Chapter 264: Change

Compared to the final outcome of the Battle of Yizhou, Zhu Youjian paid more attention to the course of the fighting. That the Yongwei Camp had taken Yizhou was within expectations, but the process of the battle left Zhu Youjian less than satisfied. Cross-referencing the detailed battle report Mao Yuanyi had delivered, Zhu Youjian reflected on and summarized the gains and losses.

The overall strategy of this Battle of Yizhou had no problems, but there were errors on the tactical level. Because the Yongwei Camp officers were too confident in their firepower output, they neglected the protection of the musketeer squares, allowing the Jianzhou barbarian infantry to break into the musketeer formations and inflict heavy casualties on the gunners.

Although Mao Yuanyi was quite talented and resourceful, he still had too little battlefield experience and appeared somewhat immature in on-the-spot command and response.

Zhu Youjian had originally wanted to forge the Yongwei Camp into a primarily firearm-equipped force, so he equipped the camp with large numbers of firearms and used spearmen and sword-and-shield men to provide cover and protection for the musketeers, while abandoning crossbowmen and archers. Now it seemed this decision had been a mistake.

Thanks to improvements by Bi Maokang and the skilled craftsmen of the Ordnance Directorate, the firearms equipped by the Yongwei Camp had greatly increased in both range and power compared to before, but the shortcomings of firearms were exposed without reserve in this battle: the interval between second shots was too long, they could not perform arcing fire like bows, and once the enemy closed in, the gunners had no means to fight back. It seemed that adding bayonets to the firearms was now imperative—with a bayonet, musketeers could at least defend themselves in extreme situations when the enemy broke through to them. Technically, attaching a bayonet to the barrel was not difficult; the Ordnance Directorate had many skilled craftsmen, and as long as he raised the concept, he believed they would quickly produce results.

Practice had proven that archers could not yet be discarded. If there had been large numbers of archers at the Battle of Yizhou, when the enemy charged in close combat and the two sides' infantry clashed, they could have loosed arcing volleys from behind the musketeers, inflicting effective casualties on the enemy and rapidly tipping the scales of victory to their own side. The Jianzhou barbarians had precisely used their favored longbows and heavy arrows to first disrupt the musketeer formations, and only then broke through to close range against the gunners.

The Yongwei Camp's musketeer casualties in this battle were as high as over seven hundred men, of whom more than three hundred were killed and over four hundred wounded, with the majority of casualties inflicted by Jianzhou barbarian arrows—one musketeer battalion had essentially been crippled.

Heavy-armored infantry and sword-and-shield men suffered over two hundred casualties, which was still acceptable. The spearmen suffered fewer than a hundred casualties, but they had been blocked by the Han booi bondservants, delaying their rescue of the musketeers. The battalion officer leading them had not made the decisive call to split his forces for the rescue, but instead only rushed over after routing the bondservants—this also showed that the commanders had major problems with on-the-spot decision-making and judgment. These lessons all needed to be carefully reflected upon and summarized by the participating officers and men after the battle, in preparation for the larger-scale warfare with the Jianzhou barbarians to come.

Cannons were indeed formidable instruments of war, capable of both defense and offense. As long as they were skillfully employed, they could certainly become the decisive factor determining the course of a war. The next step was to carefully study how to coordinate cannons with infantry operations, better exploiting the advantage of long-range firepower output.

The remains of the Yongwei Camp's fallen officers and men would be temporarily preserved and would later be buried in the cemetery behind the Shrine of Martyrs. The wounded were also arranged in the medical camp, awaiting better treatment and care. Although the army was now equipped with military doctors and medical personnel, that was only temporary battlefield treatment, incomparable to the capital with its superior conditions. Here the wounded would be treated by physicians of greater skill and would receive more attentive care—perhaps even something good might come of it.

Because the members of the medical camp were composed of unattached adult women who had been taken in from various places by Zhu Youjian's order, these women who had lost their families to war, famine, and plague also needed to find someone to rely on, and disabled soldiers were a good choice. Most of the disabled officers and men could no longer return to the battlefield, but being mostly bachelors, they would henceforth be inseparable from the care of family—these women were the best candidates. In an era when the term "romantic love" did not yet exist, relying on each other and caring for one another, honoring one's elders, bearing children and descendants, and not letting one's family line die out—that was the best love there was.

In terms of material foundation, each disabled officer or soldier not only received generous rewards, but after retirement also had a fixed monthly income and tax-exempt farmland—these alone gave such a family sufficient livelihood and security.

These matters, once ordered, would naturally be handled by others. He believed they would also be universally welcomed by the officers and men, would likewise boost military morale, and incidentally he could win himself a better reputation.

Although the process had some flaws, in the end it was a victory, and Yizhou had been recovered—this was the first time the Ming army had retaken lost territory since the Battle of Sarhu. All participants in this battle should receive various rewards; the specific promotions and rewards would be handled by the Ministry of War, and he would only need to review them when the time came.

After reading Mao Yuanyi's detailed battle report, Zhu Youjian picked up Hong Chengchou's personal memorial.

Hong Chengchou's memorial was nothing but official boilerplate—this was the norm in officialdom—but within it he also raised several issues: first, he hoped the court would as soon as possible transport grain and military equipment to Yizhou, stockpiling as many supplies as possible in preparation for the large-scale retaliation the Jianzhou barbarians would very likely launch.

Of the dozen or so granaries inside Yizhou city, most had been burned down by the Jianzhou barbarians after the city fell, and most of the grain and supplies had been destroyed, leaving only a small portion—this left Hong Chengchou, who had originally hoped to pick up a big prize, somewhat disappointed.

The Yongwei Camp stationed at Yizhou, plus the logistics camp, now numbered nearly twenty-five thousand men, requiring over two hundred shi of grain daily. Although Hong Chengchou could levy grain from western Liaoning, this kind of strategic material should still be made as self-sufficient as possible, to avoid being controlled by others.

After suffering such a major loss this time, the Jianzhou barbarians would certainly not let the matter rest. Hong Chengchou speculated that Jianzhou would soon send troops: first, to seek an opportunity to retake Yizhou, and second, to defeat and inflict heavy casualties on the Ming army, crushing the morale that the Ming forces had only just begun to recover.

Various signs indicated that before the Ming army attacked the city, the Yizhou garrison commander had sent out messengers. Once the barbarian chieftain at Shengjing received the news, he should deduce that Yizhou had already changed hands, so sending troops was a certainty. The exact number of soldiers was unknown, but it would certainly not be small—no fewer than twenty thousand men.

Hong Chengchou analyzed: although the Jianzhou garrison commander had sent men back to Shengjing to report, because the Jianzhou barbarian scouts had not detected which route of official troops had come to western Liaoning before the battle, the barbarian chieftain should assume that the attackers were still the Ning-Jin official troops, and that the Ning-Jin army had launched the offensive to seize the supplies within the city. Judging from the record of battles between the two sides over the years, the barbarian chieftain should dispatch a large army for retaliation—besides retaking Yizhou, Jinzhou was likely the Jianzhou barbarians' main target of attack. Hong Chengchou believed that if things developed along these lines, next year's great battle might come early, beginning with the Jianzhou barbarians actively attacking Jinzhou, rather than the originally planned Ming army crossing the central Liaoning plain to push straight for Shengjing.

The second issue derived from the first. Hong Chengchou suggested that the forces prepared to attack Jianzhou next year be transported to western Liaoning ahead of schedule, seeking to defeat the Jianzhou barbarians again near Yizhou with superior numbers.

Given that the Jianzhou barbarians' main force had yet to return from its western campaign, and that the Jianzhou barbarians greatly despised the strength of the Ning-Jin official troops, they would muster the remaining forces from Shengjing, Liaoyang, and even Hetu Ala to attack Yizhou and Jinzhou. The troops from these three places should not exceed thirty thousand men, and would have the Han-martial banners of turncoat generals like Geng Zhongming as the main force, because the Han-martial banners possessed large numbers of firearms and cannons—if the Jianzhou barbarians wanted to take cities, they had to rely on these turncoat generals and their subordinates. If the official side mobilized a large army to western Liaoning in advance, they might just catch the arrogant Jianzhou barbarians completely off guard.

Zhu Youjian pondered for a long while, feeling that Hong Chengchou's speculation was highly likely to become reality. Hong Taiji and the other barbarian chieftains did not know that this time it was Ming troops from inside the passes who had come to western Liaoning and taken Yizhou. The Jianzhou barbarians, holding an enormous psychological advantage, could hardly swallow this bitter pill—having a defeated underling's general slain and a city taken was absolutely intolerable to the chieftains. Perhaps within no more than a month, Jianzhou barbarian forces should be able to reach the Jinzhou front line. If he dispatched more troops to western Liaoning at that time, there might be unexpected gains—Hong Taiji would never imagine that sending more troops would become a piecemeal reinforcement tactic. If they won another great victory and inflicted heavy casualties on Jianzhou barbarian manpower, the entire situation in western Liaoning would be completely transformed.

Thinking this far, Zhu Youjian set down Hong Chengchou's memorial and ordered: "Summon the Minister of War and the two Vice Ministers, the Marquis of Yangwu, the Earl of Xuancheng, and Sun Yingyuan to Qianqing Palace for deliberation!"