Chapter 66: Volley Fire

They say on the Double Ninth Festival, the ninth day of the ninth month, autumn is crisp and clear, the sky high and clouds vast — perfect for taking family and friends to climb the heights and gaze far into the distance.

But yesterday was stiflingly hot, and today, though the morning was fine, near noon the sun blazed fierce, and the day quickly turned scorching.

Wang Dou and the others stood on the fort wall looking out; under the sunlight, they saw several hundred bandits rushing chaotically from the southwest. Apart from a few dozen on horseback, the rest were infantry carrying long spears and broadswords. Among them were old and young, dressed in a motley assortment, very few wearing armor.

These men shouted as they surged toward the outer stockade gate of Jingbian Fort. Ahead of them, the mounted bandits spurred their horses forward, some in groups of three or five, some in bands of a dozen or more, simply galloping around the perimeter of Jingbian Fort while yelling abuse up at the wall, demanding the military households of Jingbian Fort surrender at once, else once they breached the fort, not a chicken or dog would be left alive.

By now the fort was under strict alert. Besides the several squads of combat troops inside, all the able-bodied men had been issued long spears, and even the women, the old, and the weak within the fort were each given a wooden club. These bandits had no siege equipment; the only way they could enter Jingbian Fort was through the low stockade wall and stockade gate in front of the outer military household barracks — especially the gate itself — where the wall had not yet been built up with masonry.

After assessing the situation, Wang Dou led Han Chao, Han Zhong, Zhong Diaoyang, and several other officers to the stockade gate to prepare for battle.

Wang Dou now had seven squads of combat troops, each squad with four matchlock soldiers, making twenty-eight matchlock soldiers in all. At this moment, all the matchlock soldiers in the fort had been drawn out and were standing behind the stockade wall beside the gate. Wang Dou had also specially selected ten sword-and-shield soldiers and ten long-spear soldiers, arrayed in two rows standing silently behind the matchlock soldiers, waiting only for the bandits to charge up before engaging in close-quarters slaughter.

In addition, Han Chao led a squad of night scouts holding their horses, waiting only to pursue after the battle.

As for Gao Shiyin, he was still a bridegroom now. Wang Dou had him, along with Yang Tong and Qi Tianliang, take the remaining combat troops and baggage soldiers to guard the fort wall, though his face was full of reluctance.

Beside Gao Shiyin, his new bride Zheng Xiaoyun, along with Madam Zheng of the Wan Shenghe and Zheng Jinglun, were all pale-faced. The bandits were fierce and numerous — could Jingbian Fort hold? As for their worries, Gao Shiyin naturally dismissed them with contempt.

The soldiers before the stockade gate of Jingbian Fort all stood solemnly. Far from being afraid, each man, on the contrary, had a faint look of excitement on his face. Jingbian Fort's grain, pay, and rewards were based mainly on plunder; to these soldiers, forged through brutal training and tempered by bandit-suppression battles, the bandits before them were not a threat but rather their best source of wealth.

For the coming battle, Wang Dou had the matchlock soldiers divide into two groups — one loading, one firing — which could greatly increase the efficiency of firepower. At this moment, the twenty-eight matchlock soldiers stood solemnly in two rows, gripping their dark, solid matchlocks, already loaded with pre-made paper cartridge ammunition, the match cords also already set.

Over on the other side, after the bandit leader had his scouts shout and yell for a while and saw no movement within the fort, they slowly gathered at a distance of several hundred paces from Jingbian Fort and began to form up.

After a while, over a hundred men detached from that side, each carrying swords, spears, and shields; in addition, some men carried earth sacks, clearly having noticed the trenches dug around the barracks outside the fort wall and intending to use these earth sacks to fill the trenches.

These hundred-odd men held their weapons in hand, all of them seemingly able-bodied young men, akin to a death squad. Shouting and cursing loudly, they slowly pressed forward.

Wang Dou saw that their numbers were not large, and very few among them even had shields. Clearly, in these bandits' view, how many able-bodied fighters could a single fort have? Especially since this fort did not even have a fort wall outside — it was utterly fragile. Why use an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken? These men would be enough.

Seeing these men slowly advancing, Wang Dou gave a shouted order, and at once the front row of matchlock soldiers lit their match cords, resting fourteen matchlocks in a row atop the low wall crudely built from earth, stones, and wooden planks.

This gang of bandits was a disorderly mob, with no battle formation or ranks, simply swarming forward by sheer weight of numbers.

Some of the bandits at the front also saw the matchlock soldiers before the low wall, but they paid them no mind. They had seen plenty of government troops' firearms — not much use for killing, but they had seen plenty of them scare people and blow up their own men.

When they closed to a hundred paces, they suddenly let out a yell and, brandishing their weapons together, charged forward with wild screams.

"Ready!"

Wang Dou drew his heavy sword in one motion, pointed it forward, and bellowed the command.

At once, the fourteen matchlock soldiers in the front row leaned forward as one, concentrating intently on aiming at the charging bandits.

Soon the bandits rushed within sixty paces. Wang Dou roared: "Fire!"

"Pap-pap-pap-pap!"

Fourteen matchlocks roared in unison, spraying bullets and smoke.

Amid the thunder of the matchlocks, the front row of bandits was knocked to the ground, rolling on the earth and wailing loudly; even some of the bandits holding shields fared the same.

Jingbian Fort's matchlocks were of superior quality; at sixty paces, the matchlocks' lethality was immense, easily piercing through the shields in their hands.

"Fire!"

The rear row of matchlock soldiers had already passed their matchlocks into the hands of their brothers in the front row. They took the matchlocks their front-row brothers had just fired, retrieved the pre-made paper cartridge ammunition from their oilcloth pouches, and began loading rapidly.

Another volley of matchlocks spewed a great mass of flame and smoke, and another wave of agonized screams rang out.

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

"Fire!"

Before the stockade wall, volley after volley of gunfire rang out in rapid succession. The advantage of the pre-made paper cartridge ammunition allowed the two squads of matchlock soldiers to load and fire with extreme speed.

After several volleys, the area before the stockade wall was blanketed by thick white smoke. Wang Dou ordered a ceasefire, waiting quietly for the gunpowder smoke to clear before assessing the results.

Those two rows of matchlock soldiers took the chance to let their smoking matchlocks cool. After several volleys, each man's matchlock was already hot to the touch and had to be cooled; otherwise, under the high temperature inside the barrel, the poured-in gunpowder risked igniting instantly.

The gunpowder smoke finally dispersed. Wang Dou and the others saw, within the range from a dozen paces to sixty paces, dozens of bandits lying on the ground, rolling and screaming in agony. Some had been killed on the spot, others not yet dead, just lying there in a bloody mess, wailing loudly.

As the smoke cleared, Wang Dou and the others also saw several dozen bandits standing dazed before the corpses of their brothers, every one of them with mouths agape, seemingly never imagining that Jingbian Fort's firearms were so formidable — before they could even charge near the stockade wall, in the blink of an eye, several dozen of their brothers were wounded or dead.

The stockade wall before them was not high, and the trench traps were not very deep. Yet within those few dozen paces of matchlock range, it was as if a death zone had swallowed the lives of so many of their brothers.

Looking at the horrifying scene before them, the bandits' faces went from dazed to terrified. Suddenly, they let out hoarse, desperate screams, turned, and fled back the way they came. They threw away their helmets and discarded their armor, casting aside every weapon in their hands, caring only that they run fast enough.

Watching them flee screaming, the brothers Han Chao and Han Zhong were also greatly astonished. The two had long served in frontier military camps, but where had they ever seen matchlocks of such power and such rapid fire? They could only murmur: "What fearsomely sharp firearms..."

Jingbian Fort's matchlocks had, for the first time in a pitched engagement, demonstrated their extraordinary might!

Looking at the results before the fort, Madam Zheng, Zheng Jinglun, and the others on the fort wall were also considerably shocked. Zheng Xiaoyun simply clapped her hands and laughed with delight, while Zheng Jinglun murmured: "Are these still government troops?"

After that gang of bandits fled back, a wave of commotion stirred among the main bandit force. Several men who looked like leaders seemed to be shouting and cursing loudly, but no matter what they said, no one was willing to lead an attack forward again. These bandits were mostly a motley rabble, bullies to the weak and cowards before the strong. Seeing Jingbian Fort so tough a nut to crack, far beyond their expectations, after cursing and shouting for half the day, they had no choice but to withdraw their troops and retreat.

Word spread, and for the next several days, not a single bandit gang dared set its sights on Jingbian Fort. However, by this time the bandit menace in Baoan Department was growing ever more intense. According to reports from all sides, the roving bandits who had entered Baoan Department this time numbered as many as three thousand, their core backbone being a force of over three hundred cavalry, the rest being a mix of the old and weak or a mob of coerced refugees.

On the twelfth day, the main force of roving bandits raided the city of Baoan Department, throwing Garrison Commander Xu Zucheng into a great rage.

Word also came that the young lady of the department magistrate's household, while traveling to the garrison city, had encountered bandits on the road. Had her subordinates not been loyal and fought to the death to escape, the consequences would have been unthinkable.

Exterminating the roving bandits within Baoan Department's borders was now imperative. Under the strict orders of the Garrison Commander, Xu Zucheng resolved to send word to every fort and assemble troops to annihilate this gang of bandits.