Chapter 2494: Burning the Building (Part 7)

As she spoke, Yue Wan finished re-tying Liang Cunhou's hair bun, secured it with a hairpin, and replaced his turban. He touched the bun gently, stood, and said: "Wan'er, sit. Today I'll serve wine for you." He pressed her onto the stone stool, set an upturned cup upright, and stood at her side. He carefully poured a cup, but poured too quickly, splashing some over the rim. Yue Wan covered her mouth with a handkerchief, giggling. "You clumsy servant boy! If you served like this, you'd be beaten ten out of ten times."

Liang Cunhou smiled. "Yes, yes—clumsy hands deserve a beating." He picked up the folding fan from the table and gently rapped his own head three times.

After teasing a while, Liang Cunhou seemed happier. He sat back at the table, drinking and chatting with Yue Wan. Time slipped by, the sky gradually darkening, the rain slowly ceasing. When it ended and the clouds dispersed, the moon hung on the branch tips. The evening breeze blew gently, birds chirped, and one felt thoroughly refreshed. After drinking a while longer, Yue Wan said: "The Young Master sees everything too clearly. But in this world, what's most abundant is 'muddled confusion.' Everyone is drunk, yet you alone are awake, acting independently. If others can't fathom your intentions, they'll call you meddlesome and ignorant of the times. Then you birth so many grievances, becoming more self-pitying and thus even lonelier. Better that when others are drunk, you're drunk too. Whether it's the Chongzhen Emperor or Minister Wen—what difference does it make who's Emperor? Whoever comes, don't the common people still pay grain tax and perform labor? With all your brooding, the court can't see it, the commoners don't understand it—who'll speak a good word for you? You're only making yourself suffer."

Liang Cunhou gave a self-deprecating smile. "I'm just stubborn and foolish; I can't pretend. The Bald people have long been wary of me. Their factory guards pervade every opening. Recently they've planted spies near the residence, sending scouts in all directions. Those subordinates and lackeys outside—sooner or later they'll fall under the Bald Thieves' surveillance. They've also instructed the police, commercial tax, and health bureaus to find excuses to harass and provoke my family's businesses daily. They seek out anyone connected to the Liang family, making oblique inquiries, sowing discord, threatening and bribing—causing relatives and followers to betray and leave. Don't be fooled by the mansion's strict defenses, isolated inside from outside. People harboring doubts already exist within! Your coming here—they'll probably know about it by evening. Once you go back, Bald Thief guards will inevitably come to 'chat' with you. And I sit besieged in a city of sorrow with no plan. To say nothing of the rest—just my painstaking arrangements of recruiting scholars, collecting Baldy intelligence, connecting with village worthies, educating the ignorant—all of it will flow eastward into nothingness. Looking at it this way, once they obtain solid evidence, the Bald people will probably arrest and imprison me within days. I fear I won't live to see the day the Imperial Army recovers the two Yue provinces."

Liang Cunhou raised his wine cup again, took a sip, and gazed into the deep night sky. "The replacement of imperial power and the change of dynasties were always ordinary matters. Cathay has lasted thousands of years; those who called themselves emperors and kings are countless. The glory and decline of one surname isn't worth discussing. Only Confucianism has been passed down in one continuous line. Though Buddhism, Daoism, Legalism, Military Strategy, and Agriculture each have their strengths, ultimately it's external Confucianism and internal Legalism, aided by Daoism—complementing and assisting each other. But the Australians are different. Though Australia has great scholars, the School of Principle isn't prominent there. The Bald people slight and neglect it. The Senate governs without following rites and teachings, without practicing benevolence and virtue. The Senators know nothing of self-cultivation and family regulation. They're greedy and lustful, love ease, value trivial learning and utility. Their conduct is stubbornly headstrong, putting the cart before the horse, reversing heaven and earth. This is the path of the overturned cart before us. If we don't support the dangerous situation and seek survival, within a few years, we'll be changing Xia for Yi, the world stolen by these overseas barbarians. If so, though Confucian learning may not die, it will be as good as dead. Now Guangzhou Prefecture has fallen, and ten thousand horses stand mute. Thousands of scholars across the realm look on in fear. This is precisely the time for us to sacrifice our bodies to relieve the disaster. No need to wait for others—we should rise ourselves, choosing righteousness and complete integrity as models, calling on anti-Song scholars throughout the realm to respond in one voice, gathering the power of the Nine Provinces to topple the Baldies and punish..."

Rising tall, Liang Cunhou filled his cup with wine, raised it to toast the bright moon from afar, and chanted aloud:

"Singing the Liangfu Yin in sorrow, Sounds like gold and jade striking the Shang note. For ten years, Goujian plotted to destroy Wu, For seven days, Baoxu cried with a Heart of Chu. Autumn sends new wild geese mourning the broken country, Daytime walking hungry tigers gnaw in the empty forest. The oath in the chest is deeper than the sea— How can we let the Divine Land sink in the end?"

Having finished Zheng Sixiao's Second Encouragement poem, Liang Cunhou drained the cup in one gulp and declared loudly: "Liang's power extends only this far. I entrust the mountains and rivers to you gentlemen, to save the nation from peril, for future scholars to carry on." He hurled the cup into the pond before him. Just then, a long wind rose suddenly, rolling up his turban and robe sash, wrinkling a pool of cold water.

The night grew deeper and darker.

Inside the empty training ground, ten long tables had been pieced together in pairs to form a long table bridge, covered with various equipment. Frowning, Wu Mu watched the action team members checking and debugging their gear. Various simulated scenarios had been set up across the field, and groups of team members cycled through for training.

Several heavy steel protective suits and helmets lay piled messily on the table. This was heavy assault equipment customized by the Police Bureau for the Storm Troop and Mobile Unit. Recognizing that the Political Security Bureau also had numerous operations in city alleys and indoors, Wu Mu had coordinated with Mu Min to secure a portion of the customized armor.

This armor emphasized frontal protection. The core consisted of a breastplate and helmet. The breastplate was arc-shaped homogeneous steel capable of covering ribs and flanks, roughly 2mm thick and weighing about 4.5kg. It was spliced with lower abdominal armor as a unit, fixed to an inner cotton pad with steel nails, tightened by cowhide straps. A small piece of thin steel plate on the back protected vital areas, connected with leather straps to improve rear protection. The helmet resembled later-generation motorcycle helmets, featuring a detachable steel faceplate with a leather lining and simple bamboo-and-rattan shock-absorbing structure inside.

Wu Mu had tried wearing it experimentally. Within half an hour, his cervical vertebrae ached. Even the strongest soldier probably couldn't wear it continuously for long. But the enormous weight provided remarkable protection. Lead bullets, crossbow bolts, swords, and spears could hardly penetrate it. Against enemies who generally lacked armor and firearms, almost all weapons of this era were helpless during a frontal assault. In limited alley battles and indoor assault trials, the armor had performed excellently. Beside the suits sat several canisters painted with red stripes—smoke tear gas grenades filled with chili oil resin that could blind eyes and cause retching, coughing, difficulty breathing, and burning sensations on the respiratory tract and exposed skin. However, lacking protective equipment for users, they were rarely deployed.

Wu Mu picked up a Type 1636 revolver from the table and examined it. This pistol, equipped with nitrated paper integrated cartridges, had exposed many problems after several years of use. Though loading was relatively convenient, residue accumulated quickly, requiring bore cleaning after just a few shots. The most critical flaw was that firing occasionally ignited sensitive nitrated paper in adjacent cylinder chambers, causing accidental discharges and accidents. Additionally, the 9mm Pai bullet's specifications could hardly guarantee sufficient lethality under black powder propulsion. Therefore, the new Type 1636 revolver changed ammunition specifications to .44 Russian (11x25mmR) bullets. Though copper cartridge cases weren't adopted, the original gas-sealing device had been improved, enhancing performance and reducing abnormal firing while greatly improving lethality and reliability. Yet this weapon remained barely satisfactory—particularly the reloading speed and continued self-ignition problems during sustained firing.

But this was already the best weapon in his hands. Besides weapons, a batch of strictly controlled special equipment—flashlights—would arrive from Lingao soon. These would be the action team's greatest asset for night combat. Though they'd applied multiple times for night vision equipment, competing for resources with the Senate's favored Special Reconnaissance Team was obviously futile. He clearly remembered Zhao Manxiong's helpless words: Our resources are limited; the Political Security General Bureau must endure. Wu Mu desperately wanted his own special reconnaissance team for extreme situations, but under such resource constraints, this was a fool's dream. His only recourse was this action team that could barely be called adequate.

Wu Mu shifted his gaze to the training ground. A team was rehearsing assault tactics. They lined up in a five-person column. Except for the fourth member, everyone used revolvers. The vanguard wore heavy armor, holding a square steel shield in his left hand and a pistol in his right. The second served as shooter to coordinate with the vanguard for assault clearance. The third was team leader, acting as second shooter for supplementary fire. The fourth wielded two double-barreled shotguns for area killing support. The fifth carried breaching tools as rear guard.

They rehearsed formation changes and lateral deployment shooting while moving. Amid the ping-ping-pang-pang of gunshots, thick white smoke from black powder quickly filled the training ground, obscuring Wu Mu's vision. Lacking automatic weapons and facing the problem of ensuring firepower continuity and density at close range in short time frames, the Senate's various departments had adopted a solution as simple as Civil War soldiers: bring guns, bring more guns. Shotgunners carried two shotguns and two revolvers. Vanguards each carried two to three revolvers; others carried four. This ensured a five-person squad could fire over one hundred bullets continuously in one to two minutes under full fire conditions. However, as shots increased, so did the smoke, causing shooting accuracy to plummet catastrophically. But this ammunition output was already unrivaled in this era.

Wu Mu sighed gently; he felt helpless. Even with an instructor who was the eldest disciple of a former ATF agent—whose every move looked professional—the inferior, completely wrong equipment robbed the action team's drills of any fluidity or grace. If criminals kidnapped a watermelon hostage, when the operation concluded, they'd harvest only a handful of watermelon seeds. Wu Mu comforted himself with self-mockery: Though we're rookie chickens, fortunately, our opponents are vegetable worms.

(End of Chapter)