Chapter 448: Hooge Goes All In (Desperately Begging for Monthly Tickets)

"Brave my ass!" Feng Sizhong shouted, hopping about. "Old Lu, check the cannons, quick... hurry, hurry, hurry!"

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

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

Grapeshot, as it was called, was a mass of lead balls wrapped in cloth into an oval shape, then rammed hard into the bore and fired. Because the thrust produced by the powder's deflagration would tear the cloth wrapping apart as the shot left the muzzle, the lead balls would scatter and fly forward — one blast covering a huge area!

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 command to fire, one three-pounder beside him would fire first, and then the other twenty-three three-pounders would fire.

"Niru janggin, those Nikans seem to have... seem to have finished setting up their cannons!"

"Th-this, this, this is too fast!"

At that moment Li Yingzhong saw an unbelievable sight: in the glow of the campfires, twenty-four great general's cannons mounted on carriages were being handled by several hundred nimble gunners, spread out in a single line, and in the blink of an eye they were already completely laid... their pitch-black muzzles all pointed straight at his own side!

Were they going to blow him to death with cannon fire?

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

Most of the firearms men under him were matchlock musketeers, and the weapons in their hands had very short range — they could not possibly hit the Ming artillerymen still fifty or sixty paces away... But he could not worry about that now; better to fire first and talk later!

Who knew, it might scare the enemy off!

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

But before Li Yingzhong could hear the muskets roar in unison, 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 — though in fact the rest of his life lasted only a very short time... because he was killed by cannon fire!

The muzzles of more than twenty Ming cannons blossomed with flame almost simultaneously, and only then came the earth-shaking roar! More than a thousand lead balls loaded in 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, creating a terrible cavitation effect. The wounded men's blood sprayed out through the channels punched by the lead balls, turning into streams of blood-arrows that shot into Qingliu Stream, and the stream 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 by the three-pounder cannons! A lead ball struck him in the belly. He clutched his stomach and collapsed into the water, unable even to cry out, because the moment he opened his mouth, icy stream water poured in. And his intestines and belly had been smashed to pulp by the lead ball — they could not hold the cold water at all, so 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' help.

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 — yet his mind remained lucid.

It was only at this moment that he realized for the first time: the Great Qing might very well be finished! This was too absurd — how could this be possible!

"Pop-pop-pop..."

Just as Li Yingzhong was dying, the matchlock muskets and turtle-foot muskets in the hands of the Plain Blue Banner Han musketeers finally went off — the grapeshot from the twenty-four three-pounders had knocked down over a hundred of the Plain Blue Banner Han musketeers on the spot, but a hundred and seventy or eighty had been lucky enough to escape that fate, and now they were firing wildly.

It was simply blind shooting. They had all seen how the Ming cannons killed men — who would still dare think about those prospects of promotion? So every man's hands were shaking as 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.

"Iron shot! Load iron 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 instruments!

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

To ensure they could punch through the wooden shields mounted on the shield carts, Feng Sizhong chose hard cast-iron solid shot. Each cast-iron ball weighed 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 it smashed the wooden shields, it could inflict enormous collateral casualties.

Of course, that was on the condition that it actually hit! The shield carts were moving targets, and now they were advancing through the riverbed, where their height was too low — from too far away 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 clearly by moonlight and firelight before opening fire — and no more volley fire, but each gun aiming on its own.

Seeing that 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 whistle — 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 during the training of the Kenan New Army, someone had brought in suonas to replace the brass gongs, whose sound was easily confused with the gong signal for retreat, and issued them to each model regiment and artillery regiment as signaling instruments.

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

Half of these gun captains were Westerners, and the other half were "artillery seeds" personally selected by Feng Sizhong — all youths under twenty, with a rough grasp of letters, clever and quick-witted, and able to keep accounts. Through rigorous training and constant weeding-out, twenty-four had been chosen from more than a hundred men.

In the pre-battle drills their performance had been very good, and today would show how they handled real combat.

"Boom-boom-boom..."

The twenty-four cannons began to roar one after another. Because each gun aimed and fired on its own, there was no volley — only an unbroken succession of iron balls being fired. 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 bondservants 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 bit 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 simply not brought shield carts — otherwise he would have killed Zhu Cilang long ago, and none of the present trouble would exist.

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

Just then, an unbelievable sight appeared before him! 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 hastily 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!