The bullet was a fool; the bayonet was a fine fellow.
Those were the famous words of a general from the Tsardom of Russia. They might have seemed out of place in the modern age.
But given the era he lived in, his country's circumstances, and its level of technology, there was good reason for him to say them.
Volley Fire could kill enemy troops, but it was much harder to rout or defeat them that way.
Here was a moderately obscure fact: during the Opium War launched by Britain, the Qing Army's Green Standard Soldiers had crude equipment. They still relied mainly on melee weapons, supplemented by cumbersome, slow-firing matchlocks.
The British Lobster Soldiers, meanwhile, were all equipped with flintlocks, which were more accurate than matchlocks.
Yet in exchanges of fire on the battlefield, the Qing Army's Green Standard musketeers could hold their ground against the Lobster Soldiers.
Although the Qing Army suffered heavy casualties, and despite the enemy's more accurate fire, faster shooting, and denser volleys, they could still maintain their Volley Fire formation.
It was only when the British Lobster Soldiers launched a bayonet charge that they broke the Green Standard Soldiers' lines.
With that example in mind, Chris saw an opportunity when he noticed that the enemy's melee troops had temporarily left the front to maneuver along the flanks, a hundred to two hundred meters from the main battlefield, while his own men stood only fifty meters from the enemy.
Chris raised his whistle and blew a piercing short-long-short signal. Then he spat it out and drew the two-handed Qi Family Longsaber at his waist.
"Charge! Everyone, charge!!!"
The thirty-odd remaining Barbarian players at the very front reacted first. They quickly discarded their cumbersome matchlocks, drew their melee weapons, and charged down the slope with battle