Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 528 Minced Meat
Fill the trenches, and dig soil to fill the trenches.

Every time the Jin army advanced to the outer defense line of the Ming army, they could only fill the trenches layer by layer under the pressure of large and small artillery fire from the city and the fields.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Fill it up quickly if you don't want to die!" In the northeast corner of Shenyang City, behind a half-paralyzed shield cart, a Bayara wearing terracotta iron-studded cotton armor roared and put a new feather arrow on the bowstring.

Bayala had already locked onto his next target. In one smooth movement, he drew his bow, leaned forward, slightly changed his angle, and released his arrow, killing a Ming artilleryman hiding behind a small mound with a headshot.

As an elite member of the Zhenghong Banner, Bayala was well aware of the retreat plan formulated by his superiors, but he did not convey this plan to the remaining soldiers under his command.

Bayala ordered the remaining soldiers to dig and fill the pit in the normal siege manner, while he himself fought the Ming army relentlessly, as if he were attacking a city. "Quick, quick, quick! If you can't fill it up, I'll throw you into the pit!" Bayala continued to wave and roar, but the next moment, his voice was suppressed by the roar of heavy artillery.

After a short flight, an iron cannonball weighing nearly twelve pounds easily tore through the shield cart's defense and cut Yu Ding, who was hiding behind it, in half!
Yu Ding didn't even have time to scream before he quickly lost all his life.

For these auxiliary troops whose main responsibility is to fill the pits rather than fight, the most dangerous place is undoubtedly the outermost trench.

When filling these deep trenches, the Jin army's shield carts stopped and became fixed targets, and there were no Ming soldiers around, so the heavy artillery on the city wall could fire without any scruples.

In front of that terrifying heavy artillery, the iron-clad wooden shield cart looked like some ridiculous paper toy.

As the saying goes, you can't have the best of both worlds. The best way to deal with heavy artillery is to disperse. However, because the Jin army had to rely on shield carts to resist the Ming army's bird guns and light artillery, the Jin soldiers, especially the auxiliary soldiers who filled the ground, could only hide behind the shield carts and let the heavy artillery serve as fixed targets.

In such a scenario, the killing effect of the single-barreled heavy artillery is so good that people can even ignore its frighteningly slow reloading speed.

Almost every shot could cause one or even several Jin soldiers to lose their lives in an extremely tragic way.

"Ah!!" Behind the shield cart that was hit by the artillery shell, Yu Ding, a middle-aged man who was filling the trench, threw away the shovel in his hand after a moment of daze.

He ignored Bayala's call and rushed towards the still warm corpse like a madman.

"Son! My son!" Middle-aged Yu Ding wanted to hug his son, but as soon as he did so, he found that his son had been torn into two pieces by the iron ball that had flown away to who knows where.

"Ah!" the middle-aged Yu Ding screamed shrilly. From his eyes, the only part of his body that could still be considered clear, a turbid stream of wild grief and indignation flowed out like a thread.

Through the hole in the shield cart, middle-aged Yu Ding seemed to see the cannon barrel retreating and turning. "Woo! Ah!!" He roared at the pitch-black cannon with all his might, as if he was avenging his son with his shouting.

But forget about revenge on the heavy artillery that tore his son apart. Under the thick smoke, this poor man who was forced to go to the battlefield by Nurhaci, the Khan of Heavenly Mandate of the Jin Dynasty, couldn't even see the appearance of the artillerymen.

Of course, the artillerymen who directly caused this tragedy could not see the father and son, nor could they hear their heartbreaking cries. For the artillerymen, the serious matter was to quickly load the next shell and cause more tragedy.

Bayala, who was in charge of the shield cart, felt a little sympathetic and stopped urging it to drive.

It’s a pity that there is not much room for compassion on the vast battlefield.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way! Stop blocking the way!" Not long after, two slightly younger auxiliary soldiers leaned over and pushed a two-wheeled cart loaded with dirt behind the middle-aged Yu Ding. Seeing someone blocking the way, they immediately became anxious.

The dirt in this cart was dug from outside the range of the heavy artillery. While the frontline soldiers were maintaining their positions, the rear troops would not be completely idle either.

Generally speaking, as long as four or five carts of soil can be poured into the pit, a path wide enough for one person to walk across can be filled in the deep trench. On the three-mile wide battlefield, there are nearly a hundred similar carts moving back and forth.

"Hey! What are you doing? Get out of here!" Listening to the continuous cannon fire and gunfire, the two Jin soldiers who were pushing the earth felt like their hearts were about to jump out of their throats.

Unlike the back, this place was within the Ming army's artillery fire range. Every second they waited, they were in greater danger of being pierced by firearms.

Bayala had no choice but to take action. In order to prevent the middle-aged Yu Ding from blocking his way, he had to pull the middle-aged Yu Ding away. However, this pull directly pulled the two halves of the corpse apart.

"Don't!" The broken internal organs spilled out, and were immediately run over by the cart and sent into a deep ditch.

"Fight!" As the mud mixed with human entrails was pushed into the trench, the Ming army position where a friendly soldier had just died also organized an angry counterattack.

--boom!

Fire entered the firing port, and a falconet weighing over 300 kilograms immediately spewed out deadly flames.

The single-headed lead bullet was pushed out of the barrel by the rapidly expanding gas and almost instantly crossed the gap between the two sides' positions.

Practice proved that even when firing single-shot bullets rather than scattershot at close range, the Ming army's light artillery could not easily penetrate the several-inch-thick iron-clad wooden boards. Even if they successfully penetrated the shield, the lost kinetic energy of the cannonball made it difficult to effectively kill the Jin soldiers behind the shield.

Therefore, the Ming army on the front lines learned to disable these heavy vehicles by bombarding their wheels. Once paralyzed and unable to move, they would become a neutral roadblock hindering both the Ming and Jin armies. Furthermore, if too many of the shield carts were paralyzed, it would be difficult for the Jin army to continue advancing.

However, the cannonball that was originally intended to hit the wheel of the shield cart was temporarily left in the barrel of the cannon because the gunner was killed by an arrow. When a more vulnerable and high-value target appeared, the cannonball passed the shield cart in time and went towards the two-wheeled cart that was pushing the earth.

"Ah!" A scream was heard as the attack hit.

This inferior wooden cart couldn't even stop a large-caliber bird gun, let alone a medium-sized Portuguese cannon with a larger charge.

The lead bullets easily broke through the thin wooden boards that were not covered by soil, causing fatal but not immediately fatal injuries to the two Jin soldiers pushing the cart behind the cart.

The Jin soldier on the right was hit head-on by a slightly blocked lead bullet in the right upper arm, and was instantly knocked back. Another Jin soldier had his lung pierced by several broken wooden boards.

"Ah—" the Jin soldier, struck head-on by the lead bullet, screamed in terror. The rapid flow of adrenaline allowed him to temporarily withstand the excruciating pain and remain conscious. But for him, staying awake was a form of torture in itself. The Jin soldier could only helplessly feel his life rushing out of his severed arm. And his companion, the one whose lung had been pierced by the splintered wood, couldn't even scream.

"Ugh—" Blood bubbles rushed out of his mouth, carrying the remaining air in his lungs, but his shattered lungs couldn't muster the strength to breathe in. With only air flowing out but no air coming in, it was only a matter of time before this Jin soldier suffocated and fainted.

The two auxiliary soldiers screamed and struggled helplessly, but their pain seemed so insignificant on this battlefield covered with blood and flesh.

No one offered any help to these two poor men who were doomed to die. The surrounding Jin soldiers were only concerned with hiding their arrows, leaning forward to return fire, and suppressing the Ming army's front line. They were not even willing to spare a hand in the intervals between shooting arrows to pull the two men to a relatively safe place.

"Munitions, units! Don't delay!" On the front line of the Ming army, the Ming army sergeant who had just lit the cannon hurriedly took off the Portuguese's single-barreled unit.

Beside him, besides two soldiers holding muskets and cameras for protection, lay the lifeless bodies of two friendly soldiers. One of these two bodies was the commander of the ten-man position, also another sergeant. Now that the commander was dead, the position was under the command of the sergeant who had fired the artillery.

To prevent artillery fire from harming friendly forces and to prevent the Jin army from making a breakthrough and then attacking all the way, the positions were separated by a distance of several feet and covered with earthen barriers. The earthen barriers were as high as the navel, and to cross a barrier to reach another position, one had to either knock it down or climb over it with bare hands while holding firearms.

The Ming army's positions were organized in a systematic manner, varying in size and spacing. Some were dedicated artillery positions, housing two or three squads, equipped with up to three medium-sized Portuguese cannons and a variety of smaller cannons. Others were small sniping positions, housing only one squad, armed with only a few small, disposable tiger squat cannons and individual weapons like bird blunderbusses and three-barreled blunderbusses. These squad-based sniping positions remained largely invisible, only opening fire when the Jin army dismounted from their shield carts and launched a charge.

The forward position that had just fired the artillery was a comprehensive ten-man position equipped with a 300-jin medium-sized Portuguese cannon. They both bombarded and blocked the enemy.

"That's it! That was the last one! Only the shotgun shells are left!" The new recruit who took over the blank gun said loudly while trembling.

"Then what the hell are you still standing there for?" the sergeant roared, "Hurry up and send it to the back to reload the gunpowder!"

"Yes!" The new recruit picked up the empty guns and immediately tried to retreat to the gunpowder barrel away from the brazier, but the next moment, he was stopped by the sergeant.

"Don't even look up, keep your head down and keep close! The enemy's arrows are very accurate, your helmet can't block such a close shot!" The sergeant roared, picking up a shotgun shell from a convenient place and putting it into the barrel. He didn't intend to fire this shot, but the empty barrel always made him feel insecure.

"Yes!" The recruit felt numb all over and felt as if he was surrounded by the noise of the whole world.

The sergeant turned his head and observed the enemy position from the side across the mound. As he observed, he directed the soldiers around him to adjust the gun position: "Left, left a little more. Too far left! Throw it back! Are you an idiot? Weren't you aiming at the wheel just now?"

In the blink of an eye, a feather arrow grazed the squad leader's face.

Bang! The sergeant quickly retracted his head, and just as he was still in shock, a dull gunshot, drowned out by artillery fire, rang out from the friendly positions not far away.

An old soldier with a good shot leaned forward and raised his gun deftly, shooting through the chest of the archer Bayala. The old soldier had been secretly observing Bayala for a long time and had basically mastered his movements. The moment Bayala leaned forward to shoot, the old soldier raised his gun and fired a shot at him.

"Hit again! Haha!" The old soldier retreated, turned around and replaced it with a new musket. This was the third musket he had shot down.

clang!clang!clang!
It was as if a rooster had crowed out the sun. After this blast of gunfire, the Jin soldiers suddenly sounded the retreat.

--------

"Inspector Sun, the bandits are retreating!" Xu Chengming pointed in the direction where the Jin soldiers on the front line were running frantically to escape the range of the Ming army's artillery. Beside them, there were still some elite soldiers who stayed behind and continuously launched arrows at the Ming army's positions.

Sun Chuanting released his grip, and a feathered arrow flew across half the battlefield, accurately piercing the back of a fleeing Jin soldier. Unfortunately, the arrow had flown too far, having lost most of its kinetic energy by the time it struck, failing to inflict fatal damage on the armored target. Sun Chuanting could only watch helplessly as the target, with the arrow stuck in its back, gradually retreated.

"That's it." Boom! A cannonball drowned out Sun Chuanting's muttering. A heavy artillery shell crossed the battlefield and struck an abandoned shield cart. The shield shattered, splinters of wood and robes flew out, piercing backward fiercely. However, by then, there were no more Jin soldiers hiding behind the shield cart.

"What did you say!?" Xu Chengming waved his hand to disperse the smoke.

"Commander Xu," Sun Chuanting handed the bow to the guard. "Don't you think the bandits retreated too quickly today?"

"Yes, the third formation has been holding back and has only been shoveling the soil at the back for a while." Xu Chengming gestured to the flag bearer, who understood and immediately raised the flag to stop the shelling.

The order was issued, and the artillery fire on the city wall soon stopped. However, many positions under the city wall were still pouring out flames in anger.

"Not only did they miss the third battle, but the total number of troops they sent was also very small." Sun Chuanting frowned, gazing at the retreating Jin soldiers from afar. "What on earth is this little slave chieftain trying to do?"

In the open space in front of the main camp, the Jin soldiers, having retreated from the Ming army's firepower, had, under the control of their commanders at all levels, transformed their disorderly semi-rout into an orderly retreat. On either side of the retreating infantry formation, the cavalry responsible for flank protection also slowly retreated. Only a small number of cavalry broke away and, outside the Ming army's limited artillery range, carried on their backs the bodies of the armored soldiers dragged from the battlefield one by one.

Everything was still in perfect order. If one ignored the halved number of siege troops and the inexplicable retreat, the situation before them was almost identical to the attack and defense of the previous few days.

"Could it be that this villain saw that my eastern wall was too strong to be taken by force?" Xu Chengming speculated. "So he concentrated his forces to attack in other directions?"

"Well, it's possible." Sun Chuanting nodded and immediately turned to his two personal guards and said, "Hurry up and check with Yu Dusi and Wu Dusi. Go quickly and come back quickly!"

Yu Dusi and Wu Dusi were middle-level generals in charge of the defense of Shenyang’s South Gate and North Gate respectively.

"Yes!" The two bodyguards looked at each other and ran north and south.

Sun Chuanting withdrew his gaze. "Never mind all that for now. We should remain constant in the face of ever-changing circumstances. Commander Xu, hurry up and switch defenses."

"Yes!" Xu Chengming nodded heavily, turned around, leaned against the parapet, and shouted into the city wall: "Change of defense!"

(End of this chapter)