Chapter 441: Crown Prince Zhu, Your Scheme Has Been Seen Through! (5 fen)

Hooge had no idea whether Oboi had heard him or not; he simply murmured, "Too quiet, far too quiet."

Quiet? What part of this is quiet?

Oboi was stunned again and again. Twenty thousand troops, nearly forty thousand horses all packed together, and that could be quiet? Men shouting, horses neighing — it was noisy as could be!

"My Prince, it's not exactly quiet?" Oboi looked worriedly at the prince he most revered. The prince had grown thin lately, and his color wasn't good. He must be overworked. Could his ears have gone deaf too?

"My Prince," Oboi went on, "the main camp is full of noise. Are your ears perhaps out of sorts? Should we find a Bureau Director to take a look?"

"What nonsense are you talking?" Hooge turned and glared at Oboi. "We have not yet reached the age of failing sight and hearing. Dorgon isn't deaf, so how could We be deaf?"

But Dorgon is younger than you! Oboi said to himself. He may be your uncle, but he's not old — only thirty-four. You, the nephew, are already thirty-seven. What if you can't outlast Dorgon?

"We mean the Ming army over there is too quiet!" Hooge said irritably. "Oboi, what have you been doing standing here with Us all afternoon?"

Doing what? Fanning Your Highness. Oboi held a fan in his hand and had been fanning all afternoon; his arm was getting a little sore.

Prompted by Hooge, Oboi hastily turned his attention to the Ming army's main camp. He watched for a while, then cocked his ear and listened for a while, and finally noticed something wrong.

It really was too quiet!

A military camp was a place of stern discipline, where clamor was strictly forbidden. But how could a gathering of tens of thousands of troops possibly be this quiet? They still had to train, still had to prepare for battle — how could they be so silent? Could tens of thousands of troops all be sleeping?

It's daytime now. Sleeping in broad daylight — what are they planning?

Oboi frowned. "My Prince, could that be an empty camp?"

Hooge's brow furrowed slightly. "Perhaps it's the empty-camp ruse, and the southern army's main force has already taken side roads to relieve Fengyang. Or perhaps the main force is still in camp resting!"

"Resting? Sleeping in broad daylight?" Oboi tensed at once. "The southern bandits mean to attack by night?"

Hooge's brow knit tight. "Sleeping by day is naturally for moving by night."

"My Prince," Oboi asked quickly, "what should we do?"

Hooge's frown deepened. "We too shall prepare for night battle! Send our finest bayara guards to reconnoiter. We must get a clear picture of the southern bandits' movements — above all, find out whether they will divide their forces."

"They're bound to divide their forces!" Oboi said. "They have so many men that they can't possibly deploy on this Great Spear Ridge. They'll come in at least two columns, possibly three!"

Hooge drew a breath. "If they truly divide their forces, our chance for a complete victory has come!"

"Your Highness is brilliant!" Oboi said admiringly. "No matter how many columns they come in, we only strike at one!"

"We shall strike eastward!" Hooge paused, then added, "The terrain to the west and south is rugged, unfavorable for deploying our cavalry. The north is open, but there may be no enemy there. And Zhu Cilang is not ignorant of the principle of leaving one side open."

Moreover, we have seen the southern army's formation — it is by no means a rabble. Even if we concentrate our strength to strike one of their columns, we have no certainty of victory. So we must prepare for both outcomes. If we fail to win, the whole army withdraws north to the Chi River at once. If we strike west or south, retreat will not be easy.

So this time We stake everything on the east of Great Spear Ridge! The moment the southern bandits' main force is discovered moving out by night, we shall leave a small force to hold the camp and delay them, while the main force marches east out of Great Spear Ridge and forms battle lines west of Qingliu Creek."

"My Prince, who will stay behind to hold the camp?" Oboi pressed.

"Bahana. Have him take Abatai's three niru to hold the camp, with some Han troops and booi added to the garrison!"

The man Hooge had named as cannon fodder was called Aisin Gioro Bahana, a grandnephew of Nurhaci, of the Bordered White Banner, one of Dorgon's brothers' men, posted to the Plain Blue Banner as gūsa ejen — in truth, he was there to keep watch on Hooge.

And the three niru belonging to Commandery Prince Abatai of Raoyu were likewise grit in the Plain Blue Banner. The Eight Banners' manpower was not divided by banner but by niru. In the present Great Qing, only princes and beile who held true Manchu niru were true princes and true beile! Abatai had always been neglected among Nurhaci's sons, yet he still had the strength of three niru. These three niru had not originally belonged to the Plain Blue Banner, but had been stuffed in when Hong Taiji reorganized the Plain Blue Banner, becoming a small faction within it.

The eighteenth year of Chongzhen of the Great Ming, the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, at dusk.

The Qingliu Pass camp, silent all day, suddenly came alive. Men shouted and horses neighed without cease, and countless columns of cooking smoke rose at once — according to plan, the battle and the pursuit after it would likely last three days. So before tonight's sortie, the cooks of each battalion needed to prepare a fine pre-battle meal and three days' dry rations for the troops going out to fight!

In addition, to confuse the Qing army across the way, quite a few soldiers were sent out in full kit, carrying axes and saws, to fell trees around the Ming camp, putting on the appearance of expanding the Qingliu Pass fortifications.

As for whether this pretense could deceive Hooge and Oboi on the hill opposite — only Heaven knew.

By now Zhu Cilang's Hard-Work New Army was not inferior to the Eight Banners troops in military discipline, and in many arrangements it was superior. But now that the moment of decisive battle had truly arrived, the fifty-six-thousand-strong army still could not avoid confusion and over-excitement, and the commotion of pre-battle preparations was enormous.

"Thousand Years, this is an express report from the Dingyuan garrison post. It is marked urgent."

In the main hall of the garrison commandant's yamen inside Qingliu Pass, Li Yan came striding in quickly, holding a report that had just arrived.

The hall was already crowded with people reporting to the Crown Prince on the assembly and readiness of the various units.

"All regiments of the Forward Division have finished assembling. They can march once they've eaten!"

"The Center Division's two cavalry battalions have already been sent out. Word has come back — they've had a brush with the Tartar cavalry!"

"Your Highness, the First Division's two cavalry battalions are also setting out at once."

"Thousand Years, the brothers of the Rear Division have finished their evening meal and are only waiting for the order to march!"

Only after the four division commanders had finished their reports one by one, and Zhu Cilang had finished his words of encouragement, did Li Yan hand over the newly arrived report.

The news in the report was not good! Night scouts sent out by the Dingyuan garrison post had discovered roughly twenty thousand Qing troops moving south from the direction of Fengyang Prefecture!

So as not to dampen the high spirits of the four division commanders — Hao Yaoqi, Wang Qi, Wang Ran, and Chen Yidao — Li Yan waited until they had left before handing the report up.

"Twenty thousand?" Zhu Cilang frowned. "They've left the Fengyang palace grounds unassailed and come south to die."

This truly was outside Zhu Cilang's expectations. He had assumed the traitors besieging Fengyang would not be so zealous as to march south to their deaths.

"Your Highness, the Tartar caitiffs on Great Spear Ridge number about twenty thousand. If another twenty thousand coming south join them, that makes forty thousand."

Wu Sanfu was also at Zhu Cilang's side. The moment he heard the Qing army had reinforcements, he grew nervous at once.

"Forty thousand is forty thousand," Zhu Cilang said, unruffled. "We have fifty-six thousand!"

Isn't fifty-six thousand bigger than forty thousand? So from a mathematical standpoint, victory was still assured!

Li Yan said, "If the Tartar caitiffs' reinforcements don't dare march at night, they won't arrive until tomorrow afternoon."

"Then there's nothing to fear!" Zhu Cilang laughed. "Perhaps after smashing the true Tartars, we can still scoop up some Han troops and Green Standard troops to fight. If this battle can shatter forty thousand of the eastern barbarians' army, the situation in the southeast will be secure!"

He paused. "The time is about right. Let us march while the sky is neither fully light nor fully dark!"

The fifty-some-thousand-strong army split into two columns and grandly marched out of the Qingliu Pass camp. Of course this could not escape the white-armored troops Hooge had sent out — if they couldn't spot this, wouldn't they be no better than the Eight Banners lords who carried birdcages and smoked opium? The white-armored troops of today were the ancestors of those lords, and formidable indeed!

But Zhu Cilang, Shi Rui'en, Li Yan, and Wu Sanfu did not care about being spotted by the Qing army's scouts and roving cavalry.

Because an army spread out in camp could not simply assemble at a moment's notice. Moreover, Li Yan and Shi Rui'en would soon lead the Forward Division and Rear Division in an attack on the Qing army atop Great Spear Ridge.

At that moment, if the Qing army hastily adjusted its dispositions to deal with the two divisions led by Zhu Cilang and Wu Sanfu sweeping around from the east bank of Qingliu Creek, they would very likely be shattered outright by the Forward and Rear Divisions of the Hard-Work New Army!

These two divisions — especially the Forward Division — had formidable combat power. According to Shi Rui'en, this division's fighting strength could basically be taken to the German battlefields and matched against Gustavus Adolphus's Swedish army. They might not win, but the exchange ratio would not be too ugly!

(End of Chapter)