Chapter Ninety-One: Seizing the City

Yang Yu flicked his wrist, and the great lance tucked beneath his arm suddenly lashed out, striking a fleeing soldier who had run the wrong way, bursting him open in a spray of blood.

Strictly speaking, this kind of long weapon had a special name: a war lance. The shorter spear used by foot soldiers was simply called a spear, a shaft of hard wood sharpened at the end, sometimes fitted with an iron head, sometimes left bare. But the war lance, stretching more than twenty feet, was born for mounted combat.

Its forward end resembled a reduced sword, the blade section columnar and diamond-shaped, with dual edges; it could stab or hack, and could even be used like a whip. The triangular, serrated sharp edges at the tip were meant to pierce armor. Its greatest distinction lay in the shaft behind it.

A shaft made of hard wood would often snap under great force. For infantry, it was a consumable to be used once and replaced, but cavalry were different: without a long weapon, they had only their sabers, and against an enemy’s pikes, they would be at a severe disadvantage.

Thus the shaft of a war lance was not an ordinary wooden pole like those of spears and pikes, but was made from the trunk of a superior, resilient tree, split into evenly thick slivers and laminated together. Of all such woods, mulberry used for bows was the finest, followed by paper mulberry, oak, and vine; at the very least, bamboo had to do. The thin slivers were soaked repeatedly in oil until they no longer warped or cracked. Only then was the first step complete. This process took nearly a year. After that, the slats were taken out and air-dried in shade for several months. They were then glued together with the finest adhesive lacquer into a shaft more than twenty feet long, and the outside wrapped with hemp rope. When the hemp rope had dried through, raw lacquer was applied, and hemp cloth wound around it.

Raw lacquer over hemp cloth, layer after layer, until a blade could strike the shaft and it would sound like metal, yet not break or split. Only then was it considered fit. The ends were then trimmed away, shortening it to about eighteen feet. A steel lance head was fitted to the front, and a red-copper butt cap to the rear. Adjustments were made repeatedly, and the standard of quality was this: hang a rope two feet from the butt end, and the entire war lance, though nearly twenty feet long, should balance in midair like the beam of a scale, neither end dipping nor rising. Only then, when a general sat astride his horse, could he keep the lance point aimed forward without expending the slightest effort.

A lance made in this way was light, resilient, and strong. A general could grip it directly and charge with the power of his horse, or swing it in close combat. Yet each lance took three years to make, and the success rate was only forty percent, making the cost astonishingly high. For that reason, from the Han and Tang onward, the war lance had always been a symbol of generals born to great families.

Only the wealth of the Yang clan of Hexi, together with Yang He, a seasoned frontier commander of nearly thirty years, could support a scion of the family becoming a proper cavalry general, for in the course of his upbringing, no one knew how many of these costly things had been consumed. The poor pursue letters; the rich cultivate arms. It was nothing more than this.

This time, Yang Yu’s mount failed to dodge. It stepped straight over the man’s body, and the man’s scream was swallowed by the thunder of hooves. On the battlefield, life was more fragile than an ant. Such was the law of war.

All the roaming cavalry did as he did, driving the fugitives ahead at an unhurried pace, slower now than before contact. Strangely, the main Tibetan force Yang Yu had been fearing still had not appeared, and the city of Holy Pure Lotus was already in sight.

Then the fugitives ahead stirred. Their flight seemed to strike against something and falter; the whole column jostled to a halt. Had they not been well controlled, and had they not remained constantly vigilant, Yang Yu’s detachment would surely have crashed straight into it.

As the leader, his speed was the standard by which the whole unit moved. Something must have happened ahead. Perhaps the Tibetans were waiting in full array. Yang Yu knew he had to decide at once: either drive these fugitives onward and collide headlong with the Tibetans, or stop here while there was still some distance left.

Yet he delayed the signal. The reason was simple: what had appeared ahead was not Tibetan cavalry, but a ragged mob of infantry shouting in the Balti tongue, bearing in their hands all manner of things that could scarcely be called weapons, their steps disordered but their purpose firm.

They were like a reef in a tide, forcibly splitting the current. And among the fleeing infantry, one after another would halt, listen to them, and join their ranks.

"The Tang burned our homes and killed our kin. Fight them!"

"Fight them!"

Hatred spread swiftly. Those who had been fleeing with their backs turned slowly turned around. Fear vanished from their eyes, replaced by rage. The Balti people who had once charged at the front line in desperation before the Vai River were bursting forth with incomparable courage once again, actually hurling themselves barehanded at the thundering warhorses!

Little Fifth, what on earth have you done?

Yang Yu’s heart suddenly turned hard as iron. An enemy was an enemy; whether brave or cowardly, if a cavalry force were driven back by the sort of crowd before him, what face would he have left to stand in Anxi?

The eighteen-foot war lance rose in the grasp of a powerful arm. On either side, following his movement, one rider after another lifted his own great lance. Every man was waiting for the moment when the lance points dipped forward, for that was the instant of their charge.

A raptor, in a flash, extended its talons, waiting only to pounce on the prey before it.

Even though there were only fifty riders, even though the enemy’s fresh troops were right behind them, he felt no fear. What Fifth had done by the bank of the Vai River, Yang Huizi could do as well.

Without looking to either side, Yang Yu knew his men had received the order. His elbows sank slightly as he prepared to level the great lance, while both legs drove down hard, clamping the horse’s belly.

Break them, pierce through them, trample over their bones, and make the enemy tremble in their sleep. With the wind rushing past his ears, Yang Yu leaned forward a little, setting his body into the shape of a charge.

At that very moment, cries erupted from all around, startling him so that his forward motion faltered. The great lance in his hands stopped at a forty-five-degree angle, nearly but not quite lowered.

For within those voices were not only the local Balti speech, but also some in Chinese!

"Stop! Hurry and stop!"

"Our homes were burned by the Tibetans; your kin did not die. The Tang are our saviors!"

"Is the one ahead General Yu? My own garrison commander has already taken Holy Pure Lotus City. We beg you to show mercy!"

The first to react were the local infantry. After a day and a night of desperate flight, hungry and exhausted, and then suddenly seeing their homeland ruined and their families missing, once the Tibetans stirred them up, their will to live naturally collapsed. Since death was certain either way, they might as well fight the Tang.

But no one had expected countless locals to rush out from the woods on both sides. Most conspicuous among them were the chiefs, and soon some of the infantry recognized their own families. How could there still be the slightest trace of fighting spirit?

Thus the battlefield descended into chaos. In theory, once matters had come to blows, whatever happened ought to wait until after the fighting was done. Yet Yang Yu still made his adjustment in time, because in his eyes there appeared a crimson battle banner: it was precisely the command flag of Liu Ji’s Dry Pit Garrison!

Even if the Tibetans were playing a trick, they could never have foreseen this. So Yang Yu twisted his wrist, and with one hand spun the great lance into a circle. That was the signal to turn back.

By now his horse had already charged into the mass of infantry. Because of its speed, he had no choice but to haul hard on the reins with his free hand. With a violent yank, the galloping horse came to an abrupt stop, forelegs thrown high, releasing a long neigh and narrowly avoiding a stunned infantryman.

Fifty men moved as one. All of them, like him, completed a turn in place in the blink of an eye. Yang Yu led his troops to a position about thirty paces from the Balti men, still alert and watchful.

"General Yu, it really is you."

Kang Laosi came puffing and breathless, holding a long wooden pole. From it fluttered the triangular, saw-toothed garrison commander’s banner, which Liu Ji had told him to carry in case of mishap. He had not expected it to be needed here.

"Were you sent by Fifth?" Yang Yu felt rather sour-hearted. A victory within reach, and it could still fly away?

Kang Laosi did not hide anything from him, and recounted the whole sequence of events in detail. Only then did Yang Yu have the chance to look toward the distance. Sure enough, the city spread across the valley plain had already been reduced to ashes. What fine methods.

He waved one of his men over. "Send word to the rear. Our force has successfully taken Holy Pure Lotus City. The foreign barbarians, hearing the news, have fled. Tell them to move faster."

Then he dismounted, casually planted the great lance in the mud, and let out a long breath.

"Your garrison commander didn’t even leave his brother a sip of soup."

"Kang Laosi, do you know where the Tibetans have gone?"