After the nine underground caves were excavated, because we weren’t in a hurry to travel back to modern times, Emperor Zhu Youxiao took us back to the Royal Palace.
Old Lin and Old Zhang believed that the nine underground caves beneath Pedestrian Street in Jiudong City were actually excavated by the four of us after traveling back to Du Guangfu in the Ming Dynasty. They even said that this was consistent with the content recorded in the “Chronicles of Jiudong Prefecture.”
Wen Rourou and I, however, felt that this didn’t make sense. We clearly traveled to Du Guangfu in the Ming Dynasty from already-excavated underground caves. The caves that helped us travel to Du Guangfu in the Ming Dynasty should have been excavated first, followed by the underground caves we excavated in Du Guangfu in the Ming Dynasty. Only this way would it be logical.
Going back and forth, this question eventually evolved into a “chicken or the egg” type of circular causality problem. It was truly a case of “the chicken saying the chicken is right, and the egg saying the egg is right.”
During this period after traveling to the Ming Dynasty, I insisted on streaming live for sixteen hours every day, usually from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. By the end of December in the first year of the Tianqi era, my number of followers had already exceeded one million.
In the blink of an eye, it was the second year of the Tianqi era (1622), and Nurhaci sent troops to attack Guangning.
After Nurhaci occupied Guangning, he successively captured more than forty castles, including Yizhou, Jinzhou, and Right Tunwei.
After the Battle of Guangning, the Ming Dynasty lost the entire Liaodong.
Liaodong was like the capital’s left arm. With the left arm severed, the Ming Dynasty was no longer a complete entity.
Zhu Youxiao, filled with grief and indignation, summoned the four of us to the Imperial Garden and asked for advice on the affairs of the state and the people’s livelihood.
The current Imperial Court was not controlled by the emperor alone, after all, Zhu Youxiao was still a minor.
The four of us didn’t want to get involved in politics or make enemies, so we didn’t make reckless comments about what had already happened.
Regarding what was about to happen, Old Zhang kindly reminded him, “Your Majesty, according to historical records, tomorrow Nurhaci will order the people west of the Liao River to be driven east of the Liao River for slaughter. The scene will be horrific.”
“Yes, the number of people who died west of the Liao River was over ten thousand. Whether old people, women, or children, all were beheaded. The east bank of the Liao River was full of headless corpses, blood flowed like a river, cries shook the sky, and corpses lay everywhere,” Old Lin also said with emotion.
Zhu Youxiao shed tears upon hearing this.
“Your Majesty, now that I have traveled to the Ming Dynasty, I must do my part for the Ming. Please allow me to go and kill the enemy and save the people of the Ming from this massacre!” I was filled with enthusiasm and volunteered.
“Ma Tiandong, the Later Jin soldiers number in the tens of thousands, don’t act rashly with only your own courage,” Old Lin advised kindly.
Old Zhang and Wen Rourou also tried to persuade me.
Seeing the look of difficulty on Zhu Youxiao’s face, I said, “Please grant me a sniper rifle and a thousand-mile horse, and even if there are thousands upon thousands of enemies, I will save the people of the Ming Dynasty from slaughter!” I said confidently.
“What kind of firearm is a sniper rifle?” Zhu Youxiao asked, puzzled.
“It’s just modifying the arquebus that you use,” I explained.
The arquebus was named because it could shoot down flying birds. The arquebus had a longer barrel, sights and rearsight, a firing mechanism, a smaller caliber, fired lead bullets, and had a longer range.
When firing an arquebus, one hand supported the front of the barrel and the other hand held the back of the stock, allowing for stable aiming and higher shooting accuracy. Its basic structure and shape were already close to the rifles we use in modern times, and it was the prototype of modern rifles.
During my service in the Marine Corps, I not only developed excellent combat skills, but also learned more comprehensively and systematically about the origins of weapons and the knowledge of firearm modification.
That night, I modified two arquebuses, prepared enough ammunition, rode a thousand-mile horse, and then rode away.
Initially, Old Lin, Old Zhang, and Wen Rourou also wanted to go with me.
I deliberately pretended to be disgusted and said, “Don’t make trouble, this isn’t rock climbing and exploration, it’s going to the battlefield. I’m a specially trained special forces soldier. You guys stay with the Emperor in the palace and wait for my good news.”
Before I left, Zhu Youxiao summoned civil and military officials and issued an edict appointing me as “General Conquering the Invaders.”
On the way, I kept thinking, at that time the Ming army was already equipped with a large number of firearms, while the Later Jin’s Eight Banner cavalry only had broadswords and spears. How could cold weapons defeat firearms and artillery?
The capital was three hundred kilometers away from Guangning. The thousand-mile horse I was riding could reach a maximum speed of seventy kilometers per hour, but because I was also carrying more than one hundred pounds of firearms and ammunition, the horse’s fastest speed dropped to fifty kilometers per hour.
The three-hundred-kilometer journey required six consecutive hours of running, so I could arrive in Guangning before dawn.
As dawn approached, the question that had been lingering in my mind was finally cleared up: the Ming army’s repeated defeats against the Later Jin troops were related to the Ming Dynasty’s internal backward production system.
In the late Ming Dynasty, constant factional struggles and political corruption exacerbated the corruption of the system. Although the Ming army possessed a large number of firearms, the quality of these firearms was very poor. Many arquebuses could not fire ammunition, and their accuracy was also ridiculously off.
I discovered this problem when I was modifying these two arquebuses. Fortunately, these two arquebuses met me. After modification, their effective range reached more than three hundred meters.
When I arrived in Guangning, I continued to ride towards the Liao River.
Just as it was getting light, I saw from afar the Later Jin soldiers driving groups of civilians towards the Liao River.
While still on horseback, I started my live stream a few minutes early and delivered a passionate speech.
“Bang—” With a gunshot, I fired the first shot to stop the Later Jin soldiers from slaughtering the Ming civilians.
A Later Jin soldier more than three hundred meters away fell in response.
The arquebus after my modification was relatively simple to operate. Although it could only fire one lead bullet each time, I reloaded very quickly, which had little impact on my killing of the enemy.
After I continuously shot and killed dozens of Later Jin soldiers, they reacted.
Then, dozens of Later Jin cavalrymen brandished their broadswords and spears and rushed towards me.
When dealing with cavalry, I wouldn’t directly shoot the cavalrymen riding on the horses, but directly shoot the horses.
If you want to kill a horse with a gun, which part should you aim at?
First, aim at the horse’s heart, which is the horse’s chest. Hitting this area can kill the horse instantly.
Secondly, aim at the horse’s head. If the bullet enters the horse’s head and damages the brain’s nervous system, the horse will definitely die. However, the cross-sectional area of the horse’s head is very narrow, and it is difficult to hit it with one shot when the horse is running fast. In addition, if the angle is wrong, it is easy to hit the hard skull, making it difficult to kill the horse with one shot.
Therefore, if you want to kill a fast-running horse with one shot, you must aim at the horse’s chest, as the area of the chest is much larger than the horse’s head.
I usually shoot at the horse’s chest directly above the front leg, just hitting the heart.
For horses running from the side, I would also shoot from the side, aiming at the upper rear of the horse’s front leg, allowing the bullet to pass through the ribs and hit its heart. After the horse suddenly fell to the ground, the Later Jin soldiers on the horse would either be dead or injured, and they would immediately lose their offensive power. And the fallen horse would easily trip the horses running behind.
In this way, I only needed to shoot the first few horses, and the dozens of cavalrymen behind would immediately be in chaos, with the dead dying and the wounded wounded.
Commanders must understand the art of war, and even individual combat must be strategic. Although I was a special forces soldier, I couldn’t just fight head-on when facing enemies several times my number. Think about it, with tens of thousands of Later Jin soldiers, how could I shoot them all with one gun?
To shoot a man, first shoot his horse; to capture a bandit, first capture his leader.
While shooting the Later Jin soldiers, I looked for their highest commander.
I scanned the crowded Later Jin army and found a person wearing a high-topped bowl-shaped helmet who was always riding on a horse and commanding the surrounding Later Jin soldiers. I determined that this person was by no means an ordinary person, so I decisively rode my horse straight towards that person.