Chapter 481: Earth Carts, Physicians

The Ming army's situation was clearly visible to the Qing troops on Huangtu Ridge. Shi Tingzhu laughed heartily: "Excellent! Beat those Ming dogs till they cry for their fathers and mothers — truly satisfying!"

Dorgon, Duoduo, and Abatai also laughed loudly, but Dorgon felt another flavor in his heart. The merit before their eyes all belonged to the Han troops. Had the once-invincible Great Qing iron cavalry already retreated to a secondary role? Would the battlefield from now on be dominated by cannons and firearms?

Of course, this thought merely flickered through Dorgon's mind. As for whether Duoduo, Kong Youde, Abatai, and the others shared this notion, there was no way to know.

Kim Jajeom also watched, gasping. He thought to himself that the Hu Qing iron cavalry was peerless, and now with such fierce cannons, they were like tigers given wings. If Joseon wished to avoid calamity in the future, it could only cling tightly to the Qing state's side.

At the same time, Shi Tingzhu's demeanor made Kim Jajeom inwardly scornful. He thought: "Weren't you once part of the Ming? Truly, having become a slave, you are even more vicious than your master!"

And at that moment, atop Rufeng Mountain Fortress, there was also a scene of cheers and laughter.

Daišan, Inggūldai, and the others all loudly congratulated Hong Taiji, celebrating the outstanding performance of their own artillery camp.

Hong Taiji also wore a face full of smiles, breathing a sigh of relief over the battle at Huangtu Ridge.

He thought to himself: "Superior firearms are indeed the sharpest tools to dominate all under heaven. The Ming army's wagon camps can often block our Great Qing iron cavalry, yet they cannot withstand cannon fire. Back in the day, the Zhejiang troops had outstanding combat strength — our iron cavalry could not break in, but did we not also blast them open with cannons? Flesh and blood truly cannot compare with cannonballs!"

He pondered that in the days to come, the Qing state should mass-produce cannons and arquebuses, only...

The amount of iron produced within their territory was limited. To expand the scale of firearms was truly a case of the spirit being willing but the strength lacking. Over these years, all the iron materials mined domestically had been poured into the forging of cannons and arquebuses. Even the iron materials plundered from the Ming state in previous years had been used up. To expand further was genuinely difficult.

Especially when a battle was fought, the stockpiled gunpowder and cannonballs were consumed in enormous quantities. In the third month of this year, the artillery camp besieged Songshan. In just two days of fierce assault on the 25th and 26th, they fired over a thousand cannonballs.

Afterward, Hong Taiji obtained a patrol report that Fan Chengong, the defender of Songshan, had sent to the Ming court. It stated that within the city they had picked up 601 cannonballs that had been fired in. This made Hong Taiji sigh — those cannonballs could not be reused.

Using firearms was indeed different from swords and arrows. It seemed that besides accelerating smuggling and the pace of extortion from Joseon, they would also have to re-enter Ming territory to plunder and seize as much iron material as possible.

The Qing army positions cheered, while the Ming army positions gnashed their teeth in rage. Hong Chengchou, Zhang Ruoqi, Qiu Minyang, and the others had ashen faces. Even the Army Supervisor Wang Chengen clenched his fists. Due to the excessive force, several of his fingernails dug deeply into the flesh of his palms.

Left Guangxian, the Regional Commander of the Reinforcement and Extermination Corps, was also extremely anxious. He muttered incessantly to himself: "The Tatar cannons are so formidable — what to do, what to do?"

Some of the Liaodong officers and generals in the army formation watched, their faces drained of color. They merely rejoiced inwardly that it was not themselves assaulting the ridge. Otherwise, with the Tatar cannons so fierce, their own troops would have collapsed under Tatar cannon fire before even reaching the ridge.

The Xuanzhen troops were indeed elite — even now, they continued to advance under the Tatar cannon fire.

Wang Dou was equally frantic with anxiety, holding up his telescope and peering intently into the distance. Suddenly, Zhao Qian called out beside him: "Grand General, look over there!"

Wang Dou's heart stirred. Raising his telescope to look, following Zhao Qian's direction, he saw it. Just now, a Qing cannonball had struck one of the earth-bag carts. Unlike the other war wagons, this crude earth-bag cart, under the howling Qing cannon fire, had remained intact with both men and cart unharmed.

Wang Dou stood there dumbly, a light flashing before his eyes, as if a window never before seen had been thrown open!

Indeed, he should have thought of this long ago. The era had already changed, and the equipment of battle should transform accordingly!

The Great Ming's war wagons had been used in the past to deal with nomadic peoples, to counter their mounted archery! Therefore, wooden-constructed war wagons and shields were sufficient! But now, the form of warfare was different. The Great Ming's opponents were no longer purely cold-weapon troops. They too possessed firearms, and also extremely fierce cannons!...

And war wagons could not withstand cannon fire!

What could withstand cannon fire were those seemingly inconspicuous, negligible-cost sandbags, earth bags, and earth baskets!

Seeing that Wang Dou seemed to have grasped something, Hong Chengchou beside him hurriedly asked: "Does the Loyal and Brave Count have a brilliant plan?"

Wang Dou nodded and said to Hong Chengchou: "Viceroy Hong, look over there."

Hong Chengchou hastily looked where Wang Dou pointed. Zhang Ruoqi, Wang Chengen, and the others also hurriedly looked, and then each of them cried out in unison: "Sack carts!"

"Earth-basket carts!"

"Earth-bag carts!"

Zhang Ruoqi sighed: "I should have thought of this long ago. Did not the Loyal and Brave Count's Changling Mountain defense line use large numbers of sackcloth earth bags and earth baskets to guard against the Eastern Slaves' cannonballs?"

Hong Chengchou looked at the Shenji Camp artillery position before him. Here, Fu Yingchong had long ago directed the civilian laborers to stack many sackcloth earth bags and earth baskets in front of the cannons and on both sides, forming crenellated protective walls to guard against the cannonballs and ricochets of the Red Barbarian cannons.

He sighed: "Indeed, we should have thought of this long ago — using carts loaded with bags of earth to shield the advancing soldiers."

In truth, one could not blame everyone. A line of thought is sometimes merely a thin layer of window paper. Once pierced by chance, it becomes an entirely different world. Before that chance arrives, one might not think of it even in several hundred years.

It was like the Jingbian Army's fixed-paper-cartridge ammunition. In fact, as early as the era of Qi Jiguang's army, they had used granulated gunpowder and separately loaded arquebus ammunition. It was Wang Dou who first combined the two, and so others suddenly saw the light — it was that simple.

Many things are just a layer of paper, a single line of thought. Take war wagons, for example. Perhaps everyone would say: how can expensive war wagons be inferior to mere civilian pushcarts and pullcarts? Yet the fact was exactly so. Against cannon fire, war wagons were useless, while civilian carts piled with earth bags and earth baskets became sharp and powerful weapons.

In fact, in later ages it would even develop to the point where no earth-cart cover was needed, and army formations advanced naked under cannon fire.

But that era had not yet arrived. In the past, soldiers facing arrows needed shields for cover. Later, a better tool emerged — the war wagon. Now, the earth cart had appeared. In short, when facing arrows and bullets, some form of cover was still desirable.

This was a psychological threshold. Even the Jingbian Army's second-class troops, if they now had to fight without war-wagon cover, would feel uneasy at heart.

Therefore, although under cannon fire war wagons actually caused greater casualties to the soldiers, without them the troops would surely raise an uproar and be too fearful to advance.

Once this line of thought was opened, everyone immediately drew inferences. They prepared large numbers of long-plank carts — at minimum two-wheeled, four-wheeled being best, single-wheeled not acceptable.

Because against cannon fire, single-wheeled carts were too light and flimsy to withstand the shock of enemy cannonballs. Then they would load them with large quantities of earth bags and earth baskets, tightly shielding the soldiers and the wagon camp in front, protecting the soldiers as they advanced.

To prevent enemy cannonballs from rolling through beneath the carts and breaking the legs of the cart-pushers, the front underside of the carts needed to be bound with many earth bags, leaving as few gaps as possible. And to prevent the carts from being knocked backward or shaken over by enemy cannonballs, both the front and rear of the carts required special reinforcement.

Qiu Minyang, the Provincial Governor of Liaodong, was in charge of the grand army's logistics. He immediately followed Hong Chengchou's order and summoned craftsmen to carry out the modification of the earth carts.

Because the frontline battle situation was urgent and the modified carts could not be readied in time, Qiu Minyang directed large numbers of civilian laborers to select suitable long carts, fill them with sackcloth earth bags and earth baskets, bind numerous earth bags to the front underside and both sides of the carts, and urgently transport them to the front line.

Hong Chengchou also urgently dispatched men to the units of Yang Guozhu and Li Fuming to inform them of this method. At the same time, he said to Wang Dou: "The Eastern Slaves' cannon fire is fierce. In General Yang's and General Li's units, the soldiers have suffered many casualties. We still need the Loyal and Brave Count to provide aid with medical officers and physicians!"

Within the Jingbian Army, the number of medical officers and physicians was the highest. In every company, there were five physicians and one medical officer. In one battalion, there were one hundred and forty physicians. On the Liaodong campaign, the Jingbian Army had mobilized multiple battalions of troops, plus the marshal's camp. Probably all the physicians of the Liaodong reinforcement armies combined did not match the numbers of Wang Dou's single army.

Hearing Hong Chengchou's words, Wang Dou said solemnly: "There is no need for Viceroy Hong to say it — this is only natural!"

The Jingbian Army had already sent some physicians to support Yang Guozhu's and other armies. Now they dispatched over two hundred more.

These physicians all enjoyed first-class troop treatment. Although they did not do much fighting, the entire army, from top to bottom, had no complaints whatsoever about this, because the military physicians were the guardian deities of the officers and soldiers.

Their equipment consisted of first-class troop armor, plus a medical kit embroidered with the image of the medical sage Zhang Zhongjing. Inside the medical kit were packed with various medicines and instruments, such as scissors, hemostatic powder, wound medicine, alcohol, gauze bandages, marching pills, and the like.

After the establishment of the military government, the Logistics Department's Military Medical Academy was quickly founded. Over the past few years, it had recruited and trained a large number of physicians and medical officers, and various medicines were also continuously developed.

The Military Medical Academy was now still researching mafeisan. In truth, what Wang Dou most yearned for was Yunnan Baiyao — that was a medicine with miraculous efficacy for treating both internal and external injuries. But there was no point thinking about that now; they could talk about it after they managed to develop mafeisan.

Wang Dou had actually also thought of Western medicine, but then dismissed it. Before the emergence of antibiotics, the Western medicine of this era was a complete failure. Even in Napoleon's time, under the branding iron and the scalpel, the mortality rate of surgical operations exceeded eighty percent.

Especially in treating external wounds, at this time they used boiling oil poured into the wound. Wang Dou had no idea what the point of that was — was it killing people or saving them?

It was not until the early twentieth century that Western medicine gradually improved, and Wang Dou could not wait for the medical achievements of that era. In comparison, at present, Chinese medicine actually possessed numerous ready-made remedies that were quite effective for disinfection and stopping bleeding.

Beyond this, the Jingbian Army was also equipped with large numbers of stretchers, knew how to set up specialized aid stations, as well as places for wound recovery and rehabilitation. The masks that Wang Dou had devised originally to guard against poison-smoke bombs were now also widely used among the physicians.

At Wang Dou's single command, large numbers of Jingbian Army physicians rushed out, pursuing toward Yang Guozhu's army. At the same time, in the shaded areas behind the army formation, large numbers of medical tents were erected, and boiling hot water was set to heat.

Hong Chengchou and the others watched, endlessly moved. The strength and excellence of the Jingbian Army's military equipment and military system were unmatched by any army of the Great Ming.

Hong Chengchou immediately ordered large numbers of civilian laborers to follow, to help carry stretchers, transport the wounded, and so on. Let these men do the rough and heavy work. They must also protect the safety of the Jingbian Army physicians, and must not let them become exhausted.