Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 303: The Counterattack at Fengji Fort
When the four flags on the left wing were halfway through their charge, Huang Taiji suddenly heard the sound of Ming army arrows coming from afar. He thought the Ming army was about to charge, but the next moment, most of the Ming army began to turn around and retreat.

"The Ming army has retreated!" Jibu Keda's eyes were red, like a hungry beast seeing its prey fleeing in the distance.

Huang Taiji did not give any new orders, and the Jin army continued to advance along the original route.

"Fire!" When the Jin army's light cavalry advanced to a distance of about 300 steps from the Ming army's position, the musketeers fired a round of volleys at them.

At this distance, the bullets flew almost randomly, aiming at the sky and hitting the ground, aiming at the left and hitting the right. Even if you were lucky enough to hit it, there would be no damage at all, not even able to penetrate cloth armor.

After a curtain of archery, the Ming army's musket cavalry formation and heavy cavalry formation immediately moved in the opposite direction of the light cavalry formation according to the previous deployment.

In a short time, the Jin army occupied the Ming army's position. Seeing the Ming army retreating in two directions, one far and one close, Huang Taiji instinctively thought that this was a strategy of splitting up the troops and retreating. He sent his attendants to order each formation to split up and pursue the enemy, but to stop at the city walls and not to attack the Ming army's outer positions rashly.

The Jin army's original deployment consisted of two light troops and one heavy cavalry, with four generals in three formations, attacking from the left, center, and right flanks. Upon receiving the order, the heavy cavalry formation split in two, leaving the Jin army's deployment as two light troops and two heavy cavalry, with four generals in four formations, led by Huang Taiji and Jibu Keda, respectively. Huang Taiji and Tong Yangzhen pursued the Ming army from the west, while Jibu Keda and Buha pursued the Ming army from the east.

--------

The Ming army on the eastern route retreated, maintaining a relatively safe distance from the pursuing Jin army. At this distance, the Jin army's piercing arrows would never reach them, and while their piercing arrows could reach them, their accuracy and power would be greatly reduced. Even with full force, they might not be able to penetrate the cotton armor.

"Fire!" The Ming army's cavalry and gun formation was divided into three columns, with two teams in each column. They fired alternately at the end of the formation, and then accelerated to the front of the formation to start changing gunpowder and reloading. The heavy cavalry formation followed on the left and right wings of the cavalry and gun formation to prevent the Jin army's light cavalry from suddenly accelerating and forcibly charging.

Safe distance is relative. Since the Jin army's arrows could not effectively kill the Ming army, the Ming army's firearms could hardly pose any real threat to the Jin army. The curtain after curtain of bullets was more of a provocation than an attack.

Fengji Fort drew nearer and nearer. The Ming troops on the northern section of the wall, observing the small battlefield moving towards them, immediately went into battle mode. However, the cavalry below the wall did not charge towards the northern section, but instead moved eastwards and westwards.

The garrison officer guarding the eastern section of the wall, holding the battlement at the northeast corner, tiptoed slightly outward to survey the battlefield. Seeing both the enemy and our own armies approaching, he bolted for the southeast corner. As he ran, he yelled, "Fire! Fire everything!"

Upon receiving the order, the fireman immediately removed the torches stuck on the city wall and lit the oil-filled brazier in front of him. After lighting the brazier, the fireman inserted a long iron pole with a thin, pointed tip on the side into the brazier to preheat it.

Bright flames followed the garrison commander's footsteps, blazing from north to south on the eastern wall. Below the wall, officers guarding the fortifications inside and outside the moat, upon seeing the towers on fire, also urged their soldiers to prepare for battle.

The soldiers at the gate had no sophisticated firearms, only three-barreled muskets, which had a short range and low power, and were only effective against lightly armored soldiers. Seeing that the enemy had no infantry, only cavalry, the officers did not even light fire, but simply ordered the soldiers to raise their shields to protect themselves from enemy arrows.

After retreating past Sanlidun, the area closest to the fort, the Ming army began to slow down. The distance between the Jin and Ming armies gradually narrowed to less than a hundred steps.

"Fire!" With the order from the officer, the Ming army's cavalry fired another curtain of bullets.

This barrage of bullets finally inflicted significant casualties on the Jin army. One unfortunate horse was struck in the eye by a lead bullet fired from an unknown gun barrel. The horse screamed in pain, its eye damaged. The rider, bow in hand, had no grasp on the reins, and was thrown forward by inertia. Fortunately, the cavalrymen were well spaced apart, and the subsequent riders were highly skilled and quick to react, preventing a stampede and a chain reaction of widespread collapse.

--------

Jibukdagan was the first to take the brunt of the attack, and unsurprisingly, he was hit again. But his luck was as good as ever, and the lead bullet that hit him failed to harm him. The lead bullet hit his breastplate, ricocheting off the smooth surface and drifting sideways.

The trembling in his heart made him instinctively glance downward, but a sudden noise in mid-air immediately grabbed his attention. It was Li Bingcheng's second flare!

Jibu Keda paid no heed, discarding the lead bullets and whistling arrows as he continued his charge. Slowing down, then accelerating, the distance between the Ming and Jin cavalry continued to narrow. Jibu Keda had the audacity to charge 500 men against 3,000, and now that he still had the numerical advantage, he naturally showed no fear.

"Fire!" The Ming army's cavalry unleashed a final barrage of bullets, killing two men directly. But this time, the two teams of riders who fired their muskets no longer sped to the front of the battle formation to reload, but instead sped along with the rest of the cavalry, quickly leaving the battlefield.

As they sped up their retreat, the heavy cavalry on the left and right wings of the Ming army also gathered together and formed the rear army of the cavalry and gun formation.

Soon! Soon!

Seeing the Ming cavalry approaching, Jibu Keda's murderous spirits gradually brewed. He pushed his horse to a breakneck pace, forcing it to gasp for air. Fortunately, the horses assigned to Bayala by the various banners were fat and strong, capable of galloping twenty miles without fatigue. If it were a lesser horse, just this ten-mile chase would have exhausted them.

Jibu Keda grinned grimly as he pulled a quiver from his quiver and placed it on his bow, then drew the bowstring to full length. He then placed his right hand against his face, his eyes moving from his fingertips along the arrow shaft to the arrowhead, finally locking onto the back of a Ming cavalryman.

"Huh!" Jibu Keda exhaled, then released his hand that was holding the arrow tail.

The bowstring lost its force and instantly rebounded. The bow's potential energy was rapidly converted into the arrow's kinetic energy. The swordfish leaped out, traversing the distance between prey and hunter in a split second, and with unstoppable momentum, it pierced through the fish's scale armor and the cotton armor beneath it, piercing deep into its torso.

The heavy arrows nearly pierced the man, but the damage wasn't enough to kill him instantly. The servant opened his mouth in agony, a wail swirling from his throat that no one could hear. Soon, his breath turned bloody, warm blood, mixed with tiny lung fragments, was forced out by a violent cough, spraying onto the horse's mane. The horse turned back in confusion, only to see its master slumped to the side. The horse slowed its pace, and the next moment, countless cavalrymen passed by.

boom!
Just when Jibu Keda was feeling smug, dozens of large and small cannons opened fire one after another on the Fengji city wall more than a mile away.

--------

Fengji Fort, the former site of Fengde County during the Liao Dynasty, belonged to Guide Prefecture. During the Jin Dynasty, Fengde County was abolished and renamed Fengji County. It was abolished along with Guide Prefecture during the Yuan Dynasty. It was restored during the Ming Dynasty, with a fortress. The fortress is square, one li long on each side and four li in circumference. A moat runs parallel to the walls. Before Nurhaci's successive conquests of the Fu, Qing, Kai, and Tie armies in Liaoyou, this area was a small and unimportant garrison. For a long time, it maintained a low population and a small military presence.

After Xiong Tingbi passed through the Liao Dynasty, he fortified Fengji. While widening the moat, he used the excavated earth to heighten and thicken the rammed earth walls, and then covered them with bricks. As a result, Fengji's walls were transformed from thin walls, barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side, to walls high enough for three horses to ride side by side.

While Xiong Tingbi was strengthening the city's defenses, he also moved or dismantled nearly 300 usable cannons from the warehouses of the rear city and fort, and even from the city walls, and supplied them to Fengji.

However, most of these artillery pieces were breech-loading French cannons. While these guns had a high rate of fire, they also had a short range. Therefore, Li Bingcheng could only lure the slave soldiers to the suburbs, risking casualties, in order to obtain artillery support.

Dozens of cannonballs of varying sizes crossed the Ming army's formation and the Jin army's vanguard, and steadily smashed into the middle of the Jin army's formation, immediately killing several people.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry up!" After finishing one round, the garrison officer couldn't wait to urge the next round of artillery fire.

As he spoke, the garrison officer rushed to a cannon position that had misfired, kicked away the artilleryman who was replacing the cannonballs in the Portuguese arquebus, and then personally adjusted the gun carriage to a higher elevation angle. "Fire your fucking bird cannon! You're firing the cannonball into our own army!" He cursed as he snatched the red-hot iron rod from the arquebusier's hand.

These cannons have no fuses. Once loaded, the gunpowder can be ignited by inserting the red-hot tip into the firing port.

boom!
In the blink of an eye, the second cannonball was fired, and the cannonball flew through the smoke, drawing an elegant parabola in the sky. Although this cannonball didn't hit any enemy soldiers, at least it didn't fly towards the Ming army formation.

"See!" the garrison officer handed the cannon rod back to the gunner and cursed at the top of his voice: "If anyone fires a cannon into our own army again, I'll chop him up as a spy!"

The artilleryman who was kicked shrank his head in embarrassment, revealing a smile that contained both fear and apology.

"Stop laughing! Fire at me!" The garrison officer kicked him again, but this kick was much lighter than the previous one.

"Yes." The artilleryman quickly replaced the third shell in the Portuguese cannon. The pyrotechnician immediately fired the third shell, and it flew out of the barrel.

Despite being interrupted by the officer, the interval between the three shots was only a minute. This was considered slow. Some skilled artillery teams could fire the three standard sub-cannons of the falconet in less than half a minute. However, after the three pre-loaded sub-cannons were fired, the artillerymen began to reload the gunpowder, and the falconet's rate of fire began to slow.

The Jin army was unaware of the change in firing rate; they only knew the constant barrage from the city walls, and every so often, someone was struck and thrown from their horse. Cannonballs were unlike bullets; these metal balls, held in the palm of their hands to load, defied individual defense. A hit meant falling from one's horse, and there was no way to retaliate. This was far more terrifying than the muskets of the cavalry.

The artillery disrupted the Jin army's formation, and the soldiers began to think of retreating, but because the leading generals were still pursuing the Ming army, the cavalry had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue to follow.

From the moment the cannons opened fire from the city walls, Jibu Keda realized the Ming army was luring him in. Although he longed to charge into the impending enemy lines and blast a few officers' heads off to atone for his mistake, he wasn't so impulsive. He knew he couldn't continue the pursuit.

Jibu Keda gritted his teeth, anger and grief spilling out from between his yellow fangs. "Ah!" he howled, then pulled on his horse's reins, leading his troops to retreat away from Fengji Fort at an angle almost perpendicular to the eastern section of the city wall.

--------

The Jin army began to turn, but a thousand-man column formed a large formation and could not be evacuated quickly. Moreover, Jibu Keda was so focused on pursuit that he had not arranged for rearguard support, which briefly exposed the Jin army's flank.

Li Bingcheng seized this opportunity with alacrity, or perhaps he had been prepared for it. As the third whistle arrow fired, his retainers, moving from the rear to the front, decelerated rapidly, turning around on the spot and transforming the rear group into the front group in a remarkably short time. The loose square formation was transformed into a tight triangle, a formation for a sudden and devastating attack!

"Kill!" Li Bingcheng was originally in the last few rows of these hundreds of heavy cavalry. Shortly after the team turned around, he and his personal followers charged into the Jin army.

By this time, the Jin army had practically lost its formation. These thousands of men were like a fishhook, long in front and short in back, heavy in front and light in the back, and Li Bingcheng was aiming for that corner. He wanted to cut off this line, and before the majority of the Jin army could react, he would eliminate as many of the light cavalry at the end as possible, who hadn't yet managed to withdraw!
The Ming heavy cavalry cut through the defenses of a dozen or so flanking light cavalrymen like a hot knife through lard, instantly piercing the defenses formed spontaneously by the flanking cavalry and quickly forming a defense on the side closest to the enemy's main body. Even with two separate teams dedicated to flank defense, the Ming army still had an advantage in both numbers and types of troops at the end of the enemy formation.

In Li Bingcheng's hands, the steel spear was like a nimble dragon, piercing like a dragonfly skimming the water, sweeping like a hurricane breaking wood. Against this dragon, the light cavalry wielding short-handled weapons were vulnerable. And the Jin soldiers' defenses and counterattacks were easily parried. Li Bingcheng didn't even need to carefully search for angles; a single strike was enough to inflict damage.

When the Jin army's commander, Jibu Keda, realized that the Ming army had not withdrawn from the battle but had turned back to attack, he had already retreated more than a mile. For a moment, a host of emotions, including realization, regret, anger, frustration, and fear, surged in his heart.

But at this moment, Jibukeda had no mind or time to think about it. The heavy cavalry broke into the light cavalry formation at close range, and the light cavalry would be killed and defeated in a moment. He had to rush back to provide support.

(End of this chapter)