Chapter 1070: Close In Toward Me! (Please Subscribe)

Prince Jingjin, Nikan, had also received a report from his subordinates!

One of the outposts he had placed outside had been wiped out by the Ming army. It was a unit commanded by a Dada Zhangjing, equivalent to a quarter of a niru — over eighty men. On the night of the twenty-third day of the ninth month, they were ambushed and annihilated! And no one even knew that night; it was only the next day, when other troops came to relieve them, that a village full of corpses was discovered. All eighty-odd men were dead, every one of them stabbed to death with bayonets!

These Ming soldiers had not even fired a shot — afraid of alerting the Qing troops nearby — and had finished off eighty-odd men with bayonets alone. Wasn't that utterly savage? They were almost a match for the Manchu White Armored Soldiers!

What made Nikan even more terrified was that those eighty-odd men could not all have died fighting to the last — some must have been captured! And if some had been captured, then his own ambush force was exposed.

Was the main body of the Ming army even now bearing down on him?

Nikan knew things were wrong and immediately summoned his Vice Regional Commander, Tantai, to discuss the situation.

"My Prince, we have no fortified camp here!" Tantai was also somewhat flustered. "We've only occupied a shabby village, dug a shallow trench, and put up a ring of wooden palisades. And we don't have many cannon either — just one artillery niru, twelve 3-pounder guns and six 6-pounder guns. I'm afraid we can't hold!"

"It doesn't matter, there's still time." Nikan gritted his teeth. "Pass the order: begin digging trenches and building ramparts at once! Everyone is to work!" He glanced at Tantai. "You and I will personally oversee the labor! No matter what, we must have a strong camp built before the Ming army arrives!"

The Qing army could no longer defeat the Ming army in open battle, so all that remained was the method of building strong camps!

In the original plan, Nikan's force was an ambush force, so he had not built himself a strong camp. Now things had gone badly wrong — the Ming army's scouts were too formidable and had directly ferreted out the hidden Nikan!

"But My Prince, it's so cold outside now," Tantai frowned. "How can those Han peasant soldiers endure such hardship? What if the strong camp isn't finished and they all collapse from exhaustion?"

"How could that be?" Nikan said. "They can each farm so much land and bear up under it, but now they can't build a strong camp to save their lives? If the Ming army breaks in, they'll all die — they're all Han traitors!"

Right! The puppet troops were Han traitors too!

The current Ming Emperor was thoroughly wicked — he didn't care whether you were coerced or not; he just shipped everyone off to America. America was so far away and so harsh — who would be willing to go!

If you didn't want to go to America, if you wanted to stay in this corner of the Northeast, then you'd better dig trenches and build ramparts with all your might!

While supervising his men digging trenches and building ramparts, Nikan and Tantai also sent an urgent dispatch to Duoni, requesting that Duoni change the plan and have Yolo's force close in toward them.

But Duoni had at the same time received an urgent dispatch from Yolo — Yolo had likewise been discovered by the Ming army! And Yolo had also found that the Ming army's ferocity and savagery were no less than the White Armored Soldiers. Several of the outposts he had sent out had likewise been wiped out! So he too had grown nervous.

Now it was Duoni's turn to be in a quandary. Whom would the Ming army strike first? Who should be ordered to close in toward whom?

And while Duoni was in a quandary, Qin Mingtao and Li Shaowen had already made their decision: strike Nikan first! Because Yolo's side seemed to have built a strong camp, which would be harder to attack. So Qin Mingtao and Li Shaowen decided to concentrate superior forces and hit Nikan first. But they could not let Yolo go either, so they detached one regiment, scattering it as skirmishers to harass and confuse Yolo's force, making Yolo afraid to leave his strong camp lightly. The remaining five regiments and all the artillery drove straight for Nikan's force.

As in the earlier Battle of Kong Family Fortress, this time the Young Guard Division again adopted the tactic of a forced march by day, and upon reaching the destination immediately deploying and launching a night attack.

And as at the Battle of Kong Family Fortress, the attack on Nikan's force was likewise initiated first by a Young Guard infantry regiment employing skirmish tactics.

That night, the heavy snow that had fallen for two days straight had stopped. The weather was very cold, there were no drifting clouds in the sky, and the moonlight was bright — quite well suited to night fighting.

Nearly 1,500 musketeers deployed in skirmish formation and slowly closed in on a farmstead called Zhao Family Village, which Nikan's force occupied.

Zhao Family Village was a farmstead covering quite a large area, but it was very dilapidated — at a glance one could tell it had been a settlement of the Liao garrison's soldiers and civilians before the rise of the Later Jin. However, there were also a few renovated buildings, indicating that after Dodo developed the Guandong region, some migrants from inside the Pass had come to live here.

But now, the residents of Zhao Family Village had all fled without a trace, leaving only the great army under Nikan's command.

When the battle began, Nikan, standing on the roof of a large house inside the village to observe the fight, sensed at once that something was wrong. The Ming army he encountered this time completely exceeded his imagination — not because they were so strong, but because Nikan simply could not imagine how this army could spread out and fight in the snow on a winter night.

How did the officers command? How did they keep their men in the fight? What if someone tried to run, or someone hid and refused to fight hard? And the officers couldn't see clearly at all — how could merit be assessed? How could war be fought this way?

Look at the Qing side by contrast: they were also fighting a night battle, but before the enemy appeared, piles of firewood had been heaped up in front of and behind the forward positions. The moment the fighting started, they were lit, and the positions were brightly illuminated — only then could they command!

But how did the Ming side command?

Just as Nikan was utterly baffled, his deputy Tantai came out of the house and stood in the courtyard shouting at him: "My Prince, the Prince Regent's order has arrived — we are to move out at once and close in toward Prince An!"

"What? Move out now? Move out my ass — we're surrounded by the enemy!" Nikan shouted back. "Send someone at once to ask the Prince Regent for help, and have Yolo close in toward me!"

"My Prince, perhaps Yolo's side is also under attack..."

Nikan said, "That's a feint. Our side is the real one!"

"But how can we prove that?" Tantai asked.

Indeed! How could they prove it?

Just as Nikan was at a loss, the Ming side very obligingly "issued proof" for him — they opened fire with their cannon!

"Boom—rumble—"

What opened fire were still four 12-catty short guns, and what they fired were still explosive shells. The four shells landed with great precision in the snow, then bounced up violently. One of them smashed into a house at the edge of the village and exploded inside, collapsing the entire building — no one knew whether there had been anyone inside. Two others exploded in midair after flying some distance, and one failed to explode, and no one knew where it flew off to.

"Quick, quick! Push our 6-pounders up to return fire!" Nikan roared at the personal guards standing in the courtyard who were responsible for relaying orders.

In fact, using 6-pounders to counter 12-catty guns was a particularly unreliable business, because even a 12-catty gun with a shortened barrel had a longer range than a 6-pounder. Moreover, the standard of the Ming artillerymen was not something the Qing artillerymen could compare to — all those fiendishly difficult math problems they had done were not for nothing! And they had also mastered the skills of range-finding and wind-speed measurement, and could land explosive shells on the Qing artillery positions with great accuracy.

So as soon as the artillery duel began, the Qing artillery quickly got the worst of it. In fewer than ten rounds, three 6-pounders had fallen silent! The crew of another 6-pounder had also suffered heavy casualties when a 12-catty wooden-sabot explosive shell burst nearby, and its rate of fire dropped noticeably. Only two guns could still barely keep firing.

While the Ming army's four 12-catty guns completely suppressed the Qing 6-pounders with explosive shells, the Ming skirmishers were also closing in step by step on the Qing positions. As they fired their flintlocks from the darkness at the Qing troops standing in the light, they inflicted a certain number of losses on the Qing troops holding the strong camp and also triggered panic. The latter, regardless of whether they could make out a target and regardless of the distance, blindly opened fire at the flashes that kept appearing in the darkness.

The firefight between the two sides quickly reached a fierce pitch!

At this point Nikan also came down from his high vantage point and ducked into the house occupied by his central command. He said to Tantai inside: "The Ming army has opened fire with cannon — all heavy guns of 12 pounds or more! What we've run into is their main force. We must now have Yolo close in toward us!"

(End of Chapter)