Chapter 74: Formation

  Zhao Jun's military camp, Wu's martial arts arena.

  The two armies faced each other, wearing red and black uniforms, but the number of people was not equal. The side wearing red had only over 300 people, while the side wearing black had over 600 people, with a difference of at least one time.

  Moreover, the arrays of both sides are not the same. The black side still uses the traditional square formation, with one hundred people forming a square, and they formed six squares in total, divided into two rows. The front row of soldiers used long guns, while the back row used swords and shields, neat and tidy. The red side, on the other hand, was arranged in column formations, with each team consisting of fifteen people, forming two columns, with a distance of about four or five meters between each team. Moreover, they also used different weapons, including shields, knives, spears, axes, bows, crossbows, and so on, making it look somewhat chaotic.

  At this time, Li Mu and the other generals were seated on the high platform of the martial arts arena, looking at the obviously unequal two sides below. The vast majority of people's faces showed a look of astonishment, because in the eyes of the vast majority of people, the red side had fewer people, and their weapons were not uniform, this battle was almost certainly doomed to defeat.

  At this time, Gao Yuan stepped forward and said: "General, we can start now, please give the order."

  Li Muzhang said: "Highland, the number of people on both sides is not too big a gap, I think it's better to let both sides have an equal number of people, so that the competition will be more fair."

  Gao Yuan shook his head and smiled, "Please be assured, General. Since it's an array, it must be able to achieve victory with fewer numbers, in order to demonstrate the ingenuity of the array. If both sides have equal numbers, then there would be no need for an array."

  Li Mu smiled and said, "Alright, since you're so confident in your own formation, I won't stop you. Let's take a look at what makes the formation you've trained so wonderful. By the way, what's the name of this formation?"

  Gao Yuan Dao: "Call out the Mandarin Duck Formation."

  Upon hearing the name, the generals on the platform couldn't help but burst out laughing. Yuan Xuan said: "General Gao, I have indeed heard of the Eight Trigrams of Heaven and Earth, Wind and Clouds, Dragons and Tigers, Snakes and Birds, but I have never heard of the Mandarin Duck Formation."

  Gao Yuan also smiled and said, "Because this formation is the same on both sides, it resembles a mandarin duck couple, so it's named after that. However, if you underestimate this formation because of its name, you'll suffer greatly."

  Yuan Xuan also smiled and said: "Good, I really want to take a look at what's so powerful about this Mandarin Duck Formation."

  The Mandarin Duck Formation was actually created by the anti-Japanese general Qi Jiguang after nearly two thousand years, which is a small formation that combines many weapons together, fully exerting the effectiveness of various weapons, long and short coordination, offense and defense as one, specifically used for close-range melee combat.

  The Mandarin Duck Formation created by Qi Jiguang consists of eleven people in a group, with one team leader, two shield holders, two wolf den holders, four long spear holders, and two halberd holders. During battle, the team leader commands the entire team, with the shield holders blocking arrows, the wolf den holders covering the four long spear holders as they advance, and the halberd holders responsible for covering the flanks, keeping watch, and providing support. These eleven people form an organic whole, working together in combat. There are also variations such as the Five Elements Formation and the Three Talents Formation, which have great power in infantry battles. It is said that after Qi Jiguang's time, for hundreds of years until the end of the Cold Arms era, no one could crack this formation.

  Of course, the highland is not a complete copy of Qi Jiguang's creation of the Mandarin Duck Formation. Although this formation has great power, the highland will not simply copy it mechanically. After all, the times are different, and the combat environment is also different. When Qi Jiguang created the Mandarin Duck Formation, he mainly fought against the Japanese pirates, who had strong personal combat capabilities but lacked long-range weapons and cavalry, so Qi Jiguang did not include archers and other long-range weapons in the formation.

  Actually, Qi Jiguang did not rigidly apply the Mandarin Duck Formation in all environments. During his later years of defending the north, he made some modifications to the formation and added hand cannons and bird cannons, which increased its power and gave it a certain ability to counter cavalry. However, during Qi's defense of the northern border, there were few actual battles, so the effectiveness of the Mandarin Duck Formation in countering nomadic cavalry attacks was not tested in real combat. But with Qi Jiguang's abilities, it should not have been too bad.

  The highland only made some modifications based on the principle of the Mandarin Duck Formation, first by expanding the number to fifteen people per team, still with one team leader in charge of commanding the entire team. The front row consists of two shield bearers, using large shields over four feet tall, responsible for protecting the entire team. In addition, the shield bearers also work together with a newly-made battle knife, which can be used to engage in close combat with the enemy.

  The wolf cage is actually a type of bamboo spear that is native to the south, simply put it's a weapon with many branches and a wide range of attack. Later, after Qi Jiguang was stationed in the north, he changed to using iron-cast wolf cages. Now, on the highlands, they can't find similar weapons, and casting is also not possible in time, so for now, two long spear soldiers are used as substitutes for the wolf cage hand. Behind the long spear soldiers are still four long gun soldiers, and behind them are two halberd hands, but the highlands use double-bladed axe soldiers instead, each equipped with a small round shield and five tag guns. The additional four people are archers and crossbowmen, each responsible for long-range attacks, and each also has a sword that can be used in close combat.

  During combat, the front row of ten men crouched down, with the archers and crossbowmen launching a long-range attack first. When engaging the enemy, the shield bearers and long spear soldiers took responsibility for blocking the enemy, covering the four long gunners as they attacked. The double-edged axe soldiers used javelins to throw at the enemy. If the enemy attacked from both sides, the double-edged axe soldiers switched to close combat, protecting the team's flanks. Meanwhile, the archers and crossbowmen waited for opportunities to strike, using their bows and crossbows to launch long-range attacks or assist the double-edged axe soldiers in covering the entire team. Additionally, if there were comrades wounded or killed at the front, they immediately filled in the gaps. At the same time, each small team maintained a distance of five to six meters from one another, keeping their heads level and rising together.

  In short, no matter how the number of people changes, it is always adhering to team combat, fully exerting the effectiveness of various weapons, long and short coordination, mutual assistance, and overall resistance to enemy forces. This is the essence of the Mandarin Duck Formation.

  However, although the plateau also knew that the Mandarin Duck Formation was a very powerful formation method, it was all seen in historical books, and after all, it had not been used before. Therefore, at the beginning, there was not much confidence in the heart, only ten Mandarin Duck Formation teams were formed. After more than a month of training, the power of the Mandarin Duck Formation began to emerge. In confrontational training, against opponents with the same number of people, the Mandarin Duck Formation won a complete victory. According to the rules of confrontational training, a total of 107 people on the opposing side were killed, while only 13 people were injured on their own side.

  After doubling the number of opponents, the Mandarin Duck Formation still managed to win easily. In a confrontation that lasted almost half an hour, they killed 157 people on the opposing side, while suffering losses of 41 people themselves.

  It wasn't until then that Gao Yuan fully believed that the Mandarin Duck Formation was indeed a very useful formation in infantry close combat. He expanded the number of soldiers being trained and after another month of training, Gao Yuan had trained sixty Mandarin Duck Formation squads, totaling nine hundred men. However, due to the long training time, he hadn't yet trained the variant formations of the Five Elements Formation and the Three Talents Formation. But now they could showcase the results of their two months of training in front of the entire army.

  This time, the plateau mobilized 20 teams of yueyong array, a total of 300 people, against the 600 soldiers under Yuan Xuan's command. Because it was a confrontational training, the soldiers used wooden weapons, and the knives, double-edged axes and other weapons used by the plateau soldiers were just made by the military carpenters.

  Li Mu nodded and said, "Alright, let's begin."

  As soon as Li Mu gave the order, the soldiers on both sides immediately advanced in their respective formations. However, since this confrontation training was mainly to test the close combat power of the Mandarin Duck Formation, the Mandarin Duck Formation did not stop to launch a long-range attack with bows and crossbows first.

  But when both sides advanced to a distance of only twenty or more meters, the Mandarin Duck Formation first launched an attack, with the double-edged axe soldiers first using their halberds to throw at the opponent.

  Because both sides were using wooden weapons, the spearheads were wrapped in thick cloth, and the swords had blunt edges, but they were all coated with white lacquer. When hit on a person's body, it would only leave a white mark, but basically wouldn't cause much harm to the human body. Generally, soldiers who were hit on vital parts would voluntarily withdraw from training, considered as "killed in action".

  At this time, the distance between the two sides was only more than 20 meters, and the formation was very dense. Therefore, the hit rate of the sixty double-edged axe men throwing javelins was extremely high. More than thirty people on the opposite side were instantly "killed in action". Then the crossbowmen also opened their bows and shot arrows. Before the two sides even engaged in battle, the number of casualties on the black side had already exceeded 100.

  In this era, crossbowmen were basically alone in formation, only launching long-range attacks before close combat between the two sides. And once the two sides engaged in melee combat, the crossbowmen basically had nothing to do, because they feared hurting their companions, at most using a throwing method to attack the enemy's rear array.

  But very few people mixed bowmen and other troops to fight. Because in general, the close combat capability of bowmen is not strong, and once both sides are in close combat, bows and arrows can't play a role. Of course, when the battle reaches a crucial moment, bowmen will also rush up to participate in the melee. And this time it's mainly testing the close combat ability of both sides, so there were no bowmen among the 600 soldiers who were selected to move.

  The Mandarin Duck formation is a mixed array of multiple weapons, with each small team equipped with a large number of halberds and crossbowmen. Therefore, at the moment when both sides first come into contact, they have a great advantage. However, the Red side only began to launch long-range attacks when both sides approached within about 20 meters, which is not considered a foul. Moreover, the Black side has many people and will not care about these things, but this distance of 20 meters is enough to allow the Red side to take the initiative and give their opponents a warning shot first.

  However, the distance between the two sides was too close at this time, so only one round of shooting could be launched by the bow and crossbowmen, and only a few archers and double-edged axe men could launch a second round of attack. The two sides immediately engaged in close combat and fought fiercely.