Chapter 1619: The Gap Between Eras

"Fire!" "Loose arrows!" The experienced warriors bellowed their orders.

The soldiers instinctively raised their weapons, but their nerves and fear made their movements even more ragged. Combined with their truly shoddy equipment, the scattered gunfire and arrow volleys did nothing to check the crimson tide, inflicting only negligible casualties.

Since most of the spear-wielding soldiers at the front wore fine breastplates, the low-quality bullets and arrows simply glanced off them on impact. Only the truly unlucky fell from a shot to the head, and that only roused the more ferocious courage of their comrades.

Cries of "Ten thousand victories!" rose and fell, until they sounded more like howls. Ignoring the resistance ahead, they crashed into the forward positions, and the slaughter began in that same instant. Red-coated soldiers, eyes bloodshot, thrust their weapons into the feudal soldiers before them who had not yet had time to retreat with their muskets and bows. Screams rose one after another. Some feudal soldiers armed with long spears, naginata, and other polearms tried to rescue them, charging forward to fight the Great Han soldiers hand-to-hand. But these hastily conscripted troops had received almost no rigorous martial training—how could they possibly be a match for the Great Han army? Their scattered resistance was quickly beaten back, and the forward units suffered devastating losses.

The Great Han army's charge was swift. Before long, the roar of the assault had reached the front edge of the positions, and crimson flames engulfed the forward feudal troops. These positions, already battered to pieces by the bombardment, were like small boats tossed about in a storm.

Yet the blows they were suffering were far from over. Soon, the Great Han army's musketeers arrived. Compared to the spearmen who had charged the formation first, their pace was much slower and their ranks remained tightly packed, the metal barrels of their guns gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

These musketeers advanced onto the former fortifications of the Fukuoka Domain army, then opened fire on the area where the feudal troops were massing, inflicting a fresh wave of casualties and scattering the hastily assembled feudal forces once again.

In mere quarters of an hour, the Great Han army had inflicted severe casualties on the Fukuoka Domain forces, bringing the nightmare of yesterday's devastating bombardment rushing back into their minds. The peasant soldiers forcibly conscripted into the domain army stared at the corpses and severed limbs littering the ground, their spirits finally breaking. Howling, they fled backward, and not even the rearguard warriors drawing their swords and cutting them down could stop them.

By now, anyone could see that the defenses the Fukuoka Domain had constructed at Hakata Bay were on the verge of collapse.

Mounted on his horse, Kuroda Tadayuki stared ahead in near stupefaction, watching the fortifications he had thrown together over just a few days being breached. The sounds of slaughter from the front lines reached his ears, draining the color from his face until it grew even paler.

"What do we do, my lord?!" Seeing the sudden ferocity of the Great Han army's charge, the trusted aides beside him urgently asked their domain lord, Kuroda Tadayuki. "Do we still withdraw south?"

The front line was clearly now a candle flickering in the wind; without reinforcements, it would soon be shattered by the Great Han army. He still had nearly two thousand troops in hand. He now faced a stark choice—turn around and fight back, engaging the Great Han army to reinforce the front and see if he could hold off their assault and defend Hakata Bay, or quicken his pace and leave, to reinforce Nagasaki—which would at least allow him to avoid a decisive battle with the Great Han army for the time being.

"My lord, the Great Han army looks imposing, but their numbers are not that great. Look, my lord, no more troops are following up behind them!" Another trusted aide offered his counsel. "My lord, though the Great Han army has broken into our formation, they have yet to secure their footing. We are now assembled—if we strike, we can stop them and drive them back! If we hold them, we can spare our domain's people from the ravages of the Han army! If these wolf-like Han troops truly invade our domain, the consequences are too terrible to imagine!"

Because of the intermittent sounds of battle and screams, Kuroda Tadayuki could not hear them entirely clearly, but he fully grasped their urgency. Now—counterattack, or flee south? His heart suddenly fell into confusion.

Even as he hesitated, the Great Han army pushed deeper into the forward formations. More and more feudal soldiers were fleeing, and the line seemed about to collapse at any moment.

If I just flee south like this, I will probably be ridiculed by the whole realm... The enemy has had no follow-up troops reinforcing them all along; they look to be only about a thousand men. I have a several-fold numerical advantage. Even if they are elite troops, a few thousand men should be able to drive them back.

There was no time! Kuroda Tadayuki steeled his heart, no longer caring to think further. He drew the short sword hanging at his left breast and pointed it forward. "All troops, charge! Exterminate the Han dogs! The Han dogs have come out to fight us—their cannons won't dare bombard their own men. You can fight them freely—slaughter them all!"

At his command, the feudal army, already itching to move, immediately wheeled about and charged at the Great Han army opposite them with a roar.

Leading them was a group of mounted warriors, superbly equipped in gleaming armor and wielding tachi longswords designed for slashing. These tachi were forged from fine steel by craftsmen of the Warring States era and were of excellent quality. These men were the elite warriors of the domain, lavishly provided for, and the very backbone upon which the Fukuoka Domain relied.

As the mounted warriors charged forward, the infantry formations followed behind them, advancing on the Han army. These formations were a mixed bag; most of the men were ashigaru or peasant soldiers only recently assembled. Kuroda Tadayuki did not expect them to fight well—he only hoped they could wear down some of the Han army's strength in a grinding melee.

The feudal soldiers fleeing from the front were forced to turn around before their own army's formation; the few who still tried to run were shot down on the spot. The arrival of reinforcements and the merciless treatment of deserters finally checked the wavering at the front. The surviving feudal soldiers on the front line were compelled to keep fighting the Han army.

The Great Han soldiers also noticed the enemy's sudden movement. They had no way of knowing about the earlier wavering, of course, and simply assumed the Fukuoka Domain army was now bringing up reinforcements.

To Japanese soldiers and civilians, such a military force would already seem terrifying enough, but in the eyes of the Great Han officers and men, it was nothing more than a disorderly mob. Their ranks were not neat, the infantry and cavalry formations had already lost contact and could not support each other, and their ranged firepower was pitifully weak.

They did not take such a disorganized cavalry force of less than a hundred riders seriously at all—all the more so since they rode ponies, not the carefully selected warhorses of the Great Han.

"Form ranks!" At the command of several company commanders, a small portion of the troops continued mopping up the remaining enemy forces in front of the formation, while the other soldiers began to form up in the manner they had drilled to extreme familiarity, preparing to meet the enemy assault.

These officers and men assembled into small squads according to the methods they had long since practiced. The front rows set their long spears, shielding the musketeers behind them.

Most of the muskets had already been fired in the earlier engagement and now needed reloading. The musketeers, following the standard procedures in the drill manual, unhurriedly cleaned the touchholes and priming pans, then poured priming powder into the pans and closed the pan covers. Next, they poured powder down the muzzles, and finally placed the bullets they had been holding in their mouths into the barrels.

Even as they carried out this sequence of actions, the mounted warriors had already charged up before them. These warriors' fighting spirit was at its peak; they had already cast aside all thought of life and death, intent only on trading their own lives for as many Han invaders' lives as possible. Eyes wide, some roaring and some silent, they raised their swords and slashed fiercely at the Han soldiers ahead.

Most of the musketeers had finished reloading. They held their guns and watched the enemy cavalry approach in silence. Having drilled countless times against cavalry charges, their movements were utterly composed—their hands did not even tremble.

Not a single man fired, for Great Han military regulations forbade firing at will in such a situation; they had to wait for an officer's command before they could open fire.

Amid the dead silence of the Great Han army's formation, the cavalry charged up before them. Every musketeer could now make out their faces clearly, and it almost seemed they could smell the heavy breathing of the warriors and their horses.

"Front rank, fire!" At that instant, as if time itself had frozen, the officers finally gave the order.

Crack! The unbroken rattle of gunfire and the sound of bullets striking flesh rang out almost simultaneously, then continued like an endless drumroll.

With the gunfire, warhorses came to a violent halt one after another, as if struck hard by a heavy hammer, then screamed and whinnied in agony.

No one in the Great Han formation cared what fate they suffered. After firing, the first rank of musketeers stepped back, withdrawing into the gaps left in the rear ranks, and began cleaning their guns. The second rank of musketeers, long since ready and waiting, stepped forward almost at the same instant.

"Second rank, fire!" Soon, the officer called out the command again in a tone utterly devoid of inflection.

Crack! Another volley rang out.

After several volleys of musket fire, the zone where the formations met was quickly shrouded in black smoke, blurring everything. Yet even against this hazy backdrop, it was clear that the cavalry who had charged ahead first, hoping to disrupt the Great Han formation, had failed completely. They had suffered devastating casualties without even managing to shake the Great Han lines.

Some warriors, their horses shot out from under them, tumbled to the ground but struggled back to their feet, then charged at the Great Han formation again, brandishing their tachi and shouting. This fearless ferocity was praiseworthy, but it brought them no better results. The Great Han soldiers with long spears were fully prepared; they thrust their spears forward in unison. Though these men were warriors carefully cultivated within the domain, masters of martial skill since childhood, individual skill counted for little in a pitched battle between two armies. They were quickly impaled on several spearpoints, dying with boundless fury and unwillingness.

Soon, these cavalrymen vanished before the Great Han formation, like food swallowed by a crimson beast, leaving not a ripple behind.

The Fukuoka Domain troops who had been charging this way came to an almost immediate halt upon witnessing this scene, their earlier momentum utterly gone.

From the Great Han army's landing yesterday onward, in every engagement, the Great Han forces had cleanly and decisively defeated them. What made it even more despairing was that so many well-trained and well-equipped warriors had been wiped out by the Great Han army in an extremely short time, yet had inflicted hardly any casualties worth mentioning.

So many men had already died, yet the Great Han army before them watched it all with calm faces, as if nothing had happened. Just how many more lives would they have to grind to pulp before they were satisfied?

Were they all monsters? Demons from hell? It was not only the ignorant feudal soldiers who felt this—even the domain lord, Kuroda Tadayuki, was now stricken with terror.

The Great Han formation in the distance loomed before him like a mountain range. Their faces had become twisted in his eyes, like the evil spirits in paintings, and their uniform red military coats seemed a ghastly color steeped in an ocean of blood.

Even with several times their numbers, we probably can't do anything to them... The thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

Before he could react, at the officers' command, the Great Han formation began to advance, pressing forward in perfect order. Though their pace was slow, they seemed as indestructible as a city wall forged of steel.

Despite still holding a slight numerical advantage, the Fukuoka Domain army's formation began to waver as they watched this wall of red advance toward them.

During the Warring States period, the constant warfare between regional magnates had driven rapid military development in Japan, with equipment and tactics improving day by day. But ever since the establishment of the Edo shogunate, with the realm at peace and the shogunate deliberately suppressing military power, Japan's military progress had stagnated. It had even regressed compared to the Warring States era, due to shrinking arms imports and deteriorating equipment.

The formation the Fukuoka Domain army now fielded was, like everywhere else, composed of feudal soldiers with long spears and naginata placed at the front, with formations of teppo (matchlock guns) and bows behind the front-rank soldiers. The ratio of musketeers to archers was about four to one; the archers' main role was to fill the gaps in ranged firepower while the musketeers fired their volleys and reloaded, maintaining continuous attacks on the enemy.

On the surface, this system did not seem particularly wrong, and even shared many common points with the military doctrines currently prevailing in the Great Han. But in practice, things always went awry. As the various domains' financial situations generally grew strained, military preparedness inevitably slackened, and equipment began to age. The Fukuoka Domain army's formation was filled mostly with feudal soldiers who did not even have standardized uniforms. Most wore no armor, and the weapons in their hands were of poor quality—not only were there rusty swords and spears, but some muskets were even prone to bursting their barrels.

Their soldiers were inferior to the Great Han's elite troops, and their weapons were inferior to the Great Han army's fine equipment. Thus, even if the theory was much the same, the result could only be the most disastrous.

Ignoring their every reaction, the Great Han formation pressed toward them at an almost constant pace. When the distance between the two armies shrank to just over a dozen zhang, the musketeers in the feudal army's formation could finally bear it no longer and opened fire in fits and starts. Because they had not reached optimal range, the bullets flew wildly in all directions with few hitting their targets, and the fine armor and protective gear meant that even the bullets that did find their mark inflicted few casualties on the Great Han troops.

Amid the sporadic gunfire and arrows, the Great Han army advanced unaffected. When they reached the optimal range for their muskets, they finally halted, once more becoming an immovable mountain. Then, the front-rank spearmen turned aside, revealing row upon row of gun muzzles behind them.

"Fire!" After a moment of silence, the officers gave the command once more.

The thunderous roar echoed across the land again, and this time the musket volley produced an effect far more terrifying than before.

The Great Han's muskets were far more accurate than the teppo in the feudal soldiers' hands, and because they were at the proper distance, aiming was much easier. Countless bullets, propelled by gunpowder, shot toward the opposing formation at speeds invisible to the naked eye, piercing through every obstacle in their path—armor, clothing, and finally human flesh.

The very first volley inflicted severe losses on the feudal soldiers. Blood sprayed everywhere; some men, struck in the head, had their brain matter splatter out. These red and white fluids flew through the air and spattered onto the men beside them and onto the ground, adding a few strokes of murky, indeterminate color to the verdant green fields.

As the gunfire rose and fell in waves, the casualties within the feudal soldiers' formation grew heavier and heavier. Even more terrifying than the wails of the wounded were the corpses with heads blown open by bullets. Seeing their comrades dying and wounded all around them, the feudal soldiers, whose morale was already shaken, wavered all the more.

Japan had enjoyed nearly thirty years of peace. Most of these domain soldiers on the battlefield had never witnessed the brutality of the Warring States era. Facing such carnage for the first time, how could they not be terrified? What frightened them even more was that at this distance, they had no way to strike back at the enemy across from them — they could only passively endure volley after volley of bombardment.

Moreover, because the Great Han army's musketeers were well-trained and battle-hardened, they executed the prescribed drill-manual movements with perfect fluidity, and so their reloading speed was very fast. Rows of musketeers fired in turn, delivering an almost uninterrupted barrage upon the enemy.

Anyone could see that simply standing here taking hits was absolutely untenable. They either had to charge forward and fight the enemy to the death, or they had to fall back and get out of the musket fire.

Although some wanted to rush forward and fight to the death, the majority were already retreating involuntarily. Despite the samurai shouting themselves hoarse at the top of their lungs, they kept retreating — faster and faster, faster and faster.