The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 21 The First Battle of the Mandarin Duck Formation

A scout from the Yi army approached and saluted Qi Jiguang. "General Qi, the Guanhai Salt Field originally had 100 households of salt workers. Assuming each household had three to five people, that would have meant between 300 and 500 people. However, in recent years... alas... there are probably fewer than 50 households left, and the total number of salt workers is probably between 150 and 200."

Qi Jiguang: "I didn't ask how many salt workers there were, I asked how many enemy soldiers there were."

The scout was slightly embarrassed. "Well, Mr. Wang has over a hundred guards and thugs for the salt smugglers under his command. They've been his fortress for years. There are also over a hundred ruffians and scoundrels, recruited by him during the chaos that ensued in Jimo County after the Jin invaders' attack. According to my subordinates, Mr. Wang's main force is still guarding Wangzhuang in Dongmiaozi. The guards at the salt fields are all newly recruited ruffians and scoundrels."

Yue Wenxuan listened to the scout's introduction while looking down at the salt field.

He could switch his consciousness outside the sand table at any time, looking down at it and scouting the enemy, which was quite convenient. He could even put his eyes close to the sand table to take a closer look, and take out a magnifying glass to magnify it. Except for the things in the room which looked a bit troublesome and he had to "peek" through the window, he could see the layout outside clearly at a glance.

The salt field was very large, with a large area of ​​houses lined up along the coast, about the same size as a villa community in later generations, with hundreds of "single-family villas" scattered around.

But most of these houses are vacant and dilapidated, and only half of them still show signs of being inhabited.

A group of plastic figures, dressed in tattered clothes and clearly belonging to the working class, were hard at work. Some were bringing water into the salt pans, others were removing crystallized salt from the pans and placing it into winnowing baskets, while others were breaking and stirring the crystallized salt and rinsing it with clean water.

Yue Wenxuan was delighted: "Isn't this the 'ancient salt-making process'?" After recording it, it turned out to be another excellent video, guaranteed to delight viewers who love traditional history, culture, and traditional crafts.

He was pointing his camera at a plastic salt cube, preparing to record a close-up of the salt-making process.

Suddenly, a plastic man with a knife on his waist came over with a frivolous smile on his face. He raised his foot and kicked Yan Ding hard on the butt. Yan Ding felt the pain and fell forward to the ground with a painful expression, but he did not dare to resist.

The man laughed heartily. It was obvious that he kicked just to cause trouble and bully an honest man.

The salt worker had a bitter face and did not dare to resist. He rubbed his butt, got up and continued to work.

Yue Wenxuan frowned. Combining with the scout's introduction just now, he understood that this plastic man was a scoundrel under the command of Mr. Wang.

There were hooligans like this everywhere in the saltworks, about a hundred of them in total. They wandered around, kicking, slapping, and cursing at the salt workers from time to time. Some even had whips in their hands and would whip any salt worker they disliked.

Yue Wenxuan's anger bar began to rise rapidly and was filled to the brim in an instant.

He jumped his consciousness onto the real-life figurine and said to Qi Jiguang, "Since there are only a hundred or so ruffians in the salt field, what are we waiting for? General Qi, take command and prepare for battle."

Qi Jiguang: "All troops, listen up! Slowly descend the mountain!"

At the command, the army moved.

The first to move were the 12 soldiers in the Mandarin Duck Formation. Without shouting or yelling, they quietly picked up their weapons, maintaining the basic Mandarin Duck Formation formation, and walked down the hillside.

Another eight rebel soldiers, forming a mandarin duck formation, also followed the "heavenly soldiers" down the slope.

According to the rebels' past behavior, they would have been shouting and yelling at this point, with slogans like "All the heroes of Mount So-and-so, come down!" But after Qi Jiguang's training, not a single person in the eight mandarin duck formations spoke. Everyone remained solemn and steady, as steady as a mountain. Even Zhang Dashu, who loved to spout silly words, was now quiet. Seeing this, Madam Gong Er couldn't help but sigh in emotion: the Jimo rebels had really been playing house before, but now they were starting to look like an army.

There were more than a hundred of them moving together, and the ruffians in the salt field immediately discovered them. Someone shouted loudly, and then a "kong, kong, kong" sound was heard in the salt field. It was an "alarm" made by the ruffians. They hung up a thick bamboo tube, and hit it with a stick when they found the enemy, which would make this "kong, kong, kong" alarm sound.

The ruffians who had been scattered throughout the salt fields quickly gathered together, forming a small army of over a hundred men, and marched to the gate of the salt village. A steward from the Wang Family Manor stood at the front and shouted at the rebels, "Where did you come from, you ignorant fellow? This is the salt field of Mr. Wang from Dongmiaozi Village. If you want to take advantage of me, you should know who you are against."

Yue Wenxuan was too lazy to talk to this kind of trash.

But Madam Gong Er shouted angrily, "My surname is Gong, and I am beating the traitor named Wang."

The steward's eyes first turned to Yue Wenxuan, dressed as a scholar. He glared at him, but said nothing more. He couldn't criticize a scholar whose background he couldn't fathom. He then glanced at Qi Jiguang, clad in resplendent golden armor, and felt that he wasn't someone to be trifled with.

But he had no problem scolding Madam Gong Er, laughing heartily: "I was wondering who it was, but it turned out to be the Gong mob. I didn't teach you a lesson the first two times, did I? You still dare to mess with Master Wang? I heard Gong Yi is dead, so you... are Gong Yi's second daughter, right? Tsk tsk, you may be a little thinner, but you're still pretty. If you're willing to marry Master Wang as a concubine, you might be able to save your life. Otherwise, when the main force of the Jin Kingdom arrives, you'll be dead."

Madam Gong Er was furious. She raised the crossbow that had been prepared in her hand and shot an arrow at the steward.

But the manager was well prepared. When he saw Madam Gong Er raising the crossbow, he immediately shrank behind the ruffian next to him. The ruffian raised a pot lid, and with a "bang", the arrow hit the pot lid, and the tail of the arrow trembled and shook slightly.

The steward laughed: "You have such a big crossbow in your hand, I am not blind."

Madam Gong Er raised her eyebrow-tipped knife and wanted to rush forward.

Yue Wenxuan reached out and pulled her arm: "Don't rush in, you stay behind and learn from her."

Madam Gong Er was pulled by the "young" Zhenjun on the arm, but the heroic daughter did not mind the slight physical contact. Her face did not blush, her heart did not beat wildly, and she retreated half a step behind Yue Wenxuan without any shyness.

The 12 soldiers from the Mandarin Duck Squad rushed out first.

The other eight mandarin duck formations quickly followed.

The more than one hundred ruffians on the opposite side drew their swords, some held guns and knives, some held sticks, and rushed back fiercely, yelling and screaming.

As soon as the two armies started moving, the difference in strength became immediately apparent.

The ruffians just knew how to have fun, without any rules or plans, just rushing around randomly without any formation.

On Yue Wenxuan's side, the mandarin duck formation formed by the plastic soldiers in the front was in perfect order, while the eight men at the back were beginners in the mandarin duck formation and there was a slight disorder and disconnection when they first started moving. However, they immediately realized it after being yelled at by Qi Jiguang, and while moving forward they tried their best to coordinate with their teammates' pace, and the formation went from "not chaotic" to "disorderly" and then to "not chaotic", and by the time the enemy rushed in front of them, it had returned to normal.

(End of this chapter)