[{"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-819":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},1206108,1561,"Chapter 819: The Allied Army","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-819",819,"\u003Cp>The wharf was enormous, berthed with large and small Fuchuan ships. Dense cargo and streams of people were loaded aboard, then flags and pennants waved, and to the drawn-out sound of horns, one Fuchuan after another raised sails and weighed anchor, heading for the open sea. The ships came in an endless line, the whole stretch of sea covered by their sails.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Behind Duoduo and Abatai, numerous Qing generals stood solemnly, watching all this with greedy and delighted eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was now late in the eighth month, and also the Qing army's second landing in Japan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Dorgon secretly plotted to raid Japan the previous year, following lengthy preparations, in the fourth month of this year a first wave of roughly eight thousand allied banner troops made a probing landing in Japan, successfully gauging that country's true strength before withdrawing in the fifth month. Then, avoiding the typhoon-prone sixth and seventh months, they landed in Japan again in the eighth month.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This time their troop strength was increased to twenty thousand, and among the Qing banners, the Manchu Eight Banners, the Mongol Eight Banners, the Han Eight Banners, and the Outer Mongol banners all contributed troops, along with many Eight Banner Korean soldiers, each led by their respective banner's gūsa ejen, beile, or beizi in varying numbers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And their gains were immense; in barely a month they had captured over a hundred thousand people, with gold, silver, and valuables beyond counting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching the tide-like flow of people and resources converging below, Duoduo's eyes gleamed. He murmured, \"This Japan is truly fat. We should have come raiding here long ago.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Behind him, Ge'erma of the Kharchin Left Banner, the jasagh, fawned, \"The Grand General speaks truly. Japan's wealth is nothing like the destitution of the Ming. Perhaps because they have enjoyed peace for so long, their cities have no walls at all, which greatly eases our army's raids. The lads' harvest is tremendous!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Duoduo burst into loud laughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the Qing army's second raid on Japan, Duoduo was appointed Grand General of Awe-Inspiring Might, while Abatai was Grand General of the Eastern Campaign, with Abatai as the senior and Duoduo as the deputy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Dorgon proclaimed himself emperor, although he still pursued the same policy of suppressing Abatai as Hong Taiji had, he also recognized his ability, so Abatai held military primacy. Nevertheless, Duoduo was also a Grand General for this campaign, a status of the highest honor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And since the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japan had largely been at peace, so its population had grown very rapidly. By now the national population was estimated to have exceeded thirty million — an astonishing number for a small island nation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus the Qing army raided in all directions and captured people with great ease, because the population was so dense. It was nothing like when they raided the Great Ming, where, because of the chaotic times, the land was often desolate for a thousand li, and to capture people they usually had to travel several thousand li.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, because society was stable, the Japanese common folk had also accumulated great wealth. Even better, they practiced a fief system here. In this tiny Japan, with its shinpan daimyō, fudai daimyō, and tozama daimyō, counting them all up there were over two hundred daimyō lords.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So each acted on their own, making unified decrees very difficult, and in the face of foreign enemies, their hearts were divided.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And as for their military force...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The lords here used the kokudaka system. According to reports from scouts and spies, ten thousand koku could only support about thirty or forty samurai, or two or three hundred ashigaru conscripts, or seventy or eighty teppō gunners. And here, lords with less than a hundred thousand koku were everywhere, utterly incapable of resisting the Qing army's raids.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What was both delightful and astonishing was that the cities here were completely different from those of the Central Plains and the Ming. Apart from the castle towns where the lords and their retainers lived, the common people all lived outside in places called jōkamachi. They had no city wall protection at all, or only a low enclosing wall that one could climb over casually.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Duoduo admitted that the Japanese castles where some lords lived were still very sturdy, but why would he need to attack castles? His goal was to capture people and supplies. Just seize the commoners in the jōkamachi and plunder their valuables — wouldn't that suffice?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those lords could either watch helplessly as their people were completely captured, or they could only march out of their castle towns to fight. And this played right into the hands of Duoduo and his men. In field battles, who could the elite, heavily armored Great Qing soldiers possibly fear? Time and again, they annihilated the daimyō and samurai who came out to meet them!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After this happened several times, those lords learned their lesson. Whenever the Qing army came, every one of them shut their gates and stayed inside, watching helplessly as the Qing raiders ran rampant outside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some lords also tried to evacuate the townspeople into their castle towns, but how many people could a tiny castle town hold? The majority still fell into the clutches of the Qing army.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ma Guangyuan, the gūsa ejen of the Han Bordered Yellow Banner, said, \"Are these Japanese fools? A city without walls — how can they defend against foreign enemies? I have heard that the Red Barbarians' castles are like Japan's: the lords live inside the castle, the commoners live outside... The dwarf once said that the castles of the various lords in their country are extremely sturdy, often built among the mountains and terribly difficult to attack, able to hold out for many years without falling. I had been wondering how to attack them, but from what I see now, we only need to capture the commoners. Those lords will be left as bare commanders, and will starve to death. There is no need to attack their castles at all!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His tone carried puzzlement, and the look he directed at Duoduo was ingratiating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the Song-Jin Campaign, the Han Eight Banners had lost twenty thousand men and also lost the entire Ujen Cooha artillery camp. After Dorgon ascended the throne, he rebuilt the Han Eight Banners. After over a year of drilling, they had only just recovered some vitality. Currently the Han banners had ten thousand musketeers in total, and for this campaign against Japan, Ma Guangyuan personally brought three thousand musketeers to join the battle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He intended to prove himself and fawned on Duoduo in every matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Duoduo sneered, \"Sturdy? If the Red Barbarians' castles are all like the Japanese castle towns, what is the point of attacking their castles? You should know that in the time of our founding emperor, there was the saying: 'Do not enter a strong city.' We will capture all the commoners outside. Let's see if they come out or not. If they don't come out, and all the people under their rule are plundered, can a lord still be called a lord? If they do come out to fight, what use is it no matter how sturdy their castles are built?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The gūsa ejen, beile, and beizi of the various banners behind him all praised the Grand General of Awe-Inspiring Might's ability, saying this tactical strategy of his was truly a sharp weapon for dealing with purely military fortresses like those of the Japanese.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gulusiqibu, the jasagh of the Kharchin Right Banner, asked in puzzlement, \"The Japanese are so pathetically weak. I wonder why the Great Yuan failed in its two campaigns back then?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Duoduo snorted disdainfully, \"How can the Great Yuan compare to our Great Qing?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because the Mongol Yuan's failed campaigns against Japan had always caused apprehension in the hearts of any who contemplated attacking Japan, Dorgon had also had misgivings at the time. He specifically ordered Abatai, Ning Wanwo, and others to carefully study the reasons for the Mongol Yuan's failure, lest the Great Qing repeat the same mistake.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Initially it was generally thought to be due to hurricanes, and the legend of the divine wind was also widely circulated among the Japanese common folk. Later, Abatai's investigation concluded that the cause was the warships; at the time, the Koreans had been passive and negligent, resulting in warships of extremely poor quality. This view gained the approval of the entire Qing court, so the supervision of the warships built for attacking Japan this time was extremely strict.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after raiding Japan, Duoduo had a new opinion. He believed it was because the Mongols' fighting strength back then was too poor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the history books, the Mongol Yuan campaigned against Japan twice in total. The first time, which the Japanese called the \"Battle of Bun'ei,\" involved twenty-five thousand Yuan troops, half Mongols and half Koreans. After landing, they attacked in three routes — one main force and two supporting flanks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet in just one month, under fierce Japanese resistance, the Yuan army suffered such heavy casualties that it was forced to retreat and return home. And this Yuan army never encountered a hurricane from beginning to end, nor did their warships have any problems.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The second time was even worse. The Mongol Yuan mobilized two hundred thousand troops, with the ratio of Mongols to Koreans reaching half. Yet fierce fighting lasted two months, the army suffered enormous losses, and they still could not break through a single stone wall that the Japanese had temporarily built along the coast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Until their provisions and arrows were exhausted and the army's losses exceeded thirty percent, they still could not breach that stone wall, and the Yuan army once again had to plan a retreat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But this time their luck was bad. Just as they were about to flee, a violent hurricane suddenly arose at sea. The storm lasted four days and destroyed their fleet almost entirely. Some of the troops left on shore had no route of escape and were ultimately annihilated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In other words, the Mongol Yuan's failure in attacking Japan actually had nothing to do with hurricanes or the quality of their warships. If their fighting strength had been strong enough, the first campaign against Japan would have succeeded, and there would have been no need to mobilize a second massive expedition.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If their fighting strength had been strong enough, they would not have spent two months in the second campaign against Japan unable to break through a single stone wall that the Japanese had temporarily built along the coast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two-hundred-thousand-strong army only encountered the hurricane more than two months after landing. If during that time they had been able to breach the stone wall, gain a foothold, and even successfully occupy all of Japan, what would it have mattered if a hurricane came?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the Mongol Yuan's failure in attacking Japan had little to do with the \"divine wind\" legend circulating in Japan, and little to do with the quality of the ships. It was purely a problem with the Mongols' fighting strength — just as they have now become vassals of the Great Qing, it is also a matter of fighting strength.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Japanese's widespread propagation of the divine wind was presumably a strategy to make the Yuan people develop a heart of fear from then on, cutting off any possibility of a third or fourth campaign. Sure enough, Kublai Khan later took no further action, clearly having become afraid of the sea. The Japanese psychological warfare succeeded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, Duoduo thought this way, but he would not say it in front of those Mongols. He turned to Abatai, who had remained silent beside him all along, and said loudly, \"Seventh Brother, Nagasaki is nearby. That place is piled high with wealth and people, the richest land in this Kyushu region of Japan. Why have you been preventing the army from raiding it?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His tone carried considerable dissatisfaction, and some of the beile and beizi of the various banners behind him also cast faint glances over, clearly sharing the same puzzlement and discontent in their hearts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Abatai's expression did not change. He said flatly, \"Grand General of Awe-Inspiring Might, His Majesty has entrusted the Japan campaign to me. In all my actions, I naturally have my reasons.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Abatai countered Duoduo with a bland remark, but he still explained, \"The situation here in Japan... After the Battle of Sekigahara, the southwestern domains are outwardly submissive but have always harbored hostility toward the shogunate. And now the Japanese shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, enforces harsh laws, frequently reducing or transferring the fiefs of daimyō, great and small. Many lords of the southwestern domains have been eliminated because of this. Also, the matter of the Kirishitan believers has made the two sides as incompatible as fire and water. Therefore, after our Great Qing raided Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate, for all its outward posturing, has privately held its troops back and watched. Japan currently pursues a policy of national seclusion, and Nagasaki is the only open port, directly under the shogunate's domain. The shogunate is happy to see us raid the southwestern domains, but if we raid Nagasaki...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He said, \"This place is of extraordinary importance. It is not only a source of immense tax revenue for the Tokugawa shogunate, but also involves the many fleets of the Ming and the trade of the Red Barbarians from various countries. Before raiding it, we must think deeply and carefully!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing that Duoduo remained unconvinced, Abatai said, \"Scouts report that the powerful domains of Japan — Chōshū, Satsuma, Saga, Tosa, and Mito — have already formed an allied army and will soon advance upon our great army. If our Japan expeditionary army can defeat them, and then organize them into the Japanese Eight Banners, we can then make a move on Nagasaki!\"\u003C\u002Fp>",2314,"2026-06-03T14:06:27.906Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","3ae2f58049cbaee6f5d37ca0105c61dd539954203934b37e15bb83cac9dc29a6","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-820","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-818",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]