The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 37 – Part 8

Zhou Zhiruo smiled coldly and said, "Order Leader Zhang,[^jiaozhu] I took you for a true man, merely muddled in your actions. I did not expect you to be a base and contemptible wretch. A man of honour bears responsibility for his own deeds. If you killed Mo the Seventh Xia, why shift the blame onto my husband?"

Zhang Wuji was startled. “You… you say I killed Seventh Uncle Mo? I… how could I do such a thing?”

Zhou Zhiruo said, “The matter of killing Mo the Seventh Xia was planned and orchestrated throughout by the Court’s Princess Shaomin.¹ Why not call her out to face the heroes of the world?”

Zhang Wuji thought to himself, “Min’er has offended the six great orders. There are likely more enemies of hers in this square than even of my godfather. How can I let her show her face? Zhiruo has seized upon this weakness to slander Min’er and me. Alas, of all the thousand errors, ten thousand errors, the fault lies wholly with me for abandoning her at the wedding.” He bit his lower lip, turned, and began to walk away.

Suddenly a voice from the Emei Order called out loudly, “Who would have thought that Order Leader Zhang of the Ming Order is such a cowardly wretch? Frightened by the might of our Thunder-Fire Bombs, he tucks his tail between his legs and runs.” Zhang Wuji stopped but did not turn. He thought, “There is no need to see who speaks. However the Emei Order insults me, I deserve it all.” The mockery behind him grew ever louder. Zhang Wuji paid it no further heed and returned to the Ming Order’s wooden shed.

Yang Xiao laughed coldly and said, “Thunder-Fire Bombs are the merest trick, hardly worth mentioning. If they could not harm the Two Xias of Wudang, they certainly cannot harm the Zhang Wuji who carries Wudang’s true lineage. Your Emei Order relies on mechanical devices to display your prowess. Very well — let you see the devices of our Ming Order.” He raised his left hand. A white-robed boy stepped forward bearing a small wooden frame in both hands, upon which were thrust more than ten five-coloured pennants. Yang Xiao took up a white pennant and with a flick of his hand sent it flying to the centre of the square, where it plunged into the ground.

The heroes saw that the white pennant, pole and all, was not two feet long, and upon it was embroidered the Ming Order’s flame emblem. They wondered what trickery he intended. At that moment, a man behind Yang Xiao hurled a rocket into the air. It soared upward and burst in mid-sky, trailing a stream of white smoke.

Footsteps sounded. Five hundred Ming Order adherents, their heads wrapped in white cloth, ran into the square. Each man bent his bow, nocked an arrow, and with a whistling of cords five hundred long arrows thrust themselves in neat succession into the ground around the white pennant, forming a perfect circle. These were the men of the Sharp Metal Banner,² led by Wu Jingcao.³

Before the heroes could cry out in admiration, the Sharp Metal Banner men had already drawn the javelins from their backs and surged forward a dozen paces. With a sweep of their arms they hurled five hundred javelins, all of which struck within the circle of arrows. Then the men advanced another ten-odd paces and drew short axes from their belts. Before the onlookers’ eyes steel flashed, and five hundred short axes came whistling through the air to bite into the earth, arranging themselves in another ring. Short axes, javelins, long arrows — three rings of weapons lay upon the ground, none overlapping the next. Let a man’s kung fu scale the heavens itself. Caught between fifteen hundred long and short weapons, he would be minced to pulp in the space of a breath. In years past the Sharp Metal Banner had fought a bitter battle against the Emei Order in the Western Regions and suffered grievous losses, their Banner Master Zhuang Zheng⁴ himself falling beneath Miejue Shitai’s⁵ Heavenly Jian.⁶ Since then, having learnt from that bitter defeat, they had devised this formation that no defence could withstand. In recent years the Ming Order’s power had grown greatly, and each of the Five Elements Banners had been expanded accordingly. The Sharp Metal Banner alone now counted over twenty thousand adherents. These five hundred men — skilled in arrow, javelin, and axe — had been chosen from those twenty thousand as the finest, each already possessed of considerable martial foundation, and then trained for more than a year under expert instructors until they had become a force fit for open battle or single combat alike. The Five Elements Banners answered to the Ming Order’s central altar and took no orders from Zhu Yuanzhang,⁷ Xu Shouhui,⁸ or the other rebel leaders.

The heroes looked upon one another and their faces changed. Each thought, “Wherever Left Assistant Yang⁹ casts this white pennant, there will those fifteen hundred weapons follow. The Emei Order’s Thunder-Fire Bombs are fierce enough, but their killing is limited. Throw ten bombs, and even if every one strikes true, you wound only ten men. How does that compare with the Sharp Metal Banner?” And further: “If the Ming Order were suddenly to turn upon us and slaughter us where we stand, what then? The heroes gathered here are each skilled in the martial arts, but we are a rabble without order — not like the Ming Order’s elite, drilled and commanded with perfect ease.” The heroes’ hearts grew uneasy, and not one of them thought to acclaim the exquisite skill the Sharp Metal Banner had displayed.

Yang Xiao raised another white pennant and waved it behind him. The five hundred men of the Sharp Metal Banner drew up their arrows, javelins, and axes, ran to the Ming Order’s wooden shed, bowed deeply to Zhang Wuji, and then turned and sprinted from the square.

Yang Xiao cast out a green pennant, which took root beside the white. A rocket trailing green smoke climbed into the sky. Heavy footsteps thundered from beside the square. Five hundred men of the Giant Wood Banner,¹⁰ their heads bound in green cloth, bore ten great logs between them, ten men to a log, and came running at a brisk pace. Each log weighed over a thousand jin¹¹ and was fitted with iron rings. Each man gripped one ring, their footwork marching in perfect step. Suddenly, with a great shout, all fifty logs flew through the air — some high, some low, some left, some right — yet for every log that flew, another log was aimed squarely at it, and not one of the fifty missed its mark.

Crash upon crash of thunderous impact filled the air. The fifty logs paired off into twenty-five collisions. Each log weighed over a thousand jin, and the force of their meeting was staggering. Had any man stood near the green pennant — leaping high, crouching low, dodging left or right — he could not have escaped being struck. This formation of the Giant Wood Banner was derived from the art of siege warfare, in which battering rams were hurled against city gates. No gate, however fortified, could withstand such an onslaught. How much less could flesh and blood endure it?

When the logs had struck and fallen, the five hundred men of the Giant Wood Banner seized the iron rings and sprinted back out. They halted at a distance of a hundred feet or more, awaiting the order to hurl the green pennant again for a second assault. Yang Xiao waved the green pennant and the Giant Wood Banner withdrew. Then his right hand flicked, and a red pennant flew into the square.

The green-clothed adherents of the Ming Order fell back. A rocket trailing red smoke rose into the sky. Five hundred men of the Fierce Fire Banner,¹² their heads wrapped in red scarves, stormed into the square. Each man carried a spray-nozzle,¹³ and with a volley of spraying the centre of the square was coated in thick black oil. The Banner Master of the Fierce Fire Banner hurled a sulphur fire-bomb. The moment the petroleum met flame, a roaring blaze surged forth. Near the Ming Order’s stronghold of Bright Peak, petroleum gushed ceaselessly from the rock, igniting at the touch of fire. The men of the Fierce Fire Banner each carried an iron box upon their backs, filled with petroleum. To spray oil and burn it — no man could withstand it.

When the Fierce Fire Banner had left the square, Yang Xiao’s black pennant flew. Five hundred men of the Flood Banner,¹⁴ their heads wrapped in black scarves, stormed into the square. Their equipment comprised twenty water-dragons,¹⁵ together with spray-nozzles and buckets of various kinds. At the front, ten men pushed ten wooden carts. The Banner Master Tang Yang¹⁶ shouted his commands. The carts were opened, and from within were released twenty ravenous wolves, baring their fangs and brandishing their claws, leaping and roaring across the square as though eager to tear men apart. The heroes were greatly puzzled, thinking, “What have these savage wolves to do with ‘flood’?” Then Tang Yang cried, “Spray!” A hundred men, each bearing a ceramic spray-nozzle, fired a hundred jets of water at the wolves. A fierce and pungent stench filled the heroes’ nostrils. The moment the water struck the wolves, they collapsed at once, howling piteously, and within moments their flesh split and rotted away, reduced to lumps of charred carbon. The water the Flood Banner sprayed was in truth a corrosive poison distilled from sulphur, saltpetre, and similar substances.

The heroes, witnessing such a terrifying spectacle, could not help but feel their hair stand on end. Each thought, “If this poisonous water had been sprayed not at the wolves but at us, what then?”

The men of the Flood Banner raised the dragon-heads atop their twenty water-pumps, mimed an aim towards the wolves, and made plain that the pumps too were filled with poison-water. If released, the volume would be far greater, and the range far longer. Yang Xiao waved the black pennant and recalled his men. The Flood Banner adherents drew their water-pumps from the square. As the pumps wheeled about, whichever direction a dragon-head turned, the heroes on that side could not help but pale.

Then Yang Xiao cast out a small yellow pennant. A group of Ming Order adherents, their heads wrapped in yellow scarves, walked into the square. Each man held an iron spade and pushed carts of sand, earth, and quicklime. Their number was far fewer than the four banners of Metal, Wood, Water, and Fire — barely a hundred men. These hundred formed a ring and at once raised their spades to strike the ground with tremendous force. Suddenly, with a thunderous crash, dust billowed upward. The centre of the square collapsed, revealing a great pit some thirty to forty feet across. Then the earth around the pit’s rim began to shift and heave, and one by one men in iron helms and iron spades burrowed up from beneath. Four hundred great men erupted from the earth in an instant. The heroes cried out in astonishment as one.

These four hundred adherents had long since dug a tunnel from a distant point to the ground beneath the centre of the square. There they had excavated a great cavern, bracing the roof with planks and beams, and concealed themselves within. At the Banner Master Yan Yuan’s¹⁷ command, the four hundred men drew all the wooden supports away at once, and the entire surface of the ground subsided. The men below burst through the earth in turn. Wolf-carcasses, petroleum, charred soil — all of it tumbled into the pit. A hundred men swung their iron spades in three great strokes above the cavern’s mouth. Had any man fallen in and attempted to leap out, those hundred spades would have struck him back. Then cartload upon cartload of quicklime, iron sand, and stone was poured in, and in moments the great pit and the hundreds of smaller shafts were filled level. Five hundred iron spades rose and fell in a display of breathtaking precision. At a single command from their Banner Master, the five hundred men bowed towards Zhang Wuji in unison. The centre of the square, now filled with iron sand and quicklime, was smooth as a mirror and harder by far than before. The heroes understood plainly: “Had I stood at the centre of the square and spoken words insulting the Ming Order, I would even now be buried alive beneath the earth.”

Thus the Ming Order’s Five Elements Banners conducted their grand review and displayed their awesome might. Not one of the heroes present failed to turn pale with consternation. Each knew that in recent years the Ming Order had raised rebellion across the lands of Huai, Si, Yu, and E, taking cities and defeating the Yuan army time and again. Now they were applying the arts of military strategy and battle-formation to the combat of jianghu warriors. Their numbers were vast, their discipline severe, and their training superb. No faction in the jianghu could stand against them.

Footnotes

1. 绍敏郡主 – Shàomǐn Jùnwáng. Zhao Min’s title, granted by the Yuan Court. Princess Shaomin. ↩

2. 锐金旗 – Ruìjīn Qí. The Sharp Metal Banner, one of the Five Elements Banners of the Ming Order. Specialised in projectiles and thrown weapons. ↩

3. 吴劲草 – Wú Jìngcǎo. Banner Master of the Sharp Metal Banner of the Ming Order. ↩

4. 庄铮 – Zhuāng Zhēng. Banner Master of the Sharp Metal Banner of the Ming Order. ↩

5. 灭绝师太 – Mièjué Shītài. Shītài is an honorific for a revered Buddhist nun. ↩

6. 倚天剑 – Yǐtiān Jiàn. The Heavenly Jian, one of the two legendary weapons forged from the Heavy Iron Sword. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 朱元璋 – Zhū Yuánzhāng. A leading Ming Order commander who would later found the Ming Dynasty as its Taizu Emperor. ↩

8. 徐寿辉 – Xú Shòuhuī. Another rebel leader of the Ming Order uprisings against the Yuan. ↩

9. 杨左使 – Yáng Zuǒshǐ. Yang Xiao’s title as Left Assistant to the Ming Order’s Leader. ↩

10. 巨木旗 – Jùmù Qí. The Giant Wood Banner, one of the Five Elements Banners of the Ming Order. Specialised in siege-breaking techniques derived from battering-ram warfare. ↩

11. 斤 – jīn. A unit of weight, approximately 590 grams in the Ming era. ↩

12. 烈火旗 – Lièhuǒ Qí. The Fierce Fire Banner, one of the Five Elements Banners of the Ming Order. Specialised in incendiary warfare. ↩

13. 喷筒 – pēntǒng. A spray-nozzle or siphon used to project flammable liquids. ↩

14. 洪水旗 – Hóngshuǐ Qí. The Flood Banner, one of the Five Elements Banners of the Ming Order. Specialised in chemical and corrosive weapons. ↩

15. 水龙 – shuǐlóng. A water-pump or fire-engine used to project liquid in quantity. ↩

16. 唐洋 – Táng Yáng. Banner Master of the Flood Banner of the Ming Order. ↩

17. 颜垣 – Yán Yuán. Banner Master of the Thick Earth Banner of the Ming Order. ↩