Chapter 83: Rifle Formation Tactics

Forward Camp.

“Captain Li, since you’ve discovered the rebels are approaching, why not rally the entire army?”

Marquis Wuyang asked with clear dissatisfaction.

The Nancheng Battalion’s personal guards added up to only two thousand troops total.

With such a small force, setting up camp and waiting for the rebels to attack was, in his view, far too risky.

Even if you intend to fight the enemy, you should gather all five-city military forces.

“Commander, we captured several prisoners and interrogated them about the rebels’ origins.”

Most are locals from Xinghua County, coerced into joining the rebellion.”

They appear to number in the tens of thousands, but few are truly combat-capable.”

According to the prisoners, they are merely the vanguard; the main force is still behind.”

If we concentrate our entire army, the enemy might just flee in fear.”

We’ve come this far—we must fight at least one battle.”

Our three units are close enough that we can reach the battlefield within half an hour once war breaks out.”

Just rest easy, Commander!”

When the enemy draws near, we’ll launch a surprise attack—we’re bound to inflict heavy losses!”

Li Mu said, exhausted.

What they call rebels are really just rioting civilians.

Rebellion is a technical craft—not simply raising a flag and turning farmers into soldiers.

Pure peasant uprisings at least had experience storming landlords’ estates.

Rebellions instigated by local gentry, aside from a few officials who resist, mostly see mass surrenders.

Capturing a county town might not even result in three-digit casualties.

They’ve never experienced killing or received training.

Such enemies are perfect for training our troops.

“You dare lead troops into battle?”

Marquis Wuyang asked, surprised.

In his view, Li Mu was good with money, knew how to read the situation, and had some courage—but not much.

Risky tasks were always left to others.

“I dare!”

Li Mu answered, gritting his teeth.

Frankly, he had no intention of fighting personally.

But the atmosphere had built to this point—he couldn’t back down now.

As long as the enemy was weak enough, the risk was manageable.

He could just wear armor and bring more personal guards.

“Then it’s settled!”

“I’ll join you in action—perfect chance to see battle firsthand!”

Marquis Wuyang slapped his thigh.

His excitement revealed it: this was a man’s obsession, only held back by fear of death.

Rare to find a subordinate who was equally cowardly yet skilled in military affairs.

Now that safety seemed assured, he had to fulfill his general’s dream at least once.

“Commander, you may come along, but you must not interfere in command.”

“The battlefield may have stray arrows; for safety, you must wear full armor.”

“Armor is heavy and stifling—you’ll suffer greatly.”

Li Mu advised gently.

Marquis Wuyang was his political lifeline—such a powerful patron who absorbed blame and delivered results was hard to find.

Even if he intended to take a local post, he still needed someone in court to speak for him.

If he died accidentally on the battlefield, it would be a catastrophic loss.

“Don’t worry—I’ll stay behind and watch. I won’t charge into battle!”

“If possible, lure the enemy near our camp—I’ll observe from within.”

“Even if something goes wrong, reinforcements can arrive in time.”

Marquis Wuyang pondered for a moment before speaking.

Reason prevailed; his dream yielded to reality—he was, after all, a man who cherished his life.

Li Mu swallowed a flood of curses.

Though he’d wasted his breath, the outcome was good.

…

Rebel Camp.

“General Wu, we’ve spotted the imperial camp five li ahead—roughly one or two thousand troops!”

Hearing the soldier’s report, Wen Jianshao frowned sharply.

Probably more lazy troops sent out on recon—they only spotted the enemy now, across this flat terrain.

No scouts needed—soldiers marching ahead could see the enemy camp with their own eyes.

“Who arranged the scouts? Why wasn’t this reported earlier?”

Wen Jianshao demanded angrily.

Fortunately, the imperial force was small—if they’d encountered the main imperial army, it would be disaster.

“General, I arranged the scouts.”

“Today, we sent out five scouting parties—all still missing.”

“By military protocol, scouts who haven’t returned by You Hour must report to you.”

A middle-aged fat man explained nervously.

The south lacks horses; the court strictly controls horse imports, and all imported horses are castrated.

After Wen’s rebellion, they seized only a few warhorses from local post stations.

To form cavalry, all warhorses and draft horses from across the region were gathered in Gaoyou.

Xinghua was neglected—aside from General Wen Jianshao, who received one draft horse, all other officers rode mules.

With so few horses, the soldiers suffered terribly.

Officially called scouts, they had no horses at all—they had to walk like horses themselves.

At first, reconnaissance required only twenty or thirty li—they could handle it easily.

Later, the range expanded to fifty, then a hundred li; the growing workload left reconnaissance troops exhausted daily.

Once they realized better performance meant heavier tasks, soldiers began slacking off.

Since officers weren’t watching, everyone chose to leave early and return late.

They never returned before the deadline.

To avoid making commanders think the mission was too easy and assign even more.

When nothing went wrong, no one saw a problem.

“Hmph!”

“Idiot!”

“Your scouts were all intercepted by the enemy.”

“Our intelligence may have been leaked to them!”

Wen Jianshao couldn’t hold back his rage.

If looks could kill, the middle-aged fat man would already be shredded.

“General, please calm down—I truly didn’t know!”

The fat man pleaded, face pale.

Before the rebellion, he’d been a butcher.

Only because he was bulkier than average had he been promoted to officer.

Commanding troops? He simply followed orders from above.

He cursed, but Wen Jianshao forced himself to suppress the urge to kill.

This was a makeshift army—dozens of officers like this fat man, all thrust into roles they never trained for.

If he demanded too much, his men might mutiny.

Since the rebellion began, deserters appeared nearly every day.

Sometimes entire villages fled together.

For Wen Jianshao, maintaining morale mattered more than assigning blame.

“Go get twenty lashes yourself. If you do it again, I’ll cut off your head.”

“Order all units: surround the enemy camp!”

Wen Jianshao reached into his sleeve and touched the military manual—his anxious heart eased slightly.

According to the manual, many methods stabilize morale—one is winning a battle.

Killing enemies is secondary; the key is to make the soldiers stained with imperial troops’ blood, cutting off their retreat.

In his view, the men dared to desert simply because they believed they had nothing to do with rebellion.

They thought if they shed their rebel identity, once the court crushed the uprising, they could return safely to farming.

Since the soldiers held such thoughts, those thoughts must be crushed.

…

On the watchtower, watching the rebels surround them from all sides, Marquis Wuyang lowered the telescope in his hand.

“Captain Li, are you certain those outside are rebels, not civilians in armed conflict?”

The extended hoe was the rebels’ “ge.”

The cleaver tied to a wooden pole became their long spear.

…

These were among the better weapons—they at least carried sharp blades.

Most soldiers carried nothing but wooden staves.

They looked freshly cut, wobbling in their hands; a moment’s inattention could cause them to injure their own men.

“My Lord, even when we defended the city, we couldn’t equip our soldiers fully with weapons—how much less a band of rebels?”

Strategically speaking, Baoying holds far greater military value than Xinghua.

The strength of the capital garrison vastly exceeds ours.

The rebels stationing their elite there is entirely logical.

“Look at the enemy’s center—there’s a unit armed with long spears, and some even carry matchlocks.”

Li Mu explained calmly.

The power of the Dayu clans lay primarily in the court; their influence in the countryside was their main remaining asset.

In the Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms eras, a clan lord’s command could summon ten thousand soldiers.

Today’s local gentry risked execution for secretly hoarding even a few sets of armor.

Within the system’s rules, scholarly clans were nearly invincible.

Outside those rules, these men were nothing.

Among scholarly clans, the seven families controlling salt troops in the Two Huai regions had the highest martial strength.

In over two hundred years since Dayu’s founding, only princely rebellions and military governors’ secessions had been heard of.

Scholarly clans raising arms in rebellion were a first.

If they truly possessed formidable military power, how could the civil bureaucracy fear the execution blades of the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard?

“I understand. You take command of the battle!”

Marquis Wuyang nodded.

Close contact with the rebels gradually dispelled the soldiers’ fear.

Not just fear of the rebels—but of the court’s civil officials.

Reality showed him that those seemingly formidable figures were, in truth, hollow shells.

Fundamentally, civil officials and he, as imperial in-law, derived power from the same source: the throne.

In recent years, however, the civil bureaucracy had grown rapidly, no longer content to merely rely on imperial authority—they now sought to constrain it.

To some extent, the civil officials had succeeded.

Compared to the early emperors of Dayu’s founding, later monarchs wielded far less power.

Even the formidable Emperor Tianyuan had been cautiously testing the civil officials’ limits, inch by inch reclaiming imperial authority.

Should he tell the emperor what he had seen?

After hesitation, Marquis Wuyang chose to say nothing.

He knew better than anyone how much his nephew could stir up trouble.

Even under constraints, he dared to push reforms under pressure.

If he realized the civil officials’ true weakness, who knew what chaos he might unleash?

“Your servant receives the order!”

Li Mu replied immediately.

Marquis Wuyang was deeply shaken—this was inevitable.

Had he not studied history in his past life, knowing how meek scholarly clans became under the Qing’s slaughter, he too would have been shaken.

The empire’s largest power group, holding no armed force to defend its own authority—just thinking of it was unbelievable.

…

Time passed second by second; the camp was now completely encircled by rebels.

Having survived the Yangzhou defense, the soldiers’ morale was far steadier than before.

“Issue orders: prepare the matchlock troops for battle.”

“Once the enemy enters range, deploy volley tactics!”

Li Mu ordered, expressionless.

Rarely had such cooperative enemies appeared—perfect for testing the new tactic.

He had no idea how effective the matchlock volley tactic would be.

The range was too short, and the firing distance was unstable.

Effective kill range was roughly fifty to one hundred meters—actual distance depended entirely on the soldiers’ individual skill.

Though Li Mu had strictly ordered standardization of ammunition, it was wishful thinking.

A slight tremor while loading could alter the weapon’s range.

“Bang, bang, bang…”

“Ah!”

…

A volley of gunfire erupted, followed by a chorus of screams.

Looking in the direction of the noise, over a hundred corpses lay on the ground.

The rebels’ chaotic charge had turned themselves into living targets.

Those killed outright were lucky—they simply lay still.

The worst were those hit but not killed, writhing and screaming on the ground.

No matter how loud their cries, this was a battlefield.

Behind them, countless rebel soldiers pressed forward, shoving the front ranks into the guns—like a massive suicide scene.

Watching the battlefield from the watchtower, the brutality made Li Mu feel ill.

“My Lord, let’s go down! The battle has begun—the enemy will surely target the watchtower with weapons. This place is no longer safe.”

The great battle has already begun; the enemy will surely have weapons ready to attack the lookout tower—this place is no longer safe.

War epics were thrilling on screen; experiencing them firsthand was a disaster.

A war epic is thrilling to watch on screen, but experiencing it firsthand is a disaster.

(End of chapter)