Chapter 710: The Trap

Before dawn, the Ningxia Plain.

The moon was bright, the stars sparse; the night sky was a deep indigo blue.

In the sole remaining Ming army camp where the Governor's Standard Battalion was stationed, every man tilted his face upward. Amid faint, shrill whistles from the distance, they watched signal rockets trailing fiery tails rise into the night sky from every direction, flashing once before vanishing.

The young Standard Battalion Adjutant General Ding Zizhen was no exception. Hugging his helmet, he stared blankly at the scene.

The sight inexplicably reminded him of the Lantern Festival the year before last, when he and his friends leaned against a tavern railing to admire the festive lanterns. He had drunk too much and was heading home tipsy when he ran straight into his father, whose brow was furrowed with worry because Zhuanglang Garrison had just fallen to Liu Chengzong.

Back then, he still did not know that this war would spread so ferociously, nor did he know that the war would take his father from him forever.

He only remembered that the fireworks outside Liangzhou City that day had been far more dazzling than the signal rockets exploding and flitting chaotically across the sky today.

Such a spectacle had also startled Hong Chengchou inside the field headquarters tent.

But Hong Chengchou was in no mood to admire the skyful of wildly flying firecracker rockets.

Because although everyone setting off firecracker rockets on a battlefield of slaughter all around was, to some extent, rather comical—

the Marshal's Army, the Ming Army, and the peasant armies all used them as signal flares at night.

The three battalions of troops under Hong Chengchou's command led by Cao Wenzhao had already marched. Wherever the small squads of roving cavalry tasked with harassing the Marshal's Army attacked, that place would send up signal rockets in great volleys.

This situation was, of course, hardly good news for Hong Chengchou.

It meant that their strategic intent had failed completely.

More than a battalion's worth of troops, carrying warhorses and acting as roving cavalry, had used the cover of darkness to disperse and launch attacks in every direction. The goal was to draw the Marshal's Army into mobilizing and adjusting its defenses at night.

Because in Hong Chengchou's estimation, a so-called siege could never be a complete encirclement.

After all, Liu Chengzong had only twenty thousand men. To encircle their own force of over ten thousand was impossible to achieve as a full encirclement. At most, he could deploy heavy troops in two directions—and even that was somewhat overreaching and risky.

This was also the reason Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them." In the environment of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, with the troop quality and equipment levels of that era, encirclement was simply impossible without tenfold strength.

Even now, with technological advances in firearms, armor, and field fortifications reducing the troop strength needed for encirclement, when troop quality is not vastly different, it remains very difficult to completely hem in an enemy with only twice their numbers.

After all, to surround a thousand enemy troops on three sides, you could have only five or six hundred men on each side, because a formation of a thousand men is small, and the three sides can support each other very quickly.

But to surround ten thousand troops, you would need more than ten thousand men on every side. There is no logic in using three groups of five thousand to surround ten thousand.

Because the ground area occupied by a formation of ten thousand men is already terrifyingly large. A three-sided encirclement makes the occupied area even larger, and the support distances between the sides lengthen correspondingly.

So what often happens is that a broad battle line is drawn, a great horizontal formation pushes forward in a pitched battle, and a three-sided encirclement is completed for a direct assault—not a siege.

Because you cannot hold them trapped, and it is very easy to be routed and overturned by a concentrated attack on one side.

Precisely because he had this common sense in his head, Hong Chengchou felt his scalp tingle even more when he saw the signal rockets flying all across the sky.

He was deeply perplexed. Just how many men did Liu Chengzong have, that he dared to leave troops on every side of his formation?

Of course, what truly made Hong Chengchou's heart pound was the dread of the approaching dawn.

If enemy troops were truly on all sides, then once daylight came and they saw only a single battalion inside his formation, he would be like a little lamb surrounded by a pack of wolves—devoured clean in the blink of an eye!

In truth, Cao Wenzhao, who was currently advancing, was also feeling a chill in his heart.

Because he had a vague, instinctive sense that his soldiers were dying.

On the wilderness south of the Ming army's main camp, Cao Wenzhao was leading six thousand infantry and cavalry southward.

This time, contrary to his usual practice, he was not at the very front of the formation. Instead, he commanded over two thousand cavalry from a position slightly behind the center of the column. Leading the infantry and artillery at the head of the column was his nephew, Cao Bianjiao.

His other trusted subordinates—Ping An, Ping Ding, Feng Ju, and the rest—were all leading small bands of cavalry to attack the Marshal's Army positions on all sides.

His plan had seemed sound: detach over three thousand cavalry, split them into five squads, and raid the various positions and camps. This would presumably probe the true disposition of the Marshal's Army's defenses. If they could strike a weak point in Liu Chengzong's deployment, the Marshal's Army would inevitably have to mobilize its reserve forces at night to reinforce that weak point.

This would weaken the defensive strength of Liu Chengzong's main force and create an opportunity to raid his camp and behead its commander.

It was not that Cao Wenzhao was all brawn and no brain, knowing only how to charge formations and kill commanders. Rather, an enemy like the Marshal's Army had only this one glaring weakness.

Their guns and cannons were sharper than his own, their armor sturdier, their soldiers' supplies more complete, their troop strength more abundant, their fighting will higher—and even their tactical deployments were more exquisite.

The sole weakness was that the Marshal's Army almost never produced any fierce generals or great talents; its root was entirely in Liu Chengzong himself.

As long as he was hacked down, the colossal Marshal's Office would cease to be an intractable problem.

This was the fundamental reason for Cao Wenzhao's obsession with decapitation tactics.

He always felt that killing Liu Chengzong alone was far easier than fighting a war against Liu Chengzong and winning.

But therein lay the problem: mobilizing Liu Chengzong's army was not so easy.

At least for now, Cao Wenzhao had given up on that idea entirely.

Mounted on his horse, his long lance laid horizontally across the saddle, he led his army forward in silence amid the distant sounds of gunfire.

Over six thousand men advanced at a quick march across the plain in ten great columns.

Each column was formed with infantry pushing light cannons at the front and cavalry leading their horses behind. The soldiers were fully armored, their muskets and cannons loaded with shot and powder. The entire force was a mass of shadowy figures under the night sky; only up close could one see the faint, barely perceptible glimmers of burning match cords.

The wind blew through the four-colored tassels hanging from the border troops' armor skirts, their rustling instantly drowned out by the faint clatter of armor plates colliding.

In the distance, warning rockets rose into the night sky in every direction, one after another, while the chaotic clamor of exchanging fire resounded across the wilderness.

The signal rockets flying into the sky were too many, continuous and unending, a clear sign that the operations of Ping An and the others were not going smoothly.

It now seemed that enemy troops had long been on all sides, surrounding them so tightly that not a drop of water could leak through. Under these conditions, how could any maneuvering be achieved?

Cao Wenzhao's heart was sinking.

Because on the surface, enemy troops on all sides also meant that the Marshal's Army had already dispersed its own forces during the deployment phase. The strength in any single direction might be insufficient.

But Cao Wenzhao had extremely rich battlefield experience.

His ears could discern, from the sounds of battle erupting on all sides, where the defense was tight, where it was slightly lax, or where the weak points in the Marshal's Army's deployment lay.

Due east of the Ming main camp—that was surely where the Marshal's Army's defense was weak.

The gunfire there was the faintest. The pops of arquebuses were crisp, and there were equally crisp cannon reports, chaotic and disorderly, but the shouting and battle cries were the loudest.

A single listen told him the defending unit was a peasant army recently incorporated by Liu Chengzong, using looted three-eyed guns and "rolling-ball" cannons. Before the fight even reached close quarters, they were already bellowing at the top of their lungs to bolster their own courage.

But their numbers—hmm—sounded quite ample.

To the west, what Cao Wenzhao heard was the strangest.

Even before the attack, that area had been lit up with lanterns and bonfires, illuminating the vicinity of the camp as bright as day. After the attack began, the military music grew even louder.

The infantry outside the stockade all drew up in a long horizontal line along the edge of the trench; matchlock fire crackled in sequence from south to north, head and tail linked in an endless cycle, interspersed with lobbed explosive rounds from flying-rocket cannons and the sequential firing of Frankish breech-loaders — once the gunfire and cannonade began, they did not stop.

The moment you heard that, you knew it was old Ming army.

Because this tactical application of firearms was clearly the Ming army's standard method for dealing with small bands of Mongol cavalry harassing them — ceaseless gun and cannon fire, with extreme emphasis on layering different types of firearms and maintaining continuity of firepower.

In fact, the troops over there really were Ming soldiers, and just a day earlier, they had still been in the same camp as Cao Wenzhao.

The defending commanders over there were Xu Yong and Wang Yuncheng, subordinate to Zuo Liangyu.

Behind the two of them, overseeing the battle, were former Ningxia Mobile Corps Commander Liu Fangming and Assistant Prefect Ma Xiantu; the troops both men led were surrendered banner soldiers from Ningxia Garrison.

Although this direction consisted entirely of surrendered troops, it was very reliable, because Liu Chengzong had deployed the most troops in this direction.

Behind these nearly ten thousand surrendered troops in two formations were two more battalions under Yang Chengzu and Yang Yanchang, and beside them, to the southwest, was Gao Yingdeng's 1st Field Brigade.

This was also the main direction from which Liu Chengzong planned to launch his attack.

But in Cao Wenzhao's eyes, the due-south direction was the true formidable foe.

Ming forces had already reconnoitered in earlier engagements that to the south was the 2nd Field Brigade, led by Marshal's Headquarters Commander-in-Chief Ren Quan'er.

Although Ren Quan'er, back when he was on the Ming side, had been overshadowed by Yang Yanchang's aura as a god of war — never showing his edge, not looking like anyone particularly formidable.

Yet in this campaign he had displayed terrifying prowess, using just over ten thousand troops to successively smash five battalions under Bai Guang'en and Zhang Yingchang; now, in Ming eyes, he was the Marshal's Army's most ferocious commander, second to none.

The only exception was Cao Bianjiao, who had dealt with Ren Quan'er before; before the battle he told Cao Wenzhao: "Grand Marshal need not regard Ren Quan'er as a formidable foe. I know he exercises proper discipline and restraint over his troops, but he is not this formidable — it must be that Liu Chengzong assigned him exceptionally strong soldiers and officers."

Cao Wenzhao rode his horse forward through the formation, his gaze fixed on due south, and thought to himself that his nephew had indeed been right.

Because the south had likewise been hit by a Ming cavalry raid, and the one leading it was Cao Wenzhao's subordinate officer Feng Ju — also a fierce commander from the Guan-Ning frontier — yet the fighting there was nothing like the noisy chaos on the eastern and western fronts.

Over there, the calm was terrifying.

Lanterns hung high at the camp gates of several stockades, and bonfires were laid every hundred paces along the trench outside the stockade.

There was no flash of cannon fire, nor any rockets soaring into the sky — only the unseen neighing of warhorses.

Firelight flickered; galloping cavalry flashed past the front of the military stockade, casting elongated shadows into the darkness.

In the shadows, one could make out men bending bows and loosing arrows, slapping their mounts and brandishing blades.

Feng Ju's harassing cavalry never even broke into the 2nd Brigade's position before they were intercepted by their cavalry and forced to fight scattered single combats in the dark.

And amid the plains roaring with gunfire and cannon, there was only one place utterly out of tune — Cao Wenzhao's destination, the southwest sector of the Ming main camp.

There, all was pitch-black, shrouded in deathly stillness — no bonfires, no lanterns, no sound of men or horses moving.

It bore no sign whatsoever that a camp or troops were present.

Yet it also seemed as if something terrible lurked in the darkness, its blood-dripping maw already agape, bait cast out, waiting for prey to walk into the trap.

Cao Wenzhao's army moved very slowly through the darkness; the wooden wheels of the Frankish breech-loader carts creaked across the wilderness, leaving their groaning behind in the murder-laden wind.

It seemed every soldier trudging forward with head down harbored misgivings about the direction they were heading.

Even Cao Bianjiao rode back once from the front line and said to Cao Wenzhao: "Grand Marshal, this is too strange — there's not a sound from over there."

But Cao Wenzhao had no other choice. What else could he do — lead these six thousand troops in a diversionary attack somewhere else?

Attack the due-west, with its overwhelming gunfire and cannon?

Attack the due-south, where Ren Quan'er was stationed?

Or force a charge against the due-east, with its masses of troops?

Or tuck tail and flee back to the Ming main camp in the north?

He could only follow this one road into the dark, holding firm to his conviction that Liu Chengzong was in the southwest.

"The more abnormal it is, the more certain Liu Chengzong is there. Otherwise, where would he be — setting a trap, then hiding far away?"

Cao Wenzhao shook his head. "Liu Chengzong has plenty of nerve."

Even he himself was not entirely confident in these words.

Whether a man has nerve is one thing; where he applies that nerve is another.

Having said this, he could only patch up his own argument: "No matter what, even if it is a trap, we will trample it flat. For a military man to die in service to the realm — that is the finest death under heaven!"

Yet at this moment, the southwest of the battlefield was indeed a trap.

Outside the pitch-dark encampment, chevaux-de-frise and war wagons were linked in chains; apart from the sound of men breathing and horses snorting, the great cannons and ranked musketeers behind the chevaux-de-frise stood forest-like, all silently awaiting the prey to take the bait.

In truth, however, they were already nearly out of patience.

Darkness makes men anxious and fearful — and not only the enemy.

Even these soldiers of the Marshal's Army's 1st Brigade, drawn up in formation, after staying long in the dark, would feel an inexplicable unease and agitation.

Behind the formation, Gao Yingdeng stood on his horse's back to survey the battlefield and shook his head at those beside him: "Any word from the outpost riders yet? Still not here? Damn it, I marched faster when reinforcing Liaodong than he's moving!"

Soon, someone came forward and said: "General, word from the Grand Marshal's side — the enemy has closed to within two li."

Gao Yingdeng's eyes suddenly lit up in the darkness: "Good! Pass the word to the reserve battalion — prepare the fire pans!"

In the crisp, uniform clash of armor and weapons, several fire pits in front of the formation were lit with tinder sticks, but with other basins covering them and the military formation screening them, the glow they gave off was not conspicuous.

To Liu Chengzong's eyes, watching from a distant earthen hill, this scene was quite conspicuous.

This was the best Liu the Lion had ever managed his own protection since taking up command of troops.

At this moment, he was positioned due south of the battlefield, behind the formation of Ren Quan'er's 2nd Brigade, wrapped inside the triangular disposition of the Yulin, Huben, and Zongren battalions.

Moreover, what the triangle formed by these three battalions enclosed was not his central-army command tent.

It was the wagon camp of Feng Rang, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Surprise Attack Battalion, under Yang Yao's Linliang Circuit Garrison Brigade.

Feng Rang's wagon camp was equipped with the standard wagon-camp gear from Gansu, far tougher in protection than the mule-and-horse-drawn wagon camps of the Marshal's Army.

So Liu the Lion was exceedingly bold; he had an earthen hill piled up inside the formation, and simply by not lighting any fires, he could easily and comfortably survey the battlefield with his telescope.

In fact, the bonfires lit outside each battalion's position were not solely for detecting the enemy; to some extent, they were also meant to make it easier for Liu Chengzong to observe the battlefield.

Just as the sky began to pale at the edge and dawn was about to arrive, Cao Wenzhao's army at last emerged as a vast shadow in Liu Chengzong's sight, and at the same time, they too saw the outline of Gao Yingdeng's 1st Brigade.

The six thousand infantry and cavalry immediately quickened their pace, rapidly closing to within one li; the infantry pushed every manner of cannon to the front of the formation, and the men no longer bothered to muffle their voices, shouting loudly as they prepared to rotate cannonballs.

Soon, one after another, the cannon carts carrying Frankish breech-loaders halted, aimed their muzzles at several points along the enemy line hundreds of paces away, and fired off round after round of shot, then swiftly repeated the loading and launched a second volley.

And throughout this process, the infantry and cavalry never halted their steps — they merely opened up firing lanes for the artillery and continued their rapid advance from the flanks.

At the same time, the thousand-jin cannons deployed by the First Brigade at the front of the formation also launched counter-fire against the advancing Ming army.

Cao Wenzhao knew at this moment that the enemy was prepared, but he had long readied himself as well — his troop formation, with infantry in front and cavalry behind, was precisely arranged to clear the chevaux-de-frise.

Neither side's artillery chose to fire upon each other. The Ming army's breech-loading cannons attempted to smash open the war-wagon defense line; the Marshal Army's thousand-jin cannons all bombarded the Ming infantry formation.

Braving the artillery's furious bombardment, the troops under Cao Wenzhao pushed their formation forward another hundred-plus paces.

At this moment, the cavalry moved.

Squadron after squadron of horse soldiers launched assaults across the battle line, wielding three-eyed guns and bows, charging obliquely toward the artillery positions within the formation. In the blink of an eye they crossed two to three hundred paces, raining arrows down upon the artillery emplacements in an attempt to disrupt the cannons' fire.

But the formation returned fire against them with bows as well — though such a hasty counter-strike was little more than an itch to the galloping armored cavalry.

To Cao Wenzhao, this sight was undoubtedly and exceptionally heartening. He immediately ordered all units to press the attack, once more seizing the opportunity to push the battle line forward, while also dispatching small bands of cavalry to attempt a flanking envelopment from both wings.

But just at this moment, atop the distant earthen hill, Liu Chengzong, holding a telescope, let out a sigh.

They had entered the two-hundred-pace range, and were still rapidly closing the distance while shifting formation. The cavalry at the rear had also moved to both wings, forming a wide horizontal line, preparing to bypass the infantry and launch a charge against the army formation.

Behind the chevaux-de-frise, torch after torch was being passed through the ranks, igniting matchcord after matchcord — and of course, there were the heavy arquebusiers atop the war wagons, utterly indifferent to the torches, aiming their flintlock heavy arquebuses with steady hands.

One hundred fifty paces.

The Ming army's foot-formation matchlock gunners halted. A row of gunpowder smoke drifted up before the formation. One by one, crouching-tiger cannons were set upon the ground, and with a thunderous roar, their shot smashed into the mule-cart defense line.

Amid the thudding sounds of lead balls striking the war-wagon planks, the mournful wail of horns sounded from within Gao Yingdeng's army formation.

Rank after rank of heavy musketeers, wielding multi-shot-loaded firearms, braced their heavy guns upon the war wagons.

Before the army formation, centurions clad in red armor stepped forward one by one, brandishing their blades as they strode behind the chevaux-de-frise barrier. Facing the soldiers under their command, they raised their goose-quill sabers and slashed them down fiercely, the blade tips pointing straight at the enemy.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A vast cloud of gunpowder smoke rose before the formation. The muffled report of the guns reached Liu Chengzong's ears like a thunderclap. All he saw were countless warhorses rearing before the Ming formation, countless soldiers and officers collapsing dead, and within the smoke, battle flags just unfurled now dragging and falling to the ground.

He turned his head away and looked no more, merely issuing an order to Feng Rang at his side: "Fire signal rockets to the south. Tell every battalion's troops — general assault. Once we've dealt with Hong Chengchou, we march for the Ordos."