Chapter 296: Section 53: Chishui (Part 1)

On the tenth day of the ninth month of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, the sky gradually darkened. The engineers had already set up warning ropes and copper bells in the surrounding woods, and had also lit rows of bonfires along the enemy's approach route.

Zhang Chengye believed the enemy troops also needed rest, so the likelihood of a night raid was not great. Still, he strictly followed regulations and established multiple sentry posts. The three companies of Funing Army officers and soldiers would also take turns standing watch tonight, with a full company of troops ready at every moment to meet an enemy night assault.

Beneath Zhang Chengye's feet, on the western path from the southern slope down to the base of the hill, a mere stretch of slope a few dozen meters long was strewn with over seven hundred corpses. These bodies lay or sprawled, each twisted into bizarre contortions. Their eyes were wide open, their faces frozen in ferocious grimaces — clearly, every one of them had endured a violent, agonizing struggle before death.

Further away, the stream had been so choked with bodies that it had formed a series of small pools. The flowing water had soaked the corpses until they turned pale, dyeing the green grass and the mud along both banks pink and deep black.

The one-sided battle had been fought two or three more times that afternoon, and the ferocity of it was evident just from looking at the woods opposite the Ming army's position. Many of the trees there were old growth, so thick that two men together could not wrap their arms around them. Yet they had fared no better than the younger trees, their limbs and trunks shattered by six-pounder cannonballs, snapped and strewn in pieces across the ground. The intense heat from the passing shot had seared black scorch marks into their bark.

Amid and around these trees lay many more bodies of Yongning Army soldiers. From deep within the woods all the way to the Ming army's battle line, Yongning Army weapons and rattan shields lay scattered everywhere. Some of the shields and rattan armor had been blasted to splinters, their fragments strewn across the ground. This was largely the effect of six-pounder grapeshot — at a range of a few dozen meters, it could kill a man on the spot.

The baggage train was still steadily hauling supplies forward, and the engineer company had already set up temporary camp tents. Zhang Chengye smiled at Ouyang Xin and said, "This time we owe a great deal to your engineer company. Otherwise, we could never have crossed such a vast stretch of forest in just a few days, let alone dragged the cannons all the way here."

Ouyang Xin had long grown accustomed to such praise. He smiled and replied, "Our engineer company has spent so much of the Grand Commander's money — of course we must deliver value for it."

The mention of money immediately reminded Zhang Chengye of their last experience in Haizhou. Back then, Assistant Regional Commander Pan, serving under Mao Wenlong, had swept up every last tool belonging to the Firefighting Battalion's engineer company. As a result, after they arrived at Funing Garrison, Huang Shi had spent money all over again to re-equip the garrison's own engineer company and the three battalion-level engineer companies — and with even better, more lavish equipment than before.

"Yes, last time in Haizhou, Marshal Mao and the officers under him were full of praise for the engineer company. I heard they want to form their own engineer companies too."

Ouyang Xin let out several hearty laughs. His face brimming with pride, he said, "They certainly took plenty of our gear, and it should be of considerable help to them. But at best, they'll only be able to dig at walls and burrow holes. An engineer company is not so easy to build from scratch."

"Indeed. The Grand Commander has a whole set of unique skills, just like we infantry do." Zhang Chengye nodded in agreement. After a moment, he glanced at Ouyang Xin a few more times, and a look of sudden realization dawned on his face. "Ah, that's right — over these past eight years, practically every geomancer and grave robber in the entire Great Ming who got into trouble has ended up in our Funing Army. Even if others wanted to form engineer companies, they simply wouldn't have that many talents."

These words made Ouyang Xin burst into loud laughter. Before he had been sentenced to military exile in Liaodong, he had been a geomancer by day and a grave robber by night. Looking back now on that former life, it truly felt like a dream. The armies of the Great Ming had always been full of criminals, and most did not consider past offenses a disgrace, so Ouyang Xin took no offense at Zhang Chengye's remark. "Even if others could scrape together so many talents, they could never build an engineer company the way the Grand Commander has."

After laughing, Ouyang Xin walked up to the ridge to take another look. Today's several battles had all followed the exact same pattern: the Yongning Army would send one or two thousand men along this road, they would deploy under Ming firepower, charge forward in a desperate death rush, and then be beaten back... A while later, another two thousand would come to throw their lives away.

Gazing at the battlefield littered with corpses, Ouyang Xin asked curiously, "We're winning quite easily. Have we killed a thousand of the enemy yet?"

Zhang Chengye shrugged, his face wearing an expression of lazy indifference. "Not a thousand, but eight or nine hundred at least."

"In other words, we've already fought four or five 'Great Victories of Ningjin' today?"

"Ha ha, yes."

The imperial court had proclaimed the Great Victory of Ningjin to the entire realm. When the Funing Army saw the reported two hundred enemy heads, they all found it rather laughable, and the veterans who had fought in the Battle of Jinzhou dismissed it with utter contempt. Zhang Chengye had been among them back then. When he saw the two hundred heads credited to seventy thousand Guanning troops, he had fumed indignantly: "At the Battle of Jinzhou, my lord led five hundred Longsheng troops who didn't even have a full set of armor, and they achieved two and a half Great Victories of Ningjin. At Gaizhou, another one and a half. By the time we reached Nanguan, our two battalions of four thousand combat troops had fought five Great Victories of Ningjin. Even leaving aside our Longsheng Army, Marshal Mao and General Chen over the years have fought a full fifteen Great Victories of Ningjin."

Since Zhang Chengye was already using "Great Victory of Ningjin" as a unit of measurement, Ouyang Xin played along, and sure enough, it drew hearty laughter from him. The atmosphere between the two men grew even more congenial. Zhang Chengye grinned and pointed at the battlefield below. "All rabble. The Yongning Army certainly has no shortage of rabble. Tomorrow we should face the real test — She's elite troops ought to be arriving by then."

The night passed peacefully...

On the morning of the eleventh, the Ming army's baggage train hauled over the two nine-pounder cannons as well. Yesterday, after they had extracted these treasures from the forest, the Internal Guard in charge of transport had ordered them brought directly to the south. Word was that the northern offensive was proceeding so smoothly that Huang Shi estimated he could take Pushisuo without the two nine-pounders, so he had the two heavy cannons sent south immediately to save them a wasted trip.

Ever since arriving at Funing Garrison, the equipment under Huang Shi's command had been rapidly strengthened. All artillery companies were now at full authorized strength, each equipped with eight six-pounders and two new-model nine-pounders. Larger cannons were also under testing, but they would likely never be issued to the army. The nine-pounder, together with its carriage, was already quite substantial in weight. A larger twelve-pounder, no matter what, could never keep pace with marching infantry.

By noon on the eleventh, the Yongning Army had launched several more attacks on the Ming positions. This time, they came under Ming artillery fire at an even greater distance. Through these recent attacks, the Yongning Army seemed to have figured out the extreme range of the Ming cannons. Over a straight-line distance of just over one li, they had to cross four hilltops. The Yongning Army would swagger forward under the Ming army's watchful eyes until they reached the limit of the Ming artillery's range, then suddenly burst over a hilltop onto the northern slope, sprint madly to the southern slope ahead, rest for a while behind cover, and then leapfrog toward the next hilltop.

Conversely, through prolonged test firing, the Ming army had gained an ever clearer grasp of their artillery's firing data. In these last two attacks, the moment the rebels surged over a ridgeline, they were met on the northern slope by accurate, devastating Ming bombardment. The Yongning Army's morale seemed lower with each attempt. By the attack around noon, the Ming army had accomplished the repulse using artillery alone. The Yongning Army began to collapse after crossing only three hilltops — they never even managed to charge down the final northern slope along the road to deploy tactically.

While the Ming cannons thundered, Zhang Chengye kept his telescope trained on the enemy's movements. The opposing force, cowering and refusing to advance, could barely hold their banners aloft with any strength. Every Ming salvo triggered violent turmoil in their ranks. Zhang Chengye watched helplessly as several men who appeared to be enemy officers beheaded retreating soldiers, but to no avail. Several thousand rebels scattered like a swarm of bees into the dense forest. A dozen or so rebel corpses lay strewn across the main road, and no one even bothered to retrieve their bodies.

"Does the Yongning rabble have this many small fry?" Zhang Chengye lowered his telescope and voiced this exclamation.

"Why do they keep coming up several thousand at a time, every single time?" The one asking was Ouyang Xin. By now, quite a few engineer officers and baggage officers were also standing on the ridge, peering southward. Their behavior arguably violated Funing Army military regulations — officers and men of non-combat units were generally not permitted on the battlefield. But by now, the Ming troops all felt this no longer counted as battle, so no one was observing that regulation, and they had all flocked up to watch the spectacle.

"The road is too narrow. They can only scrape together so many men at a time." Zhang Chengye looked at the several peaks opposite them. The winding official road rose and fell across them. Although the rebels were safely shielded from Ming artillery while on the southern slopes, this undulating terrain also stretched out their movement distance. Every time the rebels reached a northern slope, they came under Ming bombardment. And the Yongning Army's movement was largely confined to these visible roads, because they could not possibly advance in full armor off the road, scaling cliffs, nor could they easily move at high speed over long distances through the forest.

An officer from the baggage train laughed. "Looks like as long as we keep enough gunpowder and cannonballs supplied, that'll be enough."

"We must not be careless." Zhang Chengye shook his head. He addressed the surrounding officers from non-combat branches with a serious expression. "These enemy troops may all be rearguard forces. At any moment, we could run into the elite of the rebel army. Then..." Zhang Chengye raised his telescope again to look southward, baring his teeth as he said in a deep voice, "Then there will be a real battle."

Just past noon, a soldier from the Internal Guard came galloping up on horseback. The white-helmeted soldier released the reins and raised both arms high into the air. "The Grand Commander captured Pushisuo yesterday! The main force of the Firefighting Battalion is advancing here and will arrive before nightfall."

"Mighty!"

The Ming soldiers also raised both arms, erupting in excited cheers.

The Internal Guard soldier rode up to the Ming army's temporary camp and handed a slip of paper to Zhang Chengye. After reading it, the latter passed it to Ouyang Xin. On it was Huang Shi's handwriting, informing the entire Funing Army force on this road that the grain, fodder, and supplies within Pushisuo city were piled high as mountains and had now all fallen into Ming hands. The rebel forces between Pushisuo and Linzhou were now trapped in an encirclement and would soon lose the ability to sever the communication line from Linzhou to Pushisuo.

After Ouyang Xin finished reading, he handed it to an officer of the baggage train. After reading it, that officer loudly issued orders for the soldiers to completely cease hauling grain and fodder from the forest and to devote all their efforts to bringing out cannonballs and gunpowder.

"How many small fry have we routed so far? Ten thousand?" Ouyang Xin looked ahead. It had been a long time since the Yongning Army had attacked, so he asked Zhang Chengye about the total results over the past two days.

"More than that. The rebels come up one unit after another, and every unit collapses. Nearly twenty thousand have come up in total, and their casualties are probably close to two thousand." Seeing Ouyang Xin's astonished expression, Zhang Chengye swept his hand across the hills and woods to their south. "Over ten thousand rebels have scattered and fled into the forest. According to our Funing Army infantry regulations, troops that have collapsed and lost their unit cohesion cannot be counted as combat-effective."

"That many?" Ouyang Xin was greatly startled. The prisoners had said there were only thirty thousand of She Chongming's elite troops ahead. Now Zhang Chengye had counted nearly twenty thousand small fry alone. It seemed they really had netted a big fish. "Then how many of them are elite? The prisoners said there are only thirty thousand elite."

"No elite at all. All small fry." Zhang Chengye shook his head again, his expression still serious. "Which is precisely why I say we could face a bitter battle at any moment."

On the eleventh, after two in the afternoon, the Internal Guard sent another notice: Huang Shi's main force was already just over ten li away, but because it was a mountain road, it would still take some time for them to arrive.

No enemy had come to attack for a long while, and most of the Ming troops were sitting on the ground resting. Back when they were in Liaodong, the waters around Changsheng Island would begin to freeze after the ninth month, but Guizhou at this time of year was still very warm. For the Liaodong soldiers, it was perfectly comfortable, and the soldiers from Fujian also found this weather very pleasant.

"What is that?" Zhang Chengye suddenly let out a strange cry.

Ouyang Xin followed Zhang Chengye's gaze and saw a stream of men appearing beyond seven or eight peaks to the south. He drew his own telescope and looked. "Hmm, looks like cavalry."

"Yes. Using mounted troops in this terrain — they certainly have ideas." Zhang Chengye kept one eye squinted as he peered at that Yongning Army unit, but his mouth was clicking in admiration. "And their numbers look considerable, a full thousand... no, a full fifteen hundred mounted troops."

Ouyang Xin asked as he watched, "Is this the enemy's main force?"

"It looks like it. Otherwise, where would they get so many horses? But why use mounted troops to charge the line directly? In this terrain, they should be sending infantry."

"Perhaps they have no elite infantry."

"How is that possible? How could the southwest have no elite infantry?" Zhang Chengye was quite dismissive of Ouyang Xin's suggestion. He lowered his telescope and called out, "No mistake about it. It looks like the rebels intend to charge the line with cavalry."

The winding column of mounted troops stretched several li long, packing the entire road so tightly that not a gap remained. When their vanguard reached the edge of the Ming army's firing range, their tail was still two hilltops behind.

After watching for a while, Ouyang Xin also lowered his telescope. He asked in astonishment, "Isn't this staking everything on one throw? Don't the rebels have thirty thousand elite troops?"

"It seems the rebel main force is all at Chishui Guard and couldn't be recalled in time, so they tried to use small fry to retake this road. Because the road is narrow, they could only come up one thousand or two thousand at a time. Seeing that the small fry couldn't break through, this newly returned cavalry unit has been thrown in." Zhang Chengye analyzed the situation with seasoned shrewdness. By his estimate, the transport capacity of the road before them could move at most ten to fifteen thousand men a day back from Monisuo, and that was without counting the transport of supplies and fodder.

The Ming cannons began to roar. Zhang Chengye raised his telescope again to observe the effect of the bombardment. Within the circular field of view, men and horses in the Yongning Army cavalry column kept falling, and clouds of dust and smoke continually erupted from their formation. "The rebels seem to have adopted a very tight formation to enhance their shock effect, which has greatly increased their casualties. Hmm, this unit looks passable — they show no sign of fleeing yet."

Ouyang Xin saw the Yongning Army still pressing forward bravely. Fallen men and horses were swiftly swallowed up by the dense ranks behind them. The Yongning cavalry column trampled mercilessly over their own wounded, advancing with unshakable determination toward the Ming army.

"They've truly gone mad, using cavalry to charge a line in this kind of mountain terrain. But I have no intention of trading lives with the rebels." Zhang Chengye made one final observation of the enemy's movements, shook his head and sighed a few times, then bellowed, "All troops, hear the order! Form ranks! Deploy hollow square formation!"

"Switch to chain shot."

The four cannons currently available had been organized into a temporary provisional artillery company. A veteran gun crew squad commander served as its commanding officer. He strode with head high behind the several cannons, issuing loud commands in a ringing, forceful voice. By the time the Yongning Army crossed the final hilltop and descended onto the northern slope road opposite the Ming army, the nine-pounders and six-pounders had already been loaded with chain shot.

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

First the nine-pounder cannons, then the six-pounders. They launched a ferocious assault on the cavalry column that could not take cover in the forest. The howling silver serpents struck down entire ranks of the opposing horsemen, churning up a gale of bloody carnage on the road. Screams echoed through the valley, reaching all the way to the mountaintop where the Ming army stood — even the strong winds here could not disperse that bloody sound.

Every time a shot struck the horse column, broken limbs of men and horses were hurled into the air. The artillery fired several volleys in succession, yet still could not halt the Yongning Army's resolute advance. They fought desperately to control their warhorses, trampling their still-struggling, wailing comrades into the mud. In the blink of an eye they had reached the valley floor.

"Switch to canister shot."

The artillerymen methodically carried out the sequence of technical actions — swabbing the bore, adding powder, loading the round. From the Yongning Army's side came thunderous battle cries. The lead cavalry were charging up the road toward the Ming army, the pounding of hooves as dense as raindrops striking the ground, yet none of this could distract the Ming gunners in the slightest.

Solid lead balls the size of pellets were wrapped in a hemp cloth into a large bundle, carefully bound on the outside with a hemp net. The loader tamped down the gunpowder step by step, then stuffed this heavy bundle into the cannon barrel. Having completed all the procedures, the loader lightly patted the cannon body and took a large step backward.

"Fire!"

The cannon erupted violently with a thick cloud of gunpowder smoke, the entire barrel recoiling a large chunk backward amid the roar. In front of the muzzle, the Yongning Army cavalry were charging swiftly along the road. After the cannon blast sounded, they still rushed forward a few more steps, then suddenly a wave of horses' whinnies broke out.

The close-range canister shot had catastrophic consequences for the dense cavalry formation. From the Yongning Army horse column came an unending sound of shattering bone, as dense as hailstones striking the ground. The armor and clothing of the Yongning soldiers charging at the front were shattered to pieces; each man spewed blood wildly from his mouth and collapsed into the dust together with his mount.

"Fire!"

The second nine-pounder fired too, and another wave of clamor from men and horses followed. But the Yongning cavalry burst out of the narrow road, countless hooves splashing through that shallow stream, sending up innumerable droplets of water. They let out another unified battle cry and accelerated toward the Ming army's cannons.

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

The two six-pounder gun crews seemed utterly oblivious to the Yongning cavalry charging out. They blocked the road exit and fired two more shots, then the soldiers of all four gun crews threw down whatever was in their hands, covered their helmets, and sprinted toward the infantry square formation.

Ouyang Xin and his engineers were already standing in the center of the infantry's hollow square. The logistics soldiers had either retreated to the rear or followed them in to take cover.

"Pikemen — kneel!"

The unit where Ouyang Xin stood was the infantry directly under Zhang Chengye's command. At his order, the outermost pikemen dropped to one knee, bracing the butt of their pikes against the ground and pointing them diagonally forward. The sprinting artillerymen darted into this forest of pikes, leaping and bounding over the heads of their pikemen brothers, and rushed panting into the center of the hollow square.

Just as the last artilleryman leaped into the square, the first Yongning Army cavalryman reached the Ming army's formation...

"Fire!"

The squad commander of the south-facing arquebusiers bellowed. The arquebusiers behind that row of pikemen immediately fired a volley. Over a dozen Yongning cavalrymen at the very front tumbled from their horses amid the smoke, while the riders behind them charged past on both flanks of the square.

"Fire!"

The arquebusiers on the eastern and western sides of the square also fired a volley at the command. Several dozen more men fell from their horses. More Yongning Army horses charged up the hill from behind them, tracing two arcs around Zhang Chengye's square, circling all the way to the rear flanks of the formation.

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

The other two infantry units had also formed hollow squares. Together with Zhang Chengye's unit, they formed a large triangular formation. The Yongning Army cavalry's warhorses galloped through the gaps between the three hollow squares. The Ming army's three squares stood immovable. The outer Ming pikemen pressed tightly together, shoulder to shoulder, thrusting their pikes outward. Hundreds upon thousands of glittering spearheads gleamed with cold light under the sun, brighter than the stars filling the night sky.

"Fire at will!"

Zhang Chengye shouted again. Now he and Ouyang Xin both drew the flintlock pistols issued to officers. The two men stood behind the arquebusiers, firing streams of white smoke at the enemy cavalry racing past outside the formation.

Over a thousand Yongning Army cavalrymen galloped back and forth outside the three squares, roaring and brandishing their sabers and short spears, but not a single man could break into the Ming army's hedgehog formation. They merely raced in circles outside the formation, slashing arcs of light through the air with their blades, venting their unsatisfied thirst for killing the enemy, releasing their steadily mounting fury.

From time to time, dismounted men staggered toward the Ming squares. If they were not trampled by their own comrades' horses, they could reach the very faces of the Ming pikemen.

"Kill!"

A row of Ming soldiers shouted in unison. Before the ten pikes thrusting up simultaneously from the ground, that Yongning soldier's body was instantly torn open with seven or eight gaping wounds. When the pikes were withdrawn from his body, his life drained out with his blood. The Yongning soldier's eyes stared wide open, his throat gurgling but unable to produce a single word.

The soldier collapsed to his knees with a thud. His right hand propped himself up with his saber for a moment — but only for a moment. He then pitched headfirst into the mud. As his face slammed violently against the earth, the leather helmet slipped from his head and rolled spinning to the knee of a Ming soldier. But that Ming soldier maintained his kneeling posture, motionless, his pike still thrust out at an angle.

The Yongning Army still circled outside the Ming squares, and the Ming army still fired their arquebuses at them volley after volley. As more and more Yongning soldiers fell from their horses, more enemy soldiers drenched in blood appeared before the Ming squares. These men were all lone heroes, charging at the Ming squares with disordered steps. Each time, one man faced a massed formation of pikemen, and so one by one they fell at the foot of the Ming lines.

Horse corpses and fallen Yongning soldiers piled up layer upon layer. The bodies before Zhang Chengye and Ouyang Xin soon accumulated into a wall. Zhang Chengye, having just reloaded, gestured several times and finally raised his pistol vertically again: "Let's move somewhere else. There are so many corpses here it's affecting my shooting."

Ouyang Xin had also finished reloading by now. Hearing Zhang Chengye's words, he nodded, turned, and followed Zhang Chengye toward the other side.

Directly in front of Zhang Chengye's square, a Yongning cavalryman reined in his horse and charged straight at the Ming line. The Ming soldiers kneeling on the ground had all lowered the face guards on their helmets. Though the single remaining slit revealed no trace of their expressions, as this Yongning warrior charged forward, not a single man in the row of Ming soldiers facing him so much as wavered. They simply held their pikes outward in silence.

The cavalryman charged... closer... His warhorse veered several rows of pikes away, cutting diagonally past the Ming horizontal line. The Yongning cavalryman roared in fury, leaning his body out as far as he could to the left, his hips rising from the saddle, stretching his saber out to slash toward the Ming side. Though his upper body leaned so far it was nearly parallel to the ground, the saber he desperately thrust forward did not even graze the forest of pike blades of the Ming square.

As that Yongning cavalryman pulled his body back, his horse was already galloping along a line parallel to the eastern edge of the square. Zhang Chengye had by now reached the edge of the formation. He watched this cavalryman racing from the right, leveled his pistol, and calmly took aim. He did not fire, but slowly turned his body, waiting until the cavalryman charged to the closest point directly in front before pulling the trigger.

With a mournful cry, the horse struck by Zhang Chengye's shot threw the rider from its back, charged forward two more steps, then its two front legs buckled and it collapsed to the ground. That Yongning cavalryman tumbled over and over on the ground, lying there for a long while with the world still spinning around him. Struggling, he pushed himself up from the ground to a kneeling position, blinking furiously to drive away the countless golden stars.

Bang!

Another pistol shot rang out. The head of that Yongning cavalryman who had just knelt up lolled to the side, his leather helmet blown off. Blood spurted a full foot high. The soldier maintained his kneeling posture for a moment longer, then crashed down to the right. In the direction his head pointed, countless Yongning cavalrymen were still charging past with loud shouts.

"To think I'd actually miss a shot one day! And you picked up the bargain." Zhang Chengye grumbled discontentedly as he pulled the ramrod from his pistol, squinted to aim at another target, and fired.

Though the battlefield roared with shouts, the sharp-eared Ouyang Xin still caught this grumble beside him. He laughed and said, "You're too kind, too kind." Having finished reloading, he once again straightened his arm level, closed one eye, and fired another stream of white smoke beyond the formation.

The arquebusiers in front of the two officers were also firing without pause. A gust of mountain wind blew through, rolling the dense gunpowder smoke back into their faces, choking Ouyang Xin until tears streamed down. He leisurely stepped back a few paces and coughed forcefully several times, then stepped forward again and asked, "Why won't they fight to the death and crash into our pike formation? Even if they can't trade lives, they could at least take a few pikes with them."

"They'd like to —" Zhang Chengye fired another shot. He blew on the white smoke at the muzzle of his pistol, then quickly tested it with the back of his hand. Feeling the barrel was a bit overheated, he also stepped back a few paces to let it cool down. Zhang Chengye held his pistol up in the mountain wind and said loudly to Ouyang Xin, "The bandit soldiers might be willing to trade life for life, but their horses refuse."

Zhang Chengye pointed at the edge of the square, where row upon row of gleaming white blades thrust outward, like the mouth of a wild beast full of sharp fangs: "As long as we leave the horses a path they can run through, those horses will always circle around our formation."

Ouyang Xin studied those pikes for a moment, then said to Zhang Chengye, "What if the enemy all had ten-foot pikes?"

"Still useless!"

"Why? Aren't our pikes only nine feet?"

"Ha, even if we were holding five-foot short spears, as long as the blades at the front are bright enough, that would be sufficient."

Zhang Chengye, seeing Ouyang Xin's utterly baffled expression, laughed triumphantly: "Brother Ouyang, think about it. The enemy soldiers know their spears are longer than ours, but their horses don't know that, haha. So as long as we hold a stick with a sharp enough, bright enough blade at the front, the horses will circle around our square. Haha."

After laughing, he tested the barrel temperature again, then once more began pouring gunpowder into it: "Alright, let's get back up there and hit them!"

The Ming army's firing drill continued for some time longer. The Yongning cavalry galloping between the squares grew fewer and fewer, and soon some began to turn and withdraw from the battlefield. The remaining horses also slowed. All that racing back and forth on the mountain terrain for so long had exhausted these horses too. From within the first Ming square, the drums suddenly beat a few times. Not long after these drumbeats sounded, the two squares behind also responded with a few drumbeats.

After the drumbeats sounded, the arquebus fire on the battlefield abruptly ceased. After a moment of silence, a great roll of drums erupted from the Ming side. The pikemen rose at the sound. Under their officers' command, they gradually marched out of the formation, advancing with leveled pikes toward those isolated and outnumbered Yongning cavalrymen.

Now only a few hundred Yongning cavalrymen remained on the battlefield. Their horses' speed had all slowed. The Ming infantry formed tight horizontal lines and advanced like a moving wall, quickly surrounding the Yongning soldiers still left on the battlefield in several circular pockets. Some of these pockets were larger, some smaller — the largest still held several dozen Yongning cavalrymen, while some held only a few men.

The Yongning soldiers in the smaller pockets were swiftly killed by the Ming soldiers closing in from all sides. But those in the largest circle were still resisting. Their mounts, forced by the closing wall of blades, kept retreating in small steps. Finally, the several dozen cavalrymen were herded into a tight cluster by hundreds of Ming pikemen. Their horses pressed tightly together, each one desperately pushing backward, trying to evade the spearpoints thrust right before their eyes.

A Yongning cavalryman on the outer edge faced at least eight or nine pikes. No matter how furiously they brandished their sabers and short spears, they would be easily parried by three or four pikes, and then four or five pikes would stab into their mount's belly. Once thrown to the ground by their dying horses, most of these Yongning soldiers never even had the chance to rise and resist again.

Even more lethally, behind these Ming pikemen, many arquebusiers were firing at an upward angle, shooting the towering riders through the gaps in the crowd and turning them into sieves.

At the same time, the Ming battle line slowly pushed downhill. By the time the Ming pikemen advanced to the road junction, those half-hearted Yongning soldiers who had hesitated and refused to flee earlier found themselves trapped. These scattered stragglers could not resist the Ming pikemen surging toward them in formation. Pushed to the edge of the forest, they finally lost all will to fight, abandoned their horses one after another, and fled on foot into the dense woods.

After repelling this charge, the Ming engineers began further constructing simple fortifications. They felled some trees and sawed them into sections. Ouyang Xin planned to gather stones and wood to build a low breastwork, in order to resist the Yongning Army's elite troops that might appear at any moment.

While Ouyang Xin was soliciting Zhang Chengye’s opinion on this field fortification, the Ming army had already finished its post‑battle cleanup, and the wounded had all been sent to the rear camp tents to receive treatment.

A soldier came over to report to Zhang Chengye: “In this battle our army had nine men killed in action and twenty‑one wounded.”

After hearing the report, Zhang Chengye waved the soldier away and said with a cold laugh to Ouyang Xin beside him: “Over the past two days, these three squads have suffered fewer than fifty casualties in total, yet since we set out, the number of men these three squads have lost to illness is already over seventy.”

Before Ouyang Xin could reply, they heard a clamor break out behind them. The two men hurriedly ran up to the ridge and saw, on a hilltop far to the north, a body of troops winding its way toward them…

Amid the cheers of the officers and soldiers lining both sides of the road, Huang Shi spurred his horse to the front of the southern‑line Ming army position. On the northern slope he had already seen quite a few horses and the corpses of Yongning Army soldiers. When Huang Shi reached the top of the ridge, the scene before him was that of a battlefield just after a major engagement: the entire southern slope was stained red with blood, and from right under his feet all the way to the next hilltop, the road presented a ghastly sight, choked with the bodies of men and horses; the trees at the entrance to the road had also been battered to pieces.

“Battalion Commander Zhang, did you run into the enemy’s main force?”

“In reply to the Grand Commander, your humble subordinate basically encountered no main force of the Yongning rebels — just some small fry, though I did run into ten or twenty thousand of them. However, just now I encountered a batch of Yongning rebel cavalry charging the formation; most of them were fierce and fearless of death, so they looked like the main force.”

“Cavalry charging a formation? In this kind of terrain?” A look of surprise appeared on Huang Shi’s face, and he proceeded to question him closely about the entire course of the battle. After hearing it through, he pondered for a moment and said: “Why does it sound like a desperate, dying lunge? Are you absolutely certain that what you encountered earlier was not the Yongning rebels’ main force?”

“It was definitely just small fry; they had no fighting strength at all. Your humble subordinate thinks that the Yongning rebels’ main force must be mostly still at Chishui Garrison and could not be recalled in time.”

“Mm, that’s possible. It seems we’ve netted far more rebel troops than we imagined.” Seeing that the day was already growing late, Huang Shi ordered the Ming army to rest on the spot and prepare to continue the attack southward the next day, so as to link up with He Dingyuan as quickly as possible. The transport capacity of this road was truly limited; Huang Shi could at most dispatch an advancing battle group of about a thousand men at a time, and the baggage train had to follow behind, otherwise the supply of the frontline troops could not be guaranteed.

Huang Shi had captured quite a few prisoners at Pushisuo. She Chongming had left behind many civilian laborers there, and Huang Shi organized all of them into his own grain‑transport teams, also sending horse squads to keep them under surveillance. Apart from the horse squads, Huang Shi also left two infantry squads at Pushisuo; they bore the heavy responsibility of defending to the north, and at the same time had the task of opening the communication line from Pushisuo to Linzhou — though of course, they would not be the only Ming army unit carrying out this task.

…

The twelfth day of the ninth month of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, Linzhou

After receiving Huang Shi’s order, the two battalions of Sichuan troops garrisoning Linzhou began advancing along the road toward Pushisuo. Their task was to sweep away the scattered stragglers on this road and drive all these short‑on‑clothes, short‑on‑grain wretches deep into the remote mountains and old forests. At the same time, they would also deliver this victory dispatch to the Yongzhen Ming army main camp, and the Yongzhen main camp, upon receiving this news, would then forward it to Guiyang.