Chapter 2103 - The Bombardment

Chang Qingyun felt terror grip him, a cold, visceral dread that seized his gut. His bladder seemed about to burst; he struggled to hold it in, but his legs had gone so weak he could barely stand. The horror of the Chengmai rout came flooding back, not just the defeat, but the personal humiliation. A chill ran across his forehead as he remembered the Australians, their rough hands, the cold steel of the razor against his scalp. A terrible, paralyzing thought surfaced: could that humiliation happen again? Would he be stripped, shorn, and paraded once more?

He glanced frantically around, his eyes wide with panic. As a staff officer, he had no household guards of his own. His servants might serve well enough in peacetime, but in a crisis, none would lay down their lives for him—they were utterly unreliable, their loyalty as thin as paper.

Thankfully, Yang Erdong hadn't forgotten the warning: "If anything happens to Advisor Chang, you'll answer for it!" He grabbed Chang Qingyun, his grip firm, and dragged him at a run. Along the base of the wall stretched a row of soldier shelters—when the walls were built, the builders had anticipated enemy projectile weapons, so they had constructed brick-reinforced chambers within the wall's inner face. Soldiers could take cover inside from enemy cannon-stones and arrows, or rest there like a garrison quarters. Yang Erdong pulled him into one of these shelters, the sudden darkness a momentary reprieve from the chaos outside.

But the cannon fire continued, a dull, relentless thunder that vibrated through the very earth. The massive walls shuddered under the bombardment, groaning like a dying beast. The oil lamp in the wall niche flickered wildly with each tremor, casting dancing shadows that only heightened the sense of unease. Gradually, the shells began sailing over the walls into the city, trailing white smoke and shrieking like banshees as they fell. The impact was devastating: those that struck houses instantly reduced them to rubble, sending plumes of dust and splintered wood into the air; those that hit streets sent up sprays of dirt and debris, tearing craters in the paving. A man struck directly might lose an arm or a leg, or be torn in half—blood and flesh flying in a gruesome, indiscriminate rain.

Chang Qingyun and his guards slumped on the floor of the shelter alongside other soldiers and militia, all of them clutching their heads, covering their ears, squeezing their eyes shut—as if doing so might suppress the overwhelming terror, might somehow make the world outside cease its violent assault.

Then came the hiss of iron balls falling from the sky, closer this time. A blinding flash, followed by a deafening roar—and the blast wave from the explosion rushed into the shelter, a physical force that slammed into them, snuffing out the oil lamp on the wall. The shelter erupted in screams, curses, and wails, a cacophony of raw fear. Chang Qingyun pressed himself into the corner, his body trembling uncontrollably, all thought of his bladder forgotten. He only prayed this nightmare would end.

Under the continuous bombardment, Wuzhou's walls crumbled like sandcastles, not collapsing entirely, but steadily eroding. Smoke billowed from the ramparts, lit by flickering flames, a grim spectacle of destruction. The cannon smoke grew so thick that after two hours of relentless firing, Zhang Dapao ordered a ceasefire—partly to let the gun barrels cool, partly to let the smoke clear for observation.

Ten minutes later, the smoke had dissipated from both the walls and the gun emplacements. Zhang Dapao surveyed the damage through his binoculars, a grim satisfaction settling over him. He quoted two doggerel lines Elder Zhang Bailin had taught him, a crude but apt summary of the scene: "A great wind rises, clouds go flying—cannons roar, blast their mothers dying!"

The results of the first bombardment were, in many ways, satisfactory. The southern wall could no longer be called intact. The gate tower had been blasted into rubble, a testament to the destructive power of modern artillery. The 130mm guns had proven especially devastating—each shot gouged a great chunk from the wall, leaving countless small breaches and craters. The original defensive structures atop the wall—watchtowers, sentry huts, bastions, parapets, crenellations—had been shot to pieces. These traditional masonry defenses, designed for arrows and catapult stones, had become hopelessly vulnerable, mere dust in the face of modern artillery.

Yet, the core problem remained: the wall itself.

For millennia, Chinese city walls had been built of rammed earth, at least three to four meters thick, often much more. Properly maintained, a well-tamped wall could stand for centuries. Most Ming-era walls dated to the reign of the Hongwu Emperor; with periodic repairs, many survived into the late Qing—and even after the facing bricks were stripped away, the earthen core remained as a continuous ridge of hills after another hundred years. Such massive earthen structures could not be breached by traditional smoothbore artillery. Even as late as the 1911 revolution, when Jiangsu-Zhejiang revolutionary forces besieged Nanjing, the assorted small- and medium-caliber rifled field guns of the New Army proved useless against the city walls. In the end, they had to drag heavy fortress guns from Jiangyin to knock down the ramparts and force Zhang Xun's Braid Army to abandon the city.

The damage to Wuzhou's southern wall looked pitiful—pockmarked with breaches, scarred and battered—but not a single section had actually collapsed. Zhang Dapao wasn't particularly surprised; he knew the limitations of his weapons. In artillery training, the instructors had warned: don't underestimate a wall's thickness. The field artillery—even the siege artillery—lacked any gun capable of casually knocking down a rammed-earth wall. Even with the Navy's powerful 130mm rifled guns, gnawing through the sheer mass of the wall would be a protracted and difficult task. Still, the bombardment had completely destroyed the defensive systems on the ramparts. Through his binoculars, Zhang Dapao saw no sign of activity among the Ming soldiers; the wall's top was a desolate, smoking ruin.

According to standard siege-assault doctrine, an infantry assault could now be launched: soldiers with scaling ladders, supported by suppressive fire from artillery and light infantry. One charge ought to carry the wall. But the forces south of the city were there only as a "diversion"—a feint on the southern wall to draw enemy attention while the real main assault came from the north, intended to seal off the Ming's northern escape route.

Frankly, Zhang Dapao didn't fully understand the Elders' "operational intent." By his reckoning, if they concentrated all available artillery, combined with the Pearl River Task Force West Detachment, they could blast open a breach wide enough for the engineers to throw up a pontoon bridge and the infantry to pour through and crush the enemy. That approach would earn Zhang Dapao the chief credit for the Wuzhou campaign.

But the battle plan called for something else: a feint in the south, the main attack in the north. At the command meeting, Zhu Mingxia had outlined the reasons for this. First, the Fubo Army's overarching strategy had always been annihilation, not attrition. They did not measure success by capturing or losing cities but emphasized battles of annihilation over battles of rout. Therefore, they must not simply drive the Ming forces away to scatter across Guangxi. Second, according to intelligence from agents inside the city, the Ming were preparing to burn the city. If the Fubo Army rushed in quickly and the Ming sensed imminent defeat, they would surely set fires. The likely outcome would be mutual destruction with Wuzhou.

Zhang Dapao knew the Council of Elders was both generous and stingy. When fighting or building, they spared no expense; but when it came time to collect spoils after a battle, they counted every last coin—as if stepping outside without finding money on the ground was a loss. If Wuzhou were reduced to ashes and a thousand civilians died, the Elders' mood would sour considerably. Unlike the imperial government, the Elders valued people above all else. A ruined city was of little consequence; the common folk were the most critical "spoils."

So Zhang Dapao's glory would have to be "supporting." Since this was a feint, it had to be convincing enough to make the enemy believe the feint was the main attack—momentum was everything. Although it was a diversion, Zhang Dapao still intended to punch a few holes in Wuzhou's southern wall, keeping the Ming garrison in constant fear of an imminent assault.

So Zhang Dapao expended ammunition without stint—let the logistics corps grumble; he wasn't about to save shells for them. In the first barrage alone, the Siege Artillery Battalion consumed a third of its solid-shot stockpile. Zhang Dapao casually dispatched a supply officer back to Changzhou Island to request more ammunition from the 1st Brigade's logistics headquarters. Logistics was stunned; they issued the shells but then sent a telegram to the South China Army's Sanshui logistics hub. Hong Huangnan received the message and was equally shocked—at this rate, they'd burn through the entire inventory in days. But after a sigh, he approved the requisition and forwarded another telegram to Lingao. By the time the message reached the shell factory, the workers gritted their teeth and went back to overtime. They'd been working extra shifts for months already; a few more weeks wouldn't hurt.

Every wall had one common weak point: the gate. The wall might be solid rammed earth, but the gate could only be wood. Against cannon fire, timber was utterly defenseless—let alone shells from 130mm guns capable of punching through ship hulls.

The Dezheng and Nanxun gates were blasted open in turn. Without even looking, Zhang Dapao knew what waited behind them.

The Ming had blocked the gates.

Blocking gates was the ultimate expedient to shore up this weakness, but it also meant surrendering all initiative. Since antiquity, defenders prized the ability to sortie—to harass and disrupt enemy siege works. The Ming especially valued control of the gateways. When possible, they would erect outworks beyond the gates; when necessary, they would sally forth in small counterattacks to throw off the attackers' rhythm.

Once the gates were blocked, all initiative was gone—a sign of death throes.

As for the hastily piled brick-earth-timber barricades behind the gates, the 130mm guns could demolish them in time. But a feint was a feint, not the real attack. Zhang Dapao judged that he'd lobbed enough solid shot at the walls. At this rate, the entire stockpile would be depleted before evening.

Zhang Dapao ordered all guns to cease fire on the walls. The gunners began swabbing out the bores, preparing for the next barrage.

(End of Chapter)