Chapter 238: Section Fifty-Three: Sweeping the Ranks

The ammunition handler brought up Changsheng Island’s secret weapon. This new type of cannonball was visibly different from ordinary solid shot — although still spherical overall, one could tell at a glance that it was assembled from two hemispherical halves. A distinct seam ran between the two halves, carefully sealed with wax, and to reinforce it and keep the projectile from splitting apart, several hemp ropes were tied around the outside.

The loader took the cannonball, deftly undid the knots on the hemp ropes, tossed the ropes aside with a flick of the wrist, and carefully stood beside the muzzle, cradling the projectile in both hands.

The bore swabber had already cleaned the residue from inside the barrel…

The ammunition handler had run off again to fetch the next cannonball and powder charge…

His powder-loading comrade had finished loading and tamping the charge…

The loader’s job was to skillfully and gently push the projectile in his hands into the barrel, while the others cleaned the touchhole and fitted fresh slow-match and priming powder.

At that very moment the spotter reported: “Two hundred meters.”

…

Now sixty-eight years old, with great-great-grandchildren already running all over the courtyard — definitely considered advanced in age for this era — Nurhaci’s body was not what it had been in his youth, and his many old wounds often tormented him so that he could not sleep at night, yet his temper remained as explosive as it had been in his boyhood.

During last night’s discussion of military intelligence, among the Three Senior Beile, the one who used to be — well — the bravest and most valiant, Manggūltai, had actually, like some southern coward, vehemently opposed attacking Huang Shi, who had only one-fifth of their own strength, and as a result Nurhaci had beaten him half to death. But even after that severe beating, the Third Beile still desperately opposed the attack, even clinging to his father’s leg, weeping with tears and snot streaming down his face. Nurhaci, left with no choice, had to let it go and simply assigned this great coward to the army’s rear guard.

According to reconnaissance, the Ming army opposite seemed not to have had time to build high walls and strong ramparts. The walls at the center of their defensive line were all very low, and their troop strength was insufficient. The Ming forces on the two wings did not appear to be Dongjiang troops, but because the Ming center bulged forward, it was very difficult to scout the deployment behind and to the sides of the two wings. One thing, however, was certain: the density of troops and weapons on the Ming wings was several times higher than at the center, and the terrain there was far more precipitous.

Those two good-for-nothing whelps, Hong Taiji and Daišan, although they agreed to attack, had been inexplicably insisting all along on avoiding the Changsheng Army’s main position and swinging around to strike the Guanning Army on the flank and rear. The truth was, neither of those two could say exactly what was so formidable about those low walls, but Daišan was dead certain that Huang Shi would be hard to fight even behind the lowest of walls — this kind of defeatist attitude also grieved Nurhaci deeply.

Yet no matter how Hong Taiji and Daišan racked their brains, they could not come up with a feasible way to get an army of over ten thousand safely across the ice at the edge of the frozen zone. Besides, the places the Guanning Army held were far too treacherous — either sheer cliffs or dense forests that led who knew where. In front of them lay either the dangerous ice at the edge or nearly impassable boulder-strewn flats. And that Huang Shi seemed somewhat overconfident: he was using only three thousand men to defend a flat stretch nearly three li long — no matter how you looked at it, it was far too thin.

Weren’t they just walls four or five chi high? Kaiyuan, Tieling — which of those cities didn’t have walls several zhang high, defended by over ten thousand Ming troops? Hadn’t the wise and mighty Tianming Khan taken them all in a single assault?

Behind him streamed the great golden-yellow banner high in the sky; on both sides were battle-hardened veterans of many campaigns; before him, over ten thousand armored soldiers and several thousand Mongol cavalry pressed toward the Ming army’s weak battle line like a mountain bearing down, and behind them followed nearly ten thousand unarmored troops. The dense, dark mass of battle formations was as solid as a thick carpet spread over the ice, radiating an aura of irresistible might.

In the distance, the roar of Ming cannon fire had already merged into one continuous din. “It seems the reconnaissance was faulty.” Years of campaigning made Nurhaci reach this judgment instantly. The Ming defensive line probably had far more than thirty cannons — but that was nothing. The old Khan had seen more cannons than this, higher and greater city walls, and far more formidable garrisons.

Nurhaci was not the only one to reach a similar conclusion. Wunege, who had been severely thrashed the day before, walked forward silently with the vanguard, inwardly cursing the scouts who had reconnoitered the enemy — all eighteen generations of their ancestors. Those grandsons had all said the Changsheng Army had only eight cannons, but based on Wunege’s many years of military experience, the other side had at least sixty, to be able to pour so many shells into the column in such a short time.

One cannonball after another howled past Wunege. Just moments ago, a shield cart had been blasted to splinters right before his eyes, and even the cotton armor on the pushers had been smashed into cotton fluff. He thought the advantages of attacking over ice were still quite obvious — at least the shield carts could be pushed fairly fast, more than twice as fast as on land.

The front of these shield carts was thick wooden planking, with long axles and rollers of hardwood on the bottom, and thick cotton quilts spread over the shield boards. These shield carts were the Later Jin’s standard siege weapon, and in the past they could be pushed all the way up to the city walls along the main roads after the moats had been filled in. A Later Jin soldier named Duolong’a in the front row, while urging the bondservants to push the shield cart forward, remarked to himself how much easier it was to use this thing on ice. Just now a cart beside him had been smashed by a Ming cannonball, and the flying splinters had instantly cut down three of the five Han bondservants pushing it.

Because the shield cart had been hit on the right side, a large wooden splinter had even stabbed into Duolong’a’s arm. Although he had already pulled the big piece of wood out, his right arm was now so painful it was going numb… Still, fortunately, they were almost at assault distance. Duolong’a had already taken part in several siege battles. He had heard that the Ming troops opposite were severely short-handed — with such a long defensive line, breaking through at even a single point would mean victory. As long as we break through at one point and get our men inside, I can rest.

Hūrhan, the niru ejen of the Plain Yellow Banner, led his men behind the vanguard. Their unit’s task was to follow up promptly: once the vanguard found a breach, they were to charge swiftly into the Ming defensive line. The banner had repeatedly stressed that the Ming troops opposite were using only three thousand men to defend a line nearly three li long — if they could achieve a decisive breakthrough at any one point, that would be victory. A very simple combat mission; it wouldn’t take long.

Although Hūrhan had heard rumors about the fighting ability of the Dongjiang Army opposite, he had always believed in his heart that it was simply because everyone else was incompetent. Even if this unit of Ming troops was especially brave, they were not, after all, three-headed, six-armed monsters, were they? With so many of us, even if we just swarmed them, we could bite them to death.

At this thought, Hūrhan glanced back again at the Plain Blue Banner far behind him. That bunch of cowards seemed to have already had their courage shattered by the Ming army, and it had even affected some spineless fellows in the Plain Yellow Banner. Walking behind Hūrhan was a pair of brothers. Tabulin was already a Heavy Armor Soldier, but his younger brother Erji had only joined the army two years ago. These brothers were just as full of confidence as their commander Hūrhan.

“The Han dogs’ cannons aren’t anything special.” Tabulin smiled and comforted his younger brother a few times. It looked like the roaring from the other side was making the boy a bit uneasy. “It’s just noise — nothing to be afraid of.”

“Mm. Got it.” Erji nodded firmly and strode forward alongside his elder brother. On this campaign he had been hoping to grab some jewelry and silks to take back — the woman at home was always nagging about such things. He had heard there were plenty of good things on this Juehua Island, and quite a few merchants too. Erji was determined to seize the opportunity today.

…

“Two hundred meters.” The spotters of each gun crew reported this figure one after another.

The squad commanders of several three-pounder gun crews also gave the order to switch ammunition in quick succession: “Load Sweeping-the-Ranks.”

The so-called “Sweeping-the-Ranks” was the code name for Changsheng Island’s new chain shot. Previously, for secrecy, they had not been allowed to call it “chain shot,” so until today the substitute name “Sweeping-the-Ranks” had always been used. Chain shot was originally used mainly in naval warfare. Chain shot fired from eighteen-pounder cannons could tear an opponent’s sails to shreds, and chain shot from twenty-four-pounders and above could smash an enemy ship’s masts to splinters, directly crippling the target vessel’s ability to sail and maneuver.

The main problem with chain shot was its excessively high cost. In the past, every single link of the chain had to be forged by hand, and naturally they were loath to use chain shot produced with so much labor against infantry. Since Changsheng Island had acquired water-powered forging beds, Bao Jiusun could mass-produce iron rings using the forging beds, thereby greatly reducing the production cycle and cost of chain shot.

The artillery’s performance in the last battle at Nanguan had not been very good, so the Changsheng Island ordnance department designed chain shot — a type of projectile not easily fired off target. Later, although the accuracy of solid shot had greatly improved, chain shot was still retained because of its powerful area-effect killing capacity. Huang Shi even wanted to upgrade the wrought-iron chain shot to steel chain shot, so that it would have sharper chains and a larger killing radius, but they did not yet have mature steel-processing technology, so the Changsheng Army was still mainly using wrought-iron chain shot for the time being.

The gun captains were shouting out the lengthy firing cadence: “Elevate the barrel… elevate the barrel further…”

While the three-pounders were beginning to switch ammunition, the two six-pounders had already elevated their barrels high, and the gunners were holding torches, awaiting further orders. The gun crew officer watched the approaching Later Jin troops and calmly ordered the spotter to adjust the observation point back several dozen meters. He did not intend to attack the enemy vanguard any further but was preparing to conduct interdiction fire.

The artillery fell silent for a moment, and the spotters called out ranges in continuous succession:

“Two hundred twenty meters.”

“Two hundred meters.”

“One hundred eighty meters.”

The gun crew squad commander no longer hesitated: “Fire.”

The chain shot spun furiously as it burst from the muzzle. The wax seal, unable to withstand such force, was torn apart in an instant. The two hemispheres pulled the chain between them taut, emitting a shrill scream as they tore through the air. Twisting and writhing, they climbed to the highest point, paused slightly, then plunged savagely down toward the mass of men ahead.

The first chain shot slammed heavily into the necks of two horses standing side by side, effortlessly shearing through both horses’ necks. It then wrapped around a cavalryman, tearing his thigh from his torso before he even felt the pain. At that moment, one of the hemispherical ends of the chain shot happened to smash into another horse’s head. As white brain matter splattered in all directions, the two-meter-long chain had already furiously swung through another great circle, tumbling and twisting madly through the crowd, lashing every man and horse it encountered until sinews snapped and bones shattered.

Another six-pounder chain shot swept into the Later Jin infantry ranks. As it skimmed into the crowd from the air, the first few men whose heads and necks were struck by the chain died on the spot without even a grunt. The taut two-meter chain, carrying the fragments of freshly shattered helmets and skulls, then swept across the chests of the soldiers in the rear rank. The spines of these several soldiers were snapped instantly, and they toppled backward in unison, crashing together with the chain shot into their comrades behind them. Immediately there was another burst of cracking and snapping bones. The wounded — with shattered ribs or broken leg bones — collapsed to the ground one after another, sending up waves of agonized shrieks.

By now the three-pounder gun crews had also completed their preparations for interdiction fire. Their spotters, too, reported the range of one hundred fifty meters one after another. With one command of “Fire” after another, iron chains each one and a half meters long flew continuously into the sky. Their metallic bodies twisted in midair like venomous serpents, gleaming with a heart-stopping, soul-freezing cold light under the winter sun.

As these flashes of light, quivering like lightning, passed over the heads of the Later Jin troops, the men below could not help but raise their heads and stare up at them — until they saw them, like divine soldiers descending from heaven, pounce savagely right before their faces…

Huang Shi had once considered this problem from the perspective of energy conservation. He felt that most of the energy of a ricocheting solid shot was wasted, not entirely absorbed by the enemy’s bodies. But chain shot was vastly different — it was meant to tumble and roll through the crowd until all its energy was exhausted by the flesh and blood of the soldiers before it would stop.

The hard ice surface further intensified the effect of the fire. Every time the chain shot plunged into the crowd, flesh and blood flew in all directions. Each chain was like a blender, churning up brilliant blossoms of blood within the Later Jin formations.

The six-pounders roared again. A thick iron chain howled down from the sky. It struck the ice, then leaped up again, like a venomous snake whose tail had been stepped on, shrieking and thrashing up and down across the ice, emitting a roar that shattered courage and split gall, lashing men off their feet and horses onto their sides for a full zhang around.

Another iron chain, after tearing off a horse’s leg, happened not to get tangled in flesh and blood. It was as if an invisible giant had seized one end of this black iron chain. It spun at high speed like an electric fan, whirling its other hemispherical end with a deep, menacing hum. Dragging half a horse’s leg, this iron chain swung in great circles, skimming and dancing close to the ice surface, emitting a muffled whooshing sound as it howled into the dense forest of hooves, boots, and shoes. The sound of snapping legs and shattering bones, dense as hailstones, rang out once more.

…

When each chain shot finally came to rest, it left a batch of men lying in pools of blood upon the ice. Though the Manchu and Mongol soldiers and the Han troops had all been lashed until skin and flesh flew, they often did not die right away. These men crawled in agony through the slowly freezing plasma on the ice, emitting heart-rending wails, writhing their shattered, dismembered limbs, telling of the cruelty of war. Those whose faces or chests had been torn apart died in great pain, but they usually did not have to endure it for long, whereas those whose spines had been sheared or limbs torn off had to suffer a long, drawn-out torment before they could die.

The devastation caused by the chain shot made many Later Jin officers and soldiers halt in their tracks. No matter how the niru commanders cursed and shouted, they could not tear the men’s gazes away from the survivors. When a few Later Jin niru ejen drew closer and saw these great pools of blood and flesh, the curses in their mouths froze instantly as well. Parts of Hūrhan’s unit also lost command. Tabulin, for instance, stopped walking. This veteran Heavy Armor Soldier’s behavior first struck Hūrhan as extremely strange, and then a mad fury surged up within him.

Hūrhan, deeply ashamed, had already raised his riding whip high above his head, intending to teach the disobedient Tabulin a good lesson. But just before he brought the whip lashing down, this niru commander’s gaze, too, was drawn to the spot that had fixed the Heavy Armor Soldier’s attention.

It was a place where a three-pounder chain shot had swept through. Now it was a mashed, mangled heap of corpses — Manchus, Mongols, and even Han among them. No matter what armor they wore, the death brought by the chain shot treated all equally. Erji had unfortunately been swept into this pile of flesh and blood. He was still struggling with all his might, trying to crawl out from the mangled remains of his comrades. The chain shot had already mowed down many men; its final momentum had struck Erji’s waist and then coiled around his legs. Erji’s lumbar vertebrae had been pulverized into fragments the instant they were hit. As the chain dragged him down, it also slashed open his abdomen, and his intestines and feces had already spilled across the ground beneath him.

Erji, supporting himself on both hands, crawled slowly across the ice. The iron chain, its momentum spent, was wrapped around his legs, binding him to another dead soldier. Below Erji’s waist, two stark white thigh bones were exposed, with a few strands of red flesh still clinging to them. As he struggled on the verge of death upon the ice, the thread-like remnants of flesh on his white thigh bones quivered helplessly in the cold wind — that last bit of the chain shot’s energy had, like pulling off a pair of trousers, stripped the muscle from his thighs all the way from his waist down past his knees.

The Later Jin niru ejen held his riding whip high, his gaze frozen on that soldier crawling and dragging the iron chain behind him. Hūrhan and a group of nearby soldiers had already formed a circle, all standing there as if turned to stone. Apart from their heavy breathing, which grew more and more rapid, they could not utter a single word. Tabulin, like a withered leaf in an autumn gale, trembled and gradually crumpled into a crouch on the ground. He did not even have the courage to go over and pull out his younger brother, who had only half a body left.

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down rapidly without a moment’s pause. In Hūrhan’s eyes there was only that red that filled his entire field of vision. His mind was in such chaos that he had almost completely lost the ability to think. Now this niru ejen, who had walked through blood and fire, knew nothing at all. In his ears he could only hear the pounding thump of his own heart. The spasms in his chest and gut grew more and more violent. This Later Jin officer, who had fought for decades and was long accustomed to the slaughter of the battlefield, finally let out a “Wah” and vomited. Just like the first time he had seen a dead man as a boy of ten or so, Hūrhan knelt on the ground, vomiting so hard he could not even stand up.