Chapter 261: Close Combat

After smashing through the already-teetering city gate with massive axes, the heavily armored infantry withdrew to one side. At the camp officer's command, his personal guards waved a black banner, and the musketeers dozens of paces from the gate shifted formation, transforming the square into a long column four abreast. A squad leader with a red identification flag on his back was just about to lead his men through the gate into the city when suddenly a burst of screams and wailing came from the northern end of the gate tunnel, followed by the chaotic sound of footsteps within. A crowd of unarmed women—several hundred strong—was surging through the long tunnel toward the outside of the city. Judging by the clothing and appearance of those in front, these were Han Chinese women, most likely abducted from the interior and brought to Liaodong by the Jianzhou slaves.

"Forward! Raise muskets!"

The camp officer leading the unit also noticed the situation. He immediately realized this was no simple matter, and swiftly ordered his men to shift formation—from four abreast to a hundred in a row. The front rank knelt and raised their muskets, while the second rank leveled their weapons at the gateway.

The camp officer of the spear square, sensing something amiss, likewise ordered his formation to split into two groups and move toward the gate from both flanks.

The several hundred women streamed out of the city one after another. When they saw the dense row of black muzzles trained on them dozens of paces ahead, the women in front were frozen in terror on the spot. Just then, several screams rang out—the dozen or so Eight Banner soldiers following behind these women, seeing their booi bondservant women halt, raised their weapons without a word and began hacking at the women before them. After cutting down a dozen or more, the women, gripped by fear, screamed and scattered in all directions. Most ran toward the Ming army's formation, and it looked as though they were about to crash into the musketeers' ranks. If that happened, the consequences would be unthinkable.

A sharp, short blast of a trumpet suddenly sounded. The two ranks of musketeers instinctively pulled their triggers. The already-lit match cords dropped from the dragon-head clamps into the flash pans, and with a series of crackling sounds like popping beans, great clouds of thick smoke rose. Except for some twenty-odd muskets that misfired, all the rest discharged. Over a hundred lead balls weighing three qian each shot forth, and as screams intermingled with splattering blood, several dozen women who had run to within a dozen paces of the musketeers' line were struck down.

The two ranks of musketeers who had fired, suppressing the nausea in their hearts, quickly crouched low and ran to both sides to make room for the ranks behind them.

The musketeers who had fallen back to the rear removed their match cords and began cleaning the touchholes and priming pans. Because gunpowder residue would clog the touchhole, this was the first necessary step before a second shot. Then they poured priming powder into the pan, closed the pan cover, took an oilpaper packet containing the propellant charge and a ball from the satchel slung diagonally across their bodies, bit open the oilpaper with their teeth, and stuffed the charge and ball into the muzzle one after the other. They removed the ramrod from the barrel, rammed the ball and charge down to the bottom of the barrel and packed them tight, then fixed the match cord back onto the dragon-head clamp. The tedious loading procedure was finally complete.

With such a troublesome firing procedure, even the well-trained musketeers of the Yongwei Camp could manage only two loads and shots per minute at best—the fastest at most three per minute. Moreover, subject to weather conditions, once encountering damp or rainy weather, not only would the match cords fail to ignite, but the gunpowder would also absorb moisture and become unusable.

The flintlock musket invented by Bi Maokang was still under continued development. The primary reason it could not be mass-issued to the army was its excessively high misfire rate—averaging over fifty percent. Such a misfire rate would be extremely lethal when facing an enemy in formation.

The camp officer of the musketeer battalion watched expressionlessly as several dozen women lay in pools of blood a dozen paces away, but his tightly clenched fists betrayed his inner feelings.

It wasn't that he didn't want to shout loudly to warn these women to lie down or run to the sides, but on a battlefield where the roar of muskets was deafening, no matter how loudly you screamed, those women couldn't hear you. Moreover, as a commander, any action he took could affect his soldiers' morale, so he could only watch helplessly as these women were struck by musket fire—some dying on the spot, others collapsing and struggling, slowly dying in agony.

The women, threatened by death from both front and rear, screamed and staggered toward the sides, with people constantly tripping and falling. Screams and wails mingled together in a scene of utter chaos.

The thousand-odd booi bondservants who charged out of the gate behind the women, driven by the threat of swords and spears in the hands of the Eight Banner soldiers, shouted and surged toward the musketeers like a tide. Behind them were several hundred Eight Banner infantry in full armor bearing weapons.

The musketeers, lined a hundred to a row, had already rotated to the fifth rank firing. With the constant rotation of the front ranks, the musketeer formation was gradually falling back, slowly increasing the distance from the gate and opening up a wider space before it. The thousand spearmen on either flank of the musketeers moved up and launched attacks on the booi bondservants from the sides.

In later ages there was a Stockholm syndrome, also known as Stockholm syndrome or hostage complex or hostage syndrome, which refers to a complex in which victims of crime develop feelings toward the criminal, even going so far as to help the criminal in return. This emotion causes the victim to develop goodwill toward the perpetrator, dependence, and even assistance to the perpetrator.

Hostages develop a psychological dependence on their captors. Their lives and deaths rest in the captors' hands—if the captors let them live, they are filled with gratitude. They share the captors' fate, treating the captors' future as their own, the captors' safety as their own. Thus, they adopt a "we against them" attitude, treating their rescuers as enemies.

These Han Chinese booi bondservants exhibited this syndrome quite clearly. Though the Jianzhou slaves' swords and spears threatened them from behind, they could easily have scattered in all directions rather than truly fight the Ming army. But the resentment pent up in their hearts and the fury of daily oppression erupted at this moment. Ignoring the musket fire and spear thrusts, faces twisted and contorted, the booi bondservants howled loudly as they charged to the very front of the spearmen or musketeers, grappling with the Yongwei Camp soldiers.

Due to the natural fear of firearms, combined with the long range of muskets—where one would basically be struck by a ball before getting close—after about a hundred or so were shot down at the start, the booi bondservants turned instead toward the spearmen on both flanks. Only those in the rear, unaware of the situation, continued charging at the musketeer formation.

By this time, the distance between the two sides had come within bow range of the Eight Banner soldiers hidden behind the booi bondservants. Tanggudai planted his stance, drew his bow and nocked an arrow—a black eagle-feather arrow threaded through gaps in the crowd and struck a musketeer fifty paces away directly in the eye socket. That musketeer fell dead on the spot without even a cry.

Immediately after, nearly two hundred heavy arrows either descended from above or threaded through gaps between people, all pouring down upon the musketeer formation. A chorus of screams rang out, and in an instant, nearly a hundred musketeers were struck and collapsed to the ground.

Tanggudai loosed seven long arrows in succession, every one striking a Ming musketeer. The other Eight Banner soldiers' arrows also inflicted massive casualties on the musketeers, and the musketeer formation immediately began to fall into disarray. Some of the more timid soldiers no longer dared to aim, merely firing their muskets wildly—the accuracy rate under such circumstances could well be imagined.

Seeing the Ming formation loosening, Tanggudai tossed aside his longbow, drew the long saber from his waist, and with a great roar charged at the musketeers. The Eight Banner infantry, bearing heavy weapons such as tiger-tooth spears, wolf-teeth maces, halberds, and flails, followed silently behind him.

Mao Yuanyi, watching from horseback at the rear formation, decisively gave the order. The two hundred heavily armored infantry and five hundred sword-and-shield men waiting at his side split into two groups, ran forward several dozen paces, then swung around the musketeer square to meet the Eight Banner infantry.

The Eight Banner soldiers' arrows caused over four hundred musketeer casualties, and several officers including the camp officer were killed. The leaderless musketeers showed signs of collapse, yet many musketeers, their eyes bloodshot with battle frenzy, continued firing at the charging Eight Banner infantry. Several dozen Eight Banner soldiers were struck down by musket balls, but Tanggudai, charging at the very front, emerged completely unscathed.

When he was still a dozen or so paces from the Ming musketeers, Tanggudai drove with his waist and legs and lunged forward violently. In the span of a few breaths he reached a Ming soldier who was just raising his musket to fire. He swept his long saber upward at an angle—the musketeer's weapon was knocked askew even as it discharged, the ball flying off to one side and striking a booi bondservant man who was running forward right in the thigh. That bondservant let out a miserable howl, his spear falling from his hands as his body collapsed, both hands clutching the wound as he writhed in agony on the ground, bright red blood instantly staining his tattered robes.

After knocking aside the musket, Tanggudai twisted his wrist and swept the saber horizontally, slicing a long gash across the musketeer's throat. A great torrent of blood gushed forth. The musketeer clutched his neck with both hands, gasping for air as he slowly collapsed, his body twisting and struggling for several breaths before he died.

Another musketeer, seeing how ferocious Tanggudai was, in desperation raised his musket with both hands and smashed it down at him. Tanggudai dodged, tilting his head to the side to avoid the vital area, letting the musket strike his shoulder. His long saber thrust straight forward, plunging directly into that musketeer's left eye socket, the sharp blade passing clean through the skull. The musketeer died without even a grunt. The instant his body began to fall, Tanggudai pulled the saber back out.

The spearmen on both flanks saw that the musketeers were about to be engaged at close quarters by the Eight Banner soldiers, but the booi bondservants before them were still locked in desperate struggle. They could only finish killing this accursed bunch of Han Chinese first before they could go protect the musketeers.

Tanggudai killed three men in rapid succession, and many of the Eight Banner soldiers behind him had also charged up. The musketeers, deprived of range and without protection, had several dozen of their number struck down by the Eight Banner soldiers' heavy weapons in the blink of an eye.

Because the front and rear ranks were too close together, the musketeers in back could not fire. Seeing their comrades ahead utterly defenseless, some wanted to rush forward for hand-to-hand combat while others wanted to fall back and open the distance to fire—the entire formation had dissolved into chaos. The platoon officers and squad leaders in the rear ranks, seeing the dire situation, could only shout loudly for the rear ranks to retreat to avoid even greater casualties.

After the Eight Banner soldiers had slaughtered the front-rank musketeers to the last man, they pressed forward step by step. A defeat seemed imminent—when at that very moment, the Yongwei Camp's heavily armored infantry and sword-and-shield men arrived at the front line.