Night Raid

She even poured a cup of wine for it. Before the peregrine falcon could stretch its neck out, He Lingchuan moved the cup away. "It's on duty. No drinking." The falcon rolled its eyes in resentment. He Lingchuan grabbed a roasted chestnut, paying no heed to the heat as he peeled it and handed it to Sun Fuling. "I've been in office at Yuheng City for ten days now. During that time, the opposite bank hasn't mounted a single raid. They're really giving me face." The peregrine falcon threw cold water on him. "Maybe they just don't know." "The notice boards across Yuheng City are huge, and all of them announce this commander's arrival! Even if the common folk don't read them, wouldn't the scouts and spies?" He Lingchuan asked Sun Fuling, "Master Sun, you know the heavens above and the earth below. Could you take a look for me—" He pointed toward the sky. "What's the weather going to be like recently?" Sun Fuling was the prized disciple of Xu Shichu, dean of Shumin Academy. Reading short-term weather signs was second nature to her. After glancing upward a couple of times, she said, "Don't be fooled by the sea of stars tonight. Within seven days... no, within five days, there will be a blizzard with howling winds." He Lingchuan mused, "Within five days, is it?" *** Time flew by, and four days passed in the blink of an eye. Throughout these four days, the sky was cloudless by day, and the nights were clear with bright moon and sparse stars, showing not the slightest anomaly. He Lingchuan was still busy as a spinning top. However, while passing through the outskirts of the city, he happened upon the children of Yuheng Academy out flying kites. Kites of every color, model, and shape drifted across the azure sky. Among them was his casual scribble. Sun Fuling had actually given away that breathtakingly hideous kite. Who knew which brat it had reduced to tears? Tsk, Master Sun's wicked sense of humor. Meanwhile, the construction of Yuheng City continued in full swing, never ceasing for a moment. On the evening of the fifth day, a fierce wind suddenly arose along the border. The gusts were strong enough to blow a slender girl off her feet. Before people could pack up their belongings, snow began to fall thick and fast. The world turned into a vast sheet of white, blotting out all sight. Every household bolted doors and shuttered windows. Even the watchtowers along the Yin River had to lower their storm screens. Otherwise, the freezing temperatures combined with the battering blizzard could turn the men in the towers into solid blocks of ice within two quarters of an hour. The storm raged well into the second half of the night before it began to abate. With nothing else to pass the time on such a snowy night, most residents inside and outside the city went to sleep early, accompanied by the howling wind. As the hour of the Rat drew to a close, a soldier guarding the riverine woods was leaning against a table, quietly dozing off, when he suddenly caught a rustling sound. On a snowy night, the sound of wind through the trees was all too common, so for a moment he thought nothing of it. Yet a dozen breaths later, the soldier's eyes snapped open. *Wait. The doors and windows are shut tight—how could there be the sound of wind blowing through leaves?* He instinctively glanced at the tabletop, only to find the four branches of the old elm demon swaying on their own, moving without any breeze. His superiors had instructed that if a branch moved, it meant enemies were approaching from that direction of the river woods. Yet now all four branches were moving. That meant... that meant— "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" He burst out of the quiet room with a roar and struck the alarm bell. On a night of wind and snow, only the toll of a bell could pierce the gale. Behind him, lights instantly flared across the barracks as countless men scrambled back and forth. Barely dozens of breaths later, wave after wave of enemies surged out of the woods along the riverbank, launching an assault on the military camp. Using the blizzard as cover to cross the river, they had advanced silently, yet their numbers exceeded two thousand! One had to remember that previously, when Jintao drove "refugees" across to harass the border, they had usually come in bands of a dozen or several dozen, scattering to cause trouble only after crossing over. Gathering over two thousand men for a brazen frontal assault like this was a first since Yuheng City had come under the rule of Panlong City! There were fewer than two hundred men in the outpost. While sufficient under ordinary circumstances, faced with a surprise attack by an enemy ten times their number, they immediately fell into disarray. They didn't hold out for long, pulling back before the enemy could encircle them. It was a complete rout, dropping helmets and abandoning armor, unable to send out even a warning signal. With this outpost wiped out, Yuheng City had effectively been blinded. The enemy dispatched a small detachment to pursue them while their main force continued westward. Passing by villages usually treated as prime targets for plunder, they didn't spare them so much as a glance. Only after overrunning the camp did the troops light torches to illuminate their path. They had only a single objective: Yuheng City. This was no random raid, no simple harassment. Even if someone in the outpost had managed to shoot a signal arrow into the sky, the camp was merely fifteen li from Yuheng City. The enemy was marching at full speed, while the defenders of Yuheng City would be scrambling in confusion. How much preparation could they make before the foe arrived at their gates? Thus, the key to this lightning strike by the Jintao forces lay in a single word: Speed! They even split into three columns to bypass any potential traps and ambushes along the way. In less than two quarters of an hour after the assault on the outpost, they were already at the city gates, having encountered virtually no meaningful resistance along the road. This sent their confidence soaring. After months of expansion, Yuheng City's gates had been raised and reinforced, mounted with more than a dozen pieces of siege machinery—dark, imposing, and thoroughly intimidating. Yet so long as the attackers reached the base of the walls quickly enough, those long-range weapons would be useless. A moat lay before the gate. While not as formidable as the one outside Panlong City, it was still over four zhang wide—more than thirteen meters—with very low water levels in winter and a drop of two zhang, over six meters. Naturally, the moat's drawbridge was raised. The raiders had to cross the moat before the true siege could begin. In stark contrast to their thundering steeds, inside Yuheng City every household remained shuttered against the snowstorm, and not a single soul could be seen in the streets. The gate guards had left only two men shivering inside the gate archway, while the rest had retreated into the adjacent guardhouse, unwilling to endure the biting cold out in the snow. Suddenly, two figures emerged from the end of the street, creeping up to the gate under the cover of buildings, and struck at the sentries without warning! The wailing northern wind swallowed the two guards' cries. Four or five more men darted out from the shadows, joining forces to turn the windlass controlling the city gate! Unlike Panlong City's gate, Yuheng City's stood upright as a gate and doubled as a drawbridge over the moat when lowered. Raising and lowering the drawbridge was operated entirely by the windlass beside the inner gate. Thus, crossing the moat and breaching the gate were one and the same for the raiders. A stout fortress was often easiest to breach from within. They were well versed in this tactic, and their strategy tonight relied entirely on coordinating from inside and outside. Furthermore, the guardhouse opened directly onto the wall. The infiltrators hurled a small, gooey mass toward the opening of the wall stairs. Upon meeting the wind, it expanded rapidly, ballooning in just three to five breaths into a monstrosity nearly a zhang tall and three chi thick, sealing the stairwell shut! This substance was neither metal nor jade, neither copper nor iron. To the touch, it was springy and slick like fat, yet remarkably resilient against impacts. Ordinary swords and axes hacked away at it, unable to pierce it in the slightest. With this thing blocking the passage, the gate guards couldn't come down and could only lean over the parapet to loose arrows below. Holding shields over their heads, the infiltrators kept their feet moving, straining with all their might to drive the windlass.