Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 316: The Jin Army Retreats

At the northern hill of Fengji Fort, where Tianming Khan resided, Nurhaci gazed solemnly at the battlefield several miles away.

From early morning until now, Nurhaci had watched as the infantry of the four banners on the left wing launched four consecutive assaults on Fengji's northern wall. With each attack, the Jin soldiers, protected by shield carts, advanced all the way to the outskirts of Fengji and then charged the Ming troops defending the city walls. But after that, the Jin soldiers could no longer push forward.

Once the Jin army left their shield carts, they would immediately become targets of attack from the city walls, large and small guns and cannons. Even if the first line of defense was broken, the subsequent troops would immediately come up to attack.

Nurhaci had to admit that under Xiong Manzi's leadership, the Ming army gathered on the Liaodong front was no longer the timid and cowardly it had been after the recent defeat at Sarhu. This was not a good thing for the Great Jin.

"Report!" Just as the four flags on the left wing were about to launch their fifth attack, a fast horse rushed to the tower where Nurhaci was.
"Speak." Nurhaci looked down at the person who came. At a glance he knew that this was someone sent by the Zhenghong Banner.

"Report to the Khan." The rider dismounted and reported, "Ten miles southwest of Fengji, we've spotted the bulk of the Ming reinforcements!"

"Reinforcements." Nurhaci raised his eyebrows and asked, "How many people are there? Whose flag are they flying?"

"Reporting to the Khan, we don't know how many people there are. We only know that the mountains and plains are endless. As for the flags, we only saw the flag with the word 'Lu'." The rider replied.

After the scattered scouts of the Red and Blue Banners discovered the reinforcements from Liaoyang and reported back, Daishan immediately dispatched hundreds of scouts to investigate further, trying to determine the size of the Ming reinforcements. However, the Ming army did not give him this opportunity.

The Wujing Camp cavalry, which outnumbered the Jin army's cavalry scouts several times, spread out and took the initiative to encircle and suppress the Jin army's cavalry scouts. They quickly completely dispersed the Jin army's light cavalry that tried to approach the Ming army's formation.

At this point, if Daishan wanted to continue his reconnaissance, his only option was to organize an equal-sized cavalry force and force his way forward. However, Nurhaci had withdrawn most of the cavalry from the four right wing banners, plotting a decapitation operation against Li Bingcheng, the garrison commander of Fengji. This rendered Daishan powerless even if he had the will.

"I understand." Nurhaci was silent for a while, then said to the riders of the Zhenghong Banner, "Go back and tell the great prince to line up on the spot and confront the Ming army, but be prepared to withdraw at any time. Once my order arrives, immediately retreat according to the original plan. If the Ming army takes the initiative to attack, allow him to act freely." The initiative of the war is still in Nurhaci's hands. As long as he doesn't want to fight the Ming army, the Ming army will have no way to deal with him.

"Yes." The rider took the order, mounted his horse and left.

"Send the order!" Nurhaci shouted in a low voice, and immediately several close followers came over to wait for orders.

"Send a message to the Fourth Beile. Ask him to stop the attack and withdraw from the battlefield with all the troops of the four flags on the left wing. The attack on Fengji ends here." Nurhaci ordered.

"Yes."

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Opposite the Zhenghong and Xianglan flags, reinforcements from Liaoyang had already formed their battle formations.

At present, Xiong Tingbi has four battalions with different organizations.

The first major camp was his Jinglüe Central Army Camp. This unit's soldiers were mostly drawn from the Beijing Army, with only a small number being retainers brought in by officers of various ranks. After nearly two years of training under Xiong Tingbi, the Jinglüe Central Army Camp had completely shed the slackness of the Beijing Army and transformed itself into a disciplined and formidable "drill army."

That's right, it was still military training. This army of over 4,000 men had barely seen blood, their main role being to provide support to Xiong Tingbi as he moved about. His next plan was to break these men up and rotate them with veterans of bloody battles, or even with the generals' retainers.

Xiong Tingbi disliked the reliance on small, elite units, where servants led the charge and other soldiers provided support. He wanted to transform all Liao soldiers into combat-ready elites. If the overall strength of the army failed to improve, even the strongest small elite units would be annihilated.

His second battalion was the Wujing Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant General Lu Zhijia. Though it was called a battalion, it was more like a large garrison fortress straddling Shenyang and Fengtian. It housed two secondary guerrilla battalions and a city defense battalion, each commanded by two Wujing guerrillas and a Wujing garrison commander.

Xiong Tingbi brought out two guerrilla battalions, each with 3,000 men, for a total of 6,000 combat troops, primarily cavalry, all of whom were selected and reorganized from the original Liaozhen troops.

Wu Jing's two guerrilla battalions were arranged by Xiong Tingbi as guards because of their strong mobility. They were placed in front of the side of the central camp to prevent the enemy from sending cavalry to penetrate from the left and right, or even to disrupt the infantry formation from behind.

Xiong Tingbi's third and fourth battalions were commanded by General Chen Ce, with Lieutenant General Tong Zhongkui and Lieutenant General Zhou Dunji commanding the Shiqu and Youyang local troops. Each battalion had 4,000 men, for a total of 8,000 combat troops. Except for a few officers who could ride horses, all were infantry.

Because of their poor mobility, these two chieftain troops were arranged side by side by Xiong Tingbi in front of the central military camp.

As for the Central Army Battalion, it was the general reserve force and would never be moved unless the situation was extremely critical.

Xiong Tingbi pulled these men out, merely adopting a defensive posture, with no intention of launching an offensive against the Jin troops. The enemy's intentions and dispositions were unclear. A rash attack would be suicidal. He even sent an urgent letter to He Shixian, urging him to remain calm and not to rush out of the city until he received a clear order to attack Fushun, effectively tackling the enemy's defenses.

In fact, Xiong Tingbi was not very worried that He Shixian would fight again. After all, in addition to He Shixian, there were two very important civil servants in Shenyang City. They could suppress He Shixian's almost reckless fighting spirit in time.

"Report!" A fast horse galloped to Xiong Tingbi's central military tent.

By this time, the central army had already set up camp, and the perimeter defenses centered around the camp, centered around artillery and chariots, were being constructed. Meanwhile, Xiong Tingbi himself was contemplating a map of the twenty-li area surrounding Fengji in his tent.

One of the first things he did after arriving in Liao was to have maps of the entire region redrawn, down to the important local areas. He would have people take these maps with him whenever he traveled, so that he could organize his thoughts and adjust the tactical deployment of the battalion commanders and the generals at any time.

Xiong Tingbi turned around and looked at the messenger. "Go ahead."

"Report to the commander, the bandits in front of our army are retreating." The messenger half-knelt and clasped his fists.

"Retreat?" Xiong Tingbi immediately judged that Nurhaci was going to retreat as a whole like last time.

Otherwise, the flank of the Jin troops attacking Fengji would be exposed. This would easily lead to a pincer attack. Knowing Nurhaci well, he knew this old man would never make such a crude mistake. If he did, Xiong Tingbi wouldn't miss the opportunity. "Send a message to Wujing's left camp, order them to immediately send additional cavalry to scout the enemy's movements," Xiong Tingbi told the messenger.

"Yes!" One soldier gave an order. After Xiong Tingbi finished speaking, the messenger left immediately.

"Pass the order." Xiong Tingbi called.

"Here." The messenger in the tent immediately clasped his fists and waited for orders.

"Send a message to Wujing's right camp, and tell them to send cavalry to the city of Fengji. If the bandits are still attacking the city, immediately go into the battlefield and send someone to report as soon as possible. If the bandits have stopped attacking, change the support to reconnaissance, and investigate the movements of the enemy troops around Fengji. Do not advance too deep without permission." Xiong Tingbi ordered.

"Yes." Another messenger took the order and left.

"Send a message to the vanguard chieftain." Xiong Tingbi paused. "Forget it, that's it."

He originally wanted to order the chieftain soldiers in the vanguard to prepare to break camp, but the chieftain soldiers were basically not equipped with the firearms that needed to be deployed. It would not take much time to dismantle the defensive formation. They could advance almost immediately after one order was given, so there was no need to be so nervous.

"Tell Zhang Shenwu to stop the outer deployment of the central army camp immediately, gather the tanks and field artillery, and prepare to move the camp." Xiong Tingbi changed the order.

"Yes."

After the messengers left, Xiong Tingbi turned back to look at the map and muttered, "What on earth is this old wild boar trying to do by causing all this trouble?"

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The Jin troops came and went with swift abandon. On February 11, the first year of the Taichang reign, the majority of the Eight Banners came into the Ming army's sight. That same day, they engaged in battles of varying sizes with garrison troops along the route, Li Bingcheng's cavalry scouts, Li Bingcheng's main cavalry force, and Zhu Wanliang's cavalry scouts, resulting in casualties on both sides. The next day, February 12, the first year of the Taichang reign, the Jin troops attacked several positions at Fengji but were unable to capture them. At noon, upon seeing the arrival of the bulk of the Liaoyang reinforcements, they retreated.

In the evening of that day, the main generals of Fengji garrison, Liaoyang reinforcements and Hupi reinforcements, at the call of Xiong Tingbi, successively arrived at the headquarters of the General of Aid to Liao located in the center of Fengji Fort.

When Lieutenant General Zhao Lujiao entered the council hall, he not only found that Xiong Tingbi had occupied the main seat that once belonged to Li Bingcheng, but also discovered that the map of Fengji's surrounding areas hanging on the shelf had been replaced by a larger but less detailed map of the three towns of Shen, Feng and Hu.

The military generals attending the meeting were still the same people, but in addition to the general Xiong Tingbi and the central military inspector Gao Bangzuo, there was one more civil official who came here, Cui Ruxiu, who was admitted to the imperial examination in the same year as Xiong Tingbi.

Cui Ruxiu's path to the imperial examinations was remarkably similar to Xiong Tingbi's. Both passed the imperial examination in the Dingyou year of the 25th year of the Wanli reign, and both became Jinshi in the Wuxu year of the following year. Furthermore, the two were very close in age, with Xiong Tingbi being only one year older than Cui Ruxiu.

Logically speaking, the two were of similar age, born in the same year, so their relationship should be good. However, in reality, their relationship is not good, at least not now. The reason is very simple. Cui Ruxiu's official position is the Shandong Provincial Censor, responsible for the military preparations in Kaiyuan.

Now that Kaiyuan had been lost and was within Nurhaci's sphere of influence, Xiong Tingbi was reluctant to send troops to recapture it, leaving Cui Ruxiu with nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the court refused to assign him new tasks, so Cui Ruxiu was reduced to wandering like a vagrant, constantly close to the front lines of the confrontation with the Ming and Jin dynasties, sometimes wandering in northern Liaoning, sometimes in southern Liaoning.

Xiong Tingbi paid him little attention. When Cui Ruxiu arrived in Liao, he had spent all his family wealth to recruit eight hundred elite soldiers along the way. After these elite soldiers followed Cui Ruxiu to Liao, Xiong Tingbi registered them and provided them with imperial rations. However, he didn't disband them and shove them into other units. Instead, he allowed them to continue to follow the Kaiyuan Bingbei Dao, who was practically invisible.

Cui Ruxiu was like a firefighter in Liaodong. Wherever a beacon fire was lit, Cui Bingxian would lead his men there. While his small force wouldn't even be enough to fill the gaps in a single banner under Nurhaci, it could at least boost morale. It showed the soldiers that not all imperial prefects were cowards like Han Yuanshan and Yan Mingtai, too afraid to patrol the border.

After listening to Li Bingcheng, the general stationed at Fengji, detail the battles of the past two days, Gao Bangzuo, the military supervisor, glanced at Xiong Tingbi. Seeing that Xiong Tingbi had no intention of asking questions, he asked, "General Li, are you saying that the enemy has a kind of chariot shield that cannot be penetrated by gunfire or artillery fire?"

Li Bingcheng nodded and said, "The big guns can penetrate, but the small guns can't do anything. If they're a little further away, the shells will be directly bounced off."

"Are there any spoils?" Gao Bangzuo asked again.

"Yes," Li Bingcheng said, "the shaft of one of the chariot shields happened to be broken. The slaves couldn't take it away, so they left it at the foot of the city."

"What on earth is that?" Cui Ruxiu also asked. He had seen similar records when reading the report on the fall of Kaiyuan, but he had never seen the real thing until now.

"It's not a particularly complicated thing." Li Bingcheng turned to look at Cui Ruxiu. "It can stop the cannonball only because it's thick."

"thick?"

"The craftsmen have examined this piece of crap. It's technically straightforward. It's made with six-inch thick wooden planks as the main body, and then covered with thick cowhide and thick iron sheets. Anyone with the materials can make it, even if they're not a craftsman."

Li Bingcheng paused, sighed, and then said to Xiong Tingbi, "Although this thing is simple, it is very practical. It can help the slaves approach our positions relatively safely despite being fired at by muskets and small cannons. This is very different from the Mongol Tartar tactics."

During the Jiajing reign, to counter the threat posed by the "Northern Tartars," or Mongol tribes, a group of outstanding generals, including Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou, developed a field chariot system, employing chariots as a perimeter and using guns and cannons to attack the enemy. The Ming army used chariots as both firearms carriers and mobile barriers.

Based on their experience in dealing with Mongolian cavalry, the Ming army would usually hide heavy artillery in chariot formations during field battles, fill the cannons with buckshot, and then wait for the cavalry to approach before shooting them in the face at close range.

This tactic was highly effective against pure cavalry. If Degelei and the brothers Shuotuo and Yuetuo had dared to lead a general cavalry assault on Zhu Wanliang's position yesterday, a single round of volleyball fire would have devastated the elite troops of the Zhenghuang and Xianghong banners. However, Degelei quickly recovered and, following Nurhaci's instructions, halted his advance.

"If our army engages in close combat with the enemy's infantry in the wild, I'm afraid the old chariots and cannons will not be able to break the enemy's shields at all. The tactics need to be changed." Li Bingcheng said finally.

(End of this chapter)