Chapter 129: Save Me

No mandarin-duck battle jackets.

Easy to imagine.

But when it came to actually doing it, Liu Chengzong found he had oversimplified things.

The Wang Estate had plenty of cotton, and no shortage of cotton cloth either, but at best it was only enough to make a little over a thousand sets of padded jackets and trousers.

The colors were an even bigger headache.

The best color for soldier's clothing was red — red martial attire could stir a man's courage.

Next best was black, which looked dignified and solemn, and didn't show dirt easily either.

But Liu Chengzong couldn't pick any color at all — there was no dye, so he had to use the natural color of the purple-flower cloth; washed dark it became a pale reddish brown, washed light it was close to an earthen hue.

This troubled Liu Chengzong for an entire half day.

Later, after discussing it with the sentry commanders, it turned out not to be so bad after all — northern Shaanxi was all earthen tones everywhere, and with a bunch of men in earth-colored clothes, from a distance you might actually fool enemy scouts.

It didn't snow anyway.

On the cut and style of the uniforms, Liu Chengzong did want to put his brain to work, but given the actual conditions, with no production-line setup, the simpler the better was the only way.

Designing complicated clothing was easy; making it according to the design was hard.

If he sent the work down to the estate and the camp womenfolk to sew, what came back would be a pile of mismatched pieces, more complicated than the design, and the advantage of a unified uniform would be gone.

The uniform regulation finally settled on was: a padded cap with a neck guard that could serve as a helmet liner; a round-collared, narrow-cuffed yisan robe; a narrow-cuffed padded jacket; padded trousers gathered at the calves; and thick cloth leg wraps.

Sew a few cords inside the yisan to tie the narrow-cuffed padded jacket in as an inner lining.

When the weather turned cold, you tied in the padded lining; when it warmed up, you removed the padded jacket, and the single layer was roomy enough — the yisan's cut wouldn't hinder wear either way.

Both the padded jacket and trousers had to be stitched with vertical lines a thumb-width apart, to keep the cotton from shifting around.

No shoes — shoe soles were too labor-intensive, and for the moment there was no spare manpower to stitch soles, so they had to rely on Cheng Yun purchasing them from the various townships of Yan'an Prefecture.

No matter what, the general's intention to produce uniforms after merging the camps gave Lion Camp's morale a boost.

With these uniforms, once winter set in they could throw a brigandine or padded armor over the top — it still wouldn't fully ward off the bitter cold, but the winter of the second year of Chongzhen might well be the warmest many of them had ever experienced in their lives.

It was enough to lift the spirits of both the combat troops and the support troops.

Liu Chengzong first had one set made and brought it to Sky Monkey, tricking him into going to bathe.

In truth, the clothes had been made to Liu Chengzong's own measurements — on Sky Monkey they were bound to fit poorly, since Liu Chengzong was much stouter than him.

Sky Monkey had no way of knowing, though, and with an expression of heroic self-sacrifice he jumped into the Apricot River — who knew why the fellow hated bathing so much.

When they tried it on later, it was a bit loose, but with a belt cinched tight it looked passable, so a wide cloth belt was added to the uniform kit.

That absolutely delighted Sky Monkey; while the whole camp still had no uniforms, he made a point of strutting around in his to show off.

The Work Sentry commander, Shi Chengwo, was quite happy too.

Strange to say, back in Sanyuan, Shi Chengwo had received instruction from Wang Zheng and mastered the technique of casting Hongyi cannons.

In Liu Family Village, making bird guns, he had been anxious all day long.

But now that he was here making armor plates, his heart was no longer afraid — in fact, he hammered away quite cheerfully, with a feeling of having finally found his place.

Shi Chengwo wore a three-part beard, and his body, long accustomed to swinging a sledgehammer, was powerfully built; even when he poured out his grievances, you could barely sense any grievance at all: "General, you may not know, but Liu Family Village was perfectly fine, except all around were farming folk. I and He Xin, two families making guns, lived in constant fear that the yamen runners the magistrate sent would wipe us out."

As he spoke, the middle-aged craftsman lifted a hand to take in the Apricot River valley and said, "Here it's different. If even the general's troops can't hold them off, then if I'm captured by government soldiers, so be it — no injustice in that."

The two craftsmen were wanted men to begin with, and fleeing to Yan'an Prefecture for refuge had indeed landed them right in a bandit's den, yet they weren't particularly upset about it.

Quite the opposite — they rather liked this sense of security, surrounded by deserters.

On the way over, the two had discussed that they ought to prepare a gift for Liu Chengzong.

Within a few days of arriving, Shi Chengwo had picked out something suitable from the things he'd brought and planned to present it to Liu Chengzong.

It was a hand cannon.

The unfortunate timing, though, was that when Commander Shi brought the cannon to Liu Chengzong, the latter was standing on the archery range shooting arrows.

Liu the Lion had once more taken up his ninety-jin heavy bow, and in the space of a few breaths put three arrows in quick succession into the target.

Clean and crisp.

His strength had returned.

The interval between shots in rapid-fire archery was short, leaving no chance to aim carefully — it relied on feel; the slightest hesitation in drawing the bow, and you'd miss.

But once his strength was back, that was no longer a problem.

The three arrows left Commander Shi, standing off to the side, staring in utter disbelief at his own life choices.

'How did a refined, scholarly man like Old Master Liu produce a fierce warrior of a son like this?'

Commander Shi muttered to himself: the thing he and He Xin had painstakingly tinkered together back in Liu Family Village — the general before him probably wouldn't even care to use it.

The man could shoot arrows far faster than firing a gun, and with a heavy bow and heavy arrows, the power was no small thing either.

Among individual weapons in the Ming dynasty, firearms were used by many, but whether in the capital battalions or elsewhere, weapons were always assigned according to a soldier's ability.

Firearms had yet to establish an absolute advantage over the bow and arrow.

If you were skilled in bow and horse, you used the bow; if you lacked the strength or couldn't shoot, learning to use a gun was more suitable.

"What brings Master Shi here?"

Shi Chengwo was the Work Sentry commander, but perhaps because of the two souls in his mind, Liu Chengzong held craftsmen who possessed outstanding skills in great respect, never failing to address them as "Master."

Seeing Shi Chengwo holding a lacquered wooden box, he put away his bow and arrows and asked, "Have you made some kind of treasure?"

Being called "Master" — a term for a scholar — made Shi Chengwo inwardly overjoyed, yet at the same time somewhat ashamed. He had eaten at the Liu family's table for so long and still had nothing worthy to present; all he'd made was a gun.

In his heart, Shi Chengwo secretly resolved: next time, he absolutely must roll out a Hongyi cannon for the general — only that would be worthy of such respect.

A little hand cannon was far too shabby to present.

Shi Chengwo pushed the wooden box forward, lowered his head, and said, "I and the bird-gun smith made a gun, and brought it for the general."

Liu Chengzong was interested in guns — very interested.

Firearms — the tide of future warfare, which in the long course of development would eliminate all cold weapons.

Although other weapons cannot yet be driven from the battlefield, Liu Chengzong has already personally experienced the lesson of Zhong Huxue.

Without that shield, at such close range, even armor could not have saved him — Zhong Hu would already be past his first seventh-day memorial rite by now.

Liu Chengzong took the wooden box and opened it for a look. Inside lay a single-barrel hand cannon, finely crafted, and equipped with five sub-cannons. The grip felt good in the hand, and at the end of the grip was a five-inch small chain dangling a thick iron plate. Puzzled, he asked, "A Frankish piece?"

This was much like the small Frankish pieces he had seen in Cao Yao's cannon outpost — also using a thick iron plate pressed against the tail end of the sub-cannon, mortise-and-tenoned into the barrel to achieve a gas seal.

Heavier Frankish pieces, because of their greater powder charge, usually used a wooden wedge three or four inches thick hammered in to replace this iron plate; otherwise, for those three-to-five-hundred-jin cannons, an iron plate would be far too heavy.

"Right, it's a Frankish piece!"

Shi Chengwo explained, "The barrel is one chi long. The sub-cannon uses granulated explosive powder, and the external priming pan uses fine priming powder. Once the priming pan and muzzle are loaded, both are sealed around with a circle of thin paper dipped in paste. The gunpowder won't drift. As long as it stays dry — the paper is specially made thin by the paper workshop — you light the matchcord, pull the trigger, and it fires."

At this, the cannon-casting craftsman showed a self-satisfied expression and said, "Its most ingenious point is that after firing the first sub-cannon, for all the subsequent sub-cannons you need not pour in priming powder at all. Pull the cannon wedge, remove the sub-cannon, load a sub-cannon, fit the cannon wedge, pull the trigger and it fires — five shots in a row."

Liu Chengzong understood. Holding the hand cannon, he examined it from side to side.

This thing was in fact a Frankish hand cannon. The improvement was extremely inconspicuous — merely that when loading the sub-cannon ammunition, the priming powder was poured in advance into the external priming pan and covered with a piece of flammable thin paper.

If that thin paper got damaged, it was as good as no improvement at all.

But so long as this layer of paper pressing down the powder remained unbroken, it was a lethal weapon when formations clashed at close quarters.

He asked, "How far can it shoot?"

"The barrel is short. At twenty paces, hitting a small target is easy to miss. At twelve or thirteen paces, it can pierce reinforced armor. It can be fired out to fifty paces."

The barrel was about the same length as a three-eye or single-eye gun — similar power, similar accuracy. At fifty paces, aiming at a front-rank foot soldier, it might just tickle the enemy commander in the middle of the formation.

"A fine thing!" Liu Chengzong held the long tube, looking it over again and again. He turned to Shi Chengwo and asked, "You said it can fire five shots in a row. What about after those five shots?"

Shi Chengwo blinked, stumped by the question.

Where would you find such a greedy man? Face-to-face distance, letting you bang-bang-bang off five shots in a row and still not satisfied — actually asking what to do after the five shots are done. Before you finish five shots, you ought to have your blade out already.

But Sentry Commander Shi was very grateful for General Liu's respect. After pondering a moment, he nodded and said, "After five shots... it gets too hot to hold. This humble one is extremely careful when firing. Both the sub-cannons and the cannon form use the same regulation as the Red Barbarian cannons — thin at the front, thick at the rear. I've tested it with triple the powder charge. As long as it doesn't glow red, it should be able to keep firing."

As he spoke, he pointed again to the grip and said, "Inside there is also a spare cannon wedge. In case the wedge snaps, you can pull out this one from the grip and use it."

This little thing, one could say, was quite the capable fighter.

The peasant army ought to use more of these. A starving peasant using any other blade, spear, bow, or crossbow could absolutely never trade his life for an elite frontier soldier — but with this and with cannons, he could.

They could even ride on horseback or muleback and calmly aim and shoot.

Liu Chengzong raised the cannon and asked, "Making these — how many can you make?"

"The barrel is short. Rolling the tube and drilling it smooth is not hard. Making the sub-cannons is troublesome. Three smiths making barrels, two smiths making sub-cannons, two carpenters making the stocks — with materials sufficient, we can produce nine pieces a month."

Strangely enough, ever since old scoundrel Cao had spoken of Liujiazhuang's bird gun production capacity, he now calculated this sort of thing by the year as well.

Seven craftsmen, working until the thirty-eighth year of Chongzhen, could equip the entire Lion Camp with such divine weapons.

Theoretically, with the Lion Camp's camp-affiliated work sentry, they should be able to raise that production capacity three- to fivefold — but the craftsmen could not work solely on this. Which meant that in four months, they would have a little over thirty of these.

Liu Chengzong figured that thirty-odd arquebusiers standing within the infantry battle line, closing in and firing a volley over the shoulders of the front rank at the enemy, the front rank trading a couple of pike thrusts and then firing another volley — that wouldn't be bad at all.

If it went well, one volley could break the enemy formation. As for if it didn't go well, that wouldn't be the weapon's fault. If the other side blasted your face with heavy cannon loaded with scatter shot, that was purely bad luck.

His household retainers needed to be equipped with a batch of these.

"Make them. For materials, find Chengyun — no, forget it."

Liu Chengzong stopped mid-sentence, remembering that Chengyun had been busy lately procuring bedding. He waved his hand and said, "Find Lin Wei. Aim for thirty pieces by winter. Wangzhuang is not short on these materials."

Now that the Lion Camp was at full strength, Chengyun was finally no longer a commander without troops. Two of the earliest subordinates had been drawn from Gao Xian's unit to serve as squad leaders.

Supplemented by eighteen frontier soldiers from Yanshui Pass, Guyuan Camp, and Liu Guozhen's unit, plus five hundred auxiliary troops from Flying Monkey's unit, they were formed into a baggage sentry, under Liu Chengyun's command.

Liu Chengzong also allocated him a batch of spoils turned in by the five sentries and a hundred dan of millet as start-up capital, for purchasing donkeys and mules and buying donkey and mule carts, so as to transport baggage in the future.

In the blink of an eye, it was the tenth month. The five sentries were split up and stationed separately, with the frontier soldier regulars leading the auxiliaries in drill. Newly made uniforms were delivered batch by batch to Wangzhuang, and from Wangzhuang distributed down to arm each unit.

Cold-proof clothing also meant combat strength.

Clothes made of new cotton and new cloth — not even the frontier soldiers, let alone the starving peasants under Flying Monkey, had seen such things in who knew how many years.

Just at the start of this very year, Liu Chengzong had still been thinking of adding a wolf-fur lining to his own tattered battle jacket.

Now, all was well — he too had gotten himself a set of warm, snug soldier's clothes.

Of course, he had not forgotten to have someone fetch those three wolf pelts from Liujiazhuang.

He remembered very clearly: only one of these wolf pelts had anything to do with him.

One was Gao Xian's.

He tried his own — not enough to line the entire padded jacket, so he simply had it sewn in a band around the waist and belly. What remained was just enough to line the neck guard of his padded cap, so he no longer feared the winter wind creeping in.

The other wolf had been kicked to death by Red Flag, so he simply spread it over Red Flag and made it into a saddlebag cushion, letting that red-haired fellow stay warm too.

Distributing uniforms had to follow an order of priority. Liu Chengzong decided to issue them to the wounded first. The wounded had poor resistance and could not wear armor; having padded clothes would make them more comfortable.

Regulars and auxiliaries would receive them together. Once the uniforms were made, they would be held back until there were enough to give two to each sentry squad, and then distributed uniformly.

Basically, every day new uniforms were finished, and every day new uniforms were handed out.

Everyone was quite excited, so they could not favor one group over another.

Even so, this was only surface equality between regulars and auxiliaries. In reality, the regulars were fewer in number, so in the end it was still the regulars who got fully outfitted first.

This could not be helped. Liu Chengzong's power stemmed from the frontier army deserters and surrendered soldiers; he had to treat his own base well.

Of course, he had not forgotten others either. He specially sent someone to deliver a set of padded jacket and trousers to Liu Guoneng, who was recuperating in Yan'an Guard. The very next day, Liu Guoneng came over wearing that padded jacket and trousers, dragging his broken leg, riding a donkey cart.

Driving his cart for him was the Commander of Yan'an Guard, Yang Yanchang.

Centurion Chen Ruji led twenty-odd riders as escort on either flank, yet, of all things, there was not even a cart driver, so the Commander himself had to sit sideways on the cart shaft and drive the donkey cart.

This commander, who could not command a single man, looked truly pitiable.

But who could have known that Commander Yang's pitiable state was still yet to come. Once they entered the river valley of Apricot Creek, still three li from Wangzhuang, Yang Yanchang simply stopped driving the donkey cart altogether. He got down and led the donkey on foot.

A wretched sight indeed!

Had Liu Chengzong not had scout riders relay orders early and a divine far-seeing device staring straight at him, he might truly have been deceived by Yang Yanchang's wretched appearance.

The moment this man entered the main gate of Wangzhuang Fort, he simply abandoned Liu Guoneng entirely, threw himself toward Liu Chengzong, and cried out, "Brother Chengzong, you must save me!"

Liu Chengzong jumped in fright. He'd thought Yang Yanchang had come to demand a padded jacket, and hastily retreated a step. "What? Who wants to kill you? Why would you need saving?"

"The Emperor. The Chongzhen Emperor. The Emperor wants to kill me!"

"Sit down and talk."

Liu Chengzong's expression turned grave. He motioned for Yang Yanchang to sit, then asked, "Were you exposed? How am I supposed to save you?"

"I wasn't exposed, but you're the only one who can save me now." Yang Yanchang grabbed Liu Chengzong's hand, his eyes wide and fixed on him. "Beat me. Beat me hard!"

Liu Chengzong thought to himself, this is bad — had Ren Quan'er kept Yang Yanchang on such a tight leash that he'd lost his mind?

This was already the second time he'd heard such a bizarre request.

"The eastern caitiffs have breached the passes. The Emperor has issued an edict summoning all regions to come to the throne's aid. Me! Aid the throne! I've got two wives and five children under my command — how am I supposed to aid the throne with my bare head? This is a death sentence for me."

Yang Yanchang pressed on urgently, "Either your men go with me, or you beat me — beat me hard, beat me until I can't leave Yan'an Prefecture. Otherwise I'm dead for sure!"

Liu Chengzong took in none of what he said, except for the very first sentence.

The eastern caitiffs had breached the passes.