"Grrr..."
"Dad, I'm hungry."
Bruno looked down at his son lying across his thighs. At the sight of the boy's sallow little face, he let out a long sigh, reached into his clothes, and took out his last piece of black bread, about the size of a fist, then handed it to him.
His small, scrawny son eagerly took the bread and stuffed it into his mouth, though it was packed with sawdust and extremely tough.
But as the food entered his mouth, happiness still filled the child's face, and he chewed with effort.
The child was considerate, too. After eating half, he looked up at Bruno, hesitated, then offered the rest to him with both hands.
"Have some, Dad."
Bruno did not take the bread. He merely reached out with his large hand and vigorously ruffled his son's messy chestnut hair.
"Eat up. I'm not hungry."
"Dad, eat. You need to eat to have strength."
His son remained insistent. Bruno sighed, took the bread, and swallowed it in one bite.
"Go to sleep now. I'll go find something to eat."
"Okay."
As he watched his son obediently leave, his back draped in rags, the smile gradually faded from Bruno's face. Then he stood, his towering frame, nearly two meters tall, casting a broad shadow inside the house.
A woman in a loose dress, gaunt and sallow, with dull, filthy hair, staggered over from the side. She tilted her head up to look at her towering husband, and he looked down at her.
The woman choked back tears. She wanted to say something, but in the end said nothing, merely raising her hands to give Bruno a matchlock, along with a pouch of gunpowder and lead shot.
"Please, come back safely."
Bruno took the weapon and drew in a sharp breath, but gave no answer, not even a nod. He simply turned resolutely toward the door, picking up a knight's sword beside it and securing it at his waist.
Outside, more than a dozen men stood silently, holding hoes, spears, and two muskets. They wore hemp clothing, and every one of them was painfully thin, their eyes weary and their spirits low.
Only when Bruno emerged did they rally a little and look at him, though they lacked the strength to speak.
Bruno looked at them as well. With hunger gnawing at his stomach, he had no desire to speak either.
In truth, by this point, Bruno no longer knew what else he could say. He merely picked up his loaded matchlock and led the way out of town.
The dozen or so men followed.
The small group headed out of town. Along the way, people carrying weapons kept joining them from the houses and streets.
There were men, women, and even white-haired elders, but whoever they were, they all shared one trait.
They had scrawny bodies, and the exhaustion of hunger was written plainly on their faces.
They were a crowd of starving people.
By the time Bruno reached the open ground outside town, the men and women, young and old, following him numbered over a thousand.
A kilometer outside Bichi Town, in a wheat field, stood more than three hundred soldiers in the gray military uniforms of the Bohemian Empire, with over a dozen mounted men at the head of their formation.
When Bruno led his people out, the most lavishly dressed of the riders, a fat man, lowered his Monocular in considerable surprise and laughed to the cavalrymen on either side.
"These peasants have some nerve. They knew we were coming, yet they didn't run?!"
"Good thing they didn't. If they'd run, where would we find heads to cut off?"
Another officer, dressed in the blue cavalry uniform of the Bohemian Empire and wearing a cavalry saber, replied.
"Exactly... gentlemen, order the soldiers forward and kill them all. A thousand heads should be enough to make our superiors see us in a new light."
"Brother, I don't think a thousand heads will be enough. Doesn't Bichi Town have two or three thousand people? Even if some fled the famine, there should still be people in town. We should kill them all.
Otherwise, with only a thousand heads, it'll be hard to divide the credit among us."
"Good suggestion. Then we'll kill them all."
After a round of nods, the mounted noble officers dispersed and returned to their respective units. Then military musicians in white uniforms stepped out ahead of the ranks and blew their horns with all their strength.
To the rapid beat of the military drums, the gray-clad soldiers marched forward behind their standard-bearers, their footsteps falling in a rather uneven rhythm.
The gray-clad soldiers' formation was passable. Among the three hundred soldiers, excluding the musicians, only a hundred carried matchlocks. These were a meter and a half long, with octagonal muzzles and barrels and a caliber of twenty millimeters.
(Reference image for musketeers, Sword-and-Shield Fighters, and spearmen)
Of the remaining two hundred, a hundred carried four-meter infantry spears, while the other hundred were equipped with swords and shields.
The spearmen wore iron helmets and leather armor, while the Sword-and-Shield Fighters wore gleaming silver breastplates and helmets adorned with white feathers, looking imposing and full of fighting spirit.
This force was not the Bohemian Army, but the Bagnian Restoration Army.
They had come to attack Bichi Town because these noble officers wanted to raid it for supplies, but more importantly, because the town's lowborn inhabitants openly supported the Revolutionary Party and obeyed its orders.
Since they supported the Revolutionary Party, everyone in Bichi Town was naturally a rebel.
And for the Restoration Army to kill rebels was only right and proper.
As for the rebels outnumbering the Restoration Army, the nobles did not give that the slightest thought.
They were all peasants. What did it matter how many there were?
Look at how they staggered. Look at their hoes, pitchforks, and billhooks. Only a handful had muskets. With weapons that crude, could they truly be called an army?
However many such rebels there were, they were nothing more than military merit on legs, lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
Thus, once the peasants left town, the Restoration Army eagerly began advancing.
The musketeers marched in the center in three ranks, with half a meter between each soldier, their formation loose and slow-moving.
The Sword-and-Shield Fighters marched on either side of the musketeers, with the spearmen behind them, their raised spears forming a dense bamboo grove.
In the distance, Bruno drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the Restoration Army's formation. Granted, they had to pause every twenty meters to straighten their disordered ranks, which made their advance very slow.
Even so, this was still an army that Bich Town's militia were unlikely to hold back.
Bruno's mouth filled with bitterness, but he had no choice. He could not run, nor could he escape.
All he could do was fight to the death.
This was their home. They had nowhere left to retreat.
"Bruno! Trouble! We've got trouble!!!"
"What is it?"
"Look! Look at the mountain! Someone's coming! Soldiers in black are coming down the mountain!"
"What?!"