Chapter 126: The Qing Army Retreats North

Abatai led his troops in flight to Hexiwu, forty li outside Xincheng, where six thousand Qing soldiers were stationed, guarding against the Ming armies at Langfang and Wuqing to prevent them from encircling Baodi.

When the scouts reported that a large number of Qing troops were being pursued and slaughtered by the Ming army, the Qing soldiers at Hexiwu immediately deployed in full force to rescue Abatai's forces and cover the rear.

Seeing that the Qing army had reinforcements, Sun Yingyuan immediately ordered a halt to the pursuit and the entire army returned to Xincheng. Having chased for forty li, the Ming soldiers were already exhausted, and fighting another battle would cost too much to be worth it.

Upon reaching Hexiwu, Abatai grew more and more furious in his heart. As a Beile of the Great Qing and a son of Nurhaci, he had actually been chased for forty li by the Ming army!

The enemy's filthy tactics filled him with unbearable frustration and an indescribable rage. Upon hearing that the losses in this battle exceeded ten thousand, Abatai's eyes rolled back and he collapsed unconscious to the ground.

Bohetuo and the other commanders of the various jalan and niru were all shocked and hurriedly summoned the army doctors to treat Abatai. The doctors pounded his back and pinched his philtrum, nearly slapping him across the face, and after much effort finally managed to wake him up.

After prescribing several doses of medicine, the army doctor wiped the sweat from his brow and withdrew.

Though gravely ill, Abatai had no time to rest. He hastily ordered the troops to reorganize and retreat to Baodi, and sent men to contact the Qing Regional Commander Ajige, urging him to prepare as soon as possible for the withdrawal through the pass.

At this time, Ajige was in the city of Baodi, living a most comfortable life. Every day he enjoyed delicacies from land and sea prepared by Han Chinese cooks, drank fine wine, and at night had the wives and daughters of Ming officials attend him in bed—he was almost too happy to think of going home.

Although in past years the Qing army had also plundered many people and goods from the Ming state, and their customs had begun to draw closer to the Han Chinese, it was only now that Ajige truly savored the life of Ming high society. He had to admit that the genuine wealth and luxury of the Han Chinese was indeed comfortable.

Never mind that the Han Chinese couldn't fight worth a damn—when it came to enjoying life, they certainly had a way about them. The residences they lived in were large and spacious, matching his own Prince's mansion.

And the Han Chinese cooking skills were simply different. With the same chicken, duck, fish, and meat, the flavor the Han Chinese produced was just more delicious. Wine went without saying—fragrant and mellow. This was truly a life fit for a man!

Ajige even thought that the Ming army was now utterly incapable of resistance. When he returned, he would certainly persuade Hong Taiji to launch a full-scale invasion of Ming as soon as possible and take the Central Plains. Then he could spend his remaining years in peace, thoroughly enjoying the Han Chinese way of life.

But just as Ajige was lost in these reflections, he received news that Abatai and Yangguri had returned in defeat from Xincheng.

Ajige could not help but be greatly shocked. He never imagined that with Abatai and Yangguri both holding the line, and with an army of thirty thousand, they still could not overcome a tiny Xincheng—and had lost over ten thousand men killed and wounded, including more than four thousand Manchu soldiers of the Eight Banners.

Ajige said hatefully: "This Yangguri is better off dead! If he weren't Eighth Brother's confidant, I would have beheaded him back in Zhuozhou! How could I have let him cost me thousands of elite Eight Banner troops, including men of my own Two White Banners!"

Ajige was filled with hatred toward Yangguri, and at the same time afraid—the Ming army was actually this fierce. Not only had they killed Yangguri, they had even defeated the ever-cunning and steady Abatai.

Ajige no longer cared for pleasure. He ordered men to have Abatai rush to Baodi at once and questioned him in person about the course of the battle.

Two hours later, Abatai arrived in Baodi and gave a detailed account of the battle at Xincheng.

Gazing at the pale-faced Abatai, Ajige was silent for a long time. An army with such numerous cannons and such fine muskets, combined with a commander who fought so dirty—losing was only to be expected.

Ajige pondered for a long while before saying: "Seventh Brother, are we just going back like this?"

Abatai nodded and said: "It has already been several months since we set out. We've plundered no small amount of goods and people, and the soldiers are all homesick. I think we should immediately withdraw through the pass and return to the Great Qing."

He continued: "In this campaign against Ming, our losses have been too great. The Han Chinese Banners are almost entirely wiped out, the Mongol tribal troops and the wild tribesmen have lost more than half, and even the Mongol Banners and our Manchu soldiers have suffered heavy losses. If we keep fighting, I fear even you, Twelfth Brother, will find yourself in a difficult position."

Abatai felt he was utterly finished. In this campaign against Ming, every banner had suffered too many losses of men. These armored soldiers, auxiliary troops, attendants, and booi bondservants of the Manchu Eight Banners were all the personal strength of each banner master. He had no idea how he would account to the banner masters when he returned.

Especially Hooge, master of the Plain Blue Banner, Dorgon, master of the Plain White Banner, and Dodo, master of the Bordered White Banner—these three banners had suffered the worst losses, and their masters were all men of Prince rank. Would they let him off? Thinking of this, Abatai grew deeply anxious.

Ajige was also considering this problem. After all, Dorgon and Dodo were his full brothers born of the same mother. If the Two White Banners suffered any more losses, it would be inexcusable and would affect the standing of his two younger brothers at court.

In the entire campaign against Ming, the Qing army had lost roughly forty thousand troops in total, while the Manchu Eight Banner losses were only a few thousand. Overall, it was still within an acceptable range.

Under Hong Taiji's Eight Banner system, whenever the Qing army fought the Ming, they always first drove cannon fodder to attack the cities. The first wave was the Han Chinese Banners, the second wave the Mongol tribal troops, the third wave the various northeastern tribal troops (whom the Manchus called "savages"), the fourth wave the Mongol Banners, and only last did the Manchu Eight Banners take the field. Thus in every battle, the Manchu Eight Banners suffered the fewest losses.

After the two of them settled the matter, Ajige immediately ordered a withdrawal that very night. At the same time, he sent men to notify the Qing troops stationed at Pinggu to rendezvous with his forces and march north together, exiting the pass at Lengkou.

Early the next morning, Zhu Cilang received word in Xincheng that the Qing army was retreating and preparing to leave through the pass, and had already cut across between Jizhou and Yutian.

Zhu Cilang was speechless. The garrison troops at Jizhou and Yutian had just watched the Qing army's main force march right past under their very noses?

Indeed, Ma Rulong and Zu Dale at Jizhou had watched helplessly as the Qing army, carrying vast quantities of supplies, grain, and captives, withdrew past Jizhou. The Qing forces were simply too numerous—they did not dare leave the city to pursue or harass them.

"This Zu Dale—he really did keep his word and didn't run," Zhu Cilang sighed. Though he regretted that the Jizhou garrison hadn't managed to delay the enemy, he was not anxious.

There were only two or three places where one could exit the pass, and given the Qing army's direction, the only one was Lengkou near Jianchang. Lengkou was over three hundred li from Baodi, and the Qing army would need at least eight days to reach it with their baggage and plunder. The Ming army, pursuing lightly equipped, could catch up within a few days before they exited the pass.

At Xincheng, Zhu Cilang convened a post-battle review meeting, attended by the officers of both the Yongwei Camp and the New Camp, to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the battle.

Wang Wannian and Zhang Shize were fortunate enough to be invited to observe. At first, the two found this kind of meeting quite novel, but as it proceeded, they came to realize just how formidable such a review meeting was.

According to the tally, this battle had killed a total of eleven thousand enemies. Adding the more than two thousand heads taken when Yangguri's blocking force was broken, plus the over five thousand from the earlier defense of the city, the total came to eighteen thousand enemies slain.

The main reason was that Abatai was too cautious—as soon as he couldn't win, he hastily retreated, preventing the Ming army from exploiting their advantage despite having deployed their formation. Still, they had killed quite a few during the subsequent pursuit.

The Ming army's losses in this battle were also considerable. The four camps together lost more than thirty-five hundred men. Zhu Cilang ordered that the remains of the fallen soldiers be sent to the capital's cemetery for burial, their spirit tablets placed in the Hall of Loyal Souls, and that the New Camp's compensation follow the standards of the Yongwei Camp.

Zhu Cilang wrote a detailed battle report and sent a man to deliver it to Cao Huachun in Shunyi city, asking him to review it before sending it on to the palace. Upon receiving the report, Cao Huachun beamed with joy and personally carried the victory dispatch back to the capital.

After the review meeting concluded, Zhu Cilang received another piece of news: Lu Xiangsheng had led the Tianxiong Army to the vicinity of Daxing city and would reach Xincheng by tomorrow.

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Author's note: Some readers have said that an army in a single battle can only sustain losses of 5%-10%, and that in this book the Qing army constantly suffers losses of thousands upon thousands, which feels too fake. Here I'll briefly explain:

In the Han and Tang dynasties, wars against neighboring states frequently saw one-sided casualty ratios, because in those eras the Han Chinese equipment completely overwhelmed that of their neighbors. It was common that if you took an arrow from me you'd get a hole, but if I took an arrow from you, my armor would merely be dented and I'd be perfectly fine—that kind of overwhelming superiority.

Later, the chaos of the Western and Eastern Jin accelerated the neighboring states' absorption of Han civilization, and by the Yuan dynasty the technological levels of East Asian states had been nearly leveled. With no great gap in equipment, it was naturally hard to reproduce the earlier situation of one man fighting five and carving through enemies like chopping vegetables.

As everyone knows, collapse also has a collapse threshold. It is generally believed that for a normal ancient army it was ten percent—that is, when one thousand out of ten thousand were killed or wounded, the army would collapse.

And collapse is a process that also takes time to transition, since going from being inspired with courage and charging with a death-defying mindset to collapsing under a massive casualty ratio takes time.

In the Han dynasty, the combat power brought by equipment superiority could shatter the enemy before their morale faded. At that point, collapse only brought slaughter-style attacks.

Just like fighting a boss in a game with several phases—in theory, an army of ten thousand would collapse after a thousand casualties, but the Han army's damage output was so explosive that they skipped from the first engagement phase, across the second stalemate phase and the third collapse phase, straight to the fourth slaughter phase.

In the later Song and Ming periods, there was no longer the combat power that equipment superiority brought, so battles had to be fought phase by phase. Naturally, the casualty ratios didn't look good—lose ten percent and the army collapsed in total defeat.

The reason was that with battlefield wounds, as long as there was time for a stalemate, the wounded could either flee, be carried back for treatment, or have their comrades drag their bodies back, so the casualty ratios between the two sides weren't so extreme.

A normal soldier without a full map view could only see that his own side was dying and the enemy was also dying—naturally, they wouldn't see the Han dynasty situation where their own side fell in droves while the enemy occasionally dropped one or two.

Likewise, the Yongwei Camp and the New Camp both used fine firearms and armor, giving them absolute superiority in equipment. Combined with strict tactical coordination and advantages in range, using hot weapons to shatter the cold-weapon Qing soldiers was quite easy.

The above views are summarized from reading the book "From Yellow River Civilization to the Belt and Road Initiative," and I hope they help everyone's understanding.

Thanks to readers: hmht, Reader 150802201032663, Reader 20190625204906654 for their tips

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