The Cavalry Charge: The First Sino-Korean War (2)
Heart pounding like a drum, the galloping hooves of the cavalry thundered forward, filling those facing them head-on with overwhelming terror.
“Two-two-two!!”
Dust swirled from their tails.
At most, there were only a few dozen riders, yet no emotions stirred among the enemy cavalry.
Unlike the Qing soldiers scattered across the village, stomachs empty after a lazy afternoon.
“Enemy!”
And more slowly, Qing soldiers spotted the flags and armor patterns on the backs of the riders and realized they were under attack, vomiting in panic.
Why were the Joseon forces here?
“Everyone, retreat!”
“Scatter! Scatter!”
“Kiyaaak!”
“Crash!”
At the same moment the retreat cries rang out, an enormous collision slammed into the backs of Daiching’s comrades.
A near-death scream tore through the sky as blood fountains erupted from every street corner.
Several heavily armored riders wearing full plate armor had collided, turning his comrades and soldiers into pulp and sending them tumbling.
“Huff… huff!”
Daiching, who had barely survived the murderous charge, let out a strange wheezing sound from his throat and desperately crawled across the filthy dirt floor.
Tears tickled his throat.
“Uwaaa…”
For the first time in his life, Daiching witnessed a person being skewered alive in real time. He could not hold back the violent retching that welled up from deep inside him, vomiting the breakfast he had missed and bending his waist.
It was a stroke of luck.
“Keuk!”
Although Daiching did not understand Korean, a comrade soldier who had barely dodged the attack together with him behind his back, along with the commander’s shout “Die!”, let out a strange death rattle and fell backward.
His head burst like a door latch and his brains scattered everywhere.
Daiching, stunned, reached out and touched his comrade’s crushed forehead.
“…”
Yes, it was a door latch.
The tool farmers used to thresh grain every harvest time across the nation.
To Daiching, returning to his hometown with the cool autumn breeze, it was a familiar sight.
“Uee…”
He had gone mad.
Unfortunately.
“Hey!”
At that moment.
Daiching sat dazed, holding his comrade’s head, when a massive shadow suddenly loomed over him and roared.
“Daiching! Wake up, you bastard!”
Of course, it was not his deceased grandfather or ancestors’ ghosts to mourn his death.
“You bastard!”
With the shock from moments ago and his intelligence apparently gone, the shadow in front of him mocked him. Unlike Daiching’s uniform from the Manchu banners, he wore a more neatly tailored military jacket.
Not leather armor or helmets for protection.
“We have to run away!”
Despite the shadow’s scolding, Daiching stared blankly ahead with dim eyes. The shadow grew furious and stomped his feet in place.
“This bastard…”
The shadow’s identity was Sechung, a bondservant from the Manchu Eight Banners who had come to Joseon with his master.
Sechung had acted as a bondservant under the banner and taken on the role of military training for the unit. With screams and thunderous sounds, he ran out into the street, and corpses lay everywhere.
He had also set out from their hometown with Daiching and his master’s riders to Joseon, only to suffer an unexpected mishap.
“Here, you’ll really die!”
He noticed the Korean cavalry that had stirred up their main camp and forcibly raised Daiching.
His superior, the banner, had already been beheaded by a Korean cavalryman while searching for a liquor bottle in a ruined village warehouse.
Sechung fled from his master’s corpse and, among the crushed bodies of his comrades in the collision, luckily found Daiching sitting dazed and vomiting.
“Uuu.”
Look behind you!
The crazy Joseon bastards can’t stand it and charge again to find food!
“Run away now, uwaaa…”
No more words to persuade, and realizing the Joseon people who crushed them would show no mercy, Sechung grabbed Daiching’s dirty head like a rein and dragged him backward.
They had to escape quickly.
*****
The smoke was thick, and the pungent smell of blood filled the village.
“Sigh, tsk!”
Yi Gyu-tae, the battalion commander of the 3rd Regiment of the Hobunwi from Pyeongan Province, spat the saliva accumulated in his mouth and passed by the corpses of the Qing soldiers scattered around, slipping out to the edge of the village.
“These bastards, no matter the formation, there’s nothing.”
He had performed a feigned reconnaissance thinking they might flee, but since he got unexpected information, was it fortunate?
Or was it a loss because some injured soldiers fell off their horses while fighting poor enemies and broke their legs?
After weighing it, Yi Gyu-tae concluded that falling off against poor enemies and getting injured was a loss, furrowed his brows and shook his head sideways.
Anyway, the precious information obtained shortly after they crossed the river was that the military discipline of the Qing soldiers sitting casually at the village entrance was not good.
Yi Gyu-tae, who was recalling the short massacre from moments ago in his mind and gathering information, had a subordinate come with a horse and report.
“Commander, move the corpses aside and collect all the weapons they left behind!”
“Oh? Did you get some harvest?”
“Y-yes, if you come see it, you’ll be disappointed.”
The lieutenant, wearing a company executive officer badge on his chest, casually kicked the mixed loot with his foot and led him to a collection of rusty spears, old matchlock guns, and miscellaneous items.
“Ammunition was twenty rounds per person, and rations were only for three days. Most of them had no food for lunch right away.”
“What is this?”
The uniforms were tattered, and the weapons were rusty.
If this was the Qing army that ruled the world, Yi Gyu-tae’s own Gyeongsang Province militia that he grew up with would be a thousand soldiers.
That is, the Vanguard that united with just one spirit to overturn the country was half-baked.
“Hey, does this double-barreled gun shoot?”
The hammer behind isn’t moving properly?
Yi Gyu-tae picked up someone’s double-barreled gun from the loot and pulled the trigger, and soon a ‘kik!’ sound and the hammer stopped.
This gun was not just outwardly fine but had a broken inner mechanism.
“The hammer doesn’t hit properly, and the sights are twisted. If you pull the trigger thinking it shoots properly, the opponent who gets hit by this gun would have to have a very broad mind.”
“Ah.”
The lieutenant, with a dazed expression, picked up another gun from beside him and inspected the whole body.
This was because a considerable number of weapons dropped by the Qing soldiers didn’t work properly, as per the superior’s hint.
“‘Ah?’ What? Check again right away. If they carry around such trash, it’s hard to see them as proper regular army, but anyway, their military discipline was real.”
“Understood, Commander.”
“Tsk tsk, there is such a messy army.”
In the days of the Dongmaenghoe, the army that faced the two peoples was brave and fought desperately to protect the country even with no resources.
Although they were distracted by Japan’s cunning and treacherous tactics, there were no cowardly Joseon people like the Qing soldiers in front of them today who couldn’t even shoot a gun and retreated in disarray.
“Could it be that these bastards aren’t all like this…?”
Yi Gyu-tae, who couldn’t string words together for a while about the reality of the Qing army he had seen with his own eyes, recalled the propaganda that the brutal Manchu army of the Qing would invade Joseon every day from the training and Wolf’s Lair.
What kind of war would these guys start, and come all the way to Hanyang to slaughter our people?
In Pyeongan or Hamgyeong Province, if there were 100 soldiers, it would be possible to have one hundred, but it was a miserable level.
He recalled the propaganda leaflets of the Dongmaenghoe full of provocative slogans written in red letters every day while competing to show loyalty to the Republic, and swallowed a sigh.
“Even the 100,000 large army, 200,000 invading army things might be half lies.”
Of course, Yi Gyu-tae himself wasn’t completely ignoring the military intelligence and French spy reports of the ally France.
However, Yi Gyu-tae, who had seen the 3rd Regiment’s auxiliary forces, called “fancy” because they were equipped with double-barreled guns, unified regulations, and military caps, leading the most elite Hobunwi cavalry from Pyeongan Province, had expected these scattered Qing soldiers at the Yalu River to be disappointing.
More like a gang of thieves worse than bandits?
It would have been better if the armaments of the bandit groups that occasionally crossed the Pyeongan border, settled in Gando, and raided Korean pioneer villages by crossing the river were better.
“Bandits are like beggars in front of rich houses, but this is a bit…”
He had defeated nearly 600 Qing soldiers (of course, with exaggeration mixed in Joseon statistics), but the overwhelming sense of emptiness filled his heart.
Because he had to defeat so many empty-headed bastards that this couldn’t even be treated as military merit later.
If the reality of the Qing who threatened Joseon by yelling every day that they had 100,000 large troops and 200,000 invading army was like this, how enormous the military achievements would flow to the generals in the future battle where 80,000 Republic army and Qing army clash in the north?
“Could it be that the entire Qing army isn’t like this, like this.”
At least dozens of stars would rise, definitely.
And himself standing in the vanguard would also gain glory.
Since they were poor opponents, everyone would easily catch them like eating rice while lying down, so they would win a lot, but still.
Yi Gyu-tae, who barely swallowed this disappointment and strange expectation, deliberately with a tense expression turned the topic and asked the lieutenant.
“By the way, it’s strange. We know well after wandering here for a few days, but I hear there’s no suitable resting place for resupply near the advanced positions.”
“That’s right, Commander. Since crossing the river, we haven’t found a proper resting place or camping facilities.”
The lieutenant bowed his head in pretense to the explanation and hoped for another clue from the loot, but soon realized it was full of trash and turned his gaze.
“Hmm.”
Then, his eyes were filled with the vast, low hills behind the village.
“We only crossed a small river, but the wide open plains are welcoming us.”
The world was vast, and for Yi Gyu-tae, a Joseon construction worker, Liaodong and Manchuria felt even larger.
“Hmm, that hill looks good for our regiment to advance.”
It was clearly the highest point in the terrain here, so visibility would be secured, and if they placed artillery there, it would be an excellent strategic point to counter enemy artillery fire.
Moreover, digging a base in the shaded area below the mountain and building a stockade would be a perfect fortress to respond perfectly to enemy surprise attacks.
He looked at the hills where they could dig trenches or foxholes on some hills to act as good fortresses and called out to the lieutenant standing blankly beside him with a hand gesture.
“Hey, that hill over there, can you see it?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“It would be good to send scouts there too.”
The lieutenant, squinting his eyes and carefully examining the hills and hills pointed by Yi Gyu-tae, slowly replied.
“Well, it’s a forest, but it would be good to block the wind a bit and have shade to avoid the sun.”
“Do you think so too?”
“Ah, yes.”
Yi Gyu-tae, nodding in agreement, commanded.
“Then it’s perfect. Good, gather the subordinates.”
Like himself, the lieutenant also thought that if the Republic army pushed back the Qing and advanced to Liaodong and Manchuria, those hills and mountains would be important strategic points to solidify influence in this area.
Yi Gyu-tae, who had already decided in his heart to use that place as a base and wreak havoc, opened his mouth.
“Nearby places where they hide or suitable places for the main camp seem to be all there, when will the subordinates sent on reconnaissance return?”
“At least before sunset, they’ll go and come back. Or, do you intend to camp there tonight.”
“Hmm, as expected, excellent. It seems perfect for hiding the horses too.”
“Then I’ll quickly clean up this place and send out reconnaissance.”
As expected, the elite cavalry quickly followed orders and understood the commands instantly.
It wasn’t just any cavalry composed of promising sons.
“Good. So, as soon as the subordinates return, we must leave this place.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“For now, burn the village, and use that as a base to scout other areas too. Tonight, we’ll stay there.”
“Understood.”
“Depart first.”
That ended today’s duties.
Soon, a huge flame enveloped the entire village, spewing smoke, and in return, it quickly devoured the Qing soldiers’ corpses and erased the traces of the battle.
Yi Gyu-tae and the Hobunwi, full of the smell of blood, disappeared into the mountains with the approaching sunset.
It was the fourth day since the war began.