Chapter 155: Section 12: The Heavy Armor Soldiers

Huang Shi’s hands clenched and unclenched. After repeating this motion several times, he finally made up his mind: “This general has resolved and decided: Mobile Corps Commander He, take the cavalry, infantry, artillery, and support troops to attack the grain depot. If the Jianzhou slaves come to attack me, Mobile Corps Commander He must not rashly move out. You must wait until I have begun to engage the Jianzhou slaves in battle, and only then dispatch the infantry to reinforce. The cavalry must not initiate combat; conserve their strength for pursuit.”

……

Three hundred and twenty Great Ming pikemen formed a square twenty men wide. On the front were two ranks of forty arquebusiers, and the remaining forty were divided into two squads deployed on the flanks. Huang Shi, with a few personal guards, stood in the center of the four hundred officers and soldiers. A low earthen platform had been built underfoot, from which he could take in the surrounding landscape at a glance.

The Later Jin army of one thousand had already drawn very close, less than two li from the Ming battle formation. The Ming main force had already advanced to three li away and was beginning preparations to assault the city. In between, some Ming scouts were observing the movements on the battlefield.

If the Later Jin army took a detour, they would still have a chance to strike the weak points of the Ming vanguard. But if they became entangled in a melee, Huang Shi would strike them from behind. Should the engagement turn against them, their wounded would not be able to flee. Huang Shi felt that if the Later Jin army had the confidence to crush the entire Ming force, they would not need to resort to this close-quarters tactic. Therefore, they absolutely would not detour to forcibly thrust themselves between the Ming units; such a battlefield posture would be even worse than a frontal engagement.

The banner of the Zhang Er Assistant Regional Commander fluttered conspicuously in the center of the battle formation. Huang Shi waited with perfect composure for the Later Jin army to take the bait, but after drawing within two li, the Later Jin army halted and seemed to be waiting for something as well.

This scene reminded Huang Shi of the journey fleeing from Guangning to Lüshun. Back then, when he and Kong Youde saw a thousand men, they felt as if the sky were about to collapse. Yet now, also facing a thousand with four hundred, he had become so confident. Looking around at his current subordinates — uniformly pikemen and arquebusiers — Huang Shi had already broken the late Ming tactical dogma that “troops are valued for their diversity.” He had also drawn lessons from the last rearguard action. In that battle, the four hundred troops had been a chaotic mix of pikes, arquebuses, bows, rattan shields, blades, and axes, with only a single thin layer of pikes utterly unable to stop a cavalry charge.

A muffled cannon report sounded from afar. This gunfire announced that the Ming main force had begun its assault on the city. The Later Jin army’s ranks rippled once and began to advance slowly.

Excellent timing — it increases the time available for our troops to disengage and reinforce. Huang Shi nodded to himself. “All troops — prepare for battle.”

The arquebusiers set up their pieces one after another. The Later Jin army gradually formed a fan shape, sweeping in from both flanks, slowly creating a three-sided envelopment.

That old “always leave an escape route when besieging a city” routine again. Huang Shi sneered inwardly. He estimated that the Later Jin army would ultimately still choose to dismount and fight on foot. Against the Ming army’s tight and disciplined pike infantry formation, whether in historical records or in Huang Shi’s personal experience, the Later Jin army always used fierce infantry assaults to shatter the Ming formation, and only then pursued ruthlessly with cavalry. (For example, Oboi of the Bordered Yellow Banner — historically, all his military merits came from dismounted foot combat to break Ming infantry battle formations.)

As for the Later Jin’s mounted archery, Huang Shi was not worried either. A firepower duel between cavalry and infantry is suicidal; horses are far larger targets than infantry, not to mention the issues of range and rate of fire. As for cavalry volley fire, Huang Shi had always considered it mere intimidation. Shooting arrows into the sky from the back of a galloping, jolting horse — where they flew was entirely up to fate. If they stopped their horses to shoot… Huang Shi truly wished the Later Jin army would do just that. (Historically, at the Battle of Hunhe, fifty thousand Later Jin armored cavalry were helpless against five thousand Ming pikemen, and in the end had to bring up cannons to blast open the formation, then rely on human-wave tactics to win.)

The Later Jin troops at the front began to accelerate from several hundred meters away. The Later Jin troops circling to the flanks also drew their long sabers one after another, waiting for the moment when the Ming army would scatter and flee.

Three hundred meters… they’re accelerating.

Two hundred meters… still accelerating!

One hundred meters… are they really going to charge the pike wall with galloping horses?

A sharp whistle sounded. The first rank of Ming arquebusiers fired a volley. Several Later Jin soldiers and horses immediately tumbled into a tangled heap. The arquebusiers swiftly ran to the flanks of the square. The Later Jin cavalry still surged forward.

Fifty meters…

Another whistle sounded. The second rank of arquebusiers fired as well. This time, over a dozen men and horses fell. At the same moment, the Ming army’s nine-chi pikes, which had been held upright, were leveled one after another, thrusting outward in all four directions from within the square. Layer upon layer of pike points, and the entire battle formation instantly became a hedgehog bristling with steel-cold hairs.

The first wave of nearly a hundred Later Jin cavalry charging the formation did not, as Huang Shi had imagined, crash into the Ming pike forest. Instead, they split apart at high speed and swept past the flanks, hurling javelins and broadswords at the Ming battle formation. A few riders who brushed past the pike forest twisted sideways and shot arrows. The Ming arquebusiers on the flanks also opened fire one after another. Over twenty men on each side were downed in the blink of an eye.

Huang Shi’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to the flanks. Watching the enemy soldiers tumble from their horses one by one, his first thought was that this exchange was very advantageous — as long as one was not hit in the head, the lethality of arrows could not compare to that of arquebus fire.

But this thought lasted only an instant. His gaze, in a flash of lightning, snapped back to the front. Behind the first wave of Later Jin cavalry were some twenty-odd Later Jin warriors whose horses were not moving very fast. They had already swung to the sides of their horses’ bellies. When they charged within thirty meters of the Ming formation, these Later Jin warriors almost simultaneously released their reins, leaped nimbly to the ground, and using their momentum, rushed to within twenty meters of the formation.

This superb horsemanship and agile movement caused a thought to surge up in Huang Shi’s mind — are these Heavy Armor Soldiers?

One Heavy Armor Soldier, crouching low to cushion his momentum, at the same time, as if by magic, drew an arrow from the quiver on his back. Right before Huang Shi’s astonished eyes, this soldier executed a roll to shed the last of his inertia. As he steadied himself on one knee, the bow and arrow in his hands were already aimed at the Ming battle formation.

This Heavy Armor Soldier held a standard infantry iron bow. His supple body twisted, and drawing on the power of his waist, he loosed an arrow. The flying shaft tore through the air and struck a Ming soldier in the front rank square in the face. As this soldier fell with a scream, that Heavy Armor Soldier had already nocked another arrow. With a great shout, he loosed another powerful shot, and this arrow also struck another Ming soldier directly in the cheek.

The twenty Heavy Armor Soldiers shot three rounds in rapid succession. The pikemen in the first two ranks of the Ming formation had astonishingly been swept away entirely, while the arquebusiers on this side were still desperately reloading powder. The anxious Ming officers, seeing the arquebusiers ram the balls into their barrels, were just about to blow the whistle to attack these Heavy Armor Soldiers when they heard a unified war cry from the opposite side. As the Ming soldiers fell in swathes, the Later Jin rattan shield bearers had already surged forward.