Ming Dynasty entry: I am Chongzhen, the greatest emperor of all time!

Chapter 89 How Could the Ming Army Be So Valiant?
Fifty li west of the old site of Guihua City. (Between Hohhot and Ulanqab in later times.)
Zhang Shize sat wearily on his horse, his knuckles bluish-white from the reins, and his palms were covered in dried scabs.

His face was already shattered by the wind and sand, his lips were so cracked that he could hardly open his mouth, and his thighs were so stiff that he could not bend his knees.

Zhang Shize, who had been pampered since childhood, didn't know how he managed to get through it.

To prove that the nobles were the backbone of the Ming Dynasty?

To repay His Majesty's kindness and favor?
Or was it to accompany that emperor, who possessed the qualities of a wise and benevolent ruler throughout the ages, in achieving great things?
Zhang Shize couldn't understand it either. Just like when he led the Xuanjia Cavalry to charge an army of 500,000, he held on in one breath and succeeded.

Five days and nights of relentless pursuit left the manes of the 3,000 battalion's warhorses covered in salt frost, and each of the great horses from Hexi had drool that stretched out three feet of silver threads.

Fortunately, he finally managed to stop the fleeing Chahar tribe.

The visibility is excellent on the grasslands and deserts.

Simply by standing on a high slope, one can see the crooked Chahar King's Banner forty miles away.

Zhang Shize suddenly noticed that his iron arm guards were trembling slightly, not from fear, but from uncontrollable muscle spasms.

"Master Jin, we've finally caught up." The hoarse voice startled several vultures.

Kim Hyun took off his neck brace and flicked a few drops of sweat mixed with blood onto the ground. "Yeah, we finally caught up. Chahar is also at his limit. It looks like he can't even send out scouts anymore."

The whites of the eyes of this official in charge of the Ministry of War were bloodshot, and his goatee, which was shiny and smooth five days ago, was now covered with bits of grass.

He was in more pain than Zhang Shize, at least Zhang Shize had trained his body since childhood and was much stronger than him.

“If they can’t send anyone, we have to.” Zhang Shize muttered hoarsely, then turned to his personal guards and instructed, “Go find a few brothers who are still able to move and go scout ahead.”

The guards, exhausted, bowed weakly and urged their horses to hurry back.

Jin Xuan advised, "My lord, take a rest. They can't run anymore, and neither can we. Even if we send out scouts, let's attack again tomorrow."

Zhang Shize stubbornly shook his head, "No, we need to finish this quickly. Our horses are better than theirs, and we can hold out for a while."

“We must quickly subdue the Chahar and return to Beizhili with our cattle and sheep. I am worried that the Jurchens will not be able to sit still.”

In the past two days, they have intercepted quite a few Mongolian herdsmen who were fleeing.

Moreover, the information they received was remarkably consistent: the Jurchens were conscripting soldiers from various tribes in southern Mongolia, and even some small tribes were not spared.

Zhang Shize worried that the Jurchens might take advantage of the weakness in Northern Zhili and launch another southward invasion.

"No...no, His Majesty has just surpassed a million soldiers, his military might...huff...his military might is at its peak, how dare the Jurchens march south?" Kim Hyun was a little out of breath from talking so much.

"We can't gamble. Right now, the capital is full of new troops, and all the elites are here with us. If the Jurchen army marches south, His Majesty will be in danger."

After saying that, Zhang Shize handed the last water bag on his body to Jin Xuan and gently tapped his mount with the heel of his boot.

This imperial black horse, which used to be able to carry heavy armor and gallop for hundreds of miles, was now merely flicking its bald tail.

"But the soldiers are no longer able to fight!" Kim Hyun took a sip of water, barely regaining some strength, and pointed at the army behind him, shouting hoarsely.

Unlike the Jurchens, they did not have so many warhorses that one person could ride three horses.

Most of the 3,000 battalion were on horseback, and Ni Yuanlu managed to gather more than 12,000 draft horses and other similar horses just before they set off.

After traveling for five consecutive days, Zhang Shize was afraid of exhausting his warhorses, so he had his soldiers take turns riding the draft horses to ensure that each horse had four hours of free time.

Even so, almost all of the 12,000 draft horses have died by now, and more than 2,000 warhorses have been lost.

Most of the remaining ones have no spare strength; at most, they can fight one more battle.

The people were even more exhausted. They ate, drank, relieved themselves, and slept on horseback for five days and four nights. Their physical strength was already depleted. As soon as they stopped, most of them fell asleep on the horse.

Zhang Shize saw it all, but he dared not let his guard down.

He feared that once he let his guard down, he would never be able to muster the strength again.

However, what Kim Hyun said was more realistic: if the war continued without stopping, not to mention the people, thousands of precious warhorses would die from exhaustion.

Zhang Shize was suddenly caught in a dilemma.

Faced with Kim Hyun's pressing questions, he could only give a vague answer, "Let's wait for the scouts to return. What if the Chahar tribe is in even worse shape?"

"Then let the soldiers rest on the spot. They can't keep running like this, or they'll all die!" Kim Hyun also backed down.

Zhang Shize is perfectly acceptable.

As the order to rest on the spot was given, the cavalrymen who were lying on their horses fell to the ground uncontrollably, too weak to even get up. Under the shadow of their warhorses, most of them simply fell asleep on the spot.

Those who still had some dry rations ate dry bread.

The warhorses were too weak to move, standing still with their heads down, grazing without budging.

Zhang Shize truly experienced what it meant to be exhausted.

Just an hour later, a scout arrived on horseback.

"Report!" The scout practically tumbled off his horse.

"The Mongols surrounded the carts three times, but the wheels got stuck in the mud." The young man said, then suddenly started gagging, a few undigested grass roots leaking out between his fingers.

They only brought ten days' worth of food, and they should have run out of food on the second day of the pursuit. Fortunately, Kim Hyun strictly controlled the situation, and the army only ran out of food yesterday.

Today, some people have already been searching for and eating undigested wheat grains in horse manure.

Kim Hyun struggled to dismount and helped the scout up. "Don't rush, tell me slowly."

The scout took a couple of breaths before recounting what he had seen: "The Mongols have found a small pond and are setting up camp around it. I didn't see any sentries or scouts, and there were very few guard posts. But there was silt around the pond, and their cart got stuck. There were cattle and sheep all around, and nobody seemed to care."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Shize became agitated, his bloodshot eyes widening. "The Chahar tribe can't hold on either! They value their livestock more than their own lives, and now they're abandoning them. They must be exhausted. Quickly, order the troops to regroup! Order the troops to regroup! Seize this opportunity..."

Kim Hyun slammed his sword sheath heavily onto Jang Se-taek's saddle, yelling, "Let the men catch their breath! Listen!"

He pointed to the Mongol camp, where the horn-like sounds that should have resounded across the grasslands were intermittent, like the gasps of a dying old man.

"There's also the sound of bull horns. The Chahar tribe has discovered us and is reorganizing their troops. We can't act rashly now; one wrong step and we'll lose everything!"

Zhang Shize was so anxious that he scratched his head. As the chief military officer, he had absolute power after Zhu Youjian reorganized the Ministry of War.

But he hesitated to give the order. He knew his own limitations better than anyone else. If it weren't for his father's influence, he wouldn't even be a junior officer.

"Alright, come with me and sneak over there to take a closer look. If the Mongols are indeed exhausted and have no fighting power, then we'll attack them in one go. If they still have strength and are heavily fortified, then we'll rest for one night and launch a strong attack tomorrow. Regardless of success or failure, we'll return to the capital. You know we're out of food and supplies, so on the way back we'll have to pick up dead horses along the way to fill our stomachs."

Zhang Shize's words were extremely sincere, and Jin Xuan knew that they didn't have the confidence to wait any longer.

He nodded emphatically, and together with Zhang Shize, they chose two warhorses and made their way towards Chahar's main tent.

Just as the scouts had said, in the past, when their scouts went out in all directions, they could not get within thirty miles of their tent.

Even now, when they are within five miles, no one has seen them.

They casually found a small slope, lay down, and simultaneously raised their binoculars to examine the area closely.

Telescopes existed as early as the end of the Tianqi era and the beginning of the Chongzhen era. Xu Guangqi, who authored "Tiangong Kaiwu" (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature), petitioned to equip the Imperial Observatory with three telescopes for observing celestial phenomena when he was still the Second Grand Secretary. Later, Yuan Chonghuan adopted them for military use.

However, the Ming Dynasty did not yet have the conditions for production, or rather, it did not have the time or resources to produce.

The ones Zhang Shize and his companion used were the original Western versions bought by maritime merchants.

Looking through the telescope, countless small tents were arranged haphazardly around the central royal tent.

Behind the large tent was a pond with a diameter of three miles.

Carts of varying sizes were scattered haphazardly around the tent.

It was said to be arranged in a circle, but Zhang Shize thought it looked more like the people in front were trapped and couldn't get out, so they had no choice but to arrange the people behind them to surround them.

Inside the cart, under the round arched canopy, individuals or families huddled together, fast asleep.

Further away, near the tents, dozens of sheep, male and female, were being slaughtered indiscriminately. The lambs knelt on the ground, wailing, and blood pooled on the grass, forming dark red streams. The nomadic tribes' greatest taboo is killing female livestock capable of bearing offspring, unless they are extremely hungry.

Zhang Shize's Adam's apple bobbed.

He saw women in the tents walking around wrapping babies in colorful ribbons, a sight only seen during the migration of nomadic tribes.

The archers who should have been patrolling the gate were huddled in the shade, their quivers carelessly tossed on the ground covered in sheep dung.

The horses were left unattended, roaming freely within the tent.

"Can you smell it?" Zhang Shize suddenly asked Kim Hyun.

The air smelled of burning; the Chahar people didn't even have enough dried cow dung to start a fire, so they threw saddle leather into the fire.

Kim Hyun clenched and unclenched his fist, the armor plates snapping. "Our army has only 30% of its arrows left, armor-piercing spikes."

"Don't use armor-piercing spikes! They don't have much heavy armor, and they're all exhausted now. It's a matter of who can hold out the longest!"

Zhang Shize removed his scarlet cloak embroidered with gold thread, revealing the frayed chainmail underneath. "As long as three thousand soldiers dare to remove their armor, we can use light cavalry to flank them and block their retreat. They can't defeat our armored cavalry head-on!"

The scout then handed over the last half-bag of mare's milk wine, and Zhang Shize licked his cracked lips.

Five days ago, he would never have touched such a fishy-smelling substance, but now he felt like a desert traveler finding a spring of sweet water.

As he tilted his head back to drink, he caught a glimpse of Kim Hyun silently removing his breastplate. "Two hours, at the very least, for the soldiers to sift out the grass seeds from the horse manure and feed them to the horses."

"I will personally lead the light cavalry. Just like the Duke said, they are at their last gasp, so we mustn't let them fail us!"

Zhang Shize grinned, "Good! When we return in triumph, I will personally ask His Majesty for a reward! At that time, I will also make your 'Master Jin' into 'Minister Jin,' and give you the title of Earl for fun!"

Then he turned to the scout and said.

"Order the army to rest for two hours, and attack at Shenshi (3-5 PM)!"

"Furthermore, each battalion and guard should select three thousand warhorses with remaining stamina, and choose three thousand elite troops to disarm and lightly armor themselves, drink the blood of the horses, and attack from a detour! Remember, use the same batch of elite troops His Majesty used to have!"

As the order is given.

The three thousand battalions, which should have been lifeless, suddenly came to life.

Some people stuffed the last few pieces of salt under the horse's tongue, while others used their swords to scrape off the leather from the saddle and bridle to make soup.

When the eighteen wounded horses were led to the front of the battle, the junior officer in charge of killing the horses couldn't help but shed tears.

Fearing he would affect morale, the commander went up and kicked him, yelling, "What the hell are you doing, crying for your father?!"

The junior officer wiped away his tears. "What a fine horse! It's been with me for almost four years. It fought against the Jurchens and charged against the rebels. We still haven't caught any Mongol Tartars, and now I'm going to kill it with my own hands."

Qianhu paused, realizing he shared similar feelings and could better understand Xiaoqi's emotions.

Warhorses were like their comrades-in-arms; no one could bring themselves to kill their comrade.

But while he understood, the commander couldn't just stand by and watch the little flag bearer cry, so he added with another kick, "What are you afraid of! Its death was so that we could defeat the enemy, that's called dying... dying..."

The accompanying military commander added, "It's a worthy death! Let alone killing warhorses, if it helps defeat the enemy, I'd be willing to sacrifice myself to the heavens!"

"Our long march depends on today!"

"Brothers, His Majesty has already erected a monument for us at the gate of the capital! During festivals, it's the Crown Prince who burns incense and paper money for us! We peasants could never have such good fortune in eight lifetimes!"

"Now it's time to repay the Emperor's kindness, brothers, what should we do?!"

"Kill the Tartars! Kill the Tartars!" The soldiers, who were initially affected by the somber atmosphere, were transformed into high morale by the envoy's few words.

As the sun shone brightly on the battle flags, the final battle drums of the 3,000-strong battalion sounded.

There were no bugle calls, no clanging of armor.

Kim Hyun's three thousand light cavalry, like a pack of weary wolves, silently pounced on an even more exhausted flock of sheep.

Meanwhile, chaos reigned inside the main tent of the Chahar tribe.

The sound of war drums can travel far across the unshielded grasslands.

At this time, the leader of the Chahar tribe was Abunai.

Southern Mongolia was divided into three parts: Khorchin, Tümed, and Chahar. Among them, the Chahar tribe was where the royal court of Southern Mongolia was located and where the Great Khan resided.

Prior to this, after Ligdan Khan, the last Great Khan of Southern Mongolia, was defeated in his struggle against Nurhaci, the Chahar tribe lost its royal status.

The Khorchin and Tümed tribes successively submitted to Huang Taiji.

Lindan Khan eventually fled to Qinghai, where he died of smallpox.

His son Ejei succeeded him and was semi-forced to marry Princess Gulun. From then on, there were no more Han Chinese in Southern Mongolia, only Taiji and Manchu princes.

After Ejei died, his younger brother Abunai succeeded him and remarried Princess Gulun.

Perhaps the hatred for the murder of her father was too great, or perhaps she couldn't stand the Jurchens who came with Princess Gulun trying to win people's hearts.

Abunai was extremely indifferent to the Manchu Qing dynasty, and was only interested in restoring the glory of his father's era. He secretly traded with the Ming dynasty's borders and mostly paid lip service to the Manchu Qing's orders or simply ignored them.

That is why Daišan wanted the Mongols to join forces to find the Chahar tribe. If the Chahar tribe did not come, he could use the Mongols to destroy them.

Otherwise, personally eliminating the Southern Mongolian royal court would be a major blow to the Mongol tribes that had submitted to him, and they might even rebel.

However, Abner is currently extremely confused.

He was doing well in business when suddenly 30,000 cavalrymen marched into the grasslands, shouting that they wanted to buy livestock from him.

Is there any kind soul out there buying livestock and bringing along 30,000 cavalry?!

He'll beat you if you don't buy it. The current population of the Chahar tribe is only 90,000, and the number of archers is less than 20,000.

Furthermore, due to the suppression by the Manchus, most of the weapons they possessed were products from the time of Ligdan Khan.

He couldn't win at all, so he could only run.

Then I ran for five days and four nights straight without stopping!
They were too exhausted to run any further, and they thought the Ming army was also finished.

They had only been setting up camp for half a day when this group of people were already beating drums and going into battle!
Who did he provoke?
Obeying the Jurchens means being beaten, disobeying also means being beaten—is there any justice left?!

"Sound the horns! This is outrageous! Sound the horns to gather the troops and fight the Ming army to the death!"

Princess Gulun rushed over and stopped the furious Abunai. "Your Highness, don't be impulsive! You should have listened to me and run east. Our Great Qing will stand up for you."

"Get out!" Abunai despised his wife and sister-in-law even more, and now that the situation was critical, he didn't even bother to pretend.

Abna kicked over the table, and the silver-inlaid wine jug rolled in the carpet, leaving a scarlet stain.

He grabbed his scimitar and rushed out of the tent. The afternoon sun shone brightly, making him squint. In the distance, the battle flags of the three thousand battalions surged like waves of blood amidst the rising dust on the horizon.

"The Eternal Heaven bears witness!" Abunai raised his scimitar inlaid with turquoise. "Warriors of Chahar, let the blood of the Han people irrigate the grasslands!"

The sound of horns was like the wailing of a dying beast, and 20,000 Mongol cavalrymen emerged from their tents.

Their armor was covered in dust, and some even grabbed half a piece of raw, bloody mutton and mounted their horses.

The horse snorted, its hindquarters stabbed with a dagger by its owner, yet it charged forward with great effort despite the pain.

Not far away, Zhang Shize removed his face shield, and salty sweat seeped from the gaps in his armor.

In the telescope, the Mongol cavalry's formation appeared scattered like a destroyed anthill, yet it still stirred up clouds of yellow sand that blotted out the sky.

"Send the order! Wedge formation!"

Three thousand heavily armored cavalry slowly unfurled, their warhorses clad in tattered cotton armor, their iron hooves crushing the withered reeds.

Behind them, eight thousand light cavalrymen stood like crescent moons on both flanks, the scraping sound of sabers being drawn startling locusts into flight.

Abuna's vanguard had already charged five hundred paces, and Zhang Shize could even see the blood scabs on the enemy's mane.

"Raise your spear!" Zhang Shize roared.

The heavily armored cavalrymen simultaneously lowered their twelve-foot-long lances, the tips of which traced silver waves as their horses rose and fell.

Light cavalrymen attacked from both flanks.

Abunai was horrified by what he saw.

He witnessed firsthand how the bravest warrior, Batel, was pierced by three spears simultaneously, his body hanging from the spear shafts as he hurtled more than ten feet away.

The Ming army's heavy cavalry swept across the battle line like iron plows, and every fallen Chahar warrior was trampled into mincemeat by the iron hooves of the following troops.

Even more terrifying were the light cavalry flanking the flanks, whose chain maces, suspended beside their saddles, were used to smash people's faces, leaving bloody holes in the faces of those struck.

"Sound the horn! Switch to wolf pack formation!" Abunai slashed down two deserters, his throat churning with blood.

Dozens of horn bugles sounded, and the Mongol cavalry suddenly broke into smaller units of a hundred men each, weaving and attacking each other.

This was Ligdan Khan's signature tactic when he decisively defeated Yarkand: cavalrymen would continuously fire arrows while on the move, like a pack of wolves dragging down a tiger.

But Zhang Shize didn't take it seriously, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

As the command flag fluttered.

The 3,000-strong battalion suddenly contracted, with the front-line heavy cavalry managing to block the arrows with their three layers of heavy armor, while the dark muzzles of three-eyed muskets protruded from the gaps between the heavy cavalry.

The moment the smoke rose, the Mongolian cavalry at the forefront seemed to have crashed into an invisible wall.

Lead bullets pierced through leather armor and into flesh, and the warhorse neighed and flung its rider into the air.

Some managed to get close, but their Achilles tendons were severed by the hook-and-sickle spears thrust out from behind the shield formation.

Abunai cried out in horror, “When did the Ming army become so brave?!”

In his memory, although he could not defeat the Ming army, he was mostly defeated by the Ming army's strong formations.

The Ming army's cavalry was at most on par with their sons who had grown up on horseback.

When has there ever been such a crushing defeat?!
His gaze swept back and forth between the unseen Princess Gulun behind him and the charging Ming army in front of him.

Therefore, they made the most correct choice at that moment.

(End of this chapter)