Chapter 52 The Power of Gunpowder

Upon the battlements of Shan Prefecture, Li Ling, having shaken off his initial shock, personally took command of the city's West Gate.

The road from Tongguan to Luoyang connected directly through the West Gate of Shan Prefecture. Any hostile force advancing from Tongguan to attack Shan Prefecture would inevitably strike the West Gate first, which was why Cui Qianyou had deployed heavily fortified troops in that sector.

However, the tallest and most formidable walls of Shan Prefecture were not at the West Gate, but rather at the East and South Gates. The fortress had originally been constructed primarily to defend against enemies approaching from the east—meaning its core function was to guard against invaders from the direction of Luoyang, thereby shielding Tongguan in the rear and the distant capital of Chang'an beyond. Consequently, the eastern and southern perimeters had been built with the greatest strength.

It could be said that the West Gate was the weakest point in the city's defenses. After Cui Qianyou took command of Shan Prefecture, although he ordered the walls to be heightened and reinforced, they still fell short of the sturdiness found at the East and South Gates. Yet Cui Qianyou was not overly concerned; he commanded a force of one hundred thousand men, whereas the garrison at Tongguan numbered only around one hundred thousand as well. Even if Yang Xi threw his entire strength into a siege, there was little he could do against him.

When Cui Qianyou was summoned to Luoyang by An Lushan, Li Ling was left in temporary command. Though he harbored anxieties about a Tang assault, he relied on the hundred thousand defenders within the walls and felt no fear. Even upon suddenly hearing that the Tang army had reached the gates, he quickly regained his composure after the initial shock, ordered the entire garrison to enter the highest state of alert, and personally took charge of the West Gate defenses.

Thirty-five thousand soldiers were stationed at the West Gate, with the capacity to rapidly draw reinforcements from other gates should the need arise. Though the arrival of the Tang forces caught them somewhat unawares, they had long been preparing to repel such an attack. After a brief flurry of panic among the troops, all defensive preparations were carried out in an orderly fashion. Nearly ten thousand archers stood ready atop the battlements, alongside piles of rolling boulders and heavy logs, awaiting only for the Tang forces to cross the moat and attempt a scaling of the walls.

Li Ling was confident that the Tang assault could be easily repulsed. After all, Shan Prefecture held one hundred thousand men, while the Tang force at Tongguan barely exceeded that number at most, with none of them having undergone systematic training and the majority facing combat for the very first time. Their combat effectiveness was entirely incomparable to his own battle-hardened veterans.

Yet Li Ling soon realized his calculations were flawed. Instead of surging toward the base of the wall like a tidal wave, the Tang army merely formed up into battle array outside the city and fell completely silent. What could this mean?

Amidst Li Ling's growing bewilderment, several earth-shattering explosions echoed from outside the city, instantly followed by the frantic neighing of horses and the shouts of men. As Li Ling wondered in alarm what could possibly produce such a terrifying sound, he suddenly heard a soldier shriek at the top of his lungs, "What on earth is that?" Raising his head, he beheld numerous glowing, dark objects soaring through the air toward the ramparts.

"It's rocks hurled by the Tang catapults!" someone shouted, and Li Ling was inclined to agree.

Yet Li Ling immediately realized his judgment was mistaken. As those dark objects reached the summit of the wall, they suddenly erupted into massive balls of fire. Simultaneous with the blinding flashes, a thunderous detonation shook the earth, instantly followed by a chorus of screams and agonizing cries.

The first object to land and detonate upon the ramparts was a heavy explosive satchel hurled by a catapult, which happened to explode right as it cleared the parapet.

An explosion occurring before hitting the ground possessed the most terrifying destructive power. Moreover, the rebel soldiers were densely packed along the battlements; a vast swathe of men near the blast zone was blown violently to the ground. One unfortunate soldier was blasted to pieces on the spot, while over a dozen others suffered horrific wounds, their agonizing shrieks of terror chilling the blood of all who heard them. Countless soldiers, though untouched by the blast itself, fled in blind panic.

What kind of terrifying, invincible weapon was this? They had never witnessed anything like it; it was utterly horrifying.

Yet this was merely the prelude. Even more horrifying horrors were yet to come.

Massive explosions rocked the battlements in rapid succession. These subsequent blasts occurred after the satchels struck the ground, and while their potency did not match the mid-air detonation of the first, their destructive force was more than enough to terrify the soul. Each satchel managed to inflict death or injury upon dozens of men, crowded as the ramparts were with troops.

Continuous, deafening explosions reverberated along the city walls. Countless soldiers collapsed one after another, and a massive section of the brickwork was blown entirely apart, paralyzing the rebel ranks with fear. Many soldiers dropped their weapons and fled, while others, believing Heaven itself was punishing them, cast aside their arms and knelt on the ground, kowtowing ceaselessly.

Yet the nightmare of the rebel soldiers was far from over; this was only the beginning. The projectiles first hurled onto the ramparts had been explosive satchels and crude hand grenades launched by catapults. A short moment later, the "heartless cannons"—having lagged slightly behind in their firing rhythm—discharged their clustered bundles of explosive satchels, and the true nightmare commenced.

With a thunderous roar, a twenty-odd-pound explosive satchel plummeted from the sky, detonating right beside a crenellation. The shockwave instantly swept multiple archers, bows still clutched in their hands, off the ramparts, sending them plummeting with desperate screams into the moat below. Several soldiers standing close to the epicenter were blasted into fragments; severed limbs flew wildly through the air, and even internal organs were violently ripped from their bodies.

The sheer destructive might of the blasts knocked over thirty soldiers in an instant, leaving none uninjured, dead or maimed alike. The force of the detonation shattered vast quantities of city bricks into countless jagged fragments that whistled through the air like shrapnel, wounding scores of soldiers with their high-velocity impacts.

Massive explosive satchels rained down continuously from outside the city. The majority struck the battlements, while some sailed past to land deep within the city itself, and a tiny fraction fell short, splashing into the moat and detonating with geysers of flame. Weighing twenty to thirty pounds each, these colossal satchels possessed devastating explosive power; the violent shockwaves and thunderous noise left numerous soldiers instantly concussed and unconscious. Li Ling, who had been shouting at the top of his lungs for his men to maintain order, was himself knocked senseless by the shockwave of a massive satchel that detonated nearby.

The top of the wall bore a striking resemblance to a living hell—at least, the defending rebels had never encountered such a situation before. Before the enemy's shadow had even appeared beneath the walls, they had suffered such catastrophic devastation. Explosions echoed everywhere, and panicked soldiers scrambled wildly, clutching their heads in terror, completely beyond anyone's control. Driven by blind panic in their flight, many soldiers tumbled straight off the edge of the ramparts, suffering death or crippling injuries.

At that moment, nearly everyone cursed their parents for not giving them an extra pair of legs to escape faster.

The satchels raining down from the skies showed no signs of diminishing; instead, they multiplied. Explosions merged into an uninterrupted cacophony, enveloping the entire wall in billowing black smoke and blinding flashes of fire. Traumatized and terrified, the rebel soldiers lost all will to resist, turning tail and fleeing toward the base of the wall en masse.

Nearly a hundred explosive satchels rained down, not only inflicting catastrophic casualties upon the rebel forces atop the wall but completely shattering their will to fight. The bristling array of bows previously aimed outward toward the plains had vanished entirely amidst the blasted ruins.

A gust of fierce wind swept across, dispersing the pall of black smoke somewhat, revealing several stretches of the city wall completely deserted by the fleeing defenders.