Chapter 175: The Massacre of Changsheng Island

He had not slept all night.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking.

The bronze horn and great trumpet sounded at the Goddess Temple, the low notes carrying extremely far, seeming to stir ripples across the surface of the sea.

On the shore of Changsheng Island, the surviving soldiers and civilians gripped their blades and spears, facing the strait with grave expressions.

Zu Dashou's warhorse snorted, pawing the ground restlessly.

As the horn call faded, dark masses of figures could be seen at the Goddess Temple ferry landing. These men reached the water's edge, set down their hide rafts, then leaped aboard and began to paddle.

Before long, the entire stretch of sea was covered with launched skin rafts. At a rough glance they were densely packed—fully four to five hundred rafts, occupying a breadth of three to four hundred zhang of sea surface.

More Tartar soldiers kept pushing rafts into the water behind them, as if inexhaustible—the pressure was truly overwhelming.

Liu Xingzuo saw this and could not help swallowing hard.

The Plain Blue Banner's attack today was far fiercer than in previous days—clearly the probing was done and they had thrown in their full main force.

As the hide rafts reached the middle of the strait, the six or seven remaining bird boats of the Denglai navy charged out from an oblique angle.

The bird boats rode downwind, moving swiftly, heading straight for the hide rafts. In an instant they rammed and sank four rafts, while the naval officers and men aboard shot arrows and fired muskets, forcing back six or seven more rafts around them.

The soldiers and civilians on shore saw this and could not help cheering.

Zu Dashou also secretly let out a breath of relief.

But immediately after, the cheers turned to cries of alarm—hide rafts were seen abandoning their approach to the island and heading straight for the bird boats, like a school of sharks spotting fresh meat on the water's surface.

Within moments, one bird boat was grappled alongside by the Tartars. The naval officers and men desperately rocked the hull, trying to shake the Tartar soldiers off balance.

At first, the Tartars who climbed onto the deck indeed could not keep their footing—seven or eight fell into the water. But as the Tartars swarmed up one after another, the hull grew harder and harder to rock.

Then more and more Tartars climbed onto the deck. A string of screams rang out, and blood dripped through the gaps between the deck planks down toward the sea, gradually dyeing the surrounding water red.

The remaining bird boats escaped by luck, but dared not approach again, able only to loose arrows from a distance to harass.

Meanwhile, the main body of Tartars crossing the sea used this time to paddle desperately.

In recent days, the low tide at Changsheng Island had occurred around sunrise. At this moment the water level was at its lowest—unfavorable for seagoing vessels, but extremely favorable for the shallow-draft skin rafts. By choosing this time to land, the Tartars shortened their paddling distance by one or two li compared to high tide.

Seeing the Tartar vanguard already onto the tidal flats, Zu Dashou drew his blade from its scabbard and roared: "Charge!"

He then spurred his warhorse and charged out at the head, with the soldiers and civilians behind him erupting in a sky-shaking battle cry as they surged forward.

The tidal flat was soft; horse hooves sank in and could not run fast, so Zu Dashou simply leaped off the horse and slogged forward through the mud on his own two legs.

Whoosh—an arrow grazed past his ear. The soldier beside him took an arrow to the face, falling without even a scream, splashing up a spray of mud and water.

Blood splattered across Zu Dashou's neck and face, scalding hot.

"Fuck your grandmother!" Zu Dashou gritted his teeth and roared, striding forward two or three steps. One chop struck the shoulder of the Tartar who had loosed the arrow, the blade wedging in the man's shoulder blade, unable to cut deeper.

Blood gushed wildly as the Tartar gripped the blade with his hand, a horrifying scream tearing from his throat.

Zu Dashou pulled his blade free, but before he could strike again, a pitchfork thrust out from beside him, catching the Tartar square in the chest.

The Tartar's scream cut off abruptly as he spat out frothy blood.

A club reached in from the side, striking the Tartar's shoulder.

All around Zu Dashou, the sounds of killing cries and screams pressed down every other sound in heaven and earth.

Blood kept splashing onto him—he could not tell if it was the Tartars', the Ming soldiers', or his own.

In the melee, his blade work had no form to it—he simply hacked wildly on instinct, and few of the Tartars he struck died from a single blow; each was brought down by the combined efforts of several men around him.

Caught up in this place, Zu Dashou entirely forgot fear, pain, and exhaustion—he only kept swinging his blade in savage cuts.

On one flank of the battle line, Liu Xingzuo sat on his horse, holding a great water-buffalo-horn bow. His arms trembled with fatigue, yet he still loosed arrows in an unbroken stream.

But the Tartar soldiers who had come ashore were simply too many, linking into a line along the beach. His dozens of arrows shot into their midst vanished like clay oxen entering the sea—not a trace. The Tartar soldiers seemed endless, utterly unhindered.

A whoosh sounded by his ear, and his warhorse suddenly let out a mournful cry, then staggered and toppled to one side.

Liu Xingzuo reacted quickly—he rolled with the falling momentum, tumbling several paces clear without being pinned under the horse. Covered in mud and water, he peered toward the direction the arrow had come from.

There stood a tall Tartar soldier in heavy white cotton armor, already drawing a great bow and taking aim at him.

Liu Xingzuo's pupils contracted. Almost by instinct he leaped to the left, drawing and loosing an arrow in midair. It struck the man square in the face—a stream of blood blossomed in the air as the white-armored soldier toppled backward.

Liu Xingzuo rose, ready to draw his bow again, when he suddenly found his left arm had no strength. A searing pain followed, and only then did he realize his left arm had been hit by an arrow. He flung the great bow away.

Suddenly, a low horn note sounded from the distant Qing army camp. Another wave of Tartar soldiers poured out, and several hundred hide rafts took to the water.

Liu Xingzuo ran to higher ground and saw that the navy's remaining bird boats had burst into great flames, with the corpses of naval officers and men floating in the water around their hulls.

The entire stretch of sea was now held by the Tartars—hide rafts as far as the eye could see.

Desolation filled Liu Xingzuo's heart. He looked again at the battle line along the beach—a line a full li long, now piled with corpses. The sand was dyed bright red, and even the nearshore seawater had been stained a pale crimson.

The Ming army was certainly tenacious and would not retreat, but the Tartars were also attacking with suicidal ferocity. Under wave after wave of Tartar assault like a surging tide, the Ming formation was like a lone leaf boat in a howling storm, in danger of capsizing at any moment.

One of his personal guards said: "General, the Ming army is already broken. Please, come withdraw with us!"

Liu Xingzuo murmured: "It seems heaven's will is so. Very well—if I die, I'll die spectacularly. You damned heavens, watch closely!"

With that, Liu Xingzuo drew his blade and said to the guards behind him: "Any real man among you, fight the Tartars to the death!"

Several guards drew their blades—but several others turned and ran.

Liu Xingzuo spat: "Cowards!"

"Crack—pop!"

At that moment, a signal rocket abruptly burst in the sky not far away.

Moments later, more than ten li to the southeast, another signal rocket answered with its own blast.

The weather was overcast today, but the red glow of the signal rockets was still clearly visible.

Liu Xingzuo looked out over the sea and saw that, in the northwest direction, a long slender strange vessel had appeared on the water at some point.

Liu Xingzuo had been stationed at the Goddess Temple for a long time—he knew this vessel all too well. It was unmistakably a dispatch boat of the Nan'ao navy.

Reinforcements—had come!

Liu Xingzuo trembled all over with excitement and said to his men: "Look, that's the Nan'ao navy! Shout—reinforcements are here, shout!"

The personal guards obeyed the order and began shouting, but there was only one ship on the sea, and it was merely observing, not joining the battle. No one truly believed it was reinforcements, so the shouts were not loud—the battle line on the beach couldn't hear them.

Watching the flank of the battle line being broken through, Liu Xingzuo was burning with anxiety.

Just then, from the southeast, another sky-rocket exploded with a bang, and then a patch of sail shadows rounded the headland, appearing between the straits.

Three masts with hard sails, a flat bow, the great Ming flame banner fluttering in the wind—it was the naval Haicang warships!

Liu Xingzuo's personal guards' eyes nearly popped out of their heads. After staring in silence for a moment, they erupted in astonishing shouts, as if they were trying to roar their lungs out.

Aboard the Sea Wolf, Bai Qing saw the battle line between the Ming troops and the Tartars on the shore and breathed a sigh of relief, muttering to herself: "Made it just in time."

She immediately gave the order: "Form a line abreast, starboard side facing the enemy, and blow those matchlocks red-hot!"

"Aye!" the helmsman replied excitedly, then shouted: "Hard to port, starboard to the enemy, port with the wind, shift sails! Time to hit the Tartars—stay sharp, all of you!"

At Niangniang Palace, in the Plain Blue Banner's main camp, Manggūltai saw that the naval warships had come from the south and breathed a slight sigh of relief.

As long as it wasn't the Ming naval force from the Fudu River, Manggūltai didn't take them seriously. A mere ten warships couldn't stop the thousands of troops he had to get onto the island.

But as the ten ships formed a single line and turned to port, exposing their starboard sides—

Manggūltai suddenly felt something was terribly wrong. This kind of broadside attack formation—he seemed to have seen it on only one naval force before.

"Boom! Boom! Boom————"

Continuous cannon fire rang out, shattering all of Manggūltai's hopes.

The broadside cannons of those ten Haicang warships poured out like a breached dam, with almost no gap between shots, as dense as firecrackers.

The sea within fifty paces of their broadsides churned endlessly, as if pelted by hail.

The hide rafts took on water and sank one after another. Tartar soldiers, as if struck by an invisible rain of arrows, burst with sprays of blood all over their bodies. Blood holes appeared out of nowhere, and in an instant, large numbers were dead.

Even the corpses of already-dead Tartar soldiers weren't spared—they kept taking hits, bodies twitching spasmodically, as if rising from the dead.

Manggūltai's face went pale with shock, and he immediately said: "Retreat! Retreat at once!"

The bronze gong sounded through the camp.

The Tartar soldiers on the hide rafts all turned around and paddled back toward Niangniang Palace.

The Sea Wolf reacted swiftly, turning the helm to starboard and cutting straight toward the middle of the strait, planting itself directly in the path of the Tartars' retreat.

Muskets and Folangji cannons fired together from the deck, crackling sounds ringing out without pause—the strait was as lively as New Year's.

As the surrounding gunpowder smoke grew thicker, the entire battle line of the Sea Wolf looked like a fire dragon emitting steam. Amid the smoke, the muzzles of cannons and muskets flashed red without cease, as if breathing dragon's breath.

The Sea Wolf's Folangji cannons loaded with grapeshot had been designed by Lin Qian specifically for boarding actions. If it came to naval battles or sieges, they were nearly useless—but against Tartars on hide rafts, they were exactly the right tool.

Ten ships stretched across the strait like an iron chain spanning a river. Not a single hide raft could cross—they all became souls beneath the cannons.

And among the Tartars who had been on the starboard side, those who paddled slowly couldn't escape either.

The hide rafts, packed densely to carry more soldiers, had no cover at all around them—they were simply living targets on the sea. One cannon shot sent flesh and blood flying across the raft. The bombardment showed no mercy.

Ordinary Tartar soldiers could still jump overboard to save themselves, but the White Armor soldiers wore three layers of armor—the moment they hit the water they sank, so they could only paddle for dear life.

Because the White Armor soldiers were heavy, the rafts sat deep in the water and paddled very slowly. On top of that, their white armor was too conspicuous, so they received special attention from the gunners and musketeers.

Pitiful—these soldiers were all Jurchen elites, every one of them capable of fighting ten men alone, yet before the Sea Wolf they were slaughtered in batches like pigs and dogs.

Watching this scene, Liu Xingzuo felt a sense of unreality.

Not long ago, one such White Armor soldier had nearly taken his life.

And now, with the naval gunboats here, the White Armor soldiers died like ants under boiling water—nearly wiped out to extinction.

The bombardment in the strait didn't stop. The noise was so great it drowned out the Plain Blue Banner's retreat gong, and even the soldiers and civilians of Changsheng Island could smell the thick sulfur.

Shattered hide rafts and Tartar corpses dropped like dumplings into a pot, covering the sea surface in a layer.

The entire stretch of seawater took on an eerie pale pink.

On the beach of Changsheng Island, the remaining Tartar soldiers had lost all morale, scrambling and fighting each other to run into the sea to flee, only to be caught up with by the soldiers and civilians and hacked to death with random blade strokes.

Those who managed to escape into the sea were blasted to death by the Sea Wolf's indiscriminate cannon fire.

The Tartar troops crossing the sea were numerous, covering a stretch of water three to four hundred zhang wide.

The ten Sea Wolf ships, bow to stern, spanned only a little over a hundred zhang, so they maintained a certain speed and cruised back and forth—once they'd killed the Tartars in one area clean, they turned around for another.

At this time, a southwest wind was blowing through the strait.

Heading northeast with the wind was easy enough, but turning back southwest meant sailing against the wind the whole way—they could only tack in zigzags, constantly turning through the wind.

Turning the helm, shifting sails, firing cannons, and maintaining formation all at once—orderly and precise to the extreme.

Even though Liu Xingzuo knew nothing of seafaring, he could see how formidable this naval force was. The skill was so exquisite it was almost unbelievable—as if they were showing off.

At first, seeing the navy come to their rescue, the soldiers and civilians on Changsheng Island had been overjoyed, their cheers reaching the heavens. Now they had gradually fallen into a daze watching.

Several thousand soldiers and civilians stood on the shore, motionless, staring blankly as the Tartars were slaughtered.

Zu Dashou was covered in red, blood dripping down his armor. His mouth hung slightly open and had been for a long while.

So this was the might of the Nan'ao navy? No wonder they could hold the Tartars at the Fudu River for nearly a month.

The Sea Wolf had come from the south, so Zu Dashou had initially assumed this was Mao Wenlong's naval force.

But as the slaughter began, Zu Dashou gradually felt something was off.

If Mao Wenlong's navy were this formidable, they wouldn't have reported over a dozen great victories without producing a single Tartar head.

In all the world, the only force with this kind of strength was the Nan'ao navy.

The soldiers and civilians on Changsheng Island were used to seeing Han Chinese slaughtered by Tartars, but had never seen Tartars slaughtered by Han Chinese—today was an eye-opener.

Everyone was watching so intently that no one noticed three large gunboats had quietly sailed to the north side of the strait.

Aboard the Tianyuan, Ma Shilong and Man Gui watched the distant scene of Tartars being slaughtered, their expressions identical to Zu Dashou's.

Man Gui confirmed with the crewman beside him: "These are Ming troops?"

"That's right," the crewman said casually.

"These really are Ming troops?" Ma Shilong couldn't help but confirm.

The crewman laughed: "What, you think they're fake? Those are the Sea Wolf ships—they usually just do patrols and odd jobs. Haven't had a real fight in a long time."

The crew's intent was to highlight their status as the flagship's crew—after all, decisive battles at sea, the final hammer blow, were the flagship's tasks; the Sea Wolf's role was mostly to harass from the sidelines and clean up the battlefield.

But those words sounded completely different to Ma Shilong and Man Gui.

Such powerful warships, and the Nan'ao navy only used them for patrols?

Just how strong was the Nan'ao navy?

At this thought, the two men couldn't help but look up at the figure on the ship's deck.

Both of them knew that the Nan'ao navy had driven back the Gaizhou army, but hearing about it and witnessing it with their own eyes were entirely different things.

Especially the Sea Wolf killing Tartars—it was too visually shocking. Ma and Man, along with their personal guards, all stared wide-eyed, rubbing their eyes again and again, unable to believe it was real.

Yet the crew aboard the Tianyuan, every one of them calm-faced, looked as if they were watching pigs being slaughtered or dogs butchered.

Some crewmen were even chatting idly on the side, guessing what would be for dinner tonight, whether they could get braised pork, with a wager of one tael of silver.

Ma and Man were deeply shocked—with a great enemy before them, the soldiers were casually chatting about dinner?

Those in the strait were Tartar troops, whom even the elite border troops of the Great Ming could not match; if even one squad of Tartars boarded the ship, they could slaughter everyone aboard.

Hearing this way of thinking, the surrounding crew burst into laughter.

Someone said: "Don't worry, no one's ever managed to board our ship." Of course, saying this meant they didn't count Li Kuiqi's men as people.

Another crewman said disdainfully: "The Tartars might be formidable on land, but at sea, heh————they're not even as good as the sea bandits of Fujian and Guangdong."

Someone laughed: "Isn't that right? Even sea bandits know to find a proper warship; those stupid Tartars cross the sea on leather rafts!"

"Quiet!" Bailangzai's voice came from the boat deck.

The crew shut up immediately.

A moment later, Bailangzai shouted: "Turn the rudder right, port side to the enemy, port side to the wind, change sails! Prepare for bombardment!"

Ma and Man watched as the riggers picked out a single rope from among hundreds and thousands, hauling it taut with work chants, the yardarm overhead swinging slightly.

Then the whole ship turned sharply right, the wind shifted, and they heard the sails overhead rustle loudly—a moment later, with a snap, they tightened again.

The bow now faced southwest, and the entire Niangnianggong Plain Blue Banner camp appeared ahead of the port side.

Beneath them, the port gun ports opened with the turn, and bronze cannon barrels slowly extended outward.

"Lower sails, fire!" Bailangzai's shout came from the stern deck.

In an instant, thunderous cannon fire erupted from below them, thick gunsmoke rose, and the pungent smell of sulfur filled the air.

Ma and Man were both generals, accustomed to the smell of sulfur, so they didn't cough much.

Squinting, they looked out and saw the Plain Blue Banner camp on shore looking like plowed earth, with a dozen or more deep craters; tents and camp platforms collapsed in great numbers, dust and smoke rising everywhere.

After two rounds of bombardment, they heard Bailangzai shout: "Extend the barrage two hundred paces!"

After that, the impact points of the shells all landed beyond the Plain Blue Banner camp.

The two men were puzzled; Man Gui watched for a moment, then praised: "Impressive!"

Ma Shilong hurriedly asked why, and Man Gui explained: "That's an empty camp—General He spotted it."

Hearing this, Ma Shilong looked carefully and saw that although the camp had been riddled with holes, not a single person was fleeing—it was indeed an empty camp.

Such an empty camp would be easy to spot up close, but they were over two hundred paces from the camp, with gunsmoke obscuring the view and the battlefield noisy—to discover it after just two rounds of bombardment was truly no small feat.

The Tianyuan's side flashed red continuously.

The cannon fire enveloped all of Niangnianggong, and before long it bombarded the true location of the Plain Blue Banner main camp.

That place was over six hundred paces from the shore, screened by sparse trees.

It turned out that Manggūltai knew the power of the Ming cannon ships, so he deliberately set up an empty camp to draw the bombardment, placing his real camp here instead.

But no matter how he calculated, he hadn't expected that at six hundred paces, the cannons could still reach—just with poor accuracy.

Though for bombarding a target like a camp stretching several li, whether one had accuracy or not didn't make much difference.

Under Lin Qian's orders, the Tianyuan, Changfeng, and Yunfan three ships bombarded the Plain Blue Banner camp relentlessly, sparing no ammunition.

After a dozen or more rounds of bombardment, the spreading dust and smoke nearly enveloped the entire camp.

The Sea Wolf's bombardment also did not cease.

For a time, over the strait, rolling cannon thunder filled the air, shaking men's chests numb and making ears ring.

An hour later, the Sea Wolf's bombardment gradually stopped; on its deck, the water used to cool the guns was nearly boiling, emitting rolling steam.

The mother gun barrels themselves were shockingly hot—sprinkle water on them and it immediately rolled and sizzled, visibly vaporizing.

In the strait, Tartar corpses floated densely, countless in number, along with large amounts of flesh chunks and severed limbs; even the waves washing onto the beach were pale red.

Even on the land at the Niangnianggong ferry, shot Tartars lay sprawled in every direction, all dying miserably, faces full of bewilderment and shock.

After another meal's time, the bombardment from the Tianyuan and the other two ships also stopped; the three ships raised sail again and transported Ma Shilong and Man Gui's forces onto Changsheng Island.

After the two men came ashore, they joined up with Liu Xingzuo and Zu Dashou; the four looked at each other in silence.

Before long, Shen Yourong arrived on horseback—he had heard the rumbling cannon fire at Beila Mountain, knew the reinforcements had arrived and the tide of battle had turned, so he rode over.

Seeing Ma Shilong and Man Gui, Shen Yourong said happily: "So it truly is the Nan'ao navy that's come—what are the results of the battle?"

The four men were speechless, not knowing how to describe it.

Liu Xingzuo said: "Old General, come to the shore and see for yourself."

Shen Yourong was greatly puzzled; he climbed the high ground by the shore and looked down—and was instantly stunned, then tears streamed down his face: "Heaven blesses our Great Ming!"

He was moved for a long while, then walked down from the high ground and asked: "Where is General He?"

Man Gui said: "General He must command from the flagship and cannot easily come ashore."

Shen Yourong's face flushed red with excitement: "In the Fuzhou campaign, General He should take the greatest credit—no, a miraculous achievement!"

At this moment, Zu Dashou saw the Nan'ao navy split into three—the flagship and several sea-going junks staying at Changsheng Island, while the other two groups headed north and south respectively—and asked aloud: "What are those two groups going to do?"

Man Gui and Ma Shilong didn't know either, and both shook their heads.

Shen Yourong murmured: "If this old man guesses correctly, the northern group is returning to defend the Fudu River, and the southern group is stationed at the Anzi River."

The assembled generals all drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

This north-south route was precisely the only path the Plain Blue Banner had to take to return north to Gai Prefecture or head south to Jin Prefecture.

The Nan'ao Navy had quite the ambition — was crippling the Plain Blue Banner at Changsheng Island not enough, that they also sought to trap them to death in Fu Prefecture?

Since the troubles in Liaodong began, the Ming army had never once defeated the Tartars in open field combat, so even after the great victory at Changsheng Island, no one had even thought of pursuing.

Besides, using a navy to chase down and block an army on land — wasn't that the most absurd joke in the world?

But the Nan'ao Navy's strength was so thoroughly game-changing that even this fantastical notion, once it reached people's ears, seemed somehow feasible.

Even the fact that the Tartars could detour around the Fudu River was automatically overlooked.

Shen Yourong drew a deep breath and said to his subordinates, "Bring me a brush — this commander will personally write a merit report for General He!"

Several days later, two letters lay on Sun Chengzong's desk.

One was Shen Yourong's merit report, detailing the battle at Changsheng Island in full, signed jointly by Shen Yourong along with a long list of generals — Ma Shilong, Man Gui, Zu Dashou, and many others scattered throughout.

The other came from Fuqing — a personal letter from former Chief Grand Secretary Ye Xianggao.

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen