MLMD -Chapter 148 A Match for Ten Thousand Men

“Fire! Fire now!”

“The Tartars are charging—pick up the rate of fire!”

The twin-pronged attack routes of the brothers Luo Luohun and Karuchun had been shattered by Yue Yang with countless tiny iron caltrops. Yet Hafenga’s frenzied assault did achieve some effect. After suffering losses of nearly thirty percent, Hafenga finally drove the remaining thousand-plus men to within less than thirty paces of the Ming formation.

At this moment, the air above the Ming ranks was blanketed by a thick layer of white smoke. The choking stench of gunpowder made nearly everyone cough uncontrollably.

With visibility so badly impaired, the Ming musketeers’ accuracy and reloading speed were both severely affected.

A company commander ran to Feng Xiaoming’s side and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Sir, we’re firing too fast! Some of the barrels are already glowing red. If this keeps up, there’s a risk of the guns bursting—should we slow the men down?”

“No!” Feng Xiaoming bellowed back. “The Tartars are pressing in. If we slow the rate of fire, in just a few breaths they’ll be on top of us—then we’ll really be in trouble!”

“Sir… the Tartars have broken in!”

Feng Xiaoming had barely finished speaking when someone shouted loudly. He turned his head and saw that on the right flank of the formation, seven or eight Tartar mail-clad soldiers had advanced under cover of shields, pushed right up to the front of the formation, and charged inside, grappling hand to hand with several musketeers.

“Quick! Drive them out! We must not let them disrupt our formation!”

Seeing this, Feng Xiaoming’s eyes instantly turned red. The Ming army’s advantage lay in the ferocity of its firearms, while the Tartars excelled at close-quarters combat. In this regard, no amount of training could allow the Ming soldiers to match those Tartars who had trained since childhood and spent seven or eight years fighting on the battlefield.

If the Tartars broke into the formation, it would mean using one’s weakness to strike the enemy’s strength—and the losses would be catastrophic.

“Kill!”

A heavily armored Later Jin mail soldier burst out from behind a wooden shield like a whirlwind, charging straight into the Ming ranks. He held a small round shield in his left hand and wielded a long saber in his right. With a single slash, he struck a Ming musketeer on the shoulder. There was a loud clang, and the musketeer staggered back several steps before dropping heavily onto the ground.

Though he had knocked the musketeer down, a look of surprise crossed the mail soldier’s ferocious face. In his experience, any Ming soldier struck by such a blow would have had his armor split and bones shattered. Yet this strike had felt as though it landed on a block of iron, and the man had merely been knocked down, not killed.

Before he could think further, a flash of cold light streaked toward his eyes. He hastily raised his round shield. With a sharp clang, a bayonet from a musketeer struck the shield.

“Kill!”

Before the mail soldier could recover, two more musketeers thrust their muskets fiercely at him, black-gray bayonets glinting with deadly cold. He twisted desperately, barely dodging the thrust from the left—but the one from the right caught him. He felt a chill sweep past the corner of his eye, then a sudden cold at his neck, followed by searing pain. His vision went dark, and he knew nothing more.

One musketeer withdrew his bayonet, and the mail soldier’s heavy body fell to the ground like a sack of grain. But before the musketeer could celebrate, an arrow flew in like lightning and struck his face guard with a sharp clang. Sparks flashed as the arrowhead hit the hardened steel mask, denting it deeply. The musketeer immediately fell backward, whether dead or alive no one could tell.

Not far away, a Later Jin archer in padded armor emerged from behind a shield cart. Seeing that he had brought down a Ming soldier, he quickly drew another arrow from his quiver and aimed at another Ming man, pulling his bow.

His movements were swift—but he never got the chance to loose the second arrow.

A series of crackling sounds like exploding beans rang out, and a large hole was torn open in his lower abdomen. Blood mixed with gray-green intestines poured from the wound. Shot in the belly, the archer did not die immediately. The excruciating pain made him drop his bow at once and collapse, screaming and rolling on the ground. As his intestines had spilled out, they dragged along the earth as he writhed, like a long, ugly earthworm squirming endlessly.

Yue Yang naturally saw that the front ranks had been breached. He took a deep breath and issued orders to the messenger at his side: “Order the rear formations forward. Rotate out the front two formations. Then order the supply troops to use the Wandi to block the enemy!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Boom… boom… boom-boom-boom…”

Behind Yue Yang, twelve large war drums began to beat in a steady rhythm. Hearing the drums, the musketeers of the two rear formations broke into a jog, moving up behind the front formations to prepare to relieve them as they withdrew.

At the same time, a unit of about four hundred supply troops entered the battlefield. They split into two ranks. In the front rank, two hundred men worked in pairs to raise heavy shields made of fine steel, advancing slowly. The two hundred men behind them wore heavy cloth bags at their waists and held torches in their left hands, following closely behind the shield bearers.

By now, the fighting at the front of the formation had grown extremely fierce. Later Jin soldiers kept breaking into the ranks, and the musketeers fought desperately to drive them back out.

But the Later Jin soldiers’ prowess in close combat was formidable. The musketeers often had to pay a heavy price to kill them. If not for the astonishingly protective Gothic armor that Yue Yang had brought from the modern era, the casualties would have been so great that even Yue Yang could not have borne them.

Even so, the battle remained extremely difficult. The muskets, fired too frequently, had barrels that grew hot and red, and several guns had already burst. Feng Xiaoming was forced to order the musketeers to cease firing and engage the enemy with bayonets.

The arrival of the supply troops greatly eased Feng Xiaoming’s pressure. Once the heavy steel shields—each taller than half a man—were planted upright, they could block most incoming arrows.

As the shields went up, a supply officer shouted urgently, “Quick! Grenadiers forward—cup-throw the Wandi!”

With orders ringing out, the supply troops behind moved forward. They opened the bags at their waists with their right hands and pulled out black, squat objects. Each had a cylindrical head about the size of an adult’s fist, a wooden handle at the rear, and a white fuse along the side.

They touched the fuses to the torches. The fuses caught quickly with a hissing sound, and then the men hurled the objects forcefully toward the front of the formation.

At the same moment, nearly two hundred black objects, spitting sparks, flew like rain toward the Later Jin front lines.

“Boom! Boom! Boom—!”

As the black dots hit the ground, a chain of deafening explosions erupted some thirty paces away. Thick clouds of smoke billowed out, followed immediately by screams from the advancing Later Jin troops.

What the supply soldiers had thrown were Ming-dynasty versions of hand grenades, specially made by Yue Yang. Such weapons had already been invented in the Ming era and were known as Wandi—“Enemies of Ten Thousand.”

Because Ming-era gunpowder technology was crude, these grenades were extremely heavy, and were usually used only in siege defense. Later, Yue Yang discovered a more suitable black powder formula and, after repeated experiments, managed to control the weight of each Wandi to around two jin.

Compared to modern grenades, these Wandi were roughly twice as heavy and far less powerful than those filled with high explosives. But that could not be helped—the gap in science and technology could not be bridged overnight.

Even so, this was the first time Yue Yang had ever used such throwing weapons on a large scale in battle. In mass combat, tossing Wandi was not an ideal tactic. A nearly two-jin explosive could usually only be thrown about twenty paces, and a slight mistake could injure one’s own troops. As a result, Yue Yang had almost forgotten about them in everyday fighting. If not for the dire situation, he would never have ordered the supply troops to take such a risk.

What Yue Yang had not expected was that the Later Jin soldiers, having never seen such an attack, were utterly stunned. As Wandi after Wandi landed among them and exploded, countless soldiers who had been surging forward were blown off their feet.

“Boom—!”

One Wandi exploded beside a shield cart. The cart, made of thick wooden planks, was blown apart, and the two archers hiding behind it and shooting at the Ming troops were killed instantly.

“Good! Keep throwing—blow the bastards to hell!”

The explosions came too suddenly, and the Later Jin casualties were severe. Their assault was forced to a halt. Seizing the opportunity, the two rear formations completed the relief of the front two formations.

With two thousand fresh troops taking the field, Feng Xiaoming felt a surge of confidence. Before long, the crack of gunfire rang out again across the formation.

With their rate of fire restored, the Ming army inflicted devastating casualties on the Later Jin troops…