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

Chapter 99 Damn it, yay! My cannons are getting a free ride on those damned Tartars!!!
"General, the Northern barbarians are breaking camp and retreating!"

"These wolf cubs have learned to be scared! We can't let them get away like this, or we'll have no face to see His Majesty! Chase after them!" General Hou Shilu of Xuanfu slammed his fist on the table, sending him flying three zhang into the air, and roared loudly.

"Great Khan, the Ming people are catching up!!!"

"Hahaha, well done! I was just worried that the Ming people were hiding inside the city and wouldn't come out. If they dared to come out, they would definitely be no match for the great Bogda Chechen Khan!"

Ligdan Khan commanded, "Gongtu Taiji, my brother, you lead the Iron Spear Konot to teach the Ming people a lesson!"

“I will obey your will,” said Khuntu Taiji, kneeling on one knee and placing his hand on his chest.

"General, shall we continue the pursuit?!" asked the personal guard of General Wang Tingchen, looking at the elite Northern cavalry who had turned back to cover the rear.

Clad in iron helmets, with armored riders and horses, and wielding long swords, even Wang Tingchen, renowned for his cavalry prowess, couldn't help but break out in a sweat. He roared, "What's the point of chasing them? Set up cannons right here!!!"

At Wang Tingchen's command, his 2,400 cavalrymen set down 100 small cannons. These cannons included the Tiger Crouching Cannon, which fired stones and iron filings; the Swinging Pearl Cannon, which fired Gongsun Bullets; and the Annihilation Cannon, which was towed by three gun carriages. After the artillery formation was set up, the cavalrymen dared not dismount, but instead held the long sticks used for lighting the fire upside down on their horses, staring intently ahead.

Meanwhile, the elite Iron Pagoda troops of the Northern Barbarians had already formed their ranks. At its peak, Altan Khan possessed 40,000 elite cavalry and 10,000 Iron Pagoda troops, but by Ligdan Khan's time, only 3,000 remained. Ligdan Khan was unwilling to commit all of them, and ordered Juntu Taiji to lead 1,000 cavalrymen to attack.

The Northern barbarian Iron Pagoda leader lightly pulled on the reins, and a thousand iron cavalrymen slowly advanced, blocking the wall.

"The enemy is two li away!!!" shouted the Ming army's scout responsible for measuring the distance.

"Five hundred steps!!!"

Rumble! The Iron Pagoda cavalry began to accelerate. A thousand heavily armored cavalrymen, each weighing eight hundred pounds, pounded the ground, causing it to tremble. Sweat began to bead on the noses of the Ming soldiers.

call out! ! ! !

A sharp whistle rang out, the sound of a whistling arrow with a horizontally slit cutting through the air.

"Three hundred paces!!!!!" shouted the Ming scouts.

With a whoosh, the whistle arrow landed, piercing the ground, its red tail feathers still clearly visible even from two hundred paces away.

At this moment, the sound of the enemy's iron cavalry was rapidly increasing, indicating that the distance between them was rapidly closing, which could be heard by the ears; and in everyone's eyes, the boundless array of gold and iron was rising and falling like a tsunami, sweeping towards them.

"General!!!"

Wang Tingchen's personal guards felt their calves trembling. Wang Tingchen frowned and glanced at them, then raised his right arm high, and all the soldiers holding long wooden sticks inlaid with tinderboxes looked nervously at his right arm.

"One hundred and fifty paces!!!" The scout's voice trembled. "Fire!!!" Wang Tingchen roared, swinging his arm down. The already eager igniter quickly ignited the cannon fuse.

With a hissing sound, the fuse emitted a faint, venomous crack. Once the fuse was lit, the cavalryman who lit it dropped the wooden stick, quickly turned his horse around, and squeezed his legs tightly around the horse's belly. The three-eyed muskets in the hands of the other soldiers also began to emit blue smoke.

In the blink of an eye, as the fuse burned, the enemy's iron cavalry had already closed to within a hundred paces.

Boom! ! !
One hundred cannons with double-charge propellants roared toward the enemy with even higher initial velocities than usual. The tiger-squat cannons scattered a wide area of ​​shrapnel, usually capable of taking down dozens of infantrymen, and in dense formations like the Iron Pagoda, they were almost guaranteed to hit their targets.

However, the enemy cavalry merely lowered their heads slightly, and their barrel-shaped steel helmets protected all their exposed skin, including their necks. Pebbles and iron filings hitting the double-layered armored iron pagodas made only a rustling sound, like raindrops splashing onto an oil-paper umbrella.

The northern cavalrymen only felt a stinging pain, but it was just a slight pain from the impact of the shrapnel; in reality, the tiger-squatting cannons had not penetrated their defenses.

However, the Gongsun bullets from the Yongzhu cannon did indeed inflict damage on the Iron Pagoda. The Yongzhu cannon weighed forty jin (approximately 30 kg), firing one lead bullet and several lead pellets, totaling forty-eight liang (approximately 37 kg) of ammunition, while the propellant weighed a terrifying twenty-nine liang (approximately 67 kg)!

Many of the explosive cannons couldn't withstand the damage from the excessive charge and exploded on the spot. Five iron hoops shot into the sky, scattering in all directions, before falling to the ground and rolling a considerable distance away.

However, if the ball cannon was successfully fired without exploding, it caused a bloodbath. The egg-sized bullets tore through the two layers of iron armor of the Iron Pagoda and blasted them away. The lead bullets were deeply embedded, and although they did not seem to cause any harm at first, blood was soon seen flowing down from the front of the Northern Barbarian cavalry.

They charged forward for more than ten meters, supported by their warhorses, but eventually fell off their horses due to the jolting and were trampled into a bloody pulp by the herd.

The most terrifying thing was those three hundred-pound cannons that fired two-pound lead-cased iron bullets. They were incredibly powerful and directly pierced through the Northern Barbarians' iron pagoda formation, leaving three bloody scars.

After the artillery barrage, they were met with five-barreled guns, but unfortunately the distance was too far and the enemy's armor was too thick, so they failed to penetrate and could not cause effective damage.

After firing a volley of cannon fire and three-barreled musket fire, the Xuanfu cavalry abandoned their artillery positions and fled for their lives. The Iron Pagoda pursued relentlessly, and at one point the two sides were only thirty paces apart.

The Northern barbarian cavalry drew their longbows and fired heavy arrows, while the Ming soldiers lit their three-barreled muskets and fired them upside down. This time, the Northern barbarian cavalry had the upper hand, but then the iron pontoons' horses wore out and their speed decreased, and the distance between the two sides quickly widened.

In the ensuing clash, the Iron Pagoda left behind three hundred corpses, while the Ming army suffered roughly the same losses. However, the commander, Gengtu Taiji, was furious, forced to watch helplessly as the Ming cavalry fled in a fit of impotent rage!
The Iron Pagoda cavalry pursued them for two miles before gradually coming to a halt. However, the Xuanfu cavalry had no intention of letting them go so easily. The Iron Pagoda's strength was only limited to this one moment; now that they had just finished their charge, they were lambs to the slaughter, easy targets for military merit! Wang Tingchen led his cavalry around a bend and circled back.

The Iron Pagoda soldiers dismounted, formed a battle formation, and retaliated with bows and arrows.

With a thunderous roar, billowing dust rose in the distance—the northern barbarian cavalry had arrived to provide reinforcements. Seeing that he couldn't defeat this group of Ironclad Mongols quickly, Wang Tingchen had no choice but to lead his army back.

"Damn it! My cannons are getting freebies from these damned Tartars!" Wang Tingchen cursed angrily.

However, Gontu Taiji angrily kicked over the Ming army's cannons, feeling no joy at all. What they lacked was gunpowder, gunpowder! Even if they seized the Ming army's cannons, at most they could melt them down to make weapons or iron pots, but they couldn't use them directly!

The army that came to support Juntu Taiji was Huluke Zaisang, the right-wing chief general of Ligdan Khan. After driving out the Ming army, he did not stop but continued to pursue them, and then ran headlong into the mixed wagon formation of Xuanfu!
(End of this chapter)