Lang Si had just finished rolling into the brush when the explosion hit.
Then came the screams.
Several squad leaders dropped almost at once. His heart sank. Damn it—those strange thunder-things again. One blast, and everyone nearby dies.
Damn it.
He hadn't expected them to still have these weapons.
Still—something this lethal couldn't be common. Last time, they'd had two iron giants, and each had thrown only two. Think about it carefully and it wasn't so terrifying. He'd wait for one more blast, then lead a countercharge—
That thought hadn't even finished forming when the forest erupted.
Boom.
Boom boom boom.
One. Two. Three. Ten. Twenty.
Screams tore through the trees.
The bandits had been resting peacefully when a rain of exploding iron suddenly fell into their camp. Sleeping well and getting punched in the face by history tend not to mix.[1]
Those "great heroes" who slept leaning against trees—posing like traveling swordsmen—had iron pellets punch through their chests. They slumped sideways and stayed there.
Some bandits had been lying flat in the grass and might have survived. But when explosions sounded nearby, they leapt up on instinct, grabbed their blades, and shouted, "Enemy raid?!"
Boom.
Another grenade detonated beside them. They dropped instantly.
The camp collapsed into blood and fire.
Lang Si watched flames bloom everywhere, his face going dark. "This many? This powerful? How do they have so many? Is gunpowder free now?!"
Only now did it truly sink in: their enemy's depth was unfathomable.
That man called Chuang Jiang might have been right. Behind Bai Fortress stood something far more frightening. Picking a fight so casually had been a mistake.
A night attack shatters even elite border troops. Against bandits, it was annihilation. One wave of grenades was enough to smash morale completely. Men began fleeing in every direction.
Ironically, staying down was safer. Standing up just made you a larger target.[2]
Cheng Xu didn't miss the moment.
"Firearm unit—open fire!"
Bang bang bang bang!
A wall of matchlocks thundered.
Fleeing bandits were punched forward by lead and collapsed in rows.
Most of Gaojia Village's gunners were green recruits. Only the original ten triple-barrel veterans had seen real combat. Months of drilling couldn't change that.
After the first volley, the rookies began reloading.
Only then did they discover the difference between training and war.
On the drill ground, hands were steady. In battle, every thought screamed: If I load faster, I can shoot again—if I shoot again, he won't escape.
And somehow, muscle memory betrayed them.
One man spilled his powder all over the ground. Another dropped his cartridge, crouched to grab it, stuck his backside out—and knocked over the man behind him. A third tripped. The line turned chaotic.
They all felt cold inside. We're dead. Instructor He's going to beat us senseless.
They glanced sideways.
Cheng Xu wasn't angry.
He'd seen this too many times. Even archery—simple as it was—fell apart under first combat stress. This was normal.
In fact, he was quietly relieved. Thank heaven their first battle had the enemy running away. Panic here meant missed kills, not dead soldiers.
If this had been Jianzhou cavalry charging head-on, these rookies would fire once, shake so badly they'd never reload, and die before sunrise.[3]
Cheng Xu laughed and shouted, "Why the hell are you panicking? They're running! What are you afraid of? Steady yourselves!"
Hearing the laughter, the gunners relaxed. Right. We're winning.
Hands steadied.
Thirty blinks' worth of time—reload complete.
Bang bang bang bang!
The second volley rang out.
Some bandits had already escaped. A few slower ones caught bullets in the back and fell.
Cheng Xu didn't pursue.
"Spearmen, advance slowly. Finish the heavily wounded. Send the lightly wounded and the unharmed to labor reform."
The spear formation pushed forward in order.
They entered what had once been a "camp," now a field of ruin. After nearly a hundred grenades and a rain of musket fire, it could hardly look otherwise.
Even Cheng Xu sighed inwardly. Firearms are terrifying.
He'd been a mere patrol officer, raised on cold steel and flesh-to-flesh fighting. Seeing gunpowder till the battlefield like farmland was an education.
Looking at the devastation, he thought only one thing:
Sir—the times have changed.
The spearmen murmured as they walked.
"We didn't even fight, and they're already like this."
"At this rate, will we ever get to swing a spear again?"
"I want to be a gunner too. Otherwise, how do you earn merit?"
The moment the words left his mouth, a "corpse" sprang up from the pile, swinging a crude guandao—a waist blade lashed to a wooden pole.
The distracted spearman froze.
A shadow flashed.
Cheng Xu stepped in, slid inside the weapon's dead angle, and drove his blade into the man's side.
The tip punched through from rib to back.
The "hero" screamed once and collapsed in blood.
Cheng Xu clapped his hands and shouted, "Eyes open! Cleaning a battlefield kills more fools than losing a battle. Don't win and then die stupidly."
Trivia & Context Notes
[1] Night Raids (Ye Xi) — Pre-modern armies feared night combat. Poor nutrition caused night blindness, making darkness lethal. Successful night attacks often decided entire campaigns before dawn.
[2] Fragmentation Reality — Early grenades relied on shrapnel spread, not blast pressure. Standing up increased exposed surface area—human instincts versus physics, history's favorite mismatch.
[3] Jianzhou Cavalry — Late-Ming northern cavalry excelled at shock charges. New infantry facing their first charge frequently broke after one volley, a pattern recorded repeatedly in Ming military memorials.
[4] Matchlock Reload Time — Thirty "blinks" roughly equals 20–30 seconds, historically accurate under calm conditions. Under fire, reload times often doubled—hence volley discipline mattered more than individual bravery.
[5] Battlefield Cleanup Deaths — Across dynasties, post-battle ambush injuries were common. Manuals warned commanders that victory breeds carelessness faster than defeat.
[6] "The Times Have Changed" — Not a joke but a historical truth: the Ming transition period marked the irreversible dominance of gunpowder over traditional martial valor. Philosophy followed technology, not the other way around.