Bai Yuan realized at that very moment that while cannons and muskets shared the same basic soul of "stuffing powder and making things go boom," the actual reality of using them together was a logistical disaster. A single man could fiddle with a musket and make it sing, but a whole crowd of men could barely keep one cannon from becoming a very expensive, very heavy paperweight.
He began crunching the numbers in his head while ducking a stray elbow from a panicked loader. It seemed every cannon required its own dedicated entourage of servants. You needed the muscle to load the powder, a specialist to squint at the horizon and poke the fuse, and a cleaning crew to swab the bore and shove the iron beast back into its cage after every violent kick. Without proper drills, they were just a bunch of headless chickens circling a giant metal pipe.
"When I get these boys into training, I am assigning five men to a single gun," he muttered to himself. "Yes, a five man squad. Any less and we might as well just throw rocks at the enemy and save ourselves the expensive gunpowder."
Amidst the frantic, sweaty scramble, it took the crew at least the time of one hundred and thirty two long blinks to finally finish reloading. The heavy muzzles were finally leveled at the river again, staring down the rebel fleet like two grumpy, iron eyed gods.
In those one hundred and thirty two blinks, the ships had zoomed much closer. The Yellow River was not known for its patience, and its current was pushing the fleet downstream at a terrifying pace. To make matters worse, the rebels had kicked their rowing into overdrive after the first two shots. They were coming on like a bolt of lightning that had traded its dignity for a wooden hull.
Bai Yuan knew they only had one shot left before things got personal on the shoreline.
"Light the damn fuses!" he bellowed. "The rest of you, stop staring and get ready to fight. Archers, crossbowmen, try to actually hit someone today!"
BOOM! BOOM!
The cannons roared. This time, since the distance had closed, luck decided to stop flirting and finally showed up for the date. One cannonball slammed directly into a medium sized merchant vessel.
It punched a hole through the wood so large a carriage could have driven through it without touching the sides. Splinters flew everywhere like angry toothpicks.
Dozens of rebels decided they would rather take their chances with the freezing river than stay on that sinking wreck, leaping overboard in a desperate, splashing mess.
The second shot missed by a mile, hitting the water and giving the bandits a quick bath and a brief scare.
The momentum was too much to stop. A swarm of boats hit the edge of the pier with a series of wet, heavy thuds. The messy reality of a beach landing was about to begin. The fastest boat drove its prow deep into the soft sand of the Heyang Wharf, and a group of bandits immediately scrambled onto dry land like rats fleeing a basement.
"Loose!"
Feng Jun let out a roar so loud it seemed to vibrate his own teeth. As the order left his mouth, he felt something warm and realized the sheer stress had triggered a nosebleed. He did not even care. He wiped the blood across his cheek in the shape of an arrow, looking like a deranged tribal warrior, and screamed again.
"Loose! Keep shooting, you idiots!"
The Heyang County Militia pulled back their strings. Their equipment was a visual disaster. There were long bows, short bows, simple sticks with strings, and light bows. They unleashed a messy rain of arrows at the bandits.
The bandits did not even flinch. They raised their shields and ducked low, letting the arrows clatter harmlessly away like hail on a roof. The air was filled with the rhythmic thudding sound of wood on wood, but almost none of the outlaws were actually leaking blood yet.
Bai Yuan recognized that professional stubbornness instantly.
"Border troops! Those are not just bandits. They are mutinous soldiers from the frontier!"
Wang Jiayin was a former border soldier himself, and he had filled his ranks with defectors who actually knew which end of a spear to hold. They had discipline, which was exactly why they had been winning so much lately. If these professional traitors secured the beach, a never ending line of rebels would follow them and turn this wharf into a slaughterhouse.
Feng Jun looked like he was about to cry.
"Our arrows are just bouncing off! They are like turtles with swords!"
"So what if they are border troops?"
Bai Yuan pulled out his rifled musket. He took a steady, cold aim at the man in the lead. The guy was shouting orders and waving a saber, clearly a squad leader or a Centurion. He was the glue holding the turtle shell together.
BANG!
The musket cracked. The leader's face turned into a messy red smudge, and he hit the sand like a sack of wet flour.
The surrounding border soldiers froze.
"They have sharpshooters! That was not a cannon!"
"How did he hit him from there? Right in the nose!"
"Must be a lucky shot! Keep moving or the Boss will kill us anyway!" someone yelled from the back of the pack.
As Bai Yuan went through his reloading rhythm, he spotted Flat Rabbit and Zheng Gouzi nearby.
"Did you guys bring any grenades, or did you just come for the view?"
Flat Rabbit shook his head, looking deeply offended.
"No. We were told to protect the Saintess, not start a demolition derby. We did not bring the heavy stuff."
"Wonderful. Then we just have to pray Instructor He shows up before we get turned into kebabs."
Bai Yuan kept loading, his eyes tracking the chaos on the beach. With their leader dead, the bandits were a bit shaky, but they were still pros. They stayed behind their shields and traded shots with the fort walls. Occasionally, an arrow would thud into the wooden palisade right next to Bai Yuan's head, which did wonders for his heart rate.
Behind the first wave, three more ships slammed into the sand. Rebels were jumping into the water like lemmings.
Flat Rabbit and his men raised their hand crossbows. They unleashed a rapid volley that caught the newcomers while they were still wading through the water. Several rebels took a bolt to the chest and did a backflip into the Yellow River with massive splashes.
But there were just too many of them.
Feng Jun peeked over the wall just as an arrow whistled through the air.
There was a sharp thwack as it hit him square in the forehead.
He stood there, paralyzed, waiting for the lights to go out.
A second passed.
Then two.
He realized he did not feel any pain, mostly because he was not dead.
He reached up and felt his White Hat. The thing was woven from rattan so tough it could stop a direct hit from a clumsy archer. It was basically a helmet for people who liked to look stylish while not dying.
"I am alive! I am a god!" Feng Jun yelled, his confidence returning in a rush. "Shoot the ones on the boats! Do not waste arrows on the shields! Aim for the rowers!"
The militia shifted their aim. The rebels tried to block the fire with anything they had. They held up shields, pot lids, wooden planks, and even thick, sweaty cotton coats. The arrows were hitting, but they were not stopping the tide.
Bai Yuan sighed. This was starting to look like a losing game. The local militia just did not have the grit needed to hold back a bunch of battle hardened traitors.
Just as he was considering a strategic retreat, Flat Rabbit came scurrying up to the cannon. He had an arrow sticking out of his rattan hat like a unicorn horn, but he did not seem to notice it. He crouched low and shouted over the noise.
"Mister Bai! These big guns are just expensive decorations now, right? Too close to aim?"
"Pretty much," Bai Yuan grumbled. "Unless you want to use them as clubs."
"Great! Then I am borrowing this powder bag. Don't worry, I will put it to good use!"
Flat Rabbit grabbed a massive bag of gunpowder meant for the cannon. He shoved a fuse into it, lit the end with a manic grin, and gave it a heave that would have made a professional shot putter proud. The heavy bag tumbled through the air, looking very suspicious, and rolled right into the middle of the border soldiers' feet.
The soldiers looked down at the hissing, smoking bag.
One of them actually poked it with his toe.
Bai Yuan's jaw dropped.
"Wait, is that even legal?"
The fuse hit the powder.
BOOM!
The explosion was loud enough to make everyone's ears ring for a week. Since it did not have shrapnel, it did not shred them, but the sheer force of the blast was like a giant invisible hand slapping the entire squad at once.
A massive cloud of black soot and sand erupted. The border troops were tossed around like ragdolls, their precious shield wall turning into a heap of confused limbs and broken wood.
The militia did not need to be told twice. They rained arrows into the smoke. Screams of "My eyes!" and "I am hit!" echoed from the haze. Some bandits stumbled out of the smoke looking like pincushions, while others just tripped and fell back into the river.
Flat Rabbit stood on the rampart, hands on his hips, laughing like a villain in a cheap play.
"Hahaha! Did you see that? I told you! In the end, you all have to rely on the Great Lord Rabbit to save your sorry skins!"