Chapter 524: Old Acquaintances Meet with Bloodshot Eyes

Gao Yingdeng lay in ambush for three days and saw no sign of the enemy.

Wang Ziyong also spent three days before he understood that the enemy had no intention of breaking through the defense line — the attacks were aimed solely at him personally.

Whenever the enemy launched a major assault, he would be chased around like a rabbit, which delighted them greatly, and then they would pull back.

But whenever he thought it was over and tentatively returned to the defense line, before long another charge would come, once again sending him fleeing like a rabbit.

Cao Wenzhao always stopped after just a taste of battle. He thought to himself, You think I don't know your little tactics?

His understanding of the Marshal's Army was still stuck at the stage of various mule-and-horse teams maneuvering rapidly; he believed that if he pursued too deep, mounted bandits would surely be behind him, galloping in to trample his forces.

So no matter what, he refused to chase deep. If you want to run, then run — if you run, I'll pull back too; when you return, I'll hit you again. Sooner or later, he'd lure those mounted bandits in the rear out into the open.

Once they were out of Yongchang Garrison, the Wuwei Oasis stretched out into flat open ground. A proper, aboveboard battle — let's just see whose cavalry is better.

Yet the situation at Gao Yingdeng's main camp on the other side was somewhat different from what he imagined.

Gao Yingdeng had originally come up as a cavalry company commander, and in earlier campaigns he had indeed relied mostly on elite cavalry to achieve merit. But ever since his subordinate, Brigade Commander Tang Tong, used a musket infantry unit to repel Zhenyi Mobile Corps Commander Tang Mingshi, the character of this camp had begun to change.

The firearms they used were heavy muskets firing one-and-a-half-mace lead balls — slow to load but of unmatched power, capable of piercing both man and horse beyond a hundred paces. Apart from the weight of the barrel and spare shot, and its poor accuracy at long range, it was nearly a perfect weapon.

The poor accuracy, of course, had little to do with the handcrafted barrels. The main issue was that the four-foot-five-inch barrel was extremely heavy, and beyond a hundred paces the distance was simply too great — the eye struggled to aim properly to begin with, and the slightest tremble would send the shot wide.

For this very reason, ever since the heavy musket was issued in the Marshal's Headquarters, it had been a good weapon but never the best, unable to replace the lighter, slightly faster-firing light fowling piece.

But when Tang Tong applied his experience with the three-eyed gun to this musket, its combat effectiveness on the battlefield immediately changed. After soldiers loaded the barrel with a one-and-a-half-mace large lead ball, they added three small three-mace lead pellets. Their volley hit rate against targets beyond a hundred paces reached nearly one hundred percent.

One hundred percent, of course, in the sense that someone else's lead ball hit their target — but as long as a lead ball struck the target on the opposite side, who cared which barrel it came out of?

Such a weapon led Gao Yingdeng to change his tactics. Combined with his current mission of defending Gansu, the main camp guarding the rear of Yongchang Garrison naturally advanced with infantry and cavalry in tandem — first using infantry to lure the enemy, then relying on firepower to shatter them, and only at the end sending in the cavalry to trample.

This meant Gao Yingdeng was in no mood to take the initiative and attack on open terrain. And so he and Cao Wenzhao faced off like this, with the scurrying Rabbit Wang darting back and forth between them.

Yet on the battlefields of Gansu, it was not only Cao Wenzhao and Wang Ziyong whose eyes blazed with hatred at the sight of an enemy.

On the other side of Gulang Gorge, in Huangyangchuan, Bai Guang'en had set camp on the western-branch mountain ridge of the river valley and was urgently, intensively preparing to ambush Liu Chengzong's main army.

In truth, there wasn't much to prepare for ambushing Liu Chengzong. During the days Ding Shaoyin had been getting chewed out on Yingpan Ridge, Bai Guang'en's troops had long since readied everything they needed. The only thing that truly needed preparation was Bai Guang'en's own mental state.

Ever since learning that Liu Chengzong was personally leading the army over at Yingpan Ridge, Bai Guang'en's feelings had been deeply conflicted.

He was not afraid of fighting most of the Marshal's Army's commanders — whether former Ming officers or peasant army leaders. Bai Guang'en had reached this point by tying his own life and fortune to his belt and fighting for it. He did not believe he was inferior to any of them.

Being defeated by them or defeating them — to Bai Guang'en, it made no difference.

But Liu Chengzong was different. Every time he heard that name, Bai Guang'en was dragged back into his memories of Baijiachuan in Yanchuan County.

Back then, he was still a minor headman, commanding thirty or forty men. Several great chiefs of the combined camps had gathered over seven thousand troops, marching all along the ancient Gan-Long road. That was the first time Bai Guang'en had ever seen so many soldiers — the dust kicked up by men and horses blotted out the sun.

On the official road, nothing could be seen and nothing could be heard clearly, yet Bai Guang'en could not help but see that young commander in red armor riding a chestnut horse, leading the mightiest troops, shoulder to shoulder with the greatest chief.

Bai Guang'en had never seen Liu Chengzong's face; every time, he could only see his back. Even now, his memory of Liu Chengzong was only of that back.

The real Liu Chengzong was burly but not exaggeratedly so, yet in Bai Guang'en's memory, the figure of Liu Chengzong in red armor left him with the impression of a bear squatting on horseback.

In his camp, Bai Guang'en waited anxiously for Ding Shaoyin's signal to attack. He finally had a chance to see Liu Chengzong's face, yet deep down he could not help but think of retreating.

And in this tense yet stirred state of mind, Liu Chengzong on the other side of the mountain was all thunder and no rain — he had rounded up every master of abuse in the army and for three straight days cursed Ding Shaoyin until the man was drenched in dog's blood, yet still did not attack.

Bai Guang'en thought to himself, It's only because Ding Shaoyin has a good temper. If it were Cao Wenzhao here, he wouldn't care about disparity in numbers or difficult terrain — he'd have charged down the mountain to fight him long ago.

But while Ding Shaoyin's side delayed and delayed in giving him the attack signal, the tribal settlements in the Huangyangchuan river valley to the east risked death to send him a warning: a battalion of fierce, arrogant rebel troops had crossed the mountains and entered the valley to set camp.

The Huangyangchuan river valley, irrigated by channeled river water, possessed a superb natural environment. As one of the battlefields of the Three Victories in Huangzhong, the local tribal, native, and Tatar peoples had all contributed to the Great Ming dynasty in that war. In the forty years since, there was little difference in daily customs between them and the Han people.

And these mud-legged folk of the Marshal's Headquarters had never had any notion of Hua-Yi distinction in their eyes — only the divide between rich and poor.

Thus when Zhang Tianlin charged into Huangyangchuan, before he even saw Ming troops, he first carried out a standard set of outrages... The tribal chieftain's official stockade was torn down; the family properties of native headmen and Han landlords were pasted with seizure strips; Mongol nobles were paraded in circles around their tribes while the common tribesfolk were asked whether he was a good chief.

For Zhang Tianlin, of course, all of the above was merely work. His true passion was doing good deeds and accumulating virtue.

Zhang Tianlin was actually a Buddhist. He had grown up in a poor but devout Buddhist family, spent his youth as a tenant farmer for his hometown temple for many years, and only later joined the military, earning battle merit to become a company commander.

His understanding of Buddhist scripture far surpassed that of the fake monk Wang Ziyong, and precisely because of this, he could not bear the sight of temples. In matters of destroying Buddha statues, tearing down temples, and dragging monks off to military service, he was far more radical than even Liu Chengzong.

Lion Liu was a madman who believed in nothing but himself. He shut down temples simply because these lawless institutions hindered the common people from enjoying their personal lives — rather than supporting you utterly useless bald donkeys, better to take that grain and money out and let me improve their lives for them.

Repair bridges and roads, hire a teacher to set up a school — if nothing else, feeding me a couple of soldiers would still be better.

And toward those imposing statues and temple complexes, Liu Chengzong bore no hostility.

Zhang Tianlin was different. He believed in Buddhism. In his eyes, the vast majority of pleasure-seeking monks were all heretics, and those magnificent Buddhist structures were, to him, all built by bastards across the dynasties forcing countless tenant farmers and hired laborers just like him to construct them.

These things should never have existed in this world.

But he had also promised Tahazhike that he would no longer tear down temples, so he redirected his fury even more onto the monks.

Zhang Tianlin's main camp operated with extreme efficiency. These tasks took no great effort — in just two days, moving and working as they went, they smashed through passes and seized strongholds all along the way, turning the whole of Huangyangchuan upside down.

When word of all this reached Bai Guang'en's ears, it was no different from a thunderclap out of clear sky.

Bai Guang'en had only been brooding over the possibility of Cao Wenzhao suddenly appearing from the enemy's rear, but he had never imagined Liu Chengzong was playing the same trick. After only a moment's thought, he gave the order to muster the troops and march, assembling his forces to surge toward Huangyangchuan.

No matter who the Marshal's Headquarters had sent, they would always be easier to deal with than the main army corps personally led by Liu Chengzong. Besides, with an enemy force like this at his back, his plan with Ding Shaoyin was already ruined — he had to fight this army to the death first.

Bai Guang'en's troops attacked like the wind. Huangyangchuan was a narrow east-west river valley, and in the blink of an eye they spread out, charging along the riverbank toward Zhang Tianlin's dispersed forces.

Although Zhang Tianlin's troops had long been on guard against Ming troops charging out from any direction, the sudden attack still caused some chaos. After minor setbacks on the front line, they fell back in sequence to regroup. Only then did the two armies spread out into formation on the riverbank, arrayed for a decisive battle.

Even at this moment, Bai Guang'en still had no idea who he was facing.

He had already learned from prisoners taken in the earlier skirmishes that the enemy commander was named Zhang Tianlin, but he had absolutely no clue who Zhang Tianlin was or what he did.

The nickname "Guo Tianxing" might have given him a faint sense of familiarity, but even that was limited. In the early days of the Shaanxi Uprising, the name Guo Tianxing Zhang Wu had only a little renown within the Yulin border army and his hometown of Suide County.

Bai Guang'en was clearly not in that circle. His hometown was Hanzhong. In the first year of Chongzhen, Wang Daliang rose up in Hannan; the next year, Wang Daliang died at Dashi River, and only then did Bai Guang'en take a band of men, robbing as they fled, and joined Huntian Hou.

After that, Huntian Hou operated along both banks of the Yellow River between Shaanxi and Shanxi, while Zhang Tianlin joined forces with Liu Chengzu and others, stationed as a second-line commander of the Lion Camp at Qinwang Village in Ansai.

In Bai Guang'en's memory, the name Zhang Tianlin simply did not exist.

If Li Hongsi were here right now, he would certainly tell Bai Guang'en to run, because Li Hongsi knew Zhang Tianlin — knew that it was Zhang Tianlin who, four months ago, had beaten Bai Guang'en's elite troops until they fled pissing and shitting themselves. But Bai Guang'en himself did not know this.

In that last great defeat, Bai Guang'en had fled too fast. He never even knew who had defeated him and went straight back to find Hong Chengchou.

Among those defeated alongside him was a Squad Commander named Liu Can, a remnant of Mobile Corps Commander Li Yun's force who had been slain in formation by Wang Ziyong. Zhang Tianlin had released him back to Ganzhou, and in the process, names were exchanged. The man who received his report of the defeat was none other than Li Hongsi.

So Li Hongsi, who had not taken part in that battle, had an extremely deep impression of Zhang Tianlin, whereas Bai Guang'en, who had been directly defeated, knew nothing of him at all.

The two armies faced off. Bai Guang'en deployed his troops in a grand camp formation: the vanguard infantry carried chevaux-de-frise forward in a steady advance, pressing the enemy; the left and right scouts prepared to flank along the riverbank and the mountain's foot; the center scout served as the reserve; and the rear scout cavalry stood ready to charge and rout any broken troops at a moment's notice. It was an exceedingly disciplined formation — a formation within a formation, the army divided into five scouts.

Zhang Tianlin's battle array was far less impressive. He simply arranged his army in the shape of the character for "two." At the front were the conscripted monks and the levied tribal and Tatar soldiers; behind them were his main camp cavalry, all dismounted and spread out in a single line.

Looking at this setup, it seemed easy to beat.

Bai Guang'en thought so too. The enemy's front line was clearly a motley mob dragged into service — they didn't even have helmets or armor, each one clutching prayer beads, eyes shut, muttering incantations.

What a scoundrel, he thought. Was he counting on the government commanders being soft-hearted, hoping these men who didn't look like soldiers at all would break up their formation?

Bai Guang'en was no pious devotee. He immediately said to his trusted aide Bai Chaozai, "Chaozai, bring the cannons forward. Give them a blast of 'rolling back the pearl curtain'!"

One cannon after another, packed with grapeshot, was pushed to the front, instantly causing massive turmoil before the Marshal's battle line.

Zhang Tianlin raised his telescope and looked ahead. First he saw the forcibly conscripted monks all fleeing backward, only to be driven back to the front by his own soldiers with blades and spears. Past the chaotic front horizontal line, he watched the Ming army push out cannon after cannon — breech-loading falconets — advancing together with the chevaux-de-frise... He grinned.

Cannons were good. He was just in need of a batch of falconets to supplement his army's equipment.

He had never intended to send these monk-soldiers to their deaths; he merely wanted to use their bodies to block the Ming army's field of vision.

Of course, he also hoped to use this battle to intimidate these unruly monks, and incidentally let them exercise their original profession — delivering souls in the place closest to the underworld.

Zhang Tianlin said, "Tell them not to panic. Cannons have a range limit. At this distance, they can't hit them."

With that, he put away his telescope, drew his goose-quill saber, braced his hand on the saddle, and craned his neck forward as far as he could, estimating the distance between the two armies' front lines. He signaled left and right: "Pass the word — set up the rockets."

At Zhang Tianlin's command, the soldiers in the second horizontal line took rockets off the backs of their mules, unfolded the arrow cases into racks, and held the rockets ready to fire.

Bai Guang'en's army continued its advance. The infantry on the left and right wings and the cavalry behind the formation were already itching for action. They were only waiting for the distance to close to two or three hundred paces — the range at which the falconets' grapeshot would threaten the enemy — before launching their charge.

On this point, Bai Guang'en and his soldiers were of one mind. Even a squad leader knew how this battle should be fought. They would not push the cannons to an effective range of two hundred paces before firing, because a single volley at that distance would mow down all the monk-soldiers opposite, utterly failing to achieve the intended effect.

They would deliberately open fire at three hundred paces. The falconets' grapeshot could hardly harm enemies that far away, but inevitably some lead balls and iron pellets would reach the enemy line — enough to throw the enemy into chaos. At the same time, they would launch their charge. The sheer momentum would be enough to frighten the monk-soldiers into retreat, throwing the enemy formation into disarray, and then they could simply ride the wave and slaughter them.

But right at that moment, even the chanting of Buddhist invocations at the enemy front could not mask an eerie hissing sound. Great clouds of gunpowder smoke billowed behind the monks, and then streaks of flame, trailing smoke, shot into the sky.

Almost in the same instant, Bai Guang'en wheeled his horse around and bellowed for his army to abandon their heavy equipment and withdraw on the spot.

In truth, he didn't even need to give the order. The officers around him were all survivors; every one of them remembered this scene all too vividly.

"Damn it, why does it have to be him!"

Fleeing with his tail between his legs, Bai Guang'en cursed his rotten luck. He didn't know Zhang Tianlin, but he was far too familiar with Liu Guoneng!