Chapter 760: Here Liu Chengzong Shattered the Jin Army

Night fell low.

The First Brigade's three battalions — Zheng, Qi, and You — gave chase, but it looked less like a pursuit and more like a siege hunt.

The Daicing army retreated in good order; you could tell at a glance who were the Eight Banners and who were the Han and Mongol troops.

Because no one was looking after the Han and Mongol troops — they were just running wild across the battlefield in total collapse. Some small squads got bowled over and even had the muddled wits to flee northwest.

Men like that, dumb as stumps, Gao Yingdeng wouldn't even chase. Shooting them dead was a pure waste of arrow shafts.

But Li Hongsi, following behind the main-force battalion, was different — he cut down anyone he caught, killed anyone he saw.

He'd even detailed a squad of dismounted cavalry to trail behind, lopping off heads and plundering spoils.

The man radiated an all-consuming hunger for merit.

In a battle like this, when a formation gets beaten back or broken through during the actual fighting, you can still see it clearly enough.

But once you're chasing routed troops far from the main line, either don't pursue — or if you catch and cut them down, you must claim merit with heads and armor.

There is no other way to prove your deeds.

And Li Hongsi desperately needed to prove his deeds.

Back when he was a Mobile Corps Commander on garrison duty in Yansui Garrison, he'd been at the Battle of Ningyuan, then returned and was promoted to Ningsai Assistant Regional Commander. Gao Yingdeng, the First Brigade's brigade commander, had been a soldier in his Ningsai Battalion back then.

Every order from his former superior was a ready-made shot of chicken blood, spurring him to deeds and glory.

In truth, this was a choice born of helplessness. Gao Yingdeng also needed great merit, so he led his crack troops and fierce officers in chasing only the Chongde Emperor's main body, leaving Li Hongsi to scavenge scraps at the rear.

The Eight Banners' fleeing formation was far too conspicuous.

Though they were in rout, they could still hold a basic formation even as they fled for their lives.

It wasn't that they were so elite they could keep formation after their will to fight was shattered — rather, Hong Taiji's two Yellow Banners had only lost a fraction of the Bordered Yellow cavalry. The Guard and Vanguard battalions hadn't taken heavy losses either, so they could take turns using cavalry formations to cover the rear in staggered waves.

With that kind of protection, even Han or Mongol troops could have kept order in a rout.

It was just that the routed Han and Mongol soldiers were nothing but knife-cushions in the Daicing ranks to begin with — they were first up the siege, first to take the blade. There was no reason for the Eight Banners to cover the rear for them.

Who could have known that a ruthless man like Gao Yingdeng wouldn't even glance at the troops left behind, but only chased the two Yellow Banners?

The first thing abandoned was the Chongde Emperor's Nine-Ox Imperial Tent. That thing had blown a wheel off during the opening charge — even after it was refitted, they dared not drive it fast, so it was utterly useless in flight.

The only reason they'd dragged it along was to give Hong Taiji's personal attendants time to move things from the wagon to the horse carts.

Important documents, ornaments, essential luggage — once those were off, it was left by the roadside.

And so the Nine-Ox Imperial Tent joined Gao Yingdeng's pursuing formation.

In fact, even with a rearguard, the Eight Banners troops dared not turn and fight.

Gao Yingdeng knew he had fewer than ten thousand men, and that his follow-up forces were bogged down by the Marshal Army's tangled composition, each holding the other back.

But Hong Taiji didn't know that. Seeing Gao Yingdeng's relentless, harrying posture, he thought Liu Chengzong's entire army was in pursuit.

A moment's hesitation, and the whole army would be on them — wouldn't that be the end of Daicing?

Besides, even with a rearguard, they couldn't cover everything.

In the end, they could only cast off armor and helmets as they fled, until finally each banner split and ran its own way, showering Gao Yingdeng with loot the whole route.

Gao Yingdeng's soldiers tossed anything valuable they picked up onto the imperial tent wagon.

Then banners trailed on the ground, great standards snapped — one moment the white-bordered red flag of the Bordered Red Banner was picked up and stuck outside the imperial tent; the next, the Plain Red Banner's flag was planted there too.

Later on, even the flags of the two Yellow Banners were dropped in the pursuit. The Eight Banners troops even coughed up the Chongde Emperor's full set of ceremonial regalia for Gao Yingdeng.

Without their regalia and banners, the routed troops scattered into chaos. Soldiers from every banner fell behind, dropping to their knees and begging for mercy.

Gao Yingdeng was laughing like a madman.

Isn't this exactly what our Grand Marshal's Mansion was missing!

Those general's honor-guard sets from He Huchen, Yang Qi, and the other commanders of the Three Frontiers and Five Garrisons — they'd been swapping them around and had long grown sick of them.

Seeing it grow dark, Gao Yingdeng reckoned he'd driven them nearly forty li. His horses were spent, and his highly strung soldiers were tiring too. Only then did he slow the pace, gradually recall his troops, and head back with prisoners, a mass of ox carts and horse carts, and a haul of armor and weapons.

When they rendezvoused with Li Hongsi, their combined force turned utterly terrifying — not only laden with spoils of bows, blades, armor, weapons, grain, fodder, and meat, but many men also had prisoners roped to them, with dripping heads dangling before their horses or from their waists.

Even the ropes tying the prisoners had been dropped as loot by the Eight Banners.

The First Brigade handed them out like issued gear: five per brigade commander, four per vice general, three per assistant and mobile commander, two per battalion and company commander, one per squad leader, and for the rank and file, one head and two prisoners for every three men — distributing the severed heads across the whole army as ornaments.

Halfway back, they ran into Ma Xiang's reconnaissance riders.

With the battle won, Liu Chengzong had no intention of leaving the battlefield immediately, so he'd sent out reconnaissance riders to stand guard against any enemy return.

But to be honest, before this battle, Liu Chengzong certainly would not have wanted a head-on clash with Hong Taiji.

Yet after the attrition of this fight, the Eight Banners had lost troops and officers, while the Marshal Army had not been bloodied. Even if the Chongde Emperor grew the guts of a bear and the gall of a leopard and rallied his army to come back, a straight-up fight would still end in defeat!

He'd lost with sixty thousand against thirty thousand — how could he win with thirty thousand against thirty thousand?

Liu Chengzong's total strength was over thirty-nine thousand six hundred, but the Tiger Guard and Feathered Forest battalions had not moved. To ensure a successful shift, He Huchen and Ma Xiang had deployed decoy troops to the west.

The force actually engaged was under thirty thousand. Only in the battle's later stages, when He Huchen's Shuofang Battalion and Ma Xiang's Reconnaissance Cavalry Battalion swept the flanks, did the engaged strength exceed thirty thousand.

So Liu Chengzong simply led his troops, quite composed, to a spot better suited for making camp. He set up a wounded camp and a prisoner camp, triaging by urgency — those who could be treated on the spot were treated on the spot; those who couldn't were loaded onto wagons and sent to Songmo Prefecture.

At the same time, he ordered Wang Cheng'en, who was standing by at Songmo Prefecture, to immediately dispatch physicians, medicines, and medical supplies from Shangdu.

After that, there was no energy left to scour the battlefield. The Tiger Guard and Feathered Forest battalions took charge of security while the battalions that had fought dug trenches and set camp, guarding against a night raid.

This was a superfluous tactical move — the battered remnants Hong Taiji had left had no capacity for a night raid at all.

But in many cases, with things like this, if you take precautions, it's just in case; if you don't, it's a dead certainty.

In fact, that very night, Dorgon did send Wubai of the Vanguard Battalion to lead men and scout Liu Chengzong's movements.

This wasn't because Dorgon had any heart left for a field raid, though. By now, the Eight Banners' broken remnants were like startled birds at the mere twang of a bow — every man's only thought was to flee back to Shengjing as fast as possible. They had no will to fight whatsoever.

The truth was, the Chongde Emperor's headache had become unbearable during the flight. Once the sky darkened and the pursuers withdrew, he fell asleep right then and there in the wagon.

Whether he'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion or passed out from fury and distress, Dorgon couldn't tell.

In any case, he tried, and couldn't wake him.

The two imperial horses were gone too. Big White had collapsed under Hong Taiji during the pursuit — the man barely survived, so no one had the mind to care whether the horse lived or died. Little White had been spooked earlier during the rocket bombardment, and when the army routed and the regalia was abandoned, the chaos stressed it out again — it bolted and vanished without a trace.

Ordinary warhorses could hardly carry Huang Taiji's great bulk in flight, so they had to find a two-horse cart meant for hauling baggage to carry him.

Dorgon sent Wubai to lead the vanguard in reconnaissance, fearing Liu Chengzong would raid the camp again in the night.

In the end Wubai returned and reported that Liu Chengzong had not left, and the outpost riders had spread out so they could not break through. Dorgon and the noble Yoto decided on the spot that they had better not risk sleeping.

They withdrew the army that very night, first marching out of the Kulun grasslands and finding a secure place before considering rest.

Until the following day.

The Marshal's Army, having gotten good rest, now looked upon the battlefield and grew troubled.

A night of windblown sand had buried more than half the corpses on the battlefield before they could be cleared. The Eight Banners army had carried dry rations, armor plates, bows, and blades — all fine things, but now they were hard to even find.

Just then, the vultures returned.

More numerous than when they had flown off. It seemed the returning Qinghai vultures had not come back alone, but had also enticed along quite a few Changbai Mountain bearded vultures, circling above the corpse-strewn battlefield.

This delighted Liu Chengzong's men immensely.

Vultures dig; they can find where the corpses are.

Wherever the soldiers saw vultures descending, the cavalry would ride over and drive them off — they found one every time without fail!

Meanwhile, in the First Brigade's central command, Gao Yingdeng, Li Hongsi, He Huchen, Zuo Guangxian, and the others had already finished presenting their treasures.

Ceremonial regalia, seals of state, Eight Banners banner-staves, drums, flutes, and conch horns were piled in dazzling profusion. Not far off were three small mountain-like mounds of heads and a prisoner-of-war camp stretching as far as the eye could see.

Liu Chengzong picked up a severed head, held it in his hand and studied it for a moment, then turned to Zhang Xianzhong and said, "Have the brigade marshals and regional commanders submit the roster of fallen soldiers once more. Write out each man's origin, background, rank, and merits. This battle is worthy of erecting a stele and recording their deeds."

With that, Liu Chengzong casually passed the head in his hand behind him, intending to hand it to a guard for safekeeping, but he had not expected that the person standing behind him was Qian Shisheng.

This old gentleman, who had never been on a battlefield, showed not the slightest timidity and took it readily.

Of course, it might also have been that he simply had not reacted at all.

Qian Shisheng had not closed his eyes for two days and two nights. His bleary old eyes were full of bloodshot veins, and the bags under his eyes sagged nearly to his cheekbones, yet he looked extraordinarily alert.

Now, having taken the head, he stared at it, grinding his teeth, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to take a bite out of it.

Liu Chengzong hurriedly took the head back, shot a meaningful glance at the guard Zhang Yong, and told him to take it away and place it back on the mound.

Truth be told, without specialized knowledge, one simply could not tell which of these severed heads were Han, which were Mongol, and which were Jurchen.

This was also why Liu Shizi had always refused to record merit by counting heads. After all, he knew that Du Wu who followed Cao Yao, and understood that head-count merit would teach soldiers a peculiar craft.

The heads that He Huchen and Li Hongsi had cut were piled into three mounds, all sorted by facial features — those resembling Han in one pile, those resembling Mongols in another, those resembling Jurchen in a third. In the end, the three mounds were roughly the same size.

After more than eight thousand heads had been cut, Liu Chengzong called a halt to it.

There were still many more uncut. Those directly cut down in this battle already exceeded ten thousand. Those gravely wounded and finished off on the battlefield numbered in the several thousands. Add to that nearly eight thousand captives, plus those who fled wounded from the battlefield only to die later.

Liu Chengzong estimated that in that single afternoon yesterday, they had written off at least thirty thousand of Daiching's troops.

The Marshal's Army's own casualties also exceeded ten thousand. The number reported as killed outright on the field alone was three thousand eight hundred and eighty men.

The right-wing Mobei Army's casualties topped the list. Gombu and Babu showed little reaction, but that Erdeni was so excited it was as though something had possessed him, wanting nothing more than for Liu Chengzong to grant him a military rank, the general or colonel sort.

This baffled Liu Shizi immensely. He even made a point of examining Erdeni's helmet but saw no hoof-print marks, wondering to himself how this man could seem as if his head had been kicked by a horse after the battle.

He had heard Erdeni's name from Khong Tayiji Baatur of the Dzungars — they were old enemies, and the Russians called him the Golden Khan.

Subadi was different. When he reported his casualties, his eyes were red-rimmed; he had clearly been weeping, and was exercising great forbearance.

In truth, the night before, the sound of weeping had never ceased in the Mobei Army's encampment.

Because among the Mobei forces that had fought in this battle, Gombu Khan and the two Tayijis had together contributed just over a thousand troops; the rest were all Subadi's men.

They had suffered from a lack of iron armor. Though they had dodged and evaded throughout the battle, they still sustained enormous casualties — and few were wounded, while many were dead.

The flat-headed arrows of Losa's vanguard cavalry alone had taken them down one by one.

So much so that many men never even had the chance for the First Brigade's accompanying army physicians to attempt a rescue before they breathed their last on the field.

The Mobei Army's seven thousand troops alone suffered over two thousand killed, accounting for nearly half the total fatalities.

As for the remaining nine battalions under Liu Chengzong that had fought, each had its own fatalities. However, most of the men had good iron armor protection, and those without armor had war wagons, so more were wounded and fewer died.

Qian Shisheng, having gone two days without sleep, had slowed reactions. Only after the head was taken away did he come back to his senses. He began to speak, his hand gesturing before him, trembling as it did: "Marshal, this battle is worthy of a stele. Would you permit this old man to write..."

As he spoke, he shook his head with a lack of confidence and said, "Forget it. The inscription should rightly be written by the Marshal."

Yet on his face was an inexpressible melancholy.

These two days had felt longer than two years to Qian Shisheng.

First, he had been anxious about the coming battle, marching with the army, too worried to sleep.

Then the battle truly began, and he watched with his own eyes as Daiching's mighty army of sixty thousand, charging with overwhelming momentum in pursuit, was, in a single short afternoon, smashed and trampled to ruin by Liu Chengzong's overwhelming force, swept away completely.

Last night, those hardened killers long inured to life and death slept soundly, while Qian Shisheng tossed and turned in his tent, unable to sleep, as if he had been struck dumb.

He did not even know how great an impact this battle, which he had personally experienced, would have on the situation under heaven.

Still less did he know whether the outcome of this battle would bring good or ill to the Great Ming in which he lived.

"Since Elder Qian wishes to write it, I could ask for nothing better."

Liu Chengzong said this with a smile, then his expression grew serious: "It is also more fitting for you, Elder, to write it. We must erect many stone steles. The inscriptions must record the lives of many fallen soldiers — they were frontier troops, guard troops, militia; they were Han, Da soldiers, Tibetans; they were commoners, licentiates, imperial clansmen... Ha!"

He wanted to speak, yet did not know where to begin.

No one but him knew the true impact this battle would have upon the world.

Or rather, its significance to Liu Chengzong himself.

Still less did anyone know of the stirring within Liu Chengzong, beneath his calm expression, since this battle was won.

He had campaigned east and west, south and north, for many years, building an army. And now, with this army composed of men from all under heaven, on this battlefield, he had reversed the fate of all under heaven!

Snapped — the national fortune of Daiching Gurun.

"As for this battle, Elder, you need only write a single line."

Liu Chengzong's expression was solemn as he raised his head slightly.

"Chongzhen bingzi year, Liu Chengzong defeated the Jin army here!"

Good evening!

(End of chapter)