Chapter 576: Charge

"Charge!"

On the chaotic, slaughter-filled battlefield of Qinzhou, company after company of peasant soldiers collapsed at the front, regrouped, and recovered their fighting spirit, then like a surging torrent, raised their blades and charged once more at the Ming troops outside the encirclement.

Yet the Ming troops stood like an embankment by the river, utterly unshaken amid the raging storm... No, this embankment was even pressing closer to the torrent.

The cheval de frise barriers widened the Ming troops' frontage, while also preventing the charging blade troops from spreading out across a broad front to assault the formation, forcing them into small-scale, close-quarters killing against the government troops. But as a result, Zuo Liangyu's soldiers, far from having their formations scattered and losing their organization, did not even have their squads or platoons broken apart.

Facing the peasant army's charges, they practically killed every attacker who came at them. Some exceptionally fierce squad leaders and platoon commanders even led their men forward into the enemy formation, actively engaging the peasant soldiers in battle.

Amidst the repeated shouts of "Charge!" and "Charge!", peasant soldiers turned back, blades in hand, to assault the formation. A few were lucky enough to cut down one or two men, but far more were stopped at the very outset by the tightly arrayed government troops and died beneath the thrusting spears and lances.

Worse still, some were dropped by three-eyed guns or arquebuses before they even got close to a government soldier.

Finally, at a certain moment, fear gnawed away the last of their courage. More and more peasant soldiers no longer dared to charge the formation alone. They could only hold their blades horizontally before them, eyes fixed desperately on the government troops a few yards away, dragging their wounded and fallen comrades slowly backward.

The government troops did not seize this moment to fire their guns or bows. They merely followed their officers' orders with strict discipline, lifting the cheval de frise barriers and pressing forward step by step.

However, Zuo Liangyu's ambition to achieve total victory in one stroke also gave the besieged troops of Zhang Yichuan's division a chance to grow. In this desperate situation with no retreat, they gradually began to find a feel for confronting a disciplined, orthodox formation.

The child messenger soldiers, their straw and cloth shoes flying off as they darted through the Five Battalion army formation, delivered Zhang Yichuan's orders one by one to the ears of Ke Tianhu, Song Jiang, and the other brigade commanders. The officers of the Henan Chief Commandant Division watched their men fall one after another at the front line, yet they stubbornly held back their most elite cavalry, ordering their soldiers only to assault the defensive line again and again, trying to find a weak point in Zuo's battle line among the sections of wooden palisades.

At the same time, their formation gradually changed. They no longer launched mindless, head-on collisions with scattered charging blade troops, but began to supplement these with blade-and-shield men rolling forward and spearmen thrusting, attempting to form up and confront the government troops.

But against Zuo's soldiers, this level of skill was undoubtedly still far too raw. Even when clashing along the battle line in identical formations, the veteran Changping soldiers of Zuo's army could shatter them time and again with their practiced coordination.

Yet on the chaotic Qinzhou battlefield, no one noticed that on a hillside south of the Ji River, several mounted figures wearing felt hats had silently appeared.

The mountain breeze blew across Li Zicheng's weathered face beneath his felt hat. He narrowed his eyes, gazing at the distant battlefield of slaughter, and sighed soundlessly.

The situation on the battlefield was crystal clear. Zuo Liangyu's encirclement had taken shape. Though it was very thin, his artillery on the east side had pinned down Zhang Yichuan's firearms, and the veteran elite soldiers on the remaining north and south sides far surpassed the peasant army in equipment and training. Relying on the wooden palisades, a single company could pin down and beat three to five companies.

Although Zhang Yichuan's division, trapped inside the encirclement, had a massive force, he lacked sufficient frontage to deploy his troops. The vast majority of his soldiers were squeezed inside the army formation, utterly unable to leverage their numerical advantage.

Though Zuo's army, in forming such a vast encirclement, had a very low kill rate, the overall outcome was already decided.

Right now, the five hundred cavalry Zuo Liangyu had dispatched in advance had already left an opening on the west side. They were just waiting for Zhang Yichuan's army's morale to collapse. Once some men fled through that western opening, that cavalry unit could seal the gap and bury everyone left inside the wild-goose formation.

After all, Zuo Liangyu's soldiers were far too few compared to Zhang Yichuan's. Encircling two battalions was already a strain, let alone five battalions at once. He had practically committed his entire army's strength, and the pressure on every single soldier had reached an extreme point, threatening to crush the battle formation at any moment.

But Zuo Liangyu had no other choice.

Faced with the enemy's massive numbers, the broad battlefield terrain, and the strategic situation on the larger battlefield where he was encircled by the Marshal's army and the Henan Chief Commandant Division, he had to inflict enough casualties on Zhang Yichuan in a single battle to force him to withdraw from the field and recover. Only then could he make an unhurried transfer after defeating Zhang Yichuan.

Otherwise, this army might not be able to beat him in a direct field battle, but it could use its numerical advantage to tie him down until a stronger regular army arrived on the battlefield.

And to achieve this goal, the only tactic Zuo Liangyu could choose was the risky one of encircling an enemy force several times his own size. Encircling just two or three battalions might have been more secure, but if the remaining two battalions turned and bit back, Zuo Liangyu had no confidence of victory under a pincer attack.

Therefore, on the surface, he was encircling Zhang Yichuan, but in reality, he had chosen a tactic of drawing a circle on the ground as his prison, forcing Zhang Yichuan into a desperate fight to the death. The advantage of this was that his soldiers endured greater frontal pressure in exchange for security on their flanks and rear.

His intent was very clear.

Li Zicheng on the hill could see it all. The battle had reached this state entirely because Zhang Yichuan had gotten a bit too full of himself. No, not a bit — extremely full of himself. Who fights a battle like this, getting ten thousand men encircled by three thousand?

Truly, Li Zicheng felt the blame for this campaign lay squarely on the back of that lion of the Liu family.

If Liu Chengzong had expanded Zhang Yichuan's command by just two fewer battalions, Zhang Yichuan wouldn't have dared to fight a battle like this.

To some extent, the peasant army commanders' leadership abilities were actually quite strong. At least in Li Zicheng's understanding, all of them rebel leaders, regardless of whether they could win, were far more capable than the government army's commanders.

After all, the difficulty of command was different.

Commanding a hundred untrained famine refugees was far harder than commanding a thousand well-trained frontier troops.

Just like right now, on the larger battlefield, Zuo Liangyu relied on banners, drums, and officers practiced in following orders to command his three-thousand-man encirclement as easily as moving his own arm. The moment the army banner's direction changed, officers on all sides knew exactly what order headquarters was sending them.

In contrast, look at the Henan Chief Commandant's five battalions. The banners and drums of all five battalions were mere decorations, utterly incapable of conveying any effective orders beyond the direction they faced. Perhaps the flag signals and drumbeats were wrong to begin with, and even if they were correct, the company commanders couldn't understand them. Orders relied entirely on the small children running back and forth between the battalion formations.

The timeliness was on a completely different level. They were practically all fighting independently, relying on their company commanders' own verbal commands and battlefield awareness.

In their past combined operations, Li Zicheng knew very well how capable Sweeping-the-Land King was. Perhaps he wasn't that formidable, but having roamed and fought across northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, clashing several times with the Ming's elite troops and fierce generals, he was no soft persimmon to be squeezed at will.

For the battle to turn out like this, it was obvious that after receiving the gift of arms and armor from the Marshal's headquarters, the man's head had gone up into the clouds, and he thought he could now go head-to-head with the government troops.

The Dashing General thought to himself: Isn't this just daydreaming?

Our Dashing Army's five battalions were never designed, from the ground up, to go head-to-head with government troops. What we play is ambushes, luring the enemy. If the enemy is numerous, we spread false information and send troops to lure them apart. If the enemy forms a solid formation, we leave. You hold Qinzhou like an impregnable fortress? I'll strike Qingshui. You block the roads? I'll cross the mountains and go around. You're in the east, I go west. You think I'm going west, and I'm back in the east again.

Wait until their forces can't be divided any further, until they're too exhausted to go on, until they want to sit down, eat, and sleep — then we turn around and strike back, killing them all in one go.

Orthodox formations?

We've never even trained in that stuff. What made you think that just by getting some troops and armor, you could match the battalion-formation standard of the government troops?

What's more, even if you want to transition toward a regular army and practice with an orthodox formation battle, you could pick anyone to fight — why did you have to pick Zuo Liangyu? Every time Li Zicheng had seen Zuo Liangyu, this guy was always taking on several thousand of their men with just one or two thousand of his own... Under heaven, with equal numbers, who couldn't Zuo Liangyu slaughter at will?

"A lion uses full strength even to pounce on a rabbit, yet a rabbit kicking at an eagle can't even be bothered to jump."

Li Zicheng shook his head helplessly and turned, saying, "Mountain-Crossing Sparrowhawk, go rescue them."

Beside him stood a burly young man in a cloth-faced Ming brigandine, leaning on a forged mixed-iron long staff and holding a phoenix-wing helmet under his arm. With thick brows and large eyes, he laughed upon hearing this and said, "Wouldn't it be better to wait a bit? He's pledged allegiance to the Grand Marshal, has five battalions and ten thousand men under his command — does he still need us to rescue him?"

This man was called Gao Jie, nicknamed Mountain-Crossing Sparrowhawk. He had been friends with Li Zicheng since before the rebellion and was one of the earliest to rise up together with him.

Li Zicheng glanced at Gao Jie. Since last year, their relationship had been a bit strange. Gao Jie seemed to have some issue with him, yet Li Zicheng examined himself three times a day and felt there was nothing wrong with how he acted or handled things.

Busy commanding the army day in and day out, Li Zicheng had no time to worry about these little strange matters between brothers. He just frowned and said, "One more man alive today means one more to fight the government troops tomorrow. Get moving."

"Tch!"

Gao Jie scoffed, lifted his eighteen-jin forged iron staff, and planted it on the ground. A young attendant from the Children's Camp quickly stepped forward to take it.

Only then did he vault onto his horse and laugh heartily, "Understood. General, just wait on the hill. Hezi, come with me into the fray and have some fun."

"Aye!"

The youth holding the iron staff responded with delighted surprise, hoisted the staff onto his shoulder, and ran after the galloping Gao Jie down the hill. His name was Li Chengdong, nicknamed Li Hezi.

Watching them descend the hill, Li Zicheng couldn't help but reveal a relaxed smile: To have brothers like these helping him — what good fortune he must have cultivated in a past life!

But in just a moment, the Dashing General returned to his state of commanding troops. He said to those around him, "King of the Chaotic World was blocked in the north, reporting he encountered over a thousand infantry and cavalry of Zuo Liangyu's division. Scorpion Block also ran into government troops in the south. It seems Zuo Liangyu wants to use this opportunity to completely annihilate Sweeping-the-Land King here... He's fighting a bit too urgently. Looks like there's been a change in the east. Any news from the Dashing King?"

A man beside him shook his head and said, "Same as before. He has many troops, so he split his forces into several routes to enter Sichuan. After passing Wen County, he was blocked at Long'an Prefecture by the two passes of Beixiong and Baishui. However, a minor leader named Hao Yaoqi led troops into the mountains of Songpan Guard. Over there, they surrendered at the mere sight of his banner. I hear it's because the guard troops were all tricked by the Grand Marshal into going west of the Long River."

This man's nickname was Sky-Chaining Sparrowhawk, and his name was Tian Jianxiu. He was also one of the old brothers who had risen up with Li Zicheng from the very beginning.

These two fierce sparrowhawks were Li Zicheng's right and left hands.

Li Zicheng still gazed at the distant battlefield where the shouts of killing shook the heavens and asked casually, "Tricked?"

"If the Songpan Garrison officer says they were tricked, then they were summoned to West of the Long River by the Grand Marshal." Tian Jianxiu seemed far more cheerful than Gao Jie, and as he spoke he suddenly burst out laughing, pointing down the mountain: "Sky-Tumbling Sparrowhawk really is charging off to beat people with that iron club."

Following his finger to look, several mounted squads at the foot of the mountain converged into one column by the mountain road and riverbank. Men led their warhorses at a quick trot toward the Ji River, their formation spreading out as they advanced. At their head was none other than Sky-Tumbling Sparrowhawk Gao Jie, gripping a forged iron club.

His weapon in itself was not strange — clubs and staves were also standard-issue weapons in the border garrisons. Qi Jiguang had specifically modified an eight-foot-long, two-inch-thick iron-headed great staff, but those were all wooden staves with iron heads. No one went to war lugging a solid iron club weighing nearly twenty jin like Gao Jie did.

For one thing, it was far too heavy. You simply did not need an iron club this heavy to kill a man — a brow-tip long saber weighed only seven to nine jin. In practice, a great staff of five or six jin swung out could already snap bone and sever sinew.

For another, a solid iron rod was not all that practical in combat — it jarred the hands.

So Gao Jie's use of such a weapon was in truth far more about intimidation than practical effect, and to a large degree it was not to intimidate the enemy, but to overawe his own side's motley peasant army, a mixed bag of fish and dragons.

The mounted column raced toward the three-zhang-wide Ji River. The riders vaulted onto their horses at the bank. The small river could not block their advance; feet braced on the horses' backs, clutching manes and gripping tails, they crossed the river in the blink of an eye, split into several groups to form vanguard squads, and under Gao Jie's command charged without pause straight for Zuo Liangyu's pocket formation.

Zuo Liangyu, positioned behind the artillery detachment on the formation's eastern side, only now noticed the enemy cavalry rushing in from the south. His brows shot up sharply as he muttered to himself, "I didn't spot this mounted force. Has Zhang Yichuan kept a hidden ambush troop?"

But doubts aside, a thin battle line using a small force to encircle a large enemy, when struck from the rear by cavalry, was bound to shatter on impact. Zuo Liangyu hastily waved his hand to signal with flags. Behind him, his resting household troop, at the sound of the drums, donned their armor and mounted up one by one, couching their cavalry lances as they charged to meet the mounted column that had crossed the river and was bearing down on them.

The cavalry surged like a torrent along the riverbank toward the pocket formation's thin left-flank line, while the household mounted troop from the rear of the Left Army also nocked long arrows and gripped great bows, charging in a flanking intercept from the side.

The billowing dust clouds swirling over the southern part of the battlefield filled Zhang Yichuan, deep within the heavy encirclement, with tremendous fervor. Standing on the central army's earthen mound, he drew his blade and rose, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Charge! Charge!"

In an instant, the young orderlies sprinted like the wind. As the word reached each battalion, morale that had already been flagging surged once more. The peasant army's bolstering war drums thundered to life. The front, right, and rear battalions of the Henan Regional Commander's force wheeled in succession. Thousands upon thousands of men and women, young and old, under their officers' command, heedlessly launched a charge at the government army's southern line.

The two dust trails rolling downward drew closer and closer. The mounted troops on both sides, gripping great bows and long arrows, spread out and exchanged volleys. After three arrows each, they lowered their cavalry lances from their elbows one after another, couching spear and lance in preparation for the collision.

Gao Jie rode at the very front of the mounted column, feet braced in the stirrups and slightly raised, treating the fierce-feathered arrows streaking across the battlefield as if they were nothing. Seeing the household mounted troop charging near at hand, he turned his head to Li Chengdong, who was following at his side, and pointed at the Ming army's left-flank battle line: "Hezi, take the men and smash them for me!"

With that, he raised a hand above his head in a wheeling signal, then gripped the iron club diagonally in both hands and twirled it in a flourish at his side. After that, using only his two legs in silent understanding with his warhorse, he charged to meet the Left Army's household mounted troop. Behind him, the Chuang army's mounted column split like flowing water into two streams.

The young and nimble Li Chengdong, crouched low over his horse's back, answered Gao Jie's order at once with a loud shout, spurring his horse forward to take the lead horse's position. Standing in the stirrups, he turned back and raised his blade, calling on the mounted troops to follow him in the charge. Just then, a feathered arrow flew in from the side — clang! It struck at an angle and lodged in the heart-protecting mirror on his chest.

Li Chengdong paid it no mind, merely showing a fierce expression. He raised a hand, snapped the feathered arrow in two, and tossed it aside carelessly. Shrinking down, he wrapped one arm around his horse's neck and hid against its left flank. Only when they were a mere ten-odd paces from the enemy line did he suddenly rise up from the horse's back and shout at the top of his lungs: "Charge!"

The mounted troops behind him answered with a roar, whipping their horses and raising their blades as they galloped and loosed arrows.

In that moment, no one knew how many of the three-eyed arquebusiers behind the government army line, in the midst of reloading, were struck by arrows. The rest fell back in retreat. The soldiers in front, arrayed with eighteen-foot long spears, could not react in time either. Only the squad deputy at the rear, steadying the line, thrust his long lance straight at Li Chengdong's warhorse.

The long spear collided head-on with the horse's chest. In that instant, the long shaft snapped. The warhorse, startled, violently kicked up its hind legs, but it could not throw Li Chengdong off. Carried by momentum, it crashed into the battle formation, bowling over the squad leader. A hoof the size of a bowl instantly crushed his sternum.

Before the warhorse had even steadied, Li Chengdong had already leapt off, driving his blade into the belly of an arquebusier who wore no iron armor. Right after, the Chuang army's mounted column, rider after rider, smashed in through the gap.

The battle line became a scene of men and horses thrown to the ground. Amid heaven-shaking battle cries, Li Chengdong raised his blade left and right: "One palisade at a time — kill them all for me!"