Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Broad Blade Spear

Li Wenyuan was overjoyed by the musket fire on his side, but the Turkic cavalry opposite felt as though they had plunged into hell. All they heard, after the shots rang out, was the roar of black smoke rising from the ranks of Han infantry across the way. Then, one mounted man after another tumbled from his horse. Before they could even cry out, they were trampled into a pulp. The Turkic commander was horrified. He then saw that the outer ring of the formation was a living wall of soldiers wielding long sabers whose blades flashed coldly in the sunlight. Dazzled by that glint and too afraid to look directly, he hurriedly shouted orders for his riders to split left and right, ride around the formation, and attempt to strike at the weaker rear.

But how could a hollow formation, carefully devised by Li Wenyuan and drilled for a long time precisely to counter nomadic cavalry, leave such an obvious flaw? The Turkic horsemen circled the formation several times, yet not only did they fail to find a weak point for a breakthrough, they lost still more men to the musketeers firing from within the ranks.

In the end, the Turkic commander had no choice but to order a temporary withdrawal, pulling the cavalry out of musket range to regroup. Once the Turkic riders had retreated, Li Wenyuan finally let out a small breath of relief and quickly sent someone to count the casualties among his own men. Aside from a few musketeers wounded by the sabers hurled in anger by the Turks, there were no other losses. Yet in that brief clash, nearly a thousand of the attacking Turkic cavalry had fallen.

With the retreat of the Turkic riders, the battlefield, which had been deafening only moments before, became eerily silent. At just that moment, the hot wind blowing out of the desert scattered some of the black smoke that had filled the entire formation.

Scattered beyond the formation were countless horse carcasses and human corpses, as well as horses struck in nonlethal places by musket balls, lying on the ground and bleeding profusely, and Turkic horsemen still howling in agony. But none of this concerned Li Wenyuan now. He casually wiped the soot and smoke residue from his face, then ordered the musketeers to tally the remaining powder and shot.

Although they had inflicted terrible losses and severe psychological shock on the Turks, the poor natural accuracy of flintlock guns, along with some of the shooters lacking composure and dropping powder on the ground, meant that more than half the musketeers had already lost their fighting ability. Only then did Li Wenyuan understand why every truly formidable force kept a high proportion of veterans. If these men had already fought several battles of this scale, they would surely have killed many more Turkic horsemen while conserving far more ammunition and extending the time they could sustain combat.

But he had no other choice now. He could only place his hopes in Li Gui’s army being a whetstone sharp enough to forge the troops under his command into veterans, so that they might one day fight all the fiercer for supremacy in the Central Plains and in campaigns against the Turks. But that was for later. The urgent task was to preserve these musketeers, who had now gained their first experience of battle, and lead them back to safety.

Thus Li Wenyuan ordered the entire formation to move toward the camp beneath the remnants of the Great Wall, first escorting the musketeers back to the camp to replenish their ammunition and bind their wounds in preparation for the battles to come.

Meanwhile, the Turks on the other side also gathered their rattled horsemen, still shaken by the musket fire. After counting the numbers, they discovered that nearly a third had been lost, while the results they had achieved were virtually nil. This filled the commander with shame. Even when facing the Sui armies before, their battles had often ended in defeat, but they had still managed to inflict heavy losses on the Sui, sometimes even achieving a trade of one for two.

Now, however, this record stoked the Turkic commander’s fury. He ordered his riders to bind their wounds and prepare for another charge against the Han formation. This time he made it plain: on the next assault, they need not worry about the outer wall of long-saber infantry. From his earlier observations, that wall had all been kneeling. With the speed of their horses, they could easily leap over it and crash into the formation. Once inside, those musketeers with almost no armor on their bodies would be nothing but slaughter, unable to resist even slightly.

After sending the musketeers back, Li Wenyuan himself donned the heavy armor of a long-saber infantryman. Again he took his place among them as they formed their ranks and slowly advanced north, pressing down upon the remnants of the Turkic cavalry. This time, however, because the musketeers were absent, the hollow formation had been adjusted: on the outermost edge he stationed only a single layer of long-saber men as a perimeter wall, while the remaining long-saber soldiers were divided into combat groups of ten within the formation. Group by group, they were arranged like pieces on a board, each keeping a distance of fifty paces from the others so they could support one another at any moment.

By then the Turks in the north had finished regrouping and launched another charge at Li Wenyuan’s formation. Once more the familiar tremor of the earth came thundering closer, but this time the long-saber infantry were noticeably calmer than when they had first stepped onto the battlefield. Under Li Wenyuan’s orders, they took up positions on the spot. As before, the outermost soldiers knelt on one knee, both hands gripping the shaft of their long sabers, the butts of the blades planted in the ground, the edges angled upward toward the sky.

Seeing that the human wall at the outer edge of the Han formation seemed much thinner than before, the Turkic riders were overjoyed. Their commander shouted to the men around him, “These Han have already been cowed by our iron hooves. There are far fewer who dare to fight than before. We will surely win this battle. As before, the merit will be counted by heads after the fight!” Then, taking the lead, he rode straight over the outer wall of long-saber men and burst into the formation.

As more and more Turkic horsemen entered the ranks, Li Wenyuan judged inwardly that the moment had come. If too many riders broke through, the entire formation might be smashed apart. So he took a firework from his robe. To call it a firework was really generous; in truth, it was the kind of twin-bang firecracker commonly seen at New Year’s stalls in later times. After lighting it, Li Wenyuan took a long saber from a nearby soldier, slung it over his shoulder, and returned to his own combat group.

After two thunderous booms, the outer wall of long-saber men had received Li Wenyuan’s signal. In an instant, they yanked the long sabers that had been slanted into the ground and thrust them violently upward at an angle. The bellies of the Turkic horses, which had already leaped over their heads, were ripped open. Without even pausing to care about the horse blood and entrails running down through the seams of their armor and onto their faces, they simply swung their blades and hacked hard at the legs of the horses carrying the charging riders before them.

Amid the shrieks of the horses, those cavalrymen who could not rein in their momentum were all thrown from their saddles and crashed down before the wall of long-saber men. And the long-saber soldiers paid no mind to the terror on the Turkic faces; they simply swung their weapons and one by one severed the heads of the Turks who had fallen before them.

The end.