Chapter 437: There Is a Bastion Fort Ambush in the City

"Sanfu is right — we can't let the Tartars run amok in our own heartland!" Zhu Cilang could afford to ignore Chuzhou, but he could not ignore Yangzhou. The five salt syndicates of Yangzhou paid six million taels of silver a year in tax farming!

And Yangzhou itself was the third-largest city in the southeast, second only to Nanjing and Suzhou. After the full imposition of commercial taxes, the share of tax silver remitted to the Ministry of Revenue alone was no small sum.

Moreover, the territory of Yangzhou Prefecture contained many rich fields attached to military colony garrisons, which sent several hundred thousand shi of white rice to the Ministry of War's military colony granaries every year.

How could Zhu Cilang ignore a money-tree of a city like that? And the people living inside it were all merchants and gentry who had paid up — they were the very patrons who fed and clothed the Ming court! They were this Crown Prince's "customers," people who had paid their protection money in full! Zhu Cilang had not been a national leader for long, and his thinking still ran on the honest merchant's code: take the money, deliver the service. That was the spirit of contract!

If there really were a "Three-Day Yangzhou" like in history, who would pay protection money ever again? That would be worse than killing his father, the Chongzhen Emperor!

So this Number One Filial Son immediately lost his composure — he had to grab Hooge by the "tail" and keep him from going to Yangzhou to kill people.

"March out!" Zhu Cilang looked up at the sky outside the window. The sun blazed overhead — it was exactly noon. "The sun is too strong right now. We march at dusk. It's sixty-odd li from here to Chuzhou by night road; we should arrive by tomorrow morning!"

"Marching at night as well?" Military Advisor Li Yan was somewhat worried. "Won't we be ambushed by the Tartar caitiffs in the dark?"

"Thousand Years, covering sixty-odd li in one night's march is too rushed," Wu Sanfu was also somewhat worried. "If the Tartar cavalry strikes, it will be hard to handle. And once the march ends, we are very likely to run straight into the Tartars!"

"Are the Tartars to the north still besieging Fengyang?" Zhu Cilang turned the conversation back to Fengyang.

"Still besieging it!" Li Yan said with certainty. "Although our scouts and patrols can't get too close, we can still hear from a distance the sound of Hongyi cannon firing — and there are quite a few of them!"

"Then there must be a main force there!" Zhu Cilang said. "Many cannon means a main force. The Tartars must have split into two columns.

This southern column is at most a bit over twenty thousand men. Our four divisions number fifty-six thousand! More than double theirs — what is there to fear? Even a night attack doesn't matter. Have Shi Yangjiang and Hao Yaoqi lead the vanguard together!"

Zhu Cilang had five foreign-officer regiments in hand. Apart from Freira's artillery regiment, the other four had each been responsible from the start for training a 2,500-man model infantry regiment.

After those first four regiments were basically formed, most of the foreign officers and a portion of the Ming officers who had been tempered by accompanying them were drawn off to train eight new model regiments expanded from four arquebus brigades.

After the Jiangbei Grand Camp was organized into four divisions, the four infantry-training foreign-officer regiments all rose with the tide and became foreign-officer regiments each overseeing a division. Once they were promoted, the differences in professional competence between the regiments became all the more obvious. Shi Ruien's foreign-officer regiment, which had fought through the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War, was clearly a full cut above the others, so Zhu Cilang naturally relied on it as his backbone and assigned it to the vanguard division, the most elite of the four model divisions.

The commander of this vanguard division was Hao Yaoqi, and its old foundation was the "roving-bandit soldiers" who had fought at the Battle of Dagu, plus the "roving-bandit soldiers" brought by Li Yan and Hong Niangzi. In both fighting spirit and combat experience, they clearly surpassed all the other units under Zhu Cilang's command.

Moreover, these "roving-bandit soldiers" held a certain psychological edge over the Qing army — they were the ones who had thrashed the genuine Manchu Eight Banners of the Qing army at Dagu!

Zhu Cilang paused, then continued: "The center army and the artillery regiment will move with Wang Qi and Luo Dongni's middle division; the military advisor will be with me. Sanfu, you go to Wang Huzi's rear division."

"Orders received!"

"This subject obeys the decree!"

Li Yan and Wu Sanfu both rose to accept their orders — although they disagreed with Zhu Cilang's "rash advance," once His Highness the Crown Prince had made his decision, the two of them could only go and carry it out.

And with Hao Yaoqi and Shi Ruien leading the most formidable vanguard division at the front, even if the Qing army really launched a night attack, they would most likely gain no advantage.

Who knew — it might even turn into another "Battle of Dagu"!

The eighteenth year of Chongzhen of the Great Ming, the twenty-first day of the sixth month, evening.

When night fell, the eighteen-thousand-strong Eight Banners army led by Hooge and Oboi had already smoothly reached Daqiang Ridge northwest of Chuzhou.

Chuzhou's terrain is ridges to the north and plains to the south. To the northeast and northwest lie two stretches of hills; the northwestern stretch is called Daqiang Ridge and Huangfu Mountain, and the northeastern stretch is called Shigu Mountain.

Between the two stretches of hills runs a corridor, and near Chuzhou there is also a pass called Qingliu Pass.

Qingliu Pass and Chuzhou were both held by small numbers of Ming troops — garrison troops of the New Army, units under the Central Capital Garrison Command. They were few in number, altogether only half a brigade.

In addition, the local militia of Chuzhou had been mobilized, raising three or four thousand men to cooperate with the half-brigade of garrison troops in defending Qingliu Pass and Chuzhou.

Such a defense could of course not stop eighteen thousand Eight Banners troops, but Hooge and Oboi did not attack that night, because they too could not see through Chuzhou's situation — in fact, they did not know that Zhu Cilang had already reached Dingyuan, nor that the army accompanying him there numbered as many as fifty-six thousand.

Their own scouting riders found it hard to get close enough to reconnoiter. And Zhu Cilang's northward advance from the Jiangbei Grand Camp had been so fast that it far exceeded Hooge's and Oboi's expectations. They had not even sent out enough scouting riders before Zhu Cilang's great army had already crossed the Chi River.

Under such circumstances, Hooge and Oboi naturally had to be cautious. So on the night of the twenty-first day of the sixth month, they found a high slope on Daqiang Ridge and made camp.

The camp was of course thrown up hastily, with no ditch or palisade, relying solely on cavalry patrolling in all directions for security.

But just as Hooge finished his military duties and was preparing to get a few hours of proper rest, unexpected news came again!

"My Prince, the scouting riders report that tens of thousands of southern barbarian soldiers have been spotted coming from the direction of Dingyuan and have already crossed the Chi River."

"What?" Hooge narrowed his eyes at Oboi, who had brought the report, stunned. "Tens of thousands? Already crossed the Chi River? That many? That fast?"

"There's more!" Oboi said. "They're still marching!"

"What? Still marching in the middle of the night?"

Oboi nodded. "This slave has just come down from the top of Daqiang Ridge. Standing on high ground, I could see their torches! Damn it, like a river of fire, endless, truly tens of thousands!"

Tens of thousands of Ming troops, making a forced night march — where did they come from? Hooge could hardly believe it. Was such an army really the Ming army? They seemed no worse than the Eight Banners! And they were all infantry!

What did infantry marching that fast mean? Not just a rash advance — it meant an elite force making a rash advance!

"My Prince," Oboi asked, "do you think we should send troops out for a night attack?"

Hooge frowned deeply. "Send troops for a night attack? How many men can we put out right now?"

"Only—"

In the middle of the night, after a full day's march, even genuine Manchus needed sleep! So at most three thousand men could be roused for battle.

"What can a mere three thousand do?" Hooge yawned. "Marching at night, and that fast — that is not something weak troops can do!"

Oboi nodded. "My Prince, should we move camp to higher ground?"

"Move camp to higher ground?" Hooge thought it over. "Stay here at Daqiang Ridge and face off against them?"

"Right!" Oboi said. "The terrain at Daqiang Ridge favors us. The slopes are not steep, but it sits right at the gateway to Yingtian Prefecture. If, after taking Fengyang, we combine our forces and fight the southern troops from Daqiang Ridge, our chances of victory would be considerable! And if we win, the gateway north of the Yangtze to Yingtian Prefecture would be in our hands!"

Hooge laughed. "A fine idea. It seems the Zhu family's Crown Prince still does not know how to use troops! Not only has he failed to fortify Fengyang into an impregnable stronghold, he hasn't even deployed heavy troops at Daqiang Ridge!"

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