Chapter 51: The Night Scouts Strike

Not long after, Yang Qili appeared on another small earthen slope, where the several squads under his command were all gathered.

Apart from the five men sacrificed to cover that unlucky bastard Zhu Chunchen, there were twenty-five men in total.

They used the woods to conceal themselves, lying or reclining, conserving their strength for the coming action.

Camouflage was child's play for these men; once hidden, even their comrades directly opposite had to strain their eyes to spot one another.

A hundred-odd paces away, on a small earthen slope, stood three hastily pitched tents, with several dozen war horses tethered at the side, large and small bundles hanging from both flanks of the horses.

Outside the tents a campfire blazed, and above it a roasting rack had been set up, with a whole pig spitted over the flames.

A group of Qing soldiers sat in a circle around the fire, their cotton armor loosened, constantly fanning themselves with captured palm-leaf fans — clearly suffering terribly from the heat.

Through his telescope Yang Qili saw the distant scene with perfect clarity. He muttered: "Damned Tartar bastards, what nerve — with this many men they dare to roast meat out in the open, not a care in the world about an ambush. Looks to me like these scouts are eating their last meal before the headsman's blade."

Yang Qili immediately began making his arrangements: the twenty-five men split into five groups — two groups attacking from the front, two sweeping in from left and right, and one group lying in ambush along the Qing soldiers' escape route. Any Qing soldier who slipped through would be theirs to deal with — something like the tactic of besieging three sides and leaving one open.

Once the assignments were complete, the Night Scouts of Yang Qili's First Post immediately set off, preparing to strike.

Of the thirty Qing soldiers, there were five white-armored soldiers, ten cavalrymen, and fifteen foot soldiers. They had originally been three separate squads who had met along the road while pursuing fleeing rich households, and so had temporarily banded together, planning to eat and chat about how to split the money.

As Qing army scouts, they had been plundering the wagon trains of rich households scattering in flight while reconnoitering Ming troop movements along the way, and had come into a considerable windfall.

And the Ming troops around here, whenever they encountered them, would hide one by one inside the cities — so they grew even more reckless, to the point they no longer even needed to scout anything.

Just as this band of thirty Qing army scouts was eating roast meat and squabbling over the money, suddenly a gunshot rang out — a white-armored soldier waving a leg of meat and shouting had a fist-sized bloody hole blown through his head, twitched a few times on the spot, and died dead.

Almost at the same moment, a volley of gunfire erupted, and lead shot kept striking the remaining Qing soldiers. The shots were not dense, but they seemed to have eyes, all flying toward the vital points of the Qing troops.

The Qing scouts were hit one after another and kept collapsing — dead or gravely wounded.

All of this happened in an instant. The Qing scouts were thrown into panic; many, after a moment of stunned hesitation, immediately dropped to the ground, dodging the lead shot while constantly scanning their surroundings to assess the situation.

After one round of firing, the gunfire finally ceased, and the Night Scouts began reloading. Under the hand-signal commands of each group leader, the four assault groups also began slowly advancing toward the Qing camp.

They loaded powder and shot as they moved — after long, hard drilling, the members of the Longxiang Night Scouts could load their weapons with their eyes closed. Gradually the distance between the two sides closed to sixty-odd paces.

The Qing scouts were no mediocrities either — every one of them was an elite rider. Though they had been ambushed and lost over half their number, they remained tenacious.

When they saw the enemy enter bow range, the Qing scouts immediately drew and loosed. Several arrows whistled out with two sharp cries, and two of them struck two Night Scouts respectively.

Not every Qing soldier could shoot an arrow through a willow leaf at a hundred paces; hitting an enemy at sixty paces already counted as skilled horsemanship and archery — yet they had not struck the Night Scouts' vital spots.

And since the Longxiang Night Scouts were superbly equipped, the Qing arrows only pierced through their armor without penetrating deep into flesh.

The two wounded Night Scouts clutched their wounds, staggered back a few steps, then casually yanked the arrows out and continued forward.

Following the hand signals of each group leader, the Night Scouts each found cover on the ground and concealed themselves, not speaking a word — communicating entirely by gesture.

After a few signals, several Night Scouts had leveled their muskets at two Qing soldiers who had poked their heads up to look. A few shots rang out, and the two "birds sticking their heads out" were blown apart on the spot.

The other Night Scouts took the chance to drop low and crawl up the slope on their bellies.

The few Qing soldiers on the slope were growing frantic — never had they imagined they would run into Ming troops who handled firearms this well.

Under the jabbering command of a white-armored soldier, several Qing troops ran to the war horses by the tents, vaulted into the saddles in one motion, and charged down the slope, loosing arrows at the crawling Night Scouts as they rode — fully exploiting their mounted-archery specialty.

Having a specialty was all well and good — in later ages it could even earn you bonus points on exams — but they were facing men who were even more professional.

With a "Bang!" a single shot struck a white-armored soldier galloping on horseback dead center in the left chest, punching clean through.

The shot exited through his back, blood spurting out like a pillar of water. The white-armored soldier immediately tumbled from his horse, hit the ground, twitched a few times, and died.

After several more shots, several Qing scouts doing "reconnaissance with their own flesh" fell from their horses with the reports of the guns, making the few Qing scouts still on the slope grit their teeth and snarl — even their archery motions grew clumsy.

The men of the First Post of the Longxiang Night Scouts kept pressing forward, the distance between the two sides shrinking ever closer — from thirty paces to twenty, and then to fifteen.

Yang Qili had no intention of wasting time trading shots with this pack of Qing scouts. To finish off these Tartars as quickly as possible, he dashed several strides up to a Qing soldier, swung his single saber with all his might, and chopped down at the man's head.

That Qing scout had been used to arrogance along the road — where would he ever have met Ming troops this ferocious? In his moment of shock he failed to dodge in time, and the blade cut from his right shoulder all the way down to his left flank. Blood gushed out like a spring, splattering all over Yang Qili.

The other Night Scout groups hurried to follow, swarming up the slope and falling upon the dozen-odd remaining Qing soldiers. It was nearly one-on-one close combat, and the Longxiang Night Scouts' military grappling and blade work had full room to shine — they hacked this band of Qing troops until they were wailing for their fathers and mothers.

Among these Qing soldiers, the strongest fighters had been the white-armored soldiers, and now they too had been cut down for the most part.

Yang Qili crooked a finger at the last white-armored soldier, shot him a provocative glare, and cursed him out in Manchu: "Fuck your mother."

Seeing that the white-armored soldier seemed not to understand what "mother" meant, Yang Qili laughed in exasperation and continued raging at him in Manchu: "I'll fuck your eniye!"

"Eniye" means mother in Manchu, and this white-armored soldier understood at once. Having never endured such an insult, he howled and charged at Yang Qili.

Seeing his foe enraged, a cruel smile spread across Yang Qili's face as he raised his blade and hacked fiercely at the white-armored soldier.

The white-armored soldier, terrified, raised his own blade to block. Though he turned aside Yang Qili's strike, the impact jarred the weapon from his hand, and his whole body reeled unsteadily.

Yang Qili pursued and struck again. Without a weapon in hand, the white-armored soldier scrambled to dodge, but as the gleaming long blade came slashing down his legs went weak beneath him — the blow caught him and he pitched over, tumbling down the small slope until he lay still and silent.

A few Qing soldiers who tried to vault onto horses and flee were each shot dead by the Night Scouts' raised muskets — not a single one escaped.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Author's note: In many films and TV dramas, the Manchus call their mother "eniye" (额娘). Strictly speaking, however, the word "eniye" does not exist in the Manchu language.

According to the record in Jin Qicong's "Jin Qicong on the Manchus of Beijing" by the seventh-generation descendant of Prince Rongchun Yongqi, the Manchu words for mother generally include: eme, eniye, and nini.

Because words like eniye sounded close to "eniye" (额娘), "额娘" later came to be used specifically for addressing one's stepmother.