Chapter 1736: Devouring the Tartars Like a Tiger

On the tenth day of the eighth month in the second year of Tiancong.

A single day later, the Later Jin grand army once more appeared before the walls of Zunhua County.

This time it was truly something. The last ones to come had all been "White Tartars" — not white-skinned, but white-clothed and white-bannered, looking as though they had come to a funeral. This time the Tartars came in four colors: yellow, white, red, and blue, some of them bordered with other colors. There were more of them too, a great gaudy mass spread across the land, easily over ten thousand at a glance.

These were over ten thousand Later Jin Eight Banners troops, personally led by the Tiancong Great Khan of the Later Jin, Hong Taiji, bearing down in full fury to settle accounts with Shi Kefa, the man said to be "possessed by the spirit of Qi Shaobao."

This time Hong Taiji had brought twenty thousand Eight Banners troops and thirty thousand Mongol troops through the Ji Garrison border wall to plunder, and plundering meant attacking county seats and prefectural cities! In these chaotic times, anyone with money lived inside the cities, and even those who had not lived in the cities before, now that they heard the slave caitiffs had entered the passes, had surely all fled inside the walls.

If Hong Taiji did not attack the cities, he could only wait in the countryside to cut wheat — though that would at least yield some food. But the problem was, Hong Taiji was the great Tiancong Khan of the Great Jin; was entering the passes just to cut a little wheat? With that little ambition, how would he differ from those Tiger-Dun Khans, Tumen Khans, and Chaohua Khans?

So when Hong Taiji heard Dorgon report that Zunhua was hard to take, he personally led his main force over.

Oh, not to storm it by force — but to observe it at close range.

If it was truly as Dorgon said, then he would change targets and strike Yutian County instead. With a name meaning both "jade" and "field," it was surely rich!

If Zunhua was not as hard to take as Dorgon claimed, then he would put in some effort, take Zunhua, and open his entry into the passes with a victory.

Though it was called close observation, he did not dare get too close — what if a Hongyi cannon was set on the wall waiting to fire a black shot at him?

So Hong Taiji, surrounded by his retinue, climbed a small hill a full three or four li from the walls of Zunhua County and looked through a telescope. One look — and he was stunned!

It was not because Zunhua's defenses were especially strong — the defenses were solid, of course, but not enough to stun Hong Taiji.

In his view, Zunhua County's defenses could not compare to Jinzhou or Ningyuan. The only troublesome points were that the moat had been dug rather wide, and there were quite a few obstructions outside the walls. Clearing the obstructions and filling the moat would take considerable time, and if there were cannon on the walls, many men would die during the work. But it was not impossible to take, and it certainly would not have startled Hong Taiji.

What truly astonished him was that the Zunhua garrison had come out of the city!

They had not come out to flee, nor to surrender, but to give battle!

Their numbers were not large either — only about twenty-four or twenty-five hundred men, pushing one or two hundred great carts out through the east gate of Zunhua County, crossing the moat by the pontoon bridge, and then forming a wagon formation with their backs to the moat.

"Old Fourteen... do you see southern troops pushing great carts out of the city?" Hong Taiji even doubted his own eyes, and asked Dorgon beside him.

Dorgon rubbed his eyes. "Yes, it looks like only two or three thousand men, pushing over a hundred side-box carts."

Hong Taiji laughed. "Who is the commander defending Zunhua? We have over ten thousand men, and he dares come out with two or three thousand — is he a fool?"

"Great Khan," Dorgon said, "your younger brother sent men to inquire. The one defending Zunhua is no proper southern military officer, but a newly appointed jinshi named Shi Kefa. He is the county magistrate of Zunhua, and only took office this spring."

"What?" Hong Taiji was startled again. "A county magistrate... a civil official?"

Dorgon nodded, smiling bitterly. "A civil official."

Hong Taiji then asked those around him, "What formation is he setting up? Does anyone recognize it?"

What formation? Was it not just an arc-shaped wagon formation?

Daishan, Manggultai, Dorgon, Dodo, and Ajige — these Beile lords great and small — all shook their heads, not knowing how to answer. But there was someone beside Hong Taiji who did know what formation Shi Kefa was setting up.

"Reporting to the Great Khan, the wagon formation this southern Magistrate Shi has set up is called the Crescent Moon Formation, a formation created by Liu Yu, the founding emperor of the former Liu Song dynasty of the southern court. War chariots form an arc, arrayed with their backs to water, and within the formation are hidden a hundred great crossbows and two thousand armored soldiers, made specifically to counter cavalry."

The speaker was Fan Wencheng, who had already shed his status as a booi bondservant and become a glorious bannerman of the Bordered Red Banner. Though Fan Wencheng's status had risen one rank, he still did the work of a study clerk, with no formal official title — just a minor clerk running errands at Hong Taiji's side.

He was a scholar, and had of course read the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government, so he knew that what Shi Kefa had set out was a Crescent Moon Formation.

"Great crossbows?" Hong Taiji frowned. "They would not use cannon in place of great crossbows, would they?"

"They would not," Second Beile Manggultai said with a laugh. "If they truly dared haul cannon out of the city, then even if we lost a few more men, we would seize several pieces. With cannon, we would fight all the way to Beijing this time and seize the realm of the little Zhu emperor!"

Hong Taiji nodded. "True enough. Second Beile, do you have a way to break this Crescent Moon Formation?"

"I do!" Manggultai said. "Just refit some shield carts and push them forward. However fierce the short spears shot from great crossbows, they cannot pierce our shield carts!"

Shield carts were one of the Great Jin realm's supreme weapons for field battle and siege!

The Ming army was not equipped with Western-style field guns of high accuracy; only general's guns of poor accuracy and slow rate of fire could be dragged out for field battle, and these general's guns posed no great threat to mobile shield carts. And the Ming army's other firearms likewise seemed unable to deal with the simple, practical shield cart.

So the Later Jin army had become practiced through repetition, developing the skill to rapidly build and refit shield carts.

Hong Taiji smiled. "Second Beile, then I must trouble you."

Manggultai patted his chest. "Rest easy, Great Khan, leave it to me!"

Hong Taiji smiled. "That Shi Kefa has sent out two or three thousand troops; we need not use many either. Will two thousand bannermen, one thousand booi, and a hundred shield carts suffice?"

"Enough, enough." Manggultai laughed. "Any more and they could not deploy. The southern troops are arrayed with their backs to the moat, and in an arc at that; we have no way to flank them, so we can only meet them head-on. Too many men would just be spectators."

Earlier, the Later Jin army had sacked Santun Camp, the old base of the Ji Garrison army, and among the captured supplies were quite a few flatbed carts. Around Zunhua County there were also many villages whose inhabitants had mostly fled, leaving nothing of value to take — but prying off some door panels was easy enough. Mount door panels on carts, and you had a shield cart. That very afternoon, over a hundred shield carts were pushed out before Zunhua.

The Later Jin army's finest shield-cart formation was deployed!

"Shield-cart formation!" Shi Kefa stood in the observation basket of a watchtower cart blocking the entrance to the moat's pontoon bridge, craning his neck to look for a while, then said to Wang Dadou beside him, "Order the archers to shoot — one volley!"

"At once!" Wang Dadou answered, then drew a suona from his waist and blew it.

In the military manuals left by Qi Jiguang, there were also methods of directing troops with the suona, and Shi Kefa naturally copied them exactly. After several long and short suona notes, the archers within the Crescent Moon Formation raised their small-tipped bows and began lofting feathered arrows. They did not shoot much — just one volley, using their greatest strength. Several hundred long arrows were launched from the small-tipped bows, tracing graceful arcs through the air, and finally all plunged into the muddy ground, their feathered tails exposed, the white feathers highly conspicuous, forming a ranging mark.

Shi Kefa's eyes were fixed on that ring of "white line," watching the hundred-plus shield carts, likewise spread in an arc, slowly approach. When the shield carts began to near the "white line," Shi Kefa roared again: "Span the crossbows!"

What was being spanned were bed crossbows!

One hundred and twenty bed crossbows had long since been carried to the front line, mounted at the points where two side-box carts joined. At the sound of Wang Dadou's suona, the crossbowmen used all their strength to turn the windlass and draw the bowstrings.

The Later Jin shield carts had already been pushed past the "white line." Shi Kefa gave the order again: "Light the fuse! Load the spear!"

What was mounted on the bed crossbows was no ordinary spear, but an iron spearhead bound together with a round thunder bomb, the whole then fitted onto a spear shaft.

First light the fuse, then load the spear, then fire... and finally — a thunderous blast!

(End of Chapter)