The declaration of war stipulated that at noon on the sixteenth day of the fifth month, Daliang’s gunships would punctually cross the river’s centerline to bombard Jinghai Gate, declaring the continuation of hostilities between Liang and Chu. However, this did not mean that before noon on the sixteenth, nothing would be done and nothing would happen.

By the fifth month, midsummer had already arrived. By mid-month the weather became increasingly hot. Once one donned heavy, suffocating armor, one’s entire body would be soaked with sweat in no time. Even well-trained, robust soldiers could not endure long under the blazing sun before their strength was depleted.

This was definitely not a suitable season for waging war.

The Yangtze River had already entered flood season, though it had not yet reached its peak. The greenish-yellow, rippling river water had not yet become completely turbid, flowing majestically from west to east as it seemed to have done for hundreds of millions of years.

“…Eh, Liang warships are emerging from the river mouth!” At mid-morning on the fifteenth, soldiers on guard duty at the western watchtower of Jinghai Gate were the first to discover numerous warships sailing from the Fuxian River mouth on the eastern flank of Tangyi City on the northern bank into the Yangtze River. Seeing that the Liang warships had not crossed the river’s center position to move south, the duty officer forcibly restrained his impulse to sound the war drums, ran down from the watchtower, and rushed to report the Liang army’s unusual activity that day to the Northern Army command tent that the Palace Guard Superintendent’s Office had set up in the Jinghai Gate tower.

The Jinghai Gate tower had been destroyed in the great fire during the Yanyou Palace Incident but was quickly rebuilt afterward.

The three-tiered tower with its double-eaved hip-and-gable roof, constructed of brick and wood, stood over four zhang tall, sitting atop Jinghai Gate which itself exceeded six zhang in height. In front was the solid barbican, forming a unified whole with Jinghai Gate’s spacious gate passage, capable of concealing three thousand elite troops for sallying forth to counterattack enemies. The barbican was sufficiently solid that there was no need to separate it from the outside world with a moat. The Imperial City’s outer moat even passed along the barbican’s exterior, its channel suddenly narrowing to just over one zhang, then spanned by solid stone slabs forming a bridge, making the inner and outer passages interconnected.

Besides the outer moat, the Imperial City also had an inner moat inside the city walls.

Since the inner moat also served as a drainage ditch for discharging domestic wastewater during normal times, whenever weather turned hot, it was difficult for the Imperial City to avoid being periodically permeated by a sour, rotten odor. Years ago, people had submitted memorials suggesting the inner moat be converted into an underground channel, but after the Jinling rebellion, most in the court still felt it necessary to ensure the inner moat’s military value was not weakened.

However, regarding military value, aside from being majestic and magnificent, the brick-and-wood structure of the gate tower was extremely vulnerable to destruction by whirlwind catapults. The Palace Guard Superintendent’s Office was quite aware of this. After learning that the Liang army had won its great victory in southern Jin, they had begun constructing wooden shelters on the city walls so defending soldiers could avoid arrows and stones.

Although the interior of the gate tower had also been reinforced, the western watchtower officer still felt his heart trembling with fear as he walked in. Though no one had witnessed the divine might of the Liang army’s new-style war machines, it stood to reason that as long as they were not much weaker than whirlwind catapults, the gate tower could collapse at any moment.

However, from a traditional military perspective, the distance from Jinghai Gate to the Yangtze River shore was only eight hundred to one thousand two or three hundred paces of open ground. Such a narrow space was generally far from sufficient for landing troops to deploy in battle formations, much less providing opportunity to set up heavy whirlwind catapults one after another.

But could the Liang army’s smoothbore cannons truly, as stated in the declaration of war, directly reach one to two thousand paces away on river warships and directly attack Jinghai Gate?

The western watchtower officer walked into the gate tower and saw that all the generals and officers were on the second-floor observation platform. He did not even need to report—the generals and officers were all staring at the Liang warships slowly approaching the river’s center.

The Liang warships were only about seven or eight li from Jinghai Gate. One could vaguely make out the appearance of the new-style gunships in their formation.

The main structure of the new-style gunships showed no major changes from the oared war-sail vessels that Xuzhou had previously built. Above the cabins or deck, three masts of varying lengths supported sails hoisted high.

The greatest difference was that the previous oared war-sail vessels had sixteen to thirty-two large oars extending into the river water from the bottom two cabin levels, enabling these oared war-sail vessels to achieve faster ramming speed in close-quarters boarding combat. However, though the new-style gunships’ lower cabin levels still retained black-painted oar ports, no large oars extended from them.

Apart from the new-style gunships wrapping larger areas of their hulls and decks in iron armor, the war machines that should have been deployed on top of the cabins—such as bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows—had all completely disappeared. Only on the decks at bow and stern did there crouch one mysterious war machine each, wrapped in tarpaulin, which appeared quite massive.

“The Liang army won’t go back on their word and bombard Jinghai Gate today, will they?” Gu Xiongchang asked his father Gu Zhilong somewhat anxiously. At this moment, Gu Zhilong was accompanying Shen Yang, Du Chongtao, Zhou Bingwu, Yang En and others to inspect the defenses at Jinghai Gate.

Gu Zhilong looked at his son with displeasure. They were only here to inspect briefly and would soon withdraw to Jingjing Gate. If they lacked even this much courage, how could they expect the soldiers at Jinghai Gate to hold firm?

“If the Liang army truly intended to break their word and employ some trick, they wouldn’t use such a simple ploy,” Fu Gengwen turned to tell Gu Xiongchang.

Shen Yang, Du Chongtao, Zhou Bingwu, Yang En and the others said nothing, seemingly having not heard Fu Gengwen and Gu Xiongchang’s conversation at all. They only furrowed their brows tightly, using telescopes to stare at the river surface.

At this moment, Gu Zhilong noticed two cargo ships breaking away from the Liang navy’s fleet.

Cargo ships were vessels built by Xuzhou for transporting bulk goods on the Yangtze River. Their structure was relatively simple, yet a single cargo ship could carry a full six to seven thousand shi of grain, cotton yarn, cotton cloth, or baled cotton.

Although cargo ships had large hulls, their internal cabins had simple divisions, making them unsuitable for conversion into warships equipped with troops.

Gu Zhilong looked questioningly toward Shen Yang and Du Chongtao. Judging by their expressions, they also seemed unable to guess why two cargo ships would separately break away from the Liang army’s formation.

“It seems the Liang army worries we have insufficient understanding of cannon power, so they deliberately pulled two target ships to the river’s center for bombardment, first letting us observe the cannons’ might?” Fu Gengwen lowered his voice and spoke to Gu Zhilong as if speculating.

The atmosphere atop the gate tower was oppressively silent. Though Fu Gengwen’s voice was low, Shen Yang, Yang En, Du Chongtao, and Zhou Bingwu still heard clearly and involuntarily turned to glance at Fu Gengwen. Fu Gengwen clasped his hands and bowed to show he had spoken rashly.

The development of events quickly proved Fu Gengwen’s “speculation” accurate.

As the two cargo ships drifted four to five hundred paces away with the current, four gunships in the Liang formation turned broadside, cannon barrels extending from ports. From afar, one could see that each of the four gunships had only one cannon, which now erupted with fire accompanied by thick smoke shooting forth.

In the blink of an eye, four chain shots swept toward the masts of the two cargo ships like giant meteor hammers. Those standing atop Jinghai Gate tower, though seven or eight li distant, seemed to clearly hear the sound of massive wooden masts being torn apart. From afar, they watched as those two cargo ships’ masts along with their half-unfurled sails were directly broken off by the fired chain shots.

With masts and sails broken, the cargo holds could only drift with the current, their speed slowing. What followed was the four gunships firing solid shot from different angles and different distances, destroying the two cargo ships.

Only after the two cargo ships had completely sunk to the river bottom did the Liang fleet withdraw, returning to Tangyi’s naval camp through the Fuxian River mouth, as if the morning’s events had merely been an exercise.

Atop the gate tower, there was complete silence.

Although compared to cargo ships, the walls of Jinghai City—faced with stone on the outside and rammed with yellow earth inside—were much more solid and thick, what the Liang gunships demonstrated today was their precision shooting capability from as far as two to three thousand paces away, as well as their area damage capability at close range of four to five hundred paces.

Those atop the gate tower were not young hotheads ignorant of danger just emerging into the world. Even if they had misjudged the actual power of cannons firing solid shot—after all, solid shot directly penetrating cargo ships’ hulls appeared to cause less destruction than whirlwind catapults firing large stone projectiles at close range—they still recognized that the smoothbore cannons equipping Liang warships were an epoch-making new type of war machine.

The destructive shooting capability from two to three thousand paces away meant traditional warships had absolutely no chance of approaching head-on. No wonder the Liang army’s new warships had removed all their oars.

Such a vast advantage in range meant the Liang army’s new warships no longer needed to consider rapid assault operations at distances of two to three thousand paces. Subsequent naval battles would mainly involve maneuvering to bombard enemy ships—where was there any use for rowing oars?

And if such war machines were used in land warfare, if there were no equivalent machines to counter them, being under fire from Liang cannons from as far as two to three thousand paces away, whether in field battles or defending cities, one would be at an enormous disadvantage.

Without anyone here signaling, the dozens of large and small warships that had earlier entered the Yangtze River from naval camps on both flanks for patrol now all dejectedly returned to their camps.

Everything before their eyes seemed to presage that the Liang army would punctually launch its bombardment of Jinghai Gate at noon tomorrow. Shen Yang, Yang En, Du Chongtao, Zhou Bingwu and others all subsequently left Jinghai Gate. It seemed no one had any interest in returning to the Bureau of Military Affairs or the Secretariat to discuss defense matters, or perhaps the defensive strategy was already perfect beyond measure and needed no further discussion—they need only implement the plan agreed upon yesterday.

When Gu Zhilong returned to his residence, he too was somewhat dazed. Fu Gengwen had to call his name twice before he came to his senses and asked, “What did Gengwen just say?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything,” Fu Gengwen replied. “When the Liang army bombarded the target ships to demonstrate cannon power, I observed that the soldiers at Jinghai Gate were quite dispirited. They may wish to take cover during the Liang bombardment, yet they fear punishment from the Bureau of Military Affairs, caught in a difficult dilemma. I also thought, if the Jinghai Gate soldiers cannot avoid the bombardment, then when the Liang army storms ashore at Caishi, who knows how many sons of Xuanzhou will die under bombardment before even engaging the Liang army…”

In the end, Gu Zhilong had not replaced Zhou Bingwu as Director of the Bureau of Military Affairs at this critical juncture, but instead served as Minister of War. However, some of the Yongjia troops had been deployed at Caishi on the western flank of Jinling City, and their commanding officers were mainly former Xuanzhou provincial troops who had followed Gu Zhilong for many years.

At this moment, even if Gu Zhilong had no thoughts of competing for power and position, he still had to consider the old comrades who had followed him for years.

Hearing Fu Gengwen speak thus, Gu Zhilong said, “If tomorrow the Liang army does not land but simply fires cannons from their warships to bombard Jinghai Gate, there is certainly no reason for soldiers to defend Jinghai Gate unto death without knowing to take cover—tomorrow I will mention this matter to Prime Minister Shen and Director Zhou…”