Strategy for the Revitalization of the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 231 Complete defeat
The Qing army's voluntary withdrawal this time meant abandoning the Lumen Mountain camp, which was originally the front-line position on the battlefield, and returning directly to Xiangyang, or even Nanyang. This forced Ajige to be careful in dealing with Lin Changfeng's pursuit.

Faced with Ajige's strict orders, the Bayara soldiers in his army had no excuse to shirk their responsibilities, and they dared not even to do so.

The Bayala leader had no choice but to bite the bullet and quickly gather more than a thousand troops around him, preparing to follow Ajige to test the strength of the Ming army's Majia. He knew that Ajige was going to put the last of his elite troops to the test.

However, on the one hand, the leader of Bayara felt that Ajige was too risky, and on the other hand, he had inexplicable expectations for this charge. He still had great confidence in Ajige, whom he had followed for more than ten years.

At the beginning, Ajige only sent out some cavalry to continuously harass the front line, block the charge of the Tianqi Army, and seize the flaws to launch a counterattack.

Although the Tianqi Army had the advantage in terms of manpower and never let Ajige gain an advantage, it was also unable to make any progress. This gave Ajige great confidence. He quickly assembled his elite troops and prepared to launch a major charge.

Through the test just now, he thought he had figured out the strength of the Ming cavalry and that a counterattack was completely feasible.

Lin Changfeng had been observing the battlefield. He was quite disappointed when he found out that Ajige had left a cavalry unit and had not dispatched it. However, he still kept the last four thousand-headquartered cavalry units under his command until now, waiting for the opportunity to fight.

Although he was arrogant on weekdays, he did not dare to be careless when dealing with Ajige, a veteran on the battlefield, for fear that if he was not careful, the opponent would turn the passive situation into active one move!
On such a vast battlefield, the Tianqi Army could not launch a cavalry formation for a while unless the Qing army rushed up on their own. The distance was so short that they could not quickly make a detour, and the last reserve troops had already been deployed to the battlefield.

After all, although the cavalry formation is fierce, it comes at the cost of mobility, which is the advantage of the Eight Banners cavalry. Once the Qing cavalry seizes this loophole, the consequences will be unimaginable.

This is actually the reason why he has been keeping these four thousand headquarters cavalry and has been reluctant to take any action.

But Lin Changfeng never expected that after Ajige achieved initial results in the harassment, he actually led the last reserve cavalry and rushed forward directly, which showed that the other party did not take him seriously.

In this case, Lin Changfeng had no choice but to send out the last cavalry.

The reserve cavalry of the Tianqi Army had already been prepared. They quickly formed three rows of cavalry formations with the thousand headquarters as the unit, and at the same time used the cavalry thousand headquarters of another Xiaoqi Army as cover to intercept the Qing army when necessary.

Although Ajige was not afraid of the Ming army's cavalry formation, the cavalry under his command were very afraid of it. Faced with the terrifying cavalry formation that was rumored to be extremely ferocious and had killed and injured countless Eight Banners cavalrymen, although they had the will to resist, they did not have the ability to resist.

Of course, as a veteran on the battlefield, Ajige changed his mind quickly when he saw the Ming cavalry charging in. He immediately ordered the charging cavalry to turn to the two wings, but in the end he only took out most of the troops.

As for the remaining cavalry who did not have time to detour to the two wings, they were quickly defeated by the Tianqi Army's cavalry formation. More than 200 defeated soldiers even affected the Eight Banners armored soldiers who were fighting in the rear. The Tianqi Army killed and wounded hundreds of soldiers under Ajige in one round of charge.

Seeing this, he did not dare to continue fighting and immediately led his troops to continue to make a detour, trying to get rid of the entanglement of the Ming cavalry and withdraw from the battlefield.

Before personally trying out the Tianqi Army's cavalry formation, Ajige had no idea that the enemy was actually that strong, so how could he dare to continue fighting?

One can only say that this is a case of not shedding tears until seeing the coffin. You know, in the watershed battle, nearly 10,000 cavalrymen under Yue Le were almost completely wiped out by the Tianqi Army cavalry formation in the valley, and this battle was not long after.

In fact, Ajige had also thought about finding a way to break the Ming army's cavalry formation on the battlefield.

There were only two ways to break the cavalry formation. One was to directly defeat the Ming cavalry that was charging in front of them, but this was simply impossible. At least after seeing it with his own eyes, Ajige had lost his confidence in this. As for the second method, it was to circumvent the two wings and look for an opportunity to fight.

But the idea is one thing, and the actual execution is another. Ajige imagined that he could achieve a breakthrough that others could not, but he ended up retreating in a hurry.

The same is true for flanking the two wings and looking for opportunities to fight. He even underestimated the strength of the Tianqi Army. The latter has now taken advantage of the opportunity they just got to quickly break through, and with their advantage in military strength, they have gained an overwhelming advantage on the battlefield.

As a result, Ajige's original plan for a direct breakthrough failed completely before it even began.

But Ajige is worthy of being a veteran on the battlefield. His military command ability and battlefield insight are far beyond the reach of Yue Le and others.

At this critical moment, Ajige did not hesitate any more. He immediately ordered the army to go directly north. At the same time, he personally led a team to make a detour, and also had powerful cavalry to support the retreating troops to prevent the chaos from expanding.

Looking at the movements of the Qing army in the north, Lin Changfeng naturally knew that his original plan to directly encircle and annihilate the elite Qing army in the south had failed.

But as Ajige led his troops to retreat, his strategic goal in the south had been initially achieved. With the continuous pursuit of the Tianqi Army, the two fighting armies gradually moved from the northern foot of Lumen Mountain to the south of Shuanggoukou before sunset that day.

During the retreat, the Qing army led by Ajige lost two to three thousand elite soldiers, and their morale was severely hit.

After he confronted the Tianqi Army on the east bank of the Han River for a night, he chose to retreat quickly the next day.

Throughout the night, and even until the early morning of the next day, both sides were wary of each other and withdrew their troops. They also sent hundreds of cavalry to supervise each other. Both sides were worried that the other side would suddenly attack. Dorgon even dispatched a cavalry from Xiangyang City to make a detour from the north, and finally ensured that Ajige's cavalry could withdraw smoothly from the battlefield.

The interception and blockade of the Dongting Lake Navy on the Han River greatly hindered the actions of the Qing cavalry, and the end of the war in the south also prevented Dorgon from quickly deploying troops to assist Ajige.

After all, at this point, it would be difficult for him to even withdraw his troops from Xiangyang City, let alone quickly reinforce Ajige. However, after Zhu Cilang confirmed that the main force of Ajige's Qing army had indeed retreated to Shuanggoukou Town, he immediately ordered the army to slow down its offensive and sent Lin Changfeng to lead the Tianqi Army to stabilize the battlefield and send troops to strangle the stragglers of the Qing army.

He had not originally intended to engage in a decisive battle with the main force of the Qing army. Now that he had gained the advantage, he naturally had to go with the flow. As long as Dorgon could leave more troops in Xiangyang, he would not worry about insufficient results.

At this time, Chang Denggui had already led his troops to harass outside Xiangyang City. As the Qing army retreated, a large number of people in Xiangyang City, as well as civilians captured by the Qing army, took advantage of the chaos to escape and needed help.

Although Dorgon's withdrawal was blocked, he did not give up but sped up his retreat. As a result, many of the baggage he originally wanted to take away, as well as the civilian laborers and even the soldiers and horses, had to be left behind in Xiangyang.

After the main force of the Qing army repelled the attacks of Chang Denggui and other troops, they seized every opportunity, divided into several groups, avoided the obstruction of the Dongting Lake Navy, and carefully withdrew from Xiangyang City. Dorgon's attempt to break out quickly and reinforce Hanzhong was ultimately unsuccessful.

After all, Dorgon did not dare to let his army retreat quickly. Instead, he ordered Ajige to organize defense and blocking in the north. Only after all the troops had basically withdrawn did he lead the main army to retreat north, for fear that the Ming cavalry would defeat them one by one.

But when he led his army to retreat to Xinye in a hurry, he suddenly discovered that the main force of the Ming army had not caught up at all, but the Ming army's navy and cavalry had already deployed tight defenses along the Han River.

After reading the military report sent by the vanguard, Dorgon handed it to Tan Tai with an expressionless face. He calmed his rapid breathing a little and was about to speak when suddenly there was a loud bang of a landmine explosion on the official road not far to the north, and a cloud of white smoke rose up along with shrill screams.

This sudden incident caused the Qing army, which was originally moving rapidly northward, to stop for a moment, and even caused some chaos and shock, but under the suppression of the officers, it quickly returned to normal.

Dorgon never expected that he had only delayed for more than ten days, and the Ming army's scouts had buried so many mines on the official road in the plains around Xinye, south of Nanyang City, and around the official road. He had previously thought of using civilians to explore the way and clear the mines, so as to avoid too many casualties in the army due to the explosion of mines, which would in turn cause instability in the morale of the army.

But the Ming army didn't know what method they used to make these landmines not explode when stepped on, which made the thousands of human mine-clearing laborers he had captured in advance useless.

For a time, there was no safe place on the entire route of the Qing army's retreat to the north, whether it was official roads or plains, and tens of thousands of Eight Banners troops were in panic.

Of course, this is not actually high-tech, but the Changsha Ordnance Bureau recycled substandard detonators, resulting in many mines being stepped on but the bombs unable to ignite successfully.

Zhu Cilang had naturally already begun ordering the musket workshop to recruit a group of outstanding craftsmen to specialize in the research of flintlock muskets, but the results were still unsatisfactory. The yield rate of the flintlocks they produced was too low, and the cost and performance were not enough to meet the requirements for large-scale military deployment, let alone a large-scale replacement for matchlock muskets.

However, among the craftsmen of the Changsha Ordnance Bureau, whose subjective initiative was fully stimulated, there was a craftsman who had made mines before. He suddenly had an idea and asked his superiors for permission to use these discarded flintlocks to make mines, and he got approval.

These things were completely unimaginable in the past, but now they have become the norm.

As a result, the flintlock, which was originally used as an ignition device for flintlock guns, was mass-produced because of its low ignition rate, poor reliability and durability. It was originally about to be discarded. Even because of its low performance requirements and very low cost, it instantly became a powerful tool for igniting landmines.

You know, compared with steel wheels and incense coils, the flintlock, as a disposable consumable mine ignition device, is certainly much more expensive, but it has unexpected effects.

The first batch of mines produced still used the original discarded flintlocks, which can be regarded as waste utilization.

Although the vast plain between Xiangyang and Nanyang was densely covered with waterways, making it difficult for cavalry to march, it was less than two hundred miles from Xiangyang City, so there was actually no danger for them along the way.

Dorgon and Ajige even made a contingency plan. When necessary, they would rely on cities such as Xinye to lure the Ming army north, and then surround and annihilate them, so as to prevent the Ming emperor from taking advantage of the situation to harass them.

Dorgon was not sure whether Emperor Ming really gathered troops to pursue him or was temporarily unable to gather troops to catch up. He could only stay behind with his personal soldiers and personally command the troops at the rear.

By this time, Ajige no longer trusted the enemy. The enemy's performance in the north of Lumen Mountain also made him feel that the greatest hope of this army might not be able to stand on his own.

But Dorgon never expected that he would eventually miscalculate because of a small landmine. Not only did the retreat go unsuccessfully, but the speed of mine clearance by relying on civilians was also very slow and the effect was worrying. Even repeated urging was of no avail.

At the same time, after receiving information that the Qing army was retreating north, the main force of the Ming army quickly gathered in Xiangyang. Zhu Cilang also needed to use the momentum of the victory to complete the strategic deployment in northern Hubei and southern Henan to ensure that the rear would be safe during the Northern Expedition.

The efficiency of the Ming court system was fully demonstrated at this time. The officials of the Military Affairs Department and the Logistics Department of the Palace Army who came with the army quickly took action to besiege Xiangyang and make defensive deployments in the north to prevent the Qing army from making a surprise attack, including recruiting civilians and rescuing the people.

There were as many as 30,000 to 40,000 civilians who escaped successfully. Although they had just escaped from the clutches of the Qing army, they were provided with enough food and even medical treatment by the Palace Army.

You have to know that they all survived the chaotic times with great difficulty. The tenacious vitality and tough character forged by these hardships made most of them almost need no rest and were quickly organized by the Military Affairs Department and the Logistics Department.

Outside Xiangyang City, nearly 6,000 rescued civilians were reorganized and entered various fortifications outside the city in just one day and one night, leaving Shang Kexi, Delekhun and others in the city stunned.

The Palace Army had originally led tens of thousands of civilians northward. With the joint actions of thousands of civilians, the fortifications outside Xiangyang City were quickly restored at a speed visible to the naked eye, and they rose from the ruins originally destroyed by the Qing army.

With the victory in the previous "Battle of Wuchang", the Ming army was full of confidence in attacking the city. After the great victory, the strong attack might not require tens of thousands of soldiers. With the attack day and night, the city would soon fall without a fight.

(End of this chapter)