Strategy for the Revitalization of the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 8: Strong Charge
Late at night in early spring in Beijing, the temperature was still very low, and on the plains outside the city, the north wind was howling incessantly, as sharp as a knife, scratching people's faces painfully.

At this time, on the official road from the east of the city to Tongzhou, in a simple checkpoint, more than twenty Shun army soldiers were divided into two groups. Eight armored soldiers were on duty in front and behind the chevaux de frise, and the other dozen or so were gathered behind the chevaux de frise, keeping warm by three fire pans about twenty steps away.

The yellow flames flickered in the wind, sometimes brighter and sometimes dimmed, illuminating those weathered, skinny faces. The whistling sound of the wind was mixed with a few dissatisfied curses from time to time.

Now, the city of Beijing has been breached, but these non-direct line soldiers who "have no father to love and no mother to care for them" are not allowed to enter the city at all. Not only have they lost the opportunity to make a fortune, but they also have to stand outside the city and suffer the cold. Naturally, their morale has been greatly hit. Everyone is angry and their duty is inevitably lax.

These twenty or so soldiers who were left outside the city to suffer were all Ming court border troops recruited along the way since Li Zicheng's eastern expedition. Although the Shun army had strict military discipline, they had long lacked training and military discipline. How could their originally lax habits be changed so easily?
In fact, in the original history, one of the reasons why Li Zicheng was defeated repeatedly in the face of the Qing army was that he did not have enough time to reorganize the Ming court's border troops, so that the strength of the Shun army only expanded on paper, but did not actually achieve real growth. On the contrary, due to excessive division of troops and continuous rebellions, its strength was greatly weakened.

In the end, due to several incorrect strategic judgments and tactical commands, the newly established Dashun Dynasty suffered a series of defeats and soon faced a devastating disaster.

You should know that before Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an, he defeated the main force of the Ming army six times and finally wiped out the Ming army in the Central Plains. The nearly 100,000 old camp soldiers based on the Shaanxi border army were not weak in combat effectiveness, but because they were at a disadvantage in cavalry and firearms, it was difficult for them to defeat the Eight Banners Army of the Qing Dynasty in a field battle with equal strength.

In the 17th century, firearms were not enough to create an overwhelming advantage over cavalry on the battlefield. In fact, only specific terrain or the cover of cavalry could allow infantry to play a strategic strike role.

After all, most military commanders who have the advantage of cavalry and actually hold the initiative on the battlefield will not fight a static battle, but will directly charge towards the solid infantry phalanx. Even if the infantry composed of cold and hot weapons has strong defensive capabilities, it will reveal flaws during the movement, and most of them will eventually escape the fate of being defeated.

Now, these elite soldiers of the Beijing camp led by Zhu Cilang each have two horses. With such excellent equipment, he is very confident that he can deal with the miscellaneous troops of the Shun army whose morale is unstable and whose numbers are not superior.

But now, for Zhu Cilang, winning is not enough, the most important thing is speed!

In the dark night, the Shun army sentry who had just taken over the guarding post was leaning against the barricade, huddled up and yawning, watching several war horses galloping from not far away. He did not take it seriously in his heart, thinking that they were just scouts who wanted to take advantage of the chaos to enter the city and make a fortune. They had just stopped several groups, so he just winked at the soldier next to him who was also huddled up, signaling him to step forward to stop them.

After all, it was normal for the army of this era to experience some confusion among the besieging troops when they were attacking a city.

By the time Chang Denggui and his six cavalrymen approached, the soldier had already reached the barrier. He slapped his yawning mouth and was in a very irritable mood. He didn't even look at the people twenty or thirty steps away. He just waved his hands impatiently and shouted:

"No, no passage without a transfer order!"

Where does Chang Denggui get the transfer order?
He only knew that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince wanted him to fight quickly and decisively, and break through this checkpoint as quickly as possible before the Shun army scouts could react.

At this time, there were still nearly 10,000 Shun troops stationed in the east of Beijing, with hundreds of scouts. If they were entangled by only a dozen of them, there would be almost no chance of breaking out successfully.

So, when he rode his horse forward and saw that the Shun army on duty was so lax, he was immediately overjoyed.

The Shun army soldier heard the sound of horse hooves getting closer and closer, looked up at the horse's head getting closer and closer, and saw the human figure looming on the horse's back in the darkness, and immediately had a bad premonition in his heart.

The hooves of the war horses ridden by Chang Denggui and his soldiers were wrapped in cotton cloth. They galloped across the plain with very little noise, which made the Shun army guarding the front and rear of the barricades careless.

By the time the soldier standing in the front noticed something was wrong, reacted, and wanted to shout, the spear in Chang Denggui's hand had already pierced the air and attacked him like a poisonous snake, piercing his throat in an instant, and sending his entire body flying towards the barricades behind him.

Then, Chang Denggui suddenly pulled the spear back, the tip of the spear yanking out with a "puff" sound. The soldier, who had been stabbed in the neck, continued to fly forward due to inertia, and finally fell to the ground with a "bang", and a large amount of dark red blood instantly gushed out from his neck. At the same time, a stream of blood splattered from the spear tip in the night sky, directly splashing onto the face of the Shun army sentry commander, who was yawning and leaning against the barricade.

But before he could react, another soldier under Chang Denggui, who was riding a horse at full speed, swung his sharp thick-backed knife. In the blink of an eye, a head flew more than ten steps away.

Then, Chang Denggui squeezed his legs hard, and the horse under him neighed and leaped up with its hooves. He seized the opportunity and used the force to push the barricade in front of him, which had been half moved away by the collision, and it instantly fell to the side.

The other six Shun troops in front and behind the chevaux de frise also had no time to react and were quickly killed by the brave warriors of the Beijing camp on horseback with swords, spears or thrown axes, and they were almost unable to fight back.

They had never imagined that at this time, when Beijing had already been captured, they would still be attacked by the Ming army. Moreover, they were also the Ming army not long ago. When did the Ming army have the ability to launch a night attack?

At the same time, the cavalry on both wings led by Zhou Shixian had also arrived. Inside the checkpoint, the dozen or so Shun soldiers who were roasting by the fire heard the noise and just turned their heads to look. Before they could react, a rain of arrows had already hit them.

These arrows with armor-piercing spikes could easily break through the thin armor of the Shun army at a distance of less than twenty steps, even if they were shot from cavalry bows.

After three rounds of "whoosh whoosh" arrow rain, the dozen or so Shun soldiers had all fallen down. Some soldiers had seven or eight arrows stuck in their bodies. Two of the fire pans were directly knocked away by the fallen corpses. Sparks flew in the darkness, and there was a "bang bang bang" sound of explosions.

Chang Denggui relied on his brute force to push aside three barricades in succession. The warhorse under his crotch was unable to support itself due to the excessive force and almost collapsed. However, he seemed to have been accustomed to such situations and skillfully changed to another horse.

There are 26 people in the team, and he, Zhou Shixian and Zhu Cilang are the only ones who have three horses each.

After succeeding, Chang Denggui did not stop at all and continued to ride forward. Zhu Cilang was right behind him. As a vanguard general who was quite proud of himself at the time, he had to continue to explore the way forward.

Zhu Cilang galloped in the darkness, looking at the battle situation ahead, and his tense nerves finally relaxed a little.

In a trance, he even suddenly felt a little spirited, and even the cold wind blowing on his face like a knife didn't seem hateful anymore.

Not only him, but Li Banghua, Zhou Shixian and others also breathed a sigh of relief and tried their best to control their horses. They all knew that they were charging towards hope. As long as they could get rid of the Shun army, their plan to move south would be half successful.

At this moment, when they looked at Zhu Cilang's resolute back again, they seemed to see the bright future of going south to Yingtian and rebuilding the Ming Dynasty court. These things that were originally impossible now seemed to be right in front of them and within reach.

Many times, human hearts are like this. No matter how impossible something is, as long as there is a good start, confidence will be quickly restored.

Under the cover of artillery fire, noise, whistling wind and darkness coming from the west and north, a cavalry team of 26 people quickly passed the checkpoint set up by the Shun army and galloped towards the east.

However, not long after they rushed out, a deafening burst of war drums and bugles suddenly broke out from the Shun army camp in the north, followed by the commotion and noise of troops gathering.

Zhu Cilang turned his head to look at the Shun army camp in the darkness behind him, where blurry circles of light were constantly moving. He tightened his grip on the reins. He knew that the Shun army had finally discovered their actions!
Now, it depends on who is faster!
(End of this chapter)