Chapter 394: The Army Arrives

The Ming army's baggage camp, built in the tenth year of Chongzhen, occupied a wide expanse of ground. Apart from the natural barrier of mountains and sea on the east and south, the north and west sides were enclosed by wooden palisades seven or eight chi high, built from thick, sturdy pine timber cut on the spot, while two two-zhang watchtowers stood some ten paces behind the palisades on the west and north sides respectively.

Unlike the watchtowers of ordinary camps, these two towers had bases built of brick and stone, and their tops were broad, sturdy platforms, each fitted with two five-hundred-jin Folangji cannons. In the corners of the platforms were stacked gunpowder and several types of shot, while a few Ming gunners either gazed into the distance or sat quietly chatting, awaiting the great battle to come.

Inside the camp, apart from a dozen or so storehouses scattered about holding grain and supplies, row upon row of wooden huts housing the ten thousand-plus laborers screened the camp's interior completely from view.

From the outside, this camp looked no different from any ordinary one—only a small number of Ming soldiers patrolled within. But on open ground in the camp's southeast quarter, beyond what could be observed from without, neat rows of tents had already been raised. Besides the squads of soldiers patrolling the lanes between the tents, more than five thousand officers and men of the Yongwei Camp sat quietly in their own tents, awaiting the orders of their superiors.

This remaining force of the Yongwei Camp, personally led by Regional Commander Sun Yingyuan, had received intelligence that the Qing army was massing at Yizhou beyond the passes. Acting on Zhu Youjian's orders, they had broken camp and marched out through the passes, arriving at this place just as the Qing army began digging trenches to besiege Songshan and Jinzhou.

This force of more than five thousand was the long-established chariot battalion.

The entire chariot battalion was made up of two hundred and eighty side-shielded carts, each equipped with one small three-hundred-jin Folangji cannon, one driver, three gunners, four musketeers, five shield-and-sword men, and five spearmen.

Each cart was drawn by a bullock. When battle drew near, the bullocks' eyes were covered with hempen cloth and their ears stuffed with cotton wads, to prevent them from being startled and causing the carts to run out of control.

The carts were then drawn up in a line abreast, with the notched side-shields facing the enemy front. The Folangji cannons fired outward through the notches, while the musketeers stood on either side of the cannons and fired.

The shield-and-sword men and spearmen were responsible for close combat after the enemy broke through the firepower screen, protecting the gunners and musketeers.

Though the battalion had been formed and trained for over a year, the soldiers' coordination had already become quite smooth.

And because the gunners and musketeers stood on raised platforms, their sense of security was greatly bolstered, so their rate of fire was considerably faster than musketeers drawn up in square formation. Some musketeers could already achieve three shots in under two hundred breaths.

By the standards of the old, cumbersome loading and firing procedures of the matchlock, this was already very fast.

When Zhu Youjian learned of this, he still felt a small pang of disappointment.

Because it was considerably slower than what he had hoped for, calculated by the timekeeping methods of later ages.

He had originally hoped for a crack force capable of two shots a minute, but before flintlocks became widespread, such a notion was pure wishful thinking.

The flintlock developed by Bi Maokang, constrained by raw materials, could not solve the problem of an excessively high misfire rate, and so could not yet be mass-issued. Only a small number of short-barreled pieces had been made and distributed to the Night Scouts in the army, as well as to senior officers and riders of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Sun Yingyuan's purpose in leading his force here this time was: to seize the moment, make full use of the advantage of firearms, and inflict the greatest possible casualties on the Qing army.

Though the Qing army had already clashed with the Yongwei Camp several times and had become wary and watchful of Ming firearms, the chariot battalion's firepower surpassed that of ordinary musketeers severalfold. So long as the Qing army still employed its old tactics, what awaited them would be a nightmare from which they could not shake free.

The five thousand Qin troops charged with guarding the baggage camp divided their positions into two: one camp was set up several hundred paces from the baggage camp's north gate, and the other established its stockade not far away at the west gate.

Both camps were likewise enclosed on four sides by palisades of logs, with two gates each. The north-gate camp held three thousand men, personally led by Vice Regional Commander Zhang Yuan, while the two thousand at the west-gate camp were under the command of Mobile Corps Commander He Shoudao for defense.

Because this portion of the Qin army was too thinly spread, and the attacking Qing forces would outnumber them several times over, and without explicit orders from the Ministry of War, Zhang Yuan ordered that no one was to leave camp to fight the enemy in the open field without command—defense was to be the primary objective.

Because these two camps sat squarely athwart the Qing army's route of advance on the baggage camp, if the Qing tried to bypass them and strike directly at the baggage camp behind, their flanks and rear would come under Ming fire. Thus these two stockades became the two nails the Qing army had to pull out first.

Because each of the four corners of these two camps had a gun platform, each equipped with Folangji cannons with a range of several hundred paces, no army dared risk being pounded by cannon fire to attack elsewhere.

Around the si hour of the tenth day of the second month in the eleventh year of Chongzhen, more and more Qing scouts appeared around Zhenyuan Fort and the perimeter of the Qin army's camps. Some bold Mongol Eight Banner Tartar scouts even rode through the open ground between the two Qin camps, pressing right up to the baggage camp's wooden palisade to look around.

The Ming army paid no heed to the Qing movements, letting the Tartar scouts show off their horsemanship and probe about as they pleased.

As the sun climbed to its zenith, dust rose in plumes from afar, and the great thunder of large bodies of horse trampling the ground echoed across the plains. Banners of every color and description appeared and vanished amid the dust.

Approaching noon, more than six thousand Mongol Eight Banner cavalry and two thousand cavalry of the Two Red Banners, led by the Beile Abatai, advanced to within a few li of the Qin army's camp east of Zhenyuan Fort.

Qing scouts of every description kept galloping up to Abatai's mount, reporting the intelligence they had gathered one item at a time. Then, at Abatai's loud commands, the Qing generals gathered around him received their orders and rode off one after another.

As order after order was passed down, troop after troop of cavalry galloped off in every direction. Apart from a few roving riders sent out to keep watch around the perimeter, the rest of the Qing cavalry dismounted. The Mongol and Eight Banner horsemen either took feed from their horses' saddlebags and fed their mounts, or rested in small groups where they stood, awaiting their masters' next commands.

Around the wei hour of the afternoon, a faint clamor came from the north. As the distance closed, the clamor turned into shouting and cursing.

Under the escort of the main Qing force, thirty thousand Han booi bondservants in tattered rags came pushing carts or carrying loads on shoulder poles, laden with great quantities of grain and baggage, surging forward in noisy disorder.

Then, amid blasts of horns, the booi overseers of each banner shouted and beat their men, gathering the empty-handed bondservants under the various identifying banners. After the headcount was taken, led by the banners, they scattered in all directions, carrying iron spades, hoes, logs, and all manner of tools and equipment.

Their main task was to set up camps in the designated zones according to the terrain surveyed in advance, to provide quarters for the Eight Banner Qing army.

Amid the bustling, noisy scene, by around the shen hour, a dozen or more large Qing camps scattered about had all been raised. Just as darkness was falling, column after column of the Qing main force came marching in from the north.

After night fell, the Qing army's torches stretched out like a great long dragon, winding southward from afar, and did not cease until deep into the night.