Chapter 123: A True Victory! (Seeking Recommendations, Seeking Collections)

This was truly the most ideal cavalry charge one could ask for! The terrain was open enough, and although the land by the Wei River had drunk its fill of rain and was somewhat muddy, after more than half a day of sun it no longer hindered the warhorses' galloping.

Of course, the most ideal thing of all was having a perfectly cooperative opponent — Li Guo's cavalry had been dashing back and forth across the battlefield for quite some time and were now utterly exhausted. The men could still force themselves on, but the horses could take no more. Many warhorses were foaming at the mouth, and after this battle they would likely drop dead from exhaustion! Right now they could not charge at all, and could only form a dense formation like infantry to barely protect themselves.

But how could these cavalry flying Wu Sangui's banner give Li Guo time to complete his formation? Before he could gather his scattered troops, they launched a charge like a collapsing mountain and a roaring sea!

It was not a thousand-odd riders surging forward all at once, but units of forty or fifty riders launching wave after wave of attacks, all charging in the same direction. And after each charge they withdrew immediately, not lingering in battle, yielding the path of the charge to the next formation to continue the assault.

This was the most common tactic of Wu Sangui's personal troops, the Yiding Assault Cavalry — a method of fighting capable of meeting the Eight Banners' elite troops head-on!

And the horsemanship of these cavalry flying Wu Sangui's command banner was far beyond what the impostors led by Wu Sanfu could match. One could see them first controlling their horses at a fast walk, then a trot, then faster and faster, bursting forth with the force of rolling thunder!

At the very front was a burly man in a long iron cuirass beneath a gray cloth surcoat — the very man who, that day in the wind and rain, had slipped with several dozen riders to thirty li north of the besieged city of Tianjin. Now he gripped a cavalry lance, advancing shoulder to shoulder with seven or eight Wu-family knights of the same dress and equipment, and amid battle cries they advanced like a wall, crashing straight into the still-unformed mass of Li Guo's troops!

The long lances used for cavalry charges were specially made. In earlier times they were called ma shuo, and the shaft was flexible and springy, able to absorb the recoil generated when a fast-moving lance struck its target.

By the late Ming, cavalry lances were made rather carelessly. But the riders had a corresponding solution: they gripped the lance and released it the moment it made contact with the enemy. At the same time, a cord was tied to the butt of the lance, so that the lance, once driven into a man's body, could be pulled back.

This Wu-family warrior had already released his lance. But carried by the tremendous momentum of the galloping warhorse, the long lance still knocked a rider of the Shun army's veteran camp clean off his horse! The lance point burst through his chest, and the Shun cavalryman was dead before he could even cry out.

The enormous kinetic energy of the Wu-family knights' full-force charge did not diminish because of that single thrust. Because the enemy's cavalry formation was too loose, it simply could not stop the fast-charging armored riders, and so they pierced straight through the formation.

These Wu-family armored riders had no time to retrieve their lances, and instead drew the short weapons from their saddles. These were not swords or sabers, but slender, rough iron maces. Such iron maces had no sharpened edge, but the head had a small iron knob, like a hammer. Any Shun cavalryman struck by one would immediately suffer. The burly warrior leading the charge had extraordinary arm strength, and his iron mace was longer and heavier than usual. When he swung it, any opponent struck either had bones broken or vomited blood — not one could offer the slightest resistance. In the chaos, he actually fought his way clear through the formation.

The Wu-family warrior looked left and right. With forty-odd riders still around and behind him, he did not linger in battle, but merely shouted "Follow me!" and then spurred his horse on at a gallop, circling around the battlefield to the rear of the line of cavalry squadrons that were launching their attacks in sequence, where he queued up to await the next charge!

This was in fact an extremely sophisticated cavalry tactic — the original version of the "wall charge," which had appeared on the eastern battlefield as early as the Liao-Jin wars, and was the great trick by which the Jurchen Jin troops had thrashed the Liao and the Song.

That the household retainers of Wu Xiang and Wu Sangui could pull off such a maneuver! It seemed Wu Sangui's iron cavalry truly had the capital to contend with the Eight Banners' elite troops.

It was just that the Wu family had only 3,000 household retainers, while the Eight Banners' elite troops numbered over eighty thousand, of whom the crack troops comparable to the Wu family retainers probably numbered in the tens of thousands!

This enormous advantage in the number of elite soldiers was the greatest capital by which the Qing state beyond the passes could aspire to rule the Central Plains.

And Li Zicheng's capital for contending over the realm was likewise the numerical superiority of his veteran camp troops.

In terms of elite quality, the veteran camp troops were no match for the Wu family retainers. But their numbers also reached eighty to a hundred thousand, comparable to the Manchu Eight Banners. That was why, in the Battle of Yipian Rock in history, without the Manchu troops joining in, Wu Sangui still could not have escaped the destruction of his army and his own death.

But on today's battlefield at Tianjin Garrison, Li Guo had only a mere 2,000 veteran camp troops, several hundred of whom had already been killed, wounded, or gone missing, with pursuers behind them and men and horses alike exhausted. How could they withstand the wheel-attacks of the Wu family's iron cavalry? Before those twenty-odd waves of iron cavalry had finished their successive charges, the two brothers Li Guo and Li You had already fled in panic.

Seeing Li Guo's veteran camp troops scattered and fleeing in disarray, the other "Wu Sangui" and his "Yiding Assault Cavalry" also got fired up. No longer pursuing at a leisurely pace, they let loose their horses' hooves and gave chase at full speed.

The two brothers Li Guo and Li You were instantly plunged into desperate straits! One Wu Sangui alone had already given them more trouble than they could handle; now two Wu Sanguis had appeared — this was truly going to be the death of them.

The veteran camp troops under their command had also completely lost the will to fight to the death, and thought only of fleeing for their lives. As for how much strength their warhorses still had, that was no longer a consideration.

Escape for a moment, and live for a moment!

If they truly could not flee any farther, they would dismount and beg to surrender. Perhaps their lives would be spared — after all, with the whole realm in chaos, every side lacked fighting men! Officials might have to speak of a loyal subject not serving two masters, but what did common soldiers like them care about that?

So before the pursuit had gone on long, the battlefield was everywhere covered with Shun army warriors whose horses had run themselves to death and who now lay prostrate begging to surrender. Li Guo, however, narrowly escaped with his life. His brother Li You sacrificed himself on the battlefield, shouting "Li Guo is here!" to draw the pursuers' attention, and was hacked into seven or eight pieces on the spot. Li Guo took the chance to drive his horse into the Wei River, then tore off his cloth-faced iron armor and swam across, rejoining the remnants of Li Yan's force and narrowly surviving.

Zhu Cilang stood atop the cabin roof of the Great Dragon Head, witnessing the dramatic turn on the battlefield, yet still somewhat unable to believe his eyes as he watched the white-capped, blue-coated Shun soldiers surrender in droves, kneeling on the ground. He looked again at the officers and men on the pontoon bridge and on the sand boats all around, and at the sailors of the Sand Boat Gang cheering and leaping with joy.

Only then did he realize that he had truly won!

The battle at Tianjin Garrison had been desperately hard-fought, but the result was unexpectedly good!

At the critical moment, that fellow Wu Sangui had finally appeared and dealt the Shun army's veteran camp troops a fatal blow.

Zhu Cilang quietly pinched himself again.

Damn it — could it be that his ancestors were not screwing him over, and that he really did have the ability to turn back the raging tide about to overwhelm the Great Ming?

That's right, I do have ability! Zhu Cilang thought: I'm a pig about to fly! If even a pig can fly, how much more so a dragon like me now?

He turned to look at Cao Youyi. The great general was also staring wide-eyed, mouth agape, looking utterly overwhelmed with joy as if he had won the jackpot. Seeing Zhu Cilang's gaze, he came to himself as if waking from a dream, and saluted Zhu Cilang with clasped hands: "Thousand Years, the roving bandits' veteran camp troops surrendering on the battlefield can all be taken into service. Do not kill them recklessly.

Furthermore, the fighting at the south city is now critical. Please immediately order the Wu family troops across the river to reinforce the south city!"

Reminded by Cao Youyi, Zhu Cilang finally remembered, and hurriedly ordered the gongs sounded to recall the troops — he must not let them get carried away with the pursuit and delay Zhu Cilang's mission of rescuing his father.

In addition, the no-kill banners had to be raised high. The roving bandits' veteran camp troops were still fairly capable fighters!

And in a little over a month, Li Zicheng would go and dash himself to death before Shanhai Pass. By then, his own family would be the mainstay of the Han people's resistance against the Qing and the salvation of the realm, and he could naturally take in those righteous men who, having seen Li Zicheng's true face as a non-resisting emperor, came to join the Great Ming.

(End of Chapter)