Chapter 2707: The Capital (Part 63)

The dart slipped through her fingers, its tip staying level. Sharp and stable, it traced a low, flat arc through the air.

Seizing the initiative, the dart flew like a bolt of lightning.

At the moment of release, if the arm extended fully in the throwing direction, force would travel from the shoulder through the joints. Over time, this would damage the elbow and wrist—so one had to discharge the force properly when throwing.

The motion appeared simple, but in truth it required thousands of chaotic repetitions before one could control the release and retraction with any freedom.

Liao Sanniang's right wrist rotated and hooked, shedding the throwing force. Following the momentum, her hand swept across the chest strap. A second steel dart slipped into her fingers, completing a closed loop of motion.

Almost simultaneously, a man burst from the bushes ahead. The instant he leaped out, his vision blurred as a dart-shadow streaked toward his face.

At four meters, the dart carried enough force to pierce a wooden board.

The first dart punched into the hollow above his collarbone.

The second followed close behind, striking the hard frontal bone. The tip gouged a small pit in the smooth plate of skull, then deflected and spun away.

The seven-liang heavy dart wrenched the man's head sideways, exposing his profile.

The third dart released—shot with extreme precision and proper force. It struck the pterion, the temple region where the bone wall was barely a millimeter thick. The steel dart pierced through, driving deep into the brain, rupturing the middle meningeal artery. Blood flooded the cranial cavity, rapidly forming a hematoma.

The man's eyes turned blood-red in an instant. He seemed to want to charge forward, but the rising intracranial pressure compressed his nerves, disrupting his functions. His body lurched sideways, lost balance, and pitched forward.

The momentum of his run sent him sprawling face-first. His face scraped a shallow half-meter groove through the dirt, grinding away half his features.

As he fell, he revealed the stunned companion behind him.

Liao Sanniang gave the second man no time to react. Her dart-holding hand paused briefly to control the rhythm. The moment the first man collapsed and the second's upper body became visible, three darts flew in rapid succession.

Two for the chest, one for the throat.

Pu pu pu—three sounds. One dart buried itself in the abdomen, the second in the chest cavity, the third in the throat.

One target, three darts; none missed.

Six darts fired in succession. Her body remained motionless, her hand position and orientation unchanged. Striking from stillness was advantageous for generating force, judging distance, and aiming.

The dart wounds were not immediately fatal. The man could still move; the surge of adrenaline suppressed his pain. He continued charging forward with his saber raised.

Liao Sanniang drew her paired sabers and advanced two steps. The combatants closed head-on.

Her willow-leaf double sabers had narrow blades and sharp points, well-suited for piercing.

The man slashed horizontally with his waist saber. As he moved, the steel dart lodged in his cricoid cartilage vibrated. The tip aggravated the wound and irritated his airway. Unable to suppress the physiological reaction, his breath hitched, and his hand trembled.

Liao Sanniang thrust diagonally with both blades. When they met the waist saber, she felt its weakness—knew his movements were distorted by injury.

She stepped forward at a forty-five-degree angle, separating her sabers. The left blade dragged backward to deflect the enemy's weapon; the right thrust forward with full force, driving fiercely into his throat.

The tip pierced his Adam's apple, tearing a gaping wound. Under the impact of their collision, the man toppled backward, blood flooding his ruptured throat.

Unable to breathe, he dropped his saber and clutched his neck. He coughed once, spraying blood from both mouth and wound, then fell backward, writhing in agony.

Liao Sanniang stepped forward and stabbed left and right with her dual blades, finishing off the two men on the ground who had been struck by her darts.

A rustle sounded behind her—faint, the whisper of feet stepping on fallen leaves.

Liao Sanniang spun around. In her peripheral vision, a blur hurtled toward her. She couldn't make out what it was.

Human vision has a peculiar characteristic: under dynamic conditions, there is no absolute clarity in the instantaneous state. The impression of moving objects is inherently blurred.

Liao Sanniang blocked outward with her double sabers. The spines of her blades struck the incoming object with a clang, knocking it aside. It was an iron javelin—heavy at the front, light at the back, fusiform at both ends, seventy centimeters long.

A medium-sized round rattan shield painted with a snarling tiger suddenly leaped out from behind a tree, appearing abruptly before her.

Shields came in two types: long and round; and three sizes: large, medium, and small. Battle formations typically employed large shields that could cover the whole body; personal combat favored medium shields.

In the early Ming, rattan was unavailable in the North, so shields were made from willow wood covered with leather—quite cumbersome.

The South mostly used rattan shields. Rattan shields were light and agile, usable in mud and rain. Except for their inability to withstand musket balls, they could defend against arrows, sabers, and spears. Eventually, both North and South adopted rattan shields.

A rattan shield without a javelin cannot kill the enemy. A shield bearer had to carry javelins, just as one practicing double sabers had to carry throwing darts.

Li Gun, the "Sky-Soaring Great Sage" in Water Margin, used a round shield and carried twenty-four javelins on his back—modeled after the Ming shield bearer.

In actual combat, a shield bearer carried two javelins. In battle, the right hand gripped the javelin while the waist saber lay across the shield's handle, braced by wrist and forearm. When the enemy approached, one threw the javelin to seize the opponent's attention and force them to block, then drew the saber in that gap to engage at close quarters.

Throwing the spear, then drawing the saber—two seemingly simple consecutive actions were actually the difficult part. In the chaos of battle, shield bearers often found it hard to link them, missing the critical moment.

The distance between them was not great. The shield bearer threw his javelin, pushed his right hand upward behind the shield, and drew his waist saber. The movement was fluid and practiced; he was a capable fighter.

The usage of rattan shield and waist saber was the same as Yue Fei's side shield and heavy horse-chopping saber—the mazhadao. Training involved setting up four wooden stakes to simulate chopping horse legs.

Unless necessary, a shield bearer would not open the shield or attack with its edge, abandoning the intent of protection—the gain would not be worth the loss.

Liao Sanniang closed quickly with her enemy. Her left saber jabbed forward in a feint, baiting the opponent to raise his shield in defense.

The shield bearer lifted the rattan shield to cover his upper body, thrusting it forward and upward with force to crowd Liao Sanniang's space and break her balance. His right hand's waist saber poked out from beside the shield, sweeping diagonally downward to cut the hollow behind her knee—the popliteal fossa.

Liao Sanniang did not retreat but advanced. She turned her body left, shifting sideways into a bow stance—right leg bent forward, left leg taut behind.

Her leading right saber, tip pointing perpendicular to the ground, pushed outward to the midpoint. Using vertical to break horizontal, she blocked the waist saber sweeping at her legs. Borrowing that momentum, her right shoulder slammed into the shield, neutralizing its pushing force.

Her left arm simultaneously raised sideways above her head. The two sabers worked in coordination: one standing to block, one attacking upward. The left saber traced a semi-arc like a curving rainbow, crossing over the shield's upper rim and stabbing toward the enemy's head.

The attack was unexpected; the shield bearer was caught off guard.

The blade tip descending from above forced him to instinctively tilt his head back. He lifted the rattan shield upward to block the overhead assault.

Liao Sanniang was a step faster. She stabbed downward with the tip, then immediately flicked her wrist upward. The blade slit open the enemy's lip and sliced straight through his right eyeball. Her left saber retracted, scraping against the rim of the rattan shield.

The shield bearer screamed. His right eye went dark, vision gone. In panic, his body shrank back.

Liao Sanniang quickly withdrew from her bow stance, guarding against a counterattack.

Without pausing her steps, she exploited the enemy's eye injury, advancing to invade his right side. Her right saber engaged his waist saber; her left swept across his right knee. The blade dragged through, severing the fibular collateral ligament on the outside of the joint.

With the joint compromised, the shield bearer lost balance and crumpled to the ground.

Wounded in two places and fallen, he lost all bearing. His shield gaped open like a clamshell.

Liao Sanniang stepped forward and stabbed him dead with a thrust to the heart.

Three steps, three moves, three sabers to kill a man.

She counted silently: Six.

A flash behind a tree—three enemies appeared together: one with a waist saber, one with a Japanese saber, a wodao, one with a short spear.

Seeing three corpses nearby and another lying prone not far away, the three men froze, their gazes dull and hesitant.

Six of the ten were dead—more than half. The enemy should feel fear now and lose the will to fight.

They will flee, Liao Sanniang thought.

The next moment, the three exchanged glances, and their expressions hardened. They split into a T-formation and surrounded her.

Liao Sanniang raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised. This was unexpected. She sighed inwardly; a woman lacked deterrent presence, inviting underestimation.

The tips of her double sabers touched in the air, forming a horizontal acute triangle to guard her centerline. Liao Sanniang took a step back, pressing her back against a tree to protect her rear.

A wu-ye sound of wind. Several pellets shot from the woods behind the enemies—some clay, some iron, flying extremely fast.

Seeing their trajectory, Liao Sanniang recognized them as Little Bazi's work.

In ancient times, there were no slingshots with Y-shaped frames and rubber bands.

Slingshots used bamboo as their material, shaped no differently from ordinary bows. The draw strength was "two and a half force"—er-jin-ban; one force equaled nine jin twelve liang in old measurements. Slingshots could not reach far or pierce armor.

A slingshot had two strings running vertically. A bamboo string covered the bowstring to suppress vibration.

A bowl-shaped bullet pocket sat on the bowstring. Unlike a bow and arrow, a slingshot did not require fitting an arrow nock to the string, allowing rapid fire. The archer held two to three pellets in hand. A pellet was snapped into the pocket and fired immediately. Continuous loading and firing produced a high rate of fire.

Iron pellets were cast in molds; clay pellets were fired from white eel mud.

Clay pellets were roughly the size of longans, smooth and round, and did not break upon hitting the ground. Against an unarmored target, a light hit caused bruising; a heavy one caused fractures.

Arrow shafts were thick; a quiver could only hold twenty or thirty arrows, making them cumbersome to carry.

A cloth bag slung diagonally could hold dozens of pellets—easy to carry and suitable for travel.

Ten pellets fired in succession. The formation of the three enemies fell into disarray as each scrambled for cover behind a tree.

Liao Sanniang circled behind her tree and charged at the waist-saber man closest to her.

The appropriate length for double sabers was such that when held with arms hanging naturally, the tips did not graze the ground. They were shorter than single sabers or Japanese sabers.

Being short, one had to close quickly and kill while moving.

Single saber looks at the hand; double sabers look at the walk. Wielding double sabers easily caused mutual interference; coordination was extremely difficult. Coordinating double sabers with footwork was harder still.

Two enemies pursued from behind. Unmoved, Liao Sanniang charged at the enemy before her at full speed.

Liao Sanniang came fiercely. The man grew nervous; he stepped back and chopped vertically at her head with his waist saber.

Moving the arm forward then back in a retracting motion is a "cut"—pi; from top to bottom is a "smash"—za.

Liao Sanniang blocked diagonally upward with her left saber. Following the momentum of the enemy retracting his weapon, she pushed up, propping up his saber arm.

She ducked low, drilling past beneath the enemy's armpit.

Two figures merged abruptly and separated. The blade dragged a horizontal streak of light as they crossed paths.

In that instant beneath his armpit, her right saber followed her forward step and dragged horizontally across his underarm.

The entire blade edge raked across the flesh. The edge was sharp; where it passed, flesh curled and bone gleamed white. The satisfying sensation of a keen weapon cutting cleanly transmitted to her hand. The enemy's weapon arm was nearly severed at the shoulder.

Turning to his back, she stabbed with her left hand, piercing through his lower back.

Liao Sanniang withdrew the steel saber, flicking off a string of blood droplets. Without pause, she turned and charged at the two men behind her.

Little Bazi emerged from behind a tree, rapid-firing his slingshot.

At the moment of release, the bow hand flipped outward; otherwise, the fired pellet would strike the bow or the hand holding it.

The drawn bow twanged, the string sound flipping. The front hand stabilized the arm and rolled the wrist; pellets poured from the rear hand like rain.

The two men opposite took hits and separated, one scrambling forward, one falling back.

Liao Sanniang and the short-spear wielder attacked simultaneously, meeting the spear head-on.

(End of Chapter)