Chapter 390: Tiger Gaze

On the fifth day of the sixth month, the day the Marshal's Western Route and Central Army were scheduled to march.

Several pieces of military intelligence from Wang Wenxiu's Eastern Route forces arrived at the garrison city via relay riders, deepening Liu Chengzong's understanding of the enemy, and also of the officers and soldiers under his command.

In his early years, Liu Shizi's favorite enemies to deal with were the Guard-and-Battalion troops of the garrisons — these men had good equipment, low combat strength, and insufficient training, making them the softest targets for a rebel army.

But in this vanguard operation, the Guide Battalion's Guard troops and conscripted militia, fighting the Oirats in mountainous terrain, displayed combat prowess no less than the frontier troops of the Ming's various garrisons — a performance that commanded newfound respect.

At the cost of twenty-three killed, sixty wounded, and three missing, they slew over two hundred of the Oirat Dzungar tribe and took seventy-seven heads, achieving a brilliant victory in a small-scale engagement.

Had Wang Wenxiu not accurately reported the course of the battle, Liu Chengzong would have found it hard to believe that such a meeting engagement had been fought and won by Bao Hu leading a band of Guide militia.

The Guide Battalion had only one hundred and forty-eight Guard troops on the rolls; they turned out in full force for this operation and also conscripted eight hundred militia from thirty-three earthen forts, forming a force of less than a thousand men.

This force had fought against Choktu Taiji the year before, dragging out a bronze cannon cast in the thirteenth year of the Hongwu reign to open battle against Khalkha cavalry. This year was merely a repeat of last year's scene — except this time they had the support of the Marshal's headquarters.

The Marshal's headquarters had captured a large number of Ming firearms currently in service during the great battle in Hehuang.

For example, the Ming army's Hundred-Tiger Salvo rocket carts, the single-eyed divine spears with spearheads, Qi Jiguang's Five-Thunder Divine Engines, Zhao Shizhen's Frankish-style Lightning Arquebuses fitted with bayonets, the Lumi Arquebuses with blades on the butt, the Thunderbolt Arquebuses using small axe-heads as stands and fitted with shields, and the Fierce-Fire Oil Tanks that sprayed burning oil.

Some of this equipment was too crude and outdated, resulting in insufficient power; much of it was indeed very effective, but placed high demands on logistics.

Over the course of its long campaigns, however, the Marshal's headquarters had developed its own firearms into a five-tier firepower system — light birding guns, heavy arquebuses, wall guns, light cannons, and heavy cannons — represented by light, heavy, and long-range categories. The lead balls and iron shot used came in only a few standardized calibers, making them far less dependent on logistics.

For this reason, Liu Chengzong did not incorporate those captured firearms into his army, but merely allocated them to various cities as defensive supplies… In his vision, these weapons were excellent, but equipping them on a large scale would yield only limited improvement to the Marshal's forces' combat power while increasing both logistical and manufacturing burdens.

Because to equip them on a large scale, the first consideration was logistics: these firearms had different calibers from the Marshal's current light and heavy arquebuses, meaning they could not use the soldiers' existing ammunition tubes and lead-ball molds.

And manufacturing a new batch of such equipment seemed pointless — building one five-barreled Thunderbolt Arquebus with its shield and axe-stand took more man-hours than a single wall gun, yet firing all five barrels in battle might not match the effect of a single wall-gun shot.

For Bao Hu's Guide Guard troops, however, who were still using their ancestral equipment, these disadvantages were no problem at all.

The battle report Wang Wenxiu sent detailed how Bao Hu's forces created a massive advantage with firearms during the chaotic mountain fighting; they repelled the Dzungar troops with almost no casualties.

Even when forming ranks on open ground, Bao Hu's force still had the strength to fight. It was only the scramble to harvest heads and a fire breaking out to their rear that made them abandon over twenty corpses and retreat.

But as for the head-harvesting, Liu Chengzong truly could not find it in himself to reproach them… It was the very source of the militia's high fighting spirit.

The report Wang Wenxiu sent mentioned that over the past year, the Guide Battalion's Guard troops and militia had all picked up the martial skills and training they had long since abandoned — all because Liu Chengzong had once rewarded them with one hundred and eighty taels of silver.

Liu Chengzong himself had forgotten when he had ever rewarded the Guide Guard troops with silver.

But the Guide Guard troops remembered: the Marshal's headquarters' bounty for a single enemy head was ten taels of silver.

Ten taels of silver is not much — a common household's income for a year; ten taels of silver is not little — enough to make a man sell his life.

For this reason, Liu Chengzong specially sent a letter to the new city, dispatching guards to carry his personal commendation to Guide. According to the standard of one hundred taels for the battalion commander, fifty taels for the vice-commander, ten taels for the company commanders, ten taels per head, ten taels in death compensation, five taels for the wounded, and five taels for the missing, he distributed reward silver to the Guide military households and militia.

He also ordered Wang Wenxiu to dispatch two military judges to the Guide Battalion, to have them study the Marshal's regulations and shift the emphasis away from heads toward the traditions of victory, routing the enemy, capturing prisoners, and seizing spoils.

Not all the news from the front was good.

Just before Liu Chengzong led the Central Army's three battalions south, a shaven-headed relay rider fled back to the Central Army in disarray and reported that the Relay Rider Commander and Huaiyuan Colonel Dai Daozi had been captured after scouting out the main Oirat camp.

At this news, Liu Chengzong felt not the slightest surprise in his heart.

Dai Daozi was an old relay-rider officer with an extraordinary spirit of daring; he dared to take risks others would not, and naturally he also possessed a far higher than normal probability of being captured.

Fortunately, he was captured and not killed. Liu Chengzong hoped he could hold out until the war ended so that he could exchange enemy prisoners to get him back. Before that, however, he needed to make proper use of the intelligence Dai Daozi had sent back to win this war.

The Marshal's Central Army — three battalions totaling ten thousand eight hundred soldiers, carrying twenty-two thousand mules, seven thousand two hundred warhorses, two thousand two hundred donkey carts and war chariots, and thirty-six light and heavy cannons — marched south from Daotang River at the hour of the Dragon on the fifth day of the sixth month.

That morning, they crossed the Southern Mountains, forded the Qabqa River, and passed the ferry fort at Longyang Gorge. Along the way, they lost the road, and the army was forced to split into two sections.

The rear section, escorting the cannons and war chariots, advanced slowly through the Gobi sand dunes. The forward section, clad in mail armor, continued along the southern bank of the Yellow River, marching at a speed of thirty-five li per two-hour period, swiftly crossing the Heka Grasslands, completing a march of one hundred and forty li by dusk, and arriving at Yangqu Ford on schedule.

The first troops to reach Yangqu were two surrendered-officer company commanders from the Tiger Guard Battalion — one was Ma Ke, the other was Bee-Tail Needle Zhang Zhen.

At dusk on the fifth day of the sixth month, still thirty li from Yangqu, Liu Chengzong received an urgent letter from Ma Ke.

The letter said the Oirat Tatars had already seized the ancient forts on both the east and west sides of Yangqu, and that he and Bee-Tail Needle were now stationed in a ravine fifteen li west of Yangqu, requesting the Central Army send rafts to prepare for an assault on the forts.

Ma Ke was a Xining man and knew the layout of Yangqu Fort.

It was less a city than a fortified strongpoint built at the riverbank crossing. On both the east and west banks where the Yellow River narrowed, low walls had been built from river cobblestones — three layers of stone walls only four chi high and eight chi wide, making an assault relatively easy.

However, since intelligence indicated the Oirats were adept with cavalry and musket formations, a frontal assault on Yangqu Fort would cause them considerable trouble.

Ma Ke's suggestion was therefore a coordinated attack from within and without: Bee-Tail Needle's force would feign an assault from outside the west fort to draw attention, while Ma Ke's force would shift to the south of the fort, use rafts to bypass the defenses and strike directly at the heart, seize the west fort, and then stand off against the east fort.

This plan was not bad.

But Liu Chengzong did not follow his idea, because he had already realized that his objective and the Oirat coalition's objective were in direct conflict, and the final battlefield would very likely be near Yangqu.

Liu Chengzong wanted to confine the battlefield to the small river bend on the east bank of the Yellow River, sealing off the Oirat coalition's westward line of retreat; the Oirat chieftains, on the contrary, wanted to confine the war to the Heka Grasslands west of the river, in order to maintain a strategic posture where they could advance to attack and retreat to defend.

This made Yangqu Ford a place that had to be contested. Whoever occupied it and built a wooden bridge could transport heavy weapons to the opposite bank.

Originally, there had been a wooden bridge between the two Yangqu forts, capable of carrying war chariots and cannons, but because Little Lhazang had fallen into internal strife with his elder brother Guru Taiji a few years earlier, the brothers had burned the bridge.

So for him, the Yangqu West Fort was a place he had to attack, but the Yangqu East Fort on the opposite bank of the Yellow River was the true key to this campaign.

"Tell Ma Ke to have both his forces rest and conserve their strength for now. Once the rafts arrive, Bee's force will feign an attack, and Ma's force will follow the current to seize the east fort, hold it, and await reinforcements."

Just as Liu Chengzong was relaying orders to his subordinates and urging the rear artillery train to hurry, a guard suddenly reported: "Marshal, the right-flank relay riders are falling back."

Hearing this, Liu Chengzong held back his follow-up orders and rode out from the army column with a dozen horsemen. He climbed a sand dune and looked west; in the twilight, the relay riders were waving flags as they slowly and sequentially withdrew.

There was no need to elaborate on the relay riders falling back — naturally, it meant the enemy had been encountered to the west.

Sure enough, before long, a relay rider who had withdrawn to the Central Army reported: "Marshal, three mixed infantry and cavalry thousand-man units are converging to the west, still thirty li away… They are also advancing toward Yangqu."

Liu Chengzong was not alarmed but laughed instead. Hearing this news, his eyes practically shone.

The Oirats appeared to be massing troops. Three thousand infantry and cavalry, no matter where, was a force capable of tipping the scales of war.

Especially on the Heka Grasslands, where Oirat forces were relatively sparse, the convergence of three thousand-man units was, for Liu Chengzong, not a bad thing but a tremendous stroke of luck.

The Oirat forces on the Heka Grasslands numbered at most under fifteen thousand. Easily catching three thousand of them would at least speed up Yang Yao's sweep through Heka by three days.

So many wasted miles saved!

He immediately gave the order to the relay riders: "Assemble the relay riders and screen this enemy force on all sides, then probe the surrounding situation for weakness. Leave Bee-Tail Needle at Yangqu and summon Ma Ke back."

The Oirat troops appearing on the Heka Grasslands belonged to the Dörbet tribe, and their chieftain was called Dalai Taiji.

Dalai Taiji was an outstanding chieftain of the Dörbet. At a time when the Oirats faced the gravest era of internal and external troubles, Dalai Taiji, through marriage alliances and conciliatory measures, had secured a relaxed internal environment for his tribe.

The Dörbet tribe had always nomadized between the Irtysh River and the salt lakes — a dangerous land, constantly under threat from the Khalkha Mongols.

But under the leadership of Dalai Taiji, they gradually migrated to the Ob River basin, avoiding conflicts with the Khalkha tribe, driving out the Nogai people who grazed there by force of arms, and conquering the various Kazakh tribes whose grazing lands overlapped with theirs, winning living space for the Dorbet tribe.

This once brought the Dorbet tribe into a brief period of prosperity.

But now all of that has nearly vanished like smoke. The internal conflicts among the Four Oirat tribes have intensified to an unprecedented degree, and the Dorbet tribe could not escape unscathed. First they fought the Torgut tribe over occupied lands, and a few years ago they allied with the National Preceptor Khan to wage war against the Dzungar tribe — their power is far from what it once was.

Qinghai is far too distant from their grazing lands in the Ob River basin. Relatively speaking, he would rather lead his tribesmen thousands of li away to kill and burn at the Tyumen outpost held by the Russians than have his people throw their lives away in Qinghai five thousand li away.

Therefore Dalai Taiji was not enthusiastic about this war. He was merely putting in an appearance for the Khoshut tribe's eastward migration — after all, he and the National Preceptor Khan are brothers-in-law.

Both of them married sisters of the Torgut tribe's chieftain, Urlug, as wives. Although Dalai Taiji has now turned against his elder brother-in-law Urlug and become sworn enemies, his relationship with the National Preceptor Khan is still fairly good.

Ever since stationing at Heka Grassland a month ago, Dalai Taiji has been responsible for monitoring the garrison at Nanshan Fort. During this time, the threat level of the Marshal's Office Han army has steadily risen in his mind.

At first, he did not take the Marshal's Office seriously. After all, Nanshan Fort, as the earliest fortress built by the Marshal's Office, looked truly crude, and its garrison was not large.

It was much like the fortresses Dalai Taiji's old adversaries, the Russians, built along the Ob River — the only difference being that this one was an earth-and-stone fortification.

Having a fortress and squatting motionless inside was practically synonymous with being easy to bully. Any random prince or noble could pull out two or three thousand men, drag out a couple of native cannons, and beat them so badly they wouldn't know which way was north.

But after the Marshal's Office finished the great Hehuang battle, plundered the outskirts of Lanzhou and returned with their forces, and reinforced Nanshan Fort, the pressure on Dalai Taiji doubled, and the threat from the Marshal's Office suddenly jumped several levels.

The Russians on the Ob River had no way of suddenly pulling out seven or eight thousand men.

And just two days ago, he received a verbal message from the National Preceptor Khan, learning that the Han army from Guide Fort had marched south to engage the Dzungar tribe.

The worst-case scenario had already materialized — the powerful enemy from the north had joined the war after all. To coordinate with the National Preceptor Khan's operations, Dalai Taiji called together friends and allies on Heka Grassland, assembling his army to reinforce Yangqu Ford and create favorable conditions for the tribes east of the river to withdraw westward.

The deeply worried Dalai Taiji was leading his army across the gobi dunes when scouts spread around the army suddenly reported back that many ill-intentioned cavalrymen had appeared all around them.

When Dalai Taiji took men to investigate, he was momentarily bewildered — he had never experienced a situation like this.

Taking the square formation he had formed by dismounting and using camels as a boundary, at intervals of three hundred paces in every direction stood a solitary cavalryman, riding a tall, robust Hequ horse, wearing a bowl-shaped helmet with a tall socketed plume, clad in red cloth-faced armor, with arm guards made of overlapping plates on each arm, a short three-barreled fire lance and bow hanging from the saddle, standing there holding a horn-flagged long spear.

They were everywhere in all directions, neither attacking nor retreating, just staring fixedly at his army formation from three hundred paces away, forming a vast net that covered heaven and earth.

Dalai Taiji felt his skin crawl under their gaze. The aura of an impending great battle made him dare not stand before the formation any longer. Swinging his horsewhip, he returned to the camel-walled army formation and gave the order: "Drive them off!"

The camels on all four sides of the square formation were roused by the herding soldiers, opening passageways, and squads of Dorbet tribe lance cavalry filed out from within the formation.

In squads of ten, in two rows front and back, the vast majority wore red-tasseled felt hats and leather coats of indiscernible color, with very little armor. Gripping long lances and carrying bows, they charged at the outpost riders.

As they charged forward, the enemies before their eyes withdrew unhurriedly in succession, forming an elastic defensive line. For cavalry, chasing three li was but a moment — by the time they realized what was happening, the surrounding outpost soldiers already held a slight numerical advantage.

The highly skilled cavalrymen released their reins, tucked three-eyed guns under their arms, gripped the match cords, and charged at them in waves. At a distance of a dozen or so paces, with several bangs they rushed forward, announcing the start of the melee.

Watching squad after squad of lance cavalry chasing the enemy's backs, gradually merging with the dunes until disappearing from view, Dalai Taiji, sitting on horseback within the formation, breathed a slight sigh of relief.

He still had not figured out what kind of game these strange-looking enemies were playing.

Then he heard a few soft sounds coming from the empty gobi.

A moment later, a lance cavalryman returned to the formation barehanded. Only when he was a mere few paces from the army formation did Dalai Taiji see the hole in the leather coat over his chest. Crimson blood spread through the cloth trousers beneath the coat, then his body toppled backward and the cavalryman fell to the ground. His startled warhorse dragged the boot caught in the wooden stirrup and fled back into the formation, carving a furrow through the dunes.

Then a great wind swept across the gobi, and yellow sand blinded men's eyes.

Three hundred paces away in the windblown sand, the figures of red-armored cavalrymen with their warhorses raising their hooves loomed faintly visible. Tucked under their arms were the long lances that belonged to the lance cavalry. Chins slightly raised, they slowly shook the horn-flagged long spears in their hands, glaring with predatory intent, as composed as ever.