“Kuroda Kamezo, you eight true Japanese are the sharp blades of our team. As before, you’ll lead the charge and break their formation. For the next three days, you can take forty percent of our spoils first. How’s that?”
The pirate leader turned, his eyes gleaming as he enticed the short but ferocious true Japanese pirates.
“Hai! Ming dogs are weak chickens—easy to crush, like squashing chicks!” Kuroda Kamezo and his men responded arrogantly.
Without hesitation, they brandished their katanas and charged toward Zhu Ping’an’s group like tigers descending a mountain or wild boars bursting from the woods.
“Embrace death!” Kuroda Kamezo shouted, his face twisted with savage excitement, his bloodthirsty beast unleashed.
Behind him, the pirate leader shook his katana and led the rest of the pirates in a tight charge.
They were confident.
This confidence wasn’t born of arrogance but forged through battle after battle. Their team of over fifty had thirty-some men in the village, with a dozen resting at their Tuolin stronghold. They had once achieved the glorious feat of fifty men chasing and slaughtering over a thousand garrison soldiers.
In that battle, their dozen true Japanese had smashed through the garrison’s main formation. The ferocious true Japanese tore through the flawed enemy lines, killing as easily as slicing melons. The rest followed, routing the garrison troops, who fled in panic. Their fifty-man team pursued over a thousand garrison soldiers for more than ten *li*, killing over three hundred.
What a triumph!
Today, they faced only two to three hundred garrison soldiers.
Heh, and they were on horseback—haha, wait, were those donkey brays? They were riding donkeys and mules too?
Noticing that Zhu Ping’an’s group included donkeys and mules, the pirate leader and his men burst into mocking laughter. Riding donkeys to pose as cavalry? These garrison troops were laughably pathetic, embarrassing themselves instead of impressing.
Their confidence soared.
“Kill!”
Kuroda Kamezo and the true Japanese closed within a hundred meters of the Ming troops, close enough to see their faces—and the muskets they held, with sparks on the fuses.
Muskets?! One for every man?! What the—since when did Ming garrisons have so many muskets?
Before Kuroda Kamezo and his men could process this, a cloud of smoke erupted from the Ming riders, followed by a series of “bang, bang, bang” explosions.
“Ah…”
“Mother…!”
Kuroda Kamezo heard screams around him. Glancing around mid-charge, he saw his comrades, who had been eagerly charging alongside him, all on the ground. Only two or three were still alive, wailing. The rest were dead.
Miraculously, he alone was unscathed. He stopped, dazed, his mind blank.
The pirate leader and the others behind were equally stunned, halting abruptly. A few, too slow to stop, crashed into those in front.
The pirates blinked in disbelief. In the blink of an eye, after a burst of smoke and thunder, only Kuroda Kamezo stood among the vanguard. The rest were gone.
In a single moment, a quarter of their men—their elite true Japanese—were wiped out.
If the Ming fired three more volleys, wouldn’t they all be dead? The pirate leader and his men paled, swallowing hard.
They hadn’t even clashed yet, still fifty to sixty paces away—a distance enough for the Zhejiang Army to fire another volley.
Who knew how many would fall in the next round—or if they’d be among them?
“Excellent! The Zhejiang Army is mighty!”
The courier traveling with Zhu Ping’an cheered, astonished that one volley had nearly annihilated the pirate vanguard, with only one survivor. He couldn’t believe the Zhejiang Army’s prowess.
In contrast, Zhu Ping’an frowned, dissatisfied with his troops’ performance.
“Look at yourselves! So many firing at once, and only eight enemies in the front, yet one still stands unharmed! Your aim is abysmal! Musket drills need more work—much more!” Zhu Ping’an said, scolding as he rode.
What?! Still not satisfied?!
The courier, hearing Zhu Ping’an’s discontent, was stunned. Was Lord Zhu’s standard for his army too harsh?
“Damn, these soldiers are tough. Brothers, let’s retreat! As long as the green hills remain, we’ll have firewood!”
The pirate leader snapped out of his daze after half a second and was the first to turn and flee. If they couldn’t win, running was only natural.
“Run! These soldiers aren’t ordinary. Let’s escape now and settle the score later!”
The other pirates quickly followed, turning and scrambling to flee, each vying to outrun the others.
They lacked the true Japanese’s ferocity. If even the true Japanese were shredded by one volley, what chance did they have? If they didn’t run, they’d be riddled with holes too. These Ming troops were abnormal.
“Don’t run, baka! Come back! They’ve fired their muskets—they can’t reload in time!”
“Baka! Cowardly Ming dogs! Partnering with you lot is my bad luck!”
Kuroda Kamezo snapped out of his shock, shouting at the fleeing pirate leader and his men.
After cursing, he too turned to run. Alone, he wasn’t delusional enough to charge two to three hundred Ming troops.
How could two legs outrun four?
Though he couldn’t outrun horses, outrunning his two-legged comrades would do.
Kuroda Kamezo thought this and acted on it. Short but fierce, he ran faster than most, especially in a life-or-death moment, bursting with speed beyond his norm.
Starting late but overtaking fast!
Kuroda Kamezo soon passed one comrade, then gritted his teeth and surpassed another and another. The pirate leader, leading the pack, was now within reach—just a few more moments, and he’d catch up.
At that moment, Kuroda Kamezo saw, to his disbelief, the pirate leader abruptly stop again.
What the—had he grown a conscience?!
Kuroda Kamezo stared, puzzled, as the leader turned. The next second, he understood why—not a sudden burst of conscience, but because another group of Ming troops had appeared ahead.
They were caught in a pincer attack!
