Chapter Seventeen: The Throat’s Thorn (Part One)

In mid-December in Taiyuan, the north wind swept through, driving down heavy snowflakes that struck the city walls with a sharp crackle. The earthen ramparts, more than ten meters high, were manned by soldiers standing ready. Three li outside the city, the Jin army’s “long siege” earthworks had been under construction for seven days. The encampment stretched for ten miles, with smoke from cooking mingling with the thick haze of burning villages—an eerie sight against the pure white landscape.

“Commander! The Jin dogs are forcing the civilians to fill the moats again!” shouted a sentinel atop the city wall.

Wang Bing leaned on his gleaming greatsword, standing on the north gate tower. His battle robe was crusted with dark red ice shards—that was blood splattered during last night’s raid. Snow filled the gaps in his armor, freezing him stiff as iron.

Gazing toward where the sentinel pointed, across the moat, a dense crowd was being driven forward with whips across the snowy ground—villagers from nearby who had failed to evacuate in time.

Yang Keshi, the left flank commander, swung his iron mace against the battlements. “He Quan, that traitor, is driving even the grain carriers like beasts!”

He pointed toward the distant grain carts where He Quan, the former magistrate of Xinzhou, was directing laborers unloading supplies. The workers’ fingers had turned purple from the cold; any hesitation was met with blows from the butts of swords wielded by Liao Chinese soldiers. Those who fell were dragged aside, soon frozen into rigid statues of ice.

Zhang Xiaochun clenched the brick wall with his fingers. “We issued notices last month telling them to flee south, but who would abandon the land their ancestors have tilled for generations?”

The truth was harsh: the wealthy could always escape and survive, but the poor had nowhere to go; their livelihoods were tied to the land here.

Many villagers clung to their homes out of hope, only to face a cruel fate.

Suddenly, cries erupted from across the moat.

Xie Li, deputy general under Wanyan Yinchuke, rode a black horse, wielding a wolf-tooth club pointed at the moat. Several Bohai soldiers tossed a struggling old man into the ditch. The splash instantly froze into ice shards.

Each day, Song soldiers chipped away the ice at critical points with hammers and spears, pouring oil from the walls and setting it aflame to burn brush and melt the ice.

“Fill it!” Xie Li barked in Jurchen-accented Chinese. “If the moat and ditch aren’t filled by nightfall, you’ll all go down with him!”

The villagers were like cattle driven to slaughter—crying, screaming, whipped as they threw frozen earth, broken boards, even their own bodies into the icy moat.

Archers instantly filled the battlements; five hundred longbows drew tight, arrowheads gleaming cold in the snowlight.

“Fire!” At Zhang Zhiyuan’s command, a rain of arrows swept across the moat, felling Liao Chinese soldiers driving the people, and the villagers alike. Screams mingled with the wind in their ears.

The people were driven into the bitterly cold moat. A thin layer of ice covered the surface, beneath which lay frozen earth mixed with muddy water.

Countless bare, frostbitten feet stepped on the ice, which cracked with a sharp snap.

Screams rose one after another as those behind pushed forward like dumplings dropped into boiling water, tumbling into the icy, murky water.

Some struggled to climb out, only to be speared by prodding spears from behind; their bodies became stepping stones for others.

From above, Song arrows and stones rained mercilessly upon the writhing, desperate mass.

The moat’s water quickly turned thick and dark red; bodies piled up, forming a gruesome dam of flesh in several spots.

Wanyan Yinchuke, left route army vanguard commander, wrapped in thick sable furs and mounted on a powerful black horse, looked out at this hell on earth.

Xie Li licked his cracked lips. “Commander, these southerners dug a deep moat. Hundreds have been thrown in, but it still hasn’t reached the bottom.”

Yinchuke’s face was expressionless, but a flicker of complexity crossed his eyes.

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Two nights ago, inside Taiyuan, the Song general named Wang Bing repeatedly led light cavalry sorties, slashing down vanguard warriors and disappearing before his foes could retaliate.

“Strong bones? Then break them,” his voice was icy. “Order the warriors to capture people everywhere. Toss the frozen corpses of the grain carriers into the ditches as well.”

He Quan and Prefect Luo braved the biting wind, driving a string of emaciated villagers pushing groaning carts loaded with grain through the icy, muddy roads.

Those who collapsed from exhaustion were immediately whipped by Jurchen cavalry overseers until their skin tore.

If they could not rise, they were dragged to the roadside, stripped of their meager clothes, left naked to freeze to death in the snow. Some were dragged away; others became food for wild dogs and wolves.

Xie Li paid no mind, directing the conscripted civilians to continue filling the moat with straw and wooden boards, signaling the Yisheng Army to advance.

These troops, drafted as servant soldiers, retained their traditional military structure—thousand men units, hundred men units, fifty men units, squads, and squads of five. To prevent rebellion, the Jin scattered their commanders and mixed in Bohai and Xi troops.

Wearing a patchwork of Liao and Song armor, these defectors charged forward with bloodshot eyes, carrying ladders and pushing battering rams, shouting, “Break into the city for wealth and glory!”

Behind them, Khitan cavalry held bows ready. Anyone who retreated was shot on the spot. “Charge! Fill the moat! The city falls, and there will be wine and meat!”

A dozen enormous battering rams, covered in thick rawhide studded with iron leaves, looked like giant iron-scaled tortoises. Supported by rebels and conscripts, they pressed forward through rain of arrows and stones toward the city gates.

The Yisheng Army rammed the gates repeatedly, each impact echoing like thunder.

“Flamethrowers!” Wang Bing pointed his greatsword at the foremost battering ram.

Soldiers on the wall triggered mechanisms that sprayed oil through iron pipes, igniting in midair to form walls of flame, instantly engulfing the battering ram.

The rawhide crackled as soldiers inside screamed in agony, rolling flaming in the snow until they were reduced to blackened heaps.

“Ladders are up!”

Yang Keshi swung his iron mace in a wide arc, smashing the head of a Yisheng soldier who had climbed onto the battlement, scattering brains onto the faces of those nearby. The conscript trembled in fear, clutching a stone and smashing it down amidst the cries of veterans.

Paths had already been filled across the moat and ditch, with more Yisheng soldiers advancing, stepping over frozen corpses.

“Want to fill the moat? I’ll warm you up!” Wang Bing’s eyes flashed coldly.

With a sudden wave, he ordered, “Ignite!”

Arrows wrapped in thick cloth, soaked with oil, were set aflame and launched far across the battlefield.

“Boom!”

A miraculous sight unfolded: the piles of brushwood the Jin had painstakingly pushed to the moat’s edge instantly ignited from the fiery arrows, flames soaring high with thick smoke. The nearby conscripts, rebels, and several heavy battering rams were swallowed by the inferno.

Piercing screams drowned out the clamor of battle, and the air filled with the acrid stench of burning flesh.

The fight raged from dawn until noon. Blood in the snow froze and thawed repeatedly, forming dark red ice crystals beneath the walls, yet Taiyuan remained unbreached.

Yinchuke’s cheek twitched violently. “Trash!” he snarled, his last trace of complexity vanishing, replaced by cold murderous intent. “Order the catapults! Smash it flat for your commander!”

Dozens of enormous siege trebuchets were pushed forward.

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The winch screeched piercingly as massive beams were lowered, and huge boulders loaded into sling baskets.

“Release!”

A low, ominous whistle tore through the cold wind. The giant stones fell like meteors, crashing against Taiyuan’s walls!

Boom!

Each strike shook the corners of the city, making the towers tremble.

Gigantic stone projectiles glanced off the battlements, smashing into the northern parapets. Bricks and ice shards scattered, knocking two soldiers reinforcing wooden palisades to the ground.

Yang Keshi wiped snow and water from his face; his old wound on his right shoulder—a slash from a wolf-tooth arrow during yesterday’s fighting atop the wall—throbbed numbingly and still bled.

“Those Yisheng bastards climb like madmen!” he growled.

The ladders were thick with men, densely packed.

These soldiers, clad in tattered armor, red-eyed and desperate as starving wolves, clawed up the ropes. Even as stones crushed their skulls, those behind climbed over corpses, surging upward.

“Use the flamethrowers!” Yang Keshi shouted hoarsely, his voice exploding through the wind and snow.

Two soldiers pushed flamethrower tanks to the battlements, aiming iron pipes at the leading ladders.

Flames spewed forth like dragons, licking the ladders. The rawhide-covered ladder rungs burst into roaring fire. Yisheng soldiers atop screamed, falling flaming to the snow below, writhing and howling in agony.

“This precious weapon is truly effective, if only we had more!” Yang Keshi sighed.

Flamethrowers, with copper tanks pressurized by pistons, sprayed oil through copper pipes ignited by flint, producing tongues of fire several meters long—capable of burning ladders, battering rams, and even igniting floating debris.

Unfortunately, their main source—Yan Prefecture in Shaanxi—had never supplied enough through the Yellow River transport to Taiyuan. Stockpiles had not increased over the years, never reaching the necessary levels.

The soldiers atop the walls shouted in unison, their voices shaking loose the snow.

Rolling logs and stones rained down like a storm, thudding against the rawhide of battering rams; the flamethrowers’ fire dragons scorched the ladders, turning Yisheng soldiers into living torches. Zhang Zhiyuan’s archers in the arrow towers fired relentlessly, each arrow piercing Jin soldiers’ throats with deadly precision.

Yet the Jin assaults surged like tides—one wave retreated, another rushed forward.

Yisheng soldiers continued their frenzied climb, their armor splattered with their comrades’ blood, seemingly unfazed by pain, shouting, “Riches and honors await inside the city!” Their eyes gleamed with greed.

At the fiercest moments, soldiers on both sides grappled tightly atop the walls, hacking and slashing relentlessly.

Song soldiers, even after losing arms, fought with their remaining hands; pierced through the chest, they clung to enemies without release, finally lunging forward together and falling from the high walls.