Chapter 531: This Is Cavalry-Artillery Coordination!

In the Jade Lake traveling palace, the urgent military report delivered by the night patrol had already been placed on Zhu Cilang's desk. Zhu Cilang looked up at Yan Yingyuan, Zhang Yong, and Qin Liangyu, as well as Du Yinxi, who had just hurried over from the Hudukou encampment, and said calmly: "Li Zicheng may have burned the boats that ferried him across the river. This is burning his bridges — he means to stake everything on a fight to the death with us.

Commander Zhang, can your cavalry keep track of the main body of the roving bandits?"

The military report on Zhu Cilang's desk had been brought back by night patrol riders sent out by Zhang Yong. Although his standing within the Left family army was not particularly high — before Zuo Liangyu was enfeoffed as Marquis of Wuchang, Zhang Yong had been only a Vice Regional Commander, and only afterward was promoted to Regional Commander — he was not a garrison Regional Commander with his own territory, merely a "minor Regional Commander." Yet his troops were among the finest fighters in the Left family army. His paper strength of eight thousand was fully manned, with almost no vacancies.

Among them were a full thousand household retainers, all northwestern lads skilled in bow and horse, and they still maintained the configuration of two horses per man — light cavalry that even Zhu Cilang looked upon with envy. Do not suppose that light cavalry is a dispensable branch of service. In a pitched battle between two formed armies, their role is admittedly limited. After all, this is now an age when cannon and firearms dominate the battlefield; how much room is left for light cavalry whose chief mode of fighting is mounted archery? But outside of pitched battle, operations such as scouting, standing guard, screening, enveloping the enemy's rear, and cutting the enemy's supply lines all require a light cavalry force of reliable fighting quality.

The lack of light cavalry is precisely the greatest, and hardest to remedy, weakness of the Hard-Working New Army. Whether the Shun or the Qing, both possess cavalry in enormous numbers, all of which can serve as light cavalry.

On Zhu Cilang's side, however, because there is a shortage of pastureland for raising horses and no channel for purchasing warhorses in large quantities, there is simply no way to expand the number of cavalry.

Apart from the numbers, the quality of the Hard-Working New Army's light cavalry is also highly questionable. The heavy-cavalry shock tactics — the so-called "wall charge" that later generations have praised to the skies — are actually not difficult to train.

After Zhu Cilang made the relevant demands to the two cavalry regiment commanders, Wang Ran and Sun Fugui, the Hard-Working New Army's two cavalry regiments trained bitterly for several months and can now, more or less, launch massed charges at company strength. A true "wall" is still beyond them, but they can maintain a fairly dense formation during a charge.

But skills such as mounted archery and small-unit field survival, mobility, combat, and concealment are not things that a short period of high-intensity training can produce good results in.

Moreover, the outpost skirmishes fought between the two sides' light cavalry are usually also a war of attrition for both horsemen and horses.

For the Hard-Working New Army, inferior in both numbers and skill, the losses of a truly fierce light-cavalry outpost battle are more than it can bear.

In the previous Battle of Blood Flow Creek, if Hooge had not been frightened by the Hard-Working New Army's ironclad cavalry and their revolving carbines, deployed on a massive scale, and had instead insisted on sending out large numbers of cavalry to grind Zhu Cilang down in a war of attrition, then the Battle of Blood Flow Creek might have had a different outcome.

And Li Zicheng, after burning the wooden boats on the Yangtze and cutting off his own line of retreat, has truly thrown caution to the winds, sending out several thousand veteran-camp cavalry, divided into more than a hundred bands, rotating in and out, to begin sweeping the battlefield south of Gong'an county seat.

Zhang Yong shook his head and said: "Your Highness, from noon yesterday the roving bandits have been sending out large numbers of cavalry, in bands of several dozen riders, skirmishing back and forth from northwest of Shishou Mountain all the way to Hutou Mountain. My cavalry number only a thousand, and truly cannot hold them off, so I had no choice but to pull them back and keep watch between Tangjia Mountain and the Gong'an county seat."

"Tangjia Mountain?" Zhu Cilang was not very familiar with the terrain around Gong'an. "Where is it?"

Du Yinxi said: "It is beside the Hudu River, about thirty or forty zhang high — just a small mound of earth, a little over thirty li from the Gong'an county seat. At the foot of Tangjia Mountain there is also a Lotus Flower Temple. Because the Hudu River often floods, the temple was built very solidly, with flood-prevention dikes all around."

Zhang Yong said: "If we hold Tangjia Mountain and Lotus Flower Temple, we can control the Hudu River. The Hudu River connects to Hudukou, and our main army at Jiangling and under Huya Mountain can then advance along the water route. So the gain or loss of Tangjia Mountain and Lotus Flower Temple is a matter of life and death, victory or defeat!"

Zhu Cilang, of course, would not pin his hopes of crushing Li Zicheng on men like Qiu Lei, Zhang Yong, and Jin Shenghuan.

Upon discovering that Li Zicheng might strike at Gong'an, Zhu Cilang immediately ordered Wu Guoyong, who was preparing to attack Huya Mountain, to turn his troops around.

But Wu Guoyong's force had a good number of cannon and baggage, and transporting them overland was very laborious. In this age, because casting techniques were still not very advanced, even a three-pounder bronze cannon was not light; a piece weighing several hundred jin, once mounted on a gun carriage, came to over a thousand jin. And to support the artillery in prolonged combat, each cannon also required an ammunition cart.

In addition, each artillery company had to be equipped with a mobile blacksmith's forge for repairing damaged cannon and gun carriages, and sometimes also with some road-building engineers.

So the four artillery companies of the New Army's Right Division required a great number of draft horses to achieve mobility, and the shortage of horses was a constant vexation for Zhu Cilang's New Army.

Therefore, whenever possible, the New Army's artillery officers preferred to move their cannon and vehicles by boat, to save wear on the horses. Because of the lack of quality draft horses, the Hard-Working New Army had no choice but to make do with inferior horses purchased from the southeastern civilian market, which in turn caused the horses to wear out quickly — small horses pulling big carts naturally lack the strength and easily drop dead from exhaustion. And because there was no good source of supply, when buying horses they could only lower their standards; many of the draft horses were sickly to begin with, and once overworked they died all the more easily.

During the New Army Right Division's movement from Jiangxi to Jingzhou Prefecture, quite a few draft horses died of exhaustion and disease! In the rapid march from Hukou Crossing toward Huya Mountain, another batch sickened and collapsed, so Wu Guoyong could no longer move his artillery overland.

Otherwise the last batch of relatively strong draft horses would be worn out — and those were being saved for the decisive battle! Without their exertions, the three-pounders would have no mobility on the battlefield.

"So that is Tangjia Mountain and Lotus Flower Temple!" Zhu Cilang tapped the map spread out on his desk. "Since we cannot figure out where Li Zicheng is, we shall array our forces at Tangjia Mountain and Lotus Flower Temple and await him! As long as Li Zicheng comes, this place will be his grave!"

"Your Highness, where will your central command be positioned?" Qiu Lei asked in a low voice.

Zhu Cilang, of course, would not remain in the Jade Lake traveling palace the whole time. A traveling palace is no fortress; if its location were exposed and Li Zicheng struck it in one wave, that would be the end.

"Enter the Gong'an county seat!" Zhu Cilang said. "Plant Our banner of 'The Great Ancestor, Exalted Emperor, Reborn' atop the walls of Gong'an county.

The Prince of Chu's central command will be placed at the foot of Tangjia Mountain! Commander Zhang, We command you to assist the Prince of Chu and meet the roving bandits in battle at Tangjia Mountain!"

What this meant was that Zhang Yong would command the entire army in place of the Prince of Chu, Zhu Cizhao.

Over the following twelve double-hours, the Ming forces gathered around Gong'an county began their dispositions for the decisive battle.

Zhu Cilang led the cavalry regiment guarding him, one guards battalion, and three newly formed infantry regiments into the Gong'an county seat.

Meanwhile, Zhang Yong commanded the remaining forces — his own eight thousand, Jin Shenghuan's thirty thousand-odd, and the Prince of Chu's household troops of twelve thousand — as they moved in succession to the vicinity of Tangjia Mountain.

They laid out defenses on the western and southern fronts along the winding Hudu River. Then, using Lotus Flower Temple and Tangjia Mountain as anchors, they set up the eastern front. On the northern front they dug a trench five or six li long, running from the east bank of the Hudu River all the way to the foot of Tangjia Mountain. Thus they formed a defensive position roughly square in shape, quietly awaiting Li Zicheng's great army.