Chapter 1757: The Great Ming Has Loyal Martyrs, the Great Jin Has Filial Sons

Gao Hongtu was clearly a man who loved wagons. In his previous life, when organizing local militia in Shandong, he had used wagon formations to fight Dodo; in this life, after Chongzhen appointed him Governor of Shuntian with concurrent authority over the Tongzhou militia, he had gone down the wagon-formation route again.

But the resources he now commanded could not compare with what he had possessed in his previous life as Governor of Shandong. Although his post as Governor of Shuntian was not small, and the territory under his jurisdiction was considerable, the "militia authority" he actually held extended only to Tongzhou alone.

Moreover, because he was a Governor, he was entitled to his own gubernatorial escort battalion. Thus the armed force Gao Hongtu had at hand was considerably larger than that of the other militia leaders, but it still could not compare with the days when he had held full authority over the entire province of Shandong.

So today the militia he had brought to Tangzhi Mountain numbered only 7,500 men, of whom 2,000 were the militia of Lu Zhenfei, the County Magistrate of Shunyi.

Apart from the shortage of men, the wagons were also rather poor. There were no four-wheeled wagons, only two-wheeled flatbed carts, with one wooden board mounted at the front of the cart and another wooden board mounted on the right side of the cart body — this was what was called a "side-box." Nor were there horses to pull the carts; they were all pushed by manpower. The carts could also carry things — rations, armor, weapons, cheval-de-frise spears, abatis, and the like, a great heap of them. On the march, the militiamen huffed and puffed as they pushed the carts on foot, and once they reached the battlefield, the first thing they did, before anything else, was to set up the wagon formation.

Nor did they set up any formation too complicated — they couldn't! How long had the Tongzhou militia been in operation? So they could only set up a circle formation, which meant arranging several hundred side-box flatbed carts into a ring, linked end to end with ropes to form a single body. Of course, passages for entry and exit still had to be left open. Afterward, the militiamen took down the cheval-de-frise spears and abatis loaded on the side-box carts and placed them outside the wagon formation, forming a ring of protection.

Such a wagon formation could not really be called very sturdy, but on the Tangzhi Mountain battlefield in the tenth month of the first year of Chongzhen, the wagon formation set up by the Tongzhou and Shunyi militia armies was still extremely advantageous for the Ming side.

The wagon formation gave the Ming cavalry, who were at an absolute numerical disadvantage, a reliable forward strongpoint. Horses, baggage, support troops, and wounded could all be taken inside, and cavalrymen tired from fighting could withdraw into the wagon formation to rest.

So as soon as the wagon formation was set up, and the official banner of the Ming Governor of Shuntian had just been raised, three Ming loyal martyrs were carried in by their subordinates. Zhu Chunchen, the one who had clenched his fist and charged the cavalry assault, also came in, weeping as he supported a loyal martyr laid across a horse's back.

"Marquis of Funing, you died so wretchedly! Your family produced so many famous generals, generation after generation all so formidable in battle — how could you fail? Wuwu..."

Gao Hongtu had served as an official in Beijing for many years and of course knew Zhu Chunchen, and he was quite familiar with the Marquis of Funing, Zhu Guobi, whom Zhu Chunchen was weeping and muttering about. When his subordinates reported that Zhu Chunchen had fled over, he immediately went to the entrance of the wagon formation to receive him. Seeing a dark, gaunt, and weeping Zhu Chunchen, and hearing him say that the Marquis of Funing was dead, he was at once greatly shocked.

"Duke of Chengguo, you say the Marquis of Funing, he..."

Zhu Chunchen pointed tearfully at the corpse carried on the warhorse he was leading. "This is the Marquis of Funing. See for yourself..."

Gao Hongtu went up and looked, and saw a silver-armored warrior without a helmet lying across the horse's back, his head apparently smashed open by something, all covered in congealed blood.

"This, this... has a physician examined him? Can he still be treated?"

"Treated for what?" Zhu Chunchen said through tears. "His head's been broken open with a great hole. When I found him, his brains had spilled all over the ground... he'd long since stopped breathing!"

This Zhu Chunchen was still quite loyal to his comrades. After charging barehanded across the battlefield for a spell, he had not simply slipped away on his own; instead he circled around, rejoined Zu Dashou, who was holding the reserve, changed to a fresh warhorse, found a long spear, and followed behind the Zu family troops for a second wave. But he did not go chasing after the fleeing Eight Banners soldiers; rather, he searched the battlefield for comrades who had fallen or been wounded, then rescued the wounded and recovered the dead, bringing back a large group of wounded soldiers and hauling back many martyrs' remains.

Although today's cavalry battle had ended in a complete victory for Zhu Youjian, the group of "life-owing nobles" under his command, along with their household retainers and personal guards, had suffered grievous casualties!

Among the "Seven Great Nobles," the Marquis of Funing, Zhu Guobi, had his skull smashed in by someone's mace. By the time Zhu Chunchen found him on the battlefield, he had long since breathed his last — one could say he had repaid the life he owed!

The head of Zhao Zhilong, the Earl of Xincheng, had gone missing somewhere; only a body had been recovered, carried on a horse's back behind. Xu Yunzhen, heir of the Duke of Dingguo, had also become a loyal martyr, run clean through by someone's long spear!

The bodies of the three loyal martyrs had all been found and were brought by the rescue-minded Zhu Chunchen to Gao Hongtu.

In addition, Li Zunzu, Li Shouqi, and Liu Kongzhao had all narrowly escaped death, every one of them wounded and bloodied.

Among them, Li Zunzu was the most severely wounded, carried back on a makeshift stretcher. He had been knocked off his horse by an Eight Banners soldier wielding a long spear; not only had he fallen flat and bruised his face, but he had also been jabbed in the buttocks by the spear. When Zhu Chunchen found him, he was lying on the ground weeping, with a cavalry lance broken in two still stuck in his rear!

Li Shouqi, the Earl of Xiangcheng, was also not lightly wounded: a long arrow had pierced through his arm, and he had lost a good deal of blood. His health had always been poor, and he could not wear heavy armor, so he had gotten himself a cloth-faced suit of armor without iron plates to fool people...

Liu Kongzhao was comparatively lightly wounded. When Zhu Chunchen found him, he had already been shot into a porcupine! But he had been wearing a fine suit of armor, so he was not seriously hurt — only that his warhorse had been shot dead, and he had sprained his ankle when he fell to the ground.

Of the Seven Great Nobles, three had become loyal martyrs, two were gravely wounded and unable to rise, and only two remained usable for the time being.

A life owed truly must be repaid!

"Duke of Chengguo," Gao Hongtu said, looking at the wounded and the martyrs' remains that Zhu Chunchen had brought back, his scalp prickling, "then, then who won the battle?"

"Of course we won..." Zhu Chunchen, Duke of Chengguo, let out a breath. "Otherwise how could this marquis have collected the bodies of so many loyal martyrs?"

"Then His Majesty..."

Zhu Chunchen said, "He's still up ahead killing the enemy!"

As he spoke, a burst of firelock reports, like beans being stir-fried, came from beneath Tangzhi Mountain up ahead.

Zhu Chunchen said, "Hear that? That's His Majesty directing the mounted guards before his command tent, firing Rumi muskets at the slave rebels who are making camp!"

On Tangzhi Mountain, Hong Taiji also heard the irritating sound of firelock fire!

But he showed not the slightest intention of coming out to fight. Instead, he personally took Amin and Manggūltai with him to the camp of the Plain Red Banner to visit Daishan, who had been shot twice by Zhu Youjian.

Both arrows had already been pulled out and were shown to Hong Taiji for inspection. They were fine arrows, top-grade "sanbuqi" arrows, and the shafts bore a name, carved with the words "Arrows of the Great Ming Son of Heaven." Needless to say, the one who had shot Daishan was Zhu Youjian himself!

The Son of Heaven of the Great Ming had led the charge into the formation, and had even been able to loose seven or eight arrows in succession from a galloping horse, two of which struck Daishan from thirty or forty paces away.

Such skill... it nearly rivaled Lü Fengxian in Romance of the Three Kingdoms!

To encounter such a brave and warlike Great Ming Emperor was truly a thorny problem!

Just as Hong Taiji was racking his brains, outside Daishan's great tent there suddenly arose the sound of wailing that was obviously fake even to the ear.

"Wuaaa — Ama, you died so wretchedly!"

"Ama, go in peace. I, Šoto, will surely avenge you..."

"Hasalian, why didn't you look after Ama properly? You know Ama's skill in battle is poor..."

Hearing the commotion outside, Hong Taiji knew at once that the arrivals were Daishan's two filial sons — Yoto, banner lord of the Bordered Red Banner, and his younger brother Šoto. These two sons of Daishan were born of Daishan's former wife and were disliked by Daishan and their stepmother; their relationship with Daishan was extremely bad. Daishan was also a hard-hearted father who had once wanted to kill these two sons, especially the second son, Šoto.

Now Yoto and Šoto, having heard from somewhere the news that Daishan had died in battle, had come running to wail over his death...

Daishan's face was full of fury. "These two unfilial wretches are just hoping I die. I should have killed them!"

Hong Taiji was also somewhat helpless and could only offer kind words of persuasion: "Great Beile, they are full of filial devotion — they are filial sons. Why not... why not let them come in and pay their respects?"

(End of Chapter)