Chapter 543: Defending the Dragon Gate Bridge
Zhang Xianzhong's men, the Eight Great Kings of the Western Camp, shrieked and howled as they bore down on the fleeing common folk.
A fresh wave of sweat drenched Shi Jian. "Quickly, cross the bridge!"
Already on the verge of panic, the villagers now plunged into outright terror. Those who had managed to get onto the bridge scrambled frantically towards the western side, while those still trapped on the bank pushed desperately, jostling to get across.
Shi Jian, with his four hundred men, formed a desperate rearguard for the villagers, his heart thudding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Luckily, Zhang Xianzhong's forces were entirely infantry, lacking the swift terror of cavalry. There was no "we're coming for you!" followed by hooves pounding your face a second later.
Infantry had to frantically pump their legs, burning through every ounce of their stamina, but even at their absolute fastest, their top speed was still just that: human.
And running for their lives, the common folk weren't much slower!
Moments later, the last of the villagers scrambled onto the bridge. Shi Jian bellowed, "Musketeers, fire a volley, then fall back onto the bridge!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
"What the hell's so surprising about government troops having guns?" someone roared back. "It'd be weirder if they didn't! What are you afraid of? They've only got a few hundred muskets. Charge!"
The vast bandit army surged onward, rushing the bridgehead.
Shi Jian's unit, having unleashed their volley, fell back towards the bridge. By now, the villagers were halfway across. His men retreated behind the sandbags piled at the bridgehead, and the musketeers frantically began to reload.
Reloading rifled muskets was agonizingly slow!
Far slower than smoothbore muskets, let alone the breech-loading rifles they dreamed of.
The soldiers fumbled clumsily through the reloading process, their hearts hammering in dread.
Fortunately, they had two hundred Wei Suo garrison soldiers. These men nocked arrows to their bows and unleashed a hail of arrows at the bandit horde. It amounted to a decent amount of covering fire, buying the musketeers a precious few seconds for their agonizing reload.
Reloading complete, the musketeers swiftly raised their weapons once more: "Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The bandit vanguard once again crumpled into a chaotic heap.
But a relentless tide of bandits continued to surge forward from the rear, clambering over their fallen comrades' bodies as they pressed the assault on the bridgehead.
There were simply too many of them! Tens of thousands strong.
To break their morale with only two hundred muskets was, quite simply, a fool's errand.
Shi Jian risked a glance over his shoulder. The villagers had gained more ground, scrambling further west across the bridge.
He swiftly ordered his men, "Fall back, fall back, fall back! We're retreating again!"
The musketeers, mingling with the last of the villagers, withdrew westward, abandoning the sandbags at the bridgehead for another defensive line midway across the bridge, where they once again began the tedious process of reloading.
"Hahahaha!" The bandits roared with laughter. "Their damn muskets are slow and few! Don't be afraid, charge! One more surge and we'll be on top of them!"
"This strange, massive bridge is quite a find! Once we seize it, we can cross into Shanxi or Shaanxi whenever we please, free to plunder both provinces!"
The bandit vanguard, howling like beasts, surged onto the bridge deck.
But the bridge deck was no open plain; it was drastically narrower here. The bandits' sprawling formation, once dispersed, was now compressed into a dense, jostling mass.
They became perfect targets for the muskets.
At Shi Jian's sharp command, the musketeers began to fire at will.
It was almost impossible to miss enemies packed so tightly together.
Two hundred bullets tore through the mass, and almost two hundred bandits dropped, a huge swathe instantly collapsing. The narrow bridge deck quickly became choked with a grim pile of bodies.
A momentary flicker of fear rippled through the bandit ranks...
But from the rear, Zhang Xianzhong's chilling laughter cut through the din: "Perfect! If some die, use their corpses as shields! Push forward!"
The bandits stared, momentarily stunned.
A brief, stunned silence gave way to a surge of savage ruthlessness. Some bandits, truly, began propping up the bodies of their fallen comrades, using them as macabre shields to inch forward.
A gruesome, unbroken line of corpses, held upright, formed a ghastly barrier across the bridge deck, eerily drifting forward...
The horrifying spectacle sent a jolt of terror through the Gao Family Village Militia.
The two hundred Wei Suo soldiers were utterly paralyzed with fear, their hands going limp.
Shi Jian gasped, "Holy hell, is Zhang Xianzhong even human? And his soldiers... they're utterly deranged, aren't they?"
"The grenades? Get me a grenade!"
"But what if it damages the Heavenly Lord's bridge?"
"The Heavenly Lord surely cares less about the bridge than about our lives!"
"Yes, that's right! Quick, throw the grenades!"
Someone pulled a grenade, then hurled it forward. It arced through the air and landed amidst the dense bandit ranks with a resounding *boom*. Yet, fragmentation grenades proved surprisingly ineffective against such tightly packed enemies. As it detonated, the shrapnel barely had a chance to spread before the closest few bodies absorbed its entire deadly spray.
Those few who died in the blast merely added to the gruesome wall, their lifeless forms now pushed along by the living.
Shi Jian and his men felt a trickle of cold sweat turn into a torrent.
Battling such utterly inhuman enemies for the first time, a primal dread coiled in their guts.
Just as they bracing themselves to be overrun, a sudden, joyful roar erupted from the villagers who had already cleared the eastern bridgehead. Their cheers carried a surge of exultation, and then the large crowd parted, sweeping aside.
From behind them, an army surged forward. At its head rode a figure with a black cloth concealing his face – Cheng Xu.
It had been an age, a veritable lifetime, since Cheng Xu had last graced a battlefield!
As the General Instructor of the Gao Family Village Militia, he had spent these past years immersed in training soldiers, managing the vast rear-echelon logistics, overseeing military armaments, and, perhaps most frequently, bickering with Xu Dafu, squabbling with Gao Yiyi, and haggling with Li Da. In essence, he hadn't done a 'proper' day's fighting in ages.
Now, back on the battlefield, he felt his spirit soar.
He swept his gaze forward. The Longmen Yellow River Bridge lay pristine and clear; not even the faintest spectre of defeat haunted its expanse.
Advanced weaponry, impeccably disciplined soldiers, abundant logistics—how could an army such as this ever be defeated?
And since defeat was impossible, the spectre of it, naturally, was nowhere to be seen.
He hadn't glimpsed that particular spectre in many, many years.
Cheng Xu let out a boisterous laugh. "Shi Jian, have your men get down behind those sandbags!"
He needn't have shouted; Shi Jian already knew the drill. With a practiced swiftness, he ducked and threw himself into the sandbag pile, and his four hundred men instantly followed suit, vanishing behind the makeshift fortifications.
In an instant, only Zhang Xianzhong's forces remained exposed on the bridge deck.
Cheng Xu didn't even bother with a formal command; he merely raised a hand and pointed towards the bridge.
The two thousand militia soldiers behind him immediately opened fire.
This was no longer a mere two hundred muskets; it was over a thousand. Five hundred of these were the cutting-edge Chassepot Rifles, alongside a thousand rifled muskets. Smoothbore muskets were nowhere to be seen, having been entirely phased out and relegated to training tools for local militias.
When these fifteen hundred muskets unleashed their combined might, the effect was nothing short of devastating. Even with the bandits using their macabre wall of corpses, they couldn't withstand such terrifying, concentrated firepower.
In a blink—a single, horrifying blink—the bandits on the bridge deck suffered catastrophic casualties.
Comments