Chapter 730: Batu Camp

East of the Xing'an Range, at the mouth of Horse Mane Pass, lay the encampment of the Marshal's central army.

Inside the command tent, Liu Chengzong was at his desk, carefully studying a design drawing for the defensive fortifications of Songmo Prefecture.

The Marshal's headquarters cartographer, Monk Xue, stood in attendance beside him, dark circles under his eyes, his face weary but his expression brimming with excitement.

City planning had always been work reserved for figures like county magistrates; he never imagined that here in Songmo Prefecture, a mere painter like himself would get to do it!

Liu Chengzong looked up from the draft, glanced at Monk Xue, and praised him, "Fine ingenuity, fine craftsmanship!"

The draft was a simplified design for a four-cornered bastion fort.

Thanks to Monk Xue's experience in drawing regional maps, the scale of this fortress design was exceptionally precise.

From the marks left by the charcoal pencil, Liu Chengzong could see how Monk Xue had drawn it — simple and ingenious.

The Songmo Prefecture city that Zhang Xianzhong was overseeing was a square city, each of its four walls three hundred paces wide. Monk Xue connected the four corners and the four walls, drew a star shape inside the square, and extended those four lines outward.

Then, by connecting the endpoints of the extended lines to the two adjacent city corners, he produced the main outline of the four-cornered bastion.

Hearing Liu Chengzong's praise, Monk Xue happily flattered him: "It's all thanks to the Marshal's fine teaching. As the Marshal said, an acute-angled bastion is simply a pile of defensive works, eliminating dead zones for the guns and cannons on the walls, allowing fire from three sides, and preventing the enemy from mining the walls or swarming them with scaling ladders."

"Since the lines of fire for guns and cannons are all straight, this humble one simply used a ruler, drawing only straight lines, connecting the various points, and then trimming away the excess."

As he spoke, Monk Xue pointed to the diagram and explained, "Following the Marshal's concept, the distance between the edges of each of the four bastions is one hundred and fifty paces, within the canister-shot range of our heavy muskets and lion cannons."

"At the same time, the distance from the flank of one bastion to the base of the adjacent bastion's acute angle is four hundred paces, which also falls within the killing range of our Frankish general cannons. As for enemies farther away, we can use the thousand-jin cannons and the heavy Jin cannons we captured."

Liu Chengzong nodded continuously, feeling very pleased.

It wasn't that Monk Xue's diagram was flawless — in his view, there were still many areas for improvement.

Rather, it was that Monk Xue himself was an expert with cartographic technique, who simply lacked experience in building cities and designing fortresses.

After a night of deliberation, to hand in this drawing clearly showed that his thinking on designing acute-angled bastions had already entered the hall; entering the inner chamber was only a matter of time.

To Liu Chengzong, this was far more important than the simple draft itself — it meant he would personally nurture an expert in designing military fortresses.

At the same time, he himself had only read a few of Xu Guangqi's books and merely knew the external shape of an acute-angled bastion fortress, without understanding how each critical detail was designed.

Now that Monk Xue had laid his entire thought process out on the drawing, it was crystal clear to Liu the Lion.

It also gave him a deeper understanding of this design himself.

"Excellent!"

Liu the Lion first offered a word of encouragement, then pointed to the angular edges on the drawing and said, "However, there are still areas for improvement in this diagram. On the flank of the bastion, you drew this line from the adjacent city corner. That means on the inner side, near the city wall, there's a spot where guns and cannons cannot reach the outer side of the adjacent angle — it's blocked."

He was referring to the left and right sides of the city gate, the two opposing bastion flanks.

What needed to be changed were the two edges of the bastion's acute angle.

Monk Xue drew inferences from one example. As soon as Liu Chengzong raised the issue, he nodded in agreement and said, "The Marshal is right. Then the outer edge of this acute angle should extend from the edge and the city wall; that way, there will be no dead zone."

"Correct!"

Liu the Lion then pointed out several other oversights, such as how the edge of the acute angle could not be flattened but must extend two wings like an arrowhead, which would better protect the gun emplacements inside the edge.

Afterward, he summoned several of Monk Xue's apprentices and had them draw several copies of the improved design, transposing it onto the topographical map of Songmo Prefecture. Following the mountain contours, they added a drawbridge at the eastern wallhead, a triangular redoubt on the hill fifty paces beyond the eastern wall, and another triangular redoubt outside the western wall.

Between the two triangular redoubts and the main city, they designed a deep and wide moat.

Of the four city walls, only the western gate was opened, connecting to the triangular redoubt outside the western gate. A road was designed outside the triangular redoubt, bypassing the moat, winding around the southern side of the fortress, leading all the way east, and turning downhill at the eastern triangular redoubt.

Their mountain was, in fact, the old foundation of the former Songmo Prefecture city.

In the past, city walls were built high to prevent enemies from scaling them, but the higher the wall, the easier it was for trebuchets and cannons to hit, and the more prone it was to collapse. Thus, by the Ming Dynasty, walls had become relatively lower.

As for Songmo Prefecture, built on the high platform of the original site, it already possessed a certain height. However, the new city was planned much smaller than the old one, so the edge of the high platform could be shaped into an artillery-deflecting slope, minimizing the hit rate of direct fire from distant cannons.

This also gave Liu Chengzong more insights into building bastion forts.

He realized that to maximize the defensive capability of such a fortress, it shouldn't actually be built up, but rather, a high hill or low mountain should be chosen, and a wide, deep moat dug out, carving the fortress from the earth.

A giant semi-subterranean pit dwelling.

In this era, the fall of any city ultimately came down to scaling the walls. With sufficient firepower, acute-angled bastions could prevent the enemy from scaling the walls as long as ammunition, water, and provisions held out. What it truly feared was direct cannon fire.

Ultimately, it came down to the battlements; the gun emplacements on the battlements could not be destroyed by enemy artillery.

So, to protect the gun emplacements, one must first avoid being hit, and second, the battlements must be thick.

Therefore, by digging the moat directly from the earth, the wall's gun emplacements, seen from the side, would only be slightly higher than the ground. Beyond the wide moat would be an artillery-deflecting earthen slope, preventing enemy cannons from direct fire and forcing them into plunging fire, thus maximizing the avoidance of being hit.

Liu Chengzong could only record these techniques. Songmo Prefecture city would not benefit from them; the location itself was a narrow river valley. Digging a city out of that kind of terrain would mean the groundwater would flood the city before any enemy even attacked.

Therefore, in Songmo, they could only rely on defensive techniques for the city itself, such as making the steps outside the city suddenly high and suddenly low to create difficulties for an attacking army.

On the inner side, the rampart walkway would be two or three bricks higher than the outer gun emplacements, with a ten-foot-long small slope in between, using gravity to help recoiling cannons reset faster after firing.

However, even if they couldn't use every method, as long as the acute-angled bastions of Songmo Prefecture could be completed and equipped with enough guns and cannons, it would still be a city with extremely high defensive capability.

Of course, for Liu Chengzong, many things were a matter of trade-offs.

Once built, this fortress would have excellent defensive capability, but the construction would require a massive amount of labor, far exceeding that of a larger traditional city.

Moreover, the garrison troops, cannons, and ammunition reserves it required would all be enormous.

Because this type of acute-angled bastion absolutely required guns and cannons to work together, which was precisely why Liu Chengzong hadn't built a bastion fort in Kangning in his early years.

With four bastions and four walls, to bring its firepower advantage to bear, each face would need at least four lion cannons, four general cannons, four thousand-jin cannons, and four red-barbarian heavy cannons. The thousand-jin and red-barbarian cannons alone would number sixty-four.

Sixty-four heavy cannons — what kind of concept was that?

Gao Yingdeng's First Field Brigade was only equipped with twenty-six thousand-jin field cannons.

Liu Chengzong's own four battalions — Han, Tang, Yuan, and Ming — plus two field brigades, could just about scrape together that number.

Not to mention heavy cannons for defending a city; they only had the nine pieces captured from the Later Jin.

In this way, no matter which side the enemy attacked, once they entered within three li, they would be exposed to the field of fire of sixteen field and heavy cannons.

In a strategically vital river valley, deploying so many cannons — even if it were just an ordinary checkpoint, let alone a bastion fort — would allow a single battalion to hold off ten thousand troops.

At Songmo Prefecture's location, this range covered the entire river valley; even the opposite riverbank fell within the bombardment zone.

Cannons were still the easiest problem for the Marshal's headquarters to solve.

In Liangzhou, Liu the Lion had cast cannons on the battlefield, using iron molds to produce a monster weighing five thousand seven hundred jin that fired twenty-jin iron balls.

That cannon, in design, materials, technique, and quality, was a super-defective product. It weighed over four times as much as a thousand-catty field gun, yet its cost-effectiveness in boosting army combat power was extremely limited. It was used only once at the mouth of the Zhuanglang River before being tossed into the Liangzhou city armory to gather dust.

It couldn't even be hauled up onto the Liangzhou city wall. That was an ancient city built very high, with a very narrow wall-top width. Even if you managed to get the cannon up there, after one shot the recoil would likely send it crashing down off the wall.

But since they were newly building Songmo Prefectural City, the walls were being rammed specifically to accommodate large cannons. These would also serve as defensive wall guns, so mobility wasn't a concern — naturally, the bigger the better.

Liu Shizi planned to directly transfer military artisans from Shaanxi and mining supervisors from Qinghai. They would conduct large-scale mineral exploration between Guihua City and Shangdu, and build ironworks between Shangdu and Songmo Prefecture.

After all, with supply issues, the closer the better.

It wasn't just about casting cannons. The cannonballs needed for over a hundred cannons — just one volley from all of them would expend the weight of an entire thousand-catty gun in iron.

Right then, Liu Chengzong ordered Monk Xue to collect the draft plans for the city construction and take his apprentices to Songmo Prefecture to assist Zhang Xianzhong in building the new city.

First, build a square-walled city, then expand outward from that foundation. At the same time, the earth and stone needed for ramming the city walls would be excavated according to the planned defensive moat.

Once Monk Xue set off, Liu Shizi's real headache began.

What gave him a headache were those Mobei cavalrymen who had returned from the east.

These grassland horse-bandits were all talents. Not only had they made Hong Taiji so angry his nose bled, they also made Liu Chengzong so furious his skull ached.

He had been suppressing his anger all along.

Liu Shizi just couldn't understand. Although the Mobei cavalry, in terms of composition, did have a slightly higher proportion of forest bandits, tribal troublemakers, and grassland horse-bandits.

But at the officer level, there were still some hereditary nobles — at least a quarter of them.

How could they have fought a battle like this?

It wasn't that the battle was poorly fought, or that they couldn't run back. The order Liu Chengzong gave was for Erinchen to avoid battle, to run however he wanted, as long as Hong Taiji didn't catch him, it would count as a victory.

Erinchen actually did that quite well. Though the reason was unclear, Hong Taiji's Eight Banners army was indeed tied down on the Khorchin Steppe.

But Liu Shizi could never have imagined that these guys would fight a battle that turned out like this.

Throughout history, in warfare — regardless of whether they were Hu or Han — there have been defeats, routs, and retreats, but an army generally does not scatter.

On the contrary, the more critical the battle situation, the more an army wants to cluster together, while the enemy hopes they will scatter and lose organization.

Precisely because of this, every army's military law includes collective punishment systems like "if the troops break, the general dies; if the general dies, the troops die."

For example, in the Ming army, if an entire unit retreated, the unit commander was beheaded; if the unit commander died in action and the entire unit retreated, the entire unit was beheaded.

This was a very normal collective-punishment military law, designed to prevent a commander from abandoning the army in times of crisis and fleeing on his own.

Like Liu Chengzong's good big brother Cao Yao, who would cry whenever he got drunk, weeping as he paid respects at the grave of Liu Yujie, the Brigade Commander who led him in retreat from the Battle of Sarhu. That Liu Yujie was exactly the kind who left everyone else on the battlefield and slipped away himself.

To be honest, if Erinchen had run back himself, abandoning ten thousand Mongol cavalry in Mobei, even if Liu Chengzong had him executed, deep down he would have felt only anger, not bewilderment. He could understand that.

But as it turned out, that wasn't the situation at all.

Of the twenty-three Chiliarchs who set out, aside from two known killed in action according to intelligence and four missing, the remaining fifteen all came back. Even several of the Ordos Chiliarchs returned.

Only Sacang Taiji and the officer ordered to lead them on the campaign, Erinchen, were left behind in enemy territory.

Liu Chengzong had no idea how Erinchen managed to be a commander like that. How did he get abandoned on the battlefield by his own subordinate officers?

And it wasn't that they said Erinchen was killed by the Eight Banners army — rather, he had led his troops thrusting into the northern part of the Khorchin Steppe to raid their nests.

Liu Chengzong had never seen a situation like this.

Those Chiliarchs, one after another, even brought horses to seek rewards from the Grand Marshal, all claiming they had rendered meritorious service.

And then Liu Chengzong, as if completely heartless and carefree, threw a grand banquet at the mouth of the Xing'an Mountains. He even brought out the milk wine captured from the Northern Yuan camp, laughing heartily with the meritorious Mobei Chiliarchs and Chiliarchs.

Even Zuo Liangyu, who was washing horses, couldn't stand to watch. He felt that according to military law, at least half of these Chiliarchs should be executed. How could the Grand Marshal be ordering the crafting of merit medals on one hand, and giving them lessons at the banquet on the other?

It was a real lesson, mainly aimed at those Chiliarchs qualified to attend. He told them not to directly slaughter and ruin the enemy's livestock. Even if they knew they couldn't bring the animals back, they should still drive them away together.

Because this way, when caught up by the enemy, they could abandon the livestock, driving the cattle and sheep off in chaotic directions to disrupt the enemy's pursuit formation. Moreover, once the enemy gained the spoils, they would no longer chase you, which could prevent soldier casualties.

The Chiliarchs were all dumbfounded. Little Jamusu, Erinchen's nephew from the Ordos tribe, asked in confusion, "Great Khan, wouldn't that livestock just be aiding the enemy?"

"Aid what enemy? It's merely letting them raise the animals for us for the time being."

Liu Shizi glared. "Can't snatch them back now because the war isn't over. Once the war is over, we can snatch them back. Even if we lose the war, we can snatch them back next year after the lambs are born. They aren't nearly as decisive as you when it comes to slaughtering livestock."

Liu Chengzong hadn't been drinking. Once host and guests were all satisfied and the Mobei officers returned to their respective garrisons, he also went back to the central army command tent. Zuo Liangyu and Wu Sihu followed closely and announced themselves, requesting an audience.

As soon as they entered the tent, without even glancing at Li Qifeng, who stood with his hand on his saber to the side, they got straight to the point and saluted Liu Chengzong: "Grand Marshal, the Mobei tribes are a loose sheet of sand. Never mind not allowing them to atone for their crimes with merit — why lavish them with grand rewards?"

Liu Chengzong looked up at Zuo Liangyu, wanting to laugh but holding it in.

The banquet had been arranged by Zuo Liangyu and Wu Sihu themselves.

He hadn't expected that his rewarding of the Mobei officers would make Zuo Liangyu feel so indignant, coming to offer suggestions just like a real Marshal's Headquarters general.

He thought to himself, do you really think I need you to remind me about Mobei matters?

The organizational system of Mobei was a failure — Liu Shizi was naturally more aware of this than anyone.

"A loose sheet of sand" was putting it kindly. Aside from the Ordos tribe, the troops of the remaining tribes were no different from horse-bandit dens of various sizes.

This campaign had also proven that even Erinchen found it difficult to command the allegiance and lead the troops among the new Mobei Mongol tribes.

This was bad for the Mobei Protectorate, not exactly good for the Marshal's Headquarters, but for Liu Chengzong, it wasn't a bad thing.

"Merit naturally deserves reward, and fault naturally deserves punishment. As for punishment, we'll wait until Erinchen returns."

Liu Chengzong replied lightly, but that wasn't what he was thinking in his heart. He just couldn't explain in detail to Zuo Liangyu.

Because in his heart, he had never truly regarded the many Mobei Chiliarchs and Centurions as real Chiliarchs and Centurions. They were all titles he had recklessly bestowed.

But what could he do? As the saying goes, titles and regalia must not be lent to others. He had recklessly bestowed titles precisely because, at that time, he was in Qinghai and could provide no support whatsoever to Yang Qi and the others in Mobei.

The only support he could give was the empty paper of recklessly bestowed titles to win people's hearts.

And they truly believed it.

That policy back then saved the life of the Mobei Protectorate, but now it had also become the obstacle to rectifying Mobei military discipline.

To put it bluntly, those were just Centurions and Platoon Leaders. Going out to war, they were at most Squad Commanders and Company Leaders, not even comparable to mid- or low-ranking officers. Many were simply veterans who had never received proper military education.

Yet they were expected to direct warfare on their own — of course their ability fell short.

"Wu Sihu, send Northern Yuan Camp cavalry to the garrisons of each Chiliarch to pass down the order. Tomorrow, report the names of meritorious soldiers and issue merit medals. From each Chiliarch unit, select ten brave and daring warriors and send them here, each bringing their warhorses, weapons, and armor. All shall be granted the title of Ba'atur and form the Ba'atur Camp."

Liu Chengzong came from a background of army-building; matters of military organization and training came to him with effortless ease.

Even if the Monan cavalry's military discipline is lacking, you can still pick out several hundred brave warriors. Train them up properly and send them back to their respective chiliarchies, and they'll soon become the new backbone.

Most crucially, the Monan cavalry don't respect E Linqin personally, but when it comes to his orders, they obey them thoroughly.

After Wu Sihu acknowledged the order, Liu Chengzong glanced at Zuo Liangyu and said with a smile, "Then I'll have to trouble you with this Baturu Camp, Brother Zuo."

?? Good evening!

? (End of chapter)