Chapter 751: Two Formations

Banners fluttered and war drums thundered.

Liu Chengzong rode with arms folded, gazing toward the battlefield two li away where the killing raged.

At this moment, with the two armies meeting under such conditions, how to engage left no room for tactical choice.

Just crash into them.

Before the enemy's left-wing reinforcements arrived, smash and collapse the right wing's front, center, and rear divisions.

So there was no probing attack, no regard for the enemy's deployment, not even a reserve force kept at hand — the nine battalions beyond the Feathered Forest and Tiger Guard, thirty thousand troops, were directly split into engagement, support, and interdiction, arrayed in three fronts and five formations, wrapped in dust dragons, and pressed toward the right wing of the Daiching army group.

On the front, the Liaoyang and Imperial Clan battalions formed the first echelon; the Northern Yuan and Yanmen battalions the second echelon; and the First Brigade's Gao Yingdeng Regular Battalion and Li Hongsi Raider Battalion the third echelon.

On the left wing, the First Brigade's Tang Tong Reinforcement Battalion provided flank support, while Zuo Guangxian's Skirmisher Battalion handled enemy interdiction; on the right wing, Suba's seven thousand Mobei cavalry conducted flanking and interdiction.

Amid the sky-choking dust, Liu Chengzong spotted at once the banners symbolizing the various princes of the Great Ming's northwest, stabbing like a dagger right before Daiching's right wing.

The first echelon Liu Chengzong deployed on the front was meant to break the formation.

Troops on the march cannot all be fully armored, but in open country where an enemy might be encountered, commanders usually deploy armored cavalry on the formation's outer edge to handle sudden attacks.

Using armored cavalry to attack armored cavalry was not wrong, of course, but Liu Chengzong needed greater speed.

The Imperial Clan and Liaoyang battalions had many firearms and cannons.

The rear division of the Daiching army's right wing was Hooge, commanding four thousand troops of the Plain Blue Banner.

The moment he spotted the large enemy force appearing to his flank and rear, he sent word to the Chongde Emperor on the left wing and ordered his troops to halt and reform — but his three-rank horizontal formation had only just stopped when it came under an unprecedented ferocious bombardment.

Over a hundred captured heavy cannons of various types, arrayed in a line on the dunes two li away, rained impartial destruction upon the three formations of the right wing — Hooge's Plain Blue Banner alone took more than twenty cannonballs in an instant.

It was sandy ground, so the cannonballs could not ricochet; otherwise, a single volley would have wiped out his entire battalion.

Even without the secondary carnage of bouncing shot, those twenty-plus cannonballs still smashed into the formation, throwing men and horses into chaos.

Hooge was on the verge of tears.

He screamed inwardly: My own brother, whom I've never even met — why do you single out my formation to strike! Damn it, bullets and shells have no eyes, this is fratricide!

In that moment, he was seized by a mad urge to flee.

But he did not dare.

His father always mocked him for lacking courage, threatening to kill him at the slightest provocation, only to pardon him once he was nearly scared to death.

Fighting might not mean death, but if he dared flee to the rear when the flank was suddenly attacked, Father Khan Hong Taiji would very likely kill him for real, to cow the nobles and the armies.

For a moment, the fear of death froze him on the spot.

But he did not need to give orders — the Eight Banners were full of veteran generals who had fought for twenty or thirty years.

At Hooge's side, Plain Blue Banner Vice General Tobohui and Colonel Ilehun each issued orders, deploying the formation, commanding the troops to don armor, and sending the five shield carts from the front to the right wing.

Hooge, steadied somewhat by the veteran generals' command and coordination, hurriedly selected his own guard cavalry and ordered them to charge and block the enemy on the right wing, buying time for his men to armor up.

But just then, the second bombardment came.

This bombardment was less dense than the first — eighty-eight Invincible General cannons — and the terrifying barrage once again fell upon the formation, scattering the Plain Blue Banner ranks that had barely begun to regroup.

In truth, among the three formations of the right wing, only the Plain Blue Banner could even manage to regroup.

The Mongol tribes in the center of the right wing, tasked with watching the Han troops ahead, had already collapsed under Wu Keshan's command — streams of cavalry broke from the formation, some charging north to meet the Marshal's Army, some fleeing northwest, some cutting horizontally across the Plain Blue Banner's right-wing position.

Some even charged into the Han army's position.

It was utter chaos.

The Han army in the vanguard, under Ma Guangyuan, remained quite composed — this man had once been a colonel at Jianchang and had surrendered to the Jin during the Jisi Incident.

His Han troops were even less steady than the Mongol soldiers, because all their firearms were positioned at the formation's front, and Han troops outside the Three Compliant Kings' forces had been forbidden to carry bows since Nurhaci's era.

So they were all frantically pushing shield carts and cannons to redeploy toward the flank, while only the panicked right-wing musket teams fired their three-eyed guns, bird guns, and Great Wind-Chaser guns in sheer terror at the oncoming dust cloud and the artillery position two li away.

As for what exactly they were shooting at, they themselves had no idea.

But the gunfire was effective.

The Imperial Clan Battalion's three hundred lifting-gun war carts had already advanced to between one hundred and two hundred paces from Daiching's right wing, forming a diagonal line that was closer in the south and farther in the north.

The imperial relatives of the Great Ming then struck back fiercely with lifting guns aimed at the muzzle flashes in the dust.

Amid the dust and smoke blanketing the ground, both sides were equally blind — no one could aim accurately.

In fact, forget aiming — the Mongol cavalry charging in collapse under Wu Keshan's command were even riding their horses straight into the lifting-gun war carts.

Some did slip through the gaps in the cart formation, but before they could inflict any harm on the python-robed imperial relatives, loyal Liaoyang soldiers beside the carts dragged them from their horses and hacked them to death.

Hooge's Bordered Blue Banner guard cavalry had just charged out of the formation when they too saw the Imperial Clan Battalion arrayed as a wall of carts; they hurriedly closed in, drew bows, and loosed arrows at the soldiers atop the carts.

But cavalry can be driven off — war carts planted on the ground, even if the soldiers all fled or died, could not retreat from the battle line.

What was more, they had barely loosed a single arrow when over a hundred Oirat cavalry with leveled lances came charging obliquely from the northeast, chasing and stabbing at them.

It was Zuo Guangxian, leading the way on the Marshal's Army's left wing.

Zuo Guangxian's mission was to block enemy reinforcements from the rear of Daiching's flank — to be precise, Liu Chengzong's order to him was to open a passage to the rear of the right wing, block the first wave of charging cavalry, and protect Tang Tong's Reinforcement Battalion as it maneuvered to the enemy's rear.

He had originally planned to place the Han cavalry in front and the Mongol cavalry behind, but before this column even began to move, he saw a stream of cavalry burst from Daiching's blue-standard camp and immediately ordered his Khoshut cavalry to lance-charge them.

The skirmisher battalion Liu Chengzong had established years ago for driving off enemy cavalry had finally been used in exactly the right place.

The Eight Banners guard cavalry were lavishly equipped — mail armor beneath iron plates, long-armed war bows with a draw weight of over seventy jin, heavy-tipped great arrows, and tall, handpicked warhorses — invincible in close combat and mounted archery.

But when they ran into the blood-tax-paying Oirat cavalry, even they had to temporarily yield before the exaggerated sight of those three lances — one long, two short — per rider.

One layer of armor or two, it gave an absolute advantage in close-quarters combat, and multiple composite layers could save lives against arrows and bullets fired from a distance.

But a charging cavalry lance was different — anyone who saw one had to dodge.

Yet there was no dodging it!

The Khoshut cavalry still rode the warhorses they had brought from the Tianshan Mountains; all their other equipment had been completely renewed under Liu Chengzong's arming.

Of course, in terms of armor, they were still far inferior to the Eight Banners guard cavalry, who were like iron shells — only slightly better than the grooms and servants the guard cavalry brought along.

But their horsemanship was superb; relying on light armor and finely forged lances, they maneuvered at high speed to an advantageous position on the guard cavalry's right rear, and leaning on the build and acceleration of their fine Tianshan horses, they chased the evading guard cavalry with abandon.

A few unlucky ones were shot down in the pursuit by guard cavalrymen skilled at shooting from either side as they turned in the saddle.

And more people would chase down the nearest Guard Cavalry at top speed.

No need to exert too much force — chasing heavy cavalry clad in double armor, no need to spur their warhorses into a full sprint either. Even in the instant before closing to thrust, the seasoned Oirat riders would slow down in advance, lest the impact be so great their own arms couldn't bear it.

Just borrowing the combined weight of man and horse and the forward momentum, they'd lightly tap the long spear they held braced against the enemy's body — Pop!

The thin cloth-faced iron armor would be easily pierced through; the riveted, finely forged mail might as well not exist, bursting apart in an instant.

Most important of all was the impact force.

It was unlike arrows or arquebuses — even setting aside kinetic energy drop-off, those only inflicted damage in an instant. Unless the rider's thighs weren't braced at the moment of impact, they usually wouldn't knock a man off his horse.

But the force of a cavalry lance, sustained through that brief contact, could easily shove a man off his horse — unless it ran him clean through.

Yet the most terrifying thing on the battlefield was clearly not the Oirat cavalry of the Mobile Cavalry Camp.

Though these riders dealt tremendous killing power and chased the Guard Cavalry with ease, if Hooge merely sent out his horsemen and camp servants, they could be driven off in turn.

Because neither Zuo Guangxian commanding at the front, nor Liu Chengzong directing from the rear, would be willing to let their cavalry charge head-on against mounted banner slaves.

What was truly frightening was the Imperial Clan Camp, deployed in a great horizontal line with war wagons.

Among the Marshal Army's commanders, no one had ever regarded the Imperial Clan Camp as a combat unit worth using.

One camp had more great banners than Gao Yingdeng's entire brigade, yet no one complained about it. Like the Northern Yuan Camp raising the Nine-Tasseled White Banner, they were all political mascots of the Grand Marshal.

Among the four camps Liu Chengzong personally led, the Imperial Clan Camp ranked behind even the Northern Yuan Camp. They were equipped with war wagons because they had to open paths through mountains and bridge rivers — the wagons were loaded with axes and pickaxes. Even their heavy muskets were hand-me-down equipment discarded by other camps.

They were even equipped with many of the three-eyed guns that Xie Erhu's Mongol Brigade used to carry — the old type with one-foot barrels and gunstocks that doubled as pickaxes and iron shovels.

Still, that didn't stop their multitude of great banners from looking terrifying.

Amid the crackling gunfire, heavy muskets rivaling small cannons in caliber fired in succession from the war wagons, sending massive lead balls slamming into the three formations of Daiching's right wing. Anyone struck was pierced through — some shots even killed two or three men at once.

On the Plain Blue Banner's flank alone, armored soldiers were shot down in swathes, and a corner of the rear flank was shorn away under the successive strikes.

This sight filled Liu Chengzong atop the sand dune with excitement.

He turned to the messenger riders standing on either side, each bearing their camp's command flag on their back, and said: "Swiftly report to Wu Sihu: the Blue Standard Camp's southeast corner is broken, their armored riders have all been shot down. Order the Northern Yuan Camp to charge through the gap at once, trample the enemy formation — spare not the warhorses, and cut down the unarmored troops with free rein!"

At once, a messenger rider attached to the Northern Yuan Camp spurred out from the ranks, saluted, swung onto his horse, and galloped toward the front line.

"Report to Shaktu Taiji and Sun Long: the enemy's Blue Standard Camp and Cavalry Camp have lost cohesion. Use the Liaoyang Camp as the vanguard, strike into the Cavalry Camp and engage them in melee. The Yanmen Camp shall spread out on both wings and drive them back completely."

Cavalry posed the greatest threat when in formation, and was also most easily forced back and routed by any formed unit when locked in melee.

This was also the most basic application of the One-Two-Two Formation.

In essence, it was the character 'Three': one stroke meets the enemy head-on, tangling with their cavalry in melee; two strokes spread out on both wings, outflanking and enveloping.

This was also Li Chengliang's habitual tactic when he held the advantage in fighting strength. When he held the advantage in equipment, he would similarly use one stroke to face the enemy head-on, while two strokes advanced in alternation — akin to arquebusiers' rolling volley fire, also called the Triple-Stack Formation.

Engaging the enemy with one-third of one's strength at a time, in exchange for prolonged sustained combat capability.

If outnumbered and about to be encircled, they would split the middle stroke of 'Three' apart to both wings, forming a hollow square camp — this was the root of the common impression that Ming troops would just sit in square camps when fighting.

They could deploy into a square camp far too quickly.

And when firearms gave the advantage, it became Yu Dayou's war-wagon troops.

One line of war wagons would fire a volley of cannons, the cavalry would ride out to reap a round, the war wagons would advance, fire another volley, the cavalry would ride out to reap again — cycling endlessly.

At Anyin Fort in Datong, Yu Dayou used a hundred war wagons and three thousand infantry and cavalry in exactly this fashion, routing tens of thousands of Mongol soldiers and sending them fleeing across the field.

As for having the advantage in troop numbers — the Ming army basically never considered that scenario.

But someone did consider it: the peasant armies represented by the Dashing General Li Zicheng. Civilian scholars within the passes who knew nothing of war called the peasant army's formation the 'Three Walls.' In truth, it was the very same One-Two-Two Formation commonly used by the frontier troops.

Even the Dashing Blade Formation that Zhang Yichuan learned — its underlying logic was also the One-Two-Two Formation.

It was just that the quality of their soldiers was too poor, lacking the fundamentals to execute the tactical movements. One stroke facing the enemy head-on would be smashed head-on; two strokes spreading to the wings would be torn apart from three sides; two strokes rotating front and rear would see all three formations collapse and flee.

On the battlefield, it manifested as the desperate, life-throwing-away ferocity of the Dashing Blade Formation.

Different people have different capabilities and resources. Even with the same ideas and tactics, the forms they take will differ.

Warfare has no constant disposition.

Just as Liu Chengzong was deploying his forces here, Hooge in the Daiching army's formation also received Huang Taiji's first order: "Steady your footing. Spread open the left wing and let the reinforcements enter the formation."

The sudden attack on the flank while the great army was on the march gave Huang Taiji an instant splitting headache, because his forces were divided into two wings of twelve formations, and he himself was in the right-center formation of the left wing's six formations.

A great horizontal line of sixty thousand men — to meet the enemy head-on and provide rapid support, it was structured with formations within formations, units within units, large camps enclosing small camps. The entire battle array stretched over ten li across, with a command distance several times greater than Liu Chengzong's.

Behind the messenger, the imperial tent dragged by nine oxen was rumbling northward through the formation. Along the way, messenger riders fanned out in all directions, conveying troop-deployment orders to every banner and every division.

Just as Hooge met the messenger, at the rear of the battle array — which was reorienting to face north — Huang Taiji had already dispatched the Guard Cavalry of the Bordered White Banner as the first wave to reinforce the Plain Blue Banner.

Within the Bordered White Banner's marching formation, armored soldiers were donning their armor, preparing to reinforce as the second wave. And on Hooge's right rear flank, two hundred Guard Cavalry of the Plain White Banner were also riding to support from outside the formation.

Further away on the army's left wing, the two Yellow Banners, the Plain Red Banner, as well as the Vanguard Camp and Guard Camp — they didn't even bother to put on armor. Every rider mounted up and rushed northward.

Precisely in this window of time, the Plain Blue Banner opened the rear of their square camp to let the Bordered White Banner's Guard Cavalry enter. Officers beneath the banner shouted that reinforcements had arrived, to rouse their troops' morale and will to fight to the death — when from the southeast corner came the thunderous rumble of hooves.

A scalp-numbing overtone call resounded across the battlefield.

Rank after rank of Northern Yuan Camp cavalry — riders in full armor, horses in half barding — came howling straight for the breach in the Plain Blue Banner's northeast corner.

The forward riders spread left and right, forming two circling arrays outside the northeast corner of the formation, galloping and shooting at two points of the battle line. The successive volleys of arrows tore the breach wider and wider.

The rear riders deployed in small horizontal lines, wielding long blades and short spears, crashing in sideways like great axes splitting firewood, wedging viciously into the formation. In an instant, men and horses were sent tumbling.

The unarmored troops at the front recoiled backward; the unarmored troops behind were squeezed, slamming into the ranks of the Bordered White Banner's Guard Cavalry reinforcements.

The Guard Cavalry could not stem the retreat. Flying arrows were already striking right before them. In the blink of an eye, the entire formation was pierced through. A tide of routed soldiers surged backward in a jam, then crashed into the Bordered White Banner's formation, where troops were still donning their armor.

"Grand Marshal! The Northern Yuan Camp first routed the Blue Standard Camp, then attacked into the White Standard Camp's formation — two formations broken in succession!"

Good evening!

(End of chapter)