Chapter 366: Heavy Muskets

As the great gate of the Ming army camp slowly opened, a thousand Ming soldiers clad in bright red cotton armor, wearing conical wide-brimmed helmets adorned with red tassels, and shod in iron-mesh combat boots filed out of the camp in three columns, then turned left and right under the guidance of their respective officers, quickly forming two neat square formations on the broad, flat ground before the camp.

Throughout the entire process, not a single soldier made a sound; each man silently took his position according to habits formed through countless drills.

After the two square formations were arranged, officers and soldiers alike stood solemnly still, with only several dozen banners of various colors fluttering in the warm winter sun.

"Damn it! This Ming army is no easy enemy to deal with! Didn't everyone say how corrupt and degenerate the Ming armies were? Yet most of them are holding firearms!"

Fan Daike, standing on a gentle slope by the roadside observing the Ming camp through a telescope, cursed under his breath as he watched.

"Colonel, shall we execute the tactics we've drawn up next? Judging from their military bearing, this Ming army truly won't be easy to handle!"

Operations staff officer Fantefu put away his telescope and asked with a grave expression.

The two majors, having observed the situation across the field, simultaneously turned their gazes to Fan Daike's face following Fantefu's inquiry.

"Gentlemen, we've clearly been somewhat careless this time! We brought only eight hundred men in total, and we've already lost sixteen this afternoon! The enemy has a full thousand, and the rest appear to be held in reserve—we don't know exactly how many! We'd only heard that Ming armies mostly used spears and bows, but we never expected this Ming force to be equipped with large numbers of firearms. This is a serious problem! Gentlemen, do you have any good suggestions for me?"

Fan Daike handed his telescope to the guard beside him and spoke in a somewhat heavy tone as he walked down the gentle slope.

"Colonel, I think we should still fight a battle according to the planned tactics first! The enemy may just be putting on a show of force—how can we test their true quality without exchanging fire? We are soldiers; we cannot retreat because the enemy is strong!"

Major Fan Fengtelaer said with firm determination.

"I support the major's opinion! Colonel, we should not fear the enemy!"

The other major, Fan Lefudaite, also expressed his view.

"Very well! Our objective this time is to defeat the Ming army, sweep the immigrant settlements, and safeguard our Dutch interests in Taiwan! The victor of this battle will surely be our Dutch army! Now I declare—deploy according to the battle plan!"

After confirming that no mines remained on the road ahead, the Dutch forces assembled and advanced toward the Ming square formations. Six three-pound field guns, each mounted on a carriage with two wooden wheels beneath the barrel, were dragged and pushed along by their respective gunners and loaders, while the wooden-wheeled ammunition carts were pulled by the natives.

"The red-haired devils have brought cannons! These barrels look considerably longer than our Folangji cannons! Wang San, go pass the order to Hu Lengzi—assemble the cavalry and prepare to charge the red-haired devils' artillery!"

Wu Qun stood atop the blockhouse observing the Dutch movements through a telescope. When he spotted the field guns with their long barrels being pushed in the Dutch rear, he immediately sensed a potential grave threat and decisively issued the order.

Of the hundred war horses originally brought over from the mainland, more than half had died over the past two years due to acclimatization problems, leaving only some forty-odd survivors. Those cavalrymen who had lost their mounts were forced to convert to gunners.

Hu Yong, the cavalry squadron whistle commander, had wept bitterly over the losses, and now treasured the remaining war horses like precious jewels. Apart from Wu Qun, who still had his own mount, he flatly refused the requests from Sun Rengui and Chen Dashuan to borrow horses.

Wu Qun had originally intended for Hu Yong to charge the enemy infantry when the two sides were locked in stalemate, but upon seeing the cannons, he immediately changed his earlier decision.

He knew the power of cannons. Though he was unsure of the enemy artillery's destructive capability, the long barrels of those field guns filled him with a vague unease.

Under the continuous orders of officers at every level, the Dutch forces began forming their battle lines at a distance of two li from the Ming army, while the six cannons halted at three li and began moving to both flanks to establish an artillery position. The thousand natives sat or stood at a distance from the battle lines, watching the spectacle.

The Dutch adopted a formation commonly used on European battlefields: in the center was a pike square of two hundred fifty men, on the left and right flanks roughly ten paces away were two more square formations of two hundred fifty musketeers each, and a company of fifty heavy musketeers stood on the right flank, ready to advance on command.

In the Ming army's two five-hundred-man square formations, the center consisted of three hundred musketeers arranged in six ranks of fifty men each, while one hundred spearmen on each flank provided protection.

This formation had also been decided upon by Wu Qun and the others after countless drills with the soldiers; most of the original two hundred archers had been converted to musketeers.

There was no help for it—under Taiwan's humid, rainy climate, longbows had become extremely difficult to maintain and use, so they had to be temporarily abandoned.

As for abandoning the sword-and-shield men, that was because they knew the enemy used firearms; shields could no longer provide any cover, and sending them into battle would only increase casualties.

"Advance!"

At Fan Daike's command, the bugler blew the military horn with a series of trills.

After the horn sounded, the Dutch square formations began moving forward in unison, with the two majors each commanding at the ends of the musket formations, while the two Ming square formations remained in place, waiting for the Dutch attack.

"Raise muskets!"

Chen Dashuan, standing at the outermost corner of the right musket formation, gave the order and raised his already-lit matchlock musket first. The drummer beside him immediately beat the military drum strapped at his waist. After a rustling sound, the front three ranks of musketeers in both formations raised their muskets, while the spearmen stood firm, holding their long spears with both hands.

The Ming musketeers employed a three-rank volley formation: when firing, the first rank knelt on one knee, the second rank bent their upper bodies forward, and the third rank stood upright to aim; after the first rank fired and began reloading, the second rank fired their muskets and then knelt to reload, followed immediately by the third rank firing and then kneeling; the rear three ranks repeated the actions of the front ranks, but without adopting the half-kneeling or forward-bending postures.

The Dutch square formations halted when they had advanced to roughly a hundred-odd paces from the Ming army.

After a whistle sounded, one column of ten men from the fifty-man heavy musket formation—arranged five per rank and ten per column—filed out one by one, and when they reached about twenty paces in front of their formation, they lined up from left to right in a single row.

At the leading officer's command, the heavy musketeers held a forked rest in their left hands and set it up, placed their muskets on the fork with their right hands, then bent over and aimed at the Ming soldiers in the left square formation.

When the soldiers in the front rank of the left Ming formation saw ten dark, gaping muzzles aimed at them from eighty paces away, panic instantly seized their hearts, and every man's pulse suddenly raced.

Some soldiers found their mouths parched and their faces turning pale, while cold sweat trickled down others' foreheads. The muskets held aloft in some soldiers' hands began to tremble, yet not a single soldier dared make any sound.

"Fire!"

After a shout that sounded strange to the Ming soldiers' ears, the ten heavy muskets discharged almost simultaneously. With a burst of thunderous reports, a great cloud of white smoke rose up, completely enveloping that small area.

After firing, the ten heavy musketeers retracted their rests and, without looking at their results, quickly withdrew to both sides in groups of five, while another column of musketeers had already filed out and soon stood in the very spots the previous musketeers had occupied.

As screams rang out, two Ming soldiers in the second rank who had been bending forward collapsed to the ground—one struck in the head died on the spot, while the other, hit in the shoulder, dropped his musket and crouched down clutching his wound. Overwhelmed by agony, this soldier soon toppled to the ground.

Several young men in short jackets swiftly ran forward through the gaps between the musketeers, dragged the two fallen soldiers back to the rear formation, and two soldiers from the back ranks stepped forward to fill the vacancies left behind.

Just as all this was completed, the Dutch second rank had already finished forming up, and immediately a second volley of musketry rang out. Another soldier in the Ming front rank was struck and fell, and the remaining soldiers in the front rank began showing signs of disorder.

Watching the Dutch musketeers calmly withdraw to the rear once more to reload while the third Dutch rank had already stepped forward—and knowing that his own muskets' range could not pose any threat to the enemy—Wu Qun realized that if they continued to take hits passively like this, the mounting casualties would inevitably trigger a collapse of the formation.

"Advance fifteen paces!"

Liu Shiquan, the whistle commander leading the left flank, gave the order decisively.

As the military drum sounded in rhythm, the Ming soldiers of the left square formation lowered their muskets and began marching forward. The soldiers in the front ranks, driven by overwhelming fear, involuntarily quickened their pace, and the rear ranks momentarily could not keep up, causing the entire formation to appear somewhat disordered.