Black Corporation: Joseon

Chapter 266

And not long after, the Jurchen cavalry appeared in the distance.

“Prepare for battle!”

“Prepare for battle!”

Following the orders of the commanders, the soldiers prepared for battle, calming their trembling breaths.

***

“Ah, damn it…”

Sundol, dressed in full armor as a spearman, cursed while rotating his right arm.

“What are you doing?”

At the question of the senior soldier standing next to him, Sundol answered with an embarrassed face.

“That’s why I told you to get it done properly at a good place, even if it costs a bit more. You tried to save a few coins and now you’re in trouble.”

“Tsk…”

Sundol could only smack his lips with a perplexed face at the senior soldier’s reprimand.

At that time, Joseon soldiers would get their personal information such as name, date of birth, and hometown tattooed on their bodies before going to war. It was a kind of identification tag.

This tradition, known as “Bubyeong Jaja (赴兵刺字),” was prohibited when Hyang created identification tags, but many soldiers still followed the tradition and got tattoos on their bodies.

“Who’s chatting in this situation!”

At the shout of a nearby officer, Sundol and the senior soldier quickly shut their mouths and looked forward.

The sound of horse cries began to be heard in the distance.

“Kneel down! Spears!”

At the commander’s order, the spearmen knelt on one knee and rested their spears on their right shoulders.

***

While the soldiers at the front were bracing themselves, the command post, located on a slightly elevated hill at the very rear of the Joseon military’s formation, was observing the situation with monoculars.

“The enemy has entered a distance of 170 jang (about 510 m)! Shall we fire the cannons?”

“Fire.”

At Lee Soon-mong’s command, the staff issued the order, and the signal bearer frantically waved the signal flag.

The artillery captains, who had been looking only at the command post from the very rear of the formation, shouted in unison.

“Fire! Fire!”

“Fire!”

At the commanders’ orders, the artillerymen pulled the fuses in unison.

Boom!

With a thunderous roar, the waiting cannons spewed fire simultaneously. As the recoil from the firing caused the gun carriages to stagger backward, the waiting artillerymen pushed the gun carriages forward again and started reloading.

“Use one less round of fuse on the ignition tube!”

“Yes, sir!”

At the artillery captain’s order, the artillerymen wrapped fuses around the ignition tubes.

‘Already telling us to reduce by one round?’

Some had such doubts, but an order was an order, and the artillerymen silently followed the command.

Boom!

“Argh!”

Neigh!

The cannons that flew like this inflicted injuries on the front line of the approaching Jurchen. Although the wounds were very shallow, Agutai and the warriors took the situation seriously.

‘Is that the rumored Joseon military’s fire bullet?’

Boom!

Another simultaneous explosion occurred, and this time, it left slightly deeper wounds.

Seeing the situation, Agutai sent hand signals and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Charge at full speed!”

Neigh!

Thud thud thud!

“Aaaah!”

As soon as Agutai’s order was given, all the warriors simultaneously kicked their horses’ sides. With a loud cry, the horses began to gallop forward roughly.

As thousands of horses charged at full speed simultaneously, the ground began to shake.

Before he knew it, Agutai, who had ridden right behind the lead, diligently calculated the possibilities.

‘Those damn cannons can’t easily adjust the range! Although we had to charge at full speed from a farther distance than expected, this much distance is fine!’

***

As the Jurchen charged at full speed, Lee Soon-mong gave a satisfied smile.

“They’ve fallen for it.”

Charging at full speed required tremendous stamina. No matter how renowned they were as the strongest under the heavens, if they wore armor and held spears and swords and charged at full speed, they couldn’t even go 30 jang (about 90 m) before panting and unable to run properly.

The same was true for horses. Carrying a load of nearly 140 geun (about 80 kg) to 150 geun (90 kg) on their backs and charging at full speed was a serious overexertion. For cavalry to deliver a proper impact, it was common to start charging at full speed between 100 jang (about 300 m) and 150 jang (450 m). If it was shorter than that, they couldn’t reach their proper speed, and if it was farther, the horses would get tired and slow down.

Therefore, Lee Soon-mong had used the cannons to force the Jurchen to expend their stamina.

Of course, the distance of 10 to 20 jang (30-60 m) might seem short, but on the battlefield, that short distance could determine victory or defeat, life or death.

“Tell the cavalry to prepare! Fire when they enter 100 jang (about 300 m)!”

“Yes, sir!”

The staff officer who received the order urgently rode his horse forward.

***

Boom!!!!

“Aaaargh!”

“Damn it!!!”

Hearing the screams of the warriors, Agutai gritted his teeth and spurred his horse.

Those damn Joseon military’s fire bullets were exploding in the air.

Whenever the fire bullets exploded in the air, warriors and horses rolled on the ground together with terrible screams. In such a situation, instant death was a blessing. It was certain that even if one survived that situation, it wouldn’t be truly living.

“Ride!”

“Ride with all your might, even if it kills you!”

Seeing the deaths of their comrades who had been like brothers, the warriors with bloodshot eyes gritted their teeth and kicked their horses’ sides.

The sight of the Joseon military’s cavalry lined up in a row entered the eyes of the Jurchen warriors riding with rough breaths as if they were about to die at any moment.

Seeing the Joseon military’s cavalry quietly stopping and waiting, Agutai and the warriors grinned bitterly.

“Stupid fools! How can cavalry just stand there! Do they only believe in those measly cannons? Anyway! The match is decided! We win!”

Agutai pulled out the bow he had hung on the saddle, held it up, and leaned on the saddle as he nocked an arrow.

Shooting a bow from a running horse was a basic skill of Jurchen warriors. The Joseon bastards also performed similar tricks, but they couldn’t keep up with them.

Thinking similarly, the Jurchen warriors in the second and third rows simultaneously drew their bows. If the second and third rows provide cover with arrows, the lead warriors will charge at the enemy. It was a tactic that had been honed for generations since their ancestors, and it always worked well.

“Just a little more, and the arrows will reach! We’ll pay them back several times over!”

Just as he was pulling the bowstring with force and looking at the Joseon military, the Joseon cavalry formation was suddenly enveloped in smoke. And a thunderous roar followed.

Ratatata!

Swish! Swish!

“Kaaaargh!”

With sounds several times sharper than the sound of arrows flying, the warriors riding at the lead fell to the ground one after another.

“Don’t stop! Ride!”

“Uaaaaah!”

However, the Jurchen warriors rode their horses, shouting battle cries that sounded like screams.

– Cavalry dies if they stop.

It was knowledge ingrained in their bodies through a long history of conflict.

Having crossed another line of death like that, the Joseon military’s formation clearly entered the eyes of Agutai and the Jurchen warriors.

The Joseon cavalry that had been blocking the very front were splitting and moving to the left and right, and the infantry holding spears had formed a formation in the center that had become empty, waiting for them.

‘A head-on collision won’t do! The moment we’re blocked by that wall and stop, we’ll be attacked from all sides! We have to bite and cling to the cavalry!’

Agutai, who had taken the lead before he knew it, waved his arms to send hand signals. At Agutai’s hand signals, the Jurchen warriors split into two groups and began to chase the Joseon cavalry moving to the sides.

Seeing that sight, Lee Soon-mong shouted, gripping the command baton.

“They’ve fallen for it!”

***

The moment the Jurchen warriors split to the left and right, exposing their flanks, the commanders of the musketeer units, who had been waiting in a horizontal formation about 5 jang (15 m) away from the spearmen’s formation, shouted in unison.

“Fire!”

“Fire!”

At the commanders’ orders, the musketeers in the first row pulled their triggers simultaneously.

Ratatata!

With a thunderous gunshot, the muskets spewed fire, and the soldiers in the first row passed the empty guns back and received new guns from behind, preparing to fire.

“Fire!”

Ratatata!

Having fired again, the soldiers in the first row passed the empty guns once more and received loaded guns.

The tactic that Hyang had devised and the frontline commanders had refined was finally making its debut.

“The limitation of muzzle-loading rifles is that it takes too long to reload…”

Knowing the problem of muzzle-loading rifles, Hyang found the answer in his 21st-century memory.

It was a tactic born in the European armies of the linear infantry era.

To overcome the limitations of muzzle-loading rifles, the first thing European commanders thought of was to rotate the soldiers like a waterwheel.

When the first row of soldiers lined up in three or four rows horizontally fired, they would immediately retreat backward, and the next row would come forward and fire.

However, this method required high-level training, and the short engagement distance of the smoothbore musket era meant that if the enemy took advantage of that momentary gap and charged, there was no answer.

As time passed and the rifled musket era arrived, another change in tactics occurred, which was the same as what the Joseon military was doing now.

The people stayed in place, and the guns rotated like a conveyor belt. The soldiers in the second to third or fourth rows would load gunpowder, load bullets, and pour priming powder like machines, and the soldiers in the first row would continuously fire the guns passed to them.

However, the problem with this method was that it only shone when there was a facility that could protect the soldiers in the first row.

A typical example was the “Fredericksburg Killing Machine Battle” during the American Civil War.

When the Union Army, which had looted Fredericksburg, attacked the Confederate Army positioned behind the city, the Confederate Army relied on a stone wall for defense. Unfortunately, due to the fog that occurred at the time of the battle, the Union artillery could not provide support fire, and only the Union infantry had to charge.

And in the battle that unfolded like this, the Confederate Army, relying on the defensive structure of the stone wall, maximized efficiency through gun rotation, and the Union Army had to retreat after suffering enormous casualties.

The Confederate Army suffered about 5,000 casualties. It was a defeat that caused a staggering 12,000 casualties for the Union Army.

***

However, the Joseon military had human barricades in the form of spearmen and swordsmen armed with full-body armor.

As long as the Jurchen were not armed with firearms, these spearmen and swordsmen were certain to become a sturdy barricade.

Moreover, the spearmen provided another advantage to the musketeers. It prevented the musketeers’ shots from concentrating on a single target.

As long as the spearmen were in front, aiming was simple for the musketeers.

‘Just aim and shoot between the spear on your left and the spear on your right in front of your eyes.’

Thanks to hearing it until it was ingrained in their ears, the musketeers almost mechanically aimed only between the spears.

***

Although casualties continued to occur due to the musketeers’ firing, Agutai and the Jurchen warriors were persistent.

“If we just catch the cavalry! If we just catch the cavalry, victory is ours! Even if the infantry is armed with cannons, they’re slow as snails! If we catch the cavalry, we can turn the tide at any time!”

The Jurchen warriors were tenaciously chasing the Joseon cavalry, gritting their teeth with persistence.

As the Jurchen warriors chased the Joseon cavalry while bleeding, the Joseon cavalry turned around in front of them.

“Finally!”

As the Joseon cavalry turned around and charged with spears in hand, Agutai and the warriors drew their curved swords and rushed head-on.

***

The head-on collision between Agutai’s warriors and the Joseon cavalry ended in a complete victory for the Joseon cavalry.

As the horses carrying the Jurchen grew tired and their feet slowed down, the reactions of the Jurchen warriors became delayed.

And once again, the Joseon cavalry’s sturdy full-body armor and six-barreled horse guns shone.

And the Jurchen tribe led by Agutai ceased to exist.

After completing the operation, Lee Soon-mong called the commander.

“Good work. Take a rest here today and resume the pursuit tomorrow. Keep in mind that there are still many Jurchen tribes to deal with.”

“Yes, General.”

The nightmare of the Huligai tribe was not over.