1636- the China Venture Read online

  Fang Kongzhao, his son Yizhi, Colonel von Siegroth, Eric Garlow and Mike Song rode around the city, checking that the fortifications were in order, and trying to ferret out any weaknesses before the enemy did. Judging from his occasional mutters, von Siegroth found the Chinese works somewhat inferior to a fully realized European star fort designed in the trace italienne style. But Eric and Mike thought that was more in the way of professional nitpicking than anything worth worrying about. In siege warfare, the Chinese didn’t lean as heavily on cannon fire as Europeans did, which was the main emphasis of the trace italienne style of fortifications. For what they were likely to face here, Tongcheng’s defensive works seemed quite sturdy.

  “I’d be happier if the water level in the moat were higher,” Colonel von Siegroth said.

  “So would I,” Fang Kongzhao admitted. “But we’ve had less than average rain in four of the past five summers. And while this year was all right, the rainy season here is April to July, and so by now there is significant loss to evaporation.”

  “Also, loss to people,” said Yizhi. “Those living in town will use moat water for washing, or as drinking water for livestock, or to irrigate a little vegetable plot. The moat is closer than the Tongmian, and there are lines at the city wells. The water thieves take only a bucket at a time, but it adds up.”

  “The moat is filled only by rainwater?”

  “That’s right. There’s no direct connection between the moat and the Tongmian River.”

  “And I guess the bandits aren’t going to give us enough time so that a bucket brigade would raise the water level significantly.”

  Tongcheng’s moat was twenty feet wide at the surface, ten feet wide at the bottom and ten feet deep at the center. However, it was no more than half full. That was high enough to make it difficult for attackers to walk or ride across, but not impossible. If the bandits had enough wood, they could construct rafts and pole or row across, but that would permit the defenders to concentrate their fire. And if the bandits were in sufficient numbers, they could haul in rocks and dirt and fill in part of the moat, creating a bridge. But that would take quite a bit of time, and casualties would be inevitable.

  * * *

  While Tongcheng’s fortifications included a moat, they didn’t have a drawbridge that was raised in the air, like those of a European castle. Rather, on four sides, it had floating bridges; boats had been chained together, and the chains attached to mooring posts on either side of the moat. Wooden planks had been laid over the boats, and fastened down.

  Three of the bridges were disassembled. With danger nigh, the wooden planks were pulled off, the chains detached from the mooring posts, and the boats dragged to shore. All of this material was taken into the town, leaving no trace, other than the mooring posts, that those bridges had existed.

  The fourth bridge, the south bridge, was kept intact for now, so that patrols could be sent out, but it was rigged so it could be burnt in a hurry if need be. It was placed under heavy guard and a barricade was built at the center of the bridge.

  * * *

  “Hoist!” yelled von Siegroth in Chinese. “Higher, you bastards!” The last bit was in German.

  What they were hoisting now was the barrel of the short twelve-pounder. The carriage had already been lifted up to the northeast corner bastion, and left to one side of the corner tower. Fortunately, the corner bastions were equipped with a beam and pulley arrangement for lifting heavy equipment.

  The colonel thought it a pity, however, that Tongcheng’s wall lacked the nice feature he had observed in Nanjing: ramps just inside the city wall, and parallel to it, leading to the top. In Nanjing, there was no need to hoist ordnance; it could just be rolled up the ramp.

  “Easy.… Slow down…slower…stop! All right, pull her in!” The men posted on the platform of the corner tower caught hold of the side lines and hauled the barrel toward them. This was a little tricky, as the men below had to ease up slightly in synchrony, to give them slack.

  At last, the barrel was safely deposited, its trunnions lying in the receiving slot of the carriage. The wheels of the carriage were unblocked and the gun was wheeled around the corner tower to the battlements nearby. For now, it faced north, but it could be moved to the east side of the platform without too much difficulty.

  The ammunition now had to be hoisted up, in bags. For the solid shot, this was simple enough. For the shrapnel shells, von Siegroth first disabled the fuses, and the shells were sent up one at a time, with a great deal of padding.

  Still, it was with some relief that he sent up the last one. Then he had to trudge up the stairs, restore the fuses, and make sure the shells were safely stowed.

  Colonel von Siegroth didn’t like the vulnerable square corners of the corner bastions, but at least the corners protruded, providing enfilading fire along the two meeting walls. The corner bastions in turn were overlooked by jialou, high towers, set back from the actual battlement, from which a counterattack could be launched if the corner battlements were taken.

  There were also gatehouses rearing above the gates. However, these gates were relatively simple structures, just tunnels through the curtain walls, unlike what he had seen in Nanjing. The gates of Nanjing had wengcheng—barbicans—in front of each gate. You had to enter a side gate in the barbican and then turn ninety degrees to enter the gate in the curtain wall. One of his two regimental three-pounders would be posted above the south gate, and the other above the east one. And moved as need dictated.

  According to Fang Kongzhao, the main wall was as wide as it was tall at the base—three zhang, a little over ten yards—and one and a half zhang wide on top. Even allowing for the thickness of the outer and inner parapets, that meant that the wall was wide enough so that any ordnance mounted on a wheeled carriage could be moved from one part of the wall to another without being brought down and back up again.

  Consequently, in positioning the three European cannons, Colonel von Siegroth had chosen to put them on the level of the main wall. They wouldn’t have the maximum possible height advantage, and they might have to be shifted from one embrasure to another, but the ability to relocate them quickly was worth it. And that left the top of the towers and gatehouses completely free for the town’s catapults and ballistae.

  On each wall, there were also mamian—“horse-face” bastions—every eighty or so yards. These mamian protruded beyond the main wall. Ideally, these would have been triangular or pentagonal in plan, but these Chinese mamian were square or rectangular. Still, they provided further opportunity for enfilading fire, especially against a force attacking one of the gates. The parapet of each mamian, which was continuous with that of the main wall, had two embrasures facing forward, and one each on the side walls. Flanking the embrasures were square archer holes. Some of these mamian also bore an observation tower, set back from the wall.

  The defenders could only equip a few of the mamian with ballistae, but there were at least a few archers in each of them.

  As for the volley guns, their six-foot width made them awkward to deploy. Von Siegroth had suggested to Fang Kongzhao the construction of a couple of “volley gun nests,” with sandbags to screen the crews from arrows, in front of the gates. But the ex-minister had advised waiting to see how much artillery the bandits could muster first, as that artillery might outrange the volley guns.

  Ninth Month, Days 3–4

  The messengers that Fang Kongzhao had sent to Anqing returned with both good news and bad news. The good news was that the former garrison of Luzhou had stopped running when they reached the Yangtze and somewhat sheepishly reported in to the Anqing garrison, thus reinforcing Anqing’s defenses. The bad news was that the prefect of Anqing was absolutely certain that the entire bandit army was heading his way and would not spare a single man or cannon for the defense of Tongcheng. He suggested that the residents of Tongcheng simply flee, either to Anqing and then across the Yangtze, or to the west, to the little mountain redoubts that the more farsighted gentry
had built over the last couple of years. Of course, that would guarantee the loss of all property in Tongcheng that couldn’t readily be carried, either by cart to Anqing or on one’s back to the mountains.

  A couple of tiger hunters came in from those mountains, heard about Luzhou, and volunteered to ride north and spy on the bandits. This offer was gratefully accepted. They returned with a prisoner, trussed hand and foot and hanging from a pole as if he were a tiger carcass. The prisoner had been taken when he walked away from camp to relieve himself. He admitted to being a squad leader in the army of Gao Yingxiang, the Dashing King, and when vigorously questioned, he admitted that the last word from on high was that the army would indeed be marching on Anqing. He disclaimed any knowledge of its intent with regard to Tongcheng, but revealed that the Dashing King’s army had managed to find the Luzhou’s stores of huangjiu and baijiu, and thus was sleeping off a massive drunk.

  Fang Kongzhao rewarded the tiger hunters, and sent Yizhi to ride pell-mell for Anqing and alert the prefect to this golden opportunity for a glorious counterattack.

  In the meantime, however, the townsfolk and the visitors continued to labor to prepare Tongcheng to resist an attack. In particular, one of the volley-gun nests that Colonel von Siegroth had suggested was set up, as a fallback defense for the south bridge.

  Ninth Month, Day 5

  A crestfallen Yizhi returned a day later with the news that the prefect of Anqing had chosen to consider the news to be at best an exaggeration of the truth, and at worst a deliberate deception, the tiger hunters being labeled as probable accomplices of the bandits.

  In the meantime, the enemy had begun to show an interest in Tongcheng. A half-dozen men rode down from the direction of Luzhou. Encountering a twenty-man patrol led by one of the younger gentry, they turned back. The patrol did not pursue, since its purpose was merely to keep the enemy from inspecting Tongcheng’s defenses for as long as possible. Defenses that were being improved hour by hour.

  Ninth Month, Day 6

  The next day, a larger group of bandits came down on horseback. They were first spotted by the watchers that Fang Kongzhao had posted on the hills northwest of Tongcheng. Thanks to Colonel von Siegroth, the captain of this watch post had a loaned telescope—a rare item in Ming China. However, it didn’t prove necessary. The bandits were perhaps a hundred strong, and raised a significant cloud of dust. Frantic mirror and smoke signals from the watch post warned that day’s patrol to return to the city.

  After the uprising a year ago, the district magistrate had ordered the expansion of the baojia, the town militia. The term literally meant “defensive armor.” The militia were divided into five divisions. Each of four of these divisions was responsible for a single wall, gatehouse and corner tower. The fifth was deemed a mobile reserve and in peacetime maintained the armory.

  As the bandit company approached, it was apparent to the commander of the northern division that this company was keeping good order. Perhaps too good for their own well-being, as the men were riding almost shoulder to shoulder in ranks of four. The militia division commander knew that some bandits, like the infamous Li Zicheng, had previously served in the Ming army.

  The road had been marked off to show ranges. Eight hundred yards. Seven hundred. Six hundred. Five hundred. The division commander gave the firing order to one of the ballista crews posted in the north gatehouse. A moment later, there was a loud “twang,” and a large bolt was projected. By this time, the range was four hundred yards. That was still outside the effective range of the bandits’ composite bows, but the ballista was essentially a giant crossbow and had a greater range. The bolt struck a horse, killing it.

  The bandits wheeled their horses about and galloped off, stopping when they were a thousand yards away from the fired ballista. Then they began circling the town clockwise, clearly looking for weak points. The northern division commander sent a runner to point out the bandits to his counterpart on the eastern wall.

  As the bandits continued to circle Tongcheng, each division commander was alerted in turn, but the bandits remained too far away to be worth firing at, and eventually the sentries lost sight of them.

  That night, torches were kept burning atop the city walls, lest an enemy attempt to scout closer, or even to scale the walls. There were torch holes perhaps two feet below the parapet, spaced five paces apart.

  Eric was the first of the up-timers to serve a watch on the battlements, since he felt it important to set an example. In the end, their survival would depend on the survival of the town, after all. He took on the “graveyard shift.” The moon was in the western sky and provided a fair amount of light, being nearly half full. Peering out at the land beyond the walls, he found that it was easy to be fooled. One moment he would think he saw someone swimming the moat and the next he would realize that it was just his imagination getting the better of him.

  When the sun rose, he exchanged salutes with his replacement and retired to a small room inside one of the towers to get some sleep.

  Ninth Month, Day 7

  Fang Kongzhao had been hopeful that the first engagement would be the only one. The bandits favored easy prey, and Tongcheng was a walled town whose battlements were obviously manned. Back in the spring, there had been a small bandit band that had shied off the first time a ballista bolt was fired at it.

  These bandits, unfortunately, were made of sterner stuff. Or, more likely, given courage by their numbers. Over the course of the day, more bandit companies took up positions on the northern and eastern sides of Tongcheng. Those on the north were more of a threat, since the ones in the east would have to cross the Tongmian River.

  The south bridge was now disassembled and, with no bridge left to defend, the volley gun nest was, too.

  Earlier that day, the captain of Tongcheng’s watch post had decided that with the enemy moving south, he and his men could do more inside Tongcheng than outside. They destroyed everything at their post that might be of value to the enemy that they couldn’t take with them, and worked their way through the hill country, eventually arriving in sight of the south gate of Tongcheng around noon. They signaled to the gate commander, and were given permission to swim their horses across the now unbridged moat. The watch post captain returned the borrowed telescope to Colonel von Siegroth.

  More bandits arrived over the course of the afternoon. By sunset, Kongzhao estimated their total numbers as perhaps a thousand men. Colonel von Siegroth thought it closer to six hundred. Either way, it was a respectable size force, although still inferior numerically to the city militia.

  Nanchang

  While the westerners in Tongcheng watched the bandits assemble, the survey-party members smiled as their junk rounded a bend and the city of Nanchang came into view. The trip upriver had been slow, as the wind on the sails had to contest against the contrary current. Xu Xiake was telling them about where he thought they should stay in Nanchang when they heard some sort of trumpet blow, followed by a shout:

  “Stop, in the name of the emperor!”

  The Hubers looked at Xu Xiake. “What’s the problem?”

  Xu Xiake shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’ll find out.” Their junk pulled over beside the larger vessel that had hailed it. “What is the problem, sirs?”

  The vessel proved to belong to the city guard, and the guard lieutenant on board frowned at him. “You are traveling with three red-haired barbarians.” The Hubers were accompanied by Zacharias Wagenaer, the SEAC mapmaker. “Christians, by the looks of them.”

  “That is true, but they aren’t priests. And as you can see”—he gestured at the pennant—“they have authorization to travel from the minister of war at Nanjing, Lu Weiqi. I have a more detailed letter of permission in my baggage.”

  “Is that so? Well, Lu Weiqi has now been dismissed from office. For treasonous failure to prevent the desecration of the imperial tombs at Fengyang. So you can use the pennant and the letter to wipe your arse.”

  And in words uttered by police
in many times and places, he added, “You all better come with me.”

  Their baggage was searched, and the Hubers’ geologist’s hammer was discovered.

  “You’re miners, aren’t you?”

  Fortunately, the Hubers had been warned about the restrictions on private mining.

  “No, they collect spirit stones,” Xu Xiake explained.

  “Spirit stones?”

  “Yes, to sell to collectors back in their barbarian homeland.”

  Eva reached into a pouch. “See!” She held out a few rain flower agates from Nanjing.

  The officer fidgeted. At last he said, “I will let the magistrate sort this out.”

  * * *

  Xu Xiake, Wagenaer and the Hubers were brought before the magistrate. He mostly ignored the Europeans, directing his questions to Xu Xiake.

  Fortunately, Xu Xiake always carried letters of introduction on his person from the literati painters Dong Qichang and Chen Jiru, the poet-historian Qian Qianyi, the political activist Huang Daozhou, and several provincial governors. As the magistrate perused these, his mien softened noticeably.

  At last he asked, “What was the barbarians’ port of entry into the Middle Kingdom?”

  “Hangzhou. They were escorted there by Admiral Zheng Zhilong.” Xiake wasn’t aware that they had first spent a short time in Fuzhou. Or if he was aware, he thought it better not to say so.

  “Well, take them back there. Or find some trustworthy Chinese gentleman to do so. You, of course, may travel as you please once they are taken care of.”

  * * *

  “I will take you back to Anqing,” said Xu Xiake. “From there, we can have a messenger take word to Fang Yizhi and his father in Tongcheng. The Fangs are one of the most important families in that area, you won’t have to go all the way back to Hangzhou.”