Chapter 288

Luo Luohong fled back to camp in disarray with his cavalry, having achieved nothing in harassment and lost over a hundred riders; he was utterly dejected. Yue Tuo had anticipated this outcome and did not blame his son, only issuing strict orders within the banner to tighten camp defenses.

Not long after Luo Luohong returned, wave after wave of Ming cavalry came roaring in pursuit. They circled the Plain Red Banner encampment, brandishing blades, spears, and bows with insolent swagger, loudly mocking the camp and pointing at will.

Truly the world had turned upside down. Every officer of the Plain Red Banner wore an extremely ugly expression — when had soldiers of the Great Qing ever suffered such humiliation? One Niru Company Commander, too furious to bear it, begged Yue Tuo for battle, hoping to lead some brave men out to blunt the Ming army's edge, but Yue Tuo sternly forbade it.

Wave after wave of Ming cavalry surged in, growing from dozens to hundreds per group, until finally the very earth shuddered violently and the air filled with the thunder of hooves. West of the camp appeared a sea of red banners, beneath which massed a dense, dark press of horsemen. They raised vast clouds of dust, and those riders loomed in and out of sight within the haze.

They charged forward on horseback, and it seemed as if the entire field beyond the stockade was filled with their banners and riders. Such a show of Ming might drained the color from the faces of Yue Tuo and his men atop the stockade.

Yue Tuo, clad in his gilded armor, stood on the stockade wall enduring his illness with gritted teeth. Watching the tide of Ming troops surge forward, his heart grew heavy. Times had changed; the Ming army was powerful now. Could his Manchu Plain Red Banner survive this calamity?

Gradually the hoofbeats ceased and the dust settled. Not far in front of the Plain Red Banner Qing camp appeared dense, layered ranks of Ming cavalry, stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Their banners varied; most wore iron helmets and red armor. They sat their horses in the cold wind with expressions of utter arrogance, seeming to hold the Qing soldiers atop the stockade in complete contempt.

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west — fortune's wheel turns.

Seeing their expressions, the Plain Red Banner Qing troops on the stockade wall gnashed their teeth in fury.

Yue Tuo silently reckoned: were there several thousand Xuan-Da troops here alone? He gazed further into the distance. On the far horizon emerged a vast sea of banners, a colossal square formation advancing in perfect order, pressing forward like a moving fortress. Even Yue Tuo seemed to hear the rhythmic tramp of their boots.

The square formation advanced in a dark mass. That familiar battle line and imposing momentum made the skin on Yue Tuo's face twitch uncontrollably: "Wang Dou..."

Amid cries of "Ten Thousand Victories," the Xuan-Da infantry and cavalry converged. Several great banners were raised high and carried forward: the Wang banner, the Yang banner, the Hu banner, the Xu banner, and in the center, the Lu banner, which drew particular attention. All the soldiers raised their weapons and cheered toward the banners. Amid the exultant shouts, Wang Dou, Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei, and others came to the front of the formation.

Several hundred cavalry burst from the army and swept toward the camp. Behind many horses they dragged half-dead Qing sentry riders, among them several Bayara warriors of the Plain Red Banner. Those cavalrymen spurred their horses at a wild gallop. The Qing soldiers who were not yet dead, dragged behind by ropes, wailed loudly. The Qing troops on the stockade turned ashen, each face a mask of shock and fury.

They loosed volley after volley of arrows. The Ming cavalry circled the camp, howling and whooping. Suddenly several riders charged straight for the camp gate. The burly giant at their head was none other than Wen Daxing, Night Scout Company Commander of the Shunxiang Army. He rushed within a hundred paces of the gate and with a thunderous roar hurled his cavalry lance. The long spear flew straight and true, piercing a Qing soldier on the stockade wall and sending him flying off.

A moment of silence fell over both sides of the stockade, then the Xuan-Da army erupted in tidal cheers. The earth-shaking cry of "Ten Thousand Victories" rang out once more.

From the stockade came a desperate volley of arrows. Wen Daxing drew his waist saber, casually deflected several incoming shafts, and spurred his horse swiftly beyond a hundred paces from the stockade wall.

He rode to the front of his own army's formation to receive the cheers of the entire host. After galloping for a while, he suddenly reined in his horse, pointed his long blade forward, and shouted toward the stockade wall in Manchu: "Yue Tuo, your time has come! This day next year shall be the anniversary of your death!"

The Ming army erupted in laughter. Wang Dou and Yang Guozhu exchanged a glance and smiled as well.

Only Yue Tuo and his men atop the stockade wall wore expressions of extreme bitterness.

"Do you hear that?"

At the holding pens for captured commoners south of the Plain Red Banner Qing camp, many people emerged from their dilapidated shacks and listened intently in the direction of the "Ten Thousand Victories" shouts. Though faint, the sound was clear enough. It was unmistakably the Han tongue of the Great Ming, and without tens of thousands shouting in unison, such a colossal roar could not be produced.

"It's government troops."

"Has the Imperial Army come?"

"We are saved..."

"The Tartar guards and the turncoat Tartars seem to have vanished."

"Just now I felt the ground shake — that was cavalry hoofbeats."

Countless people grew agitated, looking at one another with tears streaming down their faces.

"Government troops for sure. I wonder which unit's brave lords dare to attack the Tartars at Zhuozhou on their own initiative?"

The Zhongdaitun holding pen was the closest to the Qing camp at Gaocun Fort, only three li away. Looking toward the trench line, on the open ground west of the Liuli River, countless Ming troops were densely arrayed, drawn up in perfect order with infantry and cavalry intermingled, their weapons and equipment impeccably maintained.

From the holding pen, one could see swarms of Great Ming cavalry circling the Tartar camp, howling. The Tartar soldiers, who in days past had been ferocious demons and insufferably arrogant, now only dared cower inside their camp, not daring to make a single move. This unprecedented sight made the commoners inside the pen both wild with excitement and weeping with emotion.

Countless commoners surged to the trench to watch. They wept in each other's arms — at last, they were saved.

Wu Daben said, "The lord was right. The moment for us to break free has come."

He could not hold back hot tears.

The man beside him remained motionless, silently gazing out toward the Ming army formation.

Several Ming riders headed toward the holding pen. They arrived at a swift gallop, each with a powerful bow and long saber at the waist, a large lacquered arrow quiver on their back, and a red cotton cloak billowing in the wind to reveal fine iron plates of their breastplate — their equipment was exceptionally superior.

Each man had three horses. The lead Ming soldier was extremely burly, wearing an eight-panel iron-tipped helmet. They galloped up to the trench. The lead soldier swept his gaze over the commoners on the other side of the trench and shouted from horseback: "I am Jie Yifeng, Night Scout Squad Leader of the Shunxiang Army, Xuanfu Garrison, Great Ming. By order of the General, I have come to deliver you."

"The Imperial Army has arrived and will not harm a single hair. Commoners, do not be alarmed."

"The General orders that you must not move about recklessly. At dusk, the Imperial Army will bring grain and rice for relief..."

Two hundred paces away, the dense Xuan-Da infantry and cavalry formation was arrayed outside the Plain Red Banner camp. Beyond the main formation, Ming sentry riders roamed and howled for several li in every direction. Beneath several great banners, Wang Dou, Yang Guozhu, and the others gazed intently at the camp.

This great Qing camp on the west bank of the Liuli River was quite solidly constructed. Centered on a civilian fort, tents were densely packed all around, and the camp's four sides were enclosed by a thick timber-and-earth stockade wall. The wall was mostly timber, no different from the standard field fortifications of the Central Plains. The surrounding wooden wall consisted of two rows of tree trunks — long trunks closely arrayed on the outside, short trunks on the inside. Planks were laid across the two rows, forming upper and lower levels for soldiers to patrol and rest on defense.

Inside the stockade wall were also many tall watchtowers. Seemingly having studied the Xuan-Da army's defensive layout at Julu, Yue Tuo's Plain Red Banner Qing troops had frantically dug numerous trenches today. Besides a deep trench dug right against all four sides of the stockade wall, they had also dug several more trenches a hundred paces in front of the camp. Many passage gaps were left between the trenches, each a dozen or several dozen paces wide. In front of some trenches, low walls had also been thrown up.

It seemed they had been pressed for time; their layout was not fully perfected, the trenches were neither numerous nor deep, and the low walls were likewise sparse.

Still, this spirit of learning and applying on the fly made Wang Dou laugh aloud.

Seeing the Qing soldiers on the stockade wall as if facing a formidable enemy, tense to the extreme, Guo Yingxian, the personal general of the central army behind Yang Guozhu, called out: "Old Wang, the Tartars have learned all our defensive tricks from Julu."

Wang Dou smiled and shook his head. "Trying to draw a tiger and ending up with a dog. Our army has numerous cannon, firelocks, and war wagons. Their bows and arrows reach only a few dozen paces — they cannot withstand our firepower."

A cold gleam flashed in his eyes. "Inferior to us in field battle, even more inferior in defending fortifications. The slave-thieves have exhausted their tricks. Their camp will be hard to hold."

Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei looked at each other and burst into laughter. The two were in high spirits; the sight of the Qing troops cowering in fear of battle filled their hearts with elation. They had never imagined such a day would come.

After a hearty round of laughter, Yang Guozhu said in a deep voice: "Let our great army first set camp, conduct a thorough sweep of the surrounding countryside, and completely clear out the eastern slave bandits on the periphery before anything else."

The Xuan-Da army set camp several li west of the Qing camp and the Zhongdaitun commoner holding pen. There was originally a civilian fort here called Liuheying. West of the fort were several rivers and water channels; though all were frozen, the army could break the ice for water without difficulty.

The small fort of Liuheying was quite dilapidated and completely deserted. The commoners had presumably either fled or been abducted, now trapped in the several holding pens in the open fields. When Wang Dou, Yang Guozhu, and the others entered the fort, they were all stunned. Inside were piled mountain-like heaps of grain, rice, wealth, and silks — apparently this was one of the Qing army's loot stockpiling points.

One could imagine that all the forts and villages within a dozen li around had been used by the Qing troops for such storage and disposal. Originally there should have been some Plain Red Banner guards here, but now they had all fled and withdrawn to the main camp.

It was just as well they had fled. The grain, fodder, and supplies piled inside were enough for the entire army to eat and drink their fill. The Xuan-Da army had originally brought over a thousand carts and horses carrying grain, fodder, baggage, gunpowder, and the like. Now it seemed these accompanying provisions would no longer be needed.

Looking at the mountain-like heaps of grain, fodder, and supplies inside, Guo Yingxian kept sucking in his breath. His eyes blazed and he shouted: "These Tartars are so stupid! They fled but didn't think to burn these stores and treasures — they've handed them to us for free."

Yang Guozhu tore his gaze away with difficulty and shook his head. "They are not stupid. They still harbor hopes of defeating our great army. If our army is routed, all these stores and treasures will return to them in full. If they burned them, they would have nothing at all."

Hu Dawei and Wang Dou beside him both nodded. Wang Dou said cautiously: "Commander, we must restrain our subordinates. Do not let them grow greedy for wealth. All distribution of wealth and silver must wait until we have utterly annihilated the Plain Red Banner slave army."

Looking at the sacks of grain and rice and the chests of silver everywhere inside the fort, Yang Guozhu and Hu Dawei were equally stirred. At Wang Dou's words, they came back to their senses.

Yang Guozhu nodded and said, "Indeed. If soldiers covet wealth and silk, they will have no will to fight. Should we carry off riches and depart, a counterstrike by the slave cavalry would be unthinkably disastrous. Strictly forbid the soldiers from entering any forts or villages — make camp outside the forts. As for the common people taken captive everywhere, also strictly forbid them from moving about recklessly. After our army prevails, we will then rescue them and take them away…"