The Great Ming in the Box-Chapter 269: Throw Them Out

The Great Ming in the Box-Chapter 269: Throw Them Out

The battle began!
Captain Wolf’s eight hundred men and Captain Ghost’s five hundred men deployed into two square formations in the southeastern corner of the city, ready to fight.
Everyone inside the city scrambled onto the city walls, all set to watch the spectacle.
Ground Rabbit wasn’t keen on just watching. He whispered to Zheng Gouzi beside him, “This is bad! Such an important battle, and Mr. Rabbit can’t even take part!”
Zheng Gouzi replied, “Protecting the Saint Lady is a much more crucial duty.”
Ground Rabbit understood this, of course. The Saint Lady’s safety was far more important than this strange fight. He just sighed and looked down at his own long sword.
Meanwhile, the rest of the people in the city were also chattering away.
“They’re going to fight! They’re going to fight!”
“Border army versus border army. It’s bound to be spectacular!”
“Spectacular my foot! The real thing is preparing to go out and help. Captain Ghost came to aid us, after all.”
While the city buzzed with noise, outside, confrontation was imminent.
Captain Wolf was the attacker – after all, he was there to seize money, so he had to attack. At his command, the eight hundred-strong rebel band in Guyuan began moving slowly forward.
An experienced force didn’t just charge headlong with wild cries before an attack. Soldiers wore dozens of pounds of armor; a reckless charge would exhaust them long before they closed with the enemy.
Border armies didn’t waste stamina lightly. They advanced slowly and deliberately, each step firm, their formation holding rock-solid. Their ranks and files strained to maintain perfect order.
Cheng Xu felt the pressure, cursing inwardly: Damn border soldiers. Just this slow advance alone puts enormous pressure on me.
Li Daoxuan: Cameras! Groups one, two, three! High-definition cameras! Close-up cameras! All activated!
Cheng Xu shouted, “Mind the distance! Don’t shoot too early!”
The five Captains echoed the call: “Mind the distance!”
The leaders of the ten-man squads also yelled: “Don’t shoot too early!”
The command echoed layer by layer, ensuring that no matter how spread out the ranks became, everyone heard Cheng Xu’s order.
The wind carried a scent of impending bloodshed…
The two armies continued their slow approach…
Suddenly, without any order from North Water Wolf, one soldier in the rebel band in Guyuan drew his bow, nocked an arrow, leaned back at a sharp angle, and twang! loosed a shaft…
At the very moment he shot, several other border soldiers sent their arrows flying too.
Cheng Xu: “Huh? Are they in range?”
Li Daoxuan was also perplexed: Captain Wolf hasn’t given the order yet, has he?
A cold smirk touched Captain Wolf’s lips: A mature archer doesn’t need orders from above! Once the enemy is in range, a true archer knows to loose the arrow himself.
Just like how writers with mature tools can write without constant instruction. The keyboard types itself.
The archers used plunging fire, their arrows flying much farther than in direct shots. From remarkably far, far away, shafts rained down upon the militia unit.
The militiamen panicked, hurriedly shielding their faces, or any areas their cotton armor didn’t cover. A series of thuds, thuds, thuds sounded as many were hit by arrows, though none were injured.
Some immediately drew their hand crossbows to return fire.
Cheng Xu shouted loudly, “Stop firing randomly, it’s not within range yet.”
The range of a crossbow was indeed inferior to that of a bow!
But the militia could not use bows and had to rely on crossbows.
Training an archer required an extremely long time and effort, and since the militia was newly formed, it was impossible to develop excellent archers; Li Daoxuan was also reluctant to form an archery unit because, sooner or later, the militia would be armed with firearms anyway.
At this point, having militia soldiers practice archery skills was simply wasting their training time; it was better to transition with crossbows now.
But then, the flaw of the crossbow appeared.
They were being shot at pointlessly with no ability to retaliate.
Captain Wolf sneered inwardly: these people didn’t resemble the border army at all; they just had good equipment. How could any border army use crossbows exclusively? They were impostors, no doubt about it; he’d wipe them out in one wave.
The military formation continued forward, and the archers started their second volley.
A shower of arrows rained down, creating another wave of minor chaos for the militia.
But it was finally time for the militia’s handheld crossbows to counterattack; at Cheng Xu’s command, militia crossbows fired together, sending a huge cluster of arrows flying toward the border army.
Over on the border army side, there was slight confusion as well, with soldiers using their own methods to protect their eyes and such…
As soon as the crossbow bolts passed, the distance between the two sides grew closer.
Cheng Xu bellowed, “Light the fuses!”
Ten firearm soldiers immediately prepared to ignite the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm.
Suddenly, Cheng Xu had a flash of inspiration: “Only light three of them.”
The ten firearm soldiers froze in surprise, not understanding, but orders were paramount, so they obediently complied; only three men lit the slow match, while the others held their Three-Eyed Divine Firearms unmoving.
As this thing ignited, sparks flew up, forcing both enemies and allies to dodge.
The border army immediately roared out, “The Three-Eyed Divine Firearm! Damn it, the enemy has that?”
As border troops in Guyuan, they currently had no firearms to use.
Because after the rebellion, they lacked logistical supplies of gunpowder, slow match, and lead bullets; though they had firearms, they couldn’t use them.
“Get down, get down!”
The border troops immediately dropped to the ground.
Over on this side, Cheng Xu grinned cunningly, turned to Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu, and said, “Light up and throw out that thing Xu Dafu gave you.”
Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu immediately obeyed, pulling out bombs.
The soldier who had just lit the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm was nearby, so they borrowed the flame, igniting the bomb slow match, which started burning alongside the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm’s slow match.
At that time, the two sides were separated by about twenty meters, a distance where seeing a slow match burning was easy, but distinguishing whether it was attached to the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm or something else was difficult.
The border troops only saw slow matches burning over here, not realizing that along with the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm’s slow match, strange extra items were mixed in.
As soon as the slow match ignited, Gao Chuwu exclaimed, “Aah, that’s bad! Brother Daniu, I forgot how far the slow match should burn before we throw it!”
Zheng Daniu said, “Now you mention it, I seem to have forgotten too.”
“What should we do?”
The two fools stared blankly together.
Cheng Xu gasped in shock, “Oh hell, it’s burned halfway! Hurry, throw it, hurry! Do you want to blow yourselves up?”
Big Stupid and Second Stupid snapped alert at the same time; they both strode forward, then swung their arms together, hurling two large black spheres toward the border army.
As the pair flung their spheres, arrows shot over from the opposite side, clinking and clanging harmlessly, completely bouncing off the outrageously thick iron armor on their bodies.
“What the hell is flying our way?”
“And it’s still got a slow match burning?”
After a brief clamor from the border troops, the things landed; those two fools had incredible hand strength, and with one throw, both spheres went straight into the middle of the border army formation.
The slow match happened to burn out!
“Boom! Boom!”
Two bombs exploded simultaneously.

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Chapter 269: Throw Them Out