Chapter 400: Confucius Protects — Blades and Spears Cannot Pierce — End

Liu Liangchen, who had led from the front, also became a victim of the assault cannon. He only felt two violent blows strike his chest from something unknown, followed by an agony so intense he could not breathe. All the strength drained from his body in an instant, and he collapsed limply to the ground. Then he saw the gate that had been shut suddenly open, and countless Ming soldiers surged in — all of them spear infantry. The first two or three rows leveled their spears, lowered their heads, and charged straight ahead!

The Qing troops, already battered and reeling from the assault cannon fire, could not possibly withstand this fresh force of spearmen advancing like a forest of pikes. They were shattered and scattered in an instant. Those lucky enough to escape with their lives dropped their heavy weapons and fled desperately back toward the city wall. The charging Ming soldiers opened their throats and shouted in unison: "The Sage Confucius protects us — blades and spears cannot pierce us!"

So the Sage Confucius really could be used this way. Liu Liangchen, lying on the cold muddy ground waiting to die, suddenly let out a sigh and closed his eyes.

Just as Liu Liangchen breathed his last, the situation inside Bing-hao Fortress reversed once again! He Luohui had climbed onto the wall with four niru of true Tartars. Added to the Manchu troops led by the jala-i ejen Zhuoluo, who had earlier scaled the wall, the Manchus on the walls of Bing-hao Fortress now numbered close to two thousand!

The greatest difference between the true Manchus of the Eight Banners and the Han troops, the Green Standard, and the Ming army lay in their individual martial skill. The Manchu soldiers of this era were all-around warriors: they could fight on horseback, fight on foot, shoot arrows, fight hand-to-hand, and of course shoot from horseback and charge on horseback. So two thousand true Manchus on the walls of Bing-hao Fortress were the equivalent of two thousand archers who could draw an eight-li bow and two thousand brave warriors who could fight in heavy armor!

For the Ming troops and militia holding Bing-hao Fortress, such strength was simply too overwhelming. Even with the Sage Confucius's protection, they could not hold out.

Liu Zhaoji already knew it would be hard to hold the position, but he still held on as best he could: "Hold the gate! Let the old and weak leave first. Only by holding the gate can the old and weak of this town have a chance — and we can kill a few more Tartars too!"

At that moment, most of the Manchu soldiers on the wall took down their longbows and began shooting at the panicking civilians inside the fortress. The sound of arrows sinking into flesh came in muffled thuds, one after another. But these Manchu soldiers did not truly intend to shoot every civilian dead; their aim was to drive them to charge the gate.

Today's battle at Bing-hao Fortress truly brought misery upon the refugees inside! Refugees, militia, Ming troops, and Qing troops all fought in a tangled melee, and now the refugees were being used as battering tools against the gate. Blades and swords have no eyes, and neither do arrowheads. After more than half a day of slaughter, the small fortress was filled with corpses piled layer upon layer — truly a city filled with the dead.

Although the Qing army's Green Standard and Han Eight Banners had suffered heavy casualties, compared with the civilians and militia inside Bing-hao Fortress, their losses were not worth mentioning.

Now the Eight Banner troops were again using arrows to drive people forward. The ceaselessly falling arrows forced the civilians who still hoped to save their lives to flee toward the gate, supporting the old and carrying the young, wailing piteously as they went. Bodies kept collapsing into the mud that was nearly dyed red with blood. Two or three hundred white-armored and red-armored soldiers in heavy armor had already descended from the wall and formed dense ranks behind the weeping civilians, all holding shields and long sabers, their blades glinting with cold menace and killing intent in the fading light of the setting sun.

Behind the ranks were several dozen Han matchlock musketeers, all holding lit matchlocks ready to fire at any moment. These musketeers were fully equipped, wearing helmets and cloth-faced iron armor, advancing slowly forward like a wall!

Several of Liu Zhaoji's household retainers rushed up and tried to drag the Regional Commander away toward the base of the wall, but he shook them off violently: "Retreat my ass! Go find men to pile sandbags and block both ends of the gate tower — now!"

The two retainers still would not give up. One of them said loudly: "Commander, it's hopeless — the ones coming are true Tartars!"

Smack! The man received a heavy slap across the face.

"True Tartars aren't made of iron! We're only two hundred paces from the Bing-hao gun platform, and there are great general cannons on it!"

So Shi Kefa had prepared a hidden move! All nine fortresses outside the great city of Qufu lay within the fire coverage of the great general cannons mounted on Qufu's gun platforms!

"B-but we're on the gate tower too!"

"Yes, Commander — cannonballs have no eyes!"

Liu Zhaoji glared at the two retainers: "What do we have to fear? We have the Sage Confucius's protection!"

What? The Sage Confucius can even ward off cannon fire? This Sage Confucius is truly all-purpose.

Liu Zhaoji's subordinates dared not disobey his words, so they gritted their teeth and brought over the sandbags that had long been prepared, piling up two breastworks on either side of the gate tower, and mounted four assault cannons on top.

At the same time, Liu Zhaoji had a red flag raised on the tower.

This red flag was the signal! Whichever way the red flag tilted, the four great general cannons mounted on the Bing-hao gun platform would fire in that direction. The Tartars directly below the gate tower could not be hit, but the Tartars pressing in from either side of the tower would be caught perfectly.

"Everyone get down! Get down properly! Lean against the sandbags and don't expose your heads!" Liu Zhaoji personally held the red flag while ordering his personal guards and the militia soldiers retreating along the wall to lie flat — only by lying flat could Confucius protect them from cannonballs!

When he saw the moment was right, he tilted the red flag to the right, then leaned against a breastwork of sandbags and lay down himself.

Boom, boom, boom.

When the cannon fire sounded, Dodo had already reached the foot of the wall on the western side of the Bing-hao round fort. He was holding a treasured saber passed down from Nurhaci, poking at sandbags for amusement. Oh, not amusement — he was studying them. These sacks weren't sturdy at all; one poke made a hole, and mud leaked out. How could they possibly stop Hongyi cannon fire? Could it really be the Sage Confucius's protection? But when he had studied as a child, he had never heard that the Sage Confucius had this function!

Just then, the cannons roared again.

He set down his blade, looked left and right, and laughed: "That slave Cao Zhenyan is quick — he's already got the cannons set up?"

A white-armored soldier shook his head: "My lord, it's not Cao the niru commander. His cannons aren't set up yet. That's the southern army firing!"

"What? They have Hongyi cannons too?" As Dodo spoke, another dense volley of cannon fire thundered, and his brow furrowed. "The fire is that dense — it's Folangji cannons. Where are they firing with Folangji cannons?"

The characteristic of the Folangji cannon was its fast initial rate of fire — not consistently fast, just fast for the first few shots, because the Folangji cannon was loaded using a "mother-and-son" breech-loading method. Each cannon had four to nine sub-chambers; after firing one, you swapped in another. But due to the limited technology of the time, the gap tolerance between the sub-chamber and the cannon's bore was large, causing gunpowder gas leakage, so it lacked the long range of the Hongyi cannon. Therefore Folangji cannons were generally loaded with grapeshot and used within one hundred fifty paces.

Dodo distinctly remembered ordering his men not to get too close to the main city of Qufu. Could it be that his subordinates had disobeyed orders?

While he was wondering, the jala-i ejen Zhuoluo, whom he had sent to attack the round fort, came tumbling and scrambling down from the wall and threw himself at Dodo's feet, crying out: "My lord, my men have been hit by great general cannon fire! The Nikans of Qufu are too savage — they don't care about their own people's lives! They fired great general cannons directly at the walls on either side of the gate tower! Our brave warriors have suffered terrible casualties!"

Dodo was stunned. Using cannons to blast their own people together with the enemy — how could the Nikans be so savage?

"The Sage Confucius protects us — blades and spears cannot pierce us!"

At that moment, cheers like thunder erupted from the gate tower of the Bing-hao round fort.

The iron balls spewed by the great general cannons truly had eyes — they killed only Tartars and did not strike Han people (they were all lying flat behind sandbags, so of course they couldn't be hit)!

This was a miracle! It proved that the Sage Confucius's protection was real! Not only could it stop blades and spears, but now even cannonballs held no fear. What could be done about this?

"Stop fighting, stop fighting. There's something uncanny about this Qufu place!" Dodo was somewhat frightened too. "Withdraw the troops and return to camp!"

(End of Chapter)