Chapter 994: Ming Peasant-Soldiers vs. Japanese Samurai (Please Subscribe)

Xie Xun, platoon leader of the Third Platoon, Second Company, First Battalion of the Ming Navy's Marine Corps, likewise gripped the firelock in his hands. The weapon he carried was a Hongxing Year Seven flintlock. By seventeenth-century standards, this flintlock in his hands was a fairly refined weapon — although Emperor Zhu very much wanted a standardized, mass-produced firelock, at present there were no steam engines, no industrial rifling beds, no equipment capable of pressing steel, and not even steel in any true sense of the word. So-called standardization was at best a rough-and-ready notion.

Consequently, of the Hongxing Year Seven models delivered to the Ming army, no two could be said to be nearly identical; on close inspection, the naked eye could always make out their differences.

That did not mean, however, that from the tens of thousands of flintlocks delivered each year one could not select one or two thousand fine pieces!

The craftsmen who forged these guns varied greatly in skill — even on an assembly line, it was still handwork — so the products naturally ranged from good to bad. The Ming army's Ordnance Bureau, for its part, had dedicated gun inspectors who would pick out two thousand fine pieces from the tens of thousands of flintlocks and issue them to elite troops such as the Marine Corps, the Black Gun Mule Soldiers, and the sharpshooters.

In addition, these elite marksmen, selected through rigorous training and layer upon layer of screening, were also issued specially made "silk bullets" — lead balls wrapped in silk to reduce the windage between ball and barrel, lessen gas leakage, and thereby extend effective range.

Unlike the later internet tendency to mythologize point-blank fire and bayonet fighting, every army in the world today that used firearms tried every possible means to make the guns in its soldiers' hands shoot farther and more accurately. Even if most soldiers could not achieve either of these due to training and equipment, their commanders still did everything they could to ensure that a minority of soldiers could kill with firearms at long range.

This was the origin of sharpshooters, chasseurs, and skirmishers!

The training time and equipment cost of a single sharpshooter was still far lower than that of training and equipping a Manchu baturu. So hoping to shatter a flintlock unit by having baturus shoot it down was basically a pipe dream; even if such a thing did happen, it was surely exceedingly rare.

And Xie Xun was a Marine Corps platoon leader proficient in both sharpshooting and bayonet fighting. Although only a platoon leader, he drew the pay of a company commander in an ordinary unit and held the corresponding rank (Platoon Leader grade), and he also bore the "Overcoming Hardship" honorific — which meant a "floor guarantee" and a family estate.

The so-called floor guarantee meant that so long as he did not violate military law and was not stripped of his military status, he would at worst be idled with a three-grade demotion, or at minimum receive the guaranteed treatment of a commandant.

A family estate meant a land grant equal to that of a commandant — because land was limited, the Ming army's land-grant standards grew ever stricter; only officers and soldiers bearing the "Overcoming Hardship" honorific could receive land grants. Moreover, only upon retiring from the army could one receive the full grant. Before retirement, one was granted land at the three-grade-reduced or minimum share.

Yet even as land grants grew ever tighter, pay and bonuses became more generous than before.

Serving as a soldier for Emperor Zhu was, all in all, quite satisfying!

With a soft thump, the bottom of the sampan carrying Xie Xun struck the mudflat of Sakura Island.

Before the sampan had even steadied, Xie Xun was the first to leap down from the boat. Standing in the icy seawater that nearly reached his buttocks, he drew a deep breath and roared: "All hands, skirmish order, fix bayonets!"

The bullets had long since been loaded — all silk-wrapped bullets, packed very tightly, with which the Marines could hit targets a hundred paces away! The bayonets, however, had to be fixed after disembarking; otherwise, on a pitching sampan, one could easily wound one's own comrades. And the skirmish order was to guard against cannons loaded with grapeshot hidden in the woods near the beachhead.

Furthermore, the Marine Corps, composed entirely of elite soldiers, had no need for volley fire; their independent fire could inflict just as much slaughter on the enemy.

Seeing that all his men had jumped from the boats into the water and formed a loose skirmish line, every soldier's firelock fixed with a bayonet, Xie Xun put a wooden whistle to his lips and blew hard.

The shrill whistle was the command — the command to advance!

Saigo's big head had been sticking out above the trench the whole time, watching the "Eight-Nation Allied Army" disembark from the sampans and form a loose order. His wide mouth could not help breaking into a laugh: "Haha, they really are a bunch of Ming peasants!"

He knew, of course, that the main force of the so-called Eight-Nation Allied Army was still the Ming army, and that the Ming army's land forces were in truth nothing but a pack of hired peasants — men who knew nothing of a warrior's honor and merely sold their lives for money.

Now, looking at their formation, one could tell that even for money they would not sell their lives properly. They were nothing but a rabble!

"A rabble indeed."

"They'll collapse at a single blow!"

"A pity cavalry can't be used on this mudflat; otherwise one charge and the battle would be over!"

"Hahaha, the time for us warriors to win glory has come!"

Saigo Takamichi was a kumigashira, commanding more than twenty country samurai of the Satsuma domain. They had all been as tense as Saigo just moments before, but now they all relaxed and began chattering away.

They looked rather like a rabble themselves.

"Baka!" A ashigaru leader surnamed Kimotsuki bellowed, "Silence!"

This "Kimotsuki" was a man of the Kimotsuki family, important retainers of the Shimazu. His own status was not high — merely a mid-ranking domain samurai — and he now served as an ashigaru leader in the Sashu New Army.

The so-called Sashu New Army was the European-style new army organized by the Satsuma domain under the guidance of Spanish military advisors, using the latest Spanish tercio formation methods — the Spanish tercio was also constantly improving, and its newest composition was now much like the Maurice formation: a company (ashigaru unit) numbered 250 men, made up of ten 25-man ashigaru squads. Five of these squads were musket squads; the rest were pike squads.

And Saigo Takamichi was the squad leader of Musket Squad One.

"All musket squads, load ammunition, light your matchcords!" Ashigaru Leader Kimotsuki shouted again.

"Load ammunition!"

Saigo roared in turn, even as he began loading with practiced speed. Once the bullet was loaded, came another shout: "Light both ends of the matchcord!"

"Matchcords lit!"

His men shouted back.

"Check matchcords, check swords," Saigo continued to order. The warriors of the Satsuma New Army had all retained their katana, so in close combat Saigo and his men would use their swords rather than bayonets. In addition, every one of them had a jingasa, a cuirass, and tassets.

At that moment Ashigaru Leader Kimotsuki issued a new order: "All musket squads out of the trench. Five-rank line! Saigo!"

"Here!" Saigo shouted back.

"You are the first rank!" Kimotsuki said. "Remember, volley only when the enemy is within thirty paces!"

"Hai!" Saigo answered loudly, then bellowed with all his strength, "Warriors of Sashu, move out and form up!"

Amid shout after shout, from the stretch of woods directly in front of the beachhead where the Ming troops were landing — a section about three li wide — rank after rank of warrior soldiers suddenly surged out, muskets raised, katana at their sides, their formation extremely orderly.

Their morale appeared very high; they advanced quickly, yet kept their formation well — at a glance, they were elite troops of Japan.

"Move, move, move!" Seeing large numbers of warrior musketeers pour out of the woods ahead, Xie Xun urged his men forward in rapid succession. "Don't open fire — charge the beachhead first, don't stay in the water!"

Staying in the water made loading inconvenient, and one could not fire from a kneeling position either.

So the Ming Marines who had jumped from the boats into the seawater did not open fire now; they all pressed forward with heads down.

Their task at this moment was to seize the beachhead!

After charging forward with head down for a stretch, Xie Xun heard the rumble of cannon fire behind him — it must be the bombardment guns on those great bird ships providing fire support opening up.

Wooden-fuzed explosive shells were launched one after another, tracing an arc through the air, then plunging down to land behind Saigo Takamichi and his men. Some of them burst at once, fragments flying everywhere, smoke billowing!

But Saigo Takamichi did not so much as turn his head. As he advanced, he stared fixedly ahead, watching the Ming peasant soldiers come charging raggedly toward him — it was practically suicide!

When the two sides were still fifty or sixty paces apart, those peasant soldiers had already halted and begun raising their firelocks.

Opening fire from that far? How could they possibly hit anything?

Even as Saigo thought this, he saw scattered flashes and puffs of smoke ahead — and then something slammed hard into his chest!

(End of Chapter)