Chapter 1068: That's Right, This Is Sarhu! (Please Subscribe)

The north wind howled, and dark clouds hung low in the sky, giving a cold, oppressive feeling. The temperature had dropped sharply, and the first snow beyond the passes this year seemed about to arrive at any moment.

Four or five hundred Qing soldiers in white uniforms were running panting through a field of golden wheat. They had no idea how long they had been running; every one of them was in a wretched state, beyond even the point of having thrown away armor and helmets — they had discarded everything that could be discarded. Never mind armor; even heavy weapons, the dry rations that filled their bellies, and the gourds or sheepskin bags for carrying water had all been abandoned. Some wished they could strip off their clothes entirely and flee stark naked.

Meiren Janggin Tuhai was one of those Manchu warriors who had thrown away armor and helmet and cared only for fleeing for his life!

It had to be said that his skill at feigning defeat to lure the enemy had been a little too convincing! More than ten thousand men had followed him to lure the enemy, and now only a few hundred still followed him. The rest had either been killed by the Ming army or taken prisoner, waiting to go to America Bay to eat "noodles and beef." Perhaps some had hidden away in some remote corner, but as far as the Great Qing was concerned, that no longer mattered.

And the reason Tuhai's defeat had been so "real" was actually thanks to four 12-jin cast-iron short cannons and two or three thousand grenades!

Four 12-jin cannons did not seem like many, but combined with the Ming army's wooden-base explosive shells and ricochet tactics, they were terrifying — shells would be fired into Kongjiabao, then bounce off the hard ground and fly in every direction without pattern, blasting to pieces everything they touched. They might also burst above the heads of the Qing troops inside the fort, causing horrific casualties.

Of course, however terrible the casualties caused by a mere four cannons, the total number of dead and wounded could not be too great. But the blow these explosive shells — which no one knew when they might burst overhead — dealt to the morale of Tuhai's troops was simply too great. After a dozen or two dozen rounds, chaos broke out inside Kongjiabao. Some wanted to risk sallying out to fight to the death, while others wanted to climb over the walls and flee far away.

But Tuhai knew that neither sallying out nor fleeing was a good solution. The only option was to hold firm and endure the shelling! So he worked hard to suppress the panic and finally managed to steady the situation.

The Ming army has few cannons — they can't kill many of us!

Unfortunately, he had calculated that the Ming army had few cannons, but he had not expected that they had many grenades!

Under the combined cover of cannon fire and skirmishers' muskets, the Ming army's grenadiers (pikemen) crept through the dark to the foot of Kongjiabao's earthen wall, and then volley after volley of grenades rained down, catching the defenders on the wall completely off guard. After a series of explosions, some were dead and the rest were running.

And the Ming army's flintlock musketeers launched their general assault right on schedule. Soldiers carrying flintlocks with fixed bayonets hoisted scaling ladders and charged the earthen wall like a tide. The first wave achieved a breakthrough, surged onto the wall, and poured into Kongjiabao.

At this point Tuhai still wanted to organize street fighting. He figured that fighting in formation required competing in firepower, but in the narrow alleys of Kongjiabao, his "Manchu warriors" surely would not be afraid, right?

To this end he specially detached three or four hundred Manchu soldiers, led by Eshan, to fight the Ming troops. But who could have known that these true Manchus, clad in two layers of heavy armor, would meet Ming boy soldiers wearing only breastplates and helmets — and be completely outmatched!

It was not that these boy soldiers were especially strong in close combat — with just a bayoneted musket, how strong could their close-combat ability be? Could it compare to the Guandong long-handled choppers in the hands of the Manchu warriors? But these boy soldiers were "brother soldiers" who had lived and trained together for six years, and they were extremely skilled at small-unit coordination.

Their squad was a single whole. Even in chaotic street fighting, they could support and coordinate with one another — some rushed forward to block the enemy, some fired from behind to pick off enemies, and still others threw grenades to suppress larger groups of enemies (the Young Guard Division's flintlock musketeers were also issued a few wooden-handled grenades).

Eshan's three or four hundred Manchu soldiers had been drawn from various niru companies. They were the backbone of those companies, responsible for intimidating the new Manchus — who were actually Han Chinese — and herding them into charging the enemy lines. Although these Manchu soldiers were all outstanding in individual martial skill, they rarely coordinated with one another, each fighting on courage alone. Facing the numerous and well-coordinated Ming Nine Borders youth army, they were of course walking into a slaughter, and in the blink of an eye they were nearly wiped out.

After the counterattack launched by the Manchu warriors was easily shattered, Tuhai had no options left and had no choice but to order a breakout — with the battle having reached this state, Tuhai knew his troops could no longer retreat in good order, so fleeing before dawn was the most advantageous course.

And once Tuhai fled, he discovered that the Ming force he had encountered was strong beyond all reason — not only strong in field battle and strong in siege, but even their forced marches were strong beyond all reason.

When Tuhai broke out of Kongjiabao, he still had three or four thousand men around him, but after being relentlessly pursued by the Ming army for several dozen li, only three or four hundred remained with him. And all of them had thrown away every heavy object, barely short of fleeing bare-assed.

The mighty soldiers of the Great Qing had now been reduced to such a state — the moment Tuhai thought of this, tears could not help streaming down his face!

Where did this Ming army come from? Are the other Ming armies this strong too? If they are all this strong, what is the Great Qing to do!

As he was thinking in a daze, the sound of hooves striking the ground suddenly came from ahead. His heart lurched again with terror, and he hurriedly looked up to see a group of Manchu cavalry in white cotton armor galloping toward him. The man at their head was someone Tuhai recognized — formerly Dodo's bayara banner commandant, now the deputy commander of the Cavalry Brigade, Borjigit Biliktu.

This Biliktu was of Khorchin Mongol origin, though he did not serve in the Khorchin banner but belonged to the Plain Blue Banner Mongols, and was a trusted confidant of Dodo and his son Doni.

Seeing this man meant that Doni's main force was nearby.

"Biliktu! Biliktu, you can't go any farther!" Tuhai bellowed. "The Ming pursuers are about to arrive!"

Biliktu had received a report from his subordinates that several hundred men in white were running wildly through a wheat field more than twenty li from the main camp, and no one knew where they had come from. So he had personally brought men to investigate, and as a result had run straight into Tuhai.

"Tuhai, what — what happened to you? In this freezing weather, why are you running through a wheat field dressed in so little?" Biliktu galloped up to Tuhai, who was panting with exhaustion, and stared at his clothing in great astonishment.

"Quick — quick —" Tuhai was still gasping for breath!

"Quick what?" Biliktu asked.

"Tell the Prince to run, quickly!" Tuhai said between gasps. "The Ming army is coming! The Ming army is coming!"

"How many?" Biliktu tensed up as well. "How many Ming troops are coming?"

"More than ten thousand, I think."

"Ha," Biliktu waved a hand dismissively. "No need to fear. The Prince has already laid an ambush on three sides. I guarantee we'll pull off another Sarhu!"

Tuhai shook his head.

Biliktu frowned. "Am I wrong? Doesn't the current situation resemble the Battle of Sarhu?"

"You're right — this is Sarhu. But we are not the Great Ancestor's Eight Banners heavenly soldiers, and Yang Hao's four hundred seventy thousand Ming troops!"

He now finally understood that his role was not that of the Manchu ancestors at the Battle of Sarhu, but of the Ming troops under Yang Hao.

Tuhai was weeping as he spoke. "The Prince has even set up an ambush on three sides — isn't that dividing the troops into three routes? Add my route, and that makes exactly four great columns! Now my ten thousand-plus men are finished, only a few hundred left!"

"What? What did you say? Your ten thousand-plus men... how is that possible? How is this possible?" Biliktu could hardly believe his ears. "Just how many Ming troops did you run into?"

"Ten thousand-plus, just ten thousand-plus, but they were too fierce, truly too fierce!" Tuhai burst into loud wailing. "Biliktu, it's over, it's over, it's truly over! We can't beat the Ming army anymore. Tell the Prince to flee quickly — flee to Haishenwai, flee to the Amur River, flee as far away as possible!"

(End of Chapter)