Chapter 449: The Tartars Want to Run? (First Update)

Oboi's life was truly tough. He had fainted dead away in the stream water, and just when it looked like he was about to drown alive, Feng Sizhong's side gave the order to cease bombardment, pack up the cannons, and shift positions.

This was because the Ming army's artillery now employed "flying cannon tactics," which emphasized concentrated use and rapid movement — that is, concentrating limited cannons and, through fast maneuvering, committing them to the areas that needed them most.

The Qing left wing, where Oboi was, had charged somewhat faster than the Qing right wing, so Feng Sizhong's "flying cannons" were first pulled over to the Ming army's right wing to open fire.

After one round of grapeshot and a spell of free firing, the Qing left wing had been shattered into disarray, with at least a third of the shield carts struck by three-pounder cannonballs!

And the hard iron balls, propelled by the immense thrust of the gunpowder's deflagration, could often smash the wooden shields mounted on the shield carts to pieces directly! The wood splinters, together with the iron balls that still had force to spare, then swept toward the Eight Banners soldiers behind the shield carts — solid shot thus upgraded itself into grapeshot.

The unlucky Oboi was struck on the forehead by splinters from a wooden shield. Although his helmet was hard enough, and the power of the wood fragments could not compare to a ball fired straight from a cannon barrel, it still knocked out this foremost warrior of the Manchu people...

If even someone as formidable as Oboi was knocked out, the others went without saying — one sweep took down a whole swath of them!

Behind the shield carts, the scene instantly became a hell of carnage. Everywhere were Eight Banners warriors struck by wood fragments flying in all directions. Most did not die immediately, because the power of wood, after all, could not compare to that of shot, but the warriors were still left with broken heads and bleeding faces, fractured bones and snapped sinews!

Quite a few others were hit by small wood splinters with sharp edges. Wood that could hardly be called hard, boosted by high velocity, actually gained the ability to pierce cotton armor and mail! The wood splinters, carrying fragments of clothing and armor with them, lodged together into human bodies. Even if they struck no vital point, they could make the staunchest Manchu warrior howl and weep in pain — and if the wounds were not cleaned thoroughly enough, most of these warriors would ultimately die of wound infection!

The sudden blow and the heavy casualties brought nearly all the shield carts to a halt. The Qing troops were completely stunned. Shield carts, which had always been regarded as the nemesis of firearms, had now been shattered with a single strike — and the splinters of the wooden shields could even wound men!

How was this possible? Could it be that the Ming gunners had worked some sorcery?

Seeing the Qing shield carts stop advancing, Feng Sizhong immediately gave the order to halt the advance and shift positions.

The shield carts on the Qing right wing were still advancing without pause!

And the Ming artillery's redeployment gave the Qing troops behind the shield carts a brief chance to catch their breath — although the Ming Model Army's infantry would still launch a charge, their artillery-infantry coordination still had some problems, so it gave the disordered Qing troops a chance to flee for their lives.

Oboi thus had his life spared. His brother Murima was a company captain of the Bordered Yellow Banner, and he too was on the battlefield at that moment, not far behind Oboi. He had seen with his own eyes his elder brother "shot dead," so after the cannon fire ceased, he rushed forward wailing to collect his brother's corpse. And collect it he did — fishing out the foremost warrior of the Manchu people, his head covered in blood, unconscious, and with a belly full of water.

With Oboi "killed by cannon," Murima naturally took over command. Because of his brother's death, he had no heart to keep fighting, so he gave the order to retreat, and himself carried his brother's "corpse" on his back as he ran toward Great Spear Ridge.

The shield-cart assault of the Qing left wing was thus beaten back!

At the same time, on the Qing right wing, Ildei, the Bordered Yellow Banner company commander, was still straining to drive his troops forward against the Ming army's hail of bullets.

Because the Ming army's cannons had all been concentrated against the Qing left wing led by Oboi, the only thing used to slow Ildei's column was the wall gun.

Blocking Ildei's direct front were three model regiments personally led by Central Army Division Commander Wang Qi. Two of these three regiments were understrength, each having detached one battalion to be mixed with cavalry and placed in the rear as a reserve — combining musketeers with cavalry was a common practice in Europe during the Thirty Years' War, and had been brought to the Ming dynasty by Shi Ruien.

After detaching two battalions, Wang Qi still had ten battalions in hand, totaling 2,400 musketeers and 2,400 pikemen. Seeing the Qing shield carts slowly approaching, Wang Qi gave the order to draw out the wall-gun platoons attached to each musketeer company — the names of the Model Army's organizational levels had all been devised by Zhu Cilang with reference to the organizational names of later-era armies: below the army came six levels — division, regiment, battalion, company, platoon, and squad. A musketeer company had over 120 men, with four platoons under it, one of which was equipped with wall guns, while the other three were equipped with matchlock muskets.

The ten model battalions under Wang Qi had a total of twenty musketeer companies, and the number of wall-gun platoons was likewise twenty — roughly 600 wall-gun musketeers, all first-rate marksmen.

Wang Qi placed the 600 wall-gun musketeers on the front line, formed in three ranks, aiming at the shield carts seventy or eighty paces away and firing in rolling volleys.

The wall gun's heavy ball, weighing one tael and five mace, had enormous power, and even the seemingly sturdy shield carts could not withstand it. The wooden shields on the carts, however, were not quite shattered by the one-tael-five-mace balls — they were merely punched full of hole after hole.

After piercing the wooden shields, these balls still possessed no small kinetic energy, enough to kill or wound the booi bondservants pushing the shield carts.

The cracks of gunfire rang out without cease. With every volley, some of the bondservants pushing the carts were struck by balls — and these were one-tael-five-mace balls! Even the wooden shields mounted on the carts were pierced through with a single shot, let alone human bodies. Whether armored or not, they were blasted with bowl-sized bloody holes, and sometimes an even more terrible hole was opened in a man's back!

Under round after round of wall-gun volleys, the booi bondservants pushing the shield carts forward fell into chaos. Their casualties were not especially heavy, since they were all hiding behind the shield carts, and the Ming musketeers could not aim at them.

But the way the struck bondservants died was simply too horrifying!

And the scene also exceeded the bondservants' imagination — since when did Ming firearms have this kind of power? They could pulp a man's body even through a shield cart?

What was going on? The big wooden shields looked undamaged — how had the bullets hit the men behind them?

Could it be sorcery at work?

At the thought of sorcery, the life-cherishing booi bondservants dropped the shield carts and ran backward. But the Eight Banners soldiers holding the line did not yet know how "formidable the sorcery" was. Seeing the bondservants flee, they drew their willow-leaf sabers and "big sweeps" and charged in for a bout of hacking and slashing, forcing the dog-slaves back to push the carts.

But on the other side, the wall-gun volleys continued, and the bondservants who went back to push the carts were shot dead in even greater numbers. Those who remained were weak in hand and foot, unable to push the shield carts any longer. Some simply flattened their bodies into the water, leaving only their heads exposed, mouths muttering incantations — no one knew which deity they were beseeching.

Seeing that the shield carts had all turned into snails, Ildei was frantic with impatience, but he was not willing to let the true Manchu warriors of the Eight Banners charge headlong — the enemy's muskets could pierce even shield carts, so how could he send true Manchus to their deaths? He therefore sent up the Eight Banners Han Chinese musketeers again.

The musketeers assigned to Ildei had already been in battle once, firing a volley at a distance of over a hundred paces to try to lure the enemy into wasting their fire. It had little effect, and of course they suffered no losses either — across from them there were no twenty-some three-pounder regimental cannons firing grapeshot.

So the two hundred-odd musketeers under Ildei were still intact, and could still be sent to throw their lives away again!

These musketeers knew their trade and understood they were no match for the enemy! They had only two hundred-odd muskets, the vast majority of them matchlock muskets, while the enemy had five or six hundred wall guns alone, and with matchlocks added, surely several thousand!

But they dared not disobey military orders, so they advanced trembling, not daring to form ranks and trade fire, still less to charge into twenty or thirty paces under the wall guns' fire before opening up. They merely scattered, leaned on the shield carts, and fired from long range, not caring whether they hit anything — as long as there was some noise and the errand could be passed off, that was enough.