Chapter 412: The Qing Have Sandbags, the Ming Have Shield Carts

Boom—boom—boom! Several tremendous reports rang out, and another seven or eight stone balls weighing more than nine catties each came howling in, smashing with devastating force into the defensive works built from shield carts, gun carts, and piled earth. They violently shattered the wooden shield carts and gun carts, then buried themselves in the earth and fell silent.

The Shandong militia soldiers, crouching low and desperately digging and piling earth, all breathed a huge sigh of relief. No one in this era yet knew about digging shell-proof pits, but they did know that earth mounds could stop cannonballs—this was advanced experience from the Battle of Qufu! Moreover, Gao Hongtu's army was originally made up of "migrant laborers," men who fought their wars by relying on strong stockades and dull, grinding battles, so they had brought along many iron shovels for digging. As soon as the Eight Banners Han Army's artillery came up, they took turns going to work, desperately digging and piling earth, thickening and heightening the life-saving mounds.

Still, occasionally some cannonballs either skimmed over the tops of the not-yet-tall-enough earth mounds or punched straight through the thinner sections. And then they inflicted a certain number of casualties on the militia soldiers sheltering behind the mounds.

Cannonballs that skimmed over from high above would slam down near the riverbank, and whoever they hit was certain to die! Fortunately, the soil of the Tu River's bank was soft and loose, so the balls sank deep at once and could not easily bounce up again, and therefore did not kill many people.

But the cannonballs that punched through the earth mounds were truly deadly—they could effortlessly plow a bloody alleyway of flesh through the crowd!

When the Qing army had first hauled up the Hongyi cannons, the defensive works built by the Shandong militia were still not wide or thick enough, so they were frequently pierced, causing considerable casualties.

Fortunately, Gao Hongtu steadied the situation in time and personally went to the front line to direct his "migrant laborers" in digging earth and building walls. Now they had finally completed a ring of ramparts more than one and a half zhang wide and about six or seven chi high. With that kind of thickness, it would not be easy for twelve-pounders to punch through.

So from the start of the day, the Qing army's Hongyi cannons had found it very difficult to inflict any casualties on Gao Hongtu's "migrant laborers."

However, Dodo did not let Cao Zhenyan's Hongyi cannon company rest, but kept them firing round after round of stone balls. At the same time, Xu Dingguo, whose son had been killed in the earlier fighting, was again escorted onto the battlefield by Dodo's personal booi bondservants—leading his surviving subordinates to the front line to pile sandbags!

That's right—pile sandbags!

Dodo's generation of Eight Banners men were not those unworthy descendants who carried birdcages, flew hawks, and smoked opium. They were very good at learning. After the Battle of Qufu, they had learned to pile sandbags, and had even asked Dorgon in Beijing for a hundred thousand hemp sacks and rush bags.

A portion of the hemp sacks and rush bags had now been transported to the Tu River front, so Dodo could begin using the method of "returning the other's own way against him" to deal with Gao Hongtu—he intended to use trenches and sandbags to encircle Gao Hongtu's militia.

And then besiege the point and strike the reinforcements!

While the Hongyi cannons paused firing to cool down, Gao Hongtu, who had not closed his eyes for three days and three nights, poked his head out to look, together with his subordinates Li Chengdong, Zhang Mingzhen, Ma Degong, and others. They too discovered that the Qing army was digging trenches and building ramparts, evidently intending to besiege them.

Li Chengdong and Ma Degong were both veteran generals long tested in battle, and at a glance they knew things were about to turn bad.

Li Chengdong said, "The Tartars are digging trenches and building walls—they mean to besiege us!"

Ma Degong studied the ramparts and trenches ahead carefully. "The eastern barbarians are piling sandbags too! They learned our skill that quickly—what are we to do?"

Gao Hongtu took a telescope from Zhang Mingzhen's hands and began observing the situation on the battlefield. He happened to see a troop of cavalry in white armor trotting past behind the Qing ramparts still under construction.

He said to Li Chengdong, Zhang Mingzhen, and Ma Degong, "It seems the eastern barbarians want to use against this old man the same method they used against Hong Chengchou in Liaodong back then! Once the ramparts and trenches are complete, we may well be truly trapped. The military grain we have on hand will not last very long. How should we fight from here on? All of you, speak your minds."

Gao Hongtu's "strong stockade, dull battle" approach still had one enormous flaw—his opponents were not the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which had almost no cavalry, but the Eight Banners troops who had conquered the realm on horseback and with the bow!

So the Qing army could surround Gao Hongtu's strong stockade without the slightest effort and use starvation to deal with the defenders inside.

Of course, Gao Hongtu did have some methods to counter this. His method was to build sandbag bastions and deploy defenders who were few in number but possessed quite a few light native cannon such as crouching-tiger cannon, assault cannon, and second-general cannon.

Because the number of defenders was small—usually just two or three thousand—the rations they consumed were also few. Storing four or five thousand shi of grain would be enough to feed them for over a year!

For the Manchus, besieging one small bastion for more than a year was unimaginable—these bastions cost little to build, just some hemp sacks and the strength of Shandong's big men, so why hold back? Build the damn things by the hundreds or thousands, and if they had to be surrounded one by one and starved out, the Manchus would never take Shandong even by the time the Xinhai Revolution broke out!

So the method of building bastions everywhere was certainly effective! But using bastions as a base to advance and counterattack had one precondition—there had to be a certain number of cavalry, and they had to be of no small strength.

For example, historically the Russians had relied on the tactics of bastions plus Cossacks to conquer vast territories in Central Asia and Siberia.

But Gao Hongtu had no Cossacks under his command, and even his infantry's field-battle ability was inadequate; he could only rely on building fortifications to resist the Qing troops.

Therefore, in offensive operations, he had to send out a large force to cover the construction of bastions, which made it very easy to fall into encirclement.

"We can't let them finish building those ramparts and trenches, or we're done for!"

"Right! We have over twenty thousand men, plus a lot of livestock—men eating and horses chewing, the consumption is enormous!"

"Yes! If we're surrounded for a month, we'll all die!"

Gao Hongtu listened to his subordinates' suggestions, his brows deeply furrowed. "What about waiting for relief?"

"Who would come to relieve us?" Li Chengdong shook his head. "Supreme Commander Shi's troops, Left Militia's troops, and the Prince of Lu's troops are the same as ours—all newly raised, hastily formed armies that cannot fight in the field. Only the Crown Prince's hard-struggle New Army is of any use. But the New Army is far away in Jinling, and it still has to deal with the Qing forces in the Henan direction and the roving bandits at Xiangyang. It cannot possibly come to Shandong!"

If Zhu Cilang came to Shandong, then the Great Ming would truly face the crisis of total collapse!

Dodo's Bordered White Banner troops had already suffered at Dagukou and would never lightly commit to a decisive battle. They would certainly do everything possible to delay and entangle him. As long as they could tie Zhu Cilang down in Shandong, they could sit back and wait for others to raid Zhu Cilang's home base.

"The Crown Prince will not come!" Gao Hongtu thought for a moment. "We'll still have to rely on ourselves. Make shield carts! How many large carts do we still have available?"

"There are still two or three hundred grain carts available."

"Good!" Gao Hongtu said. "Distribute all the grain. Convert every grain cart into a shield cart, with the wooden shield mounted on the right side of the large cart. When the time comes, we'll withdraw along the Tu River, arraying the shield carts on the army's right flank. Then select some of the best archers and three-eyed gun men to ride in the carts and shoot arrows and fire guns from behind the shields."

And so the shield cart evolved into a cart fort.

Gao Hongtu looked at the three generals before him, as if seeking their opinions.

All three wore expressions of admiration—the old man Gao was something else! To think he could come up with such a plan!

"It works!" Li Chengdong nodded. "I think it can be done. We can also set long spears on the shield carts!"

"But how do we break out?" Ma Degong asked. "The eastern barbarians have no small number of troops!"

"With heavy rewards, there will surely be brave men!" Zhang Mingzhen said. "If we're willing to spend silver, why worry about lacking men who will face death?"

Gao Hongtu stroked his beard and said thoughtfully, "Silver alone will probably not be enough. Grant land, bestow official posts! Whoever volunteers for the dare-to-die force will be granted two hundred mu of land. Ordinary soldiers will be rewarded with the rank of Squad Leader, and officers will be promoted one grade!"

He narrowed his eyes and looked at the three great generals before him. "Which of you will take the lead? South of the Daqing River, I'll bestow a dependent prefecture!"

Huh? It could even be done like this?

Li Chengdong, Ma Degong, and Zhang Mingzhen were all stunned. Gao Hongtu was merely a Governor of Shandong, yet he actually dared to hand out the court's prefectures and counties as rewards!

Was this real? Could this really work?

Gao Hongtu glared. "What? You don't dare gamble for wealth and rank anymore? Or do you not trust this old man?"

Li Chengdong gritted his teeth. "I trust you! Damn it, I'm all in. I want Tai'an Prefecture!"

"It's yours!"

(End of Chapter)