Chapter 443: Cannons Reduce Them to Ash (Fifth Update!)

Hooge had no idea whether Oboi had heard him or not; he merely murmured, "Too quiet. It's truly too quiet."

Quiet? What part of this is quiet?

Oboi was baffled again and again. With twenty thousand troops, and nearly forty thousand horses all packed together, how could it be quiet? Men shouting, horses neighing — it was noisy as could be!

"My Prince, it isn't very quiet at all?" Oboi looked with some concern at the prince he most revered. The prince had grown thin lately, and his complexion was poor. It must be overwork — could his ears have gone deaf as well?

"My Prince," Oboi said again, "the camp is terribly noisy. Could something be wrong with your ears? Perhaps we should find a Bureau Director to take a look?"

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

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

"We mean it's too quiet over on the Ming side!" Hooge said irritably. "Oboi, what have you been doing standing here with Us all afternoon?"

Doing what? Fanning you, my Prince. Oboi held a fan in his hand; he had been fanning all afternoon, and his arm was getting a little sore.

Prompted by Hooge, Oboi hastily turned his attention to the Ming camp. He watched for a while, then cocked his ear and listened for a while, and at last noticed what was wrong.

It truly 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 be this quiet? They still had to drill, still had to prepare for battle — how could they possibly be so silent? Could tens of thousands of troops all be sound asleep?

It was broad daylight. What were they up to, sleeping in the daytime?

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

Hooge's brows knitted slightly. "It may be an empty-camp ruse, with the southern army's main force already gone by side roads to relieve Fengyang. Or perhaps the main army is still in camp, resting!"

"Resting? Sleeping in broad daylight?" Oboi tensed at once. "Are the southern bandits planning a night raid?"

Hooge's brows furrowed deeply. "Sleeping by day is naturally for moving by night."

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

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

"They're certain to divide their forces!" Oboi said. "They have so many men that they can't possibly deploy here at Daqiang 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!"

"My Prince is brilliant!" Oboi said admiringly. "We don't care how many columns they come in — we only strike at one!"

"We shall strike only to the east!" Hooge paused, then went on. "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 the principle of leaving one side open is something Zhu Cilang would surely understand.

Besides, we have seen the southern army's order of battle; they are 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 at once to the Chi River. If we strike west or south, retreat will not be easy.

Therefore, this time We stake everything on the east of Daqiang Ridge! The moment we discover the southern bandits' main force moving out by night, we shall leave a small force to hold the camp and delay them, while our main force sallies east of Daqiang Ridge and forms up west of the Qingliu Stream to await them."

"My Prince, who shall be left to hold the camp?" Oboi pressed.

"Bahana. Have him stay behind with Abatai's three niru, plus some Han troops and booi to hold the camp!"

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

And the three niru belonging to Raoyu Commandery Prince Abatai were likewise grit in the Plain Blue Banner. The Eight Banners' manpower was not divided by banner but by niru. In the Great Qing of today, only a prince or Beile who held true Manchu niru was a true prince, a true Beile! Abatai had always been disregarded 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 twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, 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 had to prepare a fine pre-battle meal and three days' field rations for the troops going out!

In addition, to deceive 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 Qingliu Pass.

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

By now, Zhu Cilang's Improvised New Army was not inferior to the Eight Banners troops in discipline, and in many arrangements it was a cut above. Yet when the moment of decisive battle truly approached, the fifty-six-thousand-strong army still could not avoid confusion and overexcitement, and its pre-battle preparations made a great deal of noise.

"Thousand Years, this is an urgent dispatch from the Dingyuan Garrison post — marked top priority."

In the main hall of the garrison headquarters inside Qingliu Pass, Li Yan, clutching a dispatch that had just arrived, strode quickly in.

Quite a few people had already gathered in the hall, reporting to His Highness the Crown Prince on the assembly and readiness of each division.

"All regiments of the Forward Division are assembled. Once they've eaten, they can march!"

"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 in the rear have finished their supper 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 said his words of encouragement, did Li Yan hand over the dispatch that had just arrived.

The news in the dispatch was none too good! Night scouts sent out by the Dingyuan Garrison had discovered roughly twenty thousand Qing troops advancing 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 dispatch up.

"Twenty thousand?" Zhu Cilang frowned. "They've left the Fengyang palace walls unbeaten and come south to throw their lives away."

This truly caught Zhu Cilang by surprise. 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 Daqiang Ridge number roughly twenty thousand. If the 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 men!"

Wasn't fifty-six thousand bigger than forty thousand? So from a mathematical standpoint, it was still a sure win!

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 even bag some Han troops and Green Standard men 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 dark nor fully light!"

Fifty-some thousand troops marched out in two columns, grandly leaving the Qingliu Pass camp. Of course this could not be hidden from the white-armored soldiers Hooge had sent out. If they failed to notice this, they'd be no better than the Eight Banners lords who strolled about with birdcages and smoked opium. The white-armored soldiers of today were the ancestors of those banner lords — formidable indeed!

But Zhu Cilang, Shi Ruien, Li Yan, and Wu Sanfu did not care whether the Qing sentries and roving scouts spotted them.

Because an army deployed and encamped cannot simply assemble at a moment's notice. Moreover, Li Yan and Shi Ruien would very soon lead the Forward Division and Rear Division in an attack on the Qing army atop Daqiang Ridge.

If at that moment the Qing army hastily adjusted its dispositions to deal with the two divisions under Zhu Cilang and Wu Sanfu sweeping around from the east bank of the Qingliu Stream, they would very likely be shattered outright by the Forward and Rear Divisions of the Improvised New Army!

These two divisions — the Forward Division in particular — possessed formidable fighting power. According to Shi Ruien, the division's combat strength could basically be taken to the German battlefields to test itself against Gustavus Adolphus's Swedish army. It might not win, but the exchange ratio would not be too ugly!