Chapter 359: Rope

Blood watered the river valley as the glaive's edge swept across the front of every infantry formation, slashing toward Wang Cheng'en.

No one launched a charge; the foot formations' assault was spearmen striding forward steadily under the cover of sword-and-shield men, like two roaring giants colliding in slow advance.

Before the impact, the Lintao border army's three-eyed guns sounded first — though they had taken heavy punishment while the enemy advanced and several hundred-man line formations were already falling back, they still managed to organize orderly firearms volleys before close combat.

But this posed little threat; the greatest feature of the training battalions Liu Chengzong established was having complete Ming army infantry, cavalry, and artillery branches with junior officers, men who could skillfully use Ming tactics and also devise targeted counter-tactics.

Their ability to form a grand battle array from several battalions, however, was nearly zero — meaning the Marshal's Manor shared the Ming army's weakness of being unable to fight large-scale battles, yet the Ming army's excellent performance in small-scale engagements was actually enhanced in the Marshal's Manor.

Their tactics were the same; the only changes were in the timing and manner of employing those tactics.

Ming cavalry charged at two hundred paces; the Marshal's Manor horse troops waited until they reached one hundred fifty paces, then charged thirty paces — still having the strength to collide with you and the horsepower left to pursue.

Ming infantry took the time of one incense stick to change from column to line formation; the Marshal's Manor infantry needed only two-thirds of that time, and the extra time let them hit you two more volleys.

Even the shields — the Marshal's Manor's hide-covered shields had an added thin iron plate on the front, with the acceptance standard being able to stop a three-eyed gun at twenty paces.

Clouds of gunsmoke burst before the formations one after another, followed by the shriek of tearing air as short throwing spears pierced through the smoke and nailed into the Lintao army's square formations.

The sword-and-shield men hurled the two short spears they carried in the briefest time, then gripped their waist sabers and rapidly closed to fight the spearmen.

The two armies finally entered close combat, men using the same line formations, the same standard-issue weapons, even the same tactics, tangled into one chaotic mass.

Lintao sword-and-shield men tried to roll beneath the long spears to close in fast, only to crash into enemy sword-and-shield men with the same idea — both sides stabbed at each other with waist sabers, and both sides blocked the thrusting blades with their shields.

Watching from the rear, Wang Cheng'en clenched his fists tightly; he had identified the enemy's trait — everything they did was in the drill manual, but the way they accomplished it never followed the manual.

Three years ago beneath Luanzhou's walls, the eastern caitiff slaves led by Gushan Ejen Turgai had given him this same feeling — the eastern caitiff slaves pushed northern war wagons out from the south gate and fought them using war-wagon tactics.

The only difference was that Ming war wagons, meant to block Mongol arrows, had planks six fen thick, while the eastern caitiff wagons, meant to block their cannonballs, had planks six cun thick.

On the ever-shifting battlefield, a stray thought flashed unbidden through the mind of Wang Cheng'en, commander of the Lintao border army: if these western bandits tailored against the Ming army fought those eastern caitiffs tailored against the Ming army, what scene would unfold on the battlefield?

But before he could pursue this line of thought further, the frontline situation shattered his fantasy — mere moments into the fight, his hundred-man companies were falling back one after another in the close combat.

The enemy practically chased the retreating formations, crashing into the second-echelon formations.

In past battles this was no great problem; the Lintao troops had always formed and shifted formations faster than the bandits — his formations finished shifting first, so the enemy could never drag him by the nose.

And his past opponents had never been as reckless as Wang Wenxiu.

Because Wang Wenxiu had left no reserve; thirty hundred-commander companies shifted into two line formations in width, and with both sides equal in strength, Wang Cheng'en had to also form two line formations to avoid being enveloped.

Which meant he, too, had no reserve.

And that made the frontline retreat a very big problem.

Wang Cheng'en hurriedly ordered his subordinate Adjutant General Zhang Tianlu to return from the front and rally the retreating broken troops in the rear, while simultaneously ordering He Yongji's tribal troops to urgently attack the enemy's left wing.

He had spotted the weakness of the Marshal's Manor army — their center and two wings, three battle formations, were effectively disconnected; the commander's assault was fierce, but he lacked the ability to direct all three formations simultaneously.

If they could take the enemy's left wing, a semi-envelopment was still possible... truth be told, Wang Cheng'en was starting to get the feeling the Later Jin army must have had fighting the Ming in Liaodong.

He Yongji, upon receiving the order, turned green — he dared not attack!

Facing him was Liu Chengyun, and Liu Guoneng had laid a field of stone-bomb mines before the battle line — who would dare charge into that?

The center was clashing fiercely, but the government army's right wing had not even engaged yet, hadn't even reached three-eyed gun range, and could only shoot from afar with longbows and heavy crossbows.

He Yongji twice offered bounties to the tribal troops, recruiting brave men for suicide squads to advance with large shields and pull out the fuses, but each time the squads rushed close, the stone bombs detonated.

Some stone bombs simply exploded; others, made of better-quality stone, acted like giant stone blunderbusses, spraying a cloud of fragments and gravel into the suicide squad's formation.

Two suicide squads were organized, and aside from leaving a few dozen men lying before the lines, they achieved nothing at all.

When he tried to recruit more men for a death-or-glory charge, no one would come.

He Yongji's request sent back to the center was to deploy cannons — once the cannons arrived, judging by the look of the army across from him, he could absolutely pound them into launching the first charge.

But Wang Cheng'en's cannons... his cannons were all at the front, and the front was now effectively behind Wang Wenxiu's battle formation.

Wang Wenxiu's wild-goose formation was like a mad dog — the moment it found a crack, it bit to the death; one small hundred-man line formation after another, morale soaring, pressed forward step by step, neither flinching nor dodging in close combat, while the Lintao troops dared not trade wound for wound with them.

Because these men's weapons all aimed deliberately at non-vital spots, which drove the Lintao troops to despair... I spent so long before the battle using my limited armor plates to protect my vitals, and you won't even take a swing at them?

And indeed, barring mistakes, not a single soldier in the training infantry battalion aimed for vitals.

Yet precisely those non-vital areas of the Lintao troops had almost no armor plate protection — one saber strike, one sure hit, incredibly efficient, a single cut and they lost combat effectiveness.

These were all key combat points Liu Chengzong had taught his trusted men early on; they were all border troops and knew exactly where border troops would choose to protect when armor plates were limited.

This made the Lintao troops' armor, before the Marshal's Manor infantry, like padded cloth jackets — a single thrust went straight through.

Conversely, the Marshal's Manor infantry's cotton armor had been filled out with enough plates through the fighting across Shaanxi and Shanxi, providing good protection in melee; even the later mass-produced riveted or forge-welded mail likewise offered considerable defensive strength.

This was a situation that only arose when military preparedness had decayed — an army wearing visible armor could deal a devastating morale blow to an army wearing concealed armor.

The quality of visible armor was plain for all to see; whether concealed armor was good or not, only the wearer knew.

One battle formation after another was defeated; the Marshal's Manor formations driving deep into the breach were having no easy time, facing attacks from three sides at once, but the Lintao troops still holding the line were having just as hard a time, also facing threats from two or even three sides.

The two armies' front lines interlocked like dog's teeth, the men fighting at the front tested to the utmost in combat will — and it was precisely at this moment that the thunder of hooves came from their left wing.

It was Zhong Hu, drenched in blood.

His thousand-odd Nanshan troops had pierced the government army's left-wing tribal troops in the shortest time, driven their remnants from the field without pursuing, then handpicked six hundred soldiers to remount their donkeys and mules, maneuvering through the huge gap in the government left wing, crossing the battlefield toward the government rear.

Compared to the Marshal's Manor's center Adjutant General Wang Wenxiu and left-wing Adjutant General Liu Chengyun, Zhong Hu held a lower rank and was not of officer background.

He and his younger brother Zhong Bao were men who had surpassed Liu Chengzong in the martial contest when the Lion Battalion first reorganized in Shanxi and fixed troop merits; afterward they had always served as Liu Shizi's household retainers, never as junior officers, their first official post being squad commander.

He had not led troops in any real battles, but men knew he was fierce and unafraid of death, because this squad commander post was earned when Zhong Hu took a bullet for Liu Shizi during the night battle against Li Bei's detached force under Liu Guozhen, when Liu Shizi and Shangtian Hou joined forces.

Men trust in their own strengths — the resourceful trust their cunning, and the brave and battle-hungry likewise trust their martial skill.

Though the six hundred Nanshan troops rode donkeys and mules and carried infantry spears only five meters long, that did not stop Zhong Hu from leading them in forming ten sharp cavalry formations two ranks deep, charging at Adjutant General Zhang Tianlu, who was rallying broken troops in Wang Cheng'en's rear.

The Lintao troops just withdrawn from the front were being organized into a reserve by Zhang Tianlu, not yet familiar with their new commander, when the rumbling donkey and mule charge threw them into shock — seven or eight hundred men forced to huddle together, relying on veteran instinct to spontaneously form four disordered battle formations.

Veterans do not fear donkeys — unless they are a herd of battle-hardened Guanzhong great donkeys.

Sixty Nanshan troops, led by their company commander in a sharp cavalry formation, launched the first wave of the charge; spotting mid-advance that the enemy had already formed up, they wheeled in a circle and withdrew, snapping their infantry spears in half.

Then they charged again, hurling the broken spears into the formation from a dozen paces away, drawing bows and circling the formation in mounted archery.

The second wave, the third, the fourth — more and more donkey and mule cavalry struck left and right in the Lintao army's rear; some Nanshan troops thrust a spear at the enemy formation when they saw an opening, and when there was none, they snapped their infantry spears and threw them, then drew bows and shot on the gallop.

In truth, when it came to these donkey and mule cavalry's combat effectiveness, the infantry spears in their hands mattered far more than the donkeys and mules beneath them.

The infantry spear was one zhang five chi, or four meters ninety-five; the cavalry spear was one zhang eight chi, or five meters ninety-four. This meant that if you charged on horseback with an infantry spear and the enemy on foot blocked with an infantry spear, the infantryman would skewer the cavalryman first.

At the same time, the infantry spear had no binding straps on its shaft or butt, which meant that Zhong Hu's donkey and mule cavalry, while gripping the infantry spear, could not draw their bows to shoot.

So the moment they had no chance to charge, they had to either abandon the spear or break it and hurl it, using it as a disposable weapon.

Fortunately, the spear shafts were all ordinary round poles, so breaking them caused no heartache. If they had been long weapons like blades or axes, with oval cross-section shafts made to distinguish orientation, they really couldn't bear to snap them.

Wang Cheng'en frowned as he looked to the rear. Did Liu Chengzong still have a donkey cavalry under his command?

Seeing no sign of Mobile Corps Commander Zhang Tianlu, who was supposed to rally his routed troops as a reserve, he immediately pointed at Zhong Hu, who was leading troops to the side and rear, and said to Officer Shi Chongde, who had just withdrawn from the front line beside him: "Squad Commander Shi, the bandit leader on the right wing is right there — kill him!"

Shi Chongde was an Assistant Commander of Lintao Guard, a brave officer serving as Squad Commander in the Lintao Elite Battalion. At these words, he clasped his fists in acknowledgment, mounted up with his household retainers at the central army, and charged straight at Zhong Hu.

Along the way, the donkey and mule cavalry parted to avoid them... The donkey and mule cavalry could maneuver quickly, but compared to proper cavalry, their disadvantage was considerable, and no one wanted to clash head-on with them.

But Zhong Hu was not afraid. He wasn't even afraid of blocking bullets, let alone matching strength with men on horseback.

Seeing an officer burst from the enemy center with twenty or thirty riders charging over, Zhong Hu immediately called the left and right squads of donkey and mule cavalry to meet them in battle, and himself leveled his infantry spear and charged at the enemy.

On Shi Chongde's side, several riders loosed arrows left and right as they galloped, but they were moving too fast to hit anyone. On Zhong Hu's side, as the hundred-odd riders closed in, a volley of thrown spears flew over, and several riders immediately fell from their horses.

Then the mule squad and donkey squad surged forward valiantly, wheeling back and forth and striking left and right, while Zhong Hu charged straight at the enemy commander, shouting: "Strike the horses!"

The words had barely left his mouth when, in a single exchange, Shi Chongde knocked him off his war donkey.

Almost at the same moment, the donkey riders following Zhong Hu also launched a frontal charge against all the charging household retainers, and afterward most were knocked off their war donkeys, with only a few still mounted.

But in the same way, Squad Commander Shi Chongde of Lintao Battalion and his subordinate household retainers were also knocked off their horses.

Shi Chongde had aimed for their men; Zhong Hu had aimed for their horses. Some cavalrymen realized something was wrong, but more were so fixated on stabbing men that the shorter infantry spears brought down their warhorses first — Shi Chongde was one of them.

When he scrambled up from the ground, a mule rider beside him swept past with a light swing of a bone mace. Even wearing a helmet, he was knocked senseless, his body twisting as he was smashed to the ground.

But Zhong Hu acted as if nothing had happened, rolling on the ground and clambering to his feet, drawing the goose-quill saber at his waist and leading his foot-cavalry to continue charging the enemy infantry formation.

At the same time, the Lintao army's battle formations that had been stubbornly resisting on the front line finally collapsed in will under the assault from front and rear. The battle line composed of individual formations loosened and disintegrated, and the great formation of two layers of small unit formations was at last cleaved apart by Wang Wenxiu's crescent-moon blade.

When the first Marshal's Manor infantry formation pierced through the battle line and broke out, Wang Cheng'en's Lintao army line collapsed completely, and one formation after another involuntarily drew close to He Yongji on the right wing.

On the right wing were He Yongji's four thousand native troops, but those four thousand native troops had barely engaged in the fighting, merely loosing arrows at the Cheng Transport army's formations from a distance. Now they had no idea what was happening, only seeing that the central army's Chief Commander Wang's formation had disintegrated. In an instant, they lost their will to fight, and the entire division scattered eastward in rout.

Wang Cheng'en was so furious he cursed in the street, and had no choice but to lead his troops eastward, fighting as they retreated.

Watching the speed at which his centurions were breaking the enemy formations suddenly accelerate, Wang Wenxiu finally saw the dawn of victory beckoning to him. He immediately ordered the first great horizontal column of fifteen centurion squads to shed their armor and rest, while the second horizontal column behind them took up the pursuit.

Wang Wenxiu sent a man to relay orders to the soldiers of Zhong Hu's unit who had stayed behind: "Tell them to go back and find the medic camp, haul the medic camp out here, and bring rope!"

He needed a great deal of rope. The ground was covered with wounded Lintao soldiers, many of whom could still be saved, and many more whose will to fight had already crumbled and who would surrender in the coming pursuit.

"These are all good soldiers for the Grand Marshal! Even if they're unwilling to surrender and want to take silver and go home, we must let the Grand Marshal see them! Bring rope, lots and lots of rope, quickly!"