Chapter 319: Cavalry Clash

Throughout the journey, Zhu Mingxia’s face remained grim. Huang Xiong, watching him, felt a sense of unease, unsure of what the commander was thinking. As a former soldier of Dengzhou, he was always accustomed to guessing his superior’s intentions. Whenever his superior had a somber expression, he would become flustered. Unable to ask, he could only follow closely behind.

“Huang Xiong, do you think I’ve brought too few men?”

Hearing Zhu Mingxia’s question, Huang Xiong’s spirits lifted. He immediately replied, “Reporting to the detachment commander, this reception team consists of two infantry companies, one supply company, one militia company, one cavalry platoon, and one work group, totaling four hundred and seventy men. It’s not a small number.”

“It’s enough to receive refugees,” Zhu Mingxia glanced at Huang Xiong coldly and continued, “but if we want to do something more than just receive refugees, this is not enough.”

“What are your plans, detachment commander?”

“Hmph—just wanted to complain.”

Huang Xiong, of course, did not understand what “complain” meant, but he knew that Zhu Mingxia was speaking with a hidden meaning. When a superior was about to open up, it was best for a subordinate to listen patiently. Any interruption would be asking for trouble. So he kept his head down and followed his superior closely, listening carefully to what Zhu Mingxia said, afraid of missing a single word.

“Huang Xiong, our army is brave and skilled in battle, able to fight one against ten. You, in particular, were personally trained by me, and you are all iron-clad soldiers.” Zhu Mingxia pointed in the direction of Dengzhou. “You are far from being a match for those good-for-nothings in Dengzhou. My Northern Expedition Detachment has two thousand men. Don’t look at the small number, if we wanted to break through Dengzhou city, we could still do it. But what’s the result? We can only hole up on Qimu Island because we have to avoid direct military conflict.”

Huang Xiong was once a soldier in Dengzhou. When the news of the rebels breaking through the city and massacring the local soldiers and civilians arrived, he felt a great sense of sorrow. But since the commanders had not made a move, he, a mere junior officer, could not say anything. Hearing Zhu Mingxia say this, he couldn’t help but sigh.

“We can’t even attack Huang County. That’s the rebels’ barrier, used to defend against us. Once we attack Huang County, it will be a full-blown war. Kong Youde and Li Jiucheng will have to mobilize a large army to fight us to the death. Of course, fighting them is nothing—it’s as easy as turning over your hand. But my current mission is not to fight the rebels. Otherwise, taking Huang County would be much simpler than me wandering around here collecting refugees.”

The Senate’s intervention on the Jiaodong Peninsula had a significant impact on history. Although the refugee camp on Qimu Island did not look like a military camp to the outside world, thousands of people were gathered there. To put it nicely, they were refugees. To put it bluntly, they were a potential large group of bandits. In the eyes of the people at that time, so many people gathered together, even if they were not bandits, they would not be good people—if one day there was not enough food, they would rush out like a swarm of locusts.

Not long after the rebels occupied Dengzhou, they immediately attacked Huang County, preparing to use Huang County as a base to consolidate their rear. The offensive against Laizhou was to expand their sphere of activity. The capture of Huang County was to ensure a reliable support point outside Dengzhou—once the court wanted to launch a suppression campaign, the first batch of government troops would definitely attack from the direction of Huang County.

Because a large number of refugees had already gathered on Qimu Island, the rebel army that attacked Huang County this time was not only larger than recorded in history, but the rebels were also more active in capturing able-bodied men to strengthen their forces after capturing Huang County. If he did not go out to receive these refugees, he was afraid that none of them would be able to escape and would all be captured. Zhu Mingxia jokingly called this collection “Operation Plunder Little Brothers.” What he had to do was to plunder the population from under the enemy’s nose with as little or no fighting as possible. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just crush the rebels!” he had wailed in his heart more than once.

The reception team arrived at an abandoned village amidst Zhu Mingxia’s complaints. The buildings in this village were relatively intact, with dilapidated fences and barely recognizable earthen walls. If water could be supplemented locally, it would be more suitable to set up camp here. Zhu Mingxia immediately ordered a search party to enter the village to search.

“There is no one in the village! There is a well—” the scout hesitated, “a corpse was thrown into the well, it’s unusable.”

Wang Qisuo, the scout sent to search the village, reported. He was a local salt smuggler and could speak the dialects of Dengzhou and the surrounding areas. He was also quite clever and had very good training results, so Zhu Mingxia had selected him to be a scout in the advance column, specifically to assist the regular army’s scouts in their activities in the local area.

“It seems the rebels have already been here,” Zhu Mingxia said. Throwing a corpse into the well was equivalent to destroying the local living conditions, forcing the local people to flee—even if someone was lucky enough not to be captured by the rebels, they could not continue to stay in the village.

Zhu Mingxia had no doubt that if it hadn’t been snowing recently and it was difficult to start a fire, the rebels would have already completely burned down the village.

However, this was a suitable relay camp. Without a clean water source, collecting snow from the ground would be a barely acceptable substitute—but that would require fuel, which meant demolishing the houses. Zhu Mingxia thought to himself, anyway, the villagers would not be coming back.

He ordered some personnel to stay behind to guard, including some of the refugees collected along the way. They were all settled in empty houses to warm themselves by the fire and rest for a while. The others used the miscellaneous items in the village and some of the baggage to build a makeshift street barricade to block the east and west ends, and laid mines on the north and south sides of the village to prevent sneak attacks.

He himself led the main force to continue forward, sending out all the cavalry in his hands to actively contact the largest refugee groups and directly annihilate any small enemy groups they encountered. Zhu Mingxia estimated that the rebels would likely send a small number of cavalry to harass the refugees, slow down their progress, and facilitate the capture of subsequent troops. Of course, it was also possible that some stragglers would come out to rob.

On the frozen land of Shandong, more than a hundred refugees huddled together. Several of them lay motionless on the ground, blood gushing from their wounds. A dozen executioners sat on their horses, happily examining their spoils. They were rebels under Kong Youde, and there were a dozen other groups of cavalry like them. The purpose of their large-scale activities was only one: to rob refugees, abduct young and beautiful women, and plunder their belongings. The lives of the others did not matter. This kind of plunder sometimes yielded good treasures and had little risk, so many rebels were happy to do it.

The leader, a bald-browed man, was the first to dismount, wanting to take a closer look at the women among the refugees. But everyone was huddled with their heads down. When he grabbed their hair and forced them to look up, their faces were so grimy that he couldn’t see clearly. He flew into a rage, raised his sword, and killed two more refugees. He opened his mouth wide and roared, “Damn it, all you women, get over here to me! If you dawdle any longer, I’ll kill you all, one by one!”

As he spoke, he raised his sword, about to kill a third person. Before the sword could fall, someone shouted, “Cavalry!”

The bald-browed man looked in the direction of the voice. A hundred zhang away, a small group of cavalry was slowly galloping towards them. The bald-browed man dropped the refugee, quickly grabbed his sword, and mounted his horse—the view was better from horseback.

The bald-browed man had been a cavalryman in the Liaodong garrison and had fought against the Manchus in Liaodong. Although he lost every battle, he always managed to escape unscathed with his horsemanship and his ability to seize the best opportunity to flee.

With this ability to escape, he had accumulated enough merits to become a company commander. However, Mao Wenlong had granted too many official titles in Pidao, so after his death, the official ranks of the Dongjiang generals were all several levels lower. The bald-browed man was only a platoon leader.

Years of experience in fleeing made him very cautious of the enemy, especially mounted enemies, because the biggest threat to a fleeing cavalryman was a pursuing cavalryman.

He stood up in his stirrups and looked out. He saw that these cavalrymen were not wearing armor, and their attire was something he had never seen before: they wore gray cloaks and tall hats, and they were approaching him in a two-column formation.

The newcomers were not friendly. The numbers on both sides were about the same. The bald-browed man and his rebels had seen battle before. Seeing that the other side had no advantage in numbers and no one was wearing armor, they did not scatter but gathered together, intending to have a cavalry charge.

Although the Liaodong cavalry’s performance against the Manchus was average, they could still fight a battle. In the interior, they were known as “iron cavalry,” so neither the bald-browed man nor his cavalrymen took the dozen or so cavalrymen before them seriously—even though their forces were evenly matched.

However, the other side did not draw their swords and charge directly. Instead, they reined in their horses at a distance of seventy or eighty zhang. Except for three or four riders, the others all dismounted and formed a line.

The bald-browed man pulled his iron helmet down a little, somewhat puzzled. Did the other side dismount to shoot with bows? He had seen the Tartars do this in Liaodong, but this distance was a bit too far—even the Tartars, known for their strong bows and sharp arrows, would not dismount and shoot at this distance. He waved his hand, “Let’s go! Let’s have a good fight!”

A dozen cavalrymen drew their swords at the same time and charged forward.

Because the numbers on both sides were very small, the bald-browed man did not order his men to adopt any formation and just charged forward.

Almost at the same time as they spurred their horses, a crisp crackle sounded in their ears.

“Too early!” the bald-browed man roared. Firing at this distance was just for show! He lowered his head, squeezed his horse’s belly with his legs, and continued to gallop.

However, a second volley of gunfire soon rang out. A rebel cavalryman’s horse suddenly fell, and then another one fell.

The gunfire became more and more intense. The other side’s muskets seemed to be able to fire continuously! Before they had run twenty zhang, three or four people had already fallen. When another person fell, everyone, without waiting for an order, turned their horses around, whipped their horses’ rumps, and without a word, chose to flee.

The rescued refugees watched these cavalrymen in terror. They didn’t know what this new group of people wanted to do. Fortunately, they could communicate with each other. After a conversation, they learned that the other side was from Qimu Island and had come specially to take them to Qimu Island for refuge. Qimu Island was not originally the destination of these refugees, but in front of these cavalrymen who had just killed people, they had no other choice.