Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

Huanglong Mountain.

The name sounds impressive, but in reality it is a much more desolate, barren, and frigid place.

The mountain wind still carried the chill of winter, slicing across the bare rocks and sparse, withered forest like a knife.

When Wang Ziyong led his remaining troops into this mountainous region, his initial sense of relief at surviving the ordeal was quickly replaced by a more realistic predicament.

Food shortage is the most important issue.

The hasty retreat resulted in the abandonment of a large amount of supplies, and the remaining food was only enough to last for a few days.

With five or six hundred mouths to feed, the daily consumption is staggering.

The teams sent out to search for grain often returned empty-handed. If they did manage to find anything, it was nothing more than some bitter and hard-to-swallow wild fruits, grass roots, or a few scattered grains dug out from squirrel or field mouse burrows.

robbery?

The nearby villages were either nearly deserted or had been fortified with earthen walls and protected by local militia, making them difficult to capture and potentially exposing our presence.

Hunger haunted the ranks like a ghost, and the soldiers' eyes gleamed with increasing ferocity as they glanced more and more frequently at the ration pouches at their comrades' waists.

Dehydration can be just as deadly.

Most of the mountain streams have dried up, and the water sources that are found are either as thin as a thread or extremely murky.

Diarrhea and dysentery began to spread, especially among wounded soldiers and the elderly who were already weak.

Lin Fan and the lame old man Chen became the busiest people, but even the most skilled cook can't cook without rice. Without medicine, they could only watch helplessly as some of the lightly injured people's injuries worsened due to infection and high fever.

Watching the person with diarrhea rapidly dehydrate and become critically ill.

Death begins to reap lives in another, slower, but more pervasive way.

Internal conflicts grew and fermented amid hunger and despair.

Due to a lack of medical care and medicine, the wound on Wang Ziyong's arm began to fester and fester. He also experienced intermittent high fevers, and his temper became even more violent and unpredictable.

Several underlings who were not very obedient to him began to outwardly comply but inwardly complain, each trying to recruit their own men and hoard their meager food supplies.

The unfair distribution of the looted wealth became the final straw.

On one occasion, two henchmen of a minor leader nearly came to blows over a few roughly tanned hides that had just been looted from an abandoned hunter's house. In the end, Wang Ziyong, despite his illness, used the hilt of his knife to knock down the two ringleaders and barely managed to quell the fight.

Lin Fan, on the other hand, is in a delicate and dangerous position.

After the Battle of Shanliang, his reputation for "summoning heavenly thunder" spread like wildfire, becoming increasingly fantastical.

Ordinary soldiers both respected and feared him, regarding him as a miraculous person who could bring "divine fire," and some wounded soldiers even secretly knelt down to pray to him for blessings.

But the eyes of a few distrustful underlings, and some of Wang Ziyong's more cunning confidants, were far more complex—

There was a desire to use it, a fear of the "strange arts," and even a hidden hostility.

After all, the explosive arrow was quite powerful, but it was also uncontrollable. Who knew if this strange young man would one day use the "heavenly thunder" on his own people?

Lin Fan clearly sensed this complex gaze.

He knew he had to be more cautious and demonstrate consistent value in order to survive in this increasingly restrictive environment.

With gunpowder materials exhausted, the rocket has become a thing of the past.

He then turned his attention to more fundamental and hidden aspects.

He proactively suggested improving the team's water supply problem.

With a few relatively trustworthy soldiers, he surveyed several low-lying areas where there might be underground water veins. He instructed them to dig deep pits and lay washed gravel, sand, and charcoal powder at the bottom of the pits as a simple filter layer to collect the seeping groundwater.

Although the volume of water was small, the water quality improved significantly after filtration and boiling, and the diarrhea was somewhat relieved.

This earned him more favor among the lower-ranking soldiers.

During his breaks, he led his men to search for a type of grayish-white, soft limestone. After crushing it, he mixed it with wood ash and added water to make a coarse, alkaline slurry. This slurry was used to clean festering wounds. Although it was highly irritating, it was more effective than washing directly with dirty water.

He also identified several herbs with astringent and hemostatic properties, such as Sanguisorba officinalis and Cirsium japonicum, and tried his best to collect and use them despite their scarcity.

He no longer performs complex quenching processes on weapons, but focuses on the most basic maintenance and repair.

He instructed his soldiers to mix fine sand and animal fat to polish the blades of their weapons.

Use leather straps or oil-soaked hemp rope to carefully tie the loose gun head and knife handle;

They even used fire to straighten slightly bent spear shafts and arrow shafts.

These tasks are trivial and inconspicuous, but they effectively extend the lifespan of these rudimentary weapons. On the runaway route where battle may be encountered at any moment, this little bit of reliability is crucial.

He also began to consciously and very discreetly gather information.

When chatting with wounded soldiers, exchanging information with scouts returning from reconnaissance missions, or even having late-night talks with relatively familiar people like Han Jinhu, he would always inadvertently steer the conversation toward the teams of other "heroes".

"...I've heard that there are several powerful groups in Ansai and Bao'an to the north, and they're quite formidable?"

While helping Han Jinhu repair a chipped woodcutter's knife, Lin Fan asked casually.

Han Jinhu, while pulling hard on the makeshift leather bellows that Lin Fan had hastily made, wiped his sweat and said:

"There are several groups. The most troublesome, besides our King Wang, is Gao Chuangwang from the north, and also..."

He lowered his voice, "And there's Li Zicheng, who killed officials and rebelled in Yinchuan. I heard that Li Zicheng didn't have many men, but they were quite good at fighting. He didn't harm the poor indiscriminately. He even distributed the grain he robbed from wealthy families to starving people. Many who couldn't survive went to join him."

Lin Fan's heart stirred, but he continued sharpening the arrowhead with his hands and asked again:

"Oh? Where is General Li currently operating? Is he far from our Huanglong Mountain?"

Han Jinhu shook his head:

"That's hard to say. I've heard they're elusive; one day they might be in Ansai, the next they're in the mountains north of Bao'an. The government troops can't catch them no matter how hard they try to wipe them out. But recently, some refugees from the north said they saw a group of people carrying the banner 'Chuang' near Lubao Ridge. There weren't many of them, but they were full of energy."

Lu Baoling?

Lin Fan silently memorized the place name.

It sounds like it's further north of Huanglong Mountain, closer to Bao'an.

"However," Han Jinhu sighed, "it won't be easy to join General Li. I heard he's picky and doesn't accept just anyone. Besides... we're now under King Wang's command. Although King Wang and General Li are both heroes who oppose the imperial court, I've heard they don't get along very well in private." He said vaguely and didn't elaborate further.

Lin Fan understood.

The various rebel factions were far from being a monolithic entity; they were scattered across different regions, sometimes allied, sometimes competing, and sometimes even clashing with each other.

Wang Ziyong was Wang Jiayin's cousin, and Wang Jiayin's relationship with Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and others was sometimes harmonious and sometimes discordant throughout history.

It wouldn't be easy for him to leave Wang's forces and join Li's side; he might be seen as a traitor and face execution.

In this atmosphere of hunger, unease, and uncertainty, a sudden conflict escalated the internal contradictions and thrust Lin Fan into the eye of the storm.