I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 684: It Was Far Away Before, But It Is Not Far Away Now

Yang Guian opened his eyes and saw that there was one more person in front of him.

A Bozhou soldier.

He was short and thin, and had just emerged from a ditch. He was soaking wet, with water dripping from his indigo homespun clothes.

His face was full of childishness, he was no more than 18 years old. His eyes were anxious, and his hands were raised high to show everyone that he had no weapons in his hands.

When Yang Guian saw his appearance, he was suddenly dazed. He looked a bit like his nephew.

"Uncle, I surrender, you're going to kill me!"

A soldier from the Fourth Division rushed down the hillside with a musket in his hand. Seeing the young soldier in front of him, he raised his bayonet and prepared to stab him.

Yang Guian was quick-witted and quickly kicked the soldier aside.

"Get out, old man!"

Seeing that he could not gain any advantage, the soldier turned around, grinned at Yang Guian, and chased after him into the rice field with his gun raised.

Yang Guian continued to hold the musket, pointing it at the young soldier, "Throw away all the swords, spears, bows and crossbows on you, and throw them far away."

The young soldier immediately threw away his scabbard, crossbow and quiver.

Yang Guian pointed the muzzle of his musket toward the sky, stepped forward and kicked the young soldier, "Squat over there, put your hands over your head, and stand here like a tree trunk, waiting to be shot."

The young soldier immediately squatted down, put his hands on his head, and moved to the flat area near the hillside like a toad, squatting together with a dozen clever soldiers.

There were three soldiers guarding them with guns raised.

When Yang Guian turned to leave, the soldier called out, "Uncle, thank you."

Seeing the sincere gratitude on the young soldier's face, Yang Guian felt a prick in the heart and wanted to curse, but he didn't know who to curse.

"Be obedient and don't worry. We have discipline."

The young soldier nodded repeatedly with joy, and excitedly spoke to his companions around him in Miao language, as if to comfort them.

Yang Guian hesitated for a few seconds, but still rushed into the paddy field with a musket.

The water in the rice fields was not deep, not even enough to cover one's ankles, but it had soaked the mud in the fields into a mushy mass, and one's feet made a squeaking sound when they stepped on it, and their feet would get stuck and stuck, so one could not walk fast.

Yang Guian was like a crab, moving his left and right legs laboriously and walking with difficulty in the rice fields.

The rice in the paddy field was trampled all over the place, so Yang Guian simply stepped on the fallen rice, which made him walk much more lightly.

Gunshots rang out, thick smoke filled the dam, and the rice fields were filled with Bozhou soldiers lying on the ground, most of them were not dead yet.

He gasped for breath and looked at Yang Guian with wide eyes.

Some of their eyes were filled with hatred, some were filled with pleading, and some were filled with numbness. Every look in their eyes made Yang Guian's heart tremble as he was actually on the battlefield for the first time.

Some of the soldiers had gray hair and beards and dark faces like Yang Guian’s father. They stretched out their right hands, muttered something, and begged Yang Guian to save them.

Yang Guian hardened his heart and turned a blind eye to these injured soldiers.

During his military training, the instructors emphasized that on the battlefield, a soldier's mission is to kill the enemy. Except for their own comrades, they don't care whether the enemy is dead or wounded for the time being, as long as they make sure they have no ability to fight back.

Yang Guian looked around and suddenly saw Sun Xueguan standing on a ridge of a field. Just like a little goose finding its mother, he spread his legs and ran wildly in the paddy field like a big goose, and ran to Sun Xueguan's side.

"Vice Captain Sun."

Sun Xueguang looked him up and down and said, "Good, good, you are not injured. Let's go and continue chasing the enemy."

In his right hand he held a fine steel command knife, which was still dripping with blood, and in his left hand he held a short gun.

There were three guards standing beside him.

The five people walked west along the ridge of the field.

"We are relying on the eastern entrance, and the main force has set up a trap at the western exit. We are heading from east to west, which is just enough to trap most of Yang Zhaolong's troops."

From time to time, a group of soldiers were seen, under the command of the squad leader and non-commissioned officer, lined up to fire at the Bozhou soldiers, and then rushed forward with bayonets raised.

The Left Guards were equipped with cavalry versions of the Longqing Type 2 smoothbore rifles. In mountain warfare, the rifles were too long and too heavy to be carried, but even with bayonets they were 1.7 meters long, like a spear.

The most important subject in the daily training of officers and soldiers is bayonet fighting. One against one, two against many, three against many, and team against many.
Not only practice bayonet techniques, but also coordination tactics.

Yang Guian saw that the soldiers of that squad fired a row of shots first, and taking advantage of the panic of the twenty or so Bozhou local soldiers on the opposite side, he rushed forward with bayonets raised, in groups of three or two.

Two or three people should focus on one person first, stab left upper, right lower, left oblique, right sideways, center straight.
In just a few breaths, this group of soldiers knocked down nearly ten of the twenty or so Bozhou native soldiers. Together with the nearly ten people knocked down by the previous row of shooting, more than thirty Bozhou native soldiers were instantly reduced to only six or seven people by a squad of twelve officers and soldiers, and were at an absolute disadvantage.

Before this group of officers and soldiers could take the next step, the six or seven Bozhou soldiers dropped all their weapons, raised their hands high, and talked nonsense.

Some of the officers and soldiers could speak Miao language, and they chattered with each other in a gibberish. The seven Bozhou soldiers immediately squatted on the ground with their hands covering their heads.

The further east we went, the more corpses and wounded people there were on the ground. There were more Bozhou soldiers squatting on the ground with their heads in their hands, shouting in Miao dialect everywhere: "Surrender and you won't be killed!"

Yang Guian followed Sun Xueguan to the western exit of the dam and saw an extremely tragic scene.

The rice fields were full of bullet holes and the corpses of people and horses. The blood had dyed the water in the rice fields black and red.

When Yang Guian got closer, he saw that both the people and the horses had died tragically, with countless bullet holes on their bodies. Their bodies had been beaten into pieces like tofu brains that would shatter at the slightest touch.

"This is the power of shotgun." Sun Xueguan glanced at it and said to Yang Guian without turning his head.

"Shotgun?"

"Yes, dozens or even hundreds of 35-gram lead bullets are wrapped in a thin layer of iron sheet to form a cannonball. Once it leaves the muzzle, it will scatter. The killing distance is not far, but the killing range is extremely wide.

We have a saying in the army, "All beings are equal under the shotgun." As long as you stand in its killing range, even a Lu Bu made of copper and iron will be able to ascend to heaven on the spot."

Yang Guian's Adam's apple trembled back and forth, and he kept swallowing his saliva. "It's amazing, but it looks a bit miserable."

Sun Xueguang said disdainfully: "Is this miserable? This is only a six-jin cannon with a caliber of 95 mm, and its power is much smaller. You have never seen a nine-jin cannon or a twelve-jin cannon firing shotgun shells.

To be honest, I have only seen a 9-jin cannon, that is, a Longqing Yuan-style 105 field cannon firing shotgun shells. With one shot, all the people in a fan-shaped area 100 meters in front of the muzzle fell down.

My brother-in-law said that he followed Marshal Qi to fight against the Chahar tribe on the grassland. They used to use a 12-jin field cannon, now called the Longqing Yuan-style 120-jin field cannon. The battle was extremely brutal.

He had seen it with his own eyes: four 120mm field guns blocked a valley and fired at the three or four thousand cavalrymen inside. My brother-in-law said that he would never forget that scene.

After he was demobilized, he never ate blood sausage or blood tofu again. My sister said that he used to love eating them.

Yang Guian murmured, "Under the shotgun, all beings are equal."

Sun Xueguang chuckled, "Old Yang, you have attained enlightenment."

The group continued to move forward. There were more corpses in front of them, and more soldiers surrendered. The Miao people in the dam, crowded in the stilt houses on the hillside, looked at this side with different expressions.

After a round, Yang Guian found that the war had subsided.

"The fight is over so quickly?"

“From what you said, the Bozhou soldiers are not an iron army.

Our system of bombardment, gun shooting, and bayonet use was developed after we fought against the Japanese pirates in the southeast, and then the northern Tartars, the eastern Hu, and the southern barbarians, at the cost of countless lives and blood.

Let me tell you, it was because our Fourth Division was in a hurry to get going that we didn’t drag the rockets we had deployed over here, otherwise these Bozhou soldiers would have knelt even faster.”

"rocket missile?"

"Yes, shotgun shells only make all beings equal. Under rocket shells, all gods are equal." Sun Xueguang looked around and pointed at Yang Guian and said, "Stand here and don't move. I'll go to the regiment headquarters to ask for information."

Yang Guian stood on the edge of the field holding a musket, smelling gunpowder, blood and some foul smell, and looked around.

Lieutenant Sun told me to stand there and not move, but why did I feel like he was taking advantage of me?

Okay, from now on I will call him my grandson.

After a while, the little grandson came back.

"The battle is really over."

"Are you done? Where's Yang Zhaolong?"

"He was unlucky. He was in a hurry to get back to Bozhou City and rode ahead on horseback, right in front of a Type 95 mountain cannon. As a result, he was completely destroyed by the first round of bombardment.

The medical team is still there piecing him together, trying to see if they can piece together an identifiable feature for his subordinates to confirm."

"Yang Zhaolong is dead?"

"The results of the battle have not been confirmed yet, so we assume he is dead for now."

"What about his 10,000 Bozhou soldiers?"

"Most of them are here, some dead, some wounded. Preliminary statistics show that there are more than 2,600 people. 6,700 surrendered. The remaining 1,000 or so are mainly the rear guard, who fled into the mountains when they saw the situation was not good.

The Right Guards are pursuing us, but I don’t think they can catch many of us. Who can find us if we get into this mountain and this forest?”

Yang Guian nodded with satisfaction, "We have won a great victory. There are only one thousand remnants left, and I don't know how many of them can escape back to Bozhou City. Even if they escape back, it will not affect the battle situation.

Captain Sun, what shall we do next?

"Treat the wounded, bury the bodies, and count the prisoners. Also, we have to pay compensation for the damage we have done to the rice fields in this dam. The people from the logistics department of the division headquarters are discussing with the villagers in the dam to see how much compensation is appropriate."

"Not reinforcing Bozhou City?"

"We are still more than a hundred miles away from Bozhou Tusi City. We don't know what the situation is over there. Wait for orders. Old Yang, your combat mission is completed, return to the staff office."

"Okay, Lieutenant Sun, I'll go back first."

The other person still had a mission to complete, so Yang Guixian didn't say anything more. He just said goodbye and left.

Arriving at the divisional staff office, I reported to the chief of staff and wrote a combat summary and handed it in. After finishing all this, a staff officer at the staff office said to Yang Guian.

"Old Yang, the entire division is on standby right now, and there's nothing to do at the General Staff Office. You might as well go to the Second Battalion of the Left Guard Regiment and see if there's anything you can help with."

"it is good!"

Yang Guian picked up the musket and left.

Halfway through the journey, he became uneasy and turned to the area where the prisoners were being held.

Coincidentally, the Second Battalion of the Left Guard Regiment had just taken over the prisoner camp. The guarding soldiers and the sergeant knew each other, so they greeted Yang Guian and let him in.

After looking around and not seeing the young soldier, Yang Guian's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Things change rapidly on the battlefield, and you never know when a bullet may take your life.

In the end, I still couldn't save this kid.

Yang Guian felt very disappointed and turned to leave when he suddenly heard someone calling him, "Uncle, Uncle, I'm here."

Turning around, he saw the young soldier holding a wooden bowl that was bigger than his face and waving at him excitedly.

Yang Guian walked over happily, "You are here."

The young soldier smiled and replied, "I was just eating here, and when I looked up, I saw my uncle!"

Yang Guian looked around and saw hundreds of Bozhou soldiers gathered in a circle, burying their heads in wooden bowls and slurping their food.

No wonder I couldn’t find it just now. How could I find it when you all buried your faces in the bowls?

"You are the reincarnation of starving ghosts!"

Yang Guian sat down next to the young soldier and said with a smile.

The young soldier subconsciously took a big bite of rice, then grumbled with his cheeks puffed up, "We came down from Sinan City and haven't had a proper meal for four or five days. We have been running all the way, so we are tired and hungry."

A soldier nearby raised his head and whimpered, “I rarely have a full meal.

They wanted us to go up there and die before they gave us a full meal. On weekdays, we only had porridge made from wild vegetable leaves, and we had to go fishing, catch wild mice and rabbits to barely get enough to eat.”

The young soldier swallowed it quickly, took another bite, puffed up his cheeks and whimpered, "You guys are eating so well. The rice, the mutton and beef in the tin box, all full of oil, and the red chili, it really goes well with the rice.

Uncle, do you eat this on a daily basis, or do you only eat it when you are about to go to war and die?"

"We eat this every day. No matter in battle or on weekdays. It's just that battles are tough, so there might not be hot food, so we can only make do with cold food."

The young soldier and the dozen or so soldiers around him who looked up upon hearing the noise looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Damn it, no wonder you guys are as fierce as tigers and leopards in battle. If you feed me this every day, I'd dare to stab him a few times even if I'm the king of heaven."

"Yes, yes!"

Then there was the sound of chewing rice.

The guarding officers and soldiers also distributed boiled water to the prisoners, all of which were packed in bamboo tubes.

The young soldier picked up the bamboo tube, gulped down a few mouthfuls, and finally burped.

"Uncle, why do you have to distribute even water? We drink water by lying down beside the spring by the river and opening our mouths to drink."

"River and spring water contain bacteria. If you accidentally drink it, you will have diarrhea. When you are on the march or in a war, it is a big deal if you have diarrhea."

"That's true. If you get diarrhea or get sick while marching or fighting, your superiors won't bother to take care of you and will just leave you on the side of the road to die."

The young soldier said with a mature look on his face.

Yang Guian asked, "What's your name?"

"My name is Tian Agui."

"Agui? Can you speak Chinese?"

"My father was a Chinese merchant. When I was seven, I heard that his boat capsized on the Wujiang River and he could never come back. But my mother always told me to speak Chinese.

My mother said that if I have a chance, I should go out and look for my father’s hometown, where my grandparents and uncles are.”

"Where is your father from?"

"It is said to be from Dangyang, Jingzhou, the place where Zhao Zilong went in and out seven times. I asked other Han merchants, and they said it is quite far away."

"It was far before, but it's not far now." Yang Guian said with a smile, "Eat, eat quickly."

Suddenly, a huge roar was heard not far away, and the prisoners of war involuntarily stepped back.

Yang Guian quickly stood up and ran over there.

After running less than a hundred meters, he saw Sun Xueguang standing there and talking nonsense, so he hurried forward and asked, "Captain Sun, what happened?"

(End of this chapter)