Chapter 451: The Unstoppable Charge

"The Great Ancestor, the Exalted Emperor, reborn! Invincible in every battle..."

"Boom, boom, boom..."

As Aljin, the candidate for the foremost warrior of the Manchus, rode his tall steed across a shallow ford on Qingliu Creek, about five li north of the Ming army's position, thunderous cheers and the rumbling of cannon fire once again swept over him from the north.

The assault wave driven by Hooge appeared to have been beaten back once more by the Ming army's fierce cannon fire and dense volleys of musket shot!

Aljin, who had spent half a lifetime locked in deadly combat with the Ming army, sighed softly and thought: the Ming army, after taking a beating for more than twenty years, had finally found the one sure way to stand against the Great Qing's celestial troops — training a truly effective artillery corps!

In the past, because the Ming army's artillery corps was so wretched, the Eight Banners' celestial troops had been able to rely on the simple combination of shield carts and infantry archery to gain a clear upper hand in pitched battle.

And after Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and others had led their forces in surrendering, the Great Qing had come to possess a Hongyi cannon corps that surpassed the Great Ming's in quality.

From that time on, the military strength of the Eight Banners' celestial troops had completely overwhelmed the Ming army; apart from the Guannin fortress and a few strong cities, the Great Ming's northern frontier had been left open for the Eight Banners' celestial troops to come and go as they pleased!

Yet such good days had, unexpectedly, come to an end today...

Just as Aljin's spirits were sinking somewhat, the faint sound of brief musket fire came from the southeast! Because tens of thousands of men were cheering to the north and cannon were roaring without pause, the din was tremendous, so Aljin could not hear it very clearly.

But he still reined in his warhorse on the bank of Qingliu Creek and halted, gazing southeast, where countless points of light flickered like a sea of stars — no doubt the bonfires and torches the Ming army had lit for illumination. Against the boundless night, they stood out with striking clarity.

It was now the darkest hour before dawn; the moonlight had already dimmed, but the morning sun had not yet shown itself above the eastern horizon. Visibility on the battlefield was very poor, and anything even slightly distant was hard to make out.

To preserve a measure of surprise, Aljin had not allowed his men to light torches, so the 4,000 true Manchu warriors of the Eight Banners were marching in the dark.

The night-fighting ability of the Eight Banners troops was also extremely strong. They were pampered soldiers, well-off for twenty or thirty years, lacking none of the nourishment they needed — night blindness and the like simply did not exist among them.

Moreover, the Eight Banners troops of this era were at the very peak of their morale; even the rank-and-file bannermen were eager to seek battle on their own initiative. So even on a night when the company commanders found it hard to control their units, the Eight Banners soldiers could still maintain a fighting spirit little different from that of daytime.

The Ming troops, by contrast, suffered from malnutrition, and many were night-blind; moreover, Ming army morale had long been low — even in broad daylight they were unwilling to take the field and fight the Tartars to the death, let alone in the dead of night.

Although this Ming force before them was not quite right, its morale so high as to be almost absurd, its muskets and cannon not only failing to burst their barrels but even able to smash shield carts to pieces — Aljin still believed that the advantage in night fighting and close combat belonged to the Eight Banners' celestial troops... as long as it did not come down to cannon and muskets, the Eight Banners' celestial troops could be certain of victory!

The only question now was whether the Ming army had placed cannon and musketeers on its flanks.

No sooner had the thought crossed Aljin's mind than the sound of musket fire suddenly erupted from the darkness two or three li away — it must be the Eight Banners vanguard running into a Ming musket squad!

The heart of the candidate for the foremost warrior of the Manchus gave a sudden lurch, but he kept up the lofty bearing of a famed general who shows no change of expression even when Mount Tai collapses before him, simply halting his horse by the creek, motionless as a mountain.

The muskets sounded only a few times in succession, and then fell silent. A while later, the rapid beat of hoofbeats approached, and a mounted trooper of the Plain Blue Banner under Aljin's command flew up at full speed, dismounted, performed a swift salute, and reported in a loud voice: "Reporting to the deputy colonel: the vanguard encountered the southerners' patrol scouts. They carried muskets, fired a few rounds, and then withdrew."

"Any casualties among our men?" Aljin asked.

"One man wounded," the mounted trooper replied, then asked, "The colonel sent this humble one to ask what should be done next."

Aljin let out a breath. "Tell him not to act rashly. Dismount first and form ranks, ready shields and bows, then advance slowly."

With the cautionary examples of Duolong and Oboi before him, Aljin did not dare be careless!

"Yes, sir!"

The mounted trooper acknowledged, then turned, mounted his horse, and galloped off.

A colonel following Aljin came forward and asked, "Deputy colonel, should we light torches and advance quickly?"

Aljin shook his head. "They only know we have arrived; they do not yet know our strength or our purpose. There should still be a chance... Do not light torches. Continue to approach quietly!"

Aljin was, after all, a veteran commander with extremely rich battlefield experience. He knew that judging the enemy situation at night was difficult and prone to error, so there was no need to show his hand to the enemy merely to save a little time.

By the banks of Qingliu Creek, on the Ming army's right flank, by the time the sound of musketry came from the front, a breastwork had already been thrown up, and before the breastwork lay a trench left from digging the earth for it. This was the handiwork of the First Infantry Regiment and the Eleventh Infantry Regiment of the Hard-Working New Army, deployed on this line. The reason they had been able to construct the breastwork so quickly was that every unit of the Hard-Working New Army was equipped with many iron shovels — not one per man, but enough to handle the work of digging trenches and raising walls.

And since the New Army's First and Eleventh Infantry Regiments were not equipped with muskets, they had no choice but to work a little harder to ensure their positions held, digging trenches and piling up walls in the middle of the night.

Besides the trench and breastwork, they had also prepared cheval-de-frise spears for the Qing cavalry — long spears lashed together with logs to make the shape of chevaux-de-frise. These cheval-de-frise spears had not been placed on the front line, but were held in reserve behind — wherever it looked as though the enemy was about to break through, the company serving as reserve would carry these cheval-de-frise spears forward to plug the gap.

When the sound of musketry rose from the front, Wang Zhou, the Guard Commander of the Ming left wing, and Tian Qingyi, commander of the Eleventh Regiment temporarily placed under his command, were together inspecting the newly assembled cheval-de-frise spears.

"Associate Commander, it's the scout cavalry firing their muskets!" Tian Qingyi said, slightly excited. "Some Tartars have crossed Qingliu Creek... Perhaps they mean to flee north?"

"Flee north?" Wang Zhou glanced at this Tian Qingyi — a xiucai by origin who had followed Zhu Cilang for just over a year and already risen to regimental commander, a Chiliarch — and his brow furrowed.

The Hard-Working New Army was excellent in every respect now, except that most of its officers were far too green. Plenty of men had risen to regimental and battalion commander in just over a year!

This Tian Qingyi before him was one of them. He had joined the army at Tianjin to follow the Crown Prince. Although he had rendered great service in the Battle of Dagu, then participated in the training of the Model First Regiment as a probationary company commander, and later studied Western military science for three months at the military academy, he had now been promoted to regimental commander — far too quickly...

And these officers who had risen to high rank not long after enlisting were mostly still very young, most in their twenties, and some had even become cavalry regimental commanders before the age of twenty!

These "child" officers were all full of high spirits — to put it kindly, full of youthful vigor; to put it bluntly, they did not know the height of heaven or the depth of the earth!

To make a judgment like "the Tartars are going to run"... those are Tartars!

Scholar Tian, for his part, did not take Wang Zhou, Wang the Pockmarked, seriously at all. He was, after all, a graduate of both the Model First Class and the Military Academy First Class! What he had mastered was the new-style military science that His Highness the Crown Prince valued so highly!

What could an old soldier like Wang the Pockmarked possibly understand?

"Associate Commander," Scholar Tian said with full confidence, "you must not disbelieve it... It is certain the Tartars will run! They have already launched several waves of attacks, and every one has been driven back by Feng Guanshan's artillery. What chance of victory could they possibly have left? Besides, General Shi Yang and Hao Yaoqi are still hammering their rear and may charge up Daqiang Ridge at any moment. When that happens, will the Tartars still be able to escape?"

And indeed, Scholar Tian's analysis was quite reasonable, and even an old soldier like Wang the Pockmarked was persuaded — this Wang the Pockmarked was not cut out to be a great general; he was easily swayed and had no mind of his own, or else he would have become a division commander long ago.

Scholar Tian knew Wang the Pockmarked's temperament, so he thumped his chest and declared: "I'll take two battalions to probe them. If the Tartars really are running, we'll give chase and cut down two or three thousand of them!"

Wang the Pockmarked thought it over, and actually nodded. "Very well, then probe them. Draw two battalions from the reserve. Remember... be extremely careful!"