Chapter 703: Submerged

At the same time, Cao Bianjiao was still wondering how Wang Tingchen’s side was faring — they should have reached Xiayi by now.

Infantry generally march thirty to fifty li a day; of course, that is ordinary marching. On a forced march or a rapid march, they can cover over a hundred li a day, depending on the army. In the Battle of Gaoliang River, the Song army marched a hundred li a day for ten days straight, and after reaching their objective, they still launched assaults on the city for thirteen consecutive days.

The armies of the late Ming, of course, cannot compare to those of the early Song. In Cao Bianjiao’s situation, marching while under attack from enemies on all sides, covering even five or ten li a day would be normal. Achieving this speed was already an extraordinary performance, thanks to the New Army.

But cavalry is different — an ordinary march of a hundred li is quite normal, and a rapid march can reach two hundred li. The Liao cavalry once covered two hundred li a day for six days straight, marching twelve hundred li to rush to Youzhou and engage the Song army.

Wang Tingchen was certainly on a rapid march and should reach Xiayi soon. However, setting up defenses at Xiayi, resting and digging in, establishing contact with Guide and other places, and requesting reinforcements from Kaifeng and elsewhere would probably cause a slight delay.

He also wondered: would any other relief troops arrive?

……

The next day, the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen — a fasting day in many places — Cao Bianjiao rose early. The Chuang camp had been noisy all night, with troops and horses seemingly arriving constantly, but Cao Bianjiao had long since put life and death out of his mind. Even sleeping in his clothes, he still slept soundly.

His camp was likewise brightly lit, with officers and men taking turns on sentry duty to guard against a bandit night raid, but nothing happened.

It was clear that after the previous night’s rest and the large chunks of horse meat they had eaten, the men’s spirits were much improved — rest and recuperation truly mattered.

At breakfast, there were still large chunks of horse meat, and the aroma spread everywhere. While the officers and men ate with great relish, the bandit camp seethed with resentment — it was their horses being eaten.

The mess soldiers were still busy nonstop, cutting the cooked horse meat into small pieces so that every soldier could carry some. That way, if they grew hungry, they could take a bite and replenish their strength at any time — even if they died, they could die with a full belly.

At the middle of the mao hour, both banks of the Xiangshui River suddenly fell quiet. The skirmishing scouts from both sides no longer tangled with each other, but the tense atmosphere before battle made the air feel as if it were about to solidify. Both sides had already filed out of camp and were making their respective arrangements.

At the end of the mao hour, Cao Bianjiao’s army formation advanced, moving along the edge of the Xiangshui. He had already reverted to a large square formation. The concave-convex formation was effective against cavalry, but against infantry, it clearly had inherent weaknesses.

The terrain from Yongcheng to Xiayi was too flat — just wheat fields stretching as far as the eye could see, without any cover or protection in any direction, which greatly favored cavalry attacks. On open ground facing cavalry, forming a defensive perimeter on all sides and advancing slowly in a large square formation became a necessity, especially since the bandits had also brought large numbers of infantry.

Still, Cao Bianjiao kept his troops moving along the edge of the Xiangshui. Although the river was low and shallow, some sections of the bank were still difficult to scramble up, so marching close to the river could also provide a little cover for his left flank.

The bandits made no major moves at first. Only as the Ming army advanced did large masses of mounted troops move along the left bank to keep watch. Among them were several large banners, beneath which some bandit leaders seemed to be silently observing the characteristics of his army formation.

But at the beginning of the chen hour, they too began to move. Group after group of foot soldiers forded the river, coming ashore from both upstream and downstream. Downstream in particular, a dark, dense mass spread out layer upon layer like locusts.

Cao Bianjiao saw the Xiangshui turn extremely turbid, with the flow repeatedly interrupted in bursts. It was clear that while fewer men and horses were crossing upstream than downstream, their numbers were still very large. Even from a distance, the sound of their marching feet seemed to rumble on without cease.

He raised his telescope to scan the distance. It seemed the bandits’ plan was to attack his rear and pin him down firmly, while also attacking his front and right flank. Only on the left flank by the river, where the opposite bank was thick with bandit cavalry keeping watch, would they hold back — but if an opening appeared, they would also launch a thunderous assault.

At the same time, more and more of their mounted troops were crossing the river, probing the three sides of the army formation from a distance. To prevent the bandit cavalry from pressing in on his rear, Cao Bianjiao detached nearly a thousand cavalry from his main camp to serve as a rearguard, while the rest remained in the center, ready to reinforce any side at a moment’s notice.

But he knew this calm would not last long — battle was about to erupt before his eyes.

“Cao Bianjiao is indeed a famous general!”

On the left bank of the Xiangshui, Li Zicheng stared intently at his great army. He watched as countless foot soldiers and cavalry forded the river, slowly but unmistakably beginning to envelop the Ming army formation within. The heavy footsteps and drumbeats merged into a sensation both suffocating and seething.

And the Ming army formation he was watching had not adopted the dispersed formation that Liu Zongmin and others had described, but rather this traditional square camp before him. Clearly, Cao Bianjiao had adapted, and the formation was strict and imposing — breaking it would obviously not be easy.

He silently calculated how many men would have to die to break this formation. Looking back, he saw those beside him were also lost in thought. Noticing Li Guo seemed pensive at his words, Li Zicheng asked, “Jin’er, what are you thinking about?”

Li Guo said, “Chuang Wang, I was thinking that although attacking with infantry camps can wear down Little Cao’s troops and ammunition, if we rely purely on infantry camps to block them, I fear the troops we have here won’t be enough to stop them.”

At this point, the bandit camp had about fifty thousand infantry, but over twenty thousand of those were under the command of the Ge and Zuo’s five camps. Setting aside combat strength, coordination among the various factions was itself a problem. Given the chaotic organization of the bandit camp at this time, once the infantry in the front line were defeated, it would clearly be very difficult for infantry elsewhere to come to their rescue.

Although about thirty thousand famine refugees had also arrived the previous night, that was clearly not enough. If all the remaining infantry and famine soldiers were to gather, it would probably take another two or three days. In particular, a large portion of those famine refugees were from the Ge and Zuo infantry camps coming from the direction of Yongcheng, escorted by Luo Rucai and his men.

They moved very slowly, because escorting such a vast number of people required them to keep digging trenches all along the boundary from Yongcheng to Haozhou. So even though the Ming army fought and stopped intermittently, with the bandits chasing right behind them, they could never catch up quickly.

No one knew when the cannons the Chuang camp had deployed in the direction of Haozhou would be brought up. With reinforcements being fed in piecemeal like this, even if infantry and famine soldiers kept arriving in a steady stream from all sides, whether they could stop Cao Bianjiao was still hard to say.

In truth, he left some things unsaid, but Li Zicheng understood perfectly well. Although the Chuang camp, the Ge-Zuo forces, and Cao’s camp were allies, it was always the Chuang camp that fought the hard, bitter battles. The other two always seemed to be waiting to pick up the spoils.

In this very battle, before all the famine refugees had gathered, the main assault infantry would certainly be Chuang camp troops — a fact that left many Chuang commanders seething with resentment.

In his heart, Li Zicheng’s desire to unify command grew even stronger, but outwardly he only smiled and said, “It doesn’t matter. In this battle, I have twenty thousand cavalry deployed upriver along the Xiangshui to guard against any Ming breakthrough, and against Wang Tingchen and his men. The remaining nearly forty thousand cavalry and infantry are combined. Every time the infantry are defeated, the cavalry can move forward to entangle and delay them, then the infantry can regroup and attack again. Cao Bianjiao can’t bear to abandon five thousand New Army troops — that will be his doom here by this river.”

Liu Zongmin and the others all burst out laughing. Frankly, they could not understand Cao Bianjiao’s approach. If it were them, they would have abandoned the infantry and fled long ago. As long as you had cavalry, you could get as many foot soldiers as you wanted, not to mention famine refugees — just sweep through an area and you’d have over a million.

Niu Jinxing gazed at the Ming army formation advancing in the distance, his expression a mix of vindictive satisfaction and complex emotions. Finally, he said, “This is what becomes of an unrighteous army.”

……

At the middle of the chen hour, the Ming army reached a place called Dinglou Village. By now, the bandits were pressing much closer. Aside from the many mounted bandits keeping watch on the left bank, on the other three sides they were already less than two li away. At the rear of the army formation in particular, a large force of bandit cavalry was closing in, making as if to attack.

The Ming army had no choice but to halt and prepare for battle.

The situation on the battlefield at this moment: directly ahead were the Ge-Zuo infantry camps, about twenty thousand foot soldiers, along with ten thousand famine refugees. Behind the army formation were about thirty thousand Chuang camp infantry and twenty thousand famine refugees.

In addition, roughly thirty thousand mounted troops from the various factions were massed on the front, right, and rear, gathered behind the infantry to supervise the battle and ready to rush forward and entangle the Ming army if the infantry broke. The remaining ten thousand or so cavalry were gathered on the left bank of the Xiangshui, watching intently.

The vast sea of humanity seemed about to submerge this entire stretch of land. The army formation amid the human tide was like a reef amidst the waves, liable to be swallowed by the tide at any moment.

As if eager to put on a show before the Chuang camp, the Ge-Zuo forces attacked first.

What they drove forward first were those ten thousand famine refugees.

These famine refugees, every one of them in tattered clothes, gaunt and emaciated, served — willingly or not — as cannon fodder in the battle, all for a mouthful of food.

Their expressions were fanatical. They carried a motley assortment of weapons — many of them merely clutching a wooden club. They were divided into three waves, each wave three to four thousand strong. At the sound of a war drum, they immediately charged toward the Ming army formation with frenzied shouts.

Many of them, even more crazed, tore off their upper garments, clutching a weapon in each hand — a kitchen knife or an axe — and howled with all their might, hoping to summon what little strength they had and give themselves courage.

They surged like a tide to within a hundred paces of the army formation, but their frenzy was shattered to pieces by a single fierce volley.

Although it was a square formation, Cao Bianjiao had drawn troops from or reduced troops on each side, flexibly arranging manpower and firepower according to the battle situation. Facing the Ge-Zuo side, he had nearly eight hundred firearms, divided into three ranks, each over two hundred and fifty strong. The volley from these firearms sent over two hundred famine refugees tumbling to the ground, where they wailed in unbearable agony.

In the blink of an eye, the courage of the first wave of over three thousand famine refugees vanished. They fled back, crying and wailing, and several hundred cavalry immediately charged out from the army formation, intensifying their panic.

The Ming firearm soldiers did not move. After the front rank fired, they swiftly passed the empty guns to the rear and received loaded firearms in return. This relay continued all the way to the back, where the firearm soldiers of the last rank were rapidly and deftly reloading — a continuous rustling of barrels being cleaned and ammunition being loaded…

The deafening sound of the volley fire startled even Li Zicheng and his men on the opposite bank of the Xiangshui. The ferocity of Ming firearms could truly only be appreciated by experiencing it firsthand.

From horseback, they watched the famine refugees on the Ge-Zuo side. Their first wave had collapsed after taking just one volley. The second and third waves fared no better. The bravest was the third wave, which barely withstood two volleys before fleeing.

Watching the thunderous roar from that side, the dazzling, fierce flames spewing from the volley guns — even viewed from a distance, it made one’s heart pound with fear.

Li Zicheng sighed, “So these are the firearms of the Eastern Route.”

Although he had also captured many Ming firearms, most were three-eyed guns, and even among those that were bird guns, many were too worn to use.

In particular, they lacked a priming pan mechanism, so in windy weather they frequently misfired. After fighting Wang Dou, he had indeed thought of establishing a firearm camp, but he always lacked the technical expertise. (To be continued...)