Chapter 1708: The Great Ming Will Not Be Violated

Zhu Youjian, the Chongzhen Emperor of the Great Ming, stood fully armored atop a freshly raised artillery bastion. A hundred and several dozen paces before him lay the kuren encampment of the Chahar army. The Chahar militiamen holding that position were cheering in triumph — for the Ming troops who had traded arrows with them all morning had finally pulled back several dozen paces, retreating beyond the range of the Chahar "sharpshooters."

The casualties among those armored Ming archers surely could not have been too heavy — probably fewer than among the unarmored Chahar warriors. But they had retreated all the same, so the Chahar militiamen all believed they had won a round, and their morale soared!

What? Someone is setting up cannons?

No matter — how could Mongol warriors fear cannon? The things could not even shoot straight, and after each shot they had to be tended for ages. Mounted on a city wall they might be of some use — there the cannon had a fixed emplacement, the piece itself did not move, and aiming became easier, merely a matter of adjusting the elevation with wooden wedges. But field artillery, in these Mongols' experience, seemed to be of no use at all.

If Ming field artillery truly worked, how could the Jianzhou Jurchen possibly have run rampant? With so many cannon, the Ming would long since have blasted the Jurchen to pulp!

All the general's cannon had already been loaded. Hei Wentao, who claimed to "understand cannon," together with eleven young personal troops who likewise knew a little about artillery, each supervised one piece, watching the Datong garrison gunners load the charges according to the standards Zhu Youjian had issued, and then one by one blew their suona horns to report to Zhu Youjian, who stood on a bastion with no cannon placed before it.

Wu Sangui also held a suona in his hand, standing below the bastion where Zhu Youjian was, craning his neck to look up at him, waiting only for his order.

Zhu Youjian, meanwhile, raised his telescope and was making a show of observing the enemy. The enemy were all fools, still swaggering about behind the kuren, looking rather pleased with themselves. Could it be they knew just how black-hearted this Emperor's cannon were?

Zhu Youjian put away his telescope, then drew his sword and raised it high in the air. After a brief pause, he slashed it down violently: "Fire! Blast the bastards — let the Tartars learn the power of our Ming general's cannon!"

The moment Wu Sangui saw Zhu Youjian's sword sweep down, he raised the suona to his lips and blew with all the strength in his body.

After a long, piercing blast of the suona, the battery of twelve general's cannon shuddered into motion all at once. Muzzle flashes spat out first, followed immediately by thunderous reports. In the blink of an eye, twelve stone and iron shot, as if they had eyes, all fell among the Chahar militiamen massed behind the kuren position facing the Ming artillery line!

The Chahar militiamen who had been so pleased moments before were now in a wretched state. Their formation was still fairly dense, and the twelve stone and iron balls came smashing straight down! How could that end well? Anyone grazed or struck suffered broken bones and snapped sinews; of flesh and skin there is no need to speak — a mere scrape left a bloody pulp, painful even to look at! A few lucky ones took a direct hit and, before they even felt pain, their lives were gone and they passed on to the Pure Land! But the fortunate were in the end the minority; those grazed, struck, or scraped by the twelve stone balls were the majority, and whole men were knocked to the ground, rolling and wailing.

Yet these twelve black-hearted cannonballs had not finished their work, for after striking the ground they bounced up again and continued flying toward the slope of White Mountain. Now it grew truly terrible, for the height at which the balls flew was about level with a standing man's shoulders and head. Now a graze or a strike meant a shattered skull! Fine heads burst apart like watermelons struck by clubs, pink brain matter and bright red blood spraying everywhere. With their heads smashed, the men naturally could not live, yet a few had not quite died — their limbs twitched and convulsed unnaturally, and some even ran several steps on flying feet before slamming into comrades already stunned with terror.

The sight of a cannonade could be so horrifying — it utterly exceeded anything the Chahar herdsmen had ever known, and surpassed the limits of what they could endure.

These men were not the fearless, death-defying Jianzhou Jurchen. They were armed Chahar herdsmen whose fighting spirit had long since been worn away by Lamaist Buddhism. Set them against the ineffective nine-border garrison troops of the Ming and they might still have some chance of victory; bullying Ming border folk was even a pleasure to them. But asking them to stand in ranks and be shelled — that was truly too much to ask of any man.

The group of armed Chahar herdsmen who had just been shelled instantly fell into chaos, turning and fleeing in disorder, shouting as they ran: "The cannon are terrible! The Southern Emperor's cannon are terrible!"

But they did not run far, for not far behind them stood two ranks of iron-lance cavalry holding the line, all dismounted, shields and sabers in hand, there to enforce discipline. They cared nothing for how fearsome the Ming cannon were; seeing the men they were meant to hold trying to flee, they immediately swung their sabers and charged in to cut them down, seemingly intent on driving the herdsmen back to the front — they had to drive them back! For just as the Ming were preparing to bombard, large formations of armored infantry had already formed up on both flanks of the artillery line, every man with a long spear in hand, waiting only to charge.

If the Chahar forces could not hold the kuren position, the consequences would be unthinkable — they might well be shattered by a single Ming blow!

They were not on the open steppe beyond the frontier now, but inside the Datong border wall, and escaping with their lives would not be easy.

But no sooner had the iron-lance cavalry driven the fleeing armed herdsmen back than the Ming's twelve general's cannon roared to life once more.

As with the previous volley, the twelve stone balls fell with perfect accuracy among the crowd, first knocking down a swath of men, then seven or eight of the balls bounced up and flew westward, smashing down every herdsman in their path.

The herdsmen, shelled a second time, collapsed once more, and once more surged in disorder toward the iron-lance troops holding the line, pleading, weeping, crying out for a way to stay alive.

But the iron-lance troops too had received strict orders: they could not let the herdsmen in front retreat so much as half a step!

The herdsmen feared the iron-lance troops' sabers, but they feared the cannonballs that smashed men to pulp even more. So no matter how the iron-lance troops drove them, they would not go back to die.

Shatu Taiji came up with his personal guards. These guards, every man with his great blade drawn, passed through the cordon formed by the other iron-lance troops, dragged several chieftains dressed somewhat more splendidly than the common herdsmen out of the fleeing crowd, threw them to the ground, and cut off their heads. But even as Shatu Taiji's guards were venting their fury with the blade, the Ming cannon continued to thunder without pause.

The general's cannon did not fire quickly, but the booming went on and on without ever stopping!

And every round of shelling brought down a swath of Chahar herdsmen, sent up a spray of blood and flesh, and made the wails and shrieks of agony louder and louder.

Shatu Taiji knew the line could not hold. He could only order his men to hold back the herdsmen on the verge of collapse with their lives, while he himself galloped up to the top of White Mountain and came before Hudun Khan, whose face was the color of dead ashes.

"Elder Brother, give the order to retreat! This battle cannot be fought!"

Hudun Khan merely sat on the hilltop with his eyes closed, silent. Several dozen Chahar nobles clustered around him, staring unceasingly at their Great Khan. A southwest wind carrying the smell of gunpowder blew past, and a few strands of disheveled hair escaped from under Hudun Khan's hat — hair that seemed already to have turned streaked with black and white!

They cannot hold!

The thing the Mongol Great Khan, Ligdan Batur, now regretted most was not having fled in time. If you cannot win, you must run!

Only by running in time can one withdraw intact and rise again. But now, defeat like a collapsing mountain was before his very eyes!

The Great Mongol Nation was truly about to perish!

The sound of shelling had stopped at some point, no one knew when. For a moment the battlefield fell strangely silent — but the silence did not last long, and in an instant it was replaced by the rolling thunder of war drums.

The sound of war drums meant the general assault of the Ming armored infantry had begun.

Ten squares, each of four or five hundred armored men, began to advance from both flanks of the Ming artillery line, closing at a quick march upon the Chahar positions, which had been utterly shattered by nearly a full hour of shelling.

At the sight, Ligdan Batur drew a sharp breath and murmured: "I should not have come... I should not have come to Datong Garrison!"

"Elder Brother, what do we do now?" Shatu Taiji was frantic.

"Now..." Ligdan Batur sighed and gave a bitter laugh. "What else can we do? Flee. Flee beyond the Datong border wall, and never come again..."

(End of Chapter)