Chapter 367: Closing in on Jiaxian

From Kaifeng to the capital was over two thousand li; even setting out on a fast horse, the round trip took many days. Add to that several days of court debate and argument, and Wang Dou, detained in Henan over the matter of guest troops, had to wait until nearly mid-eleventh month before the Ministry of War’s formal dispatch finally reached Kaifeng Prefecture.

These days, Chen Yongfu constantly dropped by Wang Dou’s camp to visit; he observed the scene inside and outside the camp in considerable detail, and Wang Dou understood exactly what he was thinking. That look in his eyes — Wang Dou had often seen it back in the Eastern Route, in the eyes of Yang Guozhu, Hu Dawei, and others.

During the time Wang Dou remained in Henan, the war situation in western Henan grew ever more urgent. Besides making his offensive against Luoyang increasingly obvious, Li Zicheng was also vigorously clearing out the cities and towns around Luoyang. A few days earlier, Qian Zuozheng, the Department Magistrate of Ruzhou, had sent an urgent plea for reinforcements: tens of thousands of bandits were fiercely assaulting Ruzhou, the military situation was critical, and he hoped Kaifeng Prefecture would immediately dispatch troops to the rescue.

Ruzhou was a strategic hub connecting Henan Prefecture, Kaifeng Prefecture, and Runing Prefecture, and had always been a passageway for the peasant armies. Ever since Li Zicheng rose from Mount Funiu, the counties within the department — Lushan, Jiaxian, Yiyang, and others — had fallen one after another, leaving only the solitary strongpoint of Ruzhou city.

Li Zicheng regarded Ruzhou city as a thorn in his eye, a spike in his flesh, and was desperate to pull it out as quickly as possible. At the start of the month, Li Zicheng’s army had already begun besieging Ruzhou, and wave after wave of messengers from the departmental city came seeking aid.

Fires blazed everywhere across the prefectures of Henan. If Henan Provincial Governor Li Vanguard Commander had possessed ample troops, he would not have sat by and watched the cities of Henan Prefecture fall one by one. It was not that he had never sent reinforcements, but after the relief troops were routed several times beneath the walls of Ruzhou by Li Zicheng, he no longer dared dispatch soldiers there.

Therefore, Provincial Governor Li Vanguard Commander set his sights on Wang Dou’s division. The Ministry of War dispatch had finally arrived; Wang Dou had also stayed in Kaifeng Prefecture for quite a few days — it was time to put him to use, not let him eat idle meals every day without working.

Judging by the current military situation, the Luoyang matter could still be delayed, but the crisis at Ruzhou was imminent, so sending Wang Dou there was just right, and also a convenient chance to observe the Shunxiang Army’s combat effectiveness. If Wang Dou’s army truly was as formidable as rumored, Li Vanguard Commander would have greater confidence in the future task of relieving Luoyang.

“General Wang, I have already volunteered myself to go resist the enemy. In the coming days, in the battles of Ruzhou and Luoyang, you and I shall fight side by side and slay the foe together.”

Chen Yongfu assumed the posture of one bravely going to his death. Today, before leaving the city, he had taken the initiative to petition Henan Provincial Governor Li Vanguard Commander for battle, willing to go with Wang Dou’s army to lift the siege of Ruzhou. Sure enough, Li Vanguard Commander was extremely pleased and lavishly praised Chen Yongfu’s heart of loyalty to the sovereign and love of country.

The Provincial Governor solemnly promised the Vice Regional Commander that if he lifted the sieges of Ruzhou and Luoyang, he would certainly recommend him in the future as Henan Regional Commander. Although Regional Commanders and Vice Regional Commanders everywhere required court recommendation, it was obvious that the nomination and recommendation of local high officials was also extremely important.

“To be able to slay bandits together with Military Commander Chen is an honor I, your humble officer, do not deserve.”

Wang Dou agreed very crisply. Having accepted the money and grain of the Henan officials and generals, he naturally had to fight for them. And Chen Yongfu’s willingness to campaign alongside him suited Wang Dou perfectly — Chen Yongfu was a local power broker in Henan, and having him along would spare them a great deal of trouble.

There was another important point: Wang Dou also wanted to see how the local government troops fought, and what their combat strength and tactics were like.

The decision to march was made. The two men ate Zhuxian Town’s five-spice dried tofu while consulting the local Henan maps Chen Yongfu had brought to discuss military affairs. Wang Dou always felt that the maps of this era had a strongly impressionistic style; ordinary people could not understand them, and if one truly fought a battle by the map, nine times out of ten one would end up in the wrong place — but having a map was still better than having none.

“It is five hundred li from Kaifeng to Ruzhou. The bandits now besiege Ruzhou; for the sake of prudence, our army will first go to Jiaxian, where provisions and baggage can be stockpiled. From Kaifeng to Jiaxian is four hundred li; if we march rapidly, the vanguard can arrive in five or six days. The bulk of our forces, along with provisions and baggage, can also reach Jiaxian in the following days.”

“Once the entire army has arrived and provisions are secure, our forces will launch a thunderous assault on the bandits at Ruzhou. From Ruzhou to Jiaxian is barely a hundred li; at such a short distance, there is no fear of the roving bandits cutting our supply lines, and even if the vanguard troops encounter bandit attacks, relief will be convenient.”

Wang Dou pondered for a long while, then smiled faintly: “Let it be as Military Commander Chen proposes.”

…

That very day, Wang Dou accompanied Chen Yongfu into Kaifeng Prefecture to meet with Henan Provincial Governor Li Vanguard Commander, receive his personal instructions, and collect the relevant official documents and procedures. Two days later, Wang Dou, together with Henan Vice Regional Commander Chen Yongfu, swore an oath and set out on campaign. Before departure, Provincial Governor Li Vanguard Commander led the officials great and small of Kaifeng Prefecture to see them off, and local gentry also offered rewards — the ceremony was done in full measure.

Except for leaving Sun Sanjie’s baggage Company Commander with one company’s strength to guard the camp at Zhuxian Town and watch over the grain, silver, and supplies within, all the remaining Shunxiang Army troops were mobilized. Chen Yongfu also led his vanguard battalion out in full force; including soldiers and retainers, there were about 2,500 men, plus some civilian laborers transporting baggage.

The combined forces of both sides numbered over ten thousand — a rather grand and imposing host.

The march followed the route: Kaifeng — Weishi — Changge — Yuzhou — Jiaxian.

Fifteenth day of the eleventh month, thirteenth year of Chongzhen, within the borders of Yuzhou.

The cold wind slashed at the face, biting into flesh and bone. The eleventh month of the Chongzhen years was already the early twelfth month by later calendars, and in this eastern Henan land of the Great Ming, the cold was no less severe than around the capital region. In the bitter cold, many of the soldiers in this marching army had their heads and faces wrapped up tightly and solidly.

Gazing around in all directions, there seemed to be a sense of a thousand li without human habitation — everywhere crumbling walls and broken ramparts, desolation on all sides, only white bones strewn along the road, abandoned corpses and skeletal remains. All along the way, Kaifeng and Weishi were still tolerable, but after entering the Changge region, Wang Dou once again had the same feeling he’d had when traveling through Zhangde Prefecture and Weihui Prefecture.

The various calamities of drought and locusts were one factor; not to mention Jiaxian, which they had not yet reached, had long since been destroyed by the roving bandits. Even the Changge and Yuzhou area was already a critical zone ravaged by the roving bandits. After repeated sweeps by soldiers and bandits, finding an intact village in the locality was truly difficult.

What could survive were, first, the departmental cities and county seats, and second, those large clustered villages, or the great strongholds near mountains and rivers, where several or a dozen villages had merged together. Without exception, whether large villages or great strongholds, all were surrounded by deep moats, dense bamboo palisades, and high-built cattle-and-horse walls. Some of these stronghold walls were so thick and deep that they were in no way inferior to the local county or departmental cities. It seemed that within Jiaxian there was a Linfeng Stronghold that, during the War of Resistance, even the elite troops of the Japanese army could not capture after a prolonged assault and had to slink away and detour around it.

These large villages and great strongholds were generally built only by local power-holders or prominent clans with the resources to do so. They fortified their strongholds for self-preservation, wavering in the chaos of the age, swaying back and forth among the roving bandits, government troops, and Qing troops — everything proceeding from their own clan interests.

The land of eastern Henan was flat and open; beyond the plains there were only more plains, beyond the yellow earth only more yellow earth. All around was silent and deserted, even the trees were very few. The cold wind, mixed with snow pellets, struck the face, adding to the bleak stillness and desolation on every side.

“General Wang, judging by our pace, today our army can reach Jiaxian. Let the officers and men rest well; after marching for days, the men are utterly exhausted.”

Wang Dou, riding on horseback, was gazing into the distance and pondering when Chen Yongfu beside him suddenly spoke.

His expression was very poor. Judging merely from these few days of marching, the gap between his vanguard battalion and the Shunxiang Army was starkly evident.

In the depths of winter and bitter cold, the soldiers in his camp were all cursing and grumbling, especially those civilian laborers transporting baggage — every one of them was suffering unbearably, dragging their feet as they moved. In contrast, those Shunxiang Army soldiers, in their daily marches and halts, were still full of spirit and vigor, their formations strict and orderly!

When they marched, they still wore heavy armor, whereas the officers and men under his command openly violated the Great Ming military regulation requiring full armament on the march, handing all their armor and weapons over to the rear army’s baggage train to transport. Even so, every day they marched as if half-dead, relying entirely on Chen Yongfu’s retainer battalion to urge and encourage them, promising that once the siege of Ruzhou was lifted, they would certainly be richly rewarded — only thus did the vanguard battalion maintain some degree of morale.

Wang Dou secretly shook his head. The government troops of the Great Ming interior were already utterly rotten. Chen Yongfu was an outstanding figure historically, yet even the officers and soldiers under his command were like this; it was obvious why Li Zicheng could not help but flourish so greatly in the land of Henan.

Wang Dou and Chen Yongfu’s expedition was likewise divided into a front army, a central army, and a rear army. Li Guangheng, under Wang Dou’s orders, led a portion of cavalry as the vanguard, and together with Sun Sanjie’s baggage Company Commander, had already reached the Jiaxian area ahead of time. After that, Wang Dou with his remaining infantry and cavalry units, along with Chen Yongfu’s infantry and cavalry, formed the central army and followed behind. Finally, Chen Yongfu’s baggage train brought up the very rear as the rear army.

In fact, all the way up to the Great Ming, the ancient military had no specialized support troops; those who transported baggage and provisions and handled army miscellaneous duties were all civilian laborers, and civilian laborers generally fell at the very rear. They moved slowly, so from the mid-Ming period onward, the Great Ming established specialized baggage battalions to transport grain and rice, but the government troops of the interior had no such specialized baggage battalions.

Wang Dou’s seven thousand troops, infantry and cavalry included, consumed over seven thousand shi of provisions a month; adding Chen Yongfu’s several thousand troops, the provisions needed were even greater. However, Wang Dou estimated that the Ruzhou campaign would of course not take a month. When Chen Yongfu saw the multitude of carts and horses in Wang Dou’s army and expressed the hope of conveniently drawing provisions from Wang Dou’s army’s supplies, Wang Dou agreed.

Wang Dou’s style was generally to accompany the army with one month’s provisions. The army’s 1,200 horse-drawn carts were mostly accompanying the army this time. Although this greatly lightened the burden on Chen Yongfu’s army of transporting provisions, his army’s tents, baggage, and other items could not use Wang Dou’s carts and horses, and still required quite a few civilian laborers to accompany the army.

His army, of course, did not have so many horse-drawn carts, horses, and mules, and relied entirely on civilian laborers using wheelbarrows or flatbed carts to haul and transport. A journey of several hundred li entirely on foot, and in freezing winter weather, was of course extremely exhausting, which explained the complaints and grumbling all along the way from soldiers and laborers alike.

“Yes, once we reach Jiaxian, we must let the officers and men rest properly.”

Wang Dou glanced back and spoke thoughtfully.

Apart from Sun Sanjie’s baggage Company Commander who had gone ahead, the remaining eight hundred provision carts of the Shunxiang Army, along with Zhao Xuan’s artillery Company Commander, all marched within the central army. Only Chen Yongfu, out of concern for the rear army’s safety, ordered his son Chen De to lead the retainer battalion to escort his own rear army’s civilian laborers.

The official road from Kaifeng Prefecture to Ruzhou was not easy to travel — long neglected and full of potholes. His army’s cavalry, mounted infantry, and even the new troops of the Yi-grade units were all fine. It was the army’s accompanying baggage carts, along with Zhao Xuan’s artillery Company Commander, that slowed the march.

This time Wang Dou brought along ten red-barbarian cannons: among them two red-barbarian six-pounders and eight red-barbarian three-pounders. The red-barbarian three-pounders required one or two horses to pull; the red-barbarian six-pounders required two or three horses to pull. Every time they encountered potholed ground, the artillerymen also had to come forward and help.

Zhao Xuan’s artillery Company Commander, several hundred strong, was mobilized in full. As Zhao Xuan put it, the artillery troops could not just train without real combat — they should go to the battlefield to experience the atmosphere, and it would be good for each man to take turns firing a few rounds. To transport these cannons, over the several-thousand-li journey from Yongning City to Kaifeng Prefecture, the artillery troops were also utterly exhausted. This was still with the convenience of the flat plains from the capital region to Henan; if they were going to Huguang, Jiangnan, or other places, transporting baggage and artillery would be even more difficult.

War is fought on logistics; without modern roads and means of transport, campaigning away from home is truly bitter!

As for the battles at Ruzhou and Luoyang, Wang Dou did not think there would be any mishaps; his main consideration was the future battle at Xiangyang.

If provisions were stockpiled at Jiaxian, the straight-line distance from Jiaxian to Xiangyang was seven hundred li. According to the timing of events in history, if the Shunxiang Army raced on horseback to relieve Xiangyang, provision supply would be a problem — a thoroughly sound plan had to be devised.

…

In the afternoon, Wang Dou and Chen Yongfu’s central army reached Jiaxian. Jiaxian was traditionally held to be the hometown of Zhang Liang, situated in the transitional zone from the northern foothills of Mount Funiu to the eastern Henan plain. To the north was Mount Shenwu, to the south the Ru River; following this river valley a hundred li west was Ruzhou — it could be considered a strategic choke point.

When Wang Dou and Chen Yongfu arrived at Jiaxian, the local county seat had long since been razed to the ground. The surrounding city walls were broken and incomplete, largely vanished; most of the buildings inside had also been destroyed, leaving streets full of broken bricks and shattered tiles. This was the “masterpiece” of Li Zicheng’s army, commonly called “city-scraping.” Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and their like had always done this: wherever they went, they burned, slaughtered, and razed everything to emptiness, and destroyed all the city walls everywhere, lest government troops occupy them again and make their own assaults inconvenient.

Not only Jiaxian, but the several cities within Ruzhou that had been captured — Lushan, Yiyang, Baofeng — were all the same, everywhere swept perfectly clean.

Without city walls for protection, even if there were residents who had survived by luck inside, they could not survive in an era where bandits were as numerous as ox hairs. Moreover, anything that could be looted had already been taken. So, apart from some old and weak who resigned themselves to fate and stayed, everyone who could leave had left — some fled into the mountains, but the majority joined the roving bandits’ armies.

It is not poverty that is feared, but insecurity. In chaotic times, even if the common people wished to abide in poverty and toil diligently at farming, they could not, and thus could only continue in this vicious cycle.

Still, Wang Dou planned to encamp within this ruined county seat. Looking around in all directions, everywhere was utterly bare. In the current deep winter season, encamping inside a ruined county seat was better than encamping in the open field. Although most of the buildings inside had been destroyed, some could still be lived in. For the Shunxiang Army, with sharp firearms in hand, those broken city walls were sufficient to protect the main army, better than the trenches and wooden palisades of a military camp.

Li Guangheng and Sun Sanjie’s front army had reached Jiaxian several days earlier and had done some cursory cleaning of the county seat: burying the corpses left inside, clearing out the wells, tidying up the houses, and sorting out several areas suitable for the main army to encamp.

When Wang Dou’s main army arrived, Li Guangheng and Sun Sanjie were still providing relief to the local disaster victims. Their main army had arrived several days earlier; first they distributed porridge as relief to some of the old and weak remaining in the county seat. After that, as word spread through the Jiaxian area, disaster victims came in a continuous stream, hoping this benevolent army would give them a mouthful of porridge.

By the time the bulk of Wang Dou and Chen Yongfu’s central army arrived, the disaster victims gathered outside Jiaxian’s damaged western gate already numbered in the thousands, and perhaps this number would continue to grow steadily. Gazing at those disaster victims shivering in the cold wind, their faces full of desperate hope, Wang Dou remained silent. If the local common people could just get a single mouthful of food, they would rekindle hope in life. He could only sigh that his own ability was insufficient, that he could not save more people.

Wang Dou approved of Sun Sanjie's actions. Setting aside humanitarianism, providing relief to the famine victims in Jiaxian and within Ruzhou would also greatly benefit the upcoming Battle of Ruzhou. Like the Qing troops, a common tactic used by Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and others was to employ spies and famine victims as internal collaborators; often, after capturing a city, their own losses were quite small.

Famine victims in areas ravaged by roving bandits often ran back and forth between both sides. If the government gave them a mouthful of food, they would work for the government. If the roving bandits gave them a mouthful of food, they would work for the roving bandits. Everything was just to stay alive.

If the local disaster victims were used properly, both intelligence gathering and counter-espionage would yield twice the result with half the effort.