mtl008 Chapter 548 Flexible Tactics
Chapter 548 Flexible Tactics
Looking at the seemingly endless army, Liang Xiaoming gasped and muttered, "How can there be so many people? Weren't the Tartars supposed to have a small population?"
Ma Wei explained, “General, the true Tartar population is indeed small. But they have many henchmen. Here we only have Han bondservants and surplus men, Han soldiers and Eight Banner Mongols. If we fight in the Liaodong area, they may also mobilize Koreans to help, and there will be even more people.”
What do "baoyi" and "yuding" mean?
“Baoyi are slaves, including both Han and Koreans, but Han Chinese are more numerous,” Ma Wei replied. “Yu Ding are bannermen who do not serve in the military. The Tartars claim that the Eight Banners are soldiers when they go out and civilians when they return, with the military and civilians as one, but in reality, not all bannermen are soldiers. In the old days, it was said that one out of two bannermen was conscripted, but under Huang Taiji, it was changed to one out of three. Those who served in the military were called ‘armored men,’ and those who did not serve in the military were called Yu Ding. Yu Ding did not fight because of coercion, but because they voluntarily came to plunder, and they brought their own weapons and armor.”
Liang Xiaoming understood. The so-called "Yu Ding" were reserve soldiers, and the "armored men" were active-duty soldiers. This was the origin of the trope in later TV dramas about people being exiled to Ningguta and enslaved by armored men. However, this "bondservant slave" made him quite angry.
"Are all Han Chinese so spineless, willingly becoming slaves to the Tartars?" Liang Xiaoming thought indignantly. What's the difference between this and the traitors during the Anti-Japanese War?
Ma Wei sighed: "It's a long story, too complicated to explain in a few words. Not all those who became bondservants did so voluntarily; some did it for wealth and status, while others did it simply to survive..."
“They can find a chance to escape just to survive! I’ve heard that many Han Chinese escape from Liaodong every year, so it’s not like groveling to the Manchus is the only way out.” Liang Xiaoming interrupted him, drawing a conclusion about the bondservant: “Once you become a slave, your life and death are in the hands of the slave owner. The master can kill you if he’s unhappy. Rather than living such a cowardly and pathetic life, not knowing if you’ll see the sun rise tomorrow, with the danger of losing your life either way, why not take a gamble? It’s clear that these people are just pathetic and don’t deserve any sympathy.”
Ma Wei didn't know why this nominal general was so hostile to the bondservant, but since the man was his superior and had a valid point, he didn't say anything more and shut his mouth.
While they were discussing, Su Hongtu wasn't idle. He kept his eyes fixed on the approaching army, estimating the distance and judging the best time to fire. Looking at the boundless army, his palms were sweating. Although he had earned his career through hard work and had experience like the defense of Bofu and commanding sieges independently, making him a seasoned fighter, the Tartar army was not the Ming army in Guangdong, nor was it a rabble of bandits. It was the strongest opponent he had ever encountered. It would be a lie to say he wasn't nervous.
Although the Tartar army was not as well-organized as the Qionghai Army, it was much stronger than the bandits. Lightly armored archers were in front, armored infantry were behind, auxiliary troops were on the flanks, and white-armored soldiers were in the rear, clearly divided and orderly.
Su Hongtu speculated that the Tartars' tactics might involve using archers to suppress the firepower on the city walls, then sending cannon fodder troops to lead the charge, with armored soldiers breaking through the walls at crucial moments. Therefore, the main force in the siege should be these armored soldiers, and killing as many of them as possible was the key to the defensive battle. In fact, siege warfare in the era of cold weapons was largely the same, with similar routines. The Later Jin army was only stronger than bandits and other forces in terms of fighting spirit, military discipline, and execution. There were no breakthroughs in tactics, so Su Hongtu's speculation was basically correct.
Su Hongtu considered for a moment and then gave the order: "The artillery will fire three rounds of salvo, then take cover to avoid being hit by arrows. The rest of you will hide behind the battlements and wait for the archers to finish firing before letting the armored soldiers in under the wall. They can only open fire when I give the order."
The soldiers looked at each other, wondering what kind of tactics this was. Although most of them were new recruits, even storytellers knew the tricks of defending a city. It was nothing more than the two sides going back and forth, one desperately trying to climb the city wall, and the other desperately trying to drive the other down. Rolling stones, logs, and spiked clubs were all used to kill as many as possible. How could they let the enemy down the city wall without firing a single shot?
Liang Xiaoming couldn't help but walk over to him and whisper, "Hongtu, what do you mean by this? The closer the enemy gets, the more passive we become, right?"
Su Hongtu explained, “My lord, I have two reasons for doing this: First, those armored men are the main force attacking the city and the core of the Tartar army. If we can kill as many armored men as possible, the Tartars will be weakened, and the pressure on the defenders will be reduced. After all, archers are only auxiliary and are unlikely to be the main force attacking the city. We don’t need to engage in a war of attrition with the archers. Second, our Independent Regiment consists of newly trained recruits. If we suffer heavy casualties in the exchange of fire with the archers, it will shake morale. It’s better to conserve our strength and wait until the Tartars are in our trap before launching a swift and decisive attack. You personally designed this stone fortress, so you must know that the angle between the two fortress surfaces is the most suitable position to annihilate the enemy…”
Liang Xiaoming slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "That's right! Bastions are concave polygons, unlike flat city walls, so the defensive tactics are different."
Ordinary fortifications require inflicting maximum damage on the enemy at medium to long range; otherwise, once the enemy reaches the walls, artillery and other weapons become ineffective due to blind spots, and muzzle-loading muskets cannot fire vertically downwards, leaving only melee combat with climbing enemies. Bastions, however, are different. Theoretically, they have no blind spots, and the enemy, positioned at the concave angle between the two convex corners, faces crossfire from different directions, experiencing even greater pressure than at medium to long range. Wasn't that the Han army wave, without archer cover, utterly routed in such a position? Moreover, this tactic capitalizes on strengths and avoids weaknesses, fully considering the large number of inexperienced recruits in the independent regiment and preventing premature casualties from impacting morale.
He couldn't help but give a thumbs up: "Rules are rigid, but people are flexible. Only someone like you, who is willing to use his brain, can make the bastion I designed work unexpectedly."
Under Su Hongtu's command, the soldiers hid behind the battlements, awaiting orders. From below, it looked like an undefended ghost town.
Gartu sat on his horse, slowly advancing amidst the entourage of Bayala. He frowned as he looked ahead. What was the enemy up to? Was it an empty city ruse? Where had all the people who filled the valleys when the Han army attacked the city gone? He didn't believe such a strong opponent would make such a basic mistake; it was definitely a trap.
"Boom boom boom," the sound of cannons rang out one after another, proving that this was not an empty city ploy. Seeing the dark cannonballs streaking across the sky with the trails of burning gunpowder as they flew towards the army, Gartu breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that this was a normal siege battle within his understanding.