Chapter 164

The frozen plain of the Guangning Right Garrison was soaked in blood, and Shen Xitang's black leather boots crushed the charred fragments of the Memorial Requesting Provisions by Xiong Tingbi. Xiao Heng's Xiuchun Saber cleaved the frozen soil of the granary, and stacks of Liaodong wheat grains suddenly burst open—wrapped inside the husks were not military rations, but twelve crates of Japanese matchlock guns. Beside the Tokugawa mallow crest on the gunstocks, the words "Supervised and Manufactured in the Second Year of Chongzhen by Sun Chengzong" were actually engraved! "Lord Thousand-Householder, inspect this breech." Her fingertips brushed against the spiral gas-seal valve of the iron gun. "This heat-dissipation technique of the 'five-turn interlocking series' is the legendary enemy-annihilating cannon technique improved by Li Rubai of the Wanli era when he garrisoned Kaitai..." A wolf howl suddenly broke across the snowfield. Thirty Mongolian ponies charged out from the birch forest, their saddle pads concealing hidden layers beneath the Chahar wolf-head patterns. Shen Xitang's Silver Silk crushed a certain stirrup, revealing a fragment of the Secret Account Book of Liaodong Provisions—beside the official document reading "annual tribute of eighty thousand liang of Liaodong provisions," it was marked in Korean script: "Resold to the Hanyang Directorate of Armaments."