The Longest Day in Chang'an

Chapter 3: Si Zheng (10:00-10:59) Part 3

Translator: DragonRider

Gosh! Cui Qi’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. He slipped the horizontal sword back, eagerly shouting around, “Break in, now!”

The Lubi Army had already been ready at their posts. Hearing his order, eight arrows were shot from three directions, nailing the Turkic gatekeeper into a hedgehog. Meanwhile, two soldiers jumped onto the wooden door steps, passing the softly fallen enemy, slamming the door with their thick shoulders.

Unable to withstand the pressure, the bamboo hinges cracked in a flash. Boom! The two soldiers fell in with the door panel. Two other soldiers behind stepped over their comrades without hesitation and rushed into the house. They fired at the house for a round with crossbows, and then ducked down. At that moment, the two soldiers on the ground had rolled over and lifted the door to form a temporary wooden shield around their comrades, giving them time to draw the string.

This series of free-flowing movements acted perfectly, as if it had been rehearsed many times.

The nearest Turks run roaring towards the soldiers, and suddenly fell to the ground again, screaming in pain. Three longbows were drawn far from the inn to shoot the two-feet-long iron arrows right through the narrow window of the warehouse, piercing their thighs.

The offensive had bought enough time. More soldiers rushed into the warehouse with crossbows, shouting as they advancing, “get down! Get down before I kill you!”

However, the Turks sprang from the corners of the shelves one after another, as if they did not understand it. They rushed in to the soldiers with bare hands, shouting Khan’s name. For the Lubi Army, they were sitting targets. For a moment, the warehouse was filled with the rumbling sound when metal struck into the body and men’s yelling.

The soldiers were in no hurry to advance, and slowly moved forward in groups of three, covering each other. Any appearance of a Turk would be instantly shot by a number of crossbows.

As the command was to keep them alive, the soldiers tried not to aim at their vital parts. But even with their last breath, these desperate coyotes were brave enough to fight back. Several soldiers didn’t have the heart to kill the Turks and, after only a moment’s hesitation, were injured and even killed in attack instead. Even if they could not fight back, the Turks would kill themselves at once.

Quietness was soon restored in the house, and only the bodies littered between the passage and the wooden shelves. At the cost of the deaths of three soldiers, the Lubi Army finally gained control of the whole warehouse.

The soldiers were still alert, carefully searching the shelves one by one. All of a sudden, a Turk who had been lying on the ground jumped to his feet and pounced on the nearest soldier. The soldier was caught off guard by his hug so that they struggled with each other. The Turk opened his big mouth to bite the soldier’s nose. Suddenly, he stiffened and immediately fell to the ground, with a sharp bolt in the back of his head.

At the end of the passage, another soldier was holding an empty crossbow, his arms drooping slowly and his eyes flustering. He should have kept the Turk alive, but the comrade’s suffering made him forget the order.

“Idiot, what did I tell you?”

Cui Qi grabbed the soldier’s crossbow and slapped him hard. His dark face was dull, as if colored lead gray.

That breaking the door at one minute and destroying the enemy within three minutes was a remarkable achievement among the Imperial Guards in the capital. But the Turks were so fierce that no one was alive, which was not what the authorities expected.

Cui Qi walked in the passage with anger, his eyes sweeping over the bodies and fingers nervously clutching the hilt, then loosening. All of a sudden, he froze a moment and quickly walked up. There was Cui Liulang’s body in front.

The wide-open eyes and obvious finger marks at his neck was enough to prove that he was choked to death, let alone the coroner.

“Brother!”

Cui Qi roared with a grief, one knee on the floor, trying to lean over to hug the dead. They were exactly brothers with similar looks, except that, one of them had closed his eyes forever.

“If I had given order 21 seconds earlier; if I had broken the door myself....” Regret was gnawing Cui Qi’s heart like ants. His fingers trembled so fiercely that he could hardly hold his brother’s hand.

A soldier from the Lubi Army came over and saw him, afraid to approach. Cui Qi turned his head and gave him a what-is-wrong look. The soldier quickly stood upright. “We have checked the bodies, 15 in all.”

Besides Cui Liulang, sixteen Turks had entered the warehouse. That was to say, there was still one person who had not been caught. It was identified as being the leader Cao Poyan. Cui Qi took a deep breath and stood up again, flames dancing in his eyes.

“Search!” he shouted with a scowl.

Unlike a domestic house, the warehouse was a large open room without partition, with only a few wooden shelves in the middle. Cui Qi looked around the house and found nothing unusual. Where was he hiding in such an empty room that could be seen through by one sight? Did this guy know some western magic about Passwall?

Cui Qi suddenly felt a little chilly overhead. He stopped and looked up. Suddenly his pupils contracted: right above him was a wooden lid the size of a wellhead, slightly skew to reveal a hint of blue sky.

There was a vent!

The C6 warehouse had a capped roof, so no one expected that there would be a vent on the roof. Normally, only flat roofs had such designs.

This would be opened secretly by someone using it before, yet he didn’t report to the Bureau of West Market. Cui Qi ripped out with a curse, ordered a man to bring a ladder, and put a bolt without head into the crossbow. Rage didn’t drive him out of his mind, “I must keep the last one alive, or the whole plan will be ruined.”

Now the warehouse was surrounded by the Lubi Army. Even if Cao Poyan got on the roof, he still had no way out. It was almost like shooting fish in a barrel.

For fear of any further accident, Cui Qi got on the ladder and climbed upward. Reaching the top, Cui Qi was about to push the wooden lid open when he felt murder in the air. He quickly ducked his head, escaping a flying hardwood strip with nails. Without hesitation, he raised the crossbow to shoot an arrow. Pop! Something seemed to have been hit. Cui Qi was happy and climbed up with hands and knees, but was surprisingly whipped in the left eye by a belt.

The belt, made of boiled leather, was so hard, which made Cui Qi painful and dizzy. When the belt was pulled back, the copper hook on the end drew a long blood track in his cheek. Bravery being provoked by the attack, Cui Qi did not retreat, but rolled the belt with backhand. With a hard tugging, he rushed onto the roof.

Before he could stand still, he felt the belt loose. Clearly, his opponent had given up. Cui Qi suddenly lost his balance, desperately swinging his arm, and finally kept his feet again. At that moment, he heard a clatter of feet walking on the tiles, and then someone leaped with a brush, and then a dull clatter in the distance, and then a splash of water.

The voice was a bit strange, not like something falling on the land. Although his left eye was too sore to see anything, he clearly recognized that he had made a serious mistake. Cui Qi was very anxious.

Next to the C6 warehouse was a Guangtong Canal close to the Fang’s wall. The canal had been widened a year ago to transport logs from Qinling only, so it was deep with water, and wide enough for sailing. It was still January, the unthawed thin ice layer on the canal was as smooth as the Suzaku Avenue, and there’s no security at the water gate-Cui Qi’s previous arrangement: fix on the land and neglect the canal.

What he heard was the sound of Cao Poyan smashing the ice and falling into the water.

After leaving the West Market, the Guangtong canal connected the Yong’an canal, Qingming canal and further the Longshou and Gong canal. It flew through more than thirty residential areas and half the city. In other words, If Cao Poyan dived through the water gate of the West Market, he could easily break through the siege and land anywhere in the city.

Cui Qi felt like slapping himself for making such a stupid mistake.

Under desperation, he plunged into the canal, forgetting that he was wearing heavy Mingguang armor. Upon his feet landing on the ice, the ice cracked, dragging the Brigadier into water.

Before entering the water, his right eye barely saw that a splash of water was galloping toward the water gate.

There was a high wall between the canal and the warehouse. The soldiers had to go around from the other end, which spent them a lot of time. Then they took off the armors and went down into the water, busily pulling the chief out. In this way, Cao Poyan had already disappeared at the other end of the water gate.

Grim-faced, Cui Qi lied on his stomach on the bank, badly vomiting ice water. In his hand, he was still grabbing a leather belt with copper hook.

That was the only gain in the whole operation.

In the Jing’an Department, the air was as heavy as mercury. Everyone was trying to be quiet, lest their sounds would annoy the two unsettled chiefs.

It never occurred that such a sure raid would be messed up. Although the attack was perfect, it didn’t mean anything without a living Turk.

Cui Qi half knelt at the hall and forgot to wipe his wet body, leading to the water dripping from his clothes smashed into an irregular water mark on the floor. After Cao Poyan fled away, he was instantly recalled to the Jing’an Department. The superiors were eager to figure out which part was wrong, and the flag signals couldn’t convey too complicated news, he had to return himself.

Facing the Director and the Sicheng, Cui Qi did not dare to hide anything. He knelt there and dwelled on the entire process. Then he bowed his head and waited for trial. The old man brushed his sleeve and sighed, “We attempted to lure them into a trap, but opened the door to wolves instead.”

Everyone knew the seriousness of this sentence. Cao Poyan had just showed his aggressive, cunning and extremely quick response. No one could imagine what would happen next when a Turk with bad intentions had entered Chang’an on the eve of the Lantern Festival.

What’s worse, the wolf was almost brought in all the way by the Jing’an Department. If the government decided to get to the bottom of it, no one could bear the blame.

“I have sent men to search along the bank.” Cui Qi added carefully, hoping to dilute the guilt for his omission.

The youth waved the fly-whisk with grim face. “What can you do with so few people? Do you know how long the Guangtong, Yong’an, Qingming and Longshou canals are? Call the scouts and executives of all blocks; close all the Fangs and search one by one!”

“Changyuan, fly-whisk is not for hitting people,” the old man raised his hand and stopped him gently, but resolutely, “your one hour’s blockade of the West Market just now maybe against the rules. If you close the city to search, the whole Chang’an will be disturbed-Today is the Lantern Show, and lanterns are seen everywhere on the street. Once you make a big noise, even the saint will interfere.”

The youth continued to argue, “Supervisor He, you haven’t participated in the task, so you do not know the emergency! The sixteen men, including Cao Poyan, is just the last group having entered the city. They have more party members already hidden in the city. If we can’t figure out the intention of the Turks as soon as possible, there would be a disaster in Chang’an!”

His tone was almost rude. However, the old man was not angry. He put out a finger and pointed to the northeast – where the palace was. “I never meant to ignore it, but openly search was definitely not appropriate, which would make troubles for that one.”

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