Chapter 514: Bizarre Weapon

Lao Qi and his band, thinking they had escaped with their lives, were caught completely off guard by the sudden ambush.

Early this morning, when the scouts scattered around the outskirts of Guaitou Wa came scrambling back with the report, truth be told, Lao Qi didn't believe it at first.

In earlier years, government troops had also come to the Guaitou Wa area to encircle and suppress the bandit mills, but after achieving nothing and losing contact with some squads of men, to this day, no more government troops have come looking for trouble.

So when Boss Lao heard that a large force of unknown origin had stormed into Guaitou Wa, he didn't immediately tell the group to scatter and flee; instead, he ordered his men to spread out, using the terrain advantage to first tangle with the enemy for a while — at the very least, they should figure out who the opponent was first, right?

Not long after making this decision, Lao Qi regretted it: the dense crack of fire lances and battle cries rang out incessantly all around Guaitou Wa. Facing these bizarre opponents with soaring morale and armed to the teeth, the bandit gang had no capability for a head-on fight. With casualties strewn everywhere, his men automatically fled amid wails and howls — this time, no order from Boss Lao Qi was needed.

The opponent was not only numerous, but also fiercely unstoppable, advancing rapidly; the terrain advantage was utterly useless.

Boss Lao, receiving these vague reports one after another, naturally wasn't going to just sit and wait for death: better to flee first. No matter which power this was, one that didn't even show its Banner, avoiding their edge for now was always the right move.

And so Lao Qi took a few trusted aides, together with the Second-in-Command, boarded a boat at a pre-prepared camouflaged spot, and sailed off along a hidden waterway.

What Boss Lao Qi didn't know was that, although they had never met, his guiding principle of escape had been predicted by a man who had also once been a boss, through a high-tech reconnaissance-drawn sand table.

In the end, after stepping onto the land at the edge of the mountain region, Lao Qi suffered a sudden strike.

After the first volley of gunfire, the unprepared Lao Qi and his band were immediately cut down by four. Immediately after, a group of people wielding blades charged out from the shrubs opposite them.

At this moment, Lao Qi finally got a clear look at the opponents who had forced him into a panicked escape. To his slight surprise, most of these people wore strange gray, front-buttoned short jackets, clearly not government troops.

However, the current situation no longer allowed Lao Qi to ponder further. Seeing the opponents charging over, the equally battle-hardened Lao Qi quickly adjusted his mindset. With the thought "a rival gang seizing Territory" merely flashing through his mind, he didn't even glance at the four downed men, immediately drew his blade and bellowed: "There's no way back! Fight these sons of bitches to the death!"

Lao Qi's words instantly ignited the ferocity in his men. Yes, Guaitou Wa was now filled with chaos, the bandit gang scattering and fleeing in all directions — they certainly couldn't go back. As for right here, a look at the terrain showed swamps on both sides; if they ran, they'd just be chased down and hacked to death from behind. So the group had no other choice; to stay alive, they had to fight the opponent to the death.

The next moment, the two groups of red-eyed warriors of the Edo collided fiercely.

Judging purely by numbers, Lao Qi's side wasn't at a disadvantage. Even though a wave had just taken out four, eight still remained, while the opponents charging in for close combat were merely a dozen or so.

Unexpectedly, at the very first clash, two men on Lao Qi's side were knocked down.

The one who struck was He Biandan.

When the pitch-black "wooden" staff in He Biandan's hand came smashing down, the first bandit who raised his blade to meet it never imagined that, after a hoarse clang of metal striking metal, the blade in his hand would instantly be sent flying, and his head would be smashed flat along with it.

Only then did people realize that the black, carbonized-surfaced, completely non-reflective staff in the opponent's hand was actually made of iron.

What He Biandan was swinging in his hand was, in fact, a water pipe made of nodular cast iron.

If this water pipe were measured with a tool, one would find the pipe wall's thickness was uneven; plainly put, this was a scrapped water pipe that had failed the casting process.

Now, this water pipe had been repurposed from waste: cut to a suitable length, then capped at both ends with a stamping press using burr-ridden hexagonal iron caps. Thus, what was originally a defective product from the steel plant transformed in a flash into a bizarre weapon of the martial world — the Spheroidal Graphite Eight Trigrams Staff.

This staff was specifically selected for his young brother He Biandan by Wu Sanye, a man rich in experience with armed gang fights.

He Biandan was tall with long arms, young and athletically capable. When they previously drilled formations, he was designated from the very first moment as the vanguard to lead the charge.

For charging a formation, short weapons naturally wouldn't do. Long spears, difficult to wield, were also unsuitable for large-scale combat... As the saying goes: a month for the blade, a year for the staff, a lifetime for the spear. Under the Pioneer Army's intensely tight training rhythm, Wu Sanye naturally wouldn't have He Biandan train with the spear. Moreover, since He Biandan was accustomed to using a carrying pole, Wu Sanye specially picked a weapon from the arms pile that the young man could master in a short time.

A staff.

After this, Third Lord also instructed He Biandan in a few simple, practical battle formation techniques, urging him to practice them repeatedly until proficient. Today, in their first real combat, they were used on the heads of Lao Qi's bandit gang.

After the bizarre weapon caught the opponent off guard in the initial strike, the Second-in-Command on Lao Qi's side was greatly alarmed, immediately stepped in to fill the gap, and hacked over with his blade.

Then the Second-in-Command's blade was blocked by a shield extended from the side.

So-called large-scale battle formations, in truth, are variations on a single theme, nothing more than each man performing his own duty. Back when Qi Jiguang created the 12-man Mandarin Duck Formation to exterminate Japanese pirates in the mountainous terrain of Zhejiang, the principle was the same: long weapons to pin down the enemy, short weapons and ranged attacks to eliminate them.

The formation Wu Sanye used today followed the same concept with minor differences. When He Biandan charged out, two men with shields were specifically assigned to protect his flanks, and so the Second-in-Command's blade hacked right onto a shield.

Immediately after, He Biandan stepped forward, using the steel pipe's elastic tip to swing left and right, cracking open the head of another unprepared bandit. At the same time, as the focus of concentrated attacks, at least two blades slashed onto He Biandan's body.

The next moment, sparks flew; the equally matte-black short armor helped He Biandan block the blades aimed at his vitals.

At this, the morale of Lao Qi's group collapsed.

In ancient times, no matter the dynasty, people could walk the streets with blades and swords at their waists, but if anyone dared to secretly hoard armor at home, it was a crime punishable by the confiscation of their entire household.

Similarly, ten Samurai, when armored, could cut down enemies in cloth garments several times their number as easily as chopping melons and vegetables. This is why government troops, when suppressing bandits and Commoners, could always achieve total victory at the start.

The ancients knew this well, so when Lao Qi's men verified that the three men leading the opponent's charge were indeed wearing iron armor, their morale collapsed.

The next moment, after shouting "Kill, kill, kill!" Lao Qi immediately turned and ran, leaving his brothers to hold the front line.

However, after a loud "Bang!", Boss Lao clutched the fist-sized hole in his belly, stared in disbelief at the blood gushing from his own abdomen, and then toppled onto his back — the duration of this segment of fighting was enough for the Firearm Soldier Yusheng Shaoye, who had stayed behind, to reload, circle around to the flank, and fire, precisely targeting Boss Lao as he happened to disengage from the melee.