Chapter 261

After Hu Dawei sent Hu Zichen to request reinforcements, Lu Xiangsheng quickly dispatched Company Commander Yang Guodong to support them, bringing two squads of bird gun musketeers, plus one squad each of Lumit musket musketeers and self-igniting musket musketeers — over two hundred firearms soldiers in total.

At this time the Viceroy’s Personal Battalion had just over four hundred firearms soldiers remaining, half of them bird gun musketeers and the rest Lumit musket and self-igniting musket musketeers. Both Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei urgently requested reinforcements from Lu Xiangsheng. Although Lu Xiangsheng’s central army still had nearly two thousand men under Xuanfu Assistant Regional Commander Zhang Yan, the firearms in Zhang Yan’s force were inferior even to those of the two Regional Commanders. Lu Xiangsheng had no choice but to split his firearms soldiers in two and send them to support Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei respectively. Once these firearms soldiers arrived, they helped turn the situation on both flanks.

The Viceroy’s Personal Battalion’s bird guns also had self-closing flash pan covers, allowing them to fight in freezing wind. Moreover, these bird guns had the same range as the Shunxiang Army’s firearms. Although their armor-piercing power was slightly inferior, they were equally well-made and absolutely free of the danger of barrel bursts.

The Viceroy’s Personal Battalion’s bird gun musketeers were likewise rigorously trained, expending large amounts of powder and shot in live-fire practice daily. In combat effectiveness, they far surpassed the bird gun musketeers in the two flank regular battalions. In fact, the Viceroy’s Personal Battalion originally had over a thousand bird gun musketeers, but when the troops were divided, most were snatched away by Chen Xinjia.

Besides the bird gun musketeers, the Lumit musket musketeers Lu Xiangsheng sent to each flank were also quite formidable. The flash pan mechanism on their Lumit muskets had its own peculiar features, allowing them to fight in freezing wind. Although the Lumit musket was heavy, its armor-piercing power was outstanding, its effective range could reach one hundred and fifty paces, and its accuracy was extremely high — almost comparable to later-era rifles.

As for the Lumit musket, Wang Dou had once expended enormous effort trying to get just a few to use as sniper rifles, yet many Ming armies were already using them widely. As early as the Tianqi reign, the Ministry of Works had issued two thousand Lumit muskets to Shanhai Pass in one batch. Apart from a few that were substandard, the vast majority were of excellent quality.

This was a staggering figure, proving the Ming dynasty’s formidable capacity for mass-producing high-quality cannons and firearms. Take the various Folangji cannons, for example — the Qing state was unable to master this advanced technology all the way until the Self-Strengthening Movement, yet in Ming military forts they were merely common firearms.

In Wang Dou’s view, the Ming did not lose because of whether its weapons and equipment were advanced; political factors on all fronts mattered far more. Moreover, the warlordization of the various garrisons in the late Ming, combined with appalling logistical corruption, greatly hindered the promotion of all kinds of advanced firearms.

Firearms soldiers required systematic and rigorous training, and every aspect of their support was a complex problem. Whereas with cold-weapon soldiers, you could just grab some able-bodied men, hand out blades, spears, and clubs, and they could fight — and you could boast to the outside world that you had so many tens of thousands of crack troops, occupying an important position in the court’s eyes. Why not take the easy way?

……

Besides sending part of his bird gun musketeers and Lumit musket musketeers to support the two flanks, Lu Xiangsheng also sent one squad of self-igniting musket musketeers to each. The self-igniting musket was the flintlock, which had even fewer problems fighting in freezing wind. With the urgent support of the Viceroy’s Personal Battalion’s firearms soldiers, the Qing troops on both flanks encountered extreme resistance as they advanced toward the third line of low walls and trenches.

Over four hundred Viceroy’s Personal Battalion firearms soldiers on the two flanks continuously aimed at the Qing auxiliary soldiers and camp followers who emerged from behind the wooden shields to fill the trenches, knocking them to the ground one after another. The archers of Yang Guozhu’s and Hu Dawei’s regular battalions also desperately assisted with their shooting. By now the Qing troops on both flanks had pushed to within fifty paces of the earthen wall, and their archers posed a great threat to the Ming troops behind the wall. Both sides exchanged volleys for a long while, each suffering casualties.

Toward evening, the Qing army withdrew. On Wang Dou’s defense line, the Qing had filled two trench lines and pushed to within fifty paces of the earthen wall. On Yang Guozhu’s and Hu Dawei’s defense lines on the flanks, they had filled three trench lines and pushed to within forty paces of the earthen wall.

After the gongs sounded the withdrawal, the Qing troops retreated like the tide. When they withdrew, they carried away the bodies of their own fallen soldiers, so the Xuan-Da army had no way of knowing how many they had killed or wounded. As they retreated, they left those crude wooden shields behind between the various lines of low walls and trenches.

It seemed they were not afraid of the Ming army dragging those wooden shields away and destroying them; presumably in their camp, they had as many of these crude wooden shields as they wanted.

After the battle, when the field was cleared and all the wooden shields the Qing had left behind were dragged back to be used as firewood, Wang Dou, Lu Xiangsheng, Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei, and the others held an urgent council on military affairs.

None of them could think of any good way to counter this Qing tactic. The cannons had to guard the passageways strictly and could not be moved recklessly. It seemed they could only rely on the trenches and fight a bloody battle. The Xuan-Da army still held the terrain advantage; every step the Qing advanced would cost them heavier casualties than the Ming. It would come down to whose will to fight was stronger and who could better endure the bloodshed and losses in their own ranks.

That night, Lu Xiangsheng, Wang Dou, and the others also interrogated the Qing prisoners they had captured, but they obtained no useful information.

The eleventh day of the twelfth month, in the eleventh year of the Chongzhen reign.

From early morning, the Qing army once again surged forward like the tide. Using their excellent war carts as cover, they braved the Xuan-Da army’s cannon fire and approached the low walls and trenches. Sure enough, they once again brought out dense, layered rows of wooden shields.

The several trench lines they had filled the previous day were now level, solid, and extremely difficult to dig up. To conserve his soldiers’ strength, Lu Xiangsheng ordered them abandoned. Following the filled trenches, large numbers of Qing troops carried their crude wooden shields together over one low wall after another, pressing all the way up to the unfilled low walls and trenches.

The fighting ignited between these several lines of low walls and trenches. The Qing soldiers fiercely assaulting the Shunxiang Army’s frontal defense line were numerous; their armor colors varied, suggesting they were archers and auxiliary soldiers from different banners of the Eight Banners Manchu or Eight Banners Mongol.

Using the wooden shields for cover, they shot arrows at the Shunxiang Army musketeers behind the earthen wall, covering their camp followers as they filled the trenches. When one group grew exhausted from shooting, another group replaced them — wave after wave of archers, seemingly endless.

These dense ranks of skilled archers posed no small threat to the Shunxiang Army. The key problem was their sheer numbers. Not to mention the lightly armored, skilled archers among the Qing troops, even the auxiliary soldiers in each banner, though not qualified to wear armor, had likewise practiced archery and horsemanship since childhood, and their combat ability was not poor.

Facing the Qing army’s dense archers, Wang Dou had already committed all the firearms soldiers of Han Zhong’s and Wen Fangliang’s two Company Commander battalions. He kept only the battalion supply unit, Gao Xun’s one Squad Commander unit, the cavalry, and the night scouts — just over a thousand men — as a reserve.

From morning to afternoon, the Qing army’s fierce assaults never ceased. Their numbers were so great that they could continuously rotate men and horses to rest and eat, then send in several fresh waves to attack. Moreover, when the archers were shooting, the heavy-armored soldiers of each banner guarded both sides of the wooden shields, preventing Ming troops from charging out of the passageways to launch surprise attacks on the archers between the low walls.

The Qing army’s wave after wave of fierce, unending assaults greatly alarmed Wang Dou. He had a large reserve force and could continuously rotate his exhausted soldiers to rest. Their fierce assaults could not shake his army’s resolve to fight, but he did not know whether the defending troops on the two flanks could withstand such immense pressure.

In the afternoon, the Qing troops attacking the Shunxiang Army’s frontal defense line finally filled another trench line, and the layers of wooden shields pushed to within forty paces of the earthen wall.

Compared to Ming bows, the Manchu and Mongol bows had weaker draw weights — only about seven dou — with an effective range of seventy paces. Only within fifty paces did they have significant killing power against a target. To pierce an opponent’s armor — leather, cotton, iron, and so on — they had to close to about thirty or forty paces. However, their arrowheads were extremely long, shaped like chisels, and the tips had been soaked in horse dung and other substances. Not only were they difficult to extract once embedded, but the toxins would spread, often proving fatal.

At this close distance, the threat from the Qing archers to the Shunxiang Army musketeers increased dramatically. Their arrows were both fierce and accurate, wave after wave of sharp arrow showers pouring in. Many Shunxiang Army musketeers were struck one after another. Although their firearms were powerful, in terms of rate of fire and accuracy, they were far inferior to the Qing archers.

Every Shunxiang Army musketeer now had an eight-panel iron-tipped helmet, and each man wore a breastplate with chain mail underneath. Even when some were hit by arrows, most could not pierce their armor. Even if the armor was penetrated, the arrows did not go deep. For these soldiers, Wang Dou still ordered them to be helped to the rear to rest and receive medical treatment.

The Qing troops’ wave after wave of fierce arrow showers never ceased; they simply had too many archers. The Shunxiang Army musketeers behind the earthen wall had no choice but to crouch even lower. After firing a shot, they would quickly duck their heads and retreat on tiptoe to the rear to reload.

The Shunxiang Army had already become quite adept at dodging arrows, and half the men also had iron face masks. Yet as the whistling wave after wave of arrows came in, some soldiers still could not evade in time. Some of those without masks were struck in the face one after another, and some had their helmets knocked off or pierced through.

Even so, the Shunxiang Army firearms behind the earthen wall kept firing continuously; the deafening roar of their guns seemed never to stop.

From the Qing side, a dense cloud of gunpowder smoke hung thick before the earthen wall. Even the howling freezing wind could not thin it, and it also affected the Qing archers’ line of sight. Within the smoke, fierce muzzle flashes burst out one after another, sending splinters flying from the Qing wooden shields.

Including the two supply units, the nearly one thousand firearms soldiers under Han Zhong’s and Wen Fangliang’s two Company Commander battalions all attacked the Qing troops before the earthen wall without pause. From time to time, Qing archers and the auxiliary soldiers and camp followers filling the trenches were struck and tumbled to the ground. Casualties on both sides steadily mounted.

Seemingly daunted by the Shunxiang Army’s fierce gunfire, the Qing troops attacking the frontal defense line slowed their advance, but their wave after wave of arrows never stopped, and those camp followers kept throwing earth to fill the trenches, forcing the Shunxiang Army behind the earthen wall to remain on high alert.

The battle on the front line became a stalemate. Watching the intense fighting before him, Wang Dou appeared calm outwardly, but inwardly he was growing anxious. The battle seemed to be turning difficult. From yesterday afternoon to this afternoon, by now, his firearms soldiers’ casualties had already reached over two hundred.

Moreover, since yesterday afternoon, although the Qing army had also suffered continuous casualties, most of the dead were the slave cannon fodder — the aha, bondservants, and the like from each banner who were filling the trenches. Their heavy-armored soldiers, and even the archers in each banner wearing iron-plated cotton armor, had suffered few casualties. If this war of attrition continued, the outlook was not optimistic.

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Old White Ox:

Alright, updates resume today. My throat has been terribly sore these past few days — probably from smoking too much. I used to smoke one pack every three days, then it gradually increased to one pack a day, and finally three or four packs a day. Sigh, the more I smoke, the more often my throat hurts every so often. It seems I need to smoke less and try to get back to one pack a day.

Some readers have been worried these past few days that the later chapters will be hard to write. So far, everything is well in hand. This book is still being written strictly according to the pre-planned outline, so there’s no need to worry. Also, regarding the discussions about Viceroy Lu — it seems our countrymen delight in devising and using stratagems, but in truth, in the face of absolute power, no stratagem can be employed. Just like the First World War: apart from both sides pushing forward and bleeding each other dry, no schemes or tricks were of any use.

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