Chapter 1444: This Side and That Side

When a cannonball struck, the flying clods of earth and shattered stone were like grapeshot — men and horses nearby were riddled as if by a sieve — then it bounced, carving yet another bloody path.

To say merely four volleys would be too bland a description. These four volleys came from one hundred and thirteen cannons, each firing four times, nearly five hundred cannon reports in all. From the moment the bombardment began until now, the thunder had been unbroken.

Caught in the midst of it, with thunder roaring in their ears, they watched comrades scream and horses shriek madly, yet could hear nothing clearly. All they saw was flesh and blood flying in every direction, warm fragments of gore splashing onto their faces. Bodies of men and horses were punched through with gaping holes, twisted and snapped. Such a scene could only be experienced in the deepest of nightmares — or rather, it was beyond anything they could even imagine.

Only now, in this very moment, did they understand that this was hell — the hell spoken of by shamans and monks. Even the hell those men described was unlikely to be so brutally horrific.

Were they even fighting humans? Was this all some hallucination? How could such firearms exist? Everyone had seen Ming cannons bombard before — but what was this before their eyes?

When something exceeds common understanding by only a little, a man can accept it. When it exceeds it by far too much, the mind begins to collapse. These were cavalrymen, elite backbone troops who had weathered life-and-death slaughter — yet under this cannonade, some broke down and went mad on the spot. They wept and laughed wildly atop their horses, heedless of all else, and were thrown to the ground by their own mounts. Some charged forward: while others fled, they delivered themselves into a hell of blood and fire. Still others turned their blades on the comrades beside them.

Many collapsed into madness and delirium, but even more were scared out of their wits. At a moment like this, the only choice was to flee — to escape this asura's hell, to keep the damnable bombardment from catching up, to get out. Whatever awaited them behind the lines, be it military law or worse, they would rather die under the blades of the execution squad than die without a whole corpse, die in a place so terrifying and dreadful.

Whoever blocked their path was an enemy. Whoever delayed their escape was an enemy. Be they brothers or kin, be they sworn comrades in life and death — they would swing their blades at them all the same.

A cavalry charge seeks to kill and break, to shake the enemy formation. The distance between one rider and the next is very close, and though the pace is not fast, this maximizes the impact and shock. On this relatively narrow battlefield, the great cavalry formation of the Jianzhou Jurchens was especially dense and tight-packed. There was nothing wrong with that — any competent commander would make the same arrangement. But under this deluge of cannon fire, it was a catastrophe.

Heavy casualties were inevitable. What followed was the difficulty of turning, pulling back, fleeing, and scattering. They crowded and crushed one another, they slaughtered one another. The delay caused by this entanglement gave the cannons time to reload.

The cannonballs fell. Casualties were devastating. Chaos. Entanglement. The cannons finished reloading — and opened fire once more!

The earth shook and the mountains swayed; thunder roared. The battlefield was everywhere death and slaughter — but all of it was confined within the great cavalry formation of the Jianzhou Jurchens. On the Zhao Army's side, all was quiet. Only at the cannon positions was there furious, seething activity.

From the battalion commander overseeing the battery down to every artilleryman working each cannon, every man was drenched in sweat, every man was shouting. For amid the roaring thunder of the guns, no one could hear the words of the man beside him — they could only yell. In truth, to keep the cannon blasts from deafening their ears, every man had stuffed cotton wadding into them. The reason they still shouted and yelled was sheer excitement — it was release.

At a distance of a few hundred paces, the details were already impossible to make out. Beyond a thousand paces, it was all a blur. Yet every artilleryman knew: every cannonball he fired would claim an enemy's life, would inflict casualties upon the foe. This battle was being won by the artillery!

On any other battlefield, bombardment by cannon alone would never have achieved such slaughter and such results. But in this terrain, with the Jianzhou Jurchens having crammed so many men and horses into one mass in a single bid for victory, deploying in such a dense formation — it suited the artillerymen's appetites perfectly.

It was like one side had honed its blade to a gleaming edge, while the other had washed its pigs and sheep clean and delivered them right up. To speak of it sounds utterly preposterous, but in truth it was a gap in the two sides' methods of war. The Jianzhou Jurchens measured the Zhao Army against a somewhat stronger Ming army, or judged the Zhao Army by their own level. They thought they were overestimating the enemy, thought they were already taking them seriously enough — but they never imagined that the Zhao Army's strength far exceeded anything they could conceive.

The sky was still overcast, yet the thunder was gradually thinning out. Even the finest cannons cast in Xuzhou, when loaded and fired this rapidly, would grow hot. They had to pause and cool before they could resume firing.

The artillerymen naturally understood this principle. But they also knew that if they fired at a normal rate, the enemy cavalry might well flee and scatter ahead of time. The cannons could raise their elevation to extend their range, but that had its limits, and raising the elevation would slow the rate of fire — and let the enemy escape.

All along the Zhao Army's positions, there was stirring. It was not from a lack of patience, but because staying still for too long let the cold sap their vitality. It was not only the horses that needed warming up — the men did too. Orders passed down through every regiment: the soldiers were to march in place, or shift forward. The cavalry, meanwhile, changed their formation. By now, the situation on the battlefield already allowed the Zhao Army's main force to press forward. Already, the arquebusier ranks had advanced over fifty paces; those behind had to keep up.

Yet even after advancing over fifty paces, within the range of the arquebuses, there was still no enemy!

At present, only the twelve-pounder and sixteen-pounder cannons were still firing. Heavy cannons took more time and effort to reload than light ones; no matter how fast they pushed, they could not speed up. Moreover, in this bitter cold, the time needed to swab the barrel and reload the cannon was enough for the barrel to cool — which was why they could keep firing continuously like this.

There were only fifteen heavy cannons, yet the range of these fifteen pieces could cover the entire Jianzhou Jurchen position. From the cavalry main force at the front to the reserves at the rear, all lay within the heavy cannons' reach. But from the very start, the heavy cannons had held their fire. What the Zhao Army's artillery sought was not to drive the enemy back, but to kill and wound as many of the enemy as possible. As for victory — the Zhao Army had never worried about victory from the beginning. What they worried about was whether the victory would be enough.

Yet the fire of these fifteen cannons made the collapse of the Jianzhou Jurchen main force irreversible. At most, four of these fifteen would sound at once; sometimes only a single cannon fired. But the cannonballs always landed where the Jianzhou Jurchen main force was most densely packed. This made it impossible for them to form up — they were in constant retreat.

The artillery position was still a scene of furious activity. The heat radiating from the cannon barrels kept the temperature there bearable. Soldiers soaked wet cloths in snowmelt and wiped the barrels down over and over. Steam billowed. The rapid firing just now had left the barrels scalding hot, and the temperature would not come down for a while.

"... If it were our Great...'s cannons, firing like this would surely burst the barrels. How are the Zhao Army's so damn sturdy..."

Chen Jisheng, Zhang Pan, and the others had been observing the battle the whole time. But at this moment, the only thing in the Zhao Army's battle formation that could still move was the artillery. At first they watched with faces alight with delight, but as they watched on, their hearts began to pound with fear. The Ming cannons' low rate of fire was of course partly because the soldiers were not skilled enough and resetting the cannons was very difficult — but improper loading and firing too fast could easily cause the barrel to burst, and that was another reason. Artillerymen were born of parents, raised by them. Going into battle and fighting might not be so bad, but if the barrel burst, it was nine deaths and one life. No one could bear that, so naturally they could not fire fast.

Yet the Zhao Army's artillerymen seemed to have no such misgivings. They just kept loading fast and firing fast, heedless of all else. The first three or four shots were fine, but later on, those observing the battle instinctively shrank back and kept their distance — even though their position was beyond the blast radius, they just wanted the peace of mind.

And so they fired on, nine rounds, ten rounds, until it was over. Over a hundred cannons, all safe and sound. As they breathed a sigh of relief, they also felt shock and sheer disbelief.

"... Did you not see? Those artillerymen weren't afraid at all. A matter of life and death, and they themselves were not afraid. Even if rich rewards make brave men, it shouldn't go this far..."

"... With any manufactured object, how can there be absolute certainty? I'm afraid that General Chen is not afraid of cannons bursting. Looking at this thunderous, lightning-splitting display, even if a few cannons did burst, the rest could still smash the Tartars to pieces..."

One spoke, then another, each with a different view, yet their analysis of the Zhao Army's artillery was penetrating. Ever since the Xuzhou Ironworks had acquired the reverberatory furnace, high-quality wrought iron was produced in great quantities. The cannons became lighter in weight, yet stronger. Moreover, the Artisan Oversight Office enforced military law: from the screening of ore, to the furnace and the tapping of iron, to the casting of cannons — every step was rigorously precise, executed strictly according to standards, without the slightest ambiguity. After the cannons left the factory, they still had to undergo test-firing and inspection. With such excellent materials and such a rigorous process, the cannons produced naturally did not have the myriad problems of the shoddy goods the Great Ming turned out.

The Jianzhou Jurchen central army's command banner was positioned on a patch of slightly elevated ground — standard practice in marching and deploying troops.

Amin, Jirgalang, and Yoto were at the center, surrounded by their personal guards, officers, and dispatch riders, ready at any moment to issue orders and adjustments to the battlefield.

When the Jianzhou Jurchen cavalry main force surged forward, before the cannon fire had even begun, as they drew closer, riders from the forward formation constantly rode back to report the situation. When they estimated the distance between the two sides was nearing three hundred paces, Amin turned his head and said to Yoto, "As we discussed earlier — take the men under your banner and strike the enemy's flank!"

In the distance, scattered cannon fire was still sounding. Earlier, the Jianzhou Jurchen commanders had all worn grave expressions; now, they seemed somewhat relaxed. The main cavalry force had already advanced to within three hundred paces of the enemy formation. Once they launched the charge, it would be like a bursting dam, a raging flood — everything standing in front would be swept away and drowned. Attacking the flank in such a situation was just adding flowers to brocade — a task with merit and no risk.

"At your command!" Yoto answered loudly, then turned, mounted his horse, and rode toward his own troops.

The situation before them looked excellent; by all appearances, there was no risk whatsoever. Yet Amin remained very cautious. This was, after all, a battle involving nearly a hundred thousand men. For the Jianzhou Jurchens, this was already a decisive engagement — it could not be treated lightly under any circumstances.

Only when the order to charge was given and the main cavalry force poured forth in full strength did Amin finally breathe a sigh of relief. By now, there could be little suspense about victory or defeat. Amin had fought in the White Mountains and Black Waters, on the vast grasslands, across the broad plains. He had been in the midst of massive armies, and he had faced massive armies. He knew very clearly the sheer might of a charge of a thousand, ten thousand horsemen. Against such power, no matter how strong the formation blocking the way, it would be smashed and swept aside.