Chapter Eighty-Four: Advancing

The Fubo Army Field Army entered the main camp under the city of Chengmai on June 29, 1630, of the Gregorian calendar. He Ming set up the camp two kilometers northwest of Chengmai County town, less than two hundred meters from the post road. If the government army wanted to pass through the post road to Lingao, they had to capture this place.

The main camp was a large pentagonal camp built according to a bastion-style defense system. The entire camp was protected by an earth embankment more than a person high, with cannons and shelters on it. Below the embankment were deep moats and abatis. A high watchtower was built on the earth embankment as a matter of course. With a high-power telescope, every move within a radius of more than ten kilometers around Chengmai County town could be seen clearly.

He Ming ordered: immediately cut off all contact between Chengmai County town and the outside world. Hidden sentries had been set up outside the three city gates of the county town, and anyone who tried to enter or leave the city would be captured.

Seeing that it was impossible to enter or leave the city gate, the officials in the city sent people to be lowered from the city wall to enter and leave. Bei Wei ordered the snipers of the special reconnaissance team to lie in ambush with their scoped bolt-action rifles. In the following days, anyone who tried to be lowered from the city wall to enter or leave was shot and killed at the foot of the city wall. Then someone tried to be lowered from the city wall at night, but the fatal gunshot still sounded in the dark night. By morning, the people who tried to leave the city were often lying dead at the foot of the city wall. No matter how dark the night was, it could not protect them.

From the people who were shot and killed while being lowered from the city wall, it could be seen that almost without exception, they were all carrying urgent reports. The captured reports were quickly sent to the headquarters to be opened and read. Apart from the old clichés of asking for reinforcements and boasting about battle results, they had written everything they had seen on the city wall into the reports, down to the last detail.

He Ming ordered: “Immediately seal off the top of the city wall, and do not allow the enemy to spy on our army!”

“Bang.”

With a crisp sound from the SKS rifle, a village brave who was peeping between the battlements on the city wall swayed and fell down.

“Hit! Shot in the chest!” the soldier on the watchtower who was monitoring the movement on the city wall with a high-power telescope shouted loudly.

“It’s 7:2 now, you guys need to step it up,” Bei Wei said with a smile. Behind him stood five or six soldiers from the special reconnaissance team. Yang Zeng, the company commander of the light infantry company of the 1st infantry battalion, stood beside him. Behind him were also a few light infantrymen with green decorative cords.

The position they were standing in was a small hill about two hundred meters away from the city wall. At this distance, the bows and arrows and firearms on the city wall of Chengmai were useless.

The special reconnaissance team and the light infantry stood here, originally to carry out the task of clearing the enemy on the city wall—He Ming ordered that the enemy should not be allowed to spy on the movements of the field army under the city. The light infantry of each battalion used precision shooting to clear the enemy on the city wall, and at the same time practiced practical shooting skills. As a result, it became a competition between the special reconnaissance team and the light infantry. The targets were all the militia and village braves standing on the city wall of Chengmai.

“The guns used by the special reconnaissance team are better than ours,” Yang Zeng said with some dissatisfaction. The special reconnaissance team used Australian fast guns, which were much better than the Minie rifles they used in terms of rate of fire, accuracy, and range, and there was no smoke when they were fired. Some guns even had scopes and could hit targets at an incredibly long distance.

“Oh, alright, I’ll use a Minie rifle too,” Bei Wei said, throwing the SKS rifle in his hand to the soldier behind him and taking a Minie rifle instead.

From the letters “WLB” branded on the stock of this Minie rifle, it could be seen that this should be one of the earliest batch of rifles assembled with seamless steel pipes and parts from the old time-space. The gun was well-maintained. Bei Wei looked at it and saw that there was also a “J+” mark on the stock, which was the mark of a high-precision rifle, indicating that this rifle could be used by a sniper.

“This gun is not bad!” he praised, and asked Yang Zeng, “Yours?”

Yang Zeng said: “It’s mine. Now only the sharpshooters in the light infantry company are equipped with this kind of gun.”

Bei Wei gestured, took a paper cartridge, and skillfully loaded the gun with ammunition—the special reconnaissance team also conducted shooting training with Minie rifles, and even conducted shooting training with a variety of British, Portuguese, Japanese, and Ming-made muskets and three-eyed muskets, in order to be able to use various weapons at hand in an emergency.

Bei Wei put the gun to his cheek several times, and then tried to aim. Only then did he shout: “Indicate the target!”

“Two o’clock ahead!” the soldier on the watchtower shouted.

The barrel of the Minie rifle quickly pointed in this direction, and then Bei Wei saw a figure flash behind the battlements. He did not fire, but concentrated on the nearby battlements.

Sure enough, he saw a figure next to three or four battlements. It was almost a subconscious reaction of his body to adjust his posture in an instant and pull the trigger.

The bullet grazed the peeping village brave and shattered a brick on the battlements. The village brave was so scared that he fell directly to the ground.

A burst of laughter sounded on the hill. Bei Wei smiled and shook his head: “Almost!”

The accuracy of the Minie rifle was after all no match for a rifle like the SKS. If he had used an SKS, or even a bolt-action rifle, he could have quickly fired another shot if he missed the first one. This was not possible with a Minie rifle.

“Let me!” Yang Zeng was eager to try. He took back his J+ Minie rifle and reloaded. “Indicate the target!”

The observation post reported: “Enemy, eleven o’clock ahead.”

Yang Zeng held his breath.

“Bang—”

“Hit! Shot in the shoulder!”

“That kid! He’s lucky he dodged quickly!” Yang Zeng said. “He hid behind the crenel!”

“The enemy is moving a cannon!” the observation post on the tower suddenly shouted. “Nine o’clock direction!”

“Free fire!” Bei Wei ordered.

The sound of gunfire rang out disorderly. Because it was free fire, there was a lot of dispute over who had shot which target. From time to in the hill, there were arguments over who had shot which target.

The militia who were moving the cannon fell one after another. The rest of them lay under the battlements, not daring to move.

“Quick, push the cannon!” A hundred-household commander of the garrison troops behind them waved his sword and threatened with beheading, forcing the militia to continue moving the cannon.

The militia almost crawled on the ground to barely move the cannon to the firing position opposite the hill.

Bei Wei did not issue the order to enter the concealed trench. The largest cannons on the city wall of Chengmai were only a few bowl-mouthed cannons. These were mid-Ming dynasty cannons, not even as good as medium-sized Frankish cannons. Their range was at most one hundred meters, and the cannonballs could not reach the hill at all.

Sure enough, the hastily fired cannon only produced a cloud of thick smoke on the city wall, which slightly obscured the sniper’s line of sight, but had no effect at all.

After the smoke dispersed, a new round of shooting caused several more gunners to fall. The hundred-household commander, unwilling to give up, hid behind the battlements and waved his sword to force the other militia to come up and continue firing.

Bei Wei could see the hundred-household commander’s sword waving between the battlements in his binoculars, but the man himself never showed a bit of himself. It seemed that he was a rather cunning fellow.

He felt a little sorry for the sallow and emaciated militia and village braves, who were being forced to come and die in vain one batch after another—even if they were only wounded, the possibility of death was very high under the medical conditions of the Ming dynasty.

“Get me my 308 rifle!” Bei Wei ordered.

A Saiga-308 semi-automatic rifle came into his hands. This gun used the 7.62mm NATO round, and its kinetic energy and penetration power were far greater than those of the Minie bullet and the M43 bullet.

He raised his rifle. The sword was still waving between the battlements, as if it was still threatening the militia to continue loading the cannon. He estimated the distance, the wind force, and the size of the human body, slightly adjusted the muzzle, and pulled the trigger.

Yang Zeng and the others only saw dust and brick and stone fragments splashing on the battlements with the sound of the gunshot, and in an instant, a rain of blood sprayed out from behind the battlements.

The blood splattered all the way to the brick wall of the south gate tower. Everyone was startled, and then they all cheered together. There was a dead silence on the city wall.

This terrifying competition swept away all the defenders on the city wall. The militia and village braves could only lie behind the battlements and secretly peep at the situation of the bandits through the loopholes. Even this was not safe. More than once, bullets directly passed through the narrow loopholes and shattered the heads of the peeping village braves.

From July 3rd, the morale in Chengmai city began to collapse. The militia and village braves clamored and were unwilling to mount the city wall to defend. The magistrate of Chengmai tried to commit suicide in the chaos, but was later persuaded by his secretary not to be in a hurry to die for the city—seeing that the bandits had no intention of taking the city, it was better to wait and see.

The special reconnaissance team then established a covering layer with a radius of 10 kilometers centered on Chengmai County town. Any government spies, mounted couriers, or even ordinary people who entered this covering layer were all captured or killed.

He Ming’s thinking was very clear: the enemy was numerous and we were few. With the combat effectiveness and weapon superiority of the field army, it was not a problem to defeat He Rubin’s troops in a decisive battle outside the city of Chengmai. The difficulty was to ensure that most of the prisoners were captured. This forced him to ambush a part of his troops in other directions, so that the enemy could not retreat to Qiongshan, let alone scatter and flee.

The general situation around Chengmai County town was that the county town was located on the south bank of a small river, about three kilometers from the coastline. This river was not only the moat of the county town, but also formed a river fork delta south of the city. However, this river was very shallow. Before the rainy season arrived, the water depth was at most 1 meter, and it could not form an effective obstacle. To the northwest of the county town was a peninsula called Xiaoyingchang. There was an abandoned village on the peninsula. There was a well in the village, but according to pre-war reconnaissance, the well had been contaminated with salt and was not suitable for drinking. The post road from Qiongshan passed outside the south gate of the county town and then turned northwest.

After repeated deliberation, he decided to use only 2 battalions to defend the main camp with the support of artillery and intercept the Ming army passing through the post road. The 3rd battalion was on standby in the mountains east of the county town, ready to cut off the retreat of the government army and at the same time force them to continue to approach the main force. The 5th battalion was in ambush south of the city, ready to launch an attack. This would roughly form an encirclement of the Ming army.

Of course, with the strength of the field army, such an encirclement was not tight. It could only rely on the better mobility and powerful firepower of the Fubo Army soldiers to intercept the enemy with a smaller force. If the other side had one or two commanders with outstanding organizational skills and good judgment, they could timely organize their troops to break out of the encirclement. Therefore, he still had to keep the last infantry 6th battalion in his hands as a reserve.

The operational idea was very simple: intercept the Ming army, defeat the Ming army, and then force its remnants to the coastline.

To intercept nearly 20,000 enemy troops with 2 battalions of 1,800 infantry was a very amazing thing just from the numerical comparison. He Ming believed that the problem would not be too big. With sufficient artillery and defensive works, although it might not be an easy win, it was enough to stop the enemy.

“No matter how many men He Rubin has, it is impossible for him to send them all up to charge at once—besides, there is no room to deploy them here. He can only attack with a small number of elite troops,” He Ming explained his operational determination to the officers. “It is difficult for the enemy to outflank and launch a flank attack: to the north of the main camp, we have the fire support of the navy. If he wants to send troops to detour to the north of the main camp to attack, he will fall under the double artillery fire of the navy and our camp, and be attacked from both front and rear.”

After the plan was determined, the 1st and 4th battalions, which were responsible for defending the position, reinforced the position of the main camp. In addition to the artillery of the artillery battalion, the reserve artillery brought by the artillery student soldiers was also deployed on the camp to intercept the enemy. A few 12-pounder mountain howitzers were strengthened to the 3rd and 5th infantry battalions as mobile firepower.

He then called Bei Wei: “Can you guarantee a 10-kilometer radius of interdiction?”

“Yes,” Bei Wei said without hesitation. “I have already deployed multiple hidden sentries and patrols to ensure that no one can detect our movements within a 20-kilometer radius.”

“Is the force sufficient?”

“Barely enough. I have already ordered all the detachments of the entire special reconnaissance team, except for the training detachment and the Sanya detachment, to immediately go to Chengmai and await orders—they will arrive tonight. With the arrival of these detachments, the interdiction will be more reliable.”

“This matter is of utmost importance,” He Ming emphasized again and again. All his plans were based on the mobility of the troops. No matter how strong the mobility of the Fubo Army was, it still relied on two legs, so the ambushing troops could not be too far away from the battle area, otherwise it would be difficult to arrive in time to participate in the battle. Since they were ambushing nearby, they had to completely block all of the enemy’s reconnaissance so that they could not grasp the situation.

According to the materials provided by the historical data group, the Ming army would set up 24 posts when marching normally, about 20 li away, and the scouts would be sent 30 li ahead, behind, and on both sides. And the Ming army’s scouts were all cavalry, and their mobility was still considerable. In addition, the Ming army might have already sent spies in advance to investigate. Therefore, blocking the enemy’s eyes and ears became an urgent matter.

After seeing Bei Wei, Chen Haiyang also came ashore to discuss coordination with him. The two sides agreed on the contact signals and methods. Chen Haiyang also ordered the dismantling of ten typewriters on the warships, which were sent ashore with the gunners and ammunition to assist in the defense.

By this time, all the units of the field army were fully prepared for battle. Not only did all the units know their operational plans, but they had also conducted on-site reconnaissance of the battlefield where the great battle was about to unfold, so as to avoid any omissions.

On the morning of July 3rd, the scouts of the special reconnaissance team in Qiongshan sent a report: “The entire enemy army has been dispatched.” The second anti-encirclement campaign officially kicked off.

He Rubin’s main army set out from Qiongshan and advanced along the post road. In terms of fighting, his attitude was still to be cautious. For this reason, as soon as he left Qiongshan, he sent out a large number of scouts and spies to gather information.

Chaozhou Commandant Tong Yizhen led a dozen or so subordinate generals and more than two thousand soldiers at the front. At the very front were three hundred cavalry led by his subordinate, Thousand-Household Commander He Zhanran, ready to quickly attack any enemy encountered on the road and cover the deployment of the main infantry and firearms behind.

Cavalry was a very useful branch of the army, but Guangdong did not have many cavalry available, so only eight hundred cavalry were brought in for the entire army. He Rubin believed that cavalry was not very useful in Hainan, and this time it would mostly be a siege battle, so it was useless to bring more cavalry. And all the news said that the bandits lacked mules and horses, so they did not pose a threat.

Huizhou Commandant Yan Zungao led two thousand soldiers to bring up the rear. Before them was the firearms battalion led by the General-in-Chief’s Firearms Battalion Thousand-Household Commander Li Baidao. Most of the heavy cannons were pulled by cattle, and there were also many vehicles, so their advance was very slow, and they were in the second to last position. Before the firearms battalion was the ladder battalion. This was a professional unit specially used for attacking cities and capturing fortresses. Six hundred ladder soldiers carried dismantled ladders and many other equipment. In case a direct attack on a fortress was needed, the ladder soldiers would serve as the assault vanguard.

The central army garrison commanders Sun Changzuo and Ye Zhengfang led a dozen or so personal generals, one thousand five hundred standard battalion soldiers, and five hundred of He Rubin’s family retainers to guard the main camp. Zhao Ruyi and his staff moved with the main camp. Because they were going to war, he said he wanted to march on horseback, but He Rubin still had a sedan chair and three shifts of bearers prepared for him at any time.

He Rubin, with his personal guards and some of his main generals, walked in front of the main camp. The post road was filled with shouts of men and neighing of horses, and dust was rolling. Although it had rained continuously for the past few days, the weather had been slightly better these few days, and the sun was very hot. In addition, the road was very dusty, and many soldiers had drunk all the water in their personal water jugs and leather bags after walking not very far.

Almost every time they reached a river with clear water, the soldiers and horses would crowd to the riverbank to drink water. Men and horses crowded together in a chaotic mess.

“Tell all the generals to hurry up!” He Rubin urged his subordinate generals not to let the soldiers linger by the river for too long, so as not to disrupt the ranks and be taken advantage of by the enemy.

But the enemy obviously had no intention of a surprise attack. Even in the high-risk situation of the entire army wading across the river, the scouts did not find any traces of enemy activity nearby.

The 24 posts that were sent out continuously sent back reports of peace on all sides. He Rubin was slightly relieved.

“Order all the armies not to delay!” he ordered.

The distance between Qiongshan and Chengmai was only half a day’s journey by normal travel. If they marched at the average speed of the government army of twenty or thirty li a day, this distance could be covered in three or four days. But Hainan was different from other places. Not only were there few prefectures and counties along the way, but the countryside was also very barren. Unless it was a prefecture or county like Qiongshan or Danzhou that had a large amount of grain stored in the official granaries, it was impossible to supply a large army. If they still marched slowly according to the old rules, they would have exhausted the grain carried by the army in advance. He Rubin instructed all the generals to urge all the units to advance as soon as possible.