mtl008 Chapter 554: Having your own way
Chapter 554: Having your own way
Gartu returned to Abatai's side, pleading with a sob in his voice: "Your Highness, I am useless and have suffered another defeat... Please punish me, Your Highness. Whether it is whipping or beating, I will have no complaints. Even if you cut off my head, it will be my just deserts."
Abatai waved his hand with a gloomy face, signaling Gartu to step aside. He hadn't recovered from the blow just now, so he had no mind to pursue the matter.
He looked at the disheveled soldiers retreating in front of him, feeling extremely frustrated. Rao Yu Beile, the son of the old Khan, a man of great prestige, had fought in the north and south for more than twenty years, and was invincible in every battle. But he never expected to be defeated so miserably in this small territory of Dengzhou.
"Father, your son has disgraced you," Abatai thought bitterly.
In a daze, he seemed to see himself in the thirty-ninth year of the Wanli Emperor's reign, at the age of 23, newly appointed as a Taiji, leading an army on his first expedition at his father's command, commanding a thousand men to subdue the two tribes of the Eastern Sea Jurchen (in the vicinity of the Bikin River in present-day Russia) and the Muling (in the Muling River basin of present-day Heilongjiang Province), achieving a great victory and being personally commended and encouraged by his father, the Khan. How spirited and high-spirited he was back then! Who would have thought that more than twenty years later, he, commanding an army of nearly 20,000, would be humiliated by a small stone fortress?
Abatai rode his horse in circles. He recalled his own time, from being highly regarded during the reign of the Old Khan to his marginalization during the reign of Huang Taiji. A voice inside him kept crying out: "I, Aisin Gioro Abatai, the seventh son of Nurhaci, fought valiantly from Ningguta to Shanhaiguan, achieving great military exploits. I shouldn't be like this now, a dispensable Beile. I should have a place in the court of the Great Jin. I should be the head of a banner, not subservient to my nephew Hauge, with only a pitiful five Niru under my command."
However, if he, who was already disliked by Huang Taiji, were to deviate from the original battle plan and lead his troops deep into Shandong without authorization, and then inexplicably fight a battle with the Ming army and suffer a major defeat, he might not be able to keep his five Niru and Beile titles.
Abatai couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. If he had known this would happen, he would have pretended not to have seen the cavalry unit earlier, and thus wouldn't have been so driven by a sense of mission to chase them all the way to Dengzhou. But there's no going back now. After two rounds of attacks, he had suffered heavy losses and was in a difficult position. If he were to retreat in disgrace and return to Shengjing, he would likely be stripped of his title and Niru, and demoted to Beizi. He couldn't let that happen; he had to find a way to make amends.
After circling around a few times, he reined in his horse and said to the trembling Gartu, "Send men to gather food from the surrounding area and set up camp. I will besiege this small fortress until they run out of ammunition and food." If he couldn't defeat them, he would starve them out. He reasoned that a small fortress like theirs, unless it was prophetic, wouldn't have much food stored up, especially given its proximity to Dengzhou; they might run out in three to five days. Once the enemy was weakened by hunger and their morale was low, they could easily take the city in one fell swoop.
Gartu was taken aback. Was the Prince going to fight the other side? His first reaction was to persuade Abatai to give up this foolish idea, but having suffered two defeats in a row, he was too ashamed to offer advice to the Prince, so he could only silently agree and order his men to search for provisions everywhere.
A Niru Zhangjing asked cautiously, "Your Highness, if we intend to besiege it, should we send men to guard the east side? Dengzhou City seems to be less than ten miles from here. Be careful that reinforcements from the city might come and attack our army from both sides."
Abatai replied dismissively, "What I fear is only this force inside the stone fortress; the rest of the Ming army are nothing but chickens and dogs. It would be best if the Ming army in Dengzhou came out of the city to reinforce us; we could just wipe them out in the process. If they cower in Dengzhou, it will be harder for me to attack them."
As a regime in the process of rising, the Later Jin army was disciplined and highly efficient—at this time and place, only the Qionghai Army in the entire Asian continent could compare with or even surpass it. Regardless of whether there were any doubts about Abatai's willful orders, once the orders were issued, the more than 10,000 troops acted separately, some collecting grain, some setting up camp, and some on guard duty, in an orderly manner, and did not become discouraged by the previous crushing defeat.
On the fortress walls, Liang Xiaoming, Su Hongtu, Ma Wei, and others stared in astonishment at the commotion opposite them. Liang Xiaoming asked Su Hongtu, dumbfounded, "If I'm not mistaken, are the Tartars setting up camp and going to confront us?"
Su Hongtu nodded with a grave expression: "It seems that's really the case."
Liang Xiaoming thought of something and felt extremely fortunate: "Fortunately, we have stored enough food for a month, so we'll be fine for now. I just don't know how long the Tartars plan to besiege us."
Ma Wei thought for a moment and said, "The Tartars invade only to plunder, and they generally don't stay in one place for long, lest their retreat be cut off. Although I don't know what this group of Tartars is thinking, Shandong is not Liaodong. They are deep in the country alone, and they won't stay for too long. A month is absolutely impossible. At most, it will be five or six days, and no more than ten days."
As they were speculating about the Tartars' intentions and the duration of the siege, a Tartar general led several armored soldiers on horseback to the vicinity of the city wall, waving frantically to signal them not to fire, as if he had something to say.
Su Hongtu ordered his soldiers not to fire, to see what they were up to. The Tartar general came to the city walls, looked up and said, "Our Prince sent me to ask two questions: First, your army is stronger than any Ming army he has ever seen, yet I have never heard of it before. Which general commands it?"
As Liang Xiaoming hesitated between using the title of General of Dengzhou or the title of Qionghai Army, worried that using the latter might affect Liu Ye's plan to discreetly infiltrate Shandong, Su Hongtu spoke up without hesitation.
"We are a detachment under Liu Ye, the General Commander of Pingnan Town in Qionghai, the Dragon and Tiger General, the Right Commander of the Five Armies, and the Earl of Pingnan, stationed in Dengzhou to assist in defense."
"Qionghai Town? Liu Ye?" The general racked his brains, but couldn't recall the name of this border town or its commander-in-chief. Qionghai Town had been established for less than a year, and it was far away in Guangdong, too far from Liaodong, so it was normal that the Later Jin were unfamiliar with it. However, from this day forward, the names of Qionghai Town and Liu Ye would be deeply etched into his mind, and he would never forget this crushing defeat, even for ten or twenty years.
After noting down the name, the general continued, "My second point is, we accept defeat, but could you let us take these corpses and wounded soldiers back?"
The Later Jin army was not large in number and was very sensitive to casualties in battle. Therefore, when fighting, as long as the situation allowed, they would generally take the wounded back, and they would not leave the corpses to the Ming army, so as not to have their heads cut off and used as spoils of war to claim credit and rewards. This was a great humiliation for the arrogant Later Jin army.