Chapter 516: Skirmish Pits
The moment the words "skirmish pits" left his mouth, a visible ripple of confusion passed through the assembled crowd. Faces turned toward one another, brows furrowed, quiet murmurs spreading like wind across grass. No one present truly understood what he meant.
Li Daoxuan understood their bewilderment all too well. In this era of the Ming Dynasty, the very idea of a "skirmish pit" was something no one could reasonably be expected to grasp. It simply did not exist within the shared vocabulary of war.
Historically, skirmish pits were a product of rifled firearms, born alongside skirmishers themselves as warfare slowly shed its reliance on dense formations and rigid lines. Skirmishers were not like conventional troops. They did not require vast, flat terrain, nor did they depend on tight ranks or grand displays of order. Instead, they operated in small, nimble groups, digging shallow depressions into the earth and using those modest hollows as cover, shielding themselves from enemy fire while calmly returning volleys of their own.
These unassuming hollows, carved quietly into the ground, were what Li Daoxuan referred to as skirmish pits.
Gao Family Village already possessed skirmishers in name, but their actual combat experience remained thin, and their tactical understanding had grown only slowly through cautious trial and error. Had they been left to develop such ideas on their own, it might have taken dozens of real battles, and countless lives paid along the way, before the concept of skirmish pits emerged naturally.
Li Daoxuan had no intention of allowing his people to purchase enlightenment with blood.
So he chose the shorter road.
"Outside the water stronghold," Dao Xuan Tianzun said calmly, his gaze sweeping across the terrain, "on both flanks of the open ground, first mark out the likely boundaries of the main battlefield. Then, extending one to two hundred paces beyond those edges, dig many small earthen pits. Each pit should be large enough to conceal five or six soldiers. Before the battle begins, our men will lie hidden within them."
No sooner had he finished speaking than Lao Nanfeng's eyes widened, understanding dawning with startling clarity. "Digging pits on the flanks, hiding our musketeers there to ambush the enemy and strike at their general… this is brilliant."
Zao Ying, however, frowned slightly and voiced the concern that had already begun forming in several minds. "Won't this be discovered? Enemy scouts will surely survey the battlefield ahead of time. If they find pits filled with our soldiers on both flanks, they'll immediately be on guard."
Xing Honglang waved a hand dismissively, her tone light but confident. "That's easily handled. We cover the pits with wooden planks, then layer grass and earth on top. From two hundred paces away, enemy scouts won't conduct a painstaking search. They'll ride through at speed, never noticing those subtly concealed patches of ground."
A thoughtful silence followed, broken by Gao Chuwu's straightforward voice. "After they fire from those pits," he asked, a crease forming between his brows, "won't the soldiers hiding there be in terrible danger?"
It was a fair question.
Everyone immediately grasped the implication. Even if those five or six musketeers succeeded in killing Wang Guozhong, they would almost certainly be surrounded and cut down by his furious subordinates moments later.
Low murmurs spread through the group. This plan seemed uncharacteristically ruthless. Dao Xuan Tianzun had always valued the lives of his people, and sending a small group on what appeared to be a suicide mission did not align with his usual way of doing things.
As doubt lingered in the air, Dao Xuan Tianzun spoke again, his voice steady and unhurried. "I never told you to dig only one pit," he said. "Dig many. Dig them across a broad stretch of land. A vast network."
"Ah!" Lao Nanfeng inhaled sharply, the full picture snapping into place. "So that's it. Not merely a small ambush to assassinate the enemy general, but concealing an entire force, ready to erupt from the flanks. A true encirclement from the shadows."
Around him, heads nodded as understanding slowly spread from one person to the next.
Only Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu still looked uncertain. Zheng Daniu scratched his head and asked honestly, "So… will this actually make fighting easier?"
Lao Nanfeng chuckled softly. "I may not have grasped every detail of Dao Xuan Tianzun's intent, but let me try to explain. Traditional armies rely on formations of spearmen, shield-bearers, and archers. Without formation, they lose their strength entirely. Our smoothbore musketeers still depend on orderly ranks, but our rifled musketeers do not. We can station the smoothbore musketeers in defensive lines at the front of the water stronghold. Meanwhile, the rifled musketeers will hide in these pits, scattered loosely, without any formal arrangement at all."
He continued, growing more animated as the idea took shape. "Once the pits are dug, covered with planks, and disguised with grass, enemy scouts will never notice them. When our cannons fire and the smoothbore musketeers engage head-on, the rifled musketeers will rise from both flanks. First, they will kill Wang Guozhong from hundreds of paces away. Then, they will pour fire into the battlefield from the sides. The remaining bandits will be completely annihilated."
This time, even Zheng Daniu's eyes shone with excitement. "Popping up from the sides and firing all at once? That'll throw them into total chaos!"
The seasoned commanders present were visibly pleased.
To think that skirmishers could be used in such a way.
More importantly, this tactic was something the enemy could never imitate. Their armies depended entirely on formations to function. Without ranks and order, they were nothing more than a mob. They could not abandon formation, dig pits, and fight a scattered, pit-to-pit battle.
Lao Nanfeng's spirits soared. He quickly fetched paper and ink and sketched out a rough map of the water stronghold and its surroundings. After calculating the area typically occupied by a three-thousand-man force, he drew two long lines flanking that space, one to two hundred paces out.
"Along these edges," he said, tapping the page, "we dig the skirmish pits. Once our men are hidden beneath planks and grass, Wang Guozhong will never imagine what awaits him."
After all, people only guard against what they understand. What lies beyond their comprehension simply never enters their calculations.
Even if Wang Guozhong were ten thousand times more cunning, he would never conceive of an enemy abandoning formation entirely to hide soldiers in countless small holes in the earth.
"We dig tonight," Xing Honglang declared, rising decisively. "Doing this in daylight would alert scouts from far away. We work under cover of darkness. By the time Wang Guozhong arrives, he'll be walking straight into a trap."
The moment they heard the words "digging pits," Gao Chuwu and Zheng Daniu practically lit up. "Other things, maybe we're clumsy," Gao Chuwu said with a loud laugh, "but hard labor? You can't leave us out of that. Give us two teams. We'll handle it."
"Wait."
Flat Rabbit suddenly stood, chest thrust forward. "Digging pits? You lot clearly don't know what you're doing. This Rabbit Master must personally oversee it."
Amused glances were exchanged. "Since when is this your specialty too?"
Flat Rabbit snorted proudly. "Do you think the 'Rabbit' in Rabbit Master is just for show?"
Eyes rolled in unison. "Stop boasting about something so ordinary."
And so, beneath a moonless sky swept by cold wind, Flat Rabbit made good on his words.
He personally led a large detachment of soldiers, each carrying a small shovel, slipping quietly out of the water stronghold toward the flanks of the battlefield, one to two hundred paces beyond Lao Nanfeng's marked boundaries. There, they began digging furiously, earth piling up silently beside them.
Within the designated area, pit after pit took shape. Each was carefully measured, then covered with wooden planks and layered with grass and soil, disguised so carefully that they looked like nothing more than untouched ground, as if someone had gently planted flowers atop them.
As dawn neared, the teams finished covering the pits and withdrew swiftly back into the water stronghold to rest. The following night, fresh groups were sent out to continue the work, methodical and unseen.
At the same time, over at the Qichuan Ferry, cargo ships arrived one after another, delivering several heavy cannons to the water stronghold.
These were not hastily removed from ship decks, only to be dismantled again. They were newly cast artillery pieces from Qichuan's own cannon workshops.
Unlike the sleek steel cannons Li Daoxuan sometimes provided, these were forged entirely by the villagers themselves, following blueprints and techniques passed down by Song Yingxing. Their surfaces were dark and rough, lacking polish or beauty, but the weight of them spoke clearly enough.
They were crude, yes.
But their power was real.