Chapter 113: Execution by Firing Squad and Taking the Bullet (Seeking Favorites, Seeking Recommendations)

Seven or eight thousand of Tang Tong's rabble were drawn up in eight formations, each formation a battalion, facing the Ming troops emerging from the north gate of the Tianjin garrison. Spread out in a single line, they stood there dryly waiting to be shot...

In each battalion about a hundred men were veteran battle-supervisors posted at the rear; the rest were cannon fodder forcibly conscripted. When they had first arrived, some had still harbored dreams of winning rank and riches. But after several days of bitter fighting, even those who had escaped death or wounds were worn to the bone with exhaustion—where would they find the strength to fight? Now, seeing the Ming ironclad cavalry ride out from the city, every one of them felt his calves trembling. Before the lines had even met, men were already weeping and shouting to run away.

But these would-be deserters did not require the troops of Tang the Fourth, drawn up alone in one great horizontal formation, to deal with them. The veteran battle-supervisors in each battalion handled that themselves.

The tactics Tang Tong now employed were in fact the classic roving-bandit style of fighting: use the elite old battalions to drive the rabble. The rabble in front, the old battalions behind, and behind them still his personal guards and household retainers. Each rank killed the one before it; each rank pressed down upon the one ahead.

Tang the Fourth's battalion of veterans stood in the middle tier of this "battle-supervision chain." Ahead of him were two layers: the veterans distributed among the various battalions, and the cannon-fodder rabble of those battalions. Behind the Fourth were Tang Tong's four or five hundred household retainers.

Under ordinary circumstances, Tang the Fourth's battalion of veterans would never be committed to a war of attrition. They were the seed stock for further expansion! So long as Tang Tong preserved them, he could quickly swell his forces again whenever he swept up able-bodied men in the future.

But today the situation was special. Li Guo had issued strict orders to pin down the Ming troops at Tianjin's north gate at all costs.

So Tang Tong had already given Tang the Fourth his orders—if they truly could not hold, they were to fall back into the rampart built of earth-filled straw sacks, and there all would defend to the death and await relief.

So long as they held out until the fighting at the south gate was finished, Li Guo and Li Yan would bring troops to support them. By then, whether or not that bandit Crown Prince Zhu had escaped, the Tang family army would have earned its share of hard service.

As for losing the battle—that was impossible. Neither Tang Tong nor Tang the Fourth believed it... The Ming's great momentum was already spent; there was no helping that.

...

"His mother's—what time is it already, and they're still using this same old routine?"

Hao Yaoqi, trudging along panting under a great wooden shield, caught sight of the Shun army ahead—motley in dress and in ragged, disorderly formation—and could not help cursing aloud.

He and his two hundred-odd brothers had been herded onto the battlefield by the Ming troops, and they had not even been given weapons. Each man had been handed a great wooden shield—and Zhu Cilang had actually made it sound quite reasonable: the shields were given to keep his promise, so that they would not have to meet their former brothers with blade and spear.

Now there were only wooden shields, and no blades or spears had been issued... which showed that the great Crown Prince Zhu was a man of his word, worthy of a lifetime's trust.

As for Zhu Cilang's line of reasoning, Hao Yaoqi was of course not convinced. But his lack of conviction could only stay in his heart; on his face he had to put on an expression of wholehearted submission—he was a false surrenderer, after all, so of course he had to be a bit crafty and not let Zhu Cilang see through him.

Yet once Hao Yaoqi reached the battlefield and saw the Shun army's chaotic formation across from him, a wave of gloom rose in his heart. The Shun were already masters of all under Heaven—how could they still be using roving-bandit tactics? These common folk forced onto the battlefield must have been seized from the countryside around the Tianjin garrison. After this battle, Tianjin would be beaten into a wasteland!

Boom-boom-boom...

The war drums, each roll more urgent than the last, sounded in Hao Yaoqi's ears. He turned his head and saw that a battalion of matchlock men had already finished forming up behind him, drawn up in two ranks. The matchlocks carried by the front rank all had bayonets fixed!

The socket bayonets were over three feet long, their points forged of good steel, gleaming with cold light! And the men holding these matchlocks were all beardless eunuch soldiers, yet every one of them stood with chest out and belly in, eyes fierce, looking even more arrogant than Li Zicheng's own imperial guard...

"His mother's—are they trying to leave a man any way to live..." Hao Yaoqi cursed under his breath and put away any thought of turning his coat on the battlefield.

Two hundred and some bayonets were pressed at their backs—who the hell would dare turn traitor? And Hao Yaoqi's men did not even have so much as a pedicure knife, just a dead-heavy wooden shield apiece. The thing could stop arrows, but it was useless in hand-to-hand combat.

"Matchlock men—load powder, ram the ball, light the match, muzzles up..."

"Every five paces, dress ranks! On my command—forward! One, two, three, four..."

The man shouting the commands was Chen Shifang, battalion commander of the matchlock battalion directly attached to the Right Division of the Hard-Work New Army. He was a eunuch in his thirties, of Jingjun stock. After Pan Shuchen became Superintendent of the Directorate of the Imperial Horses, Chen had filled Eunuch Pan's old post, and now he was serving Zhu Cilang with boundless energy.

Nor was his own energy exceptional—the other eunuch matchlock men in his Right Division battalion were all in equally high spirits. They were no ordinary eunuchs: once they reached Jiangnan, every one of them would be a seal-holder, superintendent, or brush-holder in one of the Twenty-Four Directorates. Every man would be a great eunuch, a meritorious eunuch who had followed the dragon through hardship! How could their zeal be anything but overflowing?

The high-spirited eunuch matchlock men were pressing forward, and Hao Yaoqi had no choice. He could only open his throat and shout: "His mother's—all of you follow me! Every five paces, dress ranks! One, two, three, four..."

He had learned fast enough, and he too shouted the commands, directing his two hundred-odd men as they advanced in a crooked, lopsided horizontal line.

And behind Hao Yaoqi's shield-bearers and Chen Shifang's matchlock men came the cavalry commanded by Wu Sanfu in person! Still flying the great banner of the Regional Commander of Liaodong and Earl Who Pacifies the West, fewer than two thousand iron cavalry were drawn up into forty or fifty square formations of forty riders each. They spread across a great swath of the battlefield, all armored horsemen, every man in long-bodied armor, some in gilded armor. In the sunlight they threw off a blinding glare; the mere sight of them was enough to chill the blood—these fellows were not actually much good in a fight, but they looked extraordinarily imposing, every one of them like a soldier of Heaven.

Even the veterans under Tang Tong, to say nothing of the forcibly conscripted able-bodied men, turned pale at the sight. Had the Shun's momentum to sweep the realm not already been assured, they themselves would have wanted to slip away.

But the veterans still hoped to become founding heroes of the new dynasty. The rabble at the front, however, could not hold, and in a disorderly mass began to fall back. They had retreated only a few paces before the veteran battle-supervisors blocked them.

"No retreat!"

"Hold!"

"Any who retreat will be beheaded..."

"Ah—"

But they really did kill! Tang Tong's veterans could not kill Tartars, could not kill roving bandits, and now could not even beat Zhu Cilang's Ming troops. But when it came to killing forcibly conscripted laborers, they were not the least bit soft-handed. In the blink of an eye, dozens of bloody heads were hoisted up on spear points for all to see.

The common folk of the Tianjin countryside were pitiful indeed. They had longed for the Roving King, yearned for the Roving King—and when the Roving King came, they became cannon fodder.

There was no running away now, so they could only crowd together where they stood, weeping and wailing, and in passing think fondly of the Chongzhen Emperor. Yes, when they thought it over, the Chongzhen Emperor had been good after all!

Only, alas, the one now wielding power on the Ming side was not Chongzhen, but Zhu Cilang, that vicious, cunning, unfilial Crown Prince.

At this very moment he was in high spirits, riding his warhorse, personally leading a contingent behind Wu Sanfu's cavalry to supervise the battle!

Ahead of him, the formation made up of shield-bearers, matchlock men, and cavalry was slowly closing on the disordered enemy.

The battle of line-up-and-be-shot had begun!

...

"Eat his mother's, wear his mother's—with the Roving King there's eating and wearing without end..."

Outside the Tianjin garrison, while the common folk ruined by the Shun's heavenly soldiers all yearned for our Great Ming, inside the city the Chongzhen Emperor was being driven nearly to explosion by a mob of troublemaking wicked subjects.

Both his fists were clenched, his whole body trembling, teeth gritted, as he repeated one phrase, word by word: "Why is it there are always wicked subjects trying to harm Us?"

That he could still speak at all showed he had not yet been harmed! But he had indeed been angered past endurance.

It turned out that the fighting outside the Tianjin Governor's yamen had drawn a great crowd of onlookers—all wicked subjects of the Tianjin garrison who wholeheartedly longed for the Roving King. A few days earlier they had already welcomed the Roving King once, only to be suppressed. But Zhu Cilang had no time to carry out a great slaughter inside the Tianjin garrison, so many of the wicked subjects loyal to Li Zicheng still remained.

Now, hearing that the Roving King's great army had fought its way into the city and was locked in fierce battle with the bandit Zhu's troops outside the Governor's yamen, they had come of their own accord to watch.

At this moment the streets around the Governor's yamen were packed with common folk cheering on the Roving King's great army. The rooftops of the houses on both sides of the street were covered with spectators, and quite a few had brought out firecrackers and were setting them off—crackle, pop, bang.

The common folk who had no firecrackers spontaneously struck up the song welcoming the Roving King!

And at the same time, because of the sudden upheaval inside the city, the Hard-Work Army manning the walls had fallen into chaos. The Shun troops, pouring in like a tide, seized the opening and in one rush stormed up onto the southern wall of the Tianjin garrison... The Chongzhen Emperor was truly in danger!

(End of Chapter)