Chapter 266: Hongyi Cannons

Among the Qing troops besieging the Xuan-Da encampment at Julu were the entire forces of the Eight Banners Manchu Plain White Banner, Plain Red Banner, Bordered White Banner, and Bordered Blue Banner. Dudu, Banner Lord of the Eight Banners Manchu Bordered Red Banner, and Enggetu, Banner Lord of the Eight Banners Mongol Plain Red Banner, remained behind at Tongzhou, but they had already dispatched a contingent of soldiers to escort several massive Hongyi cannons, which would arrive shortly.

Besides these Eight Banners Manchu forces, the Qing camp also contained the entire armies of the Eight Banners Mongol Plain Yellow Banner, Bordered Yellow Banner, Plain White Banner, Bordered White Banner, Plain Blue Banner, Bordered Blue Banner, and Bordered Red Banner. There were also the troops of the three Outer Vassal Mongol banners, and over a dozen small subjugated tribes from the northeast and the Mongol plateau.

In addition, there were over twenty thousand Aha laborers. If these men were counted, the Qing troops besieging the Xuan-Da encampment numbered over sixty-four thousand.

In today's assault on the Xuan-Da encampment, Dorgon's Plain White Banner led the Outer Vassal Mongol Kharchin tribe, the Eight Banners Mongol Plain White Banner and Bordered White Banner, along with some small subjugated northeastern tribes — part of what would later become the Buteha Eight Banners — plus over three thousand Aha and other laborers, to attack Wang Dou's front.

Jirgalang, Banner Lord of the Bordered Blue Banner, led the bulk of his banner's soldiers, the Outer Vassal Mongol Tumed Right Wing, the Eight Banners Mongol Plain Yellow Banner and Bordered Yellow Banner, some small subjugated tribes, plus over four thousand Aha and other laborers, to attack Yang Guozhu's left wing.

The main force of Yoto's Plain Red Banner led the Outer Vassal Mongol Tumed Left Wing, the Eight Banners Mongol Plain Blue Banner and Bordered Blue Banner, plus over four thousand Aha and other laborers, to attack the right wing defended by Hu Dawei.

Dodo, Banner Lord of the Eight Banners Manchu Bordered White Banner, did not take the field. He led his troops to hold the main camp, supervising banner men and laborers in the manufacture of siege equipment and scouring the area to plunder provisions and baggage.

"In today's battle, our various banners lost eight hundred and eighty-seven warriors, among them one hundred and eighty-four armored men and one hundred and twenty-eight banner men…"

This was the report from Jirgalang, Banner Lord of the Bordered Blue Banner.

As Grand General Who Displays Might, Yoto was theoretically on equal footing with Dorgon and naturally had no need to report anything to him, but he still shared the information with everyone: "…the various banners lost seven hundred and fifty-three warriors, among them one hundred and twenty-four armored men and ninety-four banner men…"

Dorgon's expression remained calm. After hearing the casualty figures from each banner, he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, the casualties among the warriors of the Eight Banners Manchu and Eight Banners Mongol were not large. This battle could still be fought.

In today's battle, his Plain White Banner had led several banners to attack Wang Dou's front, and the combined casualties of the various banners were nearly a thousand men. However, the combined casualties of armored men and banner men were less than three hundred. Though the losses were significant, for Dorgon, they were still bearable.

It was no wonder Dorgon thought this way. The structure of their Eight Banners army was somewhat unique, broadly divided into three types: Aha, armored men, and banner men.

Aha were slaves, either Han Chinese, Koreans, or people from the various tribes of the northeast. These men had no armor, and some did not even have weapons. When accompanying the army on campaign, they were generally used only as laborers or cannon fodder — feeding horses and making equipment, filling in moats, or digging out city bricks.

Although their numbers accompanying the army were large each time, sometimes reaching tens of thousands, they were not counted among the Qing state's troop strength. These men formed the bulk of the Qing army's auxiliary forces. Since their families were kept in the rear, if they fled, their families could forget about living. They had no choice but to risk their lives.

The armored men were mostly from the various subjugated tribes of the northeast, ethnically diverse — primarily Oroqen, Sibe, Evenki, Solon, Daur, Hezhen, and Kuye people from the Heilongjiang and Songhua River basins. The Manchus called them savages, and they were mostly rounded up from various mountains and rivers.

Because these men were fierce fighters, they were the primary source of cannon fodder in the Qing army. Death squads in front, elite troops behind — many of those death squads were men from these tribes. Due to the frequency of warfare, many of these northeastern tribal soldiers used as cannon fodder later saw their entire tribes vanish.

Take the Hezhen people, for example. In the mid-Ming period, they were still a large tribe with a population of tens of thousands. By the time the Manchu Qing entered the pass, the entire tribe had been whittled down to just a few thousand survivors. Even in later ages, the total global Hezhen population was less than thirty thousand. This was a typical representative of the northeastern cannon-fodder tribes.

Although they were called death squads with heavy armor, they were in fact slave soldiers, without freedom, unable to flee. Otherwise, their entire tribe would face annihilation.

The status of armored men was higher than that of Aha, and last of all came the banner men of the Manchu and Mongol Eight Banners.

The Eight Banners were organized by niru. One man was conscripted from every three, one man donned armor, and the rest were unarmored men. Among these armored soldiers, some were Bayara warriors, and the rest were foot armored soldiers and horse armored soldiers. In wartime, the armored banner men formed the main force, while the remaining banner men were used as ordinary soldiers, most of whom had to accompany the army on campaign and fight on the front lines.

When Hong Taiji reformed the military system and established the Bayara camp, the Aliha Cooha camp, and the Gabshihiyan camp, it was the same.

After the Eight Banners system was perfected, whenever the Qing army fought the Ming army, the first wave was always to drive the Han Eight Banners into battle, the second wave to drive the Mongol tribal soldiers into battle, the third wave to drive the various northeastern tribal soldiers into battle, and the fourth wave to drive the Mongol Eight Banners into battle. Only last of all did the Eight Banners Manchu army take the field.

Although the structures of the Qing state's Eight Banners Mongol and Eight Banners Han armies were not yet fully developed, the various Manchu Banner Lords of the Eight Banners were already highly adept at driving cannon-fodder laborers to assault cities and moats.

After today's fierce fighting, it seemed that the Eight Banners army had suffered over twenty-five hundred casualties in a single day, but in reality, nearly two thousand of those casualties were laborers in the army. The casualties among the army's foreign-tribe armored men, and even the banner men of the Manchu and Mongol Eight Banners, were relatively few.

To the Eight Banners, those laborers were of no consequence. As long as they captured people from the Great Ming and other places, they could have as many as they wanted. As for the armored men, once they were used up, they could just go into the deep mountains and old forests to catch more. As long as the bulk of the banner men were not lost, wouldn't those tribes obediently fall in line?

Yesterday afternoon, when the Qing army attacked the encampment, the various banners suffered over a thousand casualties. Today, that number surged to twenty-five hundred. Calculating the casualties from the initial assaults on the Xuan-Da encampment, over the past few days, the Eight Banners army besieging Julu had already suffered over five thousand casualties, among which the casualties of banner men also exceeded a thousand.

Adding the troops lost by the Eight Banners Manchu Bordered Red Banner and Bordered White Banner at places like Tongzhou and Dingzhou, the Qing soldiers killed or wounded at the hands of the Xuan-Da army alone were already approaching eight thousand. For the Eight Banners, this was an enormous figure.

Among the lost troops, the Eight Banners Manchu Bordered Red Banner and Bordered White Banner were already severely weakened. The Bordered Red Banner, along with two Eight Banners Mongol banners, ultimately lost over thirteen hundred men, most of whom were armored men and banner men. Excluding laborers, Dodo's Bordered White Banner lost over a thousand armored men and banner men. Fortunately, nearly a thousand heavy cavalry and Bayara warriors were preserved.

It was also because Dorgon and the others were cautious, ever so cautious, and drove more cannon-fodder laborers to assault the moats, that the casualties among the banner men had not grown so quickly during the consecutive days of attacking the Xuan-Da encampment. But it was certain that to finally eliminate Lu Xiangsheng, Wang Dou, and the others, the casualties among the Manchu and Mongol regular banner men of the Eight Banners army that had entered the pass would likely exceed three thousand.

The Qing troops that had entered the pass this time consisted of about thirty thousand men from five Manchu Eight Banners, plus over twenty thousand from the Eight Banners Mongol and Outer Vassal Mongols. Including the various subjugated small tribes, the total troop strength was over sixty thousand. There were also nearly thirty thousand laborers, grandly proclaimed as one hundred thousand.

Up to this point, Qing army casualties were already approaching ten percent. Given their ability to bear casualties was less than six percent, they were in fact already nearing the brink of collapse.

……

After the casualty figures for each banner were tallied, everyone present fell silent. Each Banner Lord of the Eight Banners Manchu was inwardly pained by the casualties among his own banner's warriors. Although most of those who had died these past few days were laborers and cannon fodder from each banner, even the death of a few hundred of their armored and unarmored banner men was unbearable for them.

The armored men and laborers used as cannon fodder had no representatives at all within the tent, so naturally it was not their turn to speak. The Banner Lords of the Outer Vassal Mongols and the Eight Banners Mongol were also secretly furious. Those Manchus, timid as mice, only knew how to hide at the back in battle, sending us great Mongol warriors to our deaths. As descendants of Genghis Khan, they would certainly not stand for it!

They had entered the pass to reap benefits, not to fight to the death against the Ming people.

If anyone was to fight to the death, let those Manchus do it!

However, the Eight Banners Manchu were powerful, and their main force was still intact. Though the various Banner Lords cursed inwardly, on their faces they only wore expressions of deep thought, deliberation, and grief.

Dorgon was, of course, well aware of what the Mongols were thinking. The Eight Banners Mongol, in particular, were notoriously fickle — they only came forward when there were benefits, and when there were none, they dodged faster than anyone. It was hateful that his own Manchu people still had to go to great lengths to win them over, with Hong Taiji even marrying off several of his daughters to them.

Judging by their expressions, it was clear that the brutal fighting of the past few days had already struck fear into their hearts. It seemed they would still have to rely on their own Manchu warriors. Dorgon sighed inwardly for a moment, then spoke first: "In today's battle, our Great Qing warriors have already broken into the Ming army's trench walls. The Ming troops on both wings were nearly routed. Their courage is already lost. As long as we press our advantage and continue to fiercely assault the two wings, breaching the Ming state's Xuan-Da encampment is merely a matter of a day or two."

Dodo, Banner Lord of the Bordered White Banner, immediately echoed his brother's words: "Correct. The Ming army's sharpness is gone. As long as our army rides this victory and advances directly, concentrating our elite forces to fiercely attack the two wings, once those wings collapse, the Ming general Wang Dou will be attacked from multiple sides. No matter how brave and capable his troops are, they will still be powerless to reverse the situation."

"The perfect opportunity has arrived!"

Dodo concluded.

A middle-aged Mongol general wearing a leather helmet and Ming-style willow-leaf armor underneath, short and stocky in build, shot a glance at Dodo: "Prince Yu, do you not know how formidable that Ming general Wang Dou is? This afternoon, our army already broke into his defensive line, only to be routed and slaughtered. Seeing that he still has strength to spare in defending his front line, if he sends reinforcements to support the two wings, what then?"

This man had a sallow complexion, a broad flat face, and small eyes — typical Mongol features. He was Gulusixiabu, Gusa Ejen of the Outer Vassal Mongol Kharchin tribe. He dared not do anything to Dorgon, but hearing Dodo speak thus, he could not help but interject with sarcasm and rebuttal.

Hearing him speak like this, the various Banner Lords of the Outer Vassal Mongols and the Eight Banners Mongol all stood by, ready to watch a good show.

Dodo glared, about to say something, when Dorgon interjected: "Beizi Duoleng need not worry. In tomorrow's battle, our Great Qing troops will continue to attack the front with heavy forces, ensuring that Wang Dou cannot spare any troops."

His eyes swept toward Dodo: "In tomorrow's battle, Prince Yu will accompany this Grand General in attacking Wang Dou's trench wall."

Dodo was stunned for a moment, then had no choice but to rise and accept the order.

After he sat down, he groaned inwardly. Dorgon had kept him guarding the main camp these past two days, which had already drawn countless complaints. It seemed that in the fierce fighting of the coming days, his wish to avoid battle and preserve his strength would be impossible.

After his heavy losses at Dingzhou, he had been forced to promote some of his banner's unarmored banner men to armored combat soldiers. He had also promoted some laborers to unarmored banner men, barely managing to fill the troop quotas of his banner's Aliha Cooha camp. However, the combat effectiveness of these troops naturally could not compare to before.

Dodo had long since had his fill of suffering at Wang Dou's hands. Tomorrow's battle, well…

Dorgon continued: "Moreover, the several Grand General cannons being transported from Tongzhou will arrive early tomorrow morning. Under the bombardment of those cannons, I fear Wang Dou will have trouble even saving himself."

Hearing Dorgon say this, the various Eight Banners Mongol Banner Lords all grew excited. They had long tasted enough of the Ming army's cannon fire. It was time to let those Ming troops on the opposite side taste the power of cannons.