Chapter 350: Opening the Port (17)

The peasant mortar, to put it plainly, is just a poor man's version of a mortar.

The biggest difference between the two is range: mortars are smoothbore and can reach over 800 meters. The peasant mortar, however, has rifling, so its accurate range is only 200 meters — any farther and the rounds start to drift.

Anyone who owns a bicycle can easily grasp the peasant mortar's construction, because a portable bicycle pump looks almost exactly the same on the outside.

Same outside, but the function is entirely different. The front half of the peasant mortar's cylinder holds the propellant charge, while the threaded rod in the back half adjusts the barrel length. Because the ammunition it fires is so mixed — even hand grenades are used — the peasant mortar can't adjust its range by changing the ammunition.

At times like this, the only way to change range is by adjusting the threaded rod to alter the barrel length: a longer barrel shoots farther, a shorter barrel shoots closer.

In short, this simple mortar weighing only five jin, or primitive grenade launcher, is an extremely crude portable weapon; for a soldier to hit a target with it, they must be "highly skilled and thoroughly practiced."

Fortunately, everyone who came today was a professional: the Army had specially organized personnel training for this hard-won, high-tech area-effect weapon. The reason they sent as many as five teams this time was precisely for live-fire testing.

So under Squad Leader Wu's command, the five teams rapidly fired their first volley of tear gas shells.

Unlike standard mortar shells with tail fins that fire by sliding down the barrel and striking a primer, the stubby, mere 50-millimeter-caliber ammunition used by the peasant mortar is equally crude.

This hybrid ancient-modern cylindrical tear gas shell is unique to a certain power base, and it exudes a strong Kiln District minimalist aesthetic.

Since lethality wasn't required, the shell casing was just a single layer of thick iron sheeting. The head of this stick-like object had no sophisticated contact fuse; after the assistant gunner stuffed it into the cannon barrel, the main gunner only needed to hold the barrel aimed at the enemy with his left hand, then give the firing strap at the rear a hard yank.

The primer, struck by the firing pin, was instantly detonated, launching the shell out of the barrel. At the same time, a fuse hidden inside the shell casing — similar to those in stick grenades — was also ignited. This crude ammunition, lacking a contact fuse, wasn't designed with any intention of controlling the detonation time, so the fuse length was fixed: three seconds to detonate.

This meant the shell sometimes detonated prematurely while still flying over the target's head. But that didn't matter: when the tear gas shell detonated, it didn't spray steel balls or pre-formed fragments — it simply produced a continuous, massive cloud of smoke under the action of an oxidizer and combustion aids like magnesium carbonate.

The five tear gas shells accurately struck the target across the way — a target as large as a thousand people, impossible to miss even if you tried.

And then Zuo Baoliu got hit.

At first, when they saw the smoking, slowly arcing cylindrical objects flying toward them, Zuo Baoliu and the other brave warriors standing in the front row collectively expressed their contempt for this behavior: since when were two-kicks used in armed brawls? If this thing could actually do any damage, then no one would ever die in village fights over water and land again.

Then the two-kick exploded right above Zuo Baoliu's head.

If Zuo Baoliu had come from later generations, he would certainly have shamed his opponent with a single line: "Another fake from Taobao"... because the firecracker's sound and light effects were pathetic. Not only was the bang weak, but it also billowed thick smoke — clearly a damp, dud firecracker.

The next moment, Zuo Baoliu inhaled a deep breath of air so pungent and piercing it felt like thousands of fine needles. After a thunderous "boom" inside his brain, from Zuo Baoliu's seven orifices — all except his two ears — the remaining five simultaneously gushed fluid: tears streamed from his eyes, drool poured from his mouth, and snot flowed out at the very first moment.

Having absolutely no idea what was happening, Zuo Baoliu's brain completely shut down — the nerve signals frantically firing from every part of his body were too urgent and too intense to process at all. So at this moment, he could only follow instinct, bend over at the waist, and start coughing violently.

Immediately after, he dropped to his knees. The searing, burning sensation in his lungs and the violent coughing left his whole body limp and his vision blind; he had completely lost the ability to move.

At the same time, the main force, also immersed in the dense capsaicin fog, began the same three-part sequence: violent coughing, weeping, and kneeling. The brave warriors made no correct reaction at all — they just knelt there in the smoke, continuing to cough.

They couldn't be blamed for this. Although chili peppers had been introduced to the Great Ming from Mexico during this very period, at this time, chili peppers — like corn — were still merely ornamental plants in the gardens of a few sea merchants. The Ming people had absolutely no contact with this stuff; it wouldn't be until the Qianlong era that chili peppers began to be eaten as a vegetable in China.

Fortunately, with a large enough crowd, someone was bound to figure it out. After getting past the initial confusion and panic, one of the more worldly-wise soon began shouting while coughing: "It's wolf smoke! Cover your mouths and noses — get away, quick!"

However, simply covering the mouth and nose is useless against tear gas — you also have to blindfold your eyes, like Illidan. So the crowd remained in chaos, and trampling began: once blinded, they could no longer tell which direction was which.

The Ming people standing on the earthen slope at the village entrance were equally dumbstruck. Yu Bende and his gang of thugs were all craning their necks and standing on tiptoes, pushing forward to get a better look — as if they hadn't been the ones just about to flee moments ago.

"This thing is marvelous!" Once Yu Bende figured out the situation, he couldn't help but be overjoyed. Stroking his beard, he was calm and composed once more: "It can subdue the enemy while sparing us the burden of slaughter and punishment — truly a thing that kills two birds with one stone!"

"Mm-hm-hm..." To be honest, this was the tear gas shell's first real combat use today, so everyone from the Intelligence Bureau — including the firing team members — hadn't expected the scene to escalate so quickly into this. What had supported their confidence before this was, in truth, the firearms in their hands.

The Zuo family's tenant farmers were destined for misfortune today. In fact, aside from those nations of unruly citizens in later generations who frequently riot, the masses of any other country would also kneel when encountering this stuff — hesitate even slightly and you'd suffer badly. This isn't as simple as getting choked while cutting onions; stay in the capsaicin smoke a little too long, and many people would end up sent to the hospital.

Seeing that the opponents had already descended into chaos, Squad Leader Wu, who was directing the fire, followed the manual's requirements and ordered his men to fire two more volleys of "two-kicks" to gather test data. The subsequent shells were less accurate, since each volley extended the range by nearly 30 meters.

But that didn't matter. The firing teams didn't need to hit a machine gun nest with pinpoint accuracy like the Japanese army; these two-kicks only needed to land within a rough circle a few dozen meters across.

The reason they chose to open battle on the earthen slope at the village entrance wasn't because it made escape easy, but because the high ground made aiming convenient. And the single most important point: today's wind direction was blowing from behind the slope.

So when the subsequent ten smoke shells landed among the crowd, the smoke obediently enveloped them.

Zuo Baoliu felt like he was going to die.

By now, his hoe had long since vanished to who knows where, and the violent coughing left him unable to move. To avoid choking to death on his own drool and snot, he could only kneel on the ground, struggling to breathe, and stick his rear end high in the air — striking a kowtow pose of "banging his head against the ground."

A burning pain spread across his chest and abdomen, his throat felt like someone was scraping it with a knife, his eyes were already red, swollen, and blind, and what reached his ears were the terrified howls of his clansmen, interspersed with dense, hacking coughs...

Zuo Baoliu felt he was going to die.

He didn't know how long had passed. Just when he felt a tiny bit better, a wave of shouts reached his ears, growing from distant to near. Right on the heels of the shouts came the sound of footsteps, the wet thwacks of clubs striking flesh, and screams of agony.

The footsteps quickly arrived beside Zuo Baoliu's ears. The next moment, someone stomped hard on his upraised rear end, kicking him flat. At the same time, an iron ruler lashed viciously across his back. Finally, some prankster even jabbed a stick at his stern... and so Zuo Baoliu passed out.

When he woke up, he was already lying on his own shabby wood board bed. In fact, Zuo Baoliu was lying face-down on the bed, his spine exposed, a patch of black and blue across his back.

Seeing the woman and children weeping beside him, it took Zuo Baoliu a good long while to regain his senses and piece together what had happened after he lost consciousness.

... After the Zuo family's main force was taken down by the wolf smoke, a short while later, the enforcers with damp cloths wrapped around their mouths and noses charged down from the earthen slope, with those semi-official hired thugs leading the charge.

These hired thugs were useless in a real fight, but when it came to dealing with villagers who had lost the ability to fight back, every last one of them was agile and valiant.

And then the battle was over.

In this fight, the Zuo family suffered a crushing defeat. In the aftermath, over a hundred people lay unconscious, and the rest were all wounded, every single one bearing injuries... and not just from the hired thugs' beatings — quite a few had been trampled by their own people.

Amidst the cries and wails, Zuo Baoliu was dragged back by his own woman using a door plank. Fortunately, he woke up not long after returning home, which finally put the woman's heart at ease — if he'd died, she would have had to remarry, and it would be considered lucky if even one of their three children made it to adulthood.

After waking, Zuo Baoliu ignored the searing pain all over his body. He squeezed his red, swollen eyes tightly shut, endured the stabbing pain in his throat, and told the woman in a hoarse, raspy voice: go find out what's happening, quickly.

... Since they had lost the armed brawl, they would have to bear the consequences — Zuo Baoliu was very clear on this point. All the benefits the clan had previously promised him had now turned to illusions in a mirror. What terrified him most was this: he was a tenant farmer of Sangyuan, and the land deed for Sangyuan was in the hands of the Rent Depot.

In a sense, Zuo Baoliu's actions could be called "eating from the master's bowl while working for someone else."

If they had won the brawl, then naturally nothing would happen, and the Rent Depot couldn't do anything to him as a tenant farmer. But now the Zuo family was utterly defeated, and the protection over Zuo Baoliu's head was gone. There was no telling if they might decide to make an example of him — if they used even one tactic like forcing debt collection or seizing his tenancy, Zuo Baoliu would be finished on the spot.

This was what he feared most. By comparison, the injuries on his stern and back were things he had already dismissed entirely.

After this, during Zuo Baoliu's recovery, news flowed back home in an unending stream: the Official Runners had entered the Zuo Family Great House, the Official Runners had taken Zuo Hongwu away in chains, the Official Runners had begun confiscating hidden fields, the Official Runners had begun pursuing back taxes on grain, the old master of the Fourth Branch had hanged himself...

Just as Zuo Baoliu was in the grip of utter terror, the Official Runners came to his door.