Chapter 861: What? The Qing Are Gone! Part Three (Please Subscribe)

Saving the Great Ming, main text, Chapter 853 — What? The Qing Are Gone! Part One. It is now the twelfth day of the second month in the seventh year of the Great Ming's Hongxing reign.

Shi Kefa learned on the morning of the tenth day of the second month that a Qing army of tens of thousands was advancing east from the direction of Renqiu. After confirming the accuracy of the report, Shi Kefa, on the advice of Qi Yuanbi and Prince Condé, assembled the Xuhai Army, the New Army's 10th Division, the New Army's 12th Division, the New Army's 15th Division, and other units — a force of more than fifty thousand men in all — and left the Tianjin front, advancing rapidly to the southwest.

At the same time, the great army led by Dodo was moving from Renqiu toward the northeast. The two great armies were advancing straight at each other, so during the day on the eleventh, the vanguard cavalry of both sides began to make close contact.

Unlike Shunzhi's side, which was unwilling to send its vanguard battalions forward and instead used Mongols to take the bullets, Dodo put on a far grander display — everyone he sent ahead was elite vanguard-battalion cavalry. The vanguard-battalion elite were the eyes and ears of Dodo's army; no matter how reluctant he was, he had to use them! Otherwise, going into battle blind, how could he deploy his forces?

Since both sides had "dragoons" who were good at firing from ambush, things got lively once they met — ambush fire against ambush fire! Along the whole front, gunfire erupted in wave after wave.

And the commanders on both sides could only piece together a rough picture from the scraps of intelligence gathered by their forward skirmishers.

The first to solve the puzzle was Dodo.

At noon on the twelfth day of the second month, after confirming that the main Ming force had reached the area west of the Grand Canal between Jinghai and Qing County, the immensely battle-experienced Prince Yuyong, Dodo, immediately deployed his main force between Desheng Marsh and the county seat of Dacheng, seizing a rather advantageous position.

Desheng Marsh was a stretch of wetlands between Baiyang Marsh and the Grand Canal. The terrain was extremely complex, with water of varying depths — it could neither be navigated by boat nor crossed on foot. Desheng Marsh was also full of small islands, all densely covered with vegetation, and the surrounding area was thickly planted with trees, so that from a distance it looked like one vast forest.

Such terrain might be fine for skirmishers, but it was extremely unfavorable for the passage of a large army. So Dodo entrusted his left flank to the natural barrier of Desheng Marsh to "guard."

Dodo's right flank, meanwhile, extended all the way to the county seat of Dacheng. The town walls were not particularly strong, and since a large force of Ming skirmishers had once paid a visit, it had become an empty, burned-out shell — the interior was charred black, and even the city gates had vanished to who knows where. But the walls were still there, after all, and could still be used for some support.

So the right flank of Dodo's great army was handed over to the county seat of Dacheng to look after!

As for Dodo's rear, it was quite open, which favored the movement of cavalry.

Dodo's force had a very large number of cavalry — there were the vanguard battalions, the elite cavalry battalions, the bayara guards, plus the Bordered Blue Banner mounted troops that had come from Datong and the Plain Red Banner mounted troops that had come from Datong. All told, they numbered as many as twenty-four thousand, nearly half of the fifty thousand fighting men Dodo had brought to the Desheng Marsh battlefield.

With that much cavalry, once they found an opportunity for a flanking attack, it would be a disaster!

"Governor-General, the enemy has already occupied the more favorable ground. It seems we can only deploy with our backs to the canal."

The one offering this suggestion to Shi Kefa in the great camp on the canal bank between Jinghai and Qing County was Prince Condé. He had just returned from the front with Qi Yuanbi, had surveyed the terrain, and had a general idea of how Dodo had deployed.

A fairly accurate military map had by now been spread out before Shi Kefa, Gao Jie, Wang Qi, Qin Mingtao, Shi Dewei, Li Yuanyin, and the others. Qi Yuanbi was placing small wooden markers shaped like "cavalry," "infantry," and "artillery" one by one on the map between Desheng Marsh and the county seat of Dacheng.

"A deployment with our backs to the water?" Shi Kefa asked.

"Not quite — there is still some distance," Qi Yuanbi said. "If it really were a deployment with our backs to the water, that would be better."

Prince Condé added in tongue-rolling Chinese: "If we choose to deploy with our backs to the water, the enemy will very likely choose to avoid battle. Their cavalry is far stronger than ours... We have only eight battalions, fewer than four thousand cavalry, while the enemy has at least fifteen thousand cavalry — enough to cover the withdrawal of their main force."

Although Zhu Cilang had been constantly working to expand his cavalry, up until the eve of the Northern Expedition in the sixth year of Hongxing, the Ming army — not counting the seven frontier commands of Pingxi, Shuofang, Beiting, Chuandong, Chuanxi, Jin'ou, and Jinghai — had only twenty-four musket-cavalry battalions and two lancer battalions, twenty-six battalions in all, plus twenty or thirty cavalry companies attached to various infantry divisions for odd jobs.

At full strength, the main Ming army's cavalry numbered only sixteen thousand men.

"What is their total strength?" Shi Kefa asked.

"About fifty thousand," Qi Yuanbi said. "The total is somewhat larger than ours, but their old Eight Banners mounted troops generally have booi bondservants following them, so the number of actual fighting men should be roughly equal."

"So it is fifty thousand against fifty thousand..." Shi Kefa thought for a moment. "They hold the advantage in cavalry, while our infantry and artillery should have the upper hand, correct?"

"Of course!" Qi Yuanbi said. "We have eighty infantry battalions and five artillery battalions, nearly ninety 3-pounder battalion guns, and nine 12-pounder field guns."

Pairing 3-pounder battalion guns with 12-pounder field guns was a popular artillery combination among the armies of the strong European powers of this era — 3-pounders against men, 12-pounders against guns. There were also 24-pounders for battering cities, but these were not common in the Ming army.

The artillery battalion of a Ming infantry division was now a large establishment of six companies in all: three 3-pounder companies, one 12-pounder company, one supply company, and one engineer company!

The 12-pounders issued to Ming infantry divisions were all relatively light cast-iron short-barreled guns, but they were still extremely cumbersome. If not for the Percheron draft horses imported from France, they would truly have been hard to move.

Shi Kefa glanced at Teacher Condé — this man had been quite the braggart when giving lessons to everyone in Nanjing. Now it was a real battle. Did he have a plan? Could he stand in for Kongming?

Prince Condé said: "The enemy's infantry firepower is weak, while their cavalry is extremely strong. The normal tactic would be to use their infantry to draw our attention and create an opportunity for their cavalry to flank our left wing and rear."

"What should we do?" Shi Kefa asked.

Back when they were taking supplementary lessons in Nanjing, Condé had constantly posed exactly this kind of problem to test everyone, and no matter how you answered, he could always produce a corresponding historical case of defeat — Shi Kefa even suspected Condé had made those cases up.

"Our front should feign defeat and fall back, drawing in the enemy infantry and luring them toward the west bank of the canal," Condé said. "This will force the enemy cavalry to launch their flanking maneuver early... And we will need to place a few truly solid infantry battalions on our left wing to withstand the enemy cavalry's charge.

At the same time, our eight cavalry battalions should pass through Desheng Marsh and flank the enemy's left wing.

Once the flanking maneuver succeeds, we commit our reserve infantry and fiercely assault the enemy's front, completely shattering their infantry!"

He certainly made it sound convincing!

"Your Highness," Shi Kefa said thoughtfully, "the key points are two. First, can our left wing withstand the charge of the Qing cavalry?

Second, will the Qing set an ambush in Desheng Marsh?"

Prince Condé nodded and said with a smile: "The Qing cavalry's shock power is not strong; they simply cannot break an infantry square supported by artillery.

As for an ambush in Desheng Marsh, there will certainly be one — otherwise Prince Dodo of the Qing would not be a qualified military man... But Prince Dodo has no excellent infantry. If he sends infantry to lie in wait in Desheng Marsh, it will not be a problem.

If he sends dismounted knights left behind as stragglers, they will be no match for our musket cavalry either. The only real threat is the so-called vanguard-battalion cavalry.

But those troops are the trump card in Dodo's hand! I think he will concentrate them against our left wing... So my plan is certain to succeed!"

Shi Kefa was still uneasy. He asked one final question: "Your Highness, what if your plan fails?"

Prince Condé shrugged and laughed: "If my plan succeeds, we will destroy twenty thousand of Dodo's men at a cost of ten thousand of our own. If we fail, then we will destroy ten thousand of Dodo's men at a cost of twenty thousand of our own... That is all there is to it!"