Chapter 759: Stand Still — You're About to Be Shot by Cannon!

Troops have no fixed formation, just as water has no fixed shape.

The war on Sakhalin Island has indeed taken an unexpected turn!

Oboi's force landed on Sakhalin from the northern part of the island — a total of 1,000 Solon cavalry, 150 Han Chinese artillerymen of the Plain Blue Banner, 200 regular troops of the Bordered Yellow Banner from outside the Pass, 150 booi bondservants of the Bordered Yellow Banner from outside the Pass, and 50 "Shangwulin troops" from Nurgan City — 1,550 men in all. The 50 "Shangwulin troops" were the men responsible for trading cotton clothes, salt, ironware, and furs with the eight tribes on Sakhalin; they were all Hezhen people. It was these very men who had run into the Matsumae patrol from Ezo last time, and Oboi had selected 50 of them to serve as guides.

These 1,550 men, plus more than 3,500 horses, three 3-pounder cannons, and some carts, boarded bird-boats crewed by Joseon men who spoke Shandong and Huizhou dialects, and crossed the sea to the island.

After landing, Oboi immediately sent out 40 of the 50 Shangwulin troops — five to each tribe — to notify the tribal chiefs of the Ainu, Nivkh, and Hezhen peoples on the island to prepare to welcome the Great Qing's heavenly troops. He also ordered the eight tribal chiefs on the island to each bring 200 able-bodied men to receive rewards.

Though Sakhalin is by no means small, its population is very sparse. The eight great tribes — the eight great clans — could together muster only two or three thousand able-bodied men. But every one of those men was truly robust! Even Oboi, the foremost warrior of the Manchus, would at best be their equal.

Natives who can survive by fishing and hunting in Sakhalin's harsh environment could hardly fail to be robust!

Yet although they were robust enough, their productive forces were so backward that they had no good weapons to use — even their arrowheads were ground from animal bone. Good enough for hunting, but useless for war.

Oboi had long known this, so he had prepared in advance a batch of eight-li bows, arrows fitted with iron heads, round shields, waist sabers, and long spears, all to be "bestowed" upon the able-bodied men of the eight tribes. He even generously granted them the precious opportunity to win merit by following the Great Qing's heavenly troops. And he slapped his chest and swore that if they only fought bravely and cut off the heads of the Japanese invaders, they could be enrolled in the Nine Banners from outside the Pass and become glorious good slaves of the Great Qing!

With the prospect of becoming slaves before them, the able-bodied men of Sakhalin naturally vied with one another in valor. Seven tribes in all contributed more than 1,600 men — one Ainu tribe at the southernmost tip of the island did not respond, while the remaining seven tribes together mustered over 1,600.

But even with more than 1,600 cannon fodder in hand, Oboi did not dare take the Japanese lightly, and still advanced with great caution.

Sakhalin's terrain is high in the south and low in the north, with much flat land in the north and many mountains in the south. Moreover, north or south, wherever the land is flat there are many rivers and lakes — so many as to be almost unbelievable. The island is also heavily forested, all of it primeval forest; without a local guide, it is easy to lose one's way.

Fortunately, the more than 1,600 able-bodied men of Sakhalin helped with the boats, which allowed Oboi's army to advance southward smoothly.

Still, Oboi remained extremely cautious. Every hundred li of advance, he would choose a strategic point and build a wooden fort, leaving behind a small number of Sakhalin able-bodied men to garrison it, and in this way he pushed slowly forward. After advancing roughly 400 li, reaching a point in the north-central part of Sakhalin, he could go no farther.

For the Sakhalin natives scouting ahead of the column came back one after another with reports that they had encountered a large Japanese force. They could not say how many — in any case, they were coming in numbers that covered the hills and filled the valleys.

It turned out that while Oboi advanced with such caution, his opponent, Japan's foremost military strategist Kusunoki Masayuki, had come driving straight in with a great thrust.

Kusunoki had 5,000 "ronin soldiers," plus 1,000 ashigaru provided by the Matsumae, Nanbu, Sendai, and Aizu domains to carry provisions, forming a "great army" of 6,000 men in all.

These 6,000 men, together with rations sufficient for three months, were shipped onto Sakhalin in three batches. They did not land at the southernmost tip of the island, but chose to land on the western shore of the great bay in southern Sakhalin. After landing, they began building a castle on the south bank of an unnamed great river near the landing site, and named it Akasaka Castle after Akasaka Village, the birthplace of Kusunoki Masashige — striking the pose of a man preparing to become lord of Sakhalin, and truly not treating himself as an outsider!

While Kusunoki Masayuki was busy building the castle, his disciple and army commissioner Maruhashi Tadayoshi led several dozen mounted samurai on a search along that great river. After two days they blundered into a large Ainu tribe. The several dozen mounted samurai immediately spurred their horses and charged in, catching the Ainu completely off guard, and in passing seized several "Qing bandits" who had invaded Karafuto — the very Shangwulin troops Oboi had sent to muster the native able-bodied men.

After harsh interrogation, Kusunoki Masayuki and Maruhashi Tadayoshi learned that the Great Qing had sent 1,500 men onto the island this time, of whom 1,000 were cavalry, and that they had brought three small cannons.

Kusunoki and Maruhashi were both military strategists, and of course they knew that 5,000 soldiers were more than 1,500 soldiers — three against one, with men to spare!

Moreover, the 5,000 men Kusunoki had brought were all samurai of superb martial skill, selected from ronin all across Japan — every one of them a master of arms!

The Qing bandits could not possibly all be samurai. Even at the most generous estimate, only those 1,000 horsemen were samurai; the rest were mere common soldiers.

So this battle was a sure win!

The great strategist Kusunoki Masayuki made his decision on the spot: he left behind the 1,000 ashigaru from the Matsumae, Nanbu, Sendai, and Aizu domains — along with a small number of samurai to manage them — to continue building Akasaka Castle, while he and Maruhashi led all 5,000 samurai northward, each man carrying twenty days' marching rations, traveling day and night in search of battle.

The aim was to catch the Qing bandits completely off guard!

On the first day of the seventh month of the eighth year of Shunzhi of the Great Qing, Kusunoki Masayuki's force finally encountered the Qing bandits at an unnamed river fork.

And the result of that encounter was that the Qing army could not withstand a single blow and collapsed at the first touch!

After his victory, Kusunoki was not about to let the defeated Qing troops escape. He immediately led his entire army in pursuit, winning again on the third, fourth, and fifth days of the seventh month. But because the Qing bandits were cavalry, he did not take many heads.

Eager to win merit, Kusunoki ordered an all-night pursuit. After a furious chase of one day and one night, he finally caught up with the Qing bandits' main force on the seventh day of the seventh month — including more than 300 armored cavalry (the Bordered Yellow Banner cavalry and booi bondservants Oboi had brought), 1,000 musketeers (the Solon cavalry), more than 1,600 archers and spearmen, 150 artillerymen, and three 3-pounder red-barbarian small cannons.

These troops had formed a battle array with musketeers, archers, and spearmen screening the three cannons, and cavalry anchoring the flanks — drawn up before 4,500 Japanese samurai exhausted by continuous marching and pursuit (more than 400 had fallen behind).

At this moment, the two strategists Kusunoki and Maruhashi, who had just deployed their battle formation — the 4,500 samurai drawn up in five squares, with several dozen mounted samurai beside Kusunoki — suddenly discovered that their military learning was no longer sufficient!

This mixed formation of guns, cannon, bows, and cavalry looked formidable! How was it to be broken? The military teachings handed down from Kusunoki Masashige said nothing about it! Neither did Takeda Shingen's "Koshu-ryu" military manual!

Even the "Sun Tzu's Art of War," "Sun Bin's Art of War," and "Questions and Replies between Li Weigong and Taizong" transmitted from China said nothing about it!

Even during Japan's Warring States period, there seem to have been very few battles of several thousand men where cavalry, muskets, and cannons were all assembled together, were there?

Just as Kusunoki and Maruhashi stood at a loss, the Qing army's cannons across from them opened fire!

Though there were only three red-barbarian small cannons, the gunners had been trained by "English experts" and fired both accurately and rapidly. Cast-iron cannonballs came in waves of three, one wave after another, falling among the Japanese samurai of one of the squares. Not a single shot went wide. The balls smashed into the mass of men, then bounced up and swept across in every direction, mowing the samurai down row after row!

Of course, the casualties caused by three red-barbarian small cannons were ultimately limited, but nearly 900 Japanese samurai were not willing to stand there stupidly and be shot to death by cannon!

They had come to Karafuto to win merit and build their careers, not to be shot to death by cannon.

So after enduring only a few rounds of cannon fire, these samurai could hold back no longer. Their unit commanders gave the order to attack, and the samurai who received the order surged forward with wild cries — some brandishing nodachi, some gripping long spears, some leveling matchlocks — and began their assault on the Qing artillery position.

And what awaited them was the rolling volley fire of 1,000 six-monme matchlocks made in Hispania.

(End of Chapter)