Chapter 705: Cavalry Circling

The bowl helmets and cuirasses gleamed under the sunlight, the low brow-guards casting shadows over Ma Ke's eyes.

He rose up outside the formation, flipped around to crouch on the saddle, then stood up moments later, frowning as he gazed toward the northern battlefield and murmured, "What are you trying to pull?"

On the battlefield, two Ming infantry and cavalry units were escorting wheelbarrows as they rapidly approached the battlefield and began loading horse carcasses onto the carts.

This scene brought Ma Ke a brief moment of confusion, then he sat back down, guided his warhorse around the cheval-de-frise pits, and headed into the formation, the smile on his face proclaiming his excellent mood.

Upon seeing Ouyang Gun and Zhang Xianzhong inside the camp, Ma Ke immediately declared with barely suppressed excitement, "The enemy has taken the bait!"

Ouyang Gun had been about to speak in surprise, but before he could get a word out, he heard Zhang Xianzhong retort irritably, "Taken what bait? Whoever that bastard leading them is, he's damn sharp — I've been clutching my rockets with nowhere to use them!"

Ma Ke glanced at Zhang Xianzhong but did not pick up his remark.

Rocket projectiles had appeared on the battlefield too many times; even the dullest enemy would be on guard against them by now.

Besides, Zhang Yingchang of the Three Garrisons of Ningxia had already been defeated, and the remaining Zuo Liangyu and Cao Wenzhao were both seasoned veterans — it was only natural they'd be wary.

"Time is short. You two are such mighty Regional Commanders — think of something."

Zhang Xianzhong, having gotten no response, grew even more displeased and glared. "Force them over here, blast their two camps with rockets, then use real skill to break those two camps — only then can we fight the four camps behind them!"

Ma Ke blinked, his mouth slightly agape, staring fixedly at Zhang Xianzhong as if listening to a madman's ravings.

Ouyang Gun said, "Commander, don't be impatient — Marshal Ren's reinforcements will arrive tonight."

Zhang Xianzhong clearly thought little of Ren Quan'er and rolled his eyes. "Speed is the essence of war. By the time he gets here, the Ming army will have long fled!"

"If they run, we chase."

Ma Ke chuckled lightly, then said, "They've already taken the bait. The enemy commander has dispatched a small force of infantry and cavalry with wheelbarrows to haul horse carcasses on the battlefield — they won't run tonight."

Ouyang Gun let out a very weary sigh.

Zhang Xianzhong's intentions were obvious to everyone.

The two battalions of the 2nd Brigade's Raiders and Rangers, over four thousand men in all, were all hoping the Grand Marshal would lead the army to complete the encirclement.

Zhang Xianzhong alone did not want Liu Chengzong to reach the battlefield too soon.

The day the Grand Marshal arrived on the battlefield would be the day the great army won victory — and Zhang Xianzhong, released back to the mountains and forests, would have to crawl back into the cage beside Liu Chengzong.

The Marshal's Army's specialty was madmen.

In the eyes of Ouyang Gun, who had not yet been too poisoned by madness, the cavalry commander Ma Ke standing there shouting "the enemy has taken the bait" looked fairly normal — but in truth, he was only a bit more normal than Zhang Xianzhong.

I mean, what kind of decent person, leading four thousand troops, would call twenty thousand enemy soldiers deciding to fight across twenty li of ground "taking the bait"?

With their four thousand exhausted troops who had already fought several engagements, the fact that over twenty thousand men were advancing south to attack was, in his eyes, simply "not running away."

Of course, Ouyang Gun knew this was advantageous for the overall situation.

They needed to pin down the enemy, which would buy time for Ren Quan'er's reinforcements in the rear and create an opportunity for Liu Chengzong's encirclement.

But working with these two, Ouyang Gun always felt he didn't fit in — he never even knew how to respond to what they said.

Agree? It made no sense. Mock them? He didn't dare.

He could only change the subject and said to Ma Ke, "The enemy commander is not impulsive. He established his position on stable ground before seizing the horse carcasses — they're still not hungry enough... This is a ploy to lure us into abandoning our formation."

"Whether it's a ploy doesn't matter."

Ma Ke shook his head, clearly holding a different view. "Though the enemy is numerous, they dare not advance — they fear our rockets. That being the case, in my humble opinion, we should seize the chance to send out the cavalry and engage them in close combat."

Ouyang Gun looked at Ma Ke in astonishment, thinking that while Ma Ke was surpassingly brave, full of daring, and a bit reckless, he was no complete fool — how could he say something like that?

He asked, puzzled, "Wouldn't that be playing right into the enemy commander's hands? They have more troops and we have fewer. I know cavalry commanders all have confidence, but in cavalry close combat, our army won't gain much advantage."

To put it plainly, the Marshal's Army did indeed hold a battlefield formation advantage over the Ming army, but that advantage was concentrated in the infantry and artillery.

On one hand, more horses and vehicles provided advantages in mobility and logistics; on the other hand, it lay in the technological progress of firearms and artillery.

Cavalry, however, was where the gap between the Marshal's Army and the Ming army was smallest.

In massed operations, the Marshal's Army cavalry could prevail through superior organization and morale — but one-on-one close combat?

Ouyang Gun did not believe Liu Chengzong's newly formed field brigade cavalry could gain any advantage.

After all, they were diluted with too many of the Marshal's Army's special troop types.

It wasn't that Ouyang Gun looked down on the Mongol cavalry, but by design, the Ranger Battalion was a unit meant for massed expulsion of enemy horsemen and did not excel in individual close combat.

Even though Liu Chengzong had strengthened their combat capability — the Oirat heavy cavalry were all equipped with three tempered-steel spearheads, and the Mobei light cavalry were all issued eighteen armor-piercing awls and eighteen beryllium-bronze arrowheads —

it was still very difficult for them to gain absolute superiority in single combat or small-unit engagements.

At best, they could fight to a draw, because this equipment was originally standard issue for the Ming army — the Mongol cavalry simply hadn't had it.

In fact, in Ouyang Gun's eyes, the ecological niche of the Mongol company soldiers in each brigade within the Marshal's Army was exactly the same as the household retainers and barbarian retainers under Ming commanders.

Or, put another way, Hong Taiji's Three Obedient Kings, Liu Chengzong's Mongol army, and the Ming generals' barbarian retainers were all the same thing — unattached, unburdened, with nothing to tie them down.

They were Daicing's confidence to deal with the clan nobility, the cornerstone by which the Grand Marshal guaranteed the lower limit of his power, and the confidence by which Ming generals suppressed mutinous troops.

They were a vital force by which the leaders of violent syndicates maintained internal psychological deterrence.

This force didn't need to be overwhelmingly strong, but people had to know it existed, and no one else within the syndicate could use it.

It was as simple as that.

On this foundation, the advantage of Liu Chengzong's Mongol barbarian retainers lay in the quantity of cavalry, not the quality.

Ouyang Gun was convinced that engaging would lead to losses.

But he hadn't expected that Ma Ke thought the same way.

"The General is quite right — the enemy has many troops and our army has few."

Ma Ke was not discouraged as he said this; instead, he grinned. "But our army has many cavalry and the enemy has few cavalry. Their four cavalry battalions amount to just over three thousand men. In close combat, kill one and they'll have one fewer."

"What worries me now is really that if the cavalry leaves the formation, I fear the enemy will charge the camp."

Ouyang Gun was deeply shaken and felt even more out of place.

What kind of people were these? An enemy five times their size not running was considered "taking the bait," and now, to keep the enemy from escaping the encirclement, they were ready to trade troops and wipe out every enemy soldier with a horse.

But since Ma Ke had put it that way, and Zhang Xianzhong was already casting suspicious glances his way, could Ouyang Gun say he couldn't hold the position?

He waved his hand. "No matter. Since the General is willing to go forth and fight, I will naturally defend the camp formation myself..."

Before he could finish, Zhang Xianzhong snatched the words right out of his mouth again. The Minister of the Rites Board waved his hand grandly: "Don't be afraid. The enemy's nearly fifteen hundred paces away — I'll just fire a few rockets and blast them. Whether they hit or not, no one's going to surround you anyway!"

In just this brief moment, on the opposite side of the battlefield, the Ming army commander Xu Yong, who had led the cavalry out to fight, was racking his brains, mulling over every little trick for taunting and provoking a battle.

He was even planning to wait a little longer. If the enemy cavalry didn't come out, he'd have his men find two dead horses, butcher and parcel them up on the spot, and let the enemy watch as the meat was carried away.

But before he could put this idea to use, he saw a scout riding back in excitement to report: "General, the enemy is deploying troops!"

From the four cavalry divisions stationed at the four corners of the Marshal's encampment, one squad from each broke off, mounted up, and began advancing northward at an unhurried pace.

Xu Yong stared at those warhorses, utterly green with envy.

At this distance, he couldn't tell whether they were Mongol horses or Ili horses, couldn't even make out their size or quality — all he could see was the number.

His own battalion had fewer than six hundred warhorses; counting packhorses and draft horses, he could barely scrape together nine hundred cavalry. Yet those four cavalry divisions sitting quietly at the four corners of the enemy camp clearly belonged to a single battalion.

Add the troops inside the camp, and with just over four thousand men, they had more than five thousand warhorses, donkeys, and mules.

And that wasn't even counting the losses from the earlier fighting.

In truth, this was also the fundamental reason the shrewd Zuo Liangyu was willing to fight this battle at all.

They all coveted the Marshal's headquarters' logistical strength.

Defeat this battalion, and the mobility and fodder reserves of Zuo's four battalions would all rise to a new level.

Otherwise, Zuo Liangyu would have left long ago.

Why the hell would he be wasting time here?

The four small squads of roving-camp cavalry didn't move fast, yet they churned up dust and smoke, kicking up a vast, surging commotion.

At the front of his own formation, Xu Yong raised his telescope toward the Marshal's army cavalry approaching the battlefield, then turned his head and said: "Prepare another two hundred riders. Also, tell the men up front to be careful — the enemy cavalry won't be easy to handle."

He had long known that there were quite a few Mongol soldiers among the enemy cavalry. Earlier he had mostly felt contempt for them, but now, seeing this, he realized Liu Chengzong's army really did have a method for training cavalry.

The contempt was perfectly natural.

Liu Chengzong had a surrendered Gansu officer under his command named Li Changling, who now held the post of Militia Training Officer in the Ministry of War — a one-eyed dragon with only a single eye left.

In the past, serving as Battalion Commander of the personal guard battalion under Gansu Regional Commander Yang Jiamo, he had faced the sons of Huoluochi — still sea bandits back then — when they raided Gansu from the north, and fought a very brilliant battle.

The price of victory was Li Changling's right eye.

And only that price — nothing more.

The Huoluochi cavalry's arrows fell like rain, their precision marksmanship still fresh in the memory of the Gansu Ming army. Every officer and soldier at the front took multiple arrows to the body.

But not a single one died. In the entire battle, not one arrow managed to penetrate their armor.

Only Li Changling, as the Battalion Commander on duty, raised his head amid the rain of arrows to observe the enemy's direction of attack — and the moment he looked up, an arrow struck his right eye. A bronze-forged arrowhead.

The Mongol soldiers' marksmanship was superb, but with their armaments so utterly neglected, how could they not be held in contempt?

Yet the enemy cavalry Xu Yong was seeing now were clearly not that kind of rabble who couldn't even keep their equipment in order.

Four squads of fifty riders each moved in complete silence, only the steady clatter of hoofbeats rising in waves — but they did not move fast.

Holding their reins and advancing slowly, they shifted formation. The four units first moved forward in columns, splitting into two groups. In each group, the front column opened gaps and the rear column inserted into them, forming two large companies.

The two large companies then repeated the maneuver — front opening gaps, rear inserting — becoming a single square formation of two hundred cavalry.

Then the square formation split apart and reformed into a lake array of four-rider groups, which made Xu Yong burst out laughing despite himself.

It wasn't mockery. The Marshal's army cavalry executed their formation changes with great proficiency, steady and seasoned in motion, never rash — they were opponents worth taking seriously.

It was just that this particular combination genuinely struck Xu Yong as very funny. It was clearly a Ming-style cavalry unit, yet it gave him the sudden illusion of seeing a Mongol regiment from centuries ago.

The lake array was none other than Genghis Khan's signature battle formation.

Its core idea was that cavalry should be dispersed, not concentrated — easier for controlling the battlefield and increasing the width of the battle line, allowing cavalry in smaller units to advance on the enemy like scattered lakes across the steppe, which was exactly what "lake" meant.

The formation change was completed within a thousand paces. By this point, Xu Yong, peering through his telescope, could already make out the composition of the enemy cavalry.

In these four-rider squads, all four men were outfitted differently.

Two of the cavalrymen were clearly Han soldiers — bowl helmets, red cloth-faced armor. One carried a banner-spear or long saber, the other held a matchlock or three-eyed gun. Both had goose-quill sabers and golden-melon maces hanging at their waists, with bow cases and arrow quivers slung on their horses.

The other two riders were clearly Mongol soldiers. One wore chainmail and carried three lances — one long, two short — with a bow and arrows on his horse's back. The other wore a leather coat and leather cap or iron-studded leather armor, carried a powerful bow and large arrows, and had a hooked-sickle short spear hanging from a hook-ring on the side of his saddle.

Formation, disposition, armor — nothing was amiss.

Xu Yong felt reassured about the cavalry melee.

Mainly because Liu Chengzong's army always came up with some strange, bizarre contraptions. But now it seemed the Marshal's headquarters cavalry was still a very traditional force.

As the Marshal's army cavalry deployed, the Zuo contingent cavalry on the battlefield — though fewer in number — also spread out into their battle formation. They used the battalion-squad system, so they didn't need to break formation, disperse, and reorganize like the Marshal's army cavalry. They could fight directly in their smallest unit structure, which gave them a major advantage.

The Ming cavalry formed up five riders per rank. Some rested goose-quill sabers against their right shoulders, advancing slowly with reins held firm toward the Marshal's army cavalry. Others coiled matchcord around their left arms, loading powder and shot into their three-eyed guns or matchlocks.

Still others held their war bows and gripped the reins in one hand while using the other to sort through the thick, long arrows in the quiver hanging behind the horse's rump, arranging the shafts — each fitted with different types of arrowheads — in proper order.

Meanwhile, at the Zuo main camp to the northwest, two hundred reinforcement cavalry were already racing toward the battlefield.

This advantage settled the anxious heart of Xu Yong, who was observing the battlefield from outside the main camp. He even found himself in a leisurely mood. Watching the Marshal's army cavalry through his telescope — so resolute, so determined — he couldn't help but sigh: "Truly fine cavalry. A pity they're rebels."

Although the Marshal's army camp to the south was frantically digging trenches, farther out on the battlefield's periphery, the three holding battalions were spreading out and moving, about to complete their encirclement.

Under such circumstances, the Marshal's army cavalry that had sortied to contest the field would, nine times out of ten, die on this battlefield.

It had nothing to do with whether they could fight or whether they were fine cavalry — it was because they could not control the battlefield.

The entire battlefield was controlled by the Ming army. In all the years of Ming forces facing off against the Marshal's army, this was exceedingly rare.

Once they were wounded and unhorsed, they could not receive rapid medical treatment, and it would be very hard for a man to survive.

The battlefield is a place of life and death — there are no fools there.

Xu Yong believed those cavalrymen, advancing without hesitation, knew their fate. They simply believed that the time they bought by stalling might allow them to wait for something.

Just as Zuo Liangyu, Xu Yong, and the others all knew Liu Chengzong's main army was nearby, yet still came to fight this battle.

It was also because they believed they could crush this stubborn formation before the enemy reinforcements arrived.

At that very moment, the crack of gunfire rose and fell across the battlefield — the cavalry had opened fire on each other.

Xu Yong closed his eyes and listened intently. This scene had played out countless times in his military career. Even with his eyes shut, he could judge the shifting situation by sound alone.

First came the muffled report of matchlocks, opening fire on the enemy cavalry at maximum range. Then, as the two sides closed in, the continuous pop-pop-pop of three-eyed guns rang out. After that, most cavalrymen would abandon their firearms — powerful but nearly impossible to reload — and turn instead to bows to meet the... Xu Yong opened his eyes in puzzlement.

Why the hell are there still gunshots?

In that first clash, the cavalry on both sides did indeed use firearms to inflict considerable casualties on the enemy riders, and the Ming army did largely abandon their firearms after that, switching to bows and goose-quill sabers to meet the foe.

But the Marshal's cavalry did not.

Gunfire still crackled across the chaotic battlefield. Many of their riders never even joined the melee at all, instead circling the periphery on horseback to fire, then rapidly reloading after each shot before firing again.

Xu Yong took one look, hurled his telescope down in fury, and cursed in a fit of rage: "Who the hell gave them the Lightning Lances!"