Chapter 535: The Death of Li Zicheng — End

It turned out that just now, when Jin Shenghuan, Sun Fugui, and Zhang Yong launched their successive counterattacks, the Shun army's thirty-some cannons and over a thousand heavy muskets had continued firing, sending hundreds upon thousands of stone shot and thousands of lead balls at the Ming positions.

And the infantry of Jin Shenghuan's unit, who were there taking the beating, happened to have just received the order to fall back a hundred paces. These infantrymen had already suffered "heavy" casualties from the enemy's cannonballs and musket balls, and were panicked and unsettled, so they could not retreat in good order.

Li Zicheng, who had already come down from Golden Hair Mountain and moved to the Shun army's main position to the right rear of Guangde Temple, had been waiting for this opportunity, so he seized the moment and launched more than ten thousand Shun infantry and cavalry into the attack. Infantry in front, cavalry behind, as before!

Of the infantry in front, half carried long spears, and half carried blades and raised shields, forming a dense formation. Seen from afar, the infantry in blue arrow coats and white caps surged forward like a flood. Their ranks could not be called neat, nor did they form any square formation; they still advanced shoulder to shoulder in wave after wave of dense lines, not straight, but crooked and twisting.

Though the ranks were disorderly, the officers' and soldiers' morale was extremely high — the Emperor himself was overseeing the battle now! And the old-camp cavalry behind the infantry were all black-hearted, ruthless sorts; with one order from Li Zicheng, they would cut down deserters without the slightest hesitation. So the officers of every unit and every post stood at the head of the ranks, raising blades and spears to lead the soldiers forward. But the reason for their full drive was not entirely the ferocity of the Roving King's battle supervisors; they also felt that following Li Zicheng still offered a future.

In the present Shun dynasty there was no gentry-landlord class, nor any great profiteering merchants; the social hierarchy was especially simple. At the very top was Li Zicheng, the Emperor; below him were the ennobled nobles; below the nobles were the old-camp veteran soldiers; below them were new adherents like themselves; and at the very bottom were the farmers and the small number of craftsmen in the government-run handicraft workshops.

If one wanted to become an official and obtain a larger estate, there was only one path: kill the enemy and win merit!

Once enough merit was accumulated, one could rise to the old camp, and then there would be an estate and a wife. Moreover, the status of old-camp soldiers and ennobled nobles could both be inherited.

As long as the Shun dynasty lasted a single day, these two groups of theirs would be men above men!

It could be said without exaggeration that they were now fighting to win the world for themselves and their descendants — how could their drive possibly be lacking?

Row after row of long spears rose and fell as they advanced; a full five or six thousand infantry came roaring and rumbling forward. Behind them were more than four thousand cavalry, clustered around the great banner bearing the character "Roving"!

Seeing the Shun army's momentum, the Ming troops opposite were already cowed before the battle began, and all of them cast the order to fall back a hundred paces to the back of their minds; once they started retreating, they could not stop.

Jin Shenghuan, who had already withdrawn from the front line, had no choice but to draw fresh troops from the western side of the Ming battle formation, and together with his several hundred household retainers, formed a new defensive line west of Tangjia Mountain, attempting to stop Li Zicheng's breakthrough.

And this wave of retreat on the Ming army's southern line immediately reduced the fruits of Zhang Yong's and Sun Fugui's counterattacks to nothing.

Zhang Yong, who had just occupied the Shun army's artillery position, had no choice but to hastily set a few fires and then hurriedly withdraw, heading for Tangjia Mountain. The Shun artillerymen who had earlier fled then returned to the battlefield, put out the fires the Ming troops had set, righted the cannons the Ming troops had toppled, and after a final count, found that twenty-five cannons could still be used, while the others needed repairs because their carriages were damaged.

And after the line at Hudu River was lost, Tangjia Mountain was the Ming army's most important strongpoint on the battlefield.

Once it fell, the tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield would lose their anchor, and would likely become prey for the Shun army to hunt down!

But after directing his main force to break through at Hudu River, Li Zicheng did not immediately attack Tangjia Mountain; instead he shifted his forces to besiege Lotus Flower Temple.

This temple was the junction of the defensive lines of Zhang Yong's and Jin Shenghuan's units; about fifteen hundred men of the Zhang and Jin commands were defending there. Most were archers and musketeers, relying on the temple's sturdy outer walls to shoot arrows and fire muskets with all their might.

They actually beat back several rounds of Shun army attacks!

And their blocking action also gave Jin Shenghuan and Zhang Yong the chance to regroup their forces and fight again.

Li Zicheng watched his troops get beaten back several times in succession, leaving a field of corpses before Lotus Flower Temple, and knew he could not force the assault, so he had to restrain his impatience and readjust his deployment.

He first rebuilt a battle line facing the Ming army, between the west side of Lotus Flower Temple and the east bank of Hudu River, with its back to the eastward-flowing Hudu River.

At the same time, Li Zicheng ordered his artillery to cross the river and move to the southwest of Lotus Flower Temple, redeploying there, preparing to use them to destroy the temple's outer walls.

This was a time-consuming and laborious task; not only did the cannons have to be moved, but earth had to be piled up as well. It would not be finished in less than two or three double-hours.

Li Zicheng also knew these cannons were inconvenient to use, so while patiently waiting, he brought up heavy muskets to fire at the Ming army's newly formed battle line.

This kind of heavy musket, which required two men to operate, was simply a weapon tailor-made for an army with cavalry superiority.

The heavy musket fired relatively far; its effective range was not below that of the turtledove-foot arquebus, and exceeded that of the bow. But its rate of fire was too slow, and loading was too troublesome. The side without cavalry superiority found it very hard to use them well; one moment of carelessness and the enemy's cavalry would break through. If one insisted on using them, one had to provide enough long-spearmen and archers to protect them, and the establishment they occupied was too large — a thousand heavy muskets required two thousand men to use, and adding long-spearmen and archers, at least four or five thousand men were needed.

But Li Zicheng's cavalry was formidable, so he sent a thousand cavalry to screen them.

Though the firepower of a thousand heavy muskets could not be called ferocious, the endless "executions by firing squad" were more than the Ming infantry opposite could endure!

Left with no choice, Zhang Yong and Jin Shenghuan had to organize picked dare-to-die troops for another counterattack. But this time they could not attack by circling around the flank, and had to grit their teeth and charge head-on into the heavy musket fire.

In the end, before they had charged far, they were counterattacked by the cavalry Li Zicheng had sent to screen the muskets! Because they had failed to maintain formation during the charge, they collapsed under one charge from Li Zicheng's old-camp cavalry, and fell back in disorder, even throwing the Ming formations behind them into confusion.

Li Zicheng seized the opportunity and immediately urged his forces forward, pressing the attack once more. Jin Shenghuan, with no room left to retreat, gritted his teeth and directed his troops in a desperate resistance.

But how could he be Li Zicheng's match? Even fighting with all his might, he could not hold!

Fortunately, however, the Ming army had initially formed a four-sided square formation, and therefore had considerable depth. Only when Jin Shenghuan's troops were beaten back to the northern line of the square formation did they barely stabilize with Qiu Lei's support.

Li Zicheng, for his part, brought up more than ten thousand infantry and cavalry from the rear, all fresh troops, and handed them to his great general Liu Zongmin, ordering him to command them and continue the attack.

As a result, the two sides clashed in another bloody melee that lasted a full two double-hours. The Ming army, forced back step by step, finally retreated to the east bank of Hudu River, where they steadied their footing with their backs to the river channel.

Steady they were, but Qiu Lei's and Jin Shenghuan's units had still been pushed two or three li to the northwest. Their link with Tangjia Mountain was thereby severed.

The Ming army on the Tangjia Mountain battlefield was thus cut into three large blocks.

Qiu Lei's and Jin Shenghuan's two commands, fewer than thirty thousand men, were crowded on the east bank of Hudu River, facing the more than ten thousand men commanded by Liu Zongmin.

Zhang Yong, protecting the Prince of Chu, Zhu Cizhao, held Tangjia Mountain with more than ten thousand men. Tian Jianxiu, commanding twenty thousand troops, surrounded Tangjia Mountain completely.

Li Zicheng personally commanded more than ten thousand infantry and cavalry, plus two thousand heavy-musket men and artillery, besieging Lotus Flower Temple.

And on the edge of the Tangjia Mountain battlefield, Sun Fugui led fifteen or sixteen hundred armored cavalry, skirmishing with two or three thousand Shun light cavalry.

The situation on the battlefield still seemed quite favorable to Li Zicheng, the Yongchang Son of Heaven of the Shun!