The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 21 – Part 3

Yang Guo stood on the wall watching the battle, turning Guo Jing’s words over and over in his mind, Don’t kill good people by mistake! How can good people be killed by mistake? Seeing Guo Jing trapped deep inside the enemy ring, he thought, All they had to do on the wall was keep shooting. Kill a few of those people, and the Mongols could never have got up. Uncle Guo is in danger now only because he would not kill good people by mistake. Those people are strangers to him, nothing to do with him at all, and still he risks his life to save them. Then why would he murder my father?

His eyes were on the savage slaughter below the walls, but his thoughts went round and round the same riddle. He and my father were sworn brothers. Their bond was no ordinary one, and yet in the end he killed him. Could my father really have been a wicked man beyond all pardon? Ever since he was small he had imagined his father as a generous, chivalrous man, brave and righteous, the finest man under heaven. To be made, all at once, to admit that his father was a bad man was utterly beyond him. And yet deep within, he had long felt dimly that his father fell far short of Uncle Guo. Before, whenever the thought had stirred, he had crushed it at once. Now he could not keep from facing it.

Below the walls the shouting shook heaven and earth. Guo Jing and his men charged left and right, but could not cut their way out of the ring. Zhu Ziliu at the head of one troop, and the Wu brothers and Guo Fu¹ at the head of another, were both ready to ride out to the rescue, when the horns sounded urgently and four more Mongol thousands came charging up to the city gate. Kublai’s generalship was truly out of the ordinary: the moment the city opened its gates to send help, his four crack thousands would surge in. Lü Wenhuan watched with his heart pounding and his flesh creeping, and shouted the order at the top of his voice: “The gates stay shut!” He set two hundred axemen to guard the gate closely, with orders to cut down on the spot anyone who dared open it. General Wang Jian led the archers and crossbowmen on the wall, loosing without pause.

Inside the city and out, all was confusion, and in Yang Guo’s heart too a host of thoughts were at war: one moment he hoped Guo Jing would go down in the press of battle, the next that he would drive the enemy back. Suddenly the Mongol lines were thrown into disorder, and thousands of horsemen broke away to either side like a receding tide. Guo Jing came galloping out, long spear in hand, and behind him his men, formed in a square, came cutting their way forward. The square held perfect order, and in moments it had reached the city gate. Guo Jing wheeled his horse and took the rear himself. Wherever his spear rose, a Mongol officer was flung from the saddle, seven or eight of them one after another, and for a while the Mongols dared not come close.

Lü Wenhuan leaned on Guo Jing as on the Great Wall itself.² Seeing him out of danger, he was overjoyed, and hastily shouted, “Open the gate! Only a little, don’t on any account open it wide!” The gate was opened three or four feet, room enough for a single rider, and the men came running in one after another. Yellow flags waved in the Mongol army, and two troops of horse came charging from left and right. “Guo daxia, get inside!” Lü Wenhuan bellowed. “We won’t wait for the others.” But Guo Jing saw that not all his men were out of danger yet, and he would not go in ahead of them. Instead he turned his horse back and charged, and speared the two Mongol braves who had pressed closest.

But once a great army is on the move, it is like a tide, and for all the depth of Guo Jing’s martial skill, how could one man’s strength withstand the charge of a host? Seeing how desperate things were, Zhu Ziliu let down a long rope from the wall and called, “Brother Guo, catch hold.” Guo Jing looked round and saw that the last of the Beggars’ Guild brothers was inside, but a dozen or more Mongols had charged through the gate behind him. The axemen by the gate fought them off and at the same time strained to shut the doors, and the iron gate, two feet thick, slowly swung closed. With a great roar Guo Jing speared a Mongol captain of ten, leapt high and grabbed the rope. Zhu Ziliu hauled with all his strength, and Guo Jing rose ten feet or so at once.

The Mongol commander of ten thousand who was overseeing the battle bellowed, “Shoot!” and in an instant a thousand crossbows loosed together. Guo Jing had foreseen this as he leapt. He tore off the skirt of his long robe, and with his right hand holding the rope, he whirled the robe in front of him with his left like a great shield, his strength running through the cloth, and swept every arrow aside. But his horse, left in front of the gate, took several hundred long arrows and bristled like a hedgehog. Zhu Ziliu hauled hand over hand, drawing Guo Jing higher and higher.

He was still twenty feet below the top of the wall when a tall, gaunt monk in a yellow kasaya suddenly came out from the Mongol ranks. It was State Preceptor Jinlun. He took an iron bow and a long arrow from a Mongol officer, drew the string to the full and fitted a wolf-tooth arrow fletched with eagle feathers. He knew that Guo Jing and Zhu Ziliu were both deeply accomplished in the martial arts, and that an arrow aimed at either of them would surely be turned aside. So he shifted the bow with his left hand to change his aim, let go with his right, and the arrow left the string flying for the middle of the rope. It was a vicious stroke: the arrow passed ten feet or so from both men, and neither could do anything to stop it. Still fearing that the two might find some extraordinary way to foil him, the State Preceptor followed the first arrow at once with two more, one at Zhu Ziliu and one at Guo Jing. With a snap the first arrow cut the rope in two, and the second and third, driven by a fierce wind, came on at Zhu Ziliu and Guo Jing.

With the rope cut, Guo Jing’s body dropped, and the second arrow naturally missed him. Zhu Ziliu felt his hands go light. “No!” he cried, and the arrow was already at his face. It came with uncommon force and speed. Plainly the archer’s neili was deep. The wall was crowded with men, and Zhu Ziliu knew that if he ducked, the arrow would certainly strike someone behind him. He put out two fingers of his left hand, judged the arrow’s flight and flicked its shaft, and the arrow slanted away and fell from the wall.

The moment Guo Jing felt the rope part, he was secretly alarmed. A fall from the wall would not hurt him, but how could he fight his way out through these tens of thousands of horse and foot? The enemy was closing on the gate already, and if his own side opened it to take him in, the enemy would be sure to seize the chance and storm it. In that crisis there was no time to think. He touched his left foot to the wall, and his body shot up more than ten feet. His right foot touched the wall in turn, and he rose more than ten feet again. Very few men alive had mastered this lofty skill, the Ascending Heaven’s Ladder,³ and even those who had could rise only two or three feet with each step. As a youth Guo Jing had learned the Golden Wild Goose Skill from Ma Yu,⁴ climbing a Mongolian cliff by qinggong, and when he later trained in the Ascending Heaven’s Ladder, that grounding made his foundation all the firmer. Now, treading his way up the smooth face of the city wall, he rose ten feet or so at every step, a height of martial skill fit to astound the world. In an instant all was silent on the wall and below it, and tens of thousands of eyes were fixed on him.

State Preceptor Jinlun was secretly aghast. He knew that the Ascending Heaven’s Ladder depended entirely on rising on a single held breath: let anything interrupt him even slightly, so that the breath slackened, and he could not spring up a third time. He bent his bow, fitted an arrow, and loosed another shaft at the middle of Guo Jing’s back.

The arrow flew like the wind. “Don’t shoot!” cried the soldiers on the wall and below it with one voice. Both armies had seen Guo Jing’s astonishing martial skill, and every man of them admired him and hoped to see him spring to the top of the wall. The Mongols had always revered heroes and brave men, and though he was an enemy, there was no one who was not outraged to see him shot at treacherously from behind.

Guo Jing heard the arrow coming hard at his back. That does it! he groaned inwardly, and he had no choice but to reach back and knock the arrow aside. Tens of thousands of men in both armies saw that he might have had eyes in the back of his head, that even this stealthy arrow could not touch him, and they roared their applause as one. But in the midst of that thunderous cheering, Guo Jing’s body sank a little. He was only a few feet from the top of the wall, but he could spring no higher.

While the two armies fought it out, a battle seemed to be raging in Yang Guo’s heart too. He watched Guo Jing in his peril, rising and falling, rising and falling again. Those two climbs and drops took only a moment, yet in that moment Yang Guo’s mind had turned several times. He is the enemy who killed my father. Do I kill him or not? Do I save him or not? As Guo Jing was about to reach the top of the wall with the Ascending Heaven’s Ladder, Yang Guo had thought of striking him down with a palm from above. With nothing in mid-air to brace against, Guo Jing would surely be badly hurt and fall from the wall. He hesitated a moment, and by then the State Preceptor’s arrow had stopped Guo Jing short. Yang Guo’s mind was in turmoil. Suddenly, gripping with his left hand the half-length of rope Zhu Ziliu still held, he threw himself off the wall, and his right hand caught hold of Guo Jing’s arm.

It was a sudden, startling turn, but Zhu Ziliu met it with remarkable speed. At once he put his strength into both arms, first letting the rope dip slightly, then, driving the force through his arms, whipping it up over his head. Yang Guo and Guo Jing swung through a circle in mid-air, flying like two great birds. Of the tens of thousands of soldiers on the wall and below it, there was not one whose jaw did not drop open.

Up in mid-air, Guo Jing thought, This foreign monk has attacked me again and again, and I haven’t struck back once. Doesn’t that mean I’ve lost to him? He saw another arrow from State Preceptor Jinlun already on its way. The instant his left foot touched the top of the wall he snatched a bow and arrows from one of the defenders, his long ape-like arms flexed, and a long arrow flew straight at the one the State Preceptor had loosed. The two arrows met in mid-air, and the State Preceptor’s was split in two. The State Preceptor had barely stiffened in surprise when a fierce gust came rushing at him, there was a ringing twang, and the iron bow in his hand snapped. Now the State Preceptor and Guo Jing were very evenly matched in martial skill, but Guo Jing had been taught archery as a boy in Mongolia by Jebe the divine archer, and with his deep neili behind it, his archery had no equal under heaven. In that, the State Preceptor lagged far behind. Guo Jing had loosed three arrows in a string: the first had split the State Preceptor’s arrow, the second had broken his bow, and the third was aimed at Kublai’s great standard.

The great standard was streaming in the wind, a splendid and commanding sight above all those thousands of horse and foot. Out of nowhere an arrow struck, the halyard parted, and Kublai’s yellow banner slid at once down the pole. Once more both armies, on the wall and below it, raised a great shout.

Seeing Guo Jing’s might, and the spirit gone out of his own army, Kublai gave the order to withdraw.

Guo Jing stood on the wall and watched the Mongol army pull back in perfect order, its ranks unbroken, the van unhurried, the rear unafraid, and he heaved a long sigh. Our long-weakened Song army is truly no match for the crack Mongol troops, he thought. The thought of the nation’s plight filled him with anxiety, and his thick brows drew together. Zhu Ziliu, Yang Guo and the others had seen him strike awe into the enemy’s ranks and display his prowess before tens of thousands, and yet he showed not a trace of pride. Every one of them admired him deeply.

Kublai withdrew his army several dozen li, pondering in silence on the way how to break the city. With Guo Jing there, he thought, Xiangyang would indeed be hard to take. The State Preceptor said, “Your Highness saw it with your own eyes. If that boy Yang Guo had not gone to his rescue, Guo Jing would have lost his life today. The boy’s martial skill is remarkable, but who would have thought him so faithless?” Kublai said, “Not so. I expect Yang Guo wants to kill Guo Jing with his own hands to avenge his father, and will not let another do it for him. To me he seems a bold, high-spirited young man, decisive, not some sly and treacherous villain.” The State Preceptor did not agree, but dared not contradict him. He only said, “Let us hope it is as Your Highness judges.”

Footnotes

1. 郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 长城 – Chángchéng. The Great Wall, China’s great defence against the northern peoples; one who is leaned on as on a Great Wall is the indispensable defender of the state. ↩

3. 上天梯 – Shàng Tiāntī. Literally ascending heaven ladder. An advanced qinggong technique that allows the practitioner to run up vertical surfaces by stepping off them with explosive force. ↩

4. 金雁功 – Jīnyàn Gōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩