Chapter 1059: The Ming Army Is Just Too Cunning!

The Ming army's cunning had, in the end, still exceeded Tuhai's imagination!

Tuhai, who had been ordered to lure the enemy, ran into a situation far beyond his expectations the moment he marched out. He did not know where the enemy was, did not know how many they were, and did not know where they intended to go — he had become a "three-unknowns general." The reason for these three unknowns was not that Tuhai was stupid, but that the Ming army he had encountered was an all-cavalry force, a combination of the Great Ming's black-gun mule troops and the light cavalry of the Mongol Kharchin tribe.

The former were extremely formidable fighters — all veterans of the Daning army, many with more than ten years of military service, rigorously trained, well equipped, and tactically flexible. Not to mention the present Manchu armored cavalry, even the white-armored and red-armored soldiers of the Manchu golden age would have to take a black bullet if they ran into them.

The latter, though their fighting strength was utterly worthless, could not be dismissed, because they knew the terrain of the western Liaoning mountains and the Liao River bend region intimately — they were the ideal candidates for guides.

Once the two were combined, they immediately reduced the Qing side's Yizhou meiren-i janggin Tuhai to a "nearsighted man." Anything a little farther from Yizhou city, and he could no longer see clearly.

It was not until the thirteenth day of the ninth month of the fifteenth year of Shunzhi of the Great Qing that the "nearsighted" Tuhai, standing atop the gate tower of Yizhou city, dimly made out the enemy he was supposed to lure.

The enemy was a Three Armies Command Banner raised high three or four li away — in the Ming army, the Three Armies Command Banner was only erected when a Provincial Commander, Governor-General, Army Commissioner, or Zhu Cilang himself came to the front to direct the troops. Zhu Cilang could not possibly come, and the Ming Governor-General beyond the passes, Zhu Chunchen, could not possibly appear beneath the walls of Yizhou either, so the one directing the troops beneath Yizhou must be a Ming provincial commander, an army commander, or a garrison Army Commissioner.

The Ming had not formally established a Liaoyang Province, so naturally there was no Provincial Commander of Liaoyang, and the garrison Army Commissioner who might appear on the western Liaoning battlefield had to be one of three men: Zhu Cijiong, Gao Jie, or Huang Degong. Gao Jie's Beiping garrison and Huang Degong's Daning garrison each had a total strength of a little over twenty thousand, but they could not all march out together; at most they could bring out some ten-odd thousand.

As for an army commander, that was terrifying! As far as Tuhai knew, the Ming "army" was not a standing formation; only when a field group of two or more divisions was assembled would an army headquarters be established and an army commander appointed. That is to say, if this Three Armies Command Banner outside Yizhou belonged to an army commander, then the Ming force on this Daling River route very likely exceeded thirty thousand — perhaps even more!

That number was a bit too large! Even if they were lured deep, the eighty thousand troops under Prince Regent Dodo might not necessarily win in a single battle!

At the thought of thirty, forty, even fifty thousand Ming troops advancing endlessly along the Daling River, Tuhai involuntarily shifted his gaze into the distance. To the northwest of the Three Armies Command Banner standing three li outside Yizhou, rolling dust clouds surged skyward. The dust was enormous, and it made Tuhai, who was trying to estimate the number of the invading Ming troops, somewhat terrified.

Estimating enemy numbers from dust clouds was never precise to begin with; the dust kicked up by infantry and by cavalry were not even on the same order of magnitude. If it was cavalry with several mules or horses per man, the dust they stirred up was even greater.

Although the force led by Huang Degong numbered only a little over thirteen thousand, because it was an all-mounted force, and the ratio of men to horses (and mules) reached one to three or more, the horses and mules assigned to those thirteen thousand men numbered over forty thousand. One hundred sixty thousand hooves pounding the open fields outside Yizhou raised not only gray-yellow dust, but also a murderous aura that made Tuhai's heart quail.

"If the enemy is a mixed infantry-cavalry force, dust like this means at least fifty thousand men!"

The speaker was Ebilun, the garrison commander of Yizhou, an amban janggin (Regional Commander). He was far more experienced than Tuhai, and a single distant glance had already yielded an estimate.

"Fifty thousand? That many?" Tuhai sucked in a breath of cold air.

"About that," Ebilun nodded and said. "The Ming army should be a mixed infantry-cavalry force; the cavalry proportion is not high, at most ten or twenty percent. Dust that big — it must be fifty thousand troops!"

"Could the Ming have split a two-hundred-thousand-strong army into four?" Cold sweat broke out on Tuhai's forehead.

If there were fifty thousand Ming troops here on the Daling River, then the Ming forces outside Shanhai Pass and the Black Mountain Long Wall had no reason to be fewer, and the force on the Xiaoling River route, which was aimed at Jinzhou, would not be small either — that would mean a two-hundred-thousand-strong army advancing on multiple routes simultaneously!

Not one of those routes was something Dodo's eighty thousand Qing troops could easily beat back!

"What are we to do?" Tuhai asked.

Ebilun sighed and said, "What else can we do? Carry out the Prince's orders, of course! Yizhou is no bastion fort, and the surrounding terrain is fairly open — it would not be hard for them to bypass it. The two or three thousand men we have are not even enough to fill the gaps between their teeth. If we don't lure the enemy, what else can we do?"

"But they have fifty thousand..."

Ebilun sighed and gave a bitter smile. "Fifty thousand is still fewer than a hundred thousand. The Prince has eighty thousand in hand — it's not certain he lacks the strength for one battle!"

Tuhai nodded. "You're right. Then let us withdraw — fall back to Daling River Fort. Daling River Fort is strong; we'll hold there and wait for the Prince's main army!"

Daling River Fort lay on the lower reaches of the Daling River, near the Bohai Bay. It had originally been a fortress that the Liaodong Ming army had labored bitterly to build, and in the fourth year of Chongzhen a great battle had erupted there — the Battle of Daling River — which had nearly broken the main force of the Liaodong Ming army that Yuan Chonghuan had built up.

After the Battle of Daling River, the fort had been abandoned for a time. It was not until Dodo took charge of the lands beyond the passes that it was repaired and refurbished, becoming part of the Qing defense system for Jinzhou.

As long as the two thousand-odd men under Ebilun and Tuhai took refuge in Daling River Fort, they should be able to hold out for some time. If the fifty thousand Ming troops did not pursue them all the way and instead lunged at Daling River Fort, they could hold out even longer.

But how could the Ming army not lunge at Daling River Fort?

The Ming troops advancing from the Daling River would surely have to keep pushing along the Daling River all the way to the Bohai Bay, completely severing the link between Liaodong and western Liaoning, and then link up with the Ming troops coming from the Xiaoling River direction to jointly assault the strong city of Jinzhou — perhaps they would even besiege Jinzhou to draw the Qing main force out for a decisive battle, just as Hong Taiji had done back then.

But the Ming army was cunning, after all!

"Reporting to the Army Commissioner! Reporting to the Chief of Staff! The Qing army has abandoned the city and fled, moving south along the Daling River!"

On a hilltop more than two li from the Three Armies Command Banner, a dispatch rider galloped up and loudly reported the latest developments to Huang Degong, Army Commissioner of the Daning Army, and Tian Qingyi, Staff Officer of the Daning Army, who sat their horses atop the hill.

Tian Qingyi was the Staff Officer sent by the court to the Daning Army — that is, the chief of staff.

Huang Degong was a loyal garrison Army Commissioner, not a rebel garrison commander, so the court could dispatch an army supervisor. But Zhu Cilang did not want to use civil officials or eunuchs to supervise the army, so he sent Staff Officers to the garrisons to take part in operations and training.

At the same time, the Staff Officer was also responsible for recruiting (purchasing) boy soldiers for the court from the garrisons.

"Army Commissioner," Tian Qingyi turned his head and said to Huang Degong, "the eastern barbarians here are too useless. Could this be a trick?"

"A trick?" Huang Degong thought for a moment. "Perhaps they were frightened by our bluff. Staff Officer, where do you think we should strike next?"

"Toward the Liao River!" Tian Qingyi said. "The eastern barbarians have been farming both banks of the Liao River for years. It is just harvest time now, and the common folk are sure to have plenty of surplus grain. We are the royal army! When the royal army arrives, they will surely greet us with baskets of food and pitchers of drink. Won't the grain for the Pacifying-Liao Grand Army's winter be settled?"

Huang Degong was taken aback. "Are the people of Liaodong so easy to deal with? Would they really be willing to contribute the grain they toiled to grow to the court?"

Tian Qingyi clasped his hands toward the sky and said solemnly, "A sage Son of Heaven now sits on the throne — do the people of Liaodong not crane their necks in longing for the royal army? Now that the royal army they have longed for has finally arrived, will they not hurry to offer up their grain? Would they rather keep it to supply the rebel army?"

Huang Degong nodded. "You're right. The people of Liaodong must surely understand the greater good. Otherwise they would not be common people, but the families of rebels who have thrown in with the enemy!"

Tian Qingyi's tone grew heavy. "If they are the families of rebels, they will be exiled to America Bay!"

(End of Chapter)