Authors: Conn Iggulden
The bowl of land that led down to the mine ended on a flat field some miles across. Kublai tried to put himself in the place of the Sung general. The site was not a good one for a defensive battle. No leader would choose a spot where he could not command the closest heights. Yet it was exactly the sort of battle that came when an emperor thousands of miles away ordered one of his senior men to hold a position, no matter who came against it or how strong they were.
There would be no retreat, Kublai was certain. He raised his fist and the Mongol ranks halted, curving slightly as they met the line of the valley ridge. The sun was high above them and the day was warm. He could see a long way, beyond the mine itself to the shantytown that fed it with workers each morning. The air itself shimmered over part of the sprawling site, revealing the location of the smelting furnaces. Kublai took heart from the fact that they were still working. Perhaps there would be silver in the warehouses after all. He could see a stream of workers leaving the site and as he waited for his cannons to come up, the distant shimmering ceased. The mine shut down and the air was very still.
Behind him, the cannon teams whipped horses dragging the heavy cannon, straining for the last burst of speed up the ridge. Kublai and Bayar had experimented with oxen and horses, even camels, trying to find the best combination of speed and stamina. Oxen were painfully slow, so he had left them in camp with the families and used teams of four horses. Once the guns were rolling, they could triple the speed to the front, though the cost in horses was enormous. Hundreds of them would be lame or have had their wind broken pulling the guns, as well as the carts full of shot and gunpowder.
Kublai readied his orders in his head. The Sung had formed quickly on the valley plain and he saw the dark shapes of their own cannons dragged to the front, ready with braziers to light the black powder. To charge that camp would be to ride through a hail of shot, and Kublai felt his gut tighten in fear at the thought. He scowled as he saw that the Sung regiments were holding their ground, certain that he had to come to them.
Kublai sent single warriors out ahead of the tumans. Thousands of eyes on both sides watched them walk their mounts down the gentle slope. The Mongol warriors waited to see if they found hidden trenches or spikes in the grass, while the Sung regiments tensed at what could have been the first outriders of a suicidal charge. The braziers by the Sung cannon smoked furiously as their tenders fed in fresh coal, keeping them hot. Kublai could feel his heart thumping as he waited for one of the riders to fall. His emotions were mixed when they reached the bottom safely and rode on to the edge of arrow
range. They were young men and he was not surprised when they stopped to jeer at the enemy. It was more worrying that the Sung commander had not set traps. The man wanted them to ride in fast and hard, where he could destroy them. It was either justified confidence or complete foolishness and Kublai sweated without knowing which. His riders returned to the ranks amidst shouts and laughter from those that knew them. The tension had been unbearable, but with a glance Kublai saw four of his own cannon were ready, their braziers lit and smoking, well clear of the piles of powder bags and shot balls. The rest were still hitched to the teams that dragged them, poised to move closer once they saw the range. He told himself the Sung could not have expected so many of the heavy weapons.
He still hoped to surprise them. The Persian chemists working in Karakorum had produced a finer powder, with more saltpeter than the Chin mixture. Kublai understood little of the science, but smaller grains burned faster and threw the ball with more force. The concept was clear enough to anyone who had ever fried a slab of meat, or seen it cut into small pieces for cooking. He watched anxiously as the four cannon were hammered loose from their mountings and fresh wooden blocks put in to raise the black muzzles to the maximum elevation. The blocks often shattered on firing and the teams drew them from sacks of spares, each one hand-cut from birch. Powder bags were shoved down the iron tubes and on each team a powerfully built man lifted a stone ball, straddling it as if he were giving birth. With a massive heave, the balls were raised to the lip and another of the team made sure it did not fall back. For an instant, Kublai had almost ordered a second powder bag, but he dared not risk the guns exploding as they fired. He would need every one.
Three quarters of a mile below and across the valley floor, the Sung regiments waited in perfect, shining ranks. They could see what was happening on the ridge, but they stood like statues, their flags and banners flapping. Kublai heard his gun teams shout instructions, using those same flags to judge the wind. They began to chant, with an emphasis on the fourth beat. Almost as one, the iron weapons were heaved around, lifted by main force and groaning men. The shots would fire straight until the wind changed.
Kublai raised his hand and four tapers were lit and shielded from the breeze as the officers readied themselves to touch the reed filled with the same black powder, the spark that pierced the bag within and slammed the balls out into the air.
Kublai dropped his arm, almost flinching in anticipation. The sound that followed had no comparisons. Even thunder seemed less terrible. Smoke and flame spurted from each of the iron holes and blurs vanished upward. Kublai could see the curving lines and his heart raced faster as he saw they would surely reach the Sung. His mouth fell open as the cannonballs soared over the regiments, striking too far back for their damage to be seen.
There was a moment of stillness, then every man who could see suddenly roared and the rest of the cannon teams lashed their horses with fresh urgency, bringing them up. They could hit the enemy. Either the Sung had misjudged the benefit of the ridge, or the Mongol gunpowder was much better than their own.
Kublai shouted fresh orders, overcome with a sense of urgency to use his sudden advantage. He watched the painfully slow adjustment as the teams grabbed up heavy hammers and began to bang out the blocks while others lifted the iron barrels to make a space.
On the valley floor, horns wailed and conflicting orders were given in sudden confusion. Kublai could see that some of the Sung officers thought they merely had to pull back closer to the mine. Others who had seen the balls pass right overhead were shouting angrily and pointing up at the ridge. There was no safe spot for them to stand. They would either have to attack or abandon the mine and move out of range, in which case Kublai decided he would take the tumans in quickly and capture their guns. He tensed as his gun teams readied all the cannon for a massive volley.
When it came, the balls of polished stone skipped and bounced their way through the Sung ranks. Horses and men crumpled as if a point of hot iron had been laid onto them. Two of the Sung cannon were struck, flipping over and crushing men underneath. Kublai exulted and his teams worked on, pouring with sweat.
The shots came faster, rippling along the line as they sought to outdo each other. Kublai looked around in shock when one of the
iron weapons burst its barrel, killing the men at the muzzle. Another man was killed when his companion failed to cool the barrel quickly enough with the long rammer and sponge. The powder bag went up while he was still pushing it down, tearing it open in his enthusiasm. The rush of flame could only find a path past him and he burned in an instant. The mad pace slackened slightly after that, the lesson not lost on the other teams.
Kublai was too far away to see Bayar’s expression, though he could imagine it. He had weapons designed to pulverize a city wall and the chance to use them against standing enemy ranks. The warriors around him were still stunned by the damage the cannons could inflict and Kublai wondered if they would be as fast to ride against the Sung weapons, now that they had seen in daylight what cannons could do.
The Sung lines re-formed over their dead, but Kublai did not think they would stand for long in the face of such murderous fire. He did not envy the Sung commander, whoever he was. He waited for the Sung to pull back, but they stood their ground while red claws sank into their ranks. Kublai glanced at the pile of stone balls nearest to him and bit his lip as he saw it was down to barely a dozen. Sheer weight made it as difficult to move the shot as the guns themselves and some of the carts had broken on the trip. He watched almost mesmerized as the pile dwindled until the final ball lay on its own. The barrel was sponged out for the last time. A billow of steam hissed and crackled over the men around them, part of a greater cloud that hid the entire ridge. It irritated Kublai by drifting across his sight, making him blind for long moments until the air cleared. He heard the cannon team fire the last shot, and by then most of the thundering guns had fallen silent, their teams standing proudly to attention. A few more shots sounded from slower teams and they were done at last, suddenly useless after the carnage and destruction.
Kublai felt the wrench to his emotions as his power to reach out and strike suddenly vanished. The air was thick with sulfur and steam and he had to wait while the breeze tore it into wisps and he could see again.
When they were revealed, the Sung regiments had taken a vicious
battering. Thousands of men were clearing the dead and the officers rode up and down the lines, exhorting them, pointing up to the ridge and no doubt shouting that the worst was already over. Kublai swallowed dryly. They had not broken. As he stared into the distance, he saw their own cannon teams swarm around their weapons. Time slowed down for him and he could hear every beat of his heart as he raised his hand. His men had to cross half a mile of land, one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty heartbeats. He would feel every one of them. He roared the orders and his tumans came over the ridge, kicking their mounts into a gallop. Kublai remained still as they flowed past him, knowing he had to be the calm center, the eye above them that could read the battle and react to it, as the men below could not.
They poured down toward the Sung lines and a great shout of anger and challenge went up from those who had been forced to stand through the most terrifying moments of their lives. Kublai barked at his bannermen and they raised the flags that would send Uriang-Khadai and Bayar out wide against the flanks.
He could not trust his heartbeat to judge the time. When he held a finger to his neck, he could not find it at first, then felt such a rapid pulse that he gave up. The tumans hit full gallop on the short plain below the bowl and he could see the black needles of arrows fly before them, a different kind of terror for those Sung who still stood and dared them to come in close.
He winced as the first Sung cannons fired. Below, he could see the paths of the balls, chopping through the galloping ranks. The tumans covered the ground at reckless speed and as the Sung teams reloaded, his men sent arrow shafts whining in among them, so that the Sung gunners fell faster than they could be replaced. On the wings, Uriang-Khadai and Bayar had ridden in close, then halted at two hundred paces. From each ten thousand, arrows soared, punched out from bows too strong for other men to draw. There were no cannons on the wings, but most of Kublai’s archers could hit an egg at fifty paces. They could hit a man at two hundred and the very best of them could pick the spot.
On the ridge, thousands of warriors still poured past him. An entire
tuman was pressing on, desperate not to be left out of the battle. The resting gun teams shouted encouragement, knowing they could play no further part. Kublai found himself trembling as the last warrior rode over the ridge. He had a mere twenty men left as a personal guard and a drummer boy on a camel to give signals. Every officer below could see him and he was the only one able to judge the entire battlefield. He wrestled with the urge to give new orders, but at that point it would have been more likely to hamper his officers.
For a time, he raised himself up, standing on his saddle so that he could see exactly what was happening. His mind still ticked away with ideas and plans and he knew he would have to set forges to make iron balls for the cannons. It was difficult work to make a true sphere with no imperfections that might snag on a barrel and burst it or send the ball slicing off in the wrong direction. Iron had to be heated until it ran like water, and the temperatures were far beyond the portable forges he had. Lead balls were a possibility, but the soft metal was too prone to becoming misshapen. Kublai wondered for a moment if the smelter of the mine could be used. It was far easier to polish stone, but the labor took weeks and, as he had seen, he could lose the best part of a year’s supplies in a morning.
He shook his head to clear it of the endless spinning thoughts. The Sung regiments were falling back on themselves, assaulted on all sides. More than half their number lay dead and anyone with an officer’s armor was already cold, fat with arrows. As Kublai watched, his two wings used the last of their shafts. The rear ranks passed lances forward and they kicked into a gallop, lowering the long weapons to open holes into the enemy that they could follow. Those behind drew swords and even at a distance Kublai could hear their battle cry.
HULEGU WAS TIRED. IN THE MONTHS SINCE HE HAD BURNED
Baghdad, he had been busy with the administration of a vast area. He had entered Syria and taken the city of Aleppo, smashing a small army and slaughtering three tribes of Kurds who preyed on the local towns as bandits. The nobles of Damascus had come to him long before he attacked their city. The example of Baghdad had not been
lost on them and they surrendered before they could even be threatened. He had a new governor there in his name, and beyond a few token executions, the city lay untouched.
He had been surprised to learn that Kitbuqa was a Christian, though it seemed not to blunt his righteous rage against the Moslem cities. Kitbuqa had begun holding Mass in captured mosques before burning them, a deliberate insult. Hulegu smiled at the memory. Together, they had captured more wealth than Tsubodai, Genghis, or Ogedai had ever seen, sending much of it back to his brother in Karakorum. More was used to rebuild the cities he had taken under new governors. Hulegu shook his head in amusement at the thought, still surprised that he could earn gratitude in such a way. Memories were short, or perhaps it worked because he had killed everyone who might object. Baghdad was being rebuilt with a tiny part of the caliph’s own treasury, made new under a Mongol governor. Merchant families came in daily to find homes in the city, where land and houses were suddenly cheap. Business was already growing and the first taxes were being collected, though the city was not a fraction yet of what it had been.