Chapter 251: Grinding a Bit of XP
Begin Chapter 247 of "The Great Ming in the Box" with: Li Daoxuan found the scene below both amusing and frustrating.His deliberate choice to let Li... Find out more!
Li Daoxuan found the scene below both amusing and frustrating.His deliberate choice to let Li Ying escape unharmed earlier was to provide his militia a training dummy for grinding XP. Who could have guessed this Li Ying wasnât even fit to be an XP dummy? Before the fight even started, he shed his armor and fled.
Dammit!
Was his grand training plan really going to fizzle out like this?
His little men were still untested amateurs, barely hardened in a real fight.
âGet back here!â he mentally commanded.
Li Daoxuan puffed out his cheeks, aimed at Li Yingâs troops, and gave a mighty huff.
Li Ying was leading his soldiers in a frantic charge when an immense wind, utterly unexpected, slammed into the front ranks. Soldiers staggered and fell backward. Those following close behind tripped over them in an instant, creating a chaotic pile-up.
Their fleeing speed plummeted.
Li Ying was scared out of his wits: âDemon wind! The demon wind is back!â
The front ranksâ disarray instantly hampered the rear. Seeing the ârebel band in Guyuanâ gaining ground rapidly from behind, several captains in the rear, without waiting for Li Yingâs orders, roared on their own: âTurn around! Shoot!â
The trailing hundred-man teams immediately twisted back, drawing their bows and nocking arrows.
These werenât elite troops. Their bows were small âXiao Shaoâ bows â relatively weak soft bows. A shower of arrows flew, struck the militiaâs cotton armor, and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Cheng Xu bellowed at that moment, âWhat are you gawking at? Are your hand crossbows for decoration?â
The militia soldiers snapped out of their stupor and frantically returned fire with their crossbows.
Every one of them had a crossbow, whereas not every soldier in Li Yingâs ranks had a bow.
In this exchange of projectiles, the militiaâs volley was far more substantial. A thick cloud of bolts whistled over, thud-thud-thud-thud, piercing the officialsâ ranks.
The officials had cloth armor, but not all wore it, and some wore only token vests, practically bare of protective plates. This wave of arrows was brutal; many soldiers screamed as the bolts struck unprotected flesh.
Cheng Xu gauged the distance between the sides. Seeing it was only about twenty meters, he shouted, âThree-Eyed Divine Firearms! Light the fuses!â
Ten plaything Three-Eyed Divine Firearms within the militia were immediately ignited.
Once the fuse caught, those nearby flinched and scrambled back. The soldiers holding the weapons gripped the wooden stocks with both hands, thrusting the muzzles forward desperately to avoid injuring their comrades.
The charging militia slowed. No one dared to run in front of the volatile Three-Eyed Divine FirearmsâŚ
Observing the absurd scene from above, Li Daoxuan chuckled inwardly. This is exactly why the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm is garbage. Too cumbersome. Short range. Unimpressive power. Prone to injuring allies. And crucially⌠easy for the enemy to dodge!
Lighting the fuse less than twenty meters from the enemy? They were sure to notice.
The officials in front saw sparks jumping behind them and took action.
Several captains roared, âDrop! Hit the dirt! Three-Eyed Divine Firearms!â
Soldiers flung themselves to the ground, rolling over and craning their necks to look back.
They didnât need to panic about fleeing now. While the enemy prepared these firearms, they wouldnât dare charge closer.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The Three-Eyed Divine Firearms discharged. Ten weapons fired one after another, spitting out a hail of musket balls that flew forward in a wild, chaotic cluster. The firearm possessed zero accuracy â worse than a smoothbore gun. Hitting anything relied purely on the randomness of fate.
But the officials had already ducked down, so of course, they could only hit nothing.
A few captains of the officials shouted again: âThe Three-Eyed Divine Firearms are all fired. Everyone up, keep running!â
In fact, even without their orders, the soldiers had already risen and were continuing to sprint wildly westward.
The militiamen were rather bewildered. They looked down at the Three-Eyed Divine Firearms in their hands and muttered dazedly: âSuch powerful firearms, after firing one round, didnât hit a single enemy?â
Li Daoxuan was greatly amused in his heart: Hahaha! Isnât it fun? The Three-Eyed Divine Firearm is such trash. Letting you all try it firsthand shows that. In authoritative history, it never played much of a role; even minor troops didnât fear it, let alone the border army and the Manchus.
This at least served a little training effect.
At least it let these men know the defects of the Three-Eyed Divine Firearm in actual combat.
By this point, the militiamen couldnât possibly reload the Three-Eyed Divine Firearms. The ten men holding them had to just carry them as hammers and kept pursuing forward.
The officials ahead continued fleeing, while the militia chased and shot with hand crossbows. The rearmost officials sometimes twisted around to shoot an arrow back.
In this manner, one side chased and the other fled, fighting actively all the way.
Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu, being foolish sorts, ran and ran until they surged to the front of the group. Both had thick armor, so arrows clanged uselessly against them harmlessly, plus the two iron giants looked very scary.
The officials in front turned their heads, saw these two iron men, and were badly frightened. They didnât dare engage in a fight at all, shouting while escaping: âDonât let those two monsters get close! They must be fierce generals from the border army.â
Zheng Daniu said: âHey? Donât run away! Come back and fight!â
Fools would fight him, and hearing his shout made them even more frightened, running faster.
Li Daoxuan occasionally pressed the âWestâ button on the box, keeping the view following this group of people to enjoy a lively show.
Running and runningâŚ
Ahead, they were approaching the boundary of Li Daoxuanâs view.
He started to hesitate internally: Should he make a move now?
If he didnât act soon, Li Yingâs group would run out of sight.
Just as he thought this, suddenly Li Yingâs forces exploded into multiple streams with a âboom,â scattering apart in a fan-shaped pattern.
It turned out the officials had finally realized that the rebel band in Guyuan was smaller, only five hundred men, and couldnât possibly split up to pursue them. Given this, scattering to escape was naturally better.
Li Daoxuan looked left and right but surprisingly couldnât find Li Ying anymore.
As it turned out, while that guy ran, he shed his armor and gear. His once eye-catching armor was stripped off entirely, and he blended into the crowd of soldiers, vanishing just like that.
The corner of Li Daoxuanâs mouth couldnât help curling up slightly: Escaping like this was useless against him. No matter how many streams he split his defeated troops into, one smack per stream would crush them all, not a single one escaping.
But forget it!
What need was there to personally deal with such trash who fled at the sight of an enemy?
Could they pose even a hint of threat to Gaojia Village? Not at all!
Li Daoxuan withdrew his hand and sat watching Li Yingâs group flee to the edge of the box, vanishing with a âswish.â
Cheng Xu also followed in pursuit beyond the boxâŚ
However, Cheng Xu had kept the low cloud in the sky in the corner of his eye all along. As he chased, he suddenly noticed that the Deityâs cloud lingered in the sky behind him, no longer following.
Instantly, four grandmothers flickered into view before Cheng Xuâs eyes, holding red floral balls and twisting in a yangko dance mid-air, their movements uniform and quite graceful.
Cheng Xu roared: âHalt! Everyone, stop chasing!â
The militiamen stopped instantly, ceasing the pursuit.
Gao Chuwu turned back: âSir⌠Captain Ghost⌠why arenât we chasing?â
Cheng Xu said: âDonât pursue a defeated enemyâitâs in the military manuals. Weâve chased far enough. Li Yingâs group will surely flee Chengcheng County and never dare return. We should also wrap it up.â
He immediately retreated rapidly. After blinking thirteen times, he backed into Li Daoxuanâs view, and the grandmothers vanished entirely with another âswish.â
Cheng Xu was rushing with pride: Heh, safe once more.