MLMD -Chapter 399 The Bitter Fruit

Crack—

A leather whip lashed viciously across Liu Agen’s back. His clothes, already so tattered that their original color could no longer be made out, instantly turned into little more than rags. A searing pain exploded across his back, and the intense agony made his legs falter—he nearly collapsed to the ground.

“Hurry up and charge, you useless coward! Keep dawdling and I’ll chop off your dog head!”
Beside him, a minor ringleader who held a saber at his waist in one hand and cracked the whip with the other cursed nonstop, driving Liu Agen and the other refugees forward. In his eyes, these refugees were nothing more than expendable cannon fodder. If they died, he could always grab more—there was nothing Ming lacked except people like these.

After taking the lash, Liu Agen did not show anger or react the way most people would. He knew that the moment the ringleader sensed any resentment, a blade would come down and his life would end—many refugees before him had already set that example. The only thing he could do was stagger forward with the people ahead of him, charging on until he was either shot dead by the Ming army or somehow survived the enemy line.

The bandit leader commanding this assault was called Liu Tugen. Naturally, he had no idea that among the crowd ahead was a clansman whose name differed from his by only one character, now being driven to his death by his men. Even if he had known, he likely wouldn’t have cared. From the day he became a bandit, Liu Tugen had already considered himself a dead man—every extra day alive was a bonus.

“Tell the people in front to speed up! Those dog officials’ firearms are vicious—if you want to live, run for your lives! Slow down and you’ll only die!” Liu Tugen split his mouth into a grin, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth as foul-smelling saliva sprayed everywhere.

“Yes!”

The minor leader ahead answered and lashed even harder with his whip. Bloody welts appeared one after another on the refugees’ backs, glaringly vivid under the sunlight.

Five or six hundred meters away, a Ming army qianzong stood with a shrill whistle in his mouth, calmly watching the refugees draw closer. His eyes were cold and steady. He raised his saber high, silently calculating the distance. Only when the enemy closed to three hundred meters did he slash his saber downward, his cheeks puffing out as he blew hard.

“Tweet—tweet—tweet—”

As the piercing whistle echoed through the air, bursts of sound rang out.

“Fire!”

“Fire!”

Bang bang bang—bang bang bang—

White smoke billowed as dull gunshots thundered through the air. Black powder ignited and burned rapidly, the heat expanding violently within the barrels. With nowhere else to go, it hurled the lead bullets forward at over three hundred meters per second—either to fall once their energy was spent, or to smash into anything standing in their way.

Thud thud—thud thud—

In less than a second, countless bullets struck their targets. Those targets were not stones or lifeless objects, but living, breathing human beings. Amid screams of agony, the refugees at the very front fell one after another, an entire swath dropping in an instant. Bodies collapsed into pools of blood—some lay still with lifeless eyes while those behind trampled over them; others, not yet dead, writhed on the ground, groaning or begging nearby companions for help.

“First rank, fall back! Second rank, forward!”

“Fire—fire!”

The perpetrators of all this—the musketeers—remained expressionless, listening to commands and repeating the cycle of loading, aiming, and firing. No one showed the slightest pity for the refugees. For professional soldiers, compassion was the most dangerous emotion of all. From the first day they put on the uniform, their instructors had told them: any mercy toward the enemy is cruelty toward yourself. It will get you killed, get your comrades killed, even get your family killed. If you don’t want to destroy others and yourself, then throw away such useless feelings as early as possible.

The firepower of the Xuanda Army was ferocious. Whistling bullets scythed through the refugees like the sickle of death. The once densely packed crowd fell row after row, like stalks of chives being cut down, until the mass quickly thinned out.

Liu Agen collapsed onto the ground, hearing bullets whistle overhead. His limbs no longer felt like his own. During that thunderous volley, the companions at the front had fallen in waves, the dense human tide turning into collapsing heaps like torn sacks. For a moment, he thought his own life was about to leave him. He staggered forward, waiting for some stray bullet to end everything—until he tripped over a corpse and fell flat on his face.

Just like that, lying on the ground, Liu Agen narrowly escaped death. From where he lay, he watched as people around him were struck by bullets and fell in all kinds of grotesque poses. His heart felt as though it were about to burst out of his chest.

“Does this cursed heaven even allow people to live? Why are the poor born to suffer so much?”

He wanted to shout, but no sound came. He wanted to struggle, but found he had lost control of his body. All he could do was watch as refugees fell endlessly around him, bullets screaming overhead. Then he saw, several hundred paces away, rows of enemy soldiers firing forward in neat, methodical movements.

“So these are the Xuanda Army?” Liu Agen stared at the soldiers, confused and bewildered, watching them slaughter his companions with disciplined, almost elegant motions. Yet even he found it strange—he didn’t hate those soldiers for killing so many. In his mind, officials and bandits were natural enemies. Since he had become a bandit, he had accepted the fate of being killed by officials. What he hated most now were the bandits who had coerced him and his family.

At that thought, he suddenly realized his body—once frozen with terror—could move again. Slowly, he turned his head and saw in the distance the ringleader in leather armor, waving a saber and forcing refugees forward to their deaths.

Liu Agen remembered him clearly. It was this man who had burned his home in Qufu, seized the little grain his family had left, and forced them to join the bandits. In truth, most people in the bandit army had been dragged in the same way. Though the bandits loudly claimed that joining the “righteous army” was voluntary and that they never forced the poor, their homes had been burned to the ground and their remaining food stolen. If they didn’t join, their families would starve. From that day on, Liu Agen had seen through their hypocrisy.

In these days, he had suffered endlessly. Once, he was just a laborer living by his strength—not rich, but getting by. He thought himself someone who could endure hardship. But after joining the bandits, his elderly mother had starved to death. Now only he, his wife, and two children struggled on. That morning, seeing his children’s wax-yellow faces from hunger, he clenched his teeth, grabbed the hoe he had brought from home, and went into battle.

Suddenly, he saw that bastard Liu Tugen driving another group of refugees straight toward him. He was so close that Liu Agen could clearly see the large black mole on his chin and his ferocious expression.

“Run! Run, you damned mud-legs! Don’t run and I’ll hack you to death!” Liu Tugen’s voice carried faintly through the gunfire. Soon, barefoot refugees stumbled past Liu Agen.

Lying there, Liu Agen had no idea that several rounds of volley fire had already terrified the bandits. Even Liu Tugen, a hardened criminal, was badly shaken. This charge was the last one he dared to launch—after this, he planned to run.

Bang bang—bang bang—

Another burst rang out. Dozens of refugees at the front collapsed together, blood spraying as they screamed and fell. A bandit who happened to run past Liu Agen was hit square in the face—his head burst like a smashed watermelon, blood and brain matter splattering all over Liu Agen’s face.

“Ah—!”

A scream sounded beside him. Liu Agen looked up to see Liu Tugen himself, face pale with terror, running toward him. The usual ferocity on his face had been replaced by pure panic.

“It’s him—he destroyed my family, he starved my mother to death!” Rage surged up from Liu Agen’s heart. A sudden, savage courage seized him. Without knowing where the strength came from, he stretched out his right leg. Liu Tugen, focused only on fleeing and not looking back, tripped and fell headlong like a dog scrambling for food, his saber flying from his hand.

Seeing this, Liu Agen grabbed his hoe and leapt up. With all his strength, he swung it down. In a face-to-face fight, three Liu Agens together wouldn’t match a hardened bandit like Liu Tugen—but Liu Tugen had just fallen and hadn’t reacted yet. And Liu Agen might not know how to use a blade, but a hoe was a farmer’s tool, familiar beyond measure. With a reflexive digging motion, the hard hoe met Liu Tugen’s skull.

Pop.

The hoe smashed a bowl-sized hole into Liu Tugen’s head. Blood gushed out like a spring. His body twitched a few times, then went still. Just like that, one of Liu Zongmin’s ferocious subordinates was beaten to death on the battlefield by a farmer who only knew how to wield a hoe.

After killing Liu Tugen, Liu Agen saw no one paying him any attention. He threw down the hoe and ran desperately toward the rear…

By now, the bandits were in complete chaos. After regrouping and counting their numbers, fewer than five hundred of the original two thousand returned. In less than a quarter of an hour, more than half had been wiped out.

Seeing this, Liu Zongmin dropped the treasured telescope in his hand without even noticing, murmuring to himself, “What’s going on? How can the Xuanda Army’s firearms be this deadly?”

Not only Liu Zongmin—every leader beside him was stunned by the ferocity of the fire. Liu Zongmin’s eyes bulged like oranges before he finally spat out, “Damn their ancestors! Since when did the officials’ firearms become this terrifying?”

After years of fighting the Ming army, Liu Zongmin believed he understood their muskets well—short range, weak power, and prone to exploding. Even the bandits despised them. Yet what he had just seen completely overturned his understanding. A range of over three hundred meters—more than four hundred paces—was absurd, nearly rivaling tiger-crouching cannons. Coupled with relentless volleys, how was this fight even possible?

A stammering voice sounded beside him. “Chief Liu… should we… should we still fight?”

Liu Zongmin turned, his face twisting with cruelty. “Why wouldn’t we? They’re relying on their firearms, aren’t they? Fine—then I’ll let them fire until they’re satisfied. Pass the order: except for the old-camp brothers who stay behind to supervise, everyone else attacks. Anyone who retreats even one step—behead him!”

“What?! Everyone attacks? No ambush?” The leader’s scalp went numb.

“They’ve already spotted us—what ambush is there left? Didn’t you hear my order?”
Liu Zongmin’s face darkened.

“Yes… I obey Chief Liu’s command!” The man immediately lowered his head. Liu Zongmin, a blacksmith by trade from Lantian, Shanxi, was immensely strong and notoriously brutal. Since joining Li Zicheng’s rebellion, he styled himself Chief Scout and hated nothing more than disobedience—punishments ranged from whipping to execution.

Watching the man run off, Liu Zongmin snorted and bent down to pick up the telescope again, resuming his observation.

Before him, the Xuanda Army—several thousand strong—still stood in place, unmoving, silently watching the front, as though they were not the ones who had annihilated over a thousand bandits in mere minutes. Liu Zongmin sucked in a cold breath. These Ming troops were utterly unlike any he had faced before—fierce as fire in attack, immovable as mountains in stillness.

“Are they really unbeatable?” he muttered. “No… there must be a way. I refuse to believe it. I’ll throw thirty thousand at you—let’s see if you don’t get tired of killing!”

To Liu Zongmin, whether thirty thousand refugees died—or three hundred thousand—made no difference. Refugees were endless. Take another city and there would be more. Ming had no shortage of people—kill them and just grab more!

Soon, driven by three thousand old-camp cavalry, nearly thirty thousand refugees poured out from every corner of Xiaotao Mountain, a black tide surging toward the Xuanda Army’s lines.

As the saying goes, an army of ten thousand is boundless. Nearly thirty thousand charging together was a terrifying sight—within several li, the land was packed with human heads. Just looking at it made one’s heart jump.

“Damn… is this how bandits fight?” Even Chu Di was startled.

He was no stranger to large battles—he’d fought engagements of over a hundred thousand against the Tatars beyond the passes. But those armies fought in order, deploying over dozens of li in waves. Not like this—tens of thousands crammed into a narrow mountain hollow less than three li wide. If the Tatars fought this way, Chu Di would laugh himself to death—one cannon shot would slaughter countless men.

“My lord, the bandits are charging. Do we fire?” a roaming general asked, swallowing nervously.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Chu Di gritted his teeth. “To hell with it—order the artillery battalion to open fire and blast them to hell!”

“Yes!” The signalman relayed the order via the communicator.

Soon, thunder rolled through the infantry formations. Six- and twelve-pound cannonballs shot from the barrels under the push of gunpowder.

Whoosh—whoosh—

Dark cannonballs traced graceful arcs through the air and fell straight into the bandit ranks.

Black powder artillery had relatively low muzzle velocity—you could even see the balls wobbling toward you, slow enough to seem almost catchable. But their solid shot carried tremendous power.

The bandits would soon taste the bitter fruit…