The first rays of morning sunlight bathed the earth, and Suzhou City, having passed the night unscathed, sprang to life once more. Before dawn, shops and vendors opened, and the common folk emerged early to enjoy the day.
The Suzhou garrison, who’d spent the night on edge fearing a pirate attack, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Steaming breakfast was prepared in the city and hauled up to the walls in baskets, basins, and barrels. The Suzhou prefecture spared no expense, especially with pirates at their doorstep, providing the defenders with a lavish meal.
Each soldier received a large bowl of piping hot chicken soup, its golden broth brimming with chunks of chicken, tofu, dried mushrooms, wood ear fungus, and other ingredients, paired with five scallion oil pancakes and a side of chilled radish and tofu strips mixed with scallion oil, sprinkled with green onions and cilantro. The aroma alone was enough to make mouths water and appetites surge.
“Mm, smells amazing. After a day and night of worry, I’ve got to treat my stomach right and honor my insides.”
“Damn right! Oh, heh, check it out, I got lucky—there’s a drumstick in my soup!”
“Hot damn, I’ve got a chicken butt in mine! But, heh, I love this stuff. What’s it called again? Right, ‘Seven-Mile Fragrance.’ Like the saying goes, ‘I’d trade a mountain of gold before giving up this chicken tip.’”
The soldiers sat in groups of three or five on the ground, spreading out their food, wiping their chopsticks on their clothes, and eagerly popping chicken into their mouths, bantering cheerfully.
But before they could even chew and swallow that first bite, a shout rang out.
“Pirates! Pirates! The pirates are moving, their army’s on the march…”
The cry startled the seated soldiers mid-meal. A few nearly choked on their meat, clutching their throats and forcing it down with effort.
“Where? Where?”
The troops dropped their chopsticks in a panic, ignoring their soup, scrambling to their feet and looking around.
“Over there, where they camped yesterday! Look, the whole pirate army’s moving out! They’re splitting up!”
A sentry nearby pointed a trembling hand ten miles ahead, shouting in alarm.
Sure enough, following his gesture, they saw the pirate camp in the distance, swarming like ants, a massive force visibly mobilizing, splitting into four groups.
One group, over half their number, advanced straight toward the Zhejiang army’s position.
Another, a third of the remainder, veered east in a half-circle around the Zhejiang lines, heading for Suzhou’s east gate.
A third group mirrored them, circling east toward the north gate.
The final group swung west around the Zhejiang position, aiming for the northwest gate in a half-circle.
The Zhejiang army guarded the south gate, with influence over the north, so the pirates avoided those, splitting to attack the others.
“Quick, quick! The pirates have split into three, heading for the east, north, and northwest gates!”
Chaos erupted on the wall. Soldiers abandoned their breakfast, shouting in disarray like a leaderless mob.
“What’s all this yelling? What’s the panic? What’s there to fear? Soldiers block, water’s dammed. We’ve trained for years for this moment. We’ve got tens of thousands on the wall, and hundreds of thousands in the city, ready to draft tens of thousands more to defend it!”
Prefect Shang Weichi, hearing the pirates had split toward the east, north, and northwest gates, jogged over. Seeing the flustered troops, his face darkened, and he scolded them without hesitation.
With Shang Weichi and the officials taking charge, the shouting, panicking soldiers finally quieted.
“Look at you all, losing your heads! Anyone unaware might think the pirates had already breached the gates!”
“Yesterday, the Zhejiang army, with just two thousand men behind a man-high wall, faced thirty or forty thousand vicious pirates. And what happened? You saw it, a stunning victory!”
“We’ve got over ten thousand troops, plus tens of thousands more we can call up from the city. Our walls are dozens of meters high, with a moat meters deep. The pirates? They lost seven or eight thousand to the Zhejiang army yesterday. What’s there to panic about?”
“When the pirates come, we fight! If two thousand Zhejiang troops can do it, so can we!”
Prefect Shang sternly reprimanded the troops, ordering them back to their posts to prepare for battle.
“General Wang, General Zhao, General Liu, you’re all seasoned veterans. Take your elite troops to the east, north, and northwest gates and hold them. No mistakes, the city’s hundreds of thousands depend on you. I’ll coordinate from the center, whatever you need, just say it, and I’ll make it happen.”
Prefect Shang issued commands to the three generals, assigning each a gate.
“Rest easy, Lord Prefect. We’ve fought our way through blood and steel to earn these helmets. Defending a city? We’ll hold them without fail,” Generals Wang, Zhao, and Liu pounded their chests in assurance.
“Good! With such confidence, I’m at ease,” Prefect Shang praised them.
Soon, the three generals led their core forces to their assigned gates.
“Get the boiling oil ready!”
“Rolling stones, logs, stack them under the parapets! When the pirates come, hurl them down, crush the bastards!”
“Wind up the defensive crossbows!”
“Bring up the arrows!”
“Load the general cannons, prep the fuses! The Zhejiang army’s got good firearms, but they can’t beat these cannons!”
Under Prefect Shang and the officials’ direction, the wall’s defenders scrambled to prepare.
As the pirates drew closer, tension gripped the officials and soldiers, though amidst it, many felt a flicker of anticipation. The Zhejiang army, with just two thousand, won a glorious victory yesterday. With over ten thousand of us, backed by a towering city and deep moat, we can do it too!
The Zhejiang troops trained for mere months, their twelve hundred recruits from Yiwu for just two. We’ve been soldiers for years, if they can, so can we!
While the wall’s defenders braced for battle, at the Zhejiang camp outside, Zhu Ping’an stood on the Fengqiao bridgehead watchtower, frowning at the pirates splitting into three groups to attack Suzhou’s east, north, and northwest gates.
What are the pirates playing at?!
Why split and attack so openly in broad daylight?!
If they meant to divide their forces, wouldn’t it have been smarter to move stealthily last night, conceal their tracks, ambush the east, north, and northwest gates, and launch a surprise assault? That’d have a far higher chance of success than this blatant maneuver!
