After receiving the carrier pigeon message from Liu Mu and his team, Zhu Ping’an grew even more certain of his suspicions: the pirates were indeed trying to lure the city’s defenders out.
Without delay, he penned two more letters detailing the findings and sent them via two pigeons to Suzhou City, issuing yet another warning.
Shortly after the pigeons arrived in Suzhou, the pirates, who had been dormant overnight, sprang into action once more.
In the morning light, the pirate armies outside the eastern, northern, and northwestern gates mobilized. A dense mass of heads surged forward, carrying scaling ladders, wielding shields, armed with longbows, katanas, and matchlock guns, shouting war cries as they charged straight for the gates…
The archers among them halted dozens of meters from the walls, nocking arrows and aiming at the defenders to cover the assault.
Leading the charge were pirates of all ages, their distinctive crescent-shaped hairstyles clearly visible, hauling ladders and rushing toward the walls.
It was a near-exact replay of yesterday’s scene.
On the walls, the defenders, under their commanders’ orders, loosed arrows, hurled stones, and rolled logs down at the attacking pirates.
Having repelled the pirates twice already, they were far less fearful than during the first assault.
At the eastern gate, General Wang watched the pirates attack again. Far from being afraid, he felt a surge of excitement and anticipation.
Another chance to claim merit.
Sure, there were casualties among the defenders, but as the saying went, “One general’s success is built on ten thousand bones.” That’s how it had always been, hadn’t it?
As a general, he couldn’t afford to be soft-hearted. If his soldiers died, so be it—replacements could be found later.
It wasn’t his life on the line, after all.
Protected by his personal guards and clad in costly chainmail, ordinary arrows and blades posed little threat to him.
“Focus your bows and firearms on their archers! These pirates never learn—same old tricks. Take out their bowmen, and they’re lambs to the slaughter, ripe for the picking as military merits!” General Wang barked orders, pacing the wall and directing the troops to concentrate fire on the pirate archers below.
Seeing the pirates deploy the same formation as yesterday, merely adding a few more archers, General Wang’s disdain deepened.
The pirate soldiers were feeble, their vanguard clumsy and inept. Some even hesitated to climb the ladders until the supervising pirates behind them cut down five of their own, forcing the rest to scramble up awkwardly.
Their leaders were equally incompetent—lacking strategy or decisiveness. Three assaults, and all they could muster was archer cover, with no siege engines like battering rams or catapults, nor tactics like tunneling or fire attacks.
From top to bottom, this band of pirates had no one capable—just merit handed to him on a platter.
Zhu Ping’an had risen from a lowly seventh-rank county magistrate to a fourth-rank official through repeated military successes, hadn’t he?!
Now, fortune favored Wang Tiegun. To let this gift of merit slip away would earn him the scorn of his ancestors as an unworthy descendant.
Soon, the defenders’ arrows and firearms zeroed in on the pirate archers. This time, the pirate bowmen were even more pitiful—half of them didn’t even draw their bows before being felled.
“The pirate archers are done! Be bold and hit the ones below hard!” General Wang shouted, exhilarated as he saw their bowmen collapse. “Rolling stones, logs—throw them down! It’s not your money, so don’t hold back!”
Just like yesterday, stones and logs rained down, and the pirates below screamed as they fell, bodies piling up.
In moments, the pirates suffered heavy losses, leaving hundreds more corpses strewn about. It seemed they were on the verge of retreating again, just as they had before.
General Wang watched the faltering pirates with a mix of reluctance and caution, torn over whether to lead a sortie and harvest more merit.
With his decades of battlefield experience, these pirates were utterly pathetic—their leaders were fools, no match for him. A pursuit would surely yield a rich haul of pirate heads. Yet Shang Weichi’s warning—“Beware the pirates’ feigned retreat; don’t chase them out”—still rang in his ears. Shang, a fourth-rank civil official and Suzhou’s highest authority, held sway in this bureaucratic world where civil officials outranked the military. His face couldn’t be ignored.
Though General Wang inwardly dismissed the warning as nonsense—convinced it was Zhu Ping’an’s ploy to scare Shang and keep the seasoned generals from stealing his thunder, ensuring his own top merit—he couldn’t outright defy Shang.
Shang had just cautioned him against pursuit. Leading a sortie now would be a slap in the Prefect’s face!
Offending Suzhou’s top official would make his days here miserable.
But opportunities like this—to reap such easy merit—were rare. Pirates were supposed to be fierce, yet these were pushovers.
A successful chase could net him countless heads, making him, if not equal to Zhu Ping’an, at least an undeniable second. After all, while everyone else cowered behind the walls, he’d be the only one daring to sally forth and slay pirates…
Should he pursue or not?
General Wang wavered, his mind a battlefield of clashing thoughts.
“General, look! What’s that on the cart they’re pushing? Round things—could they be cannonballs?” His deputy’s panicked voice broke through his indecision, snapping his attention back to the field.
Sure enough, following the deputy’s pointing finger, General Wang spotted six well-armored pirates, shields raised, pushing a cart straight toward the gate. Visible atop a layer of straw were large black iron balls the size of sheep heads—cannonballs, no doubt. A quick count revealed over ten of them.
Danger! Danger! Danger!
If those got near the gate, it’d be disastrous!
Sweat beaded on General Wang’s forehead, his hair standing on end as he shouted, “Quick, quick, quick! Shoot arrows! Kill those cart-pushers! Don’t let them near the gate!”
Instantly, a flurry of archers on the wall fired at the cart crew.
But the defenders’ archery skills were lackluster. Despite their numbers, few arrows hit their mark.
Even the few that did were ineffective—the pirates’ armor and shields rendered them harmless.
The cart rolled closer, now less than eighty meters from the gate.
“Where’s the cannon?! Aim at those cart-pushers and fire!” General Wang yelled, jumping in agitation.
