Chapter 644 — A Battle at Shishan
Since ten men were tied together in each group and the slightest carelessness would send them all tumbling to the ground, the porridge was distributed directly into people's hands. The bowl Jiang Yougong received felt very light—a closer look revealed it to be a coconut shell. The cook poured a ladle of ginger soup into each bowl.
This was obviously distributed for fear they would fall ill. Jiang Yougong knew the Hair Bandits absolutely did not want them dead, so he drained the soup boldly and was about to lie down to sleep.
"Squad Leader Sir!" A soldier tied with him whispered. "Why did the Hair Bandits strip off our clothes?"
"They can't possibly want you to be a rabbit!" Jiang Yougong said. He, too, found it suspicious; he had never heard of stripping captives naked—what could the Hair Bandits want those tattered uniform coats for? Besides, the uniforms had all been thrown under the earthen dike and hadn't been collected.
According to the statistics of Jia Mofei, who was in charge of logistics and transport, this unsuccessful sneak attack had yielded more than three hundred healthy captives.
"Load them onto ships and transport them back to Lingao as soon as the rain stops tomorrow," Jia Mofei said. "Traveling by land might expose them to government roving cavalry interception. Since we have ships anyway, transporting people by sea is fast and convenient."
"Loaded together with the wounded?"
"Of course not. There are separate ships for the wounded. Captive ship conditions are much worse—just a big hold under the deck, easy enough once the hatch cover is closed. It's only half a day anyway."
The disastrous defeat of the night raid had happened almost within sight of He Rubin and his officers. The swaying beams of light, the volley fire, and the tremendous human voices on the earthen dike filled the General with profound unease. That Hair Bandit firearms could function in rain no longer surprised him. But the lights that blazed with sudden, blinding brilliance—and the white beams prowling through the pitch-black sky and wild fields on that rainy night—far exceeded his understanding. He Rubin's hands and feet felt ice-cold. How is one supposed to fight this battle?
Ye Zhengfang and Yan Zungao, who had fled back, added many details: the enemy had obviously been fully prepared; the enemy's lights were extraordinarily bright, instantly making officers and soldiers dizzy and unable even to open their eyes...
The entire gate tower lapsed into a long silence. Everyone was pondering: How can this battle still be fought? Each waited for someone else to come up with a solution.
"Your Excellency! In this student's opinion, we should establish a stockade and defend firmly!" Qian Taichong had been unable to find an opportunity to offer advice, and now at last he had an opening. He had watched the battle from the city wall several times that day, and what he had witnessed left a profound impression. The Hair Bandits' "sharp firearms" and their tactics had struck him with exceptional force.
Obviously, the Hair Bandits were not like Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang, and their ilk, who excelled only at naval battles; in infantry combat, too, they were absolutely formidable. He realized that the number of Hair Bandit infantry committed to battle had not been large, yet facing so many government soldiers, they had fought with unyielding tenacity on the stockade wall, refusing to retreat even unto death. Clearly, they did not rely solely on the four words "sharp firearms."
Could it be that such overseas bandits also possess hearts of loyalty and righteousness? He immediately rejected his own thought. According to the Tangbao (Capital Report), most Hair Bandits were "treacherous people of Fujian and Guangdong" and "traitors" who had defected to become Fake Hairs. Could such men without father or sovereign truly possess loyalty and righteousness? It must be that the True Hairs have promised them heavy profits to make them fight so heedlessly.
Thinking thus, he felt slightly reassured. In Qian Taichong's view, the word "loyalty and righteousness" had nothing to do with barbarians. After the battle ended, he knew his "Six Strategies for Aftermath" would not be of use anytime soon—the odds of winning by continuing the attack tomorrow were minimal. He had long been calculating in his mind, and when he heard that He Rubin was opposed to establishing a stockade and defending firmly, he felt it necessary to step forward with advice.
According to his reasoning: if both sides established stockades and confronted each other, the advantage would lie with the government army. After all, He Rubin had the financial and material support of the entire province behind him, while the Hair Bandits possessed only one county—and Lingao was a place of sparse population and barren land. With the Hair Bandits concentrating an army of ten thousand at Chengmai, tremendous manpower was required to transport grain and fodder. Once time dragged on, supply would inevitably become difficult. After a stalemate of several months, when Hair Bandit grain and fodder began to run short, they would fall into chaos without even needing to fight.
"...No matter how formidable the Hair Bandit artillery fire, they have no more than twenty or thirty pieces. They cannot possibly bombard our stockade constantly. Our soldiers are numerous—we can promise heavy gold to recruit death-sworn soldiers to raid the Hair Bandit grain route. Over time, the Hair Bandits will surely collapse without fighting!"
This plan was, in essence, the old strategy of advancing with prudence. He Rubin had listened only tentatively to this young scholar's proposal, but now a spark of hope ignited: Yes! Besieging to force an enemy retreat was the Viceroy's original plan. It is simply that the original plan was to besiege the enemy camp at Bopu, ultimately forcing them to withdraw. Now, the location has changed to Chengmai—
But to confront the Hair Bandits here over the long term, the safety of the grain transport must be guaranteed. Once the army lacks grain, morale will waver, and the collapse of a hundred-thousand-strong army will be a matter of moments.
He held a meeting with his generals, ordering everyone to dig trenches and defend firmly in preparation for a prolonged stalemate with the Hair Bandits. Shishan was an important intermediate grain depot between Qiongshan and Chengmai. He Rubin ordered Yan Zungao to take two thousand men to protect the grain depot and the grain transport along the route, and dispatched private secretaries to Qiongshan to manage the movement of provisions. He also wrote a letter to Wang Zunde reporting that the government army had lifted the siege of Chengmai and killed or captured many Hair Bandits, but that the Hair Bandits had formed a stockade and, relying on firearms, were defending to the death. After repeated failed assaults, the government army was building a long siege intended to trap the entire Hair Bandit army at Chengmai. He hoped to receive a dozen more Red Barbarian Cannons. As for provisions and funds, transport must also be grasped tightly.
Early the next morning, the government army did not launch a full-scale offensive as expected. Instead, they dispatched forces to dig trenches and set up stockades outside Chengmai, reinforcing fortifications.
He Ming saw the government soldiers busily reinforcing fortifications and understood that the enemy had lost their sharpness. They dared not come out to fight again and were instead preparing for a long-term stalemate. This was certainly good news—but the enemy's twenty thousand men and horses were huddled together. His own total strength was less than half of theirs; forming an effective encirclement would be difficult.
"Our army cannot afford to fight a long-term stalemate with the enemy at Chengmai. The result would be us suffering the losses." In the combat meeting, Dongmen Chuiyu spoke up. "This is attributable to the enemy having the financial and material support of all Guangdong Province despite their backward logistical means. As long as Wang Zunde is willing, he can confront us for as long as he pleases. This would be disastrous for our finances."
"I had originally hoped He Rubin would attack again today so we could cripple his main force and take the opportunity to rout his entire army. It seems that hope is gone." He Ming shook his head. "Now we have to fight a siege war."
The side with fewer troops besieging the side with more was certainly not unheard of in military history, but the Fubo Army's strength was simply too limited. He Ming was deeply worried.
At that moment, the Special Reconnaissance Team sent a report: approximately two thousand men had left the Grand Camp and were moving toward Qiongshan.
"Is the enemy starting to retreat?"
"No—He Rubin absolutely dares not retreat just yet." He Ming rendered his judgment. "His rush to repair fortifications is clearly intended for a prolonged confrontation. This group of troops is most likely intended to protect the grain station."
"It's also possible the enemy is 'repairing the plank road openly' as a feint," someone reminded.
"That possibility exists. But since the enemy wants to protect the grain route, we will cut it." He Ming studied the map and made up his mind. "Get me Infantry 1st and 4th Battalions!"
Just past noon, while He Rubin and his staff were planning the layout of the defensive system, a scout suddenly reported that thousands of Hair Bandits had cut off the main road between Chengmai and Shishan. Yan Zungao's unit had been routed and was currently fleeing toward Chengmai!
"Where is General Yan?"
"Life or death unknown!" the scout said, trembling. "General Yan's big flag was not seen among the routed soldiers."
"Scout again!" He Rubin's face went pale. The Hair Bandits had unexpectedly cut off his rear. He immediately ordered Central Army Garrison Guerrilla Sun Changzuo to take five hundred men bearing his warrant to collect routed soldiers along the way. He then sent for Zhao Ruyi and his main generals to meet and discuss.
"With Regional Commander Yan defeated, our army is in immediate peril," He Rubin said gravely. "Once the enemy crushes General Yan's unit, they will wheel around to attack Shishan and seize our grain depot!"
The Hair Bandits had shattered Yan Zungao's subordinates in a single blow; the next step would clearly be to raid and occupy Shishan. Shishan was defended by only five hundred soldiers. Since the enemy had been capable of crushing two thousand men, taking down Shishan would pose no difficulty. Once Shishan fell, the grain route would be severed. Once the grain route was severed, the total collapse of the army would follow immediately!
This terrible prospect left everyone present chilled to the bone.
He Rubin immediately arranged for the defense of each camp, ordering every unit to guard their positions strictly, forbidding noise and movement between camps, and absolutely forbidding unauthorized withdrawal from defense areas.
"Generals, we now find ourselves in unpredictable peril!" He Rubin declared sternly. "But our camp is pitched firmly; the situation has not yet reached an irreversible point. The Hair Bandits simply rely on superior equipment to seize the initiative! They have few soldiers and little grain. Our army need only retake Shishan and protect the grain route to turn defeat into victory!"
He immediately ordered Governor's Standard Camp Guerrilla Sha Jianbi, stationed at Xiaoyingchang, to withdraw his entire force immediately.
"Take your headquarters' troops to Shishan at once. Rout the Hair Bandits and ensure Shishan's safety." He Rubin fixed him with a hard stare. "If the enemy has already taken Shishan, you must retake it."
"Humble General understands!" Sha Jianbi knew the weight of this mission.
"I give you an additional two thousand men."
Sha Jianbi had barely led his troops out when bad news arrived: Shishan had fallen! After routing Yan Zungao's unit, the Hair Bandits had immediately turned to capture Shishan, seizing all military grain stored at the depot.
"Three thousand Hair Bandits have formed up at Shishan!" the scout reported. "And they have big cannons!"
"Big cannons?!"
"Yes. According to the routed soldiers, the Hair Bandits brought several big cannons with extremely devastating power. General Yan was unaware they possessed big cannons; caught off guard, he was killed by cannon fire!"
He Rubin had no heart to listen further. This series of disasters had plunged him nearly to despair. But he forced himself to remain calm, continuing to deploy forces to guard against Hair Bandits besieging his Grand Camp amidst the chaos. Having heard the enemy possessed big cannons, he subsequently ordered Li Guang to take two thousand men as rapid reinforcement for Sha Jianbi.
Sha Jianbi led three thousand men out of the camp gate, hurrying toward Shishan along the post road. Such a large movement naturally could not escape the observation posts and Special Reconnaissance Team members. A few minutes later, the Infantry 1st and 4th Battalions constructing positions near Shishan received the news.
Zhu Mingxia and 1st Infantry Battalion Commander Xiong Maozhang were cleaning the battlefield and building fortifications. These two infantry battalions had arrived at Shishan at forced-march speed immediately upon receiving orders early that morning. Xiong Maozhang's 1st Battalion had captured the Ming army camp at Shishan through shelling from three 12-pounder mountain howitzers followed by a single determined bayonet charge, taking more than three hundred prisoners and seizing seventy or eighty thousand jin of grain accumulated at the depot along with hundreds of wheelbarrows for transport. The 1st Infantry Battalion now stood in formation at the foot of Shishan.
The two thousand men led by Yan Zungao had marched urgently all the way, constantly suffering harassment and sniping from the Special Reconnaissance Team. Multiple officers had lost their lives. Morale was in chaos. Fortunately, the soldiers knew they were heading toward the safer direction of Qiongshan; everyone harbored the thought that reaching Shishan would mean a greater chance of survival. So they hurried desperately. Because Yan Zungao wanted to reach Shishan before the Hair Bandits could complete their defenses, he had urged his troops to force-march continuously; many infantrymen fell behind. In the end, he arrived at Shishan with only twelve hundred men.
Red flags fluttered. A gray battle line awaited in strict formation at the foot of Shishan. Yan Zungao saw that the enemy had not yet constructed a camp—only a trench shielding the whole formation—and that their troops numbered only about one thousand. But he himself held no advantage in numbers. He had witnessed firsthand the Hair Bandits' firearms advantage the previous day; the odds of winning an immediate battle were minimal.
Therefore, he retreated to a small hill opposite Shishan, preparing to set up camp and await the arrival of follow-up troops before making further plans.
But the Fubo Army had no intention of granting him that time. At 11 AM, with the supporting fire of two 12-pounder mountain howitzers, Zhu Mingxia commanded the 4th Infantry Battalion to burst out suddenly from Shishan's flank in company columns, launching a fierce attack on Yan Zungao's unit.
Yan Zungao was caught completely off guard. Under the constant harassment and screening of the Special Reconnaissance Team, he had essentially no intelligence on enemy movements nearby. His men were exhausted and demoralized. Suddenly a fresh force struck from the flank. He hurriedly ordered a Chiliarch to take three hundred men to meet the attack, aiming to delay the enemy's momentum and buy time to form up.
These three hundred men routed upon contact under the 4th Battalion's fierce assault. Yan Zungao had no choice but to lead his main force personally to engage. His troops could not withstand the Fubo Army's firepower and were forced to retreat. Ye Zhengfang took personal soldiers and household guards to supervise the battle everywhere, barely maintaining some semblance of order among the troops—but all forces were still driven back toward the foot of Shishan.
The 4th Battalion was the hammer, and the 1st Battalion, arrayed in a transverse column at the hill's base, was the anvil. These twelve hundred famished and exhausted soldiers could not withstand such a pincer attack from front and rear. The entire force was crushed to pieces at the foot of Shishan. The remaining seven or eight hundred men all became captives. Only those soldiers who had fallen behind on the march escaped by sheer luck.
Xiong Maozhang sat on the low wall constructed at the foot of Shishan, smoking a pipe. His soldiers, stripped to the waist, were digging trenches—the trenches needed to be further deepened and widened to contain enemy charges effectively. In the distance, the ground was heaped with swords, spears, weapons, armor, and flags seized during the battlefield cleanup. Naked captives, bound together in strings of ten, were being escorted toward the original Ming army camp on the mountain—now serving as the temporary headquarters for the two battalions.
Zhu Mingxia galloped back and forth on a captured jujube-red Mongolian horse. This had been a general's mount, very spirited. Zhu Mingxia had dark skin and very short hair, giving him a capable look. At his waist hung not the standard Fubo Army Command Saber, but a folded-pattern steel Tang Sword he had commissioned back in the old dimension, beautifully decorated.
"This horse is not bad." He rode to the low wall and dismounted. "The tack is no good, though—I'm not used to the old-style saddle."
"We're infantry officers," Xiong Maozhang blew smoke rings one by one. "Why don't you become a Dragoon?"
"I'd like to—but we'd need horses first, wouldn't we?" Zhu Mingxia patted the horse with a look of regret and let a surrendered government soldier groom lead it away to the stockade on the mountain.
"Radio says the government troops sent another five thousand men our way—three thousand in front, two thousand supporting behind. We have a total of eighteen hundred. We just took about a hundred casualties."
"Not a big problem." Zhu Mingxia opened his map case and spread out the map. "The enemy got anxious and fell into the worst tactical blunder—fueling in piecemeal. We'll keep fighting them while waiting at ease. Three thousand against eighteen hundred—we still have the odds."
Generally speaking, the tactics would not change. The 1st Infantry Battalion would defend behind simple field fortifications, drawing the government soldiers to attack the front fiercely. After the battle entered a stalemate, the 4th Infantry Battalion would burst out from the flank and rear, sweeping directly into their side, inflicting heavy damage and routing them. As long as the Special Reconnaissance Team maintained strong screening against the government army, it would be very difficult for the enemy to detect such simple tactical coordination. They could only rush blindly toward the 1st Battalion's prepared positions like a blind man on a blind horse—and dash their heads bloody.
"We just need to stop them from reaching Qiongshan—no need to annihilate them all. No rush to grab captives either—we can't handle too many. The government army's Grand Camp is still there. Let the defeated soldiers flee to Chengmai and let He Rubin take them in. Crippled units are birds startled by a bowstring—useless anyway. They'll only drag down the morale of his whole army."
"Agreed!" Xiong Maozhang nodded. "How much ammo do you have left? I'm running low—each infantryman only has a hundred rounds."
"I'll spare you twenty rounds per man. I'm the assault force—fifty rounds per man is plenty for me. When the time comes, it's straight to bayonets!" Zhu Mingxia said, scribbling a note. He handed it to his orderly: "Go—give this to the Battalion Quartermaster. Have him send twenty thousand rounds over immediately."
"Pity the shells aren't enough. We still have too few men."
The four 12-pounder mountain howitzers that had played a decisive role in the battle were light enough to be dragged by just a few men, but the weight of shells and propellant was another matter entirely. More than half had been expended in the battle just concluded.
"It's fine—we still have grenades." Zhu Mingxia was highly confident. In his view, having cannons simply meant the battle would go more smoothly and casualties would be lighter. The outcome itself held no suspense.
"Two Battalion Commanders! A Ming army general's corpse has been found." A corporal rushed up to report.
"Oh? Let's see!" Zhu Mingxia's interest was immediately piqued. The two walked together toward the Medical Corps members cleaning the battlefield.
A corpse in armor lay on a stretcher, the man appearing to have been in his thirties or forties. The armor was exquisitely made—a type of scale armor, unlike the rough iron armor crudely linked by iron pieces worn by ordinary infantry. Neither he nor Xiong Maozhang knew much about armor, but from the patterns, decorations, and brocade used for edging, they could tell this armor was far beyond what ordinary officers could afford. This had been a great general.
They summoned several surrendered soldiers and officers to identify the body. It was soon confirmed: this was Huezhou Regional Commander Yan Zungao, who had come to reinforce the grain depot.
(End of Chapter)