Chapter 45: The Fort Is Completed

After returning to Jingbian Fort, Wang Dou and the others still felt a lingering sense of shock and terror.

Wang Dou instructed everyone not to speak of Xu Yue'e's affair, but somehow — whether it was Gao Shiyin or some other loudmouth who couldn't resist — word of what they had heard on the road got out, until everyone in the fort knew and the whole place buzzed with talk of Xu Yue'e.

Yet from that day on, neither the residents of Jingbian Fort nor those of Xinzhuang ever saw Xu Yue'e again; no one knew where she had gone.

With the iron stock transported from Shunxiang Fort, Li Maosen immediately led the fort's blacksmiths in beginning to craft armor.

In late April of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the Xuanfu Regional Commander Lu Baozhong sent several urgent reports of barbarians entering the passes, yet he failed to specify which tribe, their numbers, how they were to be attacked and repelled, or how the Xuan garrison was deploying troops to block and defend — none of these details were made clear. In early May of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Minister of War Zhang Fengyi, by imperial decree, issued a formal reprimand to Lu Baozhong and ordered him to instruct all forts to maintain the utmost vigilance.

At Jingbian Fort, construction of the fort walls had begun in mid-February of the eighth year of Chongzhen, with some able-bodied men still going out to work the fields in between. By mid-May, the walls of Jingbian Fort were finally completed.

The entire fort perimeter measured roughly six hundred and several tens of meters, laid out in the traditional square shape, built entirely of rammed yellow earth without brick facing. The two ends of the northern wall connected to the horse-pen enclosure of the Jingbian Beacon Tower, so that this original fire-road tower could conveniently serve as a watch post. At the same time, the barbican outside the south gate was also finished, and a moat three meters deep and six meters wide was dug.

Regrettably, the parade ground outside Jingbian Fort, as well as the parapets, gate towers, and other structures atop the walls, had yet to be built and would have to wait until after autumn to be undertaken. Wang Dou was also calculating that later he would construct some underground tunnels and hidden passages within the fort.

Once the fort was complete, everyone's safety was assured. Wang Dou found the densely rammed walls to be extremely solid; because tung oil had also been poured in, he estimated with astonishment that the walls' sturdiness might even surpass that of concrete in later ages.

The walls of Jingbian Fort stood ten meters high overall. The fort walls of the various frontier garrisons of the Great Ming generally ranged from six to fourteen meters in height; at ten meters, Jingbian Fort's walls were fairly standard.

The city gate built at the southern end of Jingbian Fort was constructed of stone blocks and was named "Yongning Gate," while the inner gate was named "Yongtai Gate." Directly above the fort gate, a stone plaque was inlaid, with the three large characters "Jingbian Fort" carved in regular script at the center, and on either side of the large characters, vertical sunken-carved regular script recorded the time of the fort's construction, the officers and soldiers, the craftsmen, and other figures and deeds.

At this time, Jingbian Fort had one hundred military households and a population of over four hundred, yet living inside the fort was still spacious. In truth, Wang Dou had read historical records: Weihu Fort in Shuozhou's Pinglu territory during the Ming dynasty had walls fourteen meters high and a perimeter of five hundred and fifty meters, yet at the time it garrisoned over five hundred troops and several dozen horses. Weihu Fort was much smaller than Jingbian Fort, yet it could house more people; it seemed his own fort could still recruit more people to live there.

On the day the fort walls were completed, the entire fort celebrated for two days. Afterward, Yang Tong and Qi Tianliang successively brought their families over from Dongjiazhuang to live. Wang Dou also planned to bring his mother to live at Jingbian Fort, so that in the future, when he visited the old lady, he would not need to go all the way to Xinzhuang.

……

After the fort walls were finished, when it came to buildings inside the fort, Wang Dou did not first construct the opera stage and temple that everyone had long yearned for; instead, he immediately had people build a mill in a place on the east side of the fort named Shu'erjing Alley.

Previously, there had been no mill inside the fort, and grinding flour required going to Dongjiazhuang or Xinzhuang, which was extremely inconvenient. With the grain harvest season fast approaching, building this mill rose to the top of Wang Dou's agenda.

Building a mill was easy — the fort had plenty of timber and yellow earth — but the difficulty lay in crafting the two enormous stone millstones. This task Wang Dou entrusted to that old craftsman.

Only after the mill was completed did Wang Dou give the order to build an opera stage and a temple at the center of the street, drawing cheers from the military households.

Henceforth, they would finally have a place to watch opera.

……

With the fort wall construction reaching a temporary conclusion, and before the farming season grew busy, Wang Dou once again assembled the three squads of combat troops and resumed training.

At the same time, since the fort had gained nearly fifty more households — over twenty of them artisan households and the rest military households — Wang Dou selected some able-bodied young men from the military households to supplement the ranks, forming a total of five squads of combat troops. Including the squad leaders, each squad had twelve men, so the five squads now numbered sixty men, their strength already surpassing that of Dongjiazhuang's Squad Commander Zhang Gui.

These five squads were led respectively by Yang Tong, Han Zhong, Gao Shiyin, and Zhong Diaoyang, each commanding one squad, while Wang Dou himself personally led one squad as well.

For these new recruits, Wang Dou still first had them learn to stand in formation and line up. To better train them, he selected some of the original veterans and mixed them in, so as to better guide the newcomers.

Gao Shiyin and Zhong Diaoyang, finally able to command troops, were naturally overjoyed, though their styles of command were entirely different. Although Zhong Diaoyang was of civilian household status, everyone knew he was Wang Dou's cousin, and with his formidable martial skills, none of the military households dared defy him. Moreover, he led by example, training alongside the men, and being steady, honest, and kind, he was deeply beloved by the soldiers.

Gao Shiyin, however, was different. His style was similar to Han Zhong's, but his temper was even more violent; he liked to beat military households who trained poorly with his fists, so that the soldiers in his squad all feared him. Yet under his beatings and curses, that squad's performance was excellent.

Han Chao could finally train his Night Scouts as well.

These Night Scouts were deployed throughout the Great Ming, whether along the frontiers, the coasts, or in the interior. Those selected were mostly men of strange and extraordinary skill, capable of scaling walls and walking on rooftops, or possessing all manner of cunning talents for killing and arson; some were even required to understand astronomy and be adept at divination. In the army, besides going out on reconnaissance, Night Scouts, by virtue of their superior skills and intimate knowledge of terrain, often undertook missions such as burning grasslands, launching surprise attacks, or raiding camps.

And in the frontier garrisons of the Great Ming, there existed an even more elite type than the Night Scout: the Point Scouts. These Point Scouts often had to venture far beyond the frontier, scouting enemy movements for a thousand li, staying within enemy territory for months at a time, traveling through regions rarely if ever trod by man. Thus, only men who were alert, agile, and possessed of daring courage could serve.

These Night Scouts and Point Scouts in the Ming army, besides their superior skills, were often proficient in several foreign languages. Han Chao and his brother, for instance, were both fluent in Mongolian and also understood some simple Jurchen.

If these men were well trained, Wang Dou would gain a group of outstanding scouts and intelligence agents. He was, of course, fully supportive.

Wang Dou delegated authority to Han Chao, allowing him to select six men from the five combat squads to serve as his subordinates — four of them veterans and two new recruits.

Wang Dou had the good fortune to observe Han Chao training those subordinates of his, and it was a real eye-opener.

Among Han Chao's six subordinates, including the veterans, three suffered from night blindness. Without a word, Han Chao procured several sets of chicken livers, pig livers, and a few live, wriggling tadpoles, and made the three swallow them raw. The three men all turned pale and hesitated.

Han Chao said sternly, "We Night Scouts are often sent out at night to reconnoiter in all directions, and later we are frequently chosen as daredevil volunteers to raid the enemy camps by night. If you cannot see in the dark, how will you follow me out on reconnaissance?"

He forced the three to swallow the tadpoles and the rest raw.

Thereafter, Han Chao and his six men were as elusive as dragons, appearing and disappearing without a trace, often vanishing to who knew where. Wang Dou trusted Han Chao and let him train as he saw fit.

Under the guidance of the veterans, the newcomers quickly learned to stand in formation and line up.

As for the veterans, Wang Dou also introduced new training content for them.

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Old White Ox:

I wasn't in good shape today, so just one update, and it came late — my apologies. My biological clock is disrupted again and I keep suffering from insomnia. I miss the disciplined life I used to have, sleeping at ten at night and rising at five in the morning.

Additionally: a reply to book friends Mo Chennan, Yuan Zimei: From the mid-Ming onward, the various frontier garrisons of the Great Ming generally operated under a parallel system of guard battalions and field camps. The ranks of Company Commander and Battalion Commander had essentially become mere official titles, carrying little real power or substantive duty.

Taking Xuanfu Garrison as an example: a squad leader had to be selected at minimum from among the guard battalion ranks of Squad Leader and Platoon Leader. A squad commander had to be selected at minimum from among Battalion Commanders and Company Commanders. A Garrison Commander or Garrison Commander had to be selected at minimum from among Battalion Commanders, Assistant Guard Commanders, and Vice Guard Commanders. A Garrison Commander had to be selected at minimum from among Guard Commanders and Assistant Regional Military Commissioners. As for a garrison Regional Commander, that was already at the level of Assistant Commissioner-in-Chief of the Chief Military Commission.

In the Great Ming, there was no official post called Regional Military Commissioner; that was only established under the Qing.