Chapter 882: Fight to the Death

"This is the fury of the gods."

The dazzling rockets flew ceaselessly toward the enemy camp, blasting the Manchu and Mongol barbarians several li away until they wailed for their parents. The newly attached Mongol cavalry squadrons arrayed in formation, along with the outer-subject tribes and the Qinghai Hetao Mongol cavalry, watched with intimate clarity, all of them dazed and shaken. In particular, the headmen of the Qinghai Hetao Mongols, such as Zuo Erdan, were all murmuring Buddhist prayers.

Although they were Mongols, they had been considerably assimilated by the local region. The banners they raised were rarely the Sulde; most were flags resembling five-colored prayer streamers, very much in the local Tibetan style.

Like the Outer-Subject Mongol Tüsheet Khan Gombodorji and others, they had each mobilized five thousand cavalry armored soldiers to join the battle, having staked a great deal of capital.

Now, watching the sky full of flames and dense smoke, hearing the heart-stopping shriek of the rockets, and seeing the distance and power involved, their minds could imagine nothing but divine miracles. They could not help secretly rejoicing that they had joined the side of the Great Ming Grand Viceroy; otherwise, the ones being bombed right now would be themselves.

"I knew the Marshal had a great killer weapon in his army."

Wang Pu held up his telescope, continuously surveying the situation on the opposite side. His new army camp had already been handed over to Han Chao for arrangement, and command authority had been fully transferred. At this moment, he rode his horse beside Han Chao, with only a few hundred guards around him, but Wang Pu was very satisfied.

As soon as he joined the battle, Marshal Wang Dou had completely re-equipped his camp with self-igniting firelocks and bayonets. His new army had experienced the bloody battle of Songshan and possessed no small fighting strength; now, with these sharp firearms, they were like a tiger given wings. Every time he went to war with Wang Dou, he gained full benefits, which solidified Wang Pu's determination to cling tightly to Wang Dou's thigh.

At this moment, he was shouting and yelling, drawing sidelong glances from those nearby. Suddenly, Wang Pu shouted again, "Good! Well struck!"

He laughed heartily: "That rocket strike just now was too good! Haha, blast those foul Tartars to death."

Two iron balls, one large and one small, linked by an iron chain, whirled through the air with a whistling sound. It spun at high speed, lashing out along its path, and wherever it passed, flesh and blood flew in all directions. Suddenly, a shrill, miserable howl came from Turgai, the Manchu Minister of Personnel—the iron chain had viciously lashed his head, instantly flaying half his face to pulp, his eye, nose, and mouth squeezed into one mass, a truly horrific sight.

Then, the head of Dorji, the Mongol Minister of Justice, was instantly torn away by the spinning chain. His headless corpse spurted fountains of blood, a truly gruesome sight.

Finally, the chain-ball wrapped around the leg of Zhu Shiyin, the Han Chinese Minister of Works, leaving his right leg connected by only a shred of flesh and skin. He crawled through a pool of blood, emitting heart-rending wails of agony.

Dorgon's eyes nearly burst from their sockets with rage. Just moments ago, three of the Border Garrison Army's "Great Divine Fire Crows" had landed together, creating a scene too horrible to behold. The piercing shrieks around him and the shattered, dismembered limbs made his heart and lungs convulse repeatedly.

Chaos. The entire plan had been thrown into chaos.

In his plan, the Han, Japanese, and Korean Eight Banners on the two wings, along with the surrendered Ming troops, were to deplete the Border Garrison Army's effective strength first, while he led the Manchu and Mongol main force, waiting for the right moment. Ideally, Wang Dou and the bandits would fight each other to the death, and then he would reap the fisherman's gain from the snipe-and-clam struggle.

He never expected the Border Garrison Army would strike first and gain the upper hand, while his own belated strike brought disaster. In particular, their new-style weapons were extremely sharp, striking directly into the rear formation of his central army and producing a terrifying effect.

Moreover, the front formation was in an even sorrier state. A large number of "Small Divine Fire Crows" had fallen, and his soldiers, mounted on their horses, were simply standing there taking the beating.

And his cannons—all finished.

After Wu Sangui and the others surrendered, the original Qing four-wheeled millstone cannons and thirty-five "Divine Might Grand General" cannons, along with ten "Heaven-Blessed, Might-Bolstering Grand General" cannons, which had been captured and stationed in Liaodong, Shanhai Pass, and other places, plus some local large and small red-barbarian cannons—a total of roughly sixty-five red-barbarian cannons—had all been hauled over by Dorgon.

Apart from the ten four-wheeled millstone cannons he gave to the contingent led by Jirgalang, he had been unwilling to allocate the rest to the two wings, giving them only a few ordinary red-barbarian cannons each. He had planned to concentrate them to bombard the Border Garrison Army's central grand formation when the time came. Now, under their rocket attack, all was finished.

Their rain-like incendiary shells fell, even triggering sympathetic detonations, blasting the surrounding men into flying chunks of flesh and blood.

The cannons he had painstakingly transported over a thousand li were finished. If this beating continued, able only to take hits without striking back, he feared his Manchu and Mongol central grand formation would also collapse on the spot.

Dorgon saw very clearly: the Border Garrison Army opposite him flew the banner of the Xuanwu Army. Their commanding general was Wang Dou's trusted key general, Han Chao. This man had fought in the campaigns beyond the frontier and was no ordinary figure. Moreover, he had no small number of troops; the cavalry arrayed in the rear formation alone numbered around twenty thousand.

They possessed a large number of cavalry squadrons and were keeping a tight watch on him. If his own side were to suffer a rout, the consequences under their pursuit would be too dreadful to contemplate.

The situation had changed. Not fighting to the death was no longer an option, and the strategy needed to change.

Dorgon had also more or less perceived that, although the Border Garrison Army's new-style weapons were sharp, the actual casualties they caused were still small. As long as they could endure the terror, it was not necessarily impossible to reverse the situation.

The key now was that they could not simply stand still. Otherwise, once the Border Garrison Army's infantry formation pressed forward and their sharp weapons like the "Great and Small Divine Fire Crows" drew closer, it would truly be the end of the Great Qing.

Dorgon sent orders to Dodo on the left wing and Abatai on the right wing to immediately supervise the battle and attack, striking respectively at the left and right wings of the Xuanwu Army. At the same time, his own Manchu and Mongol grand formation of one hundred thousand men, in the order of the Outer-Subject Mongols, the Khorchin tribe, the Eight Banner Mongols, and so on, would launch multiple waves of attacks against the Xuanwu Army's center formation. No retreat was permitted without the sounding of the gongs.

Their offensive tactic was to have large herds of horses in front, with cavalry squadrons following behind in somewhat loose order, and the rear several ranks concentrated. This way, fewer men would die.

His Manchu Eight Banners would likewise be divided into several layers, all preparing large herds of horses, to deliver a thunderous strike at the critical moment and break straight through the Border Garrison Army's center.

The earthen platform beneath the cannon shuddered violently as a heavy red-barbarian cannon let out an earth-shaking roar. A long tongue of flame and dense, thick smoke belched forth, and a cannonball weighing over ten jin screamed out. Several rows of war wagons on the other side were smashed to splinters; the heavy solid iron ball crashed through, sending fragments of wood and human remains flying in all directions.

As early as after the rocket volley, the bandits' wagon camps, firearm camps, and artillery camps had already been thrown into panic and chaos. Many bandit soldiers had taken to their heels and run. Now, after the cannon bombardment, their collapsing formation was about to spread to the entire front line, and a tidal wave of rout was imminent.

With a little more effort, their entire front formation would collapse, clearing the obstacles for their own infantry formation's advance.

Dense white smoke filled the air. The loaders inserted another silk powder bag, then a man inserted a goose-quill priming tube, and then they fired.

The Border Garrison Army's artillery camp widely used silk powder bags and goose-quill priming tubes. There was extremely little residue inside, so the cannon bore only needed swabbing once every several shots. The goose-quill priming tubes ignited quickly, and the priming powder would not cake, allowing the Border Garrison Army's cannons to achieve an astonishing rate of fire.

The earthen platform again erupted with deafening cannon fire, and violent smoke once more enveloped this entire area.

"Thump."

Amid the muffled sound, a heavy mortar not far away emitted a dense burst of flame, and thick smoke subsequently spread out in all directions.

An incendiary shell screamed as it flew from the mortar's massive muzzle. At the moment the cannon fired, the scorching hot powder gases had already passed through the gap around the shell's edge, igniting the powder in the fuse.

Compared to the original explosive shells, the Border Garrison Army's fuse technology had improved considerably. The most obvious advance was that the delay fuse was far superior; they even no longer needed separate ignition, instead using the scorching powder gases.

Of course, while this was much simpler and more convenient, because the pressure of the powder gases was very great, if the fuse was not oriented toward the muzzle, it was very likely to be blown into the shell body by the gases, causing the catastrophic accident of the shell exploding inside the barrel.

The Border Garrison Army's solution was to machine a protruding iron fuse socket onto the shell. This could restrict the shell from tumbling inside the bore, ensuring the fuse opening always faced toward the muzzle.

Of course, this was not without drawbacks. The iron fuse socket was difficult to machine and also caused a certain amount of wear on the inner wall of the barrel, so the Border Garrison Army was researching wooden fuse sockets.

However, wooden fuse sockets also had a drawback: they were prone to premature ignition malfunctions after firing. Therefore, the final solution under development was to add a sabot made of cork to the shell. This could prevent the fuse from accidentally detonating inside the bore, while also increasing the shell's accuracy and the bore's gas seal.

But this was still only under research and data collection; currently, the army still used iron fuse sockets.

Moreover, due to bore pressure considerations, the mortar's explosive shells did not have pre-formed fragments, so their lethality was much less than that of the rockets. Their advantage was that they were relatively cheap.

The shell screamed out and ultimately landed on one of the bandits' artillery bastions, then exploded. Sticky flames shot out in all directions. Several bandits, their bodies on fire, screamed as they fled in a frenzied, headlong rush, ultimately igniting the gunpowder on the platform. A tremor that shook the earth and a pillar of flame soaring into the sky merged into a blazing sea of fire.

Wang Dou lowered his telescope. The bandits' artillery platforms had all been neutralized. Their wagon camps and firearm camps had also completely collapsed, fleeing like a tide toward the rear formation.

Amid the sound of drums and music, Wen Fangliang's infantry formation on that side again began advancing like a moving wall. But at the same time, some cavalry squadrons from the two wings of the bandits' central army had already lunged toward their two flanks. The two wings of their grand formation also began attacking toward the two sides south of Dang'er Ridge.

Looking again at Han Chao's side east of Dang'er Ridge, Wu Sangui, the Han Eight Banners, and others on the Qing army's two wings had already begun arraying their formations and closing in. Their Manchu and Mongol grand formation was also stirring restlessly, seemingly deploying troops and preparing to launch an offensive against Han Chao's central army position.

Wang Dou's face was expressionless. Li Zicheng and Dorgon were, after all, veterans of many campaigns. Even under the rocket attack, they had reacted quickly, realizing that the moment to fight to the death had arrived. Moreover, the rockets had mostly struck their front formations so far; the elite main forces of both sides were still intact, so it was impossible for them not to take any measures.

Both battlefields had fully erupted into combat. Wang Dou continuously scanned the horizon. The situation before him was what he had hoped for. Whether it was the bandits' old camp or the Tartars' Manchu Eight Banners, these men all possessed extremely rich combat experience, and they also had fat, sturdy warhorses, each capable of running very fast.

Even if they were routed when the time came, it was uncertain how many of them could be chased down and killed.

Therefore, this battle was not just about a simple defeat. Wang Dou also hoped to inflict heavy casualties on their elite forces right here on the battlefield.

Beneath the sun-moon-and-waves banner, the orderly tramp of boots resounded as twelve thousand eight hundred foot soldiers advanced with steady resolve.

Viewed from the side, they seemed to form eight straight horizontal lines, each line stretching four li in a single hue of gleaming armor, the red tassels bobbing atop their helmets, their keen bayonets and keen armor-breaking long awl-spears likewise flashing in the sunlight.

Keeping time with the drums and the martial music, they strode forward with heavy steps, as if lifting their feet together and planting them together, maintaining the same uniform rhythm.

Whenever their feet came down, the very earth seemed to tremble, and when they lifted, a single orderly rumble rose.

Their bayonets, long spears, and red tassels rose and fell in disciplined cadence with their march, while banners snapped and streamed in the wind, merging into a surge of majestic power.

Watching these soldiers' resolute expressions, their steadfast faces one after another, Wen Fangliang felt pride swell in his heart: the moment his infantry formation closed in on the bandit main camp, that would be the hour of their destruction.