The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 92 Flintlock

"General Qiao, this cannon isn't a sub-munitions gun, how can it be so fast?"

Mao Yuanyi was holding a dirty ruler in his mouth and speaking unclearly. He was writing and drawing on rice paper with charcoal.

In fact, due to the amazing recoil of the Red Cannon, the target coordinates had to be recalibrated after each shot. In addition to the tedious steps of cleaning the barrel and loading gunpowder, even if the most skilled British gunner of the era were to operate it, they could only guarantee a firing rate of one shot every two minutes.

One shot every two minutes is the level of an experienced person.

Mao Yuanyi and others obviously do not fall into this category.

For six months, in order to maintain strict confidentiality, Mao Yuanyi had never touched the red cannon except for the test in July.

With this level of skill, you should thank Guanyin if the gun doesn’t explode after ignition.

Qiao Yiqi didn't care about all this. He put down the short gunner he had picked up and continued to feel indignant.

Han Zhenyi's feet finally returned to the ground. He coughed twice, glared at Qiao Yiqi hatefully, and turned around to continue debugging the Red Cannon.

Qiao Yiqi shook his head. Without General Liu, everyone was like a pile of loose sand.

The other three gates were attacked and the spearmen drove the baoyi down again and again, smashing these loyal Later Jin slaves into pieces.

Everyone now knows that the focus of Huang Taiji's attack is the north gate of Kaiyuan.

The North Gate was about to fall, and the flintlock soldiers who were highly expected suffered heavy casualties under the siege of more than a thousand Later Jin archers. It was unknown how long they could hold out.

There were less than a thousand spearmen left.

One thousand new soldiers against five thousand real barbarian armored soldiers and three thousand bannermen.

Without artillery and reinforcements, the outer positions fell. This was a siege without any suspense, and the fall of the north gate was only a matter of time.

The positions on both sides of the moat were overwhelmed by the influx of the Zhengbai Banner soldiers.

The soldiers crossing the river were busy removing obstacles such as deer feet.

On the other side of the moat, a large group of baoyi soldiers shouted slogans and pushed various siege weapons across the pontoon bridge towards the Kaiyuan city wall.

The bannermen shouted so loudly that it could be heard from miles away.

Qiao Yiqi thought these bondmen were despicable. Seeing how hard they worked, General Qiao suddenly remembered that there was still a shortage of miners to open the mine.

However, he was shocked by the spectacular scene. It was the first time that Qiao Yiqi witnessed the terrifying strength of the Plain White Banner. There were over 10,000 soldiers, and even the bondservants were so excited. This overwhelming momentum far exceeded that of the Bordered Blue Banner led by Amin.

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Eight pontoon bridges were built on the narrow city river, and the baoyi soldiers pushed more than 30 shield carts and ladder trucks slowly across the bridge.

"I didn't stop you from crossing the river. Thousands of you came here all at once, just waiting to be reincarnated!"

Qiao Yiqi cursed loudly to hide his inner despair. According to the plan they agreed upon three days ago, General Liu should have captured Tieling yesterday, and then led his elite troops back to Kaiyuan to attack the Zhengbai Banner together with the defenders in the city.

Why hasn't General Liu launched an attack yet? Because he's waiting for the right moment, the moment to kill the chieftain with a single blow!

"In order to attract the enemy to attack Kaiyuan, this officer and I, along with Patrol Officer Yuan, were beaten with twenty military sticks by the damn Liao Zhen! You, you're just dawdling here. If you can't hit me later, before the Jiannu break the city, I'll give you three two hundred military sticks and break your legs!"

Mao Yuanyi knew that Qiao Yiqi was on the verge of madness, so he let him scold him and didn't bother with him.

If Huang Taiji cannot be killed with one shot, all plans will be in vain.

General Liu and his 3,000 elite troops would eventually be surrounded and annihilated by the Bordered Blue Banner and the Plain White Banner between Kaiyuan and Tieling.

Although General Liu still had several backup plans.

One of the backup plans Mao Yuanyi knew about was Ligdan Khan's 20,000 cavalrymen, who were said to be on their way to Kaiyuan.

Ligdan Khan said that he would teach Nurhaci a lesson, just as the Later Jin Khan wanted to teach Ligdan Khan a lesson.

However, the Mongols were not trustworthy. Mao Yuanyi had met the Mongolian envoy, who was full of nonsense. He claimed that the Great Khan (Lindan Khan) would soon have 400,000 cavalrymen and that he would meet General Liu at Shaxue Liting in Hetuala. His boasting was even more outrageous than Yuandudu's.

The guards brought a stool and asked the injured military inspector Qiao to sit down.

Qiao Yiqi was tired of scolding, so he sat on the top of the city wall to look at the scenery.

The landscape is picturesque, the setting sun looks like blood, dark clouds are pressing down on the city, and reinforcements are cut off.

A terrible thought flashed through his mind: Did General Liu encounter the Bordered Blue Banner and couldn't escape? Otherwise, they should have returned to Kaiyuan by now.

The shouts and cries of killing at the South Gate drowned out the roar of artillery fire. The fearless Baoyi soldiers fired flintlock rifles on the city walls, set up ladders and began to climb. The Liao people defending the city poured boiling gold juice down. Amid screams, the Baoyi soldiers fell to the ground like leaves, and their white bones were exposed where they were hit by the gold juice.

"Humph."

Qiao Yiqi sneered and looked back at the city wall. Eighty steps in front of the city wall, there was a newly built breastwork, which was the last line of defense of the north gate.

Qiao Yiqi looked at the spearmen lined up behind the breastwork, then looked at the dark cloud-like Later Jin formation looming over the city, and suddenly loudly ordered his guards to raise the military supervision flag.

"Sir, the Tartars have French cannons, and they killed many people at the South Gate. Our shield can only block arrows, not cannonballs. If we raise the flag, I'm afraid..."

"A general should be as unshakable as a mountain. Raise my flag! Let the soldiers see that the North Gate has not been lost!"

General Qiao went through several fierce battles, but learned nothing but Liu Jing's unshakable composure.

Two soldiers held up long signs. Qiao Yiqi sat on a mat and slightly closed his eyes, like an old monk in meditation.

A twelve-foot-tall flag of the military supervisor was slowly raised on the top of the city wall, fluttering in the wind as the beacon fires filled the entire city.

Two heavy arrows whizzed over and hit the long shield, making a buzzing sound.

Without even opening his eyes, Qiao Yiqi cursed:

"How dare you, you Tartar dog, attack me from behind!"

There were less than 5,000 soldiers in Kaiyuan City, and the 5,000 men were deployed to guard the four gates, which was extremely thin.

After Huang Taiji arrived in Kaiyuan, he keenly felt that the city was short of troops, so he immediately changed the previously formulated siege strategy of surrounding three sides and leaving one side open.

He ordered the troops to be divided into four groups, with no particular emphasis on either group. In other words, Huang Taiji wanted the four gates of Kaiyuan to bear the same offensive pressure.

Mao Yuanyi did not have Liu Zhaosun's experience in charging into battle, so he did not dare to leave the city to fight rashly.

In order to strengthen the defense of the city gates, they ordered the withdrawal of the troops deployed outside Kaiyuan, leaving only a small number of night patrols.

Unable to determine the enemy's main attack direction, they could only evenly distribute 5,000 soldiers across the four gates. This further highlighted their weakness of insufficient manpower.

The Zhengbai Banner suffered almost no losses and approached the moat.

Under the watchful eyes of the defenders on the city walls, thousands of Baoyi Aha calmly built a pontoon bridge over the moat. Then, tens of thousands of armored soldiers crossed the moat and began to attack the main city.

If Amin knew that the Zhengbai Banner had captured the city so easily, he would probably be furious to death.

Six months earlier, Amin, then the leader of the Bordered Blue Banner, had led the main force of the Banner to attack Kaiyuan's northern gate. Over two thousand of the Banner's bondsmen died just before the moat. Liu Zhaosun had ordered the felling of all the trees surrounding Kaiyuan. To build siege ladders and shield carts, the Plain White Banner had to travel over ten miles to cut down trees in the mountains.

Although Huang Taiji wanted to occupy Kaiyuan as soon as possible, he would not let the Zhenyi soldiers attack the city like ants. The Ming army defending the city was fearless and brave. If they attacked such a strong city like ants, the Zhengbai Banner would probably be wiped out.

So he ordered the bannermen accompanying the army to cut down trees overnight and make siege equipment such as shield carts and ladders.

Because the project was so large, more than 200 garment workers died of exhaustion overnight.

Qiao Yiqi and Yuan Chonghuan were stationed at the North Gate and South Gate respectively, while the East and West Gates were under the charge of two captains of the new recruits' battalion.

The last fortifications built were completely destroyed by the Later Jin army, and the defenders built a new line of defense.

Trenches, breastworks, caltrops, deer feet.

At this moment, the trenches had been filled with sand by the Baoyi. Since the Ming army did not go out of the city to fight in the field, but only shot arrows from a distance, more than a hundred Baoyi who were filling the trenches died.

After Baoyi Aha completed his mission, more than ten Niulu (each Niulu had 300 people) of the Plain White Banner armored soldiers launched an attack.

As they walked, they pushed down the sedges behind the trench to make way for shield carts and ladder trucks to catch up and attack the city.

Behind the ditch was a breastwork more than two feet high, behind which were the musketeers and spearmen.

This is the last line of defense. If it is lost, the Jiannu's shield carts will be able to reach the city directly. With the offensive of the Zhengbai Banner, dozens of ladder trucks will rush forward and the north gate will be captured in half an hour at most.

The most intense battle between the two sides is about to begin.

One hundred musketeers armed with new flintlock rifles quickly came to the breastwork, extended their flintlock rifles from the battlements, aimed at the Jiannu who were pushing down their horses, and pulled the trigger suddenly.

There was a loud bang, and large clouds of white smoke rose above the parapet.

Eighty steps away, twenty or thirty armored soldiers fell down immediately.

Their chain mail was shattered by lead bullets, which penetrated deep into their muscles, making a horrible sound of flesh breaking.

The armored soldiers who were hit fell to the ground and howled in pain. Some of them covered their exposed intestines and tried to stuff them back into their stomachs.

Seeing this, the surrounding armored soldiers raised their shields to protect themselves. One Niulu Ezhen shouted loudly:
"Archers will use their light arrows to throw, and armored soldiers will use their heavy arrows to shoot straight at them. Kill them all!"

From the occupation of Fushun Qinghe to the great victory at Sarhu, the Eight Banners of the Later Jin were invincible and repeatedly defeated the Ming army. Of course, the Ming army here does not include the Ming army under Liu Zhaosun.

Despite the two setbacks at Hunjiang and Kaiyuan, it was generally believed within the Eight Banners that both defeats were due to Amin's incompetence and his inability to command troops, which gave Liu Zhaosun an opportunity to take advantage.

Amin has become a joke, and the warriors of the Plain White Banner will certainly not repeat the mistakes of the Bordered Blue Banner.

Niulu'ezhen knew that the Ming army's muskets fired slowly and it took a long time to fire again after one round. This period of time was enough for the warriors to shoot several waves of arrows.

When the shield carts and falconets were pushed over, they fired at the earthen wall, killing all the Ming army musketeers and spearmen behind it, and Kaiyuan City was captured.

Thinking of the scene of entering the city to kill Ming soldiers and rob Han women, Niulu'ezhen showed a smile on his gloomy face.

He raised his heavy sword, roared, and chopped hard at a chevaux de frise in front of the trench.

At this time, there was another explosion behind the earth wall, and the row of armored soldiers in the front fell down together. Within fifty steps, the shields and chain mail could not withstand the attack of the flintlock rifles. These reckless Later Jin warriors once again used their lives to interpret the significance of hot weapons replacing cold weapons.

"Don't stop! They can only shoot two rounds!"

The two rounds of attacks did not affect the morale of the Zhengbai Banner, but instead aroused the murderous intent of these Jurchens.

"Rush to the earth wall and kill them!"

As soon as Niulu'e finished speaking the truth, musketeers rang out again from behind the earth wall. More than a dozen elite armored soldiers fell down beside the chevaux de frise with screams. The injured soldiers were stopped by the chevaux de frise and could not escape for a while, becoming sitting ducks for the musketeers.

"Archer, shoot!"

The sword and shield soldiers of the Zhengbai Banner moved forward one after another, holding heavy long shields, to cover the archers as they approached the breastwork.

Buyantai followed the sword and shield man, quickly passed a section of uneven ground, and came to an area less than a hundred steps away from the breastwork.

The ears were filled with the shouts of the fire-armored soldiers and the roar of firearms and cannons. Another armored soldier came over from the pontoon bridge over the moat to reinforce the battle under the city.

Buyangtai reached for the quiver at his waist, removed a light arrow, adjusted the bowstring with a jade wrench, and deftly placed the arrow on the string, the arrowhead pointing diagonally toward the sky. He held his breath, concentrating his energy. The sword and shield soldiers standing two steps in front of him gasped heavily. These sword and shield soldiers were physically strong, their combat power surpassing that of dead soldiers. Many of them would eventually become Bayaras of the banner. Buyanggu held the bowstring close to him, the creaking sound of the string being stretched taut could be clearly heard. He didn't aim, and abruptly released his right hand, which was adorned with the jade ring.

The light arrow in Buyantai's hand shot out like a meteor, flew over the defensive position built by the trench and horses, and merged with other light arrows to form a dense rain of arrows, drawing a low parabola in the air, and rapidly pouring behind the distant earth wall.

Buyantai pricked up his ears and listened carefully, and heard the screams of the southern barbarians coming from the front.

He knew it was just an illusion. Whether he could hit the target at this distance depended entirely on luck. He smiled, reached out to touch the dust on the mouse's whiskers, and took out an arrow from the quiver.

After three rounds of arrows, the surface of the low breastwork was densely covered with arrow feathers, and from a distance it looked like a giant beast with black fur.

Behind the wall, more than twenty musketeers were hit by light arrows and fell to the ground, rolling in pain. Among the eighty troops, light arrows had a strong lethality against unarmored targets.

The production of iron armor in Kaiyuan City was limited, and most of it was equipped to spearmen and archers. The musketeers only wore cotton armor, and many of them did not even wear armor.

Niulu Ezhen heard screams coming from the other side and thought that the effect of these rounds of projectiles was good, so he said to the archer:

"Each of you shoot ten arrows. After you finish shooting, stand back and let the armored soldiers move forward!"

This Niulu Ezhen was quite familiar with the Ming army's firearms. He knew that those muskets had an extremely slow firing rate, not to mention that they were particularly prone to explosion and misfire. Within fifty steps, the warriors used heavy arrows to shoot against the Ming army's muskets and never lost the upper hand.

When the warriors of the Plain White Banner set out from Fushun, the banner leader Huang Taiji informed the Niulu Ezhen that the number of troops in Kaiyuan City would not exceed 5,000, and some would be left to guard against spies in the city. The number of soldiers assigned to guard each city gate would be less than 1,000.

Niulu Ezhen estimated that there were only two hundred Ming troops behind the earth wall at most, and less than a hundred musketeers. In addition to three hundred armored soldiers, they also had two hundred baoyi, many of whom could shoot arrows. So no matter what, this Ming army had no chance of winning.

What's more, there are more than a dozen Niulu warriors waiting behind.

The lightly armored archers continued to shoot at the earth wall, and teams of soldiers wearing double layers of armor passed by them, carrying bows on their backs and weapons such as heavy swords and clubs, and rushed towards the Ming army's breastwork.

Behind the breastwork a hundred steps away from the group of armored soldiers, the surviving Ming army musketeers were concentrating on loading and firing. As the target got closer, almost every shot they made hit the target.

Layer upon layer of Later Jin soldiers surged over like a tide. As more and more Later Jin archers joined in, the casualties of the musketeers increased sharply. Some of their comrades who were shot fell at their feet, and the wounded were quickly carried away.

There were fewer and fewer musketeers behind the parapets. Under the attack of the Later Jin archers, who outnumbered them ten times, the Kaiyuan flintlock recruits numbering a hundred were soon doomed to destruction.

Thirty steps behind the musketeers, a thousand spearmen were lined up in tight rows, holding 17-foot-long spears, like a still forest, silently waiting for the order to attack.

Qiao Yiqi stared at the main tent of the Zhengbai Banner Army and muttered to himself:

"Huang Taiji, I am ready to die. Are you ready?"

Huang Taiji sat in the big tent, preparing to launch a new round of attack on the north gate. This time, he was confident that he could take the city in one fell swoop.

A personal servant, Goshha, came in and reported:
"Master, the commander of the battle, Jia La'e, has returned."

"Okay, let them all come in."

(End of this chapter)