Chapter 851: How to Save You? The Shunzhi Emperor

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"Commander, we have two divisions, thirty thousand men, available to deploy, and military grain enough to last about ten days."

"The grain supply is a bit short!" Shi Kefa was still somewhat hesitant.

Without the Grand Canal as a lifeline, supplying the northern expedition army would be a real problem! In history, many northern expeditions of the Southern Dynasties and the Southern Song had suffered bitterly from logistics.

So now Shi Kefa had to count his grain carefully as he fought.

"It's enough!" Tian Qingyi said, "Commander, aren't we going to strike at Shunzhi?"

"Exactly!" Shi Kefa said, "The opportunity is rare. If we're lucky enough to catch him, we might take Beijing without shedding a drop of blood, and then there'll be no shortage of grain."

Tian Qingyi laughed: "If luck is bad, it's nothing more than failing to catch him or striking at empty air. If we fail to catch him, that means Shunzhi has holed up in the Tianjin garrison. We'll just besiege him, then send men into the countryside to requisition grain!

Once we've besieged the Manchu emperor, won't the common folk around the Tianjin garrison come out with baskets of food and pots of drink to welcome the royal army? Then why worry about having no food?

If we strike at empty air, that means Shunzhi has abandoned the city and fled. Once their emperor has run off, who in the Tianjin garrison would still dare hold it? We put on a scare, and maybe we can take the Tianjin garrison. With a walled city in hand, why worry about not being able to requisition grain?"

"Hahaha, well said!" Shi Kefa laughed and nodded. "Pass on this Governor-General's order: the whole army is to change direction. Forget those useless Mongols — we're striking at the Tianjin garrison to seize the eastern barbarians' emperor!"

"Aye!"

The dispatch riders around Shi Kefa roared their assent, then galloped off in all directions.

Tian Qingyi, standing nearby, reminded Shi Kefa: "Commander, there's still Commander Gao Jie! He's still west of the canal chasing Mongols. Should we call him in?"

"No need," Shi Kefa said. "There's no point crowding so many men together. Have him link up with Li Yuanyin at Qing County, then march through Dacheng, Wen'an, Baoding County, and Bazhou, then turn east to cut off Shunzhi's retreat."

The task Shi Kefa gave Gao Jie was to thrust between Beijing and Tianjin. In his view, once the Shunzhi Emperor was defeated south of the Tianjin garrison and then struck by his own Governor-General's army, he would very likely abandon Tianjin and head for Beijing — and with bad luck he would run straight into Gao Jie's main force, and then a "Ming Prince Gong" would be in the bag!

The seventh year of Hongxing, the afternoon of the fourth day of the first month. On the battlefield in Hejian Prefecture, the Ming army's center and west columns began changing their line of march under Shi Kefa's orders.

Originally the Ming center column had marched close along the frozen Grand Canal, with the two divisions on either side of the canal, advancing in vast array along the embankments, and from time to time skirmishing with small bands of Mongols. According to Shi Kefa's plan, the center column's objective had been Qing County; after smashing the Mongols besieging Qing County, they would join forces with Li Yuanyin, who was holding the county. Now their objective was only one thing: the Tianjin garrison, where the Shunzhi Emperor was!

And Gao Jie's west column was making a forced march thirty li west of the canal, its objective to envelop the flank and rear of the Mongol forces around Qing County. Now their objectives had become two: first, Qing County; second, to cut off the Shunzhi Emperor's line of retreat from Tianjin.

If one also counted Huang Degong on the east road, Shi Kefa was advancing in three columns this time. And Shunzhi really was "going all the way" — only his "going all the way" did not necessarily mean he could beat even one of the Ming army's three columns, Huang Degong's.

On the afternoon of the fourth, the fighting around Guanyintang had grown increasingly fierce.

One battlefield was now divided into an inner line and an outer line. The outer line was a melee between infantry and cavalry. Huang Degong had committed four regiments, all broken down into battalions — sixteen battalions spread in a ring around Guanyintang and Zhuangqiao Village, holding off the Qing cavalry and keeping them from approaching Guanyintang, where the fierce fighting was raging.

There was also one lancer cavalry battalion, operating by companies in rotation, serving as a fire brigade, rushing about everywhere on the battlefield to support infantry battalions locked in bitter fighting or to charge Qing cavalry that had been beaten back.

The inner line was a positional assault battle. Huang Degong committed four regiments in rotation, wave after wave, supported by twelve 3-pounder cannon, hurling themselves at the Qing troops holding Guanyintang to the death.

The bloody battle had begun at dawn and continued all the way into the afternoon!

The 2,500 Qing troops commanded by Zhuobutai fought with everything they had, straining to the utmost, and stubbornly held against an enemy four times their number for several double-hours, beating back more than ten Ming assaults in succession. In several of them, Ming pikemen even broke through the walls of Guanyintang and fought hand-to-hand with the Qing troops!

In the hand-to-hand fighting, the Qing sword-and-shield men performed brilliantly, beating back the Ming pikemen time and again and holding Guanyin Temple without loss.

But as the battle became a stalemate, a crisis was gradually descending on the Qing side!

The matchlock muskets they used were of somewhat inferior quality, and they had no reserve firearms, so after several double-hours of exchanging fire, the damage was severe: many musket barrels developed cracks, and some simply burst and became unusable. Their firepower grew weaker and weaker, and by that evening, Zhuobutai had fewer than 1,500 fighting men left, while the muskets that could still fire numbered fewer than 500.

Everyone was utterly exhausted, and the battlefield was strewn with corpses on all sides. On the Ming side, at least 2,000 casualties had been paid — including the losses of the sixteen battalions resisting the Qing cavalry on the outer line.

But Huang Degong's eight regiments numbered 20,000 in all, and their losses had just passed ten percent.

So a new round of assault was quickly organized by Huang Degong.

It began again with the furious fire of the twelve 3-pounder cannon, and then eight infantry battalions brought up to full strength formed battalion squares and pressed forward. This time Huang Degong threw in all his strength — a full 4,000 fighting men!

Both attackers and defenders knew this was the final decisive battle!

Outside Guanyintang, Aisin Gioro Baiyintu also committed his finest elite cavalry battalions and vanguard battalions — more than four thousand fully armed cavalrymen, all forming one assault formation after another on the northern side of the outer line around Guanyintang.

Huang Degong of course noticed the Qing cavalry's movements too. He consolidated his remaining eight battered, incomplete battalions, scraped together four still reasonably intact infantry battalions, and together with all his "black lancers," threw them all onto his northern line.

Eight Ming infantry battalions deployed in a single line, forming eight battalion-level Maurice squares, and behind them sixteen cavalry platoons also deployed in assault formation, ready at any moment to launch a countercharge.

Baiyintu stood in his stirrups, looking at the Ming army's eight squares, then craned his neck to gaze into the distance at Guanyintang. They were taking a pounding from cannon fire over there! Shi Kefa was probably going all out too! The Ming army's fierce assault was about to begin — he wondered whether they could hold against this wave.

If Zhuobutai's firearms battalion was swallowed up by the Ming army, the fighting from then on would be hard!

Baiyintu drew a cold breath and said to those around him: "Beat the drums, sound the horns! This time we must let Shi Kefa and his Nikans know what we're made of!"

At Baiyintu's command, the sound of horns and war drums at once filled the sky, followed by the shouts of men and the neighing of horses. The flower of the Manchu and Mongol cavalry began a charge like mountains crumbling and the earth splitting!

The first wave was launched by 1,800 Kheshig cavalry under Namushengge. They were uniformly heavy cavalry, all picked warriors from the Eight Banners Mongols and the various tribes of Inner and Outer Mongolia, every man clad in two layers of heavy armor, riding the finest Mongol horses, carrying lances, massed into a single broad front. Driven on by horns and war drums, they surged like a tide toward the three squares at the center of the Ming line.

The charge grew faster and faster; thousands of hooves hammered the ground as if the whole earth were shaking. Yet the Ming squares blocking their path stood utterly unmoved — the pikemen had not even lowered their pikes, which were over a zhang long. The musketeers had already formed three ranks in front of them, the rear two ranks with muzzles pointed upward; only the men in the front rank leveled their loaded Hongxing Year Three matchlocks.

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