Chapter 826: The Great Ming Has Black Guns!

Beyond the concave-shaped Great Wall line of Yulin Garrison and Ningxia Garrison lay the Ordos Loop region, which had been a constant headache for the sovereigns and ministers of the Great Ming ever since the Jingtai era.

In the early years of the Ming dynasty, the Ordos Loop had been firmly under the control of the Ming court, and no Mongol tribe dared to venture deep into the grasslands and deserts beyond Yulin Garrison to run wild. But starting from the Jingnan Campaign, the Ming's northern frontier gradually began to loosen. By the Xuande era, because of the contraction of the northern border defenses, the term "Loop bandits" began to appear. However, these "Loop bandits" were still only small bands of scattered Mongol tribes or robbers who slipped into the Ordos Loop region, which at the time still belonged to the Ming's actual control zone, and they were not yet enough to cause the fall of the Ordos. After Emperor Yingzong of Ming was defeated at Tumu Fortress, the Ming's national defense strength once again declined sharply. In the seventh year of Jingtai under Emperor Daizong of Ming, the Northern Yuan Grand Preceptor Bolai led his forces into the Loop, an event called the "Northern Caitiffs Entering the Loop," and from that time on, the Ordos Loop region was no longer a place where the Great Ming dynasty had the final say. The concave-shaped Great Wall of Yulin Garrison and Ningxia Garrison was also built to defend against the northern caitiffs who had entered the Loop. It was not until the reign of the Hongxing Emperor, the great restorer of the Ming, that Prince of Dai Zhu Cijiong, who had slipped from Datong Prefecture and Lüliang Mountain to Yulin Garrison, Ningxia Garrison, and Yan'an Prefecture, effortlessly dealt with the Ordos tribe, who had been living far too comfortably in the Ordos Loop, and brought this land, lost for nearly two hundred years, back under the great banner of the Ming.

And from the late summer of the sixth year of Hongxing, in order to receive the Ordos tribe, who were crossing the Hanhai Desert southward to escape their enemies, Zhu Cilang placed his princely headquarters camp outside the Great Wall of Yulin Garrison, at the ancient city of Tongwan, one hundred twenty or thirty li from Yulin City.

Tongwan City was located at the confluence of two tributaries of the Wuding River, the Hongliu River and the Heishui River, surrounded by large expanses of grassland, though the water and grass were not particularly lush, somewhat arid, and could not support much livestock. Less than a hundred li north of Tongwan was the Hanhai Desert, and only north of the Hanhai Desert was there truly lush grassland with rich water and grass. The Ordos tribe had earlier centered their nomadic herding on the grasslands north of the Hanhai near the Yellow River, and only in winter, to escape the cold, would they cross the Hanhai southward, conveniently raiding the Ming's Yulin Garrison and Ningxia Garrison along the way. If they could not seize anything, they would demand border markets and ask for trade rewards.

In the end, they ran into the Loan King, who owed a mountain of usurious debt and was even more ferocious and rapacious than the Mongols, and were counter-raided several times. In the end, with no other choice, they honestly took up the business of smuggling arms.

And the arms-smuggling business turned out to be quite profitable. After a few years as an arms dealer, Erinchen and his tribe grew rich, and they no longer had the nerve to go back to being bandits.

Thus, when it came time to choose between the Mongol Great Khan and the Ming Prince of Dai, he unhesitatingly chose Prince of Dai Zhu Cijiong, who could bring him accursed money.

After Erinchen made his choice, the fighting in the Ordos direction was no longer an attack-and-defense contest along the Great Wall line, but a standoff straddling the Hanhai sands.

The Hanhai sands were not particularly large, and there were small oases within them, but the water sources in the oases were scant and easily polluted. Therefore, it was not easy for large armies of either side to pass through, especially in the cold, dry autumn and winter seasons.

But small cavalry detachments from both sides could still move in and out of the Hanhai sands. So the battle later called the "Battle of the Hanhai" by posterity was fought in a pattern where large forces idled on the sidelines while small elite units fired black guns.

That's right — black guns!

The Manchu-Mongol cavalry that entered the Hanhai sands encountered a brand-new cavalry tactic — the black gun!

Because the Hanhai sands were not a vast expanse of yellow sand; scattered throughout were many small oases and hills, making it a sandy terrain of considerable complexity, full of good places for ambushes.

On the eastern side of an oasis called Kankan Well in the Hanhai sands, twenty-some Ming musketeers, wearing sheepskin coats and sheepskin felt hats, looking from a distance no different from Mongols, lay in ambush against the remains of an earthen wall. Their leader was none other than Wang Fuchen, nicknamed Horse Sparrowhawk.

He was now the commander of the Left Cavalry Battalion of Prince of Dai Zhu Cijiong's personal army, with the official rank of Centurion, and counted as a figure of some note in the Prince of Dai's army.

But what he was doing now was not a battalion commander's work — he had personally led a platoon of brothers out to harvest heads!

Although the Ming court's new army no longer recorded merit by heads, the Prince of Dai's army in the northern frontier was still quite keen on cutting off heads. If one wanted to rise rapidly in Zhu Cijiong's army, one had to be good at the craft of head-cutting.

Wang Fuchen was a veteran expert at cutting people, with superb skills in the craft, whether in mounted or foot combat — he was a master of both.

And at the beginning of this year, he had learned a new black-gun technique from Bai Siwen, the deputy military advisor of the Shuofang Army, who had returned from remedial training — somewhat inglorious, damaging his fearsome reputations as "Living Lü Bu" and "Horse Sparrowhawk," but Wang Fuchen had no "chivalric spirit" to speak of. As long as he could cut a few more Tartar heads, that beat everything else.

So now he was dressed in a filthy Mongol leather robe, leading twenty dismounted mounted musketeers, waiting here for Tartar heads to come.

One of his men was at that moment lying on the ground, his buttocks sticking high in the air, his ear pressed to the earth, eyes narrowed as he listened carefully to something. Suddenly he straightened up and shouted, "Heads incoming!"

"Light the matchcords!" Wang Fuchen roared, then raised his telescope and peered eastward. To the east was an expanse of open sandy ground, and near the earthen wall where he lay in ambush were scattered clumps of wild grass and three or five half-dead poplar trees.

The twenty dismounted musketeers already held their turtledove-foot arquebuses in hand. Upon hearing Wang Fuchen's order, they all took out flints and began lighting the matchcords, their movements highly practiced — clearly veterans.

Just as they were lighting the matchcords, a dozen or so cavalrymen appeared in the distance, galloping while firing arrows backward. Their attire was all Mongol-style, but Wang Fuchen knew they were his own men — the horse archers he had sent out to lure the enemy.

The Prince of Dai's army's "black-gun cavalry" now typically operated in platoon-sized units. A full platoon numbered forty riders, of whom ten were horse archers, riding the fastest horses, carrying only bows, arrows, and sabers, wearing no armor, with the mission of scouting and luring the enemy.

Twenty were mounted musketeers, equipped with turtledove-foot arquebuses and sabers, also unarmored. Their mission was to lie in ambush and, after the horse archers drew the enemy in, fire black guns with their turtledove-foot arquebuses.

Another ten were lancers, all the fiercest warriors, equipped with lances, sabers, and breastplates. Their mission was to charge immediately after the "black-gun cavalry" fired their black guns, catching the enemy off guard while they were still reeling from shock.

And the "black-gun cavalry," after firing their black guns, would immediately mount and launch a second wave of assault right behind the lancers.

The horse archers who had initially lured the enemy would then carry out a third wave of assault.

This tactic was very simple but extremely practical, yielding results time and again. If the enemy encountered was not numerous — say, only twenty or thirty riders — they could often achieve total annihilation. Of course, that was against Mongols; the old Manchu of the Eight Banners would probably not be so easy to deal with.

"They're coming!"

Wang Fuchen shouted again, then drew his waist saber: "Await my command! No indiscriminate firing — disobedience means death!"

"Aye!"

All the "black gunners" answered loudly.

These men were all battle-hardened veterans. They did not need Wang Fuchen to hold a blade over them to know they must not fire wildly, but if any of them made a basic mistake, Wang Fuchen the Living Lü Bu would surely turn into the Living King of Hell!

In the distance, the Ming horse archers had stopped shooting and were now galloping at full speed, trying to open distance from their pursuers. Wang Fuchen counted and found there were nine horse archers — one fewer than when they had been sent out.

The pursuers numbered about forty or fifty, and from their attire they were all Mongols!

"They're Mongols!" Wang Fuchen shouted again.

The atmosphere on the scene immediately relaxed.

The Ming horse archers were charging straight toward the low wall where Wang Fuchen and his men lay in ambush. This low wall had originally been the enclosing wall of some village, and through years of neglect and constant collapse it had become the ruined shape it was now, with several gaps one or two zhang wide through which horses could gallop.

In the blink of an eye, the nine Ming cavalrymen charged through the gaps one after another.

The Mongol riders following behind them did not sense the danger, still whooping strangely as they pursued, and some were skillfully drawing their bows and shooting from horseback.

"Aim—" Seeing the opportunity arrive, Wang Fuchen roared without hesitation: "Fire!"

Crack—

Twenty turtledove-foot arquebuses fired at once, and the four Mongol warriors charging at the very front toppled from their horses at the sound!

(End of Chapter)