Chapter 686: Ambition

This was a stretch of gentle hills, dotted with locust trees, birches, and other mixed trees, beneath which the foliage concealed a small hamlet.

The hamlet was a village common to the northern lands, with courtyard walls of rammed earth and roofs thickly thatched with straw; here and there a few wrecked houses with tiled roofs could be glimpsed, now destroyed, leaving only broken walls and shattered remnants — wherever the roving bandits passed, any dwelling that looked like a wealthy household had always been their prime target for plunder.

Li Zicheng sat his horse atop a hill, gazing far into the distance; he saw an earthen road east of the ridge, branching past the hamlet’s edge, winding its way to a small river flowing from north to south ahead, then crossing the river by a stone bridge and continuing on toward the northeast.

Rumble rumble.

At that moment, east of the hamlet, a tide-like mass of cavalry was surging forward, with no head in sight ahead and no tail behind, racing along the earthen road east of the hamlet and kicking up sky-filling dust.

Because on both sides of the road, and near the dried-up river courses, lay vast stretches of abandoned farmland with flat terrain, the boundless cavalry columns spread out across multiple paths over the ground, galloping straight ahead without necessarily sticking to the earthen road.

In truth, across the great plain, with the rivers dried up, there were far too many places for cavalry to travel; even where some wheat shoots had been planted near hamlets, they were trampled flat without ceremony by the Chuang army’s mounted columns.

And alongside the cavalry columns marched tide-like advancing infantry and refugee hordes, driving countless mules, donkeys, sturdy oxen and other beasts of burden, transporting provisions and heavy supplies — though, of course, far more was carried on shoulder poles and human backs, or hauled on pushcarts and wheelbarrows.

They transported fodder and provisions in tense haste, the footfalls of men and beasts pounding the road surface in an unending, rumbling tremor.

A gust of wind swept past. Dry yellow dust and grit showered all over Li Zicheng. Henan and Hebei were arid to begin with, and now, with successive years of drought, every time the wind blew it stirred up even more dust.

Yet he paid it no mind, merely gazing intently at the vast host, watching them surge mightily, stretching all the way to the horizon — especially the cavalry in the army, which made Li Zicheng gaze intently.

"When drawn up for battle, array thirty thousand horse in three lines, called the Three Walls; if those in front turn to look back, let those behind cut them down!"

This cavalry tactic reached full maturity in the historical sixteenth year of Chongzhen. Though it was not yet its equal now, it had already taken considerable shape, especially with the division into the five-battalion system of Center, Left, Right, Vanguard, and Rear; after all, although Li Zicheng was strategically shortsighted, he was tactically brilliant, and he also kept a very tight grip on drilling the troops.

In particular, the cavalry in the army enjoyed the best treatment; years of continuous warfare, and a system of differential treatment and selection among famine refugees, foot soldiers, and cavalry, had increasingly concentrated the Chuang army’s fighting strength into its mounted troops.

Those cavalrymen racing away with whistles and shouts bore banners now a flash of white, now a flash of red, now a flash of black, and so on; every man, in bearing and horsemanship, exuded a fierce and aggressive air.

Of course, although Li Zicheng had expended great effort trying to supply the grand army with uniforms and padded cotton armor in a unified design, supplying and maintaining troops and horses was simply too difficult; even the soldiers of his own direct-line Five-Battalion troops still wore a motley assortment, many wearing felt caps, heads wrapped in scarves, and clad in waist-length armor or short body-covering brigandines.

A very large portion of them also still wore liangdang, which were much like the protective vests of later ages.

Fortunately, this kind of cotton-cloth vest was light and flexible, and could also protect the vital areas of the chest and abdomen; in the Central Plains, where mounted archery and mounted musket fire did not dominate the battlefield, such protection was, for the time being, sufficient.

The clatter of hoofbeats came wave after wave; watching the men and horses racing through the dust, Gao Yigong, Tian Jianxiu, and the others behind him all showed expressions of delight.

Gao Yigong served as Superintendent-General of the entire army, and Tian Jianxiu as the senior commander of the Old Camp; therefore, when the Chuang army’s great generals Liu Zongmin, Li Guo, Hao Yaoqi, Yuan Zongdi, and the rest had hurriedly led the cavalry to close the encirclement, they still remained at Li Zicheng’s side. Behind them on the hill were wave upon wave of Old Camp soldiers.

There was also Niu Jinxing, wearing a square scholar’s cap, sitting his horse beside Li Zicheng, stroking his long beard and striking the pose of a strategist devising plans from headquarters; Song Xiance sat in his wheelchair, counting on his fingers and divining something, and slowly a smile spread across his ugly face.

Li Zicheng noticed Song Xiance’s movements, and the last trace of unease in his heart was set at ease. He sighed and said, "So much scheming, so many stratagems — at last we have lured Cao and Wang into the heavy encirclement. Men plan, but Heaven decides the outcome; we shall see the final result."

Niu Jinxing laughed heartily and said, "The Chuang Prince need not worry; both Cao and Wang have already entered our trap. With the grand army closing the encirclement, they cannot escape even if they sprout wings. Back then, Cao Wenzhao met his death; today, his nephew shall follow in his footsteps!"

"Those two are both Counts; if we can eliminate them, the Ming court will surely be greatly shaken, and the government troops at Kaifeng will lose all will to fight."

Li Zicheng smiled faintly and said, "We know our own affairs best. The frontier army’s fighting strength is fierce and tenacious; we can deal them a heavy blow, but to annihilate them — that is difficult!"

His expression became reminiscent. Back then, he had led two hundred thousand troops to attack Fengxiang; the elder and younger Cao had advanced from Ningzhou with three thousand horse and foot. On the way, Cao Bianjiao had won a victory and pursued, leaving Cao Wenzhao to follow with the infantry, while he himself had laid an ambush with tens of thousands of troops and besieged them. Although he had killed Cao Wenzhao afterward, a very large part of his force had still broken through the encirclement.

Now, the two garrison armies they intended to encircle numbered nearly ten thousand men; in terms of fighting strength, they were probably far more formidable than Cao Wenzhao’s force back then. Destroy them? Li Zicheng very much wanted to, but he knew it would be very difficult. Therefore, in his overall plan, the best outcome was still to deal them a heavy blow, so that in the coming battle for Kaifeng, they would be unable to render any assistance — that would be good enough.

Of course, in this battle he also had his own advantages: first, his forces were numerous; second, back then he had not had as many cavalry as now, and their fighting strength had been far inferior to the present.

Niu Jinxing naturally knew this. Although the Chuang troops had been ever-victorious against the government troops of the Central Plains, they still found the frontier army hard going. Fortunately, as long as the cavalry could pin them down and entangle them for a few days, once the cannons were brought up from the rear, how could the flesh-and-blood bodies of Cao and Wang withstand the bombardment?

And now, the allied forces together had sixty to seventy thousand cavalry; entangling those frontier troops was feasible. Once they were entangled, with hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers and famine refugees closing the encirclement, even if they had three heads and six arms, their fate would still be to fight to the death from sheer exhaustion.

He wagged his head and declaimed, "The greater part of our righteous army’s two wings of cavalry, with Chief Sentinel Master Liu setting out from Dangshan, the Chuang Prince personally leading the remaining Chuang battalion cavalry from Haozhou, and the Ge and Left Five Battalions with Master Cao and Master Sun setting out from Yongcheng — with the speed of cavalry mounts, they can close the encirclement today…"

"Cao and Wang’s infantry battalions are indeed sharp, possessing large quantities of Eastern Route firearms, but their cavalry’s ferocity is limited. Our forces attack the few with the many, and the odds of victory are clear. We need only deal a heavy blow to their mounted division, and their infantry battalions will be like turtles in a jar."

Li Zicheng nodded with pleasure; this was exactly his plan. Several tens of thousands of cavalry against the frontier army’s few thousand mounted troops — the odds of victory were clear. Therefore, when closing the encirclement, the allied forces’ cavalry would set out first, not seeking great results, but only to entangle their cavalry, buying time for the infantry to catch up and the grand army to complete the encirclement.

And for this battle, he had begun laying plans from the moment Cao and Wang came east from Kaifeng. The ambush site had been chosen at either Xiayi or Yongcheng. To this end, he had voluntarily withdrawn from the prefectural seat of Guide, even putting on a show of fleeing at the mere sight of the enemy. Now that he saw the grand army’s strategy being carried out, how could he not be pleased?

Reflecting on how this strategy had come together, Li Zicheng could not help but say, "Li Dingguo has both courage and stratagem; if I could win him over to my camp, it would truly be like adding wings to a tiger."

The generals around him also joined in lavish praise. A look of jealousy flashed through Niu Jinxing’s eyes. To be honest, he did not fear the men of the Chuang camp having courage; what he feared was them having stratagems. If the military men under the Chuang Prince all possessed strategic minds, what use would they have for civil advisors and staff officers like himself?

On the surface, however, he smiled and said, "A young hero of rare talent, not to be underestimated."

At that moment, Gao Yigong suddenly voiced a worry: "Although the righteous army has laid out the strategy, with the greater part of the cavalry on both wings agreeing on a time to attack together and close the encirclement, I fear that when we arrive, Chief Sentinel Master Liu’s side may not have reached us in time."

Although there had been prior planning, with a set time and place, at this time there was no telegraph or telephone; everything relied on mounted sentinels for communication. To command and coordinate the strategy as freely as one wished was far too difficult.

Li Zicheng also worried about this point — that the various parties might not arrive in time. But outwardly he still said, "Trust Master Liu; he will not miss the appointed hour."

…

At this time, near Yongcheng.

The fortified hamlet before their eyes, which had held out to protect itself, was now a stretch of ruins, but Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang looked upon it with unchanged expressions.

They had been taken in and raised by Zhang Xianzhong since childhood, and had taken part in all manner of warfare. Zhang Xianzhong’s character was brutal and bloodthirsty; killing people and massacring cities was nothing to him, and destroying villages and hamlets, coercing the populace, was even more commonplace. Li Dingguo and the others, as his close adopted sons, led their own troops and had followed in battle since they were young — how could they not have taken part in such things?

Thus, wherever the roving bandit troops passed, leaving a swath of broken walls and ruins, Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang had long grown accustomed to the sight.

The two men now stood before the steps of the Guandi Temple north of the hamlet, simply watching the mighty procession of cavalry passing by. Those troops all belonged to the Ge and Left Five Battalions, and the banners they raised bore either "Ma," or "He," or "Liu."

And Sun Kewang, Luo Rucai, and the others — especially Sun Kewang and the remnants of Zhang Xianzhong’s forces — had suffered a severe blow from Wang Dou at Xiangyang City, so even now, their cavalry combined with Luo Rucai’s numbered only a few thousand mounts, naturally insufficient to serve as the main force for closing the encirclement.

They and the main force of foot soldiers under their command were primarily tasked with supervising and escorting the famine soldiers. At this moment, following behind the cavalry, a tide of famine refugees that seemed to blanket the wilderness surged only toward the west of Yongcheng. Some among them were locals of Guide Prefecture, all coerced after the Chuang army and the others arrived.

Just like the Sixth Lady and the others back then, their expressions were marked by exhaustion, by terror, by blank confusion, as they moved unconsciously along with the human tide.

These people, besides serving as cannon fodder when the time came, had also been assigned various other tasks.

For instance, along the area from west of Yongcheng all the way to Haozhou, under the arrangements of Li Zicheng and the others, they were to dig several deep trenches to prevent the frontier army’s forces from breaking through in that direction into Fengyang Prefecture in Nanzhili.

Not only that, but almost every ten or twenty li they advanced into the interior, they were to dig several lines of trenches, gradually encircling those frontier troops completely, and then dig countless trenches all around them as a means of siege and confinement.

Watching the tide-like advancing men and horses, a sharp gleam flashed in Sun Kewang’s eyes. He praised, "Truly magnificent. Soon, this stretch of land will unfold one bloody battle after another, with corpses piled high… Only, after the years have passed, who will still remember those corpses and that blood? The bones will remain, the blood will seep in, enriching the fields, and when the time comes, wildflowers and wild grasses will grow thick, perhaps becoming a playground for children."

Li Dingguo glanced at Sun Kewang in surprise, but remained silent.

Sun Kewang smiled again, flicking his riding whip, and murmured, "Hundreds of thousands of troops massing for battle — such tremendous momentum. Yet this grand battle to come will only serve to burnish the fame of Li Chuang. We who hold the whip and follow at the stirrup merely trail behind in obscurity — what do we gain from it? Second Brother, are you truly content with that?"

He continued, "Of course, with your strategy for Guide Prefecture, your name will surely rise rapidly in the Chuang camp in the days to come…"

Li Dingguo said urgently, "Elder Brother…"

Sun Kewang waved his hand. "Second Brother, this is a good thing, and it will also greatly benefit us in recruiting troops in the future. Would your elder brother ever be jealous of talent and virtue, or speak ill of my own brother?"

He went on, "But relying on Li Chuang — do you, Second Brother, truly believe we can avenge our foster father’s great wrong?"

Li Dingguo pondered for a long moment, then said, "Though that villain Wang is willing to serve as the court’s falcon and hound, yet observing his conduct, relying on the Chuang Prince…"

He slowly shook his head.

The vengeance for a murdered father cannot coexist under the same sky, so after the Battle of Xiangyang, both he and Sun Kewang paid close attention to gathering intelligence on Wang Dou — even collecting the Xuanfu Times. The more they studied, the more their hearts turned cold. The Chuang Prince might seem powerful, but compared to Wang Dou, he still paled in comparison.

Relying on him for revenge was, evidently, a distant prospect.

Sun Kewang clasped Li Dingguo's arm with warm familiarity and whispered, "To exact our great vengeance, we must have our own power. Looking at Henan now, it is Li Chuang's territory. Therefore, I believe we cannot remain here in the future. I think heading south is a very good choice." (To be continued...)