Chapter 221: The Parade

While everyone was discussing various matters, students from the National School pushed out a dozen or so wheeled chairs. The crowd was puzzled—were they going to put on a Three Kingdoms opera? But surely they could not need this many Zhuge Liangs? Then they saw the people in the chairs: some missing arms, others missing legs, some with faces wrapped in white bandages. They were all disabled. Yet every one of them wore the gray uniform of short-hair soldiers, with metal pieces called "medals" hung on their chests. On their sleeves were red cloth strips—the combat wound sleeve patch from the newly promulgated honor insignia system.

Chief of General Staff Ma Qianzhu then read the commendation orders and preferential treatment decisions for ten personnel disabled in the Bopu Campaign, including disability allowances, employment assistance, and housing preferences. Finally, the wheelchairs were pushed to a viewing stand beside the main platform. For the delegates, this was merely something interesting to watch. But for the Army and Navy soldiers lined up at the stadium's edge, this moment held extraordinary significance. Huang Xiong in particular knew well that if a soldier was disabled in battle, even if he could crawl home, he faced a dead end. The short-hairs not only supported their disabled soldiers but let them appear at such a grand occasion... These Australians' army truly treated soldiers as human beings.

With the commendations concluded, Ma Qianzhu announced that the Security Regiment drill would now begin. As his words, amplified to extremely high decibels through the microphone and speakers, faded away, a large drum was struck with a heavy mallet. The villagers stirred restlessly, turning their heads around in bewilderment.

Their confusion vanished in the monotonous "dong... dong... dong-dong-dong" drumbeat rhythm as the formation of First Company, Training Battalion began slowly advancing. The Vice-Magistrate naturally recognized this as the court-session drum from outside the county yamen's main hall—he had no idea how they had gotten it here. But he had never imagined this drum could produce such a murderous sound.

The first formation was the standard company trained by Wei Aiwen, possessing the best military bearing and posture in the entire battalion. For this power-demonstration parade, the Army and Navy had conducted a competitive training exercise. The hard-line faction led by Wei Aiwen and Zhang Bailin had firmly demanded that the goose step be the standard parade pace, but this was vetoed by the majority of veterans who had served in the PLA—they did not know what a goose step was. The Navy went their own way, practicing British-style drill to fully demonstrate the distinction between naval and land forces.

Originally, the Navy had also wanted to change the sailors' uniforms to highlight the difference between services—after all, currently the only distinction between Army and Navy uniforms was color. But this was ultimately vetoed by the frugal Executive Committee. They were about to enter the phase of rapidly expanding personnel; newly recruited soldiers all needed clothing. Better to save the cloth for them.

Drums rumbled, fifes sang. Banners red as blood, bayonets like a forest.

Accompanied by the "Grenadier March" played by fifers personally trained by Xiong Buyou, the standard company's eighty-one soldiers, one flag bearer, one officer, and one fifer strode forward. Each drumbeat coincided with the footfall of these eighty-four officers and men. The synchronized stomping, drum, and fife seemed almost hypnotic, focusing everyone's gaze completely on the soldiers passing before the reviewing stand. Every soldier was in high spirits. Soft epaulettes had been sewn onto their shoulders—a simple rank system was about to be implemented. Their equipment belts and buckles were polished bright. They looked impressively formidable.

The rifles shouldered by the soldiers featured 45-centimeter three-edged bayonets mounted on their long barrels. The sharp-honed blades and deliberately polished and oiled surfaces revealed their sole purpose—to open a hole about an inch long and half an inch wide in someone's chest, or perhaps punch through both front and back at once.

Eighty-four feet rose and fell in unison, kicking up clouds of dust. Though they wore only cloth shoes, the heavy, perfectly synchronized footsteps made everyone present feel intense pressure.

As they passed the reviewing stand, the commanding officer drew his saber. With one command—"Salute!"—the soldiers swiftly brought their rifles down from their shoulders, switched hands, and raised their bayonets pointing straight to the sky in a present-arms salute. The formation seemed to suddenly grow half a meter taller. Bayonets like a forest—their gleaming metal reflections in the sunlight made everyone's hearts run cold.

On the reviewing stand, the high officials of the Executive Committee stood ramrod straight, each adopting an expression of utmost solemnity. Wen Desi, imitating a certain famous leader, waved his hand gently. Ding Ding's team's cameras clicked and clattered. The whole scene really did look like something.

Formation after formation passed by. The five infantry company formations of the Training Battalion, marching at seventy-five steps per minute with twenty-five-meter intervals, left those witnessing an infantry review for the first time completely dumbstruck. For Lingao villagers who had never seen a military assembly of more than a hundred men, this Western-style review was simply overwhelming. No one noticed that on the reviewing stand, military leaders like Xi Yazhou, He Ming, and Ma Qianzhu were subtly shaking their heads—still not quite up to standard!

The last to appear was the Navy's Marine Squad—also an eighty-four-man formation. The tune changed to "The People's Navy Goes Forward." This formation marched entirely in British naval style, their equipment belts specially dyed white. Though they lacked white gloves, it was passable. The Navy's precise and impressive drill earned a round of applause from the watching transmigrators. This infuriated Wei Aiwen—it was unfair! The Marine Company had fewer men; training one company in drill meant seven or eight officers supervising. By comparison, the Army had to train five companies, which was far more demanding.

After the drill review concluded, Review Commander-in-Chief Xi Yazhou again loudly announced that the firepower demonstration would now begin. He signaled Xiong Buyou to broadcast a notice: anyone with weak nerves should cover their ears first!

A minute later, a stirring military bugle sounded, followed immediately by dense hoofbeats. Dust clouds rose from not far away. Everyone craned their necks to look and saw three artillery carriages racing in from outside. Each carriage was drawn by six horses, towing three wheeled cannons. Soldiers rode on the carriages.

The drivers were not sitting in the carriages but riding the lead horses. They pulled back on the reins, and all three carriages executed a beautiful turn in the center of the field, quickly changing direction to point their gun muzzles at targets facing the reviewing stand.

Before the carriages even stopped, gunners and riders leaped down: unhitching horses, pushing cannons, opening ammunition boxes. Eight men serviced each gun. Their movements were dazzlingly fast, yet every action was precise and uniform. In moments, the gunners had loaded and aimed, flags raised, awaiting orders. On the reviewing stand, Zhang Bailin waved a red flag, and three cannons simultaneously spewed fire and dense gunpowder smoke. Half a li away, the densely planted human-shaped targets were blasted to splinters, nine out of ten destroyed.

A moment later came another salvo. The remaining targets fell in droves under the bombardment like grain stalks cut by a scythe. In just moments, the cannons had fired three times, completely clearing the riverside field. Some faint-hearted delegates who had refused to cover their ears were so frightened they fell to the ground. After the firing ceased, the gunners hitched up the horses again and galloped away as swiftly as they had come, leaving the audience dazzled—only the shattered wooden fragments in the distance and wheel tracks on the ground remained.

Then another bugle call sounded from the reviewing stand. Twelve more double-wheeled cannons were pushed into sandbagged positions. Again they loaded, aimed, and waited. The red flag on the tower came down. This time the prepared villagers were not startled by the sound, but the fireballs and smoke that suddenly erupted two li away, along with wooden boards blown skyward, astonished all the villagers and yamen personnel once more.

Zhang Bailin nodded with satisfaction. The first salvo of 6-pounder canister shot was the real thing, and the effect was obvious. But for the 12-pound mountain howitzer high-explosive salvo, to enhance the visual and audio effects, electrically-detonated powder charges had been pre-buried in the target area. Whether the shells actually hit or not, the extraordinary power of several dozen jin of gunpowder exploding would thoroughly convince Lingao's gentry not to place too much hope in the Qiongzhou Regional Commander.

Indeed, from Wu Ya to Huang Bingkun, everyone's face turned ashen. Even Wang Zhaomin, who had come to observe and report back to the Magistrate, felt utterly powerless. Previously, he had still entertained thoughts of playing along for now, helping his employer weather this storm before extricating himself. He had felt certain the short-hairs were ultimately doomed—whenever the court could focus on dealing with them, they would naturally be finished. At best, they might board their iron ships and sail back where they came from.

But now it seemed these baldies had confined themselves to one corner of Lingao only because their wings were not yet fully grown. In just a few months, they had trained a ragged band of impoverished youths into a fierce army. They had equipped so many men with those devastatingly powerful, long-range short-hair muskets, and built cannons superior to the Red-Hairs'. The baldies' private army was only a few hundred strong yet already possessed such momentum. Once they reached a thousand, would they not rampage freely across Qiongzhou Prefecture? Even all of Guangdong Province—what could stop them? Their ambitions clearly went far beyond the Frankish people's mere desire for a trading settlement.

Thinking of this, Secretary Wang sighed inwardly: the southeast corner of the empire would know no peace henceforth. This was another Jurchen menace.

On the reviewing stand, the Executive Committee's senior officials all wore expressions of excitement. Wen Desi nodded repeatedly and turned to Xi Yazhou: "The artillery is excellently trained!"

"That's all Zhang Bailin and Ying Yu's work. Lin Shenhe contributed greatly too—our understanding of 19th-century artillery basically comes from Young Master Lin's firsthand knowledge."

"The artillery looks very combat-capable. Truly the god of war."

"We're just desperately short of horses," Ying Yu said, knowing that problems must be raised while leaders were in good spirits. "Otherwise we could have deployed more horse artillery for this demonstration."

"Horses are indeed a difficult problem," Ma Qianzhu chimed in. "Not just for artillery—we had originally planned to form a cavalry unit. Future long-range reconnaissance and interdiction operations all require cavalry."

"Let's brainstorm solutions at the next weekly meeting. We cannot solve this through Guangdong."

(End of Chapter)