Tigers in a Sheepfold

A vice general appeared atop the gate tower and barked, "This is Hanyang Pass, not under the jurisdiction of the Military Commissioner of Dingxi! Crossing the boundary to make arrests is already a capital crime! Leave at once, and perhaps you can still—" Below the walls, the general suddenly raised his gun and took aim. With a resounding blast, a gaping hole was instantly blown through the vice general's chest! Stunned disbelief plastered across his face, his corpse plunged down from the tower. Having slain the pass-gate commander with a single shot, Cui Yu roared, "This man conspired with horse bandits and obstructed the imperial army's suppression efforts—a crime equal to banditry itself! Those on the tower who lay down their weapons shall be spared; all others are accomplices to the bandits!" At his command, several thousand horsemen dismounted and sprinted toward the walls. Leaping into the air, they took just a single step against the stone before cresting the battlements. Over a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators took to the skies directly, soaring up onto the tower. The garrison defending the tower were scared out of their wits, bitterly regretting having allowed these men near the walls. Inside the city, gunshots erupted fiercely as well; the Heaven-Battling Gang had closed in on the gate tower, entered firing range, and begun returning fire, pinning the soldiers atop the tower so tightly they dared not show their heads. To their horror, the defenders realized that those charging up onto the tower were no ordinary horsemen, but heavily armored cavalry fighting on foot! Bearing large shields and fire guns, they switched to chopping blades at close quarters. Spearheaded by the charge of over a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators, they shattered the defenders' line in the blink of an eye. With a groaning creak, the heavy gates swung open, and massive contingents surged into Hanyang Pass. The soldiers surrendering on the tower suddenly noticed that the Military Commissioner's ferocious troops and the ruthless bandits of the Heaven-Battling Gang had mingled together, their armor and attire shifting such that, for a moment, it was impossible to tell soldiers from bandits. Once the army entered the pass, Wei Yuan immediately led the Dragon Soaring and Dragon Wing armies toward the three military barracks. First sealing off two of the barracks with small detachments, he personally led the main force to storm the third. They captured all the officers on the spot, stripped the soldiers of their armor, disarmed them, and confined them within the barracks. Leaving behind a small squad to guard them, the army pounced upon the second camp. The ordinary garrison might not have known better, but the officers had all heard just how disastrously the two previous offensives against Qingming had ended. Some officers had only just spent thousands of taels of immortal silver to ransom themselves, bringing them near financial ruin. Seeing Wei Yuan appear before them now at the head of a ferocious host, how could any will to resist remain? Thus, in the blink of an eye, the three barracks fell one after another. Wei Yuan ordered all officers taken away to be detained separately in a quiet location, while the rank-and-file soldiers were kept in the barracks. Although Wei Yuan left behind only a handful of guards, the soldiers, stripped of armor and clad only in plain cloth, were lambs to the slaughter before these heavily armored troops. Fully understanding this, none dared resist. What was more, Wei Yuan marched under the banner of the Military Commissioner—an imperial army in its own right. Unable to make sense of the situation, the common soldiers obediently stayed put in the barracks, awaiting their fate. Hanyang Pass had originally been garrisoned by fifty thousand seasoned veterans and a hundred thousand militiamen. However, when the commandery government had been established, Yue Jinshan had come and transferred twenty thousand elite troops away, never returning them. During the two great campaigns against Qingming, the Xu family had mobilized tens of thousands more from the garrison to serve as the main invasion force against the territory. Consequently, although the force stationed within the fortress city still numbered close to fifty thousand, only a few thousand of the veteran troops from earlier that year remained. The vast majority were recruits promoted from the ranks of militiamen. These green recruits had limited combat ability and even less will to fight. Each of the three main camps inside the fortress had held ten thousand defenders. Having subdued them, Wei Yuan swept through the gate towers in order: East Gate, North Gate, and West Gate. In the end, only the eight thousand defenders of the West Gate remained. The West Gate's commanding general proved stubborn, refusing to surrender under any circumstances. Wei Yuan pointed straight at him and declared, "This man is clearly in league with the horse bandits. Men, take him down!" The military qi of the dismounted Dragon Soaring and Dragon Wing forces instantly crushed that of the gate tower defenders. Hundreds of Dao Foundation cultivators flew onto the walls, cutting them down in droves. The gate originally possessed protective formations, but unfortunately, they were linked to the fortress-protecting grand formation. With Wei Yuan already controlling the interior, he simply shut down the gate tower's defensive array. With heavy shields in front, the Dragon Soaring soldiers rested their fire guns upon the shields, advancing steadily while firing. The gate defenders were mowed down in swathes like weeds. The commanding general chose death over surrender, ultimately falling in battle under the siege of several Dao Foundation cultivators; his thirty personal guards perished alongside him. With their commander dead and casualties exceeding a thousand, the remaining thousands of defenders lost all will to fight and surrendered one after another. Crucially, as Wei Yuan's forces attacked, they had continuously shouted that the defenders had conspired with horse bandits—a crime punishable by the extermination of their clans—while promising that those who dropped to their knees in surrender would be pardoned. Thus bewildered and uncertain of what was truly happening, the imperial soldiers had no stomach for battle. The Dragon Soaring and Dragon Wing armies immediately had all surrendered soldiers remove their armor and assemble beneath the wall wearing only their undergarments. They searched the gate tower, turning up a large hoard of gold and silver from the commander's quarters, along with several masks and letters of secret correspondence with the Heaven-Battling Gang. Wei Yuan ordered these items displayed before the surrendered soldiers. Then, per routine, the officers were escorted away separately while the enlisted men were marched outside the pass, leaving a small squad of soldiers behind to watch them. Before the main body returned to the pass, Cui Yu addressed the several thousand captives: "All your identity documents are now in our hands. If anyone flees, once the roster is checked, you will be treated as deserters and your families will be held accountable! Think long and hard on that!" The soldiers were cowed into utter silence, obediently squatting in place. Though only a dozen or so cavalrymen watched over these thousands of men, not a single prisoner dared make a move. Inside the pass, Wei Yuan did not stop to rest. He fanned his troops out to take control of key positions, then split half the force into more than a dozen squads, leading them to the gates of grand manors across the city according to a roster in his hands. "Open up!!" a Dao Foundation officer bellowed, pounding violently on the vermilion gate before him. Behind him stood a hundred-man squad of Dragon Soaring soldiers. After several heavy blows, the vermilion gate opened a crack, revealing the steward's face as he eyed the officer with suspicion. The officer wore unfamiliar armor he had never seen before. The steward asked, "What business brings you here, officer?" The officer said, "Someone saw Heaven-Battling Gang horse bandits flee into your residence! I am here under orders to search the premises." The steward sneered. "Open your blind dog eyes and see whose residence this is! Our Master Lin is the maternal nephew of the Sixteenth Elder! You blind fool, take your men and get lost!" The officer grinned savagely. "Refusing a search? Then it seems you truly are in league with the horse bandits!" Before the steward could reply, the officer drew his waist saber and cut him down with a single slash. Then, with a heavy kick, he kicked down the vermilion gate, and heavily armored soldiers filed inside in droves. A furious roar echoed within the estate as a broad-shouldered, thick-waisted Dao Foundation cultivator appeared, leading a crowd of guards and servants in a charge. The officer merely sneered and drew his saber to meet him. Both were Dao Foundation cultivators, but the officer was clad in heavy armor, giving him an immediate advantage. Behind him, the Dragon Soaring soldiers leveled their fire guns; a volley of gunfire blasted the Dao Foundation estate guard to death. Immediately after, the soldiers tore through the mansion like tigers in a sheepfold, turning it upside down to unearth substantial hoards of immortal silver, antiques, medicinal herbs, and treasures used to "collude with bandits and aid the enemy"—all marked as material evidence. The jewelry and accessories belonging to the wives, concubines, and daughters were seized as stolen loot. In the end, they even stripped Master Lin of his jade-inlaid belt. Clutching his trousers with both hands, Master Lin watched the pack of wolves and tigers rampage through his home, nearly fainting from sheer fury. Fortunately, these imperial troops did not molest the female household members, nor did they kill anyone who offered no resistance. After they departed, Master Lin took stock of the household: he had merely lost some wealth, which was not entirely intolerable. Such scenes played out all across the fortress city. There were also wealthy households trembling in terror, only to find that the troops marched straight past their gates without entering, pouncing instead on their left and right neighbors and treating their even taller, more lavish mansions as mere air. The remaining soldiers of Dragon Soaring and Dragon Wing took control of all four gates and began dismantling the eight colossal ballistas atop the fortress walls.