Chapter 1756: Gao Hongtu Appears Again

Seven or eight feathered arrows shot out in succession—this skill was called "linked-pearl shooting." To loose eight arrows in a row at a target thirty or forty paces away while riding at a full gallop was a feat that, never mind in the emperor world, even in the household-retainer world would rank him as a first-rate expert. What was rarer still was that of the eight arrows Zhu Youjian loosed, two actually hit the target—he had aimed at the horse, but what he hit was the man!

Now that was a true master!

The one struck by Zhu Youjian was none other than the Great Jin's Grand Beile Daishan. The fellow had originally been farther back, but when he saw his own Plain Red Banner braves being smashed through by the Ming cavalry's iron riders—and sent tumbling head over heels at that—he grew anxious and spurred his horse forward several dozen paces, probably meaning to lead the white-armored soldiers around him in a countercharge. But before he could even give the order to charge, Zhu Youjian had already picked him out and loosed seven or eight arrows at him.

Daishan had in fact already seen Zhu Youjian level his bow and come at him, but he had no shield in hand to block with, so he could only twist his body sideways and duck behind his horse's neck. Yet he still failed to dodge—in truth, had he not dodged, he might not necessarily have been hit. In the blink of an eye he felt two hard knocks on his chest, and a sharp stabbing pain shot up from below his left breast. He knew then that things had gone badly wrong.

Daishan hastily looked down and found two feathered arrows already planted conspicuously below the left side of his chest!

In truth, these two arrows had not dealt Daishan a fatal wound. One had failed to penetrate his cotton armor; the other had passed between two iron plates inside the cotton armor, then lodged in the inner layer of interlinked ring armor (mail armor). The arrowhead had come with such force that it actually broke through the iron rings of the mail, barely piercing a little skin and flesh before being firmly wedged in place.

Though the arrowhead had not driven deep into Daishan's body, it still gave the Grand Beile a terrible fright. He had fought and killed his whole life at the side of the Mandate-of-Heaven Old Khan, but he had never suffered any real wound, and he certainly had no experience of an arrowhead burying itself in his chest!

The spot looked terrifying, and it hurt so much. Was he about to die? The moment the thought of death crossed his mind, Daishan's whole state turned foul at once—his breath came short, stars swam before his eyes, and his body swayed twice on horseback before toppling downward. Fortunately, a white-armored soldier of the Plain Red Banner caught him and held him up.

The white-armored soldier took one look at the Grand Beile's condition and immediately began shouting: "Disaster! The banner-lord Beile is dying! The banner-lord Beile is dying!"

The cluster of white-armored soldiers, seeing their Plain Red Banner lord and Grand Beile with arrows in his chest, were all shocked. Now, hearing that the Grand Beile was dying, what heart did they have left to go rescue the Plain Red Banner cavalry that had been scattered by the Ming troops? These white-armored soldiers bore the heavy duty of guarding their banner lord, and now their lord had been shot dead before their very eyes—their crime would be enormous. Better to hurry and move the banner lord to a safe place and see whether he could still be saved.

Just as the Plain Red Banner's white-armored soldiers were escorting Daishan to the rear, Zu Dashou's household retainers launched their third wave of formation-breaking charges. This was kicking a drowning dog! The heads of the Tartar slaves were practically there for the taking. If they did not stake everything now, what sort of household retainers would they be?

And the Plain Red Banner's rank-and-file bannermen had by now been beaten senseless. A moment earlier they had still been chasing down a body of Ming troops whose armor was sturdy but whose martial skill was slack, hacking down a great swath of them, victory in sight. Then, without warning, over a thousand iron cavalry drawn up like a solid wall had slammed into them. These Ming troops were every bit as ferocious as the Great Jin's Heaven-sent soldiers!

They did not care whether those blocking the way ahead were Eight Banners men, Mongol soldiers, or their own people—they simply trampled over them all with their horses' hooves!

The Plain Red Banner cavalry, already in disorder, already robbed of momentum, and now locked in close combat with Ming armored soldiers—how could they withstand such a savage impact? One charge, and instantly men and horses went tumbling, with three or four hundred killed or wounded in a single stroke!

Before they could recover, Zu Dashou's household retainers came charging up with howling war cries. Even the Later Jin's Eight Banners troops could not hold out against that. With a single shout of alarm, they fled in a disorderly mob toward Mount Tangzhi. But the household retainers under Zu Dashou were not about to let them go—they pursued, hacking as they went, loosing arrows as they went, and did not stop the chase until they reached the foot of Mount Tangzhi, where Hong Taiji had dispatched Manggūltai with more than two thousand Plain Blue Banner horsemen as reinforcements, forcing them to break off and withdraw.

And this round of kicking the drowning dog by the Zu family army cut down and killed another one or two hundred of the Tartar slaves, who ordinarily were as "precious" as could be.

The number of "true Tartar slaves" killed in just these two charges would, in the past, have counted as an extraordinary great victory!

But the Battle of Mount Tangzhi was only just beginning at this point!

At the same time that Zhu Youjian's and Daishan's forces were locked in a great battle on the plain west of Mount Tangzhi, the main Later Jin army under Hong Taiji had at last finished its chaotic march and begun deploying its defenses centered on Mount Tangzhi.

Hong Taiji's army had still reached the battlefield before Zhu Youjian's, and so had seized the high ground of Mount Tangzhi and sealed off the road to the Modaoyu border wall. The Modaoyu border wall lay deep in the Yan Mountains, while Mount Tangzhi was a stretch of low hills made up of several hillocks close to the Yan Mountains range, standing squarely in the way of the main road to the Modaoyu border wall.

The battle just now, in which the Plain Red Banner cavalry under Daishan's command and the Kharchin Mongol horsemen had fought the Ming cavalry, Hong Taiji had watched in its entirety from high ground.

Seeing the Plain Red Banner cavalry actually smashed apart by a single charge of more than a thousand supremely disciplined Ming iron riders, Hong Taiji knew at once that the Great Jin had met an unprecedentedly formidable enemy!

And since they had met an unprecedentedly formidable enemy, Hong Taiji could not simply turn and leave.

Because if even the Plain Red Banner's Eight Banners troops could not withstand this formidable enemy's cavalry charges, then the Mongols beyond the Ji Garrison border wall were even less worth mentioning.

If the Great Jin's troops returned to Shenyang, then who beyond the Ji Garrison border wall could still withstand the attacks of the Ming's little emperor?

Once the Kharchin Mongols fell entirely, the Great Ming would be able to push outward four or five hundred li along the Yan Mountains front—compared with the Yan Mountains highlands, the Liaoxi Corridor truly counted for nothing!

And once these four or five hundred li of Yan Mountains highlands fell entirely to the Great Ming, the Later Jin would never again be able to threaten the border walls of the Ji Garrison and Xuan Garrison!

If they wanted to attack the Great Ming again, they would have no choice but to go through the Liaoxi Corridor and strike the mighty pass of Shanhai. And the Shanhai Pass gap was only twenty li wide in all, with firm, strong walls and gates, famed as the foremost under heaven, and moreover defended by Hongyi cannons and Folangji cannons. With twenty or thirty thousand crack troops, it could hold off the entire Great Jin.

So Hong Taiji's strategic objective now was no longer how much profit he could scoop from Ming territory inside the Great Wall, but rather how to lay out the board for the coming Battle of the Yan Mountains.

And the longer he dragged things out here at Mount Tangzhi, the more favorable the Later Jin's opening in the future Battle of the Yan Mountains would be. For although the thirty-six Kharchin Mongol tribes had only recently—in the seventh month of this year—formally submitted to the Great Jin, the Great Jin had not established any reliable strongholds within the Yan Mountains range, nor had it brought the thirty-six Kharchin Mongol tribes fully under its control. If the Great Jin withdrew in haste, then with the Ming little emperor's prowess in battle, it would not take a year before all thirty-six Kharchin tribes became the Ming dynasty's "Duoyan Guard"!

For the sake of four or five hundred li of the Yan Mountains and the thirty-six Kharchin Mongol tribes, Hong Taiji could not simply leave when he pleased. He had to resist step by step along the line from Mount Tangzhi to Modaoyu, in order to win a little more chance of victory for the Battle of the Yan Mountains.

At the same time that Hong Taiji was deploying his defenses, Zhu Youjian's follow-up forces were also arriving one after another.

The first to reach Mount Tangzhi were not the cavalry commanded by Hei Yunlong and Zhao Shuaijiao, but rather the great body of "cart troops" commanded by Shuntian Governor Gao Hongtu and Shunyi County Magistrate Lu Zhenfei—that is, militia soldiers pushing side-box carts, numbering between seven and eight thousand men, pushing several hundred side-box carts, advancing in a vast, mighty column along the official road onto the plain west of Mount Tangzhi.

By the time they arrived, the cavalry under Zhu Youjian's command had already beaten back Daishan's horsemen and were mopping up. Zhu Youjian himself had also worked up a fighting fervor and was riding about the battlefield with his cavalry, looking for straggling Later Jin and Mongol soldiers to cut down.

Gao Hongtu's militia troops did not join the battle to seize easy glory that was theirs for the taking. Instead, they obediently set about forming a circular wagon fort. Several hundred side-box carts were linked end to end into a single body, reinforced with abatis, chevaux-de-frise, and caltrops, and in no time they had thrown up a hard position that looked unbreakable no matter how one viewed it.

Grand recommendation: the great work "I Am Wang Fugui" by Qingshi Jincheng Hui. A Qingshi production is sure to be a fine piece—welcome to come and admire it; such an excellent work is rare.

(End of Chapter)