Chapter 758: Too Late

Warhorses galloped like the wind.

Twenty-four squads of pond cavalry, lightning-quick and sand-churning, bore straight down on the Heaven's Blessing Army's formation.

The Heaven's Blessing troops, who had been spreading their battle lines to attack the Mobei cavalry, were cowed by their momentum; their right wing fell into disorder on its own, abandoned its heavy equipment, and recoiled back toward the center army.

From time to time, soldiers halted mid-run, turned back with their bird guns, took rough aim, fired off roughly one shot, and then fled in disarray toward the center army.

It was only a single shot's opportunity. Amid the howling rush, several hundred pond cavalry in the forward ranks split into twelve columns and charged to within striking distance of the enemy.

Then, one after another, they dropped their reins, controlled their horses with their legs alone, leaned their bodies to the right in the saddle, braced the gun stock between left arm and left ribs, gripped the three-eyed gun, took rough aim at the fleeing enemy ahead and to the right, and with the right hand pressed the smoldering match cord against the touch hole.

Bang-bang-bang!

In an extremely brief span, as the three-eyed gun rotated and the thumb flipped open the touch-hole cover, the three pre-loaded barrels discharged in sequence, spraying nine lead balls through smoke and muzzle flash at the rapidly closing enemy.

The gun roared, the balls flew, and men fell.

Warhorses swept past the fallen, screaming enemy; the pond cavalrymen's movements never paused for an instant.

As the left hand lifted the gun and thrust it into the gun holster on the left side of the saddle, the right foot left the stirrup and gave a light forward kick, shaking off the foot-loop rope at the butt of the triangular pennant spear; a swing of the right arm, and the pennant spear had already swept over the horse's head, gripped in both hands by the pond cavalryman.

The spearhead was on the left, the spear butt on the right.

That light kick of the right foot not only shook off the foot-loop rope — it was also a command to the mount he spent every waking hour with.

When the pond cavalryman's right foot stepped back into the stirrup, the warhorse shifted from the long-striding gallop to a left-right ambling gait; the speed slowed, the gait less dashing, but far more stable.

The triangular dragon pennant streamed before the horse, then jabbed at the side of a fleeing enemy soldier on the left.

In the instant they crossed, the spearhead under the armpit pierced the armpit-guard armor plate, and drawn by the motion of the warhorse and the pond soldier's arm, ripped free of the wound, slashed across the unprotected inner side of the right arm, then cut the leather shoulder-guard strap and tore it open, trailing a line of sparks across the flipped-open armor plate.

What remained unchanged on the battlefield was a pond cavalryman still gripping a pennant spear and lining up the next victim.

But there were a few fewer fleeing soldiers turning back to run, one more wounded man with blood streaming from his ribs and bone visible in his arm, and several more dying men, bodies twisted by lead balls, crawling on the ground.

Of course, all these wounded were as good as dead.

Because the Shuofang Garrison cavalry, under He Huchen's command, leveled their goose-quill sabers, and the horse formation rolled into the battlefield like a reaping machine, sending heads spinning through the air and thudding to the ground.

The Shuofang Garrison's charge into the battle formation was like a terrifying torrent, smashing and routing the Heaven's Blessing Army almost the instant they made contact.

But that was not actually the most terrifying part.

Just as He Huchen's horse formation was smashing the enemy lines, Subadi, who was directing the Mobei squads in wave assaults against Manju Shili's receiving horse formation, noticed that on the sand dunes to the west, another group of men was running down.

They were not many — just over a hundred men — but the sight was utterly horrifying.

If one had to name a difference between the Marshal's Army and the Ming Army, it was that their winter armor was more dignified, with plenty of fur trim.

Strip away those warming adornments, and the main difference was that the helmet spike on their bowl helmets lacked the small pennant and tassel, yet their bearing was even more dignified.

These men, running with sabers and spears shouldered, were different.

They wore the same bowl helmets, the same long-bodied red cavalry armor, and carried the same goose-quill sabers sheathed at their sides — but they were barefoot, and wore no trousers.

Their armored skirts were rolled up to the waist and tied to the leather belt with dangling five-colored ribbons; inside the long red armor, some wore nothing at all, and those who did wore only a plain inner garment; their feet were wrapped with a few turns of puttee in place of shoes.

It was just... their undignified appearance and utterly crazed aura made Subadi feel they looked exactly like Ming troops.

These men were also He Huchen's soldiers, and the one leading the charge, sprinting toward the battlefield with two hairy legs flying, was He Huchen's son, He Zan.

Their charge had been so urgent and so swift that over two hundred warhorses had collapsed from exhaustion along the way.

The several garrison commanders of the Monan Governor's Office had been dispatched to Monan back when Liu Chengzong was still extremely poor; their equipment level could not compare to those dozen or so garrison brigades now, and their mobile forces had no musket chariots, only horses and mules.

And the mules were all back near Guihua City plowing fields; once a warhorse collapsed from running, they had to rely on their own legs.

Relying on their legs was no big deal — the main problem was that this season was not meant for donning armor and fighting. Once they started running, every man was nearly cooked. In fact, at first some had even thrown off armor and stripped to the waist heading for the battlefield, until He Zan kicked them into line.

Entering the battlefield could wait a little, but armor could not be discarded.

With their paltry numbers, even if surrounded by enemy cavalry, the Marshal's Army's mutual support, combined with their armor, meant that by forming a tight formation they could absolutely hold out until reinforcements arrived.

But without armor, if the battlefield was entirely in their favor it would be fine — just chase and cut them down — but the moment the situation turned even slightly against them, any random horse formation could slaughter them all like chickens.

So they had stripped off their clothes, leather armor, shoulder guards, trousers, and iron boots; carried only a long and a short saber, and just five arrows apiece; abandoned all their pots and jars; followed the horse formation on foot; regrouped on the sand dunes near the battlefield; caught their breath for a few moments; and then rushed into the fray.

It was not that they were truly as terrifying as they appeared, charging into battle with their privates swinging.

Rather, He Huchen and Liu Chengzong's pond cavalry had already gained the upper hand in that local sector; before them lay only enemies writhing and struggling on the ground, and He Zan was leading his men in to finish them off and, incidentally, lop off every head.

These were He Huchen's orders: barring absolute necessity, he did not expect them, after running several li, to fight to the death in formation. Just deal with the fallen corpses, and that would be enough to prove their merit to the Grand Marshal.

Otherwise, in a battle of this scale, on such a chaotic field, his Shuofang Garrison — which had earlier been positioned to the west as a decoy force — would, by the time they linked up with Liu Chengzong and joined the battle, find that the back-and-forth of orders had already made it too late.

If they joined the battle directly, how were they supposed to prove that the Shuofang Garrison had done any work?

Heads.

The Ming Army's ancestral head-count merit system.

The moment Subadi saw this, he thought they looked even more damnably like Ming troops, and hastily, in alarm, ordered his subordinates to keep well away from those head-chopping maniacs.

In truth, He Huchen had worried needlessly.

His Shuofang Garrison and the pond cavalry, combined, formed a horse formation of over five thousand riders that charged into the battlefield, its vast charging width sweeping across nearly the entire flank of the battlefield.

The center army had long since taken notice.

The moment they appeared on the western sand dunes, the Marshal's Office center army's lookouts had spotted this movement and alerted Liu the Lion.

He had indeed not been paying attention to the two wings; earlier he had been watching his own left wing, but once the cavalry engagement began, he stopped looking that way.

He could not see clearly.

Cavalry engagements ranged over a wide area and kicked up too much sand and dust; the battlefield was inherently unclear.

Moreover, once the melee was joined, there were no clear formation edges — fighting sprawled everywhere. Individual riders he could not see; formed horse formations he could not distinguish; and in the heat of battle, no one was reporting the battlefield situation to the center army.

Paying attention was useless.

The center army, by contrast, had clear battle lines; even when horse formations sortied, they did so in formation, wheeling out and wheeling back, which at least made them easier to discern.

In fact, Liu Chengzong had long since figured out the strategic situation of this battle: as long as it was chaotic enough, there was simply no need to manage the two wings.

Because with dusk approaching, the sky would soon darken.

Evening meant the cessation of hostilities; cessation of hostilities meant waiting for dawn.

The one who should be anxious to win before nightfall was Hong Taiji, not him.

Though this battlefield was close to Shengjing and far from Xi'an,

behind him lay the boundless, untamed Khingan Range.

Liu Chengzong could guarantee that at no moment would the Khingan Range fly up and crush him to death.

But behind Hong Taiji were the Guanning Army, rubbing their fists and itching for a fight.

No one could say for certain the mental state of these frontier troops in chaotic times, still less could anyone predict what they might do.

So the two wings?

No news is good news — if they're in disarray, it means they're pinned down.

Liu the Lion's mindset grew sharper the longer he fought.

Once darkness fell and the two armies withdrew to camp, the Marshal Army's morale would not waver much.

But the Chongde Emperor would have to face the interrogation of his own heart, so ashamed he'd slap himself across the face: how could sixty thousand fail to beat thirty thousand?

Liu Chengzong's attention was fixed solely on the center army. He watched the left wing contracting, the right wing tangled up, leaving only the immensely thick center-army battle line. The Han and Mongol banners had thrown themselves against it, yet failed to punch through the wagon-forts of the Imperial Clan and Liaoyang battalions — instead, Gao Yingdeng had sent cavalry charging out to skirmish and harry them.

And the enemy troops in the third defensive line to the rear had not sallied forth.

He could sense it — the enemy commander's will to fight was wavering.

After the carnage and blood, no one can keep throwing punches at a wall that stands utterly unmoved.

Now, only one trigger was needed to launch the fiercest assault — the trigger being the instant any one of the three armies, left, center, or right, broke the equilibrium.

Whether Subadi's Mobei Army collapsed, or Left Guangxian and Tang Tong's one-brigade two-battalion reinforcement force could not hold, or the enemy troops facing them gave way — to Liu Chengzong, any of these was a chance to seal victory.

Because in Hong Taiji's center-army one-two formation, the first two defensive lines were already too fragile to withstand a single blow.

Though after taking offensive casualties their troop strength had not dropped much and their battle formations still stood there, raising firearms to trade fire with the Imperial Clansmen Battalion,

Liu the Lion knew perfectly well that was all an illusion. If even a formed-up assault could be driven off and chased away by the First Brigade's cavalry, how could their hearts not be afraid?

So what would happen when the First Brigade truly launched its attack?

Defend? Defend my ass!

However long it took the First Brigade to run over there was how fast they'd overrun them.

Liu Chengzong wanted only one thing: for the Eight Banners army formation in Hong Taiji's third center-army line to move.

Whether to reinforce a flank, or to widen a flank advantage, or to execute another interior-line maneuver like the one that had reinforced the right wing —

the moment that formation moved, that was the trigger for the First Brigade to launch the general assault, sweep up the first and second defensive lines, and smash the enemy from the center.

It was precisely at this moment that Liu Chengzong's center army received a string of reports.

"Report! Enemy left front contracting toward the center army!"

"Report! Enemy left rear moving east!"

"Report! Right-wing Mobei Army charging straight at the enemy left front — no, straight at the left center!"

"Report! Enemy left-front square battalion shifting to line formation, enveloping the Mobei Army... from the west, cavalry coming from the west!"

"Scout riders! It's the scout riders!"

"Behind the scout riders is Shuofang Garrison's Commander He!"

No need for further reports.

Liu Chengzong raised his telescope and looked. He saw, beneath rolling clouds of sand and dust, cavalry bearing triangular pennants forming a black line, swallowing the front-left formation of Daiching's army, then spreading toward the left-wing center formation.

In that single instant,

Liu Chengzong burst out laughing uncontrollably.

His scalp tightened, his wide-staring eyes threaded with blood, the hairs beneath his armor standing on end. Without thinking, he snapped his riding crop in two — the moment for the general assault had come!

Liu the Lion whipped his head around and gave the order: "Summon Gao Yingdeng and Li Hongsi."

"The main and surprise battalions — loose every rocket before the battle line, then attack. Go straight for their third line!"

"No withdrawal before dark!"

The dispatch riders mounted and galloped off.

On the western side of the battlefield, He Huchen was still raging like a sandstorm sweeping across the battle lines.

Two army formations away, atop the Khan's tent imperial carriage, Hong Taiji's hands gripped the wooden rail of the great carriage with deathly force, his teeth clenched as he stared out at the battlefield.

The flank!

The flank again!

After the formation shift, the flank had been ambushed yet again!

His head throbbed so fiercely he could barely open his eyes, and he tasted coldness on his lips. He raised a hand to wipe — nosebleed spread in a large dark stain across the sleeve of his blue satin concealed armor.

As far as his eyes could reach, the banner army formations along the front line flashed through his vision like a revolving lantern, men moving in every banner's battle line.

In that instant, the subconscious impression it gave him was that the army formations had fallen into chaos.

In truth, only the left wing at the front was in disarray; the center army, still under Yoto's command, was holding firm against the enemy.

What he saw were merely the dispatch riders racing everywhere through the formations.

Yoto, commanding at the front, saw only that the imperial carriage was moving toward the rear of his army formation. He immediately ordered his aides: "Report at once to the Sacred Khan — the left wing cannot hold, the center army is about to engage the enemy. The Sacred Khan's person is worth ten thousand in gold; he should move his carriage to the right wing!"

"Send word to the Two Red Banners: form up and hold the enemy."

Inwardly, Yoto groaned bitterly. This order was practically stating outright that once battle was joined, if the Han and Mongol banners on the front line collapsed, the Two Red Banners would be left to cover the retreat.

No banner lord with a sound mind would issue such an order.

In the current situation, they would sooner lead their troops in flight than spend their own banner's men in a death struggle.

Especially Yoto.

The Two Red Banners were unlike the other six. The Plain Yellow Banner had changed its color, and the remaining five banners had all changed banner lords.

The Two Red Banners had been, from the very beginning, the core troops of him and his father Daišan.

But the problem now was that Huang Taiji's Plain Yellow Banner was right behind him.

If the front line couldn't hold, the routed troops would crash straight into the Two Red Banners' formation. If he didn't hold the rear and ran with them, he couldn't escape the blame for this defeat.

Yue Tuo wasn't afraid of Huang Taiji killing him, but he feared ending up like Dudu — stripped of his banner lord status and shoved into another banner as a mere gūsa. That was a torment worse than death.

When the flank came under attack again, Huang Taiji neither sent the Yellow Banner to support the left wing nor to reinforce the center army. That already showed his absolute confidence in winning this war had wavered.

So on the battlefield right now, Yue Tuo even felt that although he was the frontline commander, he wasn't wrestling with Liu Chengzong, but testing wills against Huang Taiji.

Seeing whether he himself would retreat first out of fear, or whether Huang Taiji would order his Two Red Banners to withdraw — or even order the whole army to retreat.

Just as Yue Tuo was battling an invisible enemy in his mind, a line of white smoke suddenly rose in unison from the enemy formation straight ahead.

This white smoke was familiar — it was the gunpowder smoke of firearms firing.

But what was baffling was that the smoke was appearing from within the enemy formation.

Not from the front line, and there was no sound of gunfire either. Instead, faint hissing sounds gathered together, like countless fuses burning at the same time.

Yue Tuo frowned. "That... what is that thing?"

The gunpowder smoke erupted from every point behind the enemy's broad center-army battle line, and in an extremely short time it grew thicker and thicker, the sound sharper and sharper — from a faint mist like an arquebus firing to a pure white that blocked all sight, denser and denser.

At last, the rockets had gathered enough force to lift themselves off their launch racks.

Whoosh after whoosh of tearing air sounded continuously from behind the Clan Battalion's wagon fort, as countless rockets shot up from the ground and streaked into the sky.

In that instant, everyone on the battlefield unconsciously raised their heads, watching the rockets' tail flames trace a waterfall of gunpowder smoke across the air.

In an extremely brief moment, a scene of breathtaking beauty became a killing formation.

Rocket after rocket, trailing irregular flight paths and shrieking howls, smashed down onto the position, throwing the Han and Mongol troops on Daiqing's front line into chaos, men and horses toppling.

Amid the hissing, people scrambled to flee.

Boom!

When the first rocket exploded, everyone's ears on both battle lines went deaf.

Countless echoes, roaring in every heart, hid heaven and earth behind gunpowder smoke — until the hail of pellets beat the smoke into a curtain of blood.

Blade tips thrust through; crimson-armored cavalry spurred their horses and burst through the blood mist. Their goose-quill sabers gleamed gold in the fading light as they trampled the Han and Mongol Two Banners' battle line and charged straight for the Two Red Banners' square formation.

The army formation rippled with panic. Before contact was even made, the Two Red Banners' troops collapsed like a landslide.

Outside the Khan's imperial tent, the Chongde Emperor's face was ashen. "Withdraw! Withdraw the army!"

Good evening!

(End of chapter)