Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 164 The Jurchen Night Raid Fails, the Ming Ambush Goes Unsuccessful

The slave cavalry were determined to break out, and the Ming cavalry pursued and intercepted them, almost failing to stop them. Cao Wenzhao continuously reinforced his troops, mobilizing a force that once reached four thousand cavalry, a true tenfold increase in strength. Finally, they wore down the enemy until nightfall, finally annihilating the cavalry, but inevitably a small number of slave cavalry managed to break through.

However, their leader was killed by Cao Bianjiao. But the Jurchen leader Ezhen was no ordinary man, and Cao Bianjiao went to great lengths to kill him.

Although they won the battle, it slowed their march, preventing them from reaching Tongzhou before nightfall. They were forced to find a nearby stream and set up camp along its banks. At this time, the ice and snow were thawing; some ice would melt under the midday sun, only to freeze again at night. The soldiers piled the severed bandit heads onto carts, then shoveled several spades of snow on top to keep them fresh.

Tonight will be difficult. The Jurchens are skilled at night raids. The Ming cavalry of today are not the same as the Ming cavalry of the early Ming Dynasty who dared to penetrate deep into the grasslands and sweep through enemy territory. Most of the Ming cavalry today only have experience in fighting based in cities and wagon camps. Their ability to fight independently is worrying. Even the most elite Guan Ning Iron Cavalry and Shen Shu Camp Vanguard are no exception.

Some suggested lighting torches and marching at night to reach Tongzhou City, as they were already very close. However, Cao Wenzhao did not agree. Not only was the march vulnerable to ambushes on the way, but a surprise attack upon entering the city could also lead to its fall.

Cao Wenzhao dispatched scouts three miles outwards, setting up both visible and hidden sentries. Soldiers were forbidden to remove their armor at night, and everyone slept with their heads resting on their weapons. All fires in the camp were extinguished, except for the central command tent, whose light illuminated the tent in an orange glow. Cao Wenzhao did not actually live in the tent; this was merely a decoy to deceive the enemy.

The moonlight was bright that night, reflecting off the thin layer of snow and illuminating the surroundings even more. Under the moonlight, one could see a face within five steps, and the outline of a figure could be roughly discerned even fifty steps away.

Click, click, rustling!
Five miles away from the Ming army camp, a cavalry unit was advancing silently. They wore heavy armor, their faces were deathly pale in the moonlight, their eye sockets were dark and their pupils were indistinct, and their lips were reddish-purple and black, as if they would reveal fangs if they opened their mouths.

Leading the troops was Ajige, the Heshuo Beile and head of the Bordered White Banner. The Bordered White Banner originally belonged to him, but Huang Taiji had taken it away under some pretext and given it to Dorgon. Now that Dorgon had been captured, the banner's head had returned to him. Dorgon had been careless and was blocked by the Ming army at Lushun, resulting in significant losses for the Bordered White Banner, but its main force remained intact.

Compared to the older generation, the younger generation, including Ajige, were more eager for military merit. Ajige did not want to be easily dismissed by Huang Taiji. He wanted to be like Amin, so that even if he broke with Huang Taiji, Huang Taiji would have to have some reservations and would not be able to call for his death.

The old Khan had clearly stipulated that the eight great princes should participate in government affairs, but the lesser princes were stripped of their right to speak and couldn't even protect their own banner troops.

Since entering the pass, the Ming army had been passively avoiding battle, retreating into their cities to protect themselves, and they had been searching for the main force of the Ming army without success. They enjoyed plundering, but without defeating the main force of the Ming army, they always felt uneasy and uneasy. Now their opportunity had come; they had discovered a group of Ming soldiers who were so audacious as to dare to venture out alone in the wilderness.

Whether driven by a desire for glory or a thirst for revenge, Ajige was determined to annihilate the Ming army. A more prudent approach would have been to ambush them outside Tongzhou the following day, or to notify his brothers to gather a large army for a coordinated encirclement. But Ajige couldn't wait; he was going to launch a night raid on the Ming camp and decide the outcome with a single blow!

Da da da!
The sound of a few warhorses galloping rang out; Ajige's scouts were returning. A sharp glint flashed in Ajige's eyes as he gripped the sword at his waist.

A moment later, several scouts clad in black armor dismounted and knelt on one knee: "Reporting to Your Highness! We have located the Ming army camp a few miles ahead on the riverbank!"

"How prepared are they?" Ajige asked in a deep voice, his left hand unconsciously stroking the saddle.

"Reporting to the Prince, the Ming army is fast asleep and completely unprepared! I have scouted for a long time, but I haven't seen a decent camp, or even a single sentry patrolling the camp. There are only a few scattered lights in the camp, which I guess means the night watchmen are slacking off," the scout replied confidently.

Ajige was overjoyed upon hearing this. He knew he had made the right bet. After their minor victory, the Ming army had indeed become arrogant and complacent, and had not anticipated that he would launch a night attack so quickly.

"Pass down the order: men gag themselves, horses hoofproof, follow me to raid the camp!"

In the Ming army camp, Cao Bianjiao had only a few drops of blood splattered on his face, but he casually wiped it away, covering his entire face. He carried a cracked three-barreled musket in one hand and the corpse of a Jurchen scout in the other. Cao Wenzhao's eyes lit up when he saw this, and he quickly stood up. The generals around him also quickly dispersed according to the plan they had discussed beforehand, and led their troops to set up an ambush.

Cao Wenzhao had only intended to take precautions, but he hadn't expected the Jurchens to actually launch a night attack. He felt both excited and fearful; if they hadn't deployed scouts, the Jurchens might have reached their camp before they discovered them. Because they hadn't set up camp until after sunset, their makeshift fortifications weren't very sturdy, and they could very well have been breached by the Jurchens.

It should be noted that the six thousand cavalrymen under his command were actually only so-so in terms of combat strength. Only a few hundred of them could fight the Jurchens one-on-one, and the rest could only be considered as having the ability to ride and shoot. They were still some distance away from being true elites, and at least they could not compare with the Guan Ning cavalry.

He also knew that the emperor sent them with the intention of training troops. In fact, there were still cavalry in the capital, and the cavalry from various border towns totaled several thousand.

Half an hour later, Ajige's four hundred guards and two thousand armored cavalrymen stood at attention five hundred paces away from the Ming army camp. Ajige, sitting on his horse, could already see several small dots of light in the Ming army camp. However, the scouts who had been left to keep watch on the Ming army camp had not returned. According to regulations, they were required to send one rider every fifteen minutes to report on the enemy camp's situation. Ajige felt somewhat uneasy.

Cao Wenzhao was also somewhat anxious. Having fought against the Jurchens for many years, he knew they were not easy to deal with. The Chinese and the barbarians had been fighting for thousands of years, and even the Mongols had become adept at it, let alone the Jurchens. In battle, so-called strategies were no longer very effective; ambushes were difficult to execute, and often it was a matter of attrition.

Ajige sent out scouts again, and the scouts reported that they had not found anything unusual in the enemy camp, except that the scouts who had been on patrol earlier had disappeared.

The scouts have all disappeared. Isn't that the biggest anomaly?
"Ah!!!" Ajige roared angrily to the sky, but the Ming army camp remained quiet, confirming his suspicions. He said unwillingly, "There's an ambush! Retreat!" "Disperse, everyone, return to your camps to rest," Cao Wenzhao said helplessly.

In truth, their elaborate plan went awry out of sheer necessity. Their scouts hadn't been sent out far enough; their reports only gave them enough time to prepare, not enough to set up an ambush. Then the Jurchens sent spies to keep watch. Without capturing these spies, they couldn't move their forces undetected under their noses, and ultimately, they were exposed.

If the enemy general were careless, their ambush tonight might have succeeded. But the enemy general is also cautious, and tonight's silent exchange has been a waste of time.

"Brother, how about we launch a surprise attack?" Dodo rode up to Ajige's side and said somewhat reluctantly.

Ajige's face showed interest, but after thinking for a while, he shook his head and said, "This Ming general is a cautious person. Even if we withdraw our troops, they will still be on guard."

"I heard from the servants who escaped that the commander of this Ming cavalry is a member of the Ming imperial family?!" Dodo was somewhat curious, because they had never encountered a member of the Ming imperial family on the battlefield.

The emperors of the Ming Dynasty were cowardly and dared not personally lead expeditions like their Khan. It was said that the Ming imperial family was also a bunch of useless people who never did anything proper and were just bloated and fat. In any case, they were no match for their dozen or so brothers.

"The people below say he's the grandson of the Tang Emperor, named Zhu Yu. Anyway, I've never heard of him before. I never thought the Ming Dynasty would have such a person," Ajige remarked.

The night passed without incident, and at the crack of dawn the next day, the army broke camp, mounted their horses, and continued their march. Having just met them during the day, the fact that the enemy could muster several thousand elite troops for a night raid indicated that the main force of the Jurchens was nearby, and Cao Wenzhao sensed the formidable situation.

Last night, there was almost no battle. Even if they had set up an ambush, facing the enemy's elite troops, they might have been able to launch a surprise attack and create some chaos with their tiger-squatting cannons, but taking down the enemy would have been extremely difficult. If things went wrong, they might even have been overwhelmed by the Jurchens despite having been in an ambush.

Their numerous attempts to encircle and annihilate the Jurchens failed in this way. Despite being the besieging side, they were unable to trap the Jurchens. When surrounded by the Jurchens, they could hold their ground, but breaking out was extremely difficult. They could only stay and wait for reinforcements, which only made it easier for the Jurchens to surround and attack their reinforcements.

The civil officials in the imperial court never see the difficulties faced by their soldiers on the front lines. They only engage in theoretical warfare, believing they can win if the numbers on paper are similar for both sides. They haphazardly deploy troops, piling them up with confidence, unaware that a large number of troops sometimes does not translate into combat power, but can even become a hindrance.

Whenever they were assigned to battle, considering the disparity in strength between the two sides, they would submit a memorial to refuse, trying to delay as much as possible, but this was seen as cowardice! Now it's better, at least the emperor is of one mind with them. Compared to the previous emperors, the current emperor is more able to clearly understand the strength of the Jurchens and the true strength of the Ming army.

Ajige's night raid failed, and he returned in disgrace. He finally decided to report the news of the Ming cavalry to Huang Taiji. At this time, Huang Taiji was leading the main force of the Jurchens, 40,000 cavalry, to plan an attack on Tongzhou.

After entering the pass, Huang Taiji's military strength was constantly being reduced. After capturing Zunhua, he used it as his temporary base for entering the pass. He also sent troops to Yongping, Luanzhou, and Qian'an nearby. The passes captured by the Jizhou border wall needed to be guarded. These were the most important places. If they were to be captured by the Ming army and they were to be trapped and beaten, they would be in big trouble. Therefore, the number of troops left to guard them could not be reduced. In addition, troops also needed to be sent to plunder.

With 40,000 cavalry, Huang Taiji had no confidence at all in taking Tongzhou City, which was guarded by at least 20,000 soldiers and had a wagon camp several miles deep outside the city. But he still came. This was because he had captured too many slaves, so many that he didn't need them anymore.

Letting him go directly wouldn't be kind, but killing them all would be a waste. It would be better to use them to deplete the Ming army's arrows and ammunition, and also to annoy the Ming army. If the Ming army in Tongzhou was just bluffing and revealed their true colors, he wouldn't mind turning the siege into a real one.

Cao Wenzhao's six thousand cavalry were not intended to fight against the Jurchen army. Six thousand men were a considerable number; if they were fighting against a Mongol tribe, they could easily wipe out a medium-to-large tribe. However, the Jurchens were different. They were not tribes; they had already become a separatist force, a regional power. The Jurchens should be viewed as a country, not a tribe. They possessed a complete civil and military bureaucracy and a tax system.

His forces were less than a single banner of the Jurchens, who had eight banners, each with eight or nine thousand, or even twenty thousand, soldiers, plus vassal Mongol cavalry. Six thousand cavalrymen would be overwhelmed by the Jurchen cavalry in no time.

The Ming Dynasty was in a very awkward position. In terms of the quality of its soldiers and military discipline, it could not compare with the Jurchens. In terms of actual troop strength, it could not compare with the Jurchens either. In each battle zone, the Jurchens often had a much larger number of troops than the Ming army, by three or four times. The Battle of Hunhe was a battle between 20,000 to 30,000 elite Ming troops and 60,000 Jurchen troops.

The reason why the Ming Dynasty was able to hold on until now despite such disadvantages was due to its advanced technology. It was firearms that truly saved the Ming Dynasty. However, the quality of firearms in the Ming Dynasty was uneven, and the Ming army had a love-hate relationship with firearms.

Their mission was to break into smaller groups and launch small-scale raids, with the most important task being to provide accurate information on the movements of the Jurchen army. However, to accomplish this, they needed at least a stable stronghold. Cavalry also needed rest; they couldn't keep living in the open and constantly on the move. They couldn't sustain this for long, and the losses would become unacceptable. Tongzhou City was such a good stronghold.

Tongzhou City is very important and must be defended. However, the officials of the Imperial Military Affairs Department unanimously believed that Huang Taiji's target could not be Tongzhou City. In fact, the reason he went to Tongzhou was to play a trick of luring the tiger away from the mountain and making a feint to the east while attacking the west, so that he could wait in comfort for the imperial army to run back and forth and be exhausted.

After receiving news of Ajige, Huang Taiji dispatched 20,000 troops to capture the so-called Prince of Tang and his several thousand Ming cavalry, while the rest continued the siege.

At the foot of Tongzhou City, war broke out. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were driven to carry sand and gravel to fill the Tonghui River; some were even used as filler themselves. Warnings from the Ming troops on and below the city walls were ignored, leaving them no choice but to ruthlessly shoot the civilians filling the pits. But there were hundreds of thousands of people—how could they possibly kill them all?!
The moat was stained blood-red, and the soldiers guarding the city had nightmares every night, their war-weariness growing. Three days later, the ten-meter-wide, five-meter-deep moat was filled in, along with the corpses of tens of thousands of civilians. However, Huang Taiji did not continue the attack. Instead, he abandoned tens of thousands of civilians who had survived but were already on the verge of death from torture and left.

(End of this chapter)