The rebels stood frozen on the sand, their collective breath hitching as the dust from the collapsed wall settled.
"Muskets," someone whispered, the word spreading like a cold shiver through the ranks. "There are so many muskets!"
The front line of border veterans bore the brunt of that first devastating volley. They were the most experienced, and their reaction was instinctive. As their comrades crumpled into the blood-stained sand, the survivors hunkered down behind their shields with frantic desperation.
Those carrying heavy iron shields fared better, as the metal could actually stop a lead ball if angled correctly, but it required them to shrink their entire bodies behind the cold plate, leaving not so much as a finger exposed. They began a slow, agonizing crawl forward, their world reduced to the rhythmic thud of lead hitting iron.
Behind them, the garrison defectors and the common bandits were a cacophony of panicked shouts and confused orders.
A single volley wasn't enough to shatter the morale of men who had spent years surviving on the edge of a blade. Some of the more fanatical leaders began to bellow over the noise, trying to anchor the wavering line.
"Don't be afraid! How many muskets can one tiny county possibly have? That was their big show! They've fired their shot, and now they're empty. Charge now and we've already won!"
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The second volley erupted before the echoes of the first had even faded.
The Gao Village musketeers, still relatively green in terms of total combat hours, weren't yet utilizing the complex three-rank continuous fire drill. Instead, they relied on a robust two-rank system.
The first two hundred and fifty men had fired, and after a mere ten or twelve heartbeats, just enough time for the rebels to take a few hopeful steps forward, the second rank stepped up and unleashed hell.
Another massive wave of rebels collapsed in an instant.
From his vantage point high on the watchtower, Feng Jun watched the slaughter with wide, unblinking eyes. The rebels were falling in great, messy heaps, like stalks of wheat before a giant, invisible scythe. The sheer, mechanical efficiency of the massed fire was terrifying to behold.
He couldn't help but think to himself:
Forget about rebels. Even if the regular Ming army or the Qing divisions were standing on that beach, they couldn't survive a hammering like this. This is a nightmare. How can this be a mere village militia? This is the Shenji Camp reincarnated in the middle of a wasteland.
But the Gao Village machine wasn't finished.
It was time for the heavy hitters to step up.
Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu, two men built like temple guardians, stepped to the edge of the ramparts. Their massive arms coiled like springs as they prepared to hurl their latest gifts.
Behind them, the grenadier corps, now expanded to a formidable two hundred men, followed their captains' lead. They lit the fuses, waited for the rhythmic hiss of burning powder, and then let fly.
In an instant, the sky over the beach was filled with hundreds of small, wooden-handled cylinders, tumbling through the air like lethal clubs.
"What in the world are those?"
The question hung in the air among the onlookers, but very few had an answer. Aside from the residents of Gao Village, the only people who truly understood what those "clubs" were had been part of Wang Zuogua's army.
Unfortunately for the rebels, most of those men were currently enjoying a very promising career as long-term residents of the Labor Reform Valley in Huanglong Mountain, save for a few lucky runaways like Miao Mei.
Then came the time for the hand grenades to plow the earth.
BOOM!
The first grenade detonated. It was Gao Chuwu's throw, a perfect, soaring arc that landed squarely in the dense center of the rebel formation. The explosion was a violent eruption of fire and pressure.
Dozens of rebels were instantly silenced, their bodies going limp as they were tossed aside like ragdolls.
A heartbeat later, Zheng Daniu's throw hit home.
BOOM!
Another massive cluster of bandits collapsed into the sand.
It was a surreal, horrific sight. Wherever a grenade landed, a perfect circle of men would simply melt away. Even those who weren't caught in the immediate blast radius seemed to lose the will to stand, their nerves shattered by the sheer concussive force.
They had no idea what was killing them, and that mystery was far more terrifying than the lead balls.
This single round of explosions did what the muskets could not. It turned the rebels' confusion into absolute, blinding terror.
Bai Yuzhu, watching from the safety of his flagship in the distance, felt his knees go weak.
"What... what are those things? Why is everyone falling? Is this sorcery? What kind of weapon does that?"
BANG!
One of the skirmishers on the tower fired.
A rebel sub-leader, dressed in flamboyant silks like some hero from a play, let out a sharp cry and collapsed, a hole punched through his chest. He died without ever seeing the man who pulled the trigger.
BANG!
Another leader fell.
To the rifled pieces of the skirmishers, anyone who tried to stand out or look like an "expert" was simply a high-priority target. The accuracy of the rifled barrels made every stylish hat or ornate saber a death sentence.
The border veterans and garrison troops at the very front had seen enough.
They realized that no amount of armor or stubbornness could bridge the gap to that wall of fire. With a collective howl of fear, they turned and began a frantic, scrambling retreat toward the river.
Once the "elite" front line broke, the common bandits behind them didn't need an invitation to flee.
The sound of their retreat was like a mountain collapsing, a chaotic, thundering rush of men desperate to reach the water.
They scrambled back onto their ships, pushing each other aside in a mad dash for safety.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The muskets spoke again.
The rebels, now exposing their unprotected backs as they fled, were cut down in the shallows. Dozens more tumbled into the cold, churning waters of the Yellow River, their bodies swallowed by the silt.
The lucky ones scrambled onto the boats and began rowing with a frantic, animalistic energy, not stopping until they were huddled near Bai Yuzhu's flagship, well outside the range of the muskets and those strange, flying bombs.
In that single, disastrous charge, the rebels had left at least several hundred corpses behind on the beach.
Bai Yuzhu sucked in a sharp, cold breath, his hands trembling on the railing.
"Are we truly attacking a mere county seat? Or have we stumbled into the gates of hell?"
A panicked sub-leader leaped onto the flagship, his clothes torn and his face pale with shock. He grabbed Bai Yuzhu by the shoulders and screamed:
"Boss! We have to go! We can't fight this! The defenders here are ten times more vicious than General Wang Guoliang! Wang only had a few cannons and a handful of muskets. This place... this place is a slaughterhouse! We have no idea what else they're hiding!"
"Retreat, Boss! We can't take this!"
"These people are more terrifying than Hong Chengchou! I'd rather go back and fight the imperial army than spend another minute here!"
The fighting spirit of the bandits had been utterly extinguished.
Seeing the terror in the eyes of his best men, Bai Yuzhu knew the day was lost. They were rebels, after all, fleeing was a core part of their survival strategy. There was no shame in living to pillage another day.
"Retreat!"
"Head north! Get us out of here!"
The order rippled through the fleet, and every ship, large and small, began to pull away with desperate speed.
The rebels rowed as if the devil himself were chasing them. Some "heroes" even used their sabers and swords as makeshift oars, splashing frantically to put distance between themselves and the wharf.
Within a short time, Bai Yuzhu's broken army had vanished into the northern horizon, leaving the river empty and quiet once again.
Bai Yuan raised his telescope, watching the last of the sails disappear into the mist. He lowered the glass and shrugged.
"Well, there they go. That was fast."
Cheng Xu snatched the telescope for a quick look.
"They really are fast when they want to be. My men just got here, and they didn't even get to enjoy the fight properly."
Bai Yuan smirked.
"What do you mean 'enjoy the fight'? Do you have any idea how much gunpowder we just wasted?"
Cheng Xu gave a low, knowing chuckle.
"That's where you're wrong. Dao Xuan Tianzun told me not long ago that our musketeers need real combat experience more than anything else. We can't think about saving powder all the time. If we keep 'saving' until our men are nothing but green recruits, we'll be in serious trouble when we eventually run into the Jiannu cavalry."
Bai Yuan arched an eyebrow.
"The Jiannu? They're thousands of miles away. Is it really necessary to treat them as our primary imaginary enemy?"
"If Dao Xuan Tianzun says it is, then it is," Cheng Xu replied firmly. "His words are filled with divine insight and hidden truths. You would be wise not to take them lightly."
The logic was sound. Bai Yuan immediately turned toward the sky and gave a respectful bow.
However, the sky was clear. The familiar low-hanging cloud that usually signaled the presence of Dao Xuan Tianzun was nowhere to be seen.
It seemed the Great One hadn't bothered to watch this particular skirmish.
And He hadn't.
At that very moment, Dao Xuan Tianzun was busy "wandering" the streets of Heyang with Gao Yiye.
While Yiye walked the dusty roads of the physical world, Dao Xuan Tianzun drifted above her in the spirit, exploring the sights of the city.
Heyang was famous as a city of Yellow River delicacies, and as Yiye wandered, her nose led her toward a small, peculiar snack shop with a sign that read:
Freshwater Hele Noodles.
"Yiye," Dao Xuan Tianzun's voice echoed gently in her mind as He looked at the bustling little shop, "since the war is over for today, why don't we see if this shopkeeper would be interested in opening a branch in Gao Village?"
🗒️ Trivia: Fuse Grenades (手榴彈)
Early Ming-era "grenades" were typically clay or cast-iron shells filled with gunpowder, ignited by a slow fuse.
The Gaojia design, of course, took a few centuries' worth of shortcuts.
Its most revolutionary feature: it actually worked.