China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

carry a few of these.” He took hold of Guanji’s arm, from which a quantity of blood was now flowing. “I’ll just bind that up,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll be wanting to march the men back, I should think, sir,” he suggested as soon as he was done.

—

When they reached the brigade general, Guanji gave his report. Brief but precise, including a commendation of the sergeant for good order and initiative. “We inflicted casualties,” he concluded. “I’m pretty confident of twenty. None of us hurt, except for a few bruises and this nick on my arm.”

“You didn’t hold your position.”

“No, sir. I had no backup and every reason to believe there were large numbers of Taiping to come. I might have killed another twenty, but then lost all my men.”

“Good. Correct decision.” A hint of a smile appeared on the Mongolian’s face. “Some of the other parties have taken quite a mauling.” He turned and called the sergeant over. “Twenty enemy casualties?” he asked.

“Maybe more, sir. They were very nicely grouped. And we had a good position.”

“How are the men?”

“In very good heart, sir. They’ll always trust a good officer.”

“I’ll see to his wound. Bring me a pail of water. And a warm knife.” He turned to Guanji and indicated a crate of ammunition. “Sit on that.”

It was several minutes before the sergeant returned. Putting the pail of water on the ground, he unwrapped the bandage from Guanji’s arm. The Mongolian poured some of the water onto the wound, inspected it carefully, then poured some more.

“It’s clean,” he said with a nod, and turned to the sergeant. “Knife?”

It was a short dagger. Guanji glanced at it. The blade seemed to be glowing. He felt the sergeant’s arm go around his chest.

“I’ll just hold you now, sir,” the sergeant said calmly.

Guanji saw the brigade general dip the dagger into the water. It made a loud hiss. Then Guanji heard the Mongolian’s voice, very soft, just behind his ear.

“I’m going to cauterize the wound. Grit your teeth, put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and don’t let your mouth open. If you make any sound at all, I’ll send you back to Zhapu with a bad report.” Then he laid the dagger on Guanji’s arm.

The pain was unlike anything he’d felt before. A blazing, searing shock that would have thrown his whole body upward if the sergeant’s arm had not held him in place, like a hoop of iron around his chest. He might have fainted, except that he was too afraid of annoying the Mongolian. And he did make a sound.

It did not come from his mouth. It came from somewhere between his chest and his throat, so suddenly and so violently that there was nothing he could do about it.

There was a silence.

“Did you hear a sound, sergeant?” the Mongolian inquired.

“Came from the town.”

Genghis grunted. “That must’ve been it.”

Suddenly Guanji found he was shivering.

“I’ll give you some water, sir,” said the sergeant.

The Taiping did not try to attack the Mongolian’s big barricade that afternoon. The prefect’s yamen remained untouched. At dusk, leaving a watch of forty men to guard the barricade, the rest of the Manchu troops went back inside the walls of the garrison. Guanji went with them.

—

And there he remained. Days passed. The Zhapu riflemen continued to man the barricade, but they were not sent down into the city streets again. Instead, the Hangzhou command adopted a different policy, sending a stream of squads with gunpowder and ammunition to supply the Manchu partisans who were harassing the Taiping troops wherever they could. The Manchu women had shown a talent for making small bombs and delivered them effectively. Every hour, Guanji would hear the rattle of musketry or the sound of an explosion coming from somewhere in the town.

But though they lost dozens of men, the Taiping continued to make progress, advancing several blocks a day, taking their revenge on each troublesome enclave as it came. After three days, they were nearly at the yamen. And by that time, the Hangzhou military council had already sent an urgent plea to the imperial forces besieging Nanjing, begging for reinforcements.

Guanji was optimistic. “If they send us enough men,” he suggested to the Mongolian, “General Li could be trapped here. His Taiping troops could be wiped out.”

“Perhaps,” Genghis replied.

Meanwhile, a stalemate seemed to prevail.

—

Each night, Guanji would go up on the wall. It was quiet up there, and he liked to be alone. Despite the campfires of the Taiping, he could see the great West Lake clearly and could make out the gentle curves of the hills around it in the moonlight.

A few days before his sudden departure from Zhapu, his uncle had gone to visit an old friend, a scholar who lived in a house on one of the lakeside hills. Was his uncle there now? he wondered. Was he safe? He thought of his uncle’s printing press in the city and hoped the old man hadn’t gone there. Had the Taiping ransacked the place? There was no way of finding out at the moment. He’d try to go and inspect it himself as soon as this business was over.

It was strange to think of these two worlds side by side—the quiet, poetic world of the scholars and the angry banners of the Taiping—both sharing the lakeside space in the moonlight. But the moon was waning. A few more days, and he wouldn’t be able to see the water at all, unless the stars were very bright.

—

The Taiping struck suddenly, hours after Guanji had gone down from the wall, on the night of the waning crescent moon. A thousand men, moving silently and carrying knives, raced to the barricade in front of the yamen and overpowered the watch. Forty sleepy Manchu riflemen were slaughtered in the darkness in less than a minute, and their bodies tossed in a heap at the eastern side of the open space, for the garrison to collect if they chose.