[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-145":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1205434,1561,"Chapter 145: Tear Down and Rebuild","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-145",145,"\u003Cp>After the tedious banquet ended, Wang Dou took his leave, and Department Magistrate Li Zhen personally saw him out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching Wang Dou’s departing figure, Li Zhen furrowed his brow and muttered to himself, “This man is unfathomable.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the fourteenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of the Chongzhen reign, Wang Dou summoned the city’s military officers and commanders to discuss administrative affairs. Before this, Wang Dou had already ordered Clerk Zhang Xuejiao to fetch the relevant registers for him to review.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the register statistics, Baoanzhou City had over 880 military households, with a population of more than 4,400. The registers recorded 360 qing, 14 mu, 6 fen, and 5 li of garrison farmland. The summer grain levy in kind was 616 shi, 3 sheng, and 2 ge of wheat; the autumn grain levy in kind was 1,519 shi, 4 dou, 7 sheng, and 4 ge of rice and beans, making a total actual levy of summer tax and autumn grain of over 2,100 shi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In addition, over 18,600 bundles of horse fodder and more than 2,400 jin of poplar firewood had to be delivered annually.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Baoanzhou shared its city with the Guard. Besides these military households, there were also about 730 civilian households within the city, under the jurisdiction of the Department Magistrate. Baoanzhou City was divided into two corners and six wards. In the city’s Xun corner, the Cheng’en, Yonghe, and Ying’en wards were mostly inhabited by military households. In the city’s Gen corner, the Shishan, Guangxiao, and Yongfeng wards were mostly inhabited by civilian households.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding the military: there were a total of 1,357 officers and soldiers, with 368 horses and mules. In terms of weaponry, besides swords, spears, shields, and lances, Baoanzhou City currently possessed five “Divine Might Invincible Grand General” iron cannons, forty sets of bronze and iron Frankish breech-loading swivel guns, eighty-five small bronze and iron cannons, as well as a large number of Crouching Tiger cannons, Cup-mouth cannons, and the like.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was the situation of the prefectural city alone. In addition, there were the register records for several large forts such as the Five Forts, Shunxiang Fort, and Zhangjia Fort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the surface, the situation at each fort appeared optimistic, but who knew what the actual circumstances were? Great Ming officials were notoriously skilled at falsifying accounts. Shunxiang Fort alone, when he had first taken up his post there, had presented a situation completely different from what was recorded in the registers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Compared to the Battalion Commander’s official hall at Shunxiang Fort, the Defense Command government office hall in the prefectural city was much more spacious and luxurious. In the main hall, all the military officers and commanders of Baoanzhou gathered together. With the newly appointed Defense Commander discussing affairs, everyone rallied their spirits and did their utmost to make an impression.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The city’s Garrison Farm Officer, Zhang Gui, holding the garrison farmland registers, reported to Wang Dou: “My lord, the prefectural city completed its autumn sowing two months ago. The three hundred-odd qing of garrison farmland have all been planted with wheat. By the summer harvest next year, the garrison grain can be collected.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou nodded. He knew that the figures for garrison farmland and military households in the prefectural city were certainly neither complete nor accurate, but he remained impassive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tian Chang, the Company Commander in charge of the city’s training affairs, always seemed half-asleep whenever serious matters arose. Suppressing a yawn, he tried his best to rouse himself and said to Wang Dou, “My lord, our prefectural city has 1,357 officers and soldiers, of which 977 are combat-ready troops, and the rest are troops on miscellaneous duties. The troop register is here; would my lord like to inspect it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou took the troop register. He neither confirmed nor denied anything, merely saying, “The training of soldiers concerns the safety and defense of our prefectural city. Company Commander Tian, Squad Commander Chi, Squad Commander Huang, assemble the troops. I shall personally inspect and review the soldiers and horses.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He then said to the Judicial Commissioner Zheng Yu, “Commissioner Zheng, you are responsible for supervising and enforcing military discipline. In half a shichen, I want to see every officer and soldier of the prefectural city on the parade ground.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tian Chang still looked bleary-eyed and drowsy. Squad Commanders Chi Dengshan and Huang Xianen exchanged glances with Judicial Commissioner Zheng Yu, thinking that Wang Dou, as a new official, was lighting the first of his three fires of authority. Fortunately, they had made some preparations over the past few days; by muddling through, they should be able to manage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the parade ground, several hundred soldiers gathered in a chaotic, noisy mob. Watching their sluggish movements, they could not even form a proper formation after a long while. Judging by their appearance, Wang Dou could see that their condition and treatment were still better than those at the old Shunxiang Fort; at least the old and weak did not make up the majority. As for equipment, each man wore a half-new mandarin-duck battle jacket and carried a weapon. In particular, the retainers under each Squad Commander mostly wore leather armor, padded cotton armor, or iron armor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although they were lax in training, they finally managed to form a sparse, ragged formation, standing listlessly across the field. Before him were the troops of roughly three squad commanders. Company Commander Tian Chang commanded Squad Commanders Chi Dengshan and Huang Xianen, while personally leading a large squad-sized force, which included over a hundred retainers. Squad Commanders Chi Dengshan and Huang Xianen also each likely had a unit of fifty retainers. Even Judicial Commissioner Zheng Yu maintained a unit of retainers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou spotted the problem with these retainers. Though mostly able-bodied veteran soldiers, the majority were roguish, thuggish, and undisciplined riffraff. Wang Dou had seen plenty of this type: useless in battle, but first-rate at preying on the common people. The remaining ordinary soldiers were either looking around distractedly or yawning incessantly, bearing no resemblance to soldiers at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Listless and lethargic—could such troops fight? Behind Wang Dou, Han Chao let out a cold sneer. Soldiers like these were inferior even to the auxiliary troops at Shunxiang Fort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou watched for a long time. Tian Chang had claimed that the prefectural city had 1,357 combat-ready and miscellaneous-duty troops combined, yet there were probably not even a thousand men here. He said flatly, “Commissioner Zheng, call the roll according to the troop register.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Judicial Commissioner Zheng Yu had been standing behind Wang Dou with a cold, gloomy expression. Now he acknowledged the order and began calling names one by one from the register. Chi Dengshan and Huang Xianen exchanged glances, unease appearing on their faces. They had originally thought Wang Dou was merely going through the motions, but they had not expected him to be so serious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only Company Commander Tian Chang, rubbing his two puffy eyes, still looked as if he wanted to sleep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The final result, including retainers, was 954 officers and soldiers on the parade ground—a shortfall of over four hundred men. Moreover, Wang Dou sensed that many among them were not regular soldiers of the prefectural city but had been temporarily pulled from the military household garrison farmers to make up the numbers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou remained silent. Chi Dengshan and Huang Xianen both grew uneasy. Sensing the atmosphere on the field, Company Commander Tian Chang no longer dared to yawn loudly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a long pause, Wang Dou said, “How can the shortage of officers and soldiers in the prefectural city be so great?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Squad Commander Huang Xianen bowed and scraped, saying, “My lord, the army lacks pay, and soldiers desert continuously. Your subordinates are powerless to stop it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou said, “If the army is short of men, why not replenish them from the military households?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chi Dengshan, who had been watching Wang Dou the whole time, now spoke: “My lord, you see clearly. Since the Xuande reign, the military households of Baoanzhou Guard have been deserting year after year. If we were to conscript surplus males from the military households, I fear that Garrison Farm Officer Zhang’s side would lack sufficient manpower for farming.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou remained silent, gazing at those pampered soldiers on the parade ground. After a long while, he said, “No need to review the drill. Let the soldiers return to their barracks.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Surprised that they had passed the test so easily, Chi Dengshan, Huang Xianen, and the others were greatly astonished. They glanced at Judicial Commissioner Zheng Yu, and a hint of a smile even appeared on Zheng Yu’s gloomy face. Thereafter, although the men remained outwardly respectful toward Wang Dou, they unconsciously revealed expressions of contempt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only Company Commander Tian Chang resumed his drowsy, sleep-inducing demeanor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The administration of the prefectural city is so decayed. Over a thousand officers and soldiers, yet not a single one is usable.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A solitary lamp burned like a bean. Inside the Defense Commander’s residence, Wang Dou let out a long sigh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the day, he had also inspected various parts of the prefectural city. The defenses everywhere were extremely lax, the military camp regulations were practically nonexistent, and as for the weapons, not only did the inventory fail to match the registers, but their quality was also deeply worrying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The weapons used by the officers and soldiers of the various guard battalions of the Great Ming, apart from advanced firearms and cannons, were partly allocated by the Ministry of Works and partly manufactured by the guards themselves. Wang Dou had inspected the city’s artisan household camp, and it suffered from the exact same abuses as Shunxiang Fort had in the past.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the Baoanzhou City registers, there were originally 165 military artisan households, but now fewer than 120 remained. These artisan households were fixed by hereditary registration; once registered as an artisan, one remained an artisan for life, performing corvée labor upon reaching adulthood. Their treatment was abysmal. The supervising officers and foremen in charge of weapons manufacturing embezzled raw materials and misappropriated material cost silver, and the artisans were even forced to make up the shortfall of materials themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The artisans were full of grievances and had not the slightest motivation when forging. The quality of the weapons they produced was extremely poor. With just a cursory glance, Wang Dou could tell that most of the swords, spears, helmets, armor, bows, arrows, three-eyed guns, and matchlocks they made were virtually unusable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only the situation with the cannons inside the prefectural city was somewhat better. Those cannons were weapons allocated from the Great Ming Armory Bureau or the Ordnance Bureau. When the Great Ming manufactured various large cannons, they used specialized design drawings; the length of the barrel, the thickness of the tube—all had strict, fixed standard dimensions. This made it quite difficult for artisans and supervising officials to substitute inferior materials, unlike with firearms, swords, and spears where loopholes could be exploited. Therefore, the quality of these cannons could be guaranteed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, their maintenance left much to be desired. Many perfectly good cannons had been ruined simply due to improper upkeep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The city was originally supposed to have over 260 artillerymen; Wang Dou estimated that at least half were missing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing Wang Dou sigh, Zhang Gui stepped forward and said in a low voice, “My lord, forgive your subordinate for speaking out of turn, but the decay of the prefectural city is likely beyond your imagination. The large shortfall in troops you saw during today’s review is the result of the various city officers illegally commandeering soldiers and willfully neglecting their duties.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to Zhang Gui, several officers in the prefectural city showed signs of deliberately allowing soldiers to desert, all in order to fraudulently claim and embezzle their pay and rations. Not only that, they had also seized large tracts of garrison farmland without paying a single grain of the produce levy, shifting the burden onto the ordinary garrison soldiers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From Company Commander Tian Chang down to Squad Commander Chi Dengshan and the others, each had encroached upon over two thousand mu of fertile land. Furthermore, they illegally used soldiers and military households as labor to farm their private fields. In daily life, they also commandeered large numbers of troops for building their residences and transporting private goods.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The culture of bribery within the prefectural city’s military was even more pervasive. The officers also had a regular source of bribe income known as “buying leisure.” Every soldier, by paying the officers a few hundred cash a month, could skip drills and roll calls and legitimately pursue other livelihoods. Even horses could be bought leisure; for a few hundred cash a month, they could be taken away for other work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The missing soldiers on today’s parade ground, aside from those who had deserted, were mostly these “leisure-bought” men. Many had not been seen for months, and no one knew where they had gone. Because the numbers were so large, even though Chi Dengshan and the others had temporarily pulled in a large number of garrison farmers to fill the ranks, they still fell far short of making up the deficit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From Zhang Gui’s words, Wang Dou sensed his deep-seated resentment. As the Garrison Farm Officer of the prefectural city, Zhang Gui had seen the officers’ large-scale seizure of farmland and laborers, which made it impossible for him to meet his superiors’ annual grain collection quotas, denying him any chance of promotion or reward. Zhang Gui was already brimming with bitterness toward his colleagues in the city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, in the past, he had been isolated and powerless in the prefectural city. Now that he had an old acquaintance like Wang Dou, he seized the opportunity to come and offer his allegiance. His special visit tonight was the result of careful deliberation. By speaking such words to Wang Dou, he had already firmly resolved to stand by Wang Dou’s side. If his words leaked out even a little, unless Wang Dou protected him, he would have no place left in the prefectural city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou looked at him: “Old Zhang, you know this prefectural city well. From now on, I will rely on you.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhang Gui was overjoyed. Wang Dou’s words meant he was already regarded as a trusted confidant. He knelt and kowtowed: “I am willing to die for my lord, to go through fire and water without hesitation.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Dou helped him up. After Zhang Gui happily sat down, Wang Dou pondered for a long while, then said, “The prefectural city is so decayed that it is beyond saving. There is no choice but to tear it down and rebuild! But first, I must fully understand the situation inside and outside the city. Old Zhang, in the coming days, take me on a tour outside the city. After we have discussed the details thoroughly, we will make a final decision.”\u003C\u002Fp>",2492,"2026-06-03T14:05:19.908Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","0341e02f5533ff8fe111f26d3f4d9854bbee53bacb04a57d894f8a747d66b765","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-146","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-144",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]