The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 98: Bird Gun First Battle
The matchlock was burning beside him, and the long card player was a little scared. He had seen the test firing of the bird gun in Dongmiaozi Village, and the crisp "bang" sound was still fresh in his mind. The explosion of this thing was scary even from a long distance away, but now it was so close to him, he felt goosebumps all over his body.

Wu Jialiang laughed and cursed, "What are you afraid of? Can't you see I'm holding it in my hand? I'm not afraid, so why are you afraid?"

The long card player swallowed his saliva. "I'm not a coward. I'm not afraid of losing my head in a fight with the enemy. It's just... if this thing explodes on me, I won't even have anyone to defend myself. I won't even know who to fight with. It's a bit unfair."

He was mumbling a lot of nonsense, but he had only finished half of his speech when Wu Jialiang had already opened fire.

"boom!"

It was really loud, and the long card player shrank back in fear. At the same time, the bandits on the opposite side also shrank back in fear.

The small leader that Wu Jialiang was aiming at was standing still and was not hit by the bullet.

But a small minion three steps away from him screamed and fell to the ground.

"what?"

The bandits were shocked.

"what happened?"

"It seems like there was a firecracker going off over there, why did someone fall down on our side?"

"They threw hidden weapons while the firecrackers were being set off."

"What kind of hidden weapon can be thrown so far? Our men haven't even fired their arrows yet."

"The firecrackers just happened to explode and a rock flew over here."

The bandits were a little confused, but just the sound of a firecracker and the fall of a small minion were not enough to scare them.

Firecrackers first appeared in the Tang Dynasty and became quite common by the Northern Song Dynasty. During festivals and holidays, people in the county would set off a few.

Wang Anshi once wrote, "The year ends with the sound of firecrackers."

Due to the limitations of gunpowder technology at the time, firecrackers were not loud and not very scary. Moreover, all firecrackers at that time were single and could only be set off one by one. It was not until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, when gunpowder technology improved, that people began to string firecrackers together, which became "woven cannons."

In short, the fact that a person fell down with a "bang" was not beyond their cognition, so the bandits continued to move forward!
The little leader was waving his sword, still very arrogant.

Wu Jialiang sighed, "What a pity, I missed."

As he spoke, he retreated quickly to the side of the janitor Zhang Wazi. He pointed the muzzle of the bird gun downward and shook it vigorously a few times to shake out some gunpowder residue. Then he took out a bamboo stick used to clean the gun barrel and dug into the gun chamber...

He was a beginner and his movements were extremely unskilled, so it would take him a while to master this set of movements.

But when he was feeling frustrated, the entire Mandarin Duck Team was very excited.

The long-handled player had just been frightened by the close-range musket fire and had huddled up in fear, but now he shouted with inexplicable excitement, "Kid, keep your eyes on that guy who was knocked down by the bird gun. He was killed by our team. You have to get his ear back later, and don't let the other teams snatch it away."

Zhang Wazi laughed: "I understand! Even though the reward has been reduced, it's still ten strings of cash."

Zhang Dashu: "Oh, with the addition of a bird gunner, our team has become stronger. I killed an enemy before I could even use my wolf spear."

Captain Zhang Dalang was furious: "Everyone, get your shit together! We're about to engage the enemy, and you're still talking about muskets? Just do your job. We're the Mandarin Duck Team, the front line. If something goes wrong, no one will survive."

As he roared, the opposing bandits began firing arrows. The bows they used were homemade, light bows with a shorter range and less power, so they launched their arrows later than Wu Jialiang's bird guns. Even if they drew their bows closer, their power was still insufficient. The rebel soldiers, especially the veterans at the front, wore leather armor captured from the Jin soldiers.

These light bows have difficulty penetrating leather armor and pose almost no threat.

The soldiers used long shields and rattan shields to block most of the arrows, and relied on their leather armor to block the few arrows that escaped.

The bandits' long-range attacks are useless.

"Entering the middle distance, javelin!" Zhang Dalang shouted.

The shield bearers of each team took off their javelins from their backs and threw them forward in unison.

There were screams of "Ouch, Ouch" from the other side, and several bandits were hit.

The two armies met in this way, and the bandits suffered a great loss, while the rebels remained unscathed.

Li Jing felt something was wrong. Were the Jimo righteous army so strong? I clearly remembered that Gong Yi's men were a motley crew, a bunch of useless people. Now, why did they give me the feeling that "they were very strong"?

Dozens of seconds later, before Wu Jialiang could load his second bullet, the two armies had already entered close combat range.

The leader of the group was a fierce thief, skilled in martial arts and fearless. He brandished his sword and charged towards the Zhangjiacun group, shouting, "Brothers, follow me."

Zhang Dashu quickly swept his wolf-whip forward, and the branches swept towards the little leader's face, disrupting his movements.

The little leader was a bit confused when facing a strange weapon like the wolf's mace for the first time, not knowing what to do for a moment. However, he was extremely agile. With a spin, he dodged the wolf's mace and slashed at the branches that spread out from the wolf's mace at the same time...

With a "ding" sound, the waist knife cut into the fork of the wolf spear.

Fortunately, the branches of the wolf spear were made of metal and were no longer the small tree that Zhang Dashu had played with before. The knife failed to split the fork, but was blocked instead.

Zhang Dashu chuckled, exerted force with his hands, and spun suddenly, so that the branches on the wolf-whip locked the waist knife.

At this moment, the little boss on the opposite side was a little dumbfounded. The knife was locked. What should he do?

simple!
It's a test of strength. Both sides exert force at the same time. Whoever is stronger will be able to keep his weapon.

The little leader used all his strength to drag the knife backwards, and then he found that his strength was not enough. The big guy opposite him looked stupid. He didn't know what he ate to grow up, but his strength was terrifying, as if a yellow cow was pulling a tug-of-war with him.

The little boss felt that not only his knife was going to be pulled over, but even his men were going to be pulled over.

This startled him greatly, and he quickly let go, dropped the knife, and jumped back...

At the same time, two spears stretched out from the Mandarin Duck Formation and stabbed towards the position where the little leader had just stood. If the little leader jumped a blink of an eye later, two transparent holes would be pierced on his body.

This really scared him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat and yelled, "Damn it! Their formation is powerful. Brothers, be careful."

Just as he shouted this, the bandits next to him also started fighting with other members of the Mandarin Duck Formation.

The other bandits did not have such good skills as the little leader. At the first encounter, he used the wolf-whip to prevent the enemy from approaching, used the long shield and rattan aegis to protect his teammates behind him, and stabbed forward with spearmen, knocking down several bandits in an instant.

(End of this chapter)