Chapter 300: Dragon Cliff Battle Record (Twenty-Three)

After the drawbridge was forced down, the defenders still at the enemy platforms, watchtowers, and windows, their eyes wide and mouths agape in utter bewilderment, instantly suffered a brutal round of strikes.

Some soldiers who had long been assigned their targets fired sudden cold shots from over two hundred meters away, and over a hundred bullets vied to drill into the windows and enemy platforms near the gate; in just one volley, they blew open the heads of more than thirty men.

Seeing the blood and brain matter flowing all over the ground, Lin Sanmen, who had already retreated to the side, was first startled, then he shut his eyes in anguish and shook his head — the dead were all the clan's elite, men who had their heads blown apart before they could even see their opponents' faces.

The fall of the drawbridge and the deaths of his clansmen proved that Lin Sanmen's original decision had been correct... yet that was of no use whatsoever; from the moment Liu County Vice Magistrate finished reading the war proclamation, Lin Family Fortress had already set out on a road of no return against the government troops.

Though the terms differ, the principle holds true across all ages: if you bow your head before the fighting starts, that is called an uprising, and you can still land some minor official post afterward, or at worst, a seat in the political consultative conference.

And after the fighting starts? That makes you a prisoner of war. Trying to surrender now? Too late!

Lin Sanmen knew that his own life and the lives of his family now hung by a thread; the government troops would never let him, the clan leader, off the hook after this was over. For many years the Lin Family had grown fat on wealth plundered alongside bandit gangs, their arrogance blazing to the heavens, and now retribution for all that slaughter and pillage had come. The clan leader had failed to lead his people in an early surrender before, so now, after the fact, wouldn't he have to pay the debt with his own head?

The government would certainly never let him go.

Thinking this, Lin Sanmen turned his head to glance at those clansmen still shouting in panic, then lowered his head, bent his back, and silently climbed down the wooden ladder.

After the first volley of gunfire, the two hundred soldiers of the Red Spear Camp spread out into a scattered skirmish line and began firing as they advanced. Bullets drilled into the front-facing windows of the tulou like raindrops, and after one minute, no one dared poke their head out again.

The scattered skirmish line, which in the eyes of the ancients looked utterly unprofessional and sparse, quickly moved up beside the moat and formed a static arc formation. Now only a single moat separated the two sides; even accounting for the height difference, the diagonal aiming distance had shrunk to within thirty meters.

At this point, the gunfire actually ceased: the soldiers began taking turns raising their rifles to aim, ready at any moment to fire with precision. At this range, even if no one poked their head out, sticking a single finger from a window would get it instantly blown off.

The next moment, the demolition specialist, wearing a riot helmet with a plexiglass face shield and wrapped tightly from head to toe, charged across the drawbridge.

The explosive pack in the demolition specialist's arms was not very large... you didn't need much gunpowder to blast apart a wooden plank gate. If they were dealing with a city gate blocked solid with bricks and stone, they might have to carry over several more packs of explosives. But for dealing with these rural local bullies who had no grasp of advanced tactics at all, one pack was enough.

The demolition specialist took only a few seconds to cross the drawbridge, which was over ten meters long. Next, he swiftly placed the explosive pack beneath the main gate, then pulled the fuse, turned around, and ran.

In a critical moment, the demolition specialist could jump into the moat. But doing so risked injury: the bottom of the moat usually had bamboo spikes and traps.

Of course, the demolition specialist had no need to jump into the moat today. The defenders atop the tulou had been completely stunned into senselessness; the novel, cold, and elegant mode of combat left these medieval cold-weapon civilian militiamen utterly unable to adapt. They were currently busy crawling in panic among the corpses on the floor, emitting terrified howls, and had no attention to spare for the figure sprinting at high speed below them.

The onlookers standing several hundred meters away also failed to understand what they were seeing.

Among these people were the military households and civilian laborers from Lian Di, plus a great crowd of idlers: the moment they heard the government troops were going to wipe out the boss of Tongluo Bay, onlookers from villages for miles around all came running. The nearby clan landlords, every last one of them, sent out battlefield observation groups... the fate of Lin Family Fortress would determine the gentry's next strategy for dealing with the Transmigrators.

... When that strange fellow first ran across the bridge, no one understood what was happening. But when he came running back, many people's mouths fell wide open.

The scene that followed immediately drew gleeful jeers from everyone: as the demolition specialist ran back, the soldiers near the drawbridge also began retreating en masse, looking for all the world like they were fleeing at the mere sight of the enemy.

The onlookers then expressed their understanding: it seemed this bunch of short-haired government troops were only good at marksmanship, but had no real way to deal with a tulou. See, they couldn't even find a vanguard to scale the walls; the one man who came out was scared right back.

Then the explosive pack went off.

This pack of explosives contained not only black powder but also a jin of mining-grade nitroglycerin absorbed into silica clay. So never mind a fortress gate — even the Nine Gates of Beijing couldn't withstand it.

The flash of fire, the violent burst, the thick smoke billowing forth, the enormous rumble, and the wooden splinters flying through the air — the magnificent light and sound effects instantly stunned all the onlookers into silence.

The soldiers who had been retreating just a moment before, after they dodged the dangerous shockwave and the slicing wooden shrapnel, came roaring back and charged into the tulou the very next moment.

And just like that, Lin Family Fortress was finished.

From the first gunshot to the breaching of the fortress, it took less than half an hour in total; the attackers did not lose a single soldier, and the defenders were utterly helpless to fight back. To the eyes of the onlookers, the entire process was filled with a sense of fantasy and desolation... this was nothing at all like the warm and enthusiastic kind of war they had imagined.

After the two hundred soldiers of the Red Spear Camp charged into the tulou, the troops on the perimeter also began to move.

First, the three hundred garrison soldiers led by Li Qianhu, brandishing blades and spears, surged into the tulou with ferocious momentum.

Next, the local garrison soldiers originally assigned to stand guard around the perimeter also began to stir restlessly — the Lin Family had more than one tulou; although the other tulou held little money or grain, to the impoverished military households, as long as they could charge into these lightly defended empty fortresses, they were certain to be able to loot some things.

Then gunshots rang out.

The two hundred reinforcement soldiers led by Ding Liqiu were precisely the reserve force prepared for this moment. When a Hundred-Household Officer from the local garrison, who had been hopping about and rousing everyone to strike at the local tyrant, was shot dead with a single bullet, the rest of the men immediately shrank back — having just watched a blockbuster gunfight, they knew perfectly well the power of the Type 38 rifles.

After cowing these local beggars, Ding Liqiu first gathered the garrison leaders and the county yamen's constable and county vice magistrate together, reiterated the principle that everyone would get their share of the benefits, and then began assigning everyone their tasks.

The main task of the locals was still perimeter security and maintaining order. Once the gunfire inside the tulou gradually died down, Ding Liqiu sent in the civilian laborers and commercial firm guards who had come with him as well.

The fighting inside the tulou ended very quickly. In ancient times, there were very few troops who would fight desperate street battles to the death after the enemy had entered the city — the Battle of Stalingrad was still several hundred years in the future.

The soldiers were now going door-to-door, searching out prisoners and driving them to the large central square of the tulou. The earthen square was already packed with over a thousand members of the Lin clan squatting on the ground; the fierce-looking garrison military households were acting as guards, brandishing blades and spears from time to time, frightening the children and women into loud wails.

At this moment, the electric megaphone temporarily set up in front of the ancestral hall finally began to work, and a loud voice started repeating the prisoner policy over and over.

When everyone heard that for resisting the government, they would be sentenced to three years of exile penal labor, the scene actually quieted down a little. In truth, in this era, there were far too many examples of native armed forces resisting the government, rebelling, and then being massacred and completely looted by government troops when the city fell.

So when the Lin clansmen heard that they would merely be exiled to a distant place for three years of hard labor, the lower-class people who made up the majority actually stopped making a fuss — they had to toil hard every day anyway, and had no property at home to speak of; exile was exile, as long as their whole family's lives were spared.

In fact, these people were still overthinking it. Generally speaking, once a so-called exile convict could establish themselves in Dayuan and graduate from apprentice status, their sentence was effectively over. Even during their apprentice days, basic wages, basic housing, and medical care were all guaranteed; they simply wouldn't receive any bonuses.

Yet no matter what the policy was, there would always be people who came out to make trouble — the vested interests. The next moment, two so-called clan elders shakily rose to their feet, leaning on crutches, intending to reason things out with Wei Yuan, who was sitting in front of the ancestral hall having a smoke.

Then they were hanged.

Not only were these two old men hanged; seizing the opportunity, several other clan elders, the eldest son of the main branch, and other powerful figures were also dragged out and hanged together in front of the ancestral hall.

After that, no one else came forward to reason things out.

Next came screening and sorting. The families the Transmigrators needed most were picked out first: poor families of three or four were the most welcome. Of course, if a married couple had three to five children, that was the absolute best.

These people and their children were the first group to be sent off, escorted by those caravan guards. Next came families that included elderly members. Once this group was screened, it was the turn of the bachelors.

And last were the "problem families." Generally speaking, problem families were synonymous with "vested interest families."

Any large clan would have such a small clique of families at the very top of the pyramid. And based on Dayuan's experience with immigration over the past year or so, whenever such "problem families" were given an opportunity, they would be sure to contact their clansmen and try to restore the lives they once led.

So after investigating and dealing with this a few times, the Transmigrators eventually grew impatient — all problem families would ultimately be sent to the Volcano Mine Town in Taipei; a clean cut, they would never see their clansmen again.

The work of screening and sorting went on for a full three days.

Fortunately, the Lin Family's tulou were now empty; all the clansmen were quickly reassigned to the vacant tulou according to their respective "political status." They would be sent off in batches over the coming month, leaving the mountains, crossing the sea, heading to a place that would allow them to be reborn.

After the Lin Family was dealt with, during the screening and sorting process, people suddenly discovered one thing: the Lin clan leader, Lin Sanmen, was missing.

Subsequently, during a careful search of the Lin Family tulou, people found a secret passage leading to the woods out back... and then everyone knew: Lin Sanmen had escaped.

Yet later that evening, Lin Sanmen, under the wide gaze of the crowd, came back again.