Chapter 54: Blood Stains Shijingshan

Zhu Cilang raised his telescope, and seeing this effect, a smile finally broke through his stern face.

The *Wubei Zhi* states: "Of bird-gun muskets, none is longer-ranged or more lethal than the Lumi musket."

In later ages, experts who reconstructed and tested the Lumi musket found that with granular gunpowder it could strike targets six hundred meters away, and its accuracy and armor-piercing power were overwhelmingly superior to those of ordinary bird-gun muskets.

Of course, the actual effect at different distances still depended on the armor the enemy was wearing.

The musketeers in the front battle formation of the Yongwei Camp were uniformly equipped with flintlock muskets—in essence, the Great Ming's own version of the self-igniting Lumi musket—and with paper-cartridge fixed charges, their power was a cut above that of the old Lumi muskets.

Even at a hundred paces, a flintlock musket that pierced only one or two layers of armor would still inflict intense pain on the body, and could even shatter bone and internal organs; a man struck by such a shot could absolutely not recover in a short time.

Moreover, warhorses were draped in only a single layer of cotton armor or cloth armor, which could not stop the shots at all—so even if a man was not killed, hitting the warhorse could equally deal a heavy blow to the Qing army.

After the first volley of musket fire, over a hundred Manchu and Mongol cavalrymen were put out of action, and many warhorses were struck by bullets, letting out agonized neighs as they collapsed, throwing the Qing soldiers on their backs to the ground, where they were trampled into pulp by the cavalry behind.

The cavalrymen falling in front tripped up quite a few of those behind, blocked the advance of the rear ranks, and slowed the speed of the cavalry following.

It was like a young man taking his girl out for a spin in a sports car—he had just stepped on the gas and had not even shifted into third gear when an old man jumped out in front of him faking a hit-and-run, making things extremely awkward.

Tantal saw the situation was bad and felt some anxiety, but after all, he was a man of stature—he still had a few tricks up his sleeve.

Pressing one hand on his wound and controlling his warhorse with the other, he barely dodged a few fallen Qing soldiers and shouted: "Brave warriors of the Great Qing, charge… ah!"

Before the words had even faded, there came a "Puff!"—a lead ball shot into his mouth and flew out through the back of his skull. Tantal only felt as if his throat were blocked by something, his vision went black, and then his whole body swayed twice on the horse's back before he pitched headfirst to the ground.

The Yongwei Camp's firepower was too dense; even if the first volley missed, under the successive rounds of strikes that followed, a man would always catch a bullet eventually.

In the Yongwei Camp's musketeer ranks, the muskets were still being fired in rotation, row after row. As the Qing cavalry charged closer, the muskets' power grew even more ferocious—a single shot could punch straight through three layers of heavy armor without any hesitation.

After the Yongwei Camp adopted paper-cartridge fixed ammunition, the rate of musket fire also increased markedly. Nearly every man in the camp could fire four or five shots in a minute, and some fast shooters could even get off seven.

Many Qing soldiers had already gone mad with desperation—their side had already lost several hundred cavalrymen, and the losses were still expanding further.

The bullets used by the Yongwei Camp's musketeers were lead balls, not steel shot. Although steel shot had strong penetrating power, its lethality was far inferior to that of lead balls.

A high-velocity lead ball deforms and tumbles upon entering flesh, creating a large temporary cavity; such a wound lets air rush in quickly, causing blood to spray.

There might be one wound, or the lead ball might strike bone and fragment, producing multiple wounds. In the environment and medical conditions of the late Ming, once a man was hit by a lead ball, he could basically give up on treatment.

According to the Qing army's plan, even though the Ming troops used firearms, before their iron cavalry they would hardly get any opportunity to fire.

Although they would suffer some losses at the start, their iron cavalry would still smash into the Ming ranks with an irresistible, overwhelming charge, scattering the Ming troops into chaos. By the time the infantry came up behind, it would be an easy matter of mopping up the remnants.

In the past, when the Qing army fought the Ming army, they basically followed this exact playbook, and it had worked every time without fail.

But today, the Ming army's firepower was not only powerful—it seemed never-ending, volley after volley of strikes. The Qing soldiers felt as if they had lined up to be executed by gunfire.

Under the fierce assault of the Yongwei Camp's musketeers, Qing soldiers kept falling from their warhorses, and quite a few white-armor soldiers and niru janggin were also shot dead by the Yongwei Camp's indiscriminate fire.

The Qing cavalry of this period still possessed extremely strong combat effectiveness. Despite suffering heavy losses from the Yongwei Camp and losing their commander, the remaining Qing soldiers did not collapse into rout.

Under the command of their respective niru janggin, they still charged desperately at the Yongwei Camp's position, hoping to break into the camp's formation and exploit their advantage in close combat.

However, in Zhu Cilang's eyes, this was no different from walking to their deaths. As the Qing iron cavalry drew closer to the Yongwei Camp's position, the strikes they received became even more ferocious.

Especially once they entered within sixty paces, double-layer and triple-layer armor could no longer protect the Qing soldiers' bodies. Almost without exception, anyone struck by a musket ball had the heavy armor pierced clean through, the shot driving straight into the flesh.

"Release arrows!" As the Qing cavalry entered the sixty-pace range, a Qing niru janggin gave the order.

The remaining one or two hundred Qing cavalrymen braved the hail of bullets, drawing their bows and nocking arrows on horseback, and loosed shots at the Yongwei Camp.

At that moment, at the very front of the Yongwei Camp's forward formation, a row of pentagonal tiger-head shields suddenly rose up. Each tiger-head shield was four chi tall, three fen thick, and one chi seven cun wide, its surface covered with raw oxhide and painted with tiger patterns.

The tops of the shields had inverted-triangle notches fitted with iron strips, and one musket after another extended out through the notches, aimed at the Qing iron cavalry that was about to charge at them.

When the Qing cavalry had begun their charge, the shield bearers had already taken their positions, laying the tiger-head shields flat on the ground and kneeling on one knee. Though the tiger-head shields were not heavy, they could withstand a cavalry charge in field combat.

When the Qing cavalry entered the sixty-pace range, the shield bearers braced the tiger-head shields in their half-kneeling posture, and the musketeers behind rested their muskets in the notches atop the shields—this allowed them not only to shoot at the enemy but also to protect themselves fully.

As for the musketeers' heads, they were naturally protected by the standard Ming eight-ridge iron helmets with brims, so the Qing army's arrows were almost entirely harmless against the Yongwei Camp's musketeers.

Only a few Qing cavalrymen with Olympic-level archery skill managed to hit a few of the Yongwei Camp's musketeers, and even those struck by arrows gritted their teeth and kept going.

However, in this situation, only the last row of musketeers could continue firing—the front two rows had their lines of sight blocked by the shields and could no longer shoot.

At the center of the army, Zhu Cilang sat atop a tall horse on a small slope, keeping his grip on the battle. Seeing the Qing cavalry surge forward to fifty paces, he gave the order: "Split and spread out!"

The bugler beside him hurriedly blew the horn, signaling the musketeers of the front two rows to disperse to both wings, advance forward, and fire on the move at the Qing cavalry in the middle in an arrowhead formation.

Because the Yongwei Camp's front-formation musketeers were stretched out quite long—fully over three hundred meters—while the Qing cavalry's charge front was less than two hundred meters wide, this gave the two rows of musketeers enough room to advance from both flanks, creating a situation where three rows of musketeers struck from three sides.

Some cavalrymen did charge toward the flanks, but they tragically discovered that behind the flanking musketeers, Ming cavalry sat on their horses, also leveling muskets and coldly opening fire on them.

Before the Yongwei Camp's formation, great clouds of white smoke billowed, and the air was thick with the choking smell of sulfur, which even masked the dense stench of blood ahead.

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Thank you to the readers who left suggestions in this chapter's discussion or in the comments section.

Reply to reader Candlelight Love: Transmigrating to the late Ming, especially the Chongzhen years—this period was an era saturated with war. To the north of the court they fought the Manchu-Qing, and south of the Great Wall they fought the thirteen rebel factions numbering in the hundreds of thousands. If one doesn't write war scenes, what meaning is there in transmigrating to this chaotic age?

The protagonist's identity is the Crown Prince. The Qing had already invaded for the third time and fought all the way to the outskirts of Beijing, just like the Japanese conducting a great mopping-up campaign. If the protagonist doesn't fight, is he supposed to engage in power struggles in the court with that bunch of useless fools? Or peacefully develop technological innovation and economic sidelines in Beijing? I certainly couldn't do it.

I also don't like overly long and tedious war scenes, but the premise of the protagonist's iron-fisted politics is possessing a loyal and powerful army—such an army doesn't materialize out of thin air, but is forged through war.

In the early part of this book, there aren't many battle scenes—just a few. Aside from the first two or three written in greater detail, the later ones are described more briefly.

Especially in the middle and later stages, aside from a few campaigns led personally by the emperor, the protagonist is mostly governing the state, saving the Great Ming through ideology and economics, while the wars are left to several great generals to fight.

Please rest assured—this will not become a pure military novel.