palaces.’ Mongke frowned as he considered his own words, checking through the details of the accounting in Xanadu. Huge stocks of marble had been ordered, enough to build a palace to equal his own in Karakorum. He felt a seed of distrust grow in him.
‘I have not interfered with his campaign, or Hulegu’s.’
‘Hulegu has sent back vast revenues, my lord. Baghdad alone has brought in gold and silver to keep Karakorum for a century.’
‘And how much have we had from Kublai?’ Mongke asked.
Urigh bit his lip. ‘Nothing so far, my lord. I assumed it was with your permission that he put the funds into his new city.’
‘I did not forbid it,’ Mongke conceded. ‘But the Sung lands are wealthy. Perhaps he has forgotten he acts for the khan.’
‘I am sure that is not true, my lord,’ Urigh said, trying to walk a careful line. He could not criticise the khan’s brother, but the lack of proper accounting from Sung lands had troubled him for months.
‘Perhaps I should see this Xanadu myself, Urigh. I have grown fat in peace and it may be my brothers have grown too sure of themselves without feeling my eye on them. Kublai has done enough, I think.’ He fell silent and thought for a time. ‘No, that is unfair. He has done well with what I gave him, better than I dared to hope. By now, he will have discovered he needs me to finish the Sung. He may even have learned a little humility, a little of what it takes to lead tumans into battle. I have been patient, Urigh, but perhaps it is time for the khan to take the field.’ He patted his belly with a rueful smile. ‘Send your men to me when they come back with their report. It will do me good to ride again.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kublai watched as the Chin regiments ran from their tents, forming up into well-disciplined lines. He could still hardly believe how close his tumans had got to the mine before the alarm horns sounded. At less than two miles, a distant blare of brass had begun to wail, muffled by the fall of the land. The Sung officer should have had more scouts further out, regularly relieved by men from the main camp. Kublai prayed silently for it to be the first of many mistakes they would make.
Kublai took strength from the long line of horsemen on either side of him as they trotted forward. Bayar’s minghaan had cut the Sung supply lines four days before, then waited to ambush whoever they sent. Not a single man of a hundred had made it back to the Sung camp. Kublai hoped they were getting hungry. He needed every edge he could find.
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 saltpetre 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 upwards. 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
