The Mandate of Heaven (39 page)

Near the ramparts Hsiung waved his men to take cover. They examined the town from a flooded ditch choked with dead reed stems. He felt a small fish or rat brush his leg but did not shift his gaze from the gatehouse – a low and feeble defence by Hou-ming’s standards yet formidable if one’s army consisted of twenty men armed with halberds, bows and crossbows, as well as two mud-stained spies. The latter seemed his most useful weapon. Hsiung whispered in their ears and both nodded. He led his soldiers along the ditch, away from the gatehouse, while Chao and Hua took the opposite direction to re-join the road.

The next few moments would decide everything – whether he returned to Lingling a lesser or greater man; and whether he must endure, yet again, Liu Shui’s courteous superiority. Hsiung’s grip on his halberd tightened as Chao and Hua staggered towards the town, apparently supporting each other and hopelessly drunk on New Year wine. Outside the closed gates they stood swaying, calling up to the guards, most of whom were either asleep or in a nearby tavern, defying the Mongol curfew they were employed to enforce. Chao’s voice drifted across the fields, bellowing for admittance.

‘Now!’ whispered Hsiung. One by one the rebels slipped across the open ground to gather at the base of the walls. The ditch was shallow in places, layered with decades of rubbish from the town. Clearly the inhabitants of Chenglingji feared no assault.

‘Quickly!’ hissed Hsiung.

Grappling irons padded with strips torn from cloaks were cast up until the rope grew taut.

‘Up! Up!’

Hsiung led the way, using the rope to scramble up the brick-lined wall, his arms and shoulders aching from the weight of his armour. Fortunately the wall was as low as Chao had promised and he hauled himself over, gasping for air. A long sword appeared in his hand.

Laughter drifted along the walkway from the gatehouse.

‘Get lost, you sots!’ called a guard.

‘Sleep it off in a ditch!’ taunted another.

Other shapes crouched beside Hsiung. He pointed and half a dozen men crept along the walkway, keeping low. Snatches of song still drifted from the town below, for the sailors and soldiers of the Salt Fleet were seeking their pleasures all over Chenglingji, determined to drink the miserable place dry. The rebels paused on the battlements as the sound of a woman’s moaning pleasure reached them through an open window. Hsiung felt his own lust stir and glanced at the field of rooftops below.

‘Quick,’ he whispered, as much to himself as his men.

They padded into the gatehouse as Chao and Hua called out a fresh entreaty to the guards enjoying a little raillery. It was their last enjoyment in this life. Hsiung led the attack, choosing a man nearest the warning bell’s rope. A hot surge filled him as his sword connected, cutting short a startled shriek …

Hsiung wiped his blade on the headless torso of an unusually young and puny fellow for a soldier. Meanwhile his men secured the gates.

‘Show the signal to Captain P’ao,’ he ordered, his mouth uncomfortably dry. The dark lights were dimming in his soul, leaving a shrivelled desire he feared and longed to appease.

Three lanterns were soon hung above the gate. Somewhere in the town a cock crowed and Hsiung looked to the east in alarm. Dawn was almost upon them. Where was P’ao? Then he saw the main column, attracted by the three swinging lanterns like moths to the flame. Captain P’ao strode at their side, ordering his lieutenants to unfurl the banner of Moon-Beside-Mountain, the symbol of Yueh Fei.

The next hour was necessary, perhaps. Hsiung had just over fifteen hundred men whereas the Salt Fleet carried twice that number. One might also mention the hundreds of government troops garrisoned in Chenglingji.

Hsiung watched the Yueh Fei soldiers pour through the gatehouse. His heart beat rapidly and he was impatient for the attack to commence. Lesser men must not be allowed to steal the glory this time! A triumph like Fourth Hell Gorge could be his again.

He leaned out of the battlements and shouted commands that would haunt him on restless nights when the wind blew west to Lingling: ‘Followers of Yueh Fei!’ Hundreds of faces turned up to him, swords, axes, spears and halberds bristling in the soft, rosy glow of dawn. ‘All but the Guards are ordered into this town!’ he bellowed. ‘Not a single enemy shall live to defy us! Captain P’ao, the Guards must stay for my personal command.’

A great cheer greeted these orders. The whole town – by no means a large place – seemed to pause between breaths. Songs of celebration and the murmured endearments of lovers; infants wailing for milk and the yawns of servants lighting dawn fires; all were frozen momentarily by the rebels’ collective roar. Then time flowed again and companies of Yueh Fei rebels surged down the narrow streets, seeking anyone capable of opposition. In a short time screams and wails rose into the brightening sky.

Hsiung clattered down the stairs of the gatehouse to join Captain P’ao at the head of five hundred heavily armoured, disciplined Guardsmen. P’ao whispered in his ear: ‘You meant to order that not a single enemy shall live?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ said Hsiung, wondering what part of it had been unclear.

Now P’ao bowed with a trace of fear.

‘You are right, sire!’ he said. ‘We have been too soft! Best make them dread your name!’

‘Except for those who surrender,’ added Hsiung, but P’ao had already hurried off to check the ranks.

Chao and Hua hovered nearby, holding looted weapons.

‘You’ll need those, my friends,’ said Hsiung. ‘Show us the quickest way to the harbour.’

‘Yes, Noble Count!’ declared Chao.

The next hour blurred in Hsiung’s memory: marching at the head of the Guards, cutting down any who crossed their path with extravagant lunges of his halberd. Everyone was a potential enemy now. The Guards swept down the central street of the town to the harbour, surprising a force of sailors and soldiers forming up on the long quay for a counter-attack. Most were still drunk, many barely dressed. At the sight of the dense column chanting
Yueh Fei!
Yueh Fei!
half scattered like rats – leaping into ships and desperately trying to cast off, hiding in alleyways or buildings. The rebel column rushed onto the quay and a pitiless fight followed. The ground and wooden jetties were soon littered with corpses; everywhere terrified men were hunted and hacked, pleading for mercy or striking back until courage or strength failed them.

Hsiung and his bodyguard rapidly dispatched a huddle of Mongol officers and he stood regaining his breath, an unnatural grin on his face. He had proved his strength! No less than two of the officers had fallen to his halberd strokes. How much simpler to fight than hear tiresome petitions and windy speeches! Then Hsiung’s joy subsided. His precious Guards were spread all over the harbour, oblivious to the commands of their officers. One man tore the silks off a dead military official, entering into a fierce tug of war with a comrade until the garment ripped in two.

‘P’ao!’ he called. ‘Jin! Reform the companies!’

Even P’ao had disappeared up a side street. Several of his picked bodyguard were missing – and he could not assume they had succumbed to anything more deadly than looting.

‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Hey! You over there! Form up beside me!’

With the helpless panic of a parent who has lost his small child in a crush, Hsiung realised he had lost control of his men. Wheeling, he faced the town. Shrieks filled the air like the crying of gulls. Heaven alone knew what cruelties were being enacted in the name of Yueh Fei. Worse was his own urge to discard the restraints of command and stalk into town himself, sword drawn. An imagined face – or remembered, it did not matter, nothing mattered – a face like Overseer Pi-tou’s loomed in his mind, pleading as Hsiung’s thumbs found eyeballs and pushed into the softness, pushing and reaching in behind … ‘No,’ he told himself, looking round at the shabby wooden buildings of Chenglingji.

Hsiung turned towards the fleet tethered all over the harbour, hundreds of masts and as many hulls weighed down with precious salt. If he did not regain command soon they might slip their moorings and escape. Already boats had cast off, manned by the remnants of their crews.

‘To me, Guards! Line up!’ He seized any rebel soldiers who came near, shoving them into a ragged line. ‘Sergeant, gather those men over there!’

Meanwhile the screams from the town continued as dawn became broad morning. Hsiung watched the first plumes of smoke rise. Burning down houses exceeded orders! Victory like this felt oddly like misrule, absurdly like defeat. So much so, that the sight of Chao and Hua hurrying towards him through the scattered bodies came as a relief.

‘Noble Count,’ called out Hua, ‘we have managed to save the worthy Zhong family I told you about. They wish to offer you their eternal homage and submission!’

At noon the rebel fleet sailed into Chenglingji harbour. It met a dismal sight. Although scores of vessels floated at anchor, a ship without its crew resembles an abandoned house. In the chaos of the massacre thirty valuable vessels had escaped, mainly of the lighter sort requiring fewer hands to tend oars or sails. As for the rest, their crews and attendant soldiers lay singly or in piles all over Chenglingji, wherever they had been cut down. Hundreds of women’s corpses lay alongside them. Nearly every house had been forced open and ransacked, its most intimate treasures violated.

When Chancellor Liu Shui of Lingling County stepped onto the quayside he glowered at a dismembered hand near his shoe.

‘I seek the Noble Count,’ he informed a Guards officer, none other than Lieutenant Jin.

‘Up at the compound of the Zhongs, sir,’ said Jin, his eyes oddly glazed.

‘I have heard a great deal about that clan,’ replied Liu Shui, stiffly. ‘Lieutenant, ensure honourable burials commence as soon as possible.’

Jin watched the fat man enter the town, followed by a retinue of clerks and officials.

At the Zhongs’ mansion Hsiung occupied their biggest chair, staring down at a dozen kneeling men in silk robes. All were suitably terrified, as well they might be after the dreadful storm that had swept away everything they once believed strong. Chao and Hua stood behind Hsiung’s temporary throne, in the role of chief advisers.

‘Let me understand this correctly,’ said Hsiung, ‘these people are the Zhong clan and accustomed to ruling Chenglingji?’

‘They have all the contacts you’ll need to squeeze the district dry, Noble Count,’ whispered Chao. ‘Offer them better terms than the Mongols and they’ll eat from your hand.’

Hsiung was in a mood for clemency. Walking through the corpse-littered town had shaken his confidence as ruler. None of this had been his intention. Although Hua claimed the Noble Count had personally ordered the massacre while leaning out of the gatehouse at dawn, Hsiung had no recollection of such a command. Yet it was hard to deny the charge amidst so much grotesque evidence. Now he must decide the fate of these frightened men prostrating themselves before him.

‘Sire,’ whispered Hua, ‘the head of the Zhong clan is so beloved by the common people of Chenglingji he is known as
Dear Uncle
.’

‘I see,’ said Hsiung for want of a probing question that might test Dear Uncle’s worthiness. He was about to order the Zhongs to administer the town on his behalf as Hua suggested when the doorway filled with a large, frowning figure. Hsiung glanced away uneasily. Conscious of many eyes upon him he rose.

‘Ah, Liu Shui! You have disembarked.’

The Chancellor entered the room, hands buried in his sleeves. Kneeling Zhongs crawled out of his way as he advanced seemingly oblivious to their existence.

‘Nearly seventy-five ships have been captured,’ said Hsiung. ‘Better still, a whole flotilla of paddlewheel destroyers, fully-armed with catapults, naphtha, thunderclap bombs, everything we hoped for, Liu Shui!’

‘A great victory!’ crowed Chao behind him.

‘The Noble Count has triumphed again!’ echoed Hua.

‘No doubt,’ said Liu Shui, gravely. ‘Yet I hear the town was taken entirely by surprise and a general execution of the populace ordered. The Noble Count must now triumph in peace as he has triumphed in battle.’