Chapter 446: Execution by Cannon (Second Update)

"Brave my ass!" Feng Sizhong shouted, hopping from foot to foot. "Old Lu, check the cannons on the double... hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Even as he shouted, he was running all over the position on foot. He was checking whether each cannon had been deployed correctly and in time. Of the twenty-four three-pounder cannons, six were under Feng Sizhong's charge. The foreigner Louis Lu and two other foreigners were each responsible for six three-pounders as well... each of the four of them doubled as the commander of a cannon company.

"Grapeshot! Grapeshot..." Seeing that the six three-pounder cannons under his charge had all been deployed with great speed, Feng Sizhong hurriedly ordered the gunners to load grapeshot.

What was called grapeshot was a heap of lead balls wrapped in cloth into an oval shape, then rammed hard into the bore and fired. Because the thrust produced by the exploding gunpowder would tear the cloth wrapping apart as it pushed the projectile out of the bore, the lead balls would scatter and fly forward — one shot, a whole swath cut down!

While the gunners loaded, Feng Sizhong turned around and fixed his eyes on the "Great Qing warriors" struggling forward through the stream — he was estimating the range.

Because his range-finding skill was high, all twenty-four three-pounders here took their orders from him. After he gave the order to fire, one three-pounder beside him fired first, and then the other twenty-three three-pounders fired.

"Company Commander, those nikan seem to have... seem to have set up their cannons!"

"Th-this, this is too fast!"

At that moment Li Yingzhong saw a scene he could hardly believe: in the glow of the campfires, twenty-four great general cannons mounted on carriages were being worked by several hundred nimble gunners, drawn up in a single line, and in the blink of an eye they were completely emplaced... their black muzzles all pointed straight at his own side!

Were they going to execute him by cannon?

"Quick, quick, quick — fire the muskets!" Li Yingzhong opened his throat and bellowed.

Most of the musketeers under him were matchlock men, and the weapons in their hands had very short range — they could not possibly reach the Ming artillerymen still fifty or sixty paces away... but he could not care about that now. Fire first and talk later!

Maybe it would scare the enemy off!

Even if it did not scare the enemy off, hearing a volley of musketry would at least stiffen his own courage.

But before Li Yingzhong could hear the volley of musketry, a tremendous boom reached his ears first, and then a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life appeared before his eyes — in fact, the rest of his life lasted only a very short time... because he was executed by cannon!

The muzzles of more than twenty Ming cannons blossomed with fire almost simultaneously, and only then came the earth-shaking roar! The thousand-odd lead balls packed into the twenty-four three-pounder cannons burst forth in an instant, flew across the distance of several dozen paces at extreme speed, and easily tore through the cotton armor worn by the Han musketeers of the Plain Blue Banner. The bullets deformed and broke apart inside their bodies, producing a terrible cavitation effect. The wounded men's blood sprayed out along the channels punched by the lead balls, turning into streams of blood-arrows that shot into Qingliu Stream, and the water began to change color.

The three layers of armor on Li Yingzhong's body might as well not have existed before the lead balls fired from the three-pounder cannons! A lead ball struck him in the belly. He clutched his stomach and collapsed into the water, unable even to scream, because the moment he opened his mouth, the icy stream water poured in. And his intestines and belly had been smashed to pulp by the lead ball, so they could not hold the cold water at all. Thus the cold water quickly turned to bloody water and flowed out of his abdominal cavity... a man in such a state was beyond even the immortals' power to save.

In the last moments of his life, Li Yingzhong could only lie helpless at the bottom of Qingliu Stream, unable to breathe, unable to scream, unable even to see clearly (because the river water was fouled and the sky was dark), yet his mind remained clear.

Only at that moment did he realize for the first time: the Great Qing might very well be finished! How absurd — how could this be possible!

"Pop-pop-pop..."

Just as Li Yingzhong was losing his life, the matchlock muskets and turtledove-foot muskets in the hands of the Plain Blue Banner Han musketeers finally went off — the grapeshot from the twenty-four three-pounder cannons had knocked down a hundred or so of the Plain Blue Banner Han musketeers on the spot, but a hundred seventy or eighty more had been spared by fate (because their formation was, after all, loose, and the cannons' grapeshot could not cover them all) and escaped that fate. Now they were firing wildly.

It was simply blind shooting. They had all seen how the Ming cannons killed men! Who still dared think about those prospects of promotion? So every man's hands were shaking when he fired!

Once they had fired, these Han musketeers all turned and ran, and they ran so fast it was as if the resistance of the river water did not exist.

"Round shot! Load round shot..."

After driving off the harassing Qing Han musketeers with grapeshot, Feng Sizhong had no intention of quitting while he was ahead. Because on today's battlefield, his twenty three-pounder battalion guns were going to become the most dazzling man-killing weapons of all!

Now their target shifted to the Qing shield carts slowly approaching.

To ensure that he could punch through the wooden shields mounted on the shield carts, Feng Sizhong chose hard cast-iron solid shot. Each cast-iron ball weighed a little over two jin. In drills, with a charge of nine liang and eight qian of powder, it could smash the great wooden shields mounted on the shield carts at a range of 150 paces!

And at the same time that it smashed the wooden shields, it could inflict enormous collateral casualties.

Of course, the premise was that it had to hit! The shield carts were moving targets, and now they were advancing through the riverbed, their height too low; at too great a distance it was easy to overshoot.

So Feng Sizhong decided to let these slow-moving shield carts come closer — to within fifty paces of his own position, where they could be seen more clearly by moonlight and firelight — before opening fire. And this time there would be no volley fire; each gun would aim on its own.

When he judged the distance was about right, Feng Sizhong opened his throat and shouted: "Each gun aim and fire on its own!"

A bugler following behind Feng Sizhong heard his order and immediately blew the signal horn — that is, the suona. It was Qi Jiguang who introduced the suona into the army, using its piercing sound to transmit signals on the noisy battlefield, and the effect was indeed excellent.

So in the course of drilling the K'nan New Army, someone had brought in suonas to replace the brass gongs, which were easily confused with the metal sound for retreat, and issued them to the various model regiments and the artillery regiment as signaling instruments.

As the piercing suona sounded a long note, the twenty-four three-pounder cannons began aiming at their targets under the direction of their respective gun captains.

Half of these gun captains were Westerners, and the other half were "artillery seeds" personally selected by Feng Sizhong — youths not yet twenty, with a rough grasp of letters, clever and quick-witted, and able to keep accounts. Through rigorous training and continuous weeding-out, twenty-four men had been selected from more than a hundred.

In the pre-battle drills, their performance had been excellent, and today it remained to be seen how they would handle actual combat.

"Boom-boom-boom..."

The twenty-four cannons began to thunder one after another. Because each gun aimed and fired on its own, there was no volley fire — only an unbroken stream of iron balls. Some of them went wide, but quite a few struck the advancing shield carts.

The Qing army had something of a superstition about shield carts. Because for all these years, as long as their booi slaves worked hard enough, pushing the shield carts forward to block bullets for them, they had always been able to overcome the Ming army's motley firearms.

It was as if the shield cart were the natural nemesis of firearms.

So when the Eight Banners warriors following behind the shield carts saw the Han musketeers fleeing for their lives, they did not take it too seriously.

Han troops, after all... that was all they amounted to! When the Ming firearms got a little fiercer, they could not hold.

But so what? With the shield carts there... there was nothing to fear!

Oboi, the foremost warrior of the Manchus, thought so too. The previous foremost warrior before him had not brought shield carts — otherwise he would have killed Zhu Cilang long ago. Then there would be none of the trouble now.

So Oboi very cautiously followed behind a shield cart, his body hunched, as if afraid that the shield cart in front was too small to cover his burly frame.

At that very moment, a scene he could hardly believe unfolded before his eyes! The wooden shield of the shield cart five paces ahead of him suddenly shattered for no apparent reason, and then a skyful of splintered wood flew toward Oboi. He hurriedly dodged, but was still a beat too slow — something struck him hard on the head, and then he blacked out, his whole body collapsing into the water.

The foremost warrior of the Manchus, it seemed, was about to change hands again!