Huangming

Chapter 221 Corpses Lay Everywhere, Jurchens Collapse

"kill--!!"

A deafening roar tore through the twilight, and the setting sun, like blood, dyed the clouds on the horizon crimson.

Golden light spilled onto the scorched earth, mingling with the dark pools of blood to create an eerie purplish-black hue.

On the battlefield, severed limbs lay strewn about, corpses piled high, and empty eye sockets gazed up at the gradually darkening sky, as if silently accusing the madness of this slaughter.

boom--!
The roar of cannons filled the air, and the earth trembled.

The shockwaves whipped up mud and sand mixed with bits of flesh, each explosion feeling like a hammer blow to the chest, shaking one's liver and gallbladder to the core.

In this crucible of flesh and blood, the existence of an individual is as insignificant as dust; only the strong can enjoy this feast of death!

Looking down from high above.

Like ants scattering in disarray, the refugees roared, brandishing crude farm tools, and even throwing themselves bare-handed, charging towards the Ming army's formidable defenses with their flesh and blood.

Their clothes were tattered, their faces contorted, and their frenzied charge resembled a ritual of death.

Behind these cannon fodder were the formidable Eight Banners battle formations.

The cotton armor reflected a cold, faint light; spears were like a dense thicket of thorns; swords and shields stood in formation like an iron wall; archers drew their bows, ready to fire; and cavalrymen stood silent as statues.

Those hawk-like eyes coldly watched the slaughter ahead, yet deep within their pupils burned a bloodthirsty excitement.

"volley!!!"

The Jurchen command pierced the clamor.

The Niru Ejenmen roamed the front lines like wolf kings, waving their command flags.

shhhhhh!
The sharp whistling of arrows piercing the air suddenly exploded, and a dark rain of arrows rose into the sky, sweeping over the charging crowd like a swarm of locusts, pouring down on the Ming army's defensive line.

"Raise your shields—!!"

Shouts rose from the Ming army ranks, but some who hesitated were still impaled in the throat, their blood splattering on the horrified faces of their comrades.

The dull thud of arrows piercing wooden shields, the tearing sound of flesh being ripped through, and the dying screams instantly intertwined into a symphony of death.

The sounds of battle cries, arrow whistles, cannon fire, and the clash of metal...

In this hell on earth, the blood of the war-loving boils.

This is a wild and untamed celebration!

However, Li Yongfang, who was in command of the army, was experiencing an indescribable, agonizing pain.

This pain did not stem from pity for the Ming soldiers who were of the same ethnicity.

As a traitor who had long since abandoned his bloodline, how could his cold and hard heart be moved by the deaths and injuries of the enemy?

What truly tore at his internal organs was watching countless 'living silver ingots' being thrown into the flesh-and-blood furnace.

In this chaotic world where human life is as cheap as grass, every surrendered civilian or refugee is a living asset that can be exchanged for real money. At this moment, every scream on the battlefield is like a dull knife cutting flesh, thinning away the capital he has carefully accumulated.

These are all valuable commodities that can be exchanged for land, houses, and servants!
my money!
What pained him even more was the loss of eight of his military units.

Even with refugees filling the ravines to shield them from arrows, the bastions surrounding Fengjibao continued to gnaw at the elite troops like steel files.

Arrows from the watchtower, horses trapped in the moat, hooves cracked by hidden stakes...

Every mile of progress comes at a bloody price.

This is why he was able to advance at such a rapid pace.

Regardless of casualties.

Or rather, the intention was to use these casualties to create the illusion for the Ming army that his large army was not elite.

Not far away, Fengji Fort stands proudly.

"Father!"

Li Yongfang's eldest son, Li Yangeng, suddenly rode forward, his young face distorted with anxiety beneath his armor.

“This fortress houses tens of thousands of soldiers. Our eight Niru, plus miscellaneous auxiliary troops, are not even enough to fill the moat! I think we should withdraw our troops.”

He directly rejected his son's idea of ​​retreating.

"Noisy!"

Li Yongfang roared, and the blade drew a blood-red arc in the setting sun.

"How could the soldiers of the Eight Banners be afraid of battle? Today, even if we have to pile up corpses, we will pave a way for you to scale the city walls!"

He knew all too well the danger of this battle.

The brick-clad city walls of Fengjibao, standing three zhang and five chi tall, resembled cast iron, with the cold glint of hook-and-sickle spears visible behind the crenellations, not to mention the cannons poised to fire from the city walls.

But the military orders from Daishan and Huang Taiji still echoed in their ears: this 'defeat' had to be acted out convincingly!
At Li Yongfang's command, Nurhaci's four carefully trained troop types were deployed: the Ring Saber Army was like a venomous python coiling around the body, the Iron Hammer Army was like thunder shattering bones, the Archer Army could shoot arrows that blotted out the sun, and the most terrifying of all were the ten slowly advancing shield wagons.

These war monsters were covered with three layers of water-soaked cowhide on the outside, with mud and sand falling from the middle layer, and iron mesh on the inside that sparked from the artillery fire.

These massive shield wagons could withstand the Ming army's artillery attacks.

now.

Behind each shield wagon lay twenty elite assassins, their ladders and iron hooks gleaming eerily in the twilight. "Fire!"

The roars of the Niru'ezhenmen pierced the battlefield.

The Eight Banners archers suppressed the city walls with three-volley fire, the dull thud of arrows piercing the crenellations mingling with the screams of the defenders falling.

However, the Ming army's counterattack was even more ferocious.

The muskets spewed fire, blasting the foremost shield wagons until their hides were torn off; the three-barreled muskets fired in unison like a storm, their lead bullets piercing through the iron mesh and turning the soldiers behind the wagons into sieves.

"Ahhh~"

Screams echoed across the battlefield.

One, two, and then the third armored vehicle burst into flames.

It turned out that the garrison had thrown the oil canisters into the middle layer of mud and sand, and the burning oil flowed along the cracks, turning the inside of the vehicle into a living hell.

Amidst the stench of burning corpses, the surviving Bai Ya La had just rushed out of the inferno when he was smashed into a bloody pulp by rolling logs falling from the city wall.

Li Yongfang stared at the battlefield with twitching eyes: three armored vehicles had been reduced to charred remains, and nearly half of his five hundred elite troops had been lost.

But what made him most uneasy was the crimson command flag that suddenly rose above the barbican of Fengjibao.

That means the defending general is deploying his most lethal 'General's Cannon'.

"Father! Let's retreat quickly! If we drag this out any longer, we'll lose everything we have!" Li Yangeng urged anxiously from the side, his young face contorted with fear.

He pointed to the city wall, where the crimson command flag, billowing with gunpowder smoke, had risen to its highest point, and at the crenellations of the barbican, the dark muzzles of cannons were slowly adjusting their angles.

Yes.

Li Yongfang's pupils reflected the burning wreckage of the shield wagon in the distance, and the stench of burnt corpses mixed with the smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils.

Three armored behemoths were reduced to scrap metal, nearly half of the five hundred elite Baiya La troops were lost, and the moat had long been filled with corpses, turning into a dark red swamp.

This performance was incredibly realistic.

He has already done right by Daishan and Huang Taiji.

A glint of shrewdness flashed in Li Yongfang's eyes, and he immediately shouted, "Sound the retreat! Retreat!"

Can't wait any longer.

Those Han Chinese bondservant soldiers who surrendered to the Later Jin with him, those elite Niru troops that had been accumulated over several years, were now being cut down in swathes by the hook-and-sickle spears on the city walls, like stalks of wheat.

If we wait for that "General's Cannon" to fire, even the blood and bones of the Bordered Red Banner will perish under this Fengji Fort!
"Retreat! The entire army retreats!"

Woo——woo——

The agonizing wail of the bull horn instantly drowned out the clamor of the battlefield.

Upon hearing the sound of the gong, the armored soldiers who were climbing the ladder jumped down and fell into the pile of corpses, ignoring the pain of broken bones.

The archers threw down their quivers and ran wildly, their iron helmets tumbling into the mud as they were pushed and shoved.

The lead shield wagon was completely abandoned, and the burning cowhide wrapped around the dying soldiers illuminated the retreat route like eerie will-o'-the-wisps.

The rout of those with red flags was more frantic than their charge.

The heavy armor of the Iron Hammer Army was trampled underfoot, the swords and banners of the ring-bladed warriors were discarded, and even the brocade dragon banner, a symbol of glory, was stuck in a pool of blood and ignored.

They were no longer the mighty Eight Banners army, but a pack of stray dogs terrified by artillery fire.

And this is precisely the "great defeat" that Li Yongfang wanted to present to Huang Taiji.

At this moment, a deafening cheer erupted from the top of Fengji Fort, as Ming soldiers brandished their weapons, and the sound waves swept across the battlefield like a tidal wave.

"They've retreated! The Jurchens have retreated!"

"What elite Eight Banners troops? They're nothing but a bunch of chickens and dogs!"

"It seems that it wasn't that the Jurchens were powerful, but rather that the Liaodong army was too incompetent before."

……

Before their euphoria had subsided, the lieutenant generals and guerrillas could no longer contain their fighting spirit and clasped their hands in a gesture of urgency, volunteering for command.

"My lord! This is an opportunity not to be missed!"

A lieutenant general, his armor clanging, pointed at the fleeing Red Flag and roared.

"This humble general is willing to lead a light cavalry to intercept and annihilate them, ensuring that these barbarians never return!"

Another guerrilla knelt on one knee, slamming his sword hilt heavily onto the ground: "Please give the order, Commander! This humble general will build a mound of Jurchen heads beneath the city walls!"

The Ming army had a long-standing system of beheading people for a reward:
For an ordinary Manchu bannerman, the head of a soldier is worth fifty taels of silver!

If it's an elite Bayara, the price will quadruple!
If we can kill the Niru Ejen, three hundred taels of silver will be easily obtained!
As for the princes and nobles... one of their heads is worth ten years' worth of food and clothing for a thousand families!

With such a generous reward, the generals of Fengji Fort were already green with envy, all eager to go out of the city to "cut off heads for silver" at the general's command!
However.
Faced with the requests of his generals to fight, Li Bingcheng, the commander-in-chief of Fengji Fort, hesitated.

now
Should we leave the city to pursue them?
ps:
There will be an extra chapter later if there are monthly votes.

(End of this chapter)