Chapter 1754: Who Is Fiercer — His Majesty or the Tartars?

A single cry of "His Majesty is coming! Run for your lives!" thus became the most effective slogan for rousing this generation of Ming nobles to kill the enemy for the nation!

On the battlefield, before them were the ferocious Tartars, and behind them was an even more ferocious His Majesty! What choice did that leave these nobles who had lived in comfort for half their lives?

To be killed by the Tartars was to die a loyal martyr, and one's family would at least be preserved — however fierce His Majesty might be, he could not confiscate the household of a loyal martyr! Although this loyal martyr had, in life, done quite a few bad deeds undermining the foundations of feudalism.

But to be killed by His Majesty was to be a treacherous coward who fled in the face of battle, and a treacherous coward's household would of course be confiscated!

The ancestral wealth and rank would be gone!

So this His Majesty of the Great Ming was far more fearsome than the Mongol Tartars before them. Zhu Chunchen, Zhao Zhilong, Zhu Guobi, Li Shouqi, Li Zunzu, Liu Kongzhao, and Xu Yunzhen — these seven nobles who "owed their lives" — all threw caution to the wind at this moment. Howling and weeping like madmen, they lashed their warhorses with their whips and charged toward the Mongol Kharchin Left Wing cavalry being driven forward two or three hundred paces ahead by Daishan's Plain Red Banner horsemen. And their household retainers and personal followers also threw caution to the wind, pressing close around their masters, brandishing horse lances, curved sabers, and three-eyed guns, howling that they would die for their lords — these Ming nobles might all be useless, but they still had to command troops. Though their vigorous figures were no longer seen on the nine frontier garrisons, in other places farther from the enemy and richer in spoils — such as the Nanjing Capital Camps, the Canal Army, the Yangtze River Navy, and the like — the nobles still held sway.

Since they had to command troops, they had to keep a few household retainers and personal guards around for show; otherwise, if they ran into a mutiny or a popular uprising, it could cost them their lives!

And now these household retainers and personal guards, kept for dealing with mutinies and uprisings, had no choice but to grit their teeth and fight the Tartars to the death.

They had no choice! Their good food and drink all depended on their masters. If their masters' households were ruined, how would they get by? Go serve as retainers for some frontier general?

That work they couldn't do, and the pay was less besides.

Because each group of household retainers and personal guards served its own master, the charge — no, the flight — of the seven great nobles automatically formed into seven clusters, charging without hesitation toward the Mongol cavalry led by the great Tabunang of the Kharchin Left Wing, Uriyangkhai Sereng (many of the Kharchin Tabunangs came from the Uriyangkhai clan, and all took Uriyangkhai as their surname)!

Seeing seven great masses of armored cavalry charging at him like madmen, Uriyangkhai Sereng was dumbfounded.

In this era, armed Mongol herders feared nothing more than an armored cavalry charge!

The fugitive Khan Hutugtu had dominated all the Mongol tribes south and north of the Gobi with just 3,000 iron-lance Konnot cavalry. Had he not encountered those fiends of the Jianzhou Jurchen, he might well have unified the Left and Right Wing Mongols and revived the Northern Yuan.

And among the Mongol tribes, the Kharchin were the weakest. Their meager population was divided into thirty-six sub-tribes, and the power in each was almost entirely held by outsider Uriyangkhai nobles (the Uriyangkhai Tumen was in much the same situation, controlled by the Tumed). So within the tribe there was also strife between the Uriyangkhai and the Kharchin, and warriors of Kharchin origin found it hard to rise in their own tribe, so they went next door to the Ming and became barbarian cavalry.

The armed Kharchin herders, who feared armored cavalry to the marrow of their bones, naturally lacked the courage to meet seven great masses of charging armored cavalry head-on — if they had that kind of nerve, would they have needed to submit to the Later Jin? Wouldn't it have been better to just give Hutugtu Khan a good thrashing?

Not daring to meet the charge head-on, they naturally had to flee!

Uriyangkhai Sereng, like his men, the moment he saw the Ming armored cavalry surging toward him, reflexively wheeled his horse around, and even grabbed his bow, preparing to shoot while fleeing. But he had not gone far when he realized something was wrong — just thirty or forty paces ahead of him, Daishan's Plain Red Banner cavalry had already formed a horizontal line. The front-rank horsemen all had their horse lances leveled, looking ready to skewer a man to death!

These were the Later Jin army's elite troops enforcing battle discipline!

Only then did Uriyangkhai Sereng remember that he had submitted to the Great Jin state and had to obey the commands of the Great Jin's Tiancong Khan.

And the Great Jin army had strict military discipline; desertion was not permitted. When the Great Jin army formed up for battle, the death troops were always in front and the elite troops behind, with the elite troops driving the death troops forward. When the death troops were gone, the elite troops advanced!

So Uriyangkhai Sereng's tribesmen could no longer casually flee the battlefield.

"No running! Come back! Follow me and fight those southern barbarians to the death!"

Uriyangkhai Sereng shouted at the top of his lungs, while once again wheeling his horse around — a great flurry of panic and confusion.

But his shouts had little effect. Apart from the few personal guards around him, no one else could hear him at all, and even if they had heard, they would not have paid any attention.

Because the Kharchin Mongols were a heap of loose sand to begin with, and Uriyangkhai Sereng was merely one of many Tabunangs. Most of the 3,000 Kharchin cavalry now under his command were not his own tribesmen, but came from other Kharchin Mongol tribes. These men cared nothing for Uriyangkhai Sereng's orders!

Moreover, many of them were not afraid of the Later Jin cavalry enforcing discipline, because the Later Jin cavalry could not stop them — the formation Daishan's Later Jin troops had drawn up was a charge formation, relatively compact, so its front was narrow. And Uriyangkhai Sereng's Mongols outnumbered Daishan's Later Jin cavalry by a thousand to begin with, and their formation was loose (it was an archery formation), so their front was very wide. Seen from above, the Mongol cavalry spread across a huge expanse!

A huge expanse of cavalry, and all of them "fleeing troops" skilled at running away. When fleeing, their way was to scatter in all directions, dispersing in a hubbub. Only a small portion of the cavalry in the center of the formation (that is, Uriyangkhai Sereng's trusted men) found it inconvenient to flee to the sides, and so had to grit their teeth, wheel around, and charge the desperately fleeing Ming armored cavalry.

Desperately fleeing!

This was truly too miserable!

And that fellow Zhu Chunchen was not only miserable, but also stupid! When others charged a formation, they either held a long spear or gripped a sword or saber. But him? He held no weapon at all — just reins in one hand and a horsewhip in the other, lashing his horse forward for all he was worth, while constantly twisting his head to look back. Who could tell whether he had come to race horses or to fight a battle?

But the household retainers and personal guards protecting him, seeing him galloping at full speed, charging without hesitation toward the enemy formation, felt a measure of admiration rise in their hearts.

He was, after all, a descendant of Chengwulie, the Commandery Prince of Dongping (Zhu Neng)! When he put his mind to ferocity, he still had something formidable about him.

Since their master had thrown caution to the wind, they had nothing left to hesitate about either — they would fight the Tartars to the death!

In a cavalry charge against a formation, one did not necessarily need long spears or swords to wound the enemy; using galloping warhorses to crash into men and horses could also produce quite good results. And the denser the formation and the faster the gallop, the better the impact.

In the blink of an eye, the first collision between the two armies' cavalry on the battlefield happened.

Zhu Chunchen, who the whole way had only been thinking of putting distance between himself and His Majesty, had at first not noticed that he was getting closer and closer to the Tartar cavalry. By the time he suddenly realized it, he had already charged ahead of everyone into the enemy formation — and he also realized he did not even have a weapon in his hand!

Without a weapon, he naturally could not fight hand-to-hand, and if he could not fight hand-to-hand, the only option was to bury his head and keep charging. As long as he could charge straight through the enemy formation, he could escape.

With his mind filled with nothing but the single word "charge," Zhu Chunchen, without even realizing it, had discovered the essence of cavalry shock tactics!

It was just one word — charge!

He charged recklessly, and those household retainers and personal guards who ate his food, drank his drink, and relied on him to feed their families and live well, naturally had to grit their teeth and charge too. But they had not forgotten to bring weapons, so while charging they could also thrust with their long spears and slash with swords and sabers.

And the Mongols opposing them had a far looser formation and were far more cowardly. They had just been trying to flee, which slowed them down even more.

As a result, in the head-on clash they immediately suffered a great defeat, were sent tumbling — men and horses overturned — and their formation was completely shattered. Those Kharchin cavalry who had not been knocked down could no longer suppress their panic, and once again wheeled their horses and fled in all directions, dispersing in a hubbub.

It was not only the riders around Zhu Chunchen who launched a desperate charge; the other six groups of "fleeing" cavalry did the same. Under their reckless assault, one or two thousand Kharchin Mongol cavalry were actually smashed in a single charge!

It seemed these nobles now feared His Majesty more than they feared the Tartars!

Strongly recommend the new work Song Xu by the great author Guansheng — the story of Emperor Zhezong Zhao Xu: the New and Old Party strife, the Six Traitors in power, Song Jiang's uprising, the Jingkang Catastrophe!

Eh? How could Emperor Zhezong Zhao Xu have the Six Traitors? How could there be New and Old Party strife? You must go take a look!

(End of Chapter)