Chapter 313: Know What

Dantu Town, outskirts.

War banners fluttered, and fierce soldiers stood like a forest.

Nearly two thousand soldiers, on an open field by the bank of the Yangtze River, faced each other in two square formations.

One of the formations consisted of four hundred short-statured Japanese soldiers, wearing Japanese-style ashigaru iron armor and jingasa war hats, with katana at their sides and matchlock muskets on their shoulders.

These Japanese soldiers were of course not invading wokou pirates, but Zheng Zhilong's household retainers!

Among the Japanese goods Zheng Zhilong traded, one kind was called "Japanese soldiers." Although Japan's age of chaos had ended thirty years earlier and the Tokugawa shogunate's rule had stabilized, the lingering problem of Japan's Warring States era — too many ronin — had still not been completely resolved. A group of samurai who had fought in that chaotic age and then lost their lords had become hot commodities on battlefields all across the Southern Seas.

Not only did the monarchs of the Southern Seas like to hire them, but even Western colonizers and great Eastern sea lords like Zheng Zhilong likewise liked to use cheap, high-quality Japanese ronin to charge into battle.

Therefore, in Zheng Zhilong's army, all those who fought sea battles were Chinese, while the landing force used Japanese soldiers as household retainers.

And the Zheng family's Japanese soldiers were all equipped with matchlock muskets and katana, and also had iron jingasa and do made in the style of Japanese ashigaru armor — the so-called do was actually a kind of plate armor assembled from iron plates, paperboard, wooden boards, or other materials, manufactured after reference to European-style plate armor.

Zheng Zhilong had money, and his territory was moreover close to Foshan, the ironworking center of East Asia, so of course he would not fob people off with paperboard or wooden boards. His Japanese household retainers were uniformly equipped with iron do and iron-sheet jingasa, giving them quite formidable defensive capability.

The other formation was made up of four four-rank horizontal lines stacked together, nearly 1,600 officers and men, all wearing neat red cloth-faced iron armor, standing in utter silence, presenting an astonishingly perfect array.

What was astonishing was not only their formation, but also their equipment. Of the 1,600 officers and men, all the soldiers — except the standard-bearers, drummers, trumpeters, and dispatch riders — used firearms! One quarter of them used heavy turtledove-foot muskets, and all the rest were equipped with matchlock muskets. And the muzzles of all the matchlock muskets were fitted with bayonets three feet long!

Under the sunlight, more than a thousand bayonets gleamed with cold light, like a forest of sharp blades!

Not to mention Zheng Zhilong, who was not much good at land warfare — even the German Rheinschtein, who had crawled and rolled through the battlefields of Europe's Thirty Years' War for half his life, stared wide-eyed, looking at the "forest of sharp blades" before him with an expression of disbelief.

Rheinschtein had seen plenty of the Japanese combination of musket and curved blade — the Sultan's Janissaries of Turkey were equipped that way. But sticking a knife directly onto the muzzle of a musket was something he was seeing for the first time.

But with a knife stuck on, could the musket still fire?

"Father," the tall, slightly gaunt Rheinschtein, in his forties, asked Johann Adam Schall von Bell beside him in German, "how is that knife attached to the musket? Once the knife is attached, can it still fire?"

"It can. This is a socket bayonet," Schall said. "His Highness the Crown Prince had a kind of socket bayonet made that can be fitted directly over the barrel."

"Is that so!" Rheinschtein wore an extremely astonished expression. "Why didn't I think of that? This will be an invention that changes the mode of warfare — truly remarkable!"

"Changes the mode of warfare?" Schall was taken aback. "Is it that formidable?"

"Of course!" Rheinschtein nodded and said gravely, "This invention perfectly combines the blade and the musket. I think it will eliminate the pike in the future."

"Eliminate the pike?" The Portuguese Governor-General's special envoy, the very handsome Macao arms dealer Afonso Lopes, who had a head of curly black hair, wore a startled expression. "Can a musket fitted with a blade deal with cavalry?"

"It can!" Rheinschtein said. "The effect is not as good as a pike, but it is absolutely better than the curved blades those Japanese use. If these Chinese musketeers can properly use their matchlocks, then they can certainly defeat an equal number of Japanese musketeers."

"Really?" Afonso Lopes was not quite convinced. "Japanese samurai are excellent mercenaries — the monarchs of the Southern Seas all like to hire them."

"Yes, but their equipment and tactics are both inadequate." Rheinschtein said, "They only have light matchlocks, basically no heavy matchlocks, and even more lacking in artillery. Moreover, they do not know how to use square-formation tactics, mixing muskets and pikes together."

"But their swordsmanship is truly formidable. You have just arrived in the East — perhaps you have not yet seen the blades of these Japanese dwarves!"

At this moment Schall interrupted the two men's argument and pointed ahead: "Look quickly — many wooden targets have been set up over there. It seems the Chinese musketeers and Japanese musketeers want to have a contest!"

"Is that so? Then we must watch carefully!"

"Indeed, we must properly understand this country's military capability. The Spaniards of old had a very low opinion of them!"

Rheinschtein and Afonso Lopes both turned their gazes toward the direction Schall was pointing, and saw that a row of wooden targets had already been set out side by side — a full three or four hundred of them!

"Woo-woo..."

The sound of horns rang out immediately after, and then the originally square-formed regiment of the Hard-Work New Army musketeers began to deploy in columns. The four battalions marched in sequence, advancing to a point a hundred paces before the row of wooden targets, and only after forming a line parallel to the targets did they halt. Then, at the officers' commands, they turned to face the targets and continued advancing toward them, until they collectively halted at about fifty paces before the targets.

The whole process looked quite orderly — clearly a strictly trained unit!

The several foreigners, along with Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Zhifeng, Zheng Sen, Wu Sanfu, and several other Ming officials, each held a monocular telescope and began watching the target-shooting performance.

This shooting contest had been proposed by Zheng Sen, for no other reason than to let his old man see how formidable the Hard-Work New Army was!

Only by knowing how formidable it was could one put oneself in the proper position. In the present Ming, the Zheng family's status was in fact unshakable — but one had to know how much one actually weighed.

With a burst of rapid drumming, the first rank of the four-rank musket line — the turtledove-foot musketeers — had finished loading and lit their match cords. Another burst of drumming, and all the muskets were leveled and clamped onto their rests.

Clang!

A single strike of the gong.

Only then came the thunderous roar!

Three hundred twenty turtledove-foot muskets fired almost simultaneously.

Shot weighing one tael and five mace, propelled by the force of the exploding powder, burst from the muzzles at a muzzle velocity approaching or exceeding four hundred meters per second and flew toward the targets. The distance of a mere fifty paces was crossed in an instant, and at once more than half the targets were smashed to pieces!

A volley from fifty paces away achieving a fifty percent hit rate! Although this was target practice, the result was still quite excellent.

The several foreigners all nodded slightly, while Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Zhifeng's expressions changed subtly. The Zheng family's Japanese household retainers watching from the side also wore astonished expressions.

After completing their volley, these 320 musketeers began reloading at the officers' commands. Loading the turtledove-foot musket was extremely complicated, and even with prepared cartridges, it was only slightly improved.

However, these musketeers had all undergone at least five months of strict training, so they completed reloading in a short time. Then, directed again by drums and gong, they fired a second volley.

Most of the remaining hundred-odd wooden targets were again smashed to pieces!

After firing the second volley, they did not reload again, but amid a dense clanging of bronze gongs, they turned into columns by banner units and withdrew through the gaps between the four battalion lines, clearing an advance path for the matchlock musketeers behind.

Although the entire withdrawal process could not be called orderly, it was clean and efficient — clearly something frequently drilled.

Next came the matchlock musketeers' performance!

The standard combat formation of the Hard-Work New Army's matchlock musketeers had now changed to a three-rank line, and their standard tactic was still volley fire plus bayonet charge.

The posture adopted for volley fire was one rank kneeling and two ranks standing, with the last rank firing with their muskets braced on the shoulders of the second rank.

The four dense battalion lines of matchlock musketeers began advancing slowly at the officers' commands, pressing straight to within twenty paces of those scattered targets before halting simultaneously.

Then, as before, came a thunderous volley of musketry, smashing every still-standing wooden target to pieces!

(End of Chapter)