Peasant Long-Spears

Peasant Long-Spears are the great masses of common folk levied to the Celestial armies in time of war, farmers and labourers handed a long spear and a place in the ranks. Individually they are no match for the hardened warriors of the empire, still less for the monsters of the north, but Cathay does not field them individually. It fields them in their thousands, in deep and disciplined blocks bristling with spear-points, and a wall of long-spears braced against a charge can blunt even the fiercest assault. Drilled by veteran officers and steadied by the drums and banners of the Celestial host, the peasant levies hold their ground far better than their humble origins would suggest, for the ordered harmony of Cathay reaches even into the hearts of its lowliest soldiers. They are the anvil upon which the empire's foes are broken and held, pinning the enemy in place while the jade warriors, cavalry, and gunners do the killing. In the arithmetic of the Celestial war-machine, the long-spears are numberless and utterly essential.