Chapter 959: Wait Here

Watching the newly arrived force arrayed outside the Shi Family Manor, the refugees on the wall fell dead silent. Some stared blankly, others kept wiping cold sweat from their brows. The force that had appeared in their field of vision was not particularly large, and its ranks stood in neat, square formation — anyone paying close attention could count their numbers. Even counting the mounted riders, there were no more than four thousand, far fewer than the nearly ten thousand inside the manor.

Yet even without engaging in battle, just seeing such a disciplined formation outside, seeing the weapons and armor glinting coldly under the sunlight, the refugees inside the manor knew they had no chance of victory. Yesterday, a mere two hundred-plus cavalry had driven them like sheep; today, there looked to be nearly a thousand cavalry alone beneath the walls. How could they possibly win?

They had thought that by learning some secret method and standing in tidy ranks, they could scare off the cavalry and defeat the government troops. But seeing the appearance of this force below the walls, the refugees finally understood what a truly disciplined formation looked like.

"Have them file out and surrender!" Zhao Jin gave the order, and immediately his personal retainers rode forward.

Zhao Jin turned his head toward Ji Xiang and said, "If they refuse to surrender, you'll lead the Retainer Guard in the first wave!"

Ji Xiang acknowledged the order from horseback and said with considerable excitement, "Big Brother, the brothers are all itching for a fight!"

Zhao Jin swept his gaze around. On every retainer's face he could see, there was no trace of fear or unease — only anticipation and excitement.

"A good blade needs to taste blood often." Zhao Jin remarked with emotion — a sentiment directed at the retainers, but even more so at Ji Xiang.

The moment the call for surrender was shouted, a clamor of jeers and curses erupted from atop the stockade wall. Some spewed foul obscenities, some chanted sutras and Buddha's names, and some, overestimating their strength, even hurled their weapons down from above.

Since the plan was already set, the Zhao Battalion wasted no words and directly spread out their formation to advance. The Smelling Incense Sect's rebel army had their own reliance — with fortifications in place, the defenders always held the advantage. The phrase "easy to defend, hard to attack" was no empty saying. By any calculation, their own numbers outnumbered those outside; if they held firm and traded lives in a war of attrition, they could ultimately afford to lose more than the attackers.

No matter how elite your troops, when it came to storming a fortified position, you still had to scale the stockade walls and fight the defenders atop them blade to blade.

The Zhao Battalion's approach, however, was different. At the start, no one advanced carrying siege equipment; instead, those bearing firearms moved forward. Seeing this, the refugee defenders on the stockade wall felt their hanging hearts settle considerably.

According to the teachings from the main altar, the most lethal of the government troops' firearms was the great cannon. If the government troops used cannons, they should evade as much as possible, because a single cannonball could devastate everything for several dozen li. But as for other firearms like matchlocks, they were nothing more than smoke and noise — as long as you remembered to shield your face, they couldn't hurt you, and you could just charge forward and kill the enemy.

Watching the enemy below the stockade wall all carrying matchlocks, and still at a distance — what effect could such an assault possibly have? The refugees relaxed completely and began jeering and shouting insults.

At this moment, the cavalry was patrolling everywhere, still sealing off the entire Shi Family Manor to prevent anyone from escaping. Meanwhile, the armored and blade-wielding able-bodied men whom the refugees on the wall truly feared still made no move.

"Look! There's a foreign devil over there!" Someone sharp-eyed on the stockade wall spotted a Westerner. This was a novelty — seeing a face so utterly different from Han features, everyone was intensely curious.

The Firearms Company's commander, Meng Zhiqi, wore a dark expression. In his mind, his matchlock company was the most lethal unit in the Zhao Battalion, yet every time they took the field, they were underestimated. This made him deeply uncomfortable.

"Aim true and sweep the walltop clean!" Meng Zhiqi gave the order in a sullen voice. He understood why Zhao Jin had arranged for the Firearms Company to go first — from the march until now, the Firearms Company had had no chance at real combat. They needed this warm-up.

"Open fire!" At the shouted command, the refugees on the stockade wall were still craning their necks to gawk at Louis. Hearing the crack of matchlocks, many instinctively ducked and lowered their heads. A few, trying to show off and feign boldness, kept jeering and shouting. In their minds, those matchlocks couldn't reach them anyway.

Like a scythe sweeping through a wheat field, the heads atop the stockade wall suddenly dropped a level. Screams rang out in dense clusters. The bamboo and wood palisades on the wall, meant as cover, could block arrows but could not stop matchlock fire. Lead and iron balls struck the palisade, piercing straight through, and the splinters and sharp fragments of bamboo and wood that burst out were lethal in their own right.

When a matchlock ball — its initial velocity not particularly fast — struck a person, it was like being hit by a heavy hammer and a sharp awl at once. If it struck the upper body, survival was essentially impossible. A quick death was, in fact, a stroke of luck. Those who did not die immediately could only walk toward despair and death in agony...

By the time the second volley swept across, no one on the stockade wall dared show their head anymore. They didn't even dare hide behind those bamboo and wood palisades. Those palisades, which could stop arrows and had always been a troublesome obstacle for attackers, were now riddled with holes.

The matchlock retainers spread out to both flanks. Archers began to appear among them. From the rear ranks, retainers advanced — the nimble ones leaped across the moat, climbed to the other side, and used axes to chop through the ropes and iron chains, lowering the drawbridge. In a normal assault, taking this drawbridge would have cost many lives. But with the defenders on the stockade wall completely suppressed, it became utterly simple.

Everyone knew that once this drawbridge was lowered, the moat would no longer serve as an obstacle. Someone on the stockade wall tried to pop up and act, but the moment they appeared, they became a target. The matchlocks might not have been highly accurate, might not have been able to react quickly enough, but the archers had already drawn close enough, and the sharpshooters' reaction speed was sufficiently fast — anyone who showed their head could not escape death.

Several iron hooks were fastened onto the south gate of the Shi Family Manor. The other ends of the hooks were connected to long ropes, to be pulled by horses. Once all preparations were complete, the mounted retainers drove their steeds forward in unison. The gate could not withstand such force and was ripped directly from its frame. The Shi Family Manor lay open...

At this point, the only alternative to surrender was to charge out and fight to the death. Behind the south gate of the Shi Family Manor's earthen perimeter, refugees clutching weapons had long been packed in tightly.

But before these refugees could surge out in a desperate fight, the matchlock-bearing retainers had already gathered. In rows of ten, they opened fire in succession. By the second volley, everything before them was thick with gunpowder smoke — they could no longer see what lay ahead. Yet the matchlocks kept firing without pause, pouring their shots straight through the manor gate.

At first there were curses, screams, even the dense sound of footsteps, but in the end, all fell silent. The matchlock fire ceased. The smoke dispersed. Behind the manor gate, there was nothing but corpses lying every which way — not a living soul remained in sight.

By the time the Retainer Guard's various companies prepared to storm inside, the refugees within the Shi Family Manor had lost all will to resist. On the wall, some cried out, wailing that they wanted to surrender, but others immediately moved to stop them. The two sides clashed at once. The sound of slaughter shook the heavens within the Shi Family Manor, while outside, the Zhao Battalion's troops found themselves with nothing left to do.

The lethal firearms, the disciplined formations — both had placed immense pressure on the refugees inside the Shi Family Manor. And that volley fire which had just plugged the manor gate had thoroughly shattered everyone's illusions. Under such circumstances, the internal clash was quickly decided. Those willing to surrender gained the upper hand.

Watching the refugees file out of the manor, heads hanging in dejection, Ji Xiang's face was full of disappointment. He had been hoping for a satisfying fight, only to be met with this outcome.

"You were hoping for a tough battle here? If these people could stand and fight us, who knows how much harder Jining City would be to take!" Liu Yong, who had been with the camp all along, said with a laugh.

The Shi family members were overwhelmed with emotion. Their lost manor had been retaken, and to some extent, their great grievance had been avenged. On this matter, Zhao Jin went along with popular sentiment, allowing the Shi family to pick out a few ringleaders to be beheaded publicly, and also letting them pursue inquiries about the whereabouts of their family members.

But the results of the investigation left the surviving Shi family members utterly devastated. Throughout the entire household, the young women with good looks had been sent off to Zou County. Everyone else had been forced — at the hands of the common people within the manor — to be killed. As for the family wealth and property, part had been carted away, and part had been divided up clean.

In this great chaos, such scenes of ruined families and lost lives were not rare. But for those directly affected, the hatred and despair they felt were extreme. The Shi family members could only kneel before Zhao Jin and kowtow.

"I will stay here for two days. Within those two days, you are to select a sufficient number of hands from among the refugees, then escort these people to Guting Town in Yutai County. Do this well, and you will be allowed to come along and follow me." Zhao Jin laid out a condition.

By this point, the Shi family members could only kowtow and agree. Moreover, having these hatred-consumed survivors escort the refugees meant many would certainly die along the way. But this served two purposes at once — it would intimidate the refugees, and it would allow the troublemakers among them to be eliminated as much as possible during the process.

In this campaign north into Shandong, seizing as much territory as possible was one objective; bringing back more population was another. At the Yutai encampment, a large stockpile of grain and fodder had already been amassed. Near Yutai County, there were also manorial estates waiting for farmers to till — people could be settled immediately. At this time of year, if they could seize the farming season, they might still get one harvest in.

"Big Brother, Shitou has already sent word by fast rider. It'll be another day and a half before the Second Regiment gets here."

After the battle — if it could even be called a battle — at the Shi Family Manor ended, the manor's earthen perimeter wall became a natural cage. The disarmed refugees were still penned inside, while a portion of the able-bodied men were selected to serve as laborers and conscripted porters, moving grain, fodder, and supplies down from the canal grain barges.

Behind Zhao Jin, Shi Manqiang's Second Regiment was hurrying to catch up. Communication between the main force and the Second Regiment was naturally unimpeded. However, after arriving at the Shi Family Manor, news coming from the direction of Jining had suddenly increased as well.

"... The Smelling Incense Sect rebels inside and outside Jining City are all moving toward Ziyang City..."

"... The imperial edict is about to reach Caozhou. The edict is exceptionally stern — it demands, by any means necessary, that Regional Commander Yang Zhaoji be pressed to dispatch troops and quell the rebellion..."

"How many troops does Caozhou currently have?"

"Fewer than four thousand. The troops from Northern Zhili have been dragging their feet the entire time, and the brave volunteers recruited locally are truly limited in number."

Hearing the exchange between Zhao Jin and Liu Yong, Wang Zhaojing's face showed a cold sneer. With some disdain, he said, "This is the court officials, pushed into a corner, throwing Yang Zhaoji out to die first, and then they'll think of another plan."

Thanks to "Wu Liulang," "User Silent Witness," "a83530751," and "Sui Xin Zi Wo 0" for the tips, friends. It's the start of the month — please support with subscriptions, monthly tickets, and tips. The Great Ming Warrior needs it badly!