Chapter 789: The Mutton Soup Really Is Fragrant!

When Oboi saw the cavalry in thick yellow cotton armor forming up about a thousand paces away, an indescribable pain rose in his heart!

Because he knew that these once-elite Manchu troops had now fallen completely behind the times!

Their armor was too heavy, and with the rider's weight added on top, plus the weight of all their assorted equipment, it absolutely came to over two hundred catties! And the warhorses under them were not strong enough — carrying two hundred catties, they simply could not build up a charge.

If cavalry cannot build up a charge, its power is greatly diminished.

So Manchu horsemen had always rarely carried out mounted charges; mounted archery, dismounted archery, and fighting on foot in close combat were their most commonly used tactics.

A mounted charge was usually reserved for delivering the final blow to an enemy infantry formation that had already been thrown into disorder.

Such tactics had been extremely effective against Ming troops who could neither fight in close combat, nor form a solid battle line, nor field any reliable firearms.

But the Ming army of today was no longer what it had been. The firelocks in their hands were no longer mere firewood sticks! And they even had cannons that could maneuver in front of the line!

Using dismounted cavalry or mounted and dismounted archery against them was simply suicide!

Dorgon had already realized this after the Battle of Blood-Flow Creek, and so had begun a series of reforms.

But most of the old Manchus did not agree with Dorgon's military reforms. How could they be willing to set aside the true skills they had painstakingly trained since childhood, to go learn some newfangled thing that did not even look reliable?

And there were interests at stake here!

If the skill of bow, horse, and close combat was no longer the foundation of the Great Qing's state, but was instead replaced by a military system centered on firelocks, pike formations, and cannons, with the Vanguard Battalion cavalry as auxiliaries, then what would become of the interests of the old Manchus of the Eight Banners?

So Dorgon had worked at it for several years, and the only place where reform truly succeeded was the territory beyond the passes under Dodo's command. Beyond the passes there were not so many old Manchus, and therefore not so many rules and restrictions.

And now this civil war within the Great Qing was, to a certain extent, a battle of the "new Manchus" against the "old Manchus." If only one battle could wake up those old Manchus stuck in their ways — otherwise the Great Qing's realm could not last long!

Thinking this far, Oboi raised his lance and roared out: "Erke Chuhur!"

A Solon cavalryman following behind him immediately raised high a long lance bearing a conspicuous black triangular banner.

The black triangular banner was the signal that led the Solon cavalry into the charge!

At this moment, the two thousand Solon cavalry had already formed up in groups of one hundred riders, making twenty hundred-rider charge formations — charge formations of five hundred or a thousand riders were very hard to maintain, requiring long periods of rigorous training to achieve. So Dodo and Oboi had chosen small formations for the Solon cavalry, namely charge formations of fifty or one hundred riders.

Now the twenty cavalry charge formations were divided into two waves, front and rear, and began to move forward at a quick pace — this was an old Qing army tactic: death-soldiers in the front rank, elite soldiers in the rear rank. The elite soldiers pressed the death-soldiers, and all together they charged forward!

These charge formations were actually not all that orderly either; they could not manage perfect squares. They were just clusters of lance cavalry charging headlong.

Amid the rumbling of hooves, the two thousand Solon cavalry raised dust that filled the sky, charging out with an earth-shaking, mountain-trembling momentum!

When Ilde and Sohon's armored cavalry saw Oboi's force charge, they too immediately launched their assault!

The head-on clash between the new and old Manchu cavalry had begun!

Ilde and Sohon's armored cavalry employed a tactic combining frontal assault with skirmishers, detaching a portion of warriors especially skilled in bow and horse to strike at the Solon cavalry's flanks, attempting to disrupt their formation with mounted archery and draw them into battle.

The remaining cavalry, divided into two waves, charged straight at Oboi's force!

But these old Manchu cavalrymen were all armored, and their armor was too heavy, so their charge speed was slow. Moreover, they were all somewhat half-hearted in their charge, thinking about shooting arrows or fighting in close combat, and so they lacked that spirit of charging forward without regard for anything. On top of that, their horses were somewhat inferior, and they had not practiced massed charges much. So their charging momentum fell far short.

In the blink of an eye, the two waves of cavalry had crashed together — this was a collision of two or three thousand riders! The battlefield was instantly a scene of men and horses tumbling over, and no one knew how many were knocked from their horses, no one knew how many collided with the enemy and fell together, no one knew how many had their chests pierced through by the enemy's lances!

But Oboi was completely unharmed, and had not collided with anyone. The cavalry group he was in charged extremely well, breaking straight through the oncoming enemy cavalry group in an instant, and in passing knocked over or struck down seventeen or eighteen riders!

But Oboi did not dare linger in battle. His men were all unarmored cavalry — once they got bogged down in close combat, they were dead for certain! So they had to keep moving at all times, while also avoiding entanglement with the enemy's mounted archers. And the greater danger came from the enemy's "elite soldier" units, because a cavalry mass that had already charged once was in a state of exhaustion, and had to disengage, reform ranks, and let the horses recover their strength before it could charge again.

So Oboi completed his turn while still in motion — not backward, but to the right, cutting across the front of the enemy's elite soldiers and leaving the battlefield to his own rear formation (also elite soldiers).

The old Manchu armored cavalry who had just been sent tumbling by Oboi's Solon cavalry did not react nearly as quickly. Many were still searching the battlefield for isolated Solon cavalrymen, hoping to pick off stragglers, while others were busy rescuing their comrades.

Just then, the Solon cavalry's rear unit came charging up like a collapsing mountain and a roaring sea! Those old Manchu armored cavalrymen who had not withdrawn in time were the first to suffer, instantly overwhelmed by the Solon cavalry.

Then the old Manchu cavalry's rear elite soldiers and the Solon cavalry's elite soldiers clashed head-on once more, colliding, with heavy casualties on both sides.

After the two waves of head-on charges, Ilde and Sohon's five thousand armored cavalry had been thrown into complete chaos, scattered across the battlefield on the right flank of Dodo's great army, and had suffered no small losses.

And the Solon cavalry that had made them so bedraggled numbered a mere two thousand!

But for Ilde and Sohon's old armored cavalry, the disaster was far from over, because behind Oboi's Solon cavalry there were still two thousand old Manchu armored cavalry belonging to Dodo, led by Korqun, the Bayara Banner Commander of the Plain Blue Banner.

By the time the cavalry battle between the new and old Manchus had been decided, the infantry battle on the front line had also been decided!

After committing five fresh infantry battalions, Dodo's "Eastern Army" launched a fierce assault on both the northern and southern lines at Shijia Village. They not only drove Fulehe's remnants out of Shijia Village, but also completely shattered the more than twenty thousand men of Geng Zhongming and Kong Tingxun.

Seeing his cavalry and infantry both so easily crushed by Dodo, Ajige was still unwilling to give up — he felt he still had the advantage of terrain to rely on. So he sent out the armored cavalry he had on hand to fight a small counterattack, temporarily holding back Dodo's infantry, hoping to gather his remnants and retreat toward Jieshan Ridge and Tuofeng Ridge.

At the same time, he sent his son Fulehe, who had just retreated from Shijia Village, galloping to Jianling to see Jirgalang, begging him to immediately send troops to attack Dodo's flank.

When Fulehe reached Jianling, the sun had just passed overhead — it was about noon. Inside the walls of Jianling, cooking smoke curled upward; they were just having their meal!

They were eating mutton soup with dough lumps. The fragrance of mutton soup filled every corner of Jianling. Fulehe, who had been busy since before dawn and had not even eaten breakfast, could not help drooling at the smell — but he gritted his teeth, drove away his craving, and walked quickly toward the sacrificial hall.

Inside the sacrificial hall, mutton and dough-lump soup was also simmering, and it was especially fragrant — this pot had a great deal of mutton in it! And it had been seasoned with quite a few spices; just the smell of it was wonderful!

Jirgalang was sitting in a circle with his son Jidu, the Inner Minister Sonin, the Prince Who Pacifies the South Shang Kexi, and Shang Kexi's younger brother Shang Ke'ai, all of them just starting to eat, steam rising hotly.

Jirgalang had also seen Fulehe, and greeted him with a chuckle: "Come, come, have something to eat with us. Heh heh, freshly boiled mutton soup, made with fat sheep from Mount Jieshi — it's delicious!"

Fulehe was already frantic. "Prince Zheng, are you telling me you came all the way to Mount Jieshi just to drink mutton soup?"

Jirgalang smiled and shook his head: "Of course not. After the mutton soup, there is still proper business to attend to!"

(End of Chapter)