Chapter 460: Beyond the Pass

On the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the troops of the Xuan–Da Army and the Divine Machine Battalion, amid the well-wishes of the capital’s common folk, departed the capital and began their march toward Liaodong.

The army’s line of advance was the route through Tongzhou, Sanhe, Yutian, Fengrun, Yongping, Funing, and Shanhai Pass.

The deadline the Ministry of War gave each commander was to reach Ningyuan by the twentieth of the seventh month. From the capital to Ningyuan was less than nine hundred li, so the army needed to cover only thirty or forty li a day — very generous in time. Moreover, nearly the entire way was flat, open highway, so the march posed no great difficulty.

The vast army set out in mighty force. Because they were marching along interior lines, the cavalry went first, the infantry followed, and the baggage train and artillery brought up the rear. Behind the army, moreover, stretched an endless stream of civilian laborers hauling provisions and supplies.

For the battle of Jinzhou, how enormous was the provision supply for an army of over a hundred thousand men? To keep the frontline army supplied, the Great Ming’s Ministry of War and Ministry of Works mobilized tens of thousands of carts and horses, and from the capital to Shanhai Pass, day and night, there was an unbroken flow of men and animals transporting grain and fodder.

As the army on which all sides placed the highest hopes, the Border-Pacifying Army naturally received the highest priority in provisions. No one dared short or stint them, lest it lead to unthinkable consequences.

However, the ironclad, unshakable principle of Wang Dou and every commander of the Border-Pacifying Army was to guarantee at the very least a full month’s provisions under their own absolute control, so the Eastern Route’s grain and fodder still accompanied the army.

It was just that the baggage battalion gave priority to carrying weapons, ammunition, and the like. For the remaining provisions, they detached a portion of the baggage battalion to supervise civilian laborers in transporting them. After all, a month’s provisions for fifteen thousand men was an enormous quantity, and the baggage battalion’s limited carts and horses could not possibly carry it all in one go.

Wang Dou’s central command camp practically became the general headquarters of the expeditionary army. Not only were Yang Guozhu and Wang Pu gathered there, but also Army Supervisor Wang Chengen, Zhang Ruo, and others. Even Fu Yingchong, the Vice Regional Commander of the Divine Machine Battalion’s Forward Camp, squeezed his way in.

Fu Yingchong envied the three men’s command-flag wagons. While still in the capital, he had kept pestering the Capital Training Commander, Li Guozhen, about it. It was a matter of face for the sons of the capital. Commander Li Guozhen also selected a war wagon from the capital battalions and had craftsmen work through the night to convert it into a large flag wagon.

Everything else remained unchanged, except the flagpole was one zhang and six chi tall, slightly shorter than the great banner of Wang Dou and the other two. After all, he was a Vice Regional Commander — how could his flag be taller than a Regional Commander’s?

For this campaign, Fu Yingchong’s Divine Machine Battalion Forward Camp numbered five thousand men and horses. Originally there were many vacancies, but this expedition was on a grand scale, their own side had strong soldiers and sturdy horses, and there were powerful armies like the Border-Pacifying Army present. Many sons of the capital battalions believed this campaign offered a great chance to earn military merit.

So many people tried every means to squeeze into the Forward Camp, with the result that Fu Yingchong’s unit was not only at full strength but considerably over strength. For this, Fu Yingchong also gained a good deal of personal connections.

The Forward Camp’s soldiers consisted of musketeers and the wagon camp. The musketeers all used flintlock lumie muskets. The wagon camp had three hundred rocket wagons and a large number of light war wagons, carrying breech-loading swivel guns of various sizes and the like, as well as weapons such as Divine-Fire Flying Crows and Flying Air-Burst Bandit-Smiting Thunder Bombs. When the time came, they would also have the Divine Might Grand General Cannons.

In battle, they would first bombard with cannon, then shoot with rockets, and finally fire with lumie muskets. From the early Ming to the present, the Divine Machine Battalion’s tactics had in fact become very mature. If the soldiers fought bravely, their power was not to be underestimated.

The Divine Machine Battalion Forward Camp was theoretically infantry, but many men had horses or mules. Many sons of the capital were going out on campaign for the first time, every one of them in high spirits, walking as if on wings and singing loudly all along the way.

Not only did Wang Dou and the others nod in approval, but even Army Supervisor Wang Chengen, Zhang Ruo, and the rest considered the Divine Machine Battalion’s morale usable and its spirit commendable.

To display the army’s martial valor and raise the spirits of the capital’s populace, and since the Ministry of War had allocated a fair amount of march-dispersing medicines and the like, although the sun was still blazing hot that day, Wang Dou and the others decided to march the whole day, push beyond the capital’s boundaries in one stretch, and reach Tongzhou.

In the sixth-month weather, it was still fairly cool before the hour of si, but after si, especially at the hour of wu, the sun became rather fierce. In particular, once the dust rose, it made one unbearably hot and parched.

Moreover, the present official highway had long fallen into disrepair. Not only was it full of potholes, but it was also covered with thick layers of sandy dust. Some mud pits looked level on the surface, but the moment you stepped on them, the dust would puff up and cover your whole body and face. No matter how bright and fresh your armor, before long you looked like a civilian laborer or a beggar.

By this time, those capital-battalion soldiers could no longer sing, but the men still persevered until they reached Tongzhou.

In the days that followed, they began cursing and grumbling, dragging their feet, and finally handed their helmets, armor, and weapons over to the accompanying baggage train for transport. The various Xuan–Da troops observed this and could not help despising them, secretly cursing, “Embroidery-pattern pillow soldiers.”

Wang Chengen and Zhang Ruo frowned. Fu Yingchong was embarrassed. He roared and cursed, ordering these Divine Machine Battalion soldiers to keep up, which inevitably earned him the resentment of many and cost him a good deal of the personal connections he had recently gained.

Wang Dou also shook his head. Was it inevitable that in a dynasty’s final era, the descendants of ennobled merit and military achievement would all become Eight Banners sons? When the Manchus first rose, they could be considered martial and brave, but by the late Qing, what sort of character and wretchedness did they show? How could this problem be solved? He could not help pondering deeply.

……

Because the weather was scorching hot, thereafter the army did as Wang Dou had initially discussed with Yang Guozhu and Wang Pu: the army rested from noon to the hour of shen, and marched in the morning and before the hour of zi at night. In this way, they finally avoided the most sweltering part of the day.

That day, the army reached Yutian. Scouts rode in to report that the Eastern Coordination Regional Commander, Cao Bianjiao, and the Qiantun Guard Regional Commander, Wang Tingchen, were each leading ten thousand men to join them.

Of the various great commanders who had come to reinforce, the Shanxi Regional Commander Li Fuming was already in Liaodong. The Miyun Regional Commander Tang Tong, the Ji Garrison Regional Commander Bai Guangen, and the Shanhai Pass Regional Commander Ma Ke had also long since led their troops to Ningyuan. As for their troop strengths: Tang Tong led ten thousand men; Bai Guangen’s Ji Garrison was a large garrison, and he led twenty thousand men; Shanhai Pass was closest to Ningyuan, and Regional Commander Ma Ke led thirty thousand men.

Of course, their own core troops mostly numbered in the several thousands. The remaining officers and soldiers were mostly troops from the battalions of the various Vice Regional Commanders, Assistant Regional Commanders, and Mobile Corps Commanders within the garrisons.

Thus, counting the roughly fifty thousand men of the three Xuan–Da garrisons, the soldiers of the Divine Machine Battalion Forward Camp, the troops of the Liaodong Regional Commander Liu Zhaoji, the troops of the Ningyuan Militia Regional Commander Wu Sangui, the garrison troops of the various forts in Liaodong, and also the Jinzhou Regional Commander Zu Dashou, who had over twenty thousand men in Jinzhou city, the Great Ming forces massed in Liaodong exceeded two hundred thousand — on paper, they held the advantage.

However, Wang Dou knew that Huang Taiji would soon come with the entire nation’s strength, mobilizing a total force of up to two hundred forty thousand men. Who would win was still unknown.

In fact, Miyun, Zunhua, and Yutian were all under the Ji Garrison’s jurisdiction, just as Wang Dou’s Eastern Route fell under the jurisdiction of the Xuanfu Garrison.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, when the Qing troops invaded, they broke through at the Ji Garrison. To strengthen the capital’s defenses, the battle-hardened Guan–Ning commanders Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen were kept stationed at Zunhua and Yutian by the Ji–Liao Viceroy, Hong Chengchou. Thus, although Wang Tingchen was called the Regional Commander of Qiantun Guard (not far from Shanhai Pass), he was still stationed at Yutian in the Ji Garrison.

Nominally they were under Bai Guangen’s command, but in reality Bai Guangen could not control them.

Now the two men had considerably stronger troops and sturdier horses. In addition to the three thousand cavalry at full strength in their main-force battalions, each also had three thousand New Army troops, all equipped with the fine bird muskets provided by Wang Dou and with powerful gunpowder. Each was brimming with confidence and eager to win new merit in the coming battle.

When the armies converged, everyone was overjoyed. Wang Tingchen was as bold and forthright as ever, and Cao Bianjiao as steady and composed. Like Wang Pu and the others, the two men, without prior agreement, expressed great envy for the three men’s command-flag wagons, and then could not wait to have Wang Dou inspect the New Army troops they had trained.

Wang Dou also carefully inspected the two men’s New Army troops. Like the New Army trained by Yang Guozhu, the soldiers in their battalions were all uniformly young and able-bodied. The musketeers all wore red cotton armor; the spearmen wore blue waist-length armor, with the red side of their mandarin-duck battle tunics exposed — slightly different from Yang Guozhu’s New Army.

Their military bearing was slightly inferior to Yang Guozhu’s New Army, but better than the New Army Wang Pu had trained. Clearly, the two men had also put in bitter toil and spent a great deal of money and grain.

Wang Dou praised them: “All are fine soldiers. Once they return from the Liaodong campaign, they will be uniformly strong troops.”

Army Supervisor Wang Chengen and Zhang Ruo also nodded as they watched, greatly delighted. The Great Ming’s strong armies were growing ever more numerous; the Liaodong campaign held great promise.

What drew Wang Dou’s attention was that Yang Shaofan, formerly a Mobile Corps Commander under Cao Bianjiao, had now accumulated enough merit to become an Assistant Regional Commander. Cao Bianjiao’s New Army battalion was placed under his leadership, which showed how highly Cao Bianjiao valued him.

This young man of imposing appearance was now only twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. Having experienced the battles of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, his bearing was even more steady and composed, with the air of a famous general. Clearly, after the Liaodong battle, this man would attract even greater notice.

Yet Wang Dou always felt that beneath his placid and genial exterior lay thoughts as deep as the sea, quite similar to his own great commander, Gao Xun.

……

At this point, the expeditionary army numbered nearly seventy thousand, an even more colossal and mighty force, with banners so dense they were like black clouds. Faced with such grandeur, the Army Supervisor Zhang Ruo could not help but feel his poetic inspiration surge, and together with several men from the Ministry of War, he composed poems and matched couplets all along the way. By the time they reached Shanhai Pass, he had composed at least fifty poems.

The various great commanders could fight, but as for composing poems and matching couplets, they naturally could not. Yet among the commanders, Wang Dou’s literary fame had suddenly risen. His “Han Zhongjun” and “The most is that tenderness of a lowered head” won considerable praise from everyone, especially from Wang Pu and the Divine Machine Battalion Forward Camp Vice Regional Commander Fu Yingchong. They clamored, insisting that Wang Dou produce a few more fine poems.

In truth, whether the poems Wang Dou recited were good or not — how could Wang Pu and Fu Yingchong tell?

However, Wang Pu followed Wang Dou’s lead in everything, and Fu Yingchong had also realized that although his own Divine Machine Battalion was lavishly equipped, its fighting strength was worrisome. The various commanders were outwardly cordial to him, but inwardly they despised him. Even Wang Chengen and the others had an air of being angry at his failure to strive.

Only the Loyal and Brave Count, Wang Dou, always wore a genial expression and showed no sign of looking down on him, which greatly moved Fu Yingchong.

The sons of ennobled families were inwardly sensitive and hated nothing more than being looked down upon by others. Weighing the attitudes from all sides, Fu Yingchong decided, like Wang Pu, to lean heavily toward Wang Dou. Whether he could gain military merit in the future would depend on the Loyal and Brave Count’s patronage.

With this mindset, even though Wang Dou truly could not produce any poems, Fu Yingchong still sighed with emotion that the Loyal and Brave Count was simply modest, and should serve as a model for all.

On the fourteenth day of the seventh month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the army reached Shanhai Pass. Beyond Shanhai Pass lay the land outside the pass.

When the army reached Shanhai Pass, it was nearly dusk. The setting sun’s rays slanted through, casting a layer of golden light over this mighty pass.

The officers and soldiers guarding the pass, as well as the city’s residents, had organized a grand gong-and-drum corps to welcome the army. Amid tidal waves of cheers and heaven-shaking gongs and drums, Wang Dou, Yang Guozhu, Wang Pu, Cao Bianjiao, Wang Tingchen, Fu Yingchong, Wang Chengen, Zhang Ruo, and others trod the ancient city-wall steps and appeared atop the gate tower.

They watched the fully armed soldiers below, in orderly steps, ceaselessly passing through the mighty pass and entering the land beyond.

Banners were like a sea, a vast and mighty torrent of steel, with no end in sight ahead and no tail visible behind, ever advancing…