[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-700":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1205989,1561,"Chapter 700: Wolves Fleeing and Boars Bolting","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-700",700,"\u003Cp>On the side of the roving band great formation, Liu Zongmin, Hao Yaoqi, Li Guo, and others like Geli Yan closely watched the battle, straining to gaze at the situation over there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The scouts could not clearly explain the situation, and looking over there again, the gunpowder smoke seemed to have shrouded the entire area, with faint glimpses of men and horses surging about; shouts of all kinds and musket fire could be faintly heard — the battle seemed extremely fierce.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It looks like the fighting is very tight, both sides locked in a stalemate.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Zongmin rubbed his cheeks and said thoughtfully.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Mm, Cao Bianjiao still has some skill after all, coming up with this strange formation and holding out so long under our righteous army's cavalry charges — he truly deserves his name as a famous court general... But this is only our righteous army's first wave of charges; a few more charges and he won't be able to hold on.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The King Who Changes the World, Liu Xiyao, laughed heartily.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yuan Zongdi seemed to have been fighting Cao Bianjiao there with his men for a long time. In the past, when the righteous army faced Cao Bianjiao's firelock battle formation, the outcome was often decided in a short time — for instance, the recent strike mid-crossing — yet this time the fight had gone on much longer than before; it seemed Cao Bianjiao's dispersed formation was still easier to deal with.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He exchanged glances with the Left Golden King He Jin and the King of Troubled Times Lin Yangcheng, each seeing the eagerness in the other's eyes. The government troops had so many fine things — never mind the armor and baggage — if after defeating Cao Bianjiao they could capture some Eastern Route firearms, then their own camps would strike it rich.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this thought, Liu Xiyao and the other leaders of the five Ge and Zuo camps could hardly wait for Yuan Zongdi to withdraw quickly so they could go up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The bandits all saw the hope of victory, chatting and laughing in high spirits; only Li Guo and the Old Hui Ma Shouying frowned in deep thought, looking toward that side again and again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Kill all the roving bandits!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Fire!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amid the sound of volley fire and the drifting white smoke, a dozen or so Chuang riders howled; several of the hit horses screamed mournfully. One by one, the Chuang riders fell from their horses with miserable cries, and some were then trampled into bloody pulp by the cavalry surging between the formations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Watch the right flank.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Watch the rear...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside, shouts shook the heavens, volleys of gunfire rang out one after another in an unending rise and fall, and streams of acrid gunpowder smoke ceaselessly pierced the nostrils, mingled with the stench of blood — foul-smelling and also impairing vision.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some arrows flew past, and a javelin too, thrown not far from his side, planted firmly in the ground, sunk quite deep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet none of this could change Yang Shaofan's expression; he sat quietly on his horse, watching everything with a calmness that seemed almost indifferent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, Yang Shaofan was positioned in a square formation ahead of the central army. This formation was essentially two units combined into one, with a total of two hundred musketeers — fifty on each face, each face divided into three ranks of fifteen men each, with the remaining twenty musketeers serving as replacements for fallen comrades on each face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The same went for the spearmen: on each face, two ranks of spearmen were positioned at the front, crouching on the ground to serve as chevaux-de-frise; the last rank protected the rear of the musketeers. There were also twenty spearmen who, like the musketeers mentioned before, served as replacements and simultaneously as a reserve force.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, Yang Shaofan's small formation had somewhat more men, since it included the battalion headquarters' personal guards and battalion officers and such.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The one commanding this military formation was Yang Shaofan's central army officer. Earlier he had been shouting himself hoarse giving orders; now his expression had recovered, though his shouting voice remained just as loud.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, it was the first time using this battle formation, and facing a great mass of enemy cavalry, it was impossible for anyone not to be nervous. But once the actual results came in, every officer and soldier in each small formation breathed a sigh of relief, and then fought with rising excitement and fervor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, many square formations were still firing volleys rather than shooting at will, which also proved that the battle situation was favorable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under the command of the officers on each face, the front-rank musketeers aimed at the enemy, pulled their triggers, and sprayed great clouds of gunpowder smoke forward; what followed were the startled cries of the roving bandits and the sight of their discomfited figures.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Afterward, these musketeers passed their empty firelocks to the rear with their left hands, while their right hands received from behind loaded firelocks already packed with fixed paper cartridges, and then fired again, rotating in succession to maintain an unceasing volume of fire — this was also a tactic the Divine Machine Battalion had used for a hundred years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the tense fighting, many musketeers had unknowingly already fired several rounds, yet the firelocks were still shooting, the bird guns still safe and sound — this was also one of the guarantees of confidence that kept them fighting on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qi Jiguang once said: \"The bird gun, aimed and fired with care, strikes the enemy with great accuracy. Following the fixed order, one rank up and one rank down, though after three shots the barrel grows too hot to fire again, if each man takes several feet of cloth soaked in water, and after three shots wipes the barrel with the wet cloth, it can be fired continuously without pause.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That is to say, many Ming army bird guns could only fire three rounds before becoming too hot to fire again; unless wrapped in wet cloth, there was danger of the barrel bursting. But in the north, water was not always readily available, especially in sudden battles or encounter battles, where conditions were truly limited.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The poor quality of firearms was indeed a major problem — if one had to rest after only three shots, how could one fight?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hou Yilin, in the *Longmen Collection*, also once asked: \"Someone asked: the old guns, after three shots, either the powder ignited by itself or the barrel burst. Recently I have heard of firing up to ten shots and the gun still being usable — why is that?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"The answer: it depends on whether the barrel bore is smooth or not, and whether the gunpowder is refined or not. The old guns did not know drilling and grinding; the inside of the barrel was full of pits and hollows, and the powder was not refined. When fired again, the powder residue all clung to the pits and hollows inside the barrel. When the next charge was hastily loaded, the previous fire not yet extinguished, it would naturally ignite and burst. If the barrel had pits and hollows and was not brushed clean — even if brushed, the residue in the pits might not be entirely removed — once damp, the barrel would surely corrode and deteriorate; the pits and hollows would deepen day by day, gradually leading to a leak, so how could it not burst?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With fine Eastern Route firearms and successful tactics, compared to the miserable state of the roving bandits among the formations, the new army soldiers inside each formation felt almost as if they were shooting at targets.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet they were not without danger. The Chuang camp's cavalry, after all, had been selected step by step from the starving people and infantry; though not equal to the veteran camp's elite riders, many still possessed considerable combat skills. Even though the Chuang riders among the formations were in chaos, many acting purely on instinct, some of the more elite riders still fought fiercely and desperately.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the shadows covered by gunpowder smoke, amid the great tide of roving cavalry sweeping past in herds, from time to time an arrow would come flying, a javelin would be hurled, or a dagger or the like, or some reckless Chuang riders would crash straight in — there was even firelock fire coming at them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A musketeer in the front rank had just received a loaded firelock in his right hand when suddenly his body swayed and he toppled to the ground without a sound, clutching his chest, blood ceaselessly welling from between his fingers. Opposite, a Chuang rider turned his head away, blended into the tide of horses, and vanished from sight in an instant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his hand he held a weapon that looked like a hand cannon, probably of the matchlock type.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Chuang army had swept across the Central Plains and captured a great variety of weapons; firearms were only one kind among them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Also, beside the crouching spearmen in the first two ranks on each of the formation's four faces lay several corpses, and there were wounded men groaning in agony. In their role as chevaux-de-frise, they had to endure fears that ordinary men could not endure, and possess courage that ordinary men could not possess.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Long spearmen are easy to train in one sense, yet extremely difficult to train in another; the key lies in whether they can form strict discipline and whether they have the courage to bear casualties.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, when comrades beside them are constantly being wounded or even killed, and fresh blood and severed limbs fly onto their own faces and bodies, they often have to stand rigidly without moving — for if they move, the spear formation is ruined. This is truly not something ordinary men can bear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back when the Ming army fought the Japanese pirates, a very large portion were long spearmen. According to the Hongwu era regulations, for every hundred-household unit, there were ten musketeers, twenty sword-and-shield men, thirty archers, and the rest were all long spearmen. Yet when they encountered the ronin and the elite forward assault of Japanese swords, those spear formations quickly collapsed — until they were replaced by the Qi family army.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Facing cavalry charges without fear, never retreating in the face of heavy casualties, never moving without orders — without these qualities, they cannot be called long spearmen, nor can the long spear formation be said to be fully trained.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those chevaux-de-frise silently shielded the musketeers behind them; when they fell dead or wounded, the reserve soldiers within the formation also silently stepped forward to fill their positions. No one complained about anything. The new army had been fighting continuously in the southern campaigns, and many had long grown accustomed to life and death.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Fire!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Again the thunderous roar of volley fire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Shaofan turned his head back to look toward the central army. He sensed that the roving bandits were about to collapse and retreat. The death traps formed between the various formations were littered with the corpses of Chuang bandits and their horses lying every which way — they were about to be unable to bear it any longer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That they had held on until now, Yang Shaofan felt, was more because they were simply at a loss.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Looking toward the central army there, although even more Chuang bandits had gathered around it, with numerous cavalry circling and wheeling about, the defense there was comparatively even easier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They had carts, and some chevaux-de-frise and defensive spears as defensive equipment; the regular battalion cavalry's cold-weapon fighters also had shields. Under their cover, the three-eyed gunmen and archers within ceaselessly fired arrows and guns outward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>White smoke drifted everywhere, arrows streaked across the sky, and from time to time roving bandits fell with miserable cries. Moreover, with this concave-convex formation, those roving bandits also had to worry about attacks from other directions; often a bullet would come from behind or the flank, making them cry out in endless distress.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From Yang Shaofan's understanding of Grand Commander Cao, very soon the central army would send out its cavalry to break out in a counterattack — that would be the last straw that broke the camel's back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Continue firing! All archers within the formation, target the right flank!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Shaofan's expression turned cold as he shouted the order loudly. A gust of wind blew over, billowing his cloak and greatcoat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Fire!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sixty musketeers in the first rank on all four faces fired another volley outward; surging gunpowder smoke again sprayed forth. Outside, there was a din of wailing and screaming, and then their cries were drowned out by the unison roar of firelocks from every square formation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the side of the roving band great formation, Liu Xiyao's eyes suddenly lit up, and he laughed: \"Good, Master Yuan is back. Brothers, all follow this old man and charge!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without waiting for Yuan Zongdi to return to the formation, he set out impatiently with the Left Golden King He Jin and the King of Troubled Times Lin Yangcheng, leading their troops.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Zongmin frowned. Even according to the earlier plan, the righteous army’s assaults were to come wave after wave without pause, giving Cao Bianjiao no chance to catch his breath. No matter what, they should have waited for Yuan Zongdi to return to the formation and report on the enemy’s situation. To be so impatient, to underestimate the foe and grasp for merit — what kind of battle is this?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old Hui Ma Shouying and Geli Yan He Yilong had remained behind to hold the position. Seeing Liu Zongmin’s displeasure, He Yilong laughed heartily and said, “Master Liu, calm your anger. The three household-chiefs were merely eager to earn merit, that is all.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Zongmin snorted coldly and had no choice but to let the matter drop. The Ge-Zuo Five Battalions were not under his command; he could not casually shout at or rebuke them. Still, some discontent had already settled in his heart. When he looked again at Li Guo and the other Chuang Battalion officers, they were equally indignant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Xiyao and the others swept off with a roar. They even ignored the urgent shouts sent to them en route by Yuan Zongdi’s men. Their ten thousand horsemen surged forward, and in the blink of an eye, they charged straight into Cao Bianjiao’s formation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Very soon, Liu Zongmin and the others collectively frowned again. The manner of Yuan Zongdi’s returning troops was wrong — it did not look like men weary from hard fighting. Then, after the blood-streaked Yuan Zongdi returned to the formation and made his report, Liu Zongmin remained silent for a long time, his expression turning utterly grim.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ma Shouying’s face was full of bitterness, and He Yilong was extremely anxious. He said to Liu Zongmin, “Master Liu, we must go to the aid of Household-Chief Liu and the others at once!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Zongmin felt the fire in his heart blaze ever higher; his internal organs seemed soaked in oil, and that fury threatened to burn him to cinders. He was a man of violent temper by nature and was about to explode, when suddenly Li Guo cried out, “They’ve returned!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sure enough, Liu Xiyao and the others came back. It seemed they had merely ridden from the front of Cao Bianjiao’s formation to its rear, threading through the formation once before returning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They ran at breakneck speed, each man lashing his horse furiously with his whip. As they fled like wolves and bolted like wild boars, they shouted and wailed at the same time: “Defeated, defeated! Defeated, defeated!…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Zongmin’s expression grew darker still. He could bear it no longer and roared in fury, “You donkey-balled bastards, fuck your mothers’ cunts!”\u003C\u002Fp>",2650,"2026-06-03T14:06:10.567Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","2398226b00a9b551d1757dcfbf9f04400e88890f1bd5fa12e64fcfbc0dc629d7","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-701","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-699",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]