“Shoot sparingly and only when needed,” Robert said, loud enough to be heard above the throbbing drums. “We do not have an endless supply of ammunition.” He feared that a large troop of Taipings would be guarding the south gate.
To his surprise, they discovered the gate was open, and the two men he had sent with Guan-jiah were there. The half-dozen Taipings who had been guarding the gate were dead—the bodies piled to one side.
“Who thought of this?” he asked, and felt a jolt of fear. “Where’s Guan-jaih?”
“Guan-jiah didn’t want to just go outside and buy horses,” one of the men said, “so we killed these guards and took the gate. The noise you were making at the temple was loud enough so no one heard us. Guan-jiah was worried we might find ourselves outside with the rest of you trapped. Once we took the gate, he went to find the horses. It was his idea that we stay.”
“This way!” It was Guan-jaih, who had emerged from the darkness of the tunnel leading through the city wall. He was breathing hard and was drenched in sweat. “My cousins are watching the horses at the Altar of Agriculture. We must hurry.”
Robert stepped aside and waved for the others to move, but they hesitated. “What are you waiting for? Go.” He followed with his children and Ayaou.
When everyone emerged from the tunnel, he said, “Guan-jiah, you are truely amazing. Without your fast thinking, we could have been trapped inside the city and killed. What did I do to deserve such loyalty and steadfastness? Surely, God guided you to me when I first arrived in Ningpo.”
Guan-jiah’s reply was classically Confucious in its thinking. “Well, you could thank your God for bringing us together, and you might be correct. But then there is no way to prove that your God actually exists.” The eunuch shrugged and led the way across the bridge spanning the moat. Someone shouted from the wall. His troop turned and fired a volley at the battlements, and screams were heard
After everyone was across, Guan-jiah said, “Help me push this wagon to the bridge.” The wagon full of dry hay was heavy, and it took half the men to move the wagon, while the other half kept up a withering barrage on the city’s wall so the Taipings could not shoot back.
Robert watched in amazement as the eunuch set fire to the hay.
“That hay cost ten yuan,” Guan-jiah said. “I could not get the farmer to lower his price.”
Robert wanted to laugh but didn’t. “Good thinking,” he said. “How did you accomplish all that in such a short time?”
“Probably with your ghost God’s help,” Guan-jiah replied.
Once the fire was blazing, Guan-jiah led the way toward the Alter of Agriculture. “It might be wise to thank your God just in case He does exist,” he said. “It is not a good idea to anger a god. Besides, you have been a good master and the money I have earned has helped my family live a better life so I am also thankful that your God brought me to you.”
The horses were waiting with Guan-jiah’s cousins. The eunuch took his cousins off to one side and gave them money while the troop mounted.
As they started moving, clouds obscured the stars. It was early morning and the air was chilly. The weather reminded Robert of the many times he’d taken walks along this river bank.
Hearing the Taipings swarming inside the city sounding like billions of bees attacking a bear was enough to stir fear in any man. By now, the rebels had to know that Robert’s force was small. Soldiers on the wall would have seen and reported, so he led the way around the city in an attempt to reach the river to escape.
The Taipings on the wall started shooting at his troop, but they were out of range of the muskets and crossbows. Then Robert heard the shouting of a large body of men coming from the direction they were headed. When he saw the vanguard in the distance, he knew that there had to be hundreds of rebels in that formation. “We have to turn back.” He wheeled his horse. “The way to the river is blocked.”
A cannon boomed.
His reaction was to jump from the horse and drag Ayaou and the children to the ground so he could cover them with his body. He expected to get hit by grapeshot or see some of his men blown out of their saddles. Instead, it appeared from the sound of the boom and the bright flash that the ancient cannon must have exploded and taken some of the Taipings on the battlements with it. They were fortunate that the modern cannons faced the river.
How had the Taipings taken a third of China? Were the imperial armies that bad? If so, he knew another reason why China couldn’t defend itself against foreign invasions. It meant that the corruption among the Manchu generals was worse than Robert had thought. They must have bribed their way to be put in charge of armies.
While riding north, there was a skirmish with a group of Taipings guarding a roadblock. His troop fired the Colt revolvers as they charged. Once again, surprise and superioirity in weapons won the moment but that could last only as long as they had ammunition.
As they rode past the roadblock and up the dirt road, he didn’t see any muskets with the sprawled bodies of the dead Taipings, but there were crossbows.
Robert stopped his troop and listened to the sounds of men chanting and the tramp of many feet. “We’re being followed,” he said. “Push the horses harder. We have to put distance between us and whoever that is. Hopefully, when we reach the mountains, we will lose them.”
“Sounds like there’s a thousand of them,” Leopold said with his thick German accent.
As the miles slipped beneath the horses’ hooves, the sounds of pursuit diminshed.
By midnight, Robert and his troop dismounted and walked the horses. They might have hundreds of miles to go before they would be safe. Without the horses, Robert doubted they would survive.
Once they were away from the rich, agricultural, flatlands around Ningpo, they would be entering hills then mountains. He thought the best chance to escape was to head to Shanghai. The trouble was, there were Taiping armies between Ningpo and Shanghai. If those armies were alerted, they would be ready and waiting.
Chapter 54
Concerned faces gathered around the map Robert spread on the ground. “We can’t go north,” he said. “The Taipings will be watching for us to try for Hangzhou Bay, and we cannot go west either, since the Taipings have occupied the city of Hangzhou.”
“What are we going to do?” Anwar asked.
“We go southwest until we have bypassed Hangzhou then turn northwest and make for the Yangtze River.”
“That’s more than two hundred miles,” Anwar said. “After we are north of Hangzhou, why not turn east and ride to Shanghai?”
“The Taipings have an army between us and Shanghai. The last report I read before leaving Peking said they were less than fifty miles from the city.”
“My god, what are we going to do?” Leopold said. “It doesn’t matter what direction we go, there is always a Taiping army in the way.” It took Robert a moment to figure out what the German said owing to his accent.
“Calm down, Leo,” Anwar said. “Pointing out the obvious isn’t going to help.” Leopold looked sheepish.
“We move toward Nanking,” Robert said.
Everyone looked shocked. Even Guan-jaih. “Sir,” Anwar said, “Nanking is the Taiping capital. We would be walking into a viper’s nest.”
“We have to do the unexpected,” Robert said. “Two Ch’ing armies are operating east of Nanking along the Yangtze and Generals Li Hung-chang and Charles Gordon command them.”
“What about Lake Tai?” one of the Shanghai men asked. “It’s closer than the Yangtze. If we reach the lake, we can take a boat to Shanghai.”
“That’s another option,” Robert replied, “and the Grand Canal meets the lake.”
What he did not say was that Li Hung-chang was a friend and when Robert had reached Shanghai, he’d sent a message to Li about the raid on Ningpo to save Ayaou and the children. He had written that if he couldn’t escape Ningpo by boat, he would ride overland toward Li’s army.
Li Hung-chang was no fool. He was H
an Chinese and was an intelligent, capable but ruthless general. If Li expected Robert to come overland, he would move troops south to close the gap.
“It’s a gamble,” Anwar said.
“I see it as our only choice,” Robert said.
“We could head toward Hong Kong,” another man said.
“Too far,” Robert said. “More than twice the distance. We’d run into bandits, pirates, brigands and rebels. Apak’s pirate fleet works the waters between Ningpo and Hong Kong. He has spies along the coast. No, we will make for the Yangtze. Mount. We have to get moving.”
They rode through the night. Reaching the top of a hill as dawn arrived, Robert saw a large force of Taipings blocking the road ahead and haulted his troop. Waist high grass grew on both sides of the dirt track they had been following. “Hobble the horses and let them feed,” he said, dismounting.
Anwar rummaged in his pack and brought out a tube that was a collapsing telescope. His wild hair looked like a bush that had lost its foliage. “Got it in India,” he said, and handed the scope to Robert.
What he saw was depressing. The Taipings blocking the road were armed with muskets. He also saw a man dressed in Western clothing, who seemed to be giving commands. Could that be my phantom Englishman? Robert thought.
He adjusted the telescope attempting to increase the magnification to see the man’s face but couldn’t. His hands tightened on the tube, and he gritted his teeth in frustration. That man is like a nightmare, he thought.
He was tempted to charge downhill and fight. With the repeating rifles and the Colt revolvers, some of his people might break through and escape.
“What is it, Robert?” Ayaou asked. She had walked up behind him.
Frustrated, he shook his head. “Taipings are blocking the road,” he said. “It looks like a foreign devil is leading them.”
“Ba Ba,” Anna said. Robert glanced at his little girl, who was holding one of Ayaou’s hands, and her eyes were swimming in tears. “Ta men dai,” she said, meaning, ‘They bad?’ She pointed at the distant Taipings as a tear slipped from one eye. Robert picked her up, and her little arms went around his neck. He swallowed as a lump appeared in his throat. “I will protect you,” he said.
Her arms tightened, and she buried her face against his shoulder. She smelled like warm hay. No, he was not going to charge down there and trust capricious fate. Imagining Ayaou and his children bloody and dead was more than he could deal with. Then he thought of the families of the loyal men who had risked their lives to help save his family. There was no way he was going to fight a pitched battle if it could be avoided.
“Let me look,” Ayaou said.
He handed her the scope. Guan-jiah came, and Robert gave Anna to the eunuch. The child accepted the servant immediately. Guan-jiah started to sing to her while he carried her back to where her infant brother was sleeping. Herbert was curled on the ground on a bed of thick grass the eunuch had picked. The infant’s knees were tucked tight against his chest. The sun was beating on him, and his hair glowed from the light. A thumb was tucked into one corner of his mouth. He looked fragile, like a snail without a shell.
Robert turned from this vision of innocence and put an arm around Ayaou. He couldn’t stop thinking that Herbert might not get a chance to grow up and discover a woman to love.
Ayaou looked through the telescope for a long time before she handed it to Anwar.
“That could be the man who was leading the Longhaired Bandits that kidnapped us in the Peking market,” she said. “They were dressed like bannermen, but he was dressed like you and your men. He spoke Mandarin with a bad accent. He was not nice. When Anna cried, he slapped her and told her he would throw her in a fire if she did not stop. He was at the Ningpo temple three days ago. How did he get here so fast?”
“My god, I should have thought of that,” Robert said. “That demon guessed right that we would go southwest, so he marched inland through the night to cut us off. He must have driven his men like cattle and taken an easier route. The path we have been following curves around like a snake doubling the distance.”
Anwar was staring through the scope. “What I’m looking at is a traitor,” he said. “I would love to get my hands on that man.”
“You aren’t the only one who wants that,” Robert said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury. He has at least two hundred men, and they are armed with muskets, which takes away our advantage.”
“What now?” Anwar asked.
“Backtrack down this hill and turn north at the first path we find then head for the Grand Canal where we will find boats. The Grand Canal goes to the Yangtze and from there to Peking. Even if we don’t run into the Grand Canal, we will eventually find the Yangtze, which we can’t miss. Once on the river, we may be able to reach Shangahi. We aren’t out of options yet.”
Anwar was silent for a moment, then said, “He has a field glass, and he’s looking in our direction.”
Robert felt a shock race through him then shouted. “Off the hill!” Startled faces turned toward him, then the troop scrambled to get off the hilltop.
While they were riding, Anwar folded his telescope and stored it in his pack. “That rat has several hundred miles to catch us,” he said. “I don’t like the odds.”
“I don’t either,” Robert replied. “However, unless something better materializes, it’s what we’re going to do—try to reach the Yangtze and hope we find Li Hung-chang or Charles Gorden. At times, we will have to walk the horses. If we push them, they will start dying on us. Without the horses, we are lost for sure. With the horses, we can cover seventy-five to a hundred miles a day. Without them, only a third of that distance at best.
“That group,” he gestured toward the Taipings on the other side of the hill, “is at least two hours from us, and the Taipings from Ningpo may be three or four hours behind us. I don’t think they have been stopping to rest as often as we have.”
Leopold, the German, joined them. “It sounds like we are in a vise,” he said. Anwar glared at him. Leopold squirmed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Then don’t talk about how bad our situation is.”
Leopold swallowed then turned to Robert. “This Charles Gordon,” he said, “was he once an engineering officer in the British army?”
“Yes,” Robert replied.
“Then I know of him. He also fought in the Second Opium War against the Ch’ing Dynasty. I find it strange that he is working for them now. He was in charge of blowing up most of the Summer Palace. They say Gordon hated that job but had no choice.”
Sixteen hours later, as another night loomed, the horses looked as if they were the walking dead. They had slowed to a crawl hours ago and were dragging their hooves through the dust.
A running man could have caught them at that pace. The horses’ heads and tails drooped and the muscles in their legs quivered with each step. Robert’s body ached, and he wanted to sleep for a week. It was easy to see by the slumped figures that everyone else was in the same exhausted state.
Anna had gone to sleep in Robert’s arms, and Ayaou was struggling to stay on her saddle. Her eyelids looked heavy.
Not far from Robert, Guan-jiah, who carried Herbert, was also struggling to stay awake. His head nodded, fell forward until his chin touched his chest, then he jerked erect and smacked his face several times until his cheeks glowed red from the blows.
The dirt track they followed ran northwest and was climbing higher. For the moment, the Taipings were out of sight, yet Robert knew if he stopped, they would quickly close the gap.
Several times, he’d ridden alone to a hill they had recently crossed and waited. He’d seen the two groups, the one following them from Ningpo and the one with the foreign devil, join forces hours ago. Then he would ride his horse hard to catch up with his troop.
The Taipings numbered at least six hundred. Robert suspected that his men didn’t have much ammunition left. Even if every shot killed a Taiping, hundreds would survive
.
When they reached the top of another hill, the troop rode into a valley with a small, walled town in the center surrounded by farms. The sun was already slipping below the horizon as another night arrived.
Robert twisted in the saddle to study the road behind them. It was empty as far as he could see. However, there was the hint of a dust cloud in the distance marking where the Taipngs were marching.
It was too dangerous to stop, but they needed rest.
An evening fog was forming in the valley. “Let’s ride to that town and get behind a wall,” he said. “Dismount and walk the horses. They need a break and walking will do us good.”
“What are you thinking, Inspector General?” Anwar asked.
“That we can’t go much further without stopping to eat and sleep. The Taipings have to rest too. After all, despite what they believe about their leader being sent to them by God, they are still human.”
“That town could become a trap,” Anwar said. “There might even be Taipings there.”
“I’ve thought of that. What other choice have we?”
Anwar gestured toward a large grove of trees halfway down the hill and off to the right. “We camp there. It would be better to stay in the open. Those walls don’t look that impressive.”
“You’re right,” Robert replied, and led his troop off the road into the trees where they were soon hidden. With Guan-jiah’s help, he strung a rope between the trees and tied the horses to it. Anwar and Leopold returned to the road and used branches broken off trees to obscure the tracks that showed them leaving the dirt path.
“Before anyone sleeps, pull as much grass as you can and feed your mounts,” Robert said. “We will need them fed and rested in the morning. See if there is water nearby. The horses need water too.”
By the time the men were sleeping, it was close to two in the morning. Robert checked Cooper’s wound and found that he’d managed to keep it clean and no infection had set in. The crossbow bolt had hit his thigh and tore it open. It was an ugly wound.
My Splendid Concubine Page 63
