Chapter 119: Volley Fire and Sharpshooters

After they had endured all this and were proven to be fully adapted to military life, shooting practice officially began.

Firearms, even muzzle-loading rifled guns, were the most powerful infantry weapons in this time and space. The transmigrators had to ensure that the people holding them were loyal and reliable.

Some people could not endure this kind of life and requested to quit midway. Such people would be assigned to the commune as laborers, but they had to repay double the settlement money and grain, military pay, and food provided by the transmigrators. Before this debt was paid off, they could not leave the commune and would receive no remuneration other than basic rations.

As for those who ran away, the transmigrators’ powerful communication and night vision capabilities meant that neither darkness nor distance could provide cover for deserters. All those who were caught were sent to the quarry and the brick and tile factory to work as hard laborers without exception.

However, the situation was better than Ma Qianzhu had expected. There were fewer than twenty people who either deserted or requested to quit. The vast majority persevered.

The person in charge of shooting practice was Li Yunxing. He had been a sports shooter in the provincial shooting team and was quite familiar with this aspect. To preside over the training, he took a rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition for himself and practiced for a week, basically familiarizing himself with the shooting performance of the Minie rifle.

The shooting accuracy of the muzzle-loading rifled gun was quite good. This batch of guns was manufactured before the transmigration, with good materials and exquisite craftsmanship, and had been calibrated. After firing a few shots, Li Yunxing immediately got the feel of it.

He started by correcting the most basic gun-holding and aiming postures, and then practiced the stability of aiming. Only after everything was up to standard did the shooting practice begin.

The day the Minie rifles were issued caused a great sensation among the soldiers. This gun was different from any other firearm they had ever seen. The gun body was a dark blue, with a faint sheen. All the parts were smooth, without the usual roughness of iron products. The triangular bayonet, with its leather scabbard, was shiny. The leather cartridge box contained bullets wrapped in yellow coarse paper. There was also a small, bright yellow copper piece, which was said to be called a percussion cap.

The gun was heavy, but a little lighter than the training guns they usually used. The dimensions of all parts were made to be just right. People who had used matchlocks, three-eyed guns, and other various touchhole guns all felt that this gun was very exquisite and handy, and not at all awkward to use.

During the first live-fire practice, the thick smoke, strong smell of gunpowder, and the heavy recoil of the buttstock that the rifle produced gave many of the farm boys who were holding a gun for the first time a profound experience of the power of the weapon in their hands. The penetrating power of the lead bullets on the thick wooden targets made them even more astonished—the iron shot fired by traditional matchlocks could be blocked by a slightly thicker wooden door panel.

To enhance their confidence in the weapons in their hands, Li Yunxing also persuaded Ma Qianzhu to get a suit of iron armor from the inventory for a live test. From 200 meters away, one shot went straight through, leaving everyone dumbfounded.

“Damn, so this iron armor is useless?” Lin Fu touched the small hole on the armor, which was still smoking. “Fighting is too easy.”

“Then aren’t we invincible? Just stand there and shoot, no one can charge through.” The soldiers were all howling with excitement, their morale soaring.

“It’s too early to say we’re invincible,” Li Yunxing said, “but we have a great advantage. We shoot farther, more accurately, and faster than the enemy. Neither cavalry nor archers can pose a threat to us.”

“But if the enemy has a large cavalry force, just shooting won’t be enough. This gun can shoot up to 400 meters at most. It won’t take the cavalry a minute to charge over. How many shots can you fire in a minute?”

“Three or four, I guess.”

“If we are few and they are many, and everyone fires three or four shots in a minute, and the enemy is not driven back, what do we do then?”

Everyone fell into deep thought. One of the men, who had been silent all along, spoke up: “Use pikes to hold them back. Form a square formation, with pikemen guarding the outside and musketeers inside.”

“That’s right, that’s indeed a way,” Li Yunxing was not surprised by this suggestion—this method was not very rare. The Ming Dynasty also had similar tactics: pikemen covering firearms shooters, and an upgraded version using war chariots in formation to cover firearms. “Is there a better way?”

“Three-rank volley,” the man said again. “The musketeers are divided into three ranks and fire in turns. This way, you can fire more than 3-4 times a minute, continuously.”

“Not bad, not bad. Where did you learn that?” Li Yunxing was greatly surprised. This “three-stage volley” had always been regarded as a secret transmigrator method. He didn’t expect that people in the Ming Dynasty already had this concept. On second thought, since Japan’s Warring States period could come up with this tactic, the Great Ming couldn’t have been unable to think of it.

“I saw the capital garrison drilling in the capital.”

“You have good eyes. What’s your name?”

The man snapped to a non-standard attention and cupped his fist: “My name is Huang Xiong, from Hejian, Beizhili.”

“Good. Come to the headquarters after training.”

“Yes, sir!”

Training shooting was easy, but instilling the concept of firearm maintenance in them was not. Almost no one realized that firearms needed maintenance. After the first day of shooting practice, although they were required to clean the gun barrels afterwards, a surprise inspection in the evening found that only a very small number of soldiers had cleaned their guns as required.

In ancient times, the maintenance of firearms was not taken seriously, and there were no specific requirements or standards for firearm maintenance. Cannons were at most covered with something in the open. As for things like matchlocks, their quality was so poor that the possibility of injuring oneself was greater than hitting the enemy. Soldiers did not like to use them, let alone maintain them.

Muzzle-loading guns, which used black powder with more residue and paper-wrapped ammunition, had higher maintenance requirements. Li Yunxing had to enforce mandatory maintenance work after each shooting practice, teaching each soldier how to maintain their guns by hand. Each person’s gun had to be inspected before they could be dismissed. Then this task was passed down to the squad leaders, who implemented a system of layered inspections. Li Yunxing inspected the squad leaders’ guns, and the squad leaders inspected the guns of every soldier in their squad. Coupled with a strict punishment system, the habit of cleaning guns was finally established, although there were still many complaints that the “chiefs” were making a fuss over nothing.

Ma Qianzhu received such reports from his spies among the soldiers more than once: cleaning the gun barrel was a waste of time. If there was residue, just turn the barrel upside down and shake it out. It would fire anyway, even if it wasn’t cleaned properly.

Some also said that these Australian sea merchants were all a bit “stubborn,” only knew how to follow the rules, and had rules for everything, unlike the locals who were more flexible.

When Ma Qianzhu saw such reports on the soldiers’ mentality, he couldn’t help but think of the discussions among Chinese employees in joint ventures at the beginning of the reform and opening up—the two had something in common.

Tian Liang’s performance in shooting practice was also at a medium-to-low level. The assessment standard set by Li Yunxing was that hitting the target 6 times out of 10 shots at a distance of 100 meters was considered a pass. Tian Liang only hit three shots in his first assessment and barely passed after the third re-examination.

But there were also very strong people. The three Ruan brothers all got “good” in their first assessment. A former Gou estate militiaman named Yang Zeng got the only “excellent”: ten out of ten shots hit.

“Excellent marksmanship!” Li Yunxing excitedly patted his shoulder.

“Thank you, chief,” Yang Zeng came to a standard attention. “I used to be a hunter.”

“A hunter? No wonder your eyesight is so good.”

“No, I used to use this kind of matchlock before.”

“Oh?” Li Yunxing became interested.

“In the past, when I was a militiaman at Master Gou’s, no, the Gou family’s estate—” he quickly corrected himself, “once the sea pirates sent a batch of goods, and there were dozens of such guns in it.” He gestured. “But they weren’t as good as the chiefs’ guns. They needed a match cord and were heavy to hold.”

Li Yunxing remembered that there were some foreign goods among the weapons seized from the Gou estate, including a batch of matchlock guns. According to the research of several history experts, they were likely of British origin.

“That gun was much better than the original matchlocks in the estate, and it shot more accurately. But the militiamen had suffered from matchlocks before and didn’t like to use them. Master Gou, Gou Da, saw that I liked it and gave one to me. I would shoot birds for fun when I had nothing to do, so I got used to it.”

“With your accurate shooting, Gou Da must have looked at you with special favor, right?”

A look of embarrassment appeared on Yang Zeng’s face. Since he was captured at the Gou estate and brought to Bairen City, he had been interrogated over and over again for many days and had undergone a period of labor reform. Because he had no bad record and had surrendered his weapon voluntarily, he was assigned to work in the commune. During this time, he had already learned that what this group of “Kun bandits,” “Short Hairs,” or “Australian sea merchants” valued most was a “clean history.” His “history” of being a militiaman at the Gou estate was clearly a stain.

“Reporting to the chief,” he said cautiously, “I was just an ordinary militiaman at the Gou estate. Although my shooting was a bit more accurate, that Gou Da didn’t think too highly of me—he still preferred skills with spears, swords, and blades.”

“No matter how good spears, swords, and blades are, can they withstand a shot from your musket?” Li Yunxing was unaware of his thoughts and thought he was an unrecognized talent.

“That would have to be the guns the masters use—I never dreamed that this gun could shoot so far, and be so accurate and fast,” Yang Zeng became a little excited when talking about the firearms. “Although the foreign guns are good, they are far inferior to this gun.”

“Oh? Tell me, what’s so good about it?” Li Yunxing himself had a strong interest in firearms and shooting. He knew how exciting a good gun could feel. He didn’t expect to find such a fellow enthusiast in another time and space.

“There are too many good things, but I think the best two are, first, the percussion cap. You can just put it on and it will fire. You don’t need to put in priming powder separately, which is safe and easy to use. Second, the ammunition is all wrapped in paper, which is convenient to use, and the amount is also measured accurately. In the past, when I shot, I used to pour gunpowder from a powder bag. How much I poured depended entirely on my feel. Sometimes I would pour too much or too little, unlike these paper-wrapped cartridges which are so accurate.”

Li Yunxing thought that this person was really not simple. Ordinary soldiers all followed the rules and did as the instructor required. He still had many ideas, which was a rare and valuable talent.

“You can hit a hundred out of a hundred at 100 meters. What about 200 meters? Want to try?”

“I will definitely follow the chief’s orders!” This statement, coupled with the action of puffing out his chest and standing at attention, felt very incongruous.

Li Yunxing specially gave him a high-precision Minie rifle marked with a J+. The target at 200 meters was a circular target with a diameter of 1.5 meters. Yang Zeng held his breath and concentrated, and again, he hit ten out of ten.

Simply divine! Li Yunxing was very surprised. Although the Minie rifle was a rifled gun, its accuracy could not be compared to that of a breech-loading rifle with fixed metal cartridges. This Yang Zeng only had experience with matchlock guns, and after a month of training, he could achieve this result, which was a sign of great talent.

Then the target was moved to 300 meters. This time, Yang Zeng missed four shots. When the target was moved to 400 meters, he still hit four shots. This result was already quite impressive. The few veterans from the military committee on the field all cheered. Even with a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, this was a good result.

“Not bad, you’ll be a sniper,” Li Yunxing was happy to have such a person in the team he trained.

“Thank you, chief, for the promotion!” Yang Zeng didn’t know what a sniper was, but he had a gut feeling that it would definitely be good for him.

He, along with several others with excellent shooting results, were selected to be trained as snipers for the next step. Wei Aiwen decided to form a Jäger platoon outside the infantry company for long-range precision fire support.