The next morning, before the sun had risen high into the sky, the soldiers were crowding onto the ramparts and looking towards the rebel camp. The field had changed considerably during the night: the rebels had created a great redoubt from works upon which they had placed their cannon; they had begun digging parallel traverses around the camp and zigzag trenches to connect these parallels. From a distance it seemed like there were large mole-hills all over the field; the freshly-dug earth lay black in the grass, and everywhere there were men hard at work. 

Jinki stood on the rampart with Seungwan and Mingyu. Below, Chaeyoung surveyed the earthworks with a spyglass, and said to the officers around her: 

“They are beginning a regular siege. I see that we must abandon our camp and go into the city to man the walls.”

Jinki heard these words, and bent down to Chaeyoung to say, “We will be going of our own accord into a trap. Let this place be where we live or die.”

Chaeyoung was right. Yifan, who knew less about all the other military techniques besides the conduct of sieges and blockades, was beginning a siege of the camp so as to keep Jinki confined in Silsa — not to force his submission with hunger and weariness, but to await the arrival of the Sage’s great army which he had newly heard was marching towards the Jangseong; with the unstoppable weight of the fresh legions Jinki would not be able to prevent himself from being flattened by them. 

Therefore Yifan resolved to give no rest to the besieged; to harass, frighten, keep in continual wakefulness, and press upon them so incessantly that their swords would fall from their hands out of fatigue. On the following days the bombardment did not cease for an instant. The trenches had now come so near to the rampart that the rebels could fire their small arms at it; the earthworks smoked like little volcanoes from morning to evening. The cannonades from the rebel camp stopped only when it was pitch dark at night; the besieged, for relative lack of powder, could not return fire as frequently as they liked. 

On the night of the 17th day of the month, Jinho tried again, taking advantage of a thick fog, to assault the quarters of the General, and suffered a terrible defeat. One thousand of the best men in Yifan’s army lay dead on the field, and the rest barely escaped Jongdae’s pursuit. Cannonballs rained on the camp after the fugitives returned to their lines, but the damage was already done to their strength and courage. 

But this was nothing in comparison to the 19th day. Early in the morning the rebels managed to raise a series of moving walls, made from sturdy wooden planks, lashed together with rattan and sinew, and strengthened with ox-hides and shields, from which small-caliber guns and arquebus vomited uninterrupted fire. These walls on wooden wheels were pushed by the rabble towards the rampart. Evidently Yifan was becoming impatient again, and endeavoured to storm the rampart by force, albeit in a more systematic way than his previous attempt. But this was not the most terrible part; out of the smoke rose a towering machine, spitting streams of fire and brimstone like a dragon. The grinding of its wheels as it was pushed by a hundred men at its base was like the rolling of thunder; from gaps within it multitudes of guns of all sizes kept up the fusillade; at its mid-section there was a hatch that opened periodically to reveal a single bronze saker, which fired with astounding accuracy upon the besieged, after which the hatch closed up for the reloading of the gun. 

The soldiers pointed at the siege tower from a distance, shouting, “At them from the cannon! At them from the cannon!” 

In fact the royal gunners sent ball after ball at the dreadful tower, but since their guns were of shoddy quality, their shots missed more often than hit, and besides the tower was protected by large sandbags that hung all over it, so the cannonballs bounced off them and only took the bags with them. Meanwhile the dense mass of rebels drew nearer and nearer. 

Jinki quickly took charge of the situation, and, riding onto the rampart again, commanded, “Shoot at the moving walls! Focus on them! Let the cavalry take the tower!”

The order was disseminated quickly through the ranks. The guns were shifted and depressed to fire upon the moving walls, and soon several of them were dashed to pieces along with the men hiding behind them. Gaps appeared in this ingenious mobile fortification, and though many of the walls held firm even after one or two shots, there was ample opportunity now for a sally. 

A renewed salvo erupted from the rampart, immediately after which there was a shrill cry of “God is great!”, and Zasagt burst through the white smoke at the head of all his Darliqs, who were followed by an of Seungmin’s lancers to disperse the crowds around the tower. Again the rebel infantry was unable to stand against the charge of noble cavalry, and the lancers began their work while forcing them to abandon their walls. Without their fortifications the rebels lost heart, and all the more because their morale had scarcely recovered from the brutal storm of four days ago. Meanwhile the tower became surrounded by the Darliqs, who filled the peasants at its base with arrows, and after stopping the rolling of its wheels began shooting upwards and into its rear which was not protected. Arrows flew up and bullets rained down, and the Darliqs, being unused to gunfire, would have retreated from the tower if not for Stepan and five of his Kosaks who had accompanied them; leaping from their horses into the tower and howling like madmen (they had gotten themselves quite drunk, as was custom for Kosaks before conducting any audacious deeds), the rebels in the tower were thrown into chaos and within minutes were cut to pieces. Not a single rebel was a match for a Kosak driven to frenzy by vudka; many threw themselves from the openings in the tower rather than face the blades of the barbarians. These either landed on the ground and broke their bones, or were shot to death by arrows as they attempted to flee. Some of the Darliqs even made a competition out of how many arrows they could shoot into the falling men before they hit the ground. 

Before long the tower was set alight; the tar and powder inside it was burning. However, before the tower began to collapse from explosions or fire, Stepan emerged from it and, finding a huge rock in the ground, wrapped his arms around it and began to puff and pant as he lifted it out of the soil. Four men should not have been able to move it from its place; but Stepan lifted it, and even Seungmin looked on dumbly in amazement. 

“May the bullets strike him! He has the strength of gods!” cried the lancers. 

Stepan approached the burning tower, and then hurled the rock at the base. Those present bent their heads at the snapping of logs; the scaffolding twisted like in a whirlpool, and fell with a resounding crash. The pile of timber caught fire and the gunpowder still enclosed within the ruin ignited; the entire world seemed to shake as if in an earthquake, and a ball of fire erupted into the sky and belched flaming chunks of wood and soil onto the surroundings, illuminating the whole field of battle. 

Upon returning to the camp, Stepan, who was beginning to come down from the battle-trance brought on by vudka, was received like a hero by the soldiers. He passed through the surrounding men in a daze, while being grasped by the shoulders and arms and touched on the top of his head and the ears. 

“He is the strongest man I have ever seen!”

“With foreigners like him on our side, victory is ours!”

“Long live this barbarian! May he multiply and be very fruitful!”

Even Seungwan, whose solemn countenance had scarcely changed in the past few days, came to see the Kosak who seemed to be full of surprises. 

“Well, Stepan, next you will be bringing back the Sage in ropes,” she said. 

“It was the vudka, great prince,” replied Stepan, whose face was really getting quite red now. “Oh, my back... The drink makes you do things that are not good for you in the long-term.”

“No amount of alcohol can make a Nanwian man perform half the feats you have shown us today. If only I had an army of warriors like you…”

Having exhausted the large part of his strength on these two assaults on the rampart, Yifan, despite all his rage, despite having actually torn a chunk of his hair out, was powerless to crush the General of the Armies in one fell swoop as he had wished. In only five days of siege he had sent six thousand men to their deaths, achieving nothing but the strengthening of his enemy’s resolve. Even he now realised that defeating the last bastion of the Crown’s power was not a matter of a few days; it had to be laid low with means of attrition and wearing-out. Against his wishes, it would have to be a long siege with Jinki. 

Three days passed with sporadic assaults, to keep the besieged constantly awakened at the most ungodly hours, as well as unending bombardment, for the rebels possessed powder in far greater quantities than the Crown forces. The storehouses of the gentries had food and materiel in spades, but not powder.