Seeing the scene below, Li Daoxuan couldn't help but feel amused.
He had deliberately refrained from dealing with Li Ying earlier, precisely to provide the militia with a practice dummy to grind experience. Who would have thought this Li Ying wasn't even qualified to be an experience dummy, dropping his helmet and armor to flee before the fight even started.
Damn it!
Is my grand plan for military training about to vanish into thin air?
My miniatures are still amateurs who haven't fought a proper battle.
You, get back here!
Li Daoxuan puffed up his cheeks and blew hard at Li Ying's troops.
Li Ying was leading his troops in a desperate run when a sudden, powerful gale hit them head-on. The strong wind made the soldiers at the front stumble and fall backward. The soldiers charging behind immediately tripped over them, causing a pile-up.
Their escape speed instantly slowed.
Li Ying was terrified out of his wits. "Demonic wind! The demonic wind is back!"
With the front ranks in chaos, the rear couldn't run fast enough. Seeing the "Guyuan rebels" closing in behind, several company commanders at the rear, without waiting for Li Ying's order, roared on their own, "Turn around! Fire arrows!"
The few rear companies immediately turned, nocking arrows to their bows.
They weren't elite troops, using small recurve bows—a type of relatively weak, soft bow. A volley of arrows flew over, hitting the militia's cotton-padded armor and falling off weakly.
Cheng Xu was also shouting, "What are you dazing for? Are your hand crossbows for looking at?"
The militiamen snapped out of it and quickly returned fire with their hand crossbows.
Every one of them had a crossbow, whereas not every soldier in Li Ying's troops had a bow.
In this exchange of fire, the militia's arrow volley was more effective. A large number of arrows flew over, thud-thud-thud-thud, hitting the soldiers.
The soldiers also had cloth armor, but not everyone had it. Some wore armor just for show, with few actual armor plates.
This wave of arrows was painful for them. Many were hit in unarmored spots, crying out in pain.
Cheng Xu estimated the distance. Seeing they were only about six or seven zhang (roughly 20 meters) apart, he yelled, "Triple-eye fire lances! Light the fuses!"
The ten triple-eye fire lances in the militia, used for practice, immediately had their fuses lit.
Once these things ignited, the people nearby were scared and quickly moved away. The soldiers holding the lances also hurriedly gripped the wooden handles with both hands, extending them forward as far as possible to avoid injuring their own.
The pursuing troops slowed down—after all, no one dared run in front of a triple-eye fire lance…
Watching this comical scene from the sky, Li Daoxuan chuckled inwardly: This is exactly why the triple-eye fire lance is garbage and backward. So troublesome to use, short range, mediocre power, prone to injure your own, and the key is… the enemy can easily dodge it!
Lighting the fuse less than twenty meters from the enemy, how could they not see?
The soldiers in front, seeing the sparks behind, started figuring things out.
Several company commanders roared, "Get down! Get down! Triple-eye fire lances!"
The soldiers quickly threw themselves to the ground, turning to look back.
When the enemy was preparing to fire these lances, they didn't need to rush to escape, because the enemy wouldn't close in at that moment either.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The triple-eye fire lances fired. Ten of them went off, one after another. A spray of lead pellets flew forward, scattering wildly. These firearms had no accuracy whatsoever, more random than smoothbore muskets, a pure gamble of fate.
But the soldiers were already lying down, so the shots naturally hit nothing.
The company commanders shouted again, "They've fired the triple-eye lances! Everyone up, keep running!"
Actually, they didn't need the order. The soldiers were already scrambling up, continuing their frantic dash westward.
The militiamen, however, were a bit dumbfounded. Looking down at the triple-eye fire lances in their hands, they mumbled, "Such powerful firearms, fired a whole volley… and didn't hit a single enemy?"
Li Daoxuan was inwardly delighted: Hahaha! Interesting, right? That's how garbage triple-eye fire lances are. Now you know from firsthand experience. In actual history, they never played a significant role. Even cannon fodder troops weren't afraid of these things, let alone border troops or the Manchus.
This at least served a small training purpose.
At least the miniatures now understood the real combat deficiencies of the triple-eye fire lance.
The militia couldn't possibly reload the lances now either. The ten men holding them could only grip them as makeshift clubs and continue the chase.
The soldiers ahead kept fleeing. The militia chased, firing hand crossbows. The soldiers at the tail occasionally turned to shoot an arrow back.
The two sides carried on like this, one chasing, one fleeing, a lively skirmish all the way.
The two blockheads, Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu, ended up at the very front of the group as they ran. Their armor was thick; arrows clinked off harmlessly. Plus, the two big iron men looked terrifying.
The soldiers turning back to see these two iron men were frightened, not daring to engage. Fleeing, they yelled, "Don't let those two monsters get close! They must be fierce commanders among the border troops!"
Zheng Daniu: "Huh? Don't run! Come back and fight!"
Only an idiot would fight him. Hearing him shout made them even more scared, running faster.
Li Daoxuan occasionally tapped the "West" button on the box, keeping his view following this group, watching the big spectacle.
They ran and ran…
Soon, they were approaching the edge of Li Daoxuan's field of vision.
He began to hesitate. Should I intervene now?
If I don't, Li Ying's group will run out of sight.
Just as he thought this, he suddenly saw Li Ying's troops "explode" into several groups, scattering in a fan-shaped pattern.
It turned out the soldiers had finally realized: the Guyuan rebels were fewer in number, only five hundred. They surely couldn't split up to chase. In this situation, splitting up to escape was obviously better.
Li Daoxuan looked left and right but couldn't find Li Ying anymore.
It turned out, as he ran, he discarded his helmet and armor bit by bit. His initially conspicuous armor was eventually all gone. He blended into the crowd of soldiers and simply vanished.
Li Daoxuan couldn't help but curl the corner of his mouth: This escape tactic is useless against me. No matter how many groups his defeated army splits into, I could swat each group with a palm, annihilating them all. Not a single one could escape.
But forget it!
What's the point of personally intervening against such trash who flee at the sight of the enemy?
Do they pose the slightest threat to Gao Village? Not at all!
Li Daoxuan withdrew his hand, watching as Li Ying's group fled beyond the edge of the box, disappearing from view.
Cheng Xu also chased beyond the box…
However, Cheng Xu's peripheral vision had been fixed on the low-hanging cloud in the sky the entire time. As he chased, he suddenly noticed that Tianzun's cloud had stopped in the sky behind them and wasn't following anymore.
Suddenly, four ancestral grandmothers appeared before Cheng Xu's eyes, holding red pom-poms, doing a lively folk dance in mid-air, their movements synchronized and quite pleasing to the eye.
Cheng Xu roared, "Stop! Everyone, cease pursuit!"
The militia instantly stopped.
Gao Chuwu turned back. "Drillm… Ghost Battalion Commander… why aren't we chasing?"
Cheng Xu: "Do not pursue a desperate foe. That's in the military classics. We've chased enough. Li Ying's group will definitely flee Chengcheng County and never dare return. We should wrap things up now."
He immediately began retreating rapidly. Thirteen blinks later, he had retreated back into Li Daoxuan's field of view. The ancestral grandmothers instantly vanished.
Cheng Xu's spirits lifted: Heh, safe again.