Chapter 995: Line Up — Execution by Firing Squad! (Please Subscribe)

A searing pain!

Saigo Takamori felt a piercing, bone-deep agony in the right side of his chest!

He hastily looked down and saw a hole two or three fingers wide gaping in the right breast of his ashigaru cuirass, and red liquid was spurting out of it!

Th-this looks like human blood!

At first Saigo Takamori was not entirely sure. Although he was a fine-looking samurai, built like a great bear, standing out incongruously among a crowd of short ashigaru and radiating menace, it was precisely because of his appearance that he had rarely fought anyone in his life, had never cut a man down, and had hardly ever seen human blood. With his right hand, which for some unknown reason had begun to tremble, he dabbed a little of the red liquid spurting from his own body, then put it to his mouth and licked it — it was blood after all!

Saigo's head buzzed, and he was filled with a damned terror!

He had never imagined that the first time he saw so much blood, it would all be his own!

What is going on? Saigo thought: How did I suddenly start spurting blood? Ah! Could I have been hit by a Ming peasant's bullet? How is that possible? From so far away! Wasn't it said that a firelock cannot hit anyone beyond thirty paces? How did it hit me? Is my luck that bad, or am I simply too big? Alas! Had I known that being big attracts bullets, I should not have been so greedy!

By the time Saigo Takamori had thought this far, his whole body had gone limp, and all the strength had drained from him. He could no longer stand steady, and he swayed and toppled forward!

At that moment, a wave of screams, shouts, booming, and gunfire like beans popping in a pan reached his ears.

Saigo Takamori struggled to turn his huge head and looked around. He found that he was not the only samurai who had fallen; bodies lay strewn everywhere in a tangled mess!

Had all these men been shot down by the Ming peasants' firelocks?

How is that possible!

Woooooo—

Just as Saigo's breathing grew more and more labored and his eyelids heavier and heavier, he faintly heard, amid the din of the battlefield, the sound of a charge being sounded.

A charge! Saigo thought: Are the warriors of Satsuma charging?

"Kill them!"

"Kill them!"

The last thing Saigo Takamori heard was the battle cry of the Japanese samurai as they charged!

It turned out that Nejime Kiyoo, who was commanding the musketeers of ten ashigaru squads at the front, had given the order for the whole force to charge.

He had already discovered that the Ming musketeers' marksmanship was unexpectedly good — they shot fiercely and accurately. With only a little over a thousand musketeers, without even resorting to volley fire, they had used loose long-range shooting to cut down a swath of his own men at the front.

At least one or two hundred Satsuma samurai had been knocked down by Ming bullets!

If the Satsuma samurai continued advancing at their current pace and only fired a volley within thirty paces, the Ming firelocks could kill at least four or five hundred of their own men — that would be a casualty rate of one-third!

Even Satsuma samurai might not be able to withstand such a casualty rate, could they?

Unwilling to accept defeat, Nejime Kiyoo made a snap decision and gave the order for the entire force to charge.

At the sound of the charge, the Japanese musketeers, who had been somewhat dazed by the Ming long-range fire, immediately rallied as if injected with chicken blood, and with wild cries they surged forward.

"Tweet-tweet—"

Xie Xun blew his whistle with all his might. He was blowing the assembly call, the signal ordering his men to form up into double ranks. At this moment he was just as astonished as Saigo Takamori, who had been killed by a single Ming lead ball from sixty paces away.

What astonished him was that the Japanese soldiers opposite, after so many of their men had been shot down by the accurate fire of his own marines' flintlocks, still had the courage to launch a mass charge!

Moreover, the forty-odd great bird ships out at sea were still lobbing round after round of explosive shells behind those Japanese soldiers to cut off their reinforcements. Under these circumstances — deadly gunfire ahead, mountain-splitting cannon behind, and heavy casualties all around — they had not retreated but instead advanced!

What madness has seized them!

On the muddy tidal flats, the thousand-odd Ming marines who had already landed, faced with the Japanese sudden charge, swiftly formed up into double-rank lines, one after another. The thousand-odd men drew out two "long, thin" red lines on the flats, one behind the other, overlapping.

The Japanese samurai were still charging, barely maintaining their five-rank horizontal formation. Every man held a matchlock aloft, shrieking wildly as they rushed forward.

"Load! Load quickly!"

Xie Xun bellowed orders as he deftly rammed a silk-wrapped cartridge down the barrel, tamped it tight with the ramrod, then leveled the firelock, braced the stock against his shoulder, and aimed the muzzle at a white-headed samurai ahead (wearing a strange white fur headdress) — but he did not fire; he was waiting for the order.

Just now it had been long-range loose fire (independent fire); this time it would be a close-range volley!

Compared with loose fire, a close-range volley was much easier — how could the Ming marines not know how to do it?

Historically, European line infantry liked to let the enemy come close before firing volleys, the main reason being insufficient training. Most line infantry were expendable goods of little value, usually with only a few weeks of training, poor marksmanship, and no access to many fine flintlocks. At long range they could not hit anything, so letting the enemy come close and firing volleys was more effective.

The Ming marines were all elite veterans, thoroughly trained, with high-quality firelocks and strong nerves. They would not be frightened by the blustering Japanese musketeers.

"Forty paces, thirty-seven, thirty-five..." Xie Xun's platoon stood in the front rank, and he was mentally estimating the enemy's distance. When he reached thirty-five paces, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

At this distance, even a mediocre marksman with a crudely made matchlock had a fairly high chance of hitting a man-sized target.

"Bang-bang..."

The Japanese firelocks went off!

It was not a volley, but scattered, disorderly fire — some of the advancing Japanese samurai gunners, out of nerves or overconfidence, had fired their matchlocks.

These samurai were without doubt extremely brave warriors, but that did not mean they were immune to fear, nor that a month or two of training could turn them into the finest soldiers. Xie Xun and his marines were all veterans with more than five years of service who had fought in many bloody battles, and every man had earned merit in war! Moreover, they had long undergone the rigorous "997" training regimen! Their present combat power had been nurtured with sweat and blood!

The Satsuma samurai, in fact, had never been on a battlefield — Japan's last war, the Shimabara Rebellion, had been twenty years ago. Those who had fought in the Shimabara campaign were now at least middle-aged uncles, and did not meet the age requirements of the new Satsuma army.

So on a battlefield filled with gunpowder smoke and the pervasive stench of death, it was hardly surprising that these young samurai panicked and opened fire on their own without orders.

Nejime Kiyoo was just as tense, barely able to breathe. Although he was walking at the rear of his own troops, he was still wound to the breaking point, and did not even notice that his men were firing wildly!

But the Japanese musketeers' wild fire was not entirely useless, for the range was close enough and the Ming formation especially dense, so several men were still hit.

"Magistrate, we are close enough — fire a volley and then charge!"

One of Nejime Kiyoo's retainers shouted a reminder at that moment.

"Very well, very well — halt, dress ranks!" Nejime Kiyoo had lost his nerve; hearing someone say this, he immediately complied.

"Clang-clang..."

Just as the Japanese halted and began to dress their ranks, a piercing gong rang out — the signal for the Ming musketeers to fire a volley.

"Fire!" Xie Xun shouted, then pulled the trigger. The flintlock in his hands kicked hard, and a hot lead ball was hurled from the muzzle by the exploding powder, tumbling forward. In the blink of an eye, it knocked down the "white-headed samurai" directly ahead with a single shot!

"Clang-clang..."

Two more gong strokes — that was the order to charge!

The so-called bayonet combat of line infantry was this: first use firepower to inflict enough casualties on the enemy to throw them into confusion, then deliver a swift bayonet assault to finish the battle!

(End of Chapter)