Black Corporation: Joseon [EN]: Chapter 740

740. Dagger (10)

While the local Muslims fervently sought Allah, the Imperial Army commanders wore troubled expressions.

“The cleanup is the problem.”

What troubled them was the overwhelming number of corpses before them.

“The battle seemed to last about an hour, but cleaning up will take at least two days.”

“And that’s if we borrow manpower from the construction site.”

The commanders, disheartened at the thought of clearing the corpses scattered everywhere, frowned at the expressions of the soldiers around them.

“What’s wrong with you guys again?”

“Anyone would think you’re the corpses.”

“Ah, it’s nothing… Ugh!”

“So, sorry… Ugh!”

The Imperial soldiers, as pale as the corpses scattered in the desert, couldn’t even answer properly and began to vomit. As one or two started vomiting, soon the surrounding soldiers also leaned out of the armored train and began to retch.

“Uweeek!”

“Ugh!”

The commanders shook their heads at the sight of the soldiers vomiting yellow stomach acid.

“Seriously, they’re throwing up just from seeing some corpses. How can they be so weak…”

The veteran commanders behind them chuckled at the complaints of the young commanders.

“You guys were like that in Liaodong too.”

“The frog forgets when he was a tadpole…” [Meaning: People often forget their humble beginnings.]

The young commanders looked embarrassed at the scolding from the veteran commanders.

The veteran commanders, who had been scolding the young commanders, now looked like they understood the soldiers’ feelings.

“When we were young, seeing corpses wasn’t so strange. It seems like it’s become a very unfamiliar thing for the young ones these days.”

“I agree. The saying ‘fields of mulberry become seas of blue’ really hits home.” [Meaning: Times change drastically.]

* * *

As the veteran commanders said, the presence of death had faded considerably from the daily lives of the Empire’s people.

In the late Goryeo and early Joseon periods, corpses and refugees overflowed everywhere due to frequent invasions by Japanese pirates.

Even when Sejong ascended the throne, thousands of starvation deaths were reported to the court every year due to frequent famines. And if an epidemic broke out, many people would die en masse.

Therefore, those who spent their childhoods in this period were accustomed to death and corpses.

However, as the Reforms succeeded, these tragic events began to disappear.

As policies such as expanding and maintaining irrigation facilities, encouraging the settlement of refugees, and importing grain were actively pursued, starvation deaths began to decrease.

In addition, by spreading basic hygiene practices such as bathing and boldly supporting public health and medical care, the prevalence of epidemics gradually decreased.

As the situation improved, death gradually became distant from the daily lives of Joseon people.

This was also true for soldiers.

As large-scale bloodshed such as the Giyu Rebellion and the Mutermu Rebellion disappeared, and the Jurchens submitted, the need to see blood greatly decreased as the Northeast region stabilized.

Of course, there were many instances of seeing blood and corpses while fighting pirates at sea, but this was not something that ordinary people and soldiers experienced.

As soldiers gradually became accustomed to peace, they became re-acquainted with blood and death through the First Joseon-Ming War.

However, now that more than 10 years have passed since Joseon became the Empire, blood and corpses had once again become unfamiliar to the young soldiers.

Thanks to this, they were vomiting everywhere once the excitement of battle subsided.

* * *

“I understand, but it’s still a problem. They’ve had almost no real combat experience.”

“Even if they did, it was mainly the navy.”

The high-ranking officials discussed with serious faces.

The junior officers who had experienced the carnage of the First Joseon-Ming War, especially the Battle of the Yalu River, were now mid-level officers. And the junior officers and soldiers who were supposed to assist them and take charge of the Empire’s future were now vomiting and being ridiculed by their superiors.

“Real combat experience is the only answer… But we can’t just start a war that doesn’t need to be fought…”

“I agree.”

The high-ranking commanders acknowledged the importance of real combat experience, but they were troubled by the lack of a solution.

After a moment of consideration, the high-ranking commanders chose to ‘pass the buck’.

“Let’s send a report to Seoul. They’ll find an answer in Seoul.”

“Let’s do that. The urgent matter now is to clean up this mess.”

* * *

In any case, as soon as the battle ended, the Imperial Army mobilized even the laborers to clean up the battlefield.

First, the Imperial soldiers searched the bodies of the dead Mamluk cavalrymen for documents, valuable items, and guns and gunpowder.

They didn’t just search the bodies of the cavalrymen. The saddles on the horses that carried the Mamluk cavalrymen were adorned with all sorts of gold and silver decorations, and the soldiers collected these saddles as well and gathered them in one place.

Once the soldiers took what they needed, the laborers took over.

“Yalla! Yalla! (Hurry! Hurry!)”

Urged by the Imperial people in charge of construction, the laborers picked up the bodies of people and horses scattered on the ground and loaded them onto carts.

“Ireo! Ireo!” (Get up! Get up! – urging the animals)

“Heeheehing!”

“Moo~.”

The carts pulled by oxen, horses, and donkeys headed to a place far away from the construction site.

“Bury them next to the railroad? Ghosts will come out…”

The construction managers, feeling uneasy, chose a burial site far away.

At the place where the carts headed, the Empire’s excavators had already dug large, deep pits.

When the carts arrived, the laborers waiting in front of the pits unloaded the corpses from the carts and threw them into the pits.

* * *

Even with the laborers who had been投入 [invested] into the construction, the battlefield cleanup took two days.

The reason it took two days was that it took a lot of time to search the corpses, and it also took a lot of time to collect the fragmented corpses that had been hit by the Flying Thunderclap [a type of explosive weapon].

Thanks to this, they had to light bonfires everywhere at night, stand guard, and prevent animals from approaching.

As the excavator finished covering the pit with dirt, the Imperial soldiers and laborers boarded the iron horse again.

“Let’s go back!”

* * *

The Imperial soldiers who arrived in Suez moved busily.

They unloaded the firearms that had been used in the battle and moved them into the fortress, and they also moved the wounded and the dead inside.

Meanwhile, allied commanders were watching the scene nearby.

“The damage is less than I thought.”

“Perhaps the scale of the attacking bandits was small.”

The allied commanders, expecting a small-scale battle due to the smaller-than-expected damage to the Imperial Army, widened their eyes at the enormous amount of spoils being unloaded from other freight cars.

“How much is there?”

The commanders, watching the constantly unloaded saddles, ornate scimitars, and muskets, soon came to the same conclusion.

“At least 1,000…”

“More than 1,000 cavalrymen were defeated by only 300? In an open field?”

The allied commanders, shocked by the results that defied their common sense, soon came to the same thought.

‘Could it be? That Type Byeong [병 – Byeong, literally “C” or “Third”] armored train?’

* * *

That night, the soldiers who had been 投入 [infiltrated] disguised as laborers returned.

“Good work. So, did you confirm the Imperial Army’s strength?”

“Yes.”

“How does it compare to our forces?”

At the allied commanders’ question, the soldiers answered in unison.

“The Imperial Army should never be turned into an enemy.”

“To face the Imperial Army with proper defensive preparations, we would need to 投入 [deploy] at least 10 times, no, 20 times the number of troops.”

The allied commanders looked incredulous at the soldiers’ answer.

“We know that the Imperial Army’s weapons are powerful because we’ve used them ourselves. But 20 times the number of troops? Did you check properly?”

“We saw it with our own eyes! The Imperial Army annihilated nearly 2,000 enemies with only 300 men!”

The soldiers told the allied commanders everything they had secretly seen.

“…I swear in the name of God that everything I’ve said is true.”

When even the Ottoman soldiers, who were not only Christians but also Muslims, swore, the allied commanders’ faces turned black.

-A faster rate of fire, even though the size is only 1/5 of the Type Eul [을 – Eul, literally “B” or “Second”] armored train.

-Unlike the Type Eul armored train, which requires at least five people, the Type Byeong only requires two people to operate.

With these advantages, the Empire added quantity.

If a Type Eul armored train was loaded onto a flatcar with thick defensive sandbags, the maximum number of cannons per car would be 6, with 3 on each side.

This was due to the size of the armored train itself, the scale of the operating personnel, and the storage space for ammunition.

With this arrangement, the number of armored trains that could be mobilized during a battle was 3.

However, the Empire built a platform in the center of the flatcar and placed 8 Type Byeong armored trains on it.

Because it was located in a space one level higher in the center, all 8 cannons could be used no matter where the enemies came from on the left or right.

In the end, a total of 24 Type Byeong armored trains, 8 each at the front, middle, and rear, poured crossfires on the Mamluk cavalrymen.

The problem wasn’t just the Type Byeong armored train.

The Type Byeong rifles used by the Imperial Army were also terrifying weapons.

The Imperial-made Type Eul rifles, which were introduced and used in the later stages of the Suez War, also provided overwhelming firepower.

While the Mamluk and Spanish riflemen reloaded while standing, the allied forces could reload while lying on the ground or kneeling.

The rate of fire was also the same. The Type Eul rifle, a breech-loading single-shot rifle, guaranteed an overwhelming rate of fire compared to the muzzle-loading muskets and flintlock rifles used by the Mamluk and Spanish armies.

Therefore, now that the war is over, the allied nations are focusing all their efforts on trying to replicate the Type Eul rifle.

But the Empire had introduced a Type Byeong rifle that overwhelmed the Type Eul rifle.

-A rifle that loads and fires 5 rounds at once.

According to the soldiers’ reports, it had its pros and cons compared to the Type Eul rifle.

The advantage was the fast rate of fire, and the disadvantage was the greatly increased consumption of bullets.

“It’s not just the rifles…”

The Type Byeong rifles and Type Byeong armored trains boasted an overwhelming rate of fire compared to the Type Eul.

In other words, the consumption of bullets also increased significantly compared to the Type Eul.

The allied commanders, thinking that far, all had the same question.

‘Even if we can bring them in, can my country afford the supplies?’

The allied commanders, thinking that far, felt a chill down their spines.

‘The Empire can, right?’

In the end, the French commander muttered without realizing it.

“These crazy Imperial bastards…”

Following the French commander’s words, the Florentine commander added.

“If we fight the Empire, we’ll go bankrupt and perish faster than losing the war.”

Although they faced a bleak reality, the allied commanders sent the soldiers’ reports to their envoys, along with the opinion that it would be good to introduce them.

And the envoys’ expressions also darkened when they heard the commanders’ stories.

“It’s a problem whether we have them or not…”