Chapter 833: How Did It Come Down to Just Defending Cities?

The gunfire Sun Yanji heard was from twenty Ming flintlock musketeers opening fire on one of his patrol squads. Although Sun Yanji was greedy and lecherous and had no great ambitions, he had still fought several battles alongside his father Sun Long and had studied the art of war. So his arrangements when encamping at night were quite proper from the start — he not only posted sentries on high ground, but also sent troops out of the village to patrol along the low perimeter wall.

And this patrol squad of twenty-odd men happened to run straight into twenty Ming musketeers — the "black gun soldiers" who had dismounted from their mules — advancing under cover of darkness with bayoneted rifles. Those who could serve as "black gun soldiers" were naturally all excellent marksmen, but they did not choose to open fire at a longer distance. Instead, shoulder to shoulder in a single rank, they pressed forward with rifles leveled.

Because it was dark, and the men were somewhat night-blind, Sun Yanji's patrol never clearly saw that the enemy was coming at them with firearms. They thought the enemy was carrying short guns or some kind of long-handled chopping blades, so they grabbed their own weapons and went to meet them. Only when they got close did they realize the others seemed to be holding firearms — but there were no match cords. Could they be using their firearms as short clubs?

Before any of them could figure it out, the enemy had already halted, aimed, and fired! Because the range was short, the shots were extremely accurate! A single volley knocked down twelve or thirteen men! The remaining Sun-family patrol soldiers were so terrified their legs went weak, and even turning to flee was clumsy. Then they took another volley, and of the twenty-odd men, only a few managed to run back. Meanwhile, the ten horse archers covering the Ming musketeers spurred their horses forward after them, and seized the moment when the Qing troops guarding the village gate opened it to let their own men back in — they launched a charge! They rode straight into the village, then hacked and slashed, catching the Qing troops completely off guard and throwing them into total chaos.

And the Ming musketeers, having fired their two volleys, reloaded and followed into the village as well. When they saw a lone Qing soldier, they stabbed him with their bayonets; when they saw a group of the enemy, they blasted them with their muskets.

Though their numbers were small, relying on the night raid and the deadliness of their firearms, they stunned every Qing soldier in the village. Sun Yanji at first tried to organize resistance, but he quickly realized his side simply could not be organized, and the gunfire was getting closer and closer to his own position.

Knowing the situation was lost, he had no choice but to mount up with a few personal guards and break out. Who could have known that the moment he left the village, he would be spotted by a Ming mounted gunner unit of unknown strength? One charge scattered Sun Yanji's men until he was left completely alone. Fortunately, his warhorse was very fast, and his personal guards fought desperately to hold the enemy off for a moment, so he escaped with his life and ran back to find his father.

And his father Sun Long, along with Fan Wencheng, who was defending Liaocheng, had been receiving a steady stream of bad news ever since the eighteenth day of the ninth month of the sixth year of Hongxing — reports of their grain-collecting parties, patrol squads, and various other small units being utterly routed by the invading Ming army.

The twentieth day of the ninth month, Liaocheng.

Fan Wencheng, the Qing Dynasty's Pacifying-South Prince, was making an inspection tour of the city wall in full armor, his bearing bold and spirited. Liaocheng had been broken once by Zhu Cilang nearly six years earlier, and it was then that Kong Youde had smashed open the back of his own skull with a brush-washer and died for the Qing.

Later, because Dorgon won the Battle of Guishan, Zhu Cilang had been forced to abandon Liaocheng, and so the city had returned to Qing hands.

But when the Ming army withdrew, they had still destroyed Liaocheng's original walls and most of the buildings inside the city.

And after Kong Tingxun took over Liaocheng, he began to economize and build fortifications.

After nearly five years of construction, by the time Kong Tingxun followed Ajige to defeat at Jieshi Mountain and lost his title of Pacifying-South Prince, the great bastion fort of Liaocheng was basically complete.

A bastion fort built over five years was naturally extremely strong! Moreover, after the signing of the Japan-Mongolia Agreement, the Qing side had obtained some engineers from Hispania, and the standard of fortress construction had improved as well. Thus the Liaocheng bastion had been built to a state of impregnable solidity!

But this impregnable bastion also had a drawback: it was simply too small. Liaocheng had always been small, only one square kilometer, and it was built on an island in the middle of a lake. Without filling in the lake, there was simply no way to expand it.

So Kong Tingxun could only build a four-cornered bastion on that one square kilometer of ground. Because space had to be left for the gun platforms at the four corners, the walls had to be drawn inward, and in the end the interior area of the bastion was not even forty percent of the original!

Into that palm-sized place, tens of thousands of people were now crammed — truly packed shoulder to shoulder. To exaggerate slightly, there was not even room to turn around.

Still, the fortress looked extremely solid. It should be defensible!

Thinking of this, he nodded heavily: "We can hold it! Vice Regional Commander Sun, Lord Jin (Fan Chengmo), Anping and Dezhou are fortresses no less formidable than Liaocheng. If we stake our lives on it, we can always hold out! As long as we can hold for a year or half a year, the court will be able to send troops to relieve us!"

Fan Chengmo listened to Fan Wencheng's words, but his thick brows were tightly knitted, and he looked deeply troubled.

"Lord Jin, if you have thought of something, say it plainly!" Fan Wencheng said to his son.

"Father," Fan Chengmo said, "your son is thinking of the Battle of Dalinghe and the Battle of Song-Jin."

Both of those battles had followed the strategy of besieging a city to strike at the relief army, and the results had both been excellent! The Battle of Dalinghe had dealt a heavy blow to the Ming army's Liaodong group. Of the three great Liaodong commanders of Yuan Chonghuan's era, two — Zu Dashou and He Kegang — had been ruined in that campaign. He Kegang died, and Zu Dashou first surrendered and then escaped, but the Zu family army was basically finished and was no longer an elite force in Liaodong. Add to that Zhao Shuaijiao's death in the earlier Jisi Incident (his troops were also completely wiped out), and the most combat-capable units of the Liaodong army had already ceased to exist after Dalinghe.

And the later Battle of Song-Jin had gone even further, annihilating the Ming army's strategic main force — one could say it directly led to the later Jiashen Incident!

Now Fan Chengmo had actually thought of the Battle of Dalinghe and the Battle of Song-Jin. Clearly, he was casting the present Qing army in the role of the Ming army in those two battles.

"It won't come to that, it won't come to that," Fan Wencheng said with a laugh. "The Ming army is powerful, but they have no great general comparable to the Imperial Uncle. They no longer even have commanders of the caliber of Hong Chengchou or Sun Chuanting, so how could they possibly win great victories like Dalinghe and Song-Jin? Moreover, the preparations at Liaocheng, Dezhou, and Anping are far beyond anything Dalinghe Fort or Jinzhou could compare with. We need only defend the cities well, and we will surely wait out this crisis."

He paused. "Still, the Ming army's strength is not to be underestimated. Let us withdraw the troops from the other fortresses back to the three cities of Liaocheng, Dezhou, and Anping!

We shall defend these three fortresses!"

"Your Majesty, both Liaocheng and Anping look difficult to take by assault. I have not seen Dezhou, so I cannot judge it. By comparison, the Qing army's great camps north and south of the Yellow River will be much easier to deal with."

The one speaking with Zhu Cilang was the Prince de Condé!

He was now working together with Li Yan in charge of a general staff, to help Zhu Cilang command the hundreds of thousands of troops in the Northern Expedition!

To be honest, such a grand military undertaking was also his first experience.

"Your Highness," Zhu Cilang said in French, "you have seen the great camps north and south of the Yellow River? How do you know they will be easy to deal with?"

The Prince de Condé smiled: "Your Majesty, although I have not seen the Qing army's great camps north and south of the Yellow River, your military staff office has detailed information on that area, including maps and hydrological data."

"How much time would it take to take the Qing army's great camps north and south of the Yellow River?" Zhu Cilang asked.

"There is no need to take both," the Prince de Condé said. "Taking the great camp south of the Yellow River will be enough. If we strike this winter, then by next spring — perhaps the second month of the Chinese calendar — it should be in our hands."

"And the losses?" Zhu Cilang asked.

"That depends on the circumstances," the Prince de Condé said. "But they will not be too great. A few thousand men at most."

"Who should be sent?" Zhu Cilang asked. "Your Highness, you do not intend to command in person, do you?"

Zhu Cilang had no intention of going to the front line to command in person now, because he already had a large number of excellent officers who had attended Condé's cram school. But he also did not want to hand the army over to a French prince.

"General Yan!" the Prince de Condé said. "Please entrust him with a field army corps of over one hundred thousand men!"

(End of Chapter)