Chapter 852: The Great Qing Truly Cannot Do Without Imperial Father!

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing whistle rang out in front of the three Ming infantry battalion squares that were about to face the charge of the Qing army's Kheshig cavalry.

This was the signal ordering a volley from the matchlock muskets!

The whistle was still echoing when the front edges of the three battalion squares flashed with row after row of fire, large and small! The Mongol cavalry of the so-called Kheshig, who had already charged to within twenty or thirty paces, were struck as if by meteors, bursting apart in sprays of blood and flesh, then tumbling violently from their saddles. Some warhorses were also hit by the powerful bullets of the Hongxing Year Three matchlocks, letting out shrill, agonized neighs and crashing to the ground, hurling their riders through the air. The screams of men and horses rose uncontrollably, and the battlefield was strewn in every direction with the dying and the dead. Had ordinary Mongol cavalry suffered such a blow, they would likely have broken and fled. But the Shunzhi Emperor's Kheshig were no ordinary Mongol cavalry after all — every one of them had been enrolled in the Two Yellow Banners, proper Eight Banners Mongols, with a share in the Great Qing!

Moreover, Banburshan was commanding the vanguard battalion's cavalry pressing in behind them. If they dared retreat without orders, they could wait to be skewered by the vanguard cavalry's long spears!

Another sharp, piercing whistle sounded, and the second rank of musketeers fired their Hongxing Year Three matchlocks — another volley of nearly 250 muskets!

After firing, the Ming musketeers did not reload on the spot, but turned and left, hurrying toward the pike formation to the rear.

Musketeers using matchlocks found it difficult to form shoulder-to-shoulder dense ranks, so the Ming square's musket companies also adopted an open formation. After firing, a rank of musketeers could pass through the gaps between the soldiers of the ranks behind them, withdrawing into the pike formation, which was likewise drawn up in open order, and then reload and fix bayonets in preparation for close combat.

The three ranks of muskets were quickly emptied, and more than seven hundred bullets had been fired. Such fire density could not stop Mongol cavalry charging with the resolve to die!

But the Maurice square's tactics had never relied on matchlocks alone to resist cavalry — otherwise what were the half of the soldiers armed with pikes over ten feet long for?

Just as the musketeers finished their volleys and withdrew into the pike formation, the pikemen lowered their long pikes. The points did not all point in one direction; some aimed at the front of the square, some to its left, right, and rear, turning the square into an enormous "hedgehog."

If cavalry charged straight into that, it would be a disaster!

But the Eight Banners Mongols under Shunzhi would not charge head-on. They were not shock cavalry who lived by massed charges, but traditional "all-purpose cavalry," skilled in charging, archery, and hand-to-hand combat alike, equally capable mounted or on foot.

So after closing on the Ming "hedgehog formation," the Mongol cavalry began to circle — because the Ming's eight battalions had to defend a very large area, considerable space remained between the individual squares, enough for enemy cavalry to pass through.

While circling, the Mongols began shooting arrows, and at the same time some Mongol death-warriors dismounted directly from their horses and, bearing round shields and curved sabers, charged the Ming hedgehog formation to fight the Ming pikemen and musketeers hand to hand.

On the Ming side, the pikemen strove to shake their long, heavy pikes to keep the Qing death-warriors from closing in, while holding their formation firmly unbroken. The musketeers fired wildly to kill the Mongol cavalry and death-warriors. Having withdrawn into the pike formation, they could no longer fire volleys, but fortunately the Qing Kheshig soldiers, in order to shoot arrows and dismount to assault the formation, had not stayed far from the Ming squares — the Ming pikemen and musketeers were all equipped with breastplates and helmets, some also with arm guards, and low wooden arrow-shields had been set around the squares. So from too great a distance, the killing power of arrowheads could be ignored.

One side fought with mounted archery and close combat, the other with pikes and muskets; the two sides traded blow for blow, and for a time victory hung in the balance, while the number of dead and wounded men and horses on the ground only grew.

Around the three Ming squares, corpses and dying men and horses lay strewn in every direction. Within the squares, too, not a few men had been struck in vital spots by arrows, some groaning on the ground, some at their last breath. Some Mongol death-warriors, risking being impaled through the chest by the swaying pikes, had charged right up to the Ming pikemen, slashing left and right with curved sabers and causing considerable chaos for a time. But however fierce these men were, they could not withstand Ming bullets, and their frenzy would not last long before a small lead ball finished them.

Just as the three Ming squares were locked in combat with the Qing forces besieging them, the vanguard battalion cavalry following behind the Qing Kheshig cavalry had arrived. But they did not charge into the melee; instead they dismounted and formed ranks less than a hundred paces from the three battles.

These vanguard battalion cavalry were also "black-gun soldiers," except they had no flintlocks, and they were not divided into lancers, horse archers, and mounted musketeers, but were equipped with all three weapons at once.

Now these Qing vanguard battalion cavalry had not brought their carbines and bows, carrying only matchlocks, round shields, and waist sabers. After dismounting, they formed a firing formation nine ranks deep in a ten-link chain.

Seeing the vanguard battalion cavalry complete their formation, Baiyintu ordered the gong sounded, signaling the Mongol cavalry locked in bitter combat with the Ming squares to withdraw and clear the field for the dismounted vanguard cavalry.

Because of the earlier fighting, the three Ming squares had all fallen into disorder, and the musketeers had withdrawn into the pike formations; in a short time there was simply no way to reform.

Commanding the Ming rear formation was Qi Yuanbi. Standing on an observation cart, telescope raised, he had already taken in every movement of the Qing vanguard battalion and naturally knew what they intended.

"Order the musketeers of the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Battalions to reform in place; the pikemen are to charge!" Qi Yuanbi shouted. "All mounted musketeers prepare to charge!"

His orders were quickly relayed to the front by bugle and war drum. The seven hundred pikemen of the three battalions, without waiting to reform, charged directly after the retreating Qing Kheshig soldiers!

Now it was the Ming pikemen charging into Qing gunfire...

The Qing vanguard battalion's mounted musketeers had already suffered some losses in the earlier fighting, and some were scattered across the battlefield on guard duty. So the number they could now put into formation was no more than seventeen or eighteen hundred.

Drawn up nine ranks deep in a ten-link chain, each rank numbered only about one hundred seventy or eighty men. They fired rank by rank in turn, either advancing in rotation or withdrawing in rotation. The fire was not especially heavy, but its persistence was not bad. A charge by seven hundred-odd pikemen certainly could not break them. But it could buy time for the Ming musketeers to reform and reload... and then the battle, with its heavy casualties, would drag on!

The Guanyintang battlefield.

Battle cries and gunfire came in wave after wave. The great temple had been battered until it was riddled with holes. On both sides of the low wall fortifications the Qing had once held, corpses were piled high — Qing soldiers in yellow cotton armor, and Ming officers and men in red and black. Even in death, the bodies of the fighters on both sides were locked together. Some soldiers still held their killing postures, their pikes and musket bayonets buried in the bodies of their enemies, themselves dead where they stood...

The Qing troops defending Guanyintang to the death fought with extreme tenacity, and they had kept pace with the times, becoming a new-model army that perfectly fused cold and hot weapons.

But a contest between two armies both masters of cold and hot weapon tactics was unlikely to produce a lopsided casualty ratio — unless one side held a bastion fort.

So the victor on the Guanyintang battlefield would ultimately belong to the side with absolute superiority in numbers!

The four regiments Huang Degong had committed — nearly 8,000 soldiers — had now broken through the Qing defenses, and the two sides had begun the final slaughter inside Guanyintang.

Zhuobutai, the commander of the Qing firearms battalion, had personally thrown himself into the fight. The personal guards around him grew fewer and fewer, while the enemies around him grew more and more.

With a burst of gunfire, this Manchu warrior felt his chest and back struck hard several times by he knew not what, followed by searing pain. His strength suddenly drained away, and he could no longer even stand!

Zhuobutai's fall meant that the slaughter on the Guanyintang battlefield was about to end!

Once the Ming army seized Guanyintang and annihilated the firearms battalion, the elite of the Qing new army, the outcome of this battle would essentially be decided.

Although the Qing army could still rely on its cavalry superiority to barely keep Huang Degong encircled, they had no power to crush him, nor any power to stop Shi Kefa and Gao Jie from moving freely.

The Shunzhi Emperor was about to be surrounded!