Wang Er lifted his hand toward the city wall and called out in a voice that carried clearly over the clamor, "Close the gates. We will not be entering."
The military official atop the wall stared at him as though he had just misheard something profoundly unreasonable. He had offered them refuge, fulfilled his responsibility, and now these outsiders calmly refused the safety of stone walls and iron gates. After a brief, helpless pause, he waved his arm and shouted, "Close the gates."
The winch creaked. Iron chains groaned. The heavy gates of Hanzhong began to swing shut with slow inevitability.
From above, Prince Rui leaned over the parapet, his voice breaking into a near hysterical wail. "My train! My silver! I have not even recovered my capital yet. Where is General Zhao. Where is the Prefect. Where is the militia. Why is no one defending my train."
The official replied with strained patience, "General Zhao is holding the South Gate. The Prefect has gone to the West Gate. The gentry militia are stationed at the East Gate."
Prince Rui's face went pale. "Then the North Gate has no one."
"Your Highness's personal guards are stationed there," the official answered.
Prince Rui fell abruptly silent.
The awkwardness of that silence was sharp enough to cut cloth. His personal guards looked impressive in formation, but even he knew they were ornamental blades in gilded scabbards. Asking them to repel seasoned bandits outside the walls was like asking accountants to wrestle tigers.
He dared not step outside himself.
Yet while he lamented loudly, he noticed that the fierce group on the platform had not retreated. They remained in place, forming ranks around the great iron train.
Prince Rui's eyes brightened as though he had discovered buried treasure. "You there. You look capable. I will hire you to guard my train. One thousand taels. No, fifteen hundred."
For a man known for counting copper coins twice before spending them, this was an astonishing display of generosity.
Wang Er glanced up at him and snorted. "Keep your silver. We will guard the train regardless."
Prince Rui blinked rapidly, his thoughts unable to keep pace with events. "You will. Without payment."
Wang Er had already turned away. "Prepare for battle. Logistics team, you are under my command until further notice."
Zhuge Wangchan saluted crisply. "Understood."
Wang Er scanned the station grounds and nearly laughed in disbelief. Hanzhong North Station was little more than an afterthought, a patch of earth with rails laid across it. The ticket booth was a sagging straw hut. Beyond the iron beast and its tracks, nothing suggested foresight or defense.
He cupped his hands and shouted up at the wall, "You miserly prince. You would not even build a proper station."
Since there was no structure worth defending, the train itself would serve as fortress.
Orders flowed swiftly from Wang Er's mouth. Platoons were assigned to specific carriages. Others hauled supply baskets and stacked them into makeshift barricades along the platform. Men moved with disciplined urgency, retrieving flintlock rifles from cargo crates and taking their positions.
Within moments, five hundred militia had transformed an open platform into a layered defensive formation, firing angles overlapping, reserves positioned behind cover, ammunition distributed with methodical care.
Prince Rui stared down in open astonishment. "They all have flintlocks. Even the Shenji Battalion lacks such lavish equipment."
The city's military official was equally stunned. Equipment was one matter. Organization was another. These men moved as if each already knew his place in the design of battle.
Soon, from the South Gate, came loud cries. The rebels had arrived. Their voices rolled around the city walls, taunting and probing, yet no clash of steel followed. They were testing, not committing.
Shouts rose from the East and West as well. Still no full assault.
After a time, a detachment that had circled half the city reached the North Gate. Finding it closed and defended from above, they shifted their attention outward.
Their eyes landed on the iron colossus resting on the tracks.
"What is this monstrous cart."
"So much iron."
"If we tear it apart and sell the metal, we will feast for years."
With greedy enthusiasm, they charged toward the station.
Prince Rui shrieked from the wall, "No. Not my money."
The first volley answered him.
Flintlock rifles extended from carriage windows. A coordinated blast tore through the front ranks of the charging rebels. Men fell in rows before their shouts could finish forming.
Before the smoke had even cleared, barrels rose from behind the bamboo basket barricades. A second volley followed, then a third, staggered in rhythm so that fire never fully ceased.
The station erupted into disciplined thunder. Gunfire rolled across the open ground in relentless cadence.
The rebels who had advanced with such confidence now stumbled backward in chaos. Those who survived the initial shock dragged wounded companions away, their earlier bravado replaced with wild confusion.
From the wall, soldiers and officials watched in disbelief. The prince's personal guards gaped. The local commander narrowed his eyes, studying the formation below with grudging admiration.
The common people, packed behind the battlements, burst into cheers.
"That is how you fight."
"They drove them off without a single step back."
The rebel detachment, battered and shaken, fled toward the South Gate.
There, General Zhao Guangyuan had been observing. He saw the disorder in their retreat, the collapse of morale caused by unseen thunder from the North.
A seasoned commander recognized opportunity the way a hawk recognizes movement in grass.
The South Gate swung open. Zhao Guangyuan led his troops in a fierce charge, cutting into the disordered rebels with decisive force. The bandit formation shattered completely and fled toward the southern hills in desperate flight.
Silence gradually replaced the chaos.
Then the North Gate creaked open.
Prince Rui was the first through, running with surprising speed for a man so devoted to comfort. He rushed to the locomotive and threw his arms around its rounded front, pressing his cheek against cold iron as though embracing a long lost relative.
"My thirty two thousand taels," he murmured fervently. "It is fortunate you are unharmed. Truly fortunate."
Behind him, soldiers from Gao Family Village stood calmly among drifting smoke, their rifles still warm, their formation intact.
For them it had been a brief engagement.
For Prince Rui, it had been a near financial apocalypse.