Conqueror (2011) c-5

by Conn Iggulden

  His tumans were drooping with exhaustion, having forced themselves to trot and walk, trot and walk for seventy miles or more, leaving their pursuers as far behind as possible. He had sent light scouts to the city, but he doubted they were more than a day ahead of him, such was the pace he had set. Both his men and their mounts were close to collapse. They needed a month of rest, good food and grazing before they went back to the fighting, but they would not find it in Shaoyang, with enemies all around.

  As the first of the tumans walked their horses into an open street, there was no sign of the inhabitants. Such a place could not be defended and he could only wonder at a society where walls had been torn down to build new districts. It was hard even to imagine such a settled life.

  There was no sign of a garrison riding out to meet them. Kublai’s scouts had already questioned the inhabitants, alternating between bribery and threats. He had been lucky, but after months of hard fighting, he was due a little luck. The garrison was apparently in the field, ten thousand of the Sung emperor’s finest sword and crossbowmen. Kublai wished them a long hunt, many, many miles away.

  He heard Uriang-Khadai give a horn signal that sent two groups of three tumans on wider paths to the centre of the city, so that they would not all approach along the same road. Kublai supposed Shaoyang had a centre, that its oldest places would have been swallowed in the rambling districts. He did not enjoy riding along streets where the roofs loomed over him. It was too easy to imagine archers appearing suddenly, shooting down into men who had little room to manoeuvre. Once again, he was glad of the armour Mongke had made him wear.

  Shaoyang seemed deserted, but Kublai felt eyes on him in the silence and he could see the closest officers were nervous, jerking their heads at the slightest hint of movement. They almost drew swords when a high voice sounded nearby, but it was just a child crying behind closed doors.

  The tumans who rode with Kublai carried his banners, hanging limp in the windless roads. He was marked by them as leader for anyone who might have been watching and he felt his heart beating faster, convincing himself in the silence that it was a trap. As he passed each side street, he tensed, craning his neck to see down it, past the stone gutters and roadways to shuttered shops and tall stone buildings, sometimes three or four storeys high. No one came rushing out to drag his men from their horses. When he heard hooves clattering ahead, he assumed the sound came from some of his own men. He had single warriors out as scouts, but the streets were a labyrinth and there was no sign of them as he saw a small group of horsemen ahead.

  The strangers were not armoured. They wore simple leggings and tunics and two of them were bare-armed, guiding their horses easily. Kublai took in the details as he looked around him once again for an ambush. The roofs remained clear and nothing moved. The Sung horsemen just sat and stared at them, then one of them spoke to the others and they began to walk their mounts slowly forward.

  Around Kublai, swords came out of scabbards with a silk whisper. Bows creaked as they were made ready. The strangers moved stiffly under that close attention, very aware that the street could become their place of death with just one wrong step.

  ‘Let them come,’ Kublai murmured to those near him. ‘I can’t see any weapons.’

  The tension grew as the small group closed on the line of Mongol warriors. One of the Sung men sought out Kublai in the ranks, assuming his identity from the bannermen on both sides of him. As if he had heard Kublai’s voice, he raised his arms very slowly and twisted in the saddle, first one way and then the next so they could see there was nothing on his back.

  ‘Ease off,’ Kublai said to the warriors.

  Arms grew tired holding drawn bows; fingers could slip. He did not want the man killed when he had gone to so much trouble to speak to him. Around Kublai, bows and swords lowered reluctantly and the Sung men began to breathe again.

  ‘That’s near enough,’ Kublai said when they were just a dozen paces away.

  The Sung group looked to the one who had ridden closest. His bare arms were heavy with muscle though his cropped hair was white and his face was deeply seamed.

  ‘My name is Liu Yin-San,’ the man said. ‘I am prefect of Shaoyang. I am the one who met your scouts.’

  ‘Then you are the one who will surrender Shaoyang to me,’ Kublai replied.

  To his surprise, Liu Yin-San shook his head, as if he were not facing thousands of armed men stretching from that point to the outer towns of the city. Kublai had a sudden vision of a knife plunged into Shaoyang, with himself at the head. No, three knives, with Bayar and Uriang-Khadai. At the edges behind him, there would be warriors who had yet to enter, waiting impatiently for news from the front.

  ‘I have come unarmed to say I cannot,’ Liu Yin-San said. ‘The emperor has given orders to all his cities. If I surrender to you, Shaoyang will be burnt as a lesson to the others.’

  ‘You have met this emperor?’ Kublai asked.

  ‘He has not visited Shaoyang,’ Liu Yin-San replied.

  ‘Then how does he command your loyalty?’

  The man frowned, wondering if he could explain the concept of fealty to men he had been told were little better than wild animals. He took hope from the fact that Kublai spoke in perfect Mandarin to him, the language and dialect of the Chin noble classes.

  ‘I took an oath when I was made prefect of the city,’ he said. ‘My orders are clear. I cannot give you what you want.’

  The man was sweating and Kublai saw his dilemma clearly. If he surrendered, the city would be destroyed by a furious master. If he resisted, he expected Shaoyang to suffer the same fate from the tumans. Kublai wondered if Liu Yin-San had a solution, or whether he had ridden towards them expecting to be cut down.

  ‘If I became the emperor, would your oath of loyalty extend to me?’ he asked.

  Liu Yin-San sat very still as he considered it.

  ‘It is possible. But, my lord … you are not my emperor.’

  He tensed as he spoke, aware that his life hung in the balance. Kublai fought not to smile at his reaction. The prefect would have made different decisions if he’d known a Sung army was marching towards the city as they spoke. Kublai would not allow himself to be trapped in Shaoyang. He glanced up at the sun and thought he would have to ride clear soon.

  ‘You leave me with few choices, Liu Yin-San,’ he said. The man paled slightly, understanding his own death in the words. Kublai went on before he could reply. ‘I did not intend to stop in Shaoyang. I have other battles. From you, I merely needed supplies for my men, but if you will not surrender the city, you force me to give this order.’

  Kublai turned in the saddle and raised his hand. Once more his men drew swords and raised their bows.

  ‘Wait!’ Liu Yin-San called, his voice strained. ‘I can …’ He hesitated, making some inner decision. ‘I cannot lead you to the barracks that lie less than a mile down this very road.’

  Kublai turned slowly back to him, raising an eyebrow in silent question.

  ‘I will not surrender Shaoyang,’ Liu Yin-San said. Sweat was pouring from him, Kublai noticed. ‘I will order my people to barricade themselves in their homes. I will pray that the storm passes the city without bloodshed, that you take whatever you need and leave.’

  Kublai smiled. ‘That would be a wise decision, prefect. Ride home past the barracks and be sure to fight if you are attacked. I do not think you will be, not today.’

  Liu Yin-San’s hands were trembling as he turned his horse and began to walk it away. His men were driven before the Mongol army so that they rode awkwardly, expecting arrows in their backs at any moment. Kublai grinned, but he followed closely, taking his column in further until they reached the barracks of the city garrison. An open square eased some of the tension in the Mongol warriors. At the edges, double-storey buildings stretched, enough to house thousands of men.

  Liu Yin-San halted then and Kublai could see the prefect was still expecting to be cut down.

  ‘There will come a
time,’ Kublai said, ‘when I stand again before you and ask you to surrender Shaoyang. You will not refuse me then. Now go home. No one will die today.’

  Liu Yin-San left with his small group, many of them looking back over and over as they dwindled into the distance, finally vanishing into the streets of the city. No one else was in sight, Kublai realised. The people of Shaoyang had indeed hidden themselves behind locked doors rather than face the invader.

  His men began throwing open the buildings of the Shaoyang garrison, revealing vast stables, armouries, dormitories and kitchens. One of them put his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply, drawing Kublai’s attention. He walked his horse over the training ground and saw Uriang-Khadai’s column enter the other side as he went. Kublai turned to the scouts that were always at his side.

  ‘One of you run to the orlok and tell him to report to me. Another to general Bayar, wherever he has gone to.’

  They galloped away over the stones, a pleasant clattering that echoed back from the buildings around the open space. Kublai dismounted and walked into a long hall that had him grinning in the first few steps. He could see pikes by the thousand in racks, then as he walked further, he found shields stacked against each other in wooden frames. He walked past bows that could not match the range of his own. Rooms opened onto rooms and by the time Uriang-Khadai had reached the outer ones, Kublai was standing in a fletchers’ hall, with the smell of glue and wood and feather strong in the air. Dozens of benches showed where men worked each day and the results could be seen in the stacks of perfect quivers on every side. He pulled out a shaft and inspected it, rubbing the flights with his thumb. The Sung regiments were served by master craftsmen.

  Kublai removed his bow from its loop over his back and strung it with quick movements. He heard someone enter behind him and he turned to see Uriang-Khadai standing with a rare expression of satisfaction on his face. Kublai nodded to him and drew the bow, sending an arrow at the far wall. It punched through the wood and vanished beyond it, leaving a visible spot of light as the flights fell to the wooden floor. For the first time in days, Kublai felt his weariness lift.

  ‘Have your men gather them up quickly, Uriang-Khadai. Get the scouts out looking for a place where we can sleep and eat, somewhere clear of the city. Tomorrow is soon enough to begin fighting our way clear.’

  Kublai smiled as he looked around the hall. Someone would have to work it out, but there had to be a million shafts in new quivers, perhaps even more.

  ‘We have teeth again, orlok. Let’s use them.’

  Xuan, Son of Heaven, had never seen the Sung at war. The sheer scale of it was impressive, but he thought the pace was dangerously slow. It had taken them a month to escort him to a meeting of Sung lords in the city. More than a hundred had been in attendance, placed according to their ranks in tiered seating, so that the most powerful had positions on the actual debating floor and the least were leaning over the upper balconies to listen. They had fallen silent as he’d walked in, flanked by Sung officials.

  His initial impression had been of a mass of colour, staring eyes and stiff robes of green and red and orange. There were as many different styles as men in the room. Some wore simple tunics beaded in pearls, while others sweltered in high collars and headgear decorated with anything from peacock feathers to enormous jewels. A few of the younger ones looked like warriors, but many more resembled ornate birds, hardly able to move for the layers of silk and finery.

  Xuan’s presence had flustered servants with no clear instructions. In terms of his nobility, he outranked all the men in the room, but he was the nominal ruler of a foreign nation and commanded a tiny force of ageing soldiers. The servants had found him a place on the lower floor, but towards the back, a typical compromise.

  At first, Xuan was content merely to watch and listen, learning the personalities and politics as he suffered through another month of detailed talks. He recognised few faces or names from his time in Sung lands, but he knew the lords in that room could put a million men in the field if they chose to do so or were given a direct order by the emperor. Xuan had yet to see his cousin. The elderly emperor rarely left his palace and the actual business of the war was the concern of the lords. Yet the emperor had insisted Xuan attend the council, as one of the few men who had faced Mongol hordes and survived. His presence was tolerated, though he was not exactly welcomed as a long-lost son. Proud Sung nobles stopped just short of snubbing him completely. They had to endure his presence, but when he did not put his name down as a speaker, many of them were privately pleased, assuming he was intimidated by the powerful assembly.

  They met twice every month, though it was rare for the seats to be filled as they had been on his first entrance. Through more regular attendance than half the lords there, Xuan learned of the second massive army Mongke Khan had brought into their lands. For a morning, the threat had almost swept aside the petty politics of the court. Two lords whose lands adjoined each other spoke without their usual barely concealed bitterness. It had not lasted beyond that first sense of truce and by the afternoon one of them had stormed out with his trail of servants and the other was frozen in rage at whatever insult he had perceived to his house and rank.

  Despite the chaotic lack of leadership, actual fighting did take place. Xuan learned that in the south, the tumans with Kublai had smashed eleven armies, some three-quarters of a million men. Rather than allow them to grow strong on captured weapons, the only choice had been to throw regiment after regiment at the Mongols, forcing Kublai to keep moving and fighting, wearing him down. In his time in the debating chamber, Xuan had seen four nobles stand and make their farewells to take the field. None of them had returned and, as the news came in, their names were added to a scroll of the honoured dead.

  As the third month began, Xuan entered the chamber with a lighter step. It was barely half full, but more were coming in behind him and taking their accustomed places. Xuan made his way to one of the scribes who reported the debates and stood in front of him until the man looked up.

  ‘I will speak today,’ Xuan said.

  The scribe’s eyes widened slightly, but he nodded, bowing his head as he added Xuan’s formal name with his brushes and ink. It took some time for him to complete it but the scribe knew his business and did not have to check his records. The gathering lords had not missed the event. Many of them were staring at him as he returned to his seat and others sent runners to their allies. While Xuan waited patiently, more and more lords came from their homes in the city until the room was as packed as it had been on his first day.

  Xuan wondered if any of them knew he had been summoned to the emperor’s palace the night before, taken from the barracks where he stayed with his men. It had been a short meeting, but he had been pleased to find his elderly cousin was not unaware of the war, or its lack of progress. The emperor of the Sung was just as frustrated as Xuan himself and had left him with one command - to shake the lords out of their complacency. The rest of the night had been spent with Sung scribes, and for once Xuan had been allowed to see any record he wanted. He had given up sleep to learn everything he could and as he sat peacefully in the debating chamber, his mind twitched with facts and stratagems.

  He waited through the ritual opening of the council, though the formalities took an age. Two other men spoke before him and he listened politely until they were finished and minor votes took place. One of them appeared to know the assembled lords were waiting for Xuan and hurried his presentation, while the other was oblivious and rambled on for an hour about iron ore supplies in the eastern provinces.

  When they sat down, the emperor’s chancellor spoke his name and Xuan stood. Heads craned to see him and on a whim he walked forward to the centre of the room, so that he faced them all in half-circles rising up to the balconies above. No one whispered or shuffled. He had their complete attention.

  ‘According to the imperial records in Hangzhou, more than two million trained soldiers are under arms, not counting the l
osses to date. The honourable lords in this room have eleven thousand cannon between them. Yet a Mongol force of barely a hundred thousand has made them look like children.’

  A ripple of outrage ran around the room, but the calculated reference to records had not been lost on them. Only the emperor had such information and it silenced those who might have shouted him down. Xuan ignored the murmuring and went on.

  ‘In time, I believe sheer numbers would have brought success despite the lack of a unified command. Mistakes have been made, not least the assumption that the army of Kublai is in the field and must eventually return home to resupply. They have no need to do so, my lords. They are not in the field. They are merely in a new place, as all places are new to them. They cannot be waited out, as I have heard so eloquently argued in this chamber. If they are not destroyed, they will come to Hangzhou in a year, or two years, or ten. It took them longer than that to take control of Chin lands in the north, lands far larger than those of the Sung.’

  He had to wait as voices spoke over him, but the majority wanted to hear what he had to say and the fiery arguments died for lack of support.

  ‘Even so, they would eventually have failed against the Sung regiments. But now the Mongol khan has brought a new army to the Sung, greater than any he has wielded before. The reports give the numbers as more than a quarter of a million men - this time without their camps. They have no cannon and so their strategy becomes clear.’

  The silence was total then, as every lord strained to hear. Xuan deliberately dropped his voice so that no one would dare to interrupt him again.

  ‘He ignores Sung cities and moves incredible distances. If I had not read the scout reports in the emperor’s offices, I would not have believed it, but they are crossing vast stretches of land each day, heading south. Their intention is clearly to join up with Kublai’s tumans, clearing the field of any army in their way. It is a bold strategy, one that shows contempt for the armies of the Sung. Mongke Khan will destroy the men in the field and then take the cities at his leisure, either using captured cannon, or by siege. Unless he is stopped, he will be at the gates of Hangzhou in less than a year.’