Chapter 452: All of Them Are Invulnerable! (Requesting Monthly Tickets)

Scholar Tian is bold because of his skill — what does he know of caution?

Before he ever laid down the brush for the sword, he had already thoroughly studied the military classics of all the Chinese dynasties. Later he studied the "Maurician Tactics" under General Shi Yang, and he even created his own "bow-pike combined formation." His Highness the Crown Prince himself praised him as a prodigy of military learning, promoted him a rank, and made him commander of the Eleventh Regiment!

Does a great master of warfare like him still need to be careful? If he really had to be careful, then why come out at all? Wouldn't it be enough to just stay put and hold the position?

So after receiving Wang Mazi's military order, Scholar Tian immediately drew two battalions that originally belonged to the Eleventh Regiment from the reserve force, formed them into two battalion-level marching columns, and with pikemen and archers in the lead, swaggered right out.

Of course, Scholar Tian's "rash advance" was backed by real capital!

Because his Eleventh Regiment was the elite among the "Overcoming Hardship" regiments — it had been formed early, and its manpower had been selected from better stock. In particular, a considerable portion of the Eleventh Regiment's archers were skilled men recruited from Shandong and Huaixi, men who already knew how to shoot. After Scholar Tian took command of the Eleventh Regiment, in order to realize his "bow-pike combined formation," he went to every length to obtain a batch of Kaiyuan bows and splint armor, equipping each battalion with eighty iron-armored archers.

Cao Riling, from Weihai Guard in Shandong, was one of the Eleventh Regiment's iron-armored bowmen. He had originally been a household retainer of a Guard Commander's family in Weihai Guard, and had joined the Overcoming Hardship New Army together with his master's young lord. The young lord had risen to the rank of Adjutant — an officer, however small. Cao Riling hadn't done badly either: because he had joined early, he had been made an Overcoming Hardship meritorious veteran, been allotted fifty mu of paddy land in Yingtian Prefecture, received a small plot of residential land inside Nanjing, and also got a resettlement allowance — money for building a house, taking a wife, and bringing his old mother and father from Weihai Guard to Nanjing to settle down. A very large sum!

At the beginning of the year he had even gotten a month's leave and gone to Shandong to marry the daughter of an impoverished Chiliarch's family as his wife — a sixteen-year-old virgin maiden, married off to a rough, crude old fellow of thirty-odd like him. In the past, he wouldn't have dared even dream of such a thing!

After taking his wife, he also brought his aged parents to Nanjing and settled them in the newly built house, where his own pregnant little wife looked after them.

As for himself, he reported back to camp and sold his life for Crown Prince Zhu — and he had no choice but to sell it! His parents, wife, and children were all in the man's hands, and everything he now had had been given to him by Zhu Cilang!

If he proved ungrateful, the Crown Prince had only to turn hostile, and he could take it all away...

So after reporting back to camp, he did not dare slacken for even half a moment. He not only had to drill formations, but also had to train hard at archery.

Although Zhu Cilang had long since decided on the route of firearms, that did not mean units that temporarily had no firearms available could stop thinking about the problem of fighting.

The officers and men of these units drew the same pay, got the same land and the same houses — why should they be exempt from the 997 grind? So they too had to prepare for battle. Without firearms, then they would fight the way men without firearms fought.

These units without firearms were also organized around the battalion as the basic unit. One battalion had under it two pike companies, one saber-and-shield company, and one archer company. The pike companies were the same as the pikemen in the model battalions equipped with firearms — nothing much to say there.

What differed were the saber-and-shield company and the archer company. The former was the main force in close-quarters melee, but it also had "projectile firepower" — what they threw were javelins. Each saber-and-shield man carried two javelins, and in training he was required to hit a target the size of a watermelon accurately from twenty paces away!

The archers in the archer company were divided into two types. One type was the bamboo bowmen — archers who had come to the trade late in life, equipped with weaker bamboo bows, responsible for volley fire within twenty paces. The "combat skill" demanded of them was relatively low — and there was no help for it: archers had to be trained from childhood. For a latecomer to become proficient took several years, and by then the firearms would already have been issued.

The other type of bowman was the Kaiyuan bowman. These were all skilled men trained since childhood, equipped with the Kaiyuan bow commonly used by the Ming border armies. Though it was also a soft bow, inferior in power to the Qing army's eight-li bow, used well it was still formidable.

And Scholar Tian's "bow-pike combined formation" was precisely about using the Kaiyuan bowmen well. The specific method was to scatter the Kaiyuan bowmen within the "open order" of the pikemen, using the pikemen to screen the Kaiyuan bowmen in combat.

Right now Cao Riling was walking in the middle of a pike company advancing in a six-file column along the official road, a forty-jin draw-weight Kaiyuan bow and a long arrow already in his hands.

Ten-odd paces ahead of him were four saber-and-shield men in splint armor like his own, each holding a thick rattan shield in one hand and a javelin in the other.

These four saber-and-shield men had been specially selected by Tian Qingyi — not only were they skilled at throwing javelins, they all had night eyes.

Cao Riling's eyesight was also very good; he could see far even in the dark of night. Even now, as he walked, he was squinting and peering ahead.

The moonlight in the sky had already dimmed, and the morning sun was still below the horizon; only the stars still shone. With Cao Riling's eyesight, beyond fifteen paces he could see nothing — only a vast black blur.

But he could still clearly make out the back of the saber-and-shield man directly ahead of him.

At the same time, the sound of cannon, gunfire, cheering, and battle cries came rolling in wave after wave like the sea — the fierce fighting on both banks of Qingliu Creek was still going on!

This din and clamor completely masked the sounds made by the two fully armed forces that were cautiously advancing toward each other.

Under the cover of night, the vanguard elites of both sides held their breath and walked toward each other step by step.

Suddenly Cao Riling saw the saber-and-shield man ten-odd paces ahead of him stop in his tracks, as if struck by an immobilizing spell, not moving a muscle. After a moment, he seemed to break free of the spell, abruptly raised the javelin in his right hand, hurled it with all his strength, and let out a roar: "Kill!"

There really are Tartars!

Cao Riling understood at once what was happening!

Immediately after, the sound of suona horns, screams, officers shouting orders, and jabbering cries that Cao Riling could not understand all erupted into a single din.

Tian Qingyi, having finally "caught up with" the Tartars, was so excited he was nearly trembling. It took him great effort to recover a measure of calm, and then he bellowed the order: "Square formation! Meet the enemy!"

The "square formation" he shouted was the so-called bow-pike combined formation. The pike square served as the "walls," holding the center; the saber-and-shield men served as the "moat," ringing the front, left, and right; the archers were arrayed within the pike open order as the "soldiers."

The orderlies following Tian Qingyi immediately blew their suonas and passed the command down. The marching soldiers suddenly shouted in unison: "The Great Ancestor, the Exalted Emperor, lives again... ever victorious in battle!"

After the shout, they swiftly changed formation, shifting from a six-file column into two rectangular squares, one behind the other.

On the other side, a Tartar jalan was advancing on foot, organized by niru. The niru at the very front was half shield-bearers, half bowmen.

They had originally intended to probe the Ming army's left flank, but before they even reached the place, they had run head-on into the Ming troops sallying out!

This gave the niru commander leading them, Lukedu, a terrible fright! In the middle of the night, with the sky so dark, why weren't you Nikan staying obediently in camp? What were you doing out here?

Before he had even recovered from his shock, a javelin came down from the sky and lodged itself in the mud less than a foot in front of his right foot.

If he had taken half a step more just now, he would already have been skewered through!

"It's the Nikan!" Niru commander Lukedu opened his throat and bellowed, "Shield wall! Form shield wall!"

Javelins were no joke! No matter how many layers of heavy armor you wore, they would pierce straight through. Only thick rattan shields could stop them.

The Eight Banners soldiers under Lukedu reacted quickly enough — in the blink of an eye, the Tartars carrying shields had deployed their shield wall. Lukedu also fell back to the rear and stood together with the bow-armed bannermen. Just as he took out his eight-li bow and was about to shoot together with the rest, someone beside him suddenly shouted: "Javelins... raise shields!"

What came flying this time was not three or four javelins, but a full forty of them, riding the fierce wind, whistling as they came!