanced—this was also the key reason Li Pu now stood high-spirited and proud before the gate tower.
Facing the calculations of Li Pu and Gu Zhilong, though officials from Xiu and Hang prefectures felt unhappy inside, seeing the dawn of final victory before their eyes—with official titles and honors awaiting them—they couldn’t be bothered to feel sorry for the losses among local sons.