Chapter 311: Blasted into Minced Meat

There was still a chance. The Ming infantry formation ahead was only a few thin ranks of firelocks, plus a few thin ranks of pikes and sword-and-shield men. Though the Qing troops of the various banners who had entered the pass all spoke of Wang Dou’s gun-and-cannon formations in the most terrifying terms, turning pale at the mere mention of them, Oboi could not resign himself without testing them personally.

This was his only chance. The Ming army was pressing closer step by step. If he did not take the initiative and strike to shatter the enemy line, the Ming artillery bombardment alone would make the collapse of his own formation unavoidable. And once it collapsed, with the Ming cavalry so numerous, what awaited him was very likely total annihilation.

He would stake everything. To raise his warriors’ courage, Oboi decided to lead the sortie himself, taking two thousand men into battle. Among them were eight hundred armored soldiers, most in heavy armor, and further, three hundred Bayara elite guards. He handed command of the central army to the Bayara Jalangga Commander Juntai, ordering him to hold the last thousand men in reserve.

After swiftly completing the dispositions, Oboi rallied the warriors about to fight: “Since our Great Qing warriors first took up arms, we have never failed in battle, never failed to take a city, each man a match for ten. The Ming foot soldiers opposite number only three thousand. Warriors, follow your Baturu forward and slaughter those Nikans until not a single scrap of armor remains!”

He howled at the sky, a sound that shook heaven and earth, and a chorus of wolf-like shrieks rose in answer. All the Qing soldiers brandished their weapons, wailing like ghosts and howling like demons.

The danger of their side being driven into a desperate corner instead roused these Bordered Yellow Banner warriors’ resolve to fight to the death. The Bordered Yellow Banner was one of the Upper Three Banners, one of the two Yellow Banners personally commanded by Huang Taiji. Even the unarmored bannermen within the banner were mostly veteran fighters of many years. Even the unarmored bannemen were largely skilled in bow and horse, each possessing a set of iron-studded cotton armor, their fighting ability comparable even to the retainers in the Ming army.

Not to mention those Bayara soldiers clad in quicksilver-iron armor, the elite of the elite. With their resolve fixed on a desperate struggle, their might and fighting power could not be underestimated.

Amid the howling, the two thousand Qing soldiers surged forward behind Oboi. Oboi’s left hand gripped the reins tightly; his right hand brandished a heavy sword that must have weighed several dozen jin. He rode at the very front, first among all. A household slave bore his great banner, following closely at his side.

Inspired by this, the Qing soldiers likewise scrambled to follow behind. At the front were uniformly heavy-armored soldiers and Bayara elite; only behind them came the light-armored and unarmored bannermen. They charged in a dense mass, no longer caring about battle formation. What they wanted was a surge of bloody courage; what they wanted was for this imposing momentum to terrify the Ming army opposite!

At two hundred paces, they were still urging their horses into a slow canter. Gradually they spurred their mounts faster and faster, faster and faster, until at last they merged into a charging torrent.

Hoofbeats rolled like thunder, dust flew into the air, and the very earth seemed to tremble under the pounding of iron-shod hooves.

The charge of heavy-armored cavalry — its power was indeed no trifling matter!

“Halt!”

The moment Oboi began his move, Wang Dou had already given the order to stop.

At once the several thousand Shunxiang Army soldiers, advancing densely like a moving wall, came to a halt. The rhythmic tramp of marching feet fell silent.

“Artillerymen, load powder!”

“Firelock men, check your cartridges!”

Wang Dou passed down the orders.

“Check cartridges, check your match cords!”

“Load canister shot…”

The officers’ commands rose and fell in waves, interspersed with the shrill voice of Artillery Company Commander Zhao Xuan.

“Preparations complete.”

“Front rank, make ready — prepare to fire!”

A single rank of three hundred firelocks swung down in a dense black mass. The three hundred firelock soldiers in the front rank aimed with single-minded concentration, sighting on the cavalry surging toward them.

They had already charged within two hundred paces and were accelerating. The sheer momentum of that cavalry charge made Cao Bianjiao and the others behind the formation feel their hearts pound like drumbeats. They glanced somewhat anxiously toward Wang Dou’s position. General Wang had only twenty-nine cannons and a mere four thin ranks of firelocks — could they hold?

They had to remember, these were the heavy-armored cavalry of the Qing slaves’ Bordered Yellow Banner. Many men had two horses each, and even the horses’ bodies were covered with iron-studded cotton armor.

In the blink of an eye, the Bordered Yellow Banner cavalry charged even closer. The violent pounding of hooves struck at men’s hearts with a thumping beat.

Wang Dou’s face was as still as sunken water. The firelock soldiers and artillerymen before the formation were likewise as still as sunken water. Though they gripped their weapons until their knuckles turned white, not a single man so much as twitched.

This was the temperament forged by the Shunxiang Army’s hundred victories in a hundred battles — the quality of remaining unruffled even if Mount Tai collapsed before them. Even though the army had recently been replenished with many new recruits, under the nurturing influence of this army temperament, they had rapidly matured, their mentality shifting toward that of veterans.

What manifested before Wang Dou was precisely this mountain-like, unshakable composure!

The dense black mass of cavalry surged forward like a tide.

“Fire!”

Amid Zhao Xuan’s hoarse, straining shout, the earth shook violently. In a deafening volley of artillery, four red-barbarian six-pounder cannons and twenty-five medium-sized Frankish breech-loading cannons fired as one.

Dense flames and smoke seemed to blanket this entire zone, over a hundred paces long and two hundred paces wide, with the canister balls fired from the twenty-nine cannons. The canister spread of a single red-barbarian six-pounder could reach three hundred meters in length and fifty meters in width. Even the canister fired by the medium Frankish cannons could cover an area two hundred meters long and thirty meters wide.

With twenty-nine cannons firing canister in a single volley, the shot within this area could be described as dense as rain.

The most obvious result was that the Bordered Yellow Banner heavy armor charging at the front was swept clean away, men and horses alike — especially since they were densely packed together, they made an even better target.

Wang Dou could clearly see Oboi, who had been charging at the very front, brandishing his sword and howling madly — directly struck by a red-barbarian six-pounder… he was simply blasted apart into four pieces. After a thick mist of blood, his flesh and blood scattered across the ground, vanishing without a trace like melting snow.

The standard-bearer beside him was likewise blasted into a heap of minced flesh.

Wang Dou smiled. The power of technology was something flesh and blood could not withstand. Never mind a mere Oboi — even if a superman wearing his underwear on the outside dared charge his gun-and-cannon formation, he would still blast him into meat slices. Oboi was already obsolete. Relying solely on bloody courage and brandishing cold steel to fight, he was destined to be swept into the rubbish heap of history.

Seeing the might of the Shunxiang Army’s cannon volley, Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen both gaped, unable to close their mouths. Mobile Corps Commander Yang Shaofan also blinked incessantly.

Wang Tingchen murmured, “No wonder… no wonder.”

Wang Dou set his mind at ease. After the cannon volley, dead men and dead horses lay heaped before the Shunxiang Army formation. Entrails and severed limbs, broken hands and feet were beyond counting. Those Bordered Yellow Banner heavy-armored cavalry had not been arrayed in any strict formation to begin with; blocked like this, any momentum for a charge was out of the question.

Men and horses continually tripped and fell to the ground, further clogging the front into a tangled mass. There were also horses panicked by the cannon roar or enraged by their wounds, drenched in blood and bolting wildly in all directions, causing even greater chaos.

Some quick-witted Qing riders, seeing that Oboi’s great banner ahead or beside them was gone, had already reined in their horses in shock. Yet many heavy cavalry still maintained their inertia and charged madly toward the Shunxiang Army formation.

“Fire!”

After firing their cannons, the artillerymen swiftly withdrew. The Shunxiang Army firelock soldiers, unconcerned with whether Oboi was dead or alive, upon hearing their commander’s order, immediately pulled their triggers on those Qing riders, whether crowded together or not. A crackling burst of firelock shots rang out. Following the earlier cannon bombardment, another dense and narrow belt of gunpowder smoke billowed up before the Shunxiang Army formation.

Men shouted and horses screamed. Shoot the horses first before shooting the men. Great swaths of men and horses were struck and crashed to the ground. Riders were constantly thrown from their saddles to eat dirt, and these men were then mostly trampled into meat paste by the cavalry surging forward from behind.

“Fire!”

Another wave of surging Bordered Yellow Banner Qing soldiers spouted misty blood from their bodies or their horses.

“Fire!”

Another chorus of ghostly wails and wolfish howls.

…

“Fire again!”

After four ranks of firelock volleys, a great mass of dead men and dead horses had accumulated within several dozen paces in front of the Shunxiang Army formation. They obstructed passage, so that the Bordered Yellow Banner Qing riders continuing to charge from behind became as slow and stumbling as old men. With this unhurried interval, the firelock soldiers who had fired the first rank had already reloaded their fixed paper cartridge ammunition. Then they came forward again and continued firing…

After another four ranks of firelock volleys, the remaining Qing riders fled far away. Once their fevered frenzy had cooled, they suddenly realized that their Meiren-i Janggin, the “Baturu” Oboi, had long since died — they did not even know where his corpse was.

Looking at the men and horses around them, now sparse and scattered, they reckoned that the earlier charge had cost nearly a thousand casualties. Not only that, the heavy-armored cavalry and Bayara elite who had earlier joined the charge at the front were now nearly all dead.

The Ming army opposite were not men — they were devils. An indescribable terror surged into their hearts. These Bordered Yellow Banner Qing riders bypassed entirely the Bayara Jalangga Commander Juntai, who was behind the formation, and fled. What was more, they lashed their horses furiously, wanting to flee as fast as they possibly could.

Fortunately, most of them were light-armored or unarmored bannermen, bearing less weight on body and horse — perhaps they could manage to flee to safety?

The Bordered Yellow Banner Bayara Jalangga Commander Juntai, who had been holding the rear in support, stared blankly at the battle situation ahead and at the men and horses fleeing outright, speechless. The Qing soldiers and officers around him were likewise all ashen-faced, drained of all color. Juntai murmured something unintelligible, wheeled his horse, and left.

The earlier flight of the Qing riders and Juntai’s reaction instantly triggered a massive rout of the Bordered Yellow Banner Qing army. They scrambled over one another to flee, even cutting down comrades beside them and seizing their horses in order to grab more mounts, then leading the horses away. One quick-witted Niru Commander had actually seized six horses around him.

Across the wilderness, the routed cavalry of the Bordered Yellow Banner fled in a thousand-li rout.

"Breathtaking!"

Cao Bianjiao let out a long breath. Wang Tingchen gazed at the fleeing Qing soldiers covering the field, the corpses of men and horses everywhere ahead, and the wounded of the Bordered Yellow Banner who lay screaming, not yet dead — he could only inhale sharply. Beside Mobile Corps Commander Yang Shaofan, a Company Commander said excitedly, "General Wang's tiger might!"

Yang Shaofan seemed lost in deep thought, and actually did not hear his words clearly.

Wang Dou narrowed his eyes habitually and gazed ahead for a long while, then said to Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen beside him, "The slave-thieves have collapsed. For the pursuit, I must trouble you two army commanders."

Cao Bianjiao saluted Wang Dou solemnly: "General Wang is too courteous."

Wang Tingchen laughed loudly: "Pursuing slave-thieves — this army commander likes that best of all."

He shouted: "Lads, follow me in pursuit of the slaves."

The several thousand cavalry under his command roared in unison; they had been watching the show for a long time, and both men and horses had already recovered their vigor.

Wang Tingchen cupped his fists toward Wang Dou, then charged out at the head of the column, and several thousand iron cavalry rolled forth in his wake.

Next came Yang Shaofan's thousand-plus cavalry, and finally Cao Bianjiao leading a thousand cavalry in pursuit. Apart from the three-thousand-odd cavalry who had just fought, five thousand Great Ming iron cavalry pressed the pursuit relentlessly.

The Bordered Yellow Banner's vanguard suffered a great defeat!