Chapter 532: The Death of Li Zicheng, Part One

On the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month of the third year of Yongchang of the Shun, at daybreak, Li Zicheng, clad in a finely wrought long suit of iron armor with a blue cloth riding jacket over it, sat on horseback on the northern slope of Jinmao Ridge, some thirteen or fourteen li southeast of Tangjia Mountain.

Seven or eight li ahead stood a large Daoist temple called Guangde Palace, now an important strongpoint of the Shun army at the southeastern corner of the former Tangjia Mountain battlefield. Li Zicheng's artillery had made Guangde Palace its base, and thirty-two great general cannons were now arrayed on the open flat ground north of the temple, less than a hundred zhang from the channel of the Hudu River.

These great general cannons in Li Zicheng's hands had all been hauled over from Jiangling; they had been carefully forged by skilled craftsmen of Wuchang Prefecture during Zuo Liangyu's lifetime. They were not the large or medium pieces that fired seven-catty or three-catty balls, but small cannons firing one-catty balls, with cast-iron barrels reinforced by multiple iron bands; not counting the carriage, each piece weighed only three or four hundred catties.

This type of cannon could be mounted on a specially made three-wheeled carriage for field use. But the three-wheeled carriage could not be used in siege defense, because with three wheels, the wheel at the rear of the mount was not removed when firing; instead, an earthen ramp was heaped up behind the cannon to absorb the recoil. On a city wall there was no way to heap up earth, so the cannon had to be taken down and carried onto a stone-built gun platform...

A truly strange design — and who knows who thought it up? Not only was it inconvenient for siege defense, it was also very awkward in field operations, making it hard to shift positions in time.

But for Li Zicheng in the Battle of Tangjia Mountain, the inconvenience of these odd carriages was no problem at all. Because the initiative on the battlefield was firmly in his grasp!

Though this was now an age of roaring firearms, cavalry still held a crucial place on the battlefield — powerful firearms meant powerful killing force, while powerful cavalry meant battlefield initiative.

And on the Tangjia Mountain battlefield at daybreak on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month of the third year of Yongchang, both killing force and initiative, the two advantages that decide victory or defeat in a campaign, were in Li Zicheng's hands!

Of course, his enemy was not without chances of victory.

The Ming army held favorable ground, deploying along the Hudu River, Lotus Temple, and Tangjia Mountain, and had also thrown up simple fieldworks to strengthen their defense.

Moreover, their reinforcements were on the way!

According to the intelligence Li Zicheng had obtained, Zhu Cilang had dispatched at least three so-called "Overcoming-Hardship New Army Model Divisions" to fight in Huguang.

These "Model Divisions" were equipped with powerful firelocks and cannons, were well trained and strictly disciplined, and their soldiers were paid and treated exceptionally well, far beyond ordinary Ming officers and men, so their combat strength was very formidable.

Fortunately, the number of "Model Divisions" was limited. According to intelligence provided by Huang Shu, the Ming army had only six model divisions in all — Huang Shu had stumbled onto it by blind luck; Zhu Cilang had issued only six divisional designations in total, and all of them were now model divisions. He could not possibly send them all to Huguang, could he? He would have to keep two to guard the Huai River line and leave one in Nanjing to watch the house.

Therefore, only three divisions could be moved.

At present, one division was confirmed to be at Xiangjing and Nanyang, one at Hanyang, and one at Huya Mountain. So in the area from Gong'an county seat to Hudu Crossing, there should be no model divisions.

With no model divisions, Li Zicheng had victory in his grasp!

And the Ming army facing Li Zicheng at Tangjia Mountain had behaved very timidly as well — an army of tens of thousands did not dare deploy for open battle, but only clung to the Hudu River, Tangjia Mountain, and Lotus Temple to build fieldworks, presenting the posture of preparing to fortify and hold.

Unfortunately, Li Zicheng's great army had arrived suddenly, and had not given these Ming troops much time to build sufficiently strong fieldworks.

Li Zicheng had arrived with his forces yesterday afternoon, first seizing Jinmao Mountain and Niutou Mountain as his base. Then one part occupied Guangde Temple and began constructing an artillery position there. Another part deployed along the Hudu River west of Guangde Temple and also threw up some very simple fieldworks.

Yet another part was using earth bags at the foot of Jinmao Mountain and Niutou Mountain to block the river channel — this was to divert the Hudu River water flowing from upstream into the continuous paddy fields on the east bank, thereby lowering the water depth of the Hudu River downstream around Tangjia Mountain.

The Hudu River was no great river to begin with, and the water level around Tangjia Mountain was not very deep; if the upstream flow lessened somewhat, then the Shun army could cross the river and attack.

While the main forces of both sides were preparing for the decisive battle, small-scale contact had already begun the previous night.

First came a contest between the two sides' scouting cavalry; after the Shun side prevailed by weight of men and horses, Li Zicheng ordered his "heavy musket men" forward to the bank of the Hudu River to fire, loosing a wild volley at the Ming positions under cover of darkness, while the Ming troops fired back with firelocks of some unknown kind.

The sustained but not intense exchange of fire continued all night, and by full daylight it still showed no sign of ending.

Gu Junen, the military adviser standing beside Li Zicheng, shaded his brow with a goose-feather fan and observed carefully for a while, then said in a low voice to Li Zicheng: "Imperial Lord, our cannons are all in place; we may open fire."

Liu Zongmin, standing nearby, added: "This time we've got more guns than they do — blast the bastards with the big guns!"

Li Zicheng looked at the Prince of Chu's command banner flying over Tangjia Mountain and said to the two of them: "Then let us try... pass the word down: have the brothers give them two hours of it first.

Also, once the heavy muskets have cooled, send them to support the artillery. Concentrate our strength and smash one of Zhu the traitor's columns first!"

Zhang Yong, Qiu Lei, and Jin Shengheng were at that moment accompanying the little Prince of Chu — his face deathly pale, tears welling in his eyes, muttering over and over, "My wife and sister, my wife and sister..." — as they climbed Tangjia Mountain together to observe the enemy lines from afar.

Looking southeast from Tangjia Mountain, the scene was truly spectacular!

Li Zicheng's great army of tens of thousands had already left their temporary camps and was deploying on the battlefield.

They had formed an arc-shaped line, with Guangde Palace roughly at the center and troops deployed on both flanks. West of Guangde Palace, the Shun troops were spread along the Hudu River. East of Guangde Palace, the Shun troops had forded at a shallow crossing and were deploying east of the Tangjia Mountain–Lotus Temple line.

Another force of some two or three thousand cavalry had deployed to the northeast of Tangjia Mountain, constantly threatening the line of communication between Tangjia Mountain and the Gong'an county seat.

At that moment, white smoke suddenly billowed up in front of Guangde Palace, accompanied by thunderous roars — the Shun army's one-catty great general cannons had begun to bellow.

The power of the one-catty cannons was not great, but the several thousand infantry under Jin Shengheng positioned near Lotus Temple by the Hudu River still suffered badly.

Although they had toiled all night, they had not built any solid defensive works — they had no proper iron spades or shovels, and had received no training in construction. They had stuck to their old way of doing things, piling carts, mantlets, and cheval-de-frise together to build an anti-cavalry line along the Hudu River. They had never expected to take a pounding from Li Zicheng's artillery!

This motley assortment of things could not stop cannonballs at all, and when shattered by one-catty shot, the fragments flew in every direction; anyone struck by these splinters was sure to end up with a broken head or bleeding wounds, fractured bones and snapped sinews!

Just then, two thousand Shun heavy musket men came forward in pairs, carrying their great iron muskets, and deployed on the left flank of the artillery position in front of Guangde Palace. Then they opened fire with a crackling rattle — no volleys, no great accuracy, just blasting their lead balls out any which way.

The ones taking the beating were Jin Shengheng's troops, who were something of a rabble to begin with — a small number of Shaanxi men mixed with local braves from the Huai-Yang region, not long formed, poorly trained, and never having fought any hard battles.

It was precisely because their combat strength was unreliable that Zhang Yong had placed the thirty thousand Jin-family troops along the Hudu River, forming the western and southern faces of the Ming defensive position at Tangjia Mountain.

But no one had expected that Li Zicheng would ignore the Ming army's eastern and northern faces, which had no river channel to shield them, and single out the southern line held by the Jin-family troops as the main direction of the Shun army's attack.

And Li Zicheng had cannons besides!