Chapter 435: Crown Prince Zhu Finally Makes a Mistake

"Bow to the cannon! First bow to the tablet of the Most Sage and First Teacher Confucius! May every shot hit its mark!"

At the shout of a Red Banner Han Army Hongyi cannon niru commander, Kong Youde, Prince Gongshun of the Great Qing, Shang Kexi, Prince Zhishun, Regional Commander Bai Guang'en, and various other officers of the Red Banner Han Army, Bordered Blue Banner Han Army, and the Henan Green Standard all knelt together and reverently kowtowed toward the twenty Hongyi cannons arrayed in a line before them and the tablet of the Most Sage and First Teacher Confucius placed among the cannons. Before the cannons and the tablet were also set incense burners, candles, and all manner of offerings.

Kong Youde, kneeling at the very front of the crowd, kowtowed while muttering under his breath, "Cannon God, protect us! Old Ancestor, make every shot hit its mark!"

The group behind him, led by Shang Kexi, shouted along with him, "Sage Confucius, make every shot hit its mark!"

"Second bow! May every cannon be safe!"

Kong Youde, Shang Kexi, and the others kowtowed again and then shouted together, "Sage Confucius, keep every cannon safe!"

"Third bow! Great fortune when the cannons open fire!"

The whole company kowtowed once more toward the cannons and the Confucius tablet, then shouted, "Sage Confucius, grant great fortune when the cannons open fire!"

"Ceremony complete!"

The kowtowing was finally done. Shang Kexi rose with a heavy heart, walked over to Kong Youde, the foremost Hongyi cannon expert in the Great Qing, and asked in a low voice, "Rui Tu, why is Confucius mixed up in the cannon-bowing now? Does it even work?"

What had just taken place was the cannon-bowing ceremony of the Qing artillery — not unique to the Qing artillery, for the Ming army's artillery also performed it, though not before every battle, only when cannons were delivered, to beg the cannons to cooperate and above all not to burst their barrels.

But Kong Youde's Red Banner Han Army artillery was especially devout about the cannon-bowing, performing it before every battle. Moreover, his cannon-bowing ceremony was constantly being improved, and recently he had added the tablet of Confucius to the proceedings.

"Why wouldn't it work?" Kong Youde glanced at Shang Kexi. "Confucius is our old ancestor — he manages everything. Haven't you heard, Brother Yuanji, that over in Qufu they're all shouting 'Sage Confucius protect us, no blade or spear may pierce us'?"

Because his surname was Kong, Kong Youde had claimed Confucius as his ancestor, though the Kong clan of Qufu did not acknowledge the claim. But this Prince Gongshun, who had risen from the mines, took the matter very seriously. After becoming a prince, he not only enshrined a tablet of Confucius in his mansion but also hired booi tutors to teach him to read and write, and he could now recite the Analects from memory.

And after hearing of the "latest method of using" Confucius over in Qufu, he had immediately ordered a tablet of the Sage prepared for use during the cannon-bowing — since the Sage could manage "no blade or spear may pierce us," could he not also manage "every shot hits its mark" and "every cannon stays safe"?

Shang Kexi frowned slightly and thought to himself: Over in Qufu they are defending the Confucian Grove and defending the orthodox teaching. Of course Confucius would manifest his power to protect them. But here we are following the Tartars as traitors to the Han — would Confucius still protect us? He might even do the opposite and burst the cannon barrels! When the firing starts later, I had better keep well away!

"Rui Tu," Shang Kexi asked again, "what now? Do we open fire?"

"Wait a little longer," Kong Youde said. "The auspicious hour has not yet arrived."

Shang Kexi thought: He really is particular! I wonder if they can knock down the walls of Fengyang?

Just as he was thinking this, the rapid sound of hoofbeats came from behind. Shang Kexi turned to look — it was Šoojan, the meiren-i janggin of the Manchu Plain Red Banner, arriving with his men.

Kong Youde and Shang Kexi were princes, while Šoojan was only a meiren-i janggin, with a hereditary rank of merely niru janggin. But he was a genuine lord of the Eight Banners, of the old Fuca clan, enrolled in the Manchu Plain Red Banner, and had been ordered to oversee the battle. The two watered-down princes dared not put on airs before him, and both stood respectfully to receive him — they could not kowtow, for it would be unseemly for two princes to kowtow to a meiren-i janggin.

Bai Guang'en, however, was no prince. He dutifully performed a half-kneel salute to Šoojan, then stood with hands lowered and shoulders dropped behind Kong Youde.

Šoojan was a second-generation bannerman, short and stocky but solidly built, with a dark face and a great beard reaching to his chest — at a glance, clearly a fighter. He dismounted, narrowed his eyes and swept a glance over the tablet, the incense table, and the offerings, then said coldly, "Finished bowing?"

"Finished," Kong Youde said with a face full of smiles.

"When can you begin?" Šoojan said. "Prince Su just sent someone to hurry us — he's given us only three days!"

"Three days?" Kong Youde was startled. "Wasn't it seven days before?"

"If Prince Su now says three days, then it's three days!" Šoojan pointed at the crumbling city wall more than three li away. "A broken-down city like that, and you can't take it in three days?"

"We can take it, we can take it!" Kong Youde dared not say no. He turned at once and shouted to the niru janggin of his artillery unit, "The auspicious hour has come! Open fire! Open fire, quickly!"

That niru janggin was also Kong Youde's adopted son, named Kong Sixi, just past thirty, only ten years younger than Kong Youde. In Kong Youde's force, he was a man who walked sideways — even genuine Manchu lords who dared show Kong Youde a sour face were polite to him. For he was a gunner personally trained by a Portuguese cannon master! There were now only a handful of such men in the entire Great Qing, and he was the most skilled among them, able to master the Western methods of ranging and sighting.

The Red Banner Han Army artillery was formidable precisely because of him.

Hearing his adoptive father's voice, Kong Sixi immediately shouted the order: "The Prince commands — test fire at once!"

At the order, a dozen men, stripped to the waist with their queues coiled atop their heads, ran forward and pushed one of the Hongyi cannons forward — the so-called test firing was a ranging shot.

Kong Youde's artillery had only Kong Sixi who truly mastered the art of sighting, and he also understood the principle that teaching an apprentice everything leaves the master to starve, so he would never pass on his true skills. Therefore Kong Youde's artillery adopted the method of concentrating the cannons and unifying the sighting, with the expert Kong Sixi in charge.

And today Kong Youde and Shang Kexi had concentrated the twenty Hongyi cannons of two Han Army Hongyi cannon niru, all under Kong Sixi's direction.

The first cannon pushed into position was a Hongyi cannon weighing over three thousand jin, cast of bronze and mounted on an especially heavy gun carriage, extremely cumbersome. The dozen or so gunners pushed it forward with considerable effort.

By the time the gunners had pushed the cannon into place, Kong Sixi had already measured the approximate distance, and he shouted the order: "Elevation, six fen!"

Then two gunners began hammering the triangular wooden wedges wedged between the barrel and the carriage, gradually raising the barrel.

The gunner's quadrant was a tool for measuring the angle of elevation, and on the long handle attached to the quadrant was usually carved a gunner's scale. The scale was about one chi long, not flat but a rectangular block, with many graduations carved on three of its faces, along with Latin letters and Arabic numerals — designed so that gunners using shot of different materials could quickly determine the required powder charge according to the angle of elevation. Most time-serving Ming and Qing gunners did not know how to use the quadrant and scale, but Kong Sixi truly did.

He used the quadrant to set the elevation, then called out according to the data on the scale: "Load stone shot, powder charge two jin eight liang!"

The scale he used was an original Portuguese import, marked in foreign script and Arabic numerals, with the unit of weight being the pound. But Kong Sixi was very good at arithmetic and converted pounds to jin in his head.

Such skill was unique in the entire Qing army! So even if someone else cracked the "secret" of the Arabic numerals, they still could not use this quadrant properly.

The powder was stored in porcelain jars and scooped out with a ladle, one ladle being half a jin, so two jin eight liang required five ladles, all poured into the bore. One gunner rammed the powder down to the bottom of the bore with a long ramrod, while another inserted a fuse of paper twisted with powder into the touchhole. Meanwhile the powder was tamped firm, a wooden wad was pushed into the muzzle, and only then was a chiseled stone shot rammed in.

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