Chapter 215: The Artillerymen and the Jeju Horses

In the afternoon, the soldiers finished their midday meal.

The artillery position was completed, and Lei Sanxiang went to inspect it.

On the small slope, twenty cannons were arrayed in two rows, the height of the slope's crest nearly matching that of the Jeju city walls.

The cannons needed only a very small elevation angle to fire directly at the top of the walls.

At this moment, the artillery crew was using the thumb-jump ranging method to roughly estimate distances.

A surveyor ran over from afar, reporting the measured data.

The artillery crew picked up branches and wrote formulas on the ground to calculate—the very trigonometric formulas Lin Qian had taught them.

The principle of the formula was to set point A as the artillery position and point C as the target of the bombardment.

Pick any point near A as B, construct a triangle, measure the angles at A and B, use the principle that the interior angles of a triangle sum to 180° to find the angle at C, and measure the distance of AB.

Substitute into the formula and calculate, and one could obtain the precise distance from the artillery position to the target.

This method only worked well when attacking fixed targets; for bombarding charging cavalry like in the morning, there was no time for slow calculation—the cruder but faster thumb-jump ranging method had to be used.

For ease of calculation, the surveyor set angle B at 90 degrees and calculated angle C as 34 degrees.

sin(B) was 1, and looking up the table, sin(C) was 0.5592.

This trigonometric table was made by Lin Qian at the request of Xu Guangqi—sine, cosine, and tangent were all included, angles precise to the degree, with four decimal places retained. The principle was expansion calculation using Taylor series; grasping the principle was not difficult—the difficulty lay in the enormous volume of computation.

Fortunately, Lin Qian lacked neither silver nor abacuses. With Xu Guangqi teaching and some accounting clerks picked to do the calculating, the table was completed quickly.

Based on the surveyor's data, the squad leader spent a long time writing formulas and then a long time working the abacus with the division method, finally obtaining the result: 454.22 paces to the target.

While the squad leader was calculating the cannon distance, Lei Sanxiang had been standing silently behind him, also flicking abacus beads and calculating along—only much more slowly. The squad leader had already obtained his result and begun adjusting the powder charges and elevation angles of the cannons according to the firing table.

Lei Sanxiang still hadn't finished calculating.

By the time the elevation angles of all twenty cannons had been adjusted and the squad leader was reporting to Lei Sanxiang—

Lei Sanxiang finally got his result… 45.42 paces…

Lei Sanxiang cursed inwardly: "Damn whore's bastard! These hands that wield blade and spear really can't flick abacus beads!"

Then, while no one was watching, he swiftly reset the abacus and said in a deep voice: "We've got plenty of shot and powder—blast them to hell!" "Yes sir!" The squad leader clasped his fists in acknowledgment, strode onto the position, and shouted: "Fire!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

A full volley from twenty three-pounder cannons shook heaven and earth.

The northwest wall of Jeju city erupted in a tremendous roar; bricks and stones shattered under the cannonballs, dust billowing everywhere.

The three-pounders were too weak—even against a low wall only one zhang tall, they could never collapse it; at most they could crack some of the outer facing bricks.

But the artillery's original target was never the wall itself.

Most of the cannonballs landed on top of the wall, forming ricochets that bounded straight forward along the western wall.

The ronin stationed on the wall were pierced clean through like candied hawthorns on a skewer, letting out blood-curdling screams.

Reddish-yellow dust surged up along the top of the wall.

After three rounds of bombardment, Lei Sanxiang called a halt, climbed to the highest point, pulled out his telescope, and gazed toward the western wall. The blue stone bricks along the parapet were shattered in great numbers, ronin corpses with mangled flesh lay strewn across the ground, several of the nearest ones no longer even resembling human forms—he roughly estimated over twenty dead.

Those who had survived by luck no longer dared remain on the wall, retreating into the city one after another.

The entire western wall had become an empty stretch.

This tactic of bombarding the top of city walls had a name in history—"ricochet fire"—invented by European armies to deal with bastion forts. Using it against Jeju city, which barely even had muskets, was a strike across an entire era of military technology.

Since this battle was for training troops, it naturally wasn't just about besieging a city—all sorts of tactics and methods needed to be drilled.

This was also preparation for future assaults on the tall, thick walls of cities like Guangzhou and Nanjing.

Lei Sanxiang wasn't worried about the tactics leaking either—not to mention that every ronin and Tartar on the island was doomed to die.

Even if some survived, what could they do if it leaked?

Did they have cannons? Did they have firing tables and trigonometric ranging? Did they understand sine and cosine?

Seeing that the ricochet fire worked even better than expected, Lei Sanxiang ordered the artillery to split up and bombard the northern and eastern walls of Jeju as well. An hour and a half later, the bombardment of the northern wall had also begun.

Under the barrage, a few cannonballs always managed to land precisely on the wall top, their angle and height of descent just right to form ricochets.

Even though the descent robbed most of the cannonballs of their power, the rebounding solid iron shot was still more than flesh and blood could withstand.

Anyone grazed by a cannonball was mostly severely wounded—missing arms, missing legs, utterly miserable—and their screams piled on top of one another only shattered the remaining ronin's morale further.

Often a single ricochet would kill only two or three men outright, but a dozen or more would flee down from the wall.

Before long, the entire western stretch of the northern wall had been completely emptied.

At dusk, gunfire could also be heard from the eastern side of the northern wall.

In the city, the Jurchen envoy and the Yang brothers watched the cannonballs leaping along the wall tops like living things, all struck dumb as if by a thunderbolt, unable to speak.

A ronin beside them said: "This must be the work of ghosts and gods…"

The Jurchen envoy struggled to speak, asking the Yang brothers: "Th-this… th-this… what kind of tactic is this?"

Yang Liu: "I don't know."

"Haven't you two fought against the Sea Mad Dog before? You don't know?"

Yang Liu said: "Hasn't the Great Jin also clashed with the Nan'ao fleet at Fuzhou? Haven't you seen this move before?"

The Jurchen envoy slowly shook his head, thinking to himself: "The Sea Mad Dog actually possesses such godlike power over cannonballs… His rampaging at sea was bad enough, but I never imagined he'd be this strong on land. If this man becomes Military Commissioner of Liaodong, will the Great Jin have any way to survive?"

Even as they spoke, cannonballs came striking the eastern wall as well, and the ronin there, having learned from the example of their predecessors, all fled down from the wall.

Thanks to their quick retreat, only a few died.

Now all three walls had been lost; to the south was Mount Halla, a rugged volcanic mountain range unsuitable for marching.

They were truly trapped in an isolated city.

With darkness approaching and the walls undefended, how was this any different from handing over their own lives?

But knowing that going up on the wall meant becoming a living target, even the fiercest ronin was unwilling to throw away his life.

Yang Qi thought for a moment, then said viciously: "Let's send the commoners up onto the wall! Don't the Ming troops pride themselves on being a righteous army? They surely won't harm civilians!" The Jurchen envoy clapped his hands: "Excellent idea."

With that, he ordered his men to seize a large number of commoners from the city, picked out those with families, and sent them up onto the city walls.

But no sooner had they reached the walls than a string of cannon fire rang out.

Cannonballs bounced across the wall, splashing up great clods of earth.

Blue stone bricks were smashed to pieces, and stone chips flew in every direction.

The din was terrifying, and the commoners fled down from the walls in droves.

The ronin drew their katana and forced the commoners back up onto the walls.

Not daring to show their heads above the parapet, the commoners had no choice but to kneel and kowtow, begging for their lives.

Seeing that intimidation was having no effect, the ronin flew into a murderous rage and drew their blades to kill.

These ronin had long been trapped on the island, their spirits already depressed, and after successive defeats their emotions were pent up to the breaking point. At the sight of blood, they were like sharks scenting gore — every one of them bared a savage face and, without a second thought, raised their swords and began to slaughter.

In an instant, blood flowed like a river through the city, and the weeping and wailing of men, women, and children pierced the heavens.

At dusk, beneath a sky of blood-red clouds, more than a hundred crows circled above Jeju City.

The screams within the city were so loud that even the New Army camp a li away could hear them, and many soldiers stepped out of their tents to gaze toward the city.

Lei Sanxiang heard the commotion, walked out of his tent, and pulled out a telescope. Through it he saw the city filled with flames reaching the sky.

"What's going on?" Lei Sanxiang asked.

A soldier said, "It seems the enemy has gone mad."

Lei Sanxiang thought to himself: "Could it be a mutiny in the camp?"

Just then, a lookout posted on Mount Halla sent a man to report: "Reporting to the Regional Commander, the Japanese pirates inside the city are slaughtering the common people."

"What?" Lei Sanxiang was greatly shocked.

These men were trapped in an isolated city with nowhere to go — to slaughter the common people for no reason, were they truly mad?

The Japanese pirates really were a pack of beasts!

Lei Sanxiang paced on the spot, deliberating again and again.

The New Army was no match for the Japanese pirates in street fighting, and with night already fallen, entering the city would be extremely perilous. Moreover, the people inside the city were not Ming citizens. So he gave the order: "Strengthen the watch tonight, and guard every city gate well."

The screams and flames of Jeju City gradually died down in the latter half of the night.

Under cover of darkness, the east gate quietly opened, and a squad of cavalry slipped out, galloping swiftly toward the east.

But they had barely covered a hundred-odd paces when the horsemen were tripped by leg-catching ropes, and all ten-odd of them tumbled to the ground.

Those unlucky enough broke their necks on the spot and expired; the luckier ones broke an arm or a leg and could still scream and howl in pain.

New Army soldiers who had long been lying in ambush here swarmed forward and took the survivors prisoner.

The next morning, the Jurchen envoy, his face swollen and bruised, was bound to a wooden stake set two hundred paces outside Jeju City's north gate.

Before him stood three hundred New Army soldiers drawn up in battle formation.

Lei Sanxiang stood behind the Jurchen envoy and jabbed his calf with the point of his blade: "Time for you, you bastard's whelp, to cry and wail. Keep howling — weren't you howling plenty loud last night?"

The Jurchen envoy cried out in pain, screaming loudly. After his screams subsided, he cursed Yang Liu and Yang Qi in Chinese: "You two stupid pigs, you can't even keep watch over your own men! With the enemy at the gates, you slaughter your own townsfolk! Stupid pigs! Dumb birds! Vile sea bandits!"

Lei Sanxiang slapped his calf with the flat of the blade: "Who told you to say all that useless stuff? Tell them to come out of the city and rescue you!"

"Yes, yes." The Jurchen envoy again shouted loudly at the Yang brothers to come out and save him, his tone urgent and his abuse extremely foul.

After nearly an hour of cursing, the city remained unmoved.

Seeing this, Lei Sanxiang continued to poke his calf, and the Jurchen envoy's throat went hoarse from pain, yet his shouting and cursing only grew louder.

Finally, after another half hour, Jeju City's north gate swung wide open, and the remaining ronin and Joseon soldiers formed a loose battle line and charged at Lei Sanxiang. They had barely advanced a few dozen paces when the artillery positions to the northwest and northeast opened fire one after another.

The cannon firing parameters had long since been calculated, aimed precisely at the north gate in wait.

The field guns were both accurate and devastating. Solid shot carved bloody furrows straight through the crowd, and ronin limbs and flesh flew in all directions, their deaths utterly miserable. At the very front of the ronin line, Yang Qi raised his Japanese blade high, his expression frenzied, shouting killing cries without cease as he charged forward in great strides.

From amidst the smoke and dust before him, the sound of a volley of musketry rang out.

Whizzing sounds filled his ears without end, and the ronin around him fell one after another, struck by bullets.

Suddenly, Yang Qi's right calf gave way without the slightest warning, and a searing pain shot up from his lower leg.

The next moment, his chest felt as if struck by a great hammer. His charging momentum halted, and his whole body pitched backward.

Agony assailed him, nearly sending him into a faint. Then his vision gradually darkened, and countless feet trampled over his body...

On the city wall, Yang Liu watched the battlefield before him, his eyes filled with the feverish fervor of one who has staked everything on a single throw.

He had been driven to the brink. Holding out in an isolated city was a road to certain death, and the ronin had already lost control — the only option was to fight with all their might.

The Japanese ronin were supremely skilled in martial arts. Over two hundred paces, if they could only close the distance, they would surely rout the enemy.

If this battle could be won, perhaps there would still be a thread of hope.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The two artillery positions fired another volley in succession.

Cannonballs could be seen easily punching through an entire line of ronin. The solid iron shot did not lose momentum, flying far off into the distance, and along its trajectory, flesh and blood were strewn across the ground.

Two or three ronin corpses were even carried backward several paces before toppling over.

In the distance, the enemy's matchlock musket formation rotated continuously, and the front ranks of ronin fell like wheat being scythed, row after row.

Amid the chaos of battle, Yang Liu had no attention to spare for his own brother — as long as the ronin could reach the front lines, they would win!

The ronin charged within twenty paces, and the enemy's matchlock muskets maintained the same rate of fire, but grew ever more accurate.

More and more ronin fell, and Yang Liu's heart gradually sank to the depths.

Gradually, ronin began to flee. At first it was just one or two, but in the blink of an eye, several hundred were scattering in every direction.

"Damn it!" Yang Liu slammed his fist hard against the crenellation, striking with such force that the skin broke in three places on his knuckles.

Ignoring the pain in his hand, he leaped down from the city wall, where a warhorse had long been prepared. Without the slightest hesitation, he mounted and rode out through the east gate. While the enemy's main force was occupied with the fleeing ronin, he had to escape quickly.

Jeju Island was large, with three great cities, countless encampments, and Mount Halla in the middle. As long as he could escape Jeju City, there were plenty of places to hide. His wealth and glory were gone, his official career was gone — but at least he, Yang Liu, could keep his life.

The west gate opened, and Yang Liu galloped out at full speed. Alone, he was too small a target — even if the New Army soldiers guarding the west gate spotted him, they would find it hard to intercept. Not long after Yang Liu rode out, another group of men on horseback charged out of the city.

Judging by their build and clothing, they were all Jeju horse herders, each holding bamboo poles two or three zhang long with rope nooses tied at one end. The Jeju horse herders were skilled riders and quickly caught up to Yang Liu.

Yang Liu heard footsteps behind him and turned to look, scared out of his wits. He urgently spurred his warhorse, whipping it so hard sparks nearly flew. The warhorse cried out in pain.

Just then, the oldest herder at the front put two fingers in his mouth, took a deep breath, and let out a sharp whistle.

Yang Liu's warhorse immediately let out a long whinny, then stopped its hooves and swayed back and forth, throwing Yang Liu off its back.

Feeling the weight gone from its back, the warhorse happily trotted toward the old herder.

Fortunately, Jeju horses were not tall, so Yang Liu's fall only hurt a little without injuring his bones or sinews. He rolled once, got to his feet, and ran quickly up the mountain.

He hadn't taken two steps before his throat tightened, and then a tremendous force dragged him down. His hands and feet were soon looped with several ropes.

The great force spread his limbs and head apart, stretching him into a big X-shape in midair.

Yang Liu felt as if he were being torn apart — his joints, flesh, and skin all in agony. He wanted to scream but couldn't; the rope around his throat was like an iron collar, leaving him unable to breathe. His eyes rolled up and white foam poured from his mouth.

Around him, the herders held their lasso poles. Someone suggested, "Let's tear him apart!"

The others echoed the suggestion.

The Yang brothers had terrorized Jeju Island for a long time, and with the massacre of the city that night, the people of Jeju wished they could eat their flesh raw.

Now that he was caught, the herders naturally showed no mercy, all wanting to send him to death by the cruelest punishment.

The old herder stopped them: "No, this bastard must be handed over to the Ming army for punishment."

Someone said, "The Ming army, the Joseon court, and the Tartars are all the same — officials protect each other, they won't do right by us."

The old herder shouted, "Don't be impulsive! The Ming army has big ships. If we render meritorious service, maybe they'll be willing to take us off the island!"

Life on Jeju Island was extremely harsh and the population sparse. To produce warhorses, the Joseon court had decreed that islanders were not permitted to leave on their own.

Thus the herders' greatest wish was to leave the island and find a new way to make a living.

Hearing this, everyone gave up the idea of killing Yang Liu. Still, they didn't make it easy for him — they led him along stretched in that X-shape toward the Ming army's position.

When they reached Jeju's North Gate, the entire ground looked as if it had been plowed over — not a blade of grass in sight, only craters of all sizes and upturned dark-brown soil everywhere.

On the soil lay severed limbs and broken bodies everywhere; the corpses of ronin covered the entire battlefield, too many to count.

Several squads of Ming soldiers were cleaning the battlefield. Whenever they found a wokou corpse, they'd stab a few holes in it with their bayonets, then take the gold, silver, and wakizashi. Living wokou were tied together in strings, squatting on the ground.

Seeing this scene, the herders' courage couldn't help but falter.

"Who goes there?" A soldier of the New Army raised his rifle from far away.

Seeing the gleaming bayonet on the rifle, the herders hastily dismounted, hunched their bodies, and forced smiles onto their faces.

The old herder stepped forward with the lasso pole on his shoulder, pointed at Yang Liu hanging from the pole's tip like a hanged man, and said in halting Chinese with a smile: "Military sir, Yang Liu, chieftain... heh heh."

The New Army soldier lowered his rifle, looked them over suspiciously for a moment, and reported to the squad leader.

After a moment, someone came to search them and confiscated the old herder's skinning knife.

Though the old herder's heart ached, for the sake of leaving the island, he could only endure it.

"Go on in." The squad leader said, gesturing for him to release the lasso pole and put Yang Liu down.

By the time Yang Liu was brought before Lei Sanxiang, he had only half a breath left. His entire face was the color of pig's liver, white foam around his mouth, the rope around his throat nearly embedded in his flesh, cutting it open — utterly miserable.

Lei Sanxiang confirmed Yang Liu's identity and ordered his men: "Load this thing and that dog Tartar onto the ship, have the helmsman take them back." As long as these two knew even a little information, the Punishment and Justice Office on Nan'ao Island would have ways to make them talk.

When interrogating the Eastern Depot agents, the Punishment and Justice Office had mastered quite a few methods.

The old herder seized the opportunity: "Please, Great Ming, we want to go too."

With that, he knelt and kowtowed with loud thuds.

He kowtowed with such force that Lei Sanxiang was startled. He quickly helped the man up and found an interpreter to learn what was going on.

The old herder recounted the atrocities committed by the Yang brothers, the wokou, and the Tartars on Jeju Island, and also told how they had captured Yang Liu.

Lei Sanxiang's eyes lit up. He interrupted: "You whistle, and the horse obeys you?"

The old herder puffed out his chest slightly and said proudly: "Only the few horses close to this old man listen. This old man knew Yang Liu was going to flee, so he deliberately gave him 'Huahua' to ride."

Lei Sanxiang said happily: "You're a horse herder?"

The old herder said: "This old man has been a horse herder since the day he was born. Now I'm a herd chief of Jeju."

Perhaps thinking that saying this wouldn't help him leave the island, the old herder added: "This old man can farm too — the few orange trees on the island were planted by this old man." Lei Sanxiang didn't understand what a herd chief was. The old herder explained: "On Jeju Island, the highest is the pasture official. The pasture official manages three herd chiefs. This old man is Jeju's herd chief."

"So you're an official too?"

The old herder waved his hands repeatedly: "Not at all! 'Pasture official' and 'herd chief' sound nice, but really they're just head herders. The masters in the government offices — those are the real officials."

Lei Sanxiang hesitated a moment, then stated the purpose for which he had come — the horses.

He had assumed the old herder, being a subject of the Joseon court, would be unwilling. To his surprise, the old herder agreed readily, even walking out of the tent and whistling to call Huahua over.

"Jeju horses were bred from Mongolian horses and local stock."

The old herder said while patting Huahua's neck.

"Compared with Liaodong horses and Mongolian horses, Jeju horses are lower at the shoulder and smaller in build — not suitable as warhorses. But..."

The old herder walked around to Huahua's rear and lifted its hind hoof.

"Jeju horses are gentle and easy to keep. And their hooves are hard — running on Hallasan all day, they never need horseshoes."

Lei Sanxiang's eyes gleamed green as he listened.

Raising cavalry in Fujian was a joke. What the New Army needed was horses to pull cannons — horses that could adapt to mountainous, rugged terrain, and preferably with low feeding costs.

And though Jeju Island was in the north, even at noon it was astonishingly hot, with heavy rainfall — the climate matched Fujian and Guangdong well.

From every angle, Jeju horses were tailor-made for the New Army.

After his introduction, the old herder said excitedly: "Since the time of Mongol rule, Jeju has been part of the Central Plains civilization. Emperor Hongwu of the Great Ming ceded Jeju to the Joseon court, and that's what created today's situation.

Now the Joseon court rules without justice and can't even look after itself — this is exactly the time for Jeju to return to the Central Plains! The islanders day and night all long for the heavenly army. General, you've come at just the right moment!"

Lei Sanxiang was stunned by these words.

The gist of this speech was almost exactly what Lin Qian had told him and Bailangzai before the operation.

This was the legal basis for occupying Jeju Island that Lin Qian had dug out of historical records with tremendous effort.

Before setting off, the helmsman worried that the islanders still harbored loyalty to the Joseon court and were unwilling to return to the Great Ming, so he specially gave many instructions on how to win over the people's hearts. But when they arrived on the island, it seemed the islanders' desire to return to the Great Ming was even stronger than Lei Sanxiang's.

In truth, this was all thanks to the poor flow of information—before setting foot on the island, no one knew what Jeju was really like.

The Eagle Ship had passed by Jeju Island several times, seeing only beautiful mountains and clear waters with fine horses galloping across the land, and assumed it was a peaceful and blessed place.

Little did they know that under oppressive governance and corrupt officials, the people here had long been driven to the brink of destitution.

The common folk's hatred for Joseon conscripts and officials was in no way less than their hatred for the Japanese pirates and the Tartars.

Under such circumstances, it was only natural that everyone's hearts turned toward their motherland, imagining the Great Ming as a paradise on earth—hardly surprising at all.

Once the Jeju horses arrived in Fujian, they would need grooms to tend them, and the helmsman's side also needed someone in the know to report the situation.

Lei Sanxiang then arranged for the old groom to board the ship, and the old man was so moved that tears streamed down his weathered face.

The old groom said, "After the Tartars' raids on the island, about two thousand Jeju horses remain. Take them all along, General, so the horses too may return to the land of Cathay." Lei Sanxiang asked in surprise, "Take them all? Then how will Jeju continue to breed horses in the future?"

"Rest assured, from now on Jeju will be under the helmsman's care—no wolves, jackals, or tigers will ever come again."

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen